Alone one cannot do much on two hundred a year, but by pooling expenses
two persons can exist without squalor on four hundred, especially if
there is also a reserve in the bank, and this was Ben's idea. Her first
step would be to join forces with her friend, Melanie Ames, to whom her
brother Guy, now in India, had been engaged for the past three or four
years, and share her rooms on Campden Hill--nice rooms too, right at
the top, near the reservoir tower.
Melanie, who had also two hundred a year, was working at the moment as
secretary to a Harley Street doctor; made his appointments; answered
the telephone; saw to it (I suppose) that no current numbers of
any illustrated papers ever got into the waiting-room (for someone
must be in charge to maintain this inflexible custom); sent out all
his accounts and as many receipts as were necessary; occasionally
transacted commissions for the doctor's wife, who rarely came to town
but did not like to think of the Sales going on without any of the
doctor's fees to assist them; and now and then, in the summer, spent
Sunday with the family at their house at Weybridge, where there was an
excellent hard court. For this she received a salary of four pounds
a week, which, added to her private income, enabled Miss Ames to add
butter to her bread as a regular habit and, in her own phrase, "On the
top of the stearic matter now and then to superimpose a little jam, old
dear."
In whatever way Ben was to augment her own private income, it certainly
would not be by acting as any doctor's secretary. She felt herself to
be more restless, more creative, more managing than that. Her nature
demanded the things of the moment and constant activity, and it would
gall her to have to suppress anything that was up to date. But as to
what she was going to do, she had not yet a glimmering. The first thing
was to transfer herself to those nice rooms and Melanie's comforting,
languid society, and it was during the Colonel's protracted and lavish
honeymoon (which the late Vincent Lorimer paid for) in the South of
France that Ben took down the water-colours and photographs in her
sitting-room in the great obsolete house in Hyde Park Gardens, with its
myriad stairs and no lift, and, with such furniture and books as were
hers, moved to Aubrey Walk.
She then paid a long-promised visit to the country; and it was while
she was staying there--with the Fred Lintots in Devonshire--that her
great idea came to her. Like most of the best ideas, it came not with
concentration and anxiety, but in a flash, and, also like most of the
best ideas, it was the result of chance. I can refer to it with some
authority because I was a fellow-guest and was in, so to speak, at the
birth.
An American visitor being expected, the laws of hospitality (as well as
those of his own country) decreed that a cocktail-shaker was essential.
But there was none, nor could any shopkeeper within a radius of many
miles produce one. No doubt, civilization having made inroads even
on the desert, such articles might have been found on the sideboard
of more than one Dartmoor mansion; but behind a counter, no; and the
unfortunate New Yorker with his (alleged) vision of England as a
promised land flowing with gin and whisky seemed to be in danger of
heartbreak.
"What we who live in the depths of the country all need," said Mrs.
Lintot, "is a London agent. Someone to do little jobs like this for
us. I would cheerfully give five pounds a year to have a call on the
services of anyone who would undertake London commissions for me. If I
knew anyone like that, I could telegraph and have that shaker and all
the nasty ingredients for cocktails here by the evening train."
It was then that a brain wave swept over me.
"If you will tell me the nearest telephone," I said, "I will arrange it
through the hall porter at the club," and I did so.
It was in the course of our conversation on the way back from this
telephoning errand, on which Ben had accompanied me, that her
future was practically decided: she would herself become the London
representative of the Mrs. Fred Lintots of the country. Many other
duties in excess of this one came to be hers, as we shall see; but
the germ of her activities in the little business in which I have
the honour to be an obscure partner was the difficulty set up by the
absent shaker. The Apostle James in his Epistle asks us to behold how
great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the minute origins of deeds
that shape our ends have always been a source of interest to me; but
I never thought that the lack of such an article as a cocktail-shaker
in Devonshire would lead either to my speculating in business with my
old playmate's youngest daughter or drive me to become its historian.
And here, although it is outside the scope proper of this narrative,
it may be stated, as yet another example of the caprices of this
illogical world, that when the American arrived he was found to be a
life-abstainer.
V
Things on this planet are always happening at the same time; and it
must follow (since it is only through meetings that the machinery is
assembled which makes the world continue to exist) that, although
parallels or divergences are the rule, now and then persons
simultaneously start out upon lines of action which in due course
arrive at the same point. It is fortunate that those persons are
unaware of what the gods are doing with them. Life is not such fun that
we can afford to dispense with the unexpected.
It chanced that at the very moment when Ben and I were discussing Mrs.
Lintot's scheme at Dartmoor, Mr. John Harford, in the garden of Laycock
Manor, was informing his startled mother that he had decided to chuck
the law and open a second-hand book shop.
Mrs. Harford was properly horrified. The Harfords so far had been able
to avoid trade.
"But this isn't trade," said her son. "This is a lark."
"Do you call it a lark," his mother inquired, "to be covered with
dust--for there's nothing so dusty as old books, and very likely to
catch horrible diseases--for there are no germ carriers like old books
either? And"--she went on, before he could reply--"do you call it a
lark to have to bargain with customers, because no one ever gives as
much for an old book as it is marked? Even I know that. That's not my
notion of a lark, anyway. And you'll have to start early, and leave
late, and your health will go, and your nice looks, and all the money
spent on your legal career will be wasted, and all the money you are
going to put into this absurd business will be wasted too. By the way,
where is that money coming from?"
"I was thinking of you, darling," said her son.
"Of me! Is the boy mad?" she inquired of the flowerbeds, the trees and
the universe at large. "Do you seriously think that, feeling as I do
about this offensive shop, I am going to help you to open it?"
"Yes, darling," said Jack. "And it won't be quite so costly as you
think," he added, "because I'm not going into it alone. I've got a
partner. Who do you think is joining me?"
"I haven't the faintest notion," Mrs. Harford replied. "But I hope it's
an honest man or you'll be robbed. You're as much fitted to run an old
book shop alone as I am to--to--well, these are the kind of sentences
no one ought ever to begin. One used to say 'to fly' once, but everyone
flies now, so there's nothing in it. But you know what I mean. Who is
this partner, anyhow?"
"Patrick," said Jack.
"Patrick! Do you mean Mr. St. Quentin?"
"Of course. He's mad about it. And he's got some capital too."
"Well," said Mrs. Harford, "if Mr. St. Quentin thinks it's a good
scheme, that's another matter. But only for himself. What is right for
him, in his crippled condition, is one thing; what is right for you,
is another. Let him run the shop alone, and you go on learning to be a
distinguished K.C., there's a dear. Don't be changeable, my boy."
"I'm not really changeable, mother," said Jack. "This is my first
departure. And it isn't as if I need slave my way up to success in
a profession I don't really care very much for. I've come to the
conclusion that I'd far rather be poor in a book shop than rich by
pumping up excitement and rage in the interests of clients you can't
bear the sight of and probably don't believe in. And I'm fond of books,
and, as you know, I adore old Pat and in a way I feel pledged to him
too after all our times together in the War; and with his one leg what
else could he do? I was with him when he lost it and I feel bound to
help."
"I can't agree," said Mrs. Harford, "that for a one-legged man
second-hand book selling is the only possible employment, but I'll go
so far as to say that I like you to feel like that about him. All the
same, I don't see why he should need a partner. An assistant, yes, but
why my son as a partner? And also, can there be enough profit in a
second-hand book shop to keep two young men?"
"We shan't roll, of course," said Jack, "but we oughtn't to starve,
and there's always the chance of picking up a first folio for a few
shillings and selling it at its real value. So you will put up a little
money, darling, won't you? You wouldn't like me to touch my capital, I
know."
"No," said his mother. "I should hate it. All I can say now is that if
Mr. Tredegar approves I'll see what I can do. And of course he must be
consulted as to the premises you take, the lease, and all that kind of
thing. You promise that?"
"Well, darling," said Jack, "I would promise it if I could. But I
can't, because, you see, we've burnt our boats. We took the place a
fortnight ago."
"How naughty of you!" said his mother. "Then nothing I can say now is
of any use?"
"Nothing," he replied tragically. "Too late! Too late!"
"Where is this loathsome shop to be?" Mrs. Harford asked.
"In Motcombe Street," said Jack.
"But that isn't a popular part at all," his mother objected. "Very few
strangers pass along there."
"Pat says we don't want them," said Jack. "We shall send out
catalogues, and gradually get to be known. Of course we don't mind if
someone comes in by chance and buys the first folio; but there'll be no
fourpenny box or anything like that at the door. It's a good address,
and the rent is low."
"And you've actually taken it?" his mother asked.
"Actually," he replied.
"You will break my heart yet," said Mrs. Harford.
"Never," said her son, lifting her into the air.
"Don't be so absurd; let me down!" the little lady cried.
"Not till you've withdrawn that abominable remark about breaking your
heart."
"Very well then--but only under pressure."
"And not till you've kissed me like a loving and thoroughly approving
mother."
"I can't do that."
"Well, kiss me anyway," said Jack, holding her still higher.
And she did. Mothers (bless them) can be very weak.