Sir Nugent Uffington found his brougham waiting at the Victoria Station, and as he handed Lady Forestfield into it he gave her a few words of parting counsel. She was to expect a great physical change in her husband's condition, he told her, and was not to be frightened; she was to be prepared to hear many things during the sick man's ravings which would necessarily pain her, but she must listen to them with patience; unasked she had declared her intention of doing her duty, and that must be her consolation. Then, promising to see her the next day, he took his leave, and the carriage containing her rolled away.
It was a dismal autumnal night, and the long lines of lamps reflected in the wet pavement struck May, staring out of the carriage window, with strange familiarity. It was months now since she had seen London lighted up by night, for the time of her residence in Podbury-street had been during the long days and evenings of the summer; and now her thoughts insensibly reverted to the time when night after night, with unvarying regularity, she was whirled away to some gay scene of triumph, where her presence was anxiously expected, and where her command was law. That was all over now she knew, and save for the time wasted and the precious opportunities missed, she could think of it all without regret; in her quiet solitude at Woodburn she had learned the great secret of happiness, in endeavouring to do her duty, and she looked back upon her early days of feverish excitement with feelings of sorrow and disgust. What was before her now she knew not, but in breaking away from the calm life, and in trying to alleviate the sufferings of him who, whatever had happened, was her husband 'after all,' she had obeyed the dictates of her conscience, and knew she had acted rightly.
But notwithstanding this sense of rectitude, May felt her heart sink within her as the carriage drew near to Seamore-place, and it needed all her fortitude to prevent her bursting into tears. Painfully and vividly rose before her the scene which had occurred when she quitted the place which had been her home, never, as she thought, to return again. The agony of shame which she had felt as she passed the servants, all of whom she could not but know were acquainted with the cause of her degradation; the terrible heart-sickness which beset her as she crossed the threshold an outcast and a wanderer--what humiliation must she go through in meeting these people again! It would have been almost better, she thought, to have remained in her solitude, unheard of and uncared for; but she had accepted the issue and must abide by it.
As the carriage drove up to the well-remembered house, the street-door opened quietly, and Stephens, Lord Forestfield's valet, assisted his mistress to alight, a telegram from Sir Nugent Uffington having apprised him of Lady Forestfield's arrival. May was thankful to learn that the establishment at Seamore-place had long since been broken up, and that with the exception of a couple of women servants and the nurse there was no one there but Stephens, whose manner to her was, as it always had been, thoroughly respectful.
'His lordship is very bad, my lady,' he said in reply to May's hurried inquiry; 'I am afraid about as bad as he can be to be alive. He takes nothing to eat, has a terrible thirst upon him, always crying out for something to drink; he is as weak as a baby, and quite out of his mind, not knowing me nor any of us when we come near him. Dr. Whitaker is in the house, my lady,' he added. 'When he called this afternoon, I told him I had heard from Sir Nugent Uffington that your ladyship was expected; and he said he would look in again about this time. Shall I tell him your ladyship is here?'
'Yes,' said May, after an instant's hesitation; 'I should certainly like to speak to Dr. Whitaker before I go up-stairs.'
Her first trial was now at hand. In former days Dr. Whitaker would have been very little more to her than a higher kind of servant; for the insolent people among whom she had lived were in the habit of treating all those who were not of their own class, no matter how far superior to themselves in everything save the accident of birth, as persons who were necessary to their well-being, but who were in no wise to be encouraged by familiarity. Among the members of the medical profession, in which throughout the world are enrolled many of the kindest, the bravest, and most independent specimens of humanity, there are, of course, to be found some who, whatever their private opinion of such treatment as this may be, have not the courage to resent it. Dr. Whitaker was one of these; the great Pickwickian sentiment of shouting in accordance with the wishes of the largest number was carried out by him to its fullest extent, and his horror of peccant mortality, when it not merely did not interfere with, but absolutely helped, his professional practice, was formidable in its sternness. When the scandal about Lady Forestfield had first been made public, Dr. Whitaker had given many a patient ten minutes of grateful ease from pain by his admirably graphic account of the whole transaction, and had stamped himself for ever in their minds as a man of the finest feelings, by his indignant denunciation of the women who bring shame and sorrow into the homes of such men as 'my excellent friend and patient, Lord Forestfield.' Of course Dr. Whitaker's conduct in this matter had been reported to May--when does any one say anything derogatory of us that we do not immediately hear of it from some one else?--and she was consequently somewhat alarmed at the idea of their meeting. Her knowledge of the world was not sufficient to suggest to her that the doctor would probably also have heard of the condonation and quasi-reconciliation that had taken place, and that more especially as his noble friend and patient was in a dangerous condition, there could be now no harm, even to a man of his respectability, in holding out the olive-branch to May.
A short stout man Dr. Whitaker, with a bald head, a red face, and a small gray whisker; his manner was bustling and self-satisfied, he was always dressed in solemn black, and invariably wore creaking boots. Many years before, when, as a young man, he first set up for himself in practice, having emancipated himself from his father--a worthy man, who kept a chemist's shop, from which he would not retire, and of whom in consequence his son was horribly ashamed--Dr. Whitaker's manner had been very different. He had crept in and out of the smallest and most modest houses, taking care to make no noise and to give no offence; he had listened for hours to the monotonous complaints of old women in little lodgings for the sake of the five shillings a visit which he was enabled to charge them, and he had been humble, deferential, and presumably grateful to many upon whom he had long since ceased to look with anything like a sign of recognition. A man of the world Dr. Whitaker, whose success in life was assured.
With persons of rank, indeed, his manner remained very much the same as it had been in bygone days to persons in lodgings, and he accordingly entered the room as softly as the creaking boots would permit him, and marched straight up to Lady Forestfield with extended hand and grave bow.
'Even under these sad circumstances,' he said, 'I cannot omit the expression of my great pleasure at seeing you once more, Lady Forestfield, under this roof; which I venture to think, had you been well advised, you would never have quitted--'
'Pray give me news of Lord Forestfield,' said May, hurriedly interrupting him; 'you have seen him just now--is there any change in his condition?'
'No change whatever,' said Dr. Whitaker. 'His lordship is certainly not better, and I do not think he is worse; but there can be no denying that he is in a very critical state, as I ventured to inform your ladyship through the medium of Sir Nugent Uffington.'
'Do you think then, Dr. Whitaker,' said May in low earnest voice, 'that there is hope of his recovery?'
'I do not say that,' replied the doctor; 'your ladyship is aware of the old proverb which says that there must be hope while there is life; and though Lord Forestfield is in extreme danger, with human skill and attention, under Divine Providence' (Whitaker always spoke of this last as a kind of copartnership) 'we may pull him through. Your ladyship, I understand, intends to remain in the house, and in case there should be any sudden change I will give orders to the nurse, that you are warned in time.'
'I do not understand you,' said May. 'If there were any sudden change I should see it, I imagine, as soon as the nurse, whose watch I intend to share.'
'What!' cried Dr. Whitaker, in high key, for he was startled out of his composure and professional manner; 'you don't mean to tell me that you are actually thinking of nursing his lordship?'
'With what other object do you think I am here?' asked May simply.
'But do you know that this fever is what vulgar people call "catching," and that exposing yourself in this way you run the greatest risk of being attacked by it?'
'I am willing to take my chance,' said May, 'and am prepared to run all risks.'
'Admirable self-sacrifice,' murmured Dr. Whitaker, in a kind of stage-aside, which he had found very effective with many people. 'I am not sure, however,' he added aloud, 'whether I ought not to put my veto upon this plan.'
'It would be useless, doctor; for my determination is fixed. And now I will wish you good-night, as I am anxious to get to my work at once.'
Dr. Whitaker bowed over the hand which May extended to him, and stepped into his brougham in a state of the greatest astonishment. He had several special 'last visits' to pay that night, and to such of his patients as were at all in a state to hear it he told the wonderful story of Lady Forestfield's return to her home, 'where she is actually engaged, my dear sir, in nursing her husband in fever, which she is very likely to take herself.'
Meanwhile, May had sought the bedchamber, and had been received by the nurse, whom Dr. Whitaker had apprised of her coming.
'My lord's asleep now, my lady,' the woman said, pointing to the bed, 'but terribly restless and uneasy; the sleep that he gets does not do him any real good, for he tosses and tumbles from side to side, and is scarcely ever done talking. Dr. Whitaker said that you wished to sit up with my lord, my lady; but I should advise you to think twice about it, for letting alone your not looking strong yourself, and running the risk of catching the fever, his lordship from time to time screams out and raves about all sorts of things, and that it would most likely frighten you to hear. I would advise your ladyship to think twice about it--I would indeed.'
May, however, was not to be shaken in her determination.
'I am quite strong,' she said, 'much stronger than you suppose; and though I have never seen any one in fever, I am not unaccustomed to nursing, as I watched by the bedside of my father during his last illness. At all events, I will see how I succeed. There is no medicine, you say, to be given for the next two hours. Leave me, please, until then. I shall be better able to know what I have undertaken by that time.'
As soon as the woman had left the room, May took the candle, and shading it with her hand, approached the bed. Her husband lay there, sleeping heavily. May thought him much changed; his cheeks were hollow and sunken, thus giving greater prominence to the hard cynical expression which had always detracted from his good looks. His lips were shut, his brow was contracted, and from time to time he uttered sounds more like the ebullitions of wrath than the wailings of despair. As she stood by the bedside gazing at him, he turned round, and soon afterwards opened his eyes. As soon as she perceived this, May shrank behind the curtain, but it was too late; Lord Forestfield had seen her, or, rather, had noticed the fluttering of her robe without recognising its wearer, and, after one or two inarticulate efforts, he said, in a low and feeble voice:
'Are you there again, Mélanie? For how many nights now have I seen you standing there, glaring at me with those bright black eyes, but never saying a word? What makes me so weak, I wonder? I seem to be tied to this bed without a possibility of moving from it. Mélanie darling, have some pity on me Why are you always so cruel now? You were not so once; recollect the happy days we have passed together. Sing to me, Mélanie, my loved one; sing what you first sang to me that day at the Gorge de Franchard--"Pour que je t'aime, ô mon poëte!" Ah, I have forgotten it like everything else; my memory is all gone now. No, stay; sing me this verse:
"L'oiseau qui marche dans l'alléeS'effraye et part au moindre bruit;Ma passion est chose ailéeEt s'envole quand on la suit."'
As he ceased murmuring these words he made an attempt to touch her hand, but May hastily drew back.
'This is too much,' she said, as she sank into a chair; 'I had not looked for anything like this;' and she burst into tears.
Some ten days after May's arrival in Seamore-place, owing principally to her constant care and watchfulness, and the unremitting attention with which she devoted herself to him, Lord Forestfield was pronounced not merely to be out of danger, but well on his way to convalescence. It had been a desperate trial for May, not only as regards her bodily strength, which during her long vigils was taxed beyond its powers of endurance, but to her mind, which, so long at least as her husband's delirium continued, was kept ever on the rack. When, with his returning senses, Lord Forestfield recognised his wife, and realised all that she had done for him during his illness, he seemed, for the first time in his life, to be profoundly touched, and indeed became so excited as to give ground for fearing that, in his then weak and almost prostrate condition, he would suffer a relapse. As his strength gradually returned to him, he grew more anxious that May should be constantly in his sight, more exacting in his demands on her time and attention; and this, not in the usual querulous and complaining tone of an invalid, which he adopted towards all others, but with that yearning tenderness of which he had never previously manifested any sign.
One day, as he was sitting propped up with pillows in an easy-chair, and she, at his request, was reading to him from the newspaper, he took her hand between his, still thin and gaunt, but freed now from the burning fever, and spoke to her as he had never spoken for years, as he had probably never spoken at all before. In his weak-voice there was something of the earnest fervour which took her back to the time of their first acquaintance--all his words then were tinged with the roseate hue of youth and love--what he said now was spoken falteringly, and seemed at least to bear the impress of truth. He told her that he had done her grievous wrong, and that whatever faults she might have committed he was, in the first instance, to blame for the manner in which he had neglected her and left her at the mercy of others. He acknowledged that he had been cruel, harsh, and unsympathetic, blaming his bringing-up, by which he had never been taught to bridle his passions or to look for the possibility of the non-fulfilment of any of his wishes, and he promised her that if, when his strength was fully recovered, she would remain with him, as forgiving and as loyal as she had been during his illness, he would prove to her the alteration that time and trouble had worked in him, and devote himself for the remainder of his life to secure her happiness.
Was May to believe in so radical a reformation thus easily worked? The experience of her past life convinced her to the contrary; and yet the attempt must be made. She would shut out all those recollections of insult suffered and misery undergone, which came thronging upon her at the mere idea of renewing her life with her husband; she would forget the more recent horror with which the revelations in his ravings had inspired her; it was her duty to accept his proposition, and she would do it. Lord Forestfield was exhausted by the fatigue which he had undergone in speaking to her at such length, and May, telling him that she had been warned against allowing him to excite himself, promised to talk to him on the subject to-morrow.
The next morning at an early hour, while Dr. Whitaker was sleeping the sleep of the just, his bell was rung furiously by a messenger from Seamore-place, who brought a request from the nurse that the doctor would come there at once, as Lady Forestfield was very ill. Dr. Whitaker shook his head when he received this message, and told his wife he had been all along afraid that her ladyship might contract typhus from her husband, and that, as in nursing and attendance she had exhausted the stock of health which she had brought with her from the country, it was not improbable that it might go hard with her.
After Dr. Whitaker had visited May he shook his head more dolefully still; and the nurse, who had been relieved of her attendance on Lord Forestfield owing to his convalescence, and had transferred her care to the new patient, was observed, after a hurried and whispered talk with the physician, to have tears in her eyes. That night it became known throughout the household that her ladyship was in a very bad way. The attack was a desperate and a malignant one, and, as Dr. Whitaker had said, such health and strength as she had acquired during her sojourn at Woodburn were already exhausted by her close confinement to the sick-room, and she could not make headway against it.
She had but little delirium, and even when the fever was at its worst her head was tolerably clear; so that, as she lay during the long day, and still longer night, she would muse over all that had been, over what was so shortly to be. For May felt that she was dying; she had an intuitive perception that for her all was nearly over; that she should never rise from that couch, to take even so small a part in the world's affairs as she had hitherto played, again. That thought brought no sadness with it. There was a time, only a few weeks since, when in the first flush of her enjoyment of the beauties of nature, of the freedom from care and calmness of spirits which came upon her after her arrival at Woodburn, she felt that life had yet a hitherto unknown charm in store for her; but since her return to Seamore-place that notion had been entirely put aside. She had remembered once more that she was Lord Forestfield's wife, and she had heard him express with his own lips his desire that they should pass the remainder of their lives together. That desire May had determined should be fulfilled. She had made up her mind to do her duty, and she would have done it at any cost; but there were passages in her husband's conduct during the earlier portions of their married life which she had found it impossible to forget, and the remembrance of which had been aroused by his ravings during his delirium. O, how much better 'dark death and dreamful ease' than a prolongation of the life of sin and shame, of constant fear of discovery, of frantic search after so-called pleasure, and sickening disgust so soon as the momentary recklessness was over! Better, far better, that her name, now almost forgotten, should never be heard of again, and that her husband--whose contrition for the part he had played towards her was, May could not help feeling, a spasmodic result of his recent illness, to be forgotten when his strength returned--should be freed from the incumbrance which her presence must necessarily be to him.
This view of Lord Forestfield's character was tolerably correct. So soon as he had 'turned the corner,' as he phrased it--so soon as he had recovered his appetite, and convalescence had once set in--his progress towards recovery was wonderfully rapid. Soon he began to take carriage airings; and as in passing through the streets he recognised his friends, and again looked upon the vast panorama of London life, from which he had been so long excluded, the good impulses which had recently sprung up within him died away, and the old desires were as rampant as ever. It was lucky, he thought, that in his weakness he had a sufficient excuse for going but seldom into his wife's sick-room. He would look in there in the morning when he first got up, and in the evening before he went to bed--for his health was not yet sufficiently reestablished to allow him to keep late hours, or in any way to play tricks with himself--and, if May were awake, he would say a few words to her; if her eyes were closed, as was generally the case, he would content himself with a nod to the nurse and disappear. On the sixth day of his wife's illness Lord Forestfield met Dr. Whitaker coming down the stairs with a very solemn face, and, taking him aside, asked him his impression of the result. There is probably no man without some spice of good in him; and with all his snobbishness and garrulity, Dr. Whitaker had a sincere affection, based partly on regard, partly on the advantageous use which he had been enabled to make of the three thousand pounds which she brought him as her marriage portion, for his own wife. He was greatly disgusted at what he rightly conceived to be Lord Forestfield's motive in making this inquiry, and referred his lordship to Divine Providence with much greater asperity than he was accustomed to use in dealing with persons of title.
One morning the nurse waited upon Lord Forestfield with a message from May to beg that Sir Nugent Uffington might be sent for to see her, as she had one or two important matters on which she wished to communicate with him. Forestfield made no immediate reply; and the woman, noticing his heavy frown and the angry flush which spread over his face, said: 'I don't think, if I was you, my lord, I would deny her anything, poor lamb. She has had a dreadful night--scarcely a minute's sleep from first to last--and there's no doubt she's sinking.'
'Do you think so, nurse?' asked Forestfield, with all the colour fading from his face. 'Do you think she is going from us?'
'If she continues losing strength as fast as she has done during the last twenty-four hours, she can't be alive to-morrow morning,' said the woman; 'and it would be a sad thought for you afterwards, my lord, to think you had acted in any way contrary to the poor dear.'
'Tell them to send a groom down to the Albany at once,' said Forestfield, 'to say to Sir Nugent Uffington, with my compliments, that Lady Forestfield is very ill, and would be glad to speak to him directly.' Then he shut himself up in his room and fell into a reverie. Hitherto he had only dimly contemplated the idea of losing his wife; now, if what the woman said was correct, her death must be a certainty. In the multitude of thoughts which came crowding upon his brain, regret for the loss of the woman whom he had sworn to love, and to whom he had quite recently renewed his vow, had no part. What struck him most forcibly, and remained by him longest, was the reflection that he would be free to do as he liked, and that she would be no longer a reproach to him. That thought was still in his mind, when the messenger returned to say that Sir Nugent Uffington was at Brighton, but that a telegram had been despatched to him.
Uffington arrived that afternoon. Lord Forestfield was out, the nurse said, but she had orders to show him at once into the sick-room. Her ladyship was very bad, the woman said, in answer to his eager inquiry, 'was sinking fast, and could not possibly last through the night, but was wonderfully calm and composed, and had all her senses about her.' Uffington set his teeth hard, and followed his guide with a noiseless footstep.
In the uncertain twilight he saw May lying on the bed, covered with a light cashmere shawl. She was dreadfully wan and emaciated; but she knew him as he approached, and welcomed him with something like one of her old smiles.
'I knew you would come,' she said in a very low voice; 'and I knew you would be shocked at the change in me, and at the thought that I was going to die. So I would not send for you--until--until the very last.'
'You should have let me know sooner of your illness,' said Uffington, with tears rolling down his cheeks. 'I was at Brighton when your message arrived.'
'Yes, I know,' said May. 'Mrs. Chadwick and Eleanor are there, are they not?'
'They are,' said Uffington. 'I came straight from their house.'
'Tell me,' said May, laying her thin burning hand on his. 'I always thought you liked Eleanor; was I right?'
'You were,' said Uffington. 'I have told her so, and she has agreed to marry me.'
'Ah, thank God for that!' said May reverently. 'Eleanor's happiness was all I was anxious for; for I loved her very dearly.'
'And she loves you better than any one on earth--better than she loves me, I fancy. She wanted me to bring her to you now.'
'No, no; that would never do--she must not run any risk. Besides,' added May, with a faint sweet smile, 'it is too late now. But I wanted to see you to say good-bye. I could not have died in peace without telling you how truly grateful I am to you for all that you did for me. No brother could have striven harder for his sister than you have done for me. And I was so happy at Woodburn, all brought about by you. I once thought I should have liked to remain there; but it is better as it is--much better as it is.'
She paused for a minute and her eyelids dropped. Then she raised them, looking up at him, and saying, in a still lower voice:
'You must go now, I think; I feel so strangely weary. Say good-bye to me, my kindest, my best friend.'
He bent down over her, and murmuring 'God bless you!' touched her uplifted forehead with his lips; then turned away with a convulsive sob, burying his face in his hands. When he looked round again the nurse was bending over the bed. Presently she turned round, nodded her head slowly, and with her finger pointed upward.
May Forestfield was dead.
Lord Forestfield had gone out, without seeing his wife, immediately after he had despatched the summons which brought Sir Nugent Uffington to her death-bed. He had, however, returned a few minutes before the close of the friend's interview and of May's life; and when Uffington, after a few words exchanged with the nurse, left the room where the woman to whom he had been so true a friend lay dead, happily beyond the need of all human friendship or reach of blame, he encountered her worthless husband in the hall. He had hoped to escape from the house unnoticed; but this hope was vain; and so proved his next idea, that he might hastily pass Forestfield with a word, and get away before he knew what had happened. He had not taken his own quivering lips and agitated look into account in this hope, and it vanished with Lord Forestfield's first glance at him.
'What--what's the matter? What has she said to you?' Lord Forestfield stammered, staring blankly at Uffington.
'She has said good-bye,' Uffington began; and then, touched by a momentary pity for the man who so little deserved it--though of the reaction in his feelings Uffington knew nothing--he took him by the arm, led him into the library, and told him the truth.
'Dead!' was all Lord Forestfield replied. 'Dead--so soon!'
'Ay, dead--and so soon. She had not much strength to spare, and she spent it in--saving your life.'
He went away without another word, and for a few seconds Lord Forestfield gazed vacantly at the door through which he had passed. A look of hatred then came into his evil face, still worn and rigid with the traces of wasting fever, and he muttered:
'D--n him! he's beaten at last, and I've got the Decree Absolute, after all!'
A minute later the nurse knocked at the library-door, having come to communicate the melancholy intelligence to his lordship, who received it with sullen propriety; and the dreary, dreadful bustle which precedes the awful stillness of a house wherein one lies dead, to last until the drearier and more dreadful bustle of the funeral, immediately commenced in that beautiful house in Seamore-place, where May's short life of joy, folly, guilt, repentance, and reparation had been lived.
When the night was some hours old, Sir Nugent Uffington, who had passed the interval in walking for miles straight ahead, he did not know where, returned to Seamore-place, and from the opposite side of the roadway looked up at the windows of the room where May Forestfield was lying. The house was invested with the conventional marks of mourning, and the useless tan was littered deep across the street. Lights were burning in the death-room, tall torches which threw their shadows on the blinds, and flickered in the air which passed in at that ominously open uppermost six inches of window-sash. Sir Nugent's imagination was busy with the scene which that room presented. He could see the sweet young face, set in its marble paleness, with the dark-veined eyelids, on which an expression of pain and weariness had sat for so long, sealed over the eyes which were never more to smile as they had smiled so rarely, or weep as they had wept so often, since he had seen them first, and, seeing them, been reminded of her mother's eyes, hidden in the dust. He could see the outline of the graceful wasted limbs, and the waxen hands laid upon the satin coverlet in the fulness of everlasting rest. It was well that she had died there, in her husband's house, with such protection as that formal circumstance might afford her name, that name which meant nothing now, save to the few who loved her, and would so soon be utterly forgotten by those who had been most eager to blacken it with scandal and cover it with reproach; but his heart was full of bitterness as he thought ofwhyshe had died. For that worse than worthless creature; for that sensual, cynical, selfish, brutal, dastardly fellow, whose sins against the marriage vow which she had broken had been countless and unblushing, as they were unrebuked and unpunished; who owed the life which had been a curse to her, to his wife's care, and who was set free by her death to carry out any scheme which might enter his base mind. Not yet could Uffington rejoice in her release; not yet could he realise the nothingness to her of what he could not but regard with bitterness and rage as Forestfield's triumph; and when he turned away at last from his contemplation of the silent house, and went home to write to Eleanor, it was with a heart full of hate towards Forestfield and De Tournefort, the two who had to answer for the fate just fulfilled within those walls.
Uffington's letter to Eleanor was hard work to write. The intelligence it had to convey must necessarily be a dreadful shock, as well as a profound grief, to the girl who had loved May so dearly, and who had so few besides to love. Eleanor was at Brighton with Mrs. Chadwick, and though she had been told of May's illness, she had not been told--because Uffington himself was ignorant of the truth--that a fatal termination was apprehended. The chill wintry morning had dawned before his task was completed; but as he wrote, in striving to console Eleanor consolation came to himself; in endeavouring to convince her that 'it was better so,' as May herself had said, he came to believe his own words, to realise that it was indeed well with May; that the life which she must have faced would have been too hard for her, and Death, which had taken her definitively out of the hands of man, was her best friend--a better friend than even he had been, or could be in the future; a closer friend, shielding her from scorn and unkindness, from vain regret and self-reproach from external temptation, and from herself. The memory of the woman whom Uffington had loved, and ruined, and recompensed for ruin in so far as a man can, was with him as he wrote to the pure and proud young girl whose love he had won, and won with a wondering secret exultation; a dead face looked up at him from beneath the waters of the Swiss lake, as he described that other dead face, with its fresh set seal of peace. During the hours of that night something passed into the soul of Nugent Uffington which was the soundest and safest of guarantees for Eleanor Irvine's happiness and security as his wife--a message of peace and self-knowledge sent to him from the dead.
The heavy days went slowly by, and that on which the mortal remains of May Forestfield were to be laid in their last resting-place had come. Her death had been much talked of and the sentiments of 'society' on the subject were various. After the nine days' wonder of her restoration to her husband's house had died away, Lady Forestfield had been suffered to fall into general oblivion. That circumstance was, of course, much discussed, and many persons were of Mrs. Hamblin's way of thinking. Those persons were chiefly among the large numbers of the sinners who have not been found out. Sinners who have been found out are, as a rule, more charitable, and thedivorcéeswho hover longingly on the confines of the world in which they once played a part, and who are perfectly cognisant of the peccadilloes of the women who, from their own vantage ground of deferred or escaped exposure, 'cut' them, while they eagerly devour every atom of gossip concerning the new 'milieu' in which their quondam but detected associates live, were unfeignedly glad of May Forestfield's 'luck.'Theyknew what detection and its penalties meant, and they would not wish any one such 'hard lines.' The undetected were scandalised. They even thought it very wrong that Lord Forestfield should have been permitted to sully his 'order' by such an act of misdirected clemency, and a lady who had been much and deservedly 'talked of' with poor May's husband was particularly denunciatory of the evil example and the dangerous precedent. She found consolation only in assuring herself and others that a restoration of that kind 'meant very little after all,' though of course Lady Forestfield would be 'kept out of mischief by being under her husband's roof;' she would be just as much 'out of society' as if she were not there. All this had concerned May not at all; indeed she hardly knew or even guessed how any one talked about her, and never turned her thoughts or her eyes back upon that 'world' which she had suspected to be a fool's paradise before she had forfeited it. Very much the same sort of comment was made upon her death; perhaps it was not in any instance so bitter as that which had attended her disgrace. Mrs. Hamblin regarded the event as a very good thing indeed for Lord Forestfield, quite a relief, and spoke of it in a tone which implied that she considered it the proper thing on the part of Providence to reward him for his unheard-of generosity by interposing to prevent his reaping its possibly unpleasant consequences. Mrs. Hamblin was also 'quite thankful' that the future Lady Uffington would not be exposed to the risks of association with 'such a person as Lady Forestfield,' and she added, while discussing the subject with a man newlylancé, who wasen trainto become the successor in her good graces of Spiridion Pratt--'resigned'--that of course those risks would have been doubled by the moral obtuseness of Sir Nugent Uffington, whose character everybody knew, and whose history had better not be inquired into. 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. But Mrs. Chadwick kept these sentiments to herself when she met Mrs. Hamblin, and her like; was ready to acknowledge that 'perhaps, after all, considering her hopeless loss of position,' &c.; and by the end of the week was impatient with Eleanor for her overwhelming grief; and inclined to resent its evidence in the girl's tears and seclusion as an injury to herself.
'What a singular fascination there is for some men in the mere fact of a woman having lost her character,' said Mrs. Hamblin to Frank Eardley one morning in the melancholy week. The two had met on the new pier at Brighton, and the gentleman had failed in an attempt to pass the lady without stopping to speak.
'I have just seen Mr. Pratt going into Mrs. Chadwick's house, and looking as melancholy as if he had lost his adoring and adored mamma, the "madre mia" of that charming sonnet you used to quiz so kindly. I suppose he's going to the Forestfield funeral.'
'He is, Mrs. Hamblin, and so am I. I must wish you good-morning.'
'You too. It will be quite a demonstration. What a lesson tonous autres!I Henceforth we shall know exactly what are those virtues which "smell sweet and blossom in the dust." Good-morning.'
Not in the gloomy mausoleum in the Highland country, where the noble remains of the Stortfords lie, encased in lead and oak, in velvet and gilding, did they lay May Forestfield; nor was her grave made with the men and women of her husband's race. On a bright calm day, when the wintry air was still, and the sky was high and blue, the little train of friends followed her coffin to Kensal Green. Lord Forestfield behaved with perfect propriety on the solemn occasion. His demeanour was as correct as his dress. When the temporary slab had been laid upon the grave, Sir Nugent Uffington placed a wreath of violets and a cross of white camellias upon the stone--they were Eleanor's tribute. Then he and Frank Eardley regained their carriage in silence, which was hardly broken until they reached town.
When Lord Forestfield returned to his house in Seamore-place, the dreary stillness which had brooded over it for a week had disappeared. Luggage, prepared for travelling, was in the hall, and a couple of servants in deep mourning were busy with straps, buckles, and rugs. He passed them quickly, and went into the library. Presently a close carriage with posters came to the door, and the men, directed by Stephens, put some of the luggage upon it. Lord Forestfield was going away--going in this unusual style, to avoid the inconvenience of railway travelling--on the very day of his wife's funeral. He could not stay in the house; nothing would have induced him to pass another night there; its profound solitude appalled him, and there was no one whom he could ask to break or share that solitude. Lord Forestfield's friends were not of the sort who are naturally turned to in trouble, whether it be formal or real. He had suffered tortures in that house while his wife lay dead in it, tortures which even Stephens had not guessed at, and which he had utterly failed to deaden with drink. And yet how hard he had tried! In defiance of every warning, of even the physical loathing with which it inspired him, of the inability to drink as he had been accustomed to do, which was a lingering result of the fever, he had swallowed large quantities of wine during the endless hours which he passed alone in that horrible room; hours when he could not make up his mind to go to bed, and could not sleep, and was ashamed to keep his servant with him; hours when the wine, which would formerly have turned him into a drunken madman, only made him more hideously conscious, more horribly wide awake. He was going away; he did not know whether he should ever come back. He might get over this feeling in time; it was not grief; he did not attempt to deceive himself about that. He did not know what it was--only his infernal nerves, no doubt; and if he did get over it, well and good; at present his keenest desire was to get away from that room, and never to see it again.
In an hour after Lord Forestfield had reentered his house, he left it again. As he was crossing the footway to his travelling-carriage, a man passed between it and him. A man with a pale face, with a wild look of disturbance in it, and an unsteady step. A man who might be rather mad, or rather drunk, but, being either, had not quite lost his self-control, and who knew Lord Forestfield. A man whom Lord Forestfield knew, for he stepped back, as if from a blow, and stammered out:
'De Tournefort! You!'
'Yes, it is I. Is thistrue? Speak, man! Is ittrue?'
'Iswhattrue?'
'Thatsheis dead?'
'Yes, it is true--she is dead, and buried to-day.'
Lord Forestfield stepped past the questioner, and got into the carriage; then he leaned forward, and hissed rather than spoke these words:
'She has escapedus both.'
The carriage drove off, and Gustave de Tournefort stood still outside the door of Lord Forestfield's house, like a man in a bad dream.
He had kept his word. He had fulfilled the pact which he had made with his own sense of honour. The interval had expired between the Decree Nisi and the Decree Absolute; and De Tournefort, who knew nothing of what had occurred during that interval, had returned to England, with the intention of again offering to May the reparation of marriage. He had sought her at Podbury-street, and there learned from Mrs. Wilson the fact, which that good woman had read, with sincere regret, in the newspapers. An irresistible impulse drove De Tournefort to look upon the house whence May had been expelled for him, to which she had so inexplicably returned. And so the two men who had been her ruin--which of the two was the more guilty in the matter, who shall dare to say?--came together, face to face, ere yet the sun had set upon her grave.
The marriage of Sir Nugent Uffington and Eleanor Irvine took the world somewhat by surprise, when it was solemnised in the early spring of the following year. Their engagement had been kept quiet, almost unsuspected by their few common acquaintance, and Mrs. Chadwick had not talked about it. She liked Sir Nugent very much, but she was just a little afraid of him; he puzzled her; as she expressed it, she 'could not make him out;' and she would have thought several times about disobliging him, and then have left it undone. So that when Sir Nugent explained to her that he and Eleanor disliked theéclatof announcements, and hoped she would indulge them by keeping their hopes and projects within the small family circle, she observed his wish; Eleanor's only might not have been so strictly respected. The events which had taken place since Sir Nugent Uffington's appearance on the rapidly expanding stage of Mrs. Chadwick's life had produced a good deal of effect on that lady; had forced her, to perceive that wealth and grandeur might possibly have their seamy side, and had restored her to those sentiments of content with which she had in the first instance accepted the rise in life effected by her marriage. For a while Fanny Chadwick had been in danger of 'spoiling;' she had been tempted to grumble at her husband's want of the superficial elegance on which she had learned to set undue value, to compare him, to his disadvantage, with the fops and fools whom she was proud of collecting in her rooms at Fairfax-gardens. But the experience of the past season did Mrs. Chadwick a world of good; she gathered good fruit out of that miserable business of the Forestfields, as the tragedy of May's life and death was called, while any one remembered either, and she stored it up. She was never really guilty of feeling ashamed of her husband again, and from any approach to such a sentiment she recoiled into being ashamed of herself. It was wonderful how much Mr. Chadwick's 'Fan' refined under the influence of this clearer vision and sounder judgment; how short a time elapsed before the people who talked their own slang, and strove for their own vapid and worthless objects, but strove for them inside, not outside, the indefinable but irresistible barrier of fashion, came to acknowledge, with some wonder, that Mrs. Chadwick was 'hardly vulgar at all.' She would not, as a matter of fact, have been flattered had she been aware of the concession; and yet she might well have been, considering the victory it endorsed, and the habitual insolence of the class who made it.
When the time appointed for the marriage drew near, and people began to know, about it, Mrs. Chadwick was surprised to find that Mrs. Hamblin, of all people in the world, looked on the arrangement with cold disapproval. That lady had been too wise to drop her surface-intimacy with Mrs. Chadwick when her purpose with regard to Spiridion Pratt was fulfilled. Its fulfilment had not been attended with any triumph or profit to herself; she was intensely conscious of her defeat, but she was all the more resolute to hide it. Even when the replacement of Spiridion was in process of accomplishment, she did not choose to lose sight of him, and she knew that, unless she continued to visit Mrs. Chadwick, she must do so; for the little man had established himself on the tame-cat footing at Fairfax-gardens, and was imperturbably impervious to remark or ridicule. Eleanor Irvine had refused to marry him, it was true, and it was even true also that he had, in a surprisingly short time, arrived at the conclusion that she had done wisely; but there was no earthly reason why Eleanor, who suited him, being nice to look at and pleasant to talk to, very agreeable and not oppressively clever--Spiridion hatedveryclever women--should not be the friend of his 'soul.' Eleanor had no objection, especially as this sentimental arrangement did not impose any severe demands upon her time and attention, and as it did prevent the pretty constant presence of Sir Nugent from being unduly remarked upon before the convenient season.
Spiridion had been admitted to the confidence of the affianced pair, and had experienced no difficulty worth speaking of in reconciling himself to the spectacle of his rival's happiness, though he wrote some sweetly pretty verses expressive of the torments of such a situation, which Mr. Shamus O'Voca set to music, and a Diva actually sang at some of the best concerts last season. The torments in question were, however, of the mildest, and, as a matter of fact, Spiridion Pratt enjoyed himself immensely under the novel conditions of his being. How much share in his peaceful serenity his enfranchisement from Mrs. Hamblin had, it would be ungenerous to inquire; and, indeed, it is not likely that Spiridion ever asked himself the question.Shedid, however, and she hated Eleanor as Spiridion's friend only a little less bitterly than she hated Spiridion himself. When the marriage of Miss Irvine with Sir Nugent Uffington was announced, only a few days before its occurrence, Mrs. Hamblin saw her way, having saved appearances, to backing out of a position which had served her purpose, and was fast becoming an intolerable bore.
She assumed a tone of high and cold morality. 'She ventured, in consideration of dear Mrs. Chadwick'scomparativeignorance of the world--Mrs. Chadwick must bear in mind that the London world, in which she was even yet hardlylancée, had been Mrs. Hamblin's proper home and element since her early girlhood--to inquire whether she was altogether aware of the serious responsibility she was incurring by intrusting her sister's fortune, its happiness and its credit, to such a man as Sir Nugent Uffington? Did Mrs. Chadwick know the dreadfully disgraceful history of his past life? Was she aware that he had never shown the slightest deference to the opinion of society; that, in short, the--theaffaireMudge had lasted until the death of the creature? Mrs. Hamblin could hardly conceive the possibility of a lady like Mrs. Chadwick, whose former sphere must have accustomed her to much more serious views on questions of the kind than those prevalent in the wretched world of fashion, being satisfied to place a young girl's welfare in such hands. She felt sure that Mrs. Chadwick, and especially Mr. Chadwick--such a straightforward, honest, good sort of man as he was--could not be in full possession of the facts; and though she never offered advice, or interfered in other people's affairs, she really must depart from her rule in this case, as she felt a genuine interest in Mrs. Chadwick, and could not bear the idea that her inexperience of society was possibly being imposed upon.'
All this, delivered with a smooth and smiling countenance, and in mellifluous tones to whose covert impertinence it would be impossible to do justice, Mrs. Chadwick listened to, in a state of mind which she found it difficult to describe when she afterwards repeated it to her husband. She was astounded at the woman's insolence, and her irritation was sufficiently complete to enable her to comprehend very thoroughly itsportée; but the extraordinary transformation in Mrs. Hamblin's own way of thinking and talking puzzled her profoundly.
'It is not as if she had any pretensions, you know,' said Mrs. Chadwick in an aggrieved voice. 'One could put up with it from women who go in thoroughly for that sort of thing, and won't have anything to do with anybody who has ever been compromised in any way; butMrs. Hamblin!'
There was a good deal of untutored eloquence in the tone in which Mrs. Chadwick pronounced her quondam friend's name. She had never thrown so much expression into even her most successful song in the old days.
'Fan,' said Mr. Chadwick, with a funny twinkle in his eye and a funny roll in his voice, 'prepare yourself for a blow! Mrs. Hamblin means to weed her visiting-list, and "Chadwick, Mrs." will disappear from the C's. She's in the forties, or very near them, isn't she?'
'I don't know for certain; but Mr. Pratt says so.'
'And Mr. Pratt! Terribly trustworthy authority, he. She's going in for goody, my dear; that's it, rely upon it; and poor Eleanor will be her first "example," and Uffington the text of her first sermon. Of course you'll say nothing to them about her impertinence, and I shall be more nearly angry with you than I have ever been in my life if you waste a thought of your own upon it.'
Mrs. Chadwick could not dismiss the matter with all the celerity her husband prescribed; but she really did not mind it much. Her fashionable education had made good progress in the direction of callousness.
The wedding took place, and Sir Nugent and Lady Uffington went abroad. This was on Eleanor's account. Sir Nugent had seen all that Europe had to show, but Eleanor had never travelled beyond Paris; and the old familiar scenes acquired a fresh interest for him in the delight with which they inspired her. Eleanor was very happy; as happy as she had expected to be, which, though she was much more sensible than most girls of her age, and her early life had not been of a kind to nourish illusions, is saying a great deal. She had perhaps credited Sir Nugent with some qualities in which she found him wanting; but, on the other hand, she had prepared herself to discover and bear with faults which did not exhibit themselves. She had heard him described as a 'devil of a temper,' but he was not ill-tempered to her; on the contrary, he treated her always with gentleness and courtesy, and, without departing entirely from his characteristic undemonstrativeness, studied her wishes and her welfare with practical steadiness. When their marriage was several months old, Eleanor ventured to tell him that he had 'turned out better than she expected in point of amiability;' and he remarked simply,
'You see, Nell, I have always observed that good women get horribly snubbed and bullied, where they don't meet with even more active ill-treatment. There's a better chance for the bad ones, taking life in the lump, all round. And so I am determined to keep one good woman from being sorry that she has trusted herself to a man.'
Eleanor feels and expresses a happy security that she shall never be sorry for having placed such practical confidence in him. And, indeed, it looks as if her assurance were not unfounded.
They mean to 'settle' in London, but to live their own life there; not the life of the multitude. Eleanor's home Paradise is imaged upon a different plan from that of her sister and her sister's friends. It does not exclude sociability, but it does not include servility to 'Society;' and if she carries out her ideas, the Uffingtons' house will be a pleasant one at which to have the not-too-easily-to-be-obtainedentrée.
People who have met them abroad report favourably of Sir Nugent and Lady Uffington. Frank Eardley is enthusiastic about Eleanor's looks, and her increased appreciation of art and china. He always thought her bright, you know, but, by Jove, Lady Uffington takes the shine out of Eleanor Irvine in a surprising way. Lydyeard, whose irascible temper is generally sent up to white heat by the 'infernal folly,' which is his mildest term for a friend's marriage, has not once been heard to growl, and has even deigned to ask when the Uffingtons are coming home? These small particulars, together with the general news, domestic and otherwise, in which she and her husband are supposed to be interested, are communicated to Eleanor by Mrs. Chadwick, who yields to no born fine lady in existence in fluency of epistolary composition, and in always having 'an immense number of letters to get through.' Mrs. 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 ischicto 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. One result of this is, that she really has a good chance of hearing a great deal about every thing that is 'going on' among a certain set, and within a certain limited sphere of human action and interests, which, however, is quite wide enough for the taste and the intelligence of Mrs. Chadwick and her friends. To be beforehand with theMorning Postis a triumph to her and her like; to be forestalled in its columns of exclusive intelligence concerning any member of the favoured classes, whose movements only are worth study, whose histories only are worth tracing from point to points is a defeat. In such triumphs and such defeats it had always been desperately difficult to interest Eleanor; and it was with something approaching to exultation that Mrs. Chadwick commenced one of the latest of her letters to her sister, previous to Eleanor's return, with the announcement that she had something to tell her which would arouse evenhercuriosity.
'There really is quite a sensation about it, my dear Eleanor,' wrote Mrs. Chadwick; 'for it appears the Duchess of Matlock used to have a very bad opinion of Lord Forestfield, and always said he drove our poor darling friend to all that happened by his brutal neglect. So that peopledothink it is a little inconsistent of her to let Lady Amabel marry him, especially as the Duchess is so very evangelical,--family prayers, tracts in the kitchen, and lots of 'Low' curates to luncheon; you know exactly the sort of thing. Mr. Pratt, who really is wonderfully faithful to you in a reflected kind of way--for he's constantly here--told me all about it on Sunday. And he says it's the coal-mine. I don't know whether I told you, by the bye, that coal has been found in a small place of Lord F.'s in the North, and he is going to be ever so rich. Of course I don't quite believethat--one can't, you know, believe a thing of that kind about the dear Duchess--but it is quite certain that Lord F. was never invited to Matlock Park until the rumour of the coal got about; and in three weeks Lady Amabel was engaged to him. The Duchess despises all these rumours;shesays it is not coal, but conversion, and that she is thankful her dear Amabel has been chosen by Providence to confirm a repentant sinner in grace. I hope it will be all right; but I could not help thinking of poor Lady Forestfield in her beauty and youth, and regretting he had not repented inhertime. Lady Amabel is hideous,Ithink, and they say she has a violent temper. I hope it is true. The Duchess went to Woodburn the other day, and had every trace of poor Lady F. removed; all her boudoir furniture and a number of pictures have been sold by auction, and that good little Mr. Pratt has bought a lot of both for Sir Nugent; and he declares the Duchess speaks of the poor thing as "that unhappy person whom, of course, we cannot name." Lady Amabel will take her name cheerfully enough, and her place too. James says, "What a blessing the poor thing left no children, to suffer for her misdeeds after her death at the hands of so eminent a Christian as Lady Amabel." I daresay she isn't so bad after all, but James cannot endure that kind of religion. The wedding is to come off in three weeks, at Matlock, and Mr. Pratt says they are already getting the Duke into training, in order that he maylooksober, or a leastnot too drunk, on the occasion.'