The Virgin of the Sun | Page 7

became the sultana in my seraglio of beauteous
things. The clock had only been the light love of an hour. Here was the
eternal queen, that is, unless there existed a still better chest somewhere
else, and I should happen to find it. Meanwhile, whatever price that old
slave-dealer Potts wanted for it, must be paid to him even if I had to
overdraw my somewhat slender account. Seraglios, of whatever sort, it
must be remembered, are expensive luxuries of the rich indeed, though,
if of antiques, they can be sold again, which cannot be said of the
human kind for who wants to buy a lot of antique frumps?
There were plenty of things in the chest, such as some odds and ends of
tapestry and old clothes of a Queen Anne character, put here, no doubt,
for preservation, as moth does not like this cypress wood. Also there
were some books and a mysterious bundle tied up in a curious shawl
with stripes of colour running through it. That bundle excited me, and I
drew the fringes of the shawl apart and looked in. So far as I could see
it contained another dress of rich colours, also a thick packet of what
looked like parchment, badly prepared and much rotted upon one side
as though by damp, which parchment appeared to be covered with faint
black-letter writing, done by some careless scribe with poor ink that
had faded very much. There were other things, too, within the shawl,
such as a box made of some red foreign wood, but I had not time to
investigate further for just then I heard old Potts's foot upon the stair,
and thought it best to replace the bundle. He arrived with the lantern
and by its light we examined the chest and the poker work.
"Very nice," I said, "very nice, though a good deal knocked about."
"Yes, sir," he replied with sarcasm, "I suppose you'd like to see it neat
and new after four hundred years of wear, and if so, I think I can tell
you where you can get one to your liking. I made the designs for it
myself five years ago for a fellow who wanted to learn how to
manufacture antiques. He's in quod now and his antiques are for sale
cheap. I helped to put him there to get him out of the way as a danger to
Society."
"What's the price?" I asked with airy detachment.

"Haven't I told you it ain't for sale. Wait till I'm dead and come and buy
it at my auction. No, you won't, though, for it's going somewhere else."
I made no answer but continued my examination while Potts took his
seat on the prayer-stool and seemed to go off into one of his fits of
abstraction.
"Well," I said at length when decency told me that I could remain no
longer, "if you won't sell it's no use my looking. No doubt you want to
keep it for a richer man, and of course you are quite right. Will you
arrange with the carrier about sending the clock, Mr. Potts, and I will
let you have a cheque. Now I must be off, as I've ten miles to ride and it
will be dark in an hour."
"Stop where you are," said Potts in a hollow voice. "What's a ride in the
dark compared with a matter like this, even if you haven't a lamp and
get hauled before your own bench? Stop where you are, I'm listening to
something."
So I stopped and began to fill my pipe.
"Put that pipe away," said Potts, coming out of his reverie, "pipes mean
matches; no matches here."
I obeyed, and he went on thinking till at last what between the chest
and the worm-eaten Jacobean bed and old Potts on the prayer-stool, I
began to feel as if I were being mesmerized. At length he rose and said
in the same hollow voice:
"Young man, you may have that chest, and the price is £50. Now for
heaven's sake don't offer me £40, or it will be £100 before you leave
this room."
"With the contents?" I said casually.
"Yes, with the contents. It's the contents I'm told you are to have."
"Look here, Potts," I said, exasperated, "what the devil do you mean?

There's no one in this room except you and me, so who can have told
you anything unless it was old Tom downstairs."
"Tom," he said with unutterable sarcasm, "Tom! Perhaps you mean the
mawkin that was put up to scare birds from the peas in the garden, for it
has more in its head than Tom. No one here? Oh! what fools some men
are. Why, the place is thick with them."
"Thick