William Jordan

“ 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 that [186] remote 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. ”

“ When at last Jimmy Dodson had gone to catch his train to Peckham, William Jordan, who still held the large pile of manuscript upon his knees, proffered it to his father, saying: “My father, I would have you read to me this little treatise upon human life.”
The old man, who had not as yet looked upon the labours of his son, received the mass of papers from his hands; and in his peering, half-blind eyes was an extraordinary concentration. His feeble frame possessed by tremors, he sat down at the opposite side of the hearth to peruse that upon which he hardly dared to gaze. ”

“ With immemorial calm Mr. M. Arnold Dodson disclosed for the edification of Mr. G. Eliot Davis, the fly-leaf of the volume he carried. A short exclamation of surprise and incredulity escaped the lips of that young gentleman, which Mr. Dodson did not pause to elucidate.
As the thin, tall, melancholy but intellectual form of Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw wended its way up-stairs, Mr. Dodson turned to William Jordan, Junior, with a Napoleonic air.
“Luney,” he said, “you can fetch me the time-book.” ”

“ The old man seemed to avert his face from that of the boy’s father in a kind of dismay; and his voice pierced the boy with an emotion that he had never felt before.
“It is thirty years since you saw me last,” said the boy’s father.
“In the flesh as an eager-faced young man,” said the school-master. “But every night as I sit by the fire, I summon William Jordan to lead the pageant of my experience. When my spirit is like clay you stand before it, the first among the valiant, so subtle yet so brave. ”

“ Upon beholding this woe-begone figure William Jordan gave a start of surprise.
“Why, Jimmy,” he said, “why do you come here now?”
“As I was half-way through the performance at the Alcazar,” said Jimmy Dodson apprehensively, “I had a sort of presentiment. Something seemed to tell me, Luney, that after to-night I might never see you again. Something seemed to tell me that you were going away.”
“Nature has certainly spoken to me,” said William Jordan.
“That doesn’t mean, Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice not the least like his own, “that you intend to desert an old friend?” ”

“ Yet as we crouch by the fire on these cold winter evenings, is it not well to wrap ourselves in the vision of all the undeveloped glories in our midst? Is it not well for our minds to behold a William Jordan brooding in his garret among all these millions of people who will never learn his name? For thirty years have I been seeking that [16] treatise by which he is to establish Reason on its only possible basis.”
“Ah, dear master, philosophy is an anodyne for subtle minds,” said the boy’s father. ”

“ Walkinshaw,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in a voice that was charged with emotion, “in the circumstances we shall be almost justified in introducing Mr. William Jordan, Junior, into the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.”
“I concur, sir,” said Mr. Walkinshaw, in a voice whose own emotion was attuned with supreme good breeding to that of his chief. “I concur.”
“I hope, Mr. Jordan,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, whose beautiful and vibrant tones had acquired a paternal inflection, “that you will contrive to maintain the excellent impression you have already created. ”

“ William Jordan, Junior, to these viands, for which the buffet of the Brontë Hotel was justly famous, filled Mr. Dodson with astonishment and Chrissie with consternation not unmingled with protest.
“Your fat friend needn’t look as though he’s tasted vitriol,” said the lady in the scarlet blouse, as the boy recoiled with horror at the moment he was saluted by the fumes from the tankard. “That’s the best half-and-half in London, young man, and he who says it is not is a perverter of the truth.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The boy did not reply to this indictment. He felt that there was.
“There’s something missing,” said Mr. Dodson impressively.
The silence of William Jordan, Junior, continued to corroborate Mr. Dodson.
“As I have already said, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “you are just about fivepence halfpenny to the shilling, not more, not a farthing more. I cast no aspersions, mind, upon the maiden aunt who undertook your up-bringing. I don’t doubt that she is a good and worthy, and nice-minded old woman, but I blame her for one thing, my son, for one thing I am forced to blame her.” ”

“ Dodson was forced to blame and what he blamed her for, William Jordan, Junior, had not the courage to inquire.
“She might at least,” Mr. Dodson’s tone was one of judicial sadness, “have seen that you had all your buttons on when she turned you out into the world.”
“M-my b-buttons, s-sir!” stammered William Jordan, Junior, fingering his jacket nervously.
“Yes, my son, your buttons.” Mr. Dodson’s amiability verged upon the formidable. “When a cove starts out in life now-a-days, he’s got to have all his buttons on, and he’s got to have ’em stitched on with wire. Understand?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 young [184] man 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.” ”

“ Walkinshaw, “be good enough to assume responsibility for Mr. William Jordan, Junior. Be good enough to inspire him, as far as in you lies, with the particular tone that tradition exacts from all who are associated, even in the humblest capacity, with this eminent and old-established publishing house. His main duty, Mr. Dodson, will, as you know, consist in tying up, sealing, and labelling rejected MSS. See to it that he observes particular care in using black wax in all cases of rejection. ”

“ You are talking through your hat. It is only in fun that I call you Luney. I tell you candidly, my son, that if I could speak Greek like a native, the same as you do, I would see a chap like James Dodson d——d before I would even nod to him in the street.”
“You cannot deceive me, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a forlorn smile. “Fate has not made me the equal of you and your friends. ”

“ William Jordan, Junior, was the recipient of further instruction from his mentor for his guidance at the forthcoming ceremonial.
“Mind you don’t tuck your napkin into your collar,” said this authority in the ways of the polite [180] world; “and don’t eat your cheese with your knife; and don’t drink out of the finger bowls. And mind you turn up without a speck of dirt on your shoes. I should recommend you to take a ’bus to St. Paul’s Station; and you had better arrange with young Davis, who will be on the train, to split a hansom from Peckham Station to Midlothian Avenue.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Words have never come to me so easily as they have to-night; and as for my mind, I am sure it has never been half so bright. You seem to make me feel, old boy, that every word you use has a kind of inner meaning; and I understand enough of the meaning inside to know that there is still another meaning inside of that. I don’t know where you have been, or what you have done, but I am sure the change that has taken place in you is very wonderful.”
“The Giver of all good has at last given the light to your eyes and mine,” said William Jordan. ”

“ Walkinshaw had long come to recognize as part of him, “but my m-malady is of another nature.”
Mr. Walkinshaw shook his head solemnly, and subsequently observed to Mr. Aristophanes Luff, “That young man is suffering. He ought to seek medical advice.”
“One can imagine that Hamlet looked like that,” mildly observed Mr. Aristophanes Luff.
[245] As William Jordan sat on his high stool in the left-hand corner, he saw through the glass partition that divided the counting-house from the exit into Trafalgar Square, Jimmy Dodson pass out of the door into the street. ”

“ Dodson, with a guile that would have embellished the primeval serpent; “but then, you see, sir, in spite of ed-u-ca-tional disadvantages, Nature has thought fit to reserve a point in favour of William Jordan, Junior.”
“Ah,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, “what, pray, is the point that Nature has reserved in his favour?”
“William Jordan, Junior, may not be a scholar,” said Mr. Dodson, speaking with the calm humility of those who have served their novitiate to the mysteries, “but, in the best sense of the word, sir, he is a gentleman.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ But you were always beyond me, old boy, and now you seem to have got farther and farther away.”
“Yet never was I so near to you, Jimmy, as I am this day,” said William Jordan. “You are no longer a street-person, nor an Olympian, nor one of other race and texture. You are just yourself, your own baffled, bewildered, arrested self—my own half-developed younger brother who one day may come to flower.”
“I don’t understand you, Luney,” said his mentor; “you have altered so much that I don’t [260] understand you at all. ”

“ Having by the exercise of this highly commendable foresight delivered William Jordan, Junior, from the toils of this imminent and deadly peril, Mr. Dodson fortified this social neophyte with further sound advice in regard to his deportment on the devious and narrow path he was about to tread, and finally committed him to the care of his green ’bus in Ludgate Circus.
“It is a dangerous experiment,” mused Mr. Dodson, as the ’bus was lost amid the traffic; “but that young fellow wants bringing out badly. It will do him no end of good. ”