"I'm glad to see you here."
St. Croix retained his posture of gentlemanly boredom. At Durand's, the silk merchant, where he held the position of clerk, with the ultimate prospect of becoming the partner of old Durand, who was a distant relation of Mr. Sylvester's, he was known as "Superfine St. Croix." He dressed in the latest fashion, was more of a fine gentleman than the real gentlemen who frequented Tom's coffee-house, and boasted—but not before his father—that he knew every actress and orange-girl within a mile of Drury Lane.
"Hope you are well, sir; hope you are well?"
With an air of superior languor he gave Jordan two fingers.
"Quite pretty—the play—this afternoon. That Frenchman handles a nice sword."
Jordan's grey eyes, holding him in their steady gaze, saw the whole of him, the boy in the man, the strangely impertinent travesty of the father. It crossed his mind that Mr. Maurice was no brother for such a sister. He disliked the man, and instinctively he despised him. The ghost of that rag doll still stood between them.
"You know something of the art, then?"
"O, a little—a little. I have a small scrimmage with Gavidge once or twice a week. Ha! there's an expert for you, sir."
Jordan smiled, a blunt smile.
"If you ever want a lesson I'll give you one."
"Thanks, my dear fellow; Jack Gavidge is good enough for me."
Jordan left him there being supported by the wall, and after doing his duty by a number of Thomas Nando's friends regained the position he coveted by the blue settee in the window. Mrs. Mary had left the place by Douce vacant, and Jordan, with a friendly glance at her, took it; but hardly had he sat down before the girl got up.
"We must be going," she said.
There was nothing for Jordan to do but to stand up, yet this sudden act of hers had hurt him where all her brother's superciliousness had failed to find a mark. He did not know whether she had any reason for behaving as she did, or whether she had begun to share her father's prejudice against a man who had been begotten on the wrong side. She looked, to him, to be the most innocent and gentle thing in the world, and perhaps that was why her seeming avoidance of him hurt him.
"Our friends are staying for supper," he said.
"Father expects me."
She knew that she had hurt him, and she gave him one quick but half-veiled look, which he misread. He might have divined from it that she was the daughter of her father, dominated by her father, and that her reason for going was her fear of him. Sylvester did not know that Maurice had taken Douce to the Nandos', for, friend that he was, Nando's trade always stuck in Mr. Sylvester's righteous throat. But Jordan was not looking for subtleties; he saw only the obvious, and it hurt him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Douce went quickly to Mary Nando, and Mrs. Mary put her hands on the girl's shoulders.
"What, going, my poppet?"
Douce was very firm and very solemn.
"I have father's supper to prepare. Maurice promised him that I should be home by six o'clock."
"What a thing it is to have a father!" said Mrs. Mary, "but I mustn't spoil Mr. Sylvester's supper, my dear."
Douce put up her face to be kissed.
"I think Mr. Jordan was splendid," she said, but Jordan did not hear her say it.
Thomas Nando gave a very merry supper to his friends, and some thirty people sat down at the trestle table which had been put up in the fencing-school. They had music in the gallery, toasts, speeches, and much kindness was shown to Jordan, who looked more serious than some of the younger ladies thought necessary. Two or three of them were quite ready to play at forfeits or at blind man's bluff with him, but he remained serious and quite unprovoked. They kept it up till ten o'clock, when the kitchen was full of prentices or servants who had come to see the company home, and who were being comforted by Meg and the women. A last toast was drunk; there was some kissing and laughter, but Jordan—still serious—kissed no one but Mrs. Mary.
Nando was walking up and down when his wife came in after all the folk had gone.
"You must be tired, Tom."
"Not so tired as you are, my dear."
He gave her a meaning look, and glanced at Jordan who was eating strawberries out of a dish.
"Dan and I are going to have a gossip. The wenches had better get to bed; they can tidy up in the morning."
Mrs. Mary looked anxious. She had a very shrewd notion of what was in her man's mind, and her mother love contended with his wisdom.
"To-night, Tom?"
"To-night," he said, gravely kind.
She kissed Jordan, and the warmth of her kiss surprised him. She half clung to him for a moment.
"Boy—I'm so proud...."
"Mother, that's the best news of all."
"My dear," she said, and went quickly out of the room.
Nando began to snuff the candles, and when they had put out the lights, all save the one that Nando held in his hand, they locked and barred the door leading into Spaniards Court and went through into the kitchen. The fire was still burning, and Nando set the candle on the mantleshelf and pulled up a chair. He had the air of a man who had something on his mind.
"You and I must have a talk, Dan. Can you keep your eyes open for an hour?"
"As long as you please, sir."
"Good lad."
He let his hand rest for a moment on Jordan's shoulder, and then turning suddenly to the dresser where a leash of new pipes lay on the shelf, he chose two and handed one of them to Jordan. It was a symbolical act. They sat down together before the fire.
Tom Nando took some time over the lighting of his pipe. He had passed the tobacco-box to Jordan, and was watching the young man filling the bowl.
"Not too tight, lad, nor yet too loose. Moderation, moderation!"
He puffed five or six times at his pipe, and blew clouds of smoke.
"It has been a good day."
"A very good day, sir."
They were just a little shy of each other, and with an affectionate shyness which begins by being formal. They looked at the fire and not at each other.
"Well, you are my partner, lad, from to-day."
"I am very proud, sir."
"And I'm proud to have you. But, look you, Dan, we are not here to make pretty speeches to each other. You are a man, and so am I. From to-day you will take a third share in the school. I'm getting old; I'm counting on you, Dan, to take my place bit by bit, and some day I can see Nando's being yours."
Jordan had let his pipe go out.
"You can count on me, father. I owe more to you and mother——"
"Tut, tut—that cuts both ways. You have given us a lot of happiness; I'm not a believer in putting handcuffs on grown men. And that is what I want to speak to you about, Dan, your manhood, not as a parson, but as a man who has seen a little of the world. You'll not make shipwreck, but, damn it—I do feel—that a father should point out the rocks."
Jordan was relighting his pipe, and looking very serious.
"Please speak of them, sir."
Nando turned to him, and, holding his pipe by the bowl, used the stem to prod home and emphasize his points.
"Dan, you are a man. You have had your fevers, the mumps and a touch of smallpox which left you with a pockmark on your chin, but it seems to me that you haven't yet caught the greatest sickness of them all."
"What is that, sir?"
"Lad—I'll ask you a question. Which is the most dangerous rock in the sea, the rock on which many a good lad has split?"
"Strong drink, sir?"
"No, damn it—woman, lad, woman."
He made a circular movement with the stem of his pipe as though he were parrying a thrust.
"Woman! She is and she has got to be, and a lad with any grit in him must have his game with her."
"I grant that," said Jordan, "but if you mean, sir, it's a serious game——"
"Serious! Come to it, lad! It is the nature of man to run after women, and a
s like as not he will have a dozen affairs in his lifetime, perhaps more, perhaps less, but what I say is—get it over early. It's like the measles, the sooner you get through with it the less dangerous it is."
Jordan looked greatly solemn.
"I have had an affair or two, father, but they did not come to much. I begun to cool off, somehow, but it is in my blood."
"It's in every man's blood. I'll tell you what I believe to be the truth, lad—have your fling now. If you don't you may want it the more badly when you are forty and when you have got a wife and children on your hands. And that's damned uncomfortable physic, I can tell you."
Jordan bit so hard on the stem of his pipe that it broke between his teeth.
"But is it fair—to the women?"
Nando made a quick movement.
"Ah, there you are! It depends on the woman. Women are not angels. In some cases the game's fair, in others it's sheer villainy. A man of sense and of heart has to choose. But one thing, Dan, keep out of Drury Lane, avoid it like the plague. Do you take me?"
Jordan rested his elbows on his knees.
"Father," he said, "I never thought to hear you talk like this."
"Lad, you'll talk like this—at my age—if you are an honest man."
And then, suddenly, he got up and stood with a hand on Jordan's shoulder.
"I'm telling you what's true. Why? Because good medicine never hurt any man. Have your adventures; get 'em over; see just what they are worth, my son, just what they are worth."
Nando's pipe had gone out, and he picked up a coal with the tongs and relit it. He puffed hard and then turned sharply and with a smile of shrewdness towards the younger man.
"But there is something more. If you have your adventures let 'em be clean and not too serious; and in the end I'll lay a wager that you will learn what I learnt."
Jordan glanced up at him.
"What's that, sir?"
"Why, that a good wife and hard work give you the stuff that wears best—but, Dan, I doubt whether I should have learnt it so well if I hadn't had my fling with the wenches."
They sat there till midnight, and when they went to their rooms Tom Nando found his wife walking up and down in her bedgown with a cloak over the shoulders. Her brown eyes looked at him reproachfully.
"Tom, what have you been telling him?"
"What I told you I should tell him, mother."
She began to weep, and she repulsed Nando when he tried to comfort her.
"O, my little Dan, my little boy. Why did you tell him to burn his fingers, Tom?"
"Mother," said he, "the lad's a man. Answer me this: if you were to lock up one of your rooms and kept the key in your pocket, wouldn't your wenches be dying to find out what you had inside?"
"They might be, Tom."
"Of course! I don't believe in locked doors. Let a clean lad see what life is worth. How should I have known what you were worth, sweetheart, if I hadn't seen something of the world?"
VI
Douce St. Croix was washing lettuces to make a salad. She had had to carry the big, earthenware pan from the pump to the table in the kitchen window, and the thing had looked too heavy for her fragile little body; but in the bearing of burdens little women have always excelled. She had had other burdens placed upon her shoulders, and she had accepted them. Mr. Sylvester's old servant had died a year ago, and St. Croix had ordered his daughter to step into the dead woman's shoes—for what is a daughter but a handmaid? Douce had a rough girl to help her in the mornings, a girl who was a clumsy pair of hands and nothing else. She cooked, she mended, she kept the accounts, sewed at her own clothes, and was a silent seamstress in the service of two men, both of whom were selfish and exacting. In the evenings there was yet more work for her to do, for when she was not sewing she was reading to her father. Mr. Sylvester's sight was none too good, and since reading by candlelight tried his eyes, he assumed that he had every right to use his daughter's.
Douce's life had become serious at a time when other girls were romping with their brothers. She had to work hard, to shoulder responsibilities, to keep in tune with the tyrannies of a very religious and narrow-minded man. Duty, the duty to one's parents, was writ large over every doorway, and Douce did not rebel. She had an obstinate and sweet gentleness; she accepted duty, recognized it, fitted it into her life, and yet found time to take trouble with her shining hair and to keep her small hands from being coarsened by her work. That big Jordan should have been struck by her air of maturity, by the seriousness of the little matron, was hardly to be wondered at. Life in the house of Mr. Sylvester St. Croix was a very serious affair.
Looking through the kitchen window. Douce saw her father come in at the gate, leaning on her brother's arm. The likeness between them was extraordinary, and yet it was a likeness with ironical contrasts. Douce watched them come up the path. She had begun to be a little puzzled by this brother of hers.
Not only did Maurice puzzle her, rouse in her a feeling of vague and instinctive uneasiness, but her father's attitude to the son was equally baffling. In looking at Maurice Mr. St. Croix looked at him with eyes which had lost their natural suspiciousness. He accepted Maurice and all his incongruities, perhaps because the under-man in him applauded these incongruities without the moral man quite realizing what he was applauding. He was fanatically proud of his son. Even Maurice's fine clothes and late hours were accepted with the son's explanations of them.
"You know, sir, in our business a man must dress like a gentleman."
Sylvester's weakness was the "gentleman" in his son.
"I have to be sociable, sir. I make friends, and to be well thought of helps a man in his career. It is my wish to be a credit to you."
Maurice had a way of impressing his father, and the hard man's one weakness was ready to be cajoled.
Douce, having prepared her salad, went in to lay the table. Her men folk were at the door, and each gave her their hats and sticks as a matter of course, and she put them away in the oak cupboard. Her father went upstairs to wash his hands before supper, but Maurice sat down on a chair by the window. He brought out a lace-edged handkerchief and flicked the dust from his coat as he had seen the fine gentlemen do it.
"What's for supper, sis?"
"A salad and cold chicken."
He watched her laying the table. He patronized his sister and made use of her, and sometimes he teased her maliciously, for he was the sort of man who pulled the wings off flies.
"How do you like my new coat?"
"It looks very well on you," said she, glancing at him momentarily with her dark eyes.
He was feeling pleased with himself, and in his self-assertive moods he was apt to be cruel.
"It's my colour. Thank heaven, wench, mother gave her red hair to you and not to me."
"I am glad you are satisfied," she said, cutting slices from the loaf.
"That fellow Jordan rather liked it, though. By the way, the great pup is going to be bitten."
She distributed the slices of bread from the trencher.
"O! How do you mean?"
"Some jest, my dear. I told Jack Gavidge that the young gentleman had hinted pretty plainly that he could teach me more than Gavidge could."
"And who is Gavidge?"
"My fencing-master, my dear, and the best man with the back-sword or the cudgels in London. They don't love the Nandos. Old Nando has always been a bit too big for his boots."
"And what will Mr. Gavidge do?"
Maurice went through the act of taking snuff.
"He is putting out a pamphlet that will make old Nando sneeze. Result, a broken head for our Mr. Jordan, unless he swallows all that Jack Gavidge says about him and the old man."
Douce stood with her two hands resting on the table.
"How mean!" she said with a calm, white solemnity.
"Mean! Fudge, it's a man's joke."
"Because Mr. Jordan beat you six years ago you want to do him an injury."
"Sis, you are a sent
imental little fool. I believe you are in love with that big Jordan."
"I'm not," she said hotly; "I'm angry with you."
"Thanks, my dear. Any man likes to see a pup get a licking."
"But you went to their house!"
"I did. And I did not like the swagger of it. March was showing off before the women."
Douce heard her father coming down the stairs, and she turned to the door to fetch her salad.
"You can't do it yourself, Maurice, so that's why—-"
"Lord! I knew you were sweet on the fellow."
She fled, knowing that he would have her at his mercy in the presence of her father.
Maurice St. Croix had spoken of a pamphlet or handbill which Mr. John Gavidge was putting abroad as a challenge to Tom Nando, but it so happened that Jordan read it before it came into the hands of his father. One, Toby Buck by name, a notorious bully, strolled one afternoon into Nando's fencing-school and asked for Thomas Nando.
Jordan met him. Bertrand was giving a lesson to a young gentleman from the country, and Nando had gone down to the city on business. Jordan knew Mr. Buck by sight and reputation. He was a big man with black teeth and an inflamed face, and a hat like a small cart-wheel.
Jordan was polite. Like a true Englishman, the less he liked the look of a man the more polite he was to him.
"What can I do for you, sir?"
Mr. Buck swept his huge hat, produced a folded paper, and handed it to Jordan.
"Mr. Gavidge's compliments, sir. Mr. Nando and Mr. March may find something there which concerns them."
The bully bowed, and walked rather briskly out of the fencing-school, leaving Jordan reading the paper. Mr. Buck was half-way across the court and making good progress when he heard himself hailed from the doorway. He turned, and saw Jordan standing there with a smile on his face.
"Hallo! sir, can you tell me where Mr. Gavidge may be found?"
"You might find him at the Roebuck, sir."
"I am much obliged to you," said Jordan, still smiling.
Thomas Nando came back an hour later, looking a little graver than usual, for he had called on his way home at his favourite coffee-house and had surprised a couple of his acquaintances reading Mr. Gavidge's leaflet. A boy had run in and placed it on one of the tables. The men who were reading the leaflet had conceived it to be their duty to show it to Tom Nando. It was a scurrilous bit of insolence; John Gavidge had paid half a guinea for the writing of it to Teg Toplady, an unsavoury pamphleteer.
Apples of Gold Page 4
