It was the old story of woman comforting man in his affliction; the
trouble in this instance appearing in the shape of a long blue envelope
addressed to himself in his own handwriting. Poor young poet! He had
no more appetite for eggs and bacon that morning; he pushed aside even
his coffee, and buried his head in his hands.
"Back again!" he groaned. "Always back, and back, and back, and these
are my last verses: the best I have written. I felt sure that these
would have been taken!"
"So they will be, some day," comforted the woman. "You have only to be
patient and go on trying. I'll re-type the first and last pages, and
iron out the dog's ears, and we will send it off on a fresh journey.
Why don't you try the _Pinnacle Magazine_? There ought to be a chance
there. They published some awful bosh last month."
The poet was roused to a passing indignation.
"As feeble as mine, I suppose! Oh, well, if even you turn against me,
it is time I gave up the struggle."
"Even you" was not in this instance a wife, but "only a sister," so
instead of falling on her accuser's neck with explanations and caresses,
she helped herself to a second cup of coffee, and replied coolly--
"Silly thing! You know quite well that I do nothing of the sort, so
don't be high-falutin. I should not encourage you to waste time if I
did not know that you were going to succeed in the end. I don't think;
I _know_!"
"How?" queried the poet. "How?" He had heard the reason a dozen times
before, but he longed to hear it again. He lifted his face from his
hands--an ideal face for a poet; clean-cut, sensitive, with deep-set
eyes, curved lips, and a finely-modelled chin. "How do you know?"
"I feel!" replied the critic simply. "Of course, I am prejudiced in
favour of your work; but that would not make it haunt me as if it were
my own. I can see your faults; you are horribly uneven. There are
lines here and there which make me cold; lines which are put in for the
sake of the rhyme, and nothing more; but there are other bits,"--the
girl's eyes turned towards the window, and gazed dreamily into
space--"which sing in my heart! When it is fine, when it is dark, when
I am glad, when I am in trouble, why do your lines come unconsciously
into my mind, as if they expressed my own feelings better than I can do
it myself? That's not rhyme--that's poetry! It is the real thing; not
pretence."
A glad smile passed over the boy's face; he stretched out his hand
towards the neglected cup, and quaffed coffee and hope in one reviving
draught. "But no one seems to want poetry nowadays!"
"True! I think you may have to wait until you have made a name in the
other direction. Why not try fiction? Your prose is excellent, almost
as good as your verse."
"Can't think of a plot!"
"Bah! you are behind the times, my dear! You don't need a plot. Begin
in the middle, meander back to the beginning, and end in the thick of
the strife. Then every one wonders and raves, and the public--`mostly
fools!'--think it must be clever, because they don't understand what
it's about."
"Like the lady and the tiger,--which came out first?"
"Ah! if you could think of anything as baffling as that, your future
would be made. Write a novel, Ron, and take me for the heroine. You
might have a poet, too, and introduce some of your own love-songs. I'd
coach you in the feminine parts, and you could give me a royalty on the
sales."
But Ronald shook his head.
"I might try short stories, perhaps--I've thought of that--but not a
novel. It's too big a venture; and we can't spare the time. There are
only four months left, and unless I make some money soon, father will
insist upon that hateful partnership."
The girl left her seat and strolled over to the window. She was
strikingly like her brother in appearance, but a saucy imp of humour
lurked in the corners of her curving lips, and danced in her big brown
eyes.
Margot Vane at twenty-two made a delightful picture of youth and
happiness, and radiant, unbroken health. Her slight figure was upright
as a dart; her cheeks were smooth and fresh as a petal of a rose; her
hair was thick and luxuriant, and she bore herself with the jaunty,
self-confident gait of one whose lines have been cast in pleasant
places, and who is well satisfied of her own ability to keep them
pleasant to the end.
"Anything may happen in four months--and everything!" she cried
cheerily. "I don't say that you will have made your name by September,
but if you have drawn a reasonable amount of blood-money, father will
have to be satisfied. It is in the bond! Work away, and don't worry.
You are improving all the time, and spring is coming, when even ordinary
people like myself feel inspired. We will stick to the ordinary methods
yet awhile, but if matters get desperate, we will resort to strategy.
I've several lovely plans simmering in my brain!"
The boy looked up eagerly.
"Strategy! Plans! What plans? What can we possibly do out of the
ordinary course?"
But Margot only laughed mischievously, and refused to be drawn.
The cruel parent in the case of Ronald Vane was exemplified by an
exceedingly worthy and kind-hearted gentleman, who followed the
profession of underwriter at Lloyd's. His family had consisted of three
daughters before Ronald appeared to gratify a long ambition. Now, Mr
Vane was a widower, and his son engrossed a large share in his
affections, being at once his pride, his hope, and his despair. The lad
was a good lad; upright, honourable, and clean-living; everything, in
fact, that a father could wish, if only,--but that "if" was the
mischief! It was hard lines on a steady-going City man, who was famed
for his level-headed sobriety, to possess a son who eschewed fact in
favour of fancy, and preferred rather to roam the countryside composing
rhymes and couplets, than to step into a junior partnership in an
established and prosperous firm.
It is part of an Englishman's creed to appreciate the great singers of
his race,--Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, not to mention a dozen lesser
fry; but, strange to say, though he feels a due pride in the row of
poets on his library shelves, he yet regards a poet by his own fireside
as a humiliation and an offence. A budding painter, a sculptor, a
musician, may be the boast of a proud family circle, but to give a youth
the reputation of writing verses is at once to call down upon his head a
storm of ridicule and patronising disdain! He is credited with being
effeminate, sentimental, and feeble-minded; his failure is taken as a
preordained fact; he becomes a butt and a jest.
Mr Vane profoundly hoped that none of the underwriters at Lloyd's would
hear of Ronald's scribbling. It would handicap the boy in his future
work, and make it harder for him to get rid of his "slips"! No one
could guess from the lad's appearances that there was anything wrong,--
that was one comfort! He kept his hair well cropped, and wore as high
and glossy collars as any fellow in his right mind.
"You don't know when you are well off!" cried the irate father. "How
many thousands would be thankful to be in your shoes, with a place kept
warm to step into, and an income assured from the start! I am not
asking you to sit mewed up at a desk all day. If you want to use your
gift of words, you couldn't have a better chance than as a writer at
Lloyd's. There's scope for imagination too,--judiciously applied! And
you would have your evenings _free_ for scribbling, if you haven't had
enough of it in the daytime."
Ronald's reply dealt at length with the subject of environment, and his
father was given to understand that the conditions in which his life was
spent were mean, sordid, demoralising; fatal to all that was true and
beautiful. The lad also gave it as his opinion that, so far from
regarding money as a worthy object for a life's ambition, the true lover
of Nature would be cumbered by the possession of more than was
absolutely necessary for food and clothing. And as for neglecting a
God-given gift--
"What authority have you for asking me to believe that the gift exists
at all, except in your own imagination? Tell me that, if you please!"
cried the father. "You spend a small income in stamps and paper, but so
far as I know no human creature can be induced to publish your God-given
rhymes!"
At this point matters became decidedly strained, and a serious quarrel
might have developed, had it not been for the diplomatic intervention of
Margot, the youngest and fairest of Mr Vane's three daughters.
Margot pinched her father's ears and kissed him on the end of his nose,
a form of caress which he seemed to find extremely soothing.
"He is only twenty-one, darling," she said, referring to the turbulent
heir. "You ought to be thankful that he has such good tastes, instead
of drinking and gambling, like some other young men. Really and truly I
believe he is a genius, but even if he is not, there is nothing to be
gained by using force. Ron has a very strong will--you have yourself,
you know, dear, only of course in your case it is guided by judgment and
common sense--and you will never drive him into doing a thing against
his will. Now just suppose you let him go his own way for a time! Six
months or a year can't matter so very much out of a lifetime, and you
will never regret erring on the side of kindness."
"Since when, may I ask, have you set yourself up as your father's
mentor?" cried that gentleman with a growl; but he was softening
obviously, and Margot knew as much, and pinched his nose for a change.
"You must try to remember how you felt yourself when you were young. If
you wanted a thing, how _badly_ you wanted it, and how _soon_, and how
terribly cruel every one seemed who interfered! Give Ron a chance, like
the dear old sportsman as you are, before you tie him down for life!
It's a pity I'm not a boy--I should have loved to be at Lloyd's. Even
now--if I went round with the slips, and coaxed the underwriters, don't
you think it might be a striking and lucrative innovation?"
Mr Vane laughed at that, and reflected with pride that not a man in the
room could boast such a taking little witch for his daughter. Then he
grew grave, and returned to the subject in hand.
"In what way do you propose that I shall give the boy a chance?"
"Continue his allowance for a year, and let him give himself up to his
work! If at the end of the year he has made no headway, it should be an
understanding that he joins you in business without any more fuss; but
if he _has_ received real encouragement,--if even one or two editors
have accepted his verses, and think well of them--"
"Yes? What then?"
"Then you must consider that Ron has proved his point! It is really a
stiff test, for it takes mediocre people far longer than a year to make
a footing on the literary ladder. You would then have to continue his
allowance, and try to be thankful that you are the father of a poet,
instead of a clerk!"
Mr Vane growled again, and, what was worse, sighed into the bargain, a
sigh of real heartache and disappointment.
"I have looked forward for twenty years to the time when my son should
be old enough to help me! I have slaved all my life to keep a place for
him, and now he despises me for my pains! And you will want to be off
with him, I suppose, rambling about the country while he writes his
rhymes. I shall have to say good-bye to the pair of you! It doesn't
matter how dull or lonely the poor old father may be."
Margot looked at him with a reproving eye.
"That's not true, and you know it isn't! I love you best of any one on
earth, and I am only talking to you for your own good. I'd like to stay
in the country with Ronald in summer, for he does so hate the town, but
I'll strike a bargain with you, too! Last year I spent three months in
visiting friends. This year I'll refuse all invitations, so that you
shan't be deprived of any more of my valuable society."
"And why should you give up your pleasures, pray? Why are you so
precious anxious to be with the boy? Are you going to aid and abet him
in his efforts?"
"Yes, I am!" answered Margot bravely. "He has his life to live, and I
want him to spend it in his own way. If he becomes a great writer, I'll
be prouder of him than if he were the greatest millionaire on earth.
I'll move heaven and earth to help him, and if he fails I'll move them
again to make him a good underwriter! So now you know!"
Mr Vane chewed his moustache, disconsolately resigned.
"Ah well! the partnership will have to go to a stranger, I suppose. I
can't get on much longer without help. I hoped it might be one of my
own kith and kin, but--"
"Don't be in a hurry, dear. I may fall in love with a pauper, and then
you can have a son-in-law to help you, instead of a son."
Mr Vane pushed her away with an impatient hand.
"No more son-in-laws, thank you! One is about as many as I can tackle
at a time. Edith has been at me again with a sheaf of bills--"
His eldest daughter's husband had recently failed in business, in
consequence of which he himself was at present supporting a second
establishment. He sighed, and reflected that it was a thankless task to
rear a family. The infantine troubles of teething, whooping-cough, and
scarlatina were trifles as compared with the later annoyance and
difficulties of dealing with striplings who had the audacity to imagine
themselves grown-up, and competent to have a say in their own lives!
If things turned out well, they took the credit to themselves! If ill,
then papa had to pay the bills! Mr Vane was convinced that he was an
ill-used and much-to-be-pitied martyr.