Mr. Richard Bassett turned pale, but did the wisest thing he could—put his hands in his pockets, and walked into his own premises, followed, however, by Mary Gosport, who stormed at him till he shut his postern in her face.
She stood there trembling for a little while, then walked away, crying.
But having a mind like running water, she was soon seated on a garden chair, singing over her nursling like a mavis: she had delivered him to Millar while she went to speak her mind to her old lover.
As for Richard Bassett, he was theory-bitten, and so turned every thing one way. To be sure, as long as the woman's glaring eyes and face distorted by passion were before him, he interpreted her words simply; but when he thought the matter over he said to himself, “The evil-eye! That is all bosh; the girl is in Lady Bassett's secrets; and I am not to see young master: some day I shall know the reason why.”
Sir Charles Bassett now belonged to the tribe of clucking cocks quite as much as his cousin had ever done; only Sir Charles had the good taste to confine his clucks to his own first-floor. Here, to be sure, he richly indemnified himself for his self-denial abroad. He sat for hours at a time watching the boy on the ground at his knee, or in his nurse's arms.
And while he watched the infant with undisguised delight, Lady Bassett would watch him with a sort of furtive and timid complacency.
Yet at times she suffered from twinges of jealousy—a new complaint with her.
I think I have mentioned that Sir Charles, at first, was annoyed at seeing his son and heir nursed by a woman of low condition. Well, he got over that feeling by degrees, and, as soon as he did get over it, his sentiments took quite an opposite turn. A woman for whom he did very little, in his opinion—since what, in Heaven's name, were a servant's wages?—he saw that woman do something great for him; saw her nourish his son and heir from her own veins; the child had no other nurture; yet the father saw him bloom and thrive, and grow surprisingly.
A weak observer, or a less enthusiastic parent, might have overlooked all this; but Sir Charles had naturally an observant eye and an analytical mind, and this had been suddenly but effectually developed by the asylum and his correspondence with Rolfe.
He watched the nurse, then, and her maternal acts with a curious and grateful eye, and a certain reverence for her power.