The Root of All Evil

"My name isn't Farnish!" said Mrs. Binks, "and if Herbert was here, he'd put you out o' this room, and – "

The bride came to a sudden stop. Mr. Binks, impatient to rejoin the recently-secured object of his affection, had contrived to get away from his employer's shop a quarter of an hour earlier than usual, and he had been listening at the keyhole for the last few minutes, his landlady having told him that Miss Farnish had gone up to see her sister. And now he stepped into the room, looking as important and dignified as such a very ordinary young man could. And, not unnaturally, he fell into the language of the drapery department in which he served.

"Oh!" he said. "Miss Farnish, I believe? And what can we have the pleasure of doing for you, ma'am? No previous favours received from your quarter, I believe, Miss Farnish? No transactions between us before – eh, ma'am?"

Jeckie favoured her brother-in-law with a withering glance.

"You impudent young counter-jumper!" she answered. "What do you mean by running away with my sister? – a feller that sells pennorths o' tape and papers o' pins! Answer me that!"

"Better sell anything, Miss Farnish, than be sold up!" retorted Mr. Binks with a grin. "I think that was what had just happened to your family when I first became acquainted with it."

"That's it, Bert!" said Mrs. Binks, glad to give Jeckie something in return for all the scoldings that she herself had suffered. "She's been going on at me dreadfully!"

Jeckie pulled herself up to her full height, and slowly looked from bride to bridegroom.

"I know what you've married on," she said, her voice becoming as calm as it had previously been furious. "You're young fools, and you'll find it out. Don't you ever come to me for anything; if you do you'll find yourselves shown the door! So there; and I've no more to say."

Mr. Binks rubbed his hands.

"That's well, ma'am!" he remarked, almost gaily. "For our bit of dinner's ready downstairs. And you can go away, ma'am, assured that Rushie and me ain't afraid of nothing. You see, we prefer love to money, though we intend to do pretty well in that way, all in good time. No offence, ma'am, but we ain't going to be bullied by you or anybody. If," he concluded, as he opened the door for Jeckie with mock politeness, "if you'd come to our little shop intending to do business on pleasant and friendly lines we might have established a connection, but as you ain't, well, all I've got to say, Miss Farnish, is – nothing doing!"

He felt very proud of himself, this sandy-haired, snub-nosed, commonplace young man, as he uttered this sarcasm; he knew, somehow, that he had got the better of this terrible Jecholiah. And suddenly, as Jeckie was passing through the door, he had an inspiration, and felt it to be clever, very clever.

"But we ain't above or below playing the coals-of-fire game, Miss Farnish," he said. "You wouldn't ask me into your house to as much as a cup of tea, but if you like to stop you're welcome to your share of as nice a bit of steak and onions as ever you set tooth into! Say the word, ma'am, and take it friendly."

But Jeckie was marching down the stairs in dead and gloomy silence and Mr. Binks turned to his bride.

"I did it proper there, old woman!" he said. "Hand o' friendship, and that sort o' thing – what? Her own fault if she wouldn't take it."

"She's as hard as iron," answered Rushie. "Come down, Bert; the dinner'll be getting cold."

Jeckie drove away from Sicaster feeling that Mr. Binks had somehow got the best of her. He had certainly not been frightened of her; he had poked fun at her. Worst of all, he had actually offered her hospitality, and had been serious when he offered it. And Rushie, when it came to it, had not been afraid of her either. She was surprised at that. Rushie had always been subservient, even if she had occasionally protested. The fact was that Jeckie had driven into the market town under the impression that the erring pair, having irretrievably committed themselves, would beg her forgiveness, and ask her to help them with money so that Binks could set himself up in business. Now Binks's attitude, from the time he walked into the sittingroom to the moment in which he invited her to the steak and onions, was that of cheerful independence. It was beyond Jeckie, who was no psychologist; all that she realised was that though bride and bridegroom knew her to be already a well-to-do tradeswoman they defied her.

She was defied again before night fell, and by her own father. Farnish, so far, had kept his compact with his elder daughter. He was, in fact, in better circumstances than he had ever been in his life. He slept in comfort; he ate and drink his fill at Jeckie's well-provided table; his allowance of money was sufficient to provide him with a few additional glasses of ale at the village inn; moreover, it was added to by occasional tips from the people to whom he carried the Farnish goods. He was waxing fat; he wore a good suit of clothes on Sundays; something of the glory which centered in his successful daughter shone around him, for, after all, he was the parent of the woman who had beaten George Grice and was becoming a power in the village. All this gave him a certain feeling of independence, but there had been no evidence of any Jeshurun-like spirit in him until the evening of the day on which Jeckie paid her visit to the Binks's. Then certain words from Jeckie aroused it.

"There's something I've got to say to you," said Jeckie, suddenly, as she and Farnish sat by the domestic hearth that night after supper. "You know what our Rushie's gone and done? – made a fool of herself?"

"I have been duly informed o' what she's done, Jecholiah," answered Farnish. "As to whether she's made a fool of hersen, I can't say. From what bit I've seen o' t'young feller, he seems a decent, promisin' sort o' chap, and earns a very nice wage at t'drapery business. An' there were a man I met t'other day, a Sicaster chap, 'at telled me 'at this here Binks and our Rushie were very much in love with each other, to all accounts, so let's hope it'll come out well."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" sneered Jeckie. "A draper's shopman, earnin', happen, two pound a week! I've been to see 'em to-day and told 'em my mind. I know what they'll be after – they'll be comin' to me for money before long. There'll be bairns comin' – poor folks always has 'em where rich folks won't – and they'll turn to me as t'best off relative they have – I know!"

"Why, why, mi lass!" said Farnish. "I'm sure ye'd none see yer own sister want for owt i' circumstances like them theer. Flesh an' blood, ye know."

"Flesh and blood must agree wi' flesh and blood," retorted Jeckie stolidly. "Our Rushie's set me at naught – me that's done so much for her! She's defied me – and I'll have naught no more to do with her. If she'd been a good gal and behaved herself I'd ha' made a lady on her. But it's done – and neither her nor that counter-jumper's going to darken my doors. And I said I'd a word to say to you, and I'll tell you what it is – I'm not going to have you going there. Don't let me hear tell o' you going to them Binkses, or you an' me'll quarrel. Now then!"

Farnish, who was smoking his after-supper pipe in the easy chair which was his special seat, stared at his daughter for a while in silence. Then he suddenly rose from his place, knocked out the ashes from his pipe, put his hands in his pockets, and shook his head.

"Nay, nay, mi lass!" he said. "Ye're none going to force that on me, neither! I made a bargain wi' you when ye set up this business o' yours, and I've kept it, and you've nowt to complain on, I'm sure, for if ye had had owt I should ha' heard yer tongue afore now. But I'm not going to be telled 'at I'm not to go near mi own dowter! I shall go an' see our Rushie just as often as ever I please, and if it doesn't suit you, why, then ye can find another man to tak' my place. I'm willin' to go on as we have been doin', but if we part I can find work elsewheer. Don't you never say nowt no more to me o' this sort, Jecholiah, or else ye'll see t'back side o' my coat!"

With that Farnish turned and went off to bed, and Jecholiah stared after him as if he were some wonderful stranger whom she had never seen before. For the second time that day she, the rising and successful tradeswoman, had been defied by poor folk. She ate a considerable amount of humble pie before she laid her head on her pillow that night, and next morning she said no more to her father, and matters went on as usual.

There was another person in Savilestowe who, like Jeckie, was eating humble pie, in even larger slices, about that time. George Grice, left alone since Albert's defection, saw his trade decline more and more. Jeckie, wherever she got it from, had a natural instinct for attracting custom, and an almost uncanny intuition as to suiting their tastes. By that time nearly all the big houses in the neighbourhood were on her books, and the smart cart driven by Bartle had become two. Rushie was replaced by an experienced assistant, carefully selected by Jeckie out of many applicants; two apprentices were taken in; Bartle had another man to help him, and Farnish became foreman of several errand boys. All this meant that trade was steadily flowing from Grice on one side of the street to Farnish on the other. Old George used to stand in his window and watch his former customers pass in and out of the door beneath the golden teapot. His first anger and resentment changed slowly to a feeling of mournful acquiescence in fate, and two new lines were added to those already set deeply on each side of the tight lip. But a new anger arose one morning, when, chancing to gaze across the street, he saw the smart dog-cart which Albert and Lucilla had set up at their villa residence just outside the village arrive at Farnish's, and Lucilla herself descend, bearing in her hand a sheet of paper and her purse. George knew what that meant; his daughter-in-law, who up to that time had traded with him, for very decency's sake, was now going to try the opposition shop. He turned away full of new resentment and mortification.

"Nay, nay," he muttered. "That beats all! One's own flesh and blood! But I might ha' seen how it would be ever since yon young hussy cheeked me to my face wi' her two thousand pound! And I mun think – I mun think! Am I done, or am I not done? That's the question!"

Over his gin-and-water – of which he now, in his solitude, took an increased amount every evening – old George thought hard that night. Between periods of thought he had periods of consultation with his account-books, his banker's pass book, his securities (carefully locked up in a special safe) and with various memoranda relating to the business and private property. When all was over he went to bed, and lay awake half the night, still thinking; he continued to think during most of the next day. And the result of all this thought was that, a night or two later, when shops had closed, darkness fallen, and most of the Savilestowe folk abed, George Grice slunk across the street to his rival's private door.

CHAPTER XII

The Triple Chance

At the beginning of her venture Jeckie had spent all her energies on the business part of her establishment, and had laid out very little money on the furnishing of the private rooms. A living room for meals, bedrooms for herself and Rushie and their father, had seemed to her sufficient for first needs; additions could come later, if the business prospered. The business had prospered, and there came a time when she determined to have at least a parlour into which the better class of customers could be shown if they wanted to see her, as they sometimes did, in private. Accordingly, she gave orders to the best firm of furniture dealers in Sicaster to fit up a room at the side of the house in handsome, if solid, style, having previously had it, and a lobby adjoining it, painted and decorated in corresponding manner. The door of the lobby opened on a little side garden; she ordered it to be painted a rich dark green, and had it fitted with a fine brass knocker which one of the shop-boys kept so constantly polished that its refulgence exceeded that of the golden teapot at the front of the house. It was to this door that George Grice stole, and at this knocker that he sounded his summons, and the time was half-past nine at night.

Jeckie – alone, for Farnish had already retired – wondered who it could be that came knocking there at that late hour. She picked up a hand-lamp and went round to the lobby and opened the door; the light of the lamp fell full on George Grice's round face, and on a certain sheepish and furtive look in his eyes. He lifted his slouched straw hat, and even smiled faintly, but Jeckie frowned in ominous fashion.

"What do you want?" she demanded in her least gracious manner. She had never heard Grice's voice since the afternoon, now long since, on which he had ridden away from Applecroft, turning a deaf ear to her prayers, but she remembered it well enough, and she knew that there was a new note in it when he spoke, a note of something very like meekness, if not of positive humility.

"I could like a word or two wi' you, if you please," said Grice. "A word i' private."

Jeckie knew from the very tone that this man who had once thrown her aside like an old glove, and whom she had fought with the fierceness and tenacity of a tiger, had come to acknowledge himself defeated. Without a word she motioned him to enter, closed the door, led him into the new parlour, lighted a handsome standard lamp that stood on the table, and pointing him to a chair, took one herself and stared at him.

"Well?" she said.

Grice drew out a big handkerchief and mopped his bald head; it was an old trick of his, well remembered by Jeckie, whenever he was moved or excited.

"I made a mistake i' your case," he answered, almost dully. "I – I didn't know it at the time, but I know it now – to my cost."

"Aye, because I've taught you to know it!" said Jeckie. "I've bested you!" Grice looked at her, furtively. He had some knowledge of human nature, and he suddenly realised the woman's hard, determined spirit.

"If I'd ha' known," he burst out suddenly, "what make of woman you are, I'd ha' taken good care that things turned out different! If you'd married our Albert – aye, things would indeed ha' been different! But I went on t'wrong side o' t'road – and he married that niece o' mine, 'at's now made him turn agen' his own father, and I'm left there – alone!"

"Your own fault!" said Jeckie. "Who made your bed but yourself?"

"That makes it no better," replied Grice. "Nay, it makes it worse! I've borne more nor I ever expected to bear. This – (he waved his hand around as if to include his rival's establishment and trade) – this is t'least of it. You fought me fair and square, no doubt; and I'm beaten. But there's a thing I can suggest, even at this stage."

"What?" demanded Jeckie, who was watching him keenly. "What?"

Grice put both hands on his knees and bent forward to her.

"I'm still a well-to-do man," he said, in a low, terse voice. "Accordin' to some standards, I'm a rich man. I had a reckonin' up t'other night o' what I were worth. If I'd to die now I should cut up well. You'd be surprised. And I shan't leave a penny to my son! My son, Albert Grice – not a penny!"

Jeckie continued to stare at him; herself silent, her face fixed. She saw that her beaten rival had still a lot more to say, and that left to himself he would say it.

"Not one penny to him!" continued Grice with emphasis. "For why? I'll not say 'at if he were a single man or a widow man I shouldn't. But he's wed and to my niece, and after what I've experienced at her hands I'll take care 'at she handles no more money o' mine. It were her 'at forced Albert to dissolve partnership wi' me. I had to pay him out wi' a lot o' money. But they'll never see another penny of what I've got! An' as I said just now, I'm worth, first and last, a good deal."

Jeckie suddenly opened her tightly-shut lips.

"How much?" she asked quietly.

Grice gave her a quick look; from her face his eyes wandered to the door of the parlour, which Jeckie had left open. He suddenly rose from his chair, tiptoed across the floor, and looked out into the lobby.

"There isn't a soul in the house but Farnish, and he's fast asleep, t'other side of the shop," said Jeckie, laconically. "But you can shut the door if you like."

Grice shut the door, slid back to his chair, and once more looked at her.

"Five and twenty thousand pound, at least," he said in a whisper. "One thing and another, five-and-twenty thousand pound!"

Jeckie watched him steadily through another period of silence.

"What did you come here for?" she suddenly demanded. "It wasn't for naught, I'll be bound! You'd an idea in your head!"

Grice leaned an elbow on the table, and began to tap the smart cloth with his thick fingers.

"An idea, aye – a suggestion," he answered, his small eyes still set on the woman who sat bolt upright before him. "And I'll put it to you, Jecholiah, for I know – and I wish I'd known sooner! – 'at you're as keen on brass as what I've always been. It's this here, i' one word – marriage!"

Jeckie heard, without moving a muscle of her face nor relaxing the steady stare of her eyes.

"You an' me," she said in a low voice. "You and me – that's what you mean, Grice?"

"Me an' you," asserted Grice, nodding his bald head. "Me an' you – that is what I mean, and I've thought it out careful. Look here! I'm a certain age, but I'm a strong and well-preserved man, and worth at least – only at least, mind you – five-and-twenty thousand pound. Now then, this here business o' yours – and well you've conducted it! – is worth a lot already, goodwill, stock i' hand, and so on. Mine's still worth a good deal – old established, and I've one trade 'at you haven't touched – hay and corn merchant – 'at's as good as ever. Now I haven't counted my businesses in that five-and-twenty thousand pound. An', do you see, supposin' you and me were to sell our businesses to a limited liability company, I know how and where they could be sold, and if you want to know, to one o' them firms o' that sort 'at's takin' over village businesses and transformin' 'em into big general stores. If, I say, we were to do that, d'ye see what a lot o' money we should have between us? And – you'll already have saved a good deal, I know!"

"Well, and what then?" asked Jeckie. There was not a trace of anything but hard business dealing in her voice, and her face was as fixed as ever. "What then, Grice?"

Grice put his head on one side, and seemed to be making some mental reflections.

"Taking one thing with another," he said, "what I have, what I can get for my business; what you have, what you can get for this place, I reckon we should be uncommon well off. We'd marry, and take a nice house, wherever you like, and keep a smart trap and horse."

"Smarter than your Albert's?" interrupted Jeckie with a sneer so faint that Grice failed to see it. "What?"

"Aye, a deal!" asserted Grice. "And we'd show 'em how to do it! Albert'll none ever touch a penny o' mine, now! Say the word, and it comes off, and I'll make a will i' your favour as soon as we're wed! What say you?"

Jeckie, still upright and rigid, sat staring at him until he thought she would never speak. Suddenly she rose, moved to the door, and beckoned him.

"Come here, Grice!" she said.

Grice rose and followed her round the end of the lobby into a passage which led to the shop. She opened a door, lighted a lamp, and, standing in the middle of the place, pointed round the heavily-stacked shelves and counters.

"You want to know what I say, Grice?" she said in low, incisive tones that made the old man's ears tingle. "I say this! Did ye ever see your shop stocked like mine, did you ever do as much trade as I'm doing, did you ever take as much brass over your counter in a fortnight as I take in a week? Never! An' I started all this wi' your money – it was your money that gave me my chance o' revenge. An' when I got that chance I said to myself that I'd never rest, body or soul, till I'd seen your shutters come down, and I never will! Go home!" she concluded, moving swiftly across the shop, and throwing open the street door. "Go home! – I'd as lief think o' marryin' the devil himself as o' weddin' a man like you – I shall see you pull your shutters down yet, and – I shall ha' done it!"

Grice went out into the night without a word, and Jeckie stood in her doorway and watched him march heavily across the road. When he had disappeared within his own door, she closed hers, picked up a couple of sweet biscuits out of an open box as she crossed the shop, and went upstairs, munching them contentedly. And not even the delight of revenge kept her from sleep.

There were other men in Savilestowe who had eyes on Jeckie Farnish with a view to marriage. In spite of her strenuous pursuit of money she kept her good looks; continuous work, indeed, seemed to improve them, and if there was a certain hardness about her she remained the handsomest woman in the village. And not very long after her dramatic dismissal of the old grocer she was brought face to face for the second time with the necessity of making a decision. Calling on Stubley one day to pay her rent, the farmer, after giving her a receipt, turned round from the old bureau at which he had written it, and, leaning back in his elbow chair, gazed at her critically. He was a fine-looking, well-preserved man, a bachelor, more than comfortably off, and something in his eyes brought the colour to his tenant's cheeks. For one second she forgot her hardness and her ambitions and felt, rather than remembered, that she was a woman.

"Well, mi lass!" said Stubley. "And how long's this to go on?"

"How long's what to go on?" asked Jeckie.

"All this tewin' and toilin' and scrattin' after brass?" he said, with a half-amused, half-cynical laugh. "You've been at it a good while now, and you've about done what ye set out to do. Grice'll none keep his shutters up much longer. They say his takings have fallen to naught."

"I know they have," assented Jeckie with a flash of her keen eyes. "He's scarce any trade left."

"Aye, and you have it all, and I'll lay aught you've already made a nice little fortune for yourself!" continued Stubley. "So – why go on? What's the use of wasting your life, a handsome woman like you? There's something else in life than all this money-making, you know, lass. Sell your business – and live a bit!"

"Live a bit?" she said. "I – I don't know what you mean?"

Stubley waved his hand towards the window. There was a beautiful and well-kept garden outside, and beyond it a wide stretch of equally well-kept land. And Jeckie knew what the gesture meant.

"You know me," he said quietly. "Here's t'best farm-house and t'best farm in all this countryside. There's naught wanting here, mi lass – it's plenty … and peace. And there's no mistress to it, and naught to follow me, neither lad nor lass. Say the word, and get rid o' yon shop, and I'll marry you whenever you like. And – you'd never regret it."

Jeckie stood up, trembling in spite of her strength. She thought of the hard, grinding, sordid, unlovely life which she was living in the pursuit of money, and then of what might be as mistress of that fine old farm and wife of an honest, good-natured, dependable man. But as she thought, recollection came back to her – a recollection which was with her day and night. She saw herself standing in the empty, stockless fold at Applecroft, watching George Grice drive away, deaf to her entreaties for help. The old demon of hatred and determination for revenge, and the lust for money and power which had sprung from his workings, rose up again and conquered her.

"No," she said, turning away. "I can't! I'm obliged to you, Mr. Stubley – you're a straight man, and you mean well. But – I can't do it! I've set myself to a certain thing, and I must go on – I can't stop now!"

"What certain thing, mi lass?" asked Stubley. "What're you aimin' at?"

Jeckie looked round her, at the old furniture, the old pictures and framed samplers on the walls of the farm-house parlour, and from them to Stubley, and her eyes grew deep and sombre.

"I'm going to be the richest woman in all these parts!" she whispered. "I've set my mind to it, and it's got to be. I've no time to think of men – I'm after money – money!"