IV
IT was not until the evening, after tea, when S. Gedge Antiques had gone by bus to Clerkenwell in order to buy a Queen Anne sofa from a dealer in difficulties that William and June really became known to one another. Before then, however, their respective presences had already charged the atmosphere of No. 46 New Cross Street with a rare and subtle quality.
William, even at a first glance, had been intrigued more than a little by the appearance of the niece. To begin with she was a great contrast to Mrs. Runciman. She looked as clean and bright as a new pin, she had beautiful teeth, her hair was of the kind that artists want to paint and her way of doing it was cunning. Moreover, she was as straight as a willow, her movements had charm and grace, and her eyes were grey. And beyond all else her smile was full of friendship.
As for June, her first thought had been, when she had unexpectedly come upon William holding up to the light the picture he had bought at Crowdham Market, that the young man had an air at once very gentle and very nice. And in the first talk they had together in the course of that evening, during the providential absence of Uncle Si, this view of William was fully confirmed.
He was very gentle and he was very nice.
The conversation began shortly after seven o’clock when William had put up the shutters and locked the door of the shop. It was he who opened the ball.
“You’ve come to stay, Miss Gedge, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said June, “if I can make myself useful to Uncle Si.”
“But aren’t you adopted? The master said a fortnight ago he was going to adopt you.”
“Uncle Si says I’m half and half at present,” said June demurely. “I’m a month on trial. If I suit his ways he says I can stay, but if I don’t I must get after a job.”
“I hope you will stay,” said William with obvious sincerity.
There was enough Woman in the heart of the niece of S. Gedge Antiques to cause her to smile to herself. This was a perfect Simple Simon of a fellow, yet she could not deny that there was something about him which gave her quite a thrill.
“Why do you hope so?” asked Woman, with seeming innocence.
“I don’t know why I do, unless it is that you are so perfectly nice to talk to.” And the Simpleton grew suddenly red at his own immoderation.
Woman in her cardinal aspect might have said “Really” in a tone of ice; she might even have been tempted to ridicule such a statement made by such a young man; but Woman in the shrewdly perceptive person of June was now aware that this air of quaint sincerity was a thing with which no girl truly wise would dare to trifle. William was William and must be treated accordingly.
“Aren’t you very clever?”
She knew he was clever, but for a reason she couldn’t divine she was anxious to let him know that she knew it.
“I don’t think I am at all.”
“But you are,” said June. “You must be very clever indeed to go about the country buying rare things cheap for Uncle Si to sell.”
“Oh, anybody can pick up a few odds and ends now and again if one has been given the money to buy them.”
“Anybody couldn’t. I couldn’t for one.”
“Isn’t that because you’ve not been brought up to the business?”
“It’s more than that,” said June shrewdly. “You must have a special gift for picking up things of value.”
“I may have,” the young man modestly allowed. “The master trusts me as a rule to tell whether a thing is genuine.”
June pinned him with her eyes. “Then tell me this.” Her suddenness took him completely by surprise. “Is he genuine?”
“Who? The master!”
“Yes—Uncle Si.”
The answer came without an instant’s hesitation. “Yes, Miss June, he is. The master is a genuine piece.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said June with a slight frown.
“Yes, the master is genuine.” Depth and conviction were in the young man’s tone. “In fact,” he added slowly, “you might say he is a museum piece.”
At this solemnity June smiled.
“He’s a very good man.” A warmth of affection fused the simple words. “Why he took me from down there as you might say.” William pointed to the ground. “And now I’m his assistant.”
“At how much a week,” said the practical June, “if the question isn’t rude?”
“I get fifteen shillings.”
“A week?”
“Yes. And board and lodging.”
She looked the young man steadily in the eyes. “You are worth more.”
“If the master thinks I’m worth more, he’ll give it to me.”
June pursed her lips and shook a dubious head. Evidently she was not convinced.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure he will. In fact, he’s promised to raise my wages half a crown from the first of the new year.”
“I should just think so!” said June looking him still in the eyes.
“Of course I always get everything found.”
“What about your clothes?”
With an air of apology he had to own that clothes were not included; yet to offset this reluctant admission he laid stress on the fact that his master had taught him all that he knew.
June could not resist a frown. Nice as he was, she would not have minded shaking him a little. No Simon had a right to be quite so simple as this one.
A pause followed. And then the young man suddenly said: “Miss June would you care to see something I bought the other day at Crowdham Market?”
“I’d love to,” said the gracious Miss June. She had seen ‘the something’ already but just now she was by no means averse from having another look at it.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming up to the studio.” William laughed shyly. “I call it that, although of course it isn’t a studio really. And I only call it that to myself you know,” he added naïvely.
“Then why did you call it ‘the studio’ to me?” archly demanded Woman in the person of the niece of S. Gedge Antiques.
“I don’t know why, I’m sure. It was silly.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Woman. “Rather nice of you, I think.”
The simpleton flushed to the roots of his thick and waving chestnut hair which was brushed back from a high forehead in a most becoming manner; and then with rare presence of mind, in order to give his confusion a chance, he showed the way up the two flights of stairs which led direct to June’s attic. Next to it, with only a thin wall dividing them, was a kind of extension of her own private cubicle, a fairly large and well lit room, which its occupant had immodestly called “a studio.” A bed, a washing stand, and a chest of drawers were tucked away in a far corner, as if they didn’t belong.
“The master lets me have this all to myself for the sake of the light,” said the young man in a happy voice as he threw open the door. “One needs a good light to work by.”
With the air of a Leonardo receiving a lady of the Colonnas he ushered her in.
A feminine eye embraced all at a glance. The walls of bare whitewash bathed in the glories of an autumn sunset, the clean skylight, the two easels with rather dilapidated objects upon them, a litter of tools and canvases and frames, a pervading odour of turpentine, and a look of rapture upon the young man’s face.
“But it is a studio,” said June. Somehow she felt greatly impressed by it. “I’ve never seen one before, but it’s just like what one reads about in books.”
“Oh, no, a studio is where pictures are painted. Here they are only cleaned and restored.”
“One day perhaps you’ll paint them.”
“Perhaps I will; I don’t know.” He sighed a little, too shy to confess his dream. “But that day’s a long way off.”
“It mayn’t be, you know.”
He had begun already to try, but as yet it was a secret from the world. “Ars est celare artem,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Life is short, art eternal. It is the motto of the old man who teaches me how to clean and renovate these things. He says it keeps him up to his work.”
“You go to an art school?”
“I should hardly call it that. But the master wants me to learn as much as I can of the practical side of the trade, so he’s having me taught. And the more I can pick up about pictures, the better it will be for the business. You see, the master doesn’t pretend to know much about pictures himself. His line is furniture.”
“Didn’t I say you were clever?” June could not help feeling a little proud of her own perception.
“You wouldn’t say that”—the young man’s tone was sad—“if you really knew how little I know. But allow me to show you what I bought at Crowdham Market. There it is.” He pointed to the old picture on the smaller easel, which now divorced from its frame seemed to June a mere daub, black, dilapidated, old and worthless.
She could not conceal her disappointment. “I don’t call that anything.”
“No!” He could not conceal his disappointment either. “Take this glass.” A microscope was handed to her. “Please look at it ve-ry ve-ry closely while I hold it for you in the light.”
June gave the canvas a most rigorous scrutiny, but she had to own at last that the only thing she could see was dirt.
“Can’t you see water?”
“Where?”
With his finger nail the young man found water.
“No,” said June stoutly. “I don’t see a single drop. And that’s a pity, because in my opinion, it would be none the worse for a good wash.”
This was a facer but he met it valiantly.
“Don’t you see trees?”
“Where are the trees?”
The young man disclosed trees with his finger nail.
“I can’t see a twig.”
“But you can see a cloud.” With his finger nail he traced a cloud.
“I only see dirt and smudge,” said June the downright. “To my mind this isn’t a picture at all.”
“Surely, you can see a windmill?”
“A windmill! Why there’s not a sign of one.”
“Wait till it’s really clean,” said William with the optimism of genius. He took up a knife and began delicately to scrape that dark surface from which already he had half removed a top layer of paint that some inferior artist had placed there.
June shook her head. There was a lovely fall in the young man’s voice but it would take more than that to convince her. She believed her eyes to be as good as most people’s, but even with a microscope and William’s finger to help them they could see never a sign of a cloud or so much as a hint of water. As for a tree!... and a windmill!... either this handsome young man ... he really was handsome ... had a sense that ordinary people had not ... or ... or...!