CHAPTER XII.

AN ODD FRIENDSHIP.

It was not in a spirit of idle curiosity that Sir Nugent Uffington induced May Forestfield to talk to him on the events of her past life, and to accustom herself to talk to him without the slightest reserve as to her hopes and fears. That he was deeply interested in her he had long since allowed to himself; but dreamer and idler as he had been throughout his life, he began to feel that all this interest was of no avail unless he could turn it to practical use. How that was to be done, how he could render any assistance to a woman in such a forlorn situation, he could not for a long time divine; and when after giving himself up to much solitude and the smoking of innumerable pipes, he at length hit upon what he considered was best to be done, he had to confess to himself with much shame that he had not yet discovered the way to do it.

For the carrying out of his project it was not merely necessary that he should make Lord Forestfield's acquaintance, but that he should cultivate a certain amount of intimacy with that distinguished nobleman; and when Uffington had got over what seemed to him the superhuman task of forcing himself to consent to such an intimacy, he had still to encounter the practical difficulty of finding out where Lord Forestfield was. The only thing to be learned with any certainty about him was that he was not in London, having quitted town the day the decree _nisi_ was pronounced; but neither at his clubs nor from the columns of those courtly journals in which the movements of distinguished personages are usually announced could Uffington learn anything of his whereabouts.

There was no reason why he himself should remain any longer in the solitude of London; the pleasure of seeing May Forestfield daily, which had been his principal attraction, no longer remained to him. In conformity with the confidence which had been established between them, Lady Forestfield had informed him of Gustave de Tournefort's unexpected visit, of the renewal of his proposals of marriage, and of the reply which she had given him. Uffington, who seemed considerably agitated when she commenced her recital, grew calm as she approached its conclusion, and told her that she had acted exactly as he would have advised her.

'I think, however,' he added, 'that if I were you I would not give M. de Tournefort another chance of going into heroics. By what I gather from you the man has some sense of decency left in him, and probably means well; but these Frenchmen are desperate fellows for theatrical display; and as he seems to have taken his departure in the thorough conviction that your accepting him was merely a matter of time and importunity, notwithstanding your very convincing refusal, it would be, I think, advisable that you should do away with any chance of his proving of farther annoyance to you by rendering it impossible for him to find your address. He will doubtless remain in town under the impression that the next time he presents himself before you, you will be in a far more complacent humour; and in order to prevent any possible chance of any such annoyance, I propose that you should leave London at once for a time.'

May was frightened to take such a step. She had become accustomed to the lodging and to the landlady, who was exceedingly kind to her; she would have, she was sure, immense difficulty in finding anything that would suit her as well. The very fact of London being empty made it pleasant to her, as she was enabled to walk out or to drive in a hansom cab in the evenings and get the air without the fear of being seen. She would much rather remain where she was; she did not think there was any chance of M. de Tournefort attempting again to see her; and even if he did she would not have the least difficulty in acting as she had done on the previous occasion, and letting him see that his pursuit must be fruitless. But Uffington was equally determined on his side; he combated all she had to say, told her there were scores of pretty places in which she could pass a few weeks in the utmost retirement under an assumed name, without the smallest attempt being made to penetrate her identity. He acknowledged that she was perfectly able to cope with any farther attempt on De Tournefort's part; but added that what gave him the most uneasiness, and in his mind rendered it imperative that she should at once seek change of scene, was the fact that she was growing pale and thin. It was evident that, accustomed as she had been all her life to a vast amount of air and exercise, the deprivation of both which she had recently undergone was beginning to tell seriously upon her health, and it was absolutely necessary that she should at once have some change. When May's reluctant consent had been obtained, Uffington, determined that she should have no excuse for delay in carrying out the project, set to work himself. In a few days he had secured for her some rooms in a farmhouse, in a river-side village within thirty miles of London, but far removed from any of the haunts of society; and within a fortnight the Mrs. Murray who entered upon the occupation of these rooms was well known by sight to nearly all the villagers, who highly approved of her pretty appearance and gentle manners, without having the slightest idea that she and the Lady Forestfield, of whose atrocious behaviour they had read in the penny weekly journal which had found its way into some of their homesteads, were identical.

When he had seen her safely off, and felt that with her departure London had no farther attraction for him, Nugent Uffington thought it was time for him to make a start. He knew that in his early days Lord Forestfield had been a great yachting man; and thought, though he no longer owned a vessel, he might probably be sailing with some acquaintance, yachtsmen of the present day being peculiarly susceptible to the charms of titled friends, and being willing to condone any amount of bad conduct in a member of the peerage; so he first visited the Isle of Wight, where he found Ryde and Cowes presenting a very different appearance from that familiar to them at regatta time, being now given up to stout women in alpaca gowns and flapping straw hats; their husbands, in serge suits and canvas shoes out of the slop-sellers' shops; and brown-faced batheable children.

Lord Forestfield was not there. 'Hadn't been there that season,' said old Mr. Woolsey, whom Uffington found at his usual post in the club, giving at the same time a very knowing wink, as much as to convey that he for one had not been sorry at the noble lord's absence. 'I don't think,' added Mr. Woolsey, 'that he is out sailing at all this year. People have fought rather shy of Master Forestfield since all that business about his wife; but if he is sailing with anybody, it will probably be with Spokeshave; and a nice pair they will make, for Spokeshave is about as unpopular as Forestfield himself, though from a very different cause. I heard of him in the west, and I shouldn't be surprised if you picked him up somewhere round Torquay way.'

It was no matter to Nugent Uffington where he went, and, as he was told that Torquay was pretty and the Imperial Hotel comfortable, he started off there at once. But they knew nothing of Lord Forestfield at the Imperial, for at the cozy little club overlooking the harbour; and after a stay of two or three days, during which he had enjoyed the severest idleness, Nugent was consulting Bradshaw with the view of ascertaining to what place he should next bend his steps, when he felt a slap on the shoulder, and looking up, saw Tom Lydyeard's grizzled beard and bronzed face bending over him.

'I thought I was not mistaken, though I could not see your face,' said Tom, in his great cheery voice. 'What on earth brings you to this place? You haven't got a yacht here, have you? you are not a flower-show frequenter, or an archery-fête supporter, or anything of that kind; and you don't take any interest in the fine new harbour which Sir Lawrence has built for these Torquay folk? Then what brings you here?'

'I might ask the same question of you,' said Uffington. 'I don't suppose you are particularly wedded to any of the wildly-exciting diversions you have named, and yet here you are, looking as much at home as if you lived in the place.'

'O, I am staying over at Portslade, shooting with Billy Norreys, who has got a whole houseful of people there, and I only came over because I got a confounded twist of tic last night, and have emptied my neuraline bottle.'

'You must have done a deal of shooting, or the sun must be considerably more powerful down here than it is in other parts of the country, to have turned you that colour, Lydyeard,' said Uffington, with a smile. 'You look like a young brave on the war-path.'

'This is continental painting, sir, not English work,' said Toni Lydyeard. 'I had an invitation to go North with McDiarmid; man who used to be in the regiment--you must remember him--and who has since come into a lot of money, and got the best moor, they tell me, in Aberdeenshire; but I find I am growing a little too old for that kind of gunning; I don't walk as lightly as I did, and--well, I suppose the truth is, I don't care to let the fellows see that I am ageing a bit. Pheasant-shooting I can manage easily enough; so to fill up the time between Goodwood and the last of August, when I was due with Billy Norreys, I went abroad.'

'Where did you go to?' asked Uffington, with an assumption of interest; for he was rather glad to find some one whom he liked, and who in his way amused him, to speak to.

'O, Hombourg, Baden, and all that round,' said Lydyeard. 'Never saw places so altered in my life--just like going into Hurlingham in the winter, don't you know? There are the places which one knows so well, the rooms and the gardens and the orchestra where the band plays, and the hotels and all that kind of thing, but there is nobody there; no French--not a single Frenchman or Frenchwoman, and you know what crowds there used to be--and no English to speak of only a few old boys drinking the waters for gout and that sort of thing. The whole place is filled up with Germans, sir, fat stuffy men who do nothing but eat and smoke, and fat fubsy women who do nothing but eat and knit; horrible people! very domesticated, I daresay, but I hate that sort of middle-class domesticity.'

'Well, there is one comfort, then, to think that domesticity in the upper classes doesn't trouble them very much, does it, Lydyeard?' said Uffington with a smile.

'No, by Jove, not at all,' said Tom Lydyeard. 'By the way, talking of that, you recollect my showing you Lady Forestfield at the Opera that night, when that French fellow De Tournefort was in her box paying her such attention?'

'Certainly,' said Uffington.

'Well, that affair éclatéd soon afterwards, as everybody thought it would, and Forestfield went in for a divorce, which he got.'

'Not exactly,' said Uffington. 'Lord Forestfield has hitherto only obtained the first portion of what he seeks--the decree _nisi_.'

'O, you know all about it,' said Lydyeard. 'I thought with your passion for wandering you might have rushed away immediately after I saw you, and only just returned. What I was going to say was that I came across Forestfield the other day.'

'The deuce you did!' said Uffington, now really interested; 'how long ago?'

'O, just before I came down here, about ten days since. I came home through Paris, and there I found our young friend. He must be desperately hard up for some one to speak to, I imagine, as, though I know very little of him, he seemed to make tremendous advances for my society.'

'In Paris, was he?' said Uffington. 'Do you think he is there still?'

'O yes,' said Lydyeard. 'He said he should probably remain the winter, and I should think very likely he would from all I saw and heard.'

'Where is he staying?' asked Uffington.

'Nominally at Meurice's, but he is only to be found there between five in the morning, when he goes to bed, and three in the afternoon, when he gets up. I didn't mix myself up with him much, for he isn't quite my style, as you know; but from what I hear I have an idea that he must have taken to punting again--he used to be death on that when he was quite a lad, but I understood he had quite given it up. Now he seems to have gone at it again with additional vigour. He is a bad lot anyhow, and will come to a bad end. How long are you going to stay here? Why don't you come over and see Billy Norreys? He would be delighted to give you as much shooting as you liked.'

'Thanks. I don't know Mr. Norreys, but I am happy to assume his kindness, and yours, too, in thinking of me; but I must go to town this morning by express, as I want to catch the night mail to Paris.'

'You going to Paris? Then perhaps you will come across Forestfield. If you do, take my advice, and don't play with him. I shouldn't have said anything more if you hadn't been likely to meet; but I may tell you now that I heard he was mixed up with a very shady lot.'

'Much obliged for the warning,' said Uffington, with a light laugh, 'but I don't think I have much cause for fear. At games of skill I can hold my own with most men, and I rarely, if ever, play at games of chance. And now I must go and give my servant notice to pack; so good-bye. You don't know how pleased I am to have seen you.' He shook Lydyeard's hand warmly, and left the room.

'There is something more than I can quite make out in all this,' said Tom Lydyeard, whose powers of comprehension were somewhat limited. 'It strikes me that Uffington had no idea of going to Paris when I saw him ten minutes ago, and now he is off as fast as train and boat can carry him. I wonder what his motive can be. Let me see; I told him about Forestfield and his having taken to play. Perhaps Uffington intends to bleed him. I have heard said, by fellows who have met him abroad, that he is first rate at picquet and écarté I never heard of his rooking anybody, and there is no reason why he should, as he has plenty of money of his own. Perhaps he is smitten with my lady--he seemed to take great notice of her that night at the Opera--and has gone over to shoot Forestfield; but that is quite unnecessary, for if he wants to marry her he has only to wait a little time, and she will be regularly divorced. Perhaps he wants to "avenge" her, as they say on the stage, and is going over to call Forestfield out on that account; but that sort of thing has long died out among Englishmen. I cannot make out what he is going over for, it quite beats me,' said honest Tom, 'and after all it's no business of mine;' with which remark he was in the habit of consoling himself when he found his intelligence at fault.

'Now blessings on that worthy old gentleman at Cowes Castle who was good enough to send me on to Torquay,' said Uffington to himself, as he took his seat, an hour after this conversation, in the up express, 'and blessings on the tic or toothache, or whatever it was, that knocked off a day of Tom Lydyeard's pheasant-shooting, and sent him into the town for a bottle of medicine. There is probably no other man in England who could have given me the exact information I wanted.'

He reached London in time to catch the mail, and the next morning at seven o'clock rang the great bell at Meurice's so loudly as to startle the porter, who, in his high sabots, was actively engaged with the flexible hose in drenching the glazed roof of the courtyard.

Meurice's was not a house with which Nugent Uffington was familiar; he had made a practice during his long sojourn abroad of shunning all those hotels which were generally patronised by his countrymen. At one or two old-fashioned establishments on the Quay Voltaire, the whole household would have rushed to greet his arrival, but to the porter of Meurice's he was a stranger. So much the better, he thought, as, while his luggage was being brought in, he asked if Lord Forestfield was staying in the house.

'Yes, sir,' replied the porter, 'milord has the suite of rooms number thirty-seven.'

'And milord was in them now?' asked Uffington, with a smile.

'_En effet_,' replied the porter, looking up at the clock, and perfectly comprehending the joke, 'it was probable that milord had not yet risen. Shall I give him the gentleman's name when he comes down, and say that he has been inquired after?'

'On the contrary,' said Uffington, 'you had better forget that I have ever spoken to you on the subject.'

'Parfaitement,' said the porter, whose knowledge of life was necessarily so large that he was never astonished at anything.

That day, about two o'clock, as Uffington was lounging in the courtyard, Lord Forestfield appeared with a cigar in his mouth, for which he was seeking a light. He searched two of the china match-boxes standing on the round zinc tables outside the reading-room window without effect, for they were empty, and he was turning round to curse the waiter, when Uffington offered him a light from his cigar.

Lord Forestfield took the light, and, after returning the cigar and touching his hat, was moving away, when Uffington said, 'I think I have the pleasure of speaking to Lord Forestfield? My name is Sir Nugent Uffington, and we have no doubt many common friends, among them Colonel Lydyeard, who happened to mention you were here.'

Lord Forestfield bowed. 'Very happy to make your acquaintance, Sir Nugent Uffington, I am sure,' he said. 'Heard of you very often, though you were rather before my time, and have been living abroad a good deal since, haven't you? Excellent fellow, Toni Lydyeard--liked by every one who knows him. Are you staying here?'

'Yes,' answered Uffington; 'and, so far as I can see, for some little time.'

'I shall have the pleasure, then, of seeing you again, I hope. For the present _au revoir_.' And Lord Forestfield sauntered away into his brougham, which just then drove up to the door.

He could not tell where he had seen Uffington, and yet he had some faint recollection of him. Not a pleasant recollection either, as it seemed to him, but one to which he could assign no particulars. He was very much pleased on the whole that he had been addressed, for such an experience was rare with him nowadays, and Uffington was a man who, although he had been for a long time away from England, and was looked upon as somewhat _rococo_ and bygone, was yet a member of some of the best clubs, and had been in his early days, so Lord Forestfield had heard, very highly thought of in society.

Uffington saw no more of his newly-formed acquaintance that day, but strolling in the evening into the Cirque d'Eté in the Champs Elysées, he saw the British milord in the middle of a large party of French people in the best seats in the house. There was a flush on Lord Forestfield's face, and an _empressement_ in his manner towards his next neighbour, a very handsome woman, which made Uffington suspect that he had been drinking freely. This was quite a new phase in Forestfield, whom Uffington had always heard described as of a cold, phlegmatic, cynical character; but as it chimed in well with his purpose he was not displeased to remark it. Uffington left the Cirque before the performance was over, and strolled to his hotel. On arrival, he received from the porter a note from Lord Forestfield requesting the pleasure of his company at breakfast at Bignon's the next day at one o'clock.

He went, and the breakfast was excellent. The other guests were three Frenchmen, well-dressed, _decorés_, pleasant-mannered, and, so far as is possible with Frenchmen, convivial persons. No other Englishman was present. The conversation was of the kind usual when such men are gathered together. In it Lord Forestfield took the lead, and Uffington was astonished to find that his host, who in England had the character of being very reticent, here told stories which were remarkable for their breadth as well as their length, and seemed to be looked upon by his _convives_ as a table-wit of the first order. No doubt the excellency of Bignon's cellar contributed to this result. So much wine was consumed that if Uffington's head had not been casehardened, he must have felt its effect. As it was, the deep red flush stood in Lord Forestfield's cheeks, and there was a thickness in is speech as, at the close of the repast, while they were finishing their cigars, he said to his companion, 'You are here _en garçon_, I suppose?'

'O yes,' said Uffington, with a laugh, 'here and everywhere else--I have no ties.'

'So much the better,' said Forestfield, frowning heavily; 'they are infernal things, and I, at least, have reason for saying so. However, that is neither here nor there. I must go now, but if you like to come to-night to 240 Avenue Marigny, I will introduce you to some friends of mine, and show you some life.'

'Good,' said Uffington; 'you may depend upon it, I will be there.'