"Oh, no, Eleanor, I don't want a journalist's job. I'm a writer ... an
artist ... not a reporter. Besides, I shouldn't have time to work at
the book I'm doing now. Look at Hinde. He never has time to do anything
but journalism. The worst of work like that is that after a time you
can't do anything else. You think in paragraphs!..."
"Supposing the play isn't a success ... I mean a financial success?"
she asked.
"Well, I'll make money for you some other way. Leave it to me, Eleanor,
I'm pretty confident about myself. I feel convinced that the play
_and_ the novel will be successful financially as well as
artistically. I've always been confident about myself!"
"Yes."
"And I feel quite confident about this. So don't worry your head any
more like a good girl!"
The receipt of the proofs and the excitement of correcting them caused
Eleanor to forget her anxiety about their finances. John and she sat in
front of the fire, she with one batch of galley sheets in her lap, he
with another; and he read the story to her, correcting misprints and
making alterations as he went along, while she copied the corrections
on to her proofs.
"Do you like it?" he asked, eager for her praise.
"Yes," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder, "I do like it.
It's ... it's quite good, isn't it?"
He imagined that there was a note of dubiety in her voice, but he did
not press her for greater praise, and they finished the correction of
the proofs and sent them to Mr. Claude Jannissary as quickly as they
could.
"What does it feel like to have written a book?" Eleanor said to him
when the proofs had been dispatched.
"Fine," he replied. "I wish my Uncle Matthew were alive. He'd feel very
proud of me!"
"I'm proud of you," she said, drawing nearer to him.
"Are you?" he exclaimed, his eyes brightening. He put his arm round her
neck and she took hold of his hand. "Do you like me better now,
Eleanor, than you did when we were married?"
"Oh, yes, dear, of course I do."
"Do you remember that night on the Embankment when we were both so
scared of getting married?"
"Yes. Weren't we silly? I very nearly ran away that night ... only I
didn't know where to run to. I was awfully frightened, John. I thought
we were both making terrible mistakes!..."
"Well, we haven't regretted it yet, have we?"
"No, not yet. So far our marriage has been successful!"
"I told you it would be all right, didn't I? I knew I could make you
happy. You're such a darling ... how could I help loving you?"
V
The novel was published in the same week that the tragedy was produced
at the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. John had intended to be present at
all the rehearsals of his play, but the manager of the theatre informed
him that this was hardly necessary. It would be sufficient if he were
to attend the last two and the dress rehearsal, and when John
considered the state of his work on the second novel, he decided to
accept the manager's advice. "After all," he said to Eleanor, "I don't
know anything at all about producing plays and this chap spends his
life at the job, so I can safely leave it to him!"
The complimentary copies of his novel reached him on the evening before
he was to travel to Cottenham to attend his first rehearsal. He opened
the parcel with trembling fingers and took out the six red-covered
volumes and spread them on the table. He liked the bold black letters
in which the title of the book and his name were printed on the covers:
THE ENCHANTED LOVER by JOHN MACDERMOTT. It seemed incredible to him
that a book should bear his name, but there, in big, black letters on a
red ground, was his name. He turned the pages, reading a sentence here
and a sentence there until Eleanor, who had been out when the parcel
arrived, came in.
"Look!" he said, holding one of the books towards her. She exclaimed
with delight and ran forward to take the book from him. "Oh, my dear,"
she said, clasping the novel with one hand while she embraced him with
the other. "I'm so proud of you, you clever creature!"
He was greatly moved by her affection, and he felt that he wanted to
cry. There were very queer sensations in his throat, and he had
tremendous difficulty in keeping his eyes from blinking.
"It's rather nice?" he said, touching the book.
"It's lovely," she said. She went to the table. "Are these the others?"
She drew a chair forward and sat down. "Let's send them out to-night.
This one to your mother and this one to Uncle William. I'll keep this
one!" She opened the book at the dedication "To Eleanor." "Here," she
said, "write your name in it!" He found a pen and ink and wrote under
the dedication, "from her devoted husband," and when she saw what he
had written, she hugged him and told him again that she was proud of
him.
"What about the others? Are you going to send them out, too?" she
asked, and he proposed to her that one should be sent to Hinde, one to
Mr. Cairnduff and one to Mr. McCaughan....
"We shan't have any left, except my copy, if you do that!" she
objected.
"We can easily get some more," he replied.
"I'd like to send one to that beastly cousin in Exeter just to let him
see how clever you are. He hadn't the decency to send us a wedding
present, the stingy miser!"
They packed up the books after John had inscribed them, and went off to
the post-office together to send them off.
"Won't it be fun reading the reviews?" said John as they walked up High
Street.
"I hope they'll like it, the people who review it," she answered.
"Don't let's go in just yet. Let's walk along the Spaniards' Road a
little while!"
They walked up Heath Street, and when they came to the railings above
The Vale of Health, they stood against them and looked towards London.
A blue haze had settled over the city and the trees were like long
hanging veils through which little, yellow lights from the street-lamps
shone like tiny jewels. The air was full of drowsy sounds, as if the
earth were happily tired and were resting for a while before the
pleasures of the night began.
"Would you like to go back to your club, Eleanor?" John said.
"Silly old silly!" she replied, pinching his arm.
"I feel as if I want to tell everybody that you've written a book and a
play," she said, as they walked on. "It doesn't seem right that all
these people don't know about you!"
He went to Cottenham on the next day, carrying with him an early
edition of the _Evening Herald_ in which Hinde had printed a very
flattering review of _The Enchanted Lover._ Eleanor had been
puzzled by the promptness with which the review had appeared until John
explained to her that review copies of books were sent to the
newspapers a week or a fortnight before the date of publication.
"It's a very good review," she said. "I thought he didn't like the book
much!"
"So did I. I hope he isn't just writing like this to please me. I don't
want insincere reviews!..."
"I expect," said Eleanor, "he didn't tell you how much, he really liked
it!"
"Hmmm! Perhaps that's it," John replied.
He put the paper in his pocket, and as the train drew out of Easton and
started on its journey to Cottenham, he speculated on the sincerity of
Hinde's review. He took the paper out of his pocket and read it again.
The review was headed, "A REMARKABLE FIRST NOVEL" and was full of
phrases that seemed fulsome even to John. "We prophesy that this
notable novel will have a very great success among the reading public.
It is certainly the finest story of its kind that has been _published
in this country for a generation_."
"I wouldn't have said that about it myself," John reflected. "Of
course, I'd like to think it's true, but!... I hope this isn't just
logrolling!" He remembered how fiercely Hinde had described the
back-scratching, high-minded poets who boomed each other in their papers.
"I don't want to get praise that way," he thought, putting the paper back
into his pocket. "I'll order half-a-dozen copies of the _Herald_
when I get back from Cottenham. My Uncle William will be glad of a
copy, and so will Mr. Cairnduff and the minister!..."