Mr. Witt's Widow: A Frivolous Tale

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.

“Dear Mr. Neston,

“I shall be alone at five o’clock to-day. Will you come and see me?

“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.”