It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the
plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into the
violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room.
"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a
silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so awfully
shocked!"
Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid
hand, looked up without speaking.
"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill."
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she said,
mournfully.
"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."
Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a buttered
tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.
"It's not what I said just now--?" she ventured.
"Just now?"
"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over."
Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically,
"want to hear it mentioned again!"
"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.
Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the
incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with a
tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say."
"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but
feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so
charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been
said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven't they been nice?"
"They've been odious--odious--" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an
ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It's been perfectly
intolerable!"
Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of
taking no more tea, crossed over to her cousin and laid a sympathizing
hand on that lady's agitated shoulder.
"It _is_ a bore at first," she conceded; "but you'll be surprised to
see how soon one gets used to it."
"I shall--never--get--used to it--" Mrs. Fetherel brokenly declared.
"Have they been so very nasty--all of them?"
"Every one of them!" the novelist sobbed.
"I'm so sorry, dear; it _does_ hurt, I know--but hadn't you rather
expected it?"
"Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up.
Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied
from what you said before the book came out--that you rather
expected--that you'd rather discounted--"
"Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?"
"Good gracious! Is _that_ what they've done?"
Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded.
"Every one of them?"
"Every one--"
"Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle.
"Why, you've just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached her.
"Said what?"
"That you weren't so _awfully_ shocked--"
"I? Oh, well--you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn't
quite as bad as I expected--"
Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at
once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly pretty story?"
"They haven't said _that?_"
"They've all said it."
"My poor Paula!"
"Even the Bishop--"
"The Bishop called it a pretty story?"
"He wrote me--I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared
him--he wanted me to change it; but when he'd read the book he wrote
that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his friends."
"The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but
professional jealousy."
"Do you think so?" cried her cousin, brightening.
"Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the
quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it through the diocese
with his blessing."
"Then you don't really think it's a pretty story?"
"Dear me, no! Not nearly as bad as that--"
"You're so good, Bella--but the reviewers?"
"Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at the
cold remains of her tea-cake. "Let me see," she said, suddenly; "do you
happen to remember if the first review came out in an important paper?"
"Yes--the 'Radiator.'"
"That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they
often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves a lot of trouble. Now if
you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you--"
"That's what the Bishop said!" cried Mrs. Fetherel.
"He did?"
"He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was to
have it denounced on the ground of immorality."
"H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She turned
an illuminated eye on her cousin. "You ought to get _him_ to denounce
'Fast and Loose'!" she cried.
Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must
stand or fall on its own merits," she said in an unconvinced tone.
"Bosh! That view is as extinct as the post-chaise and the
packet-ship--it belongs to the time when people read books. Nobody does
that now; the reviewer was the first to set the example, and the public
were only too thankful to follow it. At first they read the reviews;
now they read only the publishers' extracts from them. Even these are
rapidly being replaced by paragraphs borrowed from the vocabulary of
commerce. I often have to look twice before I am sure if I am reading a
department-store advertisement or the announcement of a new batch of
literature. The publishers will soon be having their 'fall and spring
openings' and their 'special importations for Horse-Show Week.' But the
Bishop is right, of course--nothing helps a book like a rousing attack
on its morals; and as the publishers can't exactly proclaim the
impropriety of their own wares, the task has to be left to the press or
the pulpit."
"The pulpit--?" Mrs. Fetherel mused.
"Why, yes--look at those two novels in England last year--"
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head hopelessly. "There is so much more
interest in literature in England than here."
"Well, we've got to make the supply create the demand. The Bishop could
run your novel up into the hundred thousands in no time."
"But if he can't make his own sell--?"
"My dear, a man can't very well preach against his own writings!"
Mrs. Clinch rose and picked up her proofs.
"I'm awfully sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't
help being thankful that there's no demand for pessimism in the field
of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a Sparrow,' or
'How the Plants Misbehave!'"