Two, by Tricks: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

[CHAPTER XI.]

AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.

Time to Lady Forestfield passed on a leaden wing. From her earliest youth, from her nursery and governess days, she had always been accustomed to have amusement and excitement provided for her, and she was therefore totally unused and unable almost to think for herself, even when the topics to be thought of were of the vainest and lightest character. In her happiest days she had been always at the mercy of others, even for the suggestion of the frivolities in which she proposed to pass her time; and when these frivolities were at an end and she had to rely on her own unaided exertions to get through her day--without the power of squandering money, and with the feeling that her appearance in public when not absolutely compulsory would be in bad taste--she was wretched enough indeed. Neither she nor her companions had ever had any occupation. Their reading was confined to the trashiest romances which the circulating-library clerk chose to send to them; as to the meaning of needlework in its good old-fashioned sense they had not the slightest idea. Some of them would take up a bit of braiding or embroidery now and then, when it was thought that slippers or braces would be acceptable offerings to their 'pals;' a few of them now and then made a helpless mess with watercolours, under the idea that they were painting; and one, perhaps the most impudent and fastest of the set, took to illuminating texts, a work which she performed with great skill and exquisite good taste, and which added greatly to the attractions of the fashionable church of St. Boanerges.

But May Forestfield neither braided, nor drew, nor illuminated; and as the novels of the day principally turned upon various phases of the sin for the commission of which she was suffering, she had little pleasure in perusing them. Once or twice, indeed, she tried to take up some reading of a better and more serious kind, but she found it impossible to fix her attention; her thoughts wandered away from the book, which fell idly on her lap, and she was reduced to her old condition of staring blankly before her and wondering what would be the result of her 'case.'

That case, or rather the first stage of it, was very shortly to be brought to trial; the day had been fixed, and the date had been duly communicated to her by her attorney; for although it was not her intention to offer any defence to Lord Forestfield's application for a divorce, it was yet necessary for her to have legal advice. As the time slowly wore on and that dreadful date approached, May felt that such little courage as her elimination from society and from all chance of hearing herself and her past conduct discussed had afforded her, was virtually ebbing away. So far as publicity was concerned, a more terrible crisis awaited her than even that through which she had passed, for the gossip, hard and bitter though it was, had hitherto been confined to persons of her acquaintance, or who knew of her by repute; but so soon as the case should be brought into the law-courts, it must become public property, to serve as a theme of comment for the newspapers, and all the misery of shame which she had undergone at the time of the discovery would be renewed a hundredfold.

The sense of degradation which now overwhelmed her, she had to keep within her breast; for with all her desire to pour out her sorrows to Eleanor, and with perfect knowledge of the relief which such a course would afford her, innate delicacy forbade Lady Forestfield's entering upon such a subject with a young and inexperienced girl. It was bad enough for her to know that Eleanor was generally acquainted with the circumstances which had broken up her friend's home, and thrown her into the position which she was then filling; it was quite impossible that May could enter into detail, even though certain of the sympathy and consolation which she would receive. She might, indeed, have talked the matter fully out with Mrs. Ingram, but that volatile lady had long since quitted the deserted metropolis, and was the reigning belle of a select circle of congenial spirits at Hombourg. Moreover, in her existing state of mind, May would have found no comfort in Kate Ingram's society; the style of life which she had at one time led, its interest and its pleasures, nay, its very jargon, seemed to have passed away and belonged to another portion of her existence. She was wretched enough now; shunned by those amongst whom she had formerly queened it, with but two real friends, Eleanor Irvine and Sir Nugent Uffington, in the whole wide world; and yet she somehow felt that her condition, desolate and forlorn as it seemed to be, was preferable, as being more reputable, to that which she had previously enjoyed.

It is probable that the influence which Uffington had quietly and inexplicably acquired over her contributed a great deal to this result. That influence, always exercised for her good, without any special or direct application, without the remotest possibility of wounding her, even at her most sensitive times, was exerted in destroying the baleful influence of her bringing-up and her previous surroundings, and in endeavouring to induce her to take a healthier, quieter, and broader view of life. The peculiar circumstances which had overshadowed Uffington's existence at an early period of what looked to be a very promising career had not indeed made him 'kindly with his kind,' had not opened any well of gushing sentiment and rendered him generally philanthropic. On the contrary, among his friends the fountain of his feelings was supposed to be frozen over, and it was certain that, towards the majority of his acquaintance--he never could allow to himself that any one had further intimacy with him--he maintained a sufficiently icy exterior; but there was something in May Forestfield which touched him far more deeply than he would have admitted or than he would have liked to be known.

On the first night of his seeing her, when Tom Lydyeard had pointed her out at the Opera, he felt an odd kind of interest in her, such as for years no human being had awakened in him; an interest which was strengthened when he learned that she was the daughter of the woman who had patronised his youth and offered to stand by him when the rest of the world turned their backs. Nor was this interest lessened when he learnt of the folly and sin which she had committed; crimes comparatively roughly venial in his eyes, which had seen greater wrong-doing far less visited. His experience had taught him that the critical time of all others was when the consequences of discovery first began to be felt, when all fear of the past or for the future was merged in the desperation of the present, and when, a fatal recklessness taking possession of the soul, all chance of restoration to a healthy tone was in the highest degree imperilled. Nor had the fact of having made her personal acquaintance in the manner already shown lessened Uffington's interest in May Forestfield. He found her mentally much weaker than he had anticipated; a mere child drifting hither and thither under stress of the winds of circumstance, unstable and almost purposeless; but he recognised in an instant that it was owing to this mental weakness, to this indecision and want of force of character, that she had become what she was--a deserted woman, a proscribed wife, without even the poor satisfaction of feeling that she had deeply loved and been deeply loved by the man for whose sake she had fallen.

It was with no pharisaical idea that Nugent Uffington exerted his influence without appearing to do so, to prove to May how small and contemptible had been the life in which she had so long revelled. There was very little of the repentant sinner about this grim cynic; but he had heart and brain, and he gave the men and women of the present generation very little credit for the possession of either. He, too, had outraged the law which alike is human and divine, but in his sin there had at least been some condoning element of passion; he had loved the woman whom he destroyed with his whole soul and strength, and had sacrificed position and prospects to make and keep her his. They two had been scouted by the world, but they had been all and all to each other, and had set the world at defiance; and she--she was gone now, but she had passed away in the full knowledge of his devotion; and he had the satisfaction of knowing that, unless it were for remorse, and of that she had never shown any sign to him, she had not, from the time they left England together, had an unhappy moment.

'The Giaour was right,' he said to himself one day, as he was revolving these matters in his mind: