XXVI
Uponthe wind-swept platform of St. Paul’s Station in the City, while awaiting the arrival of the 7.7 to Peckham, he was accosted by the erect and immaculate form of Mr. G. Eliot Davis. The nonchalance of bearing and air of supreme self-possession of this gentleman were hardly inferior to those of Mr. Dodson himself.
“Hullo, Luney,” said Mr. Davis, looking up from the precincts of an inordinately high collar to the face of a gaunt figure which, somewhat to the annoyance of Mr. Davis, was considerably taller than his own; “arrayed, I see, like Solomon in all his glory. Feeling pretty cheery, eh, and full of parlour tricks? I must say these functions don’t amuse me at all. Music and progressive games!—I like more knife and fork work myself. Come on and have a sherry and bitters before we start.”
Mr. William Jordan had already acquired that rudimentary wisdom of the “out-of-doors” world, that “when you are in Rome you must do like the Romans.” He had also on his way in the omnibus determined to follow out this fundamental truth, as far as in him lay, to the letter. Therefore, with great docility he accompanied Mr. Davis to the buffet to have a sherry and bitters. It is not necessary to state that even in the act of swallowing that mysterious compound he had ample cause to rue his superhuman resolve.
It was with a sensation of being poisoned that in the wake of his mentor for the time being he invaded a second-class smoking compartment,already overcrowded with emphatic street-persons, smoking equally emphatic tobacco.
Upon their arrival at Peckham, the young man recalled Mr. Dodson’s injunctions and very timorously advanced the suggestion that they should take a hansom to Midlothian Avenue. Mr. Davis received the suggestion with loud-voiced derision.
“Not likely,” said that gentleman. “I am not a bloated plutocrat. You should have sported a pair of goloshes the same as me.”
William Jordan, Junior, was confronted accordingly with the extreme course of having to take a hansom for himself, and of inviting Mr. Davis to accept a seat therein. Mr. Davis’s tone of unmistakable rebuff, however, had quelled him so effectually that he could not find the courage to do either of these things. Accordingly he was obliged to pick his way with great trepidation along divers unclean thoroughfares to the frank amusement of his companion, who, in bringing to his notice innumerable pools of water and stretches of mud upon the route, abjured him earnestly “to be careful of his ‘pumps.’”
Upon the stroke of half-past eight Mr. Davis executed an ostentatious tattoo upon the knocker of No. 8, Gladstone Villas, which was situate amid two narrow rows of ill-lighted, meagre, lower middle class respectability. They were received with great cordiality by Mr. Dodson himself, who in immaculate evening attire appeared to considerable advantage.
“Hullo, Luney, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, “so here we are! Give me your hat and coat and then come in here, and I’ll introduce you to Coxey and John Dobbs.”
With a dull terror in his soul Mr. William Jordan, Junior, resigned himself implicitly into the care of his mentor, so that almost without being aware of how he came there, he found himself in an exceedingly small room in the presence of several other immaculately attired gentlemen; andthese, although entire strangers to him, were of an extremely critical cast of countenance. He could understand nothing of what was taking place, although presently he awoke to the fact that these gentlemen were grasping him by the hand.
“You’ll have a finger before we go up-stairs to the ladies?” said Mr. Dodson, pouring a coloured liquid into a tumbler, to which he added an even more mysterious liquid that went off with a hiss. “Say when.”
“Oh n-n-n-no, please!” gasped Mr. William Jordan; for a bitter recollection still abided within him of his misadventure at the railway station buffet.
Hearing this note of somewhat exaggerated appeal the other gentlemen could hardly repress a guffaw, particularly when incited thereto by a knowing wink from Mr. Davis.
“Never mind them, Luney old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, who as he spoke smiled archly at his guests. “They don’t know any better. They are not accustomed to mix with men of intellect on equal terms.”
“That is the truest word you’ve spoken this week, Jim Dodson,” said Mr. John Dobbs of the Alcazar Theatre, a heavy and sombre young man with very long and thick black hair and a voice that seemed to proceed from his boots.
“Close it, Jimmy,” said Mr. Joseph Cox, a small and dapper young gentleman with a very easy and cordial manner.
“One of these days he will be the best slow left-arm bowler in Surrey,” said Mr. Dodson in an impressive aside to Mr. William Jordan, and in a voice sufficiently audible for Mr. Joseph Cox to hear.
Mr. Dodson, having to the frank amusement of those gentlemen assembled, exercised his blandishments in vain to induce Mr. William Jordan “to have a finger before going up-stairs to see the ladies,” at length proceeded to conduct the youngman thither without this aid, which he and his friends deemed most essential to the accomplishment of so grave an ordeal.
“Don’t be nervous, old boy,” said his mentor kindly, as he took him firmly by the arm; “at the worst they can’t do more than eat you, and if they do they will wish they hadn’t.”
“Are—are my—my sh-shoes all right?” stammered Mr. William Jordan in a hoarse whisper.
“Right as rain, my son,” said his mentor. “And Mosenthal has turned you a treat. You look a regular poem in blank verse. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if theydowant to eat you.”
As Mr. Dodson placed his hand on the drawing-room door the terrible sensations of that long year ago when the same hand was on the door of Mr. Octavius Crumpett again assailed the young man. Only to-night these emotions seemed to be more intense. And of late he had come fondly to imagine that never again would he become the prey of weaknesses so pitiful.
His brain was dazed and his eyes were almost dark when bright lights and colours and a pageant of female loveliness was first unfolded to his gaze. It is true that the first of these ladies whom he had to encounter was not very beautiful: a fat, elderly, unemphatic kind of lady whose clothes looked odd, and who wore a kind of irrelevant dignity which somehow did not seem to fit her.
“Mater, this is Mr. William Jordan, the young sportsman I am always telling you about,” said Mr. Dodson in a cheery voice.
“Pleased to meet you, young man,” said this lady, shooting out a fat hand as a highwayman might shoot out a horse-pistol. However, Mr. Jordan had the presence of mind to grasp it, and at the same time to bow low.
Beside her was a lady dressed severely in black. She sat very upright, and held a pair of glasses in front of her which she used with devastating effect. In mien she was aged and severe; in manner shewas sharp and staccato, and with no more geniality than a piece of ice.
“Aunt Tabitha,” said Mr. Dodson, “Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan—Aunt Tabitha.”
This very formidable lady turned such a cold and resolute gaze upon the young man that sharp little shivers seemed to envelop him. It seemed to congeal the half-formed words on his lips. All the same he was able to go through the formality of almost bowing to the ground.
The next lady to whom his attention was directed was extremely resplendent and also extremelydecolletée. In spite of her air of magnificence, her blazing jewels, the gorgeous texture of her skin and her clothes, there seemed to be something curiously familiar about her. The mystery was solved, however, almost before it had had time to become one.
“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, “what price our fat friend?”
“Ain’t he just utter,” said the gorgeous creature, giving Mr. Jordan a playful flick with her fan. “I am sure mother ought to be proud of her boy to-night.”
As Mr. Jordan bowed very low before her, the gorgeous lady made a very remarkable and visibly distorted “face” at another gorgeous lady who sat by her side.
In sheer splendour and profuse magnificence all paled their ineffectual fires before that of this fourth lady who sat by Chrissie’s side. When the young man first ventured to look at this apparition of female loveliness, the power of breathing was almost denied to him. In beauty she was ravishing; divinely tall apparently, and most divinely fair. She had the look of a goddess: young, brilliant, queenly, with a noble fire in her glance. Her clothes in their ample majesty and her jewels in their lustre made those of Chrissie appear almost tawdry by comparison. Never until that moment had William Jordan divined, not even in thatremote and ill-starred adventure of his childhood, that actual authentic goddesses still walked the earth, clad in their ravishing flesh and blood. As this vision burst upon his gaze William Jordan could scarcely repress an exclamation of awe and wonder and delight.
“Miss Hermione Leigh,” said Mr. Dodson, “Mr. Jordan; Mr. Jordan—Miss Hermione Leigh.”
To the exaggerated deference of which she was the recipient on the part of Mr. William Jordan, this divinity returned a curt and aloof nod, which might hardly have been interpreted as a nod at all; and at the same moment she made a gesture to Chrissie which partook of the nature of putting out her tongue.
“Ain’t he marvellous?” said Miss Hermione Leigh to her friend Chrissie in an eloquent aside. “Where did Jimmy dighimup? Has he taken out a licence for him?”
“A gilt mug,” said Chrissie in the matter-of-fact tone that never forsook her.
“Oh, oh!” said Miss Hermione Leigh, as if sudden light had suffused her robust intelligence; “that explains it.” She turned an arch glance upon Mr. William Jordan. “Not going to run away, cocky, are you?” said the divinity. “Ought to be room for you and me on the same settee.”
She patted the sofa on which she sat with a white-gloved paw.
Mr. Jordan felt his ears to be burning. A fiery haze was floating before his eyes. He was trembling in every limb. With a supreme effort he managed to take a seat on the sofa, and as close to the goddess as he dare.
Three minutes of tense silence passed. Both ladies appeared to expect him to say something. Of this fact, however, Mr. William Jordan was not at all conscious. His excitement, his nervousness, his self-conscious effacement had yielded place to a kind of religious awe. He, William Jordan, was slowly beginning to realize that unawares he hadhad the unspeakable temerity to enter the presence of the white-armed Hera. As far as he was concerned, the occasion was not one for speech, even had he been in a physical condition to indulge in such an act of vandalism. He had quite enough to do to glance at her furtively, sideways, and to try to catch the sound of her breath.
At last the goddess looked at him very boldly and directly, right into his shy and bewildered eyes that were set so deep.
“Well?” she said.
By a wonderful effort of the mind, which was yet purely involuntary, and was only rendered possible by his almost occult faculty of a never-failing courtesy, the young man grasped the fact that the goddess was under the impression that he had dared to address a remark to her.
“I—I b-beg your p-p-p-pardon,” he stammered painfully. “I—I d-don’t think I—I s-said a-anything.”
These words and particularly the mode of their utterance caused the goddess to titter in a very audible and unmistakable manner. Her companion followed her example.
“He d-doesn’t t-think he s-said a-anything,” said one lady to the other, “he d-doesn’t t-think he s-said a-anything.”
Miss Hermione Leigh then turned to Mr. William Jordan.
“Youarefunny,” she said.
Before Mr. Jordan could find a fitting rejoinder to an indictment which seemed to baffle him completely, his friend Mr. Davis sauntered up to the sofa. His hands were in his pockets; his demeanour was one of inimitable nonchalance.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Chrissie, “look what’s blown in! How’s Percival?”
“So, so,” said Mr. Davis, with an air of polite weariness.
“I s’pose you know Hermione?”
“Only on Saturdays,” said Mr. Davis, with ahumility that seemed to be finely considered, “when I draw my screw.”
“Oh come, Percy,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, with amiable protest, “I reckon to know you at least two days a week since you have had a rise in your salary.”
“Not you,” said Mr. Davis, with quiet good nature. “One supper at the Troc of a Saturday with a half-bottle of Pommery, and it is all blewed bar the washing money. You know very well, Hermione, you cut mugs like me dead when we come sneaking out of Lockhart’s all the rest of the week.”
“Not quite so much of the mug, Percy,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, “and not quite so much of the Pommery. You don’t average three bottles a year.”
Before Mr. Davis could deny this impeachment in adequate terms, the voice of Mr. Dodson was heard proclaiming from the piano at the other end of the room that Mr. Percival Davis, the celebrated tenor, would sing the no-less celebrated song, “I’ll sing thee songs of Araby.”
“I will do so,” said Mr. Davis, with great promptitude. “This is where I get my own back.”
Mr. Davis rendered that song in a quite admirable manner. When the deserved applause which greeted it had subsided, and Mr. Dodson had informed the company that owing to the unparalleled length of the programme, and the unprecedented quantity of talent that was present that evening, no encores would be granted in any circumstances whatever, Miss Hermione Leigh informed her companion that “although Percy was dirt mean, hecouldsing,” a judgment to which Chrissie accorded her imprimatur.
Mr. Dodson then announced that Mr. John Dobbs of the Alcazar Theatre, and of the London and Provincial Concerts, would render that heart-rending melody, “The Lost Chord,” which Mr. Dobbs immediately proceeded to do. As this melancholy-lookingand large-eyed and profuse-haired young man drew marvellous strains from two pieces of wood and a few strings Mr. William Jordan’s thoughts strayed a moment from the thrall of the goddess. He sat with his hands clasped, his gaunt form as tense as an arrow drawn to the string. In his eyes was a dreamy rapture, and in the centre of each was a large stealthy tear. His whole being was entranced. The two ladies in whose vicinity he was, nudged one another furtively and together perused that strange countenance with great satisfaction to themselves.
Upon the subsidence of the enthusiasm which Mr. John Dobbs’s effort called forth, Mr. Dodson announced that Miss Hermione Leigh of the “Peace and War Ballet” of the Alcazar Theatre, would render that touching melody, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” with dance accompaniment, as performed by her before most of the bald-heads of Europe, not to mention those of Bethnal Green. This announcement was received with such favour by the gentlemen present that immediately they broke into a cheer.
With immense good nature Miss Hermione Leigh swept across the room to the piano, and with the aid of the variously accomplished Mr. Dodson himself, who “scratched the ivories” by request, and also with the aid of Mr. Davis, who turned over the music after, as he expressed it, “he had cleared the course for the big race” by driving back the company, regardless of age and sex, from within an area of at least eight feet of the piano, and in spite of the fact that Aunt Tabitha, who was compelled to move her chair, stared at Mr. Davis through her glasses with a stony glare, and said at the top of a loud harsh voice, “That is a very unmannerly young man”—a remark which set the remainder of the company in roars of laughter, in which Mr. Davis joined more loudly than anybody else.
Yet what can describe or even remotely indicate the emotions which surged over Mr. WilliamJordan, Junior, when through eyes dim with ecstasy he beheld the divine form of the goddess, who, as she rose to her full height beside the piano and broke into a not particularly melodious warble, approximated more nearly in physique and appearance to his Olympians than any creature he had looked upon hitherto. It did not matter to William Jordan what strange and fantastic words fell from that full, white throat, or what fantastic gyrations that divine form subsequently went through; it was not for such as himself remotely to comprehend the speech and gestures of those immortal ones of whom she was a daughter. He sat entranced, unable to move, to think, or even to realize the wild emotions of which so suddenly he had become the prey.
When the goddess, a little out of breath, and also flushed, and therefore looking more brilliant than ever, swept back to the sofa to his side, a kind of religious awe mounted in Mr. William Jordan as he peered upwards into that beautiful, smiling, good-natured face.
“O-o-oh!” he exclaimed softly.
Hearing the exclamation, both Chrissie and the goddess looked towards the source of it in unconcealed amazement. They then looked at one another. As the goddess sank upon the sofa somewhat heavily she broke out into a loud laugh.
“Too funny!” she said, and proceeded to fan herself with great vigour.
Mr. Dodson then informed the company that Mr. James Dodson, of the St. James’s Restaurant Bar, Piccadilly, would admit any member of the audience into the mysteries of the three-card trick free of charge, yet made an exception in favour of Mr. Percival Davis, who was not in need of instruction.
“Jimmy,” said hisfiancéein an authoritative tone, “singI Want One like Pa had Yesterday.”
When Mr. Dodson had rendered this ballad with immense success, he called upon Joseph Cox,Esquire, of Surrey Second Eleven, and also of the leading public-houses within a mile radius of Kennington Oval, to give his world-famous imitation of a white mouse walking upon its fore-paws backwards.
Mr. Joseph Cox, with great natural modesty, disclaimed any special aptitude for a feat of this delicate nature, but, rather than be a source of disappointment to the company, he would undertake either to give an imitation of a hen laying an egg, or, if preferred, he would stand on his head while any member of the audience counted thirty.
Upon the proposal by Mr. Joseph Cox of these two extremely honourable alternatives, Mr. Dodson proceeded, as he phrased it, “to put it to the meeting.” With surprising unanimity “the meeting” decided that Mr. Cox be called upon to attempt the hazardous feat of standing on his head while Miss Tabitha Dodson counted thirty. After a little delay, which was caused by Miss Tabitha Dodson declining in most uncompromising terms to be associated in an official capacity with “such a piece of tomfoolery”—which resulted in the hostess, Mrs. Dodson, being nominated for this onerous duty—Mr. Joseph Cox, with a solemnity of mien which filled the audience with the greatest possible delight, proceeded to poise himself upon his apex.
When the enthusiasm which this feat excited had subsided in some measure, it was restored almost to its original fervour by Mr. Dodson’s announcement of the event of the evening. Mr. William Jordan, the distinguished scholar and England’s future poet laureate, would recite the first book of Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek.
When Mr. William Jordan discovered that he was the source of some almost hilarious enthusiasm, he cried in tragic accents, with a kind of horror in his deep-set eyes, “Oh n-n-n-no, I c-c-c-c-couldn’t! indeed I c-c-c-c-couldn’t!”
In the midst of the shrieks of laughter whichhis words and the distraught expression of his countenance provoked, and after Mr. Dodson had ministered thereto by the assurance “that it was not because Mr. Jordan couldn’t, but because Mr. Jordan wouldn’t,” he allayed any feeling of disappointment that might have arisen from Mr. Jordan’s obduracy—which he assured Mr. Jordan “was not the thing”—by proposing that they should go down to supper.
It was in the process of marshalling this “small but select” assembly that Mr. Dodson found a further opportunity for the display of that administrative power of which he was the fortunate possessor. At least three of the gentlemen present were aspirants for the favours of Miss Hermione Leigh. However, Mr. Dodson, who even upon the threshold of his career had nothing to learn in the elements of social practice, chose to assume a demeanour of impregnable innocence towards all the covert signals that were directed to him, and informed Mr. William Jordan that his was the honour of “taking down” the divinity who reclined by his side.
It must be admitted that Miss Hermione Leigh accepted this ruling somewhat ungraciously.
“I shall ask Jimmy what he means by this,” said the goddess to Chrissie. “He might at least have taken that stuffed owl out of the glass case on the chimney-piece, so that I could go down with that.”
“It is only his fun,” said Chrissie.
“I sha’n’t sing after supper,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, bridling.
“You have not been asked, my dear,” said Chrissie imperturbably.
“Anyhow, that cuckoo is better than Percy Davis,” said Mr. Joseph Cox to Mr. John Dobbs, with the resignation of one who has swallowed most of the formulas.
“Better that crackpot than Joe Cox,” Mr. John Dobbs confided to Mr. Percival Davis.
In the dining-room of No. 8, Gladstone Villas,which was a more commodious dwelling than any this rising family had previously occupied—a contingency that was due to the recent rise in salary of its eldest scion—was seated Police-Sergeant Dodson, in his best and very highly furbished official uniform. The lustre of his hair outshone the candelabra.
Police-Sergeant Dodson rose from his seat at the head of the highly-decorated table, which he had occupied with heroic patience for the last half-hour while he waited for the real business of the evening to begin, and shook each person who entered heartily by the hand—beginning with “Mother”—and hoped earnestly that one and all would make themselves quite at home.
“What doyouthink, old cock?” said Mr. Dodsonfils, placing hisfiancéeat the right hand of his hearty, yet majestic parent.
“No sparring for places,” cried Mr. Dodsonfilsin a voice of large authority. “You’ve got to tackle the ham, Percy, my son; and Joe Cox, you set about those ducks. You ought to be used to ’em by this time.”
In spite, however, of the airy and invincible good humour of Mr. Dodsonfils, it called for no particular acuteness of observation to detect that a gloom had suddenly overspread the company. Mr. Dodsonfilsmay even have been conscious of it himself; but, even if he was, his gay courage and inimitableflairwould admit no check; and, further, it was his boast “that he had a mind above trifles.” But, in spite of this, it was apparent to all that a gloom had overspread the company.
“I call it an insult to me,” said Chrissie across the table to the goddess in a defiant undertone. “Jimmy will hear of this again.”
“Poor form, I must say,” said Mr. Davis to Miss Sparhawk, an agitated but voluble young lady who had arrived late. “I should have thought Jimmy’s old man would have known better.”
In spite of the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Dodsonfils, who took upon himself the somewhat exacting duties of “head waiter,” the vigorous manipulation of knives and forks, and the revivifying influence of what Mr. Dodsonfilsfacetiously termed “the gooseberry”—a yellow, fizzing liquid which Mr. Jordan, with a lively recollection of a recent experience, tasted very warily, and found almost nice—in spite of all these circumstances, it was only too clear that something had passed from the gay assembly that could never return.
Mr. Jordan ate very little of the robust foods that were spread before him in such profusion; but the goddess, who so miraculously had been confided to his care, behaved before these viands with wonderful vigour, resolution and success. It was far from Mr. Jordan’s province to marvel that a goddess should eat so much, or with such an absence of delicacy, but marvel he did at the catholicity of a taste that could deal so faithfully with meats of this sort, which in no sense seemed to compare with her native nectar and ambrosia.
A spasmodic flicker of gaiety was imparted to the company by the toasts and speeches. Police-Sergeant Dodson, in referring in appropriate terms to an event which concerned the scion of his house very nearly, “hoped Jimmy, who was a good boy, would make a better man than his father.”
“Taken as read, old cock,” interposed Mr. Dodsonfils.
In the course of the reply made by Mr. Dodsonfilsto the toast of his own health and that of hisfiancée, he testified with abonhomiethat was most engaging, and in terms of great felicity, to the pleasure derived by all present from the presence of everybody else.
By the time the feasting and toasting had been conducted to an issue that was more or less happy—in spite of the pall that still hovered over the assembly—and after the ladies had gone up-stairs,and after Mr. Jordan had been exhorted in vain by each of the gentlemen who still lingered around the board to “try a weed”—an invitation which he declined in such alarmed accents as to cause them all to become hilariously merry—the bewildered and feverishly excited young man, without knowing how he came to be there, found himself standing again in the drawing-room in the presence of the goddess.
In the process of time the fact invaded his mind that his place on the settee by the side of the divinity was now in the occupation of another. That other was Mr. Percival Davis.
“He may be very clever,” Mr. Jordan overheard the penetrating accent of the goddess, “but I don’t think much of his conversation. Do you?”
“I call it rotten,” said Mr. Percival Davis, as he transfixed the young man with a smile that was full of meaning. “I suppose his brain is so subtle that when he says something it is just the same as though he had said nothing at all.”
“Must be,” said Miss Hermione Leigh.
Mr. Davis and the goddess laughed so loudly and so directly at Mr. William Jordan that he gave a little gasp of dismay and yielded a step in dire confusion.
“Run away and play,” said Mr. Davis.
“Like a good boy,” said the goddess.
“You are sure you got permission from mother to be out so late?” Chrissie inquired languidly from the head of the sofa.
While Mr. Jordan continued to stand in this irresolution, and in his distress at finding himself publicly mocked by others, not knowing which way to turn or what to do, he became aware that across the room, which was enveloped in a kind of red haze, the elderly and angular old lady with the glasses, the severe mien, the austere black dress, and the loud, harsh voice, appeared to be in the act of beckoning to him.
“Yes, go and sit with auntie,” said Mr. Davis,as the unhappy young man, with all his liveliest fears returning, approached this old lady of most formidable aspect.
“Sit here,” said the old lady, placing her hand on the vacant chair at her side.
Mr. Jordan obeyed with great docility.
“By the way, what is your name?” inquired the old lady in a much softer tone than that which she seemed habitually to use.
“My n-n-name is William Jordan, ma’am,” said the young man, overawed a good deal by her demeanour, yet at the same time already beginning to feel much more at his ease than he had done in the presence of Chrissie and the goddess.
“Well, Mr. Jordan,” said the old lady, with a subacid precision which yet did not seem unpleasant, “you are in the unhappy position this evening of being the only gentleman present.”
The significance of this pregnant assertion was not at first rendered to Mr. Jordan, but the old lady, observing his bewilderment, deigned to make it clear.
“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 forthem. 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 iscapable 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. Dodsonfilsfrom 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 youngman 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.