Part 20
“What’s become of her? Can you tell us?” said June.
“Had to go to the Workhouse, I believe, poor soul,” said the girl, who had a good heart.
June looked at William. William looked at June.
“Is the Workhouse far from here--please can you tell us?” It was William who asked the question.
The Workhouse, it seemed, was not far. In fact it was quite near. To get there you had only to go to the end of the lane, turn to the left, cross the recreation ground and the footbridge over the canal, and keep on bearing to the left and you couldn’t miss it.
“Will it take long?” The question was June’s. And a glance at her wrist accompanied it.
“Not more than five minutes.”
“Thank you very much indeed. We are greatly obliged to you.” William it was who brought the conversation to a climax with a lift of the hat.
LXV
THERE was only one thing to be done now. Mr. Mitchell’s hour was up, but there was no help for it. The Workhouse, as the girl had said--she might, in June’s opinion have had a claim to good looks if she had not suffered from “a rush of teeth to the head”--was not more than five minutes away if you followed her instructions.
As June had the matter in hand, the instructions were followed to the letter and they arrived at the Workhouse without delay. But as the pile, dark and grim, came into view at the far side of the canal, an odd emotion suddenly brought them up with a round turn.
A long moment they gazed at the bleak and frowning thing before their eyes. And then June said with a laugh, “I’m thinking that’s where you’ll be one day, if you don’t find someone who isn’t a genius to look after you.”
The words came from the heart, yet William did not appear to hear them. “Reminds one,” he murmured half to himself, “of that little thing of Duclaux’s called The Poor House.”
June’s puzzlement was revealed by a frown.
“There’s an exhibition of his pictures just now at the Bond Street Gallery. Wonderful line. A great sense of mass effect.”
“You can’t tell me,” said June, “there’s beauty in a thing like that--in that old Workhouse?”
“Duclaux would say so, with that dark cloud cutting across the gable. And that bend of the Canal in the foreground is not without value.” He smiled his rare smile which never had looked so divine. But June was a little afraid of it now. She kept her eyes the other way.
“Canal,” she said with brevity. “Not without value. I should say so. As we say at Blackhampton, ‘where there’s muck there’s money.’”
She glanced at her wrist again. Another ten minutes credited now to Mr. Mitchell’s account.
“Duclaux, I suppose, would see it this way.” The queer fellow stepped back two paces, put up his hand to shade his eyes and adjust his vision to look at the Workhouse.
This was Pure Pottiness, the concentrated essence in tabloid form. However, Miss Babraham had already impressed upon June the deep truth that genius must be allowed a margin.
A little faint of heart she rang the bell of the gloomy and forbidding door. The summons was heeded, tardily and with reluctance, by its janitor, a surly male.
“Can we see Mrs. Stark?” asked June.
“Eh?” said the janitor. He must have been deaf indeed not to have heard the question in its cool clarity. June repeated it; whereon the keeper of the door looked her slowly up and down, turning over the name in his mind as he did so.
“Mother Stark she was called,” said June, for his further enlightenment. “She sold all kinds of old rubbish at a shop that used to be opposite Middleton’s Dairy at the top of Love Lane.”
“Mother Stark you say!” Light was coming to the janitor. “No, you can’t see her.”
“Why not? The matter’s important.”
“She’s been in her grave this two month--that’s why not,” said the janitor.
“Oh,” said June; and then after brief commerce with the eye of William: “Has she any relations or friends?”
The answer was no. Mother Stark had had a parish burial.
William thanked Diogenes with that courtesy which was never-failing and inimitable; and then after one more swift glance at each other, they turned away, feeling somehow, a little overcome, yet upheld by the knowledge of being through at last with the matter of the poor old thing’s annuity.
Returning in their tracks across the canal footbridge, across the recreation ground, up the lane, past the site of the new picture house, past Middleton’s Dairy, they entered the High Street, without haste, in spite of Mr. Mitchell, and with a gravity new and strange, as if they both felt now the hand of destiny upon them.
Heedless of all the Mr. Mitchells in the universe, they walked very slowly to draw out the last exquisite drop of a moment of bliss that, no matter what life had in store, they could never forget. And then for some mystic reason, June’s brain grew incandescent. It became a thing of dew and fire. Ideas formed within it, broke from it, took shape in the ambient air. She might have been treading the upper spaces of Elysium, except that no girl’s feet were ever planted more firmly or more shrewdly upon the pavement of High Street, Crowdham Market.
Four doors from the Unicorn Inn was the most fashionable jeweller’s shop in the town, perhaps for the reason that there was no other; and as they came level with the window a spark flashed from its depths and met an instant answer in the eye of June. Nearly an hour behind the schedule they were now, yet they lingered one moment more, while June drew William’s attention to a coincidence. The vital spark it seemed, owed its being to a gem set in a ring which was almost a replica of the one worn by Miss Babraham in honor of its giver, who of course was a gentleman in the Blues.
“It’s as like Miss Babraham’s engagement ring as one pea is like another pea,” said June in a soft voice.
In the course of their friendship, William had been guilty of many silences of a disgraceful impersonality; and he was now guilty of one more. He glanced at the ring with a wistful eye, sighed a little, and then with slow reluctance moved on. June accompanied him to the very threshold of the Unicorn Inn. And upon its doorstep of all places, within hearing of the Office, wherein lurked Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, he faced about, and then by way of an after-thought, his head apparently still full of Duclaux, began to stammer.
“Miss June if I go back and get that ring will you--will you promise--to--to----?”
Miss Ferris was in the Office; the top of her coiffure was to be seen above the frosted glass. And the Office door was wide open; June, therefore, gave her answer in a very low and gentle voice.
Her answer, for all that, did not lack pith. “If only you’ll cut out the Miss, I’ll wear it like Miss Babraham--on my heart finger.”
LXVI
BACK they went to the jeweller’s four doors up. To the expert eye of William, the ring on inspection was so little like Miss Babraham’s that he seemed to have a qualm about buying it. He had a fancy for moonstones and diamonds, but Crowdham Market’s only jeweller did not run to these. June was firm, besides, that the ring in her hand was cheap at nine guineas, and as no one could call it vulgar, it was quite good enough.
William was sure it was nothing like good enough. “But when we get to London, you shall have moonstones and diamonds.”
“That’ll be lovely,” said June; and a deep thrill ran in her heart as she realized that her dreams were coming true.
William took a wad of Bradburys from his breast pocket. He was now a man of property, with a rent roll of twelve hundred a year, but even a most careful counting would not let them muster more than seven. June, however, as became the lawful owner of an Old Master, whom to acquire for the nation a committee had been lately formed, was equal to the occasion. For she promptly took a wad from the vanity bag which now graced her travels instead of her mother’s old purse, and made up the sum.
In the meantime, the jeweller, a man of ripe experience, had put two and two together.
“Will you wear it, madam, or will you have it packed in the box?”
An unconventional question, no doubt, but places like Crowdham Market are close to nature and get down to bedrock by short cuts.
“I’ll wear it,” June answered. “And I’ll have the box as well. It’ll do for my dressing table to keep pins in.”
The jeweller, one of the old school, bowed to June as he handed her the box and also the change. And then, a jeweller with a fine technique, he smiled at William in a Masonic manner and handed him the ring.
June, as cool as if she was on parade, removed a white kid glove from her left hand. “That’s the heart finger,” she said.
If she blushed a little, the jeweller was too busy writing out the receipt at the other end of the shop to be aware of the fact.
LXVII
THEY decided to ask Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, for a cup of tea, before they set out on the journey home. June felt she could afford to take the risk, since by now the situation was well in hand. Mr. Mitchell raised no objection. Himself an ampler man for a noble lunch, he had been recounting tales of Araby and lands of fair renown in the privacy of the Office. His suit of Robin Hood green and a certain gallantry of bearing had made considerable impact in an amazingly short time, not upon Miss Ferris merely, but upon her widowed mother, the sole proprietress of the Unicorn Inn, who in the words of the local manager of the East Anglia and Overtons Bank “was the warmest woman in Crowdham Market.”
While Mr. Mitchell (Sergeant, R.E., D.C.M. with clasp), and the widow were in the garden admiring the early pansies, June and William sat down to tea in the coffee room. Even there the contiguity of Miss Ferris had rather a tendency to cramp June’s style. High-coloured girl, she was a little inclined to take liberties as she passed around the table. And when June, in her sweetest and best Miss Babraham manner, asked if they might have some crab apple jam, she caught the glint of the ring on June’s heart finger in a way so direct that she murmured something about having to look out for her eyesight--or words equally ill-bred--and nearly dropped the tea pot.
By the time they got under way and the nose of the car was set for the pleasant land of Surrey, a doubt infected the mind of Mr. Mitchell as to whether they would make Homefield before midnight. Neither June nor William seemed to care very much whether they did or whether they didn’t. The car was most comfortable, the sense of romance hot upon them still, the presence of each other vital and delicious in their consciousness. Mile passed upon mile. The endless spool of road continued to unwind itself, a little wind breathed gentle nothings, Mr. Mitchell sat four-square in front, the birds still sang, but the sun was going down.
Saying very little, they lived never-to-be-forgotten hours. Now and again William pointed to a bird or a tree, the fold of a hill, the form of a cloud, the gleam of a distant water. Yet for the most part the nearness of each other was all sufficing. June began to nestle closer; the chill of night came on. Saying less than ever now, moonstones and diamonds stole upon her thoughts. She was haunted by a lovely fear that she could not live up to them. And then softly and more soft, she began to breathe with a rhythmical rise and fall, slowly deepening to a faint crescendo that blended with the motions of the car.
East by west of nowhere came the high moment when the sun was not, and the moon not yet. Somewhere over Surrey a star was dancing. Very shyly and gently he ventured to give her a kiss. She stirred ever so little. A bird spoke from a brake, a note clear and wonderful, yet the month was young for the nightingale. But this was Cloud Cuckoo Land, a divine country in which the nightingale may be heard at odd seasons.
Psyche stirred again. With a reverence chaste and simple he gave her a second kiss, deep and slow. The solemn sacrament was fire to the soul of an artist. And then he gave a little gasp. The high gods in his brain whispered that the moon was coming.
The moon was coming.
Yes, there she was, the sovereign lady! He sat very still, praying, praying that he might surprise some holy secret, hidden even from Duclaux.
She was very wonderful to-night. Her loveliness was more than he could bear. There was a touch of intimacy in her magic; the country over which she shone was elfland. He seemed to hear a faint familiar sound of horns. Or it might have been the swift gliding of the car.
In the quietness of the spirit’s ecstasy he could have wept.
Might it be given to Duclaux to see her, lovely lady, just as he could see her now!
But he mustn’t dare to breathe or the vision would be forever lost.
THE END
NOVELS BY J. C. SNAITH
=THE VAN ROON=
A remarkable novel, human to its very core, which tells of how a painting by an old master, newly discovered, became a cause of love and hate among a curious and delightful group of characters.
=THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN=
International mystery in which seven men come to grips with a war-preaching newspaper-syndicate. The hero, typical Snaith character, fights boldly against strangling intrigue.
=THE UNDEFEATED=
“It is distinctly a big novel--a book of vision and of understanding, of truth and beauty.”--_New York Times._
“The simplest and straightest work imaginable and mightily impressive.”--_Washington Star._
=THE SAILOR=
“It is a book that overwhelms the reader by the poignant and magnificent message that it carries. It is a book that is unforgettable.”--_Springfield Union._
“Interpretative, creative work of a very high order.”--_New York Times._
=THE ADVENTUROUS LADY=
A sparkling social comedy, top-full of delightful situations and characters, seasoned with incomparable humor and youthful buoyancy.
=THE TIME SPIRIT=
“The verbal fencing, sparkling colloquy and keen, swift repartee alone raise the story far above the dead level of society fiction.”--_Philadelphia North American._
=THE COMING=
“Mr. Snaith handles his theme delicately, poetically, with a fine and sensitive reverence.”--_Independent._
“It is a daring performance of impressive and triumphant strength.”--_New York Tribune._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY New York London
A CHOICE SHELF OF NOVELS
=ABBÉ PIERRE=
By JAY WILLIAM HUDSON
This charming novel of life in quaint Gascony is proving that a novel that is a work of truest art can be a best seller of the widest popularity.
=WAY OF REVELATION=
By WILFRID EWART
A realistic novel of the great war which presents with startling truth and accuracy the effect of the conflict upon a group of intensely interesting characters.
=THE MERCY OF ALLAH=
By HILAIRE BELLOC, Author of “The Path to Rome,” etc.
A brilliant and highly entertaining satire on modern business, which tells of how Mahmoud, by the Mercy of Allah and his own keen wits, accumulated a vast fortune.
=THE RICH LITTLE POOR BOY=
By ELEANOR GATES, Author of “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” etc.
A whimsical, humorous fantasy of a poor little boy’s search for happiness.
=MOTHER=
By MAXIM GORKY. Introduction by Charles Edward Russell.
Wide interest is being displayed in Gorky’s story of Russia before the Revolution.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY New York London
AMONG THE NEWEST NOVELS
=THE HOUSE OF MOHUN=
By GEORGE GIBBS, Author of “Youth Triumphant,” etc.
A distinguished novel depicting present day society and its most striking feature, the “flapper.” A story of splendid dramatic qualities.
=THE COVERED WAGON=
By EMERSON HOUGH, Author of “The Magnificent Adventure,” “The Story of the Cowboy,” etc.
A novel of the first water, clear and clean, is this thrilling story of the pioneers, the men and women who laid the foundation of the great west.
=HOMESTEAD RANCH=
By ELIZABETH G. YOUNG
The _New York Times_ says that “Homestead Ranch” is one of the season’s “two best real wild and woolly western yarns.” The _Boston Herald_ says, “So delightful that we recommend it as one of the best western stories of the year.”
=SACRIFICE=
By STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN, Author of “Predestined,” etc.
How a woman, spoiled child of New York society, faced the dangers of the African jungle trail. “One feels ever the white heat of emotional conflict.”--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
=DOUBLE-CROSSED=
By W. DOUGLAS NEWTON, Author of “Low Ceilings,” etc.
“An excellently written and handled tale of adventure and thrills in the dark spruce valleys of Canada.”--_New York Times._
=JANE JOURNEYS ON=
By RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL, Author of “Play the Game,” etc.
The cheerful story of a delightful heroine’s adventures from Vermont to Mexico.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY New York London
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
On page 10, finger-nail has been changed to finger nail.
On page 15, packing-case has been changed to packing case.
On page 31, “top if” has been changed to “top of”.
On page 70, “was not be” has been changed to “was not to be”.
On page 73, “severity that” has been changed to “severity than”.
On page 75, once side has been changed to one side.
On page 111, none-such has been changed to non-such.
On pages 154 and 194, Jane has been changed to June.
On page 189, shop-door has been changed to shop door.
On page 258, that has been changed to than.
On page 319, being has been changed to been.
On page 321, Jane Eliot has been changed to Jane Austen.
Minor, quiet corrections have been made to punctuation, to conform to common usage.
All other hyphenation, variant and archaic spellings and accented dialogue have been retained.