An inconstant, unrefreshing breeze, sluggish with accumulated impurity,
stirred the curtains, and every urban sound--high-pitched voices of
children playing, roll of wheels and rhythmic trot of horses, shouts
of newsboys and querulous barking of dogs--came through the open
windows touched with a certain languorous quality that suggested a
city fatigued, a city yearning for the moist recesses of woods, the
disinfectant breath of mountain tops, and the cleansing sea.
On the little table between the windows lay pen, ink, and paper.
Richard sat down to be an author. Since his conversation with Mr.
Aked of the day before he had lived in the full glow of an impulse
to write. He discerned, or thought he discerned, in the fact that he
possessed the literary gift, a key to his recent life. It explained,
to be particular, the passion for reading which had overtaken him at
seventeen, and his desire to come to London, the natural home of the
author. Certainly it was strange that hitherto he had devoted very
little serious thought to the subject of writing, but happily there
were in existence sundry stray verses and prose fragments written at
Bursley, and it contented him to recognise in these the first tremulous
stirrings of a late-born ambition.
During the previous evening he had busied himself in deciding upon a
topic. In a morning paper he had read an article entitled "An Island of
Sleep," descriptive of Sark; it occurred to him that a similar essay
upon Lichfield, the comatose cathedral city which lay about thirty
miles from Bursley, might suit a monthly magazine. He knew Lichfield
well; he had been accustomed to visit it from childhood; he loved it.
As a theme full of picturesque opportunities it had quickened his
imagination, until his brain seemed to surge with vague but beautiful
fancies. In the night his sleep had been broken, and several new ideas
had suggested themselves. And now, after a day of excited anticipation,
the moment for composition had arrived.
As he dipped his pen in the ink a sudden apprehension of failure
surprised him. He dismissed it, and wrote in a bold hand, rather
carefully,--
MEMORIES OF A CITY OF SLEEP.
That was surely an excellent title. He proceeded:--
_On the old stone bridge, beneath which the clear, smooth waters of
the river have crept at the same pace for centuries, stands a little
child, alone. It is early morning, and the clock of the time-stained
cathedral which lifts its noble gothic towers scarce a hundred yards
away, strikes five, to the accompaniment of an unseen lark overhead._
He sat back to excogitate the next sentence, staring around the room
as if he expected to find the words written on the wall. One of the
gilt-framed photographs was slightly askew; he left his chair to put
it straight; several other pictures seemed to need adjustment, and
he levelled them all with scrupulous precision. The ornaments on the
mantelpiece were not evenly balanced; these he rearranged entirely.
Then, having first smoothed out a crease in the bedcover, he sat down
again.
But most of the beautiful ideas which he had persuaded himself
were firmly within his grasp, now eluded him, or tardily presented
themselves in a form so obscure as to be valueless, and the useful few
that remained defied all attempts to bring them into order. Dashed by
his own impotence, he sought out the article on Sark, and examined it
afresh. Certain weekly organs of literature had educated him to sneer
at the journalism of the daily press, but it appeared that the man who
wrote "An Island of Sleep" was at least capable of expressing himself
with clearness and fluency, and possessed the skill to pass naturally
from one aspect of his subject to another. It seemed simple enough....
He went to the window.
The sky was a delicate amber, and Richard watched it change to rose,
and from rose to light blue. The gas-lamps glared out in quick
succession; some one lowered the blind of a window opposite his own,
and presently a woman's profile was silhouetted against it for a
moment, and then vanished. A melody came from the public house, sung
in a raucous baritone to the thrumming of a guitar; the cries of the
playing children had now ceased.
Suddenly turning into the room, he was astonished to find it almost in
darkness; he could distinguish only the whiteness of the papers on the
table.
He was not in the mood for writing to-night. Some men wrote best in
the evening, others in the morning. Probably he belonged to the latter
class. Be that as it might, he would rise at six the next morning and
make a new beginning. "It's only a question of practice, of course," he
said, half aloud, repressing a troublesome dubiety. He would take a
short walk, and go early to bed. Gradually his self-confidence returned.
As he closed the front door there was a rustle of silks and a transient
odour of violets; a woman had gone by. She turned slightly at the sound
of the door, and Richard had a glimpse of a young and pretty face
under a spreading hat, a full, ripe bust whose alluring contours were
perfectly disclosed by a tight-fitting bodice, and two small white
hands, in one a dangling pair of gloves, in the other an umbrella. He
passed her, and waited at the corner by Tattersall's till she overtook
him again. Now she stood on the kerb within six feet of him, humming an
air and smiling to herself. Up went the umbrella to signal for a hansom.
"The Ottoman," Richard heard her say across the roof of the cab, the
driver leaning forward with his hand to his ear. What a child's voice
it seemed, lisping and artless!
The cabman winked at Richard, and gently flicked his horse. In a moment
the hansom was two dwindling specks of red in a shifting multitude of
lights.
An hour later he saw her in the promenade of the theatre; she stood
against a pillar, her eyes on the entrance. As their glances met,
she threw her head a little backwards, like one who looks through
spectacles on the end of his nose, and showed her teeth. He sat down
near her.
Presently she waved her hand to a man who was coming in. He seemed
about thirty, with small, clear eyes, bronzed cheeks, a heavy jaw, and
a closely trimmed brown moustache. He was fashionably garbed, though
not in evening dress, and he greeted her without raising his hat.
"Shall we have a drink?" she suggested. "I'm so thirsty."
"Fizz?" the man drawled. She nodded.
Soon they went out together, the man carelessly stuffing change for a
five-pound note into his pocket.
"What's the difference between him and me?" Richard reflected as he
walked home. "But just wait a bit; wait till I've...."
When he reached his lodging the meanness of the room, of his clothes,
of his supper, nauseated him. He dreamed that he was kissing the
Ottoman girl, and that she lisped, "Nice boy," whereupon he cast a
handful of sovereigns on her lap.
At six o'clock the next morning he was working at his article. In
two days it was finished, and he had despatched it to a monthly
magazine, "together with a stamped directed envelope for its return if
unsuitable," in accordance with the editorial instructions printed
below the table of contents in every number. The editor of the
"Trifler" promised that all manuscripts so submitted, and written on
one side of the paper only, should be dealt with promptly.
He had been expecting to discuss his work with Mr. Aked at the
proposed dinner, but this had not taken place. On the morning after
the arrangement had been made, Mr. Aked fell ill, and in a few days he
wrote to resign his post, saying that he had sufficient to live on, and
felt "too venerable for regular work."
Richard held but the frailest hope that "A City of Sleep" would be
accepted, but when the third morning arrived, and the postman brought
nothing, his opinion of the article began to rise. Perhaps it had
merit, after all; he recalled certain parts of it which were distinctly
clever and striking. Hurrying home from the office that afternoon, he
met the landlady's daughter on the stairs, and said casually,--
"Any letters for me, Lily?"
"No, sir." The girl had an attractive blush.
"I'll take a couple of eggs for tea, if Mrs. Rowbotham has them."
He remained at home in the evening, waiting for the last delivery,
which occurred about 9:30. The double knocks of the postman were
audible ten or twelve houses away. At last Richard heard him mounting
the steps of No. 74, and then his curt rat-tat shook the house. A
little thud on the bare wooden floor of the hall seemed to indicate a
heavier package than the ordinary letter.
As, when a man is drowning, the bad actions of a whole lifetime present
themselves to him in one awful flash, so at that moment all the faults,
the hopeless crudities, of "A City of Sleep" confronted Richard. He
wondered at his own fatuity in imagining for a single instant that the
article had the barest chance of acceptance. Was it not notorious that
famous authors had written industriously for years without selling a
line!
Lily came in with the supper-tray. She was smiling.
"Warm work, eh, Lily?" he said, scarcely knowing that he spoke.
"Yes, sir, it's that hot in the kitchen you wouldn't believe." Setting
down the tray, she handed him a foolscap envelope, and he saw his own
handwriting as if in a dream.
"For me?" he murmured carelessly, and placed the letter on the
mantelpiece. Lily took his orders for breakfast, and with a pleasant,
timid "Good-night, sir," left the room.
He opened the envelope. In the fold of his manuscript was a sheet
of the best cream-laid note-paper bearing these words in flowing
copperplate: "The Editor presents his compliments to Mr. Larch
[written] and regrets to be unable to use the enclosed article, for the
offer of which he is much obliged."
The sight of this circular, with the offices of the magazine
illustrated at the top, and the notification in the left-hand corner
that all letters must be addressed to the editor and not to any member
of the staff individually, in some mysterious way mitigated Richard's
disappointment. Perhaps the comfort of it lay in the tangible assurance
it afforded that he was now actually _a literary aspirant_ and had
communications, however mortifying, with _the press_.
He read the circular again and again during supper, and determined to
re-write the article. But this resolve was not carried out. He could
not bring himself even to glance through it, and finally it was sent to
another magazine exactly as it stood.
Richard had determined to say nothing in the office about his writing
until he could produce a printed article with his name at the foot;
and frequently during the last few days his mouth had watered as he
anticipated the sweetness of that triumph. But next day he could not
refrain from showing to Jenkins the note from the "Trifler." Jenkins
seemed impressed, especially when Richard requested him to treat the
matter as confidential. A sort of friendship arose between them, and
strengthened as time went on. Richard sometimes wondered how precisely
it had come about, and why it continued.