PRESENTING AN HONEST WOMAN.
To fit square pegs into round holes is one of the favourite pastimes of
Nature. She does it roughly, violently, and with wanton disregard of the
feelings of the square pegs. When, in her relentless sport, she has at
last driven the poor peg in and made it fit, by dint of knocking off and
abrading all its corners, philosophers glorify her, calling the process
evolution, and plain men wonder why she did not begin at the other end,
and make the holes square to fit the pegs.
The square peg on which these trite reflections hang is poor Neaera
Witt. Nature made her a careless, ease-loving, optimistic creature, only
to drive her, of malice prepense, into an environment--that is to say,
in unscientific phrase, a hole--where she had need of the equipment of
a full-blooded conspirator.
She resisted the operation; she persistently trusted to chance to
extricate her from the toils into which she, not being a philosopher,
thought chance had thrown her. If she saw a weapon ready to her hand,
she used it, as she had used the Bournemouth character, but for the most
part she trusted to luck. George Neston would fail, or he would relent;
or Gerald would be invincibly incredulous, or, she would add, smiling
at her face in the glass, invincibly in love. Somehow or other matters
would straighten themselves out; and, at the worst, ten days more would
bring the marriage; and after the marriage---- But really, ten days
ahead is as far as one can be expected to look, especially when the ten
days include one's wedding.
Nevertheless, Sidmouth Vane had a knack of being correct in his
information, and he was correct in stating that Neaera had gone to
Liverpool on business. It was, of course, merely a guess that her errand
might be connected with George's, but it happened to be a right guess.
Neaera knew well the weak spot in her armour. Hitherto she had been
content to trust to her opponent not discovering it; but, as the
decisive moment came nearer, a nervous restlessness so far overcame her
natural _insouciance_ as to determine her to an effort to complete her
defences, in anticipation of any assault upon them. She was in happy
ignorance of the chance that had directed George's forces against her
vulnerable point, and imagined that she herself was, in all human
probability, the only person in London to whom the name of Mrs. Bort
would be more than an unmeaning uneuphonious syllable. To her the name
was full of meaning; for, from her youth till the day of the happy
intervention of that stout and elderly _deus ex machina_, the late Mr.
Witt, Mrs. Bort had been to Neaera the impersonation of virtue and
morality, and the physical characteristics that had caught Lord
Mapledurham's frivolous attention had been to her merely the frowning
aspect under which justice and righteousness are apt to present
themselves.
Neaera was a good-hearted girl, and Mrs. Bort now lived on a comfortable
pension, but no love mingled with the sense of duty that inspired the
gift. Mrs. Bort had interpreted her quasi-maternal authority with the
widest latitude, and Neaera shuddered to remember how often Mrs. Bort's
discipline had made her smart, in a way, against which apathy of
conscience was no shield or buckler. Recorder Dawkins would have groaned
to know how even judicial terrors paled in Neaera's recollection before
the image of Mrs. Bort.
These childish fears are hard to shake off, and Neaera, as she sped
luxuriously to Liverpool, acknowledged to herself that, in that dreadful
presence, no adventitious glories of present wealth or future rank would
avail her. The governing fact in the situation, the fact that Neaera did
not see her way to meet, was that Mrs. Bort was an honest woman. Neaera
knew her, and knew that a bribe would be worse than useless, even if she
dared to offer it.
"And I don't think," said Neaera, resting her pretty chin upon her
pretty hand, "that I should dare." Then she laughed ruefully. "I'm not
at all sure she wouldn't beat me; and if she did, what could I do?"
Probably Neaera exaggerated even the fearless rectitude of Mrs. Bort,
but she was so convinced of the nature of the reception which any
proposal of the obvious kind would meet with that she made up her mind
that her only course was to throw herself on Mrs. Bort's mercy, in case
that lady proved deaf to a subtle little proposal which was Neaera's
first weapon.
So far as Neaera knew, Peckton and Manchester were the only places in
which George Neston was likely to seek for traces of her. Liverpool,
though remote from Peckton, was uncomfortably near Manchester. Every day
now had great value. If she could get Mrs. Bort away to some remote spot
as soon as might be, she gained no small advantage in her race against
time and George Neston.
"If she will only go to Glentarroch, he will never find her."
Glentarroch was the name of a little retreat in remote Scotland, whither
Mr. Witt had been wont to betake himself for rest and recreation. It was
Neaera's now. It was a beautiful place, which was immaterial, and a
particularly inaccessible one, which was most material. Would not Mrs.
Bort's despotic instincts lead her to accept an invitation to rule over
Glentarroch? Neaera could not afford to pity the hapless wights over
whom Mrs. Bort would rule.
Mrs. Bort received Neaera in a way most unbecoming to a pensioner.
"Well, Nery," she said, "what brings you here? No good, I'll be bound.
Where's your mourning?"
Neaera said that she thought resignation to Heaven's will not a subject
of reproach, and that she came to ask a favour of Mrs. Bort.
"Ay, you come to me when you want something. That's the old story."
Neaera remembered that Mrs. Bort had often taken her own view of what
the supplicant wanted, and given something quite other than what was
asked; but, in spite of this unpromising opening, she persevered, and
laid before Mrs. Bort a dazzling picture of the grandeur waiting her at
Glentarroch.
"And I shall be so much obliged. Really, I don't know what the
servants--the girls, especially--may be doing."
"Carryings-on, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Bort. "Why don't you go
yourself, Nery?"
"Oh, I can't, indeed. I--I must stay in London."
"Nasty, cold, dull little place it sounds," said Mrs. Bort.
"Oh, of course I shall consider all that----"
"He--he!" Mrs. Bort sniggered unpleasantly. "So it ain't sech a sweet
spot, as ye call it, after all?"
Neaera recovered herself without dignity, and stated that she thought of
forty pounds a year and all found.
"Ah, if I knowed what you was at, Nery!"
Neaera intimated that it was simply a matter of mutual accommodation.
"And there's really no time to be lost," she said, plaintively. "I'm
being robbed every day."
"Widows has hard times," said Mrs. Bort. And Neaera did not think it
necessary to say how soon her hard times were coming to an end.
"Come agin to-morrer afternoon, and I'll tell ye," was Mrs. Bort's
ultimatum. "And mind you don't get into mischief."
"Why afternoon?" asked Neaera.
"'Cause I'm washing," said Mrs. Bort, snappishly. "That's why."
Neaera in vain implored an immediate answer. Mrs. Bort said a day could
not matter, and that, if Neaera pressed her farther, she should consider
it an indication that something was "up," and refuse to go at all.
Neaera was silenced, and sadly returned to her hotel.
"How I hate that good, good woman!" she cried. "I'll never see her again
as long as I live, after to-morrow. Oh, I should like to hit her!"
The propulsions of cause upon cause are, as Bacon has said, infinite.
If Mrs. Bort had not washed--in the technical sense, of course--on that
particular Friday, Neaera would have come and gone--perhaps even Mrs.
Bort might have gone too--before the train brought George Neston to
Liverpool, and his eager inquiries landed him at Mrs. Bort's abode. As
it was, Mrs. Bort's little servant bade him wait in the parlour, as her
mistress was talking to a female in the kitchen. The little servant
thought "female" the politest possible way of describing any person
who was not a man, and accorded the title to Neaera on account of her
rustling robes and gold-tipped parasol.
George did not question his informant, thereby showing that he, in
the _rôle_ of detective, was a square peg in a round hole. He heard
proceeding from the kitchen a murmur of two subdued voices, one of
which, however, dominated the other.
"That must be Mrs. Bort," thought he. "I wish I could hear the female."
Then his attention wandered, for he made sure the unknown could not be
Neaera, as she had had a day's start of him. He did not allow for Mrs.
Bort's washing. Suddenly the dominant voice was raised to the pitch of
distinctness.
"Have ye told him," it said, "or have ye lied to him, as you lied to me
yesterday?"
"I didn't--I didn't," was the answer. "You never asked me if I was going
to be married."
"Oh, go along! You know how I'd have answered that when ye lived with
me."
"How's that?" asked George, with a slight smile.
"Have ye told him?"
"Told him what?" asked Neaera; for it was clearly Neaera.
"Told him you're a thief."
"This woman's a brute," thought George.
"Have ye?"
"No, not exactly. How dare you question me?"
"Dare!" said Mrs. Bort; and George knew she was standing with her arms
akimbo. "Dare!" she repeated _crescendo_; and apparently her aspect was
threatening, for Neaera cried,
"Oh, I didn't mean that. Do let me go."
"Tell the truth, if your tongue'll do it. The truth, will ye?"
"The deuce!" said George; for, following on this last speech, he heard a
sob.
"No, I haven't. I--oh, do have mercy on me!"
"Mercy! It's not mercy, it's a stick you want. But I'll tell him."
"Ah, stop, for Heaven's sake!"
There was a little scuffle; then the door flew open, and Mrs. Bort
appeared, with Neaera clinging helplessly about her knees.
George rose and bowed politely. "I'm afraid I intrude," said he.
"That's easy mended," said Mrs. Bort, with significance.
Neaera had leapt up on seeing him, and leant breathless against the
door, looking like some helpless creature at bay.
"Who let you in?" demanded the lady of the house.
"Your servant."
"I'll let _her_ in," said Mrs. Bort, darkly. "Who are ye?"
George looked at Neaera. "My name is Neston," he said blandly.
"Neston?"
"Certainly."
"Then you're in nice time; I wanted you, young man. D'ye see that
woman?"
"Certainly; I see Mrs. Witt."
"D'ye know what she is? Time you did, if you're a-going to take her to
church."
Neaera started.
"I hope to do so," said George, smiling; "and I think I know all about
her."
"Do ye, now? Happen ever to have heard of Peckton?"
Neaera buried her face in her hands, and cried.
"Ah, pity you haven't something to cry for! Thought I'd see a sin done
for ten pound a month, did ye?"
George interposed; he began to enjoy himself. "Peckton? Oh yes. The
shoes, you mean?"
Mrs. Bort gasped.
"A trifle," said George, waving the shoes into limbo.
"Gracious! You ain't in the same line, are you?"
George shook his head.
"Anything else?" he asked, still smiling sweetly.
"Only a trifle of forging," said Mrs. Bort. "But p'raps she got her
deserts from me over that."
"Forging?" said George. "Oh ah, yes. You mean about----"
"Her place at Bournemouth? Ah, Nery, don't you ache yet?"
Apparently Neaera did. She shivered and moaned.
"But I've got it," continued Nemesis; and, she bounded across the room
to a cupboard. "There, read that."
George took it calmly, but read it with secret eagerness. It was the
original character, and stated that Miss Gale began her service in May,
not March, 1883.
"I caught her a-copying it, and altering dates. My, how I did----"
"Dear, dear!" interrupted George. "I was afraid it was something new.
Anything else, Mrs. Bort?"
Mrs. Bort was beaten.
"Go along," she said. "If you likes it, it's nothing to me. But lock up
your money-box."
"Let me congratulate you, Mrs. Bort, on having done your duty."
"I'm an honest woman," said Mrs. Bort.
"Yes," answered George, "by the powers you are!" Then, turning to Mrs.
Witt, he added, "Shall we go--Neaera dear?"
"You'll both of you die on the gallows," said Mrs. Bort.
"Come, Neaera," said George.
She took his arm and they went out, George giving the little servant a
handsome tip to recompense her for the prospect of being "let in" by her
mistress.
George's cab was at the door. He handed Neaera in. She was still
half-crying and said nothing, except to tell him the name of her hotel.
Then he raised his hat, and watched her driven away, wiping his brow
with his handkerchief.
"Pheugh!" said he, "I've done it now--and what an infernal shame it
is!"