XI
“IF you go on like this,” said S. Gedge Antiques, after a pause, full of drama, “you will have to have a cold compress put on your head. Do you mean to tell me you have actually found the signature?”
“Yes, sir,” said William, “right down in the corner about half an hour ago.”
“Then why didn’t you say so instead of keeping it all to yourself?”
“Because it doesn’t seem half so important as the other things I’ve found.”
“What other things?”
“The trees and the water and that——”
“We’ve heard more than enough about those. Here have you been rubbing for that signature for the best part of a fortnight, and you pretend to have found a Van Roon, and you keep it as close as the tomb.”
“I had found Van Roon, sir, long before I came upon his name.”
“Rubbish! What do you know of Van Roon?”
“There is a Van Roon in the treasure house in the Square,” said William with his inward smile.
“There’s only one,” snapped S. Gedge Antiques, “in the treasure house in the Square, as you call it, and it’s a very small one, too.”
“Ours is very small, sir. All Van Roons are small. And they are very scarce.”
“They are so scarce, my friend, that you’ll never convince anybody that ours is genuine.”
“There’s no need, sir, provided you know it is yourself.”
“But that’s just what I don’t know,” said the old man. “Anyhow you had better go upstairs and fetch it. I’ll have a look at the signature of Mynheer Van Roon.” And then Uncle Si scowled at his niece who, in a state of growing excitement, had already begun to remove the bread and cheese from the supper table.
While the young man went up to the attic, his master ruminated.
“Fellow’s cracked,” he declared, a hostile eye still fixed upon June. “That’s his trouble. I’ll never be able to make anything of him. This comes of Hobbemaising. Van Fiddlestick!”
“Uncle Si,” said June, in the voice of a dove, “if it is a Van Roon, what is the value of it?”
“Heh?” growled Uncle Si, and his eye became that of a kite. “Never you mind. Get on with the clearing of that table, and don’t interfere. I never knew such creatures as women for minding other people’s business. But I can tell you this, only a born fool would talk of Van Roon.”
A born fool came down the stairs at that moment, the picture in one hand, a microscope in the other.
“It’s not a very good light, sir—” William’s voice trembled a little—“but I think if you hold it up to the gas, you will be able to see the signature right down in the corner. Just there, sir, along by my thumb.”
The old man, glass in hand, brought a close scrutiny to bear upon the spot along by William’s thumb. Then he shook his head.
“No, it is just as I thought. There doesn’t begin to be the sign of a signature.”
“Don’t you see the upstroke of the R?”
“Don’t I see the leg of my grandmother!”
“Just there, sir. Round by the edge of my finger nail.”
S. Gedge Antiques solemnly exchanged his “selling” spectacles for his “buying” ones, screwed up his eyes and grunted: “Why, that’s the tail of a Q, you fool.” Again he took up the microscope and made prodigious play with it. “That’s if it’s anything. Which I take leave to doubt.”
William, however, was not to be moved. And then Uncle Si’s manner had a bad relapse. He began to bully. William, all the same, stuck to his guns with a gentle persistence that June could only admire. This odd but charming fellow would have Van Roon, or he would have none.
At last the old man laid the microscope on the supper table, and there came into his cunning, greedy eyes what June called the “old crocodile” look. “If you’ll take my advice, boy, you’ll turn that R into an A, and you’ll make that upstroke a bit longer, so that it can stand for an H, and you’ll touch up those blurs in the middle, so that ordinary common people will really be able to see that it is a Hobbema. Now what do you say?”
William shook a silent, rather mournful, head.
“If you’ll do that, you shall have five pounds for it. That’s big money for a daub for which you paid five shillings, but Mr. Thornton says American buyers are in the market, and with Hobbemas in short supply, they might fall for a thing like this. But of course the job must be done well.”
William was still silent.
“Now what do you say, boy?” The Old Crocodile was unable to conceal his eagerness. “Shall we say five pounds as it stands? We’ll leave out the question of the signature. Mr. Thornton shall deal with that. Now what do you say? Five pounds for it now?”
William did not speak. It was at the tip of June’s tongue to relieve his embarrassment by claiming the picture as her own; but, luckily, she remembered that to do so just now might have an effect opposite to the one intended. Even as it was, she could not refrain from making a “mouth” at William to tell him to stand firm.
He saw the “mouth,” but unfortunately so did Uncle Si. There were few things escaped the old man when he happened to be wearing his “buying” spectacles.
“Niece, you cut off to bed,” he said sternly. “And you must learn not to butt in, or one of these days you’ll bite granite.”
June showed no desire to obey, but Uncle Si, with a look set and dour, shuffled as far as the parlour door and opened it. “No more of it, my girl.” The voice was full of menace.
One further instant June hesitated. The picture had been given to her, and the right and proper course was to claim it. But this daughter of the midlands was afraid of a false move. The revelation sprang to the tip of her tongue, yet a mysterious power seemed to hold it back. She may have expected help from William, but he, alas, seemed too much occupied in proving his case to be able to give a moment’s thought to the picture’s ownership.
“Off to bed with you.” The old man’s voice was now savage. “Or—!” There was a world of meaning in the strangled threat.
June climbed up to her attic with the best grace she could, her thunderbolt unlaunched. As slowly she undressed by the uncertain light of one poor candle, she felt very unhappy. Not only was there something unpleasant, one might almost say wicked, about Uncle Si, but his manner held a power of menace which fed her growing fear.
What was there to be afraid of? As she blew out the candle and leapt into the meagre, rickety bed which had lumps in the middle, that was the question she put to a rather stricken conscience. To ask the question was not to answer it; a fact she learnt after she had said her prayers in which Uncle Si was dutifully included. Perhaps the root of the mischief was that the old man was so horridly deceitful. While he held the picture up to the light, and he gazed at it through the microscope, she fancied that she had seen the devil peeping out of him. In a vivid flash she had caught the living image of the Hoodoo. And June was as certain as that her pillow was hard, that cost what it might he had made up his mind to get possession of the treasure.
At the same time, she lacked the knowledge to enter fully into the niceties of the case. The picture might be a thing of great value; on the other hand it might not. She was not in a position to know; yet she was quite sure that William in spite of his cleverness was in some ways a perfect gaby, and that his master was out to take advantage of the fact.
As she sought in vain for a soft place in her comfortless bed, she was inclined to admire her own astuteness in persuading William to bestow the picture upon herself. It was for the Sawney’s own sake, that at least was how she chose to view the transaction now. But a sense of vague triumph was dashed by the thought lurking at the back of her mind. Uncle Si was bound to get the picture from the feckless William somehow; indeed the young man, being as clay in the hands of his master, she was soon besieged with a fear that he had parted with it already.
The slow passing of the tardy minutes gave form and pressure to this spectre. With an excitement that grew and grew she listened intently for William ascending to the room next door. Soon or late she would hear his feet on the carpetless stairs; but to one burning with impatience it seemed that an age had to pass.
At last came the sounds for which she was so expectantly listening. The door of the next room was softly closed. What had happened? Was the picture still in his keeping? To lie all night with that question unanswered was more than she could bear. Suddenly she jumped out of bed, flung a macintosh over her white nightdress, so that the proprieties might be observed, thrust her feet into slippers and then knocked upon William’s door.
It was opened at once.
“Why, Miss June!” Astonishment was in the tone. “Are you ill?”
“The picture?” said June, in quick whisper, so that Uncle Si should not hear. “You haven’t left it downstairs, I hope?”
Laughing gently, William half turned from the threshold and pointed to a small table in the middle of the room, on which lay the treasure with a bit of candle burning beside it.
A deep sigh expressed June’s relief. “Please give it to me. I will lock it up in my box for safety.”
He smiled at her eagerness, and declared that it was quite all right where it was. Besides, another week’s work was needed to give the last touches to the delicate process of cleaning. June, whose careful bringing-up would not allow her to enter the room in such circumstances, tried from its threshold to make clear that the picture was already clean enough for her. But William was not to be moved. Many exquisite details yet called for the labours of a true lover.
“Well, you must promise,” whispered June finally, “to take enormous care of it. You must promise not to let it out of your sight for a single moment.”
William hesitated to give this pledge. It appeared that his master wanted to show the picture to a friend; a fact which did but serve to confirm June in her suspicions. But she had the wisdom not to put them into words. She was content to affirm once more that the picture was now hers and that she would not trust anyone with a thing of such value.
“But I’d trust the master with my life,” said William softly.
June felt that she would like to beat him for his innocence, as her manner plainly showed. In some things he was almost too simple to live.
Suddenly she gave him a stern good-night, and abruptly closed the door. But it was long after Saint Martin’s Church had struck the hour of two that sleep visited her pillow.