Old Valentines

by Munson Aldrich Havens

  IX

  The copper coffee percolator bubbled genially on the snowy dinner table.John and Phyllis were seated. Mrs. Farquharson set the soup tureenbefore him, and hovered near. In the small grate a fire blazedcheerfully; the firelight gleamed on the fine mahogany and ivory inlayof the Sheraton desk. There lay John's manuscript,--returned thisafternoon from Oxford, with the stereotyped politeness that was sodisheartening.

  Phyllis's suppressed excitement gave her cheeks their color; Johnfeigned higher spirits than the occasion warranted; he made a point ofeating his soup; Phyllis tasted hers.

  Mrs. Farquharson served the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (herspecialty), received due plaudits, and withdrew. John attacked thedinner; Phyllis's fork toyed with her greens. The all-important subjectwas not mentioned until Genevieve had cleared the table. Phyllis passedJohn a small cup of black coffee.

  "Well, Phyllis," he said, "Byrne, the Dublin publisher, remains to us.Oxford declines Cambridge verses."

  Then Phyllis, blushing like a rose, laid in his hand the five ten-poundnotes. He looked at her with perplexed eyes.

  "'"Old Valentines, and Other Poems," by John Landless, will appearshortly,'" she fictitiously quoted. She had read such announcementsweekly, in his "Academy."

  "Oh, John, those horrid publishers won't retract their offer, willthey?"

  "My darling girl, where did you get this money?"

  "I will tell you all about it, John, dear; but first answer myquestion? There isn't any doubt, is there? The book can be publishednow?"

  "Why--no; or rather--yes," he said slowly. "If the money is really ours,to do with as we please,--even to embark on so wild an adventure as abook of poems. I can't conceive how you came by it, though, dearest."

  John held the ten-pound notes in his hand; he looked at them now, as ifhalf surprised to find them still there.

  Then Phyllis told him of her call at Mr. Rowlandson's shop; sheremembered every word of the conversation; and came out especiallystrong on the rigid regularity of the transaction; the signed note, andthe five per cent, payable half-yearly, on the appointed day. John'sface was a study.

  "Oh, Phyllis! Phyllis!" he said softly, when she had finished. "Youwould have sold your valentines--that you love so dearly! the oldvalentines that are entwined with your memories of your mother. Youwould have sold them! For me!"

  Phyllis smiled happily at him and gave him both of her hands, across thelittle dinner table. When he could trust his voice, he said,--

  "I am confident of my book. If I were not, of course, I couldn't let youdo this, darling; dear as it was of you to think of it,--and to executeit so cleverly--so very cleverly. Old Rowlandson is a brick."

  "He is a very shrewd man of business," said Phyllis, looking at Johnwith misgivings "He always has a sum of ready money laid by, forperfectly businesslike investments."

  "Of course," he reassured her.

  He knew he could meet the interest on Phyllis's note. As to theprincipal--well, if worst came to worst he would be justified inbreaking his promise to his father that he would never borrow on hisexpectations. Justified! John could almost see his father's smile ofapproval.

  They sat in the big armchair together, and read the poems to be includedin the little book.

  "If I succeed in my profession I shall owe it all to you," said John toPhyllis; and, when she would have made remonstrance, he added,--"Ah, mydear, I like to have it so."

  * * * * *

  At the same hour, that evening, Sir Peter sat before his library fire.An open magazine lay on his knee, pages downward. He held an unlightedcigar in his hand. He stared moodily into the glowing coals. There werenew, sad lines in his stern face.

  Burbage entered. "Mr. Rowlandson to see you, sir. A very particularmatter, sir, he says."

  Sir Peter rose slowly when Mr. Rowlandson was shown into the room. Underhis arm were three parcels.

  "Glad to see you, Rowlandson," said Sir Peter. "How have you been sincewe met last? H'm. It must be two years, or longer."

  "Thank you. I have enjoyed very good health, Sir Peter. Yes, it is allof two years. I hope you are quite well, sir."

  "Fair; fair," said Sir Peter.

  "We do not get younger as we grow older," observed Mr. Rowlandson. Helaid two of the parcels on the big table, under the reading-lamp, andproceeded to untie the other.

  A smile flickered across Sir Peter's face; he liked the old bookseller'ssturdy, independent ways. He had been dealing with him for a quarter ofa century.

  "My lad failed me to-day," Mr. Rowlandson explained, "and as I had anold print of Charterhouse to be delivered to a customer, not far fromhere, I thought I would bring you something that came this morning--abook. A book for which you have waited a long time."

  Sir Peter drew his eyeglass from his pocket, and straightened the heavy,black silk cord.

  "Well, well!" said he, when Mr. Rowlandson handed him the book, openedat the title-page, with a little air of triumph. "The 'Proceedings' for1848. This volume completes my set. It has given you a good bit oftrouble, eh?" He leafed it through, and examined one of the plates withinterest.

  "Oh, nothing to speak of," replied the bookseller, rubbing his handstogether with satisfaction, nevertheless.

  Sir Peter drew a check-book from a drawer; the amount was named.

  "Take a chair, Rowlandson," said Sir Peter. The check was written. Mr.Rowlandson folded it precisely and put it into his pocketbook. They satfor a moment or two without speaking. If the bookseller was expected totake his departure, Sir Peter was too courteous to say so.

  "Will you drink a glass of sherry?" he asked, and touched a button, nearthe fireplace. The sherry was served. The old bookseller squintedthrough his glass at the light.

  "About the same date as the 'Proceedings,' or thereabouts?" he remarkedinterrogatively.

  Sir Peter nodded. "Fifty-two. A choice year."

  "I was growing a great lad, then," commented Mr. Rowlandson. "You havethe advantage of me by several years, I fancy."

  "I shall not see sixty again," said Sir Peter; after a pause headded,--"I hope your trade is good; but everything is going to thedevil, and I assume the bookselling business goes with the rest. Theradicals are in the saddle--and driving headlong to destruction."

  "I remember an aunt of mine, many years ago, who had fears for hercountry," was Mr. Rowlandson's rejoinder. "She stopped taking in thecounty paper, and depended on 'The Religious Weekly' for news, the restof her days. She said there were no signs of change in that. Old AuntDeborah! My me! But the bookselling trade does very well, thank you, SirPeter. The magazines are the only retarding influence."

  Mr. Rowlandson moved one of the parcels on the table a little nearer tohim and slyly loosened the string.

  "Occasionally I do a bit of business a little out of my line," hecontinued. "This morning, for example, I made a deal that promises aprofit--a very pretty profit. Now that I come to think, it might be ofinterest to you to hear of it. It was a deal in old valentines? I recallyou once bought a collection."

  Sir Peter started.

  "These old valentines were brought to the shop by a young woman inreduced circumstances She did not want to sell them, I fancy. She seemedrather fond of them." Mr. Rowlandson sipped his sherry; he lingered overit. "Yes, I should say she was rather fond of them. Well,--that isn't myaffair. I advanced some money on them? just enough to tide over thepresent difficulty. Of course, she and her young husband----"

  Sir Peter looked up quickly; he had been gazing into the fire. Mr.Rowlandson's face was placid.

  "She and her young husband will want more money," he continued. "Yes,they will certainly want more money. And when the proper timecomes----" He hesitated as though at a loss for the right words. "DownI come on them--pounce! and sell out the valentines--and take my profit."Mr. Rowlandson took another sip of sherry with evident enjoyment.

  Their eyes met. Sir Peter scowled.

  "She--was--my niece?" he inquired.

&
nbsp; "Well, bless my soul!" pondered Mr. Rowlandson, as though the thoughtstruck him for the first time. "They may have been the same valentinesyou bought at that sale--whose was it?--so many years ago. Of course,they may have been. I have a few of them with me--" He reached for theparcel with the loosened string.

  "You know they are the same," said Sir Peter savagely. "Let this farceend at once. You should be ashamed, Rowlandson, to seek your shabbyprofit in the helplessness of a misguided child, ignorant of theworld--and its hard, rough usage. I am surprised that you would doit--but that you should tell of it--even boast of it, amazes me.However--trade blunts a certain delicacy of feeling that--"

  Sir Peter gave the bookseller a sharp look. Then he added,--

  "I see your purpose in coming here now. You calculated shrewdly.Well--you were right. I will pay you the sum advanced to her."

  Whatever emotion Mr. Rowlandson experienced he concealed.

  Sir Peter opened his check-book again, and dipped his pen.

  "How much did you say?" he asked.

  "The amount advanced was fifty pounds," said Mr. Rowlandson mildly.

  "Fifty pounds!" exclaimed Sir Peter.

  Mr. Rowlandson held his wine-glass to the light again, and lookedthrough it with half-closed eyes.

  "Fifty pounds," he quietly repeated, "and took her note, with interestat five per cent. I could have made it six as well as not, she wantedthe money so badly."

  Sir Peter turned his back on the bookseller the pen busied itself withthe check. A moment later it was offered to him.

  "Thank you, Sir Peter. My interest in this transaction is not for sale."Mr. Rowlandson spoke in a low tone, firmly.

  "But I say my niece shall not be indebted to you! Not one penny!"

  Sir Peter's fist came down on one of the parcels lying on the table.There was a crash of broken glass. Mr. Rowlandson's eyes twinkledmerrily.

  "That is the Charterhouse print," said he. "My customer will bedisappointed. It was promised for this evening."

  The trivial incident cooled Sir Peter's wrath.

  "I insist on your taking the check, Rowlandson" he said sternly. "Youwill understand it is an impossible situation. My niece is not under thenecessity of seeking aid from strangers. She knows that all I have ishers. That I would----" He stopped abruptly.

  "Yes, yes," said Mr. Rowlandson, leaning forward. "Let us talk abouther--and her young poet. What an upstanding, fine, frank lad he appearsto be. Do you think he has great talent?"

  "I do not know that he has any talent whatever!" replied Sir Peterangrily. "I know he stole my niece from me? the puppy!"

  "Well, well," said Mr. Rowlandson gently. "That was wrong. Wrong,indeed. And I suppose you had showed him clearly that by proceedingopenly he had a fair field to win her, too?"

  Sir Peter set his teeth. The old bookseller repeated his question:--

  "You did not discourage the lad, I am sure? He knew he had a chance,eh?"

  "I must decline to discuss that with you, Rowlandson."

  "Chut! Chut!" murmured Mr. Rowlandson. "We are just two old fellowsjogging toward the grave together, even if you are a knight, and I am abookseller. Come, now, Sir Peter, tell me all about it. It will do yougood. I will wager you have been eating your heart out, for a month, inthis great, lonely house, with no one to whom you could talk of yoursorrow. Come, come, Sir Peter." Mr. Rowlandson rose. "Do not twenty-fiveyears of honest dealing with you entitle me to a little of yourconfidence?"

  Sir Peter stood silently by the fireplace, his back turned to the oldbookseller. Mr. Rowlandson set his empty wine-glass carefully on thetable, and then drew from their paper the valentines Phyllis had left atthe shop.

  "I read an essay of Mr. Benson's, last night,--and one bit comes to menow," he said. "The essay opens with an old French proverb, 'To makeone's self beloved is the best way to be useful.' Then the essayist goeson to say that this is one of the deep sayings which young men, and evenyoung women, ignore; which middle-aged folk hear with a certain troubledsurprise? and which old people discover to be true, and think, with asad regret, of opportunities missed, and of years devoted, howunprofitably, to other kinds of usefulness. We expect, like Joseph inhis dreams, says Mr. Benson, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars,to say nothing of the sheaves, will make obeisance to us. And then, aswe grow older the visions fade. The eleven stars seem unaware of ourexistence and we are content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf givesus a nod of recognition."

  Mr. Rowlandson smiled pleasantly, and patted the old valentines underhis hand.

  "And then," he continued, "the essayist says, we make furtherdiscoveries that give us pain; that when we have seemed to ourselvesmost impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only atalisman against poverty; that influence comes mostly to people who donot pursue it, and do not even know they possess it; and that the realrewards of life have fallen to simple-minded and unselfish people whohave not sought them. I fear I have not quoted the essay quiteaccurately. I had a wonderful memory, once. It fails--it fails. But itis very prettily put, in the book, and of course it is all quite true."

  Mr. Rowlandson smiled again, at Sir Peter's back. He turned thevalentines over, one at a time:--

  "My me! My me!" he mused, aloud. "Think of all the old loves, of bygoneyears, these represent. School-boy and schoolgirl loves--most of them,probably; springtime loves. The perfume will always linger in thesepoor, faded leaves. You never married, Sir Peter, did you? Nor I; nor I.My me! My me! I remember a girl--when I was twenty; in Hertfordshire--myold home. Bessy was her name. She had the softest brown hair--in athick braid. She wore pink-checked gingham. My me! She married afarrier, fifty years ago."

  Mr. Rowlandson bent over one of the valentines, to read the verses,finely engraved, beneath a spray of blue forget-me-nots:--

  "Wilt thou be mine? Dear love, reply, Sweetly consent, or else deny. Whisper softly; none shall know. Wilt thou be mine? Say aye, or no."

  He looked up, smiling still, and went on,--"I fancy, Sir Peter, you,too, have your memories; you can recall some sweet face of your youth,for which you would have thought the world well lost; you can bring backthe memory of some fragrant day when you and she looked forward withbright hopes to happy years that never were to be. A golden day; agolden day."

  Sir Peter still stood by the fireplace, silent.

  "And now this dear girl of yours--your niece--has strayed away from you,with the boy of her heart! But, how willingly,--how gladly, she wouldcome back to you, and be yours again--as well as his, if you only openedyour arms for her--and said the right words of welcome to her--and tohim. She would come back and renew your faith in youth, and hope, andlove, and all the beautiful things of this old earth--which we shallleave so soon; so soon, that every lost day should be mourned. Ah, yes!I am sure she waits only for the welcoming words."

  Mr. Rowlandson shook his head, slowly, as he concluded,--

  "I am proud for myself, and sad for you, that I should be the one tolaunch his little book; the little book for which she was willing tosell her precious valentines. The little book may not set the Thamesafire, but--ah! how the thought of it has kindled their young hearts."

  Sir Peter turned from the fireplace and walked the length of the longlibrary; then, slowly, back to the table again.

  "You can take the check now, Rowlandson," he said, brokenly; "I shall goto her--and bring them home to-morrow."

  He dropped into his chair, and covered his face with his hands; Mr.Rowlandson turned to the fireplace. He drew from his pocketbook the notePhyllis had signed, and held it in the grate until it blazed. Then hepuckered his mouth, curiously, as if trying to whistle. When he facedSir Peter again, his blue eyes twinkled.

  "You owe me a shilling for a new glass for my Charterhouse print," saidhe.

  Ten minutes later, when Mr. Rowlandson left the house, Burbage openedthe door. He carried a parcel that clinked, as he stepped out, briskly.

  "Will you require anything further,
Sir Peter?" asked Burbage.

  "Yes. Have Miss Phyllis's little study-room, and the two adjoiningbedrooms made ready, Burbage. My niece and her husband are coming hometo-morrow."