Читать книгу Rumbin Galleries - Booth Tarkington - Страница 8

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Miss Horne laughed; so did Mr. Rumbin. He returned to the stock room and she sat down at her desk; but now and then obediently looked up from her work to gaze toward the street. Thus she happened to be looking when an obviously conservative elderly couple—a withered grey gentleman and a plump silver-haired lady—paused upon the sidewalk to glance up at the gilt lettering on the window. Georgina Horne comprehended that Mr. Milton Wilby had brought his wife with him to look at pictures; but the nice glances out from Georgina’s eyes were not called upon. Mr. Rumbin just at that moment emerged from the stock room and he instantly hurried forward to admit the visitors himself.

Opening the door, he bowed again and again, spoke volubly of the honor being done him; all without thawing the coating of austere wealthy reserve that seemed to encase Mr. and Mrs. Wilby hereditarily. Both, pausing just inside the door, looked about the shop.

“I’ve never been in a place like this before,” Mrs. Wilby said. “Very odd things.” She addressed Rumbin guardedly. “Mr. Hollins has talked my husband into looking at some of your pictures; but the only place for one in our house is over our living-room fireplace, and we already have a beautiful picture there. It’s not loud, like most oil paintings, and’s by a very fine artist. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called Ducks on a Pond.”

“Ducks?” Mr. Rumbin said in a small voice, and with a smile in which there appeared to be nothing except deference. “Ducks.” He seemed to ponder. “Ducks on a Pond. French maybe?”

“No,” Mrs. Wilby answered stiffly. “It is not. It was left me by my aunt, Mrs. George Penner Thompson, and she told me herself the artist was from Rhode Island.”

“Ah, Rhode Island!” Mr. Rumbin exclaimed with enthusiasm. “American School! Splendid!” He bowed again. “May I ask you courteously step in the galleries? There you seat yourselfs down comfortable while we show you some pyootiful, not loud, American School pictures.”

He led the way to the door of the room he thus spaciously called the galleries; stood aside for Mr. and Mrs. Wilby to enter, and then, as he followed them, spoke loudly to Georgina. “Miss Horne, please send wort to Mr. Cattlet, our Head Assistant, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby’s kindly waiting to see some American School masterpieces.”

Georgina, however, didn’t need to summon the Head Assistant, so-called. The door of the stock room was open and Howard Cattlet, impressively dressed, came forth carrying a brightly varnished large painting of the Hudson River Near Nyack At Sunset. He looked wistfully at Georgina Horne; but already her head was again bent over her desk, and he, too, just then at least, had no nice glances out from her eyes. Disappointed, he went on, passed into the galleries and closed the door. For three quarters of an hour, indeed, Georgina’s devotion to duty was so complete that finally Howard ventured to speak to her about it.

“Couldn’t you ever look up at all?” he asked humbly. “This is the seventh picture I’ve carried right past you.”

At that, she did just glance at him. “How’s it going?”

“It’s not,” he answered. “This is the one he wants to sell ’em—Portrait of Reverend Joel Feeney by John Wesley Jarvis. If Mr. Wilby half likes it, Mrs. Wilby won’t—keeps talking about her Ducks on a Pond. Mr. Rumbin’s a good sport; but it seems to me they’ve pretty near got him down.”

Howard wasn’t far off the truth here. A little later, when the party of four came out of the galleries and into the shop, Georgina saw that her chief’s sensitive broad brow was bedewed. He breathed heavily, too; though still gallantly maintaining a confident aspect.

“Ah, but you ain’t seen just two t’ree per cent our great pictures, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby!” he said. “Give me only couple days to think. I find something you couldn’t stop yourselfs from putting over your mantelpiece, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby. Frangkly speaking, though, I wish you would think over acquiring my great Reverend Joel Feeney by—”

“No, indeed,” Mrs. Wilby said with emphasis, as she and her husband walked toward the outer door. “It may have been a clergyman, as you say, Mr. Rumbin; but it certainly has a dissipated mouth. We couldn’t think of having a picture with a mouth like that in our home.”

“No, we couldn’t.” Mr. Wilby spoke judicially. “Besides that, it isn’t only my partner, Mr. Hollins, that I’ve consulted about acquiring a picture. Our married granddaughter’s brother-in-law, Professor Egbert Watson of Ludlow University, advises me that if we have any picture at all it should be by an Outstanding Master. My own taste would be for a more Outstanding Master than any we’ve seen here to-day—ah—such a Master’s portrait of a beautiful and noble woman perhaps.”

“A picture in the home should be appropriate, Mr. Rumbin,” Mrs. Wilby added, not approvingly. “In such a home as ours it should be an inspiration every time either I or one of the family looks at it.”

“Yes,” her husband said. “Ah—some Outstanding Master’s portrait of a beautiful woman of pure and spiritual life and—”

“Execkly!” Mr. Rumbin agreed, beaming upon them. “I got the idea execkly.” He opened the front door reluctantly, as Mrs. Wilby extended her hand to the latch. “We got a just such a picture, all spirichul; only just right now this minute it’s out a couple days. Give me just until T’ursday—” His voice, as he followed the visitors out upon the sidewalk, was lost to the ears of his secretary and his assistant within the shop.

“Who’d Mr. Wilby say his married granddaughter’s brother-in-law is?” Georgina asked. “Didn’t he say it’s Professor Egbert Watson of Ludlow University?”

“Why?” Howard said. “Who’s he?”

“Nothing. It’s just something to remember.”

Mr. Rumbin returned, drooping, and closed the door. “Georchie,” he said, “how about that fency head, Cleopatra by Etty, we got out getting ironed from blisters at Paré’s? It’s finish’ T’ursday and it don’t got to stay Cleopatra on the tablet. On the tablet she could be Saint Cecilia just as easy as Cleopatra; she’s got putty much almost a pure kind of a face, and Mr. Wilby tells me let him know if I find one that—”

“No!” Georgina said. “That Cleopatra’s more than a head and it shows the asp, too. Besides, William Etty won’t be an outstanding enough Master for Mr. Wilby. He means somebody like Murillo or Guido Reni.”

“What a worlt!” Mr. Rumbin passed a handkerchief over his forehead. “Such a strain them people puts me in! Won’t look at no Madonnas but got right away quick to have a noble pure spirichul woman by a Outstanding Master or somebody elst’ll sell ’em one! Queen Mary of London wisiting a Nursing Home by Michelangelo Buonarroti or Jan Vermeer they want? Listen, Howie, go chump in the river; don’t learn to be no art dealer!”

Howard was sympathetic. “But after all, Mr. Rumbin, people do buy pictures sometimes.”

“Acquire,” Mr. Rumbin said wearily. “Acquire, Howie.”

“Sir?”

“You said ‘buy’ again, Howie. It wouldn’t hurt none just between Georchie and me and you sometimes, exceptings it gets you in the habit so maybe you’d say it again before a client. ‘Buying’ ain’t delicate; it sounds like owning Art would be only a question how much money, whereby at the same time, on tops of that, ‘acquiring’ sounds hundut times more important money than what ‘buying’ does. Understand me, Howie?”

“I think so. I—”

“Listen! Something fifty cents or hundut dollars you could buy, I don’t say no; but over a t’ousand it’s acquired. Take clients. Take Mr. Kingsford J. Hollins, for exemple. He don’t show Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby his paintings and just rough tell ’em he buys ’em! No, he tells ’em he acquires ’em from Rumbin Galleries. Does good. Upsets Wilbys they ain’t got nothing home they acquired their own selfs. You don’t acquire no Rhode Island Ducks on a Pond. That’s what commences ’em thinking.” He sighed; wiped his forehead again. “Well, get dissipated old Reverend Joel Feeney and them odda pictures beck in the stock room, Howie; I got to get myself commenced thinking where’s a spirichul woman Mr. and Mrs. Milton Wilby’s going to acquire from me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Howard went to his task, and later was assigned to another that kept him busy until lunch time, when he went out to a cafeteria. On his return he found Georgina Horne alone in the shop, finishing a sandwich.

“Something’s going on,” she informed him. “Mr. Orcas didn’t wait long to call up Mr. Rumbin; he must be eager. They had a very long telephone talk—I’m sure it was about the Poussin—and then Mr. Rumbin agreed to meet him at lunch, and went out. I suppose you might as well help me get some dust off the pictures.”

Helping Miss Horne in the delicate task of removing dust from many old paintings was precisely Howard Cattlet’s conception of the happy side of an Art Dealer’s Assistant’s life. Mr. Rumbin did not return; hours passed and nobody at all came into the shop. The young man had a golden afternoon dusting pictures—an afternoon he knew he’d always remember, if only because of the different ways the slowly fading light from outdoors intermittently haloed Georgina’s fair head against the dimmed colors of old canvases and panels. Not that he called her “Georgina”; she was his superior, both in position and in salary, and he was sensitively almost as formal with her when they were alone together as when Mr. Rumbin was present. A day might come, though, he’d begun to hope, when he could respectably stop addressing her as “Miss Horne”. Mr. Rumbin’s disposition was generous, and, if ever the Galleries should prosper enough to expand, there might be other employees. It was possible that in time Howard might become less of a janitor and more of an assistant—perhaps even in fact, as already sometimes in name, a Head Assistant.

“Miss Horne,” he said, late in the afternoon when there was no more dust left on anything, “Mr. Rumbin’s always dreaming of moving up to Fifty-seventh Street. Do you think he’ll ever get enough business to do it?”

She looked dubious. “He’s been out of debt, I think, ever since we did over the Hollins’ apartment, and being out of debt’s a good deal for any business these days; but I’m afraid it won’t take Rumbin Galleries to Fifty-seventh Street, Mr. Cattlet.” She glanced at her watch and was surprised. “It’s almost six o’clock and I’d forgot you’re a commuter. You’ll have to hurry for your train, Mr. Cattlet.” He protested; but she over-ruled him. “No, positively! I’m going to wait for Mr. Rumbin. No; I mean positively! Good night, Mr. Cattlet.”

“Well—good night,” he said plaintively, and, submitting to her authoritativeness, departed.

In the morning, again in overalls, he’d finished dry-mopping the shop floor when she came in at nine o’clock and astonished him by asking, “Did you think thieves had broken in during the night?”

“Thieves? No; the door was locked when I opened it. What—”

“You haven’t missed anything?” She laughed gayly. “Look at the show window.” He looked and beheld not the Poussin but the Reverend Joel Feeney occupying the mound of green velvet there. “Mr. Rumbin didn’t get back till after eight o’clock last night,” Georgina explained. “Looked as if he’d been put through a wringer. He and Orcas had been at each other all that time and had drunk five and a half pots of coffee. He only stayed long enough to wrap up the Poussin and rushed off in a taxi to Orcas’s shop—to tempt him more with the actual sight of it. He said he was working on a trade that would land him the biggest deal of his life. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Howard, agreeing, thought that excitement was becoming to her; and, excited himself, again began to dream of Fifty-seventh Street, a Head Assistantship and calling her Georgina. The arrival of Mr. Rumbin, moreover, at ten, in a condition of exaltation was electrifying. He burst into the shop, shouting.

“I got it! Georchie, it’s the day of my life, I got her! ... Howie, come quick; she’s in a taxi. I’m so trembling I’m scared to bring her, I might drop her! Quick, Howie, you got to carry her!”