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 _intrigué_ about 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 _fade_ nonsense 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 _beaux yeux_, 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 _preux
chevaliers_ than the purest bred among us.'
'Very likely,' said Eardley, 'but a dropped _h_ grates 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
Clipstone-street 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 '_Au revoir!'_ 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-of-fact 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 _rococo_ and 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.