Quinneys 10

Quinneys 10

"What do you mean?"

 

"This oak now. Me and you know it’s new, but if a customer tells you

it’s old, don’t contradict him. ’Twouldn’t be polite. All you know

about it is this—your clever hubby picked it up in France, in Brittany.

See?"

 

She asked anxiously, "It won’t be acting a lie, dear?"

 

"Not a bit of it! By Gum, Sue, I’m as proud of that conscience of yours

as I am of that jar. Not a flaw in either."

 

After this she played her part so artlessly that Joe chuckled half a

dozen times a day. She tackled the Bishop—alone. Quinney saw the great

man approaching and told Susan. She wished to bolt, but Quinney

disappeared instead, listening to the duologue that followed. The

Bishop stared at the fine wares from Tomlin’s, whipped out his

spectacles, and entered, smiling at Susan’s blushing face.

 

"Good-morning, my lord!"

 

"Good-morning, Mrs. Quinney. May I look at some of these tempting

things?"

 

He looked at what was best amongst the porcelain sent down by Tomlin,

displaying knowledge of the different periods. Then he said

courteously, "As this is my first visit, I must buy something for luck.

What is the price of that small jar with the _prunus_ decoration? If it

is within my means——"

 

He paused, gravely expectant, but Susan divined somehow what was

flitting through his mind; the outrageous prices exacted by old Quinney.

She perceived that this was a test purchase. The price of the jar was

marked five pounds. Susan said demurely, "We can sell this to you, my

lord, for three pounds ten."

 

"I’ll take it, Mrs. Quinney."

 

He went away with his purchase in his hand. Quinney came back, not too

well pleased.

 

"He’d have given a fiver for it. Why didn’t you ask more than we was

prepared to take?"

 

Susan, knowing her own strength, answered decisively:

 

"His lordship confirmed me, Joe."

 

"What’s that got to do with it?"

 

"He knows about china. He passed by the inferior stuff. I wanted him

to tell his friends that our prices were very reasonable; and I wanted

him to come again. He promised that he would. And I think the clergy,

our own clergy, ought to be treated—generously."

 

"By Gum, you’re right!" said Quinney. "They’ll tell the old women that

our prices touch bottom, reg’lar bargains."

 

She was equally successful with Mrs. Nish, a widow of ample means and an

ardent collector. Mrs. Nish may have seen the Bishop’s jar and have

learned from him that it had been bought at a modest figure. She came

in next day, richly rustling in black silk, a large, imposing woman,

with a deportment that indicated opulence and a complexion heightened by

good living. Mr. Nish had accumulated a fortune in Australia,

sheep-farming, and had died—as so many such men do—when he retired from

active business. His widow bought a large house standing in a small

garden, just outside Melchester. The Close called upon her (not the

County), because she subscribed generously to local charities. Her

taste, however, was flamboyantly rococo; and on that account Quinney

despised her, although he admitted to Susan that she might be educated.

When he beheld her pair of prancing bays, he whispered to Susan, "Have a

go at the old girl!" Then he retreated discreetly to his inner room.

Mrs. Nish greeted Susan with much affability, and immediately mentioned

the Bishop, "my lording" him with unction. The jar with _prunus_

decoration was spoken of as a little prune pot.

 

"I want one just like it."

 

"I’m afraid," said Susan, "that you will not find another just like it."

 

"As near as may be," said Mrs. Nish.

 

"The only other jar with similar decoration, and of the same period, is

this."

 

She displayed the finest jar in their possession, adding, "The price is

fifty pounds."

 

Mrs. Nish was tremendously impressed.

 

"It can’t be worth all that," she protested.

 

"I think his lordship would tell you that it was. We don’t expect to

sell it. In fact it belongs to somebody else. We get a small

commission if it is sold."

 

Susan carefully replaced the jar, and picked up its counterfeit.

 

"This is modern, madam, a very clever production, made by the same

factory in China. We ask five pounds for this."

 

"I don’t buy fakes."

 

"Of course not, madam. My husband says Lord Mel has not a finer piece

of blue and white than that."

 

Mrs. Nish turned aside to examine the oak, but her eyes wandered now and

again to the big jar. Susan knew that she was thinking how pleasant it

would be to say carelessly, "Oh, yes; I paid fifty pounds for that."

 

Quinney carried the jar to her house late that afternoon, and he told

Susan that she was a clever dear.

 

"You like the work?" he asked.

 

She hesitated.

 

"I like being with you, Joe."

 

"Good! You can consider yourself permanently engaged, Mrs. Quinney."

 

"Permanently?"

 

His quick ear detected an odd inflection. He glanced at her sharply,

and saw a faint blush. In silence they stared at each other. Then

Quinney kissed her, pinched her cheek, pulled her small ear, as he said

boisterously:

 

"Ho! Another job in view?"

 

She whispered:

 

"I—I think so."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER V*

 

*SUSAN PREPARES*

 

*I*

 

 

When Susan left the shop and returned to her own house to make

preparations for a visitor, she went unwillingly, postponing the hour

that meant separation from the man she loved, making light of his

anxiety, but secretly rejoicing in it. Her faithful heart dwelt with

apprehension upon a future spent apart from Joe, apart from the

excitements of the shop, a future of small things and small people. She

tried to visualize herself as a mother and the vision was blurred. When

she said rather timidly, "What will you do without me?" he had assured

her with vain repetitions that he had more than enough to occupy his

mind. The dolorous conclusion was inevitable. Joe could get along

without a partner in the shop. But she could not conceive of life

without him.

 

During this period of intermittent joys and fears, chasing each other

daily and nightly through her brain, Susan was humorously conscious that

Joe regarded the coming baby as his rather than hers. He would say,

chuckling, "Well, Mrs. Q., how is _my_ baby this morning? Any news of

him?" The sex of the child was taken for granted. Susan had sufficient

obstinacy and spirit to resent this cocksure attitude. From the first

she maintained that it would be a girl. Mrs. Biddlecombe was much

shocked at the intimate nature of conversations carried on before her.

The good woman belonged to a generation which never mentioned babies

till they lay in bassinettes, fit to be seen and worshipped by all the

world. Quinney trampled upon these genteel sensibilities.

 

"The kid _is_ comin’—ain’t it?"

 

"We hope so," replied his mother-in-law austerely.

 

"We know it, old dear. Why not talk about it? Joe Quinney, junior!

There you are!"

 

"It sounds so—indelicate."

 

"That be blowed for a tale! Lawsy, there’s no saying what my son may

not be. Think o’ my brains and his dear little mother’s looks." Worse

followed. He began to call Susan "mother." Mrs. Biddlecombe protested

in vain. Laburnum Row laughed openly. Everybody knew! One terrible

morning, a disgusting small boy shouted after her, "Hullo, gran’ma!"

 

Mrs. Biddlecombe, moreover, had no sympathy with Susan’s ardent desire

to remain near her husband, intimately connected with the things which

interested him so tremendously. She lacked the quickness of wit to

perceive what Susan instinctively recognized, the increasing and

ever-absorbing love that this queer young man manifested for his

business. In that business, in the unwearying quest for beautiful

objects, the wife foreshadowed a rival, a rival the more to be feared

because it was amorphous, senseless, chaotic. She took little pleasure

in the beautiful furniture which filled the Dream Cottage, because she

could never feel that it was hers. She would have chosen things which he

despised as rubbish, but they would have been very dear to her. In a

real sense Joe’s furniture stood massively between husband and wife.

Again and again when she was hungering for soft words and caresses, he

would stand in front of the Chippendale china cabinet, and apostrophize

it with ardour, calling upon Susan to share his enthusiasm, slightly

irritable with her when she failed to perceive the beauty in what she

summed up in her own mind as "sticks and stones." She hated to see him

stroke fine specimens of porcelain. She came within an ace of smashing a

small but valuable Ming jar because he kissed it. Her condition must be

taken into account, but above and beyond any physical cause soared the

conviction, that her Joe’s business might become the greatest thing in

his life, growing, as he predicted it would, to such enormous

proportions that there would be no room for her. Once she prayed that

his soaring ambitions might be clipped by a merciful Providence. She

rose from her knees trembling at her audacity, telling herself that she

was disloyal. And then she laughed, half hysterically, supremely sensible that her Joe would travel far upon the road he had chosen, and that it behoved her to quicken her steps, and not to lag behind, for it was certain that he would expect her to keep up.