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:

'"I die, but first I have possess'd; And come what may, I have been bless'd."

My now solitary life is not without its constantly recurring bitter grief, but I have the memory of Julie to fall back upon, and the knowledge that whatever sacrifice I may have made was made for one who was doubly, trebly worthy of it. But this poor girl has ruined herself for a man whom she did not care for, and merely, as it seems to me, from ignorance and want of proper guidance.'

* * * * * *

When the day came on which Lord Forestfield's petition was to be heard, May had the uncomfortable feeling of knowing that all round her were thoroughly aware of what was going on. The first post brought her a letter from Mrs. Ingram, written in charming spirits and in the most playful manner, telling her a large circle of her quondam friends who were at Hombourg often talked of her trouble, and suggesting to her, under the circumstances, the advisability of 'keeping up her pecker.' It was plain, too, that the coming event had been duly discussed in the lower regions; for although the girl who had come with her from Seamore-place, and had ever since remained in most faithful attendance on her mistress, actually said nothing, it was evident, by her extra care and solicitude, that she was endeavouring to show her sympathy with her mistress. The worthy landlady, however, showed no such reticence; she speedily found an excuse for making her way into May's presence, and when there could not refrain from half-direct allusion, half-soliloquising reference to the important events of the day; allusion which took the form of a kind of inward prayer that all things might go right, and references in which a certain 'poor lamb' played a conspicuous part. A few months since May would have shrunk from and repelled these intrusions upon her privacy, however well intentioned they might have been; but now, though they caused her a certain sense of humiliation, she accepted them as they were meant, and took care to show no signs of annoyance. The receipt of the letter from Mrs. Ingram had rather astonished her; she had been so long removed from the reach of her former companions that she imagined herself forgotten by them, as indeed she was for all good or charitable purposes; but the list of cases for hearing in the Divorce Court is one of the portions of the newspaper which these people read, and when they found the Forestfield trial among them, being generally dull and at a loss for conversation, they were glad to revive the recent scandal.

All that day May sat as though in a dream, thinking over the past and wondering what was to become of her in the future, which, as it seemed to her, was to open in complete novelty from the time the judge's decision was given. Up to the time, however disgraced and degraded she might be, she was in the eye of the law Lord Forestfield's wife. After that--nothing; nor maid, nor wife, nor widow. Her lawyer had explained to her that if the decree were granted it would only be temporary and provisional, and would need confirmation at a later period; but May was perfectly well aware that this confirmation was as good as ratified, and that her new career was virtually to commence from that date.

What that career was to be she had not the slightest idea; she had not been able to give it an instant's thought, although Sir Nugent Uffington had more than once tried to direct her attention to the necessity of settling her plans. It was a delicate subject to touch upon, and Uffington could do no more than give a hint, which May invariably avoided taking; she knew that she had an income of her own, which would suffice to keep her at least in such comfort as she was enjoying in Podbury-street, and beyond that she declined to think. It was all one to her, she felt, how she lived or where, so long only as she could enter upon an entirely new phase of existence in some place where she herself, her history, and her troubles were unknown. Uffington's teaching had had this effect upon her, that she completely despised the people with whom her youth had been passed, and was ashamed of herself for having wasted and misused such precious hours. For the rest, the future was to her a blank, without scheme and without hope.

Mr. Patten, the worthy old attorney who had the conduct of her case, and who throughout had treated her with much fatherly consideration, had promised to come down as soon as the decision had been given by the court and acquaint her with it. 'Not that there will be any doubt as to the result, Lady Forestfield,' he had said. 'By your own wish we do not appear against the application, and therein I think you are wise, as no demonstration on our part would, I fear, have any effect. I am given to understand that no defence either will be made on the part of the co-respondent; but that of course is no affair of yours. However, I will come down after the sitting of the court, and set your mind at rest.'

'Set your mind at rest' was the phrase which worthy Mr. Patten used, though never perhaps was one less applicable. It would have taken more than lay in the attorney's power to set Lady Forestfield's mind at rest; for never since the time when she was served with the citation had she been in so excited a state as on that day. It was not that she had any doubt; even had it been possible that the law could have been so strained as to refuse her husband the relief which he sought, it would have been no satisfaction to her. In her own conscience, which for the first time began to play some part in the scheme of her life, she knew herself to be guilty, and felt that retribution was due. All that she desired ardently was to know that the sentence had been pronounced, to feel that her doom had been publicly spoken, and that thenceforward she would be unheard of by the world.

Would the day never pass? Would Mr. Patten never come? The afternoon was far advanced, and May was still sitting, as she had been sitting all the morning, buried in the arm-chair which commanded a view of the street, with a little table at her elbow. On this table were some memorials of her early girlhood: the jewels which she had worn at her first ball; a photograph of herself surrounded by her bridesmaids in the drawing-room in Grosvenor-square; and almost the first present she had ever received, a double scent-bottle, which Frank Eardley had given to her years ago. She could not tell why she had brought out these things at this particular time--their association with that period of her life, when she was young and innocent, may have had something to do with it; but there they were, and between her intervals of looking out of window and listening to the approaching footsteps, May Forestfield turned them idly over and over, and seemed to derive satisfaction from looking at them.

There came a ring at the bell, and May, whose attention had been diverted from the window, started at the sound. It must be Mr. Patten at last! No, the advancing footstep on the stairs was much lighter than the solid ponderous tread of the worthy attorney. A man's foot too, but soft and active--it must be Sir Nugent Uffington, though May had reason to believe from what he had said on the previous evening that he would not call there that day. Then the door opened quickly, and May's expectant glance fell upon Gustave de Tournefort.

He came forward impetuously, but seeing that May shrank back, and held up her hand as though warning him off, he stopped short. 'You are surprised to see me?' he said.

May could not answer for a minute. Then she said, 'I am indeed surprised; I had no idea that I should ever set eyes on you again.'

'That would have been your own fault,' said De Tournefort; 'it is your own fault that I have not been with you long since. You received my letter?'

May bowed her head.

'But you sent me no answer.'

'I did not think that there was any necessity for answering such a letter,' said May firmly.

'No necessity for an answer!' cried De Tournefort. 'Do you recollect what that letter contained? In it I told you that I had heard that your husband was about to claim the aid of the law, and that in a short time you were likely to be free. I told you that I had done you a grievous wrong, and that I owed you reparation, and I pledged myself, so soon as the law had given you freedom, to make you my wife.'

'I have a perfect recollection of every word of that letter, M. de Tournefort,' said May coldly, 'and you have quoted it quite correctly.'

'And yet to such a letter as that, in which a man laid himself at your feet,' said De Tournefort passionately, 'you thought fit to send no answer.'

'The answer which I should have sent would probably have been even more objectionable to you than my silence,' said May.

'That is possible,' he cried. 'Ah, who can comprehend the eccentricity of an English prude, who will give all, yet refuse to answer a letter, and who insists on addressing her lover as monsieur.'

'Be good enough to leave this house, M. de Tournefort,' said May, rising with great dignity, though her face was pale and her lips were trembling. 'You intrude here, uninvited, and have strangely forgotten yourself since your arrival. I request that you will relieve me of your presence at once.'

'Ah, May,' cried De Tournefort, clasping his hands, and looking feelingly towards her, 'do not be so cruel to me! I apologise in the humblest manner for what I said just now; it was wicked, cruel, and unmanly, but I did not know what I was saying--I was driven mad by your harshness.'

'I do not know what kind of reception you could have expected at my hands,' said May. 'I purposely did not answer your letter, in order that there might be no chance of any misunderstanding between us. You talk to me about the offer which you made me in that letter! It was not a voluntary letter--it did not come until weeks after I had been thrust from my home, during which time you had maintained absolute silence; and when it did come, it was made, not from any love for me, but simply because you felt it due to make it, in order that you might stand well in the eyes of the world.'

'If you think that,' said De Tournefort quietly, 'I can well understand both your silence and the manner of your reception of me to-day. That letter was written in all honesty and good faith, and prompted simply by my love for you. You ought to know me well enough to recognise that I am not one of those who care much for the opinion of the world. By what you call in England respectable society I was already condemned for the part which I had played with regard to you, and no _amende_ which I could have made would have set me right with them had I required their good will. With the social _vauriens_ with whom I live such a step would have been regarded as a serious blunder, unworthy of a man with any pretensions to _esprit_. These facts themselves ought to convince you that I was in earnest, and that in making the offer I was prompted solely by my love for you; but there is a yet more potent argument, which must convince you, and that is my presence here. I told you that when you were free I would claim you for my wife. You are free now. I made it my business to learn when this case was coming on, and I came over to England on purpose to learn the result in person. To-day I have been in the law-court and heard the decree pronounced. You are no longer Lord Forestfield's wife; will you be mine?'

He had completely dropped the _dilettante_ tone, the sneering cynicism which usually characterised him, and spoke with force and heat. So earnest, so impassioned, was he, that May stood astonished at his vehemence. Even if she had misread the letter, there could now be no doubt as to the sincerity of his devotion. No desire for mere reparation could have so inspired him. Never, even in the earliest days of their wretched folly, had he spoken so strongly. Would it be possible for her to accept the future which De Tournefort proposed to her?

He saw her hesitation, and took it for a favourable sign.

'You will say "yes" to that question?' he said eagerly. 'O May, you will not refuse me what is now the one hope of my life!'

'A man's life is made up of such hopes,' she replied, after a moment's reflection, and yours is not likely to be an exception. 'It can never be, Gustave; you must never see me again!'

'Never see you again, May! Good heavens! what _can_ you mean? Never see you more, now that the worst which could happen has befallen you, and there is no one to stand by you but me!'

An odd sort of smile, a smile of more expression than had been common to May's face, passed slowly over it--a smile which would have wrung the heart of any woman who loved her and had been there to see it--as she retreated to a chair by the window, and sank into it wearily.

'No one to stand by me but _you_,' she repeated, not bitterly, but dreamily, as though she were talking to herself. 'I suppose that is true; and if so, I have less than no one: I am quite, utterly alone.'

'Only for a little while, only until the law will let me claim you.'

'Now, and then, and always, Gustave.' The expression of her face had changed; there was no avoidance, no hesitation in her manner now. She looked at him, she spoke to him steadily, but she looked years older than she had done when Gustave de Tournefort entered the room. The sight of him had changed the dream-like impossibility which had been her prevailing sense during the whole of that day into an overwhelming and awful reality. And yet in that reality he had no share. Ever since the crash had come, May Forestfield's better nature had shaken off the thrall of the guilty infatuation under which she had been held by De Tournefort, and lured to her ruin; and there had succeeded to it a bewildering wonderment as to its former existence. For many days together May never once thought of her 'lover.' Her mind was ever busy with the past, but not with his brief, terrible, fatal share in it; busy with her old home, her dead mother, her dead baby, even her husband as he used to be, with every incident of the every-day life of her lost past; full of a fond regret, agonised, though dreamy, and with intervals of incredulousness concerning her own fate--as if this dreadful thing _could not be_. But she recognised with melancholy surprise that in these reveries De Tournefort's figure had no place; and sometimes she abhorred herself as the fact forced itself upon her recognition. She had sinned before God, and ruined herself for ever in this world, for a man whom she now never thought of in any sense of association with her present or her future. What part had he had in the musings from which his entrance had roused her? Was there a trace of him among the mementoes of the past which she had collected together in this supreme hour of her life? This truth, and the full significance of it, inspired her words, and lent to her voice the calm tone of conviction as she spoke to him, without the slightest hurry or emotion, he observing her the while with astonishment, and a growing conviction that some extraordinary change had passed over her.

'Now, and then, and always. I am not a wise woman even yet, but I am at least a wiser than when you and I first met; and I know what would come of putting my fate into your hands for the future.'

'Do you mean to say that I am not to be trusted with it? That I should treat you ill? That you no longer love me?'

'I mean all these. Do you or do I deserve trust? Who can possibly know the worthlessness of the other so well as we know it--we two, who are detected accomplices. Would you ill treat me? Why should you not? What reverence or respect have I or you shown for the ties and the rights of marriage that you should observe them towards me, or believe that I would observe them towards you? No, Gustave; a wife who starts fair has little chance in what _was_ our world with a man like you. What chance would a wife have who should face the only world which would give _us_ admittance with a man like you? At least I have learned to calculate _those_ odds since I have been an outsider; at least I have come to know that no loneliness for the future could be so bad as the tremendous and hopeless misery of a marriage with the man who has a right to begin by despising me.'

'You--you utterly reject me, then?' said De Tournefort, in a voice almost inarticulate with anger. 'You think me an utter scoundrel, and you reject me?'

'Let us use no hard words,' said May gently. 'I am not blaming you, or reproaching you, or condemning you, or indeed speaking with any reference to your conduct or character. I am speaking for myself, and of myself, according to my conviction and my unchangeable resolve. Gustave, spare me any more argument or contention, and believe me--I am as firmly determined as ever I was in the days of the self-will which led me to my fate--when I tell you that I will never voluntarily see you, and that I will never, under any circumstances, speak to you again after to-day.'

'I asked you a third question, madam; I asked you whether I am to understand that you no longer love me.'

She raised her weary eyes, and looked at him mildly.

'I no longer love you,' she said. 'I cannot remember what love means. You do not understand--no man could understand, I suppose; I don't blame you--the tremendous meaning of what has befallen me. All is changed; the whole of the past is lost and dead to me. Don't mistake me,' she went on earnestly. 'If I did love you, I think I should be too wise to accept your offer. But it is over for ever. And now I must beg you to leave me; I am expecting my lawyer, to tell me the news which you have forestalled him in, and--'

A knock at the street-door interrupted her.

'No doubt this is Mr. Patten. Pray leave me.'

Gustave de Tournefort went close up to her, and spoke low and rapidly, 'I will leave you. But on the day when the decree is made absolute, you shall receive the same offer from me.'

Without another word, without any farewell from her, he left the room, and--having passed Mr. Patten on the stairs--the house.