CHAPTER VII.

THE MORNING AFTER.

When Sir Nugent Uffington woke the next morning, instead of, according to his usual custom, yawning and composing himself for another nap, he roused up at once. It is for a psychologist to explain how it is that the subject uppermost in our minds invariably flashes across our thoughts at the first instant of shaking off our slumbers, and that we go to the pleasure or business of the day with a light or heavy heart, according to our impressions on waking. That acceptance which has so nearly run out; that confoundedly incautious letter which, on the spur of the moment, we wrote to a man who is now doubtless making use of it; that awkward dilemma in which, without any serious intentions, we placed ourselves with Smith's wife--all these things rise before us with as much but not more certainty than the recollections of our successful after-dinner speech, of thrilling tones and touches at that special interview on the previous evening, or of the assurance from our attorney that the long-protracted lawsuit was coming to an end at last, and that the judgment could not fail to be in our favour. Through the Gate of Ivory and through the Gate of Horn come dreams and thoughts to sleeping man, who is acted upon by them in his waking moments.

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.'

'Of course it was; you have known me long enough to trust me in such matters, have you not? You may be certain that your palate and digestion are always safe in my charge; not that I could guarantee you such wines and such cooking as Chadwick's on every occasion, for they are really first-rate. And the company, what did you think of that?'

'I was amused.'

'Indeed, how very kind of your lordship! We ought all to be deeply indebted to you for your condescension.'

'Don't be an ass, Frank. I was more than amused, for I was pleased and interested.'

'I thought you would be pleased with Mr. Chadwick's high-bred punctiliousness, interested by Mrs. Chadwick's unaffected geniality,' said Eardley, laughing. 'Chaff apart, they are very pleasant people. What did you think of the young lady?'

'What little I saw of her I was much pleased with, but I had hardly a chance of speaking to her.'

'Of course not; Mrs. Chadwick, who is always managing for somebody else, has taken it into her head that it would be a great thing if she could catch that tremendous idiot, Spiridion Pratt, and make up a match between him and her sister; the girl is much too good for that, don't you think?'

'It is impossible for me to say,' replied Uffington, 'having only seen Mr. Pratt once; but he does not seem to me to be such a goose as you rate him. He affects to be romantic, and is unquestionably conceited, but I don't see much else the matter with him, and he is a gentleman, which, after all, goes a very long way.'

'What a dear large-hearted old boy it is!' said Eardley, clapping his friend affectionately on the shoulder. 'But what do you say, then, to Mr. Chadwick? I am afraid he won't come up to your standard.'

'I don't see why not,' replied Uffington. 'Do you imagine that I should not consider Mr. Chadwick a gentleman, because his manner is rather brusque, and he uses odd phrases? I declare to you he seems to me as perfect a specimen of a real gentleman as I have seen for many a long day. There are many men, my dear Frank, who drop their _h_'s and pick up fish-sauce with their knives, who are more truly _preux chevaliers_ than the purest bred among us.'

'Very likely,' said Eardley, 'but a dropped _h_ grates on the ear, and knife-swallowing, except at a circus, is not pleasant to look at. Did you notice--but of course you did--how Miss Irvine blazed out in defence of her friend, Lady Forestfield?'

'I noticed it with more than astonishment,' said Uffington. 'But from what little I saw of her I should judge her to be a young lady who would speak out boldly in favour of any one whom she imagined to be oppressed, whether a friend of hers or not.'

'Perhaps so,' said Eardley; 'but I know she was particularly fond of Lady Forestfield.'

'The intimacy has been dropped since the smash, I presume,' said Uffington. 'Mrs. Chadwick seems far too strict a person to allow it to continue.'

'Decidedly, if she knew it,' said Eardley; 'but I have some idea that the worthy woman is slightly hoodwinked in the matter. Mrs. Ingram told me that Lady Forestfield is lodging in Podbury-street--poor child, fancy Podbury-street after the lovely luxury of Seamore-place!--and the other morning I saw Miss Irvine walking down that very street. I know it was she, though I did not recollect her at first, and I was thinking what a pretty model she would make for a certain class of subject, when suddenly it came upon me that she was the daughter of that raffish old buck Irvine, who used to hang about Clipstone-street in former days.'

'So Lady Forestfield is lodging in Podbury-street, is she?' said Uffington musingly. 'Do you know the number?'

'Sixty-eight, I think,' said Eardley, looking at him in surprise; 'but what on earth does it matter to you?'

'Nothing,' said Uffington with a start, 'not the least in the world; I was only wondering--'

'My dear old Nugent,' said Eardley, taking him by the arm, and looking inquiringly into his face, 'what are you thinking about? You are not going to do anything quixotic, I hope. Lady Forestfield, as every one will allow who knows anything about the case and speaks fairly, has been deucedly badly treated; but nothing would warrant any interference in the matter, and any attempt might probably recoil upon the poor woman herself.'

'You need not be afraid, Frank,' said Uffington; 'I am not likely to make any such attempt. I was only thinking--' and again he fell into a musing fit.

'Exactly; but don't think,' said Eardley, touching him on the shoulder. 'You have finished your breakfast; come down with me to Dossetor's, and help me to form an opinion on the blue china. After that we will go down to Richmond, stroll about the park, and have a dinner at some quiet place where we shall not have to watch the melancholy amusement of professedly festive people.'

'Agreed, so far as Richmond, the stroll, and the dinner are concerned; but I cannot come with you now, I will meet you there. My head aches a little, and would ache worse if I had to listen to Dossetor's disquisitions on his china; so I will go and get rid of my trouble by a canter in the Row.'

'That will be better perhaps,' said Eardley, 'not only for yourself, but for my china, as it is the one thing in which I require that the opinions of people I consult should coincide with my own, and you seem to me to be rather contradictory this morning. I suppose you will drive me down? Then I will be waiting for you at the club at four.'

'I shall be there to the minute,' said Uffington.

And then Eardley, with an '_Au revoir!'_ took his hat and strolled leisurely away.

Sir Nugent Uffington was rather more lively and alert after his friend's departure than he had been in the early morning. He paced up and down the room, revolving in his mind whether the affection of Eleanor Irvine for Lady Forestfield was such as would naturally be felt by her for any other person in so desolate and unfortunate a position, or whether it was the outcome of some special interest which Lady Forestfield had awakened in her--if so, what were the sources of that interest? She must be a peculiar woman, Nugent thought, to arouse a feeling which, in the fact that it caused Miss Irvine to act in opposition to the expressed wish of one on whom she was dependent, as Eardley had hinted, must approach devotion. Lady Forestfield must have a powerful will of her own to obtain ascendency over a mind like Eleanor's.

Altogether, Sir Nugent Uffington, who for so many years had been almost emotionless, was beginning to take a certain amount of interest in the affairs which were passing round him, and the centre of that interest, so far as he could judge, was Lady Forestfield.

The ordinary frequenters of the Row, to whom Sir Nugent Uffington had become a familiar figure, and who were not disposed to regard him as a lively or agreeable companion, had no occasion to alter their opinion of him from his behaviour on this particular day. The few who noticed him mentioned him to each other as 'mooning about as usual;' he nodded to very few, and only stopped once, and that was to speak to his old friend Tom Lydyeard, who was leaning over the rails. Their conversation was common-place and matter-of-fact enough, the usual platitudes of society talk--for Tom Lydyeard, a really good-natured fellow, was not much gifted with brains, and even in what he had to say was a trifle _rococo_ and old-worldly--when a sudden impetus was given to it by Lydyeard saying, 'Look at this man on the bright bay, riding outside of the girl with the chestnut; that is the man that everybody is talking of just now--I pointed him out to you the first night we met at the Opera--Lord Forestfield.'

Uffington looked quickly round. At that moment the bay horse shied at a dog which darted from under the railings, and its rider, turning white with rage, brought his riding-stick down with all his force between its ears. The horse bucked and lashed out, but its rider never moved in his seat, and the next moment the little cavalcade had broken into a gallop and were out of sight.

'Nice lot, isn't he?' muttered Tom Lydyeard between his teeth; 'they say he treated his wife that way, and yet they tell me that now there is not a soul in the place, man or woman, to speak a kind word to her, or to do her a good turn. Queer world, ain't it, Uffington?'

'Very,' said Nugent. 'Good-bye;' and he cantered off in the direction of Grosvenor-place.

It was not time for luncheon yet, he thought, as he rode out under the arch, and he might as well ride round and see where Podbury-street--what a curious name!--where Podbury-street was. Sixty-eight was the number that Frank Eardley had mentioned; and here was Podbury-street, and there was sixty-eight, with a handsome brougham--harness a little too heavily plated, and coachman's livery a thought too gorgeous--standing at the door. Now the door opened, and a young lady came out, whom Nugent had no difficulty in recognising as Miss Irvine--she did not see him, for she darted hastily into the carriage--saw her, too, sufficiently plainly to notice that tears were rolling down her cheeks.

What could be the meaning of that? Decidedly Sir Nugent Uffington was much interested in Miss Eleanor Irvine and Lady Forestfield.