Читать книгу Apples of Gold - Warwick Deeping - Страница 9

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A girl in a green hood left a letter at Nando's in Spaniards Court. It was a very pretty letter, perfumed, sealed with pink wax, and addressed to Mr. Jordan March. Meg received it, scrutinized it, smelt it, and took it to Mrs. Mary, who went through much the same performance as Meg had done. Mrs. Mary produced the letter to her husband, and her kind brown eyes were uneasy.

"It smells wicked, Tom," she said.

"Hum," quoth Nando, sniffing it, "I don't know about that! It looks a pretty thing."

"Ought—ought he to have it, Tom?"

"Bless my soul, he is out of baby clothes, surely!"

"Tom, you don't understand."

"Dear heart, didn't I have pretty things like this in my young days? If you want to keep a boy from the strawberry bed, give him the run of it; if he is a healthy boy he will be sick of strawberries in a fortnight."

"But, Tom, supposing——"

"Supposing what, sweetheart?"

"Some bad woman, some nasty woman, should get hold of him?"

"I don't think she will, my dear, or not for long. The lad has seen a picture of what a woman should be?"

"Whose picture?"

Nando tweaked her chin.

"Don't pretend you don't know!"

Jordan had his letter. It told him that a certain lady would be at the masquerade at the Opera House in the Haymarket, and that if Mr. March danced as well as he fought she would be glad to have him as a partner. The lady did not give her name, but warned him that she would be wearing a black vizard and a green domino with a black death's-head embroidered on the back of the hood.

Jordan showed the letter to Nando.

"What would you do about it?"

Nando raised his eyebrows.

"When I was your age, Dan, I was always ready for an adventure. Who is the lady?"

"I haven't the faintest notion."

"Well, that adds to the spice of it. A man should learn to use his wits as well as to use a sword. But one word of warning, my son; never take up with a strange woman in the dark. Make her show her face to you in the daylight."

Jordan laughed.

"If a woman has a face worth showing, surely——"

"But, maybe, my lad, she hasn't. I was caught once that way when I was very green, and when madam got me home and I found what I had been kissing! Faugh! Dan, always keep to the daylight, and see your woman's eyes and mouth."

"I suppose it is like fencing," said Jordan.

"Much the same—with that sort of woman; her wits against yours."

"I think I'll try it," said Jordan thoughtfully, and his seriousness made Nando smile.

"It's a game, like all other games, Dan; keep it at that; never forget that it's a game, especially when the woman wants to make you play it too seriously. That's a trick of theirs. Bless you, this isn't the last letter of the kind you'll get."

Jordan's grey eyes were a little incredulous.

"Why?"

"Why! Damn it, because...! O, well, you wait and see, my son."

Dawn in the country, night in the city, these are the times for the setting out upon adventure, and Jordan went out when dusk and darkness met. Mary Nando, standing at the window, saw him go across the court with a black domino over his arm, and his wig freshly powdered. He was wearing the new suit which Mr. Holland, the tailor, had sent home three days before. He had money in his pocket, money of his own making, and he had hurried out of the house without wishing Mrs. Mary good-bye.

She was unhappy, rebelling against the old inevitable breaking of the woman's tyranny of tenderness. She wanted to follow him, to watch over him as though he were still a toddler, and when Tom Nando came in he found her in tears.

"Why—mother!"

"He's gone," she said, "and he never said good-bye. I know what that means, Tom. He has gone to meet a woman."

But youth stoops to the lure of the thing which has never happened. It glimpses a face half-seen behind a curtain, the curve of a neck and head at a window, the hills on the other side of the sunset or of the dawn. Adventure! Mystery! So a young man goes to his first adventure as in the secret stillness of a summer daybreak, with the dew upon the grass and a little whimper of exultation in his heart. Woman! The mystery of her, the perfume, the strangeness, the laughter, the half mischievous tenderness, the hesitations, the sudden surrenders! Jordan smelt night in the darkening streets; and the lights in the windows were stars in the sky of romance. Lanterns were swaying. In the Piazza chairmen waiting dimly by their dim chairs hailed him as he passed. "Chair, sir; chair, your honour?" He smiled. He was conscious of his fine, rich, stalwart self, of the good blood in him, yet the pride of his youth did not swagger. It showed a generous colour. Always, his bigness had a streak of gentleness, the mark of Mrs. Mary with the thrush-like eyes. If he made other men take the posts, he left the wall to old men and the women.

Going down into the crowded Strand, and liking the confused, dim hubbub of it, he passed up Cockspur Street and came to that conflux of coaches, chairs, footmen and runners, link boys, gentlemen, and thieves. Mr. Heidegger's world was in the full glare. Maskers, like moths or mice, fluttered and twittered into it out of the darkness.

The stairs were like life, everybody trying to climb, and at the top of them Jordan found a little room where gentlemen where putting on their masks and dominoes. The thing amused him. What a game and what players! He stood three inches taller than a duke. He assisted a peevish old rake who was in trouble with his silk gown.

"Thank you, sir."

He leered up humorously into Jordan's April face.

"Why do I do it—hee—hee? In your case it is understandable. Good luck to you, sir."

Jordan sailed in on the adventure. The place was one vast eye; it was all eyes, eyes that twinkled and questioned and stared, or threw a challenge or were blind to one, hundreds of little windows, wicked or mischievous or greedy, shining in black velvet or crape. A coloured confusion, a storm of chatter! Mr. Heidegger had thought of everything, and if he had not thought of it, other people thought of it for him. The world here could dance, gamble, make love, quarrel, pick pockets, and flirt with a lady who might be a mere nobody or a learned judge's wife.

Jordan was nudged in the first half-minute. He found himself looking into the eyes of a lady in red.

"Good evening, big boy."

"Good evening, madam," said he.

"What a crush! Sure, someone pushed me against you. If one could find a seat...."

He found her a seat, bowed, and excused himself.

"I have a friend here."

"La," said she, "what a pity! But she might be able to see you even if you don't see her."

Jordan moved slowly about like a big dog, till someone tapped him on the shoulder with a fan.

"You are like a lighthouse looking for a fish," said a voice.

He turned and saw a green domino. He smiled. She pivoted slowly, gracefully, her hoop like the overturned cup of a flower, and he saw the mark on her hood.

"I owe you a forfeit, madam. How did you pick me out?"

"Why, you big thing. I measured heads. I looked about for something like a giant."

He could see nothing of her save her eyes and chin, and her eyes had a greenish tinge and her chin was soft and white. A moment later he noticed her hands and the rings on them. He thought them the hands of a lady. As for her voice, he believed that he had heard it before, and it aroused strange conjectures.

His curiosity was obvious, and it amused her.

"Puzzled?" she laughed, and her eyes made a little glittering in the holes of the mask.

"I am, madam," he said.

"Isn't that the spice of the game? But a man might guess!"

"I have heard your voice before."

"Well—who does it suggest?"

"I cannot remember."

She tapped his arm with her fan.

"A man should—always—remember. Now, sir, what are we going to do with ourselves in this crush? Are you a gambler?"

He shook his head.

"Not with money, perhaps! But we can dance, and we can amuse each other, and we can laugh at all these other foolish people."

She was gay, audacious, and it was her audacity which most impressed him, because it had a note in it which he had not heard before and did not understand. Cynicism is a strange sort of music to the young, discordant and rather frightening, and my lady was quick to feel that he would not respond to it. Like her face her irony was masked.

"Come. Let us go to the music."

He gave her his arm, and as she slipped her hand under it she was pressed against him by the crowd. The soft pressure of her body and the scent of the perfume which she used made the man in him realize the thrill of adventure. Whoever she was, he felt gentle towards her, protective.

"I hope the crowd is not too great for you?"

Her quick ear caught the new note in his voice. There was little in a man's voice that she did not know and all that its varying cadences suggested, and she put herself in tune with it. A man must be allowed to play his part, to take the bait in his own way. She was amazingly quick in her reactions. In five minutes she had sensed more of Jordan and knew more about his inwardness than he did himself.

"I wish you could carry me," she said; "someone has just taken the skin off my heel."

She liked him, she whose life had been a series of adventures, and there was one moment during the evening when she liked him so well that some elemental part of her was touched beneath her glowing cynicism, and she was very near to sending him home. Some fool, rather overmerry, blundered against her, and grabbed familiarly at her dress.

"Hallo, you sweet slut!"

Jordan dealt with the fool in a way that surprised her. It was the sheer rightness of his instinct which took her unawares, and paid her a homage which all women claim and few deserve. He was very quiet about it, grimly good-tempered, and where nine men out of ten would have involved her in a quarrel, he suppressed the drunken gentleman in a way that caught her admiration.

"Where did you learn that?" she wondered; "you, a big boy, the half-son of a fencing-master?"

She heard him apologizing to her for what had happened.

"I ought to have foreseen that insult, somehow."

"My dear," she answered, "it is said that the women who come here cannot be insulted."

"Then I had better take you home," was his retort.

She laughed, and her laughter was against herself. He did not guess what was happening inside her, that she was railing at herself, that she had straightway fallen in love with him. She—the woman of the world, the wit, the laughing, glowing cynic, the manipulator of men, the brilliant wife of a sottish husband.

"Then—you shall," she said.

She pressed his arm. She was full of strange emotion, but she kept her head.

"Now, at once. You may take off your mask."

He took it off, and she watched him. They were together, close to a curtained doorway, and with a little provocative laugh she enveloped herself in the curtain. She was conscious of mystery and of him, of his frank, full-jawed face, his freckles, his grey eyes, his big and quietly smiling mouth. Yet, young as he was, there was something inscrutable about him, an inward store of reserve which made for dignity.

"You," she thought, "who and what are you? Yes, somehow—you will always be what most men are not—a gentleman, even in the thick of an intrigue. I ought to send you home. I ought to, but I won't."

He looked down at her smiling, wrapped up in the red curtain as she was, her head like a provoking green bud.

"And you?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"But you know me, and I don't know you."

"Presently, perhaps!" she said, and then, stretching out a hand to him—"No, I am not an old woman. I am not afraid of my mask. Mr. Jordan, you can take me home."

With a quick sweep of the hand she threw the curtain from her and stood close to him.

"I have a chair waiting—but, better still, go and get me a chair. You may walk beside it. Come."

He left her in the vestibule while he went and chartered a chair for her, and then, taking her out upon his arm through the midnight crowd, he placed her in that little secret shell.

"Where to?"

"That will be telling."

"Of course."

She touched him with her fan.

"Good night, sir. I will give the men their orders. But if—I should see you again...."

He bowed to her and drew away into the half-darkness, but when he saw the chairmen rise to their poles, he followed the precious casket which held the perilous heart of his first adventure. He walked lightly, with a clear head, and a sense of excitement under his ribs. The stars were shining in the sky of a summer night, eyes in the mask of mystery and romance.

The chairmen passed up the slope and, turning into Piccadilly, went westwards, with Jordan about thirty yards behind them. He remembered Thomas Nando's words: "See her by daylight," but the voice seemed very unreal and distant. The night was the reality, the stars, and the woman in that little mysterious shell. He judged that he had walked nearly half a mile before the men swung into a street on the north of the road. It was a dark street with a number of new, tall houses, with gardens or spaces between each group of houses. Here and there Jordan caught a gleam of light between closed shutters or drawn curtains.

The chairmen stopped. They were in doubt as to their destination, and Jordan heard my lady's voice directing them. They went a little farther up the street and set the chair down. Jordan stepped back into a doorway.

He waited there until the chairmen trudged back past him. They were laughing; they had been well paid, and, whatever the jest was, they were all in favour of pretty ladies.

"Good luck to the petticoats, says I!"

"Where should we be without 'em?"

Jordan walked on. He passed three doorways, and then came to one where a soft shadowiness was waiting. He heard a little thrilling laugh.

"Mr. Jordan, can you see me?"

She had put back her hood and taken off her mask.

"No," said he, bending over her, "only——"

She made a quick movement. She slipped a key into the lock and opened the door, and Jordan saw a narrow passageway or hall with a candle burning in a silver stick. Not a sound came from the house. She drew him in after her, keeping her face averted.

"The door, gently."

He pushed it to, and when he turned she was holding the candle and looking up at him.

"Well?"

He was astonished, and his astonishment delighted her.

"Now—you remember?"

"Yes—I remember."

She smiled. She gave him her hand, and not knowing what else to do, he kissed it. And then, she thrust him gently but meaningly towards the door.

"That—is enough—for to-night."

Out in the street, with the door closed upon him, he stood for a moment looking at the house with a sense of incredulity. Surely she had been playing with him, fooling him, and yet it was she who had made the first move. The white window-frames stared back at him, and he was still standing there when he saw a light moving in the upper part of the house. It grew steady. The candlestick had been set down on a table, and someone came to the window and threw up the lower sash.

It was she. She leaned out for an instant, vaguely silhouetted against the candlelight. She saw him below and waved her hand. He fancied that she had thrown him a kiss and he raised his black domino and shook it. Next moment she disappeared behind the quickly-drawn curtains.

Jordan walked slowly away, but this slow walk soon became a long, swinging stride.

"It is not a dream," he thought; "she said 'the day after to-morrow'!"

The youth in him was intoxicated, and perhaps not a little flattered. The brilliancy of her, the glamour of her reputation, the sensuous mystery of her fine gentlewoman's beauty had gone to his head.