Part 3

There was a pause while June screwed up her eyes like an expert; and in consequence she had reluctantly to admit that they were unmistakable trees.

“And now we are coming to the water, don’t you see?” said the young man in a tone of quiet ecstasy.

“Where’s the water?”

With a lover’s delicacy, William ran the point of the knife along the canvas.

“Don’t you see it, Miss June?” There was a thrill in the low voice.

“Why, yes,” said June. “It’s water, right enough.” No use trying now not to be impressed. “Now I call that rather clever!”

“I knew it was there. And if you know a thing’s there, sooner or later you are bound to find it. Do you know what my opinion is?” Of a sudden, the exalted voice sank mysteriously.

June had no idea what William’s opinion was, but she was quite willing to hear it, whatever it might be, for he had just had a considerable rise in her estimation.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this turns out to be a----” He broke off with a perplexing smile.

“Turns out to be a what?”

“Perhaps I’d better not say.” The words, in their caution and their gravity intrigued a shrewd daughter of the midlands. June, in spite of herself, was beginning to respect this odd young man.

“You think it might be something very good?”

“It might be something almost _too_ good.” William’s tone had a deep vibration. “If it keeps on coming out like this, it’ll be wonderful. Do you see that cloud?”

June peered hard, but she could not see a suspicion of a cloud.

“Take the microscope.”

Even with the microscope no cloud was visible to June.

“I’m as sure of it as I ever was of anything,” said William. “There’s a cloud--oh, yes!” The note of faith was music. “And there’s a sky--oh, yes!” A stray beam of the September sunset made an effect so remarkable, as it slanted across the upturned eyes, that June paid them rather more attention at the moment than she gave to the canvas.

“Has Uncle Si seen those trees?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes, the master came up to look at them a few minutes ago.”

“What did he say?”

“He just scratched his cheek and changed his spectacles.”

“Did you tell him what you’ve just told me?”

The young man nodded.

“Did Uncle Si believe you?”

“He said he’d wait till he saw it.”

“Well, he can’t deny the trees, anyway.”

“No, he can’t deny the trees. But, of course the real picture is only just beginning to come out, as you might say. All the same, he’s made me an offer for it, even as it stands.”

With a swift, sudden intuition, June cried: “I hope you haven’t taken it!”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” said William, casually. “I feel I’d like to keep the picture until I find out what it really is.”

“Well, mind you do. And, if the question isn’t a rude one, what did Uncle Si offer?”

“Seven and sixpence. But that’s for the frame mainly.”

June grew magisterial. “You mustn’t think of parting with it.”

With an innocence hard to credit in one so clever, William asked why.

“Why!” June almost snorted. “Because if Uncle Si offers you seven and sixpence for a thing which he knows you bought for five shillings, you can be sure that he considers it may be valuable.”

“The master has always been very good to me,” said the young man with extreme simplicity.

At these words June felt a stab of pain, so great was the contrast between the two men. One saw the wares in which they dealt only in terms of beauty, the other in terms of money.

“You are too modest. And, although you are so clever, if you don’t mind my saying so, you are also rather foolish in some ways--at least that’s my opinion.”

William frankly admitted the impeachment.

“Well, now,” said June, a cool and steady eye upon him, “suppose you tell me where you think your foolishness lies?”

“Why, I was foolish enough to think that patch”--the Simpleton pressed the finger of an artist upon the patch--“was really and truly a windmill. But, of course, it’s nothing of the kind.”

“I’m not speaking of windmills now,” said June severely. “I’m speaking of things much more important.”

“Oh, but a windmill can be very important. Have you ever really seen a windmill?”

“Yes, of course, I have.”

The Sawney asked where.

June had seen a windmill in Lincolnshire.

“Lincolnshire! Oh, but you should see the one in the National Gallery.”

“The one in the where?” said June, with a frown.

Of a sudden his voice took its delicious fall. The rare smile, which lit his face, was for June an enchantment: “It’s a Hobbema.”

“A what!--emma!”

“A Hobbema. On Saturdays the shop closes at one, so that I could take you to see it, if you’d care to. I should like you so much to see it--that’s if it interests you at all. It will give you an idea of what a windmill can be.”

“But I meant a real windmill. I’m only interested in real things, anyway.”

“A Hobbema is better than real.”

“Better than real,” said June, opening wide eyes.

“When you see it, you’ll understand what I mean. I do hope you’ll come and look at it.”

June was such a practical person that her first instinct was to refuse to do anything of the kind. But that instinct was overborne by the complexity of her feelings. In some ways he was the simplest Simon of them all; a longing to shake him was growing upon her, but the disconcerting fact remained that after a fashion he was decidedly clever. And leaving his mental qualities out of the case, when you got his face at an angle and you caught the light in his eyes, he was by far the handsomest young man she had ever seen. Therefore her promise was reluctantly given that on Saturday afternoon she would go with him to the National Gallery to see what a windmill was really like.

VIII

JUNE’S promise was made on the evening of Monday. Before it could be fulfilled, however, much had to happen. Saturday itself was put out of the case by the departure of William early that morning to attend a sale in Essex, where several things might be going cheap. And on the following Thursday he had to go to Tunbridge Wells. During his absence on that day, moreover, June’s interest in the picture he had bought at Crowdham Market was roused suddenly to a very high pitch.

Even before this significant event occurred, her mind had been full of this much-discussed purchase. Day by day William wrought upon it with growing enthusiasm. There was now no more doubt in regard to the clouds and the sky than there was as to the trees and the water. S. Gedge Antiques had been up to the attic several times to see for himself, and although in his opinion, the best that could be said for the picture was that it might turn out to be a copy of a fair example of the Dutch School, he went to the length of doubling his offer of seven and sixpence. In other words, which he issued with point at the supper table on the evening prior to William’s trip to Tunbridge Wells, there was “a full week’s extra wages sticking out,” if only the young man cared to take it in exchange for a dubious work of little or no value.

William needed, among other things, a new pair of boots; he was short of the materials of his craft, and the sum of fifteen shillings meant a great deal to him at any time, facts with which his employer was well acquainted. The temptation was great. While the offer was under consideration, June held her breath. She had a frantic desire to signal across the table to William not to part with his treasure. Much to her relief, however, the young man resisted the lure. His master told him roundly that only a fool would refuse such an offer. William allowed that it was princely, but he had quite an affection for the picture now, besides, much had to be done to get it really clean.

At present, moreover, he had not even begun to look for the signature.

“Signature!” S. Gedge Antiques took up the word sarcastically. And there were times, as June knew already, when the old man could be terribly sarcastic. “You’ll be looking, I suppose, for the signature of Hobbema. Seems to me, boy, you’re cracked on that subject.”

“I don’t think, sir,” said William, in his gentle voice, “that this picture is a Hobbema.”

“Don’t you indeed?” To conceal a rising impatience Uncle Si made a face at his niece. “You’re cracked, my boy.” He gave his own forehead a symbolical tap. “Why waste your time looking for a signature to a thing you bought for five shillings at an old serendipity shop at Crowdham Market! You’d far better turn over a snug little profit of two hundred per cent and forget all about it.”

The next day, however, when William set out for Tunbridge Wells, he was still the owner of the picture. And in the light of what was to follow it was a fact of considerable importance.

In the course of that morning, while June was helping Uncle Si to dress the front window, there sauntered into the shop a funny, oldish, foxy little man, who wore a brown billycock hat at the back of his head, and had a pair of legs as crooked as a Louis Quinze chair. She set him down at once as a character out of Dickens.

“Mornin’ to you, Mr. Gedge,” said this quaint visitor.

“Mornin’ to you, Mr. Thornton!” said S. Gedge Antiques returning the salutation with deference.

June cocked her ears. The note in Uncle Si’s rasping voice, which always seemed to need a file, told her at once that the visitor was no common man.

As a preliminary to business, whatever that business might be, Mr. Thornton fixed an eye like a small bright bead on the Hoodoo, whose sinister bulk seemed to dominate half the shop. It was fixed, moreover, with an air of whimsical appreciation as he murmured: “The British Museum is the place for that.”

“There I’m with you, Mr. Thornton.” S. Gedge Antiques looked his visitor steadily in the eye. “Wonderful example of early Polynesian craftsmanship.”

“Early Polynesian craftsmanship.” The little man stroked the belly of the Hoodoo with a kind of rapt delicacy which other men reserve for the fetlock of a horse.

“Only one of its kind.”

“I should say so,” murmured Louis Quinze-legs, screwing up his eyes; and then, by way of after-thought: “I’ve just dropped in, Mr. Gedge, to have a look at that picture you mentioned to me yesterday.”

“Oh, _that_, Mr. Thornton.” The voice of S. Gedge Antiques suggested that the matter was of such little consequence that it had almost passed from his mind. “S’pose I’d better get it for you.” And then with an odd burst of agility, which in one of his years was quite surprising, the old man left the shop, while June, her heart beating high, went on dressing the window.

In three minutes or less, William’s picture appeared under the arm of William’s master. “Here you are, Mr. Thornton!” The voice was oil.

June made herself small between a Chinese cabinet and a tallboys in the window’s deepest gorge. From this point of vantage, the privilege of seeing and hearing all that passed in the shop was still hers.

Foxy Face received the picture in silence from Uncle Si, held it to his eyes, pursed his lips, took a glass from his pocket, and examined it minutely back and front, turning it over and tapping it several times in the process. The slow care he gave to this ritual began to get on June’s nerves.

“There’s good work in it,” said Louis Quinze-legs, at last.

“Good work in it!” said S. Gedge Antiques in what June called his “selling” voice. “I should just think there was.”

“But there’s one thing it lacks.” The little man, looking more than ever like a fox, chose each word with delicacy. “It’s a pity--a very great pity--there’s no signature.”

“Signature!” The old man’s tone had lost the drawling sneer of the previous evening. “Tell me, Mr. Thornton,----” He must have forgotten that June was so near--“if we happened to come upon the signature of Hobbema down there in that left hand corner--in that black splotch--what do you suppose it might be worth?”

Mr. Thornton did not answer the question at once. And when answer he did, his voice was so low that June could hardly hear it. “I wouldn’t like to say offhand, Mr. Gedge. Mosby sent a Hobbema to New York last year, but what he got for it I don’t know.”

“I heard twenty-eight thousand dollars.”

“So did I, but I doubt it. Still, the Americans are paying big money just now. Did you see that thing of Mosby’s, by the way?”

“Yes; it was a bit larger than this chap, but it hadn’t the work in it.”

“Well, get it a bit cleaner; and then, if you can show me Hobbema’s signature with the date, about the place where I’ve got my finger, I dare say we can come to business, Mr. Gedge.”

“I quite expect we’ll be able to do that,” said the old man with an air of robust optimism which surprised June considerably.

Foxy Face ventured to hope that such might be the case, whereupon the voice of Uncle Si fell to a pitch which his niece had to strain a keen ear to catch.

“Suppose, Mr. Thornton, we omit the question of the signature? Do you feel inclined to make an offer for the picture as it stands?”

The pause which followed was long and tense, and then June was just able to hear the cautious voice of Foxy Face. “Possibly, Mr. Gedge--I dare say I might. But before I could think of doing that, I should like a friend of mine to vet it. He’s wise in these things, and knows what can be done with them.”

“Right you are, Mr. Thornton,” said S. Gedge Antiques brisk and businesslike. “If you can tell me when your friend is likely to call, I’ll be here to meet him.”

“Shall we say to-morrow morning at ten?”

“Very well, Mr. Gedge. And if my friend can’t come, I’ll telephone.”

Foxy Face was bowed out of the shop with a politeness that fairly astonished June. She could hardly believe that this mirror of courtesy was Uncle Si. In fact, it was as if the old man had had a change of heart. With the light step of a boy, he took back the picture to the attic, while June, thinking hard, retired to the back premises to cook two middling-sized potatoes for dinner.

IX

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.”