Apples of Gold

by Warwick Deeping

  She gave him no peace. Infinitely querulous and exacting though she was, Jordan remained gentle. He could bear her exactions as a strong man bears a burden, or the pressure of the wind upon his body on a rough journey that has to be completed. In fact he was wonderfully gentle for a man who did not know what sickness was, and who might have been expected to show impatience. He was awake at night for hours; he held and caressed her when she was in pain; he bore with her complaints and her peevishness.

  He was gentle with Douce because he felt responsible, and because he realized that she had to bear all that the mere man cannot bear. His love might grow very weary in the long watches, but it kept awake. "Surely, I am strong enough for both, strong enough to be gentle with her?" Only once did he show any impatience, and afterwards he was so fiercely angry with himself that never again did his temper fail him.

  "O, Jordan, what women have to bear!"

  That cry of hers always brought him to his knees.

  "Sweetheart—I know. I wish I could bear some of it for you."

  Her perversions deepened, and out of them grew a devouring jealousy. It was as though an evil spirit had taken possession of her small suffering body, and looked out of her eyes at Jordan, with infinite suspiciousness. She was jealous of everybody, of her two maids, of Mrs. Mary, but especially of Mrs. Merris. She grew sly, evilly watchful.

  She would send for Jordan at all hours, and on all sorts of excuses.

  If he went abroad she would question him as to where he had been and whom he had seen.

  She had wild moods, when she would throw her arms round his neck and refuse to let him go.

  There were times when Jordan was very weary, for this little one's love seemed to take the strength from him, and to leave him bloodless and empty of all emotion. He was not the swordsman that he was, and he left the work more and more to his assistants, though his weariness was more of the mind than of the body. He found that Douce's dreads had taken possession of him. He began to stoop slightly, to carry his head as though he had a weight on his shoulders, and to have the air of a man who was afraid of something.

  Then there was that unhappy feeling that he was watched, that his wife's eyes and thoughts followed him everywhere, not tenderly, but with a kind of grudging jealousy.

  He fought this feeling.

  "Nonsense! I am wronging her. Love can never be like that."

  So strongly did he react against this sense of suspicion that he deliberately set himself to counter it by going one evening to Garter Street. It seemed to him to be a wholesome act, a challenge flung at all the morbid thoughts that Douce's sickness had suggested. He was aware, too, of a sense of emptiness and of hunger, as though he had been giving out all these months, and the man in him needed filling. Yet when he came to Mrs. Merris's house, a kind of fear fell upon him. He hesitated. He felt a monstrous weakness in the very pith of his being. He could neither go on nor turn back.

  It was she who brought him in. He heard her voice and, looking up, saw her at the window. Her eyes seemed to have some of the quality of the sky, a sky that was both light and dark. She was dressed in black, and Jordan thought that she looked paler than usual.

  "I have been thinking of you."

  The words seemed for him alone, mysterious words, and yet so simply inevitable. He went up to her, and stood looking at the evening sunlight making a brightness upon the brickwork of the house across the way. And suddenly he felt tired, more tired than ever he had felt before, but the strangest part of all was that somehow he knew that he could give way to it.

  He did give way to it. He felt himself resting upon something that she gave to him, not with mere words, but with an intangible sympathy, a quiet understanding. She had been busy with some piece of needlework, and she continued at her work, glancing at him occasionally with eyes of veiled kindness. If the virtue had gone out of him at Spaniards Court, she gave it back to him, and that—silently—with no self-parade and no air of conscious wisdom.

  Yes, Douce was suffering. He told her that much, and she could read that and more in his tired eyes. He did not say that Douce was difficult, for the uttering of peevish and disloyal things is balm only to trivial people. He just sat there and watched Mariana Merris at her work, and drank in the beauty and the depth of her, and felt something flowing into him like health into a sick body. Her presence made mysterious music about him. He wondered why he had this feeling, for though he loved her, his love for her seemed different from all his other loves. He knew that most women empty a man, but this woman replenished him with a strength that was deeper than desire.

  As he bent over her hand when taking leave of her he let fall the most human of confessions.

  "I hope I have not tired you?"

  She looked up at him.

  "Why should you tire me?"

  "Because I have been rested here, and am taking something away with me."

  She smiled—as to herself.

  "We can give and take, you and I. The virtue of living is in the set of the tide."

  He walked home, wondering what the real meaning was behind those words of hers.

  His Lady of the Window had put so much live virtue into him that he entered his house in Spaniards Court with a feeling of freshness and hope. His love was ready to take up its burden, and even to make light of it. He was conscious of no sense of guilt. Life was teaching Jordan the unexpectedness of his own emotions, for before meeting Mariana Merris he would not have thought it possible for a man to learn to love one woman better because he loved a second woman so differently, and with such a depth of restrained desire. He went in to Douce and found her propped up on the old blue settee, looking pale and pinched. She had the air of one who had been waiting, listening, suffering.

  "Well—sweetheart."

  His voice had regained its qualities of strength and cheerfulness, and as he crossed the room to her with the evening sunlight shining upon the window, he became suddenly aware of her eyes fixed upon him in an observant stare. Her eyes were hostile, challenging. In some way that was strange to him she seemed to read his face and to feel where he had been and what he had brought with him from the house in Garter Street.

  "You have been there."

  He paused, frankly astonished, looking down at her tense face.

  "Where—Douce?"

  "To her."

  He stood very still. He was aware of the cold breath of a storm, of some violent and implacable prejudice behind those hard, dark eyes. Even the glow of her red hair could not soften the menace of his wife's small, white face.

  "I have."

  He was surprised, troubled, vaguely angered by the thought that she had had him watched. This tyranny seemed to him so monstrous, so ungenerous, when he had come back after breathing a finer air to help her and to spend himself on her.

  "Do you grudge me my friends, dear?"

  She began to breathe in jerks, and to twist her hands together.

  "I knew. Yes, you can leave me and go to her. You hate me. How did I know? A woman knows."

  "Douce."

  He made a movement towards her, but suddenly she raised her hands and began to storm at him. Her voice was shrill and uncontrolled, her face distorted and terrible.

  "Don't touch me. You have been to her. O, how I hate you!"

  He was down on his knees, trying to catch her hands and to control and calm her.

  "Douce. You are dreaming. I belong to you. For God's sake—dear...."

  She was beside herself; one of her hands struck him in the face, but he did not seem to feel the blow. Very gently but firmly he mastered her, pinioning her arms, and drawing her to him till her poor, wild, little face was close to his.

  "Douce, my darling—you are killing me. You are dreaming lies. I am yours, all yours."

  And suddenly she seemed to melt, her rigid body relaxing, her face softening into a quiver of anguish. She broke into tears; she clung to him.

  "Jordan, Jordan, my Jordan."

  "There—there
! Why, I love you."

  He gathered her up and carried her up and down the room like a child.

  "There, there! You must not take on like this, sweetheart; it is dangerous. Why, what should I do if anything happened to you?"

  She thrust her wet face against his neck.

  "Say you hate her, say you hate her."

  He felt a disastrous sadness falling upon him.

  "I do—if it hurts you, dear."

  "Say you will never see her again."

  "I will not see her again."

  She clung to him fiercely, possessively, and he continued to carry her up and down the room, conscious of bewilderment, pain, disillusionment.

  "The pity of it!" he thought; "the pity of it!"

  XLI

  Sylvester St. Croix sat on one of Jordan's high-backed chairs by Jordan's window, looking as though he were lashed to the chair, feet and knees together, his hands resting on his thighs. Dusk was falling, and somewhere in the house a thin voice wailed, but if Sylvester heard the voice he betrayed no emotion. He neither moved nor spoke, but sat and stared, a dead figure, stiff, frozen, strangely forbidding, coldly dreadful.

  Jordan watched with him. For an hour they had been sitting there together, for a whole night and day now the thing had gone on, and the second night was approaching. He had suffered till he had felt dulled, and until those whimperings of pain had become strangely and terribly distant, striking on a wound that was now too numb to quiver. He sat there and waited. He saw old St. Croix's head grow grey against the window until it was like a hard, black knot of wood on a lean stick, rigid and forbidding. Why he stayed there he did not know. He could feel that this old man hated him.

  "Death is in the house."

  The words went through and through his head, and indeed—it seemed to him that old St. Croix was death sitting at the window, inscrutable and silent. What was the old man thinking about? Did he feel anything? Or had he grown too old to feel?

  At times Jordan's numbness passed for a moment, and acute paid gripped him. He longed to cry out, to be violent, and when the pain was on him he could not keep still. He had to get up and move about the room. He felt that he could kill that motionless old man by the window.

  It grew dark, and in one of those stormy moments Jordan went out into the courtyard and walked up and down under the stars. It was better here away from that dead yet accusing presence, even though a memory stabbed him, the memory of that night when he had waited here while Mary Nando had tried to comfort Douce. He remembered it so well, his going up to her, the little shrinking figure in the bed, his impulsive words to her, the clinging of her arms.

  "God!" he said, and struck the wall with his fist; "will it never be over?"

  His knuckles smarted, but what of that? He was thinking that if Douce died he would have killed her, and the big heart of him cried out.

  "Such a little thing! She's too small for all this. Damnation! Cannot that physician do anything? He seems no better than the women."

  Presently Jordan saw a light come into the parlour. It was Mary Nando, and as Jordan went in to her he realized how still the house had become. Not a cry! Almost he wished that he could hear cries. There had been life in them, and his hope had answered their anguish. Well—what would Mrs. Mary have to tell him? He found her, candlestick in hand, standing in the middle of the room, weary beyond weariness, her eyes bright yet infinitely desolate. Old St. Croix was staring at her, as a stone figure might stare.

  Jordan stood and waited. He spoke to her with his eyes, but his lips were dumb. He saw her give a little shudder, and then steady herself like someone who has been shaken by a gust of wind.

  "It is not good, my dear, not good."

  Jordan felt his lips quivering. Old St. Croix's chin gave a jerk.

  "Cannot they do anything, mother?"

  Mrs. Mary put her hand to her forehead.

  "No—no. She's such a little thing, and so weak—now. Dear God, it is hard."

  And suddenly, old St. Croix open his mouth and spoke.

  "The child of sin. She married a child of sin."

  His grey beard wagged on his chin like the beard of a goat. He glared at Jordan.

  "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children. My child will die, and you will have killed her."

  He stood up, raising himself with his hands on the rails of the chair, and the bones of him seemed to crack. Jordan was like one palsied; he remained with his head hanging, and his eyes looking at old St. Croix, without anger, but with a kind of dumb wonder. He was aware of shadows flickering about the room, of the rocking of Mary Nando's candle. He heard her voice.

  "How dare you say that to him—and at such a time. You miserable old man!"

  Never had Jordan seen her so angry.

  "Let it pass, mother," he said; "let it pass."

  "No, dear heart, it shall not pass," and she went and stood in front of old St. Croix. "You, the Godly man, with venom under your tongue, get you out of the house—for this house has been a house of love, and love is a thing you never knew."

  She pointed to the door.

  "What sort of hell is your heaven?"

  "Mother," said Jordan, "mother!" and caught her by the shoulder.

  Old St. Croix showed his teeth like a dog, for the lash had cut him. He blinked his eyes, fumbled for his cloak, and made for the door, and as he went out of it, Mary Nando clasped Jordan and pressed her head against his shoulder.

  "Never grieve, dear. You have been to her all that a man can be."

  "Can I see her, mother?"

  "Not yet, dear, presently. There may be a little hope."

  He rested his cheek against Mrs. Mary's head.

  "I wish it were over, mother; I wish it were over."

  Mary Nando returned to her vigil, and Jordan went out again into the cool night, and taking off his shoes, walked to and fro over the stones. Somehow he could not believe it to be true—that Douce was dying, slipping out of his big hands. Her hair, her glowing, living hair! O, God! The thought of her hair tormented him. It was in his face, and the smell of it in his nostrils. How could such hair go away into the darkness? And her little hands? And her passion and her peevishness? He seemed to understand it all now. She had loved him very much, fiercely. She had suffered a great deal. O, why had he felt weary in being gentle? He looked at her window, that dim window where even the candlelight seemed hushed; and desolation descended upon him. That she should die, and her child with her!

  A man came out of the house, closing the door gently. Jordan almost sprang on him, and held him by the arm.

  "Well, Mr. Willis——?"

  "Sir, you are too strong——"

  "Forgive me. But—why—are you going?"

  "Because—I have other patients, my dear March."

  "And because——?"

  "Yes, because there is no hope."

  Jordan's hands dropped.

  "A hit," he said, "a palpable hit! What a blind scrimmage this life is—anyway!"

  Mrs. Mary found him in the middle of the courtyard, standing quite still, and staring at his wife's window.

  "Jordan."

  "Mother...."

  She took his hand.

  "You have heard?"

  "Yes."

  "She wants you, Jordan. O, my dear, be strong."

  "She shall have my courage," he said; "it is the last thing that I can give her."

  Yet the tragedy did not seem real to him, in spite of the horror and the anguish of it. Life was slipping away while he stared dumbly and helplessly, whispering empty words to the woman who was dying. He sat with his back against the head of the bed, holding Douce in his arms, her red hair tumbled upon his shoulders.

  "Jordan—Jordan, I am afraid."

  He felt desolate, helpless, wounded to death, yet he called on himself for a man's effort.

  "My darling, do not be afraid. God is taking you from me, but some day I shall come to you."

  "You—do—love me, Jordan?" />
  "My dear, O—my dear," he said, and pressed his lips to her hair.

  She sighed, and he felt that he was holding no more than a little shred of vapour in his arms. Her two hands were clasping his wrists, and they were very cold. He raised first one—and then the other—and breathed upon them, and she managed to turn and to look up into his face.

  "My Jordan, you have loved no one but me?"

  His eyes grew hot and heavy.

  "No one but you—Douce."

  "Oh—I have loved you so much. Hold me closer. I—I cannot see you; things are growing dim."

  He held her close, and his courage trembled.

  "Douce—my little wife, think of it as going to sleep—here—in my arms—in the arms of your Jordan who loves you."

  She sighed, and her cold lips sought his.

  "You will come to me—some day, Jordan?"

  "Yes."

  "O, promise me one thing. Will you promise me?"

  "Ask it."

  "Promise me that you will never marry again, but that you will always be mine—mine."

  He bent over her.

  "I promise."

  "That—you—will—never—her—that other woman——"

  "Never."

  "O—my Jordan—my——"

  And that last spasm of her love was like the last flicker of a candle, and when Mrs. Mary crept into the room she found Jordan sitting like death, holding his dead wife in his arms.

  XLII

  Douce lay near to Tom Nando in the graveyard of St. Pancras; Nando's fencing-school had been closed for a week, and Jordan sat in the house and dreamed.

  The house was a house of ghosts. It had become a place of shadows where nothing was as it had been, a house whose heart was dead and whose life seemed finished. And yet it was poignantly alive, alive with memories, promises, tendernesses, sorrowful compassions. It held Jordan and would not let him go; it touched him with spirit hands; it breathed words into his ears. "Promise—promise!" And he had promised, and the promise lay heavy upon him.

  For he was overwhelmed with pity, not for himself, but for the little thing who slept with her unborn child away yonder where old Nando lay. He still felt that he had killed her, and in death she became more real to him that she had ever been when living. He realized that she had been cheated of so much, and that her life in the old days must have been rather dim and empty, and then when life had come to her it had killed her. He brooded. His grief was very sensitive and raw. He could not bring himself to go into that room where they had slept together and where she had died, nor did he dare to touch the things that had been hers. Even in death she was possessive, pathetically tyrannical. She had imposed a memory upon the man whom she had left behind her, a memory that was like a watchful ghost.