DISCOVERIES
An Ethical Society might pass a winter's evening in this debate: Does
it need more strength to endure failure or to bear success? The
dangers upon either road stand out easily, for all but the actual
wayfarer. By the one he may fall into the slough of Bitterness, whilst
the other, far more pleasant as it draws him on, may lead to no more
than the pitiable, luxurious cities of Arrogance and Meanness.
The problem certainly needs no elaboration in this place, since
Hubert's path lay all too clearly towards failure. "I fear," wrote his
publisher as an old friend, "it is no use concealing the fact that
people do not want the book. There have as yet been no repeat orders
from libraries or booksellers. We can only face the fact and hope to
do better with the next. As you know, in my opinion the book was not
up to your usual high level."
"Who wants his damned opinion?" growled Hubert out loud, though alone,
and crumpled up the letter. Why, publishers weren't even critics!
As to these last, their unanimity for once was wonderful.
There are ingenious authors who amuse themselves by printing excerpts
from reviews of their last novel, alternately conflicting, thuswise;
"An able novel: _Tooting Sentinel_. Weak and formless: _Times_. An
arresting piece of work, whoever by: _Stafford News_. An amateur
affair: _Standard_;"--thinking in this manner to have blackened for
evermore the ancient art of Criticism in any decent-minded person's
eyes. They scarcely realise, poor injured souls, that the thing is an
Art. Were it but a machine, it doubtless would attain the same result
from each book, whether put before it by a Fleet Street expert or a
Stafford tyro. Because it is an Art, however, and all Art is merely
the expression of an individual emotion, it follows that each book must
react on every critic in a different way. These notices, so pompous
with _The Times_ or _Stafford News_ above them, are not worked out with
prayer by the whole paper's staff; they stand for one opinion, no
less--and no more--than the opinion of a woman-reader over the
tea-tray. Opinions, moreover, vary; praise to God! How fresh and
hopeful, what a message, seems this story to the un-read Staffordian;
how stale and hopeless, what an ancient dish, it appears to him of
Printing House Square, who has read more than he can hope ever to
forget!
And yet beneath it all there is a principle. Bad Of Its Sort is bad,
whatever sort one likes; which is all Plato's Ideas in a convenient
nutshell.
And every one agreed that _Was it Worth While?_ was bad of its sort.
It tried to be something it was not, and what can be more shocking?
Hubert, then, had an admirable chance of showing what effect a failure,
after some years of moderate success, had on his character; and took it
to the full. As the reviews came in, he grew more and more violent.
It was not many days before he countermanded all the extra papers, but
his faithful Press-Cutters sent in the notices religiously and he could
not help reading them. Helena would come down first (she always did)
at breakfast time and hide the small green envelopes, which then
arrived by the last post and were brought in at 9 p.m. by the
complaisant Lily.
Then what a flow of words! Poor critics, publishers, and readers; what
a set they were, how blind, how asinine, how spiteful! Sometimes he
would at once go to his study and write a reply, which Helena did not
in every case succeed in rescuing before it got into the pillar-box,
though certainly her score was bigger.
It was a trying month and he did not spare even her. When there were
no reviews to tear verbally--and sometimes other ways--in fragments, he
would moan plaintively that this meant he would never get another sou
out of the book beyond the small advance already paid, and nobody would
want to read the next one either, and Heaven knew how they would pay
the house-bills.
"I don't suppose any one will even publish it," he would say, almost
gloating, like a schoolboy probing his cut finger.
"Oh, Hugh!" she cried, believing him, "it does seem awful. And to
think you were so successful till you married me and had to write this
terrible pot-boiler. Oh, how I wish you'd never done it!"
"What, married you?" he asked, suddenly laughing. "Bother shop! Come
along out and see if we can't find a good stick to throw for the
hound;" and as he passed, he kissed her on the hair and drew her up on
to her feet.
His moods were so abrupt, just now, that sometimes she grew frightened.
It was lucky, then, that she had got her consolation; the great secret.
Geoffrey Alison was far less frequent in the house these days, not
having totally forgotten yet that grip upon his throat, and she would
have been very desolate when Hubert was locked in with his work if she
could not have flown excitedly to hers. Absorbed entirely in the
opinion and career of the increasingly contemptible Virginia, she found
herself free for a while from all the worries of real life, returning
to them with a mind refreshed as by the most luxurious of sleep; the
reason why there will be always writers, even when cinemas and cheap
editions have made it not a paid, but an extravagant, profession.
So utterly absorbed was she, indeed, about six weeks after the fatal
day of publication, that the drawing-room door was open before she had
noticed any warning noise outside. Helena realised that it was far too
late by now to hide the sheets of manuscript and substitute a letter,
as she always did. Any attempt like that would only make detection
certain--and far worse.
To her relief it was not Hubert, only Mr. Alison, with Lily holding the
door open. She would not so much mind his knowing--he was so
encouraging--supposing that he noticed.
And this of course he promptly did.
"Hullo!" was in fact his very first remark. "Are you too among the
authors?" He waved his hand towards the little pile of manuscript that
should have been inside a drawer.
"Yes," she said, hoping that she was not blushing. "But not too loud
as it's an awful secret. Hubert doesn't know."
He tip-toed at it with exaggerated caution. "Oh-ho!" he whispered.
"Then I guess: it's all about him! It is a safety-valve."
This was a little joke: they were devoted, he knew, though he could
never understand what she saw in the great, conceited, selfish brute:
but Helena felt sure now that the blush was there.
"No," she was bound to answer, and when he asked, "Fiction?" in
surprise, it must be "Yes." And so it was, by now, she argued. A
safety-valve at first perhaps, because Hugh seemed to loathe her having
even the most usual ideas, but fiction certainly by now, for the ideas
of Virginia were not her own ideas; the silly, sloppy thing!
"I'm going to read it please," he said and began collecting the loose
pages (the book had long ago been cast aside).
"Certainly not," she answered, very dignified, and trying to forget
that they were the words of a comic song she had heard on the
gramophone.
"Oh, but yes," he answered.
"Give it to me," she said, turning now to melodrama for her
catch-phrase.
He held the prize by sitting on it. "Listen," he began, as staidly
argumentative as though he had been drunk: and then he paused. "If you
let me read it," he said presently, "I'll tell you what I think of it
and I bet it's original. If you don't let me read it, I shall
tell--your husband!"
"You wouldn't be such a cad," she answered. She never knew when he was
serious, because he often looked most funny then.
"I'm not so sure," he said. "Anyhow let me? I'll begin to-night."
"You won't do that," she retorted laughingly, "because the first bit's
in a volume, locked away upstairs."
He whistled. "What! An opus? Tut! Now don't be selfish. When you
first wanted to know about Art, I told you all I could, and now you're
doing things, I think it's only fair that I should be the first to see."
He looked so funny, leaning forward eagerly yet taking care to keep his
weight still on the manuscript, that she laughed heartily. He surely
wasn't serious now?
He looked extremely hurt. "Very well," he said, getting up. "If you
think it's so funny, that's all right. I suppose, now, you've done
with me: you've got all out of me you needed: so now you don't even
tell me that you're trying to create." He got up from the bureau with
much dignity and moved towards the door. One sheet of the manuscript
stuck to his clothes until he reached the centre-table. She was just
wondering what to do about this, when it fluttered downward. That
broke her inaction.
"Oh, no," she said, "don't be stuffy. I never meant it. I thought you
were being ironical about my 'art' and I can't ever see it. Please
don't be offended, Ally." In spite of her announced resolve she hardly
ever called him that, and now she said it with a slight burr, dwelling
on it till the name became a thing of beauty, almost a caress.
He wavered at the door; but he was shrewd in business by heredity.
"Well, will you let me read it?" he said firmly.
"Yes, if you really want to," she replied. "I'll fetch the other
half." Secretly she longed for an opinion, and she would never dare to
ask for Hubert's. "Promise not to look at this bit," she said, coy as
a young singer. "I couldn't bear you to see it till you are right
away."
He promised and she left him to his thoughts, which were of an
expectant nature. She was a girl that he had never really understood
(in actual practice he had very small experience of girls), and he knew
well enough that first books, even when all fiction, are half true. He
was amused inwardly at her simplicity in lending him the manuscript.
She came back with something like a baby scrap-book in her hand. "I
got bored with writing in this," she said. "It was so uncomfortable,
the edges cut my hand." Then, as though half repenting; "You must
promise not to look at it till you get home and never to tell Hubert."
"Is that likely?" he asked, referring to the last condition. It made
the business far more thrilling.
He had the common sense, however, to see that she was already doubtful
of her wisdom: so that as soon as volume and loose sheets were in his
hand, he changed the subject tactfully.
"Well," he asked, "and how is the new book going?"
"Oh, isn't it awful?" Helena replied. "I don't know if I ought to tell
you, but it's not sold at all: not, I mean, except those sold before
publication and I never understand quite how that happens."
"Then I expect it's good," said Geoffrey Alison a trifle cheaply.
Helena replied with emphasis, as though rebutting a grave charge.
"_No_, not at all. That's just it: it's much worse than his other
ones. He's in an awful way. I don't believe he's sold a thousand
copies!"
"My dear Mrs. Brett," he said (he always hated calling her that, but he
dared not embark on "Helena"), "comfort yourself with the idea that a
thousand copies is a very good sale for any decent novel. Each copy,
after all, is read by twenty people in these days of libraries, so that
means twenty thousand readers. Of course if Hubert wrote for
shop-girls, he might find a million: but do you think that any really
serious study of real life--the sort of book that simply gets at
character and doesn't fuss with plot: the real, artistic novel--is
going to find more than twenty thousand people in dull old England who
can understand it? And that's your thousand-copy sale! I don't mind
betting no really 'artistic' novel--it's a beastly word--ever sells
more than that."
His one idea in all this had been to console her, for he guessed a
little what it meant when Hubert Brett was "in an awful way"; but now
she seemed if anything more troubled. She sat in dazed silence,
looking like a small child who has seen something which it absolutely
cannot understand at all.
"But _Wandering Stars_," she said presently, "I've often heard, sold
quite five thousand."
"Oh yes, I dare say," came the unthinking answer. Had she forgotten
about her MS.?
"Well, wasn't that artistic?" There was a note of battle in her voice.
He saw now where he had drifted. "Oh yes," he began. "But not quite
in the way I meant. That was a good story, very, and was popular. I
meant, really, quite a different sort of book." He floundered in
excuses.
"What sort?" she asked pitilessly. "Better ones?"
"Oh no," he said, more and more embarrassed. "Not that exactly. You
can't say that. You can't compare different kinds in Art. You've got
to judge a man by his success in what he has attempted. A good
caricature is much better than a bad Madonna," and firmly upon Art with
the feeling of a mariner safe in port after a storm, he drew her mind
away--or so he thought, this man who knew so little about women--and
after a while, sooner than usual, made his excuses and departed.
Outside he got as near to saying "Whew!" as any live man ever has. He
had jolly nearly put his foot in it! He wouldn't for millions let that
little girl suspect that really artistic people--his own set--did not
think so much of Brett's work as Brett did himself. What a lumbering
idiot he had been! The fact was, he had thought she meant to get that
writing of hers back and he had wanted to distract her mind. In that,
anyhow, he had succeeded.
On the way back, he could not resist dipping into the book as he walked.
He skimmed a page and chuckled Fiction? He recognised himself already!