Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge
from conversation by offering him a cup of tea. The Bishop accepted
with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment, tea is but a
subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and
knowing that the surest way of distracting attention from one's own
affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she
hastily asked if her uncle had come to town on business.
"On business--yes--" said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had to
see my publisher, who has been behaving rather unsatisfactorily in
regard to my last book."
"Ah--your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense of
her inability to recall the name or nature of the work in question, and
a mental vow never again to be caught in such ignorance of a
colleague's productions.
"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis
which revealed his detection of her predicament. "You may remember that
I sent you a copy last Christmas?"
"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful
story of the poor consumptive girl who had no money, and two little
brothers to support--"
"Sisters--idiot sisters--" the Bishop gloomily corrected.
"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a
beautiful memorial window to her--her grandfather, whom she had never
seen--"
"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during
her long struggle with poverty and disease." The Bishop gave the
satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A
touching subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice; at least, so
my friends assured me."
"Why, yes--I remember there was a splendid review of it in the
'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by the incipient instinct of
reciprocity.
"Yes--by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean
Gollinger, was under very particular obligations to me. Mrs. Gollinger
is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my book was
unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned fare, and the
approval of a thoughtful churchwoman carries less weight than the
sensational comments of an illiterate journalist." The Bishop lent a
meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the risk of horrifying you,
my dear," he added, with a slight laugh, "I will confide to you that my
best chance of a popular success would be to have my book denounced by
the press."
"Denounced?" gasped Mrs. Fetherel. "On what ground?"
"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze.
"Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of course; but I am only
repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic could
be induced--I mean, if a critic were to be found, who called in
question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health and
that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window to her
grandfather, it would probably raise a general controversy in the
newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen thousand
within the next year. If he described her as morbid or decadent, it
might even run to twenty thousand; but that is more than I permit
myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any general charge
of immorality." The Bishop sighed again. "I need hardly tell you that I
am actuated by no mere literary ambition. Those whose opinion I most
value have assured me that the book is not without merit; but, though
it does not become me to dispute their verdict, I can truly say that my
vanity as an author is not at stake. I have, however, a special reason
for wishing to increase the circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly';
it was written for a purpose--a purpose I have greatly at heart--"
"I know," cried his niece sympathetically. "The chantry window--?"
"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence, my
little book might be the means of filling it. All our wealthy
parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for this
reason that, in writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my appeal more
especially to the less well-endowed, hoping by the example of my
heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums throughout the entire
diocese, and perhaps beyond it. I am sure," the Bishop feelingly
concluded, "the book would have a wide-spread influence if people could
only be induced to read it!"
His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in Mrs. Fetherel's
vibrating nerve-centers. "I never thought of that!" she cried.
The Bishop looked at her inquiringly.
"That one's books may not be read at all! How dreadful!" she exclaimed.
He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an
authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have dared to inflict my
troubles on any one not of the craft."
Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her involuntary
self-betrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she murmured.
"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to brush
away her scruples, "I came here partly to speak to you about your
novel. 'Fast and Loose,' I think you call it?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed assentingly.
"And is it out yet?" the Bishop continued.
"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and it
must be quite cold. Let me give you another cup..."
"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland
inexorableness with which, in his younger days, he had been known to
continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at his
watch--"my reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too late
to induce you to change the title."
Mrs. Fetherel set down the cup she had filled. "The title?" she
faltered.
The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me, dear
child; don't for a moment imagine that I take it to be in anyway
indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for that.
My first idea was that it had probably been forced on you by an
unscrupulous publisher--I know too well to what ignoble compromises one
may be driven in such cases!..." He paused, as though to give her the
opportunity of confirming this conjecture, but she preserved an
apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though taking up the second
point in his sermon--"Or, again, the name may have taken your fancy
without your realizing all that it implies to minds more alive than
yours to offensive innuendoes. It is--ahem--excessively suggestive, and
I hope I am not too late to warn you of the false impression it is
likely to produce on the very readers whose approbation you would most
value. My friend Mrs. Gollinger, for instance--"
Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in theory
a woman of independent views; and if in practise she sometimes failed
to live up to her standard, it was rather from an irresistible tendency
to adapt herself to her environment than from any conscious lack of
moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had excited in her that sense of
opposition which such admonitions are apt to provoke; but as he went on
she felt herself gradually enclosed in an atmosphere in which her
theories vainly gasped for breath. The Bishop had the immense
dialectical advantage of invalidating any conclusions at variance with
his own by always assuming that his premises were among the necessary
laws of thought. This method, combined with the habit of ignoring any
classifications but his own, created an element in which the first
condition of existence was the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so
that his niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs. Gollinger's
Mechlin cap spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow
and the "Revue de Paris" at her elbow turning into a copy of the
"Reredos." She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware
of the significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been
deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her novel, and that
the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class of
readers for whose susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words were
almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion conveyed by the
Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic murmur,
"Oh, uncle, you mustn't think--I never meant--" How much farther this
current of reaction might have carried her, the historian is unable to
computer, for at this point the door opened and her husband entered the
room.
"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow
envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're here!"
Though the trials of married life have been classified and catalogued
with exhaustive accuracy, there is one form of conjugal misery which
has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is the suffering of
the versatile woman whose husband is not equally adapted to all her
moods. Every woman feels for the sister who is compelled to wear a
bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but how much sympathy is
given to her whose husband refuses to harmonize with the pose of the
moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been done to the misunderstood
wife whose husband persists in understanding her; to the submissive
helpmate whose taskmaster shuns every opportunity of browbeating her;
and to the generous and impulsive being whose bills are paid with
philosophic calm. Mrs. Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt
from trials of this nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by
pronounced brutality or indifference, had at least the negative merit
of being her intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware
of the usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can
form an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn
such deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had
made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to every
one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate such a
woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he did his best
to invalidate this advantage by admiring her without pretending to
understand her. What she most suffered from was this fatuous approval:
the maddening sense that, however she conducted herself, he would
always admire her. Had he belonged to the class whose conversational
supplies are drawn from the domestic circle, his wife's name would
never have been off his lips; and to Mrs. Fetherel's sensitive
perceptions his frequent silences were indicative of the fact that she
was his one topic.
It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation that
had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship. She had fancied that even the
most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at least
negatively, an attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her
anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness of her
act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact
complicated by an irrepressible tendency to be fond of him; and there
was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that justified
the most explicit expiation.
These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the book
with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy to his
mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the reviewers. It
was perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that made his wife
doubly alive to his special defects; so that his inopportune entrance
was aggravated by the very sound of his voice and the hopeless
aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant, is more indicative
of a man's character and circumstances than his way of entering a room.
The Bishop of Ossining, for instance, brought with him not only an
atmosphere of episcopal authority, but an implied opinion on the verbal
inspiration of the Scriptures, and on the attitude of the church toward
divorce; while the appearance of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an
immediate impression of domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that
there was a well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did
not sew on his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that
task; that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with
his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock.
All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with which
he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel's clutch; and
knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be silly, she said, with
a dry despair, "You're boring the Bishop horribly."
Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all
horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted.
"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably.
"Read it? Of course not--it's just this minute come. I say, Bishop,
you're not going--?"
"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his
chair with an indulgent smile.
His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense
detain you," she entreated.
"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as one
of his sermons--won't take me five minutes to read. Here, listen to
this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism and
decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer to open
one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the sewer--'"
Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a
gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze
fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his
hand.--"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder is
proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly inoffensive
as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a
new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of
inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure, fresh
view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader's
moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its distinctly
misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of
domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force in
character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be described
as a distinctly pretty story.'"