Читать книгу Apples of Gold - Warwick Deeping - Страница 8

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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 sentimental 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.

Nando found Bertrand polishing his foils after giving his last lesson.

"Where is Jordan?"

"He went out about an hour ago, sir."

"Do you know what took him abroad?"

"I don't, sir. A fellow came in and handed him a paper, and Mr. Jordan went out shortly afterwards."

Nando took two or three turns up and down the room and then walked towards the door, but before he reached it Jordan himself came in. He looked happy, grimly yet smilingly happy.

"Where have you been, lad?"

"O, nowhere in particular."

Nando had the eyes of a hawk.

"Nowhere seems to have taken the skin off your knuckles."

Jordan coloured up slightly, glanced casually at his right hand, and laughed.

"Perhaps I hit something."

"Jack Gavidge?"

They looked each other in the eyes.

"Then—you know, sir?"

"I do," and he pulled a piece of paper out of his fob.

"I did not want you to know," said Jordan; "I have made this my affair."

Nando's mouth gave an expressive twitch.

"What have you done, lad?"

"I found Gavidge at the Roebuck, and I stuffed that piece of paper down his throat."

He laughed; there was no swagger about him; he was happily and boyishly grim.

"What happened after that?"

"O, there was a bit of a scrimmage. He had Bummer the boxer with him, and I broke my knuckles on Bummer's teeth. He—broke a table. But we have arranged it all quite pleasantly."

"Where?"

"Cockburn's Cockpit, this day week."

"Swords?"

"No, cudgels, till one of us is knocked out."

Nando grimaced. Then he put his hands on Jordan's shoulders.

"Lad, this should have been my affair."

"What—let that fellow try to crack you over the head, and he twenty years younger! Why, this is my first chance of giving you something back——"

"Lad," said Nando, "I love you."

The news of the coming fight between John Gavidge and young March was soon spread abroad. It was gossiped about at "Tom's," and notices were posted in many of the coffee-houses. "At Cockburn's Cockpit, at three o'clock on Thursday, the 16th day of June, a bout with the cudgels between John Gavidge and Jordan March. The fight to go on till one or the other is on the floor." It became known that there was hot blood in the affair, and that play with the heavy single-sticks gave men more scope than with the sword. The polite world began to bet on the fight, and most of the wagers were in favour of John Gavidge. He was a tough fellow, big, broad, and slightly bowed in the legs, and was held to be the best man in London with the cudgels.

Cockburn's was crowded, and the petticoats were not absent from the benches. The Drury Lane gangs were with Gavidge and were ready to make trouble if things went ill for him, but Nando had foreseen this, and he had a following of his own. Captain Willoughby was in charge of the affair, a brisk and determined little man who would stand no nonsense.

"If there is any mob stuff here," he said to Nando, "we gentlemen will deal with it."

Jordan was the first to climb over the barrier into the pit. He wore his smile, and when some of the gentry saw the size of him they began to feel less sure of their money. A lady threw a bunch of blue ribbons into the pit.

"My colours for Mr. March."

Jordan glanced at her, and she smiled down from her seat on a raised bench. It was my Lady Marigold Bacchus, with white powder in her golden hair, and a green fan tapping her red lips. She had another and older woman beside her.

Jordan picked up the bunch of ribbons, bowed to her, and fastened the blue bunch under the basket guard of his cudgel.

Gavidge came climbing in with an ugly, menacing grin.

"Red's my colour," said he; "let some slut tear a piece off her petticoat."

A lady from Drury Lane obliged him, making an insolent face at my Lady Bacchus.

"I'll wager it's as clean as hers."

The lady with the fan smiled at her sweetly.

Men were offering and taking wagers, and their loud voices filled the building. Already two roughs were quarrelling and had to be pushed apart by their neighbours. Jordan stood and smiled, while Gavidge shuffled his feet in a heap of sawdust.

"Two guineas to one against Nando's brat," shouted a voice.

Jordan heard it, and the smile went out of his eyes. They hardened to cold grey. He seemed to have heard the voice before, but he could not place its owner.

Nando had posted himself beside Captain Willoughby, looking paler than usual and a little anxious, for he knew how much depended on the issue of this fight. At the last moment he beckoned to Jordan and whispered in his ear.

"Look at the old serpent," sneered Gavidge, "telling the pup how to bite."

Willoughby, very spruce in his red coat and white periwig, held up his hand.

"Gentlemen, silence, please. Mr. Gavidge—Mr. March. The fight is till one man cannot fight any longer."

"Yes, that's it," growled Gavidge with a fierce grin at Jordan.

There was much shouting and cursing while the fight lasted, and it lasted some twenty minutes, and there was much argument after it had ended. Men waxed hot and were ready to fight each other. The Drury Lane roughs were for making an Irish festival of it, but when a few determined gentlemen drew their swords the mob men thought better of it.

"'Twas his height that did it. Gavidge was the better man."

"Rot, sir! Gavidge was red pulp. I wonder he stood it after the first ten minutes."

"He was the better man when they began. That lucky clout half-way through——"

"Fudge! March kept his temper better. That was as pretty a blow as ever I saw. The big lad's a fine fighter."

Jordan, after kissing a certain lady's hand, and being made much of by a new world of admirers, walked home arm in arm with Tom Nando, to be embraced by Mrs. Mary.

"O, my dear, I haven't been able to keep still a single minute. Mercy—you have got a great cut on your head! Tom, send Meg for Surgeon Barter."

"It can't be a very big cut, mother."

"It is. Your hair's all clotted."

Nando looked amused.

"She never made such a fuss over me, my son."

"O, Tom, how can you! Don't you remember how I sat up half one night——?"

"I think I do remember it, my dear, though I have an idea that I was asleep all the time after the strong drink you gave me!"

"O, Tom, that's gratitude!"

"Bless your dear soul, a man can't help teasing you."

One young gentleman who had been present at the fight went home in a very bad temper. Douce saw him come in at the gate, and knowing where he had been, she watched his face with quiet shrewdness. He had lost money and the price of his malice, and he was annoyed by the look in his sister's eyes.

"What are you staring at?"

"Was Mr. Jordan very much hurt, Maurice?"

Maurice presented her with his hat and cane. He became the very superior person, the man of the world.

"Such things aren't for little girls' ears."

She knew at once that Jordan had beaten his man, and the knowledge showed in her eyes. Her brother did not miss the shine of a secret exultation in them, and he remembered something which might damp her pleasure.

"Oh, our friend Jordan has good luck. His lady-love was there to throw him a bunch of ribbons. A very great lady, too, my dear."

"Indeed!" said Douce quietly, "but if she brought him good luck.... Besides, if she is such a very great lady, surely——"

Her brother broke in with a laugh.

"Tut, tut," he said, "I can't talk scandal to a girl of your age. Little girls are not supposed to know about such things."