It has no doubt escaped your notice that the premises at 93 Sloan
Street are upon highly restricted property, which restrictions
forbid the use of the house or grounds for any business purpose.
You will find this covered in the fifth section of your lease, any
violation of which, if willfully persisted in, renders the contract
null and void.
Very truly yours,
COOPER & COOPER, Agents.
“Let ’em!” she cried aloud, dismayed, but valiant as ever.
“What is it, auntie?” inquired Lynn.
“Never mind, my dear!” said the other. “You go on painting your boxes,
and I’ll attend to the business arrangements.”
Mrs. Journay spoke in her usual confident manner, but at heart she was
alarmed and not at all certain as to what she ought to do. She was
certain, however, that her niece must not be worried by these unexpected
developments. To protect Lynn was her chief duty on earth, and her chief
pleasure, too. Terrible as she might be to others, to Lynn she was never
anything but kind and generous and affectionate, in her august fashion.
“I’d rather know, auntie,” insisted Lynn. “I think I really ought to
know. We’re partners, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Journay. “Yes, I know that, but--”
“We can’t carry on our business,” Lynn continued, “unless we both know
everything about it--can we, darling?”
She was now standing behind her aunt’s chair, resting her soft cheek
against that imposing coiffure. Mrs. Journay frowned.
“It doesn’t seem necessary,” she said.
She was already conquered, however. To tell the truth, her serious and
quiet niece had always been able to wind Mrs. Journay around her little
finger.
“Let me see the letter, auntie dear!” said Lynn.
She did see it, and the two former ones.
“It’s that man!” declared Mrs. Journay. “There’s no possible doubt of
it. He came here to spy. Some one sent him. My theory is that some one
knew we were going to start this shop, and, fearing the competition,
determined to drive us out!”
Lynn stood looking down at the letter with a curious expression.
“I see!” she said.
From her face one might imagine that whatever it was she saw gave her
very little pleasure.
They were both silent for a time, with their meager little breakfast
forgotten between them. They had always been more or less poor, but
never in this way. Until recently they had lacked neither dignity nor
comfort. They had had their friends and their little diversions, and a
cozy sort of existence, until something happened. It doesn’t much matter
what the catastrophe was. The important fact is that their small income
vanished, and here they were, gallantly prepared to make a new one for
themselves.
And was this enterprise, into which the very last of their savings had
gone, to be wrecked by Cooper & Cooper? Mrs. Journay would not permit
it. Often in the past, when she had coldly ignored people, such people
had disappeared from her sight--beneath the surface of the earth, for
all she knew; and she decided to try this on Cooper & Cooper. She would
scornfully ignore them. The shop should go on--it must!
She was about to say this aloud, when Lynn began to speak.
“Auntie dear,” she said, “let’s give it up!”
“Lynn! I am surprised!”
“Yes!” Lynn went on, with a sort of vehemence. “Let’s give this up and
go away from here.”
“Lynn! Your boxes! The beautiful boxes you’ve painted!”
“I’d like,” said Lynn, “to see them all sailing down the river! Oh,
auntie, do let’s go away! I hate this house and this place and--we’ll go
back to Philadelphia, and I’ll take a position in an office, and--”
The girl stopped short at the sight of her aunt’s face.
“Oh, my dear!” she cried. “I didn’t really mean that! No--we’ll stay
here, of course, and we’ll make a wonderful success of the shop.”
She sat on the arm of her aunt’s chair, and they talked with enthusiasm
of their dazzling future; but they didn’t look at each other--not once.
They talked, they even laughed, and after breakfast they went about
busily preparing for customers; but all the time there lay over them the
black shadow of this persecution. Why should any one wish them ill?
“I’d really be glad to go,” thought Mrs. Journay, “if it weren’t for
Lynn; but I can’t and won’t have Lynn working in an office. I’ll make
this--this disgusting shop a success!”
Lynn went on painting boxes all the morning.
“He was the only one who knew about the shelves,” she said to herself.
“Out of petty, despicable spite against poor auntie, he went off and
told the agents; and after he’d been so--not that I care, though. I knew
all the time that he was one of those men who always--who always pretend
to--to like people!”
Still, in spite of not caring in the least, it seemed to her that this
incident was harder to bear than all her other misfortunes--harder to
bear than exile from her old home and her old friends, than her
desperate anxiety about money, or than the frightful tedium of painting
boxes.
“Because it’s such a humiliation,” she explained to herself.
The admiration of young men was certainly no new thing to Lynn, but that
a man should look at her like that, should speak as he had spoken, and
then so basely betray her aunt and herself--
Her cheeks burned with just anger, or perhaps with shame, that even for
a moment she should have thought so well of him.
V
No one came to molest them that day, or the next, or all that week, or
that month, but this good fortune was counterbalanced by the fact that
no customers came, either.
Mrs. Journay and her niece took turns in attending to the shop with the
regularity of deck officers standing watch; and, having once arranged a
schedule, they were afraid to depart from it, for fear of admitting in
any way that trade was not brisk. Lynn went on and on painting boxes,
because, in the first place, they had a large stock to be painted, and,
in the second place, she had nothing else to do; but the dismalness of
sitting in that big, dim room, to see the boxes piling up on the
shelves, and to make calculations which showed that the money decreased
even faster than the boxes increased, was not a life to give animation
to a girl, or comfort to an elderly lady.
Indeed, the only thing that supported them was their splendid,
ridiculous Journay fortitude and obstinacy. They had gone into this
thing without help or advice. They wouldn’t ask help or advice now, and
they wouldn’t complain.
It was Lynn’s turn in the shop that afternoon. She sat there behind a
long table on which were a tin cash box, wrapping paper, twine, and a
pile of pretty little blue cards on which was printed:
YE OLDE NEW ENGLAND BOX SHOPPE--Hand-decorated gift boxes for all
purposes--Chests made to order.
She was sewing, but when she heard a step on the veranda she hid the
sewing in a drawer and began to write busily on a pad. The front door
was open, and the customer entered the room. Lynn looked up with an
alert, businesslike expression--and it was that man!
“I’ve been away,” he began eagerly. “Otherwise--” He stopped short,
looking at Lynn. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“No,” she said evenly.
For an instant her clear eyes rested on his face, and then they glanced
away, as if he wasn’t worth regarding. She was not rude, or scornful, or
awe-inspiring like her aunt, but her attitude was unmistakable.
“I’ll have to ask you to excuse me,” she said politely. “I’m busy this
morning.”
Rising, she moved toward the door.
“No!” he cried. “Please wait! Please tell me what’s the matter! Every
minute I’ve been away, I’ve been thinking of getting back and seeing you
again. I--please don’t go! Just tell me!”
“I have nothing to tell you,” said Lynn, with energy. “I have nothing to
say to you at all, except that I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t come
again.”
Then she vanished. Before Jerry had recovered himself, he was confronted
by his mortal enemy, Mrs. Journay.
“Kindly send your bill for the carpenter work you did,” said she, “and
it will be attended to promptly.”
He tried a smile.
“That was just a little neighborly service--” he began.
“I prefer not to accept it as such,” she interrupted.
“Well, I prefer not to send bills,” said he, resolutely good-humored.
“If you’ll allow me, I’ll introduce myself--”
“I do not allow you.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied firmly, “but it’s time it was done. I’m Mr.
Sargent, your landlord.”
This was a blow to stagger Mrs. Journay, but she rallied superbly.
“Indeed!” said she. “Now I see it all! Very well, call your Cooper &
Cooper to put us out. Let them--”
“But there’s no question of that!” he protested. “I’m only too glad--”
She really was magnificent!
“I refuse to be under obligations to you,” she said. “Your agents may
forbid me to do such and such a thing, and I shall do it. I defy them. I
defy you. I intend to continue in this course until I am forcibly
ejected. Instruct your Cooper & Cooper to that effect. I do not
recognize you!”