A word or two, a smile, the magic of two arms upon her bony shoulders, the shy touch of youthful lips — these were the very simple ingredients which apparently had transmuted the brass and tinsel and moral squalor of Aunt Hannah’s life into charming reality.
From sudden tenderness to grim love, to jealous, watchful, passionate adoration — these were the steps Mrs. Hammerton had taken in the brief interval of time that had elapsed since she had first seen Jacqueline.
Into the clear, truthful eyes she had looked, and had seen within only an honest mind and a clean young soul. Wisdom, too, only lacking in experience, she divined there; and less of wisdom than of intelligence; and less of that than of courage. And it all was so clear, so perfectly apparent to the cold and experienced scrutiny of the woman of the world, that, for a while, she could not entirely believe what she understood at the first glance.
When she was convinced, she surrendered. And never before in all her unbelieving, ironical, and material career had she experienced such a thrill of overwhelming delight as when, that evening at Silverwood, Jacqueline had drawn her head down and had touched her dry forehead with warm, young lips.
Everything about the girl fascinated her — her independence and courage; her adorable bashfulness in matters where experience had made others callous — in such little things, for example, as the response to an invitation, the meeting with fashionable strangers — but it was only the nice, friendly, and thoroughbred shyness of inexperience, not the awkwardness of under-breeding or of that meaner vanity called self-consciousness.
Poor herself, predatory, clever, hard as nails, her beady eyes ever alert for the main chance, she felt for the first time in her life the real bitterness of comparative poverty — which is the inability to give where one loves.
She had no illusions; she knew that what she had to offer the girl would soon pall; that Jacqueline would choose her own friends among the sane and simple and sincere, irrespective of social and worldly considerations; that no glitter, no sham, no tinsel could permanently hold her attention; no lesser ambition seduce her; no folly ever awake her laughter more than once. What the girl saw she would understand; and, in future, she would choose for herself what she cared to see and know of a new world now gradually opening before her.
But in the meantime Jacqueline must see before she could learn, and before she could make up her mind what to discard and what to retain.
So Mrs. Hammerton had planned that Jacqueline should be very busy during March and April; and her patience was sorely tried when she found that, for a week or two, the girl could give her only a very few minutes every other day.
At first it was a grim consolation to her that Jacqueline still remained too busy to see anybody, because that meant that Desboro, too, would be obliged to keep his distance.
For at first Mrs. Hammerton did not believe that the girl could be seriously interested in Desboro; in fact, she had an idea that, so far, all the sentiment was on Desboro’s side. And both Jacqueline’s reticence and her calm cordiality in speaking of Desboro were at first mistaken by Aunt Hannah for the symptoms of a friendship not sentimentally significant.
But the old lady’s doubts soon became aroused; she began to watch Jacqueline askance — began to test her, using all her sly cleverness and skill. Slowly her uncertainty, uneasiness, and suspicion changed to anger and alarm.
If she had been more than angry and suspicious — if she had been positive, she would not have hesitated an instant. For on one matter she was coldly determined; the girl should not marry Desboro, or any such man as Desboro. It made no difference to her whether Desboro might be really in love with her. He was not fit for her; he was a man of weak character, idle, useless, without purpose or ability, who would never amount to anything or be anything except what he already was — an agreeable, graceful, amusing, acceptable item in the sort of society which he decorated.
She knew and despised that breed of youth; New York was full of them, and they were even less endurable to her than the similar species extant in England and on the Continent; for the New York sort were destitute of the traditions which had created the real kind — and there was no excuse for them, not even the sanction of custom. They were merely imitation of a more genuine degeneracy. And she held them in contempt.
She told Jacqueline this, as she was saying good-night on Saturday, and was alarmed and silenced by the girl’s deep flush of colour; and she went home in her scrubby brougham, scared and furious by turns, and determined to settle Desboro’s business for him without further hesitation.
Sunday Jacqueline could not see her; and the suspicion that the girl might be with Desboro almost drove the old lady crazy. Monday, too, Jacqueline told her over the telephone would be a very busy day; and Aunt Hannah acquiesced grimly, determined to waste no further time at the telephone and take no more chances, but go straight to Jacqueline and take her into her arms and tell her what a mother would tell her about Desboro, and how, at that very hour perhaps, he was with Mrs. Clydesdale; and what the world suspected, and what she herself knew of an intrigue that had been shamelessly carried into the very house which had sheltered Jacqueline within a day or two.
So on Monday morning Mrs. Hammerton went to see Jacqueline; and, learning that the girl had gone out early, marched home again, sat down at her desk, and wrote her a letter.
When she had finished she honestly believed that she had also finished Desboro; and, grimly persuaded that she had done a mother’s duty by the motherless, she summoned a messenger and sent off the letter to a girl, who, at that very moment, had returned to her desk, a wife.
The rapid reaction from the thrilling experience of the morning had made Jacqueline nervous and unfit for business, even before she arrived at her office. But she entered the office resolutely and seated herself at her desk, summoning all her reserve of self-control to aid her in concentrating her mind on the business in hand.
First she read her morning’s mail and dictated her answers to a red-headed stenographer. Next she received Lionel Sissly, disposed of his ladylike business with her; sent for Mr. Mirk, went over with him his report of the shop sales, revised and approved the list of prices to be ticketed on new acquisitions, re-read the sheaf of dictated letters laid before her by the red-headed stenographer, signed them, and sent down for the first client on the appointment-list.
The first on the list was a Mr. Hyman Dobky; and his three months’ note had gone to protest, and Mr. Dobky wept.
She was not very severe with him, because he was a Lexington Avenue dealer just beginning in a small way, and she believed him to be honest at heart. He retired comforted, swabbing his eyes with his cuff.
Then came a furtive pair, Orrin Munger, the “Cubist” poet, and his loud-voiced, swaggering confrère, Adalbert Waudle, author of “Black Roses” and other phenomena which, some people whispered, resembled blackmail.
It had been with greatest reluctance, and only because it was a matter concerning a client, that she had consented to receive the dubious pair. She had not forgotten her experience with the “Cubist,” and his suggestion for an informal Italian trip, and had never again desired or expected to see him.
He now offered her an abnormally flat and damp hand; and hers went behind her back and remained there clasped together, as she stood inspecting Mr. Munger with level eyes that harboured lightning.
She said quietly: “My client, Mr. Clydesdale, recently requested my opinion concerning certain jades, crystals and Chinese porcelains purchased by him from you and from Mr. Waudle. I have, so far, examined some twenty specimens. Every specimen examined by me is a forgery.”
“Mr. Waudle gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish; the poet ... said not a word”
Mr. Waudle, taken completely by surprise, gaped at her like a fat and expiring fish; the poet turned a dull and muddy red, and said not a word.
“So,” added Jacqueline coldly, “at Mr. Clydesdale’s request I have asked you to come here and explain the situat
ion to me.”
Waudle, writer of “Pithy Points” for the infamous Tattler, recovered his wits first.
“Miss Nevers,” he said menacingly, “do you mean to insinuate that I am a swindler?”
“Are you, Mr. Waudle?”
“That’s actionable. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. Please explain the forgeries.”
The poet, who had sunk down upon a chair, now arose and began to make elaborate gestures preliminary to a fluency of speech which had never yet deserted him in any crisis where a lady was involved.
“My dear child — —” he began.
“What!” cut in Jacqueline crisply.
“My — my dear and — and honored, but very youthful and inexperienced young lady,” he stammered, a trifle out of countenance under the fierce glimmer in her eyes, “do you, for one moment, suppose that such a writer as Mr. Waudle would imperil his social and literary reputation for the sake of a few wretched dollars!”
“Fifteen thousand,” commented Jacqueline quietly.
“Exactly. Fifteen thousand contemptible dollars — inartistically designed,” he added, betraying a tendency to wander from the main point; and was generously proceeding to instruct her in the art of coin design when she brought him back to the point with a shock.
“You, also, are involved in this questionable transaction,” she said coldly. “Can you explain these forgeries?”
“F-forgeries!” he repeated, forcibly injecting indignation into the exclamation; but his eyes grew very round, as though frightened, and a spinal limpness appeared which threatened the stability of his knees.
But the poet’s fluency had not yet deserted him; he opened both arms in a gesture suggesting absolute confidence in a suspicious and inartistic world.
“I am quite guiltless of deception,” he said, using a slight tremolo. “Permit me to protest against your inexperienced judgment in the matter of these ancient and precious specimens of Chinese art; I protest!” he exclaimed earnestly. “I protest in the name of that symbol of mystery and beauty — that occult lunar something, my dear young lady, which we both worship, and which the world calls the moon — —”
“I beg your pardon — —” she interrupted; but the poet was launched and she could not check him.
“I protest,” he continued shrilly, “in the name of Art! In the name of all that is worth while, all that matters, all that counts, all that is meaningful, sacred, precious beyond price — —”
“Mr. Munger!”
“I protest in the name of — —”
“Mr. Munger!”
“Eh!” he said, coming to and rolling his round, washed-out eyes toward her.
“Be kind enough to listen,” she said curtly. “I am compelled to interrupt you because to-day I am a very busy person. So I am going to be as brief with you as possible. This, then, is the situation as I understand it. A month or so ago you and your friend, Mr. Waudle, notified Mr. Clydesdale that you had just returned from Pekin with a very unusual collection of ancient Chinese art, purchased by you, as you stated, from a certain Chinese prince.”
The faint note of scorn in her voice did not escape the poet, who turned redder and muddier and made a picturesque gesture of world-wide appeal; but no words came from either manufacturer of literary phrases; Waudle only closed his cod-like mouth, and the eyes set in his fat face became small and cunning like something in the farthest corner of a trap.
Jacqueline continued gravely: “At your solicitation, I understand, and depending upon your representations, my client, Mr. Clydesdale, purchased from you this collection — —”
“We offered no guarantees with it,” interrupted Waudle thickly. “Besides, his wife advised him to buy the collection. I am an old and valued friend of Mrs. Clydesdale. She would never dream of demanding a guarantee from me! Ask her if — —”
“What is a guarantee?” inquired Jacqueline. “I’m quite certain that you don’t know, Mr. Waudle. And did you and Mr. Munger regard your statement concerning the Chinese prince as poetic license? Or as diverting fiction? Or what? You were not writing romance, you know. You were engaged in business. So I must ask you again who is this prince?”
“There was a prince,” retorted Waudle sullenly. “Can you prove there wasn’t?”
“There are several princes in China. And now I am obliged to ask you to state distinctly exactly how many of these porcelains, jades and crystals which you sold to Mr. Clydesdale were actually purchased by you from this particular Chinese prince?”
“Most of them,” said Waudle, defiantly. “Prove the contrary if you can!”
“Not all of them, then — as you assured Mr. Clydesdale?”
“I didn’t say all.”
“I am afraid you did, Mr. Waudle. I am afraid you even wrote it — over your own signature.”
“Very well,” said Waudle, with a large and careless sweep of his hand, “if any doubt remains in Mr. Clydesdale’s mind, I am fully prepared to take back whatever specimens may not actually have come from the prince — —”
“There were some, then, which did not?”
“One or two, I believe.”
“And who is this Chinese prince, Mr. Waudle?” she repeated, not smiling. “What is his name?”
Munger answered; he knew exactly what answer to make, and how to deliver it with flowing gestures. He had practised it long enough:
“When I was travelling with His Excellency T’ang-K’ai-Sun by rail from Szechuan to Pekin to visit Prince — —”
“The railroad is not built,” interrupted the girl drily. “You could not have travelled that way.”
Both men regarded her as though paralysed by her effrontery.
“Continue, please,” she nodded.
The poet swallowed nothing very fast and hard, and waved his damp hand at her:
“Tuan-Fang, Viceroy of Wuchang — —”
“He happens to be Viceroy of Nanking,” observed the girl.
Waudle, frightened, lost his temper and turned on her, exasperated:
“Be careful! Your insinuations involve our honour and are actionable! Do you realise what you are saying?”
“Perfectly.”
“I fear not. Do you imagine you are competent to speak with authority about China and its people and its complex and mysterious art when you have never been in the country?”
“I have seen a little of China, Mr. Waudle. But I do not pretend to speak with undue authority about it.”
“You say you’ve been in China?” His tone of disbelief was loud and bullying.
“I was in China with my father when I was a girl of sixteen.”
“Oh! Perhaps you speak Chinese!” he sneered.
She looked at him gravely, not answering.
He laughed: “Now, Miss Nevers, you have intimated that we are liars and swindlers. Let’s see how much you know for an expert! You pretend to be an authority on things Chinese. You will then understand me when I say: ‘Jen chih ch’u, Hsing pen shan — —’”
“I do understand you, Mr. Waudle,” she cut in contemptuously. “You are repeating the ‘three-word-classic,’ which every school-child in China knows, and it merely means ‘Men when born are naturally good.’ I think I may qualify in Chinese as far as San Tzu Ching and his nursery rhymes. And I think we have had enough of this dodging — —”
The author flushed hotly.
“Do you speak Wenli?” he demanded, completely flustered.
“Do you?” she retorted impatiently.
“I do,” he asserted boldly.
“Indeed!”
“I may even say that I speak very fluently the — the literary language of China — or Wenli, as it is commonly called.”
“That is odd,” she said, “because the literary language of China, commonly called Wenli, is not and never has been spoken. It is only a written language, Mr. Waudle.”
The Cubist had now gone quite to pieces. From his colourless mop of bushy hair to the fringe on his a
nkle-high trousers, he presented a study in deep dejection. Only his round, pale, parrot-like eyes remained on duty, staring unwinkingly at her.
“Were you ever actually in China?” she asked, looking around at him.
The terrified poet feebly pointed to the author of “Black Roses.”
“Oh!” she said. “Were you in China, Mr. Waudle, or only in Japan?”
But Mr. Waudle found nothing further to say.
“Because,” she said, “in Japan sometimes one is deceived into buying alleged Chinese jades and crystals and porcelains. I am afraid that you were deceived. I hope you were honestly deceived. What you have sold to Mr. Clydesdale as jade is not jade. And the porcelains are not what you represented them to be.”
“That’s where you make a mistake!” shouted Waudle loudly. “I’ve had the inscription on every vase translated, and I can prove it! How much of an expert are you? Hey?”
“If you were an expert,” she explained wearily, “you would understand that inscriptions on Chinese porcelains are not trustworthy. Even hundreds of years ago forgeries were perpetrated by the Chinese who desired to have their works of art mistaken for still more ancient masterpieces; and so the ancient and modern makers of porcelains inscribed them accordingly. Only when an antique porcelain itself conforms to the inscription it bears do we venture to accept that inscription. Never otherwise.”
Waudle, hypnotised, stood blinking at her, bereft of speech, almost of reason.
The poet piped feebly: “It was not our fault! We were brutally deceived in Japan. And, oh! The bitter deception to me! The cruelty of the awakening!” He got up out of his chair; words and gestures were once again at his command; tears streaked his pasty cheeks.
“Miss Nevers! My dear and honoured young lady! You know — you among all women must realise how precious to me is the moon! Sacred, worshipped, adored — desired far more than the desire for gold — yea, than much fine gold! Sweeter, also, than honey in the honeycomb!” he sobbed. “And it was a pair of moon vases, black as midnight, pearl-orbed, lacquered, mystic, wonderful, that lured me — —”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 658