“Laws, M.,” said Mrs. Moulder, when she was told of this. “A chambermaid from an inn! What will Mrs. Smiley say?”
“I ain’t going to trouble myself with what Mother Smiley may say or think about my friends. If she don’t like it, she may do the other thing. What was she herself when you first knew her?”
“Yes, Moulder; but then money do make a difference, you know.”
Bridget Bolster, however, was invited, and she came in spite of the grandeur of Mrs. Smiley. Kenneby also of course was there, but he was not in a happy frame of mind. Since that wretched hour in which he had heard himself described by the judge as too stupid to be held of any account by the jury he had become a melancholy, misanthropic man. The treatment which he received from Mr. Furnival had been very grievous to him, but he had borne with that, hoping that some word of eulogy from the judge would set him right in the public mind. But no such word had come, and poor John Kenneby felt that the cruel hard world was too much for him. He had been with his sister that morning, and words had dropped from him which made her fear that he would wish to postpone his marriage for another space of ten years or so. “Brick-fields!” he had said. “What can such a one as I have to do with landed property? I am better as I am.”
Mrs. Smiley, however, did not at all seem to think so, and welcomed John Kenneby back from Alston very warmly in spite of the disgrace to which he had been subjected. It was nothing to her that the judge had called her future lord a fool; nor indeed was it anything to anyone but himself. According to Moulder’s views it was a matter of course that a witness should be abused. For what other purpose was he had into the court? But deep in the mind of poor Kenneby himself the injurious words lay festering. He had struggled hard to tell the truth, and in doing so had simply proved himself to be an ass. “I ain’t fit to live with anybody else but myself,” he said to himself, as he walked down Bishopsgate Street.
At this time Mrs. Smiley was not yet there. Bridget had arrived, and had been seated in a chair at one corner of the fire. Mrs. Moulder occupied one end of a sofa opposite, leaving the place of honour at the other end for Mrs. Smiley. Moulder sat immediately in front of the fire in his own easy chair, and Snengkeld and Kantwise were on each side of him. They were of course discussing the trial when Mrs. Smiley was announced; and it was well that she made a diversion by her arrival, for words were beginning to run high.
“A jury of her countrymen has found her innocent,” Moulder had said with much heat; “and anyone who says she’s guilty after that is a libeller and a coward, to my way of thinking. If a jury of her countrymen don’t make a woman innocent, what does?”
“Of course she’s innocent,” said Snengkeld; “from the very moment the words was spoken by the foreman. If any newspaper was to say she wasn’t she’d have her action.”
“That’s all very well,” said Kantwise, looking up to the ceiling with his eyes nearly shut. “But you’ll see. What’ll you bet me, Mr. Moulder, that Joseph Mason don’t get the property?”
“Gammon!” answered Moulder.
“Well, it may be gammon; but you’ll see.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” said Mrs. Smiley, sailing into the room; “upon my word one hears all you say ever so far down the street.”
“And I didn’t care if they heard it right away to the Mansion House,” said Moulder. “We ain’t talking treason, nor yet highway robbery.”
Then Mrs. Smiley was welcomed;—her bonnet was taken from her and her umbrella, and she was encouraged to spread herself out over the sofa. “Oh, Mrs. Bolster; the witness!” she said, when Mrs. Moulder went through some little ceremony of introduction. And from the tone of her voice it appeared that she was not quite satisfied that Mrs. Bolster should be there as a companion for herself.
“Yes, ma’am. I was the witness as had never signed but once,” said Bridget, getting up and curtsying. Then she sat down again, folding her hands one over the other on her lap.
“Oh, indeed!” said Mrs. Smiley. “But where’s the other witness, Mrs. Moulder? He’s the one who is a deal more interesting to me. Ha, ha, ha! But as you all know it here, what’s the good of not telling the truth? Ha, ha, ha!”
“John’s here,” said Mrs. Moulder. “Come, John, why don’t you show yourself?”
“He’s just alive, and that’s about all you can say for him,” said Moulder.
“Why, what’s there been to kill him?” said Mrs. Smiley. “Well, John, I must say you’re rather backward in coming forward, considering what there’s been between us. You might have come and taken my shawl, I’m thinking.”
“Yes, I might,” said Kenneby gloomily. “I hope I see you pretty well, Mrs. Smiley.”
“Pretty bobbish, thank you. Only I think it might have been Maria between friends like us.”
“He’s sadly put about by this trial,” whispered Mrs. Moulder. “You know he is so tenderhearted that he can’t bear to be put upon like another.”
“But
