A NERVOUS SUITOR.
It was impossible for George's mother to mistake him. She looked at
his face, and found it pale and careworn and full of definite sorrow.
The tones of his voice left her no choice but to believe he really was
in deep, in desperate mental and spiritual trouble. He sat back in his
chair and looked vacantly at the small table lying between them. She
took up her gold-rimmed spectacles and softly rapped the volume of
Tillotson with them. Mother and son were both silent for a long time.
She broke the silence.
'I have forgotten the name of this gentleman who wishes to see me
about Kate. What is his name?'
'Nevill. William Nevill,' answered Osborne, brightening up and looking
at his mother with more animation than he had yet shown.
'When does he wish to see me?'
'Whenever you please. He would call at any time that may be convenient
to you.'
'This evening?'
'Yes. I am certain he would call this evening, if you give him leave.'
'Then bring him to me this evening. As soon as you have introduced us
you can leave us for an hour, and then come back for your friend.'
From this George took his dismissal, and went back to The Falcon,
where he found Nevill nervously fiddling with a daily paper.
'Well,' asked the parishioner of Stepney eagerly, 'what luck?'
'I can't tell. At first, of course, she seemed shocked--my
own affair being so fresh--I mean that she was a bit taken aback,
the thing coming so suddenly on her. Kate, you know, is a great
favourite--always has been.'
Nevill looked grave.
'No wonder Kate has been a great favourite at home; but she's a great
favourite with me too, Osborne. I hope there will be no final
objection on your mother's side. I am prepared for anything short of
final objection.'
'I don't fear that. My mother is very staid and calm, Nevill.'
'I know. Not a bit like me. But I am staid and far from calm now. I
don't think there is any fear of my old levity breaking out. Do you?'
'No. I think not. I imagine you may rely upon yourself so far.'
'Ay, I may rely on myself, and I may fail, eh, Osborne?'
He screwed up his eyes and peered into the face of the other, as
though trying to recollect who George was.
'Oh, I am sure you may count on yourself. You are not to fancy my
mother is sour or cross-tempered. On the contrary, she is very sweet
and wonderfully even.'
'But suppose I made a pun, eh? Wouldn't that be against me? Suppose I
bounced out some roaring lie? Suppose I was to rap out some story of
my adventures early in life in the slave-trade--'
'Have you ever been in the slave-trade?' asked George apprehensively.
'No, no. My people were Yankees to the backbone, and strong
Abolitionists. But suppose I did blurt out that famous adventure of
mine when in the slave-trade, upon the occasion of our being pursued
by an eighteen-gun British brig? How I, at the head of forty
daredevils, boarded the brig, drove the crew before me like
sheep--sent all the crew below, battened down the hatches, pulled down
the Union Jack and ran up the star-spangled banner of liberty, set
fire to the brig, sent her and her eighty-five hands sky high when the
magazine exploded, and gave five hundred dollars to build a new church
out of the profits of the cargo I then had aboard my own vessel,
called the _Niggers' Paradise_. If I told her that adventure, what
effect do you think it would have?'
'Disastrous.'
'Disastrous! Ah, then there is but one thing to do. I must take
precautions against the chance of making a fool of myself.'
George looked up at him inquisitively for a moment.
'And how are you to take precautions against the danger of a too
inventive mind and a too inventive tongue?'
'My dear George, you have much to learn. When we are all settled down
here--'
George shook his head gravely.
'I say,' persisted Nevill, 'when we are _all_ settled down here
quietly, I shall take you in hand. I shall become your tutor at a
salary of one hundred and fifty pounds a year--you to find rattans for
your own chastisement.'
'I shall never need to find others than I now have,' said George
quietly.
'Nonsense, Osborne! you want only a few days in the country, and a
tonic.'
'Never mind me just now, Nevill, I'd much prefer you would not say
anything about me just now.'
'Then I shall have to choose, contrary to the sound old advice, the
greater evil, and stick to myself. What was I saying about myself? Oh,
ay, I must adopt precautions. Do you know, Osborne, I already feel
greatly refreshed and invigorated since I have come here. That is very
extraordinary, if one thinks that when we set out from London I could
have given you ten out of a hundred in dismals and beaten you hands
down. But stay now. Wait here for me. I am going out for a few
minutes. I sha'n't be long. I want to get something. Here's a
newspaper to amuse you while I am away.'
He took up his hat, and had left the room before Osborne could
question him as to his destination or his plans. He asked his way to
the nearest druggist's, and, having found the shop, entered it. In
less than a quarter of an hour he was back at the hotel, carrying a
small vial in his pocket. He called for a wineglass, poured the
contents of the vial into the glass, and swallowed the fluid. Then,
with a sigh, said, 'Now I'm ready.'
'Nevill, are you ill? What have you swallowed?' asked Osborne
apprehensively.
'Never in better physical health in all my life. I have taken a
powerful sedative to calm me. The result will be marvellous,
revolutionary. I shall now be in no danger of repeating my exploits in
the Gulf of Cabes when I was in the service of an Algerine pirate, or
of the way in which we treated the Christian prisoners who would not
renounce the errors of their faith and become Mussulmans. Ah, Osborne,
that was a bad time, and often since have I regretted it--deeply,
bitterly regretted it. But I am an altered, a reformed man now,
Osborne. I would not now oppress a Christian unless he was a personal
enemy. I would not now take service under the red flag again, for the
thing is too full of risk. Had we not better set out at once?'
'Yes, my dear Nevill; but none of this nonsense over the way.'
'Nonsense! Nonsense! My dear fellow, who gave you liberty to apply
such a word to what I have said? But let us not discuss that. Let us
go. Ah, the air does so improve one. It freshens one up, and makes one
feel one and a half. Osborne, I think I was destined by nature for a
philosopher of--'
'The peripatetic school.'
'No, the platonic. I have a natural genius for writing dialogue and
constructing spiritual theories. I think there is room for a new
philosophy. After all, I don't know that I should follow old Plato. I
could start a new philosophy of my own. Don't you think something
could be done with a philosophy called the dynamitic-psychic
philosophy, which would teach there are only two things in the world,
namely, force and soul? If anyone chose to question your theory, you
could fill his heretical mouth with dynamite and blow his infamous
opinions down his throat. Upon my word, Osborne, I think there is
something in the thing. Eh?'
'Now stop this nonsense, Nevill. Here we are. This is the house.'
'Is that it? Oh, confound it!'
'What's the matter?'
'That wretched sedative has not gripped me yet, and if I went in now
I'd be sure to relate the history of my life when I was one of the
Mormons, and loved my eleven wives most dearly. That would never do;
would it, George?'
'No, certainly not. I really wish you would try and be reasonable.'
'Oh, blame not the bard if he fly to the bower where a narcotic lies
carelessly smiling at pirates. Don't let us go in yet. That drug has
not fetched me, and I am all adrift. But how much better I feel upon
coming back to my native air!'
'I thought you told me you were born at sea?' asked Osborne.
'Oh, bother! What a fellow you are for detail! If I come here and
settle down, does not this become my native air? Do you mean to say
that if a doctor ordered me to my native air I should be obliged to
learn navigation to find out the exact position of the ship I was born
in at the moment I first saw the light, and that I should then have a
kind of raft built and towed there, and that I should have to live on
that raft until my health was fully restored or a devil-fish ate me?
Or do you think if I was recommended to turn myself loose in my native
wilds I'd go and drag out a miserable existence at Stepney? Rubbish! A
man's native place is the place he loves best. At least that is my
definition of it; and in any discussion a man has a right to make his
own definitions, has he not?'
'Undoubtedly. He has a right to his own definitions until they are
challenged.'
'Talking of discussions makes me think of argument, and argument
naturally takes me back to discussion, and backing and filling in that
latitude brings me, Osborne, upon a profound reflection. Let us walk
on awhile till that sedative turns up. You will be able to recognise
its exhibition by a slightly nasal twang and a slightly pious tone.
When you find these symptoms, lead me back. But as I was going to say,
I have come upon a fine rule for the discussion of the future. We all
know a man may start by defining everything to be nothing. Very good.
We also know that never in the history of man has one discussion
caused one man to alter his mind. Now if a man has a right to his
definitions, and if his arguments and deductions can have no influence
on the mind of his adversary, why not postulate his arguments and
deductions at once, and be done with the whole matter? But, Osborne,
this is no better than trifling. In fact, Osborne, it is not even
trifling; it is deliberate folly. I am awfully nervous, and I am in
mortal terror that my nervousness will betray me into some mischief or
other in this coming interview. Do you detect a pious odour? Do you
notice a nasal twang?'
'I think if you intend calling this afternoon you had better go now.'
'Very well. Lead on. Osborne, I never, knew what nervousness was until
now.'
They retraced their steps, and in a few minutes entered the house. The
servant said Mrs Osborne would be down in a short time. Miss Alice was
in the drawing-room.
'You will like little Alice, as we call her, Nevill. She is gayer than
Kate.'
'I am sure I shall like her; but her differing from Kate is not what
will make me like her, but her resembling Kate. What a still quiet
home you have lived in all your life, Osborne, while I have had the
noises of the bustling world about my ears!'
George opened the drawing-room door.
'My sister Alice. Mr Nevill.'
She bowed, ran to her brother, threw her arms round his neck, and
cried out,--
'Oh, dear George, 'Tilda told me you had been here, and that you would
be back some time in the afternoon. And when I came over from Mrs
Craven's and heard you would be here soon, I couldn't spare time to
run up and take off my hat. Where is Kate? Why didn't she come back
with you? Is she quite well? Will you take me to London with you when
you go?'
'We'll see, Alice; we'll see. Kate is quite well. I left her behind me
in London. I am going back there again almost immediately.'
She unclasped her arms, and looked at the stranger. George said,--
'Mr Nevill met Kate in London; so, little Alice, we shall all be as
old friends.'
'Do you like Kate?' asked Alice, looking at Nevill.
'Yes, very much indeed,' he answered, with a quiet smile.
'Oh, George, I am so wretched and lonely since Kate went away. It is
such misery to have no one to tease. Will she come back soon? You saw
mother when you were here before. I have not seen her since I came
back from Mrs Craven's. Do tell me all the news?'
'Mr Nevill,' said George, with a smile, 'you must not mind little
Alice. She seems rudely inattentive to you; but she does not mean to
be rude at all. She generally is what she does not mean to be.'
'Then she must mean never to be charming,' said Nevill, with a suave
bow.
Alice coloured slightly, and looked at the stranger fixedly for the
first time. She thought: 'What a plain-looking man! He isn't ugly
enough for an ornament. What can have induced George to make friends
with him? I declare if Kate were at home I'd give up chaffing her
about Mr Garvage, and say Mr Nevill was the real victim. Oh, my poor
Kate, after all I don't know that I could be so cruel as that.' She
said aloud, 'I hope Mr Nevill will forgive me. I did not mean to be
rude. I am delighted to meet any friend of yours, George, anyone that
knows and likes our foolish Kate. Here's mother.'
'Mother, allow me to introduce to you my friend Mr William Nevill.'
Mrs Osborne looked at the thin man, with his plain sallow face; held
out her hand to him, sighed, and said, 'Welcome to Stratford-on-Avon,
Mr Nevill. I hope you will like the place.'
'I am sure I shall. I have already learned to like some of the
people.'
'By Jove!' he thought, 'that sedative has turned up at last. I am even
in doubt now as to whether I shall pin my fate to my works as a
missionary in Central Africa or my scheme that the English should take
China, Japan, and Eel-pie Island, with a view to converting the
Inhabitants to Christianity.'