A Bachelor's Comedy. J. E. Buckrose
the house the auctioneer’s raucous voice could be heard selling the spare-bedroom furniture. Every one was upstairs save a few who waited in the dining-room so as to have a good place when the auctioneer came in there.
Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Will Werrit, for instance, had planted themselves firmly by the table on which Mrs. Simpson’s cut glass and china were displayed. They were not surprised to see the new Vicar, as they supposed he would be wanting things for his house, and Mrs. Thorpe tore herself away from a fascinating and confidential conversation with her neighbour to say pleasantly glancing at him over her ample chest—
“I hope you’re comfortable at Gaythorpe, Mr. Deane?”
That was what Mrs. Thorpe wanted every one to be in this world—comfortable—and it was certainly what she hoped for in the world to come.
“I’m more than comfortable,” said Andy. “I love the place already. And after London it seems so peaceful—like one big family.”
Mrs. Will Werrit’s thin lips curled at the corners.
“Are big families peaceful in London?” she said.
“Well, well!” said Mrs. Thorpe, soothingly. “Human nature is human nature. And how does your housekeeper cook, Mr. Deane?”
“Oh, not very grandly,” said Andy, with a laugh.
“Can she make decent pastry?” asked Mrs. Will Werrit.
“No. But I’m not much of a pastry lover—”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Will Werrit. Then they coughed behind their gloves to tone down the ejaculation, and carefully avoided each other’s glance.
But Andy wondered what on earth there was to be so surprised at in the fact that he did not like pastry. He walked to the window and stood there with his hands in his pockets while the two women resumed their interrupted conversation.
“Did you hear?” said Mrs. Will Werrit. “He said he didn’t like pastry. After eating six tarts and eight cheesecakes at a sitting.”
“Well, well. I’m sure I don’t know how that got about. I never told a soul, that I can swear.”
“Nobody,” said Mrs. Will Werrit, snapping her lips together, “can blame a lad for liking tarts and cheesecakes. But what I hate is his lying about it.”
“Come, come! You can’t call it lying,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Poor lad, he’s ashamed of his appetite, I expect.” She touched a set of glass dishes on the table before her. “I’m bidding for those.”
“Don’t touch ’em!” said Mrs. Will sharply. “There’s a woman looking at you. You don’t want anybody to notice them before they’re auctioned if you can help it. They’ll be running you up.”
“I shan’t go beyond two shillings apiece,” said Mrs. Thorpe.
“You don’t know. Sales are such queer things. You’d think”—Mrs. Will lowered her voice still further and glanced at Andy’s back—“you’d think sometimes when you get home with a lot of rubbish you’ve no use for, that you’d been possessed.” She paused. “I shall bid for the jelly glasses. I remember thinking I should like them the last time we had supper here before Mr. Simpson’s illness.”
“Did you, now?” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Well, I thought the same about the glass dishes on that very night. Last party they gave before he was taken ill.”
And yet they were good women, and would do the widow and her children a thousand kindnesses. It is such things that make the dullest-seeming person so tremendously interesting.
“Finger-bowls!” said Mrs. Will Werrit, touching one with a scornful finger. “No wonder he died in debt!”
“Maybe they were a wedding——” began Mrs. Thorpe, but a great trampling of feet announced that the auctioneer was coming downstairs, and with a hasty “Now, stick to your place; don’t let yourself be pushed into a corner,” the two ladies prepared gleefully for the conflict.
Andy grew very tired indeed of waiting, as one thing after another was knocked down to flushed and excited buyers. The auctioneer was a kind-hearted man, and went out of his way to try and make the best price he could of the things, cracking jokes with a bad headache in a stentorian voice, which may not be a picturesque sacrifice upon the altar of charity, but is a very real one, all the same. And he understood his audience so well that he had them all in high good-humour, ready to bid for anything.
“And now,” he remarked, “we come to the sideboard. You’re not like the greedy boy who said, ‘Best first for fear I can’t hold it.’ I kept the best until the last, sure that the spacious residences of those I see around me could hold it, and find it the greatest ornament of their homes.” He put his hand to his head, feeling he was getting muddled. “Ladies—it’s not drink—it’s love! I meant to say this exquisite sideboard in solid mahogany, plate-glass back, will be the chief ornament of some home: for to my regret only one of you can possess it.” He paused. How his head ached! “Now, what shall I say for this magnificent piece of furniture fit for a ducal palace?”
“Five pounds,” said a red-faced man near the door.
“Five pounds! You offer the paltry sum of five pounds for this magnificent sideboard, which contains a cellaret for the wedding champagne and a cupboard for the christening cake! Ladies and gentlemen——”
He threw himself, as it were, upon their better feelings. And several people who did not want the sideboard began to bid for it as if their happiness in life depended upon their getting it.
“Five pounds ten! Six pounds! Seven pounds ten!”
“Eight!” said Andy, beginning to be awfully excited too.
“Eight ten!” said Mrs. Will Werrit.
“Nine!” said Andy.
“Nine ten!” said a new voice—clear, and yet breathless.
“Ten pounds!” said Andy, glaring in the direction of the voice.
“Ten ten!” and the crowd opened, leaving a little space around a girl who seemed to bloom suddenly upon the dull background of oldish faces like an evening primrose on the twilight. She was pale with the fear of being late and the excitement of arriving just in time, and she waited with parted lips for Andy’s defiant “Eleven!”
The other buyers had all stopped bidding, and her quick “Eleven ten!” rang clear across a silence.
“Twelve!” said Andy, doggedly fixing his chin into his collar.
“Twelve ten!”
“Thirteen!” said Andy, looking at his opponent with extreme distaste.
“Thirteen ten!” responded she, catching her breath.
“Fourteen!” shouted Andy, who had actually forgotten both the sideboard and Mrs. Simpson, and only felt that he would sell his shirt rather than let this girl conquer him.
“Fourteen ten!”
“Fifteen!”
“Fifteen ten!”
“Sixteen!”
Back and forth rang the words like pistol shots.
“Nineteen ten!” They were both pale now, and trembling with excitement. An electric thrill ran through the room, a strange spirit hovered almost visibly about the commonplace group in the farmhouse parlour, and the auctioneer recognised it easily enough and without surprise, for he had grown used to knowing that men and women touch the borders of the Inexplicable at little country sales.
“Twenty!”
Andy had the ‘twenty-one’ ready on his lips, when, instead of the expected retort, there was a moment’s silence that could be felt.
“Going at twenty!”