ON THE BRINK OF AN ABYSS.
Florence sat for a long time with the manuscript of Bertha's story on
her lap. Having read the letter once, she did not trouble herself to
read it again. It was the sort of letter Bertha always wrote--the letter
which meant temptation, the letter which seemed to drag its victim to
the edge of an abyss.
Florence said to herself: "Shall I read the manuscript or shall I not?
Shall I put it into the fire or shall I waste a couple of pence in
returning it to Bertha, or shall I--"
She did not finish even in her own mind the last suggestion which formed
itself in her brain. She had not read the title of the manuscript, but
her thoughts kept wandering round and round it to the exclusion of
everything else. Presently she took it in her hand, and felt its weight,
and then she turned the pages one by one, and glanced at them for a
moment, and saw that they were all written out very neatly, in a sort of
copper-plate writing which was not the least like Bertha's. Bertha had a
bold, dashing sort of hand, but this hand might be the work of
anyone--the ordinary clerk used such a handwriting. The words were very
easily read. Florence caught herself imbibing the meaning of a whole
sentence; then, with a sudden, quick movement, she dashed the
manuscript away from her to the other side of the room, and walked over
and stood by the open window looking across London. She had a headache,
brought on through intense excitement, and the view, for the greater
part concealed by the interminable London houses, scarcely appealed to
her.
"It all looks worldly and sordid," thought the girl to herself. "I
suppose it is very nice that I should have this peep across those
chimney-tops, and should see those tops of houses, tier upon tier, far
away as the skyline, but I am sick of them. They all look sordid. They
all look cruel. London is a place to crush a girl; but I--I _won't_ be
crushed."
She paced up and down her room. There was not the slightest doubt that
Bertha's letter was the one subject of her thoughts. Suddenly she came
to a resolution.
"I know what I'll do," she said to herself; "I won't read that
manuscript, but I'll get Miss Edith Franks to read it. I won't tell her
who has written it; she can draw her own conclusions. I'll get her to
read it aloud to me, and perhaps she will tell me what it is worth. I
hope, I do hope to God that it is worth nothing--that it is poor and
badly written, and that she will advise the author to put it into the
fire, and not to waste her time offering it to a publisher. She shall be
the judge of its merits; but I won't decide yet whether I shall use it
or not--only she shall tell me whether it is worth using. I am sure it
won't be worth using. Bertha wrote a clever essay long ago, but she does
not write much, and she must be out of practice; and why should she be
so clever and able to do everything so well? But Miss Franks shall
decide. She looks as if she could give one a very downright honest
opinion, and she is literary and cultivated, and would know if the thing
is worth anything. Yes, it is a comfort to come to some decision."
So Florence washed her face and hands, made her hair tidy, and put on a
fresh white linen collar, and soon after nine o'clock, with the
manuscript in her hand, she ran downstairs, and presently knocked at the
door of No. 17. The brisk voice of Miss Franks said: "Come in!" and
Florence entered.
"That is right," said Edith Franks; "I am right glad to see you. What do
you think of my diggings--nice, eh?"
"Oh, you are comfortable here," said Florence, with the ghost of a sigh,
for truly the room, as compared with her own, looked absolutely
luxurious. There was a comfortable sofa, which Miss Franks told her
afterwards she had contrived out of a number of old packing-cases, and
there was a deep straw armchair lined with chintz and abundantly
cushioned, and on a table pushed against the wall and on the mantelpiece
were jars full of lovely flowers--roses, verbena, sweetbriar, and
quantities of pinks. The room was fragrant with these flowers, and
Florence gave a great sigh as she smelt them.
"Oh, how sweet!" she said.
"Yes; I put this verbena on the little round table near the sofa; you
are to lie on the sofa. Come: put up your feet this minute."
"But I really don't want to," said Florence, protesting, and beginning
to laugh.
"But I want you to. You can do as you please in the restaurant, and you
can do as you please in your own diggings, but in mine you are to do as
I wish. Now then, up go your feet. I am making the most delicious cocoa
by a new recipe. I bought a spirit-lamp this morning. You cannot think
how clever I am over all sorts of cooking."
"But what are those things on that table?" said Florence.
"Oh, some of my medical tools. I do a tiny bit of dissecting now and
then--nothing very dreadful. I have nothing to-night of the least
importance, so you need not shudder. I want to devote myself to you."
Florence could not but own that it was nice to be waited on. The sofa
made out of packing-cases was extremely soft and comfortable. Miss
Franks put pillows for her guest's comfort and laid a light couvre-pied
over her feet.
"Now then," she said, "a little gentle breeze is coming in at the
window, and the roses and pinks and mignonette will smell more sweetly
still as the night advances. I will not light the lamp yet, for there is
splendid moonlight, and it is such a witching hour. I can make the cocoa
beautifully by moonlight. It will be quite romantic to do so, and then
afterwards I will show you my charming reading-lamp. I have a lamp with
a green shade lined with white, the best possible thing for the eyes. I
will make you a shade when I have time. Now then, watch me make the
cocoa, or, if you prefer it, look out of the window and let the moon
soothe your ruffled feelings."
"You are very kind, and I don't know how to thank you," said Florence;
"but how can you possibly tell that I have ruffled feelings?"
"See them in your brow, my dear: observe them in your face. I am not a
medical student for nothing. I tell you you are anaemic and neurotic;
indeed, your nerves have reached a rare state of irritability. At the
present moment you are in quite a crux, and do not know what to do. Oh,
I am a witch--I am quite a witch; I can read people through and through;
but I like you, my dear. You are vastly more interesting to me because
you are in a crux, and neurotic and anaemic. Now then, look at your dear
lady moon, and let me make the cocoa in peace."
"What an extraordinary girl!" thought Florence to herself; "but I
suppose I like her. She is so fearfully downright, I feel almost afraid
of her."
Miss Franks darted here and there, busy with her cooking. After a time,
with a little sigh of excitement, Florence saw her put the extinguisher
on the spirit-lamp. She then hastily lit the lamp with the green shade,
and, placing it on the table where the verbena and the sweetbriar and
mignonette gave forth such intoxicating odours, she laid a cup of
steaming frothy cocoa by Florence's side, and a plate of biscuits not
far off.
"Now then, eat, drink, and be thankful," said Miss Franks. "I love cocoa
at this hour. Yours is made entirely of milk, so it will be vastly
nourishing. I am going to enjoy my cup also."
She flung herself into the straw chair lined with cushions, and took her
own supper daintily and slowly. While she ate, her bright eyes kept
darting about the room noting everything, and from time to time
fastening themselves with the keenest penetration on Florence's flushed
face.
Florence felt that never in the whole course of her life had she enjoyed
anything more than that cup of cocoa.
When the meal was finished Miss Franks jumped up and began to wash the
cups and saucers.
"You must let me help you," said Florence. She sprang very determinedly
to her feet. "I have done these things over and over for mother at
home," she said, "and I really must wash my own cup and saucer."
"You shall wipe, and I will wash," said Miss Franks. "I don't at all
mind being helped. Division of labour lightens toil, does it not? There,
take that tea-towel; it is a beauty, is it not? It is Russian."
It was embroidered at each edge with wonderful stitches in red, and was
also trimmed with heavy lace.
"I have a sister in Russia, and she sent me a lot of these things when I
told her I meant to take up housekeeping," said Miss Franks. "Now that
we have washed up and put everything into apple-pie order, what about
that manuscript?"
"What manuscript?" said Florence, starting and colouring.
"The one you brought into the room. You don't suppose I didn't see? You
have hidden it just under that pillow on the sofa. Lie down once more on
your place of repose, and let me run my eye over it."
"Would you?" said Florence. She coloured very deeply. "Would you greatly
mind reading it aloud?"
"You have written it, I presume?" said Miss Franks.
Florence did not say anything. She shut up her mouth into rather a hard
line. Edith Franks nodded twice to herself; then, putting on her
pincenez, she proceeded to read the manuscript. She had a perfectly
well-trained voice without a great amount of expression in it. She read
on at first slowly and smoothly. At the end of the first page she paused
for a moment, and looked full up at her companion.
"How well you have been taught English!" she said.
Still Florence did not utter a word.
At the end of the second page Miss Franks again made a remark.
"Your writing is so good that I have never to pause to find out the
meaning of a word, and you have a very pure Saxon style."
"Oh, I wish you would go on, and make your comments at the end," said
Florence then, in an almost cross tone.
"My dear, that answer of yours requires medicine. I shall certainly
insist upon your taking a tonic to your room with you. I can dispense a
little already, and have some directions by me. I can make up something
which will do you a lot of good."
"Do go on reading," said Florence.
Edith Franks proceeded with the manuscript. Her even voice still flowed
on without pause or interruption. At the end of the third or fourth
page, however, she ceased to make any remarks: she turned the pages now
rapidly, and about the middle of the story her voice changed its tone.
It was no longer even nor smooth: it became broken as though something
oppressed her, then it rose triumphant and excited. She had finished:
she flung the manuscript back almost at Florence's head with a gay
laugh.
"And you pretend, you pretend," she said, "that you are a starving
girl--a girl out of a situation! You are a sham, Miss Aylmer--you are a
sham."
"What do you mean?" said Florence.
"Why, this," said Edith Franks. She took up the manuscript again.
"What about it? I mean, do you--do you--like it?"
"Like it? It is not that exactly. I admire it, of course. Have you
written much? Have you ever published anything?"
"Never a line."
"But you must have written a great deal to have achieved that style."
"No, I have written very little."
"Then you are a heaven-born genius: give me your hand."
Florence slowly and unwilling extended her hand. Miss Franks grasped it
in both of hers.
"Flexible fingers," she said, "but not exactly, not precisely the hand
of an artist, and yet, and yet you are an artist through and through. My
dear, you are a genius."
"I do not know why you say that."
"Because you have written that story, that queer, weird, extraordinary
tale. It is not the plot alone: it is the way you have told it, the way
the figures group themselves together, the strength that is in them, the
way you have grasped the situation; and you have made all those
characters live. They move backwards and forwards; they are human
beings. I am so glad Johanna won the victory, she was so brave, and it
was such a cruel temptation. Oh, I shall dream of that story, and yet
you say you have written very little."
"You jump to conclusions," said Florence. She spoke in a queer voice. "I
never told you that I had written that story."
"But you have, my dear; I see it in your face. Oh, I congratulate you."
"Would it be possible to--to publish it?" was Florence's next remark,
made after a long pause.
"Publish it? I know half a dozen editors in London who would jump at it.
I know a good deal about writing, as it happens. My brother is a
journalist, and he has talked to me about these things. He is a very
clever journalist, and at one time I had a faint sort of dream that I
might follow in his steps, but my own career is better--I mean for me.
Publish it; of course, you shall publish it. Editors are only too
thankful to get the real stuff, but, poor souls! they seldom do get it.
You will be paid well for this. Of course, you will make up your mind to
be an author, a writer of short stories, a second Bret Harte. Oh, this
is splendid, superb!"
Florence got up from her sofa; she felt a little giddy. Her face was
very white.
"Do you--do you know any publishers personally?" was her next remark.
"Not personally, but I can give you a list of half a dozen at least. I
shall watch your career with intense interest, and I can advise you too.
I tell you what it is--on Sunday I will go and see my brother Tom, and I
will tell him about you, and ask him what he would recommend. You must
not give yourself away; you have a great career before you. Of course,
you will lead the life of a writer, and nothing else?"
"Good night," said Florence; "I am very tired, but I am awfully obliged
to you."
"Won't you wait until I make up your tonic?"
"I could not take it to-night. I have a bad headache; I want to go to
bed. Thank you so very much."
"But, I say, you are leaving your darling, precious manuscript behind
you." Miss Franks darted after Florence, and thrust the manuscript into
her hand.
"Take care of it," she said; "it is the work of a genius. Now, good
night."
Florence went upstairs. Slowly she entered her dismal little attic. She
lit a candle, and locked her door. She laid the manuscript on the chest
of drawers. She went some steps away from it as though she were afraid
of it; then with a hasty movement she unlocked the drawer where she kept
her purse, and thrust the manuscript in. She locked the drawer again,
and put the key into her writing-desk, and then she undressed as fast as
ever she could, and got into bed, and covered her head so that she
should not see the moon shining into her room, and said under her
breath: "O God, let me sleep as soon as possible, for I cannot, I dare
not think."