Such a decision may be very well, but when a great lady reminds a fencing-master that he has ceased to pay her the courtesy of eating a dinner with her once a week, the strongest and most silent of men is apt to be what he is, human. She had turned back when he was bowing her into Spaniards Court, and had said with the kindness of a friend: "Why do you never come and see me now?" Jordan had looked surprised, and being unable to find any excuse which she would be likely to believe, he had come very near to telling her the truth.
"Madam, a man has to remember what he is."
"Thank you. Had I known you less well, Mr. March, I should have considered myself corrected. But as it is I have a right to ask whom I choose to my house. You will come."
He had accepted it as a command.
"I am honoured."
"Then so am I. Aunt Julia will be overjoyed, and so will Poll. Let us fix the Monday of next week. Will that suit you?"
"It will," he said.
He had given his promise, and he kept it, and perhaps he was tempted to let himself dream a little during the days that intervened. It was plain to Jordan that she liked him, but it was equally plain to him that she might like other men. And of what use to him was mere liking? It was no more than a dish of tea offered with a smile to a man who had a great thirst and a desire to quench it with life's strong drink. Her very kindness might be dangerous and cruelly elusive. It was probable that she meant nothing by it, and that she trusted to his common sense to make him realize that it was kindness and no more. He told himself that he would go once more to the house in Garter Street, but that he would go to it with no illusions, and with a cool head.
But all that Monday Jordan was a little mad. He wanted to idle about and think, and his mind ceased to trouble about his body. He went into the fencing-school to give a lesson, and was so distraught and inattentive that he came near being made a fool of by a cocky youngster who fancied himself with the sword. "What the devil is the matter with March? He looks asleep." Jordan woke up for half an hour, and dealt with the young man of the smiling eyes. But he did no more work that day. He left the school to Bertrand and the assistants, got on his horse, and went for a gallop. He was out for three hours, and when he came home in the dark his horse looked very tired.
He dressed and walked to Garter Street, but he did not at once stop at the door of Mrs. Mariana's house, but walked to and fro several times with his head bowed down. His mood had changed. He felt like a soldier before an attack, half cold, half impatient, realizing something desperate in the adventure, and therefore tempting himself to make it seem yet more desperate. Either a man was killed or gained what he set out to get. Why should he not make it final, rush boldly in on her unknown defences and play the great gentleman, sword in hand?
"Madam, shoot first. I will stand and take the shot. But if you will not shoot—then—by God—you shall surrender."
Yes—why not? He would stand on the parapet of her pride and challenge her. She could pistol his audacity if she so chose, and there would be an end of it. He squared his shoulders as he raised the knocker of her door, and when Sambo opened it to him the negro saw a man who smiled.
But what he might dare to do appeared to Jordan far more hazardous when he came face to face with her, and was seated at her table. She looked at him so calmly, was so much the moon in a tranquil sky that his courage held back and reconsidered its heroics. She seemed to him unassailable by such a soldier of fortune as he was. Everything joined to stand in her defence: the glass and the silver on the table, the diamonds that she wore, her rich clothes, the very furniture, the quietness and discretion of her servants. Life spun a mysterious and enchanted web about her, a web to catch rough men and hold them at a distance.
"I cannot do it," he kept repeating to himself. "It would be like making love to the moon."
It was possible that she felt the discords within him, for she talked very calmly all through the meal, encouraging Aunt Julia to chatter like her parrot, and Miss Stamford, who was not at all shy of Mr. March, was very ready to pour out all her gossip.
"We have been so gay since you were last here, Mr. March, so very gay. Coaches and coaches and all the fashion! La, I am afraid Poll will have her head turned."
"The gentlemen have been paying court to Poll?"
"Why—think of it, Mr. March. Supposing you were a parrot brought up to London out of the country, and had your head tickled by a real live marquis, to say nothing of the lords!"
Jordan smiled a rather grim smile.
"I think I should be very shy, madam."
"Oh, at first, sir, no doubt, but lapping cream comes easy to a cat. And I assure you poor Poll is getting quite spoilt, coquetting with all these gentlemen. Why, do you know, the bird went to the opera and sat on her perch in a box."
"Indeed!" said Jordan.
"In Lord Sfex's box."
"Lord Sfex," Jordan repeated, feeling a sudden coldness within him.
"To be sure. And Poll behaved like a lady; Marie, did she not?"
"Quite like a lady, aunt. She even bowed on her perch when a certain royal personage appeared in the house."
"Was not that clever of her, Mr. March?"
"Indeed it was, madam," said Jordan, feeling more and more the fencing-master and the boy who had been found on Tom Nando's doorstep.
He was glad when the meal came to an end, and the two ladies went upstairs, leaving him to drink the glass of Madeira that Sambo had poured out for him. His face looked grave and clouded. He kept glancing slowly about the room, at the pictures, the furniture, the glass and silver on the polished table. It was all so rich, so mature, so gracious. It made him so aware of his own newness, till his whole body seemed to smart with a flush of conscious shame.
"You fool!" he thought, "you fool! How ridiculously bold you were out there in the street! Think of the men who may have sat at this table! Sfex—too, God damn him! What would you have found to say to Sfex? What might he not find to say to her? O, fool! Why, do you not see that you alone were asked, because she could not ask you to meet that other world, her world? Kindness, the considerate courtesy that saves a man's face. But why am I here? Because I twisted the nose of a common bully, and because—perhaps—in her kindness—she is a little sorry for me. Put on your mask again, Mr. Jordan March, and go up and tickle the parrot's head."
He went. He appeared before the two ladies as a young man gravely cheerful, standing well within the circle of his own dignity, and knowing that the inevitable limit could not be overstepped. He talked to Poll and stroked her head, examined the embroidery on Aunt Julia's frame, and stood by Mrs. Mariana's chair and solemnly described to her how he proposed to furnish Mrs. Mary's new parlour. He seemed the big dog, nicely and consciously tamed. "Have no fear," said his eyes, "I have no rough tricks. I know that I am here on sufferance. I shall not upset the china or put my paws on the chair covers."
He talked steadily, like a man out for exercise on a cold morning, and then he discovered that he was talking to her bowed head. He could see the beautiful black wreath of her hair, lustrous as Miss Stamford's silks, for Mrs. Mariana had not fallen to the new and grotesque fashion of turning her head into a flower garden or a ribbon shop. He could see her two hands lying in her lap, and that she was twisting an old ring round and round over one of her fingers. She seemed to be suffering this flow of empty words, this sound that was not the man. And then she looked up at him. Her eyes were very still and deep, but what it was in them that brought his tongue to a standstill Jordan could not say. He felt himself on the edge of a cliff, looking down silently into deep water.
She drew off the ring and showed it to him.
"Now—that—belonged to my grandmother. I can remember her telling me how she furnished her first house. She had a wooden bed made out of timber split with an axe, and with rope for a mattress."
She smiled and slipped the ring back on to her finger.
"She had to weave some of her own linen. She could handle a gun like a man
. She worked at building the house. And look at her granddaughter's hands."
She held them out, and turned to Aunt Julia.
"My hands do not look much use, aunt, do they?"
"They are very beautiful hands, my dear?"
And beautiful hands they were, with their long, slim fingers, their whiteness, and their pink seashells for nails. She let them lie indolently in her lap and considered them, while Jordan wondered why she had begun to tell him about her grandmother, and what Mrs. Mariana's hands had to do with all save that she had a woman's right to be proud of them.
"Quite useless, Mr. March? You would say so?"
She raised her eyes to his, and again he had that feeling of standing upon the edge of a cliff and looking down into deep water.
"They are a gentlewoman's hands, madam."
"Weak, lazy things, too indolent even to be bothered with a needle."
"They are as God made them, my dear," said Aunt Julia.
Jordan saw a movement of light in Mrs. Mariana's eyes, and for a moment he thought that she was laughing gently at him.
"Then God made my grandmother's just the same, aunt. Do you know, Mr. March, that my grandmother had hands like mine before she went with my grandfather out upon that great adventure. She kept a diary. O, no, I am not going to tell you all its dear secrets. My grandmother must have been a very lovable woman; I should like to have known her when she was a girl. But I remember one little record in her diary, and always it has touched me. 'Dear James saw my hands to-day. I had made one of them bleed. He seemed greatly concerned, and so was I over their poor roughness. He had always said that I had the most beautiful hands in the world. And suddenly he bent his head down and kissed them. 'They are so ugly, James, now,' I said. 'No, dear God,' said he, 'they are more beautiful, for they mean more to me than they ever did, and they hold the whole of my heart.'"
She spread her hands on the rich, red fabric of her dress.
"Now, I have often wondered if I had been in my grandmother's place, whether I should have made them bleed as she did."
Jordan stood looking down at her hands, while Miss Stamford—who was a fountain of sentiment ever ready to play in Mrs. Mariana's garden—was beginning to pour out an answer to that hypothetical question, when Mrs. Merris heard the street door open.
"Why, of course—my dear niece—you would do just what your dear, brave grandmother did. And I am sure that Mr. March will agree with me...."
Mrs. Merris was listening, for she could hear footsteps on the stairs.
"Wait," she said, "Sambo has——"
Her eyes glanced towards the door. The expression of her face changed from a soft wandering among old memories to a half-angry alertness. There were faint lines on her forehead, and her eyes became black and without lustre. And Jordan, who was watching her face and noting its sudden change of expression, as though it were calm water ruffled by a gust of wind, was able to ask himself what it meant. He, too, heard the footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of them was connected with Mrs. Mariana's changed expression. That door would open and explain the cause of this overclouding of her eyes, but before it opened he saw her face grow light and unconcerned. She began to speak, picking up the conversation with the air of recovering something that she had dropped. It was done calmly and well, but Jordan was still wondering why she had looked startled.
"I think my grandmother was a very wonderful woman. She had the courage to choose courage. I remember reading in her diary how she and her husband——"
The door opened before she finished that sentence, and Jordan had been waiting for the opening of that door. Something had warned him that its opening and what it would disclose would have a far more deep significance for him than anything that Mrs. Mariana's lips could utter at that moment.
He heard Sambo's thick voice.
"M'am, Lord Sfex."
Jordan stood quite still. His back was to the door, and he was watching Mrs. Mariana's face. It changed only to smile; he saw her eyes light up, yet how was he to tell that these lamps were lit wilfully and not for pleasure. He remembered her startled look, the calm surface suddenly ruffled. He knew at once that she had not expected Sfex, and that Sambo must have had orders to say that she was not visible that night. Instantly the man in him supplied the motive, and supplied the wrong one, not because he was ungenerous to her, but because he was swiftly merciless to himself. She was not pleased that Sfex should find him here, a fencing-master, a sort of superior servant.
The room filled with sudden, forced vivacity. Sambo, looking somewhat frightened, with much whiteness of eye showing in his black face, made haste to close the door. Miss Stamford got up and curtsied. Jordan moved aside towards the window with an air of rigid self-exclusion. He caught one quick, sidelong stab of the eyes from Sfex, a look which said "Hallo—and what the devil—fellow—are you doing here?" Mrs. Merris had risen from her chair. She seemed to make a very long and considered curtsy in reply to Sfex's bow. The parrot screamed. In fact Miss Stamford's Poll was the only honest and outspoken creature in the room; the bird hated Sfex and showed it.
"Your servant, madam. Miss Stamford, your bird has caught the opera manner. I hope, madam, you will pardon this late visit, but I have news for you with regard to the next levee."
He ignored Jordan. After that one glance he did not even look at him, but he was smiling. His ironical eyes glistened. His long chin jutted out, and Jordan remembered how he had drawn it in outline with a rouge stick on Lady Bacchus's wall.
Mrs. Merris resumed her chair, while Aunt Julia tried to silence the parrot by flapping a handkerchief at him.
"I'm afraid Poll has country manners."
"Bad, bad bird!"
"My lord, this is Mr. Jordan March, who once did my brother and myself a great service."
Sfex turned with sudden and freezing geniality upon Jordan as though he had not been aware of him until his attention had been directed towards his person.
"Why—March, it is a long time since we last met, but I have a most excellent memory."
Jordan said nothing. He bent at the hips; he was just two grey eyes and a hard, straight mouth.
Sfex turned again to Mrs. Merris. He seemed full of inward, mocking, genial laughter.
"So you have taken to fencing, madam?"
"Do you think so?" said she.
"And why not? If a lady chooses to engage a dancing-master, why not a fencing-master? Why, most certainly."
She smiled as a statue might smile.
"Women fence in other ways. It is true that no man can touch Mr. March with the sword."
"But women use their tongues, madam."
"And do men, sir, never use that weapon?"
Sfex gave a laugh, and a sudden glance at Jordan.
"Sometimes—certainly. It may be a very deadly weapon, madam, though of course Mr. March does not give lessons in the use of it. I have an idea that it would be unnecessary."
Jordan had a very confused recollection of all that was said in that room. He remembered that he had been full of a cold yet passionate desire to run a sword through Lord George Sfex, that the parrot had screamed continually, and that Sambo had been called to remove the bird. The situation was impossible. He had no answer to the ironical, stabbing glances which the other man gave him. Sfex had him helpless and disarmed, driven into a corner. His sword could not parry the swift thrusts of this other man's tongue. Sfex, insolent, polished, contemptuous, wholly master of the moment, forced Jordan out into the street.
Yet he got himself out of the room with more dignity than he gave himself credit for, and betrayed far less awkwardness than he thought he had betrayed. He made his bow to Mrs. Merris and Miss Stamford, made a slighter bow to Sfex, and found himself at the door.
"Madam, I have the honour to wish you good night."
She did not attempt to detain him. In a way there was a lightness in him going, but the manner of it troubled her. Nor was she pleased by the way in which he had appeared a little outf
aced by Sfex—but then she did not yet know the thing that Sfex would be sure to tell her.
Jordan was in the street. He heard Sambo close the door behind him, a Sambo who had been unable to say no to a great man's masterfulness and his guineas, and standing for a moment in the roadway Jordan looked up at Mrs. Mariana's window.
"That is the end of it," he thought; "I shall never enter her house again."
His anger broke loose now that he was alone, the anger of a man who had been humiliated. Why had he suffered himself to accept her patronage? She was just like other women of the world who loved their own beautiful selves so dearly that they must extort homage from any man, be he a gentleman or servant. He supposed that it had amused her to play with his passion, and to play with it in private, but Sfex had caught her at the game, and she had been angry. Of course Sfex would tell her of the Bacchus affair, and she would be still more angry.
"O, damn all women!" said Jordan.
But he damned himself also with equal fierceness. He swore that there should be no more playing with moonlight, and yet even as he made the decision he realized how bitterly beautiful the moonlight was. There was nothing else quite like it, so tantalizing, so alluring. But after all, a man's life was not made of moonlight. It was built up of solid beef, muscle and endeavour, the habit of work, the getting of a comfortable woman for a wife and the begetting of children. Quiet grey skies, or the equally quiet glare of the sun at noon.
He had come more or less to himself by the time he chose to turn into Spaniards Court. That square of familiar darkness welcomed him, and he was glad of it. The hour was late, but he saw a light in the parlour window, and he guessed that Mrs. Mary was sitting up.
"God bless her," he thought; "there's a real woman for you."
He was not afraid of Mary Nando. They were better friends now than they had ever been, for each had sacrificed something, and they had come closer to each other as a result thereof. Mrs. Mary had ceased from being the anxious mother of the duckling. Almost always she had the happy, smiling face of the woman who knows that her men will come to her if she quietly waits and smiles.
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