THE PLAY AND THE COMEDY
Armorel arranged for the reading of the play one evening four or five
days later. It was a short notice, but she secured the people whom she
wanted most, and trusted to chance for the others. She occupied
herself in the interval in arranging the details and leading
situations for a little comedy drama of her own--a play of some
melodramatic force, in which, as in 'Hamlet,' a certain guilty person
was to discover by a kind of dumb show that his guilt was known to
her. It was to be a comedy which no one, except herself, was to
understand. You shall see, directly, what an extremely clever little
comedy it was, and how effective to the person principally concerned.
She said nothing at all about this comedy even to Effie. As for words,
there were none. They were left to the principal character. This is,
indeed, the ancient and original drama. The situations were, at the
outset, devised beforehand. The actors filled in the dialogue. This
form of drama is still kept up, and with vigour. When the schoolboy
sets the booby-trap, or sews up the shirt-sleeves, or greases the
side-walk--if that old situation is still remembered--or practises any
other kindly and mirthful sally, the victim supplies the words. The
confidence trick in all its branches is another form of the primitive
drama, and this evening's performance with reference to a certain
person was only another example. You will hear, presently, what
admirable dialogue was elicited by Armorel's situations.
By half-past eight she had completed the mounting of her piece. First,
for the reading of the play she placed a table at the side of the
room, with a space at the back sufficient for a chair, or for a person
to sit. A reading-lamp, with one of those silver cowls that throw the
whole light upon the table, stood at either end, illuminating a small
space in the middle. This was for the manipulation of the dolls. For,
though the people had been asked to come for a reading, Armorel had
determined to try the experiment of a recitation, accompanied by the
presentment of those puppets which Effie had dressed with such care,
and her brother manipulated so deftly. Needless to say that more than
one rehearsal had been held. In front of the table she placed a
semicircle of chairs for some of her audience. At one side of the
table was the piano: a music-stand, with a violin case, gave promise
of an overture. Between the music-stand and the table was room for a
person to stand, and on the table a water-decanter and a glass showed
that this was the place for the reciter. On the other side of the
table, in the corner of the room, stood an easel, and on it a picture,
with curtains arranged so that they could fall over and cover it up.
The picture was lighted up by two lamps. The room had no other lights
in it at all, so that, if these two lamps were lowered or
extinguished, the only light would be that thrown by the reading-lamps
upon the table. As for the picture, it was as yet unfinished, but
nearly finished. Of course it was Roland Lee's new picture. This
evening, indeed, which professed to be the simple reading of a new
play by a new writer, included a great deal more: it included, in
fact, Roland's return to the arena he had deserted, and, as you shall
see, the stepping upon the stage of both the twins, brother and
sister. When one adds that Mr. Alec Feilding would be one of the
company, you understand, dear reader, the nature of Armorel's comedy,
and the kind of situation devised and prepared by that artful and
vindictive young lady.
'How long will it take, dear?' asked Mrs. Elstree, wearily
contemplating these preparations.
'I should say that the play will take an hour and a half or two hours
to recite. Then there will be a little music between the acts. I dare
say it will last two hours and a half.'
'Oh, that will bring us to half-past eleven at least! And then it will
be too late for anything else.'
'We don't want anything else to-night.'
'No, dear. The play will be quite enough for us. I wish it was over. I
am so constituted, Armorel, that I cannot see the least use in going
out of my way to help anybody. If you succeed in helping people to
climb up, they only trample on you as soon as they get the chance. If
you fail, they are a burden upon you for life. These two Wilmot
people, for instance: what are you going to do with them when you have
read their play and stuff? You can't get a manager to play it any the
more for having it read. The two are no further advanced.'
'Yes; I shall have made the young man known. He will be introduced.
Mr. Stephenson promised to bring some critics with him, and you have
asked Mr. Feilding to do the same. An introduction--perhaps the
creation of some personal interest--may be to Archie of the greatest
advantage.'
'Then he will rise by your help, and he will proceed to trample upon
you. That is, if the brother is like the sister. If ever I saw
"trampler" written plain on any woman's face, it is written on the
great square block of bone that Effie Wilmot calls a forehead.'
'They may trample on me if they please,' Armorel replied, smiling.
The tramplers were naturally the first to arrive. They were both pale,
and they trembled, especially the one who was not going to speak. He
came in, limping on his crutches, and looked around with terror at the
preparations. One does not realise before the night comes what a
serious thing is a first appearance in public. Besides, the strong
light on the table, the expectant chairs, the arrangement of
everything, presented an aspect at once critical and threatening. The
manuscript play and the box of puppets were in readiness.
'Now, Archie,' said Armorel, 'it is not yet nine o'clock. You shall
have a cup of coffee to steady your nerves. So shall you, Effie. After
that we will settle ourselves.' She talked about other things to
distract their thoughts. 'See, Effie, that is Roland Lee's new
picture. It is not yet finished. The central figure is myself. You
see, it is as yet only sketched in. I am going to sit for him, but he
has caught a good likeness, has he not? It will be a lovely picture
when it is completed, and I am going to give him permission to flatter
me as much as ever he pleases. The scene is among the outer rocks of
Scilly. We will go there some day and sail about the Western Islands,
and I will show you Camber Rock and the Channel, and Castle Bryher and
Menovawr and Maiden Bower, and all the lovely places where I lived
till I was sixteen years of age. Are you in good voice to-night,
Effie?'
'I don't know. I hope so.'
'She has eaten nothing all day,' said Archie.
'You are not really frightened, are you, Effie?' The girl was white
with nervousness. 'A little excited and anxious. Will you have another
cup of coffee? A little jelly? Remember I shall be close beside you,
with the play in my hand, to prompt. I like your dress. You look very
well in white, dear.'
'Oh! Armorel, I am horribly frightened. If I should break down,
Archie's chance will be ruined. And if I recite it badly I shall spoil
the play.'
'You will not break down, dear; you will think of nothing but the
play. You will forget the people. Besides, it will be so dark that you
will hardly see them.'
'I will try my best. Perhaps when I begin--Oh! for Archie's sake, I
would stand up on the stage at the theatre and speak before all the
people! And yet----'
'She had no sleep last night,' said her brother. 'I think, after all,
I had better read it. Only I read so badly.'
Armorel's face fell. She had thought so much of the reciting. Then
Mrs. Elstree came to the rescue.
'Nonsense,' she said. 'You three people are making yourselves so
nervous that you will most certainly break down. Now, Mr. Wilmot, go
into your own place. Set out your dolls. Here's your cardboard back
scene.' She arranged it while Archie got himself and his crutches into
the chair behind, and began to take the dolls out of their box. 'So.
Now don't speak to your sister. You will only make her worse. And as
for you, Effie, if you break down now you will be a most disgraceful
coward. With your brother's future, perhaps, dependent on your
courage. For shame! Pull yourself together!' Effie, thus rudely
stimulated, and by a person she disliked greatly, lost her limpness
and stood upright. Her face also put on a little colour, and her lips
stiffened. The tonic worked, in fact. Then Zoe went on. 'Now,' she
said, 'take up your position here. How are you going to stand? Fold
your hands so. That is a very good attitude to begin with. Of course,
you understand nothing of gesture. Don't try it. Change your hands a
little--so--front--right--left--like that. And don't--don't--don't
hold your head like that, facing the crowd. Hold it up--like this.
Look at the corner of that cornice--straight up. Oh! you will lower
your head as you go on. But, to begin with, and at the opening of each
act, look up to that corner. Remember, if you break down----' She held
up a forefinger, threatening, admonitory, and left her standing in
position. 'You will do now,' she said.
'Besides,' said Armorel, 'no one will look at you. They will all be
looking at Archie's actors.'
The dramatist, relegated to the humble position of fantoccini-man,
would be also in complete shade behind the table. He would not be
seen, whatever emotion of anxiety he should feel. And for dexterity of
manipulation with his puppets he could vie even with the firm of
Codlin and Short.
The noise of cups and saucers in the dining-room proclaimed the
arrival of guests. The first to come was Roland Lee, still a little
shy, as Alexander Selkirk might have been, or Philip Quarles, or Mr.
Penrose, on his return to civilised society. He looked about the room.
Mrs. Elstree--looking resigned--and Armorel, standing by the fire, and
the two performers. Nobody else. And, in a place of honour, his
unfinished picture.
'It looks very well, doesn't it?' said Armorel. 'I wish it was a
little more complete. But it will do to show.'
'Are you quite sure it is wise?'
'Quite sure. The sooner you show everybody what you can do the
better.'
'I have found a new studio,' he told her in low tones. 'I have moved
in to-day. It is among the old lot of men that I used to know a
little. I have gone back to them just as if I had only been gone for a
day. I don't find that they have got on very much. Perhaps they spend
too much time smoking pipes and cigarettes and talking. They chaff me,
but with respect, because, I believe, they think I have been staying
in a lunatic asylum. Respect, you know, is due to madmen and to old
men.'
'I hope it is the kind of studio you want.'
'It will do. I am anxious to begin your sittings. When can you come?'
'Any day you please. To-morrow. The next day. I can begin at once.'
Then came a small party of men--journalists and critics--captured by
Dick Stephenson at the club, and bribed to come by the promise of an
introduction to the beautiful Miss Armorel Rosevean. I do not think
they expected much joy from the amateur reading of an unacted piece.
It is melancholy, indeed, to consider that though the preliminary and
tentative performance of the unacted play--long prayed for--has been
at last established, the promised appearance of the great dramatist
has not yet come off--nay, the theatrical critic weeps, swears, and
growls at the mention of a matinée, and when he is requested to attend
one passes it on if he can to his younger brother in the calling. And
yet such great treasures were expected of the matinée! However, they
agreed to come and listen on this occasion. It shall be put down to
their credit as a Samaritan deed.
'Dick Stephenson,' said Armorel, with an assumption of old friendship
which filled him with pride, 'I hope you are come here to-night in a
really serious frame of mind--you and your friends.'
'We are always serious.'
'I mean that you are going to hear an ambitious piece of work. All I
ask of you is to listen seriously, and to remember that it is really
the work of a man who aims at the very highest.'
'Will he reach the very highest?'
'I do not know. But I am quite certain that there are very few
artists, in any branch, who dare to aim high. Listen, and try to
understand what the poet has attempted--what has been in his mind.
Promise me this.'
'Certainly, I will promise you so much.'
'Thank you. It was for this that I asked you to-night. And see--here
is your old friend Roland Lee.' The two young men shook hands rather
sheepishly--the one because he had been an Ass--a long-eared Ass; and
the other, because he was not guiltless of letting his friend slip out
of his hands without a remonstrance and so away into paths unknown. 'I
hear,' said Armorel, with her beautiful seriousness, 'that you two
have suffered yourselves to drift apart of late. I hope that will be
all over now. Oh! you must never give up the early friendships. Have
you seen Roland's new picture? He has lent it to me for this evening.
Come and look at it.'
'Why,' cried one of the men, 'it is an unfinished picture of Alec
Feilding's!'
Roland turned hot and red.
'Not at all,' said Armorel. 'This is a sketch made in the isles of
Scilly and in my presence, five years ago. As for the figure, you see
it is not yet completed. I am the model. You remember Scilly, Dick
Stephenson? To be sure, you were not with us when we used to go
sailing about among the rocks.'
'I have reason to remember Scilly, seeing that you saved my life
there, and Roland's too. But the picture is curiously in Feilding's
style. Only it seems to me better than any of his. Old man'--he laid
his hand on Roland's shoulder: it was the renewal of the ancient
friendship--'old man, you've done the trick at last.'
Philippa came next, with her father and two or three girls. They, in
their turn, called out upon the striking similarity in style. A few
more people came, and it was a quarter past nine. But the man for whom
Armorel had especially arranged her little comedy did not come. He was
late. Perhaps he would not come at all.
'We must wait no longer,' said Armorel. 'Will everybody please to sit
down?'
Philippa placed herself at the piano. Armorel took out her violin and
tuned it. First, however, she made a little speech.
'I have asked you,' she said, 'to come this evening in order to hear a
play read. It is a play written by a young gentleman in whom some of
us take the deepest interest. I hope greatly that it will succeed. But
we want your judgment and opinion as well as our own. The play belongs
to all time and to no time. The scene is laid in Italy, and in the
sixteenth century; but it might as well have been laid in London and
in the nineteenth--only that we are more self-governed than a
dramatist likes, and we conceal our emotions. It is a play of romance
and of human passion. I entreat you to consider it seriously--as
seriously as the author himself considers it. We have arranged for you
a list of the dramatis personæ, with a little scenario of each
act--there are three--and we think that if, instead of hearing it
read, we have it recited, while the author himself plays the piece
before us by puppets on this little stage, we shall get a clearer idea
of the dramatic merits of the piece.'
This speech done, everybody took up the little book of the play and
began to read the scenario, while Armorel played an overture with
Philippa.
She played a Hungarian piece, one of the things that are now played
everywhere--a quite short piece.
When it was finished, Roland lowered the lamps beside his picture,
and covered them with crimson shades. Then there was no other light in
the room but that from the two reading-lamps on the table. Just before
the lamps were lowered Mr. Alec Feilding arrived, with half a dozen
men whom he had brought with him. She saw his startled face as he
caught sight of the picture as the lights were lowered. In the
twilight she could still distinguish his face among the men who stood
behind the chairs. And she watched him. Then Effie, who had not seen
the latest arrival, took her place, and the play began.
The effect was new and very curious. The people saw a girl standing up
beside the table--only the shadow of a girl--a ghostly figure in
white--the spectre of a white face--two bright eyes flashing in the
dim light. And they heard her voice, a rich, low contralto, beginning
to recite the play.
It is not the nervous creature who breaks down. He may generally be
trusted. He lies awake for whole nights before the time arrives: he
reaches the spot weak-kneed, trembling, and pale; but when the hour
strikes he braces himself, stands up, and goes through with it. Effie
had been partly pulled together, it is true, by the rough exhortation
of Mrs. Elstree, but some credit must be given to her own resolution.
She began with a little hesitation, fearing that she should forget the
words. Then they came back to her: she saw them written plainly before
her eyes in that friendly corner of the cornice: she hesitated no
longer: in full and flowing flood she poured forth the dialogue,
helped to right modulation by the strength of her own feeling and her
belief in the beauty and the splendour of the drama. Armorel meantime
watched her man. He had seen the picture. Now he recognised the play,
and he knew the reciter. As he stood at the back, tall above the rest,
she saw his face change from astonishment gradually to dismay. It was
rather a wooden face, but it passed plainly and successively through
the phases of doubt and certainty to that of dismay. Yes; dismay was
written on that face, with discomfiture and suspicion. In a more
demonstrative age he would have sat gnawing his nails: every wicked
man, overtaken by the consequence of his own wickedness, used formerly
to gnaw his nails. On the stage of the last century he would have
turned upon his persecutors with a 'Death and confusion!' before he
banged off the scene. We no longer use those fine old phrases. On the
modern stage he would stand with straightened arms and bowed head,
while the rest of the company pointed fingers of scorn at him, crushed
but defiant. In Armorel's drawing-room he stood quiet and motionless,
trying to collect himself. He saw, first of all, Roland Lee's new
picture in the corner; he saw Roland Lee himself, no longer the
negligent, despairing sloven, but once more a gentleman to outer view,
and in his right mind. Next, he observed that Effie, his own poet, was
reciting the play; and, thirdly, that the play was that for which he
had himself made a bid. Thus all three--painter, poet, and
dramatist--were friends of this girl Armorel; and they had all three,
he knew quite well, slipped clean out of his hands for ever, and were
lost to him; and all three, he suspected, had already related to each
other the history of his doings and dealings with themselves.
Therefore, while the play proceeded, his heart sank low--lower--lower.
There were three acts. When the first was finished Armorel stood up
again and, with Philippa, played another little piece, but not long.
And so between the second and the third.
Watching the people, Armorel became aware that the play had gripped
them, and held them fast. No one moved. The little space upon the
table between the two lamps, where the puppets stood before the
painted screen of cardboard, became a scene richly mounted: it was a
garden, or a dancing-hall, or an arbour, or a library, just as those
little books told them, and the puppets were men and women. We want so
little of mounting to fire the imagination, if only the poet has the
strength to seize it and to hold it by his words. Nothing, in this
case, but a modulated voice reciting a dramatic poem, and, to help it
out, a dozen dressed dolls, six or seven inches high, standing stiffly
on a little stage. Yet, even when passion was at its highest, in the
great scene of the third act, they were not ridiculous. Nobody laughed
at the dolls. That was because the showman knew their capabilities.
When they stood in their place, they indicated the nature of the
situation and explained the words. Had he tried to make them act, he
would have spoiled the whole. They made a series of groups--_tableaux
vivants_, _poses plastiques_--constantly changed by the deft hands of
the showman, finding relief in this occupation for the anxiety in his
soul. For he, less fortunate than Effie, who had grasped the cheering
truth, could not read in the circle of still faces before him their
rapt and magnetised condition.
And now the end of the third act was neared. The reciter rose to the
concluding situation. Her voice, firm and clear, rang out in the dim
light. The younger girls in the audience caught each other's hands.
The 'lines' were good lines, strong and nervous, rapid and yet
intense, equal to the strength and intensity of the situation.
At last the play was finished.
'Effie!' Armorel caught her in her arms, 'you have done splendidly!'
But the girl drew back. The honours of the evening were not for her,
but for her brother: she stood aside.
Armorel took the cowls from the reading-lamps, and the room returned
to light. Then the people began all to press round the dramatist and
to shake hands solemnly with him, to murmur, to assure, to
congratulate, and to prophesy. And the loud voice of Mr. Alec
Feilding arose as he stepped forward among the first and grasped the
young man's hand.
'Archie!' he said with astounding friendliness, 'this is better than I
expected. Let me congratulate you! I have had the privilege,' he
explained to the multitude, 'of hearing this play--at least, a part of
it--already. I told you, my dear boy, that your situations were
splendid, but your dialogue wanted pulling together in parts. You have
attended to my advice. I am glad of it. The result promises to be a
splendid success. What say you?' He turned to a very well-known
dramatic critic whom he had brought with him.
'If you can get the proper man to play the leading part,' he replied
more quietly, 'the play seems to me full of promise. Frankly, Mr.
Wilmot, I think you have written a most poetical and most romantic
piece. It is valuable, not only for itself, but for the promise it
contains.'
'For its promise,' repeated Alec Feilding blandly, 'as I told you, my
dear boy, for its promise--its admirable promise. I shall not rest now
until this play is produced--either at the Lyceum or at the Haymarket.
Once more.' Again he grasped Archie by the hand. Then another and
another followed. It was not until the next day the dramatist
recovered presence of mind enough to remember that Mr. Feilding had
not given him any advice: that he had not said it was a work of
promise: that he had offered to buy it for fifty pounds and bring it
out as his own, with his own name put to it: and that no alteration of
any kind had been made in it.
* * * * *
When Mr. Alec Feilding stepped back, he perceived that some one had
turned up the lamps beside the picture. He was a man of great presence
of mind and resource. He instantly stepped over to the picture and
began to examine it curiously. Armorel followed him.
'This is by my old friend Mr. Roland Lee,' she said. 'Do you know him?
Let me introduce him to you.' The men bowed distantly as those who,
having met for the first time in a crowd, see no reason for desiring
to meet each other again. That they should so meet, with such an
assumption of never having met before, struck Armorel with admiration.
'The picture is a good deal in your own style, Feilding,' said one of
the critics.
'Perhaps,' replied the successful painter in that style, briefly.
'It is taken from a sketch,' Armorel explained, 'made by Mr. Lee while
he was staying at the same spot as myself. He made a great number at
the time--which is now five years ago.'
Mr. Alec Feilding heard this statement with outward composure.
Inwardly he was raging.
'It is, in fact, exactly in your style,' said the same critic. 'One
would say that it was a copy of one of your pictures.'
'Perhaps,' he replied again.
'If,' said Roland, 'Mr. Feilding sends another picture in the same
style for exhibition this year, I hope that the similarity of style
may be tested by their hanging side by side.'
'Shall you send anything this year--in the same style?' asked Armorel.
'I hardly know. I have not decided.'
The critic looked at the picture more closely. 'Strange!' he murmured.
'One would swear ... the same style--so individual--and belonging to
two different men!'
Then Roland covered his picture over with the curtain. There had been
enough said.
'Now,' said Armorel, 'after our emotions and our fatigues of the play,
we are exhausted. There is supper in the next room. Before we go in I
want to sing you a song. I am not a singer, you know, and you must
only expect simple warbling. But I want you to like the song.'
She sat down to the piano and played a few bars of introduction. Then
she sang the first verse--it was Effie's latest song, that which Mr.
Feilding had accepted but not yet published.
He heard and recognised. This third blow finished him. He sat down on
the nearest chair, speechless. Mrs. Elstree watched him, wondering
what was the matter with him. For he was in a speechless rage. Lucky
for him that it was speechless, because for the moment he was beside
himself, and might have said anything.
'That is the first verse,' said Armorel. 'I have set it to an old
French air which I found in a book. The words seem written for the
music. There are two more verses.'
She sang them through. Her voice was pleasing though not strong: she
sang sweetly and with feeling, just as she had sung in the old days on
the shores of Samson, to the accompaniment of the waves lapping along
the white sands, and she watched the man whom she had been torturing
the whole evening through. Would not even this rouse him to some word
or deed which might proclaim him a pretender and an impostor
discovered? She knew, you see, that the lines were actually in type
ready to appear as another poem by the Editor. She finished and rose.
'Do you like the song, Philippa?' she said. 'I have even had it
printed and set to music. Anybody that pleases may carry away a copy.
I hope everybody will, and keep it in remembrance of this evening. For
the words are written by Miss Effie Wilmot, who has recited so
beautifully her brother's play. We will share the honours of the
evening between them. Archie, will you give me your arm? Roland'--in
her excitement she called him by his Christian name, which caused a
little surprise--'will you take Effie? Do you like the words, Mr.
Feilding?'
'Very much indeed. I had seen them before you, I think.'
'Yes? Then you recognised them. You have seen other poems by the same
hand, I believe?'
'Good-night, Miss Rosevean. I have had a delightful evening.' He
retired without any supper. On his way out, he passed Effie. 'You
should have trusted me,' he whispered hoarsely. 'I expected, at least,
common confidence. You will find that I have kept my promise--and you
have broken yours.' He passed on, and disappeared. Then they trooped
in to the dining-room, where they found spread that kind of midnight
refection which is dear to the hearts of those who are yet young
enough to love champagne and chicken. And after supper they went back
to the drawing-room and danced. Mrs. Elstree played to them--nobody
could play a waltz better. Roland danced with Armorel. 'You make me
believe,' he said, at the end of the waltz, 'that I am really back
again.'
'Of course you are back again.'
Then Armorel danced with the critics, and talked about the play; and
they all promised to go to great actors and speak about this wonderful
drama. And so all went away at last, and all to bed, well content.
'But,' said Zoe, when the last was gone, 'what was the matter with
Alec? Why did he look so glum? What made him in such an awful rage? He
can get into a blind rage, Armorel--blind and speechless. As for that,
I would not give a button for a man who could not. But what was the
matter with him?'
'Was he in a rage? Perhaps he wished that he had written the play
himself. Such a clever man as that would be sorry, perhaps, that
anything good was written, except by himself.'
Mr. Alec Feilding rushed down the stairs and into the street. He
hailed a cab, and jumped into it.
'Fleet Street! Quick!'
His printers, he knew, had work which kept them at work on Thursday
nights till long past midnight. It was not too late to make a
correction. His paper would be printed in the morning, and ready for
issue by five o'clock in the afternoon. In fact, Effie received a note
from him on Saturday morning:--
'My dear Effie,' he wrote, 'I send you a copy of my new number. You
will find, on looking into the editorial columns, that I have
performed what I promised. Not only have I accepted and published your
very charming verses, but I have added a brief note introducing the
writer as a débutante of promise. So much I am very pleased to have
been able to do for you. Now, as one writer introducing another, I
leave you with your public. Give them of your best. Let your first set
of published verses prove your worst. Aim at the best and highest;
write in a spirit of truth; let your Art be sincere and
self-respectful.
'I am sorry that this note, written on Tuesday, could not contain what
I should much have wished to add, had I known it: that your verses
have been adapted to an old air by Miss Armorel Rosevean. You did not,
however, think fit to take me into your confidence.
'I cannot hope to give you more than an occasional appearance in my
columns. I should advise you, with this introduction of mine and the
credentials of being published in my paper, to send verses to the
magazines. I think you will have little difficulty with the help of my
name in gaining admission.
'Allow me to add my congratulations on your brother's undoubted
success. His play is admirable as a chamber play. It may also succeed
on the stage, but of this it is impossible to be certain. Meantime, it
is very cheering to find that he listens to the advice of those who
have a right to speak, and that he follows that advice. It is both
cheering to his friends and promising as regards his own future. I do
not regret the time that I spent in advising upon that play.
'I remain, my dear Effie, very sincerely yours,
'ALEC FEILDING.'
The paper which contained the verses contained also the following
paragraph:--
'In place of the usual editorial verses--my editorial duties do not
always give me leisure for the service of the Muse--I have great
pleasure in inserting a set of verses from the pen of a young lady
whose name is new to my readers. She makes her bow to my readers in
this column. I venture, however, to prophesy that she will not long
remain unknown. Wherever the English language is spoken, before many
years the name of Effie Wilmot shall be known and loved. This is the
prophecy of one who at least can recognise good work when he sees it.'
Effie read both letter and paragraph to her brother, who raged and
stormed about the alleged advice and assistance. She also read them
both to Armorel, who only laughed a little.
'But,' said Effie, 'he never helped Archie at all! He gave him no
advice!'
'My dear, if he chooses to say that he did, what does it matter? Time
goes on, and every day will make your brother rise higher and Mr.
Feilding sink lower. And as to the verses, Effie, and your--your first
appearance'--Effie turned away her shamefaced cheek--'why, we will
take his advice and try other editors. Mr. Feilding is, indeed, the
cleverest man in London!'