She cried at intervals all the way home; and could hardly drag herself upstairs to bed.
Mr. Angelo called next day with bad news. Not a magistrate would move a finger against Mr. Bassett: he had the law on his side. Sir Charles was evidently insane; it was quite proper he should be put in security before he did some mischief to himself or Lady Bassett. “They say, why was he hidden for two months, if there was not something very wrong?”
Lady Bassett ordered the carriage and paid several calls, to counteract this fatal impression.
She found, to her horror, she might as well try to move a rock. There was plenty of kindness and pity; but the moment she began to assure them her husband was not insane she was met with the dead silence of polite incredulity. One or two old friends went further, and said, “My dear, we are told he could not be taken away without two doctors' certificates: now, consider, they must know better than you. Have patience, and let them cure him.”
Lady Bassett withdrew her friendship on the spot from two ladies for contradicting her on such a subject; she returned home almost wild herself.
In the village her carriage was stopped by a woman with her hair all flying, who told her, in a lamentable voice, that Squire Bassett had sent nine men to prison for taking Sir Charles's part and ill-treating his captors.
“My lawyer shall defend them at my expense,” said Lady Bassett, with a sigh.
At last she got home, and went up to her own room, and there was Mary Wells waiting to dress her.
She tottered in, and sank into a chair. But, after this temporary exhaustion, came a rising tempest of passion; her eyes roved, her fingers worked, and her heart seemed to come out of her in words of fire. “I have not a friend in all the county. That villain has only to say 'Mad,' and all turn from me, as if an angel of truth had said 'Criminal.' We have no friend but one, and she is my servant. Now go and envy wealth and titles. No wife in this parish is so poor as I; powerless in the folds of a serpent. I can't see my husband without an order from him. He is all power, I and mine all weakness.” She raised her clinched fists, she clutched her beautiful hair as if she would tear it out by the roots. “I shall, go mad! I shall go mad! No!” said she, all of a sudden. “That will not do. That is what he wants—and then my darling would be defenseless. I will not go mad.” Then suddenly grinding her white teeth: “I'll teach him to drive a lady to despair. I'll fight.”
She descended, almost without a break, from the fury of a Pythoness to a strange calm. Oh! then it is her sex are dangerous.