"Give us yer blessin'," said Quinney, quite riotously. Then,
masterfully, he kissed the girl again, turning to confront the
astonished mother.
"Settled between us three months ago," he explained fluently. "We
dassen't tell a soul, not even you, because of the old man. He was
capable of leavin' every bob to an orsepital for dogs. He said to me
once, 'Don't let me hear anything of goings on between you and that
there Biddlecombe girl!' By Gum, I obeyed him! He never did hear
anything. Me and Susie took jolly good care o' that. I only hope as he
knows now."
At this Susan murmured:
"Joe, dear, please don't!"
Then mother and daughter solemnly embraced.
"I hated not to tell you," whispered Susan, "but Joe would have his
way."
"The old 'un told me I might look high with my prospects, but he never
did know quality. Quantity was what he'd go for. Lord! How he fairly
wallowed in job lots! Well, all that's over."
He began to walk up and down the small room, telling the two women his
plans for the future. They listened with shadows of perplexity in their
brown eyes, and presently Mrs. Biddlecombe carefully cleaned and put on
her spectacles, peering at her future son-in-law with eyes just dimmed
by happy tears.
Presently he spoke of the sign, making a rough drawing. Mrs.
Biddlecombe laughed slily as she pointed out the apostrophe in
"Quinney's."
"Isn't Susie going to help?" she asked. "Why not 'Quinneys'?"
"By Gum, you're right. Of course she's going to help. Make a rare
saleswoman, too."
"I should love to help!" said Susan eagerly. "You'd soon teach me, Joe."
"All the tricks in the trade, Susie, and perhaps one or two of our own."
The girl opened wider her honest eyes. "Must there be tricks?" she
asked, and a finer ear than Quinney's might have detected a note of
anxiety.
"Bless your innocent heart--yes! Dessay I shall learn a bit from you.
Course o' Shakespeare now, to improve one's powers o' speech."
He laughed so hilariously that Mrs. Biddlecombe held up a restraining
finger.
"We're semi-detached, you know."
"I'm rich enough not to care what Laburnum Row thinks or says," he
declared. "What day will suit you to get married, Susie?"
"Oh, Joe--this is sudden."
"Sudden? I was tellin' your mother that I had to go to France on biz,
but I want you to come along, too, to do the parleyvooin'. Can you get
ready in a month?"
Mrs. Biddlecombe frowned, shaking her head.
"You must wait longer than that."
"Why?"
"It's customary."
"Blow that! I want Susie, and while we're in France the shop can be
overhauled. You'll keep an eye on it--hey?"
"I wash my hands of any marriage entered upon in undue haste."
Finally, he agreed to wait two months, not a moment longer.
"But I shall order the sign to-morrow--'Quinneys''--with letters
cuddling up against each other. It'll be made in London, quite
regardless. Next Sunday and you, Susie, will take a little walk in and
about Melchester. I shan't ask you to pig it over the shop."
"I shouldn't mind that a bit."
"But I should. I'm marrying a lady, one of the best, and I'll start the
thing in style, just bang up."
"A semi-detached?"
"Lord, no! Wouldn't hurt your mother's feelin's for worlds, but a
semi-detached ain't private enough for me. The neighbours might hear me
yellin' when Susie pulls my hair."
Mrs. Biddlecombe rose majestically.
"I'm going to open a bottle of my ginger cordial," she said solemnly.
As the door closed behind her, Quinney exclaimed, "Now, Susie, you jump
on my knee. I want to tell you that I'm the happiest man on earth."
He spoke in a tone of absolute conviction.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE DREAM COTTAGE*
*I*
Melchester, although urban in the strict sense of the word, was sweetly
fragrant of the country. Mel Street, except on Sundays, was always more
or less blocked with country wagons and carts loaded with Melshire
cheeses and butter and cream and eggs. Melshire bacon is famous the
world over. There were no factories; and admittedly the town depended
upon the surrounding country, which included wind-swept downs, and
pleasant valleys, and many woods full of pheasants, and languid streams
full of coarse fish. Essentially a country town which had fallen asleep
in the Middle Ages, and went on slumbering, like a hale old man who has
dined well. The curates and minor canons struggled against this
somnolence. Vice might be found in many of the back streets, vice
half-drunk, passive, Laodicean, hardly ever rampageous, save on such
rare occasions as when the military were camping just outside the
moss-grown walls.
The townfolk, generally, were content with themselves and the conditions
under which they strolled from the cradle to the grave. Susan
Biddlecombe, for instance, thanked God morning and evening because her
lines were cast in pleasant places. Till she met Quinney, her mind had
dwelt placidly in the immediate present. He hurled it into the future
with a breathless phrase adumbrating incredible possibilities. But that
was later, after the death of his father, who might have lived another
twenty years. Before that great piece of good fortune Joe indulged in
talk that was very small indeed; and the one excitement incidental to
her engagement was its secrecy. Being a pretty girl, and half a lady,
she had visualized marriage as a tremendous change, possibly for the
better, quite possibly for the worse. But during these dreams she
beheld herself as herself, never reckoning that her ideas and ideals
might make another woman of her under conditions and conventions other
than what she so thoroughly understood.
She was romantic; but who dares to define romance. What does it mean to
a girl like Susan Biddlecombe? Adventure? Yes. She was thrilled to the
core when Quinney kissed her for the first time behind the parlour door;
and her heart beat delightfully fast whenever she approached their
trysting-place in a secluded corner of the Close. Romance inspired her
with the happy thought of corresponding with her lover in cypher. The
engagement ring became a treasure indeed, because she dared not wear it
except at night. From the first she had gallantly faced the fact that
her Joe did not look romantic, but there was a flavour of the bold
buccaneer about his speech, and a sparkle in his eye quite captivating.
His firm, masterful grip of a girl's waist was most satisfying, although
it provoked protest. She had murmured, "Please--don't!" And to this he
replied tempestuously, "Sue, darling, you like it; you know you like it.
What's the use of trying to flimflam me?" He was not to be silenced
till she whispered blushing that she did like it. Awfully?
Yes--awfully. The man pressed the point, asking astounding questions.
What ought to be the tale of kisses, for example? Could a maid stand
five hundred of 'em? Why not try the experiment at the first
opportunity?
In this primitive fashion he captured her.
On the following Sunday the lovers found a cottage which seemed to be
the real, right thing. It was set in a small garden, surrounded by a
small holly hedge, and flanked on the north-east by a row of tall elms.
Behind the cottage was a plot of ground, which included a superb
chestnut tree, with low branches, upon which, as Susan observed,
hammocks could be swung.
"Hammocks?" repeated Quinney.
"On Sunday," said Susan, "in the summer, we can lie in hammocks and
think of how hard we work during the week. It will be heavenly."
"By Gum! You have ideas, Sue."
"Mother always said I was too romantic."
The cottage was roofed with big red tiles encrusted with mosses and
lichen; and about its walls in summer-time clambered roses and clematis.
"I love it already," Miss Biddlecombe declared with fervour.
"More than you love me?"
For answer she made a grimace. Quinney, with a broad grin upon his
lips, encircled her waist with his arm. But a pin pierced his finger,
which began to bleed, whereupon the young woman seized the finger and
put her lips to it.
"I've drunk my Joe's blood," she said, with a charming blush.
"Oh, you jolly cannibal!" exclaimed Quinney.
They kissed each other tenderly, and almost forgot the cottage.
Presently Quinney said, "I believe this'll do?" and she answered
ecstatically, "It's exactly right."
Quinney qualified this.
"There may be others better still; it's only the best we've seen so
far."
"I dare say you think there's a better girl than I am somewhere or
other?"
"No, I don't!"
"How awful it would be if I caught you looking for her."
"No fear o' that!" he affirmed solemnly.
Next morning early they went together to the agent, derisively scornful
of the gossips, who, to do them justice, refrained from unpleasant
remarks. Laburnum Row knew by this time that young Joe Quinney had ten
thousand pounds, and the rosy-fingered fact that he had found a wife in
a semi-detached cottage was tremendously acclaimed.
The agent smiled discreetly when he saw them, and may have wished, poor
fellow, that he, too, was young again and shamelessly in love.
"Bird-nestin', we are," said Quinney.
"Just so. Did you like the nest you saw yesterday?"
The sly fellow glanced at the girl, who answered eagerly, "It's too
sweet for anything!"
Obviously, she wished to clinch the bargain on the nail, but, much to
her exasperation, the more cautious male began to ask questions,
listening attentively to the answers, and displaying a shrewd
understanding. Susan decided that her Joe was wasting valuable time,
because she wanted to discuss wallpapers. She sniffed when Quinney
said, "Is there anything else on your books prettier than this cottage?"
She shuffled impatiently, when the agent answered impassively, "Oh yes!"
While the men had been talking she had decided that an ugly pigsty must
be pulled down, that the kitchen must be refloored, and that the big
water barrel should be painted apple-green and white.
"Where is this other cottage?"
"On the Mel, five minutes' walk from your place. It belongs to the widow
of an artist, and it's a real bargain. You ought to see it."
"We will see it," said Quinney.
Susan shrugged her small shoulders. All this talk was lamentably
foolish. Men were great sillies. While they were staring at cottage
number two, some enterprising stranger might snap up cottage number one.
A nice sell that would be!
"Come on, Sue," said Quinney.
Miss Biddlecombe "came on" reluctantly holding her tongue because she
dared not speak her mind before the agent, and very cross by reason of
this abstention.
"You ain't tired?" asked Quinney, reading her face wrongly. The
tenderness in his voice brought back a brace of dimples.
"Tired? Not a bit, but I'm sure that our cottage is the prettier."
"Please suspend judgment," said the agent formally. How could he divine
that the pretty maid, who smiled at him so sweetly, would have suspended
him from the nearest tree for being a bore and a nuisance. She smiled
upon him with rage in her heart.
And, behold, the second cottage was infinitely prettier than the first.
Susan gasped when she beheld it, and she was quite furious with Quinney
when he said drawlingly, "This looks all right, but what's wrong with
it? Why hasn't it been gobbled up long ago?"
"There is something wrong with it--the price."
"I guessed as much."
The agent explained glibly, for he, too, had learned of young Joe's
great inheritance.
"It's not big enough for well-to-do folk; and it's much too expensive
for poor people. It cost quite a lot of money. There's a boathouse,
and fishing rights and everything is in tip-top order. So it's not
surprising that the price is tip-top also. But it's a genuine bargain."
"How much?"
The agent mentioned a sum which made Quinney whistle. Susan groaned.
She had quite forgotten cottage number one. It had grown common in her
brown eyes, which dwelt with rapture upon a tiny lawn sloping to the
sleepy Mel, upon the veranda where in summer-time Joe and she could eat
their meals, upon the lilac and laburnum soon to bloom, upon the placid
stream so plainly loath to leave such delightful banks. No neighbours
other than the owners of big gardens would disturb their peace. Over
everything hung a veil of romance and beauty. Furtively, she wiped two
tears from her eyes.
"Let us go," she said quietly.
She turned, and the men followed her in silence.
*II*
Quinney went back to his shop without making any reference to cottage
number one. Undoubtedly number two was a bargain, but he remembered a
maxim often in his father's mouth, "At a great pennyworth pause awhile;
many are ruined by buying bargains." Moreover, the first cottage was to
be had at a modest rent. Number two was not offered on lease; the owner
wanted spot cash for the freehold. Before the lovers parted, Susan
whispered, "I do wish we had not seen that cottage by the Mel. It's made
me hate the other."
Quinney nodded gloomily. Susan continued softly, "It's a dream cottage.
I shall think of it as that, and pretend that it doesn't really exist.
I may go there sometimes when I'm asleep."
"You must look a little dear when you're asleep!"
"Oh, Joe, you do say such odd things."
"We'll look at some other cottages."
"I shall be perfectly happy with you anywhere--except in that first
cottage."
"One of these fine days you'll live in a big house in London."
"What?"
"I mean it. You make a note of what I say. This old town is well
enough, but it ain't big enough for me."
"Joe, you do surprise me."
"Bless you, dear heart! I surprise myself. I'm a smallish man, as
inches count, but I'm simply bustin' with big ideas. I surprised
Tomlin, too."
"I don't like Mr. Tomlin."
"Now, why not?"
"He looks so sly."
"He's foxy, very. Has to be. A London dealer must be sharper than his
customers. The big collectors, the chaps that write thumpin' cheques
are no fools, and some of them are knaves. I could tell you
stories----"
"Please don't, dear."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to listen to unpleasant stories now; and besides, mother
is expecting me. It's washing day."
"I hate the thought of my Sue at the wash tub!"
She considered this gravely, with her head a little upon one side. Then
she answered soberly, "I like doing things, and getting them done
properly."
"By Gum, you seem to forget you're a lady born."
"I'm only half and half, Joe. It will be a real pride to me getting up
your shirts."
"There'll be none o' that, my girl."
She laughed gaily, but her face was pensive as she returned to Laburnum
Row.
*III*
Next Sunday happened to be an exceptionally fine day. Quinney
accompanied Susan and her mother to the Cathedral, but after the service
Mrs. Biddlecombe returned to Laburnum Row, leaving the lovers in the
elm-encircled Close. Quinney, whose eyes were sparkling even more than
usual, strolled across the Mel, and presently he paused opposite the
Dream Cottage. Susan pinched his arm.
"How horrid of you to bring me here," she whispered. "I hate the sight
of it now."
"But why? Queer things girls are, to be sure."
"If it's queer not to stare at what one can't have, I'm queer," said the
young lady rather shortly. "I was never one to flatten my nose against
the window of a hat-shop when I'd no money to buy hats."
"You're a sensible little dear! But I brought you here because the
place is sold. I knew that would cure you. Now oughtn't we to have a
squint at the first?"
"It would make me squint to look at it now."
"It's nicer than a tent."
"A tent?"
"You said you would live happily in a tent with me."
"Men don't understand women."
"That's a horrid thought with our two lives to live out together."
He looked so sorry because he couldn't understand women that Susan
kissed him, having satisfied herself that nobody was in sight. She said
softly:
"Well, Joe, it is really my fault because I did disguise my
disappointment very cleverly, didn't I?"
Quinney chuckled.
"Disguise it? Bless your simple heart! I saw two fat tears rolling
down your cheeks. I was the one who disguised my disappointment."
Whereat Susan protested stoutly that she had never seen any man look so
disgusted as her Joe, when the agent mentioned the price of the Dream
Cottage. She concluded on a high note of assurance.
"Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Now that we're here,
we'll go in, and I'll let it soak in that the place is really and truly
sold." Quinney nodded, and Miss Biddlecombe continued fluently, "After
I've seen it once more I shall never give it another thought."
"Don't be too cocksure about that!"
"I tell you I shan't, and besides, the river is certainly dangerous."
"Dangerous to us?"
She blushed delightfully, pressing his arm, but saying nothing.
Quinney, divining her thoughts, fell more in love with her than ever.
She went on artlessly, "I expect the house is damp in winter."
"Dry as a bone. I asked about that."
"When did you ask?"
"I suppose when we looked at it."
"I never heard you ask. I'm feeling quite happy about it now. I wonder
whether the people who have bought it have moved in?"
He was able to assure her that they hadn't. But she asked immediately
how he had come to know of the sale.
"The agent told me."
"When?"
"When I wrote to him."
"Why did you write to him?"
"To make inquiries about other cottages, of course."
They passed through a wicket-gate into a small garden gay in summer with
larkspurs, hollyhocks, and what children call "red-hot pokers." A path
of flagged stones wandered round the house.
"Cosy, ain't it?" he said. And as he spoke she noticed that his voice
trembled. She tried to interpret the expression upon his shrewd
whimsical face, and failed.
"Are you so tremendously sorry that this lovely place is sold?"
"I'm tremendously glad," he replied.
"I can't screw myself up to say that, Joe. I wonder who is coming to
live here?"
"A childless couple."
"A childless couple!" Her face softened. "I'm sorry they're childless.
I can see children running about this garden."
"And tumbling into the river!"
"I was only joking about that. But perhaps----"
"Exactly. They may have a dozen yet."
She sighed as she surveyed the pleasance. Nothing, she decided, could
ever be so exactly right again. Then Quinney said abruptly
"We can't keep your poor mother waiting for dinner."
"Bother dinner. I want to have a long, last lingering look."
"But you may come again, because you happen to know the man who has
bought it."
The note of triumph in his voice was illuminating.
"Joe!" she exclaimed. "It's you!"
"Yes; it's me. Now ain't I a regular old rag-bag o' surprises?"
*IV*
The furnishing of the Dream Cottage occupied them very agreeably during
the two pleasant months that elapsed before their marriage, but there
were moments when Susan became exasperatingly conscious of immense
differences between herself--as she was beginning to know herself--and
the man she loved. Mrs. Biddlecombe and she, for instance, had nourished
the conviction that the home being the true sphere of woman, it would be
their privilege and pleasure to arrange it according to the lights,
farthing dips, perhaps, vouchsafed to the middle class in Victorian
days. But the Man of Many Surprises, as Susan called him, dealt
drastically with this conviction, dispatching it swiftly to the limbo of
unrealized ambitions and broken hopes. In those days, it may be
remembered, popular fancy strayed wantonly amongst ebonized
super-mantels, and cabinets with gilded panels upon which exotic birds
and flowers were crudely painted. Aspinall's Enamel entered generously
into most schemes of decoration. Fireplaces were filled with Japanese
umbrellas. Japanese fans were arranged upon bilious-looking
wall-papers, and Japanese bric-a-brac, cheap bronzes, cheap porcelain,
everything cheap, became a raging pestilence.
Quinney's taste soared high above this rubbish so dear to the hearts of
Susan and her mother. Afterwards he marvelled at the sure instinct
which had guided him aright. Where did it come from? Why, without
either knowledge or experience, did he swoop unerringly upon what was
really beautiful and enduring, and at that time more or less despised?
Mrs. Biddlecombe had bought a book entitled, _How to Furnish the Home
with One Hundred Pounds_. She read aloud certain passages to Quinney,
who listened patiently for half an hour, and then snorted.
"You've taken cold," said the anxious Susan.
"That rot would make any man choke," said Quinney. "Makes me perfectly
sick," he continued, warming to his work, as he encountered the amazed
stare of the women, "makes me want to smash things! Silly rot, and
written by a woman, I'll be bound."
"It's written by a lady," observed Mrs. Biddlecombe, "an authoress,
too."
"It's written by a fool!" snapped Quinney. "We've Solomon's word for it
that there's nothing so irksome as a female fool. This particular brand
o' fool don't know, and never will know, the very first principles o'
furnishing, whether for rich or poor. Buy good solid stuff. Don't touch
rubbish! Rubbish is beastly. Rubbish is wicked. I've had enough of
rubbish. Me and Susan is going to start right. And as for cost," he
paused to deliver a slashing blow, "I'm going to put one thousand
pounds' worth of stuff into my house!"
Mother and daughter gasped. Quinney seemed to have swollen to monstrous
dimensions. Was he stark mad? Tremblingly they waited for what might
follow.
"Perhaps more," he added flamboyantly, "and everything is going to be
good, because I shall choose it. It's become a sort of religion with
me. A fine thing like that K'ang He jar of mine makes me feel good. I
can kneel down before it."
Mrs. Biddlecombe observed majestically:
"Don't be blasphemous, Joseph!"
"Blasphemous?" he repeated derisively. "It's blasphemy to my notion to
prefer ugliness to beauty. Suppose I'd done as father wanted me to do,
and got engaged to that ugly laughin' hyena, Arabella Pinker, because
she had something in her stocking besides a leg like a bed-post."
"Now you are indelicate, isn't he, Susan?"
"I chose Susan instead of Bella. Blasphemous! Now, tell me, what do you
go to the Cathedral for?"
"To worship my Maker."
"Well, I'm going to be honest with you and Sue. I go to the Cathedral to
look at the roof, the finest bit of stonework in the kingdom. My
thoughts just soar up into that vaulting. I feel like a bird o'
Paradise. Our Cathedral is God's House, and no mistake. My mind can't
grapple with Him, but it gets to close grips with that fan vaulting,
which He must have designed."
"Never heard you talk like this before," murmured Susan.
In her heart, which was beating faster than usual, Miss Biddlecombe was
profoundly impressed, because she had wit enough to perceive that her
Joe was absolutely sincere. But she trembled at his audacity, because
she had been trained to say "Gawd" rather than "God," believing devoutly
that the lengthening of the vowel indicated piety.
"I've had to bottle up things," said Quinney grimly. "Now I'm free to
speak my mind, and you're free too, my girl. Hooray, for plain speech!
Lawsy, how it hurts a poor devil to hold his tongue!"
Mrs. Biddlecombe retired from the parlour feeling quite unable to deal
faithfully with a young man who must be, so she decided, slightly under
the influence of liquor. Her ideas had been put to headlong flight, but
they returned like homing doves to the great and joyous fact that her
prospective son-in-law possessed ten thousand pounds. Enough to
intoxicate anybody--that! Her own steady head swam at the luck of
things. Later, when the first exuberance had passed, Susan and she
would have a word or two to say. For the moment there were ten thousand
reasons, all of them pure gold, in favour of discreet silence.
*V*
To Susan alone, under a pledge of secrecy, Quinney became alluringly
expansive. Once, in her flapper days, she had seen Lord George Sanger's
famous three-ring circus, and had tried to take in and assimilate three
simultaneous shows. Result--a headache! Peering into Quinney's mind was
quite as exciting as the three-ring circus, and nearly as confusing. He
could soar to the giddy pinnacles of Melchester Cathedral, and thence,
with a swallow's flight, wing his way through the open windows of a
stately pile of buildings designed by Inigo Jones for the fourth
Marquess of Mel.
Indeed, the door had not closed behind the ample rotundities of Mrs.
Biddlecombe when he asked abruptly:
"Ever seen the Saloon at Mel Court?"
"Never, Joe."
"It's furnished just right according to my ideas. I want to have
furniture of that sort. Georgian--hey? We'll go there together, when
the family are in town. In that Saloon I feel as I do in the
Cathedral--reg'lar saint! It's spiffin'! And every bit of the period.
Not all English--that don't matter. The china will make your mouth
fairly water, the finest Oriental! Pictures, too, but of course we
can't touch them yet."
Susan gazed anxiously into his face, which was glowing with enthusiasm.
"Joe, dear, shall I fetch you a glass of barley water?"
"Barley water? Not for Joe! I've thought of that, too, my pretty. I'm
going to have a cellar. None o' your cheap poisons! Sound port and old
brown sherry, in cut-glass decanters!"
Susan opened her mouth, closed it, and burst into tears. At the moment
she believed that her clever Joe had gone quite mad. The young man
kissed away her tears, and soon brought the ready smile back to her
lips, as the sanity which informed so remarkably his powers of speech
percolated through her mind. He might say the strangest and most
surprising things, but they were convincing, indeed overpoweringly so.
He held her hands, as he talked, in his masterful grip, and looked
keenly into her soft brown eyes.
"Sue, dear, it's not surprisin' that I surprise you, because, as I told
you before, I surprise myself. I lie awake nights wondering at the
ideas that come into my head. I suppose the old man was such an
example----"
"An example, Joe?"
"Of how not to do things! Lawsy, what a wriggler, to be sure, twisting
and turning in the dark, and disliking the light. Wouldn't clean our
windows, because he didn't want our customers to see the fakes too
plainly. We just pigged it. You know that? Yes. I had to make a
flannel shirt last a fortnight. Same way with food. Cheap meat, badly
cooked. Stunted my growth, it did, but not my mind. I used to spend my
time thinking what I'd do when I got out of Melchester."
"Out of Melchester?"
Susan and her mother were in and of the ancient town. In these days of
cheap excursions and motor-cars it is not easy to project the mind back
to the time when the middle classes rarely stirred from home. To be in
Melchester, according to Susan Biddlecombe, was a pleasure; to be of it,
a privilege. Melchester had imposed upon her its inexorable conventions,
the more inexorable because they were unformulated, exuding from every
pore of the body corporate. Chief amongst them perhaps was veneration
for the Bishop, who ruled his diocese with doctrinal severity tempered
by gifts of port wine and tea and beef. Nonconformity was ill at ease
and slightly out of elbows beneath the shadow of the most beautiful
spire in England. The only Radical of importance in the town was
Pinker, the rich grocer. And when the Marquess of Mel said to him,
chaffingly, "Ah, Pinker, why don't you belong to us?" the honest fellow
replied, "It's this way, my lord. The Conservative gentry deal with me
because I know my business. The Radicals buy from me because I'm a
Radical. They'd sooner deal with the Stores than with a Tory grocer."
Quinney continued:
"I have my eye on London, Paris, and New York."
"Mercy me!"
"Meanwhile, Melchester is good enough. But our house must be a show
place--see?"
Susan tried to see, but blinked.
"I shall take some of our customers to our house, to show them the
things they can't have. I mean, of course, the things they can't have
except at a big price. Nothing bothers a collector so much as that.
Your real connoisseur"--Quinney had not yet mastered the pronunciation
of this word--"goes dotty when he can't get what he wants. By Gum, he
feels as I used to feel when I wanted you, and the old man was alive and
everlastingly jawing about Arabella Pinker. I shall have a lot of
Arabellas in the shop, but my Susans will be at home."
"But, Joe, mother and I were so looking forward to furnishing the Dream
Cottage."
"I know, I know!" He began to skate swiftly over the thin ice. "But
your ideas, sweetie, are so--so semi-detached. You haven't got the
instinct for the right stuff. I have. You and your mother want to stir
up Laburnum Row. I'm a-going to make the whole of Melchester sit up and
howl. See?"
Susan nodded. Very dimly she apprehended these incredible ambitions,
and yet her instinct, no more at fault than his, whispered to her that
Joe could do it. From that moment Laburnum Row appeared in its true
proportions. Quinney said quickly:
"I'll leave the kitchen and the bedrooms to you, but, remember, no
rubbish."
Accordingly it came to pass that the Dream Cottage was furnished with
charming bits of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, picked up here
and there throughout Wessex. The rubbish in the shop was sold _en
bloc_, being taken over by a small dealer. The premises were put into
the hands of a London decorator, a friend of the great Tomlin.
Upon the day the painters went in Quinney marched out and married his
Susan.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE*
*I*
They crossed to Saint Malo two days after the wedding. The groom was
horribly sea-sick; the bride, a capital sailor, ministered to him
faithfully. This experience is recorded, because it opened Joe's eyes
to the fact that physical infirmity is a serious disability. He had
never been "outed," as he expressed it, before. And it was humiliating
to reflect that his small Susan could confront without a qualm wild
waves when he lay prostrate, limp in mind and body, capable only of
cursing Tomlin, who had dispatched him upon this perilous enterprise.
He was not too well pleased when Susan kissed his clammy brow and
whispered, "Oh, Joe, I do love to look after you." Somehow he had never
contemplated her looking after him. His very gorge rose at the thought
of his inferiority. Twenty-four hours afterwards he felt himself again,
the better perhaps for the upheaval, but the memory of what he had
suffered remained. He told himself (and Susan) that he would be
satisfied with establishing himself in London. New York and Paris could
go hang!
They wandered about Saint Malo, criticizing with entire candour
everything they beheld. Susan aired her French; the true Briton
expressed a preference for his own honest tongue. The Cathedral aroused
certain enthusiasms tempered by disgust at the tawdry embellishments of
the interior. Susan, however, was impressed by the kneeling men and
women, who wandered in and out at all hours. She stared at their
weather-beaten faces uplifted in supplication to some unknown saint.
She became sensible of an emotion passing from them to her, a desire to
kneel with them, to share, so to speak, the graces and benedictions
obviously bestowed upon them. For the first time in her life she
realized that religion may be more than an act of allegiance to God.
These simple folk, workers all of them, could spare five minutes out of
a busy morning to pray. Her own prayers never varied. Night and
morning she repeated piously the formulas learned at her mother's knee.
Upon Sundays she followed more or less attentively the fine liturgy of
the Church of England. Naturally intelligent and supremely sympathetic,
she could not doubt that prayer meant more to these Papists than to her,
something vital, something absolutely necessary. She glanced at her
husband's face, wondering whether he shared her thoughts. Joe was
worshipping after his own fashion the Gothic architecture of the nave,
and favourably contrasting it with the transepts. She touched his arm
timidly.
"Would it be wicked, Joe, to kneel down here?"
Joe stared at her whimsically.
"Do you want to?" he asked.
"Ye-es."
"Well, then, do it. You ain't going to pray to that?" He indicated a
graven image, atrociously bedizened in crude blue and silver tinsel.
"Oh no!" she answered; then she added, with a blush, "I only want to
thank God that we are here--together."
"Right you are!" said Joe heartily, but he did not offer to kneel with
her. She moved from him slowly, with a backward glance, which escaped
his notice, and knelt behind a pillar, covering her face with her hands,
wondering at first what her mother would say if she could see her, and
almost tremblingly glad that she couldn't. Oddly enough, when she began
to pray it never occurred to her to use the old familiar forms. She
thanked God because He had made her happy; she entreated a continuance
of that happiness in her own artless words, words she might have used to
her mother. When her prayer was ended, she became conscious of the
strange intimacy of her invocation. She felt a glow, although a minute
previously the lower temperature of the Cathedral after the warm
sunshine without had struck her chillingly. When she rose from her
knees, her eyes were shining. She returned to her husband, who said:
"Regular mix-up we have here. Let's skin out of it."
*II*
They travelled by easy stages to Treguier, their destination, stopping
overnight at Saint Brieux and Guingamp. By the luck of things they
happened to reach Treguier at the time of the great Pardon, _le Pardon
des Pauvres_, the Pardon of Brittany's greatest and most potent
Saint--_Yves de la Verite_. Everything also combined to make this new
experience an imperishable memory. Their hotel in Treguier was
charmingly clean and comfortable, an inn of the olden time kept by two
elderly spinsters. It overlooked the river Jaudy flowing placidly to the
sea. Beyond, under soft skies, lay the Breton landscape, quietly
pastoral, pleasingly undulating, with a thin mist revealing rather than
obscuring its beauty. Susan woke early, hearing the sound of sabots
upon the quay, and the tinkle of bells upon the horses. She went to the
open window and looked out. Already the town was full of pilgrims,
peasants in the costume of the country, all chattering and
gesticulating. Some had come in boats. Susan marked the whiteness of
the women's coifs and the stout cloth of their gowns. When they
laughed, she saw rows of white teeth; their faces were superbly tanned
by sun and wind; they looked what they were--the sisters, the wives, the
mothers of strong men. Amongst them, terribly conspicuous wandered a
few beggars, disease-stricken wretches importuning alms of the healthy,
pointing shrivelled, dirty hands at their dreadful sores, advertising,
almost triumphantly, their poverty and misery. Susan had learned from
the two sisters that this was the fete of the ver poor, she had been
warned to expect a parade of misery and deformity, and Mademoiselle
Yannik had added softly, "Look you, madame, it is good, when one is
young and strong and happy, to look sometimes at these _miserables_."
*III*
The Pardon is not held at Treguier, nor at Minihy, but on the other side
of the Jaudy, upon a hill near Porz-Bihan. Here, in former times, stood
a chapel, now in ruins; only the ossuary is left, in which may still be
found an image of the great Saint, very old, very crudely fashioned, but
supremely interesting by reason of the veneration with which it is
regarded by the peasants. The Quinneys watched the pilgrims coming and
going in a never-ending procession. Each offered prayers and oblations
in copper to the Saint, who stared down upon them with that vague,
impersonal regard which would seem to indicate indifference or
lassitude. Upon an altar were ranged other saints, rude images of
painted wood, saints never canonized, and looking as if they resented
the unique honour paid to Yves le Veridique. Many of the pilgrims
muttered some formula in Breton, which afterwards Mademoiselle Yannik
translated for Susan. It ran: "If theirs be the right, condemn us. If
ours be the right, condemn them." For this is the patron saint of
lawyers, and of the poor oppressed by the law. The procession of
_Miserables_ followed. An Englishman told the tale of the Miracle of
the Soup to Susan. He described vividly a farm hard by filled with
outcasts upon the eve of the Pardon. And so bitter had been the weather
that the farmer had made small provision for his guests, assured that
only a few would demand his hospitality. The _pot-au-feu_ hung upon its
hook, but there was hardly soup enough in it to feed half a dozen, and
scores were arriving. And then suddenly a stranger appeared, approached
the hearth, and affirmed that there would be enough for all. Having
said this, he vanished, and, lo, a miracle! The crowds were abundantly
fed. The stranger was the Saint himself, the blessed Yves. Susan was
thrilled, but Joe whispered to her, "Do you believe that yarn, Sue?" and
she whispered back, "Yes." He squeezed her arm as he replied, "Lawsy,
you are a blessed little fool!"
But the great impression remained of poverty and pain parading before a
comparatively prosperous and healthy crowd, who regarded the unfortunate
with kindly and compassionate eyes. Susan was melted to tears, but Joe
said emphatically:
"What do you make of this show?"
She replied hesitatingly, "They recognize that the poor must be always
with them."
Joe persisted.
"How does this apply to you and me?"
"We must help when we can, dear."
"We have to help, Sue. Rates and taxes. By Gum, I've never seen such a
lot of wretched devils in all my life. And the sight o' their misery
just hits a particular nail of mine bang on the head. Drives it home,
like. Me and you must never be poor. We must pull together against the
remotest chance o' poverty."
"They can't help it, Joe."
"Perhaps not, but we can."
They returned in a chastened mood to the excellent dinner provided at
the inn.
*IV*
Next day they paid a visit to the great artist, who reproduced so
wonderfully pieces of old furniture. Fortunately for the Quinneys, the
Englishman, whom they had met at the Pardon, accompanied them. He
happened to be staying at the same inn, and knew _le pays Tregorrois_ as
well as, indeed much better than, Quinney knew Melshire. Also he spoke
French fluently, and could make himself understood in Breton. Lastly,
he was something of a collector of Breton _faience_ and old oak, a buyer
in a small way of chests and panelling. The Quinneys interested him
enormously. Joe was evidently an original, and Susan, as evidently, the
reverse, and the more attractive on that account in masculine eyes. He
swooped upon the immense differences in the characters of bride and
groom, having the instinct of the explorer, and promised himself some
amusement in studying them. Joe had been as frank with him as he was
with Mrs. Biddlecombe.
"I've powers within me," he explained, over a matutinal pipe. "They
push me on--see?"
George Le Marchant nodded, smiling pleasantly.
"Pushed you across the Channel?" he suggested.
"Just so. Beastly crossin'--humiliatin'. Felt like a scoured worm!"
Susan interrupted. She saw that Le Marchant, although he wore shabby
clothes, was a gentleman.
"That'll do, Joe."
"Nearly did 'do' for me. The wife"--he liked this expression, having
heard Pinker use it--"the wife fairly wallered in it. Blue water, wind
and waves--ugh!"
"It would have been just lovely," Susan admitted, "if Mr. Quinney----"
"Hadn't 'ad his bloomin' head in a basin. No, I ain't going to say
another word. Disgusting about fits it. Well, I was saying it was
something stronger than meself drove me out of good old England."
"Mr. Tomlin," put in Susan. She added for the benefit of the stranger,
"He's a big London dealer."
Joe snorted.
"Tomlin ain't stronger than me, Susan. He's bigger in the trade, that's
all, and come to his full growth, too. I'm sorter speak sproutin'. Do
you know Tomlin, of the Fulham Road?"
"Oh yes."
Le Marchant smiled faintly. Quinney, intent upon his own glorification,
missed a derisive expression, but Susan was sharper. She decided
instantly that there had been "dealings" between the great Tomlin and
this nice gentleman, and that they had not been entirely satisfactory.
Joe continued, warming to his work:
"Tomlin told me about this faker of old oak."
"But he's not a faker. Really, you must purge your mind of that. He's
an artist. Dealers, of course, buy his reproductions and sell them
again as authentic antiques, but he sells them at a moderate price for
what they are--superb copies. They are so masterly in every detail that
you won't know the copy from the original when you see both together."
"Oh, won't I?" said Quinney. "I've a lot to learn, and I'm learning
something every day, but old oak is my hobby. I've handled it since I
was a baby, and I shall know."
"We'll see," said Le Marchant, smiling. "What did you think of the
Pardon yesterday?"
He addressed Susan, but Joe answered, taking it for granted that his
opinion was worth something.
"Rum show! Very--French, hey? Praying hard all the morning didn't
prevent 'em from getting jolly tight in the afternoon."
Le Marchant laughed.
"These are Bretons, Mr. Quinney. Celts, not Latins."
He began to explain, talking very pleasantly, with a knowledge of his
subject which challenged Susan's attention. She liked to hear about
people so different from herself; their quaint superstitions, their
ardent beliefs, and the primitive simplicity of their lives appealed to
her strangely. But she was quick to perceive that Joe was bored. His
shrewd face wore an expression gradually becoming familiar to her. Later
he would say that there was nothing "in" such talk. It didn't lead
anywhere; at any rate not in the directions whither Susan and he were
steering. Why couldn't Le Marchant talk about that Quimper pottery,
those jolly old figures of the Saints and Saintesses. A man might pick
up a wrinkle or two worth something listening to _that_. He knocked the
ashes from his pipe and rose to his feet.
"Ain't we wastin' valuable time?" he asked.
*V*
The establishment of the master copyist much impressed Quinney on
account of its size. The visitors were shown everything, and the
proprietor said to Mrs. Quinney:
"Vous voyez, madame, je ne cache pas mon jeu, moi."
"What's he sayin'?" asked Joe.
Le Marchant answered.
"He assures us that he's not a faker."
They beheld tanks of acid in which new ironwork was placed. In a few
hours or days the corroding acid achieved the work of years. There were
piles of wood, new and old, awaiting treatment. Quinney asked if there
was a worm-holing machine. He had heard that one had been patented.
The proprietor laughed.
"The worms themselves do the work here, monsieur."
Then he placed in Joe's hands two wooden candle-sticks.
"One of these," said he, "is genuine, and worth its weight in gold, a
fine specimen of the sixteenth century. The other was made here within
a year. Which is which?"
"Lawsy!" said Quinney. "I ought to know."
He examined them very carefully, and guessed wrong.
Le Marchant smiled, well pleased, because he had predicted truly. The
proprietor pointed to a bureau of oak, exquisitely carved.
"Is that old or new, monsieur?"
Quinney spent five minutes in examining the specimen, feeling the
"patine," scraping it with his nail, staring through his glass at the
marks of the chisels.
"It's old," said he at last.
"It's quite new, monsieur."
"I'm fairly done," said Joe. "This beats the world, this does."
"That piece," said the proprietor, "is signed by me here," and he showed
Quinney two interlaced initials, cleverly concealed. "The original is
in the Cluny, and valued by experts at four thousand pounds. I can sell
it for sixteen pounds."
"Mark it 'sold,'" said Joe.
He bought chests old and new, panelling, tables and chairs, desks and
wardrobes. The proprietor smiled, rubbing his hands together.
"Obviously, monsieur is in the business?"
"I am," replied Quinney, "and, by Gum, I thought I knew my business till
I met you."
Le Marchant acted as interpreter. The three returned to Treguier and
breakfasted upon the small terrace overlooking the Jaudy. Quinney was
in the highest spirits. But to Susan's dismay, he talked of returning
to England and finishing their honeymoon in a country where a man could
make himself understood. What about Weymouth? What price nice sands?
He assured Le Marchant that his Susan liked paddling, because she could
show a neat pair of ankles. Also they could nip over to Dorchester.
Rare place that for old stuff! Inevitably he returned to his business
with an enthusiasm which indicated that he found it more engrossing than
ordinary honeymooning. Susan listened with a tiny wrinkle between her
smooth brows. When Quinney rushed upstairs to fill his pouch with
English tobacco, Le Marchant said thoughtfully:
"Wonderfully keen, isn't he?"
The swiftness of her answer surprised him.
"Do you think he's too keen?"
He evaded the eager question.
"As for that, Mrs. Quinney, one can hardly be too keen in business
nowadays."
"I meant--is he too keen for his own happiness?"
He hesitated. On the morrow he would go his way, and, humanly speaking,
there was little probability of his meeting this particular couple
again. He wondered vaguely what the future held for them. Then he
shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"His keenness might make for his happiness. I divide the people I know
into two classes, those who care for things and those who care for
persons."
"Surely a man can care for both?"
"One must be the dominant interest."
"You think it's bad to care too much for things?"
"You are very sharp. However, in this case there isn't much cause for
serious alarm."
"Why not?"
He stared pensively at her charming face, thinking that Quinney was
indeed a lucky fellow to have captured and captivated so sweet a
creature.
"Well, you stand between him and false gods."
"False gods! What a good way of describing faked Chelsea figures!"
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE INSTALLATION*
*I*
Mrs. Biddlecombe welcomed the homing couple when they returned to the
Dream Cottage, but she positively refused to forsake the semi-detached
in Laburnum Row, although Quinney, for his part, was willing to
entertain a mother-in-law indefinitely, if Susan wished it. Susan,
rather to his surprise, did not wish it. And the obvious fact that her
husband considered the matter of small importance slightly distressed
her, as indicating an abnormal indifference to _persons_ which
contrasted oddly with his absorption in _things_ of wood and stone,
graven images, let us call them, which the almighty Tomlin had set up in
the freshly decorated and enlarged premises in Mel Street. Tomlin,
indeed, had sent down a lot of stuff, and some of it was very good. Joe
could hardly tear himself from the porcelain, and gloated over the blue
and white, so Susan affirmed, as if he wished to kiss it.
The London dealer followed his crates.
He expressed unqualified approval of what Joe had bought in Brittany,
taking, however, most of the credit to himself, inasmuch as he had
dispatched Quinney to Treguier. The younger man grinned, wondering what
Tomlin would say when he beheld the Dream Cottage and its furniture. He
arranged that Mrs. Biddlecombe should be present upon that memorable
occasion, for he was well aware that the good soul did not share his
enthusiasm for mahogany, and that she resented his criticism of her
burked schemes of decoration.
Need it be recorded that Quinney triumphed? Tomlin was so impressed that
he said gaspingly, "I'll take the lot off your hands, Joe, at a
twenty-five per cent. advance."
"No, you won't!" replied Joe. "Our furniture is not for sale, old man.
Not yet, by Gum!"
"You are a wonder!" said Tomlin generously.
"Isn't he?" exclaimed Susan.
It was a great moment.
Late dinner followed, a _partie carree_. Joe provided champagne, and
port in a cut-glass decanter. Warmed by this splendid hospitality,
Tomlin became anecdotal. Perhaps he wanted to astonish the ladies.
Unquestionably he succeeded in doing so. One story will suffice to
illustrate Tomlin's methods, and it was told, be it remembered, with
exuberant chucklings within two hundred yards of the Cathedral Close.
"It's becoming harder every day, ma'am," he addressed Mrs. Biddlecombe,
"to get hold of the right stuff--cheap. I have agents everywhere. Old
Mr. Quinney was one. And now and again they hear of a real bargain.
Often as not the people who 'ave it won't part. They would part, ma'am,
if they was offered the right price, but that wouldn't be business. No.
Well, only the other day, I got hold of the sweetest table, genuine
Adam, and _hand-painted_! Paid a fiver for it!"
"Really, did you now?" murmured Mrs. Biddlecombe For all she knew a
"fiver" might be a large or a small price. Tomlin continued:
"Yes, ma'am, a fi' pun note. It was this way. The table belonged to a
decayed gentlewoman, who'd seen better days, and needed money."
Mrs. Biddlecombe sighed; the anecdote had become almost personal, and
therefore the more interesting.
"That may happen to any of us," she murmured.
"She had inherited this table from her grandma," continued Tomlin, "and
my agent heard of it, and saw it. He offered the old lady four pun ten,
and she wouldn't deal. Obstinate as a mule she was!"
"Sensible old dear, I call her," said Quinney.
"My agent was fairly boiled, and then inspiration struck him. He never
went near the old gal for a couple of months. Then he called with a
friend, a stout, red-faced man, bit of an amateur actor. My agent
introduced him as a collector of choice bits. Asked if he might show him
the little table. Old lady was willing enough, and of course the low
comedy feller crabbed it."
"Stale dodge that," remarked Quinney.
"Wait a bit. After crabbin' it, he pretended to be interested in other
things; and then he began to act queer. He'd slipped a bit o' soap into
his mouth, so as to froth proper."
"Gracious me! Why!" asked Mrs. Biddlecombe.
"Then he went into a regular fit, fell down, and as he fell grabbed the
little table, and broke off one of its pretty spindle legs. When he
come out of his fit, my agent said that the least thing a gentleman
could do was to buy the table he'd spoiled. The old lady took a fiver
as compensation, and jolly glad she was to get it. I sold that table to
an American millionaire for one hundred and twenty-five--guineas!"
Mrs. Biddlecombe rose majestically. She saw that her son-in-law was
laughing.
"Come, Susan, let us leave these _gentlemen_ to their wine."
Susan followed her out of the room. When the door was shut behind them,
Quinney said:
"Old man, that yarn was a bit too thick for 'em. See?"
Tomlin laughed boisterously.
"One more glass of port," he replied, "and I'll tell you another."
He told several; and when the men returned to the small drawing-room,
Susan said timidly that her mother had gone back to Laburnum Row.
Later, when she was alone with her husband, she asked a sharp question:
"Joe, dear, you wouldn't have done what Mr. Tomlin did, would you?"
"About what, Sue?"
"About that table. Mother and I thought it was horrid of him to take
advantage of a poor old lady."
Joe evaded the question cleverly:
"Look ye here, my girl, Tomlin is--well, Tomlin. Don't you mix him up
with me."
"But, Joe, you are mixed up with him--in business."
"Temporary arrangement, my pretty, nothing more."