Chapter XXII A Test
I
Posy may have been crying, but the colour and sparkle remained in her eyes; and she had arrayed herself in a smart and becoming costume, which Quinney recognized as “Sunday best.” Let women decide what motive animated this preening. If she were to be turned out of Soho Square, Posy, not unreasonably, may have decided to take her prettiest frock with her. On the other hand, with equal wisdom, she may have thought that the sight of a charming young woman in all her bravery is likely to melt the heart of the sternest man. Because she appeared on this momentous morning fresh and alluring, let us not accuse her of heartlessness. If destined by Fate to lose a father, she would gain a husband. Poor Susan, limp and bedraggled, was miserably sensible that victory for her would inflict consequences more crushing than defeat.
“Goin’ to church?” Quinney inquired of his daughter.
Posy replied respectfully:
“Only if driven there by you.”
Tomlin, rumbling and grumbling after his dietical indiscretions, greeted the young lady with a phrase often on his lips:
“Seasonable weather for the time of year?”
Susan glanced at him scornfully, and said audibly:
“Fiddle!”
Quinney apologized for this breach of politeness after his own fashion:
“Be’ind the door, she was, Tom, when they collected threepence a head for manners. Now, sit you down!”
Tomlin waved a half-consumed cigar, addressing Susan:
“Any objections to my smoking, ma’am?”
“Not she,” replied her husband, “neither in this world nor the next. You go on and talk to her. You understand women. Open fire on ’em!”
“May I say a few words, ma’am?”
“Provided they are few, you may, Mr. Tomlin.”
Driven to the wall, she made no effort to conceal her dislike of this big fat man, whom she had ever regarded as an evil influence in her Joe’s life. Quinney exclaimed:
“‘Ark to Mrs. Don’t-care-a-damn!”
Tomlin raised a protesting finger.
“Tut, tut, Joe. You leave this to me.”
He continued majestically, picking his words:
“I don’t think you can be aware, ma’am, that James Miggott is threatening your husband, and”—he turned to Posy—“your dear father.”
Susan snapped out:
“Joe told me as much last night. I know well what James is threatening. He’s not the only man of his word in this house. He’s threatening to take the girl he loves as she is. He’s not thinking of anything else. He’s made it plain that he’s only to hold up his finger, and Posy’ll go to him gladly.”
“Just what I told you, Tom,” remarked Quinney.
“You’re under a misapprehension, ma’am. Miggott is threatening us—me and Joe.”
At this Posy became more alert, listening attentively to Tomlin, but keeping her clear eyes upon her sire. Susan betrayed astonishment.
“Threatening you, Mr. Tomlin? Why should he threaten you, and why should you care tuppence whether he threatens you or not?”
Very deprecatingly, Tomlin spread out his large hands, palm uppermost, as if he wished the ladies to infer that he came empty-handed into a fight not of his seeking.
“I repeat, ma’am, he’s threatening us. He’s talking of trying to ruin us.”
“Talkin’ through his hat,” murmured Quinney.
Susan tossed her head impatiently.
“You’ll have to speak more plainly, Mr. Tomlin, if you wish me to understand what you’re driving at.”
Tomlin, cornered by Susan’s direct methods in striking opposition to his own, fetched a compass, and began again more warily:
“Is it possible that you contemplate leaving the most faithful husband in the world, ma’am?”
Quinney chuckled, rubbing his hands.
“That’s better. Now, Susie, you listen to Tom, if you won’t listen to me.”
“I’ve listened patiently to you, Joe, for just twenty years. It’s about time I did a bit of talking, and that you did the listening.”
“Ho! Been bottling things up, have you?” She nodded. “Then you uncork yourself, old dear! But, before you begin, I’ll try to impress this on your female mind. This dirty dog of a James Miggott is threatening me and Tom. He believes that he can injure our reputations in the trade. See? Tom, here, thinks that he’ll do it, if I refuse to surrender. Well, I don’t. That’s where he and me differ. But, just as sure as the Lord made little apples and small, mean souls, it’s the solid truth that this young man is tryin’ to blackmail me! Now you have the text, dearie. Get you up and preach a sermon on it. Posy, in her Sunday clothes, will listen, and so will I. But bear in mind that you took me for better or worse.”
Tomlin added unctuously:
“And please remember, ma’am, that you have to consider me.”
Susan eyed Tomlin with chill indifference. Her voice was almost vitriolic, as she remarked:
“If I’m driven from house and home, Mr. Tomlin, ’tain’t likely I shall waste much time considering you!”
“Who’s driving you, ma’am, from house and home?”
“My husband is, more shame to him!”
She collected her energies for a supreme effort, turning in her chair to look at the tyrant.
“Blaze away!” said the tyrant.
“Joe”—her voice trembled in spite of a gallant effort to control it—“you are forcing me to do the cruellest thing in all the world—to choose between my own child and you. I ain’t got your brains, but I’ve something much better—a heart. Posy wants me, and you don’t. Let me finish. It’s bitter aloes to me, but I swallow the gall of it for my dear child’s sake. You used to love me!”
“Used?”
“Between you and me, that’s over and done with.”
She spoke very mournfully, brushing a tear from her cheek.
“No, it ain’t, Susie. Seemin’ly, what I’ve done to show my love for you ain’t enough. S’pose you tell me what more I might do?”
She answered swiftly:
“Give your consent to Posy marrying, as I did—marrying the man of her choice. Have you anything against his moral character?”
“He’s a wrong ’un; take that from me!”
“Not without proof. What’s he done that’s wrong? He don’t muddle his wits with food and drink. He don’t use filthy tobacco. He attends Divine Service.”
“Ho! Poor in this world’s goods, but a moral millionaire, hey?”
“It’s hateful to hear you sneer at him!”
“You ask me to give my daughter to a dog that’s trying to bite the hand that fed him?”
“Posy might do worse,” said Tomlin hoarsely.
“Now you’ve torn it!” said Quinney viciously. “I’m alone against the lot of you. Good! I’ll down the lot of you, I’ll——”
Posy interrupted:
“Father!”
“Well, my girl?”
She spoke incisively, with something of his manner:
“You won’t answer one important question. What is James threatening to do to you and Mr. Tomlin?”
Poor Quinney! He had only to speak with entire frankness to win his Susan back. But at what a cost! Could he roll in the dust of a humiliating confession? Unconsciously he clenched his fists, setting his firm jaw at an even more aggressive angle. In desperation he clutched at a straw. If he must be dragged down from his high estate as the honestest dealer in the world, let that iconoclastic deed be done by another hand.
“Look ye here, my girl, suppose you ask James that question.”
“I want to ask him,” she replied calmly.
“Fine!” muttered Tomlin. “Yes, my dear, you ask him why he dares to threaten your dear father.”
“And you,” said Posy.
“That’s right. And me. More than one good tip he’s had from me.”
“Tips? Why should you tip him?”
“You can ask him. There’s no time to waste.”
“No time to waste?”
The situation had become tenser. Quinney perceived with a certain pride that Posy was demonstrating the quality of brains inherited from him.
“Go to him,” said Quinney. “He’s in his room. We’ll wait here.”
She obeyed.
II
As soon as James saw Posy coming alone to him, he leapt triumphantly to the conclusion that her father had hauled down his flag. With a joyous exclamation he hastened to embrace her, but she turned a cool cheek to ardent lips.
“Father sent me to you, Jim.”
“I knew he’d climb down!”
“But he hasn’t. Jim, dear, what do you mean by threatening father and—and Mr. Tomlin?”
The eager smile faded out of his face. He remained silent, marshalling his wits.
“Have you received tips from Mr. Tomlin?”
“He’s paid me for work done.”
“What sort of work?”
“Restoring old bits of stuff. What has that got to do with us?”
She followed her thoughts, not his questions.
“And why is there all this hurry? Mr. Tomlin said just now that there was no time to waste.”
“He’s right; there isn’t!”
“But why?”
Her voice was gently insistent. She laid her hand softly upon the sleeve of his coat, as if entreating him to trust her, as she trusted him.
“It’s like this, Posy. I told you last night that I could deal with your father, that the right moment had come to deal with him. Now, give me a free hand!”
“Mr. Tomlin spoke, not very clearly, about your being able to ruin father and him. Father denies that!”
“Does he?”
Posy grew nervous, the colour ebbed from her cheeks; into her eyes flitted a shadow of fear. Her sharp wits were at work adding and subtracting, fitting together this jig-saw puzzle.
At this moment, her memory answered oddly to the strain imposed upon it. In this room, before the coup de foudre, her father had spoken roughly to her, ordering her out of it with a peremptoriness apparently quite unjustifiable, because she was on an errand connected with his business. This tiny fact had rankled. James had asked her for a bottle of cleaning fluid.
Suddenly, out of the pigeon-holes of her mind, tumbled the covers of the chairs which James wanted to clean. The very pattern of the exquisite needlework presented itself.
“Oh!” she exclaimed.
“What’s the matter, dearest? This excitement has been too much for you. Do let me handle your father. Believe me, I can do it in our joint interest.”
She gazed at him queerly, a tiny, vertical line between her dark eyebrows.
“Has father done something dishonest?”
The colour rushed back into her cheeks as she spoke, but her eyes remained upon his. When he made no reply, she continued:
“Are you threatening to expose some fraud, a fraud connected with—chairs?”
“God! You are clever!” said James, unable to hide his admiration, or to believe that she had swooped upon the truth.
She sighed.
“Then it is true.”
There was no interrogation in those four words.
“Well, yes; it is true.” He hurried on, fearing that she might interrupt him. “I wanted to spare you knowledge of that. Fortune has placed in my hands a weapon. I am using it for both our sakes. Between our two selves, my dearest, I can admit to you that I should not really ruin your father. What an idea!”
“Then you are bluffing?”
“I am. I want you so desperately.”
He attempted to kiss her, but she repulsed him gently.
“If mother knew——”
“She need not know. Your father will climb down at the last moment. He knows, and Tomlin knows, that I can ruin both of them.”
“It’s as bad as that?”
“Yes. He must surrender!”
“But if he shouldn’t? Jim, dear, you said last night that you would take me as I am; and I loved you for saying that. Now, you want to bargain for me.”
“To bargain for you, darling; not for myself.”
She nodded, accepting his explanation, able to put herself in his place. Beholding the situation from his point of view, panoramically, she tried, in turn, to see the same situation from the point of view of her father. She exclaimed softly:
“Gracious!”
The expression upon her face puzzled James. Men, even the cleverest, can follow women’s bodies easier than their thoughts.
“Try to be sensible about this,” he murmured.
“It’s so exciting. Don’t you see that this is a test of father, a wonderful test!”
“Of what?”
“Of his love for me, of his love for mother.”
“Eh?”
“Don’t be dense, Jim! Mother has accused father of not caring much for us; but, if he risks ruin for our sake, he does care.”
“Pooh! He’s bluffing, too!”
“I am not certain of that. Anyway”—her face cleared; she beamed at him delightfully—“I should like you to make good, Jim, without horrid threats, without bluffing. Take me as I am, if you want me. You can earn a good living anywhere. I’m not afraid of a little poverty with you.”
“You don’t know what poverty is, Posy. I do. I’m afraid of poverty for the woman I care about.”
“Do you mean that you refuse to take me as I am?”
Bathos and pathos are twins. James passed, with an unconsidered bound, from climax to anticlimax. He said irritably:
“Hang it all! I shall have to take your mother, too. Posy, we haven’t time to argue this. Hunsaker will be here directly. Luck has thrust into my hands a tremendous lever; and I mean to use it.”
“Is that your last word?”
“Yes, it is. I’m fighting for you, fighting to a finish. And ever since the world began, women have had to look on at such a fight——”
“And take the winner?”
She laughed derisively.
“I shall be the winner!”
“Come up and tell father so.”
“Right!”
“Mother and I will look on.”
III
They went upstairs in silence, to find Tomlin reading the paper, and Susan engaged in dusting the china.
“Where’s father?” asked Posy.
“Busy with Mabel Dredge. I’ll fetch him.”
Posy sat down. From her face it was impossible to divine what was passing through her brain. She folded her hands upon her lap and waited.
Quinney appeared, followed by Susan. He glared at James, and then fixed his gaze upon Posy.
“Well, my girl?”
She said demurely:
“It’s to be a fight to a finish for me.”
“Damn!” said Tomlin.
Susan wandered to the window, staring aimlessly into the square. She heard Tomlin saying hoarsely:
“Joe, you take my advice; let the girl have the man she wants. S’elp me, if one o’ my daughters took a shine to him, she should have him! You’re fairly downed, old man, and you know it. This Hunsaker will be here before we can turn round!”
“He is here,” said Susan, turning from the window.