Mr. Witt's Widow: A Frivolous Tale

“Perhaps I have,” her husband admitted. “I think he’s a young fool.”

“Am I to consider it an obstacle?”

“Well, what do you think yourself?”

“It’s your business. Men know about that sort of thing.”

“Is the child – eh?”

“Yes, rather.”

“And he?”

“Oh, yes, or will be very soon, when he sees she is.”

“Poor little Lally!” said Mr. Pocklington. Then he sat and pondered. “It is an obstacle,” he said at last.

“Ah!” said his wife.

“He must put himself right.”

“Do you mean, prove what he says?”

“Well, at any rate, show he had good excuse for saying it.”

“I think it’s a little hard. But it’s for you to decide.”

Mr. Pocklington nodded.

“Then, that’s settled,” said Mrs. Pocklington. “It’s a great comfort, Robert, to have a man who knows his mind on the premises.”

“Be gentle with her,” said he, and returned to the strike.

The other parties to the encounter over George’s merits had by a natural impulse taken themselves to Neaera Witt’s, with the hope of being thanked for their holy zeal. They were disappointed, for, on arriving at Albert Mansions, they were informed that Neaera, although returned from Liverpool, was not visible. “Mr. Neston has been waiting over an hour to see her, miss,” said Neaera’s highly respectable handmaid, “but she won’t leave her room.”

Gerald heard their voices, and came out.

“I can’t think what’s the matter,” he said.

“Oh, I suppose the journey has knocked her up,” suggested Isabel.

“Are you going to wait, Gerald?” asked Maud.

“Well, no. The fact is, she sent me a message to go away.”

“Then come home with me,” said Isabel, “and we will try to console you.” Gerald would enjoy their tale quite as much as Neaera.

Low spirits are excusable in persons who are camping on an active volcano, and Neaera felt that this was very much her position. At any moment she might be blown into space, her pleasant dreams shattered, her champions put to shame, and herself driven for ever from the only place in life she cared to occupy. Her abasement was pitiful, and her penitence, being born merely of defeat, offers no basis of edification. She had serious thoughts of running away; for she did not think she could face Gerald’s wrath, or, worse still, his grief. He would cast her off, and society would cast her off, and those dreadful papers would turn their thunders against her. She might have consoled herself for banishment from society with Gerald’s love, or, perhaps, for loss of his love with the triumphs of society; but she would lose both, and have not a soul in the whole world to speak to except that hateful Mrs. Bort. So she sat and dolefully mused, with the tailless cat, that gift of a friendly gaoler at Peckton prison, purring on the rug before her, unconsciously personifying an irrevocable past and a future emptied of delight.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONTAINING MORE THAN ONE ULTIMATUM

It was fortunate that Mr. Blodwell was not very busy on Saturday morning, or he might have resented the choice of his chambers for a council, and not been mollified by being asked to take part in the deliberations. At eleven o’clock in the morning, Gerald Neston arrived, accompanied by Sidmouth Vane and Mr. Lionel Fitzderham, who was, in the first place, Mrs. Pocklington’s brother, and, in the second place, chairman of the committee of the Themis Club.

“We have come, sir,” said Gerald, “to ask you to use your influence with George. His conduct is past endurance.”

“Anything new?” asked Mr. Blodwell.

“No, that’s just it. This is Saturday. I’m to be married on Monday week; and George does nothing.”

“What do you want him to do?”

“Why, to acknowledge himself wrong, as he can’t prove himself right.”

Mr. Blodwell looked at Fitzderham.

“Yes,” said the latter. “It can’t stay as it is. The lady must be cleared, if she can’t be proved guilty. We arrived clearly at that conclusion.”

“We?”

“The committee of the Themis.”

“Oh, ah, yes. And you, Vane?”

“I concur,” said Vane, briefly. “I’ve backed George up to now: but I agree he must do one thing or the other.”

“Well, gentlemen, I suppose you’re right. Only, if he won’t?”

“Then we shall take action,” said Fitzderham.

“So shall I,” said Gerald.

Vane shrugged his shoulders.

Mr. Blodwell rang the bell.

“Is Mr. George in, Timms?” he asked.

“Yes, sir; just arrived.”

“Ask him to step in to me, if he will. I don’t see,” he continued, “why you shouldn’t settle it with him. I’ve nothing to do with it, thank God.”

George entered. He was surprised to see the deputation, but addressed himself exclusively to Blodwell.

“Here I am, sir. What is it?”

“These gentlemen,” said Mr. Blodwell, “think that the time has come for you to withdraw your allegations or to prove them.”

“You see, George,” said Vane, “it’s not fair to leave Mrs. Witt under this indefinite stigma.”

“Far from it,” said Fitzderham.

George stood with his back against the mantel-piece. “I quite agree,” he said. “Let’s see – to-day’s Saturday. When is the wedding, if there – ?”

“Monday week,” said Blodwell, hastily, fearing an explosion from Gerald.

“Very well. On Tuesday – ”

“A telegram for you, sir,” said Timms, entering.

“Excuse me,” said George.

He opened and read his telegram. It ran, “Yes – my handwriting. Will return by next post registered – Horne, Bournemouth.”

“On Monday,” continued George, “at five o’clock in the afternoon, I will prove all I said, or withdraw it.”

Gerald looked uneasy, but he tried to think, or at least to appear to think, that George’s delay was only to make his surrender less abrupt.

“Very well! Shall we meet here?”

“No,” said Gerald. “Mrs. Witt ought to be present.”

“Is that desirable?” asked George.

“Of course it is.”

“As you please. I should say not. But ask her, and be guided by her wishes.”

“Well, then, at Lord Tottlebury’s?” suggested Vane.

“By all means,” said George. And, with a slight nod, he left the room.

“I hope,” said Mr. Blodwell, “that you have done well in forcing matters to an extremity.”

“Couldn’t help it,” said Vane, briefly.

And the council broke up.

Mrs. Horne’s telegram made George’s position complete. It was impossible for Neaera to struggle against such evidence, and his triumph was assured from the moment when he produced the original document and contrasted it with Neaera’s doctored copy. Besides, Mrs. Bort was in the background, if necessary; and although an impulse of pity had led him to shield Neaera at Liverpool, he was in no way debarred by that from summoning Mrs. Bort to his assistance if he wanted her. The Neston honour was safe, an impostor exposed, and the cause of morality, respectability, truth, and decency powerfully forwarded. Above all, George himself was enabled to rout his enemies, to bring a blush to the unblushing cheek of the Bull’s-eye, and to meet his friends without feeling that perhaps they were ashamed to be seen talking to him.

The delights of the last-mentioned prospect were so great, that George could not make up his mind to postpone them, and, in the afternoon, he set out to call on the Pocklingtons. There could be no harm in giving them at least a hint of the altered state of his fortunes, due, as it was in reality, to Mrs. Pocklington’s kindness in presenting him to Lord Mapledurham. It would certainly be very pleasant to prove to the Pocklingtons, especially to Laura Pocklington, that they had been justified in standing by him, and that he was entitled, not to the good-natured tolerance accorded to honesty, but to the admiration due to success.

In matters of love, at least, George Neston cannot be presented as an ideal hero. Heroes unite the discordant attributes of violence and constancy: George had displayed neither. Isabel Bourne had satisfied his judgment without stirring his blood. When she presumed to be so ill-advised as to side against him, he resigned, without a pang, a prospect that had become almost a habit. Easily and insensibly the pretty image of Laura Pocklington had filled the vacant space. As he wended his way to Mrs. Pocklington’s, he smiled to think that a month or two ago he had looked forward to a life spent with Isabel Bourne with acquiescence, though not, it is true, with rapture. Had the rapture existed before, it is sad to think that perhaps the smile would have been broader now; for love, when born in trepidation and nursed in joy, is often buried without lamentation and remembered with amusement – kindly, even tender amusement, but still amusement. An easy-going fancy like George’s for Isabel cannot claim even the tribute of a tear behind the smile – a tear which, by its presence, causes yet another smile. George was not even grateful to Isabel for a pleasant dream and a gentle awakening. She was gone; and, what is more, she ought never to have come: and there was an end of it.

George, having buried Isabel, rang the bell with a composed mind. He might ask Laura Pocklington to marry him to-day, or he might not. He would be guided by circumstances in that matter: but at any rate he would ask her, and that soon; for she was the only girl he could ever be happy with, and, if he dawdled, his chance might be gone. Of course there was a crowd of suitors at her feet, and, although George had no unduly modest view of his own claims, he felt it behoved him to be up and doing. It is true that the crowd of suitors was not very much in evidence, but who could doubt its existence without questioning the sanity and eyesight of mankind?

As it so chanced, however, George did not see Laura. He saw Mrs. Pocklington, and that lady at once led the conversation to the insistent topic of Neaera Witt. George could not help letting fall a hint of his approaching victory.

“Poor woman!” said Mrs. Pocklington. “But, for your sake, I’m very glad.”

“Yes, it gets me out of an awkward position.”

“Just what my husband said. He thought that you were absolutely bound to prove what you said, or at least to give a good excuse for it.”

“Absolutely bound?”

“Well, I mean if you were to keep your place in society.”

“And in your house?”

“Oh, he did not go so far as that. Everybody comes to my house.”

“Yes; but, Mrs. Pocklington, I don’t want to come in the capacity of ‘everybody.’”

“Then, I think he did mean that you must do what I say, before you went on coming in any other capacity.”

George looked at Mrs. Pocklington. Mrs. Pocklington smiled diplomatically.

“Is Miss Pocklington out?” asked George.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pocklington, “she is out.”

“Not back soon?” asked George, smiling in his turn.

“Not yet.”

“Not until – ?”

“Well, Mr. Neston, I dare say you know what I mean.”

“I think so. Fortunately, there is no difficulty. Shall we say Tuesday?”

“When Tuesday comes, we will see if we say Tuesday.”

“And, otherwise, I am – ?”

“Otherwise, my dear George, you have no one to persuade except – ”

“Ah, that is the most difficult task of all.”

“I don’t know anything about that. Only I hope you believe what you say. Young men are so conceited nowadays.”

“When Miss Pocklington comes in, you will tell her how sorry I was not to see her?”

“Certainly.”

“And that I look forward to Tuesday?”

“No; I shall say nothing about that. You are not out of the wood yet.”

“Oh yes, I am.”

But Mrs. Pocklington stood firm; and George departed, feeling that the last possibility of mercy for Neaera Witt had vanished. There is a limit to unselfishness; nay, what place is there for pity when public duty and private interest unite in demanding just severity?

CHAPTER XIV.

NEAERA’S LAST CARD

Neaera Witt had one last card to play. Alas, how great the stake, and how slight the chance! Still she would play it. If it failed, she would only drink a little deeper of humiliation, and be trampled a little more contemptuously under foot. What did that matter?

“You will not condemn a woman unheard,” she wrote, with a touch of melodrama. “I expect you here on Sunday evening at nine. You cannot be so hard as not to come.”

George had written that he would come, but that his determination was unchangeable. “I must come, as you ask me,” he said; “but it is useless – worse than useless.” Still he would come.

Bill Sykes likes to be tried in a black coat, and draggle-tailed Sal smooths her tangled locks before she enters the dock. Who can doubt, though it be not recorded, that the burghers of Calais, cruelly restricted to their shirts, donned their finest linen to face King Edward and his Queen, or that the Inquisitors were privileged to behold many a robe born to triumph on a different stage? And so Neaera Witt adorned herself to meet George Neston with subtle simplicity. Her own ill-chastened taste, fed upon popular engravings, hankered after black velvet, plainly made in clinging folds; but she fancied that the motive would be too obvious for an eye so rusé as George’s, and reluctantly surrendered her picture of a second Queen of Scots. White would be better; white could cling as well as black, and would so mingle suggestions of remorse and innocence that surely he could not be hard-hearted enough to draw the distinction. A knot of flowers, destined to be plucked to pieces by agitated hands – so much conventional emotion she could not deny herself, – a dress cut low, and open sleeves made to fall back when the white arms were upstretched for pity, – all this should make a combined assault on George’s higher nature and on his lower. Neaera thought that, if only she had been granted time and money to dress properly, she might never have seen the inside of Peckton gaol at all; for even lawyers are human, or, if that be disputed, let us say not superhuman.

George came in with all the awkwardness of an Englishman who hates a scene and feels himself a fool for his awkwardness. Neaera motioned him to a chair, and they sat silent for a moment.

“You sent for me, Mrs. Witt?”

“Yes,” said Neaera, looking at the fire. Then, with a sudden turn of her eyes upon him, she added, “It was only – to thank you.”

“I’m afraid you have little enough to thank me for.”

“Yes; your kindness at Liverpool.”

“Oh, it seemed the best way out. I hope you pardon the liberty I took?”

“And for an earlier kindness of yours.”

“I really – ”

“Yes, yes. When they gave me that money you sent, I cried. I could not cry in prison, but I cried then. It was the first time any one had ever been kind to me.”

George was embarrassed. He had an uneasy feeling that the sentiment was trite; but, then, many of the saddest things are the tritest.

“It is good of you,” he said, stumbling in his words, “to remember it, in face of all I have done against you.”

“You pitied me then.”

“With all my heart.”

“How did I do it? How did I? I wish I had starved; and seen my father starve first!”

George wondered whether it was food that the late Mr. Gale so urgently needed.

“But I did it. I was a thief; and once a thief, always a thief.” And Neaera smiled a sad smile.

“You must not suppose,” he said, as he had once before, “that I do not make allowances.”

“Allowances?” she cried, starting up. “Allowances – always allowances! never pity! never mercy! never forgetfulness!”

“You did not ask for mercy,” said George.

“No, I didn’t. I know what you mean – I lied.”

“Yes, you lied, if you choose that word. You garbled documents, and, when the truth was told, you called it slander.”

Neaera had sunk back in her seat again. “Yes,” she moaned. “I couldn’t let it all go – I couldn’t!”

“You yourself have made pity impossible.”

“Oh no, not impossible! I loved him so, and he – he was so trustful.”

“The more reason for not deceiving him,” said George, grimly.

“What is it, after all?” she exclaimed, changing her tone. “What is it, I say?”

“Well, if you ask me, Mrs. Witt, it’s an awkward record.”

“An awkward record! Yes, but for a man in love?”

“That’s Gerald’s look-out. He can do as he pleases.”

“What, after you have put me to open shame? And for what? Because I loved my father most, and loved my – the man who loved me – most!” George shook his head.

“If you were in love – in love, I say, with a girl – yes, if you were in love with me, would this thing stop you?” And she stood before him proudly and scornfully.

George looked at her. “I don’t think it would,” he said.

“Then,” she asked, advancing a step, and stretching out her clasped hands, “why ask more for another than for yourself?”

“Gerald will be the head of the family, to begin with – ”

“The family?”

“Certainly; the Neston family.”

“Who are they? Are they famous? I never heard of them till the other day.”

“I daresay not; we moved in rather different circles.”

“Do you take pleasure in being brutal?”

“I take pleasure in nothing connected with this confounded affair,” said George, impatiently.

“Then why not drop it?”

George shook his head.

“Too late,” he said.

“It’s mere selfishness. You are only thinking of what people will say of you.”

“I have a right to consider that.”

“It’s mean – mean and heartless!”

George rose. “Really, it’s no use going on with this,” said he. And, making a slight bow, he turned towards the door.

“I didn’t mean it – I didn’t mean it,” cried Neaera. “But I am out of my mind. Ah, have pity on me!” And she flung herself on the floor, right in his path.

George felt very absurd. He stood, his hat in one hand, his stick and gloves in the other, while Neaera clasped his legs below the knee, and, he feared, was about to bedew his boots with her tears.

“This is tragedy, I suppose,” he thought. “How the devil am I to get away?”

“I have never had a chance,” Neaera went on, “never. Ah, it is hard! And when at last – ” Her voice choked, and George, to his horror, heard her sob.

He nervously shifted his feet about, as well as Neaera’s eager clutches would allow him. How he wished he had not come!

“I cannot bear it!” she cried. “They will all write about me, and jeer at me; and Gerald will cast me off. Where shall I hide? – where shall I hide? What was it to you?”

Then she was silent, but George heard her stifled weeping. Her clasp relaxed, and she fell forward, with her face on the floor, in front of him. He did not seize his chance of escape.

“London is uninhabitable to me, if I do as you ask,” he said.

She looked up, the tears escaping from her eyes.

“Ah, and the world to me, if you don’t!”

George sat down in an arm-chair; he abandoned the hope of running away. Neaera rose, pushed back her hair from her face, and fixed her eyes eagerly on him. He looked down for an instant, and she shot a hasty glance at the mirror, and then concentrated her gaze on him again, a little anxious smile coming to her lips.

“You will?” she asked in a whisper.

George petulantly threw his gloves on a table near him. Neaera advanced, and knelt down beside him, laying her hand on his shoulder.

“You have made me cry so much,” she said. “See, my eyes are dim. You won’t make me cry any more?”

George looked at the bright eyes, half veiled in tears, and the mouth trembling on the brink of fresh weeping. And the eyes and mouth were very good.

“It is Gerald,” she said; “he is so strict. And the shame, the shame!”

“You don’t know what it means to me.”

“I do indeed: I know it is hard. But you are generous. No, no, don’t turn your face away!”

George still sat silent. Neaera took his hand in hers.

“Ah, do!” she said.

George smiled, – at himself, not at Neaera.

“Well, don’t cry any more,” said he, “or the eyes will be red as well as dim.”

“You will, you will?” she whispered eagerly.

He nodded.

“Ah, you are good! God bless you, George: you are good!”

“No. I am only weak.”

Neaera swiftly bent and kissed his hand. “The hand that gives me life,” she said.

“Nonsense,” said George, rather roughly.

“Will you clear me altogether?”

“Oh yes; everything or nothing,”

“Will you give me that – that character?”

“Yes.”

She seized his reluctant hand, and kissed it again.

“I have your word?”

“You have.”

She leapt up, suddenly radiant.

“Ah, George, Cousin George, how I love you! Where is it?”

George took the document out of his pocket.

Neaera seized it. “Light a candle,” she cried.

George with an amused smile obeyed her.

“You hold the candle, and I will burn it!” And she watched the paper consumed with the look of a gleeful child. Then she suddenly stretched her arms. “Oh, I am tired!”

“Poor child!” said George. “You can leave it to me now.”

“However shall I repay you? I never can.” Then she suddenly saw the cat, ran to him, and picked him up. “We are forgiven, Bob! we are forgiven!” she cried, dancing about the room.

George watched her with amusement.

She put the cat down and came to him. “See, you have made me happy. Is that enough?”

“It is something,” said he.

“And here is something more!” And she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him.

“That’s better,” said George. “Any more?”

“Not till we are cousins.”

“Be gentle in your triumph.”

“No, no; don’t talk like that. Are you going?”

“Yes. I must go and put things straight.”

“Good-bye. I – I hope you won’t find it very hard.”

“I have been paid in advance.”

Neaera blushed a little.

“You shall be better paid, if ever I can,” she said.

George paused outside, to light a cigarette; then he struck into the park, and walked slowly along, meditating as he went. When he arrived at Hyde Park Corner, he roused himself from his reverie.

“Now the woman was very fair!” said he, as he hailed a hansom.

CHAPTER XV.

A LETTER FOR MR. GERALD

Mrs. Pocklington sat with blank amazement in her face, and a copy of the second edition of the Bull’s-eye in her hand. On the middle page, in type widely spaced, beneath a noble headline, appeared a letter from George Neston, running thus: —

“To the Editor of the Bull’s-eye

“Sir,

“As you have been good enough to interest yourself, and, I hope, fortunate enough to interest your readers, in the subject of certain allegations made by me in respect of a lady whose name has been mentioned in your columns, I have the honour to inform you that such allegations were entirely baseless, the result of a chance resemblance between that lady and another person, and of my own hasty conclusions drawn therefrom. I have withdrawn all my assertions, fully and unreservedly, and have addressed apologies for them to those who had a right to receive apologies.

“I have the honour to be, sir,“Your obedient servant,“George Neston.”

And then a column of exultation, satire, ridicule, preaching, praying, prophesying, moralising, and what not. The pen flew with wings of joy, and ink was nothing regarded on that day.

Mrs. Pocklington was a kind-hearted woman; yet, when she read a sister’s vindication, she found nothing better to say than —

“How very provoking!”

And it may be that this unregenerate exclamation fairly summed up public feeling, if only public feeling had been indecent enough to show itself openly. A man shown to be a fool is altogether too common a spectacle; a woman of fashion proved a thief would have been a more piquant dish. But in this world – and, indeed, probably in any other – we must take what we can get; and since society could not trample on Neaera Witt, it consoled itself by correcting and chastening the misguided spirit of George Neston. Tommy Myles shook his empty little head, and all the other empty heads shook solemnly in time. Isabel Bourne said she knew she was right, and Sidmouth Vane thought there must be something behind – he always did, as became a statesman in the raw. Mr. Espion re-echoed his own leaders, like a phonograph; and the chairman of the Themis thanked Heaven they were out of an awkward job.

But wrath and fury raged in the breast of Laura Pocklington. She thought George had made a fool of her. He had persuaded her to come over to his side, and had then betrayed the colours. There would be joy in Gath and Askelon; or, in other words, Isabel Bourne and Maud Neston would crow over her insupportably.