If ever there was a life that illustrated the oft-quoted phrase “poor humanity,” it was that of Sternhold Baskette. But this is not the place to moralise—we must hasten on. The orchestra has nearly finished the overture; the play will soon begin.
Lucia had now no longer any reason for restraint. Her boy was safe—safe as the laws of a great country could make him—certain to inherit a property which by the time he was forty would be of value surpassing calculation. She rejoiced in it, gloried in it. To her it was more welcome than the confirmed guardianship of Aurelian would have been, because it left her free.
The lad was at Eton, and happy—far happier than he could have been elsewhere. His mother immediately commenced a course which led her by a rapid descent to the lowest degradation.
She returned to Paris. Aurelian felt it was useless now to interfere, neither could he afford more expense.
She easily got upon the stage again, and became more popular than ever. At the age of forty she was even more handsome than in her youth. Her features had been refined by the passage of time and by the restraint to which she had been subjected. Her form was more fully developed.
It is unpleasant to linger on this woman’s disgrace. She formed a liaison with a rich foreign gentleman, retired with him from Paris after a time, and the Stirmingham Daily Post, which pursued the Baskettes with unmitigated hatred year after year, did not fail to chronicle the birth of a son.
Aurelian, baffled, was not beaten. He was a resolute and patient man. Like the famous Carthaginian father, he brought up his son and educated him to consider the Baskette estates as the one object of his attention—only in this case it was not for destruction, but for preservation.
When young John Marese Baskette, the heir, after distinguishing himself at Eton, was sent higher up the Thames to Oxford, Aurelian immediately placed his son, Theodore Marese, at the same college.
The result was exactly as he had foreseen. The heir formed a bond of friendship—such as it is in these days—with Theodore. Their one topic of conversation was the estate.
John was full of the most romantic notions. He was in youth a really exemplary lad—clever, hard-working, winning to himself the good will of all men. Theodore had a genuine liking for his cousin—then, at all events, though probably in after life the attachment he professed was chiefly caused by self interest.