WHY GEORGE NESTON JUMPED.
"How could I ever have forgotten?" said George, aloud, as he walked
home. "I remember her now as if it was yesterday."
Memory, like much else that appertains to man, is a queer thing, and the
name of Peckton had supplied the one link missing in his recollection.
How, indeed, had he ever forgotten it? Can a man forget his first brief
any more than his first love?--so like are they in their infinite
promise, so like in their very finite results!
The picture was now complete in his mind: the little, muggy court at
Peckton; old Dawkins, his wig black with age, the rest of him brown with
snuff; the fussy clerk; the prosecuting counsel, son to the same fussy
clerk; he himself, thrusting his first guinea into his pocket with
shaking hand and beating heart (nervous before old Daw! Imagine!); the
fat, peaceful policeman; the female warder, in her black straw-bonnet
trimmed with dark-blue ribbons; and last of all, in the dock, a young
girl, in shabby, nay, greasy, black, with pale cheeks, disordered hair,
and swollen eyelids, gazing in blank terror on the majesty of the law,
strangely expressed in the Recorder's ancient person. And, beyond all
doubt or imagination of a doubt, the girl was Gerald's bride, Neaera
Witt.
"I could swear to her to-day!" cried George.
She had scraped together a guinea for his fee. "I don't know where she
got it from," the fat policeman said with professional cynicism as he
gave it to George. "She pleads guilty and wants you to address the
court." So George had, with infinite trepidation, addressed the court.
The girl had a father--drunk when not starving, and starving when not
drunk. Now he was starving, and she had stolen the shoes (oh! the
sordidness of it all!) to pawn, and buy food--or drink. It was a case
for a caution merely--and--and--and George himself, being young to the
work, stammered and stuttered as much from emotion as from fright. You
see the girl was pretty!
All old Daw said was, "Do you know anything about her, policeman?" and
the fat policeman said her father was a bad lot, and the girl did no
work, and----
"That's enough," said old Daw; and, leaning forward, he pronounced his
sentence:
"I'll deal lightly with you. Only"--shaking a snuffy forefinger--"take
care you don't come here again! One calendar month, with hard labour."
And the girl, gazing back at honest old Daw, who would not have hurt a
fly except from the Bench, softly murmured, "Cruel, cruel, cruel!" and
was led away by the woman in the black straw bonnet.
Whereupon George did a very unprofessional thing. He gave his guinea,
his firstborn son, back to the fat policeman, saying, "Give it her when
she comes out. I can't take her money." At which the policeman smiled a
smile that convicted George of terrible youthfulness.
It was all complete--all except the name by which the fussy clerk had
called on the girl to plead, and which old Dawkins had mumbled out
in sentencing her. That utterly escaped him. He was sure it was not
"Neaera"--of course not "Neaera Witt;" but not "Neaera Anything,"
either. He would have remembered "Neaera."
"What on earth was it?" he asked himself as he unlocked his door and
went upstairs. "Not that it matters much. Names are easily changed."
George Neston shared his chambers in Half Moon Street with the
Honourable Thomas Buchanan Fillingham Myles, commonly known (as the
peerage has it) as Tommy Myles. Tommy also had a small room in the
Temple Chambers, where the two Nestons and Mr. Blodwell pursued their
livelihood; but Tommy's appearances at the latter resort were few and
brief. He did not trouble George much in Half Moon Street either, being
a young man much given to society of all sorts, and very prone to be
in bed when most people are up, and _vice versâ_. However, to-night he
happened to be at home, and George found him with his feet on the
mantelpiece, reading the evening paper.
"Well, what's she like?" asked Tommy.
"She's uncommonly pretty, and very pleasant," said George. Why say more,
before his mind was made up?
"Who was she?" pursued Tommy, rising and filling his pipe.
"Ah! I don't know. I wish I did."
"Don't see that it matters to you. Anybody else there?"
"Oh, a few people."
"Miss Bourne?"
"Yes, she was there."
Tommy winked, sighed prodigiously, and took a large drink of brandy and
soda.
"Where have you been?" asked George, changing the subject.
"Oh, to the Escurial--to a vulgar, really a very vulgar
entertainment--as vulgar as you could find in London."
"Are you going out again?"
"My dear George! It's close on twelve!" said Tommy, in reproving tones.
"Or to bed?"
"No. George, you hurt my feelings. Can it be that you wish to be
alone?"
"Well, at any rate, hold your tongue, Tommy. I want to think."
"Only one word. Has she been cruel?"
"Oh, get out. Here, give me a drink."
Tommy subsided into the _Bull's-eye_, that famous print whose motto is
_Lux in tenebris_ (meaning, of course, publicity in shady places), and
George set himself to consider what he had best do in the matter of
Neaera Witt.
The difficulties of the situation were obvious enough, but to George's
mind they consisted not so much in the question of what to do as in that
of how to do it. He had been tolerably clear from the first that Gerald
must not marry Neaera without knowing what he could tell him; if he
liked to do it afterwards, well and good. But of course he would not.
No Neston would, thought George, who had his full share of the family
pride. Men of good family made disgraceful marriages, it is true, but
not with thieves; and anyhow nothing of the kind was recorded in the
Neston annals. How should he look his uncle and Gerald in the face if
he held his tongue? His course was very clear. Only--well, it was an
uncommonly disagreeable part to be cast for--the denouncer and exposer
of a woman who very probably was no worse than many another, and was
unquestionably a great deal better-looking than most others. The whole
position smacked unpleasantly of melodrama, and George must figure in
the character of the villain, a villain with the best motives and the
plainest duty. One hope only there was. Perhaps Mrs. Witt would see the
wisdom of a timely withdrawal. Surely she would. She could never face
the storm. Then Gerald need know nothing about it, and six months'
travel--say to America, where pretty girls live--would bind up his
broken heart. Only--again only--George did not much fancy the interview
that lay before him. Mrs. Witt would probably cry, and he would feel a
brute, and----
"Mr. Neston," announced Tommy's valet, opening the door.
Gerald had followed his cousin home, very anxious to be congratulated,
and still more anxious not to appear anxious. Tommy received him with
effusion. Why hadn't he been asked to the dinner? Might he call on Mrs.
Witt? He heard she was a clipper; and so forth. George's felicitations
stuck in his throat, but he got them out, hoping that Neaera would free
him from the necessity of eating them up at some early date. Gerald was
radiant. He seemed to have forgotten all about "Peckton," though he was
loud in denouncing the unnatural hardness of Mr. Blodwell's head. Oh,
and the last thing Neaera said was, would George go and see her?
"She took quite a fancy to you, old man," he said affectionately. "She
said you reminded her of a judge."
George smiled. Was Neaera practising _double entente_ on her betrothed?
"What an infernally unpleasant thing to say!" exclaimed Tommy.
"Of course I shall go and see her," said George,--"to-morrow, if I can
find time."
"So shall I," added Tommy.
Gerald was pleased. He liked to see his taste endorsed with the
approbation of his friends. "It's about time old George, here, followed
suit, isn't it, Tommy? I've given him a lead."
George's attachment to Isabel Bourne was an accepted fact among his
acquaintance. He never denied it: he did like her very much, and meant
to marry her, if she would have him. And he did not really doubt that
she would. If he had doubted, he would not have been so content to rest
without an express assurance. As it was, there was no hurry. Let the
practice grow a little more yet. He and Isabel understood one another,
and, as soon as she was ready, he was ready. But long engagements were
a nuisance to everybody. These were his feelings, and he considered
himself, by virtue of them, to be in love with Isabel. There are many
ways of being in love, and it would be a want of toleration to deny that
George's is one of them, although it is certainly very unlike some of
the others.
Tommy agreed that George was wasting his time, and with real kindness
led Gerald back to the subject which filled his mind.
Gerald gladly embraced the opportunity. "Where did I meet her? Oh, down
at Brighton, last winter. Then, you know, I pursued her to Manchester,
and found her living in no end of a swell villa in the outskirts of that
abominable place. Neaera hated it, but of course she had to live there
while Witt was alive, and she had kept the house on."
"She wasn't Manchester-born, then?"
"No. I don't know where she was born. Her father seems to have been a
romantic sort of old gentleman. He was a painter by trade--an artist, I
mean, you know,--landscapes and so on."
"And went about looking for bits of nature to murder, eh?" asked Tommy.
"That's about it. I don't think he was any great shakes at it. At least,
he didn't make much; and at last he settled in Manchester, and tried to
pick up a living, working for the dealers. Witt was a picture-fancier,
and, when Neaera came to sell, he saw her, and----"
"The late Witt's romance began?"
"Yes, confound him! I'm beastly jealous of old Witt, though he is dead."
"That's ungrateful," remarked George, "considering----"
"Hush! You'll wound his feelings," said Tommy. "He's forgotten all about
the cash."
"It's all very well for you----" Gerald began.
But George cut in, "What was his name?"
"Witt's? Oh, Jeremiah, I believe."
"Witt? No. Hang Witt! The father's name."
"Oh!--Gale. A queer old boy he seems to have been--a bit of a scholar as
well as an artist."
"That accounts for the 'Neaera,' I suppose," said Tommy.
"Neaera Gale," thought George. "I don't remember that."
"Pretty name, isn't it?" asked the infatuated Gerald.
"Oh, dry up!" exclaimed Tommy. "We can't indulge you any more. Go home
to bed. You can dream about her, you know."
Gerald accepted this hint, and retired, still in that state of confident
bliss that filled George's breast with trouble and dismay.
"I might as well be the serpent in Eden," he said, as he lay in bed,
smoking dolefully.