The copper coffee percolator bubbled genially on the snowy dinner table. John and Phyllis were seated. Mrs. Farquharson set the soup tureen before him, and hovered near. In the small grate a fire blazed cheerfully; the firelight gleamed on the fine mahogany and ivory inlay of the Sheraton desk. There lay John's manuscript,—returned this afternoon from Oxford, with the stereotyped politeness that was so disheartening.
Phyllis's suppressed excitement gave her cheeks their color; John feigned higher spirits than the occasion warranted; he made a point of eating his soup; Phyllis tasted hers.
Mrs. Farquharson served the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (her specialty), received due plaudits, and withdrew. John attacked the dinner; Phyllis's fork toyed with her greens. The all-important subject was not mentioned until Genevieve had cleared the table. Phyllis passed John 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-pound notes. He looked at her with perplexed eyes.
"'"Old Valentines, and Other Poems," by John Landless, will appear shortly,'" she fictitiously quoted. She had read such announcements weekly, in his "Academy."
"Oh, John, those horrid publishers won't retract their offer, will they?"
"My darling girl, where did you get this money?"
"I will tell you all about it, John, dear; but first answer my question? There isn't any doubt, is there? The book can be published now?"
"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 a book 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 if half surprised to find them still there.
Then Phyllis told him of her call at Mr. Rowlandson's shop; she remembered every word of the conversation; and came out especially strong on the rigid regularity of the transaction; the signed note, and the five per cent, payable half-yearly, on the appointed day. John's face was a study.
"Oh, Phyllis! Phyllis!" he said softly, when she had finished. "You would have sold your valentines—that you love so dearly! the old valentines that are entwined with your memories of your mother. You would have sold them! For me!"
Phyllis smiled happily at him and gave him both of her hands, across the little 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 you do this, darling; dear as it was of you to think of it,—and to execute it so cleverly—so very cleverly. Old Rowlandson is a brick."
"He is a very shrewd man of business," said Phyllis, looking at John with misgivings "He always has a sum of ready money laid by, for perfectly businesslike investments."
"Of course," he reassured her.
He knew he could meet the interest on Phyllis's note. As to the principal—well, if worst came to worst he would be justified in breaking his promise to his father that he would never borrow on his expectations. Justified! John could almost see his father's smile of approval.
They sat in the big armchair together, and read the poems to be included in the little book.
"If I succeed in my profession I shall owe it all to you," said John to Phyllis; and, when she would have made remonstrance, he added,—"Ah, my dear, 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 unlighted cigar in his hand. He stared moodily into the glowing coals. There were new, sad lines in his stern face.
Burbage entered. "Mr. Rowlandson to see you, sir. A very particular matter, sir, he says."
Sir Peter rose slowly when Mr. Rowlandson was shown into the room. Under his arm were three parcels.
"Glad to see you, Rowlandson," said Sir Peter. "How have you been since we met last? H'm. It must be two years, or longer."
"Thank you. I have enjoyed very good health, Sir Peter. Yes, it is all of 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. He laid two of the parcels on the big table, under the reading-lamp, and proceeded to untie the other.
A smile flickered across Sir Peter's face; he liked the old bookseller's sturdy, independent ways. He had been dealing with him for a quarter of a century.
"My lad failed me to-day," Mr. Rowlandson explained, "and as I had an old print of Charterhouse to be delivered to a customer, not far from here, I thought I would bring you something that came this morning—a book. 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, opened at the title-page, with a little air of triumph. "The 'Proceedings' for 1848. This volume completes my set. It has given you a good bit of trouble, eh?" He leafed it through, and examined one of the plates with interest.
"Oh, nothing to speak of," replied the bookseller, rubbing his hands together 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 sat for a moment or two without speaking. If the bookseller was expected to take his departure, Sir Peter was too courteous to say so.
"Will you drink a glass of sherry?" he asked, and touched a button, near the fireplace. The sherry was served. The old bookseller squinted through his glass at the light.
"About the same date as the 'Proceedings,' or thereabouts?" he remarked interrogatively.
Sir Peter nodded. "Fifty-two. A choice year."
"I was growing a great lad, then," commented Mr. Rowlandson. "You have the advantage of me by several years, I fancy."
"I shall not see sixty again," said Sir Peter; after a pause he added,—"I hope your trade is good; but everything is going to the devil, and I assume the bookselling business goes with the rest. The radicals are in the saddle—and driving headlong to destruction."
"I remember an aunt of mine, many years ago, who had fears for her country," was Mr. Rowlandson's rejoinder. "She stopped taking in the county paper, and depended on 'The Religious Weekly' for news, the rest of her days. She said there were no signs of change in that. Old Aunt Deborah! My me! But the bookselling trade does very well, thank you, Sir Peter. The magazines are the only retarding influence."
Mr. Rowlandson moved one of the parcels on the table a little nearer to him and slyly loosened the string.
"Occasionally I do a bit of business a little out of my line," he continued. "This morning, for example, I made a deal that promises a profit—a very pretty profit. Now that I come to think, it might be of interest to you to hear of it. It was a deal in old valentines? I recall you once bought a collection."
Sir Peter started.
"These old valentines were brought to the shop by a young woman in reduced circumstances She did not want to sell them, I fancy. She seemed rather fond of them." Mr. Rowlandson sipped his sherry; he lingered over it. "Yes, I should say she was rather fond of them. Well,—that isn't my affair. I advanced some money on them? just enough to tide over the present 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 time comes——" He hesitated as though at a loss for the right words. "Down I 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.
"Well, bless my soul!" pondered Mr. Rowlandson, as though the thought struck him for the first time. "They may have been the same valentines you 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 the parcel with the loosened string.
"You know they are the same," said Sir Peter savagely. "Let this farce end at once. You should be ashamed, Rowlandson, to seek your shabby profit in the helplessness of a misguided child, ignorant of the world—and its hard, rough usage. I am surprised that you would do it—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 looked through it with half-closed eyes.
"Fifty pounds," he quietly repeated, "and took her note, with interest at five per cent. I could have made it six as well as not, she wanted the money so badly."
Sir Peter turned his back on the bookseller the pen busied itself with the 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 twinkled merrily.
"That is the Charterhouse print," said he. "My customer will be disappointed. 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. "You will understand it is an impossible situation. My niece is not under the necessity of seeking aid from strangers. She knows that all I have is hers. That I would——" He stopped abruptly.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Rowlandson, leaning forward. "Let us talk about her—and her young poet. What an upstanding, fine, frank lad he appears to be. Do you think he has great talent?"
"I do not know that he has any talent whatever!" replied Sir Peter angrily. "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 proceeding openly 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 fellows jogging toward the grave together, even if you are a knight, and I am a bookseller. Come, now, Sir Peter, tell me all about it. It will do you good. I will wager you have been eating your heart out, for a month, in this great, lonely house, with no one to whom you could talk of your sorrow. Come, come, Sir Peter." Mr. Rowlandson rose. "Do not twenty-five years of honest dealing with you entitle me to a little of your confidence?"
Sir Peter stood silently by the fireplace, his back turned to the old bookseller. Mr. Rowlandson set his empty wine-glass carefully on the table, and then drew from their paper the valentines Phyllis had left at the shop.
"I read an essay of Mr. Benson's, last night,—and one bit comes to me now," he said. "The essay opens with an old French proverb, 'To make one's self beloved is the best way to be useful.' Then the essayist goes on to say that this is one of the deep sayings which young men, and even young women, ignore; which middle-aged folk hear with a certain troubled surprise? and which old people discover to be true, and think, with a sad regret, of opportunities missed, and of years devoted, how unprofitably, to other kinds of usefulness. We expect, like Joseph in his 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, as we grow older the visions fade. The eleven stars seem unaware of our existence and we are content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf gives us a nod of recognition."
Mr. Rowlandson smiled pleasantly, and patted the old valentines under his hand.
"And then," he continued, "the essayist says, we make further discoveries that give us pain; that when we have seemed to ourselves most impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a talisman against poverty; that influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and do not even know they possess it; and that the real rewards of life have fallen to simple-minded and unselfish people who have not sought them. I fear I have not quoted the essay quite accurately. I had a wonderful memory, once. It fails—it fails. But it is 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 the valentines over, one at a time:—
"My me! My me!" he mused, aloud. "Think of all the old loves, of bygone years, these represent. School-boy and schoolgirl loves—most of them, probably; springtime loves. The perfume will always linger in these poor, 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—my old home. Bessy was her name. She had the softest brown hair—in a thick braid. She wore pink-checked gingham. My me! She married a farrier, 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 back the memory of some fragrant day when you and she looked forward with bright hopes to happy years that never were to be. A golden day; a golden 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 would come back to you, and be yours again—as well as his, if you only opened your arms for her—and said the right words of welcome to her—and to him. She would come back and renew your faith in youth, and hope, and love, and all the beautiful things of this old earth—which we shall leave 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 to launch his little book; the little book for which she was willing to sell her precious valentines. The little book may not set the Thames afire, but—ah! how the thought of it has kindled their young hearts."
Sir Peter turned from the fireplace and walked the length of the long library; then, slowly, back to the table again.
"You can take the check now, Rowlandson," he said, brokenly; "I shall go to 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 note Phyllis had signed, and held it in the grate until it blazed. Then he puckered his mouth, curiously, as if trying to whistle. When he faced Sir Peter again, his blue eyes twinkled.
"You owe me a shilling for a new glass for my Charterhouse print," said he.
Ten minutes later, when Mr. Rowlandson left the house, Burbage opened the 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 adjoining bedrooms made ready, Burbage. My niece and her husband are coming home to-morrow."