Chapter D: Appleton and Company (4)

It was clear that Miss Blue Blood was intrigued. She folded, unfolded, refolded her stick-eyeglass; she looked the Hoodoo up, she looked the Hoodoo down, standing three paces back in order to do so. “Before I really decide”--addressing the monster in a voice of warm caresses--“I must get my father to come and look at you, my dear. He’s wiser than I in these matters. You might kill all the pictures in the long gallery.”

At this point William bowed again with exceeding deference. But here was not the end. The stick-eyeglass lit on the bowl of Lowestoft, which the Sawney who was turning out to be not quite such a sawney as he seemed, had picked up in his recent travels in Suffolk.

“I like that. What a charming piece!”

Mr. Half-Sawney held the charming piece to the light for Miss Stick-eyeglass to gaze upon.

“Yes--really quite charming!”

Their heads were so close while together they bent over its beauties, that June, without wishing real harm to either, could have found it in her heart to hope that the bowl might fall from the hands of William and break into a thousand pieces.

“What is the price?”

The bowl was turned on to its base while the young man glanced at the mystic code which had been traced by the hand of S. Gedge Antiques.

“Six guineas, madam,” she was most deferentially informed.

“I collect Lowestoft. A charming piece. It will go so well with my others. Will you kindly send it to 39b, Park Lane?”

“Certainly, Miss Babraham.”

The amazing Miss Babraham opened a vanity bag, took out a sheaf of notes, and chose six which, with the smile of a siren, she handed to William, who received them with one more bow from his full height, and proceeded to write out a receipt.

Somehow this transaction was altogether too much for June. Flashing one long last glance of immeasurable venom upon the stick-eyeglass who, all unconscious of the deadly passions it had aroused, had now returned to elegant and final contemplation of the Hoodoo, the niece of S. Gedge Antiques withdrew hurriedly to the scullery sink, filled a bucket of water, and proceeded with a kind of contained fury to scrub the floor of the larder.

XVIII

WHEN William came in to dinner there was music to face. But as there was no sure ground at the moment for real battle, the music opened _pianissimo_. It began with a few rather pointed enquiries.

“Had a rather busy morning, haven’t you?”

“I don’t think it has been anything out of the way,” was the non-committal answer.

“Done any business?” The question was casual, but June fixed him with her eye.

“Oh, yes!” So light and airy was the tone that business might have mattered nothing. “I’ve sold the Lowestoft bowl.”

“Uncle Si’ll be pleased, I expect.” She found it terribly difficult to keep a sneer out of her voice, but you never know what you can do till you try. “Fetch much?”

She knew perfectly well, of course, the price it had fetched.

“Six guineas!”

“Isn’t that a pretty good profit on what you paid for it at Saxmundham?” said June, with the precision of the born head for affairs.

“I got it for thirty shillings at Saxmundham, but of course that was at a sale.”

“Seems a fair profit, anyway.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Will you get any?”

“Oh no!” said William, trying to spear a pickled walnut in a glass jar.

“Then I think it’s an infamous shame that the whole of that six guineas should go into the pocket of Uncle Si.”

With a polite shake of the head, William dissented. “But don’t you see, I couldn’t have bought it unless the master had given me the money, and also marked the catalogue.”

“It was your brains that bought it. And your brains sold it, too. I think you ought to see that Uncle Si is simply living upon them.”

“No, no, Miss June,” said William staunchly. “Please don’t forget that it is the master who taught me everything.”

June declined to argue the point. She knew it was no use. For the hundredth time she was up against his fixed idea. Besides, there was something else to talk about.

“To whom did you sell that beautiful bowl?” Her voice was that of the dove.

“I sold it to a Miss Babraham,” said the Sawney in a voice of perfectly stupendous impersonality.

“To a Miss Who?”

She had caught the name quite clearly, and not for the first time that day, but there was a kind of morbid fascination in toying with a subject which was really without significance, and could lead nowhere. All the same she pined for an insight into the workings of the mind of this strange young man who was such a baffling mixture of the over-simple and the highly gifted.

“Her name is Miss Babraham.”

“Who is she when she is at home?”

She tried hard to imitate a detachment which was a little uncanny, yet knowing all the time that she was making a sad hash of the performance. The trick seldom comes easy to the daughters of Eve.

“Who did you say she was?”

“Her father is Sir Arthur Babraham.” The impersonality of William made her writhe.

“Oho!” said June, still trying her best to rise to William’s level, and fully conscious that she was failing miserably. “One of the big bugs, eh?”

It was vulgar, she knew, to speak in that way. Among the things she had learned at the Blackhampton High School was a due and proper regard for baronets. Miss Preece, its august headmistress, would have been shocked, not merely by her tone, but also by her choice of words. But High School or no High School, the intrusion of Sir Arthur Babraham suddenly made her see red. She must be vulgar--or burst!

“What you’d call one of the smart set, I suppose?” said June abruptly breaking a long and rather trying pause. “Well, I don’t think much of her stick-eyeglass, anyway.”

Terrific disparagement of Miss Babraham, her works and her belongings was intended, yet to the queer creature seated opposite who by now was almost ready for the tapioca pudding, which had been so carefully prepared for him, it did not seem to imply anything at all.

“You take no stock of smart sets, I dare say,” said June, with growing truculence. “You’ve never heard of them, have you? China tea sets are more in your line, aren’t they?”

That was real wit, and people far less clever than this Sawney--a contradiction in terms and yet the only word which seemed to describe him after all!--must have seen the force of it. But not he! He solemnly rose and collected the plates, and then fetched in the tapioca pudding for all the world as if there was absolutely no point in the remark.

“Who did you say that tall girl was?” said June, returning mothlike to the flame, as she helped the Sawney very substantially to his favourite dish.

“Miss Babraham!”

“And who did you say her father was?”

“Sir Arthur Babraham!”

“And what might _he_ do for a living?”

This was not ignorance. It was mere facetiousness. She knew quite well that no Sir Arthur Babraham since first invented by that ridiculous monarch, King James, had ever done anything for a living. But it was good to feel how such a “break” would have hurt Miss Preece.

“He’s one of the richest men in England,” said William, dipping his spoon into his tapioca with an impersonality which approached the sublime.

June knew that. There was the daughter of Sir Arthur Babraham to prove it.

“One of Uncle Si’s best customers, I suppose?”

“Doesn’t often come here. But he has wonderful taste.”

“In daughters?” said June sardonically.

“In everything. Only last night I read in the paper that there isn’t a better judge of pictures living.”

June merely said “Oh!”

“He’s one of the trustees of the National Gallery, you know.”

“Oh!” said June.

“And owns a very fine private collection of the Dutch School.”

“Does he?” It was June’s turn now to be impersonal; in fact, it was up to her to let him see that it would take more than Sir Arthur Babraham and a private collection of the Dutch School to impress her.

“I suppose his daughter is what you’d call rather _fetching_?” She had once heard the word on the lips of the admired Miss Banks at a charity bazaar.

But in William’s opinion it was not adequate to the occasion.

“To my mind,” he said, and his voice fell, “she’s a non-such.”

June stepped midway in the act of bestowing upon him a second helping of tapioca.

“She’s a what?” she demanded fiercely.

“A museum piece, Miss June.” His enthusiasm was restrained but none the less absurd. “She’s hallmarked. She walks in beauty.” A blush, faint yet becoming, slowly overspread William’s delicately tinted complexion.

June snorted. Had it been within the province of eyes to slay, this Gaby would have had no use for a second helping of tapioca.

“Glad to know that!” said June, homicidally. “As you are so set on beauty, you must have had an interesting morning.”

A disgracefully impersonal silence was William’s only answer. The deadliness of the observation seemed completely lost upon him. But was it?--that was the question for gods and Woman. Such a silence might mean anything.

“I suppose you’d say she had wonderful taste?”

“Miss Babraham?”

“No, Joan of Arc,” said Woman, venomously.

“Her taste is very good indeed--that is, in some things.”

“In hats, I suppose.”

“I meant in old china,” said the impersonal one. “I’ve never known her to make a mistake in old china.”

“That’s interesting.” It was a weak remark, but June had seldom felt less conversationally brilliant.

Silence again. A third helping of tapioca was politely declined. June then pushed across the cheese. William removed its cover, and disclosed an extremely meagre piece of Leicestershire.

“Please may I give you a little?” he asked, with his inimitable air.

“There’ll be none for yourself if you do. Besides, I don’t want any. No thank you.” She remembered her manners, although that was not easy just now. “I’ll go out presently and buy some more. I’d quite forgotten the cheese.”

“Please--please take this tiny piece.”

“When I say no, I don’t mean yes,” said June, tempering strength of character with calm politeness. “I can’t imagine Miss Babraham eating a piece of Leicestershire cheese in a dirty overall--can you?”

The remark was so irrelevant that it verged upon the grotesque. Heaven knows from what malign impulse it sprang. No girl in her senses would ever have made it. Giant Despair and the Hag Desperation must have been its sponsors.

It was quite open to William to follow the line of least resistance and ignore the question. A William less true-blue, a William less a gentleman right through to the core might without dishonour have done so. But this was a William of a nobler clay.

“Miss June, your overall isn’t dirty.”

The rich sincerity of these six and a half little words seemed gravely to imperil the whole sublime edifice of his impersonality.

He was contradicted flatly for his pains; yet she knew in her heart that whether the overall was dirty or whether it was clean, the renegade was already half forgiven.

“What did you think of her dress?” This new on-rush of irrelevance was despicable, but she seemed quite to have lost control of herself.

“It was perfect. To my mind, nothing is more becoming to a tall lady than a dress of soft dark blue silk.”

Dyed-in-the-wool idiot! As though it was not his clear and obvious duty never even to have noticed whether Miss Babraham wore a dress of soft blue silk or a muslin with spots or a grey alpaca, or just a plain serge coat and skirt. Times there are when the stupidity of the human male has really no limit.

“Must have cost a pretty penny,” said June acidly.

William shook his head, and boldly affirmed that it couldn’t be bought for money.

“That’s just nonsense,” said June tartly. “There isn’t a dress in the world that couldn’t be bought for money.”

“What I really mean is, to have a dress which looked like that, you would also have to buy the wearer,” said William the amazing.

June expressed a ripe scorn by vehemently beginning to clear the table. High time, certainly. They had been discussing cold mutton and pickled walnuts and tapioca pudding and Leicestershire cheese and things and women for one solid hour by the Queen Anne clock, a real antique, in the middle of the chimneypiece, for which S. Gedge had lately refused the sum of forty guineas.

XIX

IN the course of the afternoon, June found herself immersed in the crisis of her fate. It began with a desire to own a dress of soft blue silk. This, she well knew, was insane. In the first place, she was still in mourning for her mother; in the second, she must hoard every penny of her slender means; in the third, was William’s conviction that the success of a dress depended upon its wearer.

Not a shade of excuse could be found for this vaulting ambition. But it was fixed so firmly in the centre of her mind, that when she set out soon after three to order the cheese she could think of nothing else. The grocer was at the end of the street and two minutes did her business with him. And then in the toils of imperious desire she marched boldly down to Charing Cross and took a bus to Oxford Circus.

A yearning for a dress of blue silk was upon her like a passion. It was madness and yet it was very delicious. What could a blue silk dress avail when at any moment she was likely to be cast adrift? That thought hit hard as she sauntered slowly along the Street of Streets gazing wistfully upon its long array of too-fascinating drapers’ windows.

Her store of worldly wealth was nineteen pounds and a few odd shillings. It was as certain as anything could be that she was about to enter upon the most critical period of her life, and this was all she had to tide her over. But do what she would to act like a reasonable being she was now at the mercy of a demon more powerful than common prudence. She was haunted by a passion for a blue silk dress and no matter what happened to her afterwards she must satisfy that craving.

It was a rather thrilling business to rake these forbidden windows in quest of a thing it was sheer madness to buy, yet within one’s power to do so. Why was she going to buy it? Because she wanted it so badly? Why did she want it so badly? That was a question she could not answer.

Had she been really pretty this folly might have seemed less amazing. But she knew she was plain. At least, she always felt and always passed for plain at Blackhampton. But her pilgrimage along Oxford Street which, in the middle of a bright afternoon of early October, seemed the Mecca of fashion, beauty and good taste went some way to change the attitude she had taken up in regard to her personal appearance.

Plain she might be, her clothes might be severely provincial, their hue depressing, but she was clearly informed by the sixth sense given to Woman that she was not wholly unlooked at. It was nice to feel that such was the case; indeed, it was stimulating, yet so deeply was she occupied just then with large affairs that she didn’t think much about it.

After many windows she had seen, she found herself drifting with the tide into a store of regal aspect. Here she was received by young women, elegant and gracious, with a courteous charm that made a search for five yards of blue silk fabric in its least expensive form a perfectly simple and yet delightful adventure. Moreover, it brought in its train a great idea. Was it necessary, after all, that domestic servitude should be her lot? Might it not be possible to become one of these smart and pleasant ladies in their very attractive clothes?

Expenditure of spirit, anxious care, went to the final purchase of four and a half yards of cotton silk material, more cotton than silk, at eight and elevenpence three farthings a yard; and then the new thought gained such a hold upon her, that before leaving the store she took an inventory of her person in one of the huge mirrors which made the place so enchanting. Standing boldly in front of the great glass, surveying herself with a curiosity that was half fear, she went over her “points” as might an Eastern merchant who buys a slave.

She was taller than she supposed. That was thought the first. And if she wore shoes with high heels, as so many girls did, she could look still taller. She could pass for slender, that was her second thought; and her chest was something to be proud of. She might not have much in the way of grace, and she might lack style, yet she didn’t lack dignity. Her features were irregular, and there was no denying their freckles, but seeing her frontispiece this afternoon, with its fighting chin and determined eyes, the full effect was rather striking. But when all was said it was her hair that was important. This she had always known, but in the strong and subtle lights of the best mirror into which she had ever gazed, it ministered considerably to the sum and total of her charms. Perhaps her friend, Mr. Boultby the druggist, had not overshot the mark when he compared her hair to the Empress Eugenie’s, and said it ought to be painted by an R. A.

A mop of russet gold hair was little enough for a girl who stood in her particular shoes. She felt that as she gazed upon it; felt it besides with something akin to resentment. But even a self-criticism, cool and stern, must allow that she made a better showing in Mr. Selfridge’s mirror than could have been expected. She was far from being beautiful, but that hair in its subtle-tinted abundance saved her somehow from being ordinary. And to-day she looked very much alive with the bloom of youth and health.

Four and a half yards of blue material under her arm, she went out into Oxford Street, feeling rather better equipped for the battle of life. She drew back a pair of shoulders that were really not so bad, and defiantly lifted a chin that had looked uncommonly square in the mirror. It was good to feel that she had underrated herself. She must learn to dress in the London way, and then she might be able to hold her own.

Walking slowly back to Oxford Circus, head higher now, she began quite to like this new idea of becoming a shop assistant. At the worst, it would be a far easier and more dignified way of life than domestic service. So much was she engaged by it, and so great the pressure of her thoughts that at first she didn’t notice that a man was following her.

The knowledge overtook her by degrees. Stopping to look in various windows, each time she did so brought a vague feeling that the eyes of a man were upon her. She crossed the Circus, but the feeling was still there; and at the corner of Berners Street, without quite knowing how, surmise entered the region of fact. Moreover, she even contrived to learn the style of man he was.

Out of the tail of an eye, as she stood by the edge of the kerb, she saw that he was pale and dark, neither short nor tall, that he had a slight moustache, and wore a hat of peach coloured velours. His presence gave her an odd feeling; in fact, it might be said to frighten her just a little, although there was certainly no reason why it should in broad daylight. But she had an idea that he was going to speak to her and that he was seeking an opportunity to do so.

Hastily she moved on, determined to give further shop windows “a miss” for the present. However, she had not gone far when it occurred to her that she was in need of a cup of tea, and that it would be very pleasant to have one.

Just across the road was an A. B. C. shop. The fear of pursuit still upon her, the sudden dash she made for this bourn was so ill-timed that her sovereign faculty of keeping her head in a crisis was needed to save her from being run over by Bus 13, which was going to the “Bell” at Hendon.

With quite a sense of adventure, she went to one of a row of vacant tables at the far end of the shop. She ordered a small pot of tea, a scone and a pat of butter. And then she realized that a pale, dark man, neither short nor tall, with a slight moustache, and wearing a hat of peach-coloured velours had followed her in, and was just about to take a seat at the table next her own.

XX

JUNE was not a timid girl. She had no lack of courage; and now that a chance had been given her to reason things out, a feeling akin to fear promptly yielded to mere annoyance. And even that emotion took wings when she had had time to glance at the hat of peach-coloured velours. Its owner looked harmless enough. He was a man of thirty, or perhaps a little more; he wore a well-cut black jacket, a pair of rather baggy trousers of a light grey check, a silk collar, a flowing bow tie, a diamond ring on the little finger of the left hand. The general effect of what to June was a decidedly interesting personality was somehow to fulfil her preconceived idea of an artist.

As soon as the man felt the gaze of June upon him, he swept off the hat of peach-coloured velours with a gesture at once easy and graceful, fortified it with a smile at which it would have been impossible to take offence, and said with a slight lisp,

“Miss Graham?”

“I am not Miss Graham,” said June calmly. She always prided herself upon her self-possession. Just now it seemed to help her considerably.

The man carried off his question with such an air of tact that it must have ranked as a bona fide mistake had not June been aware that he had crossed the road and followed her into the shop. Rather strangely, as soon as he took it upon himself to speak to her, the lingering sense of vexation gave way to curiosity. The mere look of the man had the power to excite an immediate interest, but June was careful to keep strictly upon her guard.

He ordered a bottle of ginger beer, and when the waitress had gone for it, he turned to June and said, with the companionable air of an old friend: “It’s funny, but you are exactly like a girl I used to know.”

“Why funny?” asked June bluntly.

The nature of the question, and the look of June’s keen eye made the man smile a little. Evidently she was a bit of a character. It appeared to stimulate him.

“It’s always funny when you mistake someone for someone else.”

“Is it?” said June, warily.

“Don’t you agree,” he said, with a laugh that sounded decidedly pleasant.

“It’s a thing I should never think of doing myself.”

“You are lucky.” He was amused by her bluntness. “I wish I had your good memory.”

The tea arrived, and June poured it out in a spirit of thankfulness. As soon as she had drunk half a cup, which was reviving, she forgot all about her annoyance in a new feeling of exhilaration tempered by quiet amusement.

“You are most remarkably like a Scotch girl I used to know in Paris,” said the man, taking up the thread of conversation, after having drunk a little, a very little, ginger beer.

“Am I?” said June, coolly.

“She was an artist’s model. Sometimes she used to sit for me.”

“Are you an artist?” said June, allowing herself to become interested, for the reason perhaps that she simply could not help it.

“Of sorts,” was the answer. “I studied several years in Paris before the war.”

From the moment he had sat down at the next table and June had been able to get a clear view of him she had somehow known that art was his calling. He looked an artist so emphatically that there would have been something fatally wrong with the cosmos had he turned out to be anything else.

In spite of a determination to be cautious indeed, she was not equal to the task of repressing an ever growing curiosity. Art had lately come to have a magic meaning for her.

“What kind of pictures do you paint?”

“Portraits and the figure chiefly.”

“Do you ever paint landscapes?”

“They are not quite my line of country,” said the man. “Portraits and the figure are what I go for as a rule. I am looking for a model now. Would you like to sit to me?”

“I don’t know.” June spoke doubtfully. “I don’t think I could.”

“Haven’t you ever sat?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Time you began. You are just the sort of girl.”

“Why am I?”

“For one thing you have personality.”

This was a surprising and rather thrilling corroboration of Mr. Boultby. At the back of her mind the old druggist had always figured as “a bit of a gasbag” with a ready flow of conversation and a gift of easy compliment. But it would seem that this estimate did him less than justice. Mr. Boultby was better informed than she had thought. And at this moment a phrase he had used came back to her with a force that was a little startling. “A girl as good-looking as you can always get a living,” Mr. Boultby had once said.

“I suppose you mean my hair?” said June naïvely.

He showed two rows of very white and level teeth in a smile which piqued her curiosity.

“Partly your hair, and partly your figure,” he said, taking a second tiny sip of ginger beer. “Why not come and try? I have a studio in Haliburton Street, just out of Manning Square.”

June shook a doubtful head. She then gave a glance sideways at the imbiber of the ginger beer. Her knowledge of the world was slender, but she was not a fool, and there was something about this “forthcomingness” which even exceeded that of Mr. Boultby himself, that warned her to be careful.

“You’d be well paid, of course.”

“How much?” June had no false modesty when it came to a question of money. This was an aspect of the matter that had not struck her until then.

“I’d pay you five shillings an hour,” he said lightly. “And ten for the altogether.”

June’s heart gave a leap. To a girl in her position it was a princely reward. Such an offer seemed most tempting. But a moment’s consideration of the issues it raised brought on a sudden fit of shyness.

“I don’t think I could,” she said.

“Why not?” The eyes of the man were now fixed intently upon her face.

“Oh, I don’t----”

“Not enough, eh?”

She felt his eyes so forcibly upon her that she coloured hotly.

“It isn’t that.”

“What’s your reason then?”

“I’ve not been used to that sort of thing.”

He smiled broadly.

“It’s only a matter of keeping still. Of course, I shall not press you to sit for ‘the altogether’ if you had rather not.”

“The altogether” was Greek to June.

However, she did not confess her ignorance, but was content to make a mental note to ask William what it meant. And at the moment she did so the thought of William brought the Van Roon to her mind.

“I suppose you know a lot about pictures?” An idea was forming already in that practical head.

“Perhaps I know as much about them as some people,” said the man, beginning to roll a cigarette. June could not help feeling that his answer was in piquant contrast to what William’s would have been had such a question been put to him. It had a self-complacency which even if it implied deep knowledge was also open to criticism.

“What do you think a Van Roon would be worth?”

“A Van Roon!” he said, offhandedly. “Well, you know, that might depend on many things.”

“They are very valuable, I suppose,” said June, trying to look innocent.

“Very valuable indeed, at the present time. Privately, I think they are overrated. The Flemish School is being run to death, but of course, that’s only my opinion.”

“Would it be worth a hundred pounds?”

“What! A Van Roon!” The man laughed. “My good girl, you might multiply a hundred pounds by a hundred, and then think you had got ‘some’ bargain if you found yourself the owner of a Van Roon.”

“This mightn’t be a good one.” June spoke cautiously. She saw at once that it would be wise “to go slow.”

“All Van Roons are good, you know. But some, of course, are a bit better than others.”

“I’ve been told it is one of the best,” said June, after a moment’s deliberation.

“Which are you talking about? The one in the National Gallery, I suppose. That’s the only Van Roon in this country. The Americans have robbed us of three within the last ten years.”

“Yes, I’ve heard so,” said June, with a wise air.

“In my humble opinion, it can’t be compared with the chap in the Louvre, and they say that its stable companion, which was cut out of its frame back in the Nineties, and has never been found, is even finer.”

“Still you think it’s very valuable?”

“The one in the National Gallery? Sure! It wouldn’t be there, you know, if it wasn’t. The Flemish School is booming these days, and Van Roon is the pick of the bunch, and the least prolific. Tell me,” the man’s small and rather furtive eyes began to twinkle, “why are you so interested in Van Roons? Is it, by any chance, that you’ve got one for sale?” And he laughed very softly and gently at what he evidently considered a rich joke.

June looked at him gravely.

“It so happens that I have!” she said with a caution which seemed to give the value of drama to a simple announcement.

XXI

ADOLPH KELLER was the man’s name. And as June was to learn later, he had never felt more amused in his life. It was really a jest that he should follow a countrified-looking girl into a teashop, get into conversation with her, and then be quietly told that she had a Van Roon to sell. There was something rather pathetic in a girl of her class making such a statement. All she could mean was that somehow she had got hold of a more or less “dud” copy of “Sun and Cloud,” that much lithographed work in the National Gallery which in consequence was now familiar to the big public.

“So you’ve got a Van Roon for sale, have you?” said Adolph Keller, who was hardly able to keep from laughing outright. “Good for you! What’s the size of it?”

“Sixteen inches by twelve,” said June, with the patness of one who prided herself, and with reason, upon a most excellent memory.

“Without the frame?”

June nodded.

“Yes, that’s about the size,” said Keller. “It’s called ‘Sun and Cloud,’ I suppose?”

“It’s not called anything at present,” said June, “as far as I know, although sun and cloud are in it.”

“Bound to be--if it’s a Van Roon.”

“And there are trees as well.”

“Trees, are there? A copy of the one in the National Gallery, I expect. Is there a windmill in the left hand corner?”

There was no windmill in the left hand corner, June declared with confidence. She remembered that at first William had thought there was, but had changed his opinion later.

“Then that washes out the National Gallery. I dare say it’s a copy of ‘L’Automne’ in the Louvre. By the way, how did you come by it?”

“It was given to me by a gentleman, a friend of mine,” said June, after a moment for reflection.

“A very good friend, too.” The tone of the laugh had a little too much banter to be pleasant. “Isn’t everybody, you know, who gives a Van Roon to his best girl? A bit of a plutocrat evidently.”

June didn’t know what a plutocrat was, but she was too proud to say so. She made a mental note to look up the word in the dictionary.

“How did your rich friend come by it? Do you happen to know?”

“He isn’t rich,” said June, with a wish for perfect honesty. “He found it in a shop.”

“Where was the shop?”

“It was at a place called Crowdham Market.”

“Down in Suffolk. Sounds a funny place to find a Van Roon.”

“It was ever so dirty when it was found. And another picture seemed to have been painted on the top of it.”

“Queer.” The eyes of Adolph Keller narrowed in their intentness. “Who told you it was a Van Roon?”

“The man who gave it to me.”

“Who told him?”

“He found the signature.” June’s quiet precision owed something to the fact that she was now fully and rather deliciously aware of the effect she was making.

“What!... The signature of Mynheer Van Roon?”

“Yes,” said June.

The incredulity of Keller had yielded now to a powerful curiosity. He looked at June with a keenness he tried hard to veil. This was a very unlikely story, yet he knew enough of life to appreciate the fact that mere unlikelihood is no reason why a story should not be true. Besides, this girl had such an ingenuous air that it was impossible to believe her tale was a deliberate invention. At the same time, it had elements which were particularly hard to swallow.

“Why was the picture given to you?”

“I asked for it,” said June, whose simple honesty now involved a tell-tale blush.

Mr. Keller looked her steadily in the eye, and then he laughed, but not unsympathetically.

“Your best boy, I suppose, and he could deny you nothing.”

“That’s it,” said June awkwardly. This audacious irony was new to her, and she did not know how to meet it.

“By the way, what is this young chap of yours? An artist?”

“Yes,” said June. “I suppose he is--in a way. He studies art and renovates pictures, and he knows a lot about them.”

“Not so much as he thinks,” said Adolph Keller, “else he would not be such a fool as to give away a Van Roon, even to a girl as nice and pretty as you are.”

He had lowered his voice to a whisper of rare sweetness and carrying power. There was something about him that was powerfully attractive; at the same time, a look had crept into a pair of rather furtive eyes which was oddly repellent.

“Do you say you really have this picture in your possession?” His intentness when he put this question made June feel a little uncomfortable.

“Yes, it has been given to me.”

“Could you let me see it?”

June hesitated.

“I think I could,” she said, after a pause.

“Well, suppose you bring it round to my studio for me to look at?”

Again June hesitated.

“As you like, of course,” said Keller, carelessly. “I was only thinking it might be worth your while, that’s all. You see, I happen to know one or two dealers and people, and I might be able to find out for you just what it’s worth.”

June saw the force of this. She was in desperate straits, and this man had the appearance of a friend in need.

“Perhaps I will,” she said.

“Very well,” said the man. “When will you come?”

For a moment June thought hard. “I couldn’t come before Thursday.”

“The day after to-morrow--that’ll suit me. What time?”

June continued to think hard. “It would have to be between three and four.” She spoke with slow reluctance. “That’s the only time I can really get away.”

“All right,” said the man, briskly. “You’ll find me at the Haliburton Street Studios up till five o’clock on Thursday. Number Four. Give a good ring; the bell is a bit out of gear. My name is Keller. Can you remember it, or shall I write it down for you, with the address?”

“Write them down for me, please.”

The man tore a leaf from a pocket book, and wrote his name and address with a fountain pen: Adolph Keller, 4 Haliburton Street Studios, Manning Square, Soho. When he had done this, and given it to her, he tore out another leaf and asked her to write down hers. This she accordingly did, and then the sudden thought of William’s tea caused her to rise abruptly.

Mr. Keller wished to pay her bill, which was five-pence, but she declined to let him.

“Au revoir! Thursday afternoon. Manning Square is only about three minutes from here. Don’t forget,” were the words with which he took leave of her. “Bring it along. I dare say I’ll be able to tell you whether it is genuine, and perhaps give you an idea of its value.”

He laughed slightly, and then offered his hand in a very friendly manner. She took it with a reluctance she was rather ashamed of showing. He was so kind, so agreeable, so anxious to be of use that there seemed no warrant for the subtle complexity of feeling he had aroused in her.

XXII

JUNE’S way home to New Cross Street was beset with anxieties. Much would depend on what she did now. She felt that her whole life was about to turn on the decision she had to take in a very difficult matter.

There was no one to guide her, not a soul on whose advice she might lean. But before she had returned to the threshold of S. Gedge Antiques she had made a resolve to get immediate possession of the picture, and to let this Mr. Keller have a look at it. She did not altogether like him, it was true. But the feeling was irrational; she must be sensible enough not to let it set her against him without due cause. For he was a friend whom Providence had unmistakably thrown in her way, and there was no other to whom she might turn.

William was a broken reed. With all his perception and talent, he was likely to prove hopeless now that Uncle Si was setting his wits to work to obtain the picture for himself. William’s devotion to his master’s interest would be simply fatal to her scheme. For the sake of them both, June felt she must take a full advantage of the heaven-sent opportunity provided by this Mr. Keller.

Other decisions, too, would have to be made. As soon as Uncle Si knew the picture was hers, he would almost certainly carry out his threat of putting her in the street; at least she was no judge of character if the event proved otherwise. A means of livelihood must be sought at once. That afternoon’s experience of Oxford Street had opened up new vistas, which, however, might lead nowhere. But even if she could not get employment in a shop Mr. Keller’s offer of work as an artist’s model at five shillings an hour must not be lightly put aside.

The first thing to be done, however, was to clinch William’s gift of the picture once and for all. She made up her mind that it should be fully consummated before the return of Uncle Si from Newbury.

As soon as William had been given his tea she broached the subject. But when she asked for possession, there and then, his crest fell.

“I was still hoping, Miss June,” the simpleton owned, “that you’d let the dear old master have this lovely thing. It has come to mean so much to him, you see. I will get another one for you.”

“Not another Van Roon,” said June, sharply.

“No, I’m afraid I couldn’t promise a Van Roon.” A cloud passed over William’s face. “But I might be able to pick up something quite good, which perhaps you would come to like as much.”

June shook a disconsolate head.

“I don’t think,” she said, in a slow voice, as she fixed her eyes on the wall in front of her, “there is another picture in the world I should value so much as that one. I simply love that picture.”

William was troubled.

“The old master loves it, too.”

“But you gave it me, you know.” June was painfully conscious of a swift deepening of colour.

The plain fact was not denied.

“You mustn’t think me very hard and grasping if I hold you to the bargain.”

“No, Miss June. If you insist, of course the picture is yours.”

“To do with just as I like.”

“Why yes, certainly.”

June proceeded to take the bull by the horns. “Very well,” she said. “After supper, I shall ask you to hand it over to me, and I will put it in a place of safety.”

William sighed heavily. He seemed almost upon the verge of tears. June simply loathed the part she was playing. The only consolation was that she was acting quite as much in his interest as in her own.

Uncle Si came in shortly before eight. He sat down to supper in quite a good humour. For once the old man was in high conversational feather.

It was clear that his mind was still full of the picture. Without subscribing for one moment to William’s preposterous theory that the thing was a genuine Van Roon, he had had a further talk on the matter with his friend, Mr. Thornton, with whom he had travelled down to Newbury; and, he had arranged with that gentleman to bring his friend, Monsieur Duponnet, the famous Paris expert who was now in London, to come and look at it on Thursday afternoon. Monsieur Duponnet who knew more about Van Roon than anybody living, and had had several pass through his hands in the last ten years, would be able to say positively whether William was wrong, and S. Gedge Antiques was right, or with a devout gesture for which June longed to pull his ugly nose, vice versâ.

The time had now come for June to show her hand. Very quietly indeed her bolt was launched. William had given the picture to her.

The old man simply stared at her.

It was clear, however, that his thoughts were running so hard upon M. Duponnet and the higher potentialities that just at first he was not able to grasp the significance of June’s bald statement.

So that there should be no doubt about the position June modestly repeated it.

“Given it to you!” said the old man, a light beginning to break. “How do you mean--given it to you?”

Calmly, patiently June threw a little more light on the subject. And while she did so her eyes were fixed with veiled defiance upon the face of Uncle Si. The thought uppermost in her mind was that he took it far better than could have been expected. “Given it to you,” he kept on saying to himself softly. There was no explosion. “Given it to you,” he kept on. He grew a little green about the gills and that was all.

At last he turned to William: “Boy, what’s this? Is the girl daft?” The mildness of tone was astonishing.

William explained as well as he could. It was a lame and halting performance, and at that moment June was not proud of him. But she was even less proud of herself. The part she was playing, gloss it over as one might, was ignoble. And William’s embarrassment was rather painful to witness. He stammered a good deal, he grew red and nervous; and all the while the voice of his kind and good master became more deeply reproachful, and melted finally in a note of real pathos. “How could you do such a thing?” he said. “Why you know as well as I do, my boy, that I would have given you anything in reason for that picture--anything in reason.” And there he sat at his supper, the very image of outraged benevolence and enthusiasm, a Christian with a halo!

“Old Serpent” said the fierce eyes that June fixed upon his face. For a moment it looked as if the old wretch was going to shed tears. But no, he was content with a mild snuffle and that was all.

XXIII

BY bedtime, when June went to her attic, she had fully made up her mind that there must be no half measures now. She feared Uncle Si more than ever. There was something in that snuffle at the supper table, in that whine of outraged feeling, in that down-gazing eye which was far more formidable than any mere outburst of violence. Here was such a depth of hypocrisy that she had got to look out.

A light was showing under the studio door. June’s knock met with a prompt invitation to enter. William was affectionately lingering over a few final touches, which should prove beyond a doubt the authenticity of this masterpiece.

“Have you got it really clean at last?” said June, trying to speak lightly, yet not succeeding. Emotional strain could not be so easily concealed; and--uncomfortable thought--her acting was not so finished as that of Uncle Si.

“Yes,” said William, with a little thrill of rapture. “And how wonderful it is!”

June agreed. “Yes, wonderful!” Also with a little thrill of rapture, yet loathing herself because her tone was so vibrant--Uncle Si was not to have a walk over after all! “And now if you don’t mind I’ll put it in a place of safety.”

He flashed one swift glance at her. “But, Miss June, isn’t it quite safe here?”

“I should just think it wasn’t!” leapt to the tip of her tongue. But Uncle Si’s masterly snuffle recalled to her mind the value of meiosis. Thus she had recourse to a gentle “I think I’ll sleep better if I take care of it myself,” which sounded quite disarming.

With one of his deep sighs which made her feel a perfect beast, William handed over the picture. “If you only knew, if you could only guess what pleasure this exquisite thing would give the dear old master----”

Overcome by a kind of nausea, June fled headlong to the room next door. She groped for her candle, found and lit it; and then she proceeded to bury the treasure at the bottom of her trunk. Heaping and pressing down as many things upon the picture as the trunk would hold, she locked it carefully, and put the key in her purse. Then she undressed, knelt and said her prayers; she then blew out the candle and crept into bed with a stifling sense of disgust, tempered by grim satisfaction.

XXIV

NEXT morning at the breakfast table, June looked for developments. To her surprise, however, things went their accustomed way, except that if anything Uncle Si was a little more amiable than usual. He made no reference to the Van Roon; but it was referred to in his manner, inasmuch that he bore bacon and coffee to his lips with the air of a known good man deeply wounded in his private feelings. Not a feather of this by-play was lost upon his niece; and no doubt what was of more importance, it was not lost upon William. But its impact was very different in the two cases. While June simply longed to hit the Old Crocodile upon his long and wicked nose, William seemed hard set to refrain from tears.

About midday, however, while June was in the back kitchen preparing a meal, Uncle Si came to her.

“Niece,” he said, in the new voice, whose softness June found so formidable, “you remember the other day I told you to look for a job?”

June nodded.

“Have you got one?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, Mrs. R. is coming back on Monday, so the sooner you get fixed up the better. Your best plan, I think, is to go this afternoon and have your name put down at a registry office as a cook-general. Cook-generals earn good money, and they live all found. Your cooking won’t be the Carlton or the Ritz, of course”--a gleam of frosty humour played upon that subtle face--“but you seem strong and willing, and you know how to boil a potato, and no doubt you’ll improve with experience.”

June was inclined to curtsey. The old wretch plainly felt that he was giving her a handsome testimonial. But at the back of her mind was anger and contempt, and it was as much as she could do to prevent their peeping out.

After dinner, as soon as the table was clear, and the pots washed, she proceeded to take Uncle Si at his word. She decided to go out at once and look for a place which, however, except as a last resort, should not be domestic service. To begin with, she would try the shops, or perhaps the dressmakers, as her mother always said she was handy with her needle; or, failing these, she might consider the exciting proposal of becoming an artist’s model.

Fixing her hat before the crazy looking glass the thought of Mr. Keller recurred to her mind. Had the day only been Thursday she could have taken the picture to him there and then, and had his opinion upon it. Not that such a course would have been altogether wise. She knew nothing about this new and rather mysterious acquaintance, beyond the fact that if speech and manner meant anything he was a gentleman. Certainly, to talk to he was most agreeable.

Before setting out on her pilgrimage, she had to make up her mind as to whether it would not be advisable to take the Van Roon with her, and put it in a place of safety. So long as it remained under that roof it was in jeopardy. Uncle Si was not to be trusted an inch. The fact, however, that she had nowhere to take the treasure decided her finally to let it stay where it was until the next day.

Anyway, it was under lock and key. That was something to be thankful for; yet as she came downstairs and passed through the shop into New Cross Street, drawing on her neat black gloves with a sinking heart, instinct told her that she was taking a grave risk in leaving the picture behind.

No, S. Gedge Antiques was not to be trusted for a moment. Of that she was quite sure. By the time she had gone twenty yards along the street this feeling of insecurity took such a hold upon her that she stopped abruptly, and faced about. To go back? Or not to go back? Indecision was unlike her, but never was it so hard to make up her mind. Could it be that Uncle Si was as wicked as she thought? Perhaps she had now become the prey of her own guilty conscience. In any case, she knew of nowhere just then in which to place the precious thing; and this fact it was that turned the scale and finally settled the question.

She went down to the Strand, and took a bus to Oxford Circus. That Mecca, alas, did not prove nearly so stimulating as the previous afternoon. As soon as she came really to grips with that most daunting of all tasks, “the looking for a job,” her hopes and her courage were woefully dashed. Real pluck was needed to enter such a palace as David Jones Limited, to go up without faltering to some haughty overseer in a frock coat and spats and ask if an assistant was wanted.

Three times, in various shops, she screwed herself to the heroic pitch of asking that difficult question. Three times she met with a chilling response. And the only gleam of hope was on the last occasion.

“There is one vacancy, I believe,” said Olympian Zeus. “But all applicants must apply by letter for a personal interview with the manager.”

Sooner than renew the attempt just then, June felt she would prefer to die. A girl from the provinces, new to London and its ways, without credentials or friends, or knowledge of “the ropes” must not expect to be taken on, at any rate in Oxford Street.