Two, by Tricks: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

Two short weeks ago May would have welcomed this letter with eagerness, and would have accepted the proposal it contained with avidity; when the blow dealt her by her husband through Mr. Bristow's agency had fallen upon her with crushing force she would have welcomed almost any means to free herself from the thraldom which even the retention of his name seemed to imply. She felt most deeply the baseness of his conduct in continuing semi-amicable relations with her, relations such as for a long time had existed between them, up to the last moment of his leaving her for ever, and when he had planned and matured the design of casting her forth and holding her up to the reprobation of the world. Her caprice, passion, call it what you will, for Gustave de Tournefort had never been sufficiently strong to ennoble him in her eyes, or to prevent her from recognising him for what he really was--a careless libertine; but suffering as she had suffered at first, she would have been glad of any escape from the tortures of shame, degradation, and abandonment, and would have accepted his proffered hand, though knowing perfectly that what he called his heart would have no part in the alliance.

Now, however, all was changed. In the strange reaction which she had undergone under the revulsion of feeling which made her long to see her husband once again, she looked upon this letter from De Tournefort as little less than an insult. It was not a voluntary offer, she thought on reperusing it; it had been wrung from him by his yet remaining faint adhesion to that code of honour which even such men as he were bound to obey, and it was made, not from any love for her, but in order that he might stand well in the eyes of that world in which he still doubtless hoped to play many a similar part. He had 'done her a grievous wrong,' and he offered her 'reparation;' that was the keynote of the whole affair, his reading of that odious word 'duty,' which throughout her life she had always found put forward as an excuse. Had it been otherwise, had this offer been prompted by any feeling of liking or even of regard for what had occurred, it would have been made long since. He must have heard, for all that world in which he moved knew it perfectly, that she had left her home; and had there been the least spark of chivalrous feeling in him, he would have come to her at once. Her mind was speedily made up; she would not demean herself by accepting a proposition which was merely made to her out of charity, and M. de Tournefort's letter should remain unanswered.

O, the weary, weary days in Podbury-street! The getting-up, protracted until a late hour, in order to get over as much of the day as possible; the wretched little breakfast, with London eggs from fowls who lived in an area, and London milk from a cow which had not seen a green field for years; the long mornings, spent in reading in the newspaper the chronicled doings of that world in which she had once played so conspicuous a part,--records of dinners, balls, and fetes, with guest lists containing the names of persons her intimacy with whom she could scarcely even then imagine to be broken,--gossip of forthcoming arrangements at Goodwood and Cowes, in both of which places she had always held her court. The journal would drop from her hand as memory brought before her the ducal lawn, dotted all over with loveliest dresses, and ringing with merriest laughter from happily improvised luncheon parties; or a covered bit of sea-walk in front of the club-house at Cowes, where on the night of the last regatta-ball she had met De Tournefort, and listened to his impassioned pleading. Her thoughts were far away, busy with the memories of these once-happy times, but her eyes were gazing idly before her on the tradespeople flitting about from house to house, the flirtations of the stalwart and greasy young butcher with grinning Molly the cook, the heavily-laden postmen steadily pursuing their rounds, the loitering cabmen looking round for fares, and all the panorama of morning life in the great city.

In the afternoon, when the carriages were rolling about, and the little street was sonorous with the echoing double-knocks dealt on its tiny doors by huge footmen, May would sit behind the window-curtain watching all that was passing, and ever and anon drawing farther back into the shadow, as though fearful of being recognised. She had little cause for such anxiety, poor child, though in the course of the day she would see many of those with whom but a short time ago she used to be in constant association: the Duchess of Melrose, leaning back in her luxurious carriage, and surveying mankind superciliously, though not without interest, through her double glasses; Sir Wolfrey Delapryme in his mail phaeton, tooling his roan cobs; Captain Seaver on his neat hack; and Mrs. Ingram in her victoria. Mrs. Ingram had stopped in Podbury-street, and had come up to see May; it being her maxim, she said, that 'when any one had come to grief her pals should stick by her.' Kate Ingram's sympathy, however well meant, was not put in a very acceptable manner; she said that no doubt May had had a 'facer,' but that it was 'no use crying over spilt milk.' She spoke of De Tournefort as that 'foreign sportsman,' said she considered him a 'snob' and a 'cad,' and that May had done quite rightly in refusing to have anything more to say to him. She proposed to make up a little Sunday river-party of people who 'wouldn't mind, don't you know,' and to invite May to it, but she was rather pleased than otherwise when she found May quietly but firmly declined; and shortly after took her leave, promising to come again soon; a promise which she would not keep.

Once May saw her husband. Lord Forestfield drove through Podbury-street in a hansom cab, sitting well back, with his arms crossed and a pleasant smile upon his face. With her renewed feeling for him, May would rather not have seen that smile; it showed that he was happy and careless, while she was suffering such acute misery. In the eyes of the world she was the guilty one, and had to bear the consequences of her guilt; but in his own inmost mind he must know that he had been at least equally criminal, and that if it had not been for his neglect and desertion of her she would never have committed the crime for which he was now exacting so fearful a penalty.

And as she pondered over this a horrible idea flashed across her; a passage in De Tournefort's letter recurred to her mind, in which, speaking of Lord Forestfield, he had said, 'he will be at liberty to carry to its end a pursuit in which he has been long engaged.' What could that mean? What but that her husband had determined on divorcing her, with the view of marrying some one else to whom he had been long attached. Of marrying some one else! The fact that he himself was married had had no effect in preventing his forming other connections, but marriage while she lived undivorced was for him impossible; it was in that view, then, that he had determined on pursuing his vengeance to the bitter end.

The thought drove her nearly mad. She felt that she could not support it in silence, that she must go to him at once and make one final appeal. She rose and looked in the glass. Her beauty had suffered but little from what she had undergone; she was perhaps a trifle paler than usual, but Lord Forestfield had always expressed his dislike of blooming hoydens, and there was no doubt that at one time he admired her deeply and was greatly influenced by her beauty. Would he be so again? She would see.

The next day the maid, who had been sent to see her former fellow-servants in Seamore-place, returned with the information that Lord Forestfield had gone down to Woodburn. May looked upon this as a happy chance, and determined on following him there at once. She could see him more readily, could speak to him more freely, in the seclusion of Woodburn than if he had remained in town; she would go down there that very afternoon. In pursuance of this determination she set out, accompanied only by her maid, and dressed in a common gown and bonnet in order to escape any recognition. After a two hours' railway journey they arrived at Crawley, the station from which Lord Forestfield's seat was reached, and taking a fly were driven over to the gates of Woodburn Park. There they halted, leaving the vehicle to await their return. The maid, who was known to the lodge-keeper, went forward; and after learning that his lordship was there and alone, easily obtained admission for herself and friend to pass through the gates. Up the long avenue, the scene of her great reception by her husband's tenants on her return home after her marriage, May Forestfield now crept with trembling limbs and a desperate sinking at heart, her humble companion endeavouring to sustain her by well-meant though ill-chosen exhortation. Far away in the distance glimmered the house, a long low stone building, from one window of which a light was shining. So far as May could make out, this proceeded from the library, a room immediately on the left hand of the porch, to which access was perfectly easy. The thought of seeing her husband and completely humbling herself before him, and of begging, not indeed to be placed back in her old position in the eyes of the world--that she scarcely dared to wish, much more to hope--but for restoration to his favour and his love, for permission at least to pass some portion of her life in his society,--the thought of this nerved her with fresh strength, and enabled her to reach the end of the avenue. There she and her companion halted for a moment and looked around them. So far as they could make out through the deepening dusk the hall-door was open. It was May's intention to creep in there, and enter the library immediately, to throw herself at her husband's feet. By the aid of the lamp which burned on the writing-table, she could discern through the open window the dim outline of Lord Forestfield's figure bending over some papers. From time to time he looked up, and it was necessary for her to watch the moment of his absorption in order to effect her entrance unobserved.

The opportunity offered itself, and May stole quietly towards the porch. Just at that moment Lord Forestfield walked to the window and peered out into the gloom.

'Who is there?' he cried, as he observed the shrinking figure.