MARGARET IS PUZZLED
Miss Dorothy Johnson, balancing herself on the edge of the
table, was playing catch-ball with a pair of gloves.
"Margaret Wallace, you're one of the sillies!"
"Evidently you are not the only person who is of that opinion."
"That's right--put the worst construction on everything I say,
and think yourself smart."
"It's just as well that some one should think so. Dollie,
sometimes I'm very near to the conviction that it's no
good--that nothing's any good, and, especially, that I'm no
good; that I might as well own myself beaten right away."
"Well, you are beaten this time, that's sure. What ought
to be just as sure is that you don't mean to be beaten every
time--there's the whole philosophy of life for you in a
nutshell."
"But suppose I'm dragging Harry down? I shouldn't be surprised
if it's all through me that his MSS. keep on being returned.
I said to him, 'Let me make drawings to illustrate your
stories--I'd love to'. And I do love to! 'Then we'll send the
stories and the drawings to the editors together.' But they
nearly all come back. I've a horrid feeling that it's my
drawings which ruin them."
"Stuff! It's Harry's work that's no good."
"No good? How dare you! You've said yourself over and over again
that it's splendid."
"That's what's against it--it's splendid." Miss Johnson,
stretching her right arm to its extreme length, dangled her
gloves between the tips of her fingers. "Margaret Wallace,
literature means to me at least three pounds a week, it may be
four, if possible, five. I can live on three, be comfortable on
four, a swell on five. The problem being thus stated in all its
beautiful simplicity, it only remains for me to discover the
quickest and easiest solution. I have learned, from experience,
that the _Home Muddler_ is willing to give me half a guinea for
a column of drivel, and the _Hearthstone Smasher_ fifteen
shillings for another. The _Family Flutterer_ prints eight or
ten thousand words of an endless serial at five shillings a
thousand--one of these days I mean to strike for seven-and-six.
But in the meantime there you are--the pursuit of literature has
brought me bread and cheese. Why doesn't your Harry tread the
same path?"
"The idea!"
"Of course!--the idea!--and that's where he gets left. It's my
experience that in literature----"
"Literature!"
"I said literature. I was observing, when you interrupted, that
it is my experience that in literature"--Miss Johnson paused,
Miss Wallace was contemptuously silent--"men always get paid at
least twice as much as the women. I don't know why; it seems to
be one of the rules of the game. It therefore follows that if
your Harry did as I do he would earn six, eight, ten pounds a
week, which, with management, would keep two--not to speak of
your drawings, which ought to bring in something. I believe the
_Family Flutterer_ pays as much as seven-and-six for a full
page."
"My dear Dollie, you know as well as I do that we both of us
would rather starve."
"Sweet Meg, I'm not saying you're right or wrong, only, if you
have resolved to eschew the easily earned loaves and fishes,
don't revile because, having set out on the track of the
rarer creatures, you discover--what every one knows, and you
know!--that they are difficult to find. My private opinion
is that Harry will find them one day--if he keeps on long
enough--though I don't know when."
"You're a comforting sort of person."
"I'm a practical sort of person, which is better. Cheer up, Meg!
he'll get there--and perhaps you will too--though of course his
stories are better than your drawings."
"I don't need you to tell me that."
Miss Johnson, descending from the table, put her arm round the
girl who was seated on the other side.
"You poor darling! I'm a perfect pig! I say, Meg, are you hard
up?"
"I always am."
"Beyond the ordinary, I mean?"
"If you mean, can you lend me, or give me, any money, you
can't--thank you very much. I'm going to hoe my own furrow,
right to the end."
"How about Harry? He gets some of his stuff accepted; then
there's the three hundred pounds a year certain which he gets
for being that party's secretary. I call that practicality, if
you like! He ought to be getting on first-rate."
"He doesn't seem to think so, anyhow. As for what you call the
three hundred pounds a year certain, I doubt if anything could
be more uncertain, the engagement may terminate any day. I
believe that Harry is really more worried than I am, and--and
that's saying a good deal."
"Then the marriage is not coming off just yet?"
"Marriage!--and you call yourself a practical person!--how can
you be so absurd?"
"I am not sure that I am absurd. If I ever loved a man--which I
am never likely to do, men are such beings!--really loved him,
and knew that he loved me, I shouldn't hesitate to marry him on
a pound a week. Marriage, properly understood, is a spur; it's
not, necessarily, anything like the clog romantic people like
you seem to think it is."
When Miss Johnson had gone Margaret Wallace went and stood
before a photograph which hung over the mantelpiece--the
photograph of a man.
"I think, Cuthbert Grahame, it's possible that you'll shortly be
revenged; if you knew just how things are I fancy you'd be of
opinion that you're revenged already. If you'd been even a
shadowy semblance of the father you once professed to be, I--I
shouldn't be wondering where I'm to get my dinner from."
She examined the physiognomy of the man in front of her as if,
instead of being the most familiar of faces, she saw it now for
the first time. Going back to her seat at the table, she was
examining the drawings which had accompanied the returned MS.,
as if desirous of learning what improvement she could make in
them, when there came a tap at the door.
"Come in." Mr. Talfourd entered. In a moment she was in his
arms. "Harry!"
"Meg!--more roses for you." He handed her the La France roses
which had been presented to him by Mrs. Lamb. "What are you
doing?"
She was eyeing the roses, without any great show of enthusiasm,
which was possibly lacking because she knew from whom they had
originally come.
"Harry, I've more bad news for you--I never seem to have
anything else. The story's back from the _Searchlight_."
"What does it matter?"
"I don't like to hear you talk like that, because, you see, we
both know that it matters, dear. Harry, do you think that it
may have been returned because my drawings aren't up to the
mark--honestly?"
"Honestly, I am certain it has not. Your drawings are at least
as good as my story. I have never met any one who can illustrate
me as well as you do."
"You mean that? If I weren't Margaret Wallace would you say so
still?"
"I should. I should congratulate myself on having met some one
who could illustrate me as I like to be illustrated. You
misunderstood me just now. I said what does it matter, because
it doesn't matter, in view of something of much greater
importance which I have to say to you."
"Harry! what is it?"
"I hardly know how to begin, it's such a queer position. It's
this--in a way, my play's accepted."
"'The Gordian Knot'?--by Mr. Winton?"
"No, not by Winton, by Mrs. Lamb."
"Mrs. Lamb?--Harry!" He told her how the play had come into Mrs.
Lamb's hands, and how that lady had expressed her willingness to
give it immediate production, on the understanding that she was
to create Lady Glover. "But I didn't know she could act. Why
should she want to anyhow?--she a rich woman!--especially such a
part! Lady Glover's a horrible creature! I suppose you think
she'd make a mess of it--and of course she would. She must be a
very conceited person."
"Sweetheart, shall I tell you, quite frankly, what I really
think?"
"You hadn't better tell me anything else."
"Then I'll make you my father confessor. I've a strong feeling,
amounting to a positive conviction, that she'd make a
magnificent Lady Glover. That's one reason why I hesitate."
"Now I don't understand. If she makes a success of the part,
what else do you want?"
"I'll endeavour to explain. For one thing, I think it possible
that she'll make it the part of the play, and so put Winton in
the shade entirely. In the theatre he proposes to manage I'm
certain he's no intention to be overshadowed by any one. Not
that, in such a matter, I'm likely to be too sensitive about his
feelings--but there it is. What, from my point of view, would be
more serious, is that it is extremely probable that, by her
rendition of Lady Glover, she'll warp the play out of what I
intended to be its setting. As she was talking just now it
dawned upon me that, in her hands, the play might become
transformed--something altogether different to what I meant it
to be."
"But if it's a success?"
"Meg, I find it difficult to put into words just what's in my
mind. Of course if it's successful it will mean----"
"It will mean everything."
"It will mean a good deal; but it will mean everything I'd
rather it didn't mean if the success is owing to her."
"But it will be your play. In one sense its success will always
be dependent upon others. Really, Harry, I don't follow you.
What is your objection to Mrs. Lamb? She's never done you any
harm."
"No, she hasn't done me any harm--as yet."
"As yet! Do you think she means to? Considering that she
proposes to produce your play, and bids fair to make a great
success of it, it doesn't look as if she did."
"Meg--you'll laugh at me--I'm afraid of her."
"Afraid of her?--of Mrs. Lamb!--Harry!"
"I've never been comfortable in her presence since the first
moment I've met her. When she's there I have the sort of feeling
which I imagine a nervous person might have in the neighbourhood
of a dangerous lunatic. I don't know when or how she will break
out, but I feel that sometime, somehow, she will, and that then
I shall have to struggle with her for my life."
"Harry! are you in earnest?"
He laughed oddly.
"Meg, upon my word, I can't tell you. She hypnotises me, that
woman--she hypnotises me. Her influence is on me even after I
have left her."
"She must be a curious person. I should like to meet her."
"Meet her?"
He shuddered, involuntarily. "Rather than that you should meet
her I'd---- If I can prevent it you shall not meet her."
"Why not? I know plenty of people who have met her, and who seem
to think her a distinctly agreeable person--hospitable, good
company, amusing, kindhearted, generous to a degree. Tell me,
Harry, has she ever behaved to you in any way as she ought not
to have done?"
"She has not, in one jot or tittle."
"To your knowledge has she ever done, or even said, anything
wrong?"
"No. Still, I would rather she did not produce my play,
especially if she is to act Lady Glover."
"Will she produce it if she doesn't?"
"I doubt it."
"There is something at the back of your mind which you're
keeping to yourself. When I think of all that the success of
'The Gordian Knot' would mean to us, of how you've looked
forward to its production, of how we've talked and talked of it,
your present attitude is incomprehensible. It doesn't follow
that because Mrs. Lamb produces your play--and even acts in
it!--that you need therefore make of her a bosom friend if you'd
rather not. I don't suppose it's only generosity which impels
her; I daresay she has an axe of her own to grind."
"You may be sure of it."
"Then so have you. I don't see how it matters if it's A, B, or C
who grinds it, so long as it's ground--properly ground; and you
seem sure that it will be that."
"I have little doubt of it."
"Then tell me, Harry, what is the real, downright reason why you
don't wish Mrs. Lamb to produce your play, and act in it?"
"Because, Meg, I'm afraid of her."
"Afraid of her!--of a woman!--who you yourself admit has never
done you anything but good! Harry, you're beyond my
comprehension."
Before he could answer there was a knock at the door. A servant
entered with a card on a tray.
"A gentleman wishes to see you, miss."
She looked at the card.
"'David Twelves, M.D., Edin.'. It can't be Dr. Twelves of
Pitmuir?"
A voice came from the door.
"It's that same man."