'And don't you, for any sake, tell Sarah a word about it, or quinsy
or no quinsy, she'll be up at aunt's before we know where we are, to
let the cat out of the bag.'
I took all the money out of my money-box that I had saved up for
starting housekeeping with in case aunt should leave her money to
Sarah, and I put it in my pocket, and I took the first train to
London.
I asked the porter at the station to tell me the way to the best
china-shop in London; and he told me there was one in Queen Victoria
Street. So I went there.
It was a beautiful place, with velvet sofas for people to sit down
on while they looked at the china and glass and chose which pattern
they would have; and there were thousands of basins far more
beautiful than aunt's, but not one like hers, and when I had looked
over some fifty of them, the gentleman who was showing them to me
said--
'Perhaps you could give me some idea of what it is you do want?'
Now, I had brought one of the pieces of the bowl up with me, the
piece at the back where it didn't show, and I pulled it out and
showed it to him.
'I want one like this,' I said.
'Oh!' said he, 'why didn't you say so at first? We don't keep that
sort of thing here, and it's a chance if you get it at all. You
might in Wardour Street, or at Mr. Aked's in Green Street, Leicester
Square.'
Well, time was getting on and I did a thing I had never done before,
though I had often read of it in the novelettes. I waved my umbrella
and I got into a hansom cab.
'Young man,' I said, 'will you please drive to Mr. Aked's in Green
Street, Leicester Square? and drive careful, young man, for I have a
piece of china in my hands that's worth a fortune to me.'
So he grinned and I got in and the cab started. A hansom cab is
better than any carriage you ever rode in, with soft cushions to
lean against and little looking-glasses to look at yourself in, and,
somehow, you don't hear the wheels. I leaned back and looked at
myself and felt like a duchess, for I had my new hat and mantle on,
and I knew I looked nice by the way the young men on the tops of the
omnibuses looked at me and smiled. It was a lovely drive. When we
got to Mr. Aked's, which looked to me more like a rag-and-bone shop
than anything else, and very poor after the beautiful place in Queen
Victoria Street, I got out and went in.
An old gentleman came towards me and asked what he could do for me,
and he looked surprised, as though he wasn't used to see such smart
girls in his pokey old shop.
'Please, sir,' I said, 'I want a bowl like this, if you have got
such a thing among your old odds and ends.'
He took the piece of china and looked at it through his glasses for
a minute. Then he gave it back to me very carefully.
'There's not a piece of this ware in the market. The few specimens
extant are in private collections.'
'Oh dear,' I said; 'and can't I get another like it?'
'Not if you were to offer me a hundred pounds down,' said the old
man.
I couldn't help it. I sat down on the nearest chair and began to
cry, for it seemed as if all my hopes of Aunt Maria's money were
fading away like the 'roseate hues of early dawn' in the hymn.
'Come, come,' said he, 'what's the matter? Cheer up. I suppose
you're in service and you've broken this bowl. Isn't that it? But
never mind--your mistress can't do anything to you. Servants can't
be made to replace valuable bowls like this.'
That dried my eyes pretty quick, I can tell you.
'Me in service!' I said. 'And my grandfather farming his own land
before you were picked out of the gutter, I'll be bound'--God
forgive me that I should say such a thing to an old man--'and my own
aunt with a better lot of fal-lals and trumpery in her parlour than
you've got in all your shop.'
With that he laughed, and I flounced out of the shop, my cheeks
flaming and my heart going like an eight-day clock. I was so
flustered I didn't notice that some one came out of the shop after
me, and I had walked a dozen yards down the street before I saw that
some one was alongside of me and saying something to me.
It was another old gentleman--at least, not so old as Mr. Aked,--and
I remembered now having seen him at the back of the shop. He was
taking off his hat, as polite as you please.
'You're quite overcome,' he said, 'and no wonder. Come and have a
little dinner with me quietly somewhere, and tell me all about it.'
'I don't want any dinner,' I said; 'I want to go and drown myself,
for it's all over, and I've nothing more to look for. My brother
Harry will have the farm, and I shan't get a penny of aunt's money.
Why couldn't they have made plenty of the ugly old basins while they
were about it?'
'Come and have some dinner,' the old gentleman said again, 'and
perhaps I can help you. I have a basin just like that.'
So I did. We went to some place where there were a lot of little
tables and waiters in black clothes; and we had a nice dinner, and I
did feel better for it, and when we had come to the cheese, I told
him exactly what had happened; and he leaned his head on his hands,
and he thought, and thought, and presently he said--
'Do you think your aunt would sell any of her china?'
'That I'm downright sure she wouldn't,' I said; 'so it's no good
your asking.'
'Well, you see, your aunt won't be down for three or four days yet.
You give me your address, and I'll write and tell you if I think of
anything.'
And with that he paid the bill and had a cab called, and put me in
it and paid the driver, and I went along home.
I didn't sleep much that night, and next day I was thinking all
sermon-time of whatever I could do, for it wasn't in nature that my
aunt would not find me out before another two days was over my head;
and she had never been so nice and kind, and had even gone so far as
to say--
'Whoever my money's left to, Jane, will be bound not to part with my
china, nor my old chairs and presses. Don't you forget, my child.
It's all written in black and white, and if the person my money's
left to sells these old things, my money goes along too.'
There was no letter on Monday morning, and I was up to my elbows in
the suds, doing aunt's bit of washing for her, when I heard a step
on the brick path, and there was that old gentleman coming round by
the water-butt to the back-door.
'Well?' says he. 'Anything fresh happened?
'For any sake,' says I in a whisper, 'get out of this. She'll hear
if I say more than two words to you. If you've thought of anything
that's to be of any use, get along to the church porch, and I'll be
with you as soon as I can get these things through the rinse-water
and out on the line.'
'But,' he says in a whisper, 'just let me into the parlour for five
minutes, to have a look round and see what the rest of the bowl is
like.'
Then I thought of all the stories I had heard of pedlars' packs, and
a married lady taken unexpectedly, and tricks like that to get into
the house when no one was about. So I thought--
'Well, if you are to go in, I must go in with you,' and I squeezed
my hands out of the suds, and rolled them into my apron and went in,
and him after me.
You never see a man go on as he did. It's my belief he was hours in
that room, going round and round like a squirrel in a cage, picking
up first one bit of trumpery and then another, with two fingers and
a thumb, as carefully as if it had been a _tulle_ bonnet just home
from the draper's, and setting everything down on the very exact
spot he took them up from.
More than once I thought that I had entertained a loony unawares,
when I saw him turn up the cups and plates and look twice as long at
the bottoms of them as he had at the pretty parts that were meant to
show, and all the time he kept saying--'Unique, by Gad, perfectly
unique!' or 'Bristol, as I'm a sinner,' and when he came to the
large blue dish that stands at the back of the bureau, I thought he
would have gone down on his knees to it and worshipped it.
'Square-marked Worcester!' he said to himself in a whisper, speaking
very slowly, as if the words were pleasant in his mouth,
'Square-marked Worcester--an eighteen-inch dish!'
I had as much trouble getting him out of that parlour as you would
have getting a cow out of a clover-patch, and every minute I was
afraid aunt would hear him, or hear the china rattle or something;
but he never rattled a bit, bless you, but was as quiet as a mouse,
and as for carefulness he was like a woman with her first baby. I
didn't dare ask him anything for fear he should answer too loud, and
by-and-by he went up to the church porch and waited for me.
He had a brown-paper parcel with him, a big one, and I thought to
myself, 'Suppose he's brought his bowl and is wishful to sell it.' I
got those things through the blue-water pretty quick, I can tell
you. I often wish I could get a maid who would work as fast as I
used to when I was a girl. Then I ran up and asked aunt if she could
spare me to run down to the shop for some sago, and I put on my
sunbonnet and ran up, just as I was, to the church porch. The old
gentleman was skipping with impatience. I've heard of people
skipping with impatience, but I never saw any one do it before.
'Now, look here,' he said, 'I want you--I must--oh, I don't know
which way to begin, I have so many things to say. I want to see your
aunt, and ask her to let me buy her china.'
'You may save your trouble,' I said, 'for she'll never do it. She's
left her china to me in her will,' I said.
Not that I was quite sure of it, but still I was sure enough to say
so. The old gentleman put down his brown-paper parcel on the porch
seat as careful as if it had been a sick child, and said--
'But your aunt won't leave you anything if she knows you have broken
the bowl, will she?'
'No,' I said, 'she won't, that's true, and you can tell her if you
like.' For I knew very well he wouldn't.
'Well,' says he, speaking very slowly, 'if I lent you my bowl, you
could pretend it's hers and she'll never know the difference, for
they are as like as two peas. I can tell the difference, of course,
but then I'm a collector. If I lend you the bowl, will you promise
and vow in writing, and sign it with your name, to sell all that
china to me directly it comes into your possession? Good gracious,
girl, it will be hundreds of pounds in your pocket.'
That was a sad moment for me. I might have taken the bowl and
promised and vowed, and then when the china came to me I might have
told him I hadn't the power to sell it; but that wouldn't have
looked well if any one had come to know of it. So I just said
straight out--
'The only condition of my having my aunt's money is, that I never
part with the china.'
He was silent a minute, looking out of the porch at the green trees
waving about in the sunshine over the gravestones, and then he
says--
'Look here, you seem an honourable girl. I am a collector. I buy
china and keep it in cases and look at it, and it's more to me than
meat, or drink, or wife, or child, or fire--do you understand? And I
can no more bear to think of that china being lost to the world in a
cottage instead of being in my collection than you can bear to think
of your aunt's finding out about the bowl, and leaving the money to
your cousin Sarah.'
Of course, I knew by that that he had been gossiping in the village.
'Well?' I said, for I saw that he had something more on his mind.
'I'm an old man,' he went on, 'but that need not stand in the way.
Rather the contrary, for I shall be less trouble to you than a young
husband. Will you marry me out of hand? And then when your aunt dies
the china will be mine, and you will be well provided for.'
No one but a madman would have made such an offer, but that wasn't a
reason for me to refuse it. I pretended to think a bit, but my mind
was made up.
'And the bowl?' I said.
'Of course I'll lend you my bowl, and you shall give me the pieces
of the old one. Lord Worsley's specimen has twenty-five rivets in
it.'
'Well, sir,' I said, 'it seems to be a way out of it that might suit
both of us. So, if you'll speak to mother, and if your circumstances
is as you represent, I'll accept your offer, and I'll be your good
lady.'
And then I went back to aunt and told her Wilkinses was out of sago,
but they would have some in on Wednesday.
It was all right about the bowl. She never noticed the difference. I
was married to the old gentleman, whose name was Fytche, the next
week by special licence at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, Queen Victoria
Street, which is very near that beautiful glass and china shop where
I had tried to match the bowl; and my aunt died three months later
and left me everything. Sarah married in quite a poor way. That
quinsy of hers cost her dear.
Mr. Fytche was very well off, and I should have liked living at his
house well enough if it hadn't been for the china. The house was
cram full of it, and he could think of nothing else. No more going
out to dinner; no amusements; nothing as a girl like me had a right
to look for. So one day I told him straight out I thought he had
better give up collecting and sell aunt's things, and we would buy a
nice little place in the country with the money.
'But, my dear,' he said, 'you can't sell your aunt's china. She left
it stated expressly in her will.'
And he rubbed his hands and chuckled, for he thought he had got me
there.
'No, but you can,' I said, 'the china is yours now. I know enough
about law to know that; and you can sell it, and you shall.'
And so he did, whether it was law or not, for you can make a man do
anything if you only give your mind to it and take your time and
keep all on. It was called the great Fytche sale, and I made him pay
the money he got for it into the bank; and when he died I bought a
snug little farm with it, and married a young man that I had had in
my eye long before I had heard of Mr. Fytche.
And we are very comfortably off, and not a bit of china in the house
that's more than twenty years old, so that whatever's broke can be
easy replaced.
As for his collection, which would have brought me in thousands of
pounds, they say, I have to own he had the better of me there, for
he left it by will to the South Kensington Museum.