IT was not until the evening that William returned from Tunbridge
Wells. He had been to look at a picture which his master had seen
already, but S. Gedge Antiques was wise enough to recognise that
his assistant had an instinct for pictures far beyond his own. In the
matter of bric-à-brac he would always trust his own judgment, but when
it came to an oil painting he was very glad to have it fortified by the
special and peculiar knowledge that William had now acquired. There was
no doubt that in this sphere, which for his master was comparatively
new and full of pitfalls, the young man had a remarkable gift. It was a
gift, moreover, of which he had yet to learn the true value.
In “summer-time” September the days are long; and as supper was not
until nine o’clock, there was light enough for William, on getting
home, to spend a rare hour in the studio, delving for further beauties
in that derelict canvas which already had far exceeded his hopes.
“I know where you are going,” whispered June, in the young man’s ear as
he left the little sitting-room behind the shop, where sat Uncle Si,
spectacles on nose, poring over the pages of Crowe and Cavalcaselle.
The young man glowed at this friendly interest on the part of Miss
June; in fact, he was touched by it. She was the master’s niece;
therefore she was on a plane of being superior to his own. And he had
learned already that those who are above you in the world, are apt to
turn their advantage to your detriment; but Miss June, for all that
she was the master’s niece and had been one term at the Blackhampton
High School, and was therefore a person of social weight, had been
careful so far not to assert her status. And so his heart was open
to her; besides this present keen interest in his labours was most
encouraging.
“I’m coming up to look at it again, if I may,” whispered June, as she
followed him out of the room.
“Please, please do,” he said, delightedly.
As she climbed the steep stairs, William in the seventh heaven,
followed close upon her heels. What a pleasure to expound the merits
of such a work to one so sympathetic! As for June, her quick mind was
at work. Even before the coming of Foxy Face she had guessed, or some
instinct had told her, that this picture was no ordinary one, and now
that she had overheard that gentleman’s recent talk with Uncle Si she
had been given furiously to think. To understand all its implications
needed far more knowledge of a deep, not to say “tricky,” subject than
she possessed, but one fact was clear: her opinion as to the picture’s
value was fully confirmed. Here was a treasure whose real worth even
William himself might not be able to guess.
Now was the moment, June shrewdly saw, for prompt and decisive action.
Uncle Si had set his heart upon this rare thing; but if flesh and blood
was equal to the task, she must take immediate steps to baulk him.
Alas, she knew only too well that it was likely to prove an immensely
difficult matter.
June stood in front of the easel, and set her head to one side quite in
the manner of an expert.
“It seems to grow finer and finer,” she said, in a soft voice.
“Yes, it does,” said William, touching it here and there with loverly
fingers. “If I can but manage to get the top off without hurting the
fabric, I’m sure it’ll be a non-such.”
June fervently said that she hoped it would be.
“There’s the cloud I spoke to you about the other day.”
“Why, yes,” said June, screwing up her eyes, in unconscious imitation
of Foxy Face. “I see it now. And it’s very beautiful indeed.”
“And the touch of sunlight in it. I hope you notice that!” As William
spoke, it almost seemed to June that she could see the reflection of
the sunlight in the eyes of this enthusiast.
“Yes, I do,” said June stoutly.
“A real painter has done that!” The young man’s voice took that dying
fall she had learnt already to listen for. “This is a lovely thing,
Miss June!” Pure cadence touched her heart with fire. “Do you know, I
am beginning to think this little picture is the most perfect thing I
have ever seen?”
“Very valuable, I dare say,” said June, bringing him to earth.
“I only know it’s good.”
“But surely if it’s good it’s valuable? What do you think it might be
worth?”
“Miss June,”--the queer little tremble in his voice sounded
divine--“don’t let us think of it as money.”
But at those hushed words, at the far-off look in the deep eyes, she
felt once more a touch of pain.
“Uncle Si would call that sentiment. He believes that money is the
most important thing there is; he believes it is the only thing that
matters.”
She meant it as a facer for this Sawney, who had declared to her that
Uncle Si could neither think wrong nor ensue it. A hit, shrewd and
fair, but the Sawney was still in business.
“In a manner of speaking, it may be so. But I am sure the master will
tell you there are things money can’t buy.”
“What are they?” June’s frown was the fiercer for the effort to repress
it.
“Take this glint of sun striking through that wonderful cloud. All the
money in the world couldn’t buy that.”
“Of course it could. And I don’t suppose it would take much to buy it
either.”
He solemnly dissented. She asked why not.
“Because,” said he, “that bit of sunlight only exists in the eye that
sees it.”
“That’s sentiment,” said June severely. “You might say the same of
anything.”
“You might, of course. Nothing is, but thinking makes it so.”
Again June heard the queer little tremble in his voice, again she saw
that strange look steal across his face.
“What you say sounds very deep, but if you talk in that way I’m quite
sure you’ll never get on in the world.”
“I’ll be quite happy to live as I am, if only I’m allowed to see the
wonderful things that are in it.”
June had a fierce desire to shake him, but he beamed upon her, and she
became a lamb.
“On Saturday,” he said, “when we go to our little treasure house, you
will see what I mean.”
“If you talk in this way,” said June once more severe, “I shall not
go with you on Saturday to your little treasure house. Or on Sunday
either. Or on any day of the week. If you were a millionaire, you
could afford to be fanciful. Being what you are, and your salary less
than half what it should be, I really think you ought to be ashamed of
yourself.”
She was a little astonished at her own vehemence. He seemed a little
astonished at it also.
“Nothing is, but thinking makes it so,” said June, with fine scorn.
“That’s what Mr. Boultby, the druggist at the bottom of our street at
home, would call poppycock. It means you’ll be very lucky if some fine
morning you don’t wake up and find yourself in the workhouse.”
One smile more he gave her out of his deep eyes.
“That sort of talk,” said June, with growing fierceness, “is just
_potty_. It won’t find you tools and a place to work in, or three
meals a day, and a bed at night.”
“But don’t you see what I mean?”
“No, I don’t. As I say, to my mind it’s potty. But now tell me, what do
you think this picture’s worth if you were buying it for Uncle Si to
sell again?”
“That is a very difficult question to answer. The master is so clever
at selling things that he might get a big price for it in the market.”
“Even without the signature?” And June fixed the eye of a hawk on the
young man’s face.
“I don’t say that. The signature might make a lot of difference to a
dealer. But don’t let us talk of the price. There are things in this
picture that money ought not to buy.”
An impatient “Poppycock!” all but escaped Mr. Boultby’s disciple. Yet
of a sudden, in a fashion so unexpected as to verge upon drama, her own
voice took that soft quick fall he had taught her the trick of.
“I can’t tell you how much I love it,” she said, dreamily. “I would
give almost anything if it were mine.”
William’s limpid glance betrayed that he was only too happy to believe
her.
“It is quite as beautiful to me as it is to you.” June plunged on, but
she did not dare to look at him. “And I think it would be a terrible
pity if it ever came to be sold by Uncle Si. I simply love it. Suppose
you sell it to me?”
“To you, Miss June!”
“Yes--to me.” There was swift decision and the fixing of the will. “I
like it so much that I’ll give you nineteen pounds for it, and that’s
all I have in the world.”
William was astonished.
“I hadn’t realised,” he said, in charmed surprise, “that you admire it
so much as all that.”
“Yes, I do admire it.” Her heart beat fast and high. “And I want it. I
can’t tell you just what that picture means to me. But nineteen pounds
is all I can pay.”
He shook his head in slow finality.
She did not try to conceal her disappointment.
“I couldn’t think of taking a penny of your money,” he said, shyly.
“But as you love it so much, I hope you will allow me to give it you.”
She gave a little gasp. An act of such pure generosity was rather
staggering.
“I hope you will, Miss June.” He spoke with a delicious embarrassment.
“Loving it so much really makes it yours. To love a thing is to
possess it. And I shall always have the happiness of feeling that it
has made you happy.”
She turned away a face glowing with shame. She could never hope to feel
about it in the way that he did, and it seemed almost wicked to deceive
him. But a young man so poor as he could not afford to be so simple;
and she soothed her conscience by telling herself what she was now
doing was for his future good.
Conscience, however, was not to be put out of action that way. The part
she was playing hurt like a scald on the hand. Both their tongues were
tied by the pause which followed, and then she said in a weak, halting
manner that was not like her: “You must have something in exchange for
it, of course--not that I shall ever be able to offer anything near its
true value.”
“I ask no more than what you have given me already.”
“What have I given you?”
“You have given me the wonderful look I see sometimes in your face, and
the light that springs from your eyes and the glow of your hair. When
you came to this house, you brought something with you that was never
in it before.”
“How funny you are!” June’s cheek was a flame. But he spoke so
impersonally, delicately weighing each word before a passion of
sincerity gave it birth, that any effective form of rebuke was out of
the question.
“Miss June,” this amazing fellow went on, speaking for all the world
as if she were a picture whose signature he was looking for, “when
you came here, you brought the sun of beauty. Colour and harmony and
grace, you brought those too. If only I knew how to paint,”--he sighed
gently,--“I could never rest until I had put you on canvas just as you
stand at this moment.”
It was clear that he had forgotten completely that this was the niece
of his employer. She also forgot that no young man had ventured yet
to speak to her like that. This was William the wonderful who was
addressing her, and his voice was music, his eyes slow fire, his whole
being a golden web of poetry and romance.
“You oughtn’t to give away such a thing,” she persisted, but with none
of her usual force. “It’s valuable; and I oughtn’t to take it.” The
sound of her voice, she knew only too well, was thin and strange.
“Please, please take it, Miss June,” he quaintly entreated her. “It
will give me more pleasure to know that you are caring for it, and that
its beauty speaks to you than if I kept it all to myself. I love it,
but you love it, too. If you’ll share the happiness it brings me, then
I shall love it even more.”
Shadows of the evening were now in the room. His face was half hidden,
and the wildness of her heart scarcely allowed his voice to be heard.
She thought no longer of the worth of the gift, nor was she now
concerned with the propriety of its acceptance. Her mind was in the
grip of other things. Was it to herself he was speaking? Or was he
speaking merely to a fellow worshipper of beauty? To such questions
there could be no answer; she trembled at the daring which gave them
birth.
His mere presence was a lure. She longed to touch his hand very gently,
and would perhaps have done so, had she not been cruelly aware that
even the hem of her sleeve would defile it. She was cheating him, she
was cheating him outrageously. The only excuse she had was that it was
all for his own good; such, at least, must now be her prayer, her hope,
her faith.
X
THE next morning Foxy Face, true to the appointment he had
made with S. Gedge Antiques, came at ten o’clock with a friend. A
quarter before that hour William had been sent to the King’s Road,
Chelsea, in quest of a Jacobean carving-table for which his master had
a customer.
June, in anticipation of the event, took care to be busy in a distant
corner of the shop when these gentlemen arrived. As on the occasion
of Louis Quinze-legs’ previous visit, Uncle Si lost no time in going
himself to fetch the picture, but his prompt return was fraught for
June with bitter disappointment. By sheer ill luck, as it seemed, his
stern eye fell on her at the very moment he gave the picture to Mr.
Thornton’s friend, a morose-looking man in a seedy frock coat and a
furry topper.
“Niece,” sharply called S. Gedge Antiques, “go and do your dusting
somewhere else.”
There was no help for it. June could almost have shed tears of
vexation, but she had to obey. The most she dared venture in the way
of appeasing a curiosity that had grown terrific was to steal back on
tiptoe a few minutes later, to retrieve a pot of furniture polish she
had been clever enough to leave behind. Like a mouse she crept back for
it, but Uncle Si flashed upon her such a truculent eye that, without
trying to catch a word that was passing, she simply fled.
Fear seized her. She felt sure that she had seen the last of the
picture. Her distrust of S. Gedge Antiques had become so great that
she was now convinced that money would tempt him to anything. Twenty
miserable minutes she spent wondering what she must do if the picture
was disposed of there and then. She tried to steel her heart against
the fact, now looming inevitable, that she would never see it again.
At last the visitors left the shop. June then discovered that her fears
had carried her rather too far, and that for the time being, at any
rate, Uncle Si had been done an injustice.
He shambled slowly into the kitchen and to June’s intense relief the
picture was in his hand.
“Niece,” he said, threatfully; “understand once for all that I won’t
have you hanging about the shop when I am doing business with important
customers.”
The sight of the picture was so much more important than the words
which came out of his mouth that June felt inclined to treat them
lightly.
“I’m telling you,” said the old man fiercely. “Mark what I say. I won’t
have females listening with their mouths open when I’m doing business.
And don’t laugh at me, else you’ll have to pack your box. Here!” Uncle
Si handed her the picture with a scowl. “Take this back to where it
came from; and just remember what’s been said to you, or you’ll find
yourself short of a week’s pocket money.”
Adjured thus, June was a model of discretion for the rest of that day;
and yet she was the prey of a devouring curiosity. She would have
given much to know what had taken place in the course of the morning’s
traffic with Louis Quinze-legs and his friend. It was not until
supper-time that she was able to gather a clue, when Uncle Si mentioned
the matter to William. He was careful to do so, however, in the most
casual way.
“By the way, boy,” said the old man gravely balancing a piece of cheese
on the end of his knife, and fixing June with his eye as he did so;
“that daub of yours--I’ve had Mr. Thornton here to look at it.”
“I hope he liked it, sir,” said William, with his eager smile.
Uncle Si pursed his mouth. Then he went through the rest of his
performance, which on this occasion ended in a noise through closed
lips like a hornet’s drone, which might have meant anything.
June felt an insane desire to give the old wretch a punch on his long
and wicked nose.
“What did he think of the cloud?” asked William. “And the light of the
sun striking through on to the water?”
“He says it’s very rough and dirty, and in bad condition, but if I
could buy it for two pounds he might be able to show me a small profit.”
“I should think so,” murmured June, holding a glass of water in
suspense.
Uncle Si laid down his knife and looked at her.
“You _think_ so, niece,” he snarled. “Have the goodness to mind
your own affairs, or you and I will quarrel. That’s twice to-day I’ve
had to speak to you.”
June covered a retreat from the impossible position strong feelings had
led her into by emptying her glass in one fierce draught.
“You see, boy,” said Uncle Si, turning to William with a confidential
air, “this--this _picture_.”--It seemed a great concession on
his part to allow that the thing was a picture at all--“is without a
signature. That makes it almost valueless.”
William smiled and gently shook his head.
“Beg your pardon, sir, but it is signed in every line.”
“Rubbish. No theorising--this is a business proposition. And I tell you
that without the signature, this bit of pretty-pretty just amounts to
nix.” The old man gave his fingers a contemptuous snap. “That’s what
it amounts to. But as you’ve taken the trouble to bring it all the way
from Suffolk and you’ve spent a certain amount of your master’s time
in trying to get it clean, as I say, I’ll spring a couple of pounds to
encourage you. But why I should I really don’t know.”
June was hard-set to refrain from breaking the peace which followed,
with the laugh of derision. Happily, by a triumph of will power, she
bridled her tongue and kept her eyes modestly upon her plate.
“Now, boy!” Uncle Si made a series of conjuror’s passes with his
spectacles. “Two pounds! Take it or leave it! What do you say?”
William did not say anything, yet one of his shy smiles was winged to
June across the table. She promptly sent back a scowl quite feral in
its truculence, which yet was softened by a world of eloquence and
humour behind it. There was no other way of intimating that Uncle Si
must not learn too soon that the picture was now hers.
William, no fool, if he chose to use his wits, was able to interpret
this wireless. Thus he began to temporise; and he did so in a way
delightfully his own.
“What difference, sir, do you think the signature would make to our
little masterpiece?”
The old man gave his assistant a look almost superhuman in its caution.
“Heh?” said he.
The question was repeated.
“Depends whose it is,” was the testy answer. “You know that as well as
I do. If it’s Hobbema’s, it might be worth money.”
“It isn’t Hobbema’s.”
“Ah!” said S. Gedge Antiques. “Interesting to know that.” Had he been
on winking terms with his niece, he would have winked at her; as it
was, he had to be content with a sarcastic glance at the tablecloth.
“But how do you know?” he added, idly careless.
“Anyone can see it isn’t.”
Anyone could not see it wasn’t a Hobbema, and that was the snag in
the mind of the old man at this moment. Neither Mr. Thornton nor his
friend, Mr. Finch, was quite certain it was not a Hobbema; they were
even inclined to think that it was one, but in the absence of proof
they were not disposed to gamble upon it.
“How do you mean, boy, that anyone can see it isn’t?”
“That gleam of sunlight, sir.” The voice of William was music and
poetry in the ear of June. “I doubt whether even Hobbema could have
painted that.”
“You tell that to the Marines,” said S. Gedge Antiques impatiently.
All the same he knew better than to discourage William in the process
of unbosoming himself. The young man was continually betraying such a
knowledge of a difficult and abstruse subject that it was becoming a
source of wonder to his master. “Maybe you’ve found somebody else’s
signature?” The tone was half a sneer.
“Yes, sir, I rather think I have,” said William quite calmly and simply.
“You have!” A sudden excitement fused the cold voice. “When did you
find it?”
“It would be about half an hour ago.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the old man.
This queer fellow’s casual tone was extremely puzzling. Why should he
be inclined to apologise for having discovered the name of the artist,
when it was of such vital importance? The only possible explanation of
the mystery at once presented itself to the astute mind which asked the
question.
“Then I expect you’ve been a fool. If you couldn’t find Hobbema’s
signature you had no right to find the signature of anyone else.”
William was out of his depth. He could only regard his master with eyes
of bewilderment. But June was not out of hers; she was careful, all the
same, not to regard Uncle Si with eyes of any kind. She merely regarded
her plate. And as she did so, a little shiver that was almost pain ran
through her. Uncle Si was such a deep one that she felt ashamed of
knowing how deep he was.
“I don’t understand, sir,” said William, in the way that only he could
have spoken.
“Boy,” said his master, “you make me tired. In some ways you are
clever, but in others you are just the biggest idiot that ever
happened. I should have thought a child would have known that this has
either got to be a Hobbema or it has got to be nothing. The best thing
you can do is to go upstairs right now and take out that signature.”
“But I understood you to say, sir, that the picture has no market value
without a signature.”
“No more it has, you fool. But there may be those who think it’s a
Hobbema. And if there are, it is up to us to help them to keep on
thinking.”
June hung breathlessly on every word that passed. She watched William
shake his head in slow and grave perplexity.
“But anybody can see that it isn’t a Hobbema.”
“Anybody can’t,” said the old man. “Mr. Thornton can’t for one, and
he’s a pretty good judge, as a rule. Mr. Finch is more doubtful, but
even he wouldn’t like to swear to it.”
William shook his head.
“Boy, you are a fool. You are getting too clever; you are getting above
your trade. Go at once and take out that signature, whatever it may be,
provided it isn’t Hobbema’s, and I’ll give you two pounds for the thing
as it stands. And let me tell you two pounds is money.”
William shook his head a little more decisively.
“I’d have to paint out the trees,” he said, “and the water, and that
cloud, and that gleam of sunlight before I could begin to touch the
signature.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a Van Roon,” said William, in a voice so gentle that he might
have been speaking to himself.
S. Gedge Antiques laid his knife on his plate with a clatter. He gave
an excited snort. “Van Fiddlestick!”
William’s smile grew so intense that June could hardly bear to look at
him.
“Every inch of it,” said William, “and there are not so many, is Van
Roon.”
“Why, there are only about a dozen Van Roons in existence,” said the
old man, a queer little shake coming into his voice.
“There’s one more now, sir.” William’s own voice was curiously soft.