Quinneys 28

Quinneys 28

She tackled her father at breakfast, which, as a rule, he gobbled up in

silence, thinking of the day’s work ahead. A wiser than she would have

selected the postprandial hour, when Nicotina clouds the air of

controversy with beneficent and soothing vapours. Quinney had mentioned

curtly that he was going to attend a sale at Christopher’s. Whereupon

Posy threw this bomb:

 

"Daddy, dear, when are you going to retire from active business?"

 

Quinney stared at his daughter. Her intelligent eyes were sparkling; in

her delicately-cut nostrils titillated the dust of battle.

 

"Retire from—business?"

 

"Haven’t you made enough?"

 

Susan looked frightened, but she had anticipated a conflict between two

strong wills, and was acutely sensible of her own impotence to prevent

it.

 

"Ho! Now, what do you call enough, my girl?"

 

Posy was prepared to answer this. She riposted swiftly:

 

"Haven’t we enough to live on decently, and something to spare for

others?"

 

"We?" His voice took a sharper inflection. "How much have you laid by,

missie?"

 

The sharpness and veiled impatience of her tone matched his as she

answered:

 

"You know what I mean."

 

"I don’t. What I’ve made is mine—my very own. I can do what I like with

it."

 

"Oh, father!"

 

"Oh, father!" He mimicked her cleverly. "Do you have the sauce to sit

there and tell me, your father, that what I’ve made isn’t mine?"

 

Posy quoted Mrs. Honeybun with overwhelming effect.

 

"You are a trustee for what you hold, accountable for every penny."

 

"Accountable—to you?"

 

He leaned forward, forgetting his bacon, which he liked frizzlingly hot.

 

"Accountable to Society and God."

 

"Ho! Then suppose you leave me, my young chick, to account in my own

way to Society and God?"

 

Posy blushed. Let us not label her rashly as a prig. The nymph Echo

must have repeated silly remarks in her time. Posy said slowly,

speaking with conviction:

 

"I am part of Society, and I am part of what we call, for want of a

better word, God."

 

Susan murmured warningly:

 

"That will do, Posy."

 

"No, it won’t!" shouted Quinney. "We’ll have this out here and now.

What d’ye mean? What the devil d’ye mean? Are you dotty? Why do you

spring this on me? What’s the game? ’Ave you been a-listening to

blasphemous agitators a-spoutin’ rubbish in ’Yde Park?"

 

"No."

 

"Then where does she get it from?" He appealed to Susan with frantic

gestures. "You hear her, mother. Where does she get this from? Answer

me!"

 

"Such talk is in the air, Joe," Susan replied feebly. Explosions

lacerated her ears. She had come to place an inordinate value upon

peace and quiet.

 

"In the air! By Gum! she’s been breathing the wrong air." Inspiration

gripped and shook him. "Gosh! You got this from that dirty Socialist,

Honeybun. Don’t deny it! These are his notions. But I never thought

he’d poison your young mind with ’em."

 

Posy said with dignity:

 

"Mr. Honeybun is the best man I know. He practises what he preaches; he

lives in and for others. He uses his talents, regardless of his own

comfort and worldly prosperity, to ameliorate the lot of the poor and

oppressed."

 

Echo again.

 

"Poor and oppressed! Ameliorate! What a talker! Now, look ye here,

young Posy, I’m going to deal squarely by you. I’m square to the four

winds of Heaven, I am! You and I have got to understand each other—see?

You’re as green as the grass, but you do ’ave some of my brains. I

ain’t a-goin’ to argue with you for one minute. Don’t think it! I’ve

forgotten more than you ever knew. Talk is the cheapest thing in London,

but knaves like Honeybun buy fools with it. Don’t you toss your head!

You’ve made your pore dear mother cry, and you’ve taken away father’s

appetite. A nice morning’s work. Now, listen! No more Honeybunning!

You hear me?"

 

"Everybody in the house can hear you."

 

"More sauce! You stand up, miss!"

 

They rose together, confronting each other. Quinney’s scrubby red hair

was on end with rage; Posy’s small bosom heaved tumultuously. Of late

the girl had taken to the wearing of cheap beads and blouses cut low in

the neck. Ethel had lamentable taste, but, according to her mother, it

was expedient that maidens should work out their own salvation in such

matters without parental interference. Quinney scowled at the beads and

the white, rounded neck.

 

"Take off that rubbish!"

 

"Ethel gave them to me."

 

"Take ’em off quick! Mother, you see to it that she wears respectable

collars!"

 

Posy removed two strings of large amethystine beads. Quinney took them

and hurled them into the fireplace. Tears rolled down Posy’s blooming

cheeks. She was unaccustomed to violence—a primitive weapon not to be

despised by modern man.

 

"Them beads," said Quinney, who reverted to the diction of his youth

when excited, "is beastly—sinfully beastly! They stand for all that I

despise; they stand for the cheap, trashy talk which you’ve been

defilin’ your mind with. What you need is a good spankin’. Now,

mother, I leave Miss Impudence with you. Mark well what I say. No more

Honeybunning!"

 

 

*II*

 

It is significant that Quinney neglected his business that memorable

morning in the interests of a child who was beginning to believe that

she occupied a back seat in her father’s mind. After leaving the

dining-room, he clapped on his hat, and betook himself straightway to

St. James’s Square. There was only one man in all London to whom he

could go for honest advice, and fortunately he happened to be in town

for the season.

 

Lord Mel received him graciously.

 

Quinney stated his case quietly. During the course of the narrative

Lord Mel smiled more than once, but his sympathies were entirely with

the father, for he had endured, not too patiently, somewhat similar

scenes with his own daughters. Moreover, he hated Honeybun, whom he had

denounced in the Upper Chamber as a mischievous and unscrupulous

demagogue.

 

Quinney ended upon a high note of interrogation:

 

"What shall I do with her, my lord?"

 

Lord Mel considered the question, trying to stand upright in the shoes

of his former tenant. It is a hopeful sign of the times that such

magnates do descend from their pedestals, and attempt, with a certain

measure of success, to see eye to eye with the groundlings.

 

"I prescribe a change of diet, my dear fellow. We must both face the

disconcerting fact that girls to-day need special treatment. Mrs.

Honeybun is one of the Shrieking Sisterhood. I have heard her

shriek—she does it effectively. Noise appeals to the very young. I

suggest removing Posy from Orchard Street, and sending her to a

carefully conducted boarding school, where plenty of fresh air and

exercise will soon blow these ideas out of her pretty head. There are

dozens of such schools scattered along our south coast."

 

"Send her away from me and her mother?"

 

"Drastic, I admit, but you have put it admirably. ’No more

Honeybunning!’ Keep her in London, and she may Honeybun on the sly.

Will you entrust this little matter of finding a suitable school to me?"

 

"Your lordship is a real friend."

 

"I will speak to my lady."

 

"Expense don’t matter," said Quinney earnestly. "I want my daughter to

have the best, because, my lord, as a young feller, I had the worst. No

education at all! Posy’s a wonderful talker! She’d have downed me this

morning if I’d let her. She talks like—like——"

 

"Like Honeybun, eh?"

 

"If I wasn’t sittin’ in your lordship’s library, I should damn that

dirty dog!"

 

"Such fellows thrive on abuse. That is their weapon. We must use

others—ridicule, for example. How old is your girl?"

 

"Nearly sixteen."

 

"Good! You have nipped a cankered bud in time. You shall hear from me

within twenty-four hours, Let me show you an interesting bit of Crown

Derby _bisque_." He paused, and added derisively: "You know, Quinney,

there are moments when my things appeal to me tremendously. Persons are

disappointing, but every day I discover fresh beauties in my china

cabinets.""Same here," said Quinney, with enthusiasm.