Part 17

“My nephew,” she said, “is a very able young man, but he is far removed from being a gentleman. His friends are not able young men, and they are still further removed from being gentlemen. I call them cads, Mr. Jordan; I call them cads. And those women! I have no words for _them_. I doubt whether the Dowager Lady Brigintop would have had words for them either. It is a singular fact, Mr. Jordan, which you may have observed, though I doubt it, that in all grades of society the women are either better than the men or they are worse. But they are never on the same level. I consider it an outrage, Mr. Jordan, for a Christian gentlewoman to be asked to meet women of that type. I am sorry to say, Mr. Jordan, that my nephew is like his father, he is deficient in the finer shades of feeling. To think that my brother Charles should appear at an evening party in the uniform of a police constable! A man who is capable of such a breach of taste is capable of anything. I would blame his wife Maria, but, unfortunately, she was ever too poor a creature to be worthy of blame in anything. Mr. Jordan, you are entitled to sincere sympathy. I cannot conceive of a harder fate than to be born a gentleman in your present rank of life.”

This monologue, delivered in a sharp and stinging staccato, was so much over the head of Mr. Jordan as to be completely unintelligible.

“I speak with authority,” the old lady continued in a manner that made the proclamation superfluous. “It has been my ill fortune to occupy your position for many years.”

Before Mr. Jordan could comprehend what the position was that this majestic old lady had occupied for many years, she rose from her chair in a very grave and stiff manner, and said, “Mr. Jordan, you may conduct me to my omnibus.”

Taking an impressive leave of Mrs. Dodson, who was a very florid and indecisive kind of lady, and of Police-Sergeant Dodson, who was a very stolid and imperturbable kind of man, the old lady left the room with a demeanour of marked hauteur, humbly followed by the abashed form of Mr. William Jordan.

“What price Luney and Aunt Tabitha?” said Mr. Dodson _fils_ from the seclusion of a card-table that had been set up in a corner. “I expect he will cut me out in her will, but if he does I sha’n’t begrudge it him.”

As Mr. Jordan conducted the majestic old lady to her omnibus, she had the condescension to inform him that there was something about him that engaged her curiosity.

“I suppose it is,” she said in her ample and uncompromising manner, “that even when a Christian gentlewoman gets to be as old as I am she does not lose her taste for a gentleman. I have had to live without the sight of one for many years now. I loathe my nephew. Yet he is a young man who will make a mark in the world. You, Mr. Jordan, will make no mark in the world, but I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you again.”

It was with this odd combination of tenderness and ferocity, of clear-sightedness and sentiment, that the austere old creature, with a smile for her cavalier that was almost gentle, ensconced herself in a dark corner of the omnibus. On the way home to her lonely hearth, at No. 5 Petersfield Terrace, Brixton, she muttered, “There is no place in this world for that young man. I would like to know his history; I would like to know his history!”

Mr. Jordan finally quitted No. 8 Gladstone Villas, Midlothian Avenue, that evening a few minutes before midnight. He found himself again committed to the charge of Mr. Percival Davis. They managed to catch the last train to the City.

“Mark my words, Luney,” said Mr. Davis, with a prophetic fervour, as they sat opposite one another in the train, “Jimmy has done for himself with Chrissie. She will never forgive his governor sitting down to supper in his rozzer’s kit. J. Dodson knows most things, but the weasel was sleeping that time. I think, my worthy Lunatic, this is where one P. Davis goes in again himself.”

* * * * *

It was a feeble, weary, limping figure--for the new shoes were excruciatingly tight--that crept into the little room during the small hours of the morning. The white-haired man was conning the pages of the great book.

“Ah, my beloved Achilles,” he said, “so you have found sanctuary again. I know that your adventures have been far too marvellous to relate. But would you say, beloved, that your infinite pains have borne a fruit adequate to that which they have cost you?”

“Yes, my father,” said the young man humbly, “I think I may say that.”

The young man’s thoughts were of the goddess. As he lay in his pillows, with his dazed brain reverting for the thousand and first time to that rare and strange glamour and all that it implied, he fell into a troubled sleep that was fraught with dreams.

XXVII

On the following day, during the luncheon hour, William Jordan, Junior, was complimented upon his bearing at the party.

“I don’t mind telling you, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, “that you were the best-looking chap there. Young Davis thinks he was, but if he went to the levée at Buckingham Palace he would think the same. No, Luney, you were easily first; and if you could only get that mark off your cheek you might marry money. And your behaviour was quite nice. If you would only learn to hold your own a bit more, and not let chaps like young Davis come it over you, you might do very well. You would never be a shining light, you know; you haven’t got it in you; but you will improve as you gain experience.”

Before that day was out, however, Mr. Dodson’s discourse was pitched in another key. This occurred immediately after Mr. Dodson had paid a visit to the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel.

“What do you think, Luney?” said Mr. Dodson, with an air of whimsical indignation which yet had a touch of the tragic; “Chrissie has taken the hump. She says she regards it as a personal insult that my governor should have sat down to supper in his uniform. She has broken it off. She has returned this.”

“This” was a ring which Mr. Dodson exhibited with a countenance of humorous rue. His mien was at once curiously enigmatic, yet quietly comic. It seemed to imply that this true philosopher was not only resigned to fate’s decree, but also, after the manner of the best practitioners, he was prepared to derive profit and instruction therefrom.

“I am in luck,” he said cheerfully; “it is a good and cheap get-out. I ought to have known better, with all my experience. Yet I have got a bit more, without having to pay for it either. Women are no good to a rising man. I suppose young Davis will go in again now; I spoilt his game, you know, my son. Well, he is welcome to her as far as I am concerned. If he lands her he will have my sympathy.”

Having reviewed the situation with this wholly admirable breadth, the eminent philosopher dismissed the subject from his thoughts with a calm detachment that was not the least among his gifts.

Mr. James Dodson continued to extend his patronage and kindly interest to that hopeless neophyte in the ways of the world, Mr. William Jordan, Junior. On Easter Monday he took him to Margate, “to get a whiff of the sea.”

It was with indescribable sensations that the young man beheld, for the first time in his life, that free expanse, the eternal boundless theatre of wondrous adventure and high-hearted enterprise. As upon this historic day he came down to the seashore, swept by the shrewd winds, yet bathed in the noble sunlight, and he saw the highway of the gods that was spread before him like a waving plain of green jewels, he astonished his companions by breaking forth into a curious cry of rapture.

“What a lunatic he is!” they said, “to make all this fuss over the sight of the sea.”

“A bit loose in the flats,” said Mr. John Dobbs, of the Alcazar Theatre.

When his companions chartered a boat, and he came to entrust himself to it, he diverted them infinitely by the lively fear he displayed. Yet, once abroad on the great green bay, his misgivings left him. He plucked off his hat, that his temples might be bare to the shrewd salt airs and the yellow-shining light of the sun, and his eyes beholding nothing but the lapping waters and the wonderful sky which had never seemed so near, he forgot for one glorious hour that he was the inhabitant of cities, that an inexorable destiny had doomed him to be a street-person all his days.

“This is the life of Odysseus,” he muttered; “this is the life of Odysseus!”

As he dabbled his hands in the water his eyes were flooded suddenly with strange, stinging, indescribable tears. His lips moved to the best remembered passages in his favourite authors. His pulses throbbed with rebellious violence. Each of his wide-stretched senses began to exult as his eyes, his lips, his nostrils, and the dilated pores of his skin absorbed the pungent draughts of sunshine and air. Suddenly, without knowing what he did, he broke into a grotesque kind of song, which was born within him as he uttered it. The odd, thin, quavering treble rose above the lappings of the water against the sides of the boat.

“Well done, Luney, old boy,” cried his companions with their loud shouts of laughter; “well done, old man.”

Incited by his example, one of them produced a concertina. He proceeded to play a music-hall air. It was then that a strange incident occurred. To the profound astonishment of the others, William Jordan, who had been sitting in the prow, gazing out to sea, rose and came aft to one Benjamin Sparks, who was manipulating the concertina. Without a word he plucked that instrument out of his grasp and flung it away into the water.

Mr. Benjamin Sparks vented his incredulous anger in a volley of oaths.

“There goes five quid,” he cried savagely. “I’ve a mind to chuck you in after it, you blighted lunatic.”

Benjamin Sparks was a very powerfully-built young man, with red hair, and uncompromising manners. In anger he was known to be formidable. One and all awaited with a lively curiosity, not unmingled with trepidation, the treatment that would be meted out to the aggressor.

“You puny, half-begotten rat!” roared Benjamin Sparks. “I’ve a good mind to throw you into the sea.”

Yet the other occupants of the boat marvelled to observe that William Jordan did not yield a step to so much power and truculence. The young man stood bare-headed, with his white face uplifted. His hands and teeth were clenched. He was deadly pale, but not a trace of excitement was in his bearing.

“We will perish together,” he was heard to mutter.

Without waiting to be attacked, William Jordan uttered a cry like that of a wild animal, and flung himself headlong upon his adversary. As their clenched forms grappled to one another, and swayed from one side of the boat to the other, shouts of anguish and terror rose from their companions.

“They will have her over!” they cried wildly. “They will drown us all.”

In a moment they were stricken with panic. Helpless, yet half wild with terror, they clutched the sides of the frail boat. It was by a miracle that it regained an even keel. It was also due to a further dispensation of an inscrutable providence that both combatants did not find themselves in the water.

They put back to the shore with all speed. It was with true devoutness of spirit that they found themselves once again on dry land.

“I shall never take you on the sea again, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, with a very white face.

“He ought to be ducked,” was the opinion freely expressed by the others.

Mr. Benjamin Sparks took off his coat with a businesslike deliberation.

“Now then, you d----d lunatic,” he said, “we will have it out.”

“I--I d-don’t know how to fight,” stammered William Jordan, all of whose spirit had fled, “but you can throw me into the sea if you w-want to.”

“If we don’t get him away,” said the others apprehensively, “Ben Sparks will murder him.”

Whereupon Mr. James Dodson linked his arm through that of his singular companion.

“Come on, Luney,” he said, “I don’t want to have to give evidence before a coroner’s jury. What a lunatic you are! Whatever possessed you to do it? You have quite spoilt the day for everybody. I shall never bring you to Margate again.”

William Jordan and his mentor walked in dead silence in the direction of the town. But after they had gone some distance, William Jordan stopped abruptly and said, “I--I must go back to the sea. I--I cannot leave the sea. I--I will return to the railway station at a quarter-past six.”

“Promise me,” said his mentor earnestly, “that you will be up to no new mischief. I don’t know that you are fit to be left alone with the sea. It seems to get into your brain.”

William Jordan gave this promise, and returned to the sea. For hours he walked up and down the shore, his eyes ever upon that wonderful, endless expanse. When at last he grew very weary, and his unaccustomed limbs began to fail, he offered an old fisherman some pieces of silver to row him again out to sea. Until the sun dipped behind the line of the coast, he sat at the helm of the boat drinking long and deep draughts of the free and noble life that lay all about him.

Men and cities were far from his thoughts during these enchanted hours. His mind became beautiful with fantasies and copious with ideas. As he reclined on the bosom of this great and mysterious wilderness, with the fowls of the air flapping over his head, the strange craft ever tossing from side to side, and a hungry waste all about him, capable of devouring him yet incomprehensibly refraining from so doing, his life acquired a texture which it had never had before. Even the ancient authors, with all the subtle aromas and the powerful essences their mighty imaginations had distilled through the ages, could not concentrate into their magic ink this relentless, yet elusive spaciousness which this dweller in cities now beheld.

The caged bird began again to croon its odd, wild, undeveloped melodies. Fragments of curious, haunted, half-remembered phrases came upon his lips. The stinging tears crept again to his eyes. Through the haze of their blindness the waters were no longer to be seen. But he could hear them gurgling against the sides of the boat. There was a boom of distant breakers, the creak of oars, the voices of the four winds and of the winged inhabitants of the air.

The mists of the evening slowly overspread the wilderness. Silently, stealthily, they came unperceived. They were all part of the Idea. He did not resent their appearance when he saw them there, veiling all things with their subtle presence. He was still crooning his queer songs. Men and cities, street-persons and pieces of silver had long vanished from his consciousness.

After a while, with an involuntary deference to the chill of the night, he lay down on the floor of the boat on the inhospitable rough boards, which yet were as soft as feathers. His hands were clasped about his head, as if to support the delicious fantasies that were in his brain. He seemed to swoon with the rapture of his new and brave identity.

“This is the life of heroes, O Achilles!” the familiar voices of the night and the sea were constantly murmuring.

Presently he seemed to waken to the fact that he was looking upwards far into the sky. Through the soft white mists he could discern a single speck of silver gleaming frostily. Suddenly, with a cold vibration in his veins, he recalled how in his tender infancy he had seen that particular orb shining above the shutters of the little room. In an instant the crooning song upon his lips had changed to a moan of anguish. Yet it passed immediately. Peering at the star he seemed to recognize it as the symbol of his kinship with this immensity; as the pledge of his correlation with the universal order. With a sense of exultation his thoughts reverted to that sanctuary from whose precincts he had beheld it first. It was with him still. And was not a benign spirit ever there to bestow consolation upon a hapless wayfarer whose journeyings were hopeless, endless, fruitless, fraught with cruel degradation?

He still lay in the boat, not feeling hunger nor susceptible to the cold of the night. Time and space had lost their significance. He would only ask to lie where he was, on the bosom of the waters, that he might croon his strange songs for ever. But as his gaze was still fixed on the only star that was abroad in all the vast canopy, the recollection of the little room and of him who dwelt there, shaped itself more definitely. He must return; he was being drawn thither by irresistible forces. His destiny must be fulfilled.

The keel of the boat began to grind on the sand. He listened to the melodious yet uncouth tones of the old boatman--the old ferryman, who had piloted him across the bosom of eternity.

“We’ve been out six hours,” said the old boatman. “It is nigh half-past eight.”

The young man stepped ashore with cramped and stiff limbs.

“What is half-past eight, Father Charon?” he said, with a hoarse, happy laugh.

Hardly had the returned voyager uttered these irrelevant words when a voice of curious import came on his ears. He shuddered as though he had felt the impact of a knife upon his flesh.

“Luney, Luney!” cried the voice, “I have been looking for you for hours, all along the shore. You were not at the station, so I made sure you had drowned yourself. What a madman you are; where do you suppose you have been? As long as I live I will never bring you to Margate again.”

“Oh yes,” said the returned voyager, with a weary shiver, “I know that voice--that voice is as familiar to me as the stars of the night.”

XXVIII

William Jordan’s startling misconduct on this historic day was not lightly passed over by that distinguished circle of which Mr. James Dodson was the natural leader. They made rather a point of insisting that their accomplished friend should forego the society of the culprit for the future.

“As long as we thought he was a mere harmless lunatic, Jimmy,” said Mr. John Dobbs, “we didn’t so much mind your taking him up, although we all thought from the first that for a chap like you to do so was coming down a peg. But now that we find out that he is not a harmless lunatic at all, but a downright dangerous one, we think you owe it to yourself that you should give him the cold shoulder altogether.”

To which expression of well-meaning wisdom Mr. Dodson rejoined tactfully, “I dare say you may be perfectly right, John. I shall have to think it over.”

All the same in the inscrutable recesses of Mr. Dodson’s heart there was no clearly defined intention of acting upon this disinterested advice. Mr. James Dodson was preeminently a man of the world, “a two-and-two-makes-four” man, in his own phrase, yet a stealthy feeling had already taken root within him, which somehow forbade the philosopher to follow the dictates of pure reason with the implicit fidelity that was his wont. He had nothing to gain by association with such a person as William Jordan, Junior, for even his faculty of speaking Greek like a native, had by this time become a theme for derision among Mr. Dodson’s intimates; yet when the eminent worldling and philosopher came closely to scrutinize his own personal dealings with this very odd specimen of humanity, it began to appear that he was no longer his own master.

“I feel, you know, Luney,” he confessed, in one of his moments of expansiveness, “I am behaving like a fool in taking you up like I do. I am acting against my own interests. You will never do anything; you are d----d unpopular with all my pals; you are not a bit bright or clever; you never drink or smoke or bet or make love to the ladies; you can’t hold your own even with a chap like young Davis; even when your leg is being pulled you haven’t got the sense to notice it; in short, Luney, and in a word, you are just a worm; but, somehow, there is an odd sort of something about you that I feel I can’t do without. What it is I don’t know. If you were a girl I should say it was love; and yet, my son, I’ll swear to you on my solemn oath that I don’t believe there is such a thing as love. All the talk about it, all the plays and penny novelettes about it, are the biggest bunkum imaginable.”

However, in spite of many speeches as uncompromising as this, Mr. Dodson could not bring himself to relinquish his patronage of his strange companion. Seldom can a more incongruous pair have walked together along the perilous paths of the great nowhither, since the far-off days of the Knight of La Mancha and his faithful squire. And it chanced that on the eve of the very next Bank Holiday, which befell on a stifling day in August, when the town lay choked in dust and seemed to swoon with the arid air, Mr. Dodson made the proposal to his singular friend that they should go forth on that festal day and “see a bit of life” together.

“No more Margate, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “never again, as long as I live, will I go with you there. But we will spend a day at the Oval, my boy--they are giving Joe Cox a trial for the first eleven, and we must see what he does. Then we will get a bit of dinner somewhere, and round up the evening at the Alcazar. You have never seen Hermione in full war paint, have you? Off the stage she is a bit of all right, but on it, my son, she beats anything you ever saw. When you see her she will knock you.”

To this carefully devised programme William Jordan assented submissively. During this phase of his existence, when every day that he passed brought a further largesse of knowledge, the overpowering curiosity to see, to know, to understand all things seemed to return upon him. His mentor had taken him already into divers and strange places. He owed it to that friendly but mysterious guidance that the curtain was rolled back from many hidden recesses of the life about him, which otherwise could never have been revealed.