THIS LOT TO BE SOLD.
May Forestfield was brought back to her lodgings in
Podbury-street--how she never knew. The maid, whose devotion had
brought such obloquy upon her, half helped, half carried her mistress
down the avenue, and at the lodge they found the fly which had brought
them from Crawley. All the way to the station, and in the railway
carriage up to town, May lay in a half-comatose, half-hysterical
state; and when she had reached her lodging, and was once more
installed in her clean and pretty, if not luxurious, bedroom, it was
plain to the maid and to Mrs. Wilson that Lady Forestfield was 'in for
an illness' of some kind or other. Their predictions were speedily
verified. When the maid visited her mistress next morning, she found
her in a burning fever, so far advanced that her utterances were
already half delirious. The girl, who was tolerably bright, as well as
thoroughly devoted, remembered that in one or two cases of slight
illness, under which Lady Forestfield had suffered in Seamore-place, a
fashionable physician, Dr. Chenoweth, had been called in to attend
her. By the aid of the Blue-Book his address was obtained, and the
maid started off in a cab to beg an immediate visit from him.
Dr. Chenoweth was something more than a fashionable physician; he was,
like most of his brethren with whom the present writer is acquainted,
a gentleman, kind-hearted, self-sacrificing, and benevolent to a rare
degree. He knew all about the story of Lord and Lady Forestfield.
There were few scandals of any kind which did not come to his ears, to
be listened to generally with a smile and a shrug, to be repeated
sometimes--for there are certain patients to whom gossip is better
than medicine, and to whom the sound of the doctor's cheery voice is
of more service than his learned prescriptions--but never to be
allowed to militate in his mind against those who were the subjects of
them. Dr. Chenoweth thought it not at all improbable that in visiting
Lady Forestfield he might affront some of his most important patients;
for the affair had been much discussed, and it is needless to say that
few partisans ranged themselves on poor May's side. He knew nothing of
the pecuniary circumstances in which Lady Forestfield was then placed,
and would not have been surprised had they been such as possibly to
preclude the payment of his fees; he only recollected May Dunmow, the
pretty child whom he remembered riding with her father Lord Stortford
in the Row, and at whose wedding at St. Andrew's, Wells-street, he, an
old and intimate friend of the family, had been present. Dr. Chenoweth
accordingly bade his servant tell the messenger that his first visit
that day would be to Podbury-street.
May Forestfield had a very sharp attack; indeed, for more than a
fortnight she lay between life and death. Dr. Chenoweth's earliest and
latest visits were paid to her, and two professional nurses, hospital
sisters--skilled and attentive women who have succeeded to the Gamp
and Prig creatures--relieved each other in daily and nightly watch at
her bedside. When, however, one morning in the beginning of the third
week of her illness, May opened her weary eyes, and for the first time
was able to recognise things around her, her glance fell, not upon any
hired attendant, but upon the upturned face of a pretty girl; a
delicate, pensive face surrounded with shining fair hair, a face
which, though half strange to her, seemed to bring back pleasantly
familiar recollections of long ago.
The girl's attention was at once attracted by the movement of the
patient, and she rose from her seat and placed herself quietly by the
bedside.
'It is Eleanor,' murmured May, raising her hand to shade her eyes; 'it
must be Eleanor, and yet how can she be here? My head throbs, and I
feel as though I were yet in a dream. Speak to me and say whether you
are really there.'
'It is Eleanor,' said the girl, bending over the bed and smoothing the
rumpled pillow; 'it is Eleanor, and you are in no dream, dear Lady
Forestfield; but I must implore you not to talk now. Dr. Chenoweth has
left the strictest orders that you should have no excitement, and, for
your own sake, I must see that he is obeyed.'
May made no resistance; the mere effort of speech had completely
exhausted her; and she sank back into a slumber, during which, as her
gentle nurse noted with pleasure, her breathing was regular and her
whole manner devoid of the feverish restlessness which had
characterised her slumbers during her illness. When, after a couple of
hours' peaceful repose, May again opened her eyes, she recognised her
companion in an instant, and in a clearer and firmer voice spoke to
her at once.
'I know you now, Eleanor,' she said, 'but even now I cannot account
for your presence here. I know perfectly well I am at Mrs. Wilson's
lodgings in Podbury-street, but that knowledge does not account for
your presence. My head is heavy and my limbs horribly weak and
languid. I feel as though I had gone through an illness.'
'You have gone through a very severe illness, dear Lady Forestfield,'
said the girl, fanning the patient's face with a huge palm-leaf, on
which she had previously sprinkled some drops of scent, 'and even now,
though I am delighted to see you recognise me, and to hear your own
well-remembered voice once again, I must warn you that you are only in
the very earliest stage of convalescence. It will be brave news for
Dr. Chenoweth when he comes to-night, for though he anticipated your
recovery, he did not think it would commence so soon.'
'Have I, then, been so very ill?' asked May.
'For more than a fortnight you have lain here so completely prostrated
with fever that the doctor would not answer for you from day to day.
Now, however, thank God, we may think that all danger is passed.'
May buried her face in the pillow and was silent for some minutes.
When she looked up again there were traces of tears upon her cheeks.
'And during all that time,' she whispered, stretching out her thin wan
hand, 'you, dear Eleanor, have been my nurse.'
'I have been here off and on for the last ten days,' said the girl. 'I
did not hear of your illness until some little time after you had been
attacked, or, of course, I should have been with you before.'
'And how did you hear of it?' asked May.
'In a very curious way,' said the girl. 'It appears that in
your delirium--you must not mind my mentioning it, dear Lady
Forestfield--you talked about all kinds of curious things, declared
that you were destitute, and that your only means of supporting
yourself would be by painting pictures for your livelihood. In
connection with this you mentioned the name of your old
drawing-master, Mr. Irvine, who, you said, could speak as to your
capability in art. Your frequent repetition of this name attracted the
attention of Dr. Chenoweth, who was an old friend of my poor father,
and who still keeps up his acquaintance with my sister, Mrs. Chadwick.
He knew I was staying at their house, and one day, when he was calling
there, he took me aside before my sister came down, and told me how
very ill you were; told me, moreover, that while you were carefully
and assiduously attended by the good people in this house, he thought
that when you came to yourself--a period which he anticipated, but for
which he could fix no date--it would be a comfort to you if your eyes
could fall upon a face which you had known in--in happier times, and
of which you had nothing but pleasant reminiscences. I understood him
at once. I told him I thought I could say there had been no cloud upon
the friendship with which you had once honoured me; and I came here
that day with a letter from the doctor, which secured me a pleasant
reception from Mrs. Wilson.'
May's heart was too full to speak. She pressed the young girl's hand
and fell back dreamily on the pillow, grateful to the Providence
which, in the midst of her complete abandonment, by those who in her
prosperity she had imagined were devoted to her, had sent her one
friend to prove that the old-fashioned sentiment called gratitude,
mocked at and ignored nowadays, yet existed.
It was a strange history, that of the friendship between these two
young women, so different in birth and surroundings. Eleanor's father,
Angus Irvine, the son of a small Scotch farmer, had at an early age
evinced such artistic talent as to attract the attention of the old
Lord Stortford, the great landowner of the district, who purchased two
or three of the young lad's early sketches, and better still,
furnished him with the means of establishing himself for two or three
years as an art student in Rome. The good which the young man here did
for himself (on his first arrival his tastes and sympathies, quickened
by the ever-present daily surroundings, so fired his eye and nerved
his hand that old Roman colonists, whose judgment had been tempered by
time and experience, predicted the greatest things of him) was not
without a certain counterbalance of evil. The loose life led by many
of his Bohemian companions, the gatherings at the Caffè Greco, the
_soirées intimes_ of men and women at which he was a constant guest,
had a baleful effect on the hitherto strictly-kept Scottish youth, and
his name was scarcely known in the art circles of Rome before a rumour
ran round that Angus Irvine was following in the footsteps of so many
other young men of promise, and was becoming dissipated, not to say
drunken. The rumour was harsh and exaggerated, and it had an
exaggerated and harsh effect. He was a mere boy after all, this gaunt
beardless youth of two or three and twenty, and a few glasses of wine
had unwonted power on one who, in the seclusion of his mountain home,
had been brought up a strict abstainer; and had the censorious left
him in peace, it is probable that, so far as the drink was concerned,
he would soon have got the better of his newly-acquired freedom, and
settled down to a steady plodding life. As it was, when he learned--as
he did speedily--that his conduct had become the subject of
conversation amongst a certain set, he received the news with an
outbreak of wrath, which, cooling down, was supplanted by a sturdy
Scotch obstinacy, under which he determined to 'gang his ain gait,'
and to treat the animadversion of his detractors with contempt. He
laboured fitfully thenceforward, turning out now brilliant work, now
pictures which, though undeniably possessing genius, were hurried and
scamped; his doing of that which he ought not to have done was more
regular, while his drinking was harder than ever.
Suddenly there came a change. Angus Irvine received a letter from Lord
Stortford intimating a desire that he should come to London, it being
the old lord's wish to see his protégé settled and striving for the
honours of the Academy before he died. Irvine was sensible enough to
know that this was the turning-point of his fate, and that if he
neglected such an opportunity he would have no other chance. He was
aware of his lamentable failing, and was determined to seize on and
overcome it there and then; and being a man of great power of will and
determination, he was able to carry out his intention. He started for
England within a few weeks, and immediately on his arrival paid a
visit to his patron. The old nobleman was delighted with the modest
demeanour and brilliant conversational powers of the young artist; he
introduced him to his son, Mr. Dunmow, a young man of about Angus's
own age, who had already made a brilliant figure in Parliament, and
who was about to be married to a charming girl, to whom Angus was also
made known. He presented him to the leading art critics and
connoisseurs of the day, from some of whom the young Scotchman
received valuable commissions; and when, in the course of a couple of
years, Lord Stortford heard from Angus of his approaching marriage
with a young lady, the daughter of a brother artist, the old nobleman
was scarcely less happy than he had been at his own son's wedding,
which had taken place a year previously, and he bestowed a substantial
mark of his regard upon the bride and bridegroom.
Years went on, and after a lapse of some sixteen or seventeen of them,
the two pretty girls who had been born to Mr. and Mrs. Irvine were
growing into young women, and Angus Irvine himself, his constitution
undermined by excesses of all kinds, was rapidly lapsing into a broken
elderly man; for within a very few years of his marriage, so soon as
the joys of domesticity were beginning to pall upon him, he found
delight in the loose and brilliant society only too ready to welcome
him; the old desire for drink came upon him, and he yielded to it with
scarcely a struggle. All the young fellows about town were delighted
to have the company of Angus Irvine, who talked so brilliantly, and
sung the homely Scotch ditties with such exquisite pathos; who could
brew a bowl of punch as quickly and as deftly as he could sketch a
delicious caricature, and who never minded to what hour of the morning
he sat up. Nor did this cheery convivialist confine himself to men's
society, or blush to be seen driving in the carriages or seated in the
opera-boxes of some of the most noted improprieties of the time. Old
Lord Stortford was dead; but his son and his son's wife, and the
friends to whom they had introduced their northern protégé, shook
their heads dismally, prophesied Angus's ruin, and wondered what Mrs.
Irvine would do.
Mrs. Irvine settled that question within a very few months. She was a
meek little woman, devoted to her Angus, with a sweet temper and a bad
constitution; and when she found that she was deserted by her husband,
and that the establishment generally was going to ruin, she thought
the best thing she could do was to die--and she did it off-hand. The
shock of her death sobered the poor wretch for a time. He had long
since given up all hope of selling, or indeed of painting, any more
pictures; his muddled brain and unsteady hand forbade that; but Lord
Stortford and a few other gentlemen who had known him in better times
had engaged him as drawing-master to their children, more for the sake
of bestowing a small annuity on him than from the idea of any good to
be obtained from his instruction, and he now saw his way to a new
method of money-making.
His elder daughter, Fanny, who was eighteen years of age, inherited
from him a remarkably sweet voice, and sung Scotch ballads with all
the taste and pathos which had been so much applauded in her father.
This was a talent which it struck Angus should be cultivated, and
accordingly, by Lord Stortford's aid, he procured her _entrée_ as a
pupil at the Academy of Music, and, after a few years' instruction,
she made her _début_ as a concert-singer with considerable success.
The talent of one daughter having been thus utilised, Angus Irvine
thought it time that the younger, Eleanor, should take her turn at
bread-winning. What to do with her was the crux. Eleanor had a good
speaking voice, but no ear and no musical talent; neither of the
children had inherited her father's artistic ability, and the
education which they had received, though fair enough, was not
sufficient to qualify them to act as governesses in the present day,
when ladies, possessed of every possible accomplishment and willing to
accept next to nothing, are advertising for situations.
What occurred to him as a happy thought at length flashed into Angus
Irvine's brain--he would make his girl an actress! She was really
good-looking--much handsomer than many of those women whom he used to
know in the old time, and who drew large salaries. He could get her
taught to speak by a professional elocutionist, and she would soon be
able to contribute to the household expenses.
When this plan was mooted to Eleanor, her horror was extreme. She
implored her father not to attempt to carry it out, declared her
readiness to undertake any kind of service, no matter how menial, but
spoke in such piteous terms of the degradation she should feel in
having to appear before the public, that the Angus Irvine of a few
years before would not have required her to speak twice on the
subject. Now, however, drink and misfortune had rendered him callous;
he released himself from his daughter's weeping embrace, and bade her
make up her mind to what he had decided. In an agony of terror and
fright, the girl rushed off to the one person in London whom she knew
to be a true and influential friend of her father's, Lord Stortford,
and told him all, imploring his interference on her behalf. Lord
Stortford was greatly touched at the girl's entreaties, and after a
consultation with his wife, he called on Angus Irvine, and, without
hinting at his interview with Eleanor, said that he had a plan to
which he requested Mr. Irvine's sanction. This was that Eleanor should
come to and live in Grosvenor-square as companion to his daughter May.
This proposition suited Angus Irvine very well. He would be rid of the
very moderate expense entailed upon him by Eleanor, who would hand
over to him the liberal salary she was to receive in consideration of
her services; so that he made no objection, and the next week saw
Eleanor installed as May's companion in Grosvenor-square, where, a
great friendship having grown up between the girls, she remained for
eighteen months, until May's marriage with Lord Forestfield.
Later in the afternoon of the first day of her convalescence, May
renewed her conversation with her friend.
'You must have thought it very unkind of me, dear,' she said, placing
her hand in Eleanor's, 'that notwithstanding our great intimacy, and
the love and affection I had from you in Grosvenor-square, I have
scarcely taken any notice of you since my marriage.'
'Not at all, dear Lady Forestfield,' said Eleanor. 'I never imagined
that that intimacy, pleasant as it was to me, could be kept up. You
were not out during the most part of the time I was with you, you must
remember, and after your marriage I knew that you would take up your
position in society, which involved innumerable claims upon you, and
would form your own circle of friends.'
'From which circle,' said May, with a sigh, 'I omitted you, the very
best of them, the only one who has remembered me in my time of
trouble. I think you said you were staying with your sister? Where is
Mr. Irvine?'
'Papa has been dead for nearly a twelvemonth,' said Eleanor, glancing
down at her black dress. 'He was ill, if you recollect, just before
your marriage, and he never recovered, but faded gradually away.'
'I wish my poor papa had been alive to help him,' said May; 'he would
have seen that his old friend wanted for nothing.'
'I am sure of that,' said Eleanor; 'but, fortunately, my sister was
enabled to take care of her father in his last illness. She was
married a few months before his death to a very rich man.'
'Indeed!' said May. 'Who is he?'
'His name is Chadwick,' said Eleanor. 'I suppose he would be called a
tradesman, for he is the senior member of a firm which employs
hundreds of men in making boilers and engines for steam vessels. He
attends to business himself, and is every day at his works, which are
down the river somewhere; but they live in a splendid house in
Fairfax-gardens, and Fanny now receives and goes into a great deal of
what I suppose is called excellent society.'
'I recollect having heard of Mrs. Chadwick's parties, now you mention
the name,' said May, 'and of their having some specialty, but what it
is I cannot remember.'
'They are very grand, very hot, and, I believe, considered very
splendid,' said Eleanor; 'but I do not know that there is anything
particular about them, unless it be the presence of a large number of
artists of different kinds--painters and musical people I mean. Fanny
always takes occasion to say that she never forgets the class of which
she was once a member, but I am bound to say her recognition of them
is something too like patronage for my taste.'
'And you live with Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick, Eleanor? and you are happy?'
'Yes,' said Eleanor, 'I suppose so.'
'That was but a half-hearted answer,' said May. 'Are you really happy?
You, used to speak frankly to me in the old days; are you frank now?'
'I never could be otherwise with you, dear Lady Forestfield, and I
will tell you plainly that just now I have some cause for discomfort.
The general life at Fairfax-gardens is not particularly suited to my
taste; but everybody is especially kind to me, and I should make no
complaint, were it not that recently Fanny seems to have made up her
mind to carry out a project with which I am greatly concerned, and to
which I have a strong objection.'
'This project is, of course, to marry you,' said May, 'to some friend
of her own?'
'Not particularly a friend of hers,' said Eleanor, 'but a man of
fashion, and for the matter of that, a celebrity, a connection with
whom would, she thinks, be advantageous.'
'And you don't care for him?' asked May.
'Not in the faintest degree,' replied Eleanor. 'He is very clever,
very agreeable, and particularly polished and courteous in his manner
towards women; a little too polished perhaps,' she added.
'May I ask his name?' said Lady Forestfield. 'Certainly,' said
Eleanor, with a smile. 'It is a curious one, but his mother or
grandmother--I do not know which--was originally Greek: his name is
Spiridion Pratt.'
Lady Forestfield started. 'Spiridion Pratt!' she echoed; 'I think I
know him; there could not be two men of that name.'
'O, he knows you,' said Eleanor; 'he has been to your house; he was
taken there by Mrs. Hamblin.'
'Exactly,' said Lady Forestfield; 'I remember now.'
'Do you dislike him?' asked Eleanor, looking up astonished at her
friend's evident embarrassment.
'I know--I know very little of Mr. Pratt. And it is to him that your
sister wishes to marry you?'
'Yes,' said Eleanor. 'And from what little you do know of him, you
think I am right in objecting, do you not?'
'I don't say that, dear,' said May, 'but I certainly do not think you
are wrong.'