Edmund Yates

“ Poor Forestfield had behaved like an angel--angels are not expected to be worldly-wise--and it was the best possible thing for him. Mrs. Chadwick was genuinely sorry and pitiful; she loved life herself, she hated the mere idea of death, and kept it away from her by every means in her power. In health, wealth, strength, and the full enjoyment of life, she felt a sort of physical compassion for the young woman who had had to go down into the darkness and silence of the grave; and she had liked Lady Forestfield. ”

“ What chance would a wife have who should face the only world which would give us admittance with a man like you? At least I have learned to calculate those odds since I have been an outsider; at least I have come to know that no loneliness for the future could be so bad as the tremendous and hopeless misery of a marriage with the man who has a right to begin by despising me.'
'You--you utterly reject me, then?' said De Tournefort, in a voice almost inarticulate with anger. 'You think me an utter scoundrel, and you reject me?'
'Let us use no hard words,' said May gently. ”

“ So Lady Forestfield came to Woodburn, and a very few days after her arrival acknowledged to herself the wisdom of Uffington's counsel. The fresh pure air brought back the roses to her cheeks; and in her daily wanderings in the park and through the surrounding woods she gradually acquired the calm happiness and peace of mind which nature can alone restore to a soul that has been bruised and buffeted in its conflict with the world. Hitherto, at least since the days of her childhood, May had had but little appreciation of the beauties of nature ”

“ Ever since the crash had come, May Forestfield's better nature had shaken off the thrall of the guilty infatuation under which she had been held by De Tournefort, and lured to her ruin; and there had succeeded to it a bewildering wonderment as to its former existence. For many days together May never once thought of her 'lover.' Her mind was ever busy with the past, but not with his brief, terrible, fatal share in it; busy with her old home, her dead mother, her dead baby, even her husband as he used to be, with every incident of the every-day life of her lost past ”

“ It would have taken more than lay in the attorney's power to set Lady Forestfield's mind at rest; for never since the time when she was served with the citation had she been in so excited a state as on that day. It was not that she had any doubt; even had it been possible that the law could have been so strained as to refuse her husband the relief which he sought, it would have been no satisfaction to her. In her own conscience, which for the first time began to play some part in the scheme of her life, she knew herself to be guilty, and felt that retribution was due. ”

“ I've just heard some news which has completely upset my calculations, and I'm infernally disappointed!' And he threw himself into the chair.
'I know it,' said Uffington, bending towards him across the table, 'and I know you! Know you to be as mean a scoundrel, as contemptible a blackguard, as poor a trickster, as is to be found even in this city! Bah, don't attempt that!' he cried, catching Forestfield's uplifted arm by the wrist and holding it. 'I'm a stronger man than you, though I'm ten years older, and I haven't forgotten the lessons I used to take from Alec Keene in the old days. ”

“ Hamblin believed in neither virtue, nor repentance, nor honesty in friendship. Lady Forestfield had 'gone wrong' once, and there was every reason to suppose would do so again. What more likely than that she should adopt Spiridion Pratt as a lover? He was weak minded, as Mrs. Hamblin well knew, ridiculously romantic, could easily be persuaded into accepting the position of champion to beauty in distress, and would feel infinitely flattered at its being known that he had been selected by a woman of Lady Forestfield's rank to do battle for her with the world. ”

“ Would the day never pass? Would Mr. Patten never come? The afternoon was far advanced, and May was still sitting, as she had been sitting all the morning, buried in the arm-chair which commanded a view of the street, with a little table at her elbow. On this table were some memorials of her early girlhood: the jewels which she had worn at her first ball; a photograph of herself surrounded by her bridesmaids in the drawing-room in Grosvenor-square; and almost the first present she had ever received, a double scent-bottle, which Frank Eardley had given to her years ago. ”

“ Chadwick delights in letters, dearly loves to live in an avalanche of notes and messages, and never loses an opportunity of despatching telegrams. She has a notion that it is chic to be perpetually busy 'with people and things outside her home, and she has succeeded in accreting to herself a number of fussy little intimacies which don't really mean anything--which would smash and go to pieces under the weight of a real trial, a genuine difficulty, either on her own part or on that of the object of any one of them, but which she maintains with scrupulous care. ”

“ What do you want?'
'What I intend to have,' said Uffington; 'your money, or the equivalent. You owe me 10,000l., and if you don't pay it I will post you in every club in London. I hold the mortgage on the Woodburn estate, and can at any moment telegraph to my lawyers to foreclose, and thus deprive you of your patrimony. You see, there is no chance of escape, and that you are completely ruined--unless, indeed, you choose to accept the equivalent.'
'Damn the equivalent!' cried Lord Forestfield, in an access of rage. ”

“ I don't want to say anything more about it,' said Lord Forestfield, with a forced laugh. 'What will you do now? that is the thing. Are you fond of a game at cards? You might like to cut in at this whist-table; I am not going to play any more--these fellows don't play high enough for me--and you can have my place.'
'Thanks,' said Uffington, 'but I confess when I play I like to have some excitement. I like to rise up with the knowledge that I have either won or lost something considerable--not merely a few francs which will pay for my cab home, or which I shall not miss the next morning. ”

“ In her self-examination she did not find one grain of love for Gustave de Tournefort; she had not even had a caprice, a passion for him, and had only listened to his oft-urged suit when completely worn out with solitude, loneliness, and neglect. Love, passion--she had known them but once, in the early days of her marriage, when she thought that there had never lived on this earth a man comparable to her husband; none so handsome, none with such an easy bearing, such biting wit, such delicious insolence. ”

“ Is it not curious,' she said, as she passed through the velvet portière into the antechamber, 'that that horrid little man cannot be quiet, even in the houses of friends, but must endeavour at all risks to make himself conspicuous? Nothing in the world would please him better than to force you into a duel, even upon the most ridiculous questions. He is as brave as a lion, and has been out many times.'
'I think it would be better for his own comfort,' said Uffington, with a grim smile, 'if he wishes to make an Englishman his victim, to try his hand on Forestfield rather than on me. ”

“ Hamblin had affected a great interest in all that concerned, not merely the mistress of the house in Fairfax-gardens, but all her family, and Mrs. Chadwick was only too delighted to revel in the friendship thus offered to her. For she was quick-witted enough and sufficiently a woman of the world to see plainly that, although she had secured the attendance of the best people in London at her parties, and in return was regularly invited to their set and formal entertainments, she had as yet no intimacy with any members of that world in which alone she cared to live. ”

“ I can't imagine what has come to this place; one scarcely ever sees a soul one knows--a lot of foreigners and City people; not like the old stamp of men whom one could always rely upon finding in the stalls, or in the omnibus-box at the old house when the curtain for the ballet went up. They were a better style, those fellows; what they call the "old school,"--vieille école, bonne école,--and that sort of thing. Men go now to that reeking Alhambra, and think they enjoy it. ”

“ Poor dear Lady Forestfield! When one imagines all that she must have gone through, it is quite delightful to think that she will be restored to her place in society again. I wonder whose influence brought that about?'
Uffington was silent on this point. He knew by Eleanor's manner that she recognised his influence in the matter, and that was all he cared for.
'And so Lady Forestfield is to be received back by her husband,' said Mrs. Hamblin, with a cold smile, as she rose preparatory to taking her leave. 'What a very strange world we live in! ”

“ Van Groot myself,' said Sir Wolfrey; 'but it's enough to make a woman rear and plunge a bit when she has to run in double harness with such an unmitigated cad as Van Groot. The little Dutch pug is always getting up in the House, whelping and snarling at his betters.'
'I don't think it makes much matter what sort of a husband a woman may happen to have,' said Lord Forestfield, speaking deliberately, and looking round with his cold cynical smile. ”

“ The whole place is filled up with Germans, sir, fat stuffy men who do nothing but eat and smoke, and fat fubsy women who do nothing but eat and knit; horrible people! very domesticated, I daresay, but I hate that sort of middle-class domesticity.'
'Well, there is one comfort, then, to think that domesticity in the upper classes doesn't trouble them very much, does it, Lydyeard?' said Uffington with a smile.
'No, by Jove, not at all,' said Tom Lydyeard. ”

“ At games of skill I can hold my own with most men, and I rarely, if ever, play at games of chance. And now I must go and give my servant notice to pack; so good-bye. You don't know how pleased I am to have seen you.' He shook Lydyeard's hand warmly, and left the room.
'There is something more than I can quite make out in all this,' said Tom Lydyeard, whose powers of comprehension were somewhat limited. 'It strikes me that Uffington had no idea of going to Paris when I saw him ten minutes ago, and now he is off as fast as train and boat can carry him. ”

“ Eleanor started. 'I had no notion you were here, Sir Nugent,' she said with a blush.
'Fortune has so far favoured me as to find you alone, Miss Irvine,' said Uffington, 'for I have something very special to say to you; and under the present aspect of affairs it seems doubtful whether I may have another chance. I am a man of few words, but little speech is necessary to declare my intentions, and I am willing to accept your decision in a single syllable. ”

“ It is a mistake, I believe, to suppose that marriage destroys your prestige with women. There are a lot of fellows of my acquaintance who seem to have infinitely more on their hands since their marriage than they had before--not that I think I should go in for that sort of thing myself. I should not either object, if I were once married, to settling down and becoming the most exemplary husband, that is to say, if people would only let me. ”

“ When, after a couple of hours' peaceful repose, May again opened her eyes, she recognised her companion in an instant, and in a clearer and firmer voice spoke to her at once.
'I know you now, Eleanor,' she said, 'but even now I cannot account for your presence here. I know perfectly well I am at Mrs. Wilson's lodgings in Podbury-street, but that knowledge does not account for your presence. My head is heavy and my limbs horribly weak and languid. ”

“ Then the valet bowed and left the room.
'So this is the Aspasie, is it,' said Spiridion, lighting a cigarette and seating himself in a chair opposite the easel; 'this is the picture which next spring is to bring our friend two or three thousand pounds and a large addition to his fame? I cannot say with Browning, "I could have painted pictures like this youth's," for everything he does is immeasurably beyond me. This head, for instance, is remarkably fine, and there is a certain calm dignity, and sense of power about it which pleases me very much. Eardley has caught the right idea, no doubt. ”

“ It seemed almost absurd to think that a man of such taste and refinement could have been thrown so much as he had recently been into the society of a woman like May without bowing to the spell which her beauty and fascination never failed to exercise. And if such were the case, if Uffington's errand were to implore May to let the decree nisi be confirmed and to trust her future to him, Eleanor felt certain that May would not have the power to resist. ”

“ What a queer thing it is to think that so few of the old set are left! There is one of them though, by Jove!' he muttered with a start. 'I haven't seen him for twenty years, but I'd lay my life that's Uffington.'
The man by whom he was attracted looked up at the same instant, and their eyes met. The stranger's cheeks flushed, and for a moment he made as if he would turn away; but when he saw that Tom Lydyeard had left his stall he stopped, and the next moment they were shaking hands with more effusion than is usually shown in present society. ”