"She is a very great lady," was his thought; "it is an honour to be allowed to bow to her."
For Jordan knew how strong was the intangible barrier which divided the man of family from the man who is nothing but what he is. He had learnt it day by day, in the school, in the streets, in the very atmosphere of the Nandos' home. He was a fencing-master, and a foundling. Life sets a man his limit.
Meanwhile, a little girl with red hair and serious black eyes was waiting to take his fate into her lap. Douce was a regular visitor now, and old Tom Nando, who was a good judge of a woman and had a fondness for Douce, began to think that he would like to see Jordan marry her. Mrs. Mary was not so sure.
"She's not big enough, Tom, and I think she has a temper."
"I have never seen it, my dear! Besides, does any man want to marry a white slug?"
"You don't quite take me, Tom. I have a feeling about things. After all, she's her father's daughter."
"Well, what of that?"
"She might try and tie Jordan up too much, put him on the chain."
Nando looked amused, for if anybody had wished to tie Jordan up in white silk ribbons it had been Mrs. Mary.
"What! That little bit of red hair and clotted cream play the shrew?"
"My dear," said Mrs. Mary, "I have feelings about things. That child could be a little tyrant to the man who loved her."
"O, come now!" said her man.
But there was a distinct warming of the St. Croix family towards the Nandos. Maurice took Mrs. Mary to a play at Drury Lane theatre, and Mr. Sylvester and his son were asked to supper. Douce came to Spaniards Court quite once a week, and she always paid her call about the time that Jordan finished his fencing lessons and came into the parlour for a cup of chocolate. Sometimes he saw her home; sometimes plain Meg acted as escort.
Mrs. Mary saw it all, and having grown wise she held her tongue and smiled. Douce wanted Jordan, and Jordan was kind to her. She was such a little thing, and he felt protective and brotherly, and he thought of her more as Douce the child than as Douce the woman.
He smiled at her a great deal. He liked to sit on the blue-covered settee and talk to her, and when he smiled at her Douce was quite happy.
XX
Jordan was giving a lesson when Monsieur Bertrand came to tell him that a clerk had called from Mr. Bowyer of Bucklersbury and that he carried a letter which was of great importance. Old Bowyer was an attorney who happened to be in Jordan's debt, Jordan having extricated old Bowyer's son from some shabby squabble with certain gentlemen of the baser sort. Jordan read Mr. Bowyer's letter. It contained nothing but an urgent message to him, bidding him to come down to the city without delay.
Jordan went. He found old Bowyer sitting all twisted in his chair, his wig laid on a pile of papers, and scratching hard and furiously with a quill pen. A strong-box stood open behind his chair. The afternoon sunlight painted a patch of gold upon a case of law-books and showed up the dancing dust motes in the air.
"Ha!" said Mr. Bowyer, looking up; "you've come. Sit down."
He was a peremptory little man who did everything in jerks, and who shot out his words like peas out of a pea-shooter. He had the brightest brown eyes, and his favourite colour for a coat was claret. He used a great deal of snuff, and he had a habit of biting the feather end of his quill pen, or of tickling one ear with it. For the rest he was one of the most respected attorneys in the City of London.
Jordan sat down on the other side of Mr. Bowyer's table and waited to hear what the old man had to say, and Mr. Bowyer liked men who allowed him to fire off his shots without unnecessary interference.
"You asked me to watch the Bubble for you, Mr. March. Blown suddenly to ten times its size. Sell."
"You advise me to sell those shares?"
Mr. Bowyer nodded and bit fiercely at his pen.
"Certainties."
"What are they worth?"
"They are worth to-day in Change Alley some fifteen thousand pounds."
Jordan stared at him. He was astonished. He had not troubled to follow the market for the last two weeks, and this sudden mad leap seemed amazing. It seemed equally amazing that he should be worth fifteen thousand pounds without having lifted a finger to earn it.
"It sounds absurd, sir," he said.
"It—is—absurd," said Mr. Bowyer. "Take my advice and sell."
Jordan looked very serious for a moment, and then he smiled.
"Something solid," he said, "exactly. Will you sell them for me, sir?"
Bowyer nodded, and little shrewd creases showed round his eyes. He was pleased with Jordan.
"And bank the money for me?"
"I can lay it out for you, Mr. March; sound mortgages."
"Yes, say twelve thousand in mortgages, sir; I think I may be able to find a use for the other three thousand. I shall build a house."
"A sound investment, sir, for a man to build his own house."
"Oh, it won't be for myself," said Jordan, and he told Mr. Bowyer something which made that old gentleman smile one of his occasional smiles.
"Excellent. I congratulate you, young man."
"And I—sir—owe you my thanks for all this."
"Fudge," said Mr. Bowyer; "I've squared a debt, that's all."
Jordan walked all the way back from Bucklersbury to Spaniards Court, for he wanted to think things out and to get a grip upon this new and extraordinary change in his fortune. What did it mean? That he was a man of property, that he could give up being a fencing-master, that he need never do any more work unless he chose to; but directly he faced these possibilities he knew that he loved Nando's, and that his sword-play was dearer to him than any gentlemanly idleness could be. In fact, he refused to be excited, to let himself be overbalanced by the sudden acquisition of a sack of gold.
"What sort of man would one be," he thought, "if one let oneself be mastered by a bag of money? Does a ship abandon its voyage and take to strange seas because she happens to have more cargo aboard? I'll go on to-morrow just as I went on yesterday."
Yet two very definite pictures had framed themselves in his head. If he so chose he could give way to that strange and growing lust of his for land, and he could allow himself to do a certain thing which had long been in his mind. The will and the wish to do it were so strong in him that he turned aside and walked over to Thomas Nando's garden and spent an hour looking at the land which lay about it.
At supper that night he was serious and rather silent, and when Mrs. Mary sallied him upon his silence he glanced at her with a half-mischievous smile.
"Yes—I have been thinking hard, mother. You'll be bringing your work in here while father and I smoke our pipes?"
"To be sure, my dear," said she; "don't I always sit here with you?"
"It is we who sit with you, I think," said Jordan. "Are you going to smoke, father?"
"Since when have I ceased to be a chimney!" quoth old Nando.
Jordan glanced at the dishes, and Mrs. Mary understood that he wanted the table cleared and the girls out of the way, and that he had something to tell them. She suspected at once that he had made up his mind to get married, and she supposed it would be to Douce, whose solemn dark eyes had looked at him so long that they had set him alight in answer to their message. Mrs. Mary sighed. She got her work and sat down on the blue settee, while Jordan fetched two pipes and the tobacco box and told Meg to bring a candle.
He filled and lit Tom Nando's pipe for him.
"Have you been to the garden to-day, father?"
No, Thomas had not been there. He was growing rather stiff in the legs, and he laughed and talked of buying a donkey.
"I can think of something better than that," said Jordan; "you and your garden ought to be nearer. Don't you think so, mother?"
Mrs. Mary looked at him. She had lived for more than thirty years in the house in Spaniards Court; she had grown into it; she was fond of it, and yet there were times when she thought; that she would like something quieter and more spaci
ous. City merchants built themselves fine, comfortable houses. There was Mr. Bulkly who had made himself quite grand out at Islington, and Sarah Bulkly was always talking about her six bedrooms, and her fruit garden, and her linen room and the grand parlour, till Mrs. Mary had grown rather tired of it. Other people were just as good as the Bulklys.
"How do you mean—nearer, my dear?"
"If the mountain won't come to Mahomet," said Tom Nando, "well, Mahomet must buy an ass."
"No," said Jordan quietly; "I have been over there this afternoon, looking at the land. I am going to buy some land and build a house."
"A house!" they both exclaimed.
"Yes."
"Then you are thinking of getting married, my dear," said Mrs. Mary.
Jordan smiled.
"That is the first I have heard of it. No, I am going to build a house, a handsome, solid house for two people named Mary and Thomas Nando."
They stared at him.
"You—my dear?"
"What do you mean, my lad?"
And then Jordan told them. He was a man of property; he had sold his South Sea shares and was worth some fifteen thousand pounds; he meant to build that house and they could live in it or not, just as they pleased. He confessed that he had had the idea in his head for quite a long while. Mrs. Mary should have the house built to her liking, and Thomas Nando's garden should be the envy of all gardeners.
"You picked me off the doorstep. You won't grudge me this for all the happiness you have given me."
Mrs. Mary burst into tears.
"O, my Jordan."
She went and put her arms round him and hid her face on his shoulder.
"I'm so proud, my dear. Isn't it wonderful, Tom, Jordan building us a house?"
"It is," said Thomas Nando rather thickly, stretching out a hand to Jordan; "you good lad—Big Jordan."
Jordan's mouth twitched.
"Of course you need not live in the house unless you want to. I mean—you may have a fancy to stay here."
Mrs. Mary put up her face and kissed him.
"Of course we shall live in the house, and mighty proud I shall be of it, my dear."
They sat up late talking over the new home that Jordan was to build for Tom and Mary, and Jordan fetched ink and paper and drew rough plans of the house and ground. He sketched a longish, generous-fronted house of good red brick, with stone quoins and a stone cornice, white sashes, and a white pillared porch, and Mrs. Mary nodded her head over it.
"But won't it cost a great deal of money, my dear?"
"I have got the money," said Jordan. "What do you think about it, father?"
"Don't make it too grand, Dan."
"No, comfortable, solid. You know the meadow next to the garden? I can buy that, and I think I can get the spinney behind it. It would be pleasant to have a little piece of wood. There is a pond there too, quite a good piece of water. We could stock it with fish."
"Could I have ducks on it?" asked Mrs. Mary. "I do love white ducks."
"As many as you please, mother."
"They won't interfere with Tom's fish?"
"Why not a couple of swans?" said her man.
"And some peacocks. The Bulklys haven't such a thing as a peacock."
So, they talked it over by candlelight, and as Jordan schemed out the dignity of his dream-house he found himself thinking of it as a house which Mrs. Mariana Merris might deign to enter and sit in Mrs. Mary's parlour like the great lady that she was. That—indeed—would be a signal honour! And then he was made to remember that before the house was completed Mrs. Merris would be back in Virginia, and he would never see her again.
"I wonder what she is doing?" he thought, biting the end of his quill like Mr. John Bowyer.
Mrs. Mary brought his dreams back to the kitchen quarters and the virtues of a cellar, while some two or three miles away two people were being rowed across the Thames on a visit to the gardens of Vauxhall.
"I have only two months left," said the brother; "a man should see as much as he can of the life of the old country."
They saw life—chequered life—under the lights of Vauxhall. It was a beautiful night, and beyond the lamps shone the stars. There was music, and the musicians were playing some piece of Scarlatti's, a quaint, gracefully moving measure set for the rhythm of swinging hoops, and bowing heads, and the click of high-heeled shoes.
Stamford and his sister were walking arm in arm towards one of the arbours, when a man who had been shadowing them appeared from nowhere and swept his hat to the lady.
"Madam, you will not grudge me the honour of addressing you."
Two other men, vaguely attentive, hung in the background, watch-dogs over the adventure. Mrs. Mariana looked straight into the gentleman's face. He had completed his bow, and he stood smiling and bending slightly towards her, his hat over his heart, his rogue's eyes issuing a challenge.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I do not know you."
"That, madam, is my misfortune which—with the gentleman's permission—can be remedied."
She pressed her brother's arm, and would have moved on, but the man edged full in their way.
"It is not quite true, madam, to say that you do not know me."
She looked at him haughtily.
"True. I know you as a person who has stared most impertinently at me in the park. I do not desire to be stared at."
"Madam," said he, "you scold me for doing what I cannot help. My name is Phipps, Captain Phipps, and I ask you to introduce me to this gentleman, who, I believe, is your brother."
"I shall do nothing of the kind, sir," she said.
Stamford had tried to withdraw his arm, but she held fast to it, knowing that there was a hot temper behind his indolence. Captain Phipps was still in their way, and showing no intention of removing himself out of it. He was a big man, with a large, high-coloured face, and blue eyes that were muddy and insolent. He had detected Mrs. Merris's restraining movement, her drawing of her brother closer to herself.
"Madam, you are vastly ungracious."
Her eyes were very scornful.
"Sir, if I am accosted by a stranger against my will have I no right to show my displeasure?"
The man in the red coat bowed.
"Madam, the displeasure would sit better in the breeches of the gentleman beside you. He seems in no way inclined to show it."
"I give you the lie to that," said her brother, freeing himself from her restraining arm.
She spoke swiftly.
"Will, is it worth while to quarrel with any impudent fool——? Come away. I am not hurt, so why need you be?"
"The fellow needs——"
"Ssh—be quiet!"
But he had said enough for Captain Phipps.
"Fellow—indeed! Look you, sir, I am 'fellow' to no one. The lady can say what she pleases, but if a man uses rude words to me he eats them, unless—of course—he is not a coward."
"I'll eat no words for your benefit, my friend."
"I'm glad to hear it, sir, very glad to hear it. And now, perhaps, you will apologize——"
"You can go to the devil," said Stamford.
He turned to take Mrs. Merris's arm, but Phipps tapped him on the shoulder, and at the touch of the big beast's hand Stamford lost his temper. He swung round and struck the other man across the mouth with the back of his hand.
Instantly there was a scene. The two expectant gentlemen came crowding up, very big and blustering. Captain Phipps had put his hat on his head and was standing with folded arms. People stopped to stare and to chatter.
"This gentleman has struck me, Harry."
"Are you aware, sir, that my friend is an officer in His Majesty's Army?"
Stamford had mastered his anger.
"Gentlemen, you know what to do. My name is Stamford, and I live in Garter Street. That's enough. I am not going to brawl here in public."
"Brawl, sir! Who's brawling?"
"Damn it, be more careful of your words, sir."
; "You shall have the proper answer in the proper place. I wish you good evening, gentlemen. Garter Street. Please remember it."
He gave his arm to his sister, and they made their way out of the gardens.
"Why did you lose your temper with the wretch, Will?" she said reproachfully.
"Because I had to," he retorted; "do you think I was going to see you insulted?"
XXI
Jordan was trying to drive the rudiments of sword-play into a very rich, a very stupid and very clumsy pupil, when Bertrand brought him a gentleman's card.
"He is in the ante-room, Mr. March."
Jordan glanced at the card, and seeing "Mr. William Stamford" written upon it, he made his excuses to his pupil, and leaving Mr. Stupidity to one of his assistants, he went straight into the ante-room. William Stamford was standing looking out of the window. He turned about when Jordan entered, and noticed that his indolent eyes were brighter than usual.
"Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?"
Stamford smiled, but his smile was serious.
"I have come here on business, March. The fact is, I want a little practice, and I wondered whether you could take me in hand to-day."
Jordan stood looking at him with grave intentness.
"Just for to-day, Mr. Stamford?"
"Yes, for to-day," and he gave him a whimsical shrug of the shoulders.
Jordan said nothing for a moment; he appeared to be wondering whether he had the right to say anything.
"I can give you the whole day, Mr. Stamford."
"But what about all your other pupils?"
"My assistants can take them to-day. But I rather wish, Mr. Stamford——"
The Virginian looked hard at him.
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