Mr. Witt's Widow Part 8

"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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sed 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 t.i.ttered. 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 s.h.i.+ver 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.