Two, by Tricks: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

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.'