Apples of Gold

by Warwick Deeping

  "I may come and fetch you from the playhouse?"

  "No," she said, "no."

  He was puzzled, troubled, but he was not suspicious. She could see that he was trying to grasp her supposed reasons and to understand them. He made no attempt to bully or to storm.

  "You mean that I am serving a sort of apprenticeship, Nan?"

  "We both are. Sweetmeats only twice a week, my lad, while I make up my mind."

  "And I am to promise——?"

  She shook a finger at him with a playfulness that was fierce and insistent.

  "You are not to come near me—save on those two evenings. You are not to come to the theatre or to my house. It is the biggest promise you have ever made to anyone, man or woman, and if you break it—I shall break with you."

  Jordan went and stood at the window and looked out into her little garden where daffodils were swinging their yellow heads in the wind. She watched his big, square back, and her eyes were both hard and soft.

  "It won't be easy for me, Nan."

  "Of course not," said she; "I'm not making it easy for you. I am the tyrant. But if you make me this promise and keep it, I may think of marrying you, my dear."

  "Very well," he said; "I promise."

  For two months Jordan kept his promise, and then something happened. He was seeing a good deal of Roland Bliss, the actor, for Bliss had come to Jordan for fencing lessons, and the two men had taken a liking to each other. Bliss was ten years older than Jordan, and his opposite in almost every way. His smile had an edge to it. He was black of eye and black of chin, restless, full of scoffings and silent laughter, lean of body, and quick of tongue. His cynicism had a certain lovable frankness, for he laughed at himself as much as he laughed at others. He had a high colour, a hot temper, and ironical eyebrows. He affirmed that he had never loved a woman longer than a week, never borrowed money, or sold his last shirt. He was something of a poet, while professing to distrust all sentiment. He was very much a man's man; women found him too mercilessly clever.

  He was a sword in a scabbard, rarely drawn, but when unsheathed a weapon of fine temper.

  Maybe it was natural that the man in him should love the man in Jordan. This big, clean, wholesome thing was like the open sea after the painted jealousies of the playhouse. One half of the world cringed to the other half, and Jordan never cringed and never flattered. He stood so well on his own feet, without any obvious vanity, and with such frank naturalness. He had no little tricks and no hypocrisies.

  It was a chance remark of Bliss, half ironical, half playful, that served as the spark to the tinder.

  "So you and sweet Nan have fallen out!"

  Now, Jordan was not quite happy. Like a man in the dark he had begun to feel conscious of something that he could not see. Even Nan's kisses had begun to trouble him; there was a fierceness in them that left a vague, queer pain behind them. Did a woman who was happy kiss like that? And if she was unhappy—why?

  He turned bluntly at Bliss.

  "Who told you that?"

  They were sitting at the window of Jordan's room which overlooked Spaniards Court, Bliss with his chair tilted on its back legs, and rocking himself to and fro. He saw at once by the way Jordan turned on him and by the look in his eyes that the thing was more serious than he had thought.

  "O, just gossip," he said.

  "It isn't true."

  "I take your word for it," said Bliss, instantly on guard for Jordan's sake and for his own; "a man ought to mind his own business."

  He was ready to leave it at that, being quick to see that he had meddled with something which was better left alone, but Jordan was not so easily satisfied.

  "Who told you?"

  There was a frown on his forehead, and Bliss looked at him queerly. Was it possible that Jordan did not know what half the world knew?

  "Just silly gossip. We had not seen you at the Fields playhouse. That is all."

  "I don't go to the playhouse now," said Jordan, as though his thoughts were ahead of his words; "we arranged that between us."

  Bliss nodded and said nothing. He knew that there are certain adventures in which it is madness and folly for a third person to meddle. A man must skim the broth with his own spoon.

  "But what made you say that?"

  He had to meet Jordan's eyes. They were steady and obstinate, ready to hold truth in a corner and question her. Bliss shrugged and laughed.

  "Natural silliness. There is nothing in it. You know my tongue!"

  Jordan watched him. He asked Bliss one or two more questions, and then dropped the matter as though he were satisfied, but he was very far from being satisfied, and Bliss suspected it. Something was gnawing at Jordan's heart. He felt that his friend was hiding some fact from him, and so sure of it was he that he did not press Bliss further.

  The spring had come, and in Nando's garden the fruit blossom had fallen. May was a cold month, blue of sky, with the wind in the north-east, and though the world was growing green the full joy of the year seemed lacking. Blackbirds sang in the orchards, but their singing was of what might be and what was not. And Jordan was restless. A woman's kisses might be like the blackbirds singing or the north wind out of the blue sky, tantalising, bitter sweet, unsatisfying, leaving regret and a feeling of doubt behind them. The joy of the spring was an illusion. Youth had its first vague dread of life as it is.

  At the end of May Jordan broke his promise. He went forth with the full moon behind him, out of the town and along the dusky strangeness of familiar lanes. The earth was a fretwork of silver and jet. He smelt the smell of the gardens, and felt the freshness of the dew upon the grass. The trees were plumed with the moonlight and hung about with dim stars. It was a forbidden night, and he knew it, and he felt something twisted under his heart.

  He was cautious, though there should have been no need for caution, and when he came to the garden wall of her little house he paused and leaned against it, listening. It was not that he was disloyal. He had felt himself driven to the place by the whip of an unanswered question. He wanted to be convinced.

  He heard voices. There were lights in the house, and he moved nearer along the wall. Presently he heard footsteps, and two men came along the lane and brought up under the shadows of the bushes and of a big tree across the way. They gossiped. He judged that they had some business here, and that they had been to an ale-house and had come back to wait. He could distinguish the outlines of a dark object, and suddenly he realized what it was and what the men were. He was looking at a sedan chair set down under the tree, and the two fellows were chairmen.

  He waited, and presently a man came out of the house and got into the chair. The men stood to the poles, lifted the chair and walked off. Jordan could hear the creaking of the straps and the beating of his own heart.

  He came the next night and saw the same shadow show, and went away cold and grim. The next night was his—but he let it pass, spending it alone in his room with his naked sword laid across a chair. He knew what he meant to do. He was going to tear the moon out of the black illusion of the sky.

  The adventure was of the simplest. He climbed the garden wall, found the window of the parlour open, and the room lit by a couple of candles, but no one was in it for the moment. Jordan entered by the open window. He had been in the room less than ten seconds when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

  "Now!" thought he, with all his muscles tense.

  But all that he saw was a ridiculous, pug-faced old gentleman, in a snuff-coloured suit and a vast wig, standing in the doorway and blinking his eyes at him. The old gentleman had a cane in one hand and a cambric handkerchief in the other. It was obvious to Jordan that he was very astonished and very angry.

  And suddenly he began to prance on his spindle-shanks and to wave his cane and to scream like an angry parrot.

  "What—what! Nan, you slut—you lying hussy—come downstairs."

  He pranced in towards Jordan, squealing and threatening him with his cane.

  "
I am the Marquis of Morpeth. What are you doing in my house—fellow? Damn you, what are you doing in my house?"

  Jordan stood very still.

  "I understood it to be the lady's house, sir."

  "Damn it, it's my house, I tell you. Nan—you hussy. You thought you had fooled me, did you?"

  She stood in the doorway; she did not look at the little old monkey brandishing his stick and making senile grimaces; she looked at Jordan, and her eyes flashed.

  "What are you doing here, Mr. March?"

  His eyes met hers, and gave anger for anger.

  "Nothing, madam; I had come to pay a call."

  "He came in at the window!" screamed the Marquis, shaking his wig; "you told me you had broken with him—you lying slut. You can go to the devil——!"

  He flung out of the room, but turned and came back into the doorway.

  "Either he goes out—or you—you——"

  Jordan answered that question, and he answered it by turning his back on both of them and making for the window. He got out of it in the cool, moonlit garden. He was aware of angry voices behind him, but he did not look back.

  "I'm an old fool, am I! Damn it, hadn't I promised to marry you?"

  "O, shut up!" said she.

  She ran to the window.

  "Jordan," she called—"Jordan."

  There was no answer, and she climbed out into the garden, her face all white and fierce. She made a dash for the wall. Jordan was straddling the top of it, and she caught his leg.

  "One moment," said she; "I have something to say."

  He tried to raise his leg, but she held fast to it.

  "No—you shall listen. You have not played fair with me."

  "Good God!" said the man.

  He reached down to put away her hands, but she struggled with him fiercely.

  "Fool! O—my dear, don't you understand? You are the only man that matters. These fools——! Come back! You are the only man I want. No—you don't understand that or me or the life I have had to live! I would have fooled them all for your sake; I was fooling them."

  He was stark as ice.

  "Let go—Nan. All that is finished."

  "No—no! O—you men are hard! You may have your adventures, but when a woman has to hold her own against the whole world! If you had not broken your promise to me——"

  "Thank God I broke it," he said, in bitter anguish and anger. "Let go. I'm not like those other men——"

  She felt his sudden loathing of her, and she cried out and loosed her hold.

  "Well—go! I can hold my own. You were always as blind as a bat. You would not see. Go—be quick, go."

  He dropped from the wall as into an abyss, and went running heavily along the lane, while she—wounded—fierce—torn between tears and defiance—turned back to the little house. She knew that the end had come, and that she would never see him again.

  She felt that she did not want to see him again.

  "I'm not made for this," she thought; "women like us should never be serious. It's like bearing a child and then seeing him die! O, damn all men!"

  And Jordan was thinking the same of all women.

  XVII

  About this time Thomas Nando showed sudden signs of growing old. His wig covered a grizzled head, and though he was no more than sixty years of age he began to look the old man, a little bent, a little shrunken, less brisk in his movements. The Nandos were not long-lived people, and this sudden ageing of his father threw upon Jordan a fuller burden of responsibility at a time when he was ripe and eager for it. He had had enough of petticoat adventures; the game had been too easy and too unsatisfying in its conclusions, and he began to think of settling down to working out those figures which need not be washed out at the end of each year. To write in one's ledger: "God be thanked, but I am worth five hundred pounds more than I was this day last year," is a satisfying and human entry. Man is acquisitive. A time comes when he begins to realize that to acquire things, tangible things, is to accumulate power and to make progress. He expresses himself in his possessions, especially in the beauty and the pleasant solidity of them. They are his, a part of his strivings, a house built for his own stout soul. With them he flouts the envy of his enemies. Success is exquisite when it angers those who wish to see us fail.

  All the practical work of the fencing-school fell to Jordan, and with it a half-share of all the fees, for as Tom Nando put it: "Your mother and I have all we want. When your stocking is full, why be miserly?" He would bring his presence into the school for an hour each morning, but he was a figurehead, a looker on, and Jordan had a feeling that to watch the young men doing what he could no longer do made Tom Nando sad. He was more and more in his garden. He was quite happy in it, and even talked of building himself a house on a parcel of ground next to it.

  Jordan had the ideas of a young man, but before putting them into practice he asked for Nando's advice and consent.

  "We could do with another room, sir. We are losing custom by not being able to give gentlemen all the time they ask for. There is that big room of Morgan's on the other side of the court."

  "Use your own discretion, Dan. Besides, my lad, it is yours now, and I'm proud of it."

  "I always like to have your advice, sir. It still is, and will always be, Nando's Fencing School."

  Jordan rented Mr. Morgan's big room. He engaged two new assistant fencing-masters, and converted Monsieur Bertrand, who was growing stiff and elderly, into a gentleman clerk who interviewed patrons, arranged the time-table, kept the books, and looked after the foils. In half a year Jordan doubled the takings of the school. He raised his own fees, for the world accepts the price a man puts upon his own skill. He was the fashion. It became the proper thing for all Whig gentlemen to learn or perfect their sword-play at Nando's, and not a few Tories deigned to patronize the "Terror of the Jacks." Jordan was honest, and nothing of a charlatan. He pretended to no trick strokes, and parries, and to no secret cunning.

  "It is all wrist and eye, sirs, and hard practice. Some men will go farther than others, because they are born to it. I can teach a man to handle a sword, but only his own heart can teach him to fight."

  So Nando's prospered, and Jordan began to be a young man of substance. He had money to spend, and he was gaillard in the spending of it, for big natures do not worry over half-pennies. He bought a horse, a fine black fellow, which he rode daily before breakfast. He spent good money on his wigs and dress, on his shoes and shirts and stockings. Nearly always he wore a black coat and breeches, with a white waistcoat and stockings, and plain silver buckles on his shoes. He looked what he was, the fine gentleman. He refurnished his rooms with walnut furniture; the chairs were seated with Italian velvet, and the carpets were of Flemish make. He bought glass, for beautiful table glass had a great attraction for him, and he liked to look at and handle a fine goblet. Mr. Marsden, the gunsmith, made him a fowling-piece with the stock measured to fit his arm and shoulder. He liked everything solid and rich and good to look at, not because he wanted to swagger, but because fine craftsmanship appeals to a man who is a master in his own craft.

  And Mrs. Mary approved. Thirty years ago she had been counting the pennies and keeping a bright and careful eye on the butcher and the baker, but now she could take her pleasure in seeing Jordan spending his money like a gentleman. She was much troubled about her husband, and Jordan's prosperity and his way of showing it gave her relaxation. He was settling down. All these solid possessions suggested permanence and no more chasing of elusive petticoats. He had resumed his Sunday morning church parade with her, and she was more proud of him than she had ever been.

  Mrs. Mary could never keep away from the window when Jordan rode into Spaniards Court after his early morning canter.

  "La, Tom, he does look well on a horse."

  Tom Nando would never be too old to quiz her.

  "Sure it isn't the Duke, my dear?"

  "Well, I'm sure he is as handsome as any duke, Tom."

  "Handsomer
than most dukes—as I have seen 'em, my dear."

  She still carried her head on one side like a listening thrush, and she had the same bright eyes.

  "But he has got such solid sense, Tom. It isn't all powder and shoe polish. Sometimes I think it is the Glyn blood coming out."

  "So it may be," said her man; "but if someone planted the seed you helped the plant to grow, my Mary."

  "And you, Tom, too."

  "I have tried to make a man of him, and by gad!—he is one."

  There were faces at other windows. Meg, her swarthiness grown grey, would thrust her pug nose against the kitchen panes and dote on the creature whom she had dandled and tried to spoil.

  "Here he is, the darling!"

  Poll had to have her share of the window.

  "I wonder who he'll be marrying?"

  "Get along with you! Your silly head's full of men and babies."

  As a matter of fact, Mrs. Mary had quite given up the idea of getting Jordan married, for she had ceased to see any young woman who was good enough for him. The Prudence Thomsons, the Jane Lamberts, the Lucy Linacres, were out of date. Miss Lambert had married a drysalter, with a flat nose and legs like lobsters. A drysalter indeed! That was her level! And Jordan mixed with great gentlemen, kept his horse, went shooting, and hired a coach once a week to take Mrs. Mary for a drive in the park. She was quite sure that he was the best looking man in London, and not only the best looking, but the best natured. There is no doubt that she was a little bit tiresome in her admiration of Jordan, tiresome that is—to other women. She hinted more or less openly that Jordan would make a notable match some day. Other women were apt to grow restive. "After all, he's only a duckling, and no chick of hers," or "My dear, you'd think he was a love-child of hers instead of a poor foundling."

  Yet the women continued to shake their petticoats at him, but Jordan had grown wise. He had been taught to love by two women who were exquisite artists in the great craft, and he was not to be caught by curls under a mob-cap. His life had become very much a man's life and full of other interests, and his friends were men. A man who has had a meal is less likely to hunger after strange food, and during this middle period Jordan thought more of his horse and his fowling-piece and of his day's work than he did of women. As Tom Nando had prophesied, he had come to realize what such affairs were worth, even the most romantic of them.