"With her beside me I could do great things."
Meanwhile he went into his fencing-school and gave his lessons, and tried to put away the thought that he would do this year by year as Tom Nando had done before him. He was thinking this very thought one morning, leaning against the wall and prodding the toe of his shoe with the point of his foil, when the faithful Meg burst in on him.
"O, Mr. Jordan, come at once."
"Why, Meg, what ails you?"
"The dear master is dying."
Jordan went with her straightway, not tarrying to tell Douce the news, and on the way to the New House Meg told him how it had happened. It appeared that Tom Nando had broken his promise, and something more than his promise, by going out into the garden and letting his enthusiasm loose upon the stump of an old tree that had to be grubbed out of the ground. Mrs. Mary had found him lying doubled up over the tree stump and hardly able to breathe. The gardener and the three women had carried him into the house.
"O, my poor mistress, my poor mistress!" said Meg; "it will break her heart, I know it."
Jordan looked fiercely grieved.
"It was that accursed money, Meg. If I had not built that house this never would have happened."
"There, my dear, don't you grieve. Why, didn't they love you for doing it? I know it made 'em happy."
When Jordan entered the iron gates he felt that the house had betrayed him. Its very solidity was ironical. "Fool, why did you build me?" He saw Mrs. Mary come to the doorway between the two white pillars and remain there, waiting for him. "She will not want to live here," he thought, "if Tom dies. She must come back to us, or we must join her."
He felt guilty as he approached her, and she seemed to understand the look in his eyes.
"Mother, I am sorry. How is it with him?"
"My dear, he wants you."
Jordan guessed that Thomas Nando was dying.
"The surgeon has just been with him. He thinks, Dan, that poor Tom broke a blood vessel in his chest."
She faltered for a moment, and her face went all awry, but when Jordan's arm went round her she regained her self-control.
"You are coming with me, mother."
"Dan, he wants you alone. But do not stay too long, dear. These moments—are—so precious."
Jordan's eyes grew hot.
"They are yours, mother. Yes, and yet it must be good to feel how much they are yours. I'll keep but few of them from you."
"Dear son," she said.
Jordan found old Nando lying on the day-bed in the long room, for they had not dared to carry him upstairs. He looked the colour of linen and his lips were almost the same colour as his skin. He was breathing quickly with little, shallow gasps. He moved one hand, and his eyes were fixed on Jordan.
Jordan knelt down beside the bed.
"Father——"
Old Nando smiled a faint smile.
"Sorry, Dan, I was an old fool, but there was that damned tree stump——"
His voice was a whisper.
"There is something I ought to tell you, lad. It didn't seem worth while putting it into your head before."
"What is it, father?"
"Your mother—Dan. Mrs. Mary and I knew it all along. She brought you to us and besought us to take you. We did—and God blessed us. She, poor thing, died long ago. Her father was a hard man."
Jordan knelt very still, closely watching Thomas Nando's face.
"You knew. And why?"
"I'll tell you, lad. Your mother was a great lady, but love and trouble came to her, and she thought of my Mary, who had been her maid. She never told us your father's name, Dan, but I guess her lover was a gentleman. Bend your head down. I'll tell you her name."
Jordan bent over him, and old Nando whispered in his ear.
"That's it. So you see you have fine blood in you, lad. Do you think I did wrong?"
"No," said Jordan. "God knows that you and mother have been the best friends I have ever had."
He kissed Tom Nando on the forehead, and, going out, sent Mrs. Mary in to him.
"I shall be about the place, mother."
"Thank you, my dear."
Jordan was walking in the garden when Mrs. Mary appeared at the south window of the long room. She had a handkerchief in one hand, and with the other she made a sign to Jordan. The supreme, striking courage of her poor blind face warned Jordan that Thomas Nando had gone.
"Mother."
She twisted one hand into the red curtain.
"No, I'm not going to cry, my dear. He always did hate tears. And he said such wonderful things to me, dear lad. O, my man!"
She choked, and then drawing herself up and keeping a steadying hold upon the curtain, she smiled at Jordan.
"But he was happy with me. He never really wanted anybody else. Two good men, you and my Nando. I have been lucky. Now go away, dear. You will see to everything for me, Dan? I—I want to be alone with him."
"I will see to everything, mother."
He covered his eyes with his sleeve.
"But won't you come back with me?"
"No, no. He was proud of his house, my dear, and so am I. Now—God bless you."
Jordan was more shaken than he knew, for one of the foundations had fallen away from the old world of Spaniards Court, and a part of his conception of life was in ruins. Tom Nando dead! And with his old friend's death had come that sudden revelation of himself to himself, of Jordan March the love-child of a great lady and some unknown lover. He was shaken. His eyes felt hot and his mind full of struggling, half-formed thoughts. Something new was being born in him—or, rather, something that had been striving for life and self-expression was breaking through.
He was aware of a curious exultation even in the thick of his grief.
"I have the blood in me."
His thoughts went towards his unknown mother, that tragic figure which had come to stand beside Thomas Nando's death bed, and somehow in Jordan's mind the image of her expressed itself in the stricken face of Mary Nando. These two women mingled. One had borne him, the other had bred him, and he felt a great and elemental tenderness towards them both. There was no anger in his mood, no bitterness, but in a vague way he realized that the very foundations of life had changed.
A voice was telling him that life was not going to be more easy, and that what he had heard would be no cure for a man's restlessness. The voice urged him towards unexpected confessions. "Go and tell her, go and tell her." Yes, he wanted her to know. And then he realized that in this moment of upheaval his impulses rushed towards her, and not towards Douce his wife. The truth shocked him, for it was so full of infinite significance. He stood quite still in the middle of the lane, staring at the ground.
Should he tell her? What was it that drew him so fiercely to the house in Garter Street? He knew—now. He felt differently towards her. He was of her blood, born of the same tradition, a love-child, no common whelp begotten in some alley. His pride was a different pride. Yes, he wanted her to know.
He was astonished at the change that had come over him. The figure of his wife was like a little helpless shadow, pale and ineffectual, trying to draw him with substanceless hands. He felt the pity of it, the tragedy of it. His heart cried out in great compassion. "Douce, little thing, what am I? What have I done?" He found that he loved two women, and that he loved them so differently, for one love was a boy's love, the other a man's. And the man's love was the stronger. It possessed him, dominated him. Yet it was so deep and spacious that it seemed to include the lesser love as a house of light encloses all that is in it.
He understood.
"I must tell her."
From that moment there was no turning back. His purpose was as sure as the point of his sword.
Prophetic chance. He saw her at her window as he had seen her on that first day. She looked down and smiled. He stood there, bare-headed, and his question was in his eyes.
"May I speak to you?"
She bent her head and pointed with a lon
g and eloquent forefinger. He opened the door and went up, and found himself standing there, in a world of mystery beside her chair, while she continued to look down into the sunlit street. She had the air of waiting. She had felt what Jordan had brought with him into the room.
"Thomas Nando is dead. And in a way—I killed him."
She pointed him to a chair.
"Your best friend. But why do you say——"
"I built the house and gave him the garden. O, perhaps you know what some men are. They will not sit still; they must fight something, age, a tree stump, even if it kills them, and it has killed Tom Nando."
She made a slow gesture of sympathy and protest.
"Why accuse yourself? You would be like that. All men who are men long to die in harness; it is our Norse tradition. And there is nothing more?"
Her deep eyes held him.
In them he seemed to see all himself, all that he had been feeling, thinking.
"Yes."
"Tell me."
"I came to tell you. My world has been turned upside down. I wonder——"
"Well?"
"I wonder whether you will deign to understand?"
He rose and went walking up the room to the window that overlooked the garden, and there he turned about and saw her sitting with bent head, gazing at her hands.
"I will try."
"I have found out who my mother was."
"Ah!"
She drew her breath deeply.
"She was a woman of quality. She had her love and her tragedy. She brought me to the Nandos."
"Is she alive?"
"No, she has been dead for many years."
"And your father?"
"She never told."
He seated himself on the window-sill and waited with all the length of the room between them, and as he watched her he was conscious of a sudden feeling of longing and of despair. If only things had been different! He might have been here waiting to speak other and more wonderful words to her.
"I think I understand," she said, "and I think that I suspected it."
"How? Why?"
She looked along the room at him.
"You carry it about you. Why, does it not explain some of the things you have felt, the things you have longed for?"
He spread his arms and dropped them.
"Yes. The things I might have had."
There was a silence, and in the midst of it he was aware of her rising from her chair and coming to the centre of the room. She stood very still; she seemed to be listening to some voice within herself. He felt that something was happening, happening to them both.
"Yes, but should one pity oneself? Is not there always someone else to be pitied?"
He gazed at her, for to him she seemed oracular, and far above the common crowd of women.
"Have you told her yet?"
"No."
She allowed herself one moment of exultation.
"You should do. Now, at once. Mr. March, I am a little happy because you came to me. But I do not forget. Please go to her."
He said nothing. He came forward and knelt on one knee before her.
"O, great lady, I will go."
She gave him her hand.
"No one is so wonderful as you," he said.
He put his lips to her hand, and she laid her other hand gently upon his head.
"Brave Jordan, you have the real blood in you."
He rose. His face was like confused light; he turned and went quickly to the door; but there he turned again, and, standing erect, looked steadily back at her.
"I am happy and I shall be strong. You will let me come here sometimes? Do not fear."
"I have no fear of you."
"Then—it is yes?"
"Yes."
"God bless you," he said, and went rather blindly down her stairs.
XL
Douce met him with a face of disapproval. She was the little judge sitting in her chair, waiting to tell Jordan that his dinner had been kept hot for an hour, and that his unexplained absence made her feel foolish before her wenches.
"It would be so easy to warn me, dear."
He was very gentle with her. Her little severities did not anger Jordan, and in some vague way they amused him, even as a man may be amused in times of emotion by some swift contrast.
"I am sorry, Douce. I was called away suddenly, and I did not wish to worry you."
"But it worries me—wondering——"
"My dear," he said quietly, "I was called to Tom Nando. He died this afternoon."
Instantly she was all contrition, and she had her arms about his neck and her cheek to his.
"O, Jordan. I am so sorry, but I did not know. Why did you not come and tell me?"
"Because of something that may be precious to us."
"Dear Jordan!"
He took her in his arms and nursed her like a child, for he felt all the more tender towards her because of his love for Mrs. Merris.
"I wish old Nando could have lived to see the child."
"Poor Mrs. Mary! Is she all alone there?"
"I would have brought her back, but her heart is with him."
"Poor dear. But how did it happen, Jordan?"
"Nando broke himself in the garden. A blood vessel gave way. We had made him promise not to do much, but he was a man who hated growing old."
"I should like to go and see Mrs. Mary."
"No, sweetheart," said Jordan, kissing her; "you must stay quietly here. I have got to be very careful for you. And now I have much to do."
Thomas Nando's death and all that it entailed brought Douce and Jordan closer to each other, and his memories of the month that followed were happy and sadly tender. Douce seemed to lose some of her exactingness, and her jealousy fell asleep. She understood Jordan better, perhaps because she had felt his grief and been stirred by the strength of it. She showed a gentle unselfishness, and offered to share the house with Mrs. Mary.
"If she wishes to come back, Jordan, I will do all I can to make her happy."
"You dear," he said.
But Mrs. Mary was a woman of surprises. Tom Nando lay buried in St. Pancras's churchyard, and when Jordan carried her Douce's message she smiled a little and looked out of the window at the garden.
"No, my dear. Kiss the child for me. But I shall stay in this house—if I can afford it."
"Of course you can afford it, mother."
"Thank you, my dear."
She leaned against the window-frame, and her face was soft with emotion.
"He loved this place best. He was very proud of it; it was more to him than a house and garden. And it isn't as if we did not bring our memories with us, dear; we brought them and planted them in the garden, and there they grow, dear, there they grow."
Jordan went and stood beside her.
"What a great little woman you are, mother."
"I, my dear? O—no. I'm just a simple soul, but I have loved a man. Nothing matters so much as loving and being loved."
"And there is someone else who loved you, mother."
"Yes, my dear, I think you do, and I am very proud of that love."
"But not more proud than I am."
So, it seemed to Jordan that he and Douce were growing closer together, and that other love—strong and great though it was—gave him gentleness instead of passionate impatience. He had realized the good women in the world, and how could he hurt any one of them when he loved them with a love that was not mere fierce selfishness? He had a feeling that Douce was growing, and that the woman was maturing in the child. She understood things better, and became more of a comrade to her man.
It was some months later when the change came upon her, and at first Jordan did not understand it. He was troubled. This second change in her filled him with forebodings. She became querulous, more exacting than she had ever been, and hardly would she let him out of her sight. Often she would send one of the wenches into the fencing-school to fetch him to her, and if he was out of the house
she would be peevish and restless till he returned. She began to suffer from strange fancies, and to develop the most unreasonable aversions. She could not bear the sight of the younger of her girls, and would not let the wench touch her food.
Jordan went to Mrs. Mary.
"I cannot make Douce out. There is nothing that she lacks that I can get or give her."
Mrs. Mary enlightened him.
"Women are queer at these times, my dear, some of them more so than others. Douce is not a great strapping wench."
"It worries me, mother. It makes me feel that it is all my fault."
"My dear, it is not the real Douce you see just now. Try to think of it in that way. You will have to be very patient with the little thing."
"I suppose she is not going mad, mother?"
"O, no, my dear," said Mrs. Mary firmly, hiding her own doubts; "she is not herself, that is all. Make allowances. But—of course—I know you will."
"I don't want her to be hurt, or to suffer. It hurts me, but I suppose that is my part of it. Do you think I ought to call in a physician?"
"Wait and see. It might frighten her. Love is a very good physician, my dear, to a woman in such a case."
"I can give her that. And I have feed the best midwife in London."
"I shall be with you, Jordan, when the time comes."
But this clouding of Douce's mind continued, and for the first time in his life Jordan began to understand that whatever a man may do, Nature will have the laugh of him. Foul weather comes when the wind seems fair. Frost nips your fruit trees, or the fruit itself is sour. The more he laboured in his garden, the less things grew; or rather, they grew awry, misshapen, blighted, with blotched leaves and acid juices, and their flowers were poison-cups. That was the pity of it. Strive as he would, the face of his love was clouded, and just when life had begun to brighten with steady sunshine, and there had been a promise of ripening.
He found himself looking at this travesty, this piteous transformation, and asking himself whether this was Douce, the girl whom he married a year ago? At first he was full of compassion, but as the days went by his compassion grew weary. He could not help it; emotions tire and are exhausted, just as the body is exhausted.
Apples of Gold Page 34