Grammar girl presents the ultimate writing guide for students - Download the full ebook now to never

Page 1


Grammar Girl Presents the Ultimate Writing Guide for Students pdf download

https://ebookgrade.com/product/grammar-girl-presents-theultimate-writing-guide-for-students/

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...

Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar 4th The

https://ebookgrade.com/product/ultimate-guide-to-sat-grammar-4th-the/ ebookgrade.com

Practice of Creative Writing A Guide for Students 3rd Third Edition The

https://ebookgrade.com/product/practice-of-creative-writing-a-guidefor-students-3rd-third-edition-the/ ebookgrade.com

English Grammar Workbook for Adults A Self Study Guide to Improve Functional Writing The

https://ebookgrade.com/product/english-grammar-workbook-for-adults-aself-study-guide-to-improve-functional-writing-the/ ebookgrade.com

Brilliant Writing Tips for Students Copus Julia

https://ebookgrade.com/product/brilliant-writing-tips-for-studentscopus-julia/ ebookgrade.com

Academic Writing for Graduate Students Wei Zhi

https://ebookgrade.com/product/academic-writing-for-graduate-studentswei-zhi/

ebookgrade.com

Writing for Science Students (Macmillan Study Skills)

https://ebookgrade.com/product/writing-for-science-students-macmillanstudy-skills/

ebookgrade.com

Grammar for Great Writing C 1st Cengage Learning

https://ebookgrade.com/product/grammar-for-great-writing-c-1stcengage-learning/

ebookgrade.com

Essentials of Academic Writing for International Students

The Stephen Bailey

https://ebookgrade.com/product/essentials-of-academic-writing-forinternational-students-the-stephen-bailey/

ebookgrade.com

Random

documents with unrelated content Scribd suggests to you:

And then dinner was announced, and the conversation stopped.

Charley Ormerod was quite right when he spoke with such high praise of the quality of the dinners and the wines in Fairfax-gardens. Mr. Chadwick looked after these himself. He had a natural taste for good living, and though in his early days he had been quite content with a chump of coarse-grained meat broiled by himself over the furnace fire, and washed down by some cold weak tea out of a soda-water bottle, as soon as he could provide himself with better fare he took care to have it. 'A man is like an engine,' he used to say; 'his bearings get hot, and the whole thing goes crank and stiff, unless his works have been properly greased. Half my planning and thinking is done at night, after a good dinner and a bottle of fizz, when my Fan's in bed, and all these chattering servants are out of the way, and I sit up in the library and put down all I have got in my head. It's no good to attempt to plan anything up in the North, for there they have their heavy meal in the middle of the day, and after that I am good for nothing but to go to sleep, or to see what I have ordered is carried out; but here, after a fillydysoleand a bottle of Irroy, I am as clear as a bell and as fresh as a two-year-old.'

The dinner on this occasion was especially good, for it was the host's boast that, whatever kudos he might have gained in the world for his 'large spreads,' his 'little feeds,' or, as Mrs. Chadwick called them, their dinners 'enpetitcomité,' were really much better. Spiridion Pratt, who was a gourmet, revelled in the various dishes, and the rare wines brought a slight flush into Uffington's usually pale cheeks.

'Like that sherry, Sir Nugent?' cried the host, beaming from his side of the round table. 'That's some of the Emperor's wine from the Tooleries. I was in Paris at the time of the sale, and when I tasted, I determined to have some. This is the real stuff, I know, because I took care to have it put aside and brought over at once. But, lor bless you, at some of the houses where my Fan and me dine--you know the parties I am alluding to, Eardley--they have got some stuff

which passes for the Emperor's wine that old Nap would never have put his beak into.'

'My dear James!' murmured Mrs. Chadwick.

'Fact, Fan,' said her husband, who misunderstood the gist of the hint--'never put his beak into; though I daresay the Swassers--what a fellow I am! there I have been and let the name out!--well, I daresay the Swassers paid a long figure for it, and believed it was old Nap's own tipple. Poor old Nap! fancy him gone, and Ujaney left alone!'

'Were you ever at the imperial court?' asked Spiridion.

'O yes,' replied the host. 'We supplied a set of engines for the imperial yacht Leagle, I think it was called--the Eagle--very like English, ain't it? And there was some talk about our building a new vessel for him, and I was sent for to see the Emperor about it. I shall never forget. Just before I started, I was talking to some funny fellows I knew then who wrote in the newspapers, and when I told them I was going to see the Emperor, one of them, named Rupert Robinson, said, "Well, then, just have the kindness to ask him for the eighteenpence he owes me." "Eighteenpence!" says I. "How can he owe you eighteenpence?" "Why," he says, "I often used to see him in the old days at Lady Blessington's, at Gore House, on a Sunday night; and one night we came home together in a cab, and he asked me to pay his share as well as my own, as he had no change, and he would pay me next time he saw me. Next time I saw him," Robinson said, "he was driving in his carriage, with an escort riding beside him, and I thought that was a bad time to ask him for the eighteenpence; so he owes it me still."'

'I suppose you did not ask the Emperor for it?' said Spiridion.

'Not I,' said Mr. Chadwick, with a laugh. 'I had enough to do to mind my own business. Our friend Eardley here tells me that you have been a great traveller, Sir Nugent?'

'Yes, I have knocked about a good deal, Mr. Chadwick,' said Uffington, turning towards him. 'I have been and done and suffered as much as most men.'

'Quite like a dear old verb, isn't he?' said Eardley, shaking back his clustering locks and smiling at Eleanor.

'I had a great notion of travelling once myself,' said Mr. Chadwick. 'When I was first apprentice, at the Jarrow works, I thought I would like to see the world, and I was very nearly running off to be a cabin-boy.'

'My dear James!' murmured Mrs. Chadwick. Then turning to Spiridion with a sweet smile, 'You too, Mr. Pratt, have been a great traveller; only the other day I was reading to Eleanor that delightful description of your being stopped by the brigands in Greece.'

'The description, I imagine, was a good deal pleasanter than the reality,' murmured Eardley. 'They kept dear old Prattikins on very short commons, and wouldn't let him have a comb to do his back hair with.'

'Well, I'm a queer kind of John Bull, I suppose, in my notions,' said Mr. Chadwick; 'but I don't hold much with all this travelling abroad and intercourse with foreign nations. It's all very well so far as business is concerned--gives us an outlet for our goods, and enables us to pick up a good many wrinkles in matters in which these fellows beat us hollow--but I don't think we have gained much by being so hand and glove with these chaps, having them at our houses, and that sort of thing.'

'Ungrateful monster,' laughed Eardley, 'to say such things when the work of the French stranger within your gates has scarcely left the table! Could any one but a Frenchman have made that bonne femmesoup? Is there a British hand light enough to have turned out that soufflet?'

'I wasn't talking about cooking,' said Mr. Chadwick; 'there they're A1, and no mistake. When I was a lad we used to think that all Frenchmen were either cooks or dancing-masters; and I imagined all French boys were brought up in the belief that Englishmen were either sailors or grooms. No; what I meant to say,' he continued, looking a little more serious, 'is, that I don't think we are quite so respectable since we have mixed so freely with foreigners.'

'You are not alluding to ourselves, James, I suppose,' interposed Mrs. Chadwick. 'I am sure that--'

'No, no, my dear Fan,' said her husband; 'I mean English people generally. It don't appear to me that we are so strong in temperance, soberness, and chastity--those three virtues which the Catechism tells us to look sharp after--as we were before the days of excursions abroad and cheap tourists' tickets.'

'I don't see that anything could possibly be more temperate than the French and the Italian gentlemen who come to this house, James. Some of the Germans are large eaters, we know, but seem to be even more so than they are from the manner in which they handle their knives and forks and swallow their food.'

'I rather think that it is to a falling off in the other virtues named to which Mr. Chadwick is making special allusion,' said Spiridion Pratt, with a smile. 'Some of our continental visitors have recently proved themselves rather destructive to the peace of families.'

'Are you speaking generally, or alluding to any special case?' asked Uffington.

'I was speaking generally,' said Spiridion; 'but there are doubtless special cases which would point the--immoral.'

'There is one, a very flagrant case, which quite bears out what my husband says,' observed Mrs. Chadwick, drawing herself up and looking as virtuous as the mother of the Gracchi. 'I understand that

you have only just returned to England, Sir Nugent Uffington, and therefore, perhaps, you have not heard of it--the scandal about Lady Forestfield.'

Uffington bowed coldly. He had heard some mention of that sad story, he said.

'A sad story indeed, and a great disgrace to our English nobility, of which we are naturally so proud,' said Mrs. Chadwick. 'Anything worse than the conduct of Lady Forestfield could not well be imagined.'

Eleanor Irvine, who had been endeavouring to hide her agitation as this conversation proceeded, could restrain herself no longer. 'Surely Lady Forestfield is not entirely to blame, Fanny!' she cried. 'Surely some excuse is to be made for one who was cruelly treated and almost wholly deserted by her husband, whose sole recognition of her was to throw dust in the world's eyes!'

'Eleanor,' cried Mrs. Chadwick, bridling up, 'I cannot understand what you mean.' Then, seeing that the sharpness of her tone had been remarked by the company, she changed her voice, and said, with affected gaiety, 'You must allow me, as an old married woman, to be a much better judge of such matters than you. It is not to be surprised at,' she said, turning to Spiridion Pratt, 'that Eleanor, who has the sweetest nature in the world, should feel a strong compassion for Lady Forestfield, for they were brought up together, and in their childhood were quite like sisters, though Lady Forestfield is two or three years the elder of the two. I admire her generosity,' she added, in a lower tone; 'but of course it is my duty, in my position as elder sister and married woman, to rebuke the expression of such sentiments.'

'Gad, I don't see that,' returned Spiridion in the same undertone. 'She seems to me perfectly charming, and it is, we are told, the duty of angels to plead for the fallen.'

'You asked me if I had heard anything of this wretched case,' said Uffington to Mrs. Chadwick. 'What has been mentioned to me is, that for some time before their separation Lord Forestfield had been in the habit of treating his wife with systematic rudeness and even cruelty. If that be the case, he has himself to thank for all that has subsequently happened to him.'

'It is as bad a case against him as could possibly be,' said Eardley, turning to Uffington, who was his neighbour, and speaking quietly. 'Both before and after the birth of her child he worried her so savagely, that the baby, naturally small and weak, only lived a few months. She was desperately fond of this infant, and from the time of its death, which she attributed entirely to her husband's misconduct, she has been scarcely accountable for her actions.'

'That, I suppose, Mr. Eardley,' said Mrs. Chadwick, who caught the last words, 'will be the excuse for Lady Forestfield taking up with such people as Mrs. Ingram and Lady Northaw, and declining to associate with others who, though they cannot boast of being fast, have at least a reputation, and are visited by some of the best people.'

'I don't think,' said Mr. Chadwick, who had been silent for some time, 'that we ought to lay the blame wholly upon one or the other of these unfortunate young people. I don't quite agree with my Fan that Lady F.'s the party in fault, though I daresay she was flighty, and didn't keep herself as strict as she would have done had she lived half a century two ago; and I don't think Lord F. is to be entirely blamed, though from what I have seen of him in one or two matters of business he is a roughish customer. My verdict should be against the third person in the case; the man who, in the guise of a friend, comes into a house where, to all outward appearance at least, and for anything that he could tell, things were going on quite smoothly, and takes advantage of the opportunities of his intimacy to bring ruin upon one and misery upon both. Upon both, I say. Don't tell me--whatever sort of man this Lord Forestfield may be,

however glad he may be now to be freed from his wife, he will not be able to give up all thought of her. He may get rid of her, as of course he will; and he may marry again, as they say he wants to; but he cannot get rid of the memory of her, let him be as happy as he may. Years hence he will find himself thinking about her, wondering what has become of her, what she may be like then-thinking of the early days of their courtship, when she was a pretty girl and he a likely young fellow, when their lines lay in pleasant places and all that the world held good seemed to be in store for them. Lord, Lord, they will be wretched enough then! The crime in a case of this kind belongs to the seducer. Don't you think so, Sir Nugent Uffington?'

Uffington started for an instant, as did Eardley, to whom his story was known. Then he said quietly, 'No doubt; but it brings its own punishment with it sooner or later, as he will find.'

The conversation then turned into another channel, and soon afterwards the ladies retired.

Uffington, who had been much struck with Eleanor's outburst in defence of Lady Forestfield, made up his mind to have some farther talk with her; but when they reached the drawing-room they found Mrs. Chadwick alone.

'Eleanor had a headache,' the hostess explained to Spiridion Pratt; 'and though I did all I could to persuade her, I found it impossible to make her await your coming.'

'She was right,' Uffington muttered to himself, pondering over this as he walked home. 'Headache or no headache, she is far too sensible a girl to waste her time on such a donkey as that man Pratt. There must be something more in Lady Forestfield than I imagined to enlist the sympathies of such a girl as this. For the first time for years I really begin to feel interested in something.'

CHAPTER VII.

THE MORNING AFTER.

When Sir Nugent Uffington woke the next morning, instead of, according to his usual custom, yawning and composing himself for another nap, he roused up at once. It is for a psychologist to explain how it is that the subject uppermost in our minds invariably flashes across our thoughts at the first instant of shaking off our slumbers, and that we go to the pleasure or business of the day with a light or heavy heart, according to our impressions on waking. That acceptance which has so nearly run out; that confoundedly incautious letter which, on the spur of the moment, we wrote to a man who is now doubtless making use of it; that awkward dilemma in which, without any serious intentions, we placed ourselves with Smith's wife--all these things rise before us with as much but not more certainty than the recollections of our successful after-dinner speech, of thrilling tones and touches at that special interview on the previous evening, or of the assurance from our attorney that the long-protracted lawsuit was coming to an end at last, and that the judgment could not fail to be in our favour. Through the Gate of Ivory and through the Gate of Horn come dreams and thoughts to sleeping man, who is acted upon by them in his waking moments.

Nugent Uffington had been so long unaccustomed to anything like the smallest excitement, his life for so many years past had gone on slowly and monotonously, that he could not at first understand what it was that caused him to rouse up briskly, and with a certain hitherto unwonted feeling of interest. A little reflection brought

before him the events of the previous evening, and he lay lazily back on his pillow, thinking them through and making his comments upon them.

'It is a curious thing,' he said to himself 'that a man of my age and experience should find himself suddenly intriguéabout the affairs of a set of people, some of whom I never saw till Wednesday, and one of whom I could scarcely be said to have seen at all. And yet undoubtedly I was much amused, and something more than that, at the proceedings of those queer people with whom Eardley took me to dine last night. There was an honesty and a sense of right about that genial rough fellow, the host, which was to me infinitely pleasanter and more refreshing than the fadenonsense talked by people who are far better educated, and who are supposed to be better mannered; though unintentionally, in his great blundering way, he came down hot and heavy upon me, and sent his blade through the joints in my harness. I wonder how I looked under the infliction? I must ask Eardley, whose glance I caught at the moment; but I have a notion that to him, at least, I must have shown that the hit had gone home. Strange that after all these years anything which in the slightest degree resembles or hinges upon my life with Julie should have such an effect upon me. All the time that that good honest fellow was droning away about the impossibility of Forestfield's being able to shake off the memory of this wife whom he has just deserted--and I think Chadwick was right there, it is impossible to lay such ghosts--I was thinking of that day, when I first induced her to meet me at the Great Exhibition, when we were hidden away in the Machinery Court amongst all kinds of wonderful engines, as much to ourselves as if we had been in a palm-grove in Africa. At this instant I can see her in the thin muslin dress which she wore, the bright gold chain round her neck, the tiny parasol swinging open over her shoulders; can distinguish that soft violet perfume, which seemed to be a portion of herself, and--I imagined I had cured myself even of thinking of these things! "The crime in a case of this sort belongs to the seducer--don't you think so, Sir Nugent Uffington?" It was a home thrust. I wonder whether I turned

red or white, or betrayed myself in any way to the rest of the party? The man never meant to sting me--he hadn't made his money in those days, and such a story was not likely to penetrate to Newcastle, though Manchester and its neighbourhood must have heard enough of the wrongs of the injured husband, and Mrs. Chadwick must have been a mere child at the time. That man Pratt may have heard something about it, but, donkey that he is, he is decently behaved, and made no sign. I don't think I should quite like that young girl, Mrs. Chadwick's sister, to have Mr. Pratt's version of the affair though, for I don't think he would make the best case for any one else, and I am rather interested in Miss Eleanor Irvine; not for her beauxyeux, God knows, for I am past any attraction from that kind of thing; I don't know what for, unless it is for the manner in which she spoke up for her friend, Lady Forestfield. How the girl's eyes flashed, and what ringing scorn and defiance there was in her tone as she defended her absent friend! Men do not do that sort of thing if any of their particular acquaintances is attacked; they content themselves with a very mild protest; but this girl plainly meant to hit hard, and was all too many for that conventional moralist, her sister, who made a bad retreat of it. Those two women do not pull well together, it is impossible they should; for one is all natural fire, and the other all artificial ice. Mrs. Chadwick is evidently bent upon throwing this pretty girl at the head of Mr. Pratt, who is graciously condescending to spread out his palms to catch her; but Miss Eleanor, I imagine, does not intend to allow herself to be tossed about for her sister's amusement or advantage, and she will hold to her friend whom the worldly-wise Mrs. Chadwick so roundly denounces. Both these women, each in her own way, evidently feel strongly about that matter. There must have been a further discussion about it in the drawing-room, in which the married lady must have carried the day and reduced her sister to tears, or she would not have quitted the room for the mere sake of shirking a further interview with Spiridion Pratt. I am actually curious to see more of those people and to watch the progress of affairs there; for an idle than with all his time to fill up it will afford at all events occupation, and perhaps amusement. Moreover, I may in some way

or other--one can never tell how--be able to lighten the burden which this poor deserted woman seems to have brought upon herself, which, as a voluntary act on the part of the "seducer," may perhaps be looked upon as some expiation of his "crime."'

And with a shrug, Nugent Uffington rang for his valet and turned out of bed. He was pretending to eat his breakfast, dallying with his toast and grumbling over the newsless newspaper, when Mr. Eardley was announced.

Nothing could be more unlike the conventional idea of an artist than Mr. Eardley's appearance, so far as dress was concerned. His classical profile and hyacinthine locks were all that could be looked for in those Greek heroes whom he loved to paint; indeed, it was said, and not without truth, that his looking-glass supplied him with the best models. But in his costume he not merely despised the velvet shooting-coat and general looseness of garb which are supposed to be characteristic of his calling, but affected a neatness and precision which were in strong contrast with the prevailing loudness of taste. He was a man of excellent education and information, who had taken up the profession of a painter simply because it was the first that came to his hand, and who had continued it because he saw his way to large prices and high social position, but who had talent and pluck enough to have succeeded in several other callings had he felt so disposed. Mr. Eardley's talent was, moreover, of a very different kind from that of Spiridion Pratt, and although the latter was always putting himself forward, whilst the former never made any public appearance outside his adopted art, Mr. Eardley's self-contained reticence was regarded as evidence of much more power than Mr. Pratt's perpetual attempts. There were few men to whom the world had shown so much of its sunny side, fewer still who would have been so little spoiled by the indulgence. Dick Tinto and Jack Whitewash, with their tobacco-smelling beards, their paint-bedaubed jackets, and their dirty hands, and their companions of the Palette Club, used to revile Frank Eardley, calling him swell and stuck-up beast; but when the first lay ill for six weeks

with the fever, it was Frank's purse which induced the doctor to come in and the broker's man to go out; and when Jack Whitewash swaggered about the good position awarded to his picture at the Academy, he little knew that it was owing to Frank's interposition with the council. Eardley mixed but little with men of his own profession, though he took much interest in all its charitable and social institutions at the periodical gatherings, where he spoke with great readiness and fluency; and though he went a great deal into society he had but very few intimates. For Nugent Uffington, Eardley entertained a great liking; the kindness shown to him by Nugent at their first meeting had touched him very deeply, and there was something in Uffington's solitude and isolation--which was even more noticeable now in the midst of the London world than it had been in the wild and uncivilised regions where they first formed acquaintance--that called forth his pity and admiration. Since Nugent's return, a day seldom passed without the friends meeting. Uffington would sit for hours in Eardley's studio, smoking countless cigarettes and watching his friend at work; their talk was always of the frankest and most open character, and Nugent's one wish seemed to be that Frank, with all the world at his feet, should shun the social snares and pitfalls into which he himself had fallen at the outset of his career.

'You will wonder what brings me to you at such an early hour,' said Eardley, 'more especially after our settling that you should come round and give me your opinion of the Niobe; but when I got home last night, I found a letter from Dossetor, asking me to look at some blue Chelsea china at one o'clock. So I thought I would make an idle morning of it, and inflict my company on you.'

'I am very glad to see you--more glad than I usually should be at this hour; but to-day I happen to be awake--not a very frequent occurrence with me--at eleven o'clock.'

'And in Albania you were always ready to start on our excursions at five,' said Eardley, with a laugh.

'Exactly, my dear Frank; but Albania and the Albany, though almost synonymous, are very different places. It was worth while getting up at any absurd hour for the wild-fowl, shooting there; but there is nothing to shoot at here, unless I were to pot the beadle, or a fellow-lodger shaving at the opposite window. Recollect, too, the air and the silence and all the other enjoyable things.'

'Silence!' cried Eardley. 'If you call that enjoyable, you surely have got enough of it here. I never could understand how people lived in these chambers, with nothing ever to wake the echoes except the occasional footfalls in that melancholy long covered walk.'

'You have that idea because you are never here of an evening, my dear Frank,' said Uffington, 'and have never heard the shrieks of laughter and the very unbridled mirth which floats out upon the evening air when the opposite windows are open, and little Mr. Pincushion, of the Stock Exchange, is entertaining his female friends from the Varieties and the Parthenon. By the way, that was a very good dinner you took me to last night.'

'Of course it was; you have known me long enough to trust me in such matters, have you not? You may be certain that your palate and digestion are always safe in my charge; not that I could guarantee you such wines and such cooking as Chadwick's on every occasion, for they are really first-rate. And the company, what did you think of that?'

'I was amused.'

'Indeed, how very kind of your lordship! We ought all to be deeply indebted to you for your condescension.'

'Don't be an ass, Frank. I was more than amused, for I was pleased and interested.'

'I thought you would be pleased with Mr. Chadwick's high-bred punctiliousness, interested by Mrs. Chadwick's unaffected geniality,'

said Eardley, laughing. 'Chaff apart, they are very pleasant people. What did you think of the young lady?'

'What little I saw of her I was much pleased with, but I had hardly a chance of speaking to her.'

'Of course not; Mrs. Chadwick, who is always managing for somebody else, has taken it into her head that it would be a great thing if she could catch that tremendous idiot, Spiridion Pratt, and make up a match between him and her sister; the girl is much too good for that, don't you think?'

'It is impossible for me to say,' replied Uffington, 'having only seen Mr. Pratt once; but he does not seem to me to be such a goose as you rate him. He affects to be romantic, and is unquestionably conceited, but I don't see much else the matter with him, and he is a gentleman, which, after all, goes a very long way.'

'What a dear large-hearted old boy it is!' said Eardley, clapping his friend affectionately on the shoulder. 'But what do you say, then, to Mr. Chadwick? I am afraid he won't come up to your standard.'

'I don't see why not,' replied Uffington. 'Do you imagine that I should not consider Mr. Chadwick a gentleman, because his manner is rather brusque, and he uses odd phrases? I declare to you he seems to me as perfect a specimen of a real gentleman as I have seen for many a long day. There are many men, my dear Frank, who drop their h's and pick up fish-sauce with their knives, who are more truly preuxchevaliersthan the purest bred among us.'

'Very likely,' said Eardley, 'but a dropped hgrates on the ear, and knife-swallowing, except at a circus, is not pleasant to look at. Did you notice--but of course you did--how Miss Irvine blazed out in defence of her friend, Lady Forestfield?'

'I noticed it with more than astonishment,' said Uffington. 'But from what little I saw of her I should judge her to be a young lady

who would speak out boldly in favour of any one whom she imagined to be oppressed, whether a friend of hers or not.'

'Perhaps so,' said Eardley; 'but I know she was particularly fond of Lady Forestfield.'

'The intimacy has been dropped since the smash, I presume,' said Uffington. 'Mrs. Chadwick seems far too strict a person to allow it to continue.'

'Decidedly, if she knew it,' said Eardley; 'but I have some idea that the worthy woman is slightly hoodwinked in the matter. Mrs. Ingram told me that Lady Forestfield is lodging in Podbury-street--poor child, fancy Podbury-street after the lovely luxury of Seamore-place!--and the other morning I saw Miss Irvine walking down that very street. I know it was she, though I did not recollect her at first, and I was thinking what a pretty model she would make for a certain class of subject, when suddenly it came upon me that she was the daughter of that raffish old buck Irvine, who used to hang about Clipstonestreet in former days.'

'So Lady Forestfield is lodging in Podbury-street, is she?' said Uffington musingly. 'Do you know the number?'

'Sixty-eight, I think,' said Eardley, looking at him in surprise; 'but what on earth does it matter to you?'

'Nothing,' said Uffington with a start, 'not the least in the world; I was only wondering--'

'My dear old Nugent,' said Eardley, taking him by the arm, and looking inquiringly into his face, 'what are you thinking about? You are not going to do anything quixotic, I hope. Lady Forestfield, as every one will allow who knows anything about the case and speaks fairly, has been deucedly badly treated; but nothing would warrant any interference in the matter, and any attempt might probably recoil upon the poor woman herself.'

'You need not be afraid, Frank,' said Uffington; 'I am not likely to make any such attempt. I was only thinking--' and again he fell into a musing fit.

'Exactly; but don't think,' said Eardley, touching him on the shoulder. 'You have finished your breakfast; come down with me to Dossetor's, and help me to form an opinion on the blue china. After that we will go down to Richmond, stroll about the park, and have a dinner at some quiet place where we shall not have to watch the melancholy amusement of professedly festive people.'

'Agreed, so far as Richmond, the stroll, and the dinner are concerned; but I cannot come with you now, I will meet you there. My head aches a little, and would ache worse if I had to listen to Dossetor's disquisitions on his china; so I will go and get rid of my trouble by a canter in the Row.'

'That will be better perhaps,' said Eardley, 'not only for yourself, but for my china, as it is the one thing in which I require that the opinions of people I consult should coincide with my own, and you seem to me to be rather contradictory this morning. I suppose you will drive me down? Then I will be waiting for you at the club at four.'

'I shall be there to the minute,' said Uffington.

And then Eardley, with an 'Aurevoir!'took his hat and strolled leisurely away.

Sir Nugent Uffington was rather more lively and alert after his friend's departure than he had been in the early morning. He paced up and down the room, revolving in his mind whether the affection of Eleanor Irvine for Lady Forestfield was such as would naturally be felt by her for any other person in so desolate and unfortunate a position, or whether it was the outcome of some special interest which Lady Forestfield had awakened in her--if so, what were the sources of that interest? She must be a peculiar woman, Nugent

thought, to arouse a feeling which, in the fact that it caused Miss Irvine to act in opposition to the expressed wish of one on whom she was dependent, as Eardley had hinted, must approach devotion. Lady Forestfield must have a powerful will of her own to obtain ascendency over a mind like Eleanor's.

Altogether, Sir Nugent Uffington, who for so many years had been almost emotionless, was beginning to take a certain amount of interest in the affairs which were passing round him, and the centre of that interest, so far as he could judge, was Lady Forestfield.

The ordinary frequenters of the Row, to whom Sir Nugent Uffington had become a familiar figure, and who were not disposed to regard him as a lively or agreeable companion, had no occasion to alter their opinion of him from his behaviour on this particular day. The few who noticed him mentioned him to each other as 'mooning about as usual;' he nodded to very few, and only stopped once, and that was to speak to his old friend Tom Lydyeard, who was leaning over the rails. Their conversation was common-place and matter-offact enough, the usual platitudes of society talk--for Tom Lydyeard, a really good-natured fellow, was not much gifted with brains, and even in what he had to say was a trifle rococoand old-worldly-when a sudden impetus was given to it by Lydyeard saying, 'Look at this man on the bright bay, riding outside of the girl with the chestnut; that is the man that everybody is talking of just now--I pointed him out to you the first night we met at the Opera--Lord Forestfield.'

Uffington looked quickly round. At that moment the bay horse shied at a dog which darted from under the railings, and its rider, turning white with rage, brought his riding-stick down with all his force between its ears. The horse bucked and lashed out, but its rider never moved in his seat, and the next moment the little cavalcade had broken into a gallop and were out of sight.

'Nice lot, isn't he?' muttered Tom Lydyeard between his teeth; 'they say he treated his wife that way, and yet they tell me that now there is not a soul in the place, man or woman, to speak a kind word to her, or to do her a good turn. Queer world, ain't it, Uffington?'

'Very,' said Nugent. 'Good-bye;' and he cantered off in the direction of Grosvenor-place.

It was not time for luncheon yet, he thought, as he rode out under the arch, and he might as well ride round and see where Podbury-street--what a curious name!--where Podbury-street was. Sixty-eight was the number that Frank Eardley had mentioned; and here was Podbury-street, and there was sixty-eight, with a handsome brougham--harness a little too heavily plated, and coachman's livery a thought too gorgeous--standing at the door. Now the door opened, and a young lady came out, whom Nugent had no difficulty in recognising as Miss Irvine--she did not see him, for she darted hastily into the carriage--saw her, too, sufficiently plainly to notice that tears were rolling down her cheeks.

What could be the meaning of that? Decidedly Sir Nugent Uffington was much interested in Miss Eleanor Irvine and Lady Forestfield.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN DEFENCE.

Frank Eardley was punctual to his appointment with Sir Nugent Uffington, and the friends started at once for their proposed drive to Richmond.

During this drive, the stroll under the trees and through the fern which followed it, and the dinner which crowned the day's amusement, Sir Nugent Uffington was much more companionable, and took far greater interest in his friend's remarks. The fact was that he had skilfully led the conversation in the direction of Lady Forestfield, and induced Eardley to chat to him unreservedly about that lady and the manner of her life before and after her marriage. On such matters Eardley was just the man to be the mouthpiece of that portion of the world which hears everything that is going on in society, and comments upon it in a broad and genial spirit, untinged by envy or jealousy, but sufficiently flavoured with that sarcasm which comes natural to worldlings in this age of cynicism and disbelief. He had known Lord Stortford; indeed, the worthy peer, who had inherited his father's love of art of all kinds, had been one of the first to discover early indications of the talent which had raised the Royal Academician to his present rank in art, and had given him his earliest commission. Eardley was received in Grosvenor-square on those pleasant terms of equality which were always extended by the host to those whose social manners permitted it, had made May's acquaintance even before she was presented, and had struck up a pleasant friendship with her. Frank

Eardley knew too well his own position and the girl's destiny to attempt to convert this friendship into any stronger alliance; and May, who appreciated the state of affairs with equal correctness, made the kindly artist the confidant of many of her hopes and fears. Of Lord Forestfield, who proposed to Miss Dunmow very shortly after his return from a protracted residence abroad, Frank Eardley knew nothing; but he saw enough of him during the few weeks previous to the marriage, to make up his mind that the intended bridegroom was by no means all that could be looked for in the husband of so charming a girl. What May required to guide her aright was a man of sound common sense with a very light hand, who would keep herself sufficiently in check while never allowing her to feel the curb; a man to whom she could look up with respect and admiration, and to whom she could defer even when her wishes were most strongly engaged, knowing that he would be in the right. To Eardley, Lord Forestfield's character seemed wholly different from this: he was at the same time narrow-minded and impetuous, with a strong belief in himself, and an undisguised contempt for the opinion of others. Moreover, the clubs rang with rumours of his previous life, and of his ideas as to domestic loyalty; which argued but ill for the future peace of mind of the girl whose lot in life he was destined to control. After their marriage, Eardley had seen but little of them. He paid his duty call, but May's suggestion that he should be asked to dinner was met with a prompt negative from her husband, who declared his intention of eliminating all 'such kind of people' from his house. They met, however, pretty frequently in society, and though May, in obedience to Lord Forestfield's wishes, restricted her conversation with her old friend to ordinary conventionalities, Eardley saw from her manner that she was unhappy, and soon gathered from general gossip that she was ill-treated. He had seen so many affairs of this kind, that when the gossip further informed him that Lady Forestfield was avenging herself, the kind-hearted artist was thoroughly sorry, but very little surprised. 'Tul'asvoulu,GeorgesDandin,' he muttered to himself with a shrug, as the purveyor of scandal left his studio to proceed further on his self-imposed generous mission. 'I guessed it would come to that, and there is no use in my attempting to stop

this stream of poached filth which floods the middle street, which that rascal who has just left is assiduously helping in its course;' but he did what he could to stem the current nevertheless, and there were some people who hesitated to believe the stories whispered against Lady Forestfield's fair fame, simply because Frank Eardley declared them to be false.

He told all this in his simple quiet manner to his friend as they sat over their bottle of claret in the calm evening.

'I have not seen Lady Forestfield since the smash,' he said, 'though, of course, I would do anything in the world I could to be of service to her. But,' he added, looking steadily at Uffington, 'I don't believe, Nugent, in interference in such matters, at all events by men. I am delighted to think that she has Eleanor Irvine with her. A straightforward right-thinking girl like that, whatever the Mrs. Grundys may choose to say, cannot come to any grief herself in keeping up her old friendship with this poor lady, while she may be the means of doing her an infinity of good; but a man who sought to take up any position in the matter would only compromise Lady Forestfield and himself; and is far better out of the scrape. Don't you think so?'

'Yes,' said Sir Nugent; 'it depends a good deal on the kind of assistance intended, and upon the manner in which it is proffered; but I think upon the whole you are right. Now let us go.'

Nevertheless, when he found himself alone in his chambers, thinking over the occurrences of the previous night, and over all that he had so recently heard of Lady Forestfield's trials and temptations, the desire to know something more of her and of the league which bound Eleanor Irvine to her arose more strongly than ever within him. He had chosen to express his agreement with what Frank Eardley had said about interference, partly in order to avoid a further discussion on the subject, and partly that he might not be suspected of carrying out his decided intention of moving in the matter. If he

had been called upon to define the impulse which prompted him he could not have done so; but he had a vague idea that he might be able in some way and at some future time to be of assistance to this stricken woman; and under that influence he sat down and wrote the following letter:

'The Albany, Thursday night.

'Dear Lady Forestfield,--I have just returned to England, after a long absence, and, as is usually the case with wanderers, find that many of my familiar friends are no longer here to greet me, and many of the houses where I once was welcome are now in the hands of strangers. In my early days in London, when you were a very little child, Lady Stortford was good enough to distinguish me with her notice and her friendship, and it is impossible for me ever to forget the kindness which I received at her hands. Very frequently in my travels I had looked forward with sincere pleasure to the thought of meeting her again. As this is not to be, I have ventured to ask my friend Mr. Eardley for your address, and I write to express a hope that you will allow me as your mother's old friend to call upon you.--Sincerely yours,

'NUGENT UFFINGTON.'

'That reference to Eardley,' said Uffington to himself as he folded the letter, 'will let her know that I am in full possession of the facts of her story, and am not writing under any misapprehension. Take this,' he added, giving the note to his servant, 'early in the morning; and be sure to bring me back an answer.'

The next morning he found a small hand-delivered note lying on his breakfast table amongst the correspondence which the post had brought him. He seized upon it at once, and read as follows:

'Lady Forestfield will be happy to receive Sir Nugent Uffington between the hours of three and five on this or any other afternoon.'

To his own surprise and amusement, Uffington found himself making a more elaborate toilette than usual, and at the hour named he presented himself in Podbury-street.

Hitherto he had only had slight opportunity of seeing Lady Forestfield, and he had no idea she was so beautiful. She was very simply dressed in a plain muslin morning gown, and her whole appearance coincided with the neat and modest rooms in which she was living. Uffington was struck at once with the classical beauty of her head, with her wavy dark hair, taken off from her forehead and gathered in a clump behind, with her large lustrous melancholy eyes, and with her bright fresh colour. She received him kindly, but with some embarrassment, which he endeavoured at once to dissipate.

'You will probably have been surprised at the receipt of my letter, Lady Forestfield,' he said; 'but I fear it must be self-explanatory, as I have very little to add to it in justification of my desire to see you. I have always had the keenest remembrance of Lady Stortford's kindness, at a time when her support and countenance were most valuable to me; have always had a hope of thanking her for it; and when I found that was beyond my power, I desired to thank her representative.'

'I am scarcely in that position, Sir Nugent Uffington, I fear,' said Lady Forestfield, flushing deeply.

'You are her ladyship's daughter, Lady Forestfield,' said Uffington quickly, 'and as such worthy of all respect from me.'

'I am grateful to Providence that my mother is no longer alive to see me as I am,' said May with bitter emphasis. 'It would be worse than useless for me to disguise from myself that you are perfectly well acquainted with my present position, Sir Nugent Uffington.'

'If I had not been, had your position been other than it is, Lady Forestfield,' said Nugent, 'I scarcely think I should be here now. Believe me, my earnest desire is to serve you in any possible way.'

'I am grateful to you for these expressions, Sir Nugent Uffington, but I do not see how you can aid me. There is nothing to be done,' she added with a sigh; 'I have taken my own course, and I must abide the consequences.'

'There is much to be done,' said Uffington gently, 'in mitigating the severity of your sentence, though the person with whom one has to deal renders the operation somewhat difficult.'

'I can look for no mercy at Lord Forestfield's hands,' said May, shaking her head; 'from him I can only expect the worst that could befall me.'

'Under compulsion a man has to set aside his own wishes and desires, and one might find means of making even Lord Forestfield do much that would be naturally disagreeable to him,' said Nugent. 'I know nothing of him, but from what I have heard, I cannot imagine how Lady Stortford, with her knowledge of the world, could have permitted you, child as you were, to make such a marriage.'

'Child as I was, I had a strong will of my own,' said May--'a will which I was accustomed to indulge, no matter what opposition was made to it or by whom. My poor mother, who, in this instance at least, seemed to be endowed with strange foresight, prayed me to reject Lord Forestfield's advances, urging as a reason that she was sure I was but temporarily infatuated, and that I should soon repent my determination. I would not listen to her, I would not hear a word against him; I had my own way, and--this is the result.'

'Temporarily infatuated. Was Lady Stortford right? were you, then, so deeply fascinated by this man?'

May paused an instant. 'All that you have ever heard or read of insane infatuation was nothing to mine,' she said; 'I worshipped him with all my soul. Brought up strictly as I had been, I believed there was no position in the world I would not have gladly accepted to insure always being at his side. I cannot tell,' she said, after another pause, 'why I am speaking thus freely to you, except that I have had no one in the world to open my heart to; and though I have never seen you before, I have instinctive confidence in you.'

'You will find that confidence is not misplaced,' said Uffington gravely. 'When did you first find your mother's words come true?'

'Not until some little time after she was dead, not until my husband had begun to weary of his plaything; for that I was, and nothing more. During the first months of our marriage, my life was one of perfect happiness; the man whom I adored was constant in his attentions to me; I was indulged in every whim, and flattered to the top of my bent. Money was recklessly lavished upon me, and as I had all I wished and all my pleasures were shared by my husband, my happiness was greater than even I ever deemed possible.'

'And that happiness lasted?'

'Just as long as pleased Lord Forestfield's fancy, and no longer. He told me afterwards, with much bitter frankness, that I ought to be very proud of having kept him in thrall for such a length of time, adding that he was changeable by nature, and had never before worshipped so long at one shrine.'

'What an infernal scoundrel!' muttered Uffington, under his breath. Then aloud: 'Did he break with you at once?'

'O no,' said May. 'So long as he cared for me in his own peculiar way, he had given me the fullest liberty, knowing that I never had

any thought but for him; but after he wearied of me he began to grow, or to pretend to grow, absurdly jealous. It has been truly said that there is no love without jealousy, and could I have persuaded myself that my husband's passion for me had not changed, I should not have minded jealousy and suspicion, even misplaced as his were, but should rather have regarded them as proofs of his attachment; but knowing what I did, it was easy for me to perceive that this jealousy sprang from temper, and not from love, and was a degradation instead of what it would otherwise have been, a tribute.'

'Your sad experience seems to have taught you much,' said Uffington, looking at her compassionately.

'So I thought myself; and yet it failed me in my direst end,' said May. 'My sad experience stripped the mask from my demigod, and showed him to me as he was, simply a libertine, cold, selfish, and exacting. Having no fault to find with me, save that I had failed any longer to please or amuse him, he vented his rage on me under the frivolous pretext of being jealous, when he knew that I had no eyes or voice for any one in the world but him.'

'To a man of this stamp the possession of such a wife must always be a matter of congratulation; he must at least have been proud of you, though you say you no longer pleased his fancy.'

'I suppose so,' said May sadly; 'for though his insults to me in private were constant and unsparing, he always paraded me in public, and seemed to look upon me as a portion of his state. There came a time when these insults were not confined to our private interviews, when he would not scruple to outrage and humiliate me before our own acquaintances, and those acquaintances did not hesitate to say that he wanted to get rid of me. This, of course, I did not know until later. Up to that time I had suffered silently, hoping, believing that some change would take place, that what I still fancied had been his genuine love for me would return, and that all would go on as in the first days of our marriage; but when I found

from looks and half-dropped hints that I had become a subject of pity for my friends, my pride stepped in to my assistance, and I revolted.'

'The old story,' muttered Nugent Uffington, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking more to himself than his companion; 'that was the time when above all others you wanted some one at hand to help and sustain you.'

'You are right,' said May. 'And some one was there, though with other plans and other motives. My pride was outraged, my heart was lacerated, and there was some one ready if necessary to avenge the one and to bind up the other, to sympathise, sentimentalise, and console.'

'Always so, always so!' muttered Uffington. 'And you accepted this sympathy and consolation?'

'Not at first,' said May. 'Stung to madness though I was by mingled pride and sorrow, I still kept my senses sufficiently to discern the fatal gulf that lay before me, and to feel hurt and grieved at the condolence, glossed over as it was in the most specious manner, which was offered to me. But the man, who for his own purposes had constituted himself my champion, from long practice knew every trick and turn of the game he was playing, and was thoroughly well aware of the advantage of waiting. He waited--and won! That is my story, Sir Nugent Uffington. I have told it to you-not because I thought you could in any way assist me, but because I felt it would be a relief to tell it in my own way to any one who could understand it, and because you are the only person of what was once my own social standing--save one, who is even more powerless than yourself--who for weeks has spoken a kind word to me.'

Uffington bowed his head, but affected not to notice that tears were streaming down Lady Forestfield's face. He did not choose to speak for an instant; indeed, he had but little to say--he knew well

enough from his own past experience that in such a wreck as that which she described all future hope was almost necessarily lost, and that of the débriswhich after a time came floating to the surface nothing serviceable could be made. He knew this, and acknowledged it in his own mind, but did not choose at once to acknowledge it to her, so asked her, when he saw that the tears had ceased to flow and that she was somewhat more composed, 'Can anything be done?'

'Nothing,' she replied quietly--'nothing at all. So far as the world is concerned my life is ended. When my child was taken from me I grieved bitterly; now I acknowledge the wisdom of the sentence, and am grateful to Providence that her life was not spared--better far she should be dead than that she should have grown up to know me as I am, and be parted from me, living.' And once more she broke down and buried her face in her hands.

'I am not sure even now that I cannot be of some service to you, Lady Forestfield,' said Uffington, after a pause; 'but my plan, if I form one, will require consideration, and cannot be proceeded with hastily. In the mean time, you can thoroughly depend on my warm friendship and readiness to help you in any way suggested. By the way, you alluded to a friend who has seen you in your trouble. You will not think me impertinent in asking if you were referring to Miss Eleanor Irvine?'

'Yes,' said Lady Forestfield, 'I alluded to Miss Irvine. I have known her for years, and am very much attached to her. Have you ever met her?'

'I dined in her company the night before last, and judged, from something she said, that she was a warm friend of yours.'

'She comes to see me every day,' said Lady Forestfield; 'that is to say, she has done so up to this time.'

'And is she going to discontinue her visits?'

'I fear I must insist upon her doing so,' said May.

'And why? You must find them a pleasant break in the monotony of your life.'

'They are far more than that to me,' said May, 'but when Eleanor was here last, I discovered quite accidentally that she visits me without the knowledge of her sister, with whom she lives, and to whom she is much indebted. Then, for the girl's own sake, I spoke out frankly. I told her this must not be, and that she must either tell her sister where she came to daily, or cease seeing me. Did not I do right?'

'Quite right in theory, but in practice I think you were a little too punctilious towards Mrs. Chadwick, who, though a practical, wellmeaning woman, would scarcely be able to appreciate the delicacy of your motives.'

'Let all my misery rest on my own head,' said May. 'I am very fond of Eleanor Irvine, her visits are inexpressibly precious to me, and yet I have doubted whether I ought to let her come to this house.'

'I have not the slightest doubt in the matter,' said Uffington; 'on the contrary, I am certain that from you and from your valuable experience of life, Miss Irvine will learn to avoid much which may be before her in that curious position in society which she now occupies.'

And then he took his leave, promising to see Lady Forestfield again very shortly.

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Eardley lived in St. John's Wood, in a quaint fantastic house which he had built after his own design, on a plot of land which he bought because the situation pleased him. There were big elm-trees in the neighbourhood, peopled by a colony of rooks; and the grounds were so disposed as to shut out all inquisitorial prying, and give plenty of space for Mr. Eardley and his friends to wander about in the eccentric costume which in the privacy of his home the artist rather encouraged, without leading his neighbours to believe that a private asylum had been opened on the premises. Mr. Eardley was a great lover of nature, and even in the height of the season, when the severest calls upon his time were made by duty and pleasure, he invariably found leisure to devote some portion of the day to strolling in his garden, and enjoying the sight and scent of the flowers which had either been planted by his own hands, or under his direction.

The interior of the house was as quaint and fantastic as the exterior, and was furnished and painted in a manner which was pronounced 'perfectly charming' by the ladies, and 'deuced odd' by their husbands. Anything more entirely different from an ordinary mansion arranged by the upholsterer with an unlimited order it would be difficult to conceive. The hall, the passages, and most of the rooms were hung with tapestry, and, where there was wall paper, it was in the wondrous colours and strange devices which Mr. Eardley and his friends occupied their leisure in inventing. Ordinary chairs and tables there were none, but in the course of a stroll through the rooms you would come upon old carved chests; priedieus; stately, high-backed, black-oak chairs, the spoil of some Elizabethan manor-house; couches covered with Utrecht velvet, and odd short seats, like the 'settles' in the porch of a country tavern, only in elaborately-carved oak. The walls, the tables, the ledges of the book-cases, were all laden, and throughout the house there seemed to be no vacant space. Objects of art lay about in

extraordinary confusion and disorder; the light was reflected from steel mirrors, Venetian glasses, and old looking-glasses with china frames; from ancient armour, in which the rust was gradually eating away the gold and silver niellowork; from Damascus blades and Persian tulwars and Albanian yataghans. Here were Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses smirking painfully at hideous porcelain monsters from China and Japan; a buhl clock on which Louis Quatorze had been accustomed to look was flanked on either side by a coffee-coloured pug-dog in china, while over it was suspended a Japanese paper-lantern; a gauntlet, with the blood and rust of Naseby field for ever eaten into it, lay on a mosaic slab in the immediate vicinity of a carved ivory set of chessmen; and a pair of Moorish slippers had for their supporters on the one side a fan painted on chicken-skin which had once been the property of a beauty of the Regency, and on the other a plaster-of-paris caricature statuette of M. Thiers, by Danton.

At the very time that Frank Eardley was making his way to the Albany, for the purpose of inducing Sir Nugent Uffington to accompany him to the china sale at Dossetor's, and to spend the rest of the day with him, as already recorded, Mr. Spiridion Pratt pulled the loud-sounding bell of the Villa--for such was the name of the artist's house in St. John's Wood--and awaited its answer by Eardley's Italian valet, who was held in high respect by his master's intimates.

'Good-morning, Gaetano,' said he, when the man appeared. 'Is Mr. Eardley at home?'

'No, signor,' replied the valet; 'he started out about half an hour ago.'

'Indeed!' said Spiridion, shaking his head with a smile. 'Is this the way he makes up for the time lost during the season? I am afraid the master is growing idle again, Gaetano?'

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.