Towards the end of the winter Tod began to be very restless. Kitty
Flowerdew had been away for a month, and there had been nothing to
relieve the ugliness of the house in Ponsonby Place; Tod was growing a
little weary of serving like a boy Jacob for his Rachael. Edwin Rook’s
cynicisms, and a more intimate knowledge of Eli Flowerdew’s methods of
making money, had killed Tod’s interest in the business. He began to
hate the shop and everything in it, almost as much as he hated the
atmosphere of the Flowerdew house. Some of those queer sayings of his
father’s cropped up like sharp flints under his feet.
“I’m not a penny-in-the-slot machine.” “This country with its
penny-three-farthing soul!” “Pray publicly to God, and cheat your
neighbour!”
There were elements of rebellion stirring in Tod. He lost some of his
frankness, and grew rather morose and thoughtful, and he showed a new
fierceness towards Edwin Rook. He began to take long prowls after
closing time, and forgathered with Bob Twine and two or three other
young men who liked the rush of the sea air on their faces. Tod found
that it was agreed that life as a shopkeeper’s assistant was doomed to
suck all the virility out of a man’s soul. Yet these rebels had no
alternative paths of adventure to suggest, save joining the Army of
running after girls. Mossup, a mild, flaxen-haired, and rather serious
soul who wore spectacles, hoped to attain liberty by acquiring a shop of
his own.
“You’re welcome to it, old man,” said Twine; “you ain’t rogue enough.
You’ll be dodging bankruptcy till it makes you grey. I’m turning
Socialist.”
Tod happened to mention the word “Socialist” to Edwin Rook, and was
puzzled by the shopman’s slimy and secretive smile.
“So you know some Socialists, do you, Western?”
“I know one,” said Tod.
The information was passed on in a casual and inconsidered manner to Mr.
Flowerdew. Tod did not suspect it then, but Rook had decided that
Western was in his way, and Rook set about edging Tod overboard with the
methodical shrewdness of the born sneak and coward. He dropped hints
that Tod was getting into loose company and loafing about the town at
night. He even hinted at “girls.” All girls, save his own, were anathema
to Eli Flowerdew.
Two days before Kitty Flowerdew was expected home, Rook laid a
deliberate trap for Tod. A couple of packing-cases had arrived from
Birmingham, and Rook called Tod to help him unpack them.
“One of our confidential jobs, my son. Now what do you think of that
brass door-knocker?”
“It looks old,” said Tod.
They unpacked a pretty selection of mock antiques in
metal—candlesticks, tinder-boxes, sconces, and the like. Rook chatted
jocularly, and in a cynically confidential way to Tod.
“The fools will have old things, so we have to get ’em.”
“Aren’t these old?” Tod asked.
“Fakes, reproductions, the whole lot of them.”
“But we don’t sell them as old?”
“Oh, don’t we! You’ll sell tons before you’ve done.”
Tod was kneeling, and with two hands on the edge of the case he faced
Rook across it.
“I’m dashed if I will. It’s not honest.”
“Just tell that to the boss.”
“I will, if he asks me. And what’s more, if I see you trying to sell the
stuff as old—I’ll—I’ll——”
“Hoity-toity!” said Mr. Rook.
But he had manœuvered Tod into a desperate position, and he made haste
to let Mr. Flowerdew appreciate Tod’s pose of defiance and its
possibilities.
“Can I have a few words with you, sir?”
“What’s the matter, Rook?”
“It’s about Western, sir. I don’t like playing the sneak, but I’m
worried about Western. Besides, I’m thinking of my loyalty to you and
the business.”
“Come into my room.”
With a certain air of diffidence and unwillingness Rook described Tod’s
rebellious attitude and the threats he had used.
“Of course, I was teasing the chap really, but he’s likely to be a bit
of a problem, sir. He doesn’t understand being loyal, and I think
Western’s getting rather wild.”
“Confound that boy!” said Mr. Flowerdew.
He walked up and down, cleared his throat, and then gave the assistant
an enigmatic look.
“Not a word about this.”
“Not a word, sir.”
“I’ll think it over. We don’t want a row, and a boy with a reckless
tongue might make trouble. Besides, I don’t want to be hard.”
He smiled, and moistened his lips.
“But I appreciate your attitude, Rook. You are always backing me up;
making the business a personal affair.”
Rook gave a simper and appeared embarrassed.
“It’s a fact, sir. I owe you my job. And I’ll admit I’m ambitious.”
“No harm in that, man; ambition in you suits me.”
And then Rook plunged and showed both his heart and his hand. Flowerdew
listened to him with a slight frown, and the stare of a shrewd and
unwinking bird.
“So that’s it, Rook?”
“Don’t take it as impertinence, sir. You have been very kind to me, and
I’m human. And I’m a steady sort of chap; I mean to get on, and if Miss
Kitty——”
Flowerdew patted Rook on the shoulder.
“I’ll think it over, Rook. I’m not so sure you wouldn’t make me a very
sound partner, some day.”
Tod was destined to strike one of those adventurous and pugilistic
passages in his life before he ceased from the Flowerdew household.
Romance caught him, romance and a sudden glimpse of Kitty, Kitty unseen
for a whole month, and drifting in like the spring with an armful of
daffodils. Perhaps it was not wholly by chance that Tod happened to be
there to rush out and carry in her box. This sudden meeting surprised
them both into a flutter of naturalness, a quick and dear delight in
each other that couldn’t be hid.
“Tod——”
He was conscious of her as a creature with brown, shimmering eyes, and a
quick rich colour. She gave him her hand, and he held it a moment. She
looked a little wild and shy, like a bird.
“It’s been such a long month,” he said.
“Oh, Tod, I wish——”
But he never heard what her wish was, for Miss Flowerdew intervened, and
Tod saw Kitty’s happy face close up like a flower.
“Thought you were coming by the 2.30.”
“No, by the four o’clock, Lena.”
“Look at those messy flowers; you have let the stalks dribble all down
your dress.”
“Have I? Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Tod was playing the strong man, struggling up the narrow stairs with
Kitty’s trunk, and telling himself that he was not going to stand it any
longer. It was somebody’s business to rescue Kitty, and Tod decided that
that somebody was himself.
He heard voices that night; Mr. Flowerdew’s voice very hard and
emphatic, much the same voice that Flowerdew used at the meetings of the
Social Purity League. He was speaking to Kitty in the drawing-room and
Tod left his bedroom door open in order to listen. He could not
distinguish what was said, but he could hear Kitty piping occasional
notes like a pathetic and appealing thrush. The duologue ended with a
lengthy, harsh and emphatic grumble from Mr. Flowerdew’s voice. Tod
heard Kitty go to her room with the flutter of a bird escaping from a
rough hand. Later Tod fancied that he could catch the sound of weeping.
Two days passed, wrathful, volcanic days, with Tod ready to erupt. Kitty
went about the house with the strange air of a doomed thing in disgrace.
She hardly spoke, left her food almost untouched, and her frightened
eyes avoided Tod’s. Tod noticed that Rook had a peculiarly sleek and
bland look, like a cat in a good temper. Miss Flowerdew ignored both
Rook and her sister. Old Flowerdew read the paper at meals, and made
occasional snapping sounds such as “Butter,” “More tea,” “Pass the
bread.”
Tod had no business in the garden on that fateful evening just when dusk
was falling. From the back-room window he glimpsed Kitty walking slowly
down the path towards the shrubbery where a few scraggy lilacs were
pushing out green buds and making the euonymus and the holly look black
and fusty. Rook appeared to have left the place, and Tod entered the
garden by the passage that led through from the street. There was a
ramshackle rustic summer-house in the middle of the shrubbery, one of
those bourgeois and urban touches that make the real countryman smile.
Tod saw Kitty enter the summer-house, her hands hanging limply, her
brown head bowed down.
Tod was half-way across the garden when he heard the sound of a
struggle, and Kitty’s voice appealing with a fear that feared to
protest.
“Don’t, oh, don’t!”
“Please let go, please, Mr. Rook.”
Tod went in at the gallop like a true knight errant. He found Rook
holding Kitty in his arms, and thrusting that ugly mouth of his in
search of her averted face. His arms had pinned hers to her body, and
she was trying to free them when Tod interfered.
“Let go, you cad!”
Tod never forgot the change that came over Rook’s face. At one moment he
had been a greedy, gloating thing about to suck the honey that he had
long desired; the next he was looking balked, furious, sheepish, and a
little afraid.
“You dirty cad! Come outside.”
“Look here, young Western, boys aren’t wanted. You clear out.”
“Kitty,” said Tod, “will you please let me——”
“Oh, Tod, dear——”
She slipped out of the summer-house, soft, pathetic, ineffectual, and
Tod faced Edwin Rook.
“Come outside.”
Rook did a thin bluster.
“Look here, kid, I don’t want to hurt you. It’s no business of yours if
I’m engaged to Miss Kitty Flowerdew.”
“It’s a lie,” said Tod, and went in after the rat since the rat would
not come to him.
Rook was a weedy man and no fighter, though he patted and hooked at Tod
like an angry cat. Tod smashed his glasses, split his lip, and bundled
him twice against the rotten wall of the summer-house. Rook closed with
the lad, and they were in an angry and dishevelled tangle on the floor
when Mr. Eli Flowerdew stormed in. Tod was uppermost, with a good grip
in Rook’s collar, and riding his man victoriously in spite of the jerks
and contortions of the shopman’s legs.
“What the—— Get up, Western. Get up, Rook. What the devil——”
Old Flowerdew was very angry, and his voice rasped like a saw.
“The boy’s mad,” said Rook, picking himself up, panting, “he came at me
like an——”
“I’ve thrashed you, that’s all,” said Tod, “for being a dirty cad.”
Flowerdew caught Tod by the collar.
“Silence, you young savage. What do you mean by——”
“Mean?” said Tod, looking quite ready to deal with Mr. Flowerdew as he
had dealt with Rook, “he’d insulted Kitty.”
Mr. Flowerdew let go of Tod as though the lad were hot iron.
“Oh, that’s it, is it! I see. Savage jealousy, I suppose. And may I ask
what it has to do with you, Mr. Tod Western?”
He sneered down at Tod with grizzled and grinning irony.
“I suppose the man who is going to marry my daughter has a right to be a
little—affectionate. You are too big for your boots, my boy. Go
upstairs to bed. I’ll talk to you like a father to-morrow.”
All the fine fury seemed to fall out of Tod’s chivalry. He gave Mr.
Flowerdew a blank and bewildered look, put his hands in his pockets, and
disappeared.
Tod passed a Byronic and very miserable night. It was as though some
Eastern giant had reached down a great hand, lifted the world’s lid, and
shown Tod all sorts of strange secrets and knavish devices. Tod
understood the Flowerdew household as he had never understood it before.
He remembered that saying of Bob Twine’s that Eli Flowerdew had driven
his wife to suicide, and that Kitty was the daughter of her mother. Rook
wanted Kitty, he had wanted her all the while; Tod understood that now,
and why Rook hated him. But Kitty did not want Edwin Rook, and the
inference was obvious. Eli Flowerdew was giving the girl to Rook,
compelling her, even against her great loathing, to surrender herself to
this lover, this cold, weedy beast with his bland “selling” manner, and
his venomous tongue.
And why?
The answer to that question stuck in Tod’s throat, but he was
constrained to swallow it. Rook was a useful man to Eli Flowerdew. He
knew all the chicanery of the business, and practised it like a man who
loved it. It was possible that he knew so much that he had to be part of
the family, part of the conspiracy.
Tod tossed to and fro in bed, bit his pillow, and schemed all sorts of
mad and impossible schemes for the rescuing of Kitty. He felt that he
loved her as he had never loved her before, since he had seen her
twisting in Rook’s arms. Rook shouldn’t have her! He would see her
to-morrow and appeal to her to run away with him. Yes, and on what?
Tod’s shrewdness saved him from being a mere sentimental and adventurous
young fool. He knew that he had about three shillings in his trousers
pocket, no very noble purse for an eloping couple.
No, he would be perfectly straight with old Flowerdew. He would stand up
to him like a man and say, “I love Kitty, and I think Kitty loves me.
I’m young, but I mean to get on. You can’t give Kitty to Rook.”
Yes, and that would entail his staying in the business, and swallowing
all the humbug and the trickery. What a slimy and clever devil that chap
Rook was! Tod realised that he had been driven into a corner, and that
though he had punched Rook’s head, the fellow had him tied up like a
fly. And the beastliness of it all, old Flowerdew of the Social Purity
League, buying a man’s loyalty by giving him the body of his daughter!
Tod went downstairs next morning, red-eyed, and prepared to fight, but
the Flowerdew household surprised and nonplussed him, and smothered the
attack. Kitty did not appear at breakfast; she was locked in her room,
and Tod did not have a glimpse of her that morning. Lena Flowerdew had
never been so smiling or so pleasant; Tod had buttered eggs with his
bacon, and three lumps of sugar in his tea. Miss Flowerdew’s
friendliness held him mute. He did not understand it, or guess that she
was gloating over his trouncing of Edwin Rook. He had not heard that
gibe of hers, “Nice sort of man you are, to be licked by a mere boy.”
But Mr. Flowerdew himself was the surprise of the morning. It was the
Sabbath Flowerdew that appeared at the breakfast-table, solemn,
sententious, oracular, dressed in its Sunday clothes. It was polite and
patriarchal towards Tod, a figure that took him by the elbow and marched
him into an atmosphere of surplices and “mis-er-able sinners.”
“Now, Western, if you please.”
Tod found himself in the Flowerdew drawing-room, sitting opposite to Mr.
Eli Flowerdew, and listening with a feeling of helplessness to arguments
that he could not answer.
“I feel that I have a grave responsibility—a fatherly responsibility
towards you, Western. The fact is, you are not suited to a business such
as mine. You appear to have picked up a lot of queer ideas from
somewhere, ideas that won’t work in this world. You have got to learn to
be a practical business man. Now I don’t want to be unkind to you, my
boy, but I have felt for a long while that you don’t suit me, and
perhaps my business doesn’t suit you.”
Tod was nonplussed.
“Some of it doesn’t go down, sir,” he said gloomily, “but I wanted to
talk to you about——”
Mr. Flowerdew caught him up.
“About my daughter. Exactly. Now let’s talk this over like men, Western.
How old are you?”
“Just eighteen.”
“And my daughter is a year older than you are. And when do you expect to
be able to keep a wife?”
Tod fidgeted on his chair.
“I shall have a £1,000 when I’m twenty-one. I mean to get on, sir. And
she doesn’t, I mean, Kitty doesn’t——”
Mr. Flowerdew smiled at Tod.
“Western, my boy, you are very green and inexperienced. You think that
my daughter doesn’t want to marry Mr. Rook. You mustn’t jump at
conclusions in this world, and I may as well tell you that you did
yourself a very bad service last night.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“My daughter was pained, disgusted, Western. You whom we had treated as
one of the family, raising a vulgar brawl and assaulting my daughter’s
fiancé! Women are queer creatures, Western; they often pretend to
dislike a man when they really want him. My daughter is much more
attached to Mr. Rook than you imagine.”
“If she would tell me so,” blurted Tod.
Mr. Flowerdew sat forward in his chair, and wagged an emphatic
forefinger.
“Listen to me, young man; do you think I am going to have my girl’s
future happiness compromised by a wild boy who isn’t old enough to know
his own mind? Certainly not, Western, certainly not. I have duties as a
father. Mr. Rook has earned a position of trust. I know Rook—I believe
in Rook; I say, ‘There is a steady fellow who can give a girl a good
Christian home.’ And Mr. Rook is going to marry my daughter. Put all
that nonsense out of your head, my boy. I have had you in here and
talked to you like a man of the world and a father, but of course you
realise that you can’t stay any longer in my house.”
“I realise that,” said Tod.
“Very well, then; that’s a sensible answer. There are plenty of chances
for a steady fellow in a town like this. I’m quite ready to help you,
Western, or you can go back to your uncle for a while.”
“I’ll go back to my uncle,” said Tod.
And that was the end of it. Mr. Flowerdew had his gig out that afternoon
and drove Tod and his box over to Burnt Farm. He had a somewhat lengthy
interview with Uncle Remus, while Tod idled about the garden and
listened in a wild and rebel mood to a blackbird’s singing.
He kept out of the way till Mr. Flowerdew had gone, and then went in to
face his uncle.
“You darned young fool!” was all that the farmer said to him.