Helen Vardon's confession
Mr. Hawkesley gazed at Peggy with such undissembled admiration and
reverence that I was disposed to smile--though I liked him for his
generous enthusiasm--and the unfortunate Titmouse was reduced to an
agony of shyness.
“This is a red letter day for me, Miss Finch,” said he. “It has been
my dearest wish to meet the creator of that pottery that I admire so
intensely; and now that wish is gratified, it is an extra pleasure to
find the artist so much beyond----”
He paused to avoid the inevitable compliment, and Mr. Davenant held up
a warning finger.
“Now, Hawkesley,” said he; “be careful.”
“I know,” said Mr. Hawkesley. “It is difficult to steer clear of banal
compliments and yet to say what one would like to say; but really the
personality of the mysterious artist has furnished a very pleasant
surprise.”
“I can believe that,” said Mr. Davenant. “I can imagine, for instance,
that you find Miss Finch a very agreeable substitute for the
intoxicated gentleman in the cellar.”
At this we all laughed, which cleared the air and put us at our ease.
“But,” said Mr. Davenant, “proud as we are to have made the
acquaintance of a distinguished potter, we are haunted by the spectre
of that fifteen shillings. We get the impression that Miss Finch’s
business arrangements want looking into.”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Hawkesley, “they do indeed. Why do you let this
fellow have your work, at such ridiculous prices, too?”
“It isn’t so ridiculous as it looks,” replied Peggy. “When I began, I
couldn’t sell any of my work at all. It was frightfully discouraging.
No one would have anything to do with it. My first work was simple
earthenware, and even the cheap china shops wouldn’t have it. Then I
chanced upon Mr. Goldstein, and he bought one or two simple, red
earthenware jars and bowls for a few pence each. It didn’t pay me, but
still it was a start. Then I experimented on this pipe-clay body with
slip decoration and coloured inlay and showed the pieces to Mr.
Goldstein; and he advised me to go on and offered to take the whole of
my work, if I signed an agreement. So I signed the agreement, and he
has had all my work ever since.”
“At his own prices?”
“Yes. I didn’t know what the things were worth.”
“Well,” said Mr. Davenant, “my law is a trifle rusty, but I should say
that that agreement would not hold water.”
“It won’t,” said I. “We have just had counsel’s opinion on it, and our
adviser assures us that it is worthless, and that we can disregard
it.”
“Then,” said Mr. Davenant, “you had better formally denounce it at
once.”
“Why trouble to denounce it?” demanded Mr. Hawkesley. “Much better let
me call on Goldstein and make him tear up the duplicate. He has got a
fine, handy warming-pan hanging up in his shop. I saw it only this
morning.”
“The connection is not very clear to me,” said I.
“It would be clear enough to him,” was the grim reply.
Mr. Davenant chuckled. “Your methods, Hawkesley, appeal to me
strongly, I must admit; but they are not politic. Legal process is
better than a warming-pan, even if it were filled with hot coals. Let
us hand the agreement to a reputable solicitor, and let him write to
Goldstein stating the position. Miss Finch won’t hear any more of her
benefactor after that.”
After some discussion, in which I supported Mr. Hawkesley’s proposal,
the less picturesque method of procedure was adopted, and Mr. Davenant
was commissioned to carry it out.
“And we will have a one woman show of Blue Bird Ware at the club,”
said Mr. Hawkesley. “I will take my whole collection there and exhibit
it with a big label giving the artist’s name in block capitals. The
pottery collectors will just tumble over one another to get specimens
of the work when the artist is known.”
The rest of Mr. Hawkesley’s collection received but a perfunctory
consideration. Even the gorgeous De Morgan earthenware, glowing with
the hues of the rainbow, came as something of an anti-climax; and we
closed the last of the cabinets with almost an air of relief.
“And now,” said Mr. Hawkesley, as he pocketed his keys, “I suggest
that we mark this joyful occasion by a modest festival--say, a homely
little dinner at the club and an evening at the play. Who seconds my
proposal?”
“We shall have to go as we are then,” said I, “as we can’t change.”
“I think we can enjoy ourselves in morning dress,” he rejoined; “and
as we shall all be in the same shocking condition, we can keep one
another in countenance.”
The proposal was accordingly adopted with acclamation and carried into
effect with triumphant success, and some slight disturbance of the
orderly routine of the establishment in Wellclose Square; for it was
on the stroke of midnight when Miss Polton, blinking owlishly, opened
the green door to admit the two roisterers who had just emerged from a
hansom-cab.
“It _has_ been a jolly day!” Peggy exclaimed fervently as we said
“good-night” on our landing. “And it will be a jolly to-morrow, too.”
“Yes; you will be able to get on with your masterpiece now; and when
it is finished we can show it at the club and you will be able to sell
it for a small fortune.”
“I shan’t want to sell it,” she said. “If it is good enough, and if it
wouldn’t seem too forward or improper, I should like to give it to Mr.
Hawkesley--as a sort of thank-offering, you know.”
“Thank-offering for what?”
“For his appreciation of my work. I really feel very grateful to him,
as well as to you, Sibyl, dear. You see, he not only liked the things,
but he thought of the worker who made them. All the time that I was
working alone, with the door locked, from morning to night to fill
that cormorant’s pockets, Mr. Hawkesley was thinking of me, the
unknown worker, looking for me and wanting to help me. I don’t forget
that it is you who have got me out of Mr. Goldstein’s clutches. But I
do feel very, very grateful to Mr. Hawkesley. Don’t you think it is
quite natural that I should, Sibyl?”
“I think you are a little, green goose,” said I, and kissed her; and
so ended the day that saw the end of her servitude and the dawn of
prosperity and success.
Chapter XVIII.
Among the Breakers
My preoccupation with Peggy Finch’s affairs had to some extent
submerged my own, but now that my little friend had triumphantly
emerged from the house of Bondage, I returned to my labours with a new
zest. In spite of the various interruptions, the Zodiac spoons had
made steady progress, and it was but a few days after our momentous
visit to Mr. Hawkesley’s rooms that, almost regretfully, I put the
finishing touches to the Fishes spoon--the last of the set.
It had been a pleasant labour, and as I laid out the completed set, I
was not dissatisfied. True, there had been difficulties; but
difficulties are the salt of craftsmanship. Some of the signs, such as
Aries, Taurus, Leo, Virgo and Capricornus, had been quite simple, the
head of the Ram, the Bull, or other symbolic creature furnishing an
obvious and appropriate knop for the spoon. But others, such as
Gemini, Pisces, and especially Libra, had been less easy to manage.
Indeed, the last had involved a slight evasion; for, since it seemed
quite impossible to work a pair of scales into a presentable knop, I
had relegated them to the shoulder of the bowl and formed the knop of
a more or less appropriate head of Justice blindfolded. So all the
difficulties had been met by a pleasant and interesting exercise of
thought and ingenuity, and the work--my _magnum opus_, for the
present--was finished. And it was rounded off by a very agreeable
little addition; for Phyllis Barton, who had seen and greatly admired
the set, had made a delightful little case to contain it--just a pair
of walnut slabs hinged together, the lower slab having twelve shaped
recesses to hold the spoons and the lid ornamented with shallow
carvings of a winged hour-glass and the phases of the moon.
I made up the spoons into a parcel and the case into another, so that
they should not be treated together in a single transaction; and
having advised Mr. Campbell by a letter on the previous day, set forth
one morning for Wardour Street. The silent willing which should have
preceded my entry to the shop was inadvertently omitted, for as I
crossed the street I observed Mr. Campbell exchanging blandishments
with a large Persian cat of the “smoky” persuasion, and, as he saw me
at the same moment, I had no choice but to enter straightway.
He received me with the most encouraging affability--indeed, he even
condescended to shake hands--and was evidently pleased to see me. And
his reception of my work was still more encouraging. There was none of
the buyer’s proverbial disparagement. He was frankly enthusiastic. He
held up each spoon separately at arm’s length, wagging his head from
side to side; he inspected it through a watchmaker’s lens; he stroked
it with a peculiarly flexible thumb, and finally laid it down with a
grunt of satisfaction. Then came the question of terms; and when he
offered twenty-four guineas for the set, I was quite glad that the
silent willing had been omitted. For I should probably have willed
eighteen.
Having settled the price of my own work, I produced the wooden case.
Phyllis had priced it at half a guinea, which was ridiculous. I boldly
demanded a guinea for it.
“That’s a long price,” said Mr. Campbell, pulling a face of
proportionate length. But I watched his thumb travelling over the
clean-cut carving, I saw him delicately fitting the spoons, one by
one, into their little niches, and I knew that that guinea was as good
as in Phillibar’s pocket.
“It _is_ a long price, Mrs. Otway,” he repeated, cocking his head on
one side at the case. “But it’s a pretty bit of work; and it’s the
right thing--that’s what I like about it. Tho thootable; it would be a
sin to put those spoons into a velvet-lined case, as if they were
common, stamped, trade-goods. Very well, Mrs. Otway, I’ll spring a
guinea for the case; and I should like to see some more work from the
same hand.”
This was highly satisfactory (though it was not without a pang of
bereavement that I saw the little case closed and hidden from my sight
for ever in a locked drawer); and when I had received the two
cheques--I asked for a separate one for Phyllis--I tripped away down
Wardour Street as buoyantly as if I had not a care in the world.
The association of ideas is a phenomenon that has received a good deal
of attention. It was brought to my notice on this occasion when I
found myself opposite St. Anne’s Church; for no sooner had my eye
lighted on its quaint, warty spire than my thoughts turned to Mr.
Davenant--or rather, I should say, to Jasper. Perhaps he was in my
mind already; possibly in the subconscious, as Lilith would have said,
and the church spire may have acted as an autoscope--it would not have
had to be an exceptionally powerful one. At any rate, my thoughts
turned to him and to the Magpies Club, and it was not unnatural that
my steps should take a similar direction.
As I followed the well-remembered route, I reflected on the changes
that a few short months had brought. In that brief space a new life
had opened. The solitary, friendless orphan who had sought sanctuary
in Miss Polton’s house, how changed was her condition! Happy in her
work, in her home, in her friends; for had she not her Lilith, her
Phyllis, her Peggy--and Jasper? And here a still, small voice asked
softly but insistently a question that had of late intruded itself
from time to time. Whither was I drifting? My friendship with Jasper
was ripening apace. But ripening to what? There could be but one
answer; and that answer only raised a further question. In normal
circumstances the love of a man and a woman finds a permanent