THE WAY OF A WOMAN
"WHAT makes you think of London, when you're doing so well in Laysford?"
Flo Winton asked her sweetheart, strolling one Sunday by the banks of
the Lays.
"But well in Laysford may be ill in London," he replied.
"That's just it. Why not be content, and don't play the dog with the
bone?"
A woman seldom sees beyond the end of her nose. Flo Winton was no doubt
perfectly honest in her counsel to Henry, and entirely selfish. Let his
professional chances go hang; he was doing pretty well in Laysford, and
she rather fancied the town as a place to live in. Besides, "out of
sight, out of mind."
"It is the reverse from the dog and the bone," returned Henry. "What I
now hold is little better than the mere shadow of success, the real
thing is only to be found in Fleet Street. Comfort, food, raiment,
furniture, money to spend--these can be earned in the provinces, but
the success I aim at must be sought in London."
"Dear me! And what will you do with it when you've found it--if you ever
do so?"
This was scarcely lover-like, and Henry felt the implied sneer; but he
was determined not to be shaken from his plan. He did not answer Flo.
"Money to keep a nice home and go about a bit among the smart set of the
town--isn't that success?" she continued. "You are working that way
here. You're a somebody here; in London you'd be one of the crowd. At
least, that's what I believe."
"And I too, Flo. Fancy being a somebody in a town whose Lord Mayor can
barely sign his name, whose chief constable is a habitual drunkard,
whose town clerk wouldn't be fit for devilling to a London barrister,
whose whole corporation is a gang of plunderers scheming for their own
ends. Fancy having to whitewash these ruffians in my leading articles. A
somebody! Rather the millioneth man in London than the first in
Laysford."
This looked bad for Flo; her reason for his staying was his own reason
for wishing himself away. Henry was horridly honest and absurdly upright
to be a newspaper editor in a thriving provincial town.
"I tell you frankly," he went on, while Flo walked now in moody silence
by his side, "I could never settle down in Laysford. Any ass with money
is courted here."
"And it's the same everywhere; the same in London," she snapped.
"Perhaps; only in London you can avoid the society of the
money-grubbers, and find a congenial clime where the foul element does
not enter. You see, London isn't a town; it's a country, and there are
communities of kindred interests within its borders."
"How do you know?"
"Well, I can gather as much from my inquiries, and from what I read."
"A lot of use that is. I know it's fearfully expensive to live in
London."
"But one can make more money."
"I thought you despised money-grubbing."
"For the mere sake of the grubbing, yes. But where it costs more to live
there is usually more to live for, and more means of earning the
necessary cash."
"Money; you simply can't get away from it, yet you sneer at the wealthy
folk here. You only wish you had half of their complaint, as the thirsty
cabby said of the drunk who was supposed to be ill."
Flo laughed aridly at her simile, without looking her companion in the
face. Henry felt irritated by her as never before. But his teeth were
set. Both kept silence for a time.
"Of course you never think of me," said Flo at length, trailing her
sunshade among the pebbles.
"That's just what I do, though."
"How kind of you!"
The sneer froze Henry like a sudden frost.
"Men are such unselfish things, to be sure," she went on; the ice
thickening rapidly.
Henry had really thought a great deal about her, and not without some
misgivings. He had seen himself a successful worker in Fleet Street,
with a dainty house out Hampstead way--he did not know where that might
be, but he thought it was the literary quarter--and Flo looking her best
as mistress of that home, with many a notable personage for guest. But
he had also moments when he wondered if he were not a fool to bother his
head about her, and when she said, "How kind of you!" he was glad they
were not married yet. For all that, if Flo insisted, he supposed it
would have to be, though there had been no arrangement in so many
binding words. He was inclined to let her have to insist, however; and
if she did--why, life would be ever after the making the best of a bad
job. Not a healthy condition of love, it will be perceived.
As they were nearing the Wintons' again, Henry thawed a little.
"Wouldn't you really like to live in London, Flo?" he said.
"Perhaps, and perhaps not. No doubt I would. But what I don't like--and
I may as well be frank about it--is living here and you in London."
"Ah, but that need not be for long," Henry returned kindly.
"So you say. But one never knows."
She was honestly unhappy at the idea of his leaving her, and Henry, when
he understood this, felt his heart rise a little in sympathy--the
swelling had gone down since we last saw them together. But he did not
guess that he was pleased rather by the flattering thought that she
would miss him, than softened by the sentiment of leaving her behind
him.
"After all," he said, "I'm not away yet."
"It's that horrid Puddy--what-you-call-him--that's to blame for stuffing
your head with ideas of throwing up such a good post as you have. Take
my advice, Henry, stay where you are, for a while at any rate. There's a
dear, good fellow!"
But the dear, good fellow kissed Flo somewhat frigidly when he parted
from her that night, and decided that Adrian Grant was right in his
estimate of women as creatures who, in the mass, had no ideas beyond
social comfort, no ambition higher than "society," and who were only
interested in the projects of men to the extent these might advance
their own selfish desires.
"She said I never considered her. By Jove, I could wish I did not,"
Henry reflected, biting his moustache savagely in his mood of
discontent. "I wonder what P. would think of her?"
When a man wonders what another would think of his sweetheart it is a
cloudy day for the latter. When the man hesitates, the woman is lost.
Mr. P. had never encountered Miss Winton; but a few days after the
frosty episode in her love-story, Henry and his friend met Flo in the
market-place, and stopping, she was introduced. This not without qualms
to Henry, who could scarce avoid the meeting, and was yet loth to
present his friend to Flo, in view of her expressed dislike for him. But
the ready courtesy and charming manner of the author-musician seemed to
please her, and to Henry's surprise, her eyes, her smiles, were more for
Mr. P. than for himself. She could be most attractive when she liked,
this young lady who had called his friend "horrid," and was absurdly
opposed to his dream of London. Henry did not know whether to be pleased
or disappointed at the bearing of Miss Winton. He was glad she had not
been cold to Mr. P., hurt that she was pleasant--so superfluously
pleasant. On the whole, he was irritated, uneasy.
Something in the manner of his friend contributed to this result. Not a
word had been spoken in the short conversation on the pavement of the
old market-place to awaken or enliven doubt or jealousy, but there was
an indefinable something in Mr. P.'s manner to Flo, and his remarks when
they parted from her, to indicate that he had not been favourably
impressed.
A year or two ago happiness seemed such an easy thing--so simple, so
difficult to escape--that by contrast, Henry's present state of
querulous unrest put it as far away as a fog removes the wonted
position of a prominent landmark. He had an inclination to kick
somebody--himself, deservedly. Could Flo be right about settling down
in Laysford, where he was a potential "somebody"? Suppose he had an
opportunity to go to London now, should he take it? If the man who
wrote as Adrian Grant had unsettled his mind so far as his old simple
faith in God's goodness and mercy was concerned, and Stratford and
Wheelton and Laysford together had muddied his pictures of journalism,
and even Flo had clouded his thoughts of happiness, what was worth
while? Might London be all he had painted it? Was it to be "never glad,
confident morning again"?
Such was the muddle of Henry's mind when the two returned to Mrs.
Arkwright's from their afternoon stroll, and each went to his own rooms.
Henry threw himself into an arm-chair and gave himself up to brooding
thoughts--dark, distracting. He was not long alone, for his
fellow-lodger came to his door in the space of five minutes, with a
letter open in his hand and a smiling face, which betokened good news.
"How's this for a piece of fortune?" he exclaimed, stepping briskly
towards Henry, and handing him the letter. "Read. It has just come with
the afternoon post."
What Henry read was a brief note from Mr. Swainton of the _Lyceum_,
saying, that, curiously enough, the very week he had received Mr. P.'s
letter asking him if he knew of any suitable post for his friend, Mr.
Charles, the editor of the _Watchman_ had mentioned that he was on the
lookout for a smart young journalist as assistant editor of that weekly
review. He had spoken to him of Mr. Charles, and he now wrote to say
that if the latter would run up to town and see Mr. Godfrey Pilkington,
the gentleman in question, he might "pull off" the job. It would be
worth L350 a year, he fancied.
Good news, indeed. At the magic touch of "London" Henry's doubts were
dissipated. They had existed only while the prospect still seemed to be
uncertain. He would have preferred an editorship; but an assistant in
London was (he imagined) as good as any editor in the provinces.
"You know the _Watchman_, I suppose?" said Mr. P., who had closely
observed the young editor's delighted expression while reading the
letter.
"Know it? I should think I do," he answered, with his old buoyancy of
spirit. "A perfect production, the best of all the sixpenny weeklies,
although it is the youngest. How can I thank you?"
"Not so fast; you've still 'to pull it off,' as Swainton says. All that
I have done has been to open the door for you."
"But isn't that everything?"
"Almost, but not quite. If Henry Charles is found 'as advertised,' all
will be well. Something, you see, depends on yourself."
"Get it or not, I'm eternally your debtor. Anyhow, my varied experience
should be of value, though they usually hanker after university chaps on
these weekly reviews. But the _Watchman_ is a rare old Tory, and here
I'm shrieking Radicalism at five pound a week."
"Don't let that disturb you. I fancy your politics are of no importance.
It's your journalistic knowledge that's wanted. To make up the paper,
arrange the book reviews, write some of them--the paragraphs and so
forth. Pilkington is a society fellow who takes life easily, and wants a
competent sub. That's about the situation, I should say. I believe Lord
Dingleton finances the paper as a hobby."
"In any case, it would mean a footing in London, and that is all I
want."
"I am confident you'll suit, and although I advise you not to build too
much on London, I believe it's worth having a try at--if only to knock
on the head your romantic notions of life there. When will you go?"
"To-morrow; first train; back in the evening. Nobody the wiser if it
doesn't come off."
But it did; and for good or ill, with scarce a thought of Flo, Henry
returned to Laysford engaged as assistant-editor of the _Watchman_, on
the understanding that he would start as soon as he could possibly get
away from the _Leader_. The gentleman then assisting Mr. Pilkington was
a distinguished Oxford man, oozing learning at every pore, but as
incompetent a journalist as one would meet within the radius of
Newspaperland.