VIII
JUNE’S promise was made on the evening of Monday. Before it could be fulfilled, however, much had to happen. Saturday itself was put out of the case by the departure of William early that morning to attend a sale in Essex, where several things might be going cheap. And on the following Thursday he had to go to Tunbridge Wells. During his absence on that day, moreover, June’s interest in the picture he had bought at Crowdham Market was roused suddenly to a very high pitch.
Even before this significant event occurred, her mind had been full of this much-discussed purchase. Day by day William wrought upon it with growing enthusiasm. There was now no more doubt in regard to the clouds and the sky than there was as to the trees and the water. S. Gedge Antiques had been up to the attic several times to see for himself, and although in his opinion, the best that could be said for the picture was that it might turn out to be a copy of a fair example of the Dutch School, he went to the length of doubling his offer of seven and sixpence. In other words, which he issued with point at the supper table on the evening prior to William’s trip to Tunbridge Wells, there was “a full week’s extra wages sticking out,” if only the young man cared to take it in exchange for a dubious work of little or no value.
William needed, among other things, a new pair of boots; he was short of the materials of his craft, and the sum of fifteen shillings meant a great deal to him at any time, facts with which his employer was well acquainted. The temptation was great. While the offer was under consideration, June held her breath. She had a frantic desire to signal across the table to William not to part with his treasure. Much to her relief, however, the young man resisted the lure. His master told him roundly that only a fool would refuse such an offer. William allowed that it was princely, but he had quite an affection for the picture now, besides, much had to be done to get it really clean.
At present, moreover, he had not even begun to look for the signature.
“Signature!” S. Gedge Antiques took up the word sarcastically. And there were times, as June knew already, when the old man could be terribly sarcastic. “You’ll be looking, I suppose, for the signature of Hobbema. Seems to me, boy, you’re cracked on that subject.”
“I don’t think, sir,” said William, in his gentle voice, “that this picture is a Hobbema.”
“Don’t you indeed?” To conceal a rising impatience Uncle Si made a face at his niece. “You’re cracked, my boy.” He gave his own forehead a symbolical tap. “Why waste your time looking for a signature to a thing you bought for five shillings at an old serendipity shop at Crowdham Market! You’d far better turn over a snug little profit of two hundred per cent and forget all about it.”
The next day, however, when William set out for Tunbridge Wells, he was still the owner of the picture. And in the light of what was to follow it was a fact of considerable importance.
In the course of that morning, while June was helping Uncle Si to dress the front window, there sauntered into the shop a funny, oldish, foxy little man, who wore a brown billycock hat at the back of his head, and had a pair of legs as crooked as a Louis Quinze chair. She set him down at once as a character out of Dickens.
“Mornin’ to you, Mr. Gedge,” said this quaint visitor.
“Mornin’ to you, Mr. Thornton!” said S. Gedge Antiques returning the salutation with deference.
June cocked her ears. The note in Uncle Si’s rasping voice, which always seemed to need a file, told her at once that the visitor was no common man.
As a preliminary to business, whatever that business might be, Mr. Thornton fixed an eye like a small bright bead on the Hoodoo, whose sinister bulk seemed to dominate half the shop. It was fixed, moreover, with an air of whimsical appreciation as he murmured: “The British Museum is the place for that.”
“There I’m with you, Mr. Thornton.” S. Gedge Antiques looked his visitor steadily in the eye. “Wonderful example of early Polynesian craftsmanship.”
“Early Polynesian craftsmanship.” The little man stroked the belly of the Hoodoo with a kind of rapt delicacy which other men reserve for the fetlock of a horse.
“Only one of its kind.”
“I should say so,” murmured Louis Quinze-legs, screwing up his eyes; and then, by way of after-thought: “I’ve just dropped in, Mr. Gedge, to have a look at that picture you mentioned to me yesterday.”
“Oh, that, Mr. Thornton.” The voice of S. Gedge Antiques suggested that the matter was of such little consequence that it had almost passed from his mind. “S’pose I’d better get it for you.” And then with an odd burst of agility, which in one of his years was quite surprising, the old man left the shop, while June, her heart beating high, went on dressing the window.
In three minutes or less, William’s picture appeared under the arm of William’s master. “Here you are, Mr. Thornton!” The voice was oil.
June made herself small between a Chinese cabinet and a tallboys in the window’s deepest gorge. From this point of vantage, the privilege of seeing and hearing all that passed in the shop was still hers.
Foxy Face received the picture in silence from Uncle Si, held it to his eyes, pursed his lips, took a glass from his pocket, and examined it minutely back and front, turning it over and tapping it several times in the process. The slow care he gave to this ritual began to get on June’s nerves.
“There’s good work in it,” said Louis Quinze-legs, at last.
“Good work in it!” said S. Gedge Antiques in what June called his “selling” voice. “I should just think there was.”
“But there’s one thing it lacks.” The little man, looking more than ever like a fox, chose each word with delicacy. “It’s a pity—a very great pity—there’s no signature.”
“Signature!” The old man’s tone had lost the drawling sneer of the previous evening. “Tell me, Mr. Thornton,——” He must have forgotten that June was so near—“if we happened to come upon the signature of Hobbema down there in that left hand corner—in that black splotch—what do you suppose it might be worth?”
Mr. Thornton did not answer the question at once. And when answer he did, his voice was so low that June could hardly hear it. “I wouldn’t like to say offhand, Mr. Gedge. Mosby sent a Hobbema to New York last year, but what he got for it I don’t know.”
“I heard twenty-eight thousand dollars.”
“So did I, but I doubt it. Still, the Americans are paying big money just now. Did you see that thing of Mosby’s, by the way?”
“Yes; it was a bit larger than this chap, but it hadn’t the work in it.”
“Well, get it a bit cleaner; and then, if you can show me Hobbema’s signature with the date, about the place where I’ve got my finger, I dare say we can come to business, Mr. Gedge.”
“I quite expect we’ll be able to do that,” said the old man with an air of robust optimism which surprised June considerably.
Foxy Face ventured to hope that such might be the case, whereupon the voice of Uncle Si fell to a pitch which his niece had to strain a keen ear to catch.
“Suppose, Mr. Thornton, we omit the question of the signature? Do you feel inclined to make an offer for the picture as it stands?”
The pause which followed was long and tense, and then June was just able to hear the cautious voice of Foxy Face. “Possibly, Mr. Gedge—I dare say I might. But before I could think of doing that, I should like a friend of mine to vet it. He’s wise in these things, and knows what can be done with them.”
“Right you are, Mr. Thornton,” said S. Gedge Antiques brisk and businesslike. “If you can tell me when your friend is likely to call, I’ll be here to meet him.”
“Shall we say to-morrow morning at ten?”
“Very well, Mr. Gedge. And if my friend can’t come, I’ll telephone.”
Foxy Face was bowed out of the shop with a politeness that fairly astonished June. She could hardly believe that this mirror of courtesy was Uncle Si. In fact, it was as if the old man had had a change of heart. With the light step of a boy, he took back the picture to the attic, while June, thinking hard, retired to the back premises to cook two middling-sized potatoes for dinner.