Rachel Gray Part 19

"Gentlemen," he began, "no, ladies, I mean--ladies, I have always done my duty since I was a boy, and, with the help of G.o.d, I mean to do my duty till I die." Pause and approving murmur. "And, ladies, I am no speech-maker--all I say is this: G.o.d forgive that villain opposite! You know the story. I'll not trouble you with repeating it. All I say is this: ladies, if my customers'll stand by me, I'll stand by my customers --I'll stand by my customers!" he repeated, looking round the shop with a triumphant eye, and giving the counter a hearty thump with his fist; and, poor fellow, you may be sure that he did mean to stand by his customers.

The oration proved very successful; altogether, the day was successful.

The two Teapots remained vacant; the Teapot was thronged. All Jones's liege subjects were anxious to prove their loyalty; and though, when the gas was lit, Jones could discern a few dark figures within his rival's shop, Jones did not care. He felt certain they were but some of the low creatures from the alley, and be did not care.

The second day resembled the first, and the third resembled the second.

Jones felt quite satisfied "that it was all right," until he cast up his accounts at the end of the week. To his surprise, he found that his expenditure was barely covered, and that, somehow or other, his gains had considerably lessened. He reckoned over and over, and still he came to the same result. "Well, 'taint of much consequence for one week," he thought, a little impatiently, and he put the books by.

"What's the matter, father?" asked Mary, looking up into his overcast face.

"What's the matter!" he echoed cheerfully; "why, the matter is, that you are a saucy puss--that's what's the matter," and he chucked her chin, and Mary laughed.

But the next week's examination revealed a still deeper gap. Jones scratched his head, and pulled a long face. It was not that he minded the loss, for it was a trifling one after all; but be had a secret dread, and it stood in the background of his thoughts, like a ghost in a dark room, haunting him. Could it be--was it possible--that his customers were playing him false--that they were deserting him--and he began to think and think, and to remember, how many pennyworths of this, and of that, he had sold to the children, and how few shillings worth he had sold to the mothers.

"Well, father, and how's this week?" asked Mary.

Jones rubbed his chin, and looked at her fairly perplexed--his wit was none of the brightest--as to how he might best elude the question.

"How's this week," he echoed; "well, this week is like last week to be sure. I wonder how that fellow Saunders is a getting on."

"Law! father, don't mind him," said Mary. "He's low, that's what he is-- he's low."

Impossible for us to translate the scorn with which Miss Mary Jones spoke. It impressed her father. "Spirited little thing," he thought, and he drew her fondly towards him, and kissed her, and Mary fortunately forgot her question.

Week after week pa.s.sed, and what had been a speck on the horizon, became a dark and threatening cloud. Richard Jones could not shut his eyes to the truth that his customers were deserting him. Even Mary perceived it, and spoke uneasily on the subject, of which her father at once made light.

"It's business, child," he said, "and business is all ups and downs; I have had the ups, and the downs I must have." Spite this philosophic reflection, Mr. Jones could not help thinking he had rather more than his share of the downs. He was embittered, too, by daily perceiving the defection of some staunch customer. That lady in the large, shabby, black straw bonnet, who had so spiritedly told "The two Teapots" to flare away on the day of its opening, was one of the first who forsook the "Teapot"

for its rival. Many followed her perfidious example; but Mr. Jones did not feel fairly cut up, until he one evening distinctly saw Rachel Gray walk out of the opposite shop. The stab of Brutus was nothing to Caesar in comparison with this blow to Richard Jones.

And he was thinking it over the next morning, and stood behind his counter breaking sugar rather gloomily, when Rachel herself appeared. Mr.

Jones received her very coldly.

She asked for a pound of sugar.

"And no tea?" he said, pointedly.

"None to-day," quietly replied Rachel; but she saw that he knew all, and she was too sincere to feign ignorance. "Mr. Jones," she said, somewhat sadly, "I must go where I am told, and do as I am bid; but, indeed, why do you not keep better tea?"

"Better tea! better tea!" echoed Mr. Jones, in some indignation.

"Yes," quietly said Rachel, "better tea."

Mr. Jones smiled an injured smile, and rather sarcastically replied:

"Miss Gray, if you prefer that feller's tea to mine, you're welcome to leave your money to him, and not to me. 'Tain't because my daughter is prenticed to you that I expect nothink from you, Miss. All I say is this: don't go there at night, Miss Gray, and buy your tea, and then come here in the morning and buy your sugar. That's not giving a man your custom, you know it ain't. Don't do it; no offence meant, but I'm like you, Miss Gray, plain spoken, you see."

And he resumed the breaking of his sugar.

"I prefer!" sadly said Rachel, "when you know, Mr. Jones, that I am no one now, but must go by the will of another--indeed, you wrong me!"

Jones knew he did; but misfortune makes men wilfully unjust.

"Don't mention it," he interrupted, "ladies like new faces, and he's a young fellow, and I am an old one, and so there's an end of it."

Poor Rachel looked much pained. To be blamed by every one seemed her lot.

"Indeed, Mr. Jones," she said, "I must do as Mrs. Brown bids me, and she says your four shilling black is not equal to his four, and, indeed, Mr.

Jones, I am sorry to say, that others say so too."

Mr. Jones did not reply one word; he fell into a brown study; at the close of it he sighed, and looking up, said earnestly:

"Miss Gray, let me have some of that tea, will you? and I'll see myself what it's like."

"Of course you will," said Rachel, brightening, "you shall have it directly--directly, Mr. Jones."

And without loss of time she hastened home, and almost immediately appeared again, bringing him the tea herself, and earnestly declaring that she was sure he had only to taste it, to set all right, to which Jones answered not a word, but rather gloomily thanked her for the trouble she had taken. When he was once more alone, he smelt the tea, shook his head and frowned; then he put it away until evening came round, when he gave it to Mary, and without further explanation, simply told her that was the tea they were going to have this evening. Unconscious Mary made the tea.

"La! Father," she exclaimed, as she poured the boiling water upon it, "what beautiful tea you've got; it's quite fragrant."

"Is it?" he echoed, faintly,

"Why, of course it is," she said, pettishly, "I am sure that fellow opposite ain't got nothink like it."

Richard Jones leaned his brow on his hand, and checked a groan. But when the tea was drawn, when it was poured out, when he raised the cup to his lips and tasted it, the man's courage forsook him; he put down the cup, and cried like a child.

"Father! father!" exclaimed Mary, frightened and bewildered.

"Oh! my darling!" he cried, "we're ruined--we're lost!--that tea is Joseph Saunders's tea; and he gives it for four shillings, and it's better than my five. And I can't give it, nor I can't get it neither," he added, despairingly; "for I have not got credit, and little cash; and I buy dear, and dear I must sell, or starve!"

Of this speech, all Mary understood, was that the tea she had been making was tea from Mr. Saunders's shop. She deliberately rose, poured the contents of the teapot on the ashes in the hearth; the contents of her own teacup, then of her father's quickly followed; then she sat down, folded her arms, and uttered a grim: "There! I only wish I could serve him so," she added after a pause.

But what Mary meant by this wish--to pour out Joseph Saunders like his own tea, seems rather a fantastic image, even for hate--the present writer does not venture to determine.

"It's all over!" sadly said Jones; "we can't compete with him. I'll shut up shop, and we'll go to some other neighbourhood, and live in our old way. After all, I'll not be a richer nor a poorer man than before my cousin left me the sixty pound."

"You ain't got no spirit!" cried Mary, turning scarlet with anger. "Give in to that fellow!--I'd have more spirit than that," she added with mighty scorn.

Her father attempted to remonstrate; but the wilful little thing would not listen to facts or to reason. She was sure Saunders could not keep up much longer--that she was. They had only to wait, and wear him out.

Alas! it is very hard to tear out ambition and pride from the heart of man, rich or poor. In an evil hour, Richard Jones yielded.

CHAPTER XVII.

And now, alas! fairly began the Teapot's downward course. Every effort of Richard Jones to rise, only made him sink the deeper. To use a worn out, though expressive phrase, he stirred heaven and earth to get better tea; but the spell to conjure it forth was wanting. Jones had very correctly stated the case to his daughter--he had not credit; he had little or no cash; what he purchased in small quant.i.ties, he bought dear; and he sold as he bought. And thus, unable to compete with superior, capital and energy, he declined day by day.

But if he fell, it was not without a struggle. He turned desperate, and resorted to a desperate expedient; he sold his goods at prime cost, and left himself without profit. But Jones did not care; all he wanted was to crush his opponent--that object accomplished, and he once more sole master of the field, he could make his own price, and gradually retrieve lost time, and heal the wounds received in the battle.

Business requires a cool head; compet.i.tion has its limits, beyond which yawns the bottomless pit of ruin. Jones lost his temper, and with it his judgment. Not satisfied with the faint change for the better, produced by the first measure, he impatiently resolved "to settle that Saunders," by a second and still bolder stroke. He filled his shop-windows with placards, on which prices were marked, with notes of admiration. He pressed into his service a dozen of little boys, whose sole business was to slip bills under doors, and to throw them down areas, or to force them into the hands of unconscious pa.s.sengers; and he crowned an these arts by selling under prime cost.