The market garden with its sheds and glasshouses vanished.
The Borough of Barfleet was asked to pass plans for the building that was to be erected. Young Huggins was on the Council, but such opposition as he was able to supply proved useless. The plans went through, and with astonishing suddenness a firm of contractors descended upon that piece of ground. It was an invasion, with girders and concrete-mixers and steel and lorries in chunks and masses. The great building began to rise like magic, and Barfleet, wondering, remained mystified. Report had it that a syndicate was opening a new store, a super-store.
There was alarm in certain quarters. Young Huggins began to worry. The premises in High Street seemed to sink into insignificance. But old Huggins scoffed.
“Let ’em build and bust themselves. Another Tower of Babel, that’s all.”
In secret the three firms of Huggins, Smellie and Pym assured themselves but not each other that the competition would be limited.
Smellie thought that the new business would cut into Huggins.
Huggins thought it would cramp Smellie.
Pym believed that it might complicate things for Huggins and Smellie, but that it would not harm him.
Optimists, and selfish at that.
The new building grew bigger and bigger, a great white cliff. It began to develop vast windows. It suggested universality, and still the mystery remained. The traders in Barfleet became nervous. Who was to be hit?
Then on a particular day in April Barfleet High Street witnessed a strange sight. A country wagon drawn by four horses and piled with spring flowers made its way down the street and turned off to St. Jude’s churchyard. A curious crowd followed it. Half a dozen men in smocks unloaded the wagon and piled those mountains of flowers over a particular grave, the grave of Thomas Vance. The grave was completely hidden by daffodils, primroses and violets. The wagon and the smocked men drove away.
On the same day an immense placard appeared on the façade of the new building. It announced: —
THE ADVANCE STORES
This building will open on September 1st. On that
day the Directorate will issue a cordial invitation to
the town to inspect the various departments.
We shall specialise as Drapers and Clothiers,
Ironmongers and Furnishers,
Grocers.
September 1st. Old Huggins, malevolently strolling past the new Tower of Babel, was arrested by the name and the date. Advance. Vance. September 1st. Oh, yes, he had not forgotten that particular day. His face loomed. It seemed to lose a little of its truculent colour. But what nonsense! Just a coincidence. This confounded syndicate could know nothing of September 1st.
The date approached. The white building proceeded to dress itself. It began to put on an air of sumptuousness, to fill with marble and polished wood and frescoes and gilding. Were the directors mad? How could they expect to get their money back?
Windows began to fill. Fleets of lorries disgorged goods. A black-coated staff and packers and porters became active. But a week before the opening day all windows were screened. The building maintained its mystery.
Not so the window of No. 11, Royal Row. Holiday folk strolling and residents passing to and fro discovered a strange thing. The dining-room of No. 11, held two figures, but they were waxwork figures. An elderly man and a boy in old-fashioned clothes sat opposite each other at a Victorian dining-table. The boy was laughing; the old man appeared to be making a joke.
Old Huggins, on his way to the club for a game of bridge, joined the small crowd by the green railings. He looked in. His heavy jowl seemed to grow more pendulous. His eyes protruded.
For he saw a dead man sitting there dressed just as he remembered him—old Tom Vance, with his high colour, and white head and whiskers and his black swallow-tail coat. And the boy! That little, mischievous devil of a Joe——! It was a resurrection in wax.
Old Huggins turned yellow.
He did not go to the club. He stumped back home, and looking turgid, went to bed.
At nine o’clock on September 1st the Advance Stores opened its glass doors. In the panelled vestibule stood the figure of an old man in a swallow-tail coat. He was posed on a pedestal, with hand extended, as though welcoming the town. The wax face had a genial smile.
To begin with the crowd was thin, but as the day advanced the housewives and girls of Barfleet began to assemble. Each household had received an invitation. Moreover, strange rumours had spread. They continued to spread.
The pavements became congested. The feminine world crowded at the windows.
For the prices!
Every article was priced, and the prices amazed the feminine mind. The place seemed a blaze of bargains. Articles that cost you thirty shillings or two and eleven at Huggins & Huggins could be purchased here for a pound, and one and sixpence. Moreover, the stock was superb. The dresses, the hats, the lingerie, the pretty-pretties, the silks and shoes and scarves and jumpers! The windows bloomed like an immense flower shop. Women began to grow excited.
Everyone who entered received a present:
With the Compliments of the Advance Stores.
A band played in a gilded gallery.
Towards the middle of the afternoon all Barfleet seemed to have crowded into the building. Suave shopwalkers answered questions.
“I suppose these are opening-day prices?”
“It must be a stunt.”
“No, madam, the prices are normal—for us. We expect our turnover to justify them.”
Mr. Joshua Toil was one of the crowd. He threaded his way from department to department like any member of the public. He had an air of whimsical gaiety.
Elsewhere there were alarums and consternation. Young Huggins appeared in Mr. Smellie’s shop and asked for the proprietor. He was taken to Smellie’s private room.
“Have you been to see——?”
Mr. Smellie had. He looked sick, but he scoffed.
“Oh, just a stunt. Selling at cost prices. Besides, they’ll be in trouble with the wholesalers and the manufacturers.”
“Think so?”
“Sure of it.”
“But did you notice——? The ordinary brands—I mean in your show. Much the usual price. But they are packed full of other stuff. Imported goods—and cheap—as——”
“Damned dumping-mongers.”
“It’s a scandal.”
Perhaps it was; though the Advance Stores were doing to Messrs. Huggins, Smellie & Pym what they had done to old Tom Vance who had refused to sell anything that was not English. Old Vance might have been a bit of an oddity. He had fought on his principles to the last ditch. Oh, yes, some of the Huggins business had been more than dirty. Who was it that had secretly bought up bills and presented them in a bunch? Had there been no surreptitious syndicate that had cut prices and received imported sweated goods in order to smother old Tom Vance?
But if the new stores drew the housewives for miles around, the window of No. 11 continued to attract more and more attention. The wax figures of Mr. Vance and Joseph Vance had given place to three other figures. They sat round the table as though in council, young Huggins as he was then, complete with black beard and Piccadilly weepers. He held a sheaf of papers in his hand. A placard hung on the wall:
THE THREE PATRIOTS
The Draper. The Ironmonger. The Grocer
or
How to Capture Trade.
If the owner of No. 11 was mad, there seemed to be some purpose in his madness.
Huggins senior, having seen his bearded self, that masterful and merciless young man of the ’seventies, called on his lawyers. He bellowed. But the situation was unique and singular, beyond precedent. How to proceed against a waxwork figure? If Mr. Toil chose to display dummies in his dining-room without any
printed matter to cause a scandal, where did one’s case against him begin? It was a bit of a poser.
The lawyers wrote Mr. Toil a letter:
“Dear Sir, “We understand that you are exposing to the public view a portrait in wax of a client of ours. Unless this figure is removed, we shall be compelled to consider what proceedings can be taken.”
Mr. Toil replied:
“Please specify which figure represents your client, and supply me with his name.”
That, too, was something of a poser, but after discussing the problem with old Huggins the lawyers wrote again:
“Our client objects to the figure of the draper.”
The wax figure of Mr. Huggins disappeared, and in its place appeared a notice:
Exit the Draper.
Another poser for the professional! Also, there was something prophetic and menacing in those three words.
For Barfleet and the neighbourhood were not showing that loyalty to an old-established firm that such a firm might count on. Custom was crowding to the Advance Stores.
Messrs. Huggins dropped their prices.
The Stores dropped theirs.
Moreover, they carried a more varied stock, a better stock, more stylish and attractive goods. They could display six dresses to Messrs. Huggins’ one. They offered bargains from Paris.
Old Huggins went about with a jowl that looked more pendulous. He had begun to suspect that the sour bread that he had cast upon the waters was returning to him. He continued to bluster, but there was fear behind his bluster. He said to his son: “They must be losing thousands a year. If we have to lose money too, we’ll do it and outlast them. I’m not afraid of Waterloo.”
A year passed. The Advance Stores had made a loss of some fifty thousand pounds, but that was not of serious importance to a man who was worth three millions. Huggins were drawing on capital, and more and more so. Smellie was trying to sell his business and get out, but was unable to attract a purchaser. Pym, never too prosperous, was drifting for the rocks.
The big window of No. 11, Royal Row had been empty for six months, but now another group of figures appeared in it.
Mr. Thomas Vance returns to life and meets three citizens of Barfleet.
The whole town came to gaze. It saw Messrs. Huggins, Pym & Smellie—contemporary and life-like—huddled in a corner of the room, while Thomas Vance sat at the table and smiled at them.
The lawyers wrote more letters.
Mr. Toil replied to these letters:
“Please state specifically how I am detracting from the characters of your clients. In what way are the figures offensive? The portraits of the three citizens are excellent.”
The lawyers retorted: “We shall take action.”
Mr. Toil responded:
“Do so. But it seems that I shall be compelled to take action against myself. You will find me included in the tableau.”
A fifth figure appeared, that of Mr. Joshua Toil reproduced to the life. He stood behind Mr. Vance’s chair. Messrs. Huggins, Pym & Smellie remained huddled in the corner.
Mr. Joe Vance returns to Barfleet.
The secret was out, the battle flag displayed. The wax figures disappeared, and Mr. Joshua Vance reoccupied his dining-room in the flesh. The enemy lay low; the law remained in its kennel.
But the battle went on. The house of Huggins & Huggins attempted a bold flourish. They put in new windows; they attained a certain evanescent flashiness. They appealed to the public by poster:
Deal with the Old Firm.
Buy English Goods.
Their enemy replied. The Advance Stores became Vance’s Stores. Mr. Toil advertised it. “This firm was founded by Mr. Thomas Vance in the year 1863.”
Pym was the first to smash. He disappeared. Smellie, after two years of wriggling, surrendered, and was bought up by Vance’s Stores. The Hugginses held on for three years.
Old Huggins took to his bed.
All his life he had loved money, and as an old man he had loved it with a sonorous and greedy miserliness. And his money and his repute and the business he had created were slipping away, but he was incapable of any human gesture. That little beast of a Joe Vance, who, fifty or so years ago, had knocked his hat off with a snowball, had returned to smother him with other snow. This vendetta! Certainly, he had broken old Tom, but that had happened in the course of business, and the strange and avenging reappearance of old Tom’s son was not business.
Messrs. Huggins were groggy and ripe for the knock-out.
Mr. Vance wrote a letter to young Huggins:
“I am open to purchase your business. If you care to treat, come and see me.”
Young Huggins was a beaten man. He was ready to clutch at a straw. He said nothing to his father, and when Mr. Vance offered him ten thousand pounds for the business and agreed to carry all the Huggins’ business debts, young Huggins jumped at the offer. The firm was utterly insolvent.
Young Huggins said nothing to his father, but when the agreement had been drawn up he signed it, and then went in search of his father’s signature.
It was a capitulation. Old Huggins glared at his son. His head sank deep into the pillow. He was dead.
But Vance’s Stores carried on. Business and prices resumed normality. The conduct of the enterprise was beneficent. Mr. Vance was careful not to cut the throats of smaller men.
He became Barfleet’s most popular figure. The little Anglo-American was three times mayor. He gave much to the town. When there was trouble in Barfleet people said “Go and see old Joe.”
COMPASSION
She was on edge, worried, overworked.
“Nurse Horrocks, No. 3’s tea.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Oh, do hurry up.”
She was aware of him gliding towards her noiselessly on the wheeled stretcher, and in the rather dark corridor his face looked like a sharp, white edge. A grey blanket reached to his chin. And beside him walked a little woman in black whose face was almost as white as his. Yes, obviously his wife, and frightened. Old Tombs the porter, stertorous and purple and a makeshift of the war, puffed at her from under his walrus moustache:
“No. 5, Sister.”
“Yes, we’re ready.”
Her smile was a little perfunctory, and her secret self waiting to escape for half an hour from No. 7, Vernon Street into an affair that was very much her own. Another man was waiting for her, a man who was home on leave, and the urge of her youth was tending towards him in the green spring of the year. A seat in the Park, a few intimate moments snatched from the day’s routine, the provocation of his impatience.
“Hang it all—you don’t give me much, Nellie.”
“But I’m so busy, Jack.”
“And I’ve only got seven more days.”
Perhaps she found pleasure in his impatience, even in counting those days and thinking that they were as precious to her as to him, only differently so. It may be that she tantalized herself and him with the withholding of the ultimate climax. Yes, until the very last she would hold back, for as a woman she liked the impatience of her lover. In not giving easily she would give the more.
The white doors of No. 5 Room were thrown open, a window showed a jumble of chimney stacks, pots and roofs and the large blue and whiteness of a broken sky. The figure under the grey blanket went in feet first, and his wife was about to follow when Sister Armitage interposed,
“No, will you please wait.”
The other woman hung back with a scared docility. No. 7, Vernon Street had frightened her, and already she had been sufficiently frightened. Everything was so stark and clean here, so efficient, so impersonal, yet so sinister, for even the odour of disinfectant seemed to mask the smell of tragedy.
“Yes—Sister. Can I——?”
Sister Armitage’s blue eyes dwelt for a moment on Mary Marden’s brown ones.
“You can go and wait in my room—if you like. Second door on left. When we have put your husband to bed, you may sit with him for t
en minutes.”
“Just ten minutes?”
Sister Armitage nodded.
“An operation case, isn’t it? We like to keep our——”
“Yes, I quite understand.”
She melted away from the white doors, and the Sister went in and, helped by the porter, transferred Richard Marden from the stretcher to the bed. She was a strong young woman with fine arms and a well-shaped throat, and the man seemed no more heavy than a child. He looked up at her like a child with wide grey eyes, and the little flicker of a smile, and something in her strong young self went out to the helplessness in him.
“How’s that? Like another pillow?”
“No, it’s quite comfortable, thank you.”
The fingers of his right hand plucked at the sheet.
“I feel so cold, Sister.”
“I’ll get you a hot bottle.”
She was about to move away, but his eyes held her.
“Sister, can she come in for a little while?”
“Just for a little while.”
“You see she’s so—so frightened. She’s——”
Sister Armitage laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
“Now, try and not worry. You understand? Just try and give up and leave things to us.”
She went out into the corridor, and softly closed the doors, and hung a red label on the handle. Her pleasant, open face was a little overcast. She frowned. This was to be one of those difficult cases when the heart-beats of life were a little too evident, and yet she liked a difficult case. It challenged her, demanded the best from her, and Sister Armitage’s best was unapproachable. She had both understanding and vitality, strength and gentleness. She knew when to coax and when to scold.
But this other woman who was frightened?
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