CHAPTER XIV.

UFFINGTON'S BARGAIN.

The next morning Sir Nugent Uffington, notwithstanding the late hour at which he had retired to rest, woke early, and stretching out his hand, gathered up some papers which lay on the table by his bedside. The first in his grasp was a crumpled green telegraph form, which, being untwisted and spread out, read as follows:

'Messrs. Moss and Moss, Thavies Inn, London, to Sir Nugent Uffington, Bart., Hôtel Meurice, Paris. Richards has made over to you Woodburn mortgage. We hold it on your account. Foreclosure so soon as orders received.'

'So far so good,' said Uffington, raising himself on his elbow. 'Those charming people, Messrs. Moss, have obeyed my instructions implicitly, and that earth is stopped. By which means by friend will be more readily brought to book, that is all! How right I was years ago to make a resolution never to read letters which I might find awaiting me on my return home late at night, and what singular resolution I must have had to keep to it! It was a sensible thing--the idea of having oneself upset, and one's valuable night's rest scared away, for something which could not be remedied! To be sure, I could not resist a glance at that telegram last night, because I knew it would have no actual effect on the position of affairs; and if it turned out right--as has happily proved the case--could only make me a little more secure in the saddle. But here is something else,' taking up a twisted scrap, 'this note which Madame de Nerval left in my hand when I took my leave of her. Now certainly I deserve credit for having left that unread up to this time. What does it say?

"I have guessed your secret. You _hate_ Lord Forestfield, and have come here determined to ruin him. There is a woman in this; I know it, my jealousy tells me so. For he is not the only one whose peace of mind you have destroyed. Let me see you very soon. _A toi_.--M."

'Exactly so,' said Uffington to himself, laying down the paper with a cynical smile. 'To him that hath, &c. The vagrant dies of starvation in the ditch, and the philosopher is too lazy to take his hands from his pockets, but bites at the peaches as they hang a-ripening on the wall. I fear I shall not be able to obey your commands, fair lady, for by this evening I expect my mission will be accomplished and I shall have left Paris. Everything has succeeded with me exactly as I could have wished. Forestfield must be on the brink of ruin, and this news about the mortgage deprives him of his only chance of escape. Will he face ruin, or accept the alternative I offer? The alternative, without a doubt. When I show him, as I shall, that he has not the remotest hope of obtaining that for which he has been playing for the last twelvemonth; when I point out to him, as I shall, that without my aid he must be made a bankrupt, and henceforth live, like other bankrupt peers, on his title and his wits; when I make clear to him how little I require in proportion to what I give--he will come to my terms. And such a success will amply repay the trouble and the cost which have been necessary to secure it. It has been loathsome enough to live once more in what is called society, and to look on at all the miserable meanness and petty spite by which those moving in it are governed. It has been heart-sickening to see this woman shunned, tabooed, and pointed at by a world which still continues to receive this hound, and dares not say openly, "You are a scoundrel, whose ill conduct has driven your wife to do what she has done; and though we must ostracise her, we decline at the same time to have anything more to say to you." It has been weary work to listen to all the old lies, to pretend to be deceived by all the old cajolery, to look on or take part in so-called pleasure, with which one has been surfeited at five-and-twenty; but it has all worked out well, and the end--or I am very much mistaken--will justify the means. Now I will dress myself and prepare for my visitor!'

At twelve o'clock Lord Forestfield was announced, and entered the room, looking worn and ill. The seared strained appearance round the eyes was more marked, and he had lost the self-command which was so conspicuous on the previous evening. From time to time he kept moistening his lips, and there was an involuntary fluttering motion of his hands which he in vain endeavoured to suppress. He fell into a chair, and at once lay back, covering his face with his hands, apparently oblivious of where he was; then, rousing himself with a start, he leant forward, and in an odd abrupt way, totally different from his usual manner, he said:

'Well, Uffington, I'm here as I said I would be. This is a d--d pretty business! You didn't think I'd come, I suppose, eh?'

'Because I didn't ask you for any farther acknowledgment than that which I hold, and which only represents half your debt, is that the reason?' asked Uffington. 'O no, Lord Forestfield, I was sure you would come this morning.'

'How could you be sure'? I suppose you mean that you've heard I always keep my word, and pay my debts, and that kind of thing--is that it?'

'Not exactly. I knew--I felt--you would come; how or why I could hardly explain; and no explanation is necessary since you are here.'

'Yes, that's all devilish fine!' said Lord Forestfield, rising from his chair and pacing the room. 'I heard fellows say you're a fatalist--believe that what will be, will be; and that sort of thing. I suppose you felt certain beforehand that you would win those conquering games?'

'I had an inward conviction that I should obtain what I wanted,' said Uffington quietly.

'What you wanted?' cried Forestfield coarsely. 'What you wanted was my money I presume? Mine or some one else's--it didn't matter much. However, the result of all this fatalism is that I owe you ten thousand pounds, Sir Nugent Uffington.'

'Exactly,' said Uffington, with a cold smile. 'And that being the result, Lord Forestfield, you can scarcely wonder that I am a fatalist.'

'Suppose I were to say that I could not pay you--for the present, at all events,' said Forestfield--'what would you say to that?'

'I should remind you--though I am sure there would be no occasion to do so--that debts of honour always _must_ be paid. It would be impossible for you to show your face in society with the rumour that you had played and lost and repudiated hanging round you. Besides, I suppose you do not wish to be added to the distinguished list of peers who have figured in the Bankruptcy Court?'

'Of course not,' said Forestfield, whose pale cheeks were gradually becoming very red; 'but it's all devilish fine to say "pay"--how are you to do it when you have no money? The truth is, I have been disappointed. I've just heard some news which has completely upset my calculations, and I'm infernally disappointed!' And he threw himself into the chair.

'I know it,' said Uffington, bending towards him across the table, 'and I know you! Know you to be as mean a scoundrel, as contemptible a blackguard, as poor a trickster, as is to be found even in this city! Bah, don't attempt that!' he cried, catching Forestfield's uplifted arm by the wrist and holding it. 'I'm a stronger man than you, though I'm ten years older, and I haven't forgotten the lessons I used to take from Alec Keene in the old days. You would have no chance standing up against me; and as for a duel, I could take care of myself there also if I found--as I very much doubt--that you are in a position to call any gentleman to account. There,' he said, throwing Forestfield's arm away from him, 'I tell you I know you and all your miserable scheming! You say you have been disappointed, and for once you speak the truth. Months since, when you first began to suspect that your treatment of your wife had driven her to wrong-doing, you determined to profit by her sin. You would get her divorced, you said to yourself; and once free you would form an alliance, not again with a pretty trusting girl, but with some woman whose wealth would enable you to indulge in the costly dissipations of play, &c. to which you had become addicted. You looked round and made your selection, working the oracle with all that tact which I grant you possess. When your story became public, and Lady Forestfield was turned from her home, you carried your bleeding heart to Palace-gardens, there to have it bound up by Miss Vandervelde, the American heiress. Ha, ha! you see I am tolerably well informed! They could not show you too much compassion, those kindhearted people; and even when you were bold enough to hint that you would shortly be in a position to bestow your hand and title again, they were not too sensitive to bid you be silent, for they are true Republicans and dearly love a lord. But then your common sense failed you; you thought the game secure, and coming over here, launched out into those pleasures in which alone you have real enjoyment. The manner of your life in Paris has been made known in Palace-gardens, and you have received an intimation that you need show your face there no more.'

'How did you learn that?' said Lord Forestfield, taken off his guard. 'I only got old Vandervelde's letter yesterday morning.'

'I learned it because I made it my business to learn not only that, but everything about you,' said Uffington, speaking with hard earnestness. 'Not from any interest in _you_, God knows; for from the first time I saw you, and heard how you treated your wife, I regarded you with a loathing and an aversion so great that they can scarcely be said to have increased now, when we have been thrown so much together. Lady Forestfield's mother was my kindest friend, and seeing how much her daughter wanted an outstretched hand to help her in her solitude and her misery, I determined to repay, so far as I could, the kindness I had experienced when I stood in need of it.'

'And you stretched out your hand to help a very pretty woman, did you?' growled Forestfield. 'What a generous, unselfish creature!'

'Less selfish than appears at first sight,' said Uffington; 'for in carrying out my plan I have had to endure things against which my sense of decency, to say nothing of my pride, revolted; such as putting up with your familiarity, Lord Forestfield, and mixing with a miserable set of Pharisees, who consent to receive you into their society while they scorn your wife, whose crime has been really the outcome of your cruelty.'

'You're a pretty kind of fellow to talk in this way!' said Forestfield, looking up from under his eyebrows and speaking in a thick voice. 'You're a nice lot to preach virtue, and the necessity for domestic happiness, and that sort of thing; and you practise what you preach, don't you, and always did? You never heard of such a thing as a fellow in the Guards running off with another mans wife, say to Switzerland now, and living there with her? That wouldn't enter into your scheme of morality, would it?'

'This is the second time you have dared to make allusion to that event in my life, Lord Forestfield,' said Uffington, with a strong effort at self-control, 'and I advise you not to repeat it. In a blundering way, however, you happen to have hit upon the truth. What promised at the time to be but a mere episode in my reckless youth had its influence on my whole career, and made me what I am; a man neither ashamed to acknowledge his guilt nor professing to be sorry for his misdeeds. If the lady to whom you have made reference lost caste in the eyes of that society of which you still continue a flourishing member, she, at all events, passed the remainder of her life in peace, and was secured from the outrage to which she had been subjected by one whose duty it was to love and protect her. God knows, I set myself up as no judge of my fellow-creatures, but it is from what I knew of that lady's history and what I saw of her sufferings that I have learned to understand and pity your wife.'

'My wife! always my wife!' cried Forestfield, choking with rage. 'Is she to be brought up and thrown in my teeth at every trick and turn? Am I never to hear the last of her?'

'Never,' said Uffington quietly. 'You imagined that, when driven to despair by your cruelty and neglect, she fell into the trap, and gave you the opportunity you had so long sought for, you had got rid of her for ever, and were free to follow your own devices. It is partly to show you how mistaken you were in such an idea that I am here to-day.'

'Don't you think you had better sink all this fine tirade of virtuous indignation, Sir Nugent Uffington?' said Forestfield, with a gleam of his old insolence returning to his face. 'Let us stick to business, please--you are neither my confessor nor my executioner, so far as I know, but merely a gentleman whose hermit-like austerity has not prevented his winning my money at cards--that's what we have to discuss; and, as the lawyers say, we will, if you please, not travel out of the record.'

'I am perfectly willing to confine our discussion to that point,' said Uffington. 'You owe me 10,000_l_., Lord Forestfield, and you have at once to pay me that amount, or give me an equivalent.'

'An equivalent!' cried Forestfield; 'you mean a mortgage, or something of that sort? Well, then, it is best to say frankly at once that I can do neither. My account at my banker's is overdrawn, and my estate at Woodburn is mortgaged to the value of every acre. The infernal thief who holds it talks about foreclosing; but I am in communication with my lawyers just now, and I am in hopes of getting it held over.'

'I should advise you not to lean on any such rotten reed,' said Uffington. 'The gentleman who held the mortgage, and whom you are pleased to style an infernal thief, was a Mr. Richards, I believe?'

'That is his name,' said Forestfield; 'how on earth did you know it?'

'Simply from having had a few business transactions with him myself,' said Uffington. 'The fact is, Lord Forestfield, that Mr. Richards has transferred his interest in the Woodburn mortgage to me, and, so far as that is concerned, you are entirely in my power.'

Lord Forestfield's jaw fell and his face became deadly pale. 'This is a devilish deep conspiracy you have been hatching for my ruin, Sir Nugent Uffington,' he said; 'a nice gentlemanly scheme to bring me on my knees for some purpose of your own. What is it all about? What do you want?'

'What I intend to have,' said Uffington; 'your money, or the equivalent. You owe me 10,000_l_., and if you don't pay it I will post you in every club in London. I hold the mortgage on the Woodburn estate, and can at any moment telegraph to my lawyers to foreclose, and thus deprive you of your patrimony. You see, there is no chance of escape, and that you are completely ruined--unless, indeed, you choose to accept the equivalent.'

'Damn the equivalent!' cried Lord Forestfield, in an access of rage. 'Why don't you tell me what it is, sir? What is the use of beating about the bush in this way?'

'It is merely this,' said Uffington. 'I will tear up your notes of hand which I hold, and will regard the debt as cancelled for ever,--further, I will give you an undertaking that no steps shall be taken in regard to the mortgage on the Woodburn property for a number of years to be agreed upon,--provided that you, take back your wife--'

'What!' cried Lord Forestfield, springing from his seat; 'take back my wife! Is that the game you have been playing for? Take back my wife after all that I have gone through; all the exposure which I have suffered! Not if I know it. You have missed your mark, Sir Nugent Uffington.'

'The exposure which you have suffered is nothing to that which you will have to undergo at my hands if you do not accept these terms,' said Uffington coldly. 'Besides, in your vehemence you interrupted me before I had sufficiently explained myself. Do not think for an instant that I am stipulating for any reconciliation between you and Lady Forestfield. However much you may wish for it at a future time--and that time will surely come--it would be difficult to induce your wife to agree to it. I do not even suggest that there should be any meeting between you, as such a proceeding were much better avoided.'

'You're uncommonly good, I am sure,' said Forestfield grimly. 'What is it, then, that you require, may I ask?'

'I require you to abandon the divorce suit which you have instituted, and to take no further steps for procuring the confirmation of the decree _nisi_ which you have obtained. Further, I require that Lady Forestfield be reinstated in her proper position as mistress of your house.'

'I thought you said there was to be no reconciliation, no meeting?' cried Forestfield.

'Nor need there be,' said Uffington. 'My notion is that Lady Forestfield should go to Woodburn and remain there for the present--your people being, of course, there to attend to her, and she being received and recognised as their mistress. She desires to live in the strictest privacy and to interfere with you in no way.'

'And suppose I were to refuse, what then?'

'For you, beggary, outlawry, and exposure--a state of life to which you have not been accustomed, and which I think would scarcely suit you.'

There was a pause for a few moments. Then Lord Forestfield said:

'You take advantage of your position to drive a hard bargain, sir; but I am at your mercy, and I don't see how I can resist. How long will you give me to think it over?'

'Till this afternoon,' said Uffington. 'I have promised my lawyers instructions in regard to the mortgage affair, which admits of no delay. So that I must return to England to-night, and I should be glad if you would accompany me. If I do not hear from you before, I shall expect to meet you at the mail train at the Chemin du Nord.'

'Was there ever such a beaten hound?' said Uffington, after his companion had left him. 'There is no doubt about his accepting my terms. The thought of a future without money to spend in drink and gambling was too dreadful for him to contemplate.'