Buntingford Jugs

by E. F. Benson

BUNTINGFORD JUGS

By E. F. BENSON

ILLUSTRATED BY J. H. THORPE

MRS. AYLWIN was having tea very comfortably all by herself on a dark, inclement afternoon early in October. The fire was prospering, the windows had their curtains drawn to shut out the depressing prospect of the dripping wind-swept garden of Brompton Square, and she, between sips of tea, was indulging in the only sort of literature which had any attraction for her, namely, catalogues of forthcoming sales at the London auction rooms. Pictures did not interest her—in fact, she hated pictures, having once bought a magnificent Romney which proved to have been painted over an atrocious daub of William IV. in naval uniform—and she turned over, without looking at a single item, two pages of Mortlake tapestries shortly coming under the hammer. She threw this sumptuous catalogue into her waste-paper basket, but the next, which was issued by a very modest firm of auctioneers in East Street, Hampstead, seemed to merit considerable attention.

Mrs. Aylwin was certainly comely; she could also have been called buxom. Her age might have been forty-five, but it was fifty, and she found fifty a very pleasant age to be. She had been a widow for ten years, and these ten years had been the busiest and far the happiest of her life. Her husband had been a small spider-like man with a passion for second-rate bric-à-brac and a pathetic belief in his own taste. He had a furniture and curiosity shop just off the Brompton Road, and his judgment as a purchaser was invariably deplorable. He was convinced up to the last day of his life that heavy mahogany Victorian sideboards and wardrobes would shortly be in great demand, and at his death his widow had parted with a forest of these gloomy receptacles at staggering loss. He had held the same mistaken conviction with regard to steel engravings and many other unmarketable objects. Mrs. Aylwin, in consequence, at his death, had been left badly off; but the constant environment of her husband's purchases had given her a great shrewdness as to what not to buy, and she had learned to see at a glance, even if she knew nothing about the fabric in question, whether it had distinction and character. Character was the great thing: a piece might be hideous, but if it had character her purse was open.

The shop "Aylwin & Sons"—though she had never had either son or daughter—still did a good trade, but it was not there that she made her best deals. The shop, in fact, was rather a blind for what went on in this comfortable little house of hers in Brompton Square. It was here that she made her "collections;" Sometimes she collected Aubusson carpets or Persian rugs, sometimes Queen Anne furniture, sometimes Crown Derby china, sometimes even globular paper-weights with curious decorations of glass flowers or objects that resembled confectionery seen under water embedded in them. For Mrs. Aylwin—and in this lay her genius—had discovered a fact as yet not sufficiently recognised by the trade, namely, that there are many rich people (and she cared now to deal only with thoroughly rich people) who would not think of buying one piece of Queen Anne furniture or one piece of Crown Derby, but who would eagerly lay twenty times the price of one for ten collected specimens of it. Just now the collection appeared to be ornaments made of shells. There were a clock and a pair of candlesticks under glass shades made of shells, a couple of baskets of shell-flowers on the table, and a cabinet by the window was full of boxes encrusted with shells.

Though Josephine Alwyn was at present alone, she rather expected a visitor, namely, her old friend Anthony Coleham, for whom she entertained a strong regard. She also rather expected that before he left her he would introduce a certain subject, namely, that of matrimony. Of late he had been alluding to the woes of loneliness, and had asked her if she was not conscious of the same. But though she lived alone and saw few people, she was not the least conscious of loneliness, for she was invariably busy with that pleasant work of buying and selling in which she was so successful. Also for other reasons it would never do, for he, though not a dealer, was a very ardent collector, with ample means to indulge his hobby, and if they were married he could hardly help exercising a certain influence on her dealings, and she much preferred independence. But, after all, he might be coming in, as he often did, only for a chat. The other alternative, however, had vividly occurred to her, and, though she meant to refuse him, she had, with a feminine instinct which would not be denied, done her hair in a very becoming fashion and put on a dress which he much admired.

She had barely finished going through her catalogues when he appeared.

"You look charming to-day," he said, "but then you always do!"

This made it seem probable that she had been right about the object of his visit. But she wanted to have a chat first. If he proposed to her straight off and she refused him, it would be difficult to chat quite at ease afterwards; there would be an awkwardness.

"Nonsense, my dear. I'm an old woman," she said, "and old women are invariably hideous. What a day! It was good of you to come out in such a deluge."

The same train of thought had perhaps occurred to his mind, for he did not combat her pessimistic view about old women, but sat comfortably down. He was a large man, pleasantly furnished with flesh, and filled a chair beautifully.

"And how have things been going?" he asked. "Business prosperous?"

"Of course; it always is with me," she said. "Collections! That's the secret of successful dealing, and, like all true philosophies, very simple. If I, for my own satisfaction, buy a Chinese Chippendale chair, what do you suppose I want next? Why, of course, another Chinese Chippendale chair. And when I've got two, I want a set, and after I have got a set I want another set. That's human nature."

Anthony Coleham had been looking round the room. "And I suppose that's why this room, which used to be so nice when it was empty, with just your beautiful rugs on the floor, is now an abominable array of shell ornaments," he said. "How a woman like you, who really has taste, can surround herself with such artificial and Victorian monstrosities, I cannot think. Look at those awful candlesticks encrusted with the meanest objects of the sea-shore!"

Josephine Aylwin felt that she was quite right in her determination what to say in a certain eventuality. It would never do to have a husband like that: he would discourage her, he would cause her to doubt her own judgment. Also there was something to be said for shell ornaments.

"Yes, my dear, I knew you would think them hideous," she said. "But they have character—bad character, perhaps, but that is so much better than no character. They mean something; they are a fine reflection of the mind of the persons who must have taken years in making them. I don't say I admire them much, but they are a unique collection."

"I regard them with suspicion," he said. "I have known you make a collection for purely business purposes, and then, by degrees, get so fond of it that you could hardly bear to part with it. Chelsea figures, for instance! How you cried when you got so large an offer for them that you couldn't refuse it!"

"Yes, that was an awful morning," she said. "But you needn't be frightened about these shell ornaments, though they are ingenious little things."

"I hope you'll sell them at once," he said. "They make me feel rather unwell; I feel as if I was in a lodging-house."

She laughed. "Well, you won't be uncomfortable for long," she said, "for I've had an offer for them, and I shall take it. There won't be a single shell ornament left when next you come to see me."

"And what will the next collection be?" he asked.

"You ought to know very well that I shan't tell you," she said. "I never let anyone know what my collection is till I have got together a good quantity of it. If a dealer in London knew what I was collecting, it would be all over the place in no time, and the prices would go up. As soon as I've got together all I think I want, I let it be known, and up go the prices, and my little lot becomes far more valuable. But I like to get a good start first."

"I hope you're doing so," he said.

"I am indeed. I've got quite a lot of my new collection already."

"But haven't they found out what you're, after?" he asked.

"Not a bit of it," said she, "I'm being very cunning over this, for there's not very much of it about. I pick up a piece now and then in a shop, but I never myself attend an auction where there is any of it. I send my maid instead."

"With carte blanche to buy?" he asked.

"No. But the price never comes near the limit I give her. A couple of pounds is as much as I've paid for any piece yet. Of course I go and look at the—the things before the auction begins, to make sure that they are all right, but if I'm seen examining fifty lots with a perfectly blank face, who's to tell which is the one I have got my eye on?"

"I wish you would tell me," said he; "I might find pieces for you."

She shook her head. "No," she said, "it would do me no good. Dealers would begin to see that there was a demand for it. And I like doing a thing quite on my own, too."

He had already begun to fidget in his chair; there was something on his mind, and this speech of hers bore on it. He was silent a moment.

"Josephine, I wish you didn't like conducting life on your own," he said at length. "I wish you would let me have a hand in it. I believe you're fond of me, and I should love to be allowed to take care of you. I should account it the greatest privilege and joy. Josephine, will you marry me?"

She was suddenly touched. She had expected this, but she had not known what a delightful companion he was till she had to refuse his permanent companionship.

"Oh, Tony, my dear," she said, "I'm sorry, but I won't marry you. I like you immensely—quite as much as you like me—but it wouldn't do. We're not in love with each other, of course, in the least. We'll leave that out, for it would be nonsense to pretend it. We'll continue to be very good friends, just as we are. If any other man in the world offered to marry me, I should laugh in his face. But I'm sorry, really sorry, that I can't marry you. I don't laugh—I am sorry."

"But why?" he asked. "You say you like me immensely."

"And that is true. But I am so happy as I am. I'm busy, I'm successful."

"I should help you to be more successful," said he.

"No, my dear, you wouldn't. You would be a handicap to me. I should try to bring your ideas in line with mine, or you would try to bring mine in line with yours. We should have jars and bickerings every day of our lives if we were one firm. You've told me already that my room is like a lodging-house and makes you feel ill. I should hate to have you feel ill all the time I was amassing shell ornaments, and I should hate to give up my collection, whatever it was, in order that you might feel better."

Anthony Coleham was seated opposite the door while she made these depressing remarks. Even as she spoke it opened and there appeared a maid carrying, carefully in both hands, a china jug. It and she were vividly illuminated, and he saw the jug pretty distinctly. It was of white, fluted ware, and in front, under the spout, it had as decoration a wreath of flowers in blue.

"The Buntingford jug, ma'am," she said.

Mrs. Aylwin got very nimbly to her feet, and, as Mr. Coleham distinctly noticed, her eyes lit up with pleasure. But she kept the pleasure out of her voice.

"Put it down anywhere," she said, and turned to Anthony. "It's just a little nothing. Rather pretty, though, A jug for water when I'm arranging flowers."

She had taken the jug from the maid, and herself put it down in a rather remote corner of the room.

"That's what I feel, dear Tony," she said. "We should quarrel, we should bicker, and I should so hate that. As for your feeling lonely, you know quite well that I am always so delighted to see you. You can't come here too often or stop too long. But as regards the other, no. Do you forgive me?"

He got up. "Not till you consent to marry me," he said. "You're unforgiven at present."

"That's rather horrid of you. And are you really going?"

An idea had begun to bubble in Mr. Coleham's brain. He had noticed that her eyes kept wandering to the remote corner where stood the Buntingford jug. He therefore carefully avoided looking in that direction or making any allusion to it. It was part of his idea not to appear to take the slightest interest in it.

As he sat at his solitary dinner that night, the idea matured. He believed that he had guessed what her new collection was, and the name of it was Buntingford ware. He guessed, too, that Buntingford ware was already dear to her, the collection she was making had got a place in her heart, and it would wring her heart when the day came for selling it, as had been the case with her Chelsea figures. But it would be even more heart-breaking, he thought, if she could not get on with her collection. Of course he might be wrong about it all, but those loverlike glances she cast towards the obscure corner....

He went next morning to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and after some search discovered in a show-case of miscellaneous English china two jugs exactly similar to the one he had seen last night, with the label "Buntingford Ware." The curator of the section was a friend of his, and he learned from him that little was known about this obscure factory.

"It was one of those small industries," he was told, "that have never attracted any attention. It is coarse stuff, of no interest. Pieces come up occasionally at auction, and knocked down for thirty shillings or so. Who would want a collection of those things? A couple of specimens are enough for the Museum. There's no beauty about them, as you can see for yourself."

Mr. Coleham's heart leaped inside his fine fur coat. "No, ugly stuff," he said. "But it was new to me, and I take an interest in anything new. Bitter cold morning, isn't it? Come and see my Heppelwhite card-table some evening, and have a bit of dinner. It's a peach, that table."

Illustration: "'The Buntingford jug, ma'am,' she said."

Mr. Coleham's catalogues of sales were as numerous as Mrs. Aylwin's, and he hurried home to study them. He found that out of a dozen approaching sales there were two which contained an item of Buntingford ware, and in each case these were jugs. He consulted his large-paper edition of Fountain's "English Porcelain," and turned up the page relating to Buntingford ware. There were only a few lines devoted to it. It gave the mark of the fabric, a capital B in a circle, and informed the reader that only jugs, of coarse and uninteresting workmanship, were known as a product of that factory. It suggested that these were possibly inferior Salopian ware, not up to the standard of the Caughley Works, and contemptuously dismissed the subject.

This delighted him; it was so like Josephine's cleverness to have taken up a class of porcelain about which nobody knew or cared, and he felt convinced of the correctness of his guess. Proof, if proof was needed, came a few days later when he attended the sale in East Street, Hampstead, and saw Mrs. Aylwin's maid there. He had taken his valet with him, and instructed him, while he himself kept prudently out of sight, to bid and go on bidding for Lot 217.

An insignificant duel took place, but he knocked the opponent out at four pounds, which his valet paid on the spot. He returned home with a Buntingford jug. A fortnight later he got his second Buntingford jug, but he had to pay five pounds for it.

Anthony Coleham was getting very stout, but, preferring that to taking exercise, had long acquiesced in Nature's obese decrees. But now he had an object, and day after day he used to go from shop to shop, not asking for Buntingford jugs, but scrutinising with the collector's eye the contents of the most unimportant and frowsy stores. Every now and then he came across one of these ugly jugs and bought it for a song, while at the larger dealers in porcelain, where he was already well known, he confidentially told the proprietors that he was looking out for specimens of this ware, and would be much obliged if they would send him any such that came into their shops. After a month of incessant walking in slummy places, he had purchased half a dozen of these jugs, and dealers had sent him half a dozen more. The price was rising a little, but, being very rich, he did not mind that. All he minded was the coarse appearance of his purchases; but he put them on the table in his billiard-room, which he never used, and turned the key on them.

On Christmas Day Josephine, as usual, came to dine with him. In spite of the festival she appeared dejected, but nothing was said on either side about her last collection. Prudence (for she put two and two together with remarkable quickness and accuracy) dictated reticence on one side, depression on the other. But she congratulated him heartily on his slimmer appearance and briskness of movement, and he confessed that he had taken quite a lot of walking exercise of late.

He continued to see her with his usual frequency, but her dejection not only continued, but deepened. It was particularly marked on one bright afternoon in the early spring, when there had been a sale in a well-known auction room, and three Buntingford jugs had come up. The price she was willing to pay had evidently risen considerably, though no one but his valet and her maid bid for these treasures, and he had to give an average of twelve pounds for each. But he had, of course, obtained them, and his billiard table was getting crowded.

She sighed heavily as she gave him his cup of tea, and he asked her if anything was the matter.

"Yes, I've been having a check," she said. "I don't know if I told you, one day in the autumn, that I had made a good beginning with a new collection."

He made a face as if trying to recollect. "I rather fancy you did," he said. "I can't remember what it was; perhaps you didn't tell me."

"Naturally I didn't," she said with a certain asperity, "and I'm not going to tell you now. But I can't get on with my collection. If a piece turns up in the auction room, I never can secure it. I've raised my limit, but it's no use. There's somebody else making a collection."

"It sounds rather like it," said he.

"Whom do you think it can be?" she asked.

He was perfectly on his guard. "My dear Josephine," he said, "as you have not allowed me to know what you are collecting, how can I possibly tell who else is collecting it? Now, I don't ask to know; I don't want to know. It may be waste-paper baskets or walking-sticks."

"But I'm not going to be beaten," she said with energy. "I like opposition: I fight it; I overcome it."

"Bravo!" said he. "It does me good to see your spirit. And you've not been able to get on with your collection? Too bad! And is your annoyance only professional, so to speak, or had you, as in the case of your Chelsea china, got to love this new collection?"

"Ah, I adore it!" she said. "I go and gloat over the few pieces I've got. I love it more than anything that I've ever collected."

"Poor Josephine!" said Mr. Coleham with much feeling.

Her energy waned; she sank back languidly in her chair.

"It's a wretched feeling never being able to get what one so much wants," she said.

"Horrid, isn't it?" said Mr. Coleham. "Especially when you know that it is in somebody's power to give it you."

"What's that?" she said. "Oh, you mean the horrible person, whoever it is, who always outbids me."

"No, I was thinking of myself," he said, "and of you who could give me what I want."

"Oh, that!" said she. "Yes, I'm sorry. I said I was sorry before. But really I can think of nothing else except what I want so terribly. It has become an obsession with me. If I could only get together a fine number of these pieces, I should be so happy."

He rose. "Do you know, Josephine," he said, "that it's rather dull for me hearing you talk about something the very nature of which you refuse to divulge to me?"

"Well, I can think of nothing else," she said. "I can't talk about anything else. Only to-day three pieces were sold in London, and I couldn't secure one of them."

"Bad luck," said he.

It was still light when he left her, and he strolled along the Brompton Road, looking into the shop windows. He was sorry for Josephine, who clearly was very unhappy, but her spirit was still unbroken, and he wanted to reduce her to despair before he disclosed his plot. She must be in a condition to realise that it was no use fighting him either in the field of matrimony or in that of Buntingford jugs. She must learn that he was stronger than she.

He had turned into a side-street where there were many curiosity shops, and his progress was slow. Then he gave a gasp of amazed wonder, and his eyes started from his head. There in an inconspicuous shop facing him was a tea-set—tea-pot, sucrier, milk jug, bread-and-butter plate, and six cups and saucers—all of Buntingford ware. And the foolish experts knew of no such thing; they had never heard of anything but Buntingford jugs.

It was impossible, of course, to be certain without examination, and he entered the shop and in a trembling voice asked to be allowed to see the tea-set in the window.

"Very sorry, sir," said the proprietor, "but I'm keeping that for one of my customers. It oughtn't to be in the window at all."

Mr. Coleham had one of those inspirations which are the hall-mark of genius. He was convinced also in his own mind that the apparently outrageous lie he was about to tell was literally true.

"You mean Mrs. Aylwin, of course," he said. "That's all right; I am buying it for her."

There was that quiet conviction in his voice which always produces its effect. The man hesitated, but only for a moment.

"Well, in that case," he said, "I suppose I am right to let you have it."

"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Coleham. "And what price are you asking for it?"

The price was moderate enough compared with those he had been paying lately, and presently it was packed and paid for, and he took it home in a taxi, hugely exulting. He felt sure that Josephine could not possibly resist a Buntingford tea-set.

She was coming to lunch with him in a few days, and he arranged his collection to the utmost advantage. All round the billiard table, nicely spaced, was a row of Buntingford jugs, and in the middle the tea-set. He inspected it just before she came, and locked the door.

Mrs. Aylwin was in excellent spirits again, all her dejection had passed, and she was her cheerful self.

"I've been making myself miserable, Tony," she said as they lunched, "and I'm tired of it. I've been beaten. I don't like being beaten, but when you are beaten, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it, and begin on something else."

"Oh, your last collection," said he.

"How unfeeling you are! I've never cared for anything so much in my life. The only consolation is that the price has gone up immensely, and I have no doubt I shall sell the pieces I've got at a great profit."

"Perhaps, then, you might tell me what it is," he said.

"Why, I forgot you didn't know," said she. "Naturally there's no secret about it now. I sent my pieces down to the shop this morning. Buntingford jugs. I suppose you've never heard of Buntingford ware?"

"Tell me about it," said he.

"Well, it is an English fabric of which nobody thought anything six months ago. I got hold of one piece, and tried to find out something about it, but nobody knew. Nothing, in fact, is known about the ware, but it entirely consists of jugs; they only made jugs at Buntingford. You saw one once, though you never knew it, and heard the name of it, but you weren't attending."

"When was that?" he asked.

"My maid brought one in when you were sitting with me. I whisked it away, because my collection was young then, and I thought you might guess what it was. But my collection hasn't grown any older, so I am making a clean sweep of it. Come round to the shop afterwards and look at it. I sent it down this morning."

He rose. "I've been making a collection, too," he said. "Come into the billiard room and see it. It has been getting on beautifully."

He unlocked the door and she entered. For a moment she stood stricken to stone, and then turned to him.

"So it was you?" she said. "You beast! I'll never speak to you again!"

"I'm sorry for that," he said. "I hoped to give it you all as a wedding present."

She stamped her foot. "Never, never!" she cried.

"Very well. Then as soon as you have gone I shall smash it, piece by piece, with a hammer."

She had taken a step nearer the table, and now her hand closed round on6 of the beloved objects.

"You can't, you can't," she said. "It would be murder?"

"Indeed I shall. You may as well have a look at them, for no one but the dustman will ever see them again. And there's a Buntingford tea-set there. Unique, of course."

"A tea-set?" she said in a trembling voice.

"Yes, there, it is. I got it only the other day."

Her eye fell on it, and she drew it towards her and examined it.

"Oh, Tony," she said, "oh, Tony! And you'll give me this, too?"

"As a wedding present. Otherwise——"

She threw her arms round his neck. "Oh, my dear, how lovely of you! How perfectly wonderful of you! When shall we be married?"

Suddenly, with a scream, she let go of him.

"The telephone," she cried, "the telephone! Ring up the shop, Tony! I must tell them to take all the jugs out of the window. Heavens, I hope none of them have been sold yet!"