Part 8

“Do you ever paint landscapes?”

“They are not quite my line of country,” said the man. “Portraits and the figure are what I go for as a rule. I am looking for a model now. Would you like to sit to me?”

“I don’t know.” June spoke doubtfully. “I don’t think I could.”

“Haven’t you ever sat?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Time you began. You are just the sort of girl.”

“Why am I?”

“For one thing you have personality.”

This was a surprising and rather thrilling corroboration of Mr. Boultby. At the back of her mind the old druggist had always figured as “a bit of a gasbag” with a ready flow of conversation and a gift of easy compliment. But it would seem that this estimate did him less than justice. Mr. Boultby was better informed than she had thought. And at this moment a phrase he had used came back to her with a force that was a little startling. “A girl as good-looking as you can always get a living,” Mr. Boultby had once said.

“I suppose you mean my hair?” said June naïvely.

He showed two rows of very white and level teeth in a smile which piqued her curiosity.

“Partly your hair, and partly your figure,” he said, taking a second tiny sip of ginger beer. “Why not come and try? I have a studio in Haliburton Street, just out of Manning Square.”

June shook a doubtful head. She then gave a glance sideways at the imbiber of the ginger beer. Her knowledge of the world was slender, but she was not a fool, and there was something about this “forthcomingness” which even exceeded that of Mr. Boultby himself, that warned her to be careful.

“You’d be well paid, of course.”

“How much?” June had no false modesty when it came to a question of money. This was an aspect of the matter that had not struck her until then.

“I’d pay you five shillings an hour,” he said lightly. “And ten for the altogether.”

June’s heart gave a leap. To a girl in her position it was a princely reward. Such an offer seemed most tempting. But a moment’s consideration of the issues it raised brought on a sudden fit of shyness.

“I don’t think I could,” she said.

“Why not?” The eyes of the man were now fixed intently upon her face.

“Oh, I don’t----”

“Not enough, eh?”

She felt his eyes so forcibly upon her that she coloured hotly.

“It isn’t that.”

“What’s your reason then?”

“I’ve not been used to that sort of thing.”

He smiled broadly.

“It’s only a matter of keeping still. Of course, I shall not press you to sit for ‘the altogether’ if you had rather not.”

“The altogether” was Greek to June.

However, she did not confess her ignorance, but was content to make a mental note to ask William what it meant. And at the moment she did so the thought of William brought the Van Roon to her mind.

“I suppose you know a lot about pictures?” An idea was forming already in that practical head.

“Perhaps I know as much about them as some people,” said the man, beginning to roll a cigarette. June could not help feeling that his answer was in piquant contrast to what William’s would have been had such a question been put to him. It had a self-complacency which even if it implied deep knowledge was also open to criticism.

“What do you think a Van Roon would be worth?”

“A Van Roon!” he said, offhandedly. “Well, you know, that might depend on many things.”

“They are very valuable, I suppose,” said June, trying to look innocent.

“Very valuable indeed, at the present time. Privately, I think they are overrated. The Flemish School is being run to death, but of course, that’s only my opinion.”

“Would it be worth a hundred pounds?”

“What! A Van Roon!” The man laughed. “My good girl, you might multiply a hundred pounds by a hundred, and then think you had got ‘some’ bargain if you found yourself the owner of a Van Roon.”

“This mightn’t be a good one.” June spoke cautiously. She saw at once that it would be wise “to go slow.”

“All Van Roons are good, you know. But some, of course, are a bit better than others.”

“I’ve been told it is one of the best,” said June, after a moment’s deliberation.

“Which are you talking about? The one in the National Gallery, I suppose. That’s the only Van Roon in this country. The Americans have robbed us of three within the last ten years.”

“Yes, I’ve heard so,” said June, with a wise air.

“In my humble opinion, it can’t be compared with the chap in the Louvre, and they say that its stable companion, which was cut out of its frame back in the Nineties, and has never been found, is even finer.”

“Still you think it’s very valuable?”

“The one in the National Gallery? Sure! It wouldn’t be there, you know, if it wasn’t. The Flemish School is booming these days, and Van Roon is the pick of the bunch, and the least prolific. Tell me,” the man’s small and rather furtive eyes began to twinkle, “why are you so interested in Van Roons? Is it, by any chance, that you’ve got one for sale?” And he laughed very softly and gently at what he evidently considered a rich joke.

June looked at him gravely.

“It so happens that I have!” she said with a caution which seemed to give the value of drama to a simple announcement.

XXI

ADOLPH KELLER was the man’s name. And as June was to learn later, he had never felt more amused in his life. It was really a jest that he should follow a countrified-looking girl into a teashop, get into conversation with her, and then be quietly told that she had a Van Roon to sell. There was something rather pathetic in a girl of her class making such a statement. All she could mean was that somehow she had got hold of a more or less “dud” copy of “Sun and Cloud,” that much lithographed work in the National Gallery which in consequence was now familiar to the big public.

“So you’ve got a Van Roon for sale, have you?” said Adolph Keller, who was hardly able to keep from laughing outright. “Good for you! What’s the size of it?”

“Sixteen inches by twelve,” said June, with the patness of one who prided herself, and with reason, upon a most excellent memory.

“Without the frame?”

June nodded.

“Yes, that’s about the size,” said Keller. “It’s called ‘Sun and Cloud,’ I suppose?”

“It’s not called anything at present,” said June, “as far as I know, although sun and cloud are in it.”

“Bound to be--if it’s a Van Roon.”

“And there are trees as well.”

“Trees, are there? A copy of the one in the National Gallery, I expect. Is there a windmill in the left hand corner?”

There was no windmill in the left hand corner, June declared with confidence. She remembered that at first William had thought there was, but had changed his opinion later.

“Then that washes out the National Gallery. I dare say it’s a copy of ‘L’Automne’ in the Louvre. By the way, how did you come by it?”

“It was given to me by a gentleman, a friend of mine,” said June, after a moment for reflection.

“A very good friend, too.” The tone of the laugh had a little too much banter to be pleasant. “Isn’t everybody, you know, who gives a Van Roon to his best girl? A bit of a plutocrat evidently.”

June didn’t know what a plutocrat was, but she was too proud to say so. She made a mental note to look up the word in the dictionary.

“How did your rich friend come by it? Do you happen to know?”

“He isn’t rich,” said June, with a wish for perfect honesty. “He found it in a shop.”

“Where was the shop?”

“It was at a place called Crowdham Market.”

“Down in Suffolk. Sounds a funny place to find a Van Roon.”

“It was ever so dirty when it was found. And another picture seemed to have been painted on the top of it.”

“Queer.” The eyes of Adolph Keller narrowed in their intentness. “Who told you it was a Van Roon?”

“The man who gave it to me.”

“Who told him?”

“He found the signature.” June’s quiet precision owed something to the fact that she was now fully and rather deliciously aware of the effect she was making.

“What!... The signature of Mynheer Van Roon?”

“Yes,” said June.

The incredulity of Keller had yielded now to a powerful curiosity. He looked at June with a keenness he tried hard to veil. This was a very unlikely story, yet he knew enough of life to appreciate the fact that mere unlikelihood is no reason why a story should not be true. Besides, this girl had such an ingenuous air that it was impossible to believe her tale was a deliberate invention. At the same time, it had elements which were particularly hard to swallow.

“Why was the picture given to you?”

“I asked for it,” said June, whose simple honesty now involved a tell-tale blush.

Mr. Keller looked her steadily in the eye, and then he laughed, but not unsympathetically.

“Your best boy, I suppose, and he could deny you nothing.”

“That’s it,” said June awkwardly. This audacious irony was new to her, and she did not know how to meet it.

“By the way, what is this young chap of yours? An artist?”

“Yes,” said June. “I suppose he is--in a way. He studies art and renovates pictures, and he knows a lot about them.”

“Not so much as he thinks,” said Adolph Keller, “else he would not be such a fool as to give away a Van Roon, even to a girl as nice and pretty as you are.”

He had lowered his voice to a whisper of rare sweetness and carrying power. There was something about him that was powerfully attractive; at the same time, a look had crept into a pair of rather furtive eyes which was oddly repellent.

“Do you say you really have this picture in your possession?” His intentness when he put this question made June feel a little uncomfortable.

“Yes, it has been given to me.”

“Could you let me see it?”

June hesitated.

“I think I could,” she said, after a pause.

“Well, suppose you bring it round to my studio for me to look at?”

Again June hesitated.

“As you like, of course,” said Keller, carelessly. “I was only thinking it might be worth your while, that’s all. You see, I happen to know one or two dealers and people, and I might be able to find out for you just what it’s worth.”

June saw the force of this. She was in desperate straits, and this man had the appearance of a friend in need.

“Perhaps I will,” she said.

“Very well,” said the man. “When will you come?”

For a moment June thought hard. “I couldn’t come before Thursday.”

“The day after to-morrow--that’ll suit me. What time?”

June continued to think hard. “It would have to be between three and four.” She spoke with slow reluctance. “That’s the only time I can really get away.”

“All right,” said the man, briskly. “You’ll find me at the Haliburton Street Studios up till five o’clock on Thursday. Number Four. Give a good ring; the bell is a bit out of gear. My name is Keller. Can you remember it, or shall I write it down for you, with the address?”

“Write them down for me, please.”

The man tore a leaf from a pocket book, and wrote his name and address with a fountain pen: Adolph Keller, 4 Haliburton Street Studios, Manning Square, Soho. When he had done this, and given it to her, he tore out another leaf and asked her to write down hers. This she accordingly did, and then the sudden thought of William’s tea caused her to rise abruptly.

Mr. Keller wished to pay her bill, which was five-pence, but she declined to let him.

“Au revoir! Thursday afternoon. Manning Square is only about three minutes from here. Don’t forget,” were the words with which he took leave of her. “Bring it along. I dare say I’ll be able to tell you whether it is genuine, and perhaps give you an idea of its value.”

He laughed slightly, and then offered his hand in a very friendly manner. She took it with a reluctance she was rather ashamed of showing. He was so kind, so agreeable, so anxious to be of use that there seemed no warrant for the subtle complexity of feeling he had aroused in her.

XXII

JUNE’S way home to New Cross Street was beset with anxieties. Much would depend on what she did now. She felt that her whole life was about to turn on the decision she had to take in a very difficult matter.

There was no one to guide her, not a soul on whose advice she might lean. But before she had returned to the threshold of S. Gedge Antiques she had made a resolve to get immediate possession of the picture, and to let this Mr. Keller have a look at it. She did not altogether like him, it was true. But the feeling was irrational; she must be sensible enough not to let it set her against him without due cause. For he was a friend whom Providence had unmistakably thrown in her way, and there was no other to whom she might turn.

William was a broken reed. With all his perception and talent, he was likely to prove hopeless now that Uncle Si was setting his wits to work to obtain the picture for himself. William’s devotion to his master’s interest would be simply fatal to her scheme. For the sake of them both, June felt she must take a full advantage of the heaven-sent opportunity provided by this Mr. Keller.

Other decisions, too, would have to be made. As soon as Uncle Si knew the picture was hers, he would almost certainly carry out his threat of putting her in the street; at least she was no judge of character if the event proved otherwise. A means of livelihood must be sought at once. That afternoon’s experience of Oxford Street had opened up new vistas, which, however, might lead nowhere. But even if she could not get employment in a shop Mr. Keller’s offer of work as an artist’s model at five shillings an hour must not be lightly put aside.

The first thing to be done, however, was to clinch William’s gift of the picture once and for all. She made up her mind that it should be fully consummated before the return of Uncle Si from Newbury.

As soon as William had been given his tea she broached the subject. But when she asked for possession, there and then, his crest fell.

“I was still hoping, Miss June,” the simpleton owned, “that you’d let the dear old master have this lovely thing. It has come to mean so much to him, you see. I will get another one for you.”

“Not another Van Roon,” said June, sharply.

“No, I’m afraid I couldn’t promise a Van Roon.” A cloud passed over William’s face. “But I might be able to pick up something quite good, which perhaps you would come to like as much.”

June shook a disconsolate head.

“I don’t think,” she said, in a slow voice, as she fixed her eyes on the wall in front of her, “there is another picture in the world I should value so much as that one. I simply love that picture.”

William was troubled.

“The old master loves it, too.”

“But you gave it me, you know.” June was painfully conscious of a swift deepening of colour.

The plain fact was not denied.

“You mustn’t think me very hard and grasping if I hold you to the bargain.”

“No, Miss June. If you insist, of course the picture is yours.”

“To do with just as I like.”

“Why yes, certainly.”

June proceeded to take the bull by the horns. “Very well,” she said. “After supper, I shall ask you to hand it over to me, and I will put it in a place of safety.”

William sighed heavily. He seemed almost upon the verge of tears. June simply loathed the part she was playing. The only consolation was that she was acting quite as much in his interest as in her own.

Uncle Si came in shortly before eight. He sat down to supper in quite a good humour. For once the old man was in high conversational feather.

It was clear that his mind was still full of the picture. Without subscribing for one moment to William’s preposterous theory that the thing was a genuine Van Roon, he had had a further talk on the matter with his friend, Mr. Thornton, with whom he had travelled down to Newbury; and, he had arranged with that gentleman to bring his friend, Monsieur Duponnet, the famous Paris expert who was now in London, to come and look at it on Thursday afternoon. Monsieur Duponnet who knew more about Van Roon than anybody living, and had had several pass through his hands in the last ten years, would be able to say positively whether William was wrong, and S. Gedge Antiques was right, or with a devout gesture for which June longed to pull his ugly nose, vice versâ.

The time had now come for June to show her hand. Very quietly indeed her bolt was launched. William had given the picture to her.

The old man simply stared at her.

It was clear, however, that his thoughts were running so hard upon M. Duponnet and the higher potentialities that just at first he was not able to grasp the significance of June’s bald statement.

So that there should be no doubt about the position June modestly repeated it.

“Given it to you!” said the old man, a light beginning to break. “How do you mean--given it to you?”

Calmly, patiently June threw a little more light on the subject. And while she did so her eyes were fixed with veiled defiance upon the face of Uncle Si. The thought uppermost in her mind was that he took it far better than could have been expected. “Given it to you,” he kept on saying to himself softly. There was no explosion. “Given it to you,” he kept on. He grew a little green about the gills and that was all.

At last he turned to William: “Boy, what’s this? Is the girl daft?” The mildness of tone was astonishing.

William explained as well as he could. It was a lame and halting performance, and at that moment June was not proud of him. But she was even less proud of herself. The part she was playing, gloss it over as one might, was ignoble. And William’s embarrassment was rather painful to witness. He stammered a good deal, he grew red and nervous; and all the while the voice of his kind and good master became more deeply reproachful, and melted finally in a note of real pathos. “How could you do such a thing?” he said. “Why you know as well as I do, my boy, that I would have given you anything in reason for that picture--anything in reason.” And there he sat at his supper, the very image of outraged benevolence and enthusiasm, a Christian with a halo!

“Old Serpent” said the fierce eyes that June fixed upon his face. For a moment it looked as if the old wretch was going to shed tears. But no, he was content with a mild snuffle and that was all.

XXIII

BY bedtime, when June went to her attic, she had fully made up her mind that there must be no half measures now. She feared Uncle Si more than ever. There was something in that snuffle at the supper table, in that whine of outraged feeling, in that down-gazing eye which was far more formidable than any mere outburst of violence. Here was such a depth of hypocrisy that she had got to look out.

A light was showing under the studio door. June’s knock met with a prompt invitation to enter. William was affectionately lingering over a few final touches, which should prove beyond a doubt the authenticity of this masterpiece.

“Have you got it really clean at last?” said June, trying to speak lightly, yet not succeeding. Emotional strain could not be so easily concealed; and--uncomfortable thought--her acting was not so finished as that of Uncle Si.

“Yes,” said William, with a little thrill of rapture. “And how wonderful it is!”

June agreed. “Yes, wonderful!” Also with a little thrill of rapture, yet loathing herself because her tone was so vibrant--Uncle Si was not to have a walk over after all! “And now if you don’t mind I’ll put it in a place of safety.”

He flashed one swift glance at her. “But, Miss June, isn’t it quite safe here?”

“I should just think it wasn’t!” leapt to the tip of her tongue. But Uncle Si’s masterly snuffle recalled to her mind the value of meiosis. Thus she had recourse to a gentle “I think I’ll sleep better if I take care of it myself,” which sounded quite disarming.

With one of his deep sighs which made her feel a perfect beast, William handed over the picture. “If you only knew, if you could only guess what pleasure this exquisite thing would give the dear old master----”

Overcome by a kind of nausea, June fled headlong to the room next door. She groped for her candle, found and lit it; and then she proceeded to bury the treasure at the bottom of her trunk. Heaping and pressing down as many things upon the picture as the trunk would hold, she locked it carefully, and put the key in her purse. Then she undressed, knelt and said her prayers; she then blew out the candle and crept into bed with a stifling sense of disgust, tempered by grim satisfaction.

XXIV

NEXT morning at the breakfast table, June looked for developments. To her surprise, however, things went their accustomed way, except that if anything Uncle Si was a little more amiable than usual. He made no reference to the Van Roon; but it was referred to in his manner, inasmuch that he bore bacon and coffee to his lips with the air of a known good man deeply wounded in his private feelings. Not a feather of this by-play was lost upon his niece; and no doubt what was of more importance, it was not lost upon William. But its impact was very different in the two cases. While June simply longed to hit the Old Crocodile upon his long and wicked nose, William seemed hard set to refrain from tears.

About midday, however, while June was in the back kitchen preparing a meal, Uncle Si came to her.

“Niece,” he said, in the new voice, whose softness June found so formidable, “you remember the other day I told you to look for a job?”

June nodded.

“Have you got one?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, Mrs. R. is coming back on Monday, so the sooner you get fixed up the better. Your best plan, I think, is to go this afternoon and have your name put down at a registry office as a cook-general. Cook-generals earn good money, and they live all found. Your cooking won’t be the Carlton or the Ritz, of course”--a gleam of frosty humour played upon that subtle face--“but you seem strong and willing, and you know how to boil a potato, and no doubt you’ll improve with experience.”

June was inclined to curtsey. The old wretch plainly felt that he was giving her a handsome testimonial. But at the back of her mind was anger and contempt, and it was as much as she could do to prevent their peeping out.

After dinner, as soon as the table was clear, and the pots washed, she proceeded to take Uncle Si at his word. She decided to go out at once and look for a place which, however, except as a last resort, should not be domestic service. To begin with, she would try the shops, or perhaps the dressmakers, as her mother always said she was handy with her needle; or, failing these, she might consider the exciting proposal of becoming an artist’s model.

Fixing her hat before the crazy looking glass the thought of Mr. Keller recurred to her mind. Had the day only been Thursday she could have taken the picture to him there and then, and had his opinion upon it. Not that such a course would have been altogether wise. She knew nothing about this new and rather mysterious acquaintance, beyond the fact that if speech and manner meant anything he was a gentleman. Certainly, to talk to he was most agreeable.

Before setting out on her pilgrimage, she had to make up her mind as to whether it would not be advisable to take the Van Roon with her, and put it in a place of safety. So long as it remained under that roof it was in jeopardy. Uncle Si was not to be trusted an inch. The fact, however, that she had nowhere to take the treasure decided her finally to let it stay where it was until the next day.

Anyway, it was under lock and key. That was something to be thankful for; yet as she came downstairs and passed through the shop into New Cross Street, drawing on her neat black gloves with a sinking heart, instinct told her that she was taking a grave risk in leaving the picture behind.