"I hope Mrs. Mary has not thought me neglectful," she said, with a shy, upward glance at Jordan.
"Your father takes so much of your time."
"Yes."
"Don't let him take too much. We all have to live our lives, you know."
"I do know," she answered; "but is it not rather hard to deny things to certain people?"
"Of course it is," said Jordan, looking down at her with a big brother kindliness, "and it would be to you."
She coloured up.
"Oh, I am not making myself out a martyr. After all, we do owe a great deal to our parents, Mr. Jordan, don't we?"
And then she could have bitten her tongue, remembering as she did how little Jordan's natural parents had done for him; but Jordan did not appear to notice the innocent irony of her little sententious question.
She changed the subject swiftly.
"So you see Maurice sometimes?"
"Yes, now and again."
"I think he has quite forgiven you for the affair of my rag doll."
Their eyes met, and they laughed.
"How we change," said Douce. "Don't you see all sorts of different persons in yourself, quite a procession of persons? First one plays for a year or two, and then one becomes serious and perhaps quite priggish. And then you grow wiser again."
"And kinder," said Jordan.
"Yes, and kinder," she agreed.
When they reached Mr. Sylvester's gate Douce hesitated and then looked up at him with veiled eyes.
"You'll come in," she said, as though she was determined that he should come in.
Jordan's glance was questioning.
"May I? If you think——"
"Of course you must come in," she said, and led the way up the path.
They found Mr. Sylvester with his spectacles on his nose, reading a book of sermons, and whether he was too surprised to show a studied disapproval, or whether Maurice's words had had real weight with him, he behaved to Jordan with cold but unquestionable politeness. For the first time in her life Douce dominated the St. Croix household. She sat herself down by her father, and with a little air of pale determination she saw to it that these two men talked to each other. She broke the ice of years, even if she could not drain away the deep water of her father's prejudices.
When Jordan rose to go she walked with him to the gate.
"Good-bye, Douce," said he; "you must come and see us again."
She looked at him steadily.
"I like to hear you call me that," she said; "it is quite like the raspberry days."
He smiled at her.
"Why, that is as it should be."
He had meant far less than he had said, for his attitude to her was one of frank, big-natured liking. She was such a little thing, and he felt protective to little things; but for the moment he was not passionately interested in any woman, and the type that he admired had changed. It might have been thought that his various affairs, especially those with Lady Bacchus and Nancy Sweethaws, would have made him more open to the attack of Douce's glowing freshness. No man had ever kissed her. Her mouth was virgin, but sometimes the mouth of a young girl which delights a boy or an old roué fails to utter those significant words which catch the heart of the strong man in the days of his ambition.
Jordan went home with no stirring of his pulses, but Douce, who knew so little of men, had trembled at the touch of his kindness. It had seemed to her so much more impulsive than it was, so like the picture that she had wished to see that she turned back from the gate with new life glowing in her. She trembled. She was aware of fateful exultation. Her heart felt like glass, ready to be broken in his big hands. She knew that he was the man whom she wanted, and that in her secret thought she had always wanted him.
She pulled a rose from a bush, and held it with both hands against, her mouth.
"I'm not a prude; no—no. I wonder if he thought me one? O, big Jordan!"
She went in and read to her father, and the dull words danced in her heart, for when the heart is happy even the dry dust lives.
XIX
Jordan's morning ride took him along the Oxford road as far as Tyburn, and here he would turn off towards Edgware, for he had discovered a very pleasant lane branching from the main road, with broad grass verges on either side of it which gave good ground for a canter. He was up at five on these summer mornings, and this lane of his took him into a new world and towards broader and more open prospects. He loved the hayfields in the early morning, and he loved them in their pale coats after the scythes had shorn them. He watched the birds. He was alone, with the wind on his face and that sense of mystery which dawn and twilight give. There was always for him the feeling of things about to happen, the thrill of some unknown adventure, the call of the open sky and the distant drift of the fields. These were spacious mornings, and perhaps they both heralded and synchronized with a broadening in him of certain half-realized desires and ambitions. He was a city child, but when Black Prince, his horse, carried him out beyond the bricks and mortar he carried him into another world, the world of those parents whom he had never known. The land spoke to him, the fields, the park lands, the woods. Unlike old Nando, he felt that he would not be content with a garden, the city man's playground. The dim urge in him was towards something wider, greater, broad-spreading pastures and rolling woods, a country that was his; rivers whose water swirled round his horse's legs and called him master. He had the love of the land, land over which he could ride from daybreak to sunset, and still call it his.
"Queer," he thought to himself. "What do I want with land? To spend my time like a great gentleman managing an estate! What have I to do with land?"
But the passion was there. It had been there since birth, wanting to express itself, to seize the grown man when the boy in him had ceased to wander. Youth is constructive only in its dreams, destructive in its undisciplined restlessness. No man is a builder until he is mature and has come to realize his own strength and the easy infirmities of most other men. The few build; the crowd stands with hands in pockets, sucking straws, foolishly critical or envious.
But Jordan could not fathom the inevitable tendencies that were in him. He did not know the people who lay behind him. This new, vague urge was not mere discontent, for he was happy in his work, proud of it, and successful in it, and he had come by a good deal of wisdom and self-restraint; but he had the feeling that there was some other self deep down in him which was slowly and surely pushing to the surface. It was rather vague and baffling, and what it portended he did not know.
"A year ago," he laughed, "I should have said that I was ripe for another love affair!"
During the month of June another rider discovered Jordan's lane, and they passed each other on several mornings, cantering in opposite directions. The man was young, sallow, rather fragile in build, with well-cut features, good teeth and pleasant sleepy eyes. To Jordan he looked rather foreign, like a southern Frenchman or a Spaniard.
After two or three days of such passings they smiled and wished each other good morning, and the young man's English was as English as Jordan's.
"Good morning to you, sir."
"The same to you, sir."
Two or three days later Jordan came upon the stranger trying to extract a stone from his horse's shoe. Jordan pulled up and dismounted, and this friendly incident put them upon a different footing. They rode homewards together, and Jordan gathered that the young man was a colonial, a Virginian, and that he was in England for some six months to see the country and certain aunts, uncles and cousins who were English. In fact, Jordan learnt more about the young man than he learnt about Jordan, for Jordan's ears were quicker than his tongue. The Virginian had taken my Lord Askew's house in Garter Street, and here they parted company.
It was a little, narrow red house, with a white door and white sashes. It had a fanlight over the door between two classic pilasters, and green iron railings enclosing a minute front garden. Jordan passed it every morning, for he and th
e Virginian had agreed to take their canter together along the lane off the road to Edgware. Jordan liked the man, and the man liked him.
It was not until the fourth morning that Jordan, turning in the saddle to smile a good-bye to his new acquaintance, happened to glance at one of the first-floor windows. A woman was sitting there. She caught the end of Jordan's smile, and he fancied that she answered it with an air of whimsical amusement. He rode away with the impression of a pair of humorous dark eyes, a pale and elusive face, a long mouth with red and beautifully cut lips, and a mass of midnight hair. She suggested mystery, though why she should suggest mystery Jordan could not tell.
"Stamford's wife, I suppose," he thought, and rode home to his day's work.
The lady of the laughing eyes came down to give Stamford his breakfast. She was his sister and not his wife, a widow, and her name was Mariana Merris. She had estates in Virginia, and she had come to England with her brother; moreover, she was half-tempted to remain in England.
"Who is your friend, Will?"
"He might be Adam for all I know."
She smiled at this indolent, happy brother of hers.
"Do you mean to say that you have ridden with him these four mornings and you do not know his name?"
"Yes. Why should I?"
She gave a pretty and humorous shrug of the shoulders.
"Why should you! Mere curiosity! Does he know yours?"
"I believe he does."
"What does he do?"
"I have not the faintest idea."
"Well—find out. I like the look of him."
"Oh, if you like the look of him, my dear, I had better ask him in to breakfast."
He smiled at her with his lazy eyes, and she shook her head at him.
"You are always thinking that I want a second husband."
"Don't you?"
"I do not believe that there is any man who could persuade me to give up my freedom."
Like life, her laughter was the sparkle of sunlight upon water, and beneath the surface in the cool green deeps there was a diffused sadness. She had some of her brother's indolence, moods of pleasant languor, but she was more vital and far cleverer than he was. To some she appeared as a comely creature who had matured in the sunny south, but she was far more than that. Her beauty had a touch of bitterness, a sweet tang that saved it from cloying, and when she laughed her laughter sometimes had a note of elusive mockery, a note that could be plaintive. She hid herself. She talked exquisite nonsense to prevent herself from seeming serious. Her lissom indolence was a cushion upon which she reclined. Once in her life she had given way to a great impulse and had suffered for it. "'Never again,'" was her motto; "it is more amusing to be a spectator."
She was a woman who looked out of windows. For a moment, in a flash, her dark beauty was visible, the inherent, rich glow of her, and then the curtain fell. Her voice, lazy and whimsical, trailed lightly over life. She had moods of long silence.
Her brother came in from his ride next morning with a curve of mischief on his mouth.
"I have found out what my friend is."
She saw that he was amused.
"How did you do it?"
"I asked him his name, and he told me the rest. Guess."
She handed him his cup of hot chocolate.
"Obviously," she said, "he is a man of good family. I should set him down as the younger son of some great person."
Stamford's eyes were lazily ironical.
"Wrong, Marie; stone cold."
She glanced at him as though she had more faith in her own impressions than in what her brother knew.
"Well, we will try again. A country gentleman up for the season?"
"Wrong again."
"A soldier?"
"No."
"A rich merchant's son?"
"No."
"An attorney?"
"No."
"I give it up," she said, laughing.
"His name is March—Jordan March. He is a fencing-master, and he keeps a fencing school. Nando's. Of course—I had heard of it."
His sister said nothing for the moment, and his impression was that she was as surprised as he had been.
"But I like the fellow. He was perfectly frank and open about it. In fact, he is rather proud of his school."
"Why shouldn't he be?" she said. "It is better to teach the use of the sword than to teach men to cheat."
"Quite so," said her brother; "the man is more of a gentleman than most men who pin that mark on their hats. I am just as ready to ask him in to breakfast."
"Well, ask him," she answered.
The invitation was given and accepted; Jordan's horse was fastened to the green railings, with a small boy on guard to see that Prince did not put his head over the railings and browse upon the flowers. Mrs. Merris was waiting for them behind her tray of chocolate cups. She was dressed in some rich red stuff which set off her complexion and her hair.
"Mr. Jordan March—my sister."
Jordan bowed to her, and she made a little graceful movement in her chair.
"Please sit down, Mr. March. These English mornings make one hungry."
"They do, madam," said he, thinking what a remarkable thing it was that she should be Stamford's sister and not his wife.
"Sugar, Mr. March?"
"If you please, madam."
Jordan was rather grave and not particularly talkative, and she had no quarrel with his silence, for she disliked garrulous men, men who were funny and facetious. And Jordan was strangely shy of her, nor was she sorry for his shyness. She noticed that he did not eat much breakfast. It was she and her brother who did most of the talking, while Jordan put in a few quiet words when they seemed required of him. She had absorbed him—so to speak—into her presence, and he was so conscious of something new and strange and unexpected that his consciousness was all ears and eyes. He was aware of the little arcs of bright light that would appear suddenly in the soft darkness of her eyes, of the warm and almost brown golden tinge of her skin like the tints on the skin of some beautiful fruit, of her soft, trailing voice. He was faintly afraid of her, and she was the first woman who had filled him with this vague fear. He thought that she was more like his ideal picture of the great lady than any woman he had ever seen.
Their talk drifted to the sensation of the moment, the South Sea Company and the amazing madness that had turned every Jack and Jill into a speculator. Mrs. Merris described to Jordan a visit she had paid to Change Alley and the sights she had seen there, and she described them very well. She gave him the impression of being a woman apart, above the rush and the chatter and the excitement, while remaining human and humorous and slightly pitying.
"Are you a gambler, March?" asked the brother.
No; Jordan did not think he was a gambler, but he had bought some South Sea shares.
"Then—why did you buy them?"
Jordan looked quietly smiling into Mrs. Merris's eyes.
"O, well—I don't know. There is a spice of adventure in it."
"Surely—that is gambling," she laughed.
"No, but I am not a gambler," he persisted; "someone—a friend—to whom I had done a good turn—advised me to buy the shares."
"Oh—I see. You believe in certainties, solid things?"
"Yes—I think so," said Jordan. "The shares have doubled their value. If they go much higher I shall sell them."
"To make sure of a certainty?"
"Well—I know what I want, madam, not money for money's sake, but what you can do with it."
"So that is where the adventure begins?"
"Yes."
When the meal was over he rose, thanked her gravely, and asked her permission to go.
"I have my first lesson to give at nine, madam."
"We must not keep you, Mr. March."
"Good morning, madam."
He bowed to her, and smiling and nodding to her brother went to mount his horse, and Mrs. Merris saw him give the small boy a douceur and ride away. Sh
e liked him; she liked the frank way he had spoken of his work; she liked the way his eyes had looked at her, gravely, shyly, as though she were a long way off. But she was puzzled. She stood by the window, absorbed in thought, and tracing invisible patterns on the glass with the tip of a slim finger.
"Marie," said her brother, "what do you think of my fencing master?"
She remained looking out of the window.
"Somehow, he seems in the wrong shoes."
"What do you mean, my dear?"
"I don't quite know what I do mean," she answered.
So Jordan continued his morning rides, and he had his daily glimpse of Mrs. Merris. He would sit his horse for a few moments under her window, looking up, his hat in his hand while he laughed and chatted with her and her brother. Once a week he was asked in to breakfast, but though he had become a friend of the brother, he drew no nearer to Mrs. Merris. He made no attempt to approach her, and she made no efforts to attract him. They talked to each pleasantly from a distance, and though Jordan learnt many facts about the life in Virginia, he learnt little more about the lady, save that she had a fine estate, a crowd of black servants, and easy, spacious days. It was quite a long while before he made the discovery that she was a widow, and when he did discover it, it unexpectedly added to his sense of distance. She was three years older than he was. His attitude was rather that of a boy to a handsome and stately woman who is gracious to him, and he was grateful to her for her graciousness. He admitted quite frankly that she was immensely his superior, a mysterious and brilliant creature whom it was delightful to look at, and the most quaint part of his admiration was that he was content to look at her. He rather liked the feeling of her being up there above him, and it seemed most natural that she should look down with her elusive smile at him from her window. She was different from Lady Marigold, and she affected him quite differently. He never faced the fact that he might fall in love with her; it is doubtful if he realized that he was on the edge of it. He stood gazing up, and was so frankly convinced of her aboveness, that there was something in him which prevented him tumbling into the deep water beyond.
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