Mr. Witt's Widow: A Frivolous Tale

“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.”