Mr. Witt's Widow: A Frivolous Tale

CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST PARAGRAPH—AND OTHERS.

Under pressure of circumstances men very often do what they have declared they cannot possibly do; it happens with private individuals no less than with political parties. George declared he could not possibly go to Peckton before Saturday; but he was so disgusted with his position, that he threw all other engagements to the winds, and started early on Thursday morning, determined not to face his friends again without attempting to prove his words. Old Dawkins was dead, but the clerk was, and the policeman might be, alive; and, on his return to town, he could see Jennings, the clerk’s son, who had settled down to conveyancing in Lincoln’s Inn, and try to refresh his memory with materials gathered on the spot. For George had already seen Mr. Jennings, and Mr. Jennings remembered nothing about it—it was not his first brief,—but was willing to try to recall the matter if George would get him the details and let him see a picture of the person wanted—a request George did not wish to comply with at the moment.

So he went to Peckton, and found out perhaps as much as he could reasonably expect to find out, as shall in due course appear. And during his absence several things happened. In the first place, the Bull’s-eye was published, containing what became known as the “First Paragraph.” The “First Paragraph” was headed “Strange Charge against a Lady—Rumoured Proceedings,” and indicated the Neston family, Neaera Witt, and George, in such a manner as to enable their friends to identify them. This paragraph was inserted with the object of giving Neaera, or George, or both of them, as the case might be, or anybody else who could be “drawn,” an opportunity of contradicting it. The second event was that the Nestons’ friends did identify them, and proceeded to open the minds of everybody who did not.

Then Mr. Blodwell read the Bull’s-eye, as his custom was, and thoughtfully ejaculated “Peckton!” and Lord Tottlebury, being at the club, was shown the Bull’s-eye by a friend, who really could not do less, and went home distracted; and Tommy Myles read it, and, conscience-stricken, fled to Brighton for three days’ fresh air; and Isabel read it, and confessed to her mother, and was scolded, and cried; and Gerald read it, and made up his mind to kick everybody concerned, except, of course, Neaera; and, finally, Neaera read it, and was rather frightened and rather excited, and girt on her armour for battle.

Gerald, however, was conscious that the process he had in his mind, satisfying as it would be to his own feelings, would not prove in all respects a solution of the difficulty, and, with the selfishness which a crisis in a man’s own affairs engenders, he made no scruple about taking up a full hour of Mr. Blodwell’s time, and expounding his views at great length, under the guise of taking counsel. Mr. Blodwell listened to his narrative of facts with interest, but cut short his stream of indignant comment.

“The mischief is that it’s got into the papers,” he said. “But for that, I don’t see that it matters much.”

“Not matter much?” gasped Gerald.

“I suppose you don’t care whether it’s true or not?”

“It’s life or death to me,” answered Gerald.

“Bosh! She won’t steal any more shoes now she’s a rich woman.”

“You speak, sir, as if you thought——”

“Haven’t any opinion on the subject, and it wouldn’t be of any importance if I had. The question is shortly this: Supposing it to be true, would you marry her?”

Gerald flung himself into a chair, and bit his finger nail.

“Eight years is a long while ago; and poverty’s a hard thing; and she’s a pretty girl.”

“It’s an absurd hypothesis,” said Gerald. “But a thief’s a thief.”

“True. So are a good many other people.”

“I should have to consider my father and—and the family.”

“Should you? I should see the family damned. However, it comes to this—if it were true, you wouldn’t marry her.”

“How could I?” groaned Gerald. “We should be cut.”

Mr. Blodwell smiled.

“Well, my ardent lover,” he said, “that being so, you’d better do nothing till you see whether it’s true.”

“Not at all. I only took the hypothesis; but I haven’t the least doubt that it’s a lie.”

“A mistake—yes. But it’s in the Bull’s-eye, and a mistake in the newspapers needs to be reckoned with.”

“What shall I do?”

“Wait till George comes back. Meanwhile, hold your tongue.”

“I shall contradict that lie.”

“Much better not. Don’t write to them, or see them, or let anybody else till George comes back. And, Gerald, if I were you, I shouldn’t quarrel with George.”

“He shall withdraw it, or prove it.”

Mr. Blodwell shrugged his shoulders and became ostentatiously busy with the case of Pigg v. the Local Board of Slushton-under-Mudd. “A very queer point this,” he remarked. “The drainage system of Slushton is——” And he stopped with a chuckle at the sight of Gerald’s vanishing back. He called after him—

“Are you going to Mrs. Witt’s this afternoon?”

“No,” answered Gerald. “This evening.”

Mr. Blodwell sat at work for ten minutes more. Then he rang the bell.

“Mr. Neston gone, Timms?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get a four-wheeler.” And he added to himself, “I should like to see her again, under this new light. I wonder if she’ll let me in.”

Neaera did let him in. In fact, she seemed very glad to see him, and accepted with meekness her share of his general censure on the “babbling” that had gone on.

“You see,” she said, handing him a cup of tea, “it scarcely seemed a serious matter to me. I was angry, of course, but almost more amused than angry.”

“Naturally,” answered Mr. Blodwell. “But, my dear young lady, everything which is public is serious. And this thing is now public, for no doubt to-morrow’s Bull’s-eye will give all your names and addresses.”

“I don’t care,” said Neaera.

Mr. Blodwell shook his head. “You must consider Gerald and his people.”

“Gerald doesn’t doubt me. If he did——” Neaera left her recreant lover’s fate to the imagination.

“But Lord Tottlebury and the world at large? The world at large always doubts one.”

“I suppose so,” said Neaera, sadly. “Fortunately, I have conclusive proof.”

“My dear Mrs. Witt, why didn’t you say so before?”

“Before there was anything to meet? Is that your way, Mr. Blodwell?”

“George may bring back something to meet.”

Neaera rose and went to her writing-table. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t show it to you,” she said. “I was just going to send it to Lord Tottlebury. It will be a pleasant surprise for Mr. George Neston when he comes back from Peckton with his proofs!” She handed Mr. Blodwell a sheet of note-paper.

He took it, throwing one quick glance at Neaera. “You wish me to read this?”

“It’s letting you into the secrets of my early days,” she said. “You see, I wasn’t always as well off as I am now.”

Mr. Blodwell adjusted his eye-glass and perused the document, which set forth that Miss N. Gale entered the service of Mrs. Philip Horne, of Balmoral Villa, Bournemouth, as companion to that lady, in March, 1883, and remained in such service until the month of July, 1883; that, during the whole of such period, she conducted herself with propriety; that she read aloud with skill, ordered a household with discretion, and humoured a fussy old lady with tact (this is a paraphrase of the words of the writer); finally, that she left, by her own desire, to the regret of the above-mentioned Susan Horne.

Neaera watched Mr. Blodwell as he read.

“Eighteen eighty-three?” said he; “that’s the year in question?”

“Yes, and April is the month in question—the month I am supposed to have spent in prison!”

“You didn’t show this to George?”

“No. Why should I? Besides, I didn’t know then when he dated my crime.”

Mr. Blodwell thought it a little queer that she had not asked him. “He should certainly see it at once. Have you seen anything of Mrs. Horne lately?”

“Oh no; I should be afraid she must be dead. She was an old lady, and very feeble.”

“It is—it may be—very lucky—your having this.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I should never have remembered the exact time I went to Mrs. Horne’s.”

Mr. Blodwell took his departure in a state of mind that he felt was unreasonable. Neaera had been, he told himself, most frank, most charming, most satisfactory. Yet he was possessed with an overpowering desire to cross-examine Neaera.

“Perhaps it’s only habit,” he said to himself. “A protestation of innocence raises all my fighting instincts.”

The next day witnessed the publication of the “Second Paragraph,” and the second paragraph made it plain to everybody that somebody must vindicate his or her character. The public did not care who did it, but it felt itself entitled to an action, wherein the whole matter should be threshed out for the furtherance of public justice and entertainment. The Bull’s-eye itself took this view. It implored Neaera, or George, or somebody to sue it, if they would not sue one another. It had given names, addresses, dates, and details. Could the most exacting plaintiff ask more? If no action were brought, it was clear that Neaera had stolen the shoes, and that George had slandered her, and that the Nestons in general shrank from investigation into the family history; all this was still clearer, if they pursued their extraordinary conduct in not forwarding personal narratives for the information of the public and the accommodation of the Bull’s-eye.

Into this turmoil George was plunged on his return from Peckton. He had been detained there two days, and did not reach his rooms till late on Friday evening. He was greeted by two numbers of the Bull’s-eye, neatly displayed on his table; by a fiery epistle from Gerald, demanding blood or apologies; by two penitential dirges from Isabel Bourne and Tommy Myles; and, lastly, by a frigid note from Lord Tottlebury, enclosing the testimony of Mrs. Philip Horne to the character and accomplishments of Miss N. Gale. In Lord Tottlebury’s opinion, only one course was, under the circumstances, open to a gentleman.

Philanthropists often remark, à propos of other philanthropists, that it is easier to do harm than good, even when you are, as it were, an expert in doing good. George began to think that his amateur effort at preserving the family reputation and punishing a wrongdoer looked like vindicating the truth of this general principle. Here was a hornets’-nest about his ears! And would what he brought back with him make the buzzing less furious or the stings less active? He thought not.

“Can a girl be in two places at once,” he asked,—“in one of her Majesty’s prisons, and also at—where is it?—Balmoral Villa, Bournemouth?” And he laid side by side Mrs. Horne’s letter and a certain photograph which was among the spoils of his expedition.

George had not the least doubt that it was a photograph of Neaera Witt, for all that it was distinctly inscribed, “Nelly Game.” Beyond all question it was a photograph of the girl who stole the shoes, thoughtfully taken and preserved with a view to protecting society against future depredations at her hands. It was Crown property, George supposed, and probably he had no business with it, but a man can get many things he has no business with for half a sovereign, the sum George had paid for the loan of it. It must be carefully remembered that Peckton is exceptional, not typical, in the laxity of its administration, and a long reign of solitary despotism had sapped the morality of the fat policeman.

The art of photography has made much progress in recent years. It is less an engine for the reduction of self-conceit than it used to be, and less a means of revealing how ill-looking a given person can appear under favourable circumstances. But Peckton was behind the time, here as everywhere. Nelly Game’s portrait did faint justice to Neaera Witt, and eight years’ wear had left it blurred and faded almost to the point of indistinctness. It was all very well for George to recognise it. In candour he was bound to admit that he doubted if it would convince the unwilling. Besides, a great change comes between seventeen and five-and-twenty, even when Seventeen is not half-starved and clad in rags, Five-and-twenty living in luxury, and decked in the glories of millinery.

“It won’t do alone,” he said, “but it will help. Let’s have a look at this—document.” When he had read it he whistled gently. “Oh, ho! an alibi. Now I’ve got her!” he exclaimed.

But had he? He carefully re-read the letter. It was a plausible enough letter, and conclusive, unless he was prepared to charge Mrs. Witt with deeper schemes and more dangerous accomplishments than he had yet thought of doing.

Men are mistaken sometimes, said a voice within him; but he would not listen.

“I’ll look at that again to-morrow,” he said, “and find out who ‘Susan Horne’ is.”

Then he read his letters, and cursed his luck, and went to bed a miserable man.

The presentment of truth, not the inculcation of morality, being the end of art, it is worth while to remark that he went to bed a miserable man simply and solely because he had tried to do his duty.

CHAPTER VI.
A SUCCESSFUL ORDEAL.

The general opinion was that Gerald Neston behaved foolishly in allowing himself to be interviewed by the Bull’s-eye. Indeed, it is rather odd, when we consider the almost universal disapproval of the practice of interviewing, to see how frequent interviews are. Damnantur et crescunt; and mankind agrees to excuse its own weakness by postulating irresistible ingenuity and audacity in the interviewer. So Gerald was publicly blamed and privately blessed for telling the Bull’s-eye that an atrocious accusation had been brought against the lady referred to, and brought by one who should have been the last to bring it, and would, he hoped, be the first to withdraw it. The accusation did seriously concern the lady’s character, and nothing but the fullest apology could be accepted. He preferred not to go into details at present; indeed, he hoped it would never be necessary to do so.

Such might be Gerald’s hope. It was not the hope of the Bull’s-eye, nor, indeed, of society in general. What could be more ill-advised than to hint dreadful things and refuse full information? Such a course simply left the imagination to wander, fancy free, through the Newgate Calendar, attributing to Mrs. Witt—the name of the slandered lady was by this time public property—all or any of the actions therein recorded.

“It’s like a blank bill,” said Charters, the commercial lawyer, to Mr. Blodwell; “you fill it up for as much as the stamp will cover.”

“The more gossiping fool you,” replied Mr. Blodwell, very rudely, and quite unjustifiably, for the poor man merely meant to indicate a natural tendency, not to declare his own idea of what was proper. But Mr. Blodwell was cross; everybody had made fools of themselves, he thought, and he was hanged—at least hanged—if he saw his way out of it.

George’s name had not as yet been actually mentioned, but everybody knew who it was,—that “relative of Lord Tottlebury, whose legal experience, if nothing else, should have kept him from bringing ungrounded accusations;” and George’s position was far from pleasant. He began to see, or fancy he saw, men looking askance at him; his entrance was the occasion of a sudden pause in conversation; his relations with his family were, it need hardly be said, intolerable to the last degree; and, finally, Isabel Bourne had openly gone over to the enemy, had made her mother invite Neaera Witt to dinner, and had passed George in the park with the merest mockery of a bow. He was anxious to bring matters to an issue one way or another, and with this end he wrote to Lord Tottlebury, asking him to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Witt.

“As you are aware,” he said, “I have been to Peckton. I have already told you what I found there, so far as it bore on the fact of ‘Nelly Game’s’ conviction. I now desire to give certain persons who were acquainted with ‘Nelly Game’ an opportunity of seeing Mrs. Witt. No doubt she will raise no objections. Blodwell is willing to put his chambers at our disposal; and I think this would be the best place, as it will avoid the gossip and curiosity of the servants. Will Mrs. Witt name a day and time? I and my companions will make a point of suiting her convenience.”

George’s “companions” were none other than the fussy clerk and the fat policeman. The female warder had vanished; and although there were some prison officials whose office dated from before Nelly Game’s imprisonment, George felt that, unless his first two witnesses were favourable, it would be useless to press the matter, and did not at present enlist their services. Mr. Jennings, the Lincoln’s Inn barrister, had proved utterly hopeless. George showed him the photograph. “I shouldn’t have recognized it from Eve’s,” said Mr. Jennings; and George felt that he might, without duplicity, ignore such a useless witness.

Neaera laughed a little at the proposal when it was submitted to her, but expressed her willingness to consent to it. Gerald was almost angry with her for not being angry at the indignity.

“He goes too far: upon my word he does;” he muttered.

“What does it matter, dear?” asked Neaera. “It will be rather fun.”

Lord Tottlebury raised a hand in grave protest.

“My dear Neaera!” said he.

“Not much fun for George,” Gerald remarked in grim triumph.

“I suppose Mr. Blodwell’s chambers will do?” asked Lord Tottlebury. “It seems convenient.”

But here Neaera, rather to his surprise, had her own views. She wasn’t going down to musty chambers to be stared at—yes, Gerald, all lawyers stared,—and taken for a breach-of-promise person, and generally besmirched with legal mire. No: nor she wouldn’t have Mr. George Neston’s spies in her house; nor would she put herself out the least about it.

“Then it must be in my house,” said Lord Tottlebury.

Neaera acquiesced, merely adding that the valuables had better be locked up.

“And when? We had better say some afternoon, I suppose.”

“I am engaged every afternoon for a fortnight.”

“My dear,” said Lord Tottlebury, “business must take precedence.”

Neaera did not see it; but at last she made a suggestion. “I am dining with you en famille the day after to-morrow. Let them come then.”

“That’ll do,” said George. “Ten minutes after dinner will settle the whole business.”

Lord Tottlebury made no objection. George had suggested that a couple of other ladies should be present, to make the trial fairer; and it was decided to invite Isabel Bourne, and Miss Laura Pocklington, daughter of the great Mrs. Pocklington. Mrs. Pocklington would come with her daughter, and it was felt that her presence would add authority to the proceedings. Maud Neston was away; indeed, her absence had been thought desirable, pending the settlement of this unpleasant affair.

Lord Tottlebury always made the most of his chances of solemnity, and, if left to his own bent, would have invested the present occasion with an impressiveness not far short of a death sentence. But he was powerless in face of the determined frivolity with which Neaera treated the whole matter. Mrs. Pocklington found herself, apparently, invited to assist at a farce, instead of a melodrama, and with her famous tact at once recognised the situation, her elaborate playfulness sanctioned the hair-brained chatter of the girls, and made Gerald’s fierce indignation seem disproportionate to the subject. Dinner passed in a whirl of jokes and gibes, George affording ample material; and afterwards the ladies, flushed with past laughter, and constantly yielding to fresh hilarity at Neaera’s sallies, awaited the coming of George and his party with no diminution of gaiety.

A knock was heard at the door.

“Here are the minions of the law, Mrs. Witt!” cried Laura Pocklington.

“Then I must prepare for the dungeon,” said Neaera, and rearranged her hair before a mirror.

“It quite reminds me,” said Mrs. Pocklington, “of the dear Queen of Scots.”

Lord Tottlebury was, in spite of his preoccupations, beginning to argue about the propriety of Mrs. Pocklington’s epithet, when George was shown in. He looked weary, bored, disgusted. After shaking hands with Lord Tottlebury, he bowed generally to the room, and said,

“I propose to bring Mr. Jennings, the clerk, in first; then the policeman. It will be better they should come separately.”

Lord Tottlebury nodded. Gerald had ostentatiously turned his back on his cousin. Mrs. Pocklington fanned herself with an air of amused protest, which the girls reproduced in a broader form. No one spoke, till Neaera herself said with a laugh,

“Arrange your effects as you please, Mr. Neston.”

George looked at her. She was dressed with extraordinary richness, considering the occasion. Her neck and arms, disclosed by her evening gown, glittered with diamonds; a circlet of the same stones adorned her golden hair, which was arranged in a lofty erection on her head. She met his look with derisive defiance, smiling in response to the sarcastic smile on his face. George’s smile was called forth by the recognition of his opponent’s tactics. Her choice of time and place had enabled her to call to her aid all the arts of millinery and the resources of wealth to dazzle and blind the eyes of those who sought to find in her the shabby draggle-tailed girl of eight years before. Old Mr. Jennings had come under strong protest. He was, he said, half blind eight years ago, and more than half now; he had seen hundreds of interesting young criminals and could no more recognise one from another than to-day’s breakfast egg from yesterday week’s; as for police photographs, everybody knew they only darkened truth. Still he came, because George had constrained him.

Neaera, Isabel, and Laura Pocklington took their places side by side, Neaera on the right, leaning her arm on the chimney-piece, in her favourite pose of languid haughtiness; Isabel was next her. Lord Tottlebury met Mr. Jennings with cold civility, and gave him a chair. The old man wiped his spectacles and put them on. A pause ensued.

“George,” said Lord Tottlebury, “I suppose you have explained?”

“Yes,” said George. “Mr. Jennings, can you say whether any, and which, of the persons present is Nelly Game?”

Gerald turned round to watch the trial.

“Is the person suspected—supposed to be Nelly Game—in the room?” asked Mr. Jennings, with some surprise. He had expected to see a group of maid-servants.

“Certainly,” said Lord Tottlebury, with a grim smile. And Mrs. Pocklington chuckled.

“Then I certainly can’t,” said Mr. Jennings. And there was an end of that, an end no other than what George had expected. The fat policeman was his sheet-anchor.

The fat policeman, or to give him his proper name, Sergeant Stubbs, unlike Mr. Jennings, was enjoying himself. A trip to London gratis, with expenses on a liberal scale, and an identification at the end—could the heart of mortal constable desire more? Know the girl? Of course he would, among a thousand! It was his business to know people and he did not mean to fail, especially in the service of so considerate an employer. So he walked in confidently, sat himself down, and received his instructions with professional imperturbability.

The ladies stood and smiled at Stubbs. Stubbs sat and peered at the ladies, and, being a man at heart, thought they were a set of as likely girls as he’d ever seen; so he told Mrs. Stubbs afterwards. But which was Nelly Game?

“It isn’t her in the middle,” said Stubbs, at last.

“Then,” said George, “we needn’t trouble Miss Bourne any longer.”

Isabel went and sat down, with a scornful toss of her head, and Laura Pocklington and Neaera stood side by side.

“I feel as if it were the judgment of Paris,” whispered the latter, audibly, and Mrs. Pocklington and Gerald tittered. Stubbs had once been to Paris on business, but he did not see what it had to do with the present occasion, unless indeed it were something about a previous conviction.

“It isn’t her,” he said, after another pause, pointing a stumpy forefinger at Laura Pocklington.

There was a little shiver of dismay. George rigidly repressed every indication of satisfaction. Neaera stood calm and smiling, bending a look of amused kindliness on Stubbs; but the palm of the white hand on the mantelpiece grew pink as the white fingers pressed against it.

“Would you like to see me a little nearer?” she asked, and, stepping forward to where Stubbs sat, she stood right in front of him.

George felt inclined to cry “Brava!” as if he were at the play.

Stubbs was puzzled. There was a likeness, but there was so much unlikeness too. It really wasn’t fair to dress people up differently. How was a man to know them?

“Might I see the photograph again, sir?” he asked George.

“Certainly not,” exclaimed Gerald, angrily.

George ignored him.

“I had rather,” he said, “you told us what you think without it.”

George had sent Lord Tottlebury the photograph, and everybody had looked at it and declared it was not the least like Neaera.

Stubbs resumed his survey. At last he said, pressing his hand over his eyes,

“I can’t swear to her, sir.”

“Very well,” said George. “That’ll do.”

But Neaera laughed.

“Swear to me, Mr. Stubbs!” said she. “But do you mean you think I’m like this Nelly Games?”

“‘Game,’ not ‘Games,’ Mrs. Witt,” said George, smiling again.

“Well, then, ‘Game.’”

“Yes, miss, you’ve a look of her.”

“Of course she has,” said Mrs. Pocklington, “or Mr. George would never have made the mistake.” Mrs. Pocklington liked George, and wanted to let him down easily.

“That’s all you can say?” asked Lord Tottlebury.

“Yes, sir; I mean, my lord.”

“It comes to nothing,” said Lord Tottlebury, decisively.

“Nothing at all,” said George. “Thank you, Stubbs. I’ll join you and Mr. Jennings in a moment.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Stubbs,” said Neaera. “I’m sure I should have known you if I’d ever seen you before.”

Stubbs withdrew, believing himself to have received a compliment.

“Of course this ends the matter, George,” said Lord Tottlebury.

“I should hope so,” said Gerald.

George looked at Neaera; and as he looked the conviction grew stronger on him that she was Nelly Game.

“Mr. George Neston is not convinced,” said she, mockingly.

“It does not much matter whether I am convinced or not,” said George. “There is no kind of evidence to prove the identity.”

Gerald sprang up in indignation. “Do you mean that you won’t retract?”

“You can state all the facts; I shall say nothing.”

“You shall apologise, or——”

“Gerald,” said Lord Tottlebury, “this is no use.”

There was a feeling that George was behaving very badly. Everybody thought so, and said so; and all except Neaera either exhorted or besought him to confess himself the victim of an absurd mistake. As the matter had become public, nothing less could be accepted.

George wavered. “I will let you know to-morrow,” he said. “Meanwhile let me return this document to Mrs. Witt.” He took out Mrs. Horne’s letter and laid it on the table. “I have ventured to take a copy,” he said. “As the original is valuable, I thought I had better give it back.”

“Thank you,” said Neaera, and moved forward to take it.

Gerald hastened to fetch it for her. As he took it up, his eye fell on the writing, for George had laid it open on the table.

“Why, Neaera,” said he, “it’s in your handwriting!”

George started, and he thought he saw Neaera start just perceptibly.

“Of course,” she said. “That’s only a copy.”

“My dear, you never told me so,” said Lord Tottlebury; “and I have never seen your handwriting.”

“Gerald and Maud have.”

“But they never saw this.”

“It was stupid of me,” said Neaera, penitently; “but I never thought of there being any mistake. What difference does it make?”

George’s heart was hardened. He was sure she had, if not tried to pass off the copy as an original from the first, at any rate taken advantage of the error.

“Have you the original?” he asked.

“No,” said Neaera. “I sent it to somebody ever so long ago, and never got it back.”

“When did you make this copy?”

“When I sent away the original.”

“To whom?” began George again.

“I won’t have it,” cried Gerald. “You shan’t cross-examine her with your infernal insinuations. Do you mean that she forged this?”

George grew stubborn.

“I should like to see the original,” he said.

“Then you can’t,” retorted Gerald, angrily.

George shrugged his shoulders, turned, and left the room.

And they all comforted and cosseted Neaera, and abused George, and made up their minds to let the world know how badly he was behaving.

“It’s our duty to society,” said Lord Tottlebury.

CHAPTER VII.
AN IMPOSSIBLE BARGAIN.

“I should eat humble-pie, George,” said Mr. Blodwell, tapping his eye-glasses against his front teeth. “She’s one too many for you.”

“Do you think I’m wrong?”

“On the whole, I incline to think you’re right. But I should eat humble-pie if I were you, all the same.”

The suggested diet is palatable to nobody, and the power of consuming it without contortion is rightly put high in the list of virtues, if virtue be proportionate to difficulty. To a man of George Neston’s temperament penance was hard, even when enforced by the consciousness of sin; to bend the knees in abasement, when the soul was erect in self-approval, came nigh impossibility.

Still it was unquestionably necessary that he should assume the sheet and candle, or put up with an alternative hardly, if at all, less unpleasant. The “Fourth Paragraph” had appeared. It was called a paragraph for the sake of uniformity, but it was in reality a narrative, stretching to a couple of columns, and giving a detailed account of the attempted identification. For once, George implicitly believed the editor’s statement that his information came to him on unimpeachable authority. The story was clearly not only inspired by, but actually written by the hand of Gerald himself, and it breathed a bitter hostility to himself that grieved George none the less because it was very natural. This hostility showed itself, here and there, in direct attack; more constantly in irony and ingenious ridicule. George’s look, manner, tones, and walk were all pressed into the service. In a word, the article certainly made him look an idiot; he rather thought it made him look a malignant idiot.

“What can you do?” demanded Mr. Blodwell again. “You can’t bring up any more people from Peckton. You chose your witnesses, and they let you in.”

George nodded.

“You went to Bournemouth, and you found—what? Not that Mrs. What’s-her-name—Horne—was a myth, as you expected, or conveniently—and, mind you, not unplausibly—dead, as I expected, but an actual, existent, highly respectable, though somewhat doting, old lady. She had you badly there, George my boy!”

“Yes,” admitted George. “I wonder if she knew the woman was alive?”

“She chanced it; wished she might be dead, perhaps, but chanced it. That, George, is where Mrs. Witt is great.”

“Mrs. Horne doesn’t remember her being there in March, or indeed April.”

“Perhaps not; but she doesn’t say the contrary.”

“Oh, no. She said that if the character says March, of course it was March.”

“The ‘of course’ betrays a lay mind. But still the character does say March—for what it’s worth.”

“The copy of it does.”

“I know what you mean. But think before you say that, George. It’s pretty strong; and you haven’t a tittle of evidence to support you.”

“I don’t want to say a word. I’ll let them alone, if they’ll let me alone. But that woman’s Nelly Game, as sure as I’m——”

“An infernally obstinate chap,” put in Mr. Blodwell.

Probably what George meant by being “let alone,” was the cessation of paragraphs in the Bull’s-eye. If so, his wish was not gratified. “Will Mr. George Neston”—George’s name was no longer “withheld”—“retract?” took, in the columns of that publication, much the position occupied by Delenda est Carthago in the speeches of Cato the Elder. It met the reader on the middle page; it lurked for him in the leading article; it appeared, by way of playful reference, in the city intelligence; one man declared he found it in an advertisement, but this no doubt was an oversight—or perhaps a lie.

George was not more sensitive than other men, but the annoyance was extreme. The whole world seemed full of people reading the Bull’s-eye, some with grave reprobation, some with offensive chucklings.

But if the Bull’s-eye would not leave him alone, a large number of people did. He was not exactly cut; but his invitations diminished, the greetings he received grew less cordial than of yore: he was not turned out of the houses he went to, but he was not much pressed to come again. He was made to feel that right-minded and reasonable people—a term everybody uses to describe themselves—were against him, and that, if he wished to re-enter the good graces of society, he must do so by the strait and narrow gate of penitence and apology.

“I shall have to do it,” he said to himself, as he sat moodily in his chambers. “They’re all at me—uncle Roger, Tommy Myles, Isabel—all of them. I’m shot if I ever interfere with anybody’s marriage again.”

The defection of Isabel rankled in his mind worst of all. That she, of all people, should turn against him, and, as a last insult, send him upbraiding messages through Tommy Myles! This she had done, and George was full of wrath.

“A note for you, sir,” said Timms, entering in his usual silent manner. Timms had no views on the controversy, being one of those rare people who mind their own business; and George had fallen so low as to be almost grateful for the colourless impartiality with which he bore himself towards the quarrel between his masters.

George took the note. “Mr. Gerald been here, Timms?”

“He looked in for letters, sir; but went away directly on hearing you were here.”

Timms stated this fact as if it were in the ordinary way of friendly intercourse, and withdrew.

“Well, I am——!” exclaimed George, and paused.

The note was addressed in the handwriting he now knew very well, the handwriting of the Bournemouth character.

“You must do as a lady asks you,” said George, “even if she does steal shoes, and you have mentioned it. Here goes! What’s she up to now, I wonder?”

Neaera, arrayed in the elaborate carelessness of a tea-gown, received him, not in the drawing-room, but in her own snuggery. Tea was on the table; there was a bright little fire, and a somnolent old cat snoozed on the hearth-rug. The whole air was redolent of what advertisements called a “refined home,” and Neaera’s manner indicated an almost pathetic desire to be friendly, checked only by the self-respecting fear of a rude rebuff to her advances.

“It is really kind of you to come,” she said, “to consent to a parley.”

“The beaten side always consents to a parley,” answered George, taking the seat she indicated. She was half sitting, half lying on a sofa when he came in, and resumed her position after greeting him.

“No, no,” she said quickly; “that’s where it’s hard—when you’re beaten. But do you consider yourself beaten?”

“Up to now, certainly.”

“And you really are not convinced?” she asked, eyeing him with a look of candid appeal to his better nature.

“It is your fault, Mrs. Witt.”

“My fault?”

“Yes. Why are you so hard to forget?” George thought there was no harm in putting it in a pleasant way.

“Ah, why was Miss—now is it Game or Games?—so hard to forget?”

“It is, or rather was, Game. And I suppose she was hard to forget for the same reason as you—would be.”

“And what is that?”

“If you ask my cousin, no doubt he will tell you.”

Neaera smiled.

“What more can I do?” she asked. “Your people didn’t know me. I have produced a letter showing I was somewhere else.”

“Excuse me——”

“Well, well, then, a copy of a letter.”

“What purports to be a copy.”

“How glad I am I’m not a lawyer! It seems to make people so suspicious.”

“It’s a great pity you didn’t keep the original.”

Neaera said nothing. Perhaps she did not agree.

“But I suppose you didn’t send for me to argue about the matter?”

“No. I sent for you to propose peace. Mr. Neston, I am so weary of fighting. Why will you make me fight?”

“It’s not for my pleasure,” said George.

“For whose, then?” she asked, stretching out her arms with a gesture of entreaty. “Cannot we say no more about it?”

“With all my heart.”

“And you will admit you were wrong?”

“That is saying more about it.”

“You cannot enjoy the position you are in.”

“I confess that.”

“Mr. Neston, do you never think it’s possible you are wrong? But no, never mind. Will you agree just to drop it?”

“Heartily. But there’s the Bull’s-eye.”

“Oh, bother the Bull’s-eye! I’ll go and see the editor,” said Neaera.

“He’s a stern man, Mrs. Witt.”

“He won’t be so hard to deal with as you. There, that’s settled. Hurrah! Will you shake hands, Mr. Neston?”

“By all means.”

“With a thief?”

“With you, thief or no thief. And I must tell you you are very——”

“What?”

“Well, above small resentments.”

“Oh, what does it matter? Suppose I did take the boots?”

“Shoes,” said George.

Neaera burst into a laugh. “You are very accurate.”

“And you are very inaccurate, Mrs. Witt.”

“I shall always be amused when I meet you. I shall know you have your hand on your watch.”

“Oh yes. I retract nothing.”

“Then it is peace?”

“Yes.”

Neaera sat up and gave him her hand, and the peace was ratified. But it so chanced that Neaera’s sudden movement roused the cat. He yawned and got up, arching his back, and digging his claws into the hearth-rug.

“Bob,” said Neaera, “don’t spoil the rug.”

George’s attention was directed to the animal, and, as he looked at it, he started. Bob’s change of posture had revealed a serious deficiency: he had no tail, or the merest apology for a tail.

It was certainly an odd coincidence, perhaps nothing more, but a very odd coincidence, that George should have seen in the courtyard at Peckton Gaol no less than three tailless cats! Of course there are a good many in the world; but still most cats have tails.

“I like a black cat, don’t you?” said Neaera. “He’s nice and Satanic.”

The Peckton cats were black, too,—black as ink or the heart of a money-lender.

“An old favourite?” asked George, insidiously.

“I’ve had him a good many years. Oh!”

The last word slipped from Neaera involuntarily.

“Why ‘oh!’?”

“I’d forgotten his milk,” answered Neaera, with extraordinary promptitude.

“Where did you get him?”

Neaera was quite calm again. “Some friends gave him me. Please don’t say I stole my cat, too, Mr. Neston.”

George smiled; indeed, he almost laughed. “Well, it is peace, Mrs. Witt,” he said, taking his hat. “But remember!”

“What?” said Neaera, who was still smiling and cordial, but rather less at her ease than before.

“A cat may tell a tale, though he bear none.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it is ever war again, I will tell you. Good-bye, Mrs. Witt.”

“Good-bye. Please don’t have poor Bob arrested. He didn’t steal the boots—oh, the shoes, at any rate.”

“I expect he was in prison already.”

Neaera shook her head with an air of bewilderment. “I really don’t understand you. But I’m glad we’re not enemies any longer.”

George departed, but Neaera sat down on the rug and gazed into the fire. Presently Bob came to look after the forgotten milk. He rubbed himself right along Neaera’s elbow, beginning from his nose, down to the end of what he called his tail.

“Ah, Bob,” said Neaera, “what do you want? Milk, dear? ‘Good for evil, milk for——’”

Bob purred and capered. Neaera gave him his milk, and stood looking at him.

“How would you like to be drowned, dear?” she asked.

The unconscious Bob lapped on.

Neaera stamped her foot. “He shan’t! He shan’t! He shan’t!” she exclaimed. “Not an inch! Not an inch!”

Bob finished his milk and looked up.

“No, dear, you shan’t be drowned. Don’t be afraid.”

As Bob knew nothing about drowning, and only meant that he wanted more milk, he showed no gratitude for his reprieve. Indeed, seeing there was to be no more milk, he pointedly turned his back, and began to wash his face.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE FRACAS AT MRS. POCKLINGTON’S.

“I never heard anything so absurd in all my life,” said Mr. Blodwell, with emphasis.

George had just informed him of the treaty between himself and Neaera. He had told his tale with some embarrassment. It is so difficult to make people who were not present understand how an interview came to take the course it did.

“She seemed to think it all right,” George said weakly.

“Do you suppose you can shut people’s mouths in that way?”

“There are other ways,” remarked George, grimly, for his temper began to go.

“There are,” assented Mr. Blodwell; “and in these days, if you use them, it’s five pounds or a month, and a vast increase of gossip into the bargain. What does Gerald say?”

“Gerald? Oh, I don’t know. I suppose Mrs. Witt can manage him.”

“Do you? I doubt it. Gerald isn’t over easy to manage. Think of the position you leave him in!”

“He believes in her.”

“Yes, but he won’t be content unless other people do. Of course they’ll say she squared you.”

“Squared me!” exclaimed George, indignantly.

“Upon my soul, I’m not sure she hasn’t.”

“Of course you can say what you please, sir. From you I can’t resent it.”

“Come, don’t be huffy. Bright eyes have their effect on everybody. By the way, have you seen Isabel Bourne lately?”

“No.”

“Heard from her?”

“She sent me a message through Tommy Myles.”

“Is he in her confidence?”

“Apparently. The effect of it was, that she didn’t want to see me till I had come to my senses.”

“In those words?”

“Those were Tommy’s words.”

“Then relations are strained?”

“Miss Bourne is the best judge of whom she wishes to see.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Blodwell, cheerfully. “At present she seems to wish to see Myles. Well, well, George, you’ll have to come to your knees at last.”

“Mrs. Witt doesn’t require it.”

“Gerald will.”

“Gerald be—— But I’ve never told you of my fresh evidence.”

“Oh, you’re mad! What’s in the wind now?”

Five minutes later, George flung himself angrily out of Mr. Blodwell’s chambers, leaving that gentleman purple and palpitating with laughter, as he gently re-echoed,

“The cat! Go to the jury on the cat, George, my boy!”

To George, in his hour of adversity, Mrs. Pocklington was as a tower of strength. She said that the Nestons might squabble among themselves as much as they liked; it was no business of hers. As for the affair getting into the papers, her visiting-list would suffer considerably if she cut out everybody who was wrongly or, she added significantly, rightly abused in the papers. George Neston might be mistaken, but he was an honest young man, and for her part she thought him an agreeable one—anyhow, a great deal too good for that insipid child, Isabel Bourne. If anybody didn’t like meeting him at her house, they could stay away. Poor Laura Pocklington protested that she hated and despised George, but yet couldn’t stay away.

“Then, my dear,” said Mrs. Pocklington, tartly, “you can stay in the nursery.”

“It’s too bad!” exclaimed Laura. “A man who says such things isn’t fit——”

Mrs. Pocklington shook her head gently. Mr. Pocklington’s Radical principles extended no more to his household than to his business.

“Laura dear,” she said, in pained tones, “I do so dislike argument.”

So George went to dinner at Mrs. Pocklington’s, and that lady, remorseless in parental discipline, sent Laura down to dinner with him; and, as everybody knows, there is nothing more pleasing and interesting than a pretty girl in a dignified pet. George enjoyed himself. It was a long time since he had flirted; but really now, considering Isabel’s conduct, he felt at perfect liberty to conduct himself as seemed to him good. Laura was an old friend, and George determined to see how implacable her wrath was.

“It’s so kind of you to give me this pleasure,” he began.

“Pleasure?” said Laura, in her loftiest tone.

“Yes; taking you down, you know.”

“Mamma made me.”

“Ah, now you’re trying to take me down.”

“I wonder you can look any one in the face——”

“I always enjoy looking you in the face.”

“After the things you’ve said about poor Neaera!”

“Neaera?”

“Why shouldn’t I call her Neaera?”

“Oh, no reason at all. It may even be her name.”

“A woman who backbites is bad, but a man——”

“Is the deuce?” said George inquiringly.

Laura tried another tack. “All your friends think you wrong, even mamma.”

“What does that matter, as long as you think I’m right?”

“I don’t; I don’t. I think——”

“That it’s great fun to torment a poor man who——”

George paused.

“Who what?” said Laura, with deplorable weakness.

“Values your good opinion very highly.”

“Nonsense!”

George permitted himself to sigh deeply. A faint twitching betrayed itself about the corners of Laura’s pretty mouth.

“If you want to smile, I will look away,” said George.

“You’re very foolish,” said Laura; and George knew that this expression on a lady’s lips is not always one of disapproval.

“I am, indeed,” said he, “to spend my time in a vain pursuit.”

“Of Neaera?”

“No, not of Neaera.”

“I should never,” said Laura, demurely, “have referred to Miss Bourne, if you hadn’t, but as you have——”

“I didn’t.”

Presumably George explained whom he did refer to, and apparently the explanation took the rest of dinner-time. And as the ladies went upstairs, Mrs. Pocklington patted Laura’s shoulder with an approving fan.

“There’s a good child! It shows breeding to be agreeable to people you dislike.”

Laura blushed a little, but answered dutifully, “I am glad you are pleased, mamma.” Most likely she did not impose on Mrs. Pocklington. She certainly did not on herself.

George found himself left next to Sidmouth Vane.

“Hallo, Neston!” said that young gentleman, with his usual freedom. “Locked her up yet?”

George said Mrs. Witt was still at large. Vane had been his fag, and George felt he was entitled to take it out of him in after life whenever he could.

“Wish you would,” continued Mr. Vane. “That ass of a cousin of yours would jilt her, and I would wait outside Holloway or Clerkenwell, or wherever they put ’em, and receive her sympathetically—hot breakfast, brass band, first cigar for six months, and all that, don’t you know, like one of those Irish fellows.”

“You have no small prejudices.”

“Not much. A girl like that, plus an income like that, might steal all Northampton for what I care. Going upstairs?”

“Yes; there’s an ‘At Home’ on, isn’t there?”

“Yes, so I’m told. I shouldn’t go, if I were you.”

“Why the devil not?”

“Gerald’s going to be there—told me so.”

“Really, Vane, you’re very kind. We shan’t fight.”

“I don’t know about that. He’s simply mad.”

“Anything new?”

“Yes; he told me you’d been trying to square Mrs. Witt behind his back, and he meant to have it out with you.”

“Well,” said George, “I won’t run. Come along.”

The guests were already pouring in, and among the first George encountered was Mr. Dennis Espion, as over-strained as ever. Espion knew that George was aware of his position on the Bull’s-eye.

“Ah, how are you, Neston?” he said, holding out his hand.

George looked at it for a moment, and then took it.

“I support life and your kind attentions, Espion.”

“Ah! well, you know, we can’t help it—a matter of public interest. I hope you see our position——”

“Yes,” said George, urbanely; “Il faut vivre.”

“I don’t suppose you value our opinion, but——”

“Oh yes; I value it at a penny—every evening.”

“I was going to say——”

“Keep it, my dear fellow. What you say has market value—to the extent I have mentioned.”

“My dear Neston, may I——”

“Consider this an interview? My dear Espion, certainly. Make any use of this communication you please. Good night.”

George strolled away. “Suppose I was rather rude,” he said to himself. “But, hang it, I must have earned that fellow fifty pounds!”

George was to earn Mr. Espion a little more yet, as it turned out. He had not gone many steps before he saw his cousin Gerald making his bow to Mrs. Pocklington. Mr. Espion saw him too, and was on the alert. Gerald was closely followed by Tommy Myles.

“Ah, the enemy!” exclaimed George under his breath, pursuing his way towards Laura Pocklington.

The throng was thick, and his progress slow. He had time to observe Gerald, who was now talking to Tommy and to Sidmouth Vane, who had joined them. Gerald was speaking low, but his gestures betrayed strong excitement. Suddenly he began to walk rapidly towards George, the people seeming to fall aside from his path. Tommy Myles followed him, while Vane all but ran to George and whispered eagerly,

“For God’s sake, clear out, my dear fellow! He’s mad! There’ll be a shindy, as sure as you’re born!”

George did not like shindies, especially in drawing-rooms; but he liked running away less. “Oh, let’s wait and see,” he replied.

Gerald was looking dangerous. The healthy ruddiness of his cheek had darkened to a deep flush, his eyes looked vicious, and his mouth was set. As he walked quickly up to his cousin, everybody tried to look away; but out of the corners of two hundred eyes eager glances centred on the pair.

“May I have a word with you?” Gerald began, calmly enough.

“As many as you like; but I don’t know that this place——”

“It will do for what I have to say,” Gerald interrupted.

“All right. What is it?”

“I want two things of you. First, you will promise never to dare to address my—Mrs. Witt again.”

“And the second?” asked George.

“You will write and say you’ve told lies, and are sorry for it.”

“I address whom I please and write what I please.”

Vane interposed.

“Really, Neston—you, Gerald, I mean—don’t make a row here. Can’t you get him away, Tommy?”

Gerald gave Tommy a warning look, and poor Tommy shook his head mournfully.

George felt the necessity of avoiding a scene. He began to move quietly away. Gerald stood full in his path.

“You don’t go till you’ve answered. Will you do what I tell you?”

“Really, Gerald,” George began, still clinging to peace.

“Yes or no?”

“No,” said George, with a smile and a shrug.

“Then, you cur, take——”

In another moment he would have struck George full in the face, but the vigilant Vane caught his arm as he raised it.

“You damned fool! Are you drunk?” he hissed into his ear. “Everybody’s looking.”

It was true. Everybody was.

“All the better,” Gerald blurted out. “I’ll thrash him——”

Tommy Myles ranged up and passed his hand through the angry man’s other arm.

“Can’t you go, George?” asked Vane.

“No,” said George, calmly; “not till he’s quiet.”

The hush that had fallen on the room attracted Mrs. Pocklington’s attention. In a moment, as it seemed, though her movements were as a rule slow and stately, she was beside them, just in time to see Gerald make a violent effort to throw off Vane’s detaining hand.

“I cannot get anybody to go into the music-room,” she said; “and the signora is waiting to begin. Mr. Neston, give me your arm, and we will show the way.” Then her eyes seemed to fall for the first time on George. “Oh, you here too, Mr. George? Laura is looking for you everywhere. Do find her. Come, Mr. Neston. Mr. Vane, go and give your arm to a lady.”

The group scattered, obedient to her commands, and everybody breathed a little sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, and told one another that Mrs. Pocklington was a great woman.

“In another second,” said Tommy Myles, as he restored himself with a glass of champagne, “it would have been a case of Bow Street!”

“I think it fairly amounts to a fracas,” said Mr. Espion to himself; and as a fracas, accordingly, it figured.