Quinneys 40

Quinneys 40

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.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XIX*

 

*THINGS AND PERSONS*

 

*I*

 

That night, as usual, the Quinneys retired to bed at half-past ten. At

eleven, the door of Joe’s bedroom opened noiselessly, and the little

man’s head, crowned with a ridiculous smoking-cap appeared. His body

followed arrayed in a flowered silk dressing-gown. Posy’s room was

upstairs.

 

Susan joined her husband. She was wearing what may be described as a

compromise kit. Her pretty hair, still long and abundant, hung down her

back in two braids. She had put on a peignoir of wadded silk, a garment

not likely to rustle as she walked. Upon her small feet were thick felt

slippers. In this costume she looked ten years younger, and she was

pleasurably aware of this for reasons that will appear presently.

 

Quinney closed his bedroom door. They listened for a moment, but no

sound came from above. Probably Posy was in bed, counting the minutes

till the big clock on the stairs summoned her to meet her lover.

 

Quinney and Susan tip-toed down to the first floor. In the sanctuary a

fire was burning in the dog-grate. Quinney smiled grimly, as he realized

that Posy had replenished it with logs which burned brightly enough to

illuminate the room with a soft amber glow.

 

"Sit down, mother."

 

Susan sat down in an armchair just opposite the fire. As a rule, this

chair occupied its own particular corner. Posy, therefore, must have

placed it in front of the hearth. Evidently Posy considered that one

chair would suffice for two persons.

 

Meanwhile, Quinney made his dispositions behind the screen. Presently

he appeared, rubbing his hands and chuckling quietly. The walls in

these fine old houses were so comfortably sound-proof, that he had no

hesitation in speaking in his usual voice.

 

"There! Couched in the ambush, as Shakespeare says. Do you remember,

old dear, when me and you took a course o’ the Bard to improve our

powers o’ speech?"

 

Susan sighed. In the tender light she looked almost the Susan whom he

had courted long ago.

 

"Yes; we were young then, Joe."

 

"We’re young still, dearie. Young and spry! Full o’ beans."

 

He stood on the hearth, facing her, with his back to the glowing logs,

looking down upon her delicate features. She raised her eyes to his,

speaking in a soft voice, with a faint smile flickering about her mouth.

Quinney had fallen in love with her dimples. He thought he could see the

ghost of one in the cheek slightly turned from the fire. His attitude,

erect and sturdy, her attitude, the firelight, the lateness of the

hour—these recalled insistently the sweet past, when Mrs. Biddlecombe

used to leave the lovers to talk over the present and the future. Susan

remembered, with an odd little pang at her heart, how satisfied she had

been with that present, although Joe insisted upon forecasting their

future. And his predictions, those ambitions which she had regarded as

vaulting high above human probability, had come to pass. He was famous

and rich!

 

"Joe dear!"

 

"What is it?"

 

"You became engaged to me, didn’t you, against your father’s wish, and

unbeknown to mother? Yes, you did."

 

"And what of it?"

 

"I never told mother that day you kissed me for the first time behind

our parlour door."

 

"Now, Susie, what are you gettin’ at? Circumstances alter cases. My

father made a white nigger o’ me. But, by Gum! I wasn’t disobedient."

 

"You were, and you know it."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"You took up with me against his wish."

 

"Ho! I honoured him by marrying the best girl in Melchester."

 

Susan said solemnly:

 

"You did deceive him, Joe."

 

"Serve him right, too."

 

"I say you deceived him."

 

"Well, for the Lord’s sake, don’t go on sayin’ it, repeatin’ yourself

like an old poll parrot. Father never did do you justice. He never did

know quality. Quantity was what he’d go for. Lordy! how he used to

waller in cheap job lots!"

 

Susan ignored this. With slow pertinacity, working steadily to her

point, she continued:

 

"And I deceived my pore mother. Used to wear my engagement ring at

night."

 

She lifted her hand and looked at it. What a wonderful present it had

been reckoned. Three turquoises with small brilliants, paid for out of

the savings of a "white nigger"!

 

Joe stared at the ring. It seemed to shine out of the past. He

remembered everything. For instance, he had not haggled about the price

demanded—six pounds! He had felt that haggling would be indecent. He

said pensively:

 

"I used to envy that ring, Susie. I used to think of you asleep, and

wonder what you looked like." He sighed. "Great times them was, to be

sure!"

 

Susan met his glance.

 

"Because of those times," she whispered, "go a bit easy, Joe, with these

young people."

 

But his face hardened immediately.

 

"You leave that to me, my dear. I’ll fix ’em to rights. I’ll sweep the

cobwebs out o’ their silly noddles."

 

"If you’ll try not to forget that we was just as silly once."

 

"Silly? Us? That won’t wash, Susie. Like mated like."

 

Susan remained silent.

 

 

*II*

 

When Posy entered the room, her parents were sitting snug behind the

incised lacquer screen. The girl added a fresh log to the fire, and

smiled as she looked at the big empty chair. She was wearing a very

becoming pale blue dressing-gown. Her hair, like Susan’s, hung down her

back in two thick pigtails tied with pale blue ribbon. Her bare feet

were thrust into pale blue slippers. She might have been sixteen

instead of eighteen, and about her there breathed a virginal air, deliriously fresh and fragrant. She smelled of lavender.She went to the speaking-tube, and whistled down it. When her signal was answered, she said joyously: