Читать книгу Apples of Gold - Warwick Deeping - Страница 7

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When Jordan went into the parlour he found a number of the Nandos' friends there, with Mrs. Mary very much the great lady now that all the quality had gone. Every chair was occupied, and half a dozen men were standing with their backs against the wall. The women looked at Jordan very kindly; the men's eyes were less kind.

Mrs. Mary jumped up from the blue settee which stood under the long window.

"Come in, my dear; you and I must have a glass of wine together."

Her brown eyes were very happy, and her thrush's voice full and exultant. As she came to the narrow walnut table Jordan leaned across it and, taking her by the shoulders, kissed her forehead.

"Here's to my best friend," he said.

And Mrs. Mary blushed.

She began to pour out the wine, and while she was doing it Jordan's eyes fell upon the girl who had been sitting beside Mrs. Mary on the blue settee. The sunlight poured in and made a red sheen of her hair as she sat there serious and pale in her simple black dress. She wore white mittens and a white apron, and the dark oval of a little black and white cap framed her pale face in a wreath of shadow.

Jordan stared. He stared until he saw her drop her lashes over her sloe-black eyes. Mrs. Mary was holding out a glass to him; he took it, touched her glass with his, and drank, with his eyes still on the girl by the window. He set his glass down, and, moving round the table, stood smiling downwards and gravely at Douce St. Croix.

"It is a very long time," he said, "since the raspberry days."

She smiled very faintly.

"A very long time, Mr. March."

He remembered that she must be thirteen, but he thought that she looked very much older. She was still a little thing, exquisite in her littleness and in the contrasts of her colouring, that milk-white skin and flowing hair. Yet she had an air of maturity; she sat there like a little matron, serious, wise and faintly remote. She seemed to come from a house in which there was no laughter.

"I did not know you were watching me to-day."

Her eyes remained very dark. They looked past him at someone else who was in the room.

"Maurice brought me. He wished——"

"Your brother?"

Jordan turned quickly and saw Maurice St. Croix lounging by the door. He was never likely to forget young St. Croix or St. Croix's father, but he walked across the room and held out a hand. His eyes smiled. The impulse in him was generous.

"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 as 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?"