Douce wondered where he had been and what he had been doing. She became aware of him watching her, and wherever he was in the room his eyes seemed to remain upon hers, not steadily, but with a kind of wavering fierceness. She felt that he had brought something sinister and unseen and unhappy into the room, restlessness, suffering, and being weary and heart-sick, she resented it. Surely she had been bearing enough for his sake without his coming in like this and playing the shadow to her misery?
She got up and went towards the door, but at the doorway her brother intercepted her. She read the question in his eyes.
"I am going to bed."
"What an early bird!"
Her eyes looked straight into his. There was something desperate in them, a threat, a warning. They had the distressed look of one who has struggled to the point of exhaustion.
"I cannot bear much more," they said; "be warned; I may fail you, and I think I hate you."
And suddenly her brother smiled. His whole face softened. There was affection in the smile, understanding, a protecting tenderness.
"Poor Sis. Go to bed; you are tired."
"I am more than tired," she said very wearily.
He touched her gently.
"Perhaps I may find a cure for that."
XXXI
Mr. Pottifer called to one of his lads.
"John, bring out Mr. March's horse."
Mr. Pottifer was a barrel of a man, with two fat arms and legs attached to the barrel, and a round, happy, red-faced head superimposed upon it. He had a white beard which curled at the tip, perhaps because he was always caressing it, and it responded to his caresses.
"No, it is not too late, sir," he said to Jordan; "in this open weather there won't be no trouble with 'em. I'll send a wagon over on Thursday."
Mr. Pottifer called himself an arboriculturist, a topiarist, and a garden artist, and he had a somewhat famous nursery beyond Edgware where he raised and grew his trees. It was a place quite beautiful in its neatness and its order, hedged in by ramparts of hazel and thorn, and Mr. Pottifer's father had loved it before him. There was a little stone tablet on the red garden-house which stated that the great Mr. Evelyn had once visited the nursery, and had presented the Pottifers with a rare American tree. Jordan had spent two hours here, wandering along the neat alleyways with their edges of box, and choosing his trees for Thomas Nando's new garden. He had brought yews, clipped and unclipped, hollies, laurels, cypresses, pines, apples, pears, cherries, medlars and a mulberry. Mr. Pottifer had a pocketful of wooden tallies, and each tree was marked as it was chosen.
A band of yellow sunlight streaked the sky beyond the high black hedges when Jordan got on his horse, shook Mr. Pottifer's huge hand, and took the road to London. He was in no hurry, though the dusk was spreading over the fields, and before he had ridden half a mile he was thinking of other things, and Mr. Pottifer and his trees had disappeared, into the darkness. His thoughts went across the fields and entered a certain house where someone—a girl—was supposed to be unhappy. They lingered there awhile with a vague inclination towards some half-sentimental purpose, and then diversed to another house, a house with white window sashes and a door which when it opened disclosed the black face and the gleaming teeth of a negro.
Ten days ago Jordan had said good-bye to that particular house, and these ten days seemed to have removed the house and its memories to some almost impersonal horizon. They were touched with a soft melancholy, a quiet bitterness. He had been surprised to find that he had not suffered more, that the edge of it had bitten less deeply into him that he had expected. He could not quite explain it to himself, but had he been able to explain it he might have realized that the relationship had never been very intimate, that he had never allowed his love to touch her very intimately. His thoughts had hovered about the surface of her. He had never imagined kisses or embraces; his love had been a sort of wondering devotion; it had stood still and gazed; it had never been translated into movement, action, the thrill of contact, a wild troubling of the heart and breath. He had desired her almost as a man desires some beautiful but impersonal thing.
Also he might have realized that he had been disappointed. He had expected some message, some sign from her, and nothing had reached him. We may lock the door, and then be tempted to listen for the sound of footsteps, and Jordan had listened for days, without consenting to admit to himself that he was listening. He had been full of a vague expectancy. When nothing had happened he had begun to turn away slowly from the locked door.
"Sfex told her," was his explanation.
It led him to the inevitable conclusion.
"Naturally she does not wish to see me again. I'm tarnished. It might not matter to some women, but it would to her."
His thoughts came back to Douce and Mr. Marwick. He had to allow that Douce had become a very human little figure to him, a figure of appeal. She was unhappy, and man nurses a secret vanity in desiring to kiss the unhappiness away from the eyes and lips of a woman who has for him the human appeal. He had become more conscious of Douce's lips and eyes. Her gentle austerity even had a peculiar and new attractiveness. He did not realize her ardour, the fire—that almost dangerous fire—beneath the pale surface. He may have dreamed of lighting what was already lit. He could not foresee how exacting such a love might prove, the possessive and passionate love of one little woman whose whole world of emotion had swung for a long while round a centre that was himself. She would cling to him, hold to him, fiercely, blindly, with but little understanding of what a man's life is, and how large a part of it may lie outside the circuit of a woman's arms.
It had grown dark. The hoofs of his horse squelched in the mud of a road that seemed deserted. The hedges were visible as dim lines against the obscure fields, and in the distance one or two lights pierced the blurred blackness. Jordan had felt himself alone, and suddenly he was not alone. A figure approached from nowhere. There was a clutching hand at his bridle, the slight rearing of Jordan's horse as he was checked.
"Hands up!"
Jordan felt the snout of a long pistol pressed against his body. There was no arguing with such a weapon when held in such a position, and the man who chose to argue with it had nothing to count on but the pistol's missing fire. Jordan put up his hands. The gentleman down below there with the crêpe-blackened face had sprung his surprise and won the first move.
Jordan used his wits.
"All right, sir; all right, sir; don't shoot."
"Keep your hands up, damn you," said the man.
He was feeling Jordan's body, and from his body he turned his attention to the holsters. There were pistols here, and the man extracted them and slipped them somewhere into his pockets.
"Now for the brass. Shell out."
"You'll get some small change and little else," said Jordan, puzzled by the man's voice.
"We'll see about that. Get off your horse. No, on this side, and don't try any tricks."
The footpad stood off at arm's length, holding the bridle, and covering Jordan with his pistol as he dismounted.
"Now then—my buck, there is a field gate just here. We'll turn in there just to be nice and peaceful while I go through your pockets. You will walk straight to the gate—you can just see it, and I shall be behind you with the barker."
"Just as you please, sir," said Jordan.
He walked towards the gate, and heard his horse's hoofs sucking at the wet turf as the footpad followed. And suddenly there was another sound—the sound of a man stumbling. The fellow had put his right foot in an open land drain, and in the half-sprawl that resulted he dug the point of his pistol into the sodden grass. Jordan, who had been waiting for his chance to take an active part in the game, was on him before he had recovered his feet. He got a grip of the fellow's wrist and closed with him, while the scared horse cantered off down the road.
They fought it out in silence. The footpad had dropped his pistol, but he was not done with yet; he was strong and savage and quite desperate, and
he fought to escape. He used his knees, clawed and twisted and bit till Jordan felt that he had a wild dog in his hands. A stab of anger went through him, for the footpad's open hand had made a jab at his eyes. There was nothing for it but to stun and crush this vicious, foul-fighting thing, and he did it with two hammer blows, in the face, while his other hand held the collar of the fellow's coat.
The man gave him no more trouble. He just sank down on the grass and lay quite still; his mask had been torn off and his face made a little patch of greyness. Jordan had stepped back towards the road, and was looking instinctively for any sign of his horse, but instead of his horse he saw two yellow eyes approaching, with a dull grinding of wheels. They were the lamps of a coach.
He stood in the road with his hands up, and hailed the driver as the coach came up.
"Hallo! There has been trouble here!"
The man pulled up, but a head was thrust out of one of the windows.
"Whip up, Jeremy, you fool; it's some damned trick."
Jordan answered the voice.
"It is not, sir. There has been trouble here. I want you to lend me one of your lamps for a moment. I'll come up to you with my hands up. I suppose you have pistols."
"One's on you now," said the voice grimly; "the decoy will get a bullet if the other birds get away."
A servant was standing up beside the coachman and covering Jordan with a blunderbuss, and Jordan laughed.
"Your servant has got me, too, sir. My name is March. I am Mr. Jordan March, the fencing-master. I want to have a look at a man who is lying over there."
The gentleman at the window hesitated a moment.
"All right. Stand there where I can see you. Jack, get you down and take one of the lamps, and keep your blunderbuss on your hip. Now, sir, I'll trust you at the point of my man's gun."
"Thank you, sir," said Jordan.
Jordan and the servant with the blunderbuss went across to where the footpad was lying, and Jordan, holding the lamp at arm's length, bent over the man whom he had stunned. The servant was watching them both. He saw blood on the face of the man lying on the grass.
"I thought so," said Jordan, rising and drawing back, so that the man's face was in the shadow; "I heard someone groaning. He has been knocked down and robbed."
"Is he dead, sir?" asked the servant.
"Dead! Not a bit of it. I saw his eyelids flickering."
Jordan walked back to the coach, and, bowing to the gentleman at the window, replaced the lamp in its bracket.
"A traveller has been knocked over and robbed, sir. I thought I heard someone groaning, and I got off my horse to look. If you had been going Londonwards I would have asked you to take the poor devil into your coach. As it is, I will look after him."
The gentleman seemed nervous and in a hurry to be gone. He had ladies in the coach, and Jordan could hear their frightened twitterings.
"We are going beyond Edgeware. I could send back help from Edgeware."
"I do not think you need trouble, sir. I can put the man on my horse and take him to the nearest inn."
"You are a Good Samaritan, Mr. March."
"I hope that someone would do the same for me. But I should drive fast, sir, and keep a good look out. The gentry may be after other plunder."
"I will, sir; I will. I am much obliged to you, Mr. March. Good night. Whip up, Jeremy, and if anyone tries to stop you, drive like the devil."
The coach rolled away, while Jordan went back to the man lying by the field gate. He had moved a little since Jordan had left him and was sitting with his back against the gate and his legs stretched out along the grass. Jordan stood over him and listened. The road was deserted; they were alone.
"St. Croix," said he; "how long is it since you took to taking purses?"
The man's body gave a jerk, and the gate creaked on its hinges.
"Who the devil are you?"
"You ought to have known my voice, man. It is March—Jordan March."
St. Croix sat very still. He had been sick, and the nausea was still upon him, but he had vomited more than the contents of his stomach, for when a man fails and fails most horribly his emptiness comes from a sickness of the soul.
"You were too big for me, damn you."
"What has my bigness to do with it?" said Jordan gravely; "you bit like a mad dog. And it was lucky for you that it was I who saw your face by the light of that lamp."
"Then—you did not say——"
"I told them you had been waylaid and robbed, and that I would take charge of you. That was the best way to get rid of them."
St. Croix drew up his knees, and resting his chin on them, held his aching head.
"What are you going to do?" he asked dully.
"Nothing—not yet."
"Not yet?"
"You have got to tell me what all this means."
"O, confess to you, have I?"
"You have," said Jordan very quietly; "you owe me something for losing me my horse, and digging that pistol of yours into my ribs."
But the battered, beaten thing, leaning against the gate, still clung to a futile pride.
"But for that damned hole in the ground I should have brought it off. And I could have thrashed most men."
"Was this the first time?"
"Not by a long way. I have taken thirty guineas in a week, and rings worth a hundred."
"Don't boast about it," said Jordan grimly. "What I want to know is what drove you to this cut-throat's game?"
"I am to make a humble confession, am I? Thanks."
Jordan stood over him.
"St. Croix," he said quietly, "I'm not a parson; I have known what it is to be called a bastard. But when one catches a man like you playing the night-hawk, one can make a pretty sure guess what is wrong with him. Look here; you have been gambling?"
"I have."
"With somebody else's money?"
"Perhaps."
"And you felt the noose round your neck or smelt the smell of the dirty straw."
"Well, what of it?"
"And you had to get money somehow?"
"Of course."
"But this fool's game, to call it no worse than that!"
St. Croix got up; he clung to the gate and leant upon it, head down, shoulders hunched up.
"That's all you know, damn you! There is more in it than that!"
"Tell me, man; tell me."
"Why the devil should I?"
Jordan went near to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Why not? I have had my affairs, my ups and downs. I know what it is to feel that your inside has dropped out of you, or is all twisted into a knot. Supposing I ask you a question?"
St. Croix was silent, his teeth clenched on the sleeve of his coat.
"Is Douce concerned in it?"
He felt a movement of St. Croix's body.
"She is! I wondered. And this Marwick?"
"Yes."
"He paid your debts perhaps?"
"Yes."
"Then—why——"
St. Croix turned on him swiftly and stood very stiff, with tight lips and head thrown back.
"Damn it—I had to do something—anything. A man may be a swine, but when it comes to selling—yes, just that, March, just that! I swallowed the thing at first, and then it turned sour and filthy in me. And I have been seeing things in her eyes."
He twisted like a man on a rope.
"She knew. I don't know what made her do it, but she did it. And I have never been much of a brother to her. And then I saw that she was beginning to hate me. I was a foul and cowardly thing, hiding behind her petticoats, but she cannot have hated me as much as I hated myself. I felt I had to do something. I was mad. I wanted money—but I wanted danger, too. Do you know that sort of feeling, March, when you have played the cur and feel that you must go and hold your hand in the fire? Just for your manhood's sake. To show yourself that you can do it. A fool's game, a rotten game, robbing old men and silly women, but with the chance of gett
ing a pistol let off in one's face."
He turned away again and leaned upon the gate as though he had exhausted his emotion and had come suddenly to the end of things. But Jordan's eyes had grown kind. He had never liked St. Croix, but his heart went out to this man who in the fierceness of his shame could hold his right hand in the flame of his own scorn. Douce's brother was not acting. Men who have the great nausea upon them do not act.
"I am glad you have told me this," he said almost gently.
He stood beside Maurice, his hands resting on the gate.
"How much do you owe Marwick?"
"He had bills against me for seven hundred pounds."
"I will let you have seven hundred pounds to-morrow. Old Bowyer in the city can arrange it."
St. Croix did not move.
"You—March!"
"I made a lot of money. It is obvious that Douce must be free."
"You mean it, man?"
"Of course, I mean it. Pay the old scoundrel off, and let him whistle for a wife."
St. Croix bent his head low over the gate. He might have been praying or making some promise to himself, and Jordan let him alone.
"March?"
"Yes."
"I'll pay you back, somehow, if you will give me time."
"Take as much time as you please."
"And there is this other money. What am I to do with it? I cannot return it."
"Put it aside for use. You will find some poor devil in need of a few guineas."
"Yes—I can do that."
He raised himself; he stood erect, looking over the dark fields. He seemed to have nothing more to say, or if he had anything to say he was unable to express himself. And yet Jordan felt that this man had changed, that something had been torn and rooted out, and that the vanity which had been plucked bleeding out of him might be replanted to grow as the thing we call self-respect.
Apples of Gold Page 27