Restless Earth/Chapter 18

The third, and final, round opened with the arrival of Mr. Joseph Ezekiel.

The gentleman, short and rotund, full of energy and alive with the curious mannerisms of his race, middle-aged and wealthy, ill-favoured of feature and hearty of voice, burst into the collecting-depot of No. 2 ​Committee, removed his hat and smiled ingratiatingly and impartially.

“Good morning, ladies, good morning!” he cried heartily. “So busy we are as the bees this morning, eh? That’s fine! Fine! I like to see it!”

He laughed loudly and approached Mrs. Langham with outstretched hand.

“Ah! Mrs. Langham! I know you by your pictures in the paper sometimes. You open bazaars and things. Yes, I can tell your face. How are you?”

He seized Mrs. Langham’s hand and shook it vigorously, unheeding the garment it held.

Mrs. Langham froze. She drew her hand away sharply as she recovered from her first surprise, and looked down upon this alien, unspeakable intruder from her loftiest altitude.

“You will pardon me,” she said, turning away.

The intruder laughed again.

“You don’t know me,” he replied. “I can see that easy. My name’s Ezekiel, Joseph Ezekiel. Here, I’ve got my card here somewhere.”

He fished a card from one of his vest pockets and held it beneath Mrs. Langham’s nose. She glanced at it involuntarily, and her altitude lessened. She turned to him again.

“You are M. Picotarde?” she asked incredulously, thawing rapidly.

Mr. Ezekiel nodded.

“That’s one of my dresses you’ve got on now,” he informed her cheerfully. “I designed it myself. I do all my own designing. No use paying away good money to get something done which yourself can do very well as, eh? Rather smart, ain’t it? Like the cascade effect? Cheap, too———”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Ezekiel.” interrupted Mrs. Langham sweetly, disguising her surprise and her repugnance with a mighty effort. “May I introduce my old friends?”

She introduced the old friends to Mr. Ezekiel, who took the opportunity to distribute his business ​cards and extend a general invitation to the No. 2 Committee to visit his factory and show-rooms in Auckland at any time, an invitation of which the old friends sweetly promised to take early advantage.

“Yes, most people think I am French—until they meet me,” he replied to a polite expression of surprise. “‘Picotarde’ looks better on a window than ‘Ezekiel,’ eh? Me? I am a Jew. All the best dress-designers are Jews. Jews are artistic—and they know the value of their brains.”

He turned to Mrs. Langham as he threw his hat upon a handy bench.

“Now, what is it, Mrs. Langham?” he asked in a lowered voice. “Very expensive, rushing away from my business like this. What is the matter?”

He waved his right hand in the air and snapped his fingers noisily—a mannerism expressive of great impatience.

“This also is your business, Mr. Ezekiel,” answered Mrs. Langham, drawing herself up again and glaring down the length of the room to where Patricia stood with her back to a window, her hands folded before her and an inscrutable expression on her face. “As one of your clients—as a purchaser with a large following of fashionable friends, I may add—I object to being insulted in a crowded theatre and having my face slapped by the woman in charge of your New Plymouth branch. Here, in this very room, she slapped my face twice before my committee!”

Mr. Ezekiel stared incredulously from Mrs. Langham to Patricia—whom he had not noticed previousfy—and back again.

“Mrs. Langham!” he exclaimed. “This is not altogether true, eh? Something else, eh?”

“I am not in the habit of telling falsehoods, sir,” replied Mrs. Langham tartly. “There is the young woman herself. Ask her to deny it. Here are my friends as witnesses. I could, of course, take action in the court, Mr. Ezekiel; but I am not a vengeful woman. Nevertheless, I think that something should ​be done to stop this sort of thing in our tradespeople. I hope you will understand and act accordingly.”

“I can’t believe it!” he muttered, as he made his way to where the girl stood watching him with half-closed, defiant eyes.

He coughed importantly as he halted before her, and hesitated as he noted her expression and her mocking “Good-morning.” Patricia Weybourn was nobody’s fool. He knew that from experience. That was why he had given her charge of his new branch.

But he couldn’t have his customers slapped in public, not in these days. In the good days, yes. It would have been good advertising. Now, with business going to pieces, it spelled ruination.

“Good morning, Pat,” he replied with a paternal smile, changing his mind about being autocratic. “What is this I hear about your slapping the customers’ faces in public? Is that true?”

“So far, I have slapped only one of them, Mr. Ezekiel,” Patricia answered coldly. “I hope to extend operations shortly. But you did not advise me you were coming down.”

“I didn’t have time. Mrs. Langham wired me urgently to come down, and I———”

“Very thoughtful of Mrs. Langham, I’m sure. I must thank her.”

Mr. Ezekiel made an impatient gesture.

“Don’t you go slapping faces again, Pat,” he commanded. “I can’t afford it. What becomes of the business when you go slapping faces? Have you thought of that? Where does the business go?”

“Where all your letters have told me it is going—to hell, Mr. Ezekiel,” answered the girl sweetly. “But that doesn’t concern me———”

Mr. Ezekiel stared.

“Doesn’t concern you?” he repeated, amazed and wrathful. “What is the matter with you? Has this earthquake sent you crazy, or what? What do I pay you money for? To come here and slap my customers, ​wreck my business, and then tell me it doesn’t concern you?”

“Please do not shout,” begged Patricia, nodding in the direction of Mrs. Langham and her old friends. “There are ladies present.”

She nodded a greeting to Mr. Langham, who had entered and now stood regarding the scene with interest from beside the door.

“I will shout if I wish, Miss Weybourn,” stormed the little Jew, his temper getting the upper hand. “I have cause to shout, I shouldn’t wonder. Why are you not in the shop? Why are you not attending to business?”

“The sweet cause of charity, Mr, Ezekiel———”

“Charity! I am not paying you for charity, am I? Am I? For what should I pay you for charity, eh? I pay you to work for me, not for charity! And how do you work for me, eh? Slap my customers in the faces! A fine thing! And don’t you laugh at me, young lady!”

“I can’t help it,” confessed Patricia, allowing her contemptuous smile to broaden a little.

“You can’t help it, eh?” raved Mr. Ezekiel, his hands performing wondrously in the air on either side of the girl’s head. “Well, you have a good laugh, see? Have a good one! This is the one opportunity you get!”

The girl took him at his word. She laughed softly, with a mockery intended for the whole of No. 2 Committee and Mr. Ezekiel.

Mrs. Langham snorted audibly.

“Brazen hussy!” she said, just loud enough for her old friends to hear.

Mr. Ezekiel struggled furiously to drag his wallet from his breast pocket.

“That’s right! That’s right!” he encouraged Patricia savagely. “Open your mouth wide and laugh right down in your neck, Ha! Ha! Ha! Like that. And then you go and laugh somewhere else! You’re sacked!”

​He wrenched the wallet free and tore a few banknotes from its interior.

“Thank you,” replied Patricia calmly, holding out her hand. “Does that mean I am free to go now?”

Mr. Ezekiel calmed down abruptly. He cared to part neither with the extra week’s salary nor Patricia Weybourn. He changed front with the easy facility of his people.

“Now, look here, Pat,” he pleaded, spreading his hands in conciliation and smiling pathetically. “We don’t quarrel, you and me. Not after all these years. Don’t you mind my temper, my dear. You know what I’m like. We can fix this face-slapping, eh? Of course, we can.”

Patricia held her hand extended for the money.

“Please,” she said coldly. “You have discharged me before witnesses———”

“Pat———”

“Miss Weybourn, if you please, Mr. Ezekiel.”

Mr. Ezekiel stared at the girl keenly for a second, then he shrugged and gave her the money.

“Very well, Miss Weybourn,” he snapped, “if that’s the way you feel about it. You’re sacked, and I pay you before witnesses. Good-bye! You are not the kind of woman I want in charge of my branches. I should have known better.”

He turned away sharply, but Patricia stayed him with a compelling grip on his arm.

“For the last two days this virtuous committee has treated me as though I were a woman of the streets,” she said, in a voice ominously quiet. “What do you think, Mr. Ezekiel?”

“Is it my place to think?” retorted Mr. Ezekiel, wrenching his arm free. “You know what you are better than I can tell you. Does it matter to me whether you live by yourself or with somebody else’s husband? Does it matter to me if you get home at daylight, like you did Wednesday, eh? No! But it matters to my business!”

​Patricia leaned back against the window frame and nodded her head. Her lips curled back from her teeth, as she looked her late employer up and down with disgust.

“Did Mrs. Langham tell you all that? You fatten on her and her kind, so I suppose you feel compelled to believe her? It must have been an expensive telegram.”

“Well, are they lies?” demanded Mr. Ezekiel.

“The lady never lies, Mr. Ezekiel. She has told you so herself. Stay in New Plymouth for a little while and learn the extent of her fashionable-following. Examine your books and see how much her husband has paid you, and how much she owes you.”

She straightened and laughed rather hysterically.

“But we are forgetting,” she added bitterly. “This is a depot for charitable relief. Let us be charitable!”

She reached for her hat.

Mrs. Langham and her old friends looked upon her preparations for departure in the approving silence which had wrapped them since Mr. Ezekiel took her in hand. All were glad that she had been adequately punished. All were glad to see her go—she made their most expensive gowns appear dowdy by contrast with her own stylish attire.

Patricia paused on her way to the door to address her victorious enemy.

“The end of the third, and final, round, Mrs, Langham. It’s been an interesting fight.”

“And I win, I think, Miss Weybourn,” replied Mrs. Langham complacently, her nose at a crushing elevation. “My dear young lady, whom do you think you are to dare pit yourself against society? I hope you have learned a lesson. Good-morning.”

Patricia bowed slightly.

“So glad you feel so happy about it,” she mocked.

She stopped at the door to shake hands with Mr. Langham.

“Good-bye, and thank you,” she said softly.

​Mr. Langham held her hand in an embarrassed manner, and when he spoke he addressed his wife.

“Queenie, we are going home—now.”

Mrs. Langham and her old friends regarded Mr. Langham with pained amazement. Did the worm dare to turn again, after its trembling submission of the last two days?

“Did you speak, Percival?” Mrs. Langham asked severely.

“I did,” answered Percival promptly, dropping Patricia’s hand and moving into the room. “I said we are going home, now! You have resigned from this committee, and you will resign from every other committee of which you are now a member.”

“Percival!”

“That you should stoop to such a despicable trick as this is unpardonable, Mrs. Langham!”

“Do you defend this woman?” Mrs. Langham cried angrily.

“I defend my good name, Mrs. Langham,” answered her husband sternly. “It is none too early, it seems. I will not have it fouled by such tricks as this.”

Mrs. Langham wilted, and showed signs that she would collapse again, but, as none of her old friends seemed properly sympathetic, she changed her mind.

“It is too much!” she wailed. “I do not see———”

“Please!”

Mr. Langham silenced her with a gesture and turned to Mr. Ezekiel.

“Send your account to me as soon as possible,” he commanded. “And please note that I will not be responsible for any further accounts unless Mrs. Langham bears my written consent to incur them. I think you may rest assured that I shall never be in your debt again.”

Mr. Ezekiel became voluble as Mrs. Langham gave tongue to a loud cry of reproach.

“But, Mr. Langham, why take it out on me?” he pleaded. “What have I done?”

​“You have listened to spiteful women, sir. There is no more to be said. Queenie, come along!”

Mrs. Langham made one feeble attempt to recapture her domination.

“Indeed, I will not be treated so———”

“Come along!” commanded Mr. Langham angrily.

Mrs. Langham obeyed, passing through the doorway under the eye of the worm which had suddenly developed some of the most unpopular traits of the sergeant-major.

She passed Patricia in the passage with head held high. The girl, who was loitering in an aimless way, would not have spoken had not the older woman sniffed disdainfully .

“Shall we call it a draw, Mrs. Langham?” asked Patricia sweetly.

Mrs. Langham passed down the stairs and into the street in silence.

Her carriage was even more regal in defeat than it had been in her days of triumph.

Mr. Langham noticed it, and revealed a slight panic in his hurried words to Patricia as he hastened after her.

“Good luck, little lady,” he said, in a subdued voice. “Remember me in your prayers lest I have another relapse.”

Patricia went out into the sunlight, and was angry when she found that her eyes were wet.

“I must be growing soft,” she thought with scorn.