We hear nothing further of their doings until some six months after their return, when on Thursday, 28th September 1749, Mrs. Blandy became seriously ill. Mr. Norton, the Henley apothecary who attended the family, was sent for, and her brother, the Rev. John Stevens, of Fawley, who, "with other country gentlemen meeting to bowl at the Bell Inn," chanced then to be in the town, was also summoned. It was at first hoped that the old lady would rally as on the former occasion but she gradually grew worse, notwithstanding the attentions of the eminent Dr. Addington, brought from Reading to consult upon the case. Her husband, her daughter, and her two brothers were with her until the end, which came on Saturday, 30th September. To the last the dying woman clung to her belief in the good faith of her noble captain: "Mary has set her heart upon Cranstoun; when I am gone, let no one set you against the match," were her last words to her husband. He replied that they must wait till the "unhappy affair in Scotland" was decided. The complaint of which Mrs. Blandy died was, as appears, intestinal inflammation, but, as we shall see later, her daughter was popularly believed to have poisoned her. However wicked Mary Blandy may have been, she well knew that by her mother's death she and Cranstoun lost their best friend. An old acquaintance and neighbour of Mrs. Blandy, one Mrs. Mounteney, of whom we shall hear again, came upon a visit to the bereaved family. Mrs. Blandy, on her deathbed, had commended this lady to her husband, in case he should "discover an inclination to marry her"—she already was Mary's godmother; but Mrs. Mounteney was destined to play another part in the subsequent drama.
Miss Blandy broke the sad news by letter to her lover in London, and pressed him to come immediately to Henley; but the gallant officer replied that he was confined to the house for fear of the bailiffs, and suggested the propriety of a remittance from the mistress of his heart. Mary promptly borrowed forty pounds from Mrs. Mounteney, fifteen of which she forwarded for the enlargement of the captain, who, on regaining his freedom, came to Henley, where he remained some weeks. Francis Blandy was much affected by the loss of his wife. At first he seems to have raised no objection to Cranstoun's visit, but soon Mary had to complain of the "unkind things" which her father said both to her lover and herself. There was still no word from Scotland, except a "very civil" letter of condolence from my Lady Cranstoun, accompanied by a present of kippered salmon—apparently intended as an antidote to grief; but though the old man was gratified by such polite attentions, his mind was far from easy. He was fast losing all faith in the vision of that splendid alliance by which he had been so long deluded, and did not care to conceal his disappointment from the person mainly responsible.
On this visit mention was first made by Cranstoun of the fatal powder of which we shall hear so much. Miss Blandy states that, apropos to her father's unpropitious attitude, her lover "acquainted her of the great skill of the famous Mrs. Morgan," a cunning woman known to him in Scotland, from whom he had received a certain powder, "which she called love-powders"—being, as appears, the Scottish equivalent to the poculum amatorium or love philtre of the Romans. Mary said she had no faith in such things, but Cranstoun assured her of its efficacy, having once taken some himself, and immediately forgiven a friend to whom he had intended never to speak again. "If I had any of these powders," said he, "I would put them into something Mr. Blandy should drink." Such is Mary's account of the inception of the design upon her father's love—or life. There for the time matters rested.
"Before he left Henley for the last time," writes Lady Russell, to whose interesting account we shall later refer, "Captain Cranstoun made an assignation with Miss Blandy to meet her in the grounds of Park Place, which had long been their trysting-place; and here it was that in a walk which still goes by the name of 'Blandy's Walk,' he first broached his diabolical plan." Park Place, according to the same authority, had shortly before been purchased by General Conway and Lady Ailesbury from Mr. Blandy, as "trustee" of the property.
A "dunning" letter following the impecunious captain to his peaceful retreat alarmed the lovers, for the appearance of a bailiff in the respectable house in Hart Street would, for Mr. Blandy, have been, as the phrase goes, the last straw. Fortunately, Mary had retained against such a contingency the balance of Mrs. Mounteney's loan; and with another fifteen pounds of that lady's in his pocket, the captain left for London to liquidate his debt.
From that time till August, 1750, the shadow of his sinister guest did not darken the attorney's door. On the first of that month Cranstoun wrote that he proposed to wait upon him. "He must come, I suppose," sighed the old man, and allowed Mary to write that the visitor would be received. Doubtless, he faintly hoped that the Scottish difficulty was at last removed. But the captain, when he came, brought nothing better than the old empty assurances, and his host did not conceal how little weight he now attached to such professions. The visit was an unpleasant one for all parties, and the situation was rapidly becoming impossible. Mary "seldom rose from the table without tears." Her father spent his evenings at "the coffee-house," that he might see as little as possible of the unwelcome guest.
One morning, Mary states, Cranstoun put some of the magic powder in the old gentleman's tea, when, mirabile dictu, Mr. Blandy, who at breakfast had been very cross, appeared at dinner in the best of humours, and continued so "all the time Mr. Cranstoun stayed with him"! After this, who could doubt the beneficent efficacy of the wise woman's drug?
During one of their daily walks this singular lover informed his betrothed that he had a secret to communicate, to wit, that over and above the Scottish complication, "he had a daughter by one Miss Capel" a year before he met the present object of his desires. Miss Blandy, with much philosophy, replied that she hoped he now saw his follies and would not repeat them. "If I do," said Cranstoun, "I must be a villain; you alone can make me happy in this world; and by following your example, I hope I shall be happy in the next." A day or two afterwards, when Cranstoun was abroad, Mary, so far anticipating her wifely duties, entered his room in order to look out his things for the wash. She found more "dirty linen" than she expected. In an unlocked trunk was a letter of recent date, addressed to the gallant captain by a lady then enjoying his protection in town. Even Miss Blandy's robust affection was not, for the moment, able to overlook a treachery so base. She locked the trunk, put the key in her pocket, and at the first opportunity handed it to Cranstoun, with the remark that he should in future be more careful of his private correspondence. A disgusting scene ensued. For two hours the wretched little captain wept and raved, imploring her forgiveness. On his knees, clinging to the skirts of her gown, he swore he would not live till night unless she pardoned his offence. Mary asked him to leave Henley at once; she would not expose him, and their engagement "might seem to go off by degrees." But the miserable creature conjured her by her mother's dying words not to give him up, vowing never to repeat "the same provocations." In the end Mary foolishly yielded; one wonders at the strength of that abnormal passion by which she was driven to accept a position so impossible for a decent and intelligent girl.
Soon after this incident Cranstoun was summoned to Scotland, where his mother, Lady Cranstoun, was "extremely ill." "Good God!" cried this admirable son, "what shall I do? I have no money to carry me thither, and all my fortune is seized on but my half-pay!" For the third time Miss Blandy came to the rescue, even giving him back a miniature of his ugly countenance with which he had formerly presented her. At six o'clock next morning he set out for the North in a post-chaise. The old attorney rose early with good heart to speed the parting guest, and furnished him with a half-pint bottle of rum for the journey. Mary says they "all shed tears"; if so, hers were the only genuine tokens of regret. As she waved good-bye to her lover and watched the departing chaise till it was lost to view along the London road, she little thought that, although his sinister influence would remain with her to the end, his graceless person had passed from her sight for ever.
It was the month of November, 1750, when Cranstoun took final leave of Henley. In October, a year after Mrs. Blandy's death, divers curious phenomena had been observed in the old house by the bridge. Cranstoun professed that he could get no sleep o' nights, in his room "over the great parlour," by reason of unearthly music sounding through the chamber after midnight, for two hours at a time. On his informing his host of the circumstance, Mr. Blandy caustically observed, "It was Scotch music, I suppose?" from which Miss Blandy