“Just a little whisky, Hubbard, please,” he said, “a finger’s quite enough. Where’s what’s-his-name—Street, Hubbard?”
“Coming directly, sir,” Hubbard answered, “here he is now, sir.”
“Street,” said Mr. Jellett, “you’re not any relation to that fellow downtown they arrested for running a gambling machine in the barber shop?”
It was surprising, now and then, the things his mind turned up, extraneous bits of knowledge, always somehow useful.
“Yes, sir,” said Street. “He’s my brother.”
Grafton Jellett glanced up, and for a moment Street ceased to be a piece of furniture. “It doesn’t hurt you with me to say that,” he said, “especially because you didn’t have to. Tell your brother to change his ways, Street—” Mr. Jellett sipped his whisky slowly. “Is your brother acquainted with some village people called—what’s the name—? Michael?”
Those were the days when servants were good servants, and not half-trained shirkers with all those false ideas of democracy. Street stood correctly and attentively, lank and saturnine, perhaps, but he did not bat an eye.
“Acquainted,” he said; “yes, sir.”
“Ho, hum,” said Mr. Jellett. “Street, bring me my slippers, please. My feet are very tired.”
Mr. Jellett picked up his book again, but he was weary of cutting pages. He laid it on his gold and rosewood Empire writing table, and walked to the window, through which there came that peaceful sound of lawn mowers. The lawn outside was as green and soft as English turf. There was a pool where a stone dolphin reared his head and performed the miracle of emitting a ceaseless stream of water through his nose. There were beds of digitalis in the bud, and the rhododendrons were still in bloom. There were groupings of other flowers shaped like moons and stars, and a hundred shrubs and box trees. Some one had mentioned to Grafton Jellett once Pliny’s letter, describing a boxwood walk at his summer villa, where the boxes had been cut in fantastic animal shapes. Grafton Jellett had bought a copy of Pliny’s letters, and had read that one very carefully. A special man had come from Paris to trim the Jellett boxes, and even then the snipping of his shears gave an added pleasing sound.
Grafton Jellett, however, looked at none of these sights. Instead, his eyes sought a spot where the lawn sloped steeply to the shore, for the sea seemed to be all about that lawn, giving it the effect of a magic island on a day when a clear sky made the water blue. Just where the lawn reached the shore, about two hundred yards away, was a square of salt marsh and a beach. Just short of that marsh the lawn stopped abruptly, as though at a command, and instead of impeccable turf there was a tiny square of rocky waste, overgrown with juniper and brambles. There was a building on that square, the condition of which was enough to prove that Mr. Jellett did not own it, for it was hardly more than a shack, turning gray from the weather. It was a duck-hunters’ shelter, a strange structure enough to be left on Warning Hill. Old Thomas Jefferson Michael had built that shack when Warning Hill was nothing but a rocky pasture land where only cattle watched the Atlantic waves breaking on the rocks.
Grafton Jellett swung open a French window, opening on his lawn. The sea breeze struck him brusquely and ruffled his sandy hair, and made his gray coat flop as he stood looking out, a small figure growing already slack about the waist.
“Oh, Campbell!” Mr. Jellett called. It was not unpleasant to see the stir out on the lawn. “Campbell!” shouted some one. It was like echoes across Elysian fields. It was not unpleasant to watch Campbell arrive at a shambling run, as a first-rate superintendent should.
“Campbell,” said Mr. Jellett, “you were going to plant a line of poplars where the lawn slopes to the shore. Don’t bother, Campbell.”
As Mr. Jellett closed the window, a tap sounded on the door, and with the tap a gentle scuffling and whispering, reminding him that it was the children’s hour. Once again circumstances were obliging him to emulate the kindly Longfellow, and to throw his study open to busy little feet. Unfitted as he knew he was to play the part, Mr. Jellett seemed to anticipate it with pleasure, for he smoothed his coat carefully and expanded his chest.
“Come in,” said Mr. Jellett.
They came in side by side, nice children both of them, clipped and brushed neatly as the box trees on the lawn—Sherwood on the right and Marianne on the left. Many and many would be the times that Sherwood was to blush at the clothing he wore then. Sherwood’s round little face was framed in reddish yellow curls, falling to his shoulders, like the Prince’s in the Tower, and he was dressed in black velvet. Sherwood kept his eyes on his patent-leather toes, because he was afraid of his father already, and was beginning as early as that to feel bored by his company. It was Marianne who tripped forward as a child should, light on her feet, restless and laughing. Her white dress from Paris was a downy puff of ruffles, which made her curiously unsubstantial. And already Grafton Jellett was disturbed by her, because she was not afraid at all.
“The children have a surprise for you,” said Miss Meachey, as she closed the door. “Sherry, dear, can you say the little poem we’ve learned?”
“No,” said Sherwood.
“I can,” said Marianne. “I can say lots and lots, can’t I, Meachey?”
“Miss Meachey,” said Mr. Jellett. “Now, Sherwood, will you say your poem if I give you a bright new quarter?”
“No,” said Sherwood, “I can get a quarter any time I ask Mamma!”
“I can say it!” said Marianne. “We all got dressed for it. Miss Meachey got all dressed too. You ought to have seen her getting dressed, Papa!”
“Won’t you sit down, Miss Meachey?” asked Mr. Jellett.
“Papa,” said Marianne, “why do you always ask to have Miss Meachey sit beside you?”
Dullness descended upon Grafton Jellett in cloudlike beneficence. “Suppose you children run out on the terrace,” he said. “No, Marianne—the poem can wait. Of course I know you can say it. That’s it … run along.”
Miss Meachey was good to look at, standing by the door. Even her plain black dress with its billowing sleeves was restful to the eyes. It gave an added luster to Miss Meachey’s soft dark hair, and a most alluring whiteness to her hands and throat. She stood by the closed door, tall and mysterious like a figure in a painting, which hinted of turret stairs and of silk and gold gleaming in the dark.
“Really, you should be more careful,” Miss Meachey said.
“Careful, eh?” said Grafton Jellet. Miss Meachey smiled, as some one might who was a good deal older.
“You’ve never been a nursery governess,” Miss Meachey said. “You underestimate what children understand.”
Grafton Jellett stood up and thrust his hands into his coat. “Sometimes,” he said, “I get tired of being careful. Why should I be careful? Here, look what I’ve brought you.” He drew a leather case half out of his pocket.
“Put it back!” said Miss Meachey. There was more color in her cheeks. “Please—not now!”
Grafton Jellett smiled frostily with his eyes on Miss Meachey’s face. “A cold proposition,” he said. “You’re a very cold proposition, Meachey.”
“Am I?” said Miss Meachey. “Well, so are you.”
“Oh, the devil!” Mr. Jellett sighed. “At any rate you’re real.”
“Yes,” said Miss Meachey. “And so are you. Most men are—now and then.”
“But not women,” sighed Grafton Jellett, “hardly ever women. You’re the only one I’ve ever seen play her cards like a man. You go after what you want without any sentiment or funny business. Ho, hum … Meachey, I wish I’d known you twelve years ago.”
Yes, Miss Meachey was good to look at, standing by the door, so young and at the same time ever so old; she seemed to have lived other lives, and miraculously to have kept the knowledge. She was glancing at the copy of “Jane Eyre” as it lay upon the writing table, a tale of another nursery governess and another stranger gentleman.
“Do you know what I’d advise?” Miss
Meachey said. “I’d advise you to send me packing while you can.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Jellett, “for the tip. It goes to prove what I said before—you and I are real, the only ones in—in—” he moved his head slowly about and blinked placidly, “in a whole square mile. And, Meachey, you don’t know how refreshing it is when you get where I am, surrounded by clothing dummies and simpering women, and men living on dead men’s money, to see some one who’s real. You and I know what it means to have our backs to the wall.… Ho, hum … Oh, I’ve eaten out of a pail—I’ve run a donkey engine. Now—that’s something to remember. I was hanged if I’d keep on, as everlastingly hanged as you are that you—that you’ll—”
“Continue in the nursery?” asked Miss Meachey.
“That’s it,” Grafton Jellett nodded feelingly. “That’s exactly it! Ho, hum … I can remember—Does it bore you, Meachey, to hear me talk? But I don’t care if it does.”
“Of course,” said Miss Meachey, “you wouldn’t care.”
“You know me, don’t you, Meachey?” Mr. Jellett nodded placidly, though Miss Meachey did not speak. “Now I can remember the first company I ever formed—on a shoe string, but nobody knew it till I sold out. I can remember how mad that fellow—what was his name?—it’s queer how bad I am at names but then names don’t mean much—how mad he was when he found he’d given me five times too much. He was the first man I ever made angry.”
“But not the last,” Miss Meachey said, and Grafton Jellett shook his head.
“Not by a long shot,” he answered. “Ho, hum … you’re a wonder, Meachey; you’ve got as much of a poker face as I have. Right now I’d write out a check for ten thousand to know what you think of me.”
Miss Meachey moved a step from the door, and she laughed very, very softly at some thought of her own.
“It may be worth more,” she answered, “not to have you know.”
Grafton Jellett smiled, and for a moment his whole face relaxed, so that its placidity seemed to leave it for something else, and the edge of that cloak of dullness fluttered vanishing into nothing.
“Meachey,” his voice was nearly gentle with the laughter in it, “do you honestly think that you can shake me down?”
Yes, those were the days when men were men. Those were the days worth looking back upon. Perhaps Grafton Jellett knew it even then, because in that brief space he was very much himself and confidential almost.
“So many people have tried to, Meachey,” he added, “and haven’t done it yet. No, sir—not a continental one.”
“I must be going,” said Miss Meachey quickly. “Some one’s coming down the hall.”
And she was out the French windows to the terrace before a word could be said to stop her. If Grafton Jellett sighed when he saw her go, surely he had a reason. The sight of her was a song to his spirit. Her eyes and her laughter were laden with challenge, like the challenge of distant places, peaceful in eternal summer seas, with blue lagoons beyond the barrier reef, and not a footstep in the sands.
Hubbard was standing in the open door. It was marvellous how Meachey could have told that he was coming, because his step was almost noiseless.
“A gentleman to see you, sir. A Mr. Michael.”
“Who?” Dully, heavily, Mr. Jellett looked up from his leather chair.
“A Mr. Michael, sir.”
“Oh, yes,” said Grafton Jellett. “Show him in.”
V
Of course Tommy never heard of it till later, when everything had changed. It was so much later when all came together piece by piece that it was hard to bring it back. But even then he could see Grafton Jellett rising from his chair and laying aside his book, the edges fluttering on that mantle of his dullness.
“Ah,” he said, “I had an idea you might drop in.”
Alfred Michael glanced about the room and sighed contentedly. It must have pleased him, for he too loved soft carpets and soft chairs. His lips curled beneath his mustache. His eyes met Grafton Jellett’s and neither looked away.
“Did you?” he inquired. “I had an idea you might have that idea.”
“Cooper,” said Mr. Jellett, “looks after me pretty well.”
“He would,” Alfred Michael answered.
“Sit down, Michael.” Grafton Jellett was almost friendly. When he told of it afterwards, he admitted he had not meant to ask Alfred Michael to sit down. It was just a moment’s whim, a slight indulgence. Perhaps the sight of the ridiculous checked suit and the frayed cravat with its antiquated pin and the whole effort of patched and broken grandeur to look new may have amused him—giving possession a new and pleasant taste.
“Sit down, Michael,” said Grafton Jellett. “A little whisky—no? It’s not bad whisky, a special distiller’s selection … Ho, hum! … I’m just amusing myself cutting a first edition—‘Jane Eyre’—a presentation copy.”
“Ah?” said Alfred Michael. “Are you?”
He lowered himself into one of the leather chairs and glanced at the book which Mr. Jellett held toward him. To look at Alfred Michael no one could have told that his world was on the verge of ruin. He looked at the book with a genuine interest. Grafton Jellett looked at him placidly, as one who had seen many men like Alfred Michael. Tommy could imagine he must have looked opaque and very dull.
“An expensive habit, perhaps,” remarked Mr. Jellett, “this cutting a first edition. Expensive—but amusing.”
Alfred Michael smiled again. “Why expensive?” he inquired.
“I see,” said Grafton Jellett, “that you don’t know the amenities of book collecting. There’s a peculiar premium on uncut books.”
“Yes, I know that.” Alfred Michael looked puzzled. He leaned forward and his forehead wrinkled delicately. “But I don’t understand you. Why expensive?”
“Eh?” said Grafton Jellett. “Why expensive?”
He spoke with his old dullness, but he looked at Alfred Michael carefully, and no longer with amusement. “You’ve got something up your sleeve. What is it?”
There he sat in strong silence. He was competing with something which he could not grasp for the moment. He drew back his head in cold caution, though his glance did not falter. For some reason utterly beyond the limits of logic, Alfred Michael had exploded into laughter. It must have been a strange sight—Alfred Michael without a cent in the world, leaning back and laughing at Grafton Jellett in his private room on Warning Hill.
“Why, you poor devil!” gasped Alfred Michael.
“Eh?” said Mr. Jellett. His face had become pinkish. His sandy eyebrows drew together. “What in thunder are you driving at?”
“Excuse me,” said Alfred Michael; “here you are getting pleasure out of cutting rare editions and you haven’t been cutting them at all.”
“What the devil?” Grafton Jellett was actually losing his grip. “How do you mean I haven’t been cutting this book?”
“It’s simply because we’re all so technical,” Alfred Michael smiled indulgently. “I hope you won’t be annoyed at missing a technicality. In the parlance of the book collector, Mr. Jellett, you’re not cutting that book. You’re merely opening it.”
“Eh?” said Grafton Jellett. At least he was far from dull. He raised a hand to stroke his spare sandy hair. “Opening it?”
Alfred Michael nodded. “Idiotic way of putting it—isn’t it? Don’t think I blame you for being confused. ‘Opening’ is what they call cutting the leaves of a book. ‘Cutting’ is something else again.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Jellett. “Something else again?”
“Cutting,” replied Alfred Michael, “refers to the binder’s habit of cutting down the margins when he gives the books new covers. That is what an ‘uncut’ means in the catalogues. The paper has its original edge, rough and unfinished. The actual act of opening the leaves has a very small influence on sales. You understand me now?”
“Yes,” said Grafton Jellett. Suddenly he doubled up his fist and slammed it into the palm of his hand. “Yes,
I see. It simply means—why, damn that fellow Hewens! Damn those catalogues! Why—damn those dealers tool I’ll bet they’ve been all laughing up their sleeves.”
“They must have,” agreed Alfred Michael.
Grafton Jellett drew in his breath. “Damn their little tricks,” he said. “I suppose,” his eyes were once again opaque and dull, “that you didn’t come here primarily to discourse on first editions. Well—what is it?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to the point before,” Alfred Michael said. “I had no idea you’d be put out.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Grafton Jellett, “that you’ve put me out. What is it?”
“I don’t,” said Alfred Michael, “very much.”
(“He had a contempt for me,” was what Grafton Jellett said afterwards. “Confound it, you might have thought I was a squealer, from the way he looked at me. He just sat and twirled that antique gold watch chain. Confound it—you might have thought he was doing me a favor.”)
“The fact is,” said Alfred Michael, “I’ve come to take your offer.”
“What offer?” Grafton Jellett asked.
“The only one,” said Alfred Michael, “that I’m aware you ever made me, but I don’t blame you for not remembering. Six months ago we had a conversation about my shooting box down there.” He turned and waved his hand over Mr. Jellett’s lawn. “Down there by the shore. You pointed out at the time that it was an eye-sore which interfered with your view, and I replied that I saw no reason for giving it up. I pointed out that I had explained the matter to Mr. Cooper when you had sent him to interview me. At the end of my explanation, sir,” Alfred Michael kept his eyes on Grafton Jellett as he spoke, “you offered me five thousand flat for a title free and clear, a sum considerably over that land’s value, as you pointed out. I refused that sum, and when I refused it, I told you one thing more by way of explanation for a step which you considered, I am afraid, in the nature of a personal affront. I imagine, Mr. Jellett, that you’re used to getting what you want.”
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