_The Tight Lip_
Ever since her mother's death, ten years before the events of that
morning, Jeckie, as responsible manager of household affairs, had
cultivated an instinct which had been born in her--the instinct, if a
thing had to be done to do it there and then. As soon as Farnish
unburdened himself of his difficulty, his daughter's quick brain began
to revolve schemes of salvation. There was nothing new in her father's
situation; she had helped him out of similar ones more than once. More
than once, too, she had borrowed money for him--money to pay an
extra-pressing bill; money to make up the rent; money to satisfy the
taxes or rates--and she had always taken good care to see that what she
had borrowed was punctually repaid when harvest came round--a time of
the year when Farnish usually had something to sell. Accordingly, what
she had just heard in the stable did not particularly alarm her; she
took her father's story in all good faith, and believed that if he could
stave off the Clothford money-lender with a hundred pounds on account
all would go on in the old way until autumn, when money would be coming
in. And her sole idea in setting off to the village was to borrow the
necessary sum. Once borrowed, she would see to it that it was at once
forwarded to the importunate creditor; she would see to it, too, that it
was repaid to whomever it was that she got it from. As to that last
particular, she was canvassing certain possibilities as she walked
quickly down the lane. There was Mr. Stubley, the biggest farmer in the
place, who was also understeward for the estate. She had more than once
borrowed twenty or thirty pounds from him, and he had always had it
back. Then there was Mr. Merritt, almost as well-to-do as Mr. Stubley.
The same reflections applied to him, and he was a good natured man. And
there was old George Grice, Albert's father, who was as warm a man as
any tradesman of the neighbourhood. One or other of these three would
surely lend her a hundred pounds; she was, indeed, so certain of it that
she felt no doubt on the matter, and her only regret at the moment was
that her visit to the village might make her a little late for her
dinner--no unimportant matter to her, a healthy young woman of good
appetite, who had breakfasted scantily at six o'clock. Jeckie took a
short cut across the churchyard and down the church lane, and came out
upon the village street a little above the cross roads. There, talking
to the landlord of the "Coach-and-Four," who stood in his open doorway
holding a tray and a glass, she saw Mr. Stubley a comfortable man, who
spent all his mornings on a fat old pony, ambling about his land.
Stubley saw her coming along the street, and, with a nod to the
landlord, touched the pony with his ash-plant switch and steered him in
her direction. Jeckie, who had a spice of the sanguine in her
temperament, took this as a good omen; she had an idea that in five more
minutes she would be with this prosperous elderly farmer in his cozy
parlour, close by, watching him laboriously writing out a cheque. And
she smiled almost gaily as the pony and its burden came to the side of
the road along which she walked.
"Now, mi lass!" said Mr. Stubley, looking her closely over out of his
sharp eyes. "What're you doing down town this time o' day? Going to
Grice's, I reckon? I were wanting a word or two wi' you," he went on,
before Jeckie could get in a word of her own. "A word or two i' private,
you understand. You're aware, of course, mi lass," he continued, bending
down from his saddle. "You're aware 'at t'rent day's none so far off?
What?"
A sudden sense of fear sent the warm flush out of Jeckie's cheeks, and
left her pale. Her dark eyes grew darker as she looked at the man who
was regarding her so steadily and inquiringly.
"What about the rent-day Mr. Stubley?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
"I had a line from t'steward this morning," answered Stubley. "He just
mentioned a matter--'at he hoped Farnish 'ud be ready with the rent; and
t'last half-year's an' all. What?"
The hot blood came back to Jeckie's cheeks in a fierce wave. She felt,
somehow, as if some man's hand had smitten her, right and left.
"The last half-year's rent!" she repeated. "Do--do you mean that father
didn't pay it?"
Stubley looked at her for an instant with speculation in his shrewd
eyes. Then he nodded his head. There was a world of meaning in the nod.
"Paid nowt!" he answered. "Nowt at all. Not a penny piece, mi lass."
Jeckie's hands fell limply to her sides.
"I didn't know," she answered, helplessly. "He--he never told me. I'd no
idea of it; Mr. Stubley."
"Dare say not, mi lass," said the farmer. "It 'ud be better for Farnish
if he'd to tell a young woman like you more nor what he does, seemin'ly.
But, now--is he going to be ready this time?"
Jeckie made no answer. She stood looking up and down the street, seeing
all manner of things, real and unreal. And suddenly a look of sullen
anger came into her eyes and round her red lips.
"How can I tell?" she said. "He--as you say--he doesn't tell me!"
Stubley bent still lower, and, from sheer force of habit, glanced right
and left before he spoke.
"Aye, well, Jeckie, mi lass!" he said in low tones. "Then I'll tell you
summat. Look to yourself--you an' yon sister o' yours! There's queer
talk about Farnish. I've heard it, time and again, at market and where
else. He'll none last so long, my lass--can't! It's my opinion there'll
be no rent for t'steward; nowt but excuses and begging off, and such
like; he's hard up, is your father! It 'ud be a deal better for him to
give up, Jeckie; he'll never carry on! Now, you're a sensible young
woman; what say you?"
There was a strong, almost mulish sense of obstinacy in the Farnish
blood, and it was particularly developed in Farnish's elder daughter.
Jeckie stood for a moment staring across the road. She looked as if she
were gazing at the sign of the "Coach-and-Four," which had recently been
done up and embellished with a new frame. In reality she saw neither it
nor the ancient hostelry behind it. What she did see was a vision of her
own!
"I don't know, Mr. Stubley," she answered suddenly. "My father's like
all little farmers--no capital and always short o' ready money. But
there's money to come in; come harvest and winter! And I know that if
I'd that farm on my hands, I'd make it pay. I could make it pay now if
I'd all my own way with it. But----"
Then, just as suddenly as she had spoken, she moved off, and went
rapidly down the street in the direction of Grice's shop. The
conversation with Stubley had given a new turn to her thoughts. What was
the use of borrowing a hundred pounds to stave off a money-lender, when
the last half-year's rent was owing and another half-year's nearly due?
No; she would see if she could not do better than that! Now was the
moment; she would try to take things clean into her own hands. Farnish,
she knew, was afraid of her--afraid of her superior common sense, her
grasp of things, her almost masculine powers of contrivance and
management. She could put him on one side as easily as a child can push
aside the reeds on the river bank, and then she could have her own way,
and pull things round, and ... she paused at that point, remembering
that all this could only be done with money.
Noon was just striking from the church clock as Jeckie came up to the
front of Grice's shop. She never looked at this establishment without
remembering how it had grown within her own recollection. When she was a
child of five, and had gone down the street to spend a Saturday penny on
sweets, Grice's shop had been housed in one of the rooms of the old
timber-fronted house from which the new stores now projected in
shameless disregard of the antiquities surrounding them. Nothing,
indeed, could be in greater contrast than Grice's shop and Grice's
house. The house had stood where it was since the time of Queen Anne;
the shop, built out from one corner of it, bore the date 1897, and on
its sign--a blue ground with gilt lettering--appeared the significant
announcement: "Diamond Jubilee Stores. George Grice & Son." There were
fine things about the house, within and without: old furniture in old
rooms, and trim hedges and gay flowers on the smooth, velvety lawns; a
mere glance at the high, sloping roof was sufficient to make one think
of Old England in its days of calm and leisure; but around the shop door
and in the shop itself there were the sights and sounds of buying and
selling; boxes and packing-cases from Chicago and San Francisco; the
scent of spices and of soap; it always seemed to Jeckie, who had highly
susceptible nostrils, that Albert Grice, however much he spruced and
scented himself on Sundays, was never free of the curious mingling
odours associated with a grocer's apron.
Albert was in the shop when she marched in, busied in taking down an
order from Mrs. Aislabie, the curate's wife, who, seated in a chair at
the counter, was meditatively examining a price list and wondering how
to make thirty shillings go as far as forty. He glanced smilingly but
without surprise at Jeckie, and inclined his head and the pen behind his
large right ear towards a certain door at the back of the shop. Jeckie
knew precisely what he meant--which was that his father had just gone to
dinner. They had a custom there at Grice's--the old man went to dinner
at twelve; Albert at one; there was thus always one of them in the shop
to look after things in general and the assistant and two shop lads in
particular. And Albert, who knew that since Jeckie was there in her
morning gown and without headgear it must be because she wanted to see
his father, added a word or two to his signal.
"Only just gone in," he said. "Go forward."
Jeckie went down the shop to the door, tapped at the glass of the upper
panel, pushed aside a heavy curtain that hung behind, and entered upon
old Grice as he sat down to his dinner. He was a biggish, round-faced,
bald-headed man, bearded, save for his upper lip, which was very large
and very tight--folk who knew George Grice well, and went to him seeking
favours, watched that tight lip, and knew from it whether he was going
to accede or not. He was a prosperous-looking man, too; plump and
well-fed; and there was a fine round of cold beef and a bowl of smoking
potatoes before him, to say nothing of a freshly-cut salad, a big piece
of prime Cheddar and a tankard of foaming ale. The buxom servant-lass
who attended to the wants of the widowed father and the bachelor son,
was just going out of the room by one door as Jeckie entered by the
other. She glanced wonderingly at the visitor, but George Grice, picking
up the carving knife and fork, showed no surprise. He had long since
graduated in the school of life, and well knew the signs when man or
woman came wanting something.
"Hallo!" he said in sharp, businesslike tones. "Queer time o' day to
come visiting, mi lass! What's in the wind, now?"
Jeckie, uninvited, sat down in one of the two easy chairs which flanked
the hearth, and went straight to her subject.
"Mr. Grice!" she said, having ascertained by a glance that the door
leading to the kitchen was safely closed. "I came down to see you. Now,
look here, Mr. Grice; you know me, and you know I'm going to marry your
Albert."
"Humph!" muttered Grice, busied in carving thin slices of beef for
himself. "Aye, and what then?"
"And you know I shall make him a rare good wife, too," continued Jeckie.
"The best wife he could find anywhere in these parts!"
"When I were a lad," remarked Grice, with the ghost of a thin smile
about his top lip, "we used to write a certain saying in the
copybook--'Self-praise is no recommendation.' I'm not so certain of it
myself, though. Some folks knows the value of their own goods better
than anybody."
"I know the value of mine!" asserted Jeckie solemnly. "You couldn't find
a better wife for Albert than I shall make him if you went all through
Yorkshire with a small-tooth comb! And you know it, Mr. Grice!"
"Well, mi lass," said Grice, "and what then?"
"I want you to do something for me," answered Jeckie. She pulled the
chair nearer to the table, and went on talking while the grocer steadily
ate and drank. "I'll be plain with you, Mr. Grice. There's nobody knows
I've come here, nor why. But it's this--I've come to the conclusion that
it's no use my father going on any longer. He isn't fit; he's no good.
I've found things out. He's been borrowing money from some, or one, o'
them money-lenders at Clothford. He owes half a year's rent, and there's
another nearly due. There's others wanting money. I think you want a
bit, yourself. Well, it's all got to stop. I'm going to stop it! And as
I'm going to be your daughter-in-law, I want you to help me!"
Grice, carefully selecting the ripest of some conservatory-grown
tomatoes from the bowl in front of him, stuck a fork into it, and began
to peel it with a small silver knife which he picked up from beside his
plate. His tight lip pursed itself while he was engaged; it was not
until he had put the peeled tomato on his plate, and added the heart of
a lettuce to it, that he looked at his caller.
"What d'ye want, mi lass?" he asked.
"I want you to lend me--me!--five or six hundred pounds, just now,"
replied Jeckie readily. "Me, mind, Mr. Grice--not him. Me!"
"What for?" demanded Grice, stolidly and with no sign of surprise. "What
for, now?"
"I'll tell you," answered Jeckie, gaining in courage. "I want to pay off
every penny he owes. Then I'll be master! I shall have him under my
thumb, and I'll make him do. I'll see to every penny that comes in and
goes out; and you mark my words, Mr. Grice, I can make that farm pay! If
you'll lend me what I want I'll pay you back in three years, and it'll
be then a good going concern. I know what I'm saying."
"In less nor three years you and my son Albert'll be wed," remarked
Grice.
"I can keep an eye on it, and on my father and Rushie when we are wed,"
retorted Jeckie.
"And there's another thing," said Grice. "When I gave my consent to your
weddin' my son, it were an agreed thing between me an' Farnish, a
bargain, that you should have five hundred pound from him as a portion.
Where's that?"
Jeckie gave him a swift meaning look.
"I might have yet, if I took hold o' things," she answered. "But it 'ud
be me 'at would find it, Mr. Grice. My father--Lord bless you--he'd
never find five hundred pence! But--trust me!"
Grice carved himself some more cold beef, and as he seemed to be
considering her proposal, Jeckie resumed her arguments.
"There'll be a good bit of money to come in this back-end," she said.
"And if we'd more cows, as I'd have, we should do better. And pigs--I'd
go in for pigs. Let me only clear off what debt he's got into, and----"
Grice suddenly laughed quietly, and, seizing his tankard, looked
knowingly at her as he lifted it to his lips.
"The question is, mi lass," he said, "the question is--how deep has he
got? You don't know that, you know!"
"Most of it, at any rate," said Jeckie. "I'll lay four or five hundred
'ud clear it all off, Mr. Grice."
"Five hundred pound," observed Grice, "is a big, a very big sum o'
money. It were a long time," he added reflectively, "before I could
truly say that I were worth it!"
"You're worth a lot more now, anyway," remarked Jeckie. "And you'll be
doing a good deed if you help me. After all, I want to set things going
right; they're my own flesh and blood up yonder. Now, come, Mr. Grice!"
Grice pushed away the remains of the more solid portion of his dinner,
and thoroughly dug into the prime old cheese. After eating a little and
nibbling at a radish he turned to his visitor.
"I'll not say 'at I will, and I'll not say 'at I willn't," he announced.
"It's a matter to be considered about. But I'll say this here--I'll take
a ride up Applecroft way this afternoon, and just see how things
stands, like. And then----"
He waved Jeckie towards the door, and she, knowing his moods and
temperament, took the hint, and with no more than a word of thanks,
hastened to leave him. In the shop Albert was still busily engaged with
Mrs. Aislabie, who found it hard to determine on Irish roll or
Wiltshire. With him Jeckie exchanged no more than a glance. She felt a
sense of relief when she got out into the street; and when, five minutes
later, she was crossing the churchyard she muttered to herself certain
words which showed that her conversation with Stubley was still in her
mind.
"Yes, that's the only way--to clear him out altogether, and let me take
hold! I'll put things to rights if only George Grice'll find the money!"
At that moment George Grice, having finished his dinner, was taking out
of a cupboard certain of his account books. Before he did anything for
anybody, he wanted to know precisely how much was owing to him at
Applecroft.