Chapter XVIII Explosions
I
“I’ve sold the chairs, James. Take ’em away. Pack ’em up at once! Nail down the cases. See?”
“Yes, sir. I congratulate you, sir.”
“Pack up extra carefully that K’ang He bottle.”
“The K’ang He bottle?”
Something in his tone arrested Quinney’s attention. It brought to mind what, for the moment, he had forgotten—the loss of the key and its tumbling out of the bottle. James, perhaps unconsciously, had glanced at the cabinet, and Quinney’s alert eyes had intercepted the somewhat furtive, shifting glance. He said sharply:
“The key of the cabinet was in that bottle. Did you put it there?”
James hesitated and was lost. Had he replied promptly, either in the affirmative or negative, his employer doubtless would have dismissed the incident from his mind. James, unhappily, was constrained to determine swiftly the expediency of saying “Yes.”
“I may have done so,” he replied. He went on fluently: “The key fits badly, tumbles out of the lock sometimes. I meant to tell you.”
Quinney blinked at him, wondering why he answered evasively. How did he know that the key fitted loosely? It was not his business to touch the cabinet. At the same time he was conscious that James, as the restorer of the chairs, had been very prompt with his congratulations. Of course he knew everything; he had to know; and equally of course the secret of the fake bidding was perfectly safe with him, inasmuch as he had received a share of the plunder. Quinney had raised his salary; Tomlin had tipped him handsomely.
“Nice profit for you, sir,” continued James blandly.
“Not bad,” Quinney admitted.
“Splendid idea, sir, buying in your own stuff.”
Quinney rather winced at this, but he covered a slight confusion by his bluff manner and candid speech. He could not flimflam James. It would be fatuous to play the hypocrite with an accomplice. He said confidentially:
“Christopher’s receipt just clinched matters. You ought to have been here, my lad. An object lesson for you, by Gum!”
James’s voice was very silky as he murmured:
“Nobody like you, sir, to sell stuff.”
“Right you are, James, even if I do say it. There ain’t my superior in London—that means the world.”
It was then that James led trumps for the first time. He continued in the same ingratiating tone:
“Oh yes, sir. And such a father, too.”
Quinney swallowed this easily, smacked his lips over it, much to James’s satisfaction.
“Always done my duty, my lad. That’s a thought to stick to one’s ribs—hey? Never can remember the day when I couldn’t say that. And the fam’ly, as I read only t’other day, is the unit o’ national life. Square, too, I’ve been, within reasonable limits, although I do make ignorance pay a profit to knowledge. I know a lot, more’n you think for. And you owe a lot to me, James.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re very useful to me, my lad, and your future will be my special care.”
James smiled.
“Thank you, sir.”
Afterwards, Quinney admitted to Susan that at this particular moment James’s good looks had hit him, so to speak, in the eye. But he did not consider them in relation to Posy. We know that the little man was amazingly shrewd whenever his own interests were imperilled. And it had occurred to him, not for the first time, that there might be “something” between his handsome foreman and his quite attractive typist. He could trust James. Could he trust Mabel Dredge? Some men babbled indiscreetly to the girls.
“You’ll be thinking of gettin’ married one of these fine days?”
“I have thought of it, sir.”
The young man spoke so pleasantly that Quinney’s heart warmed to him. Moreover, he liked and respected Mabel.
“Good! What you want is a helpmate, a worker like yourself, strong, healthy, and comely.”
“Strong, healthy, and comely,” repeated James.
“One who’ll work hard in your house, while you’re working hard in mine. There are young fellows in your position, my lad, who make fools o’ theirselves by falling in love with young ladies. Useless creatures! It would hurt me to see you doin’ that, James.”
“I’m sure it would. Much obliged, sir.”
“Not at all. Never so happy as when I’m thinking for others.”
James removed the chairs.
II
Once more alone, Quinney thought of sending for Mabel Dredge, but he lit a cigar instead, and took stock of his treasures, wondering whether he could screw himself up to part with the lacquer cabinet. Hunsaker would buy it. He would pay gladly a thumping price. Quinney approached it, puffing leisurely at his excellent cigar. As he did so the mysterious hiding of the key recurred to him. He stared at the cabinet, frowning.
Then he opened it.
Always, on such occasions, the hidden beauties of this miracle of craftsmanship appealed to him with ever-increasing strength. The lacquer inside was as softly fresh as upon the day when the last coat was lovingly applied. So soft, and yet so hard, that it could not be scratched with the nail.
He gloated over it.
At this moment he was absolutely at peace with himself and the world. He would not willingly have changed places with the mighty Marquess of Mel. If there was a fly in his precious ointment, it might be considered so tiny as to be negligible. The most illustrious of the Chinese craftsmen, artists to their finger tips, lacked one small knack common to the English artisan. The drawers in these seventeenth-century cabinets did not, alas, slide in and out with the beautiful smoothness characteristic of the best English specimens. Quinney pulled out two or three of them.
In one he perceived a letter. He examined it. It was addressed:
“To my own Blue Bird.”
III
The writing was Posy’s.
Quinney stared at it, palsied with amazement. Then he read it, and re-read it, till the full meaning of what it meant had percolated through and through his mind. His cigar went out. He sat at his desk with the letter in his hand, dazed for the moment, breathing hard, very red in the face. The fingers which held the sheet of notepaper twitched. He noticed a faint fragrance of lavender, a perfume much affected by Posy, and he remembered vividly a certain afternoon, long ago, when Susan had sat in the garden of the Dream Cottage filling small muslin bags with lavender to place between the baby linen of their tiny daughter.
Slowly, a dull anger and rancour grew in him. What did this shameless baggage mean by deceiving him and Susan? He included Susan. Physically he was overwhelmed, eviscerated, almost faint with impotent rage, but he found himself wondering what Susan would say. Suppose—his heart grew cold—suppose she knew! What! His faithful wife a party to this abominable fraud on him? Impossible!
He rose up wearily, and walked with unsteady steps to the door.
“Susan!” he cried querulously.
Posy appeared, wreathed in smiles. With a terrific effort her father smiled frozenly at her.
“Send your mother to me!” he said stiffly. “I want to see her at once on a small matter of business.”
“Right O!” replied Posy.
He returned to his desk. When Susan, came in she perceived at once the change in him.
“Gracious, Joe, is this house afire?”
“No. I am. Shut the door.”
She did so, and then approached him.
“Whatever is the matter?”
He held up the billet and said hoarsely, “Listen. I found this in the lacquer cabinet five minutes ago. It’s in Posy’s writin’. And it’s addressed ‘To my own Blue Bird.’”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
The sight of her weakness strengthened him, but he exclaimed testily: “Don’t make them stoopid noises. They sound like a mind out of whack. Sit tight! I’m a-going to read this precious letter bang through, a letter written by your daughter.”
Susan, wriggling on the edge of a chair, protested feebly:
“My daughter? Ain’t she yours, too?”
“I’m beginning to doubt it.” He read aloud, “‘My own Blue Bird——’”
“Who is her Blue Bird, Joe?”
“We’ll come to that soon enough. I may mention that there was a play called ‘The Blue Bird’! to which you took Posy twice, and you jawed for three days of nothing else. A damn blue bird, accordin’ to you, stands for happiness—hey?”
“Yes.”
He went on reading, “‘It was splendidly clever of you to think of using that silly old cabinet——’ Silly old cabinet! Hear that? And I’ve refused a thousand guineas for it!”
“Go on, dear!”
“I’m going on if you’ll kindly stop wigglin’ your leg. I’m going bang to the outside edge of this. Pay partic’lar attention. ‘It was splendidly clever of you to think of using that silly old cabinet as a pillar box, and the fact that we are corresponding under the nose of father makes the whole affair deliriously exciting and romantic. I should like to see his funny face——’ Is my face funny? Is it?”
“Not now, Joe. Is there any more?”
“Is there any more, Mrs. Ask-Another? D’ye think a girl educated at no expense spared ends a sentence in the middle of it? Keep that leg still, and I’ll finish. ‘I should like to see his funny face if he could read this.’”
“My!”
“She shall see it, by Gum! ‘We’ve got to be most awfully careful, because if he caught me talking to you except about his dull old business he would simply chatter with rage. But we must have a long talk together, and as soon as possible. Why not to-night? Father and mother are always fast asleep by eleven. At half-past eleven to the minute I shall slip down to the sanctuary. You be ready downstairs. I’ll whistle softly through the tube; then you nip up, and we’ll have a perfectly lovely talk. Your own POSY.’”
“But, Joe, who is her Blue Bird?”
“He’ll be black and blue when I’ve man-handled him. It’s that dog, James Miggott.”
Susan grew pale and trembled. She had never seen her Joe so moved to fury, not even when he had been “downed” by the pseudo Major Archibald Fraser. She faltered out:
“Joe, dear, James is much bigger than you.”
To this Quinney replied ironically:
“After all these years o’ church goin’ I thought you believed that Right was stronger than Might. Has it all soaked in? Did you mark that word ‘dull’ applied to my business? Do you know what the contents o’ this room would fetch at Christopher’s, if the right men were biddin’?”
“Indeed, indeed, I don’t.”
“Nobody knows what my collection would fetch. The Quinney Collection! S’pose I leave everything to the nation—hey?”
Susan sat bowed and silent before the storm.
IV
Quinney did not look at her. Her attitude, her troubled face were sufficient alone to acquit her of any possible complicity in this abominable affair. The more he considered it as a tremendous fact in their lives, the more incredible, the more irrational it became to him. His Posy, the Wonder Child, the gem of the Quinney Collection, writing love-letters to an obscure faker of furniture, a “downy” cove, a rather sullen hireling, who earned four quid a week! Had his child been born and educated “regardless” for—this? Had Susan and he suffered pangs unforgettable in order that their child should forsake them for this maggot of a Miggott?
Never!
Slowly, his fighting instinct asserted itself. Catastrophe of any kind overwhelmed him at first, and then his vitality, his recuperative qualities, would come to the rescue. He must fight this issue to the end. His dull anger and rancour passed. His active wits began to work. He felt oddly sensible of a certain exhilaration, the conviction that he would soar, like the Melchester spire, above these ignominies and disasters.
He stood up, inhaling deep breaths, smiling grimly.
“What are you going to do, Joe?”
“Watch on, and see.”
He replaced the billet in its envelope, which had been left open. Then he crossed to the cabinet, and put the letter into the drawer where he had found it. He closed the doors of the cabinet, and came back to his desk. About all these actions there was an automatic precision, as if the man had been transformed into a machine.
Susan murmured:
“Joe, you frighten me.”
“Wouldn’t do that for the world, Susie.” His voice was slightly less hard. “I’m going to frighten them. See?”
“How?”
“I’m going to catch ’em together in this room to-night.”
“Gracious!”
“And you’ve got to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, behind that screen. At the right moment, when least expected, we’ll pop out.”
“And what will you say?”
“Ho! What will I say? Between now and then, my dear, I shall think over what I’m going to say. Words won’t fail me. I shall down the pair of them, rub their noses in their insolence and folly.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Susan.