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.