NORAH WINS HOME
_(Sidney Price’s narrative continued)_
My signed work had run out. For two weeks nothing had been printed over
my signature. So far no comment had been raised. But it was only a
question of days. But then one afternoon it all came right. It was like
this.
I was sitting eating my lunch at Eliza’s in Birchin Lane. Twenty
minutes was the official allowance for the meal, and I took my twenty
minutes at two o’clock. The _St. Stephen’s Gazette_ was lying near me.
I picked it up. Anything to distract my thoughts from the trouble to
come. That was how I felt. Reading mechanically the front page, I saw a
poem, and started violently. This was the poem:—
A CRY
Hands at the tiller to steer:
A star in the murky sky:
Water and waste of mere:
Whither and why?
Sting of absorbent night:
Journey of weal or woe:
And overhead the light:
We go—we go?
Darkness a mortal’s part,
Mortals of whom we are:
Come to a mortal’s heart,
Immortal star.
_Thos. Blake._
_June 6th._
“Rummy, very rummy,” I exclaimed. The poem was dated yesterday. Had Mr.
Cloyster, then, continued to work his system with Thomas Blake to the
exclusion of the Reverend and myself?
Still worrying over the thing, I turned over the pages of the paper
until I chanced to see the following paragraph:
LITERARY GOSSIP
Few will be surprised to learn that the Rev. John Hatton intends to
publish another novel in the immediate future. Mr. Hatton’s first book,
_When It Was Lurid_, created little less than a furore. The work on
which he is now engaged, which will bear the title of _The Browns of
Brixton_, is a tender sketch of English domesticity. This new vein of
Mr. Hatton’s will, doubtless, be distinguished by the naturalness of
dialogue and sanity of characterisation of his first novel. Messrs.
Prodder and Way are to publish it in the autumn.
“He’s running the Reverend again, is he?” said I to myself. “And I’m
the only one left out. It’s a bit thick.”
That night I wrote to Blake and to the Reverend asking whether they had
been taken on afresh, and if so, couldn’t I get a look in, as things
were pretty serious.
The Reverend’s reply arrived first:
THE TEMPLE,
_June 7th._
_Dear Price_,—
As you have seen, I am hard at work at my new novel. The leisure of a
novelist is so scanty that I know you’ll forgive my writing only a
line. I am in no way associated with James Orlebar Cloyster, nor do I
wish to be. Rather I would forget his very existence.
You are aware of the interests which I have at heart: social reform,
the education of the submerged, the physical needs of the young—there
is no necessity for me to enumerate my ideals further. To get quick
returns from philanthropy, to put remedial organisation into speedy
working order wants capital. Cloyster’s system was one way of obtaining
some of it, but when that failed I had to look out for another. I’m
glad I helped in the system, for it made me realise how large an income
a novelist can obtain. I’m glad it failed because its failure suggested
that I should try to get for myself those vast sums which I had been
getting for the selfish purse of an already wealthy man. Unconsciously,
he has played into my hands. I read his books before I signed them, and
I find that I have thoroughly absorbed those tricks of his, of style
and construction, which opened the public’s coffers to him. _The Browns
of Brixton_ will eclipse anything that Cloyster has previously done,
for this reason, that it will out-Cloyster Cloyster. It is Cloyster
with improvements.
In thus abducting his novel-reading public I shall feel no compunction.
His serious verse and his society dialogues bring him in so much that
he cannot be in danger of financial embarrassment.
_Yours sincerely, John Hatton_.
Now this letter set my brain buzzing like the engine of a stationary
Vanguard. I, too, had been in the habit of reading Mr. Cloyster’s
dialogues before I signed and sent them off. I had often thought to
myself, also, that they couldn’t take much writing, that it was all a
knack; and the more I read of them the more transparent the knack
appeared to me to be. Just for a lark, I sat down that very evening and
had a go at one. Taking the Park for my scene, I made two or three
theatrical celebrities whose names I had seen in the newspapers talk
about a horse race. At least, one talked about a horse race, and the
others thought she was gassing about a new musical comedy, the name of
the play being the same as the name of the horse, “The Oriental Belle.”
A very amusing muddle, with lots of _doubles entendres_, and heaps of
adverbial explanation in small print. Such as:
Miss Adeline Genie
(with the faint, incipient blush which
Mrs. Adair uses to test her Rouge Imperial).
That sort of thing.
I had it typed, and I said, “Price, my boy, there’s more Mr. Cloyster
in this than ever Mr. Cloyster could have put into it.” And the editor
of the _Strawberry Leaf_ printed it next issue as a matter of course. I
say, “as a matter of course” with intention, because the fellows at the
“Moon” took it as a matter of course, too. You see, when it first
appeared, I left the copy about the desk in the New Business Room,
hoping Tommy Milner or some of them would rush up and congratulate me.
But they didn’t. They simply said, “Don’t litter the place up, old man.
Keep your papers, if you _must_ bring ’em here, in your locker
downstairs.” One of them _did_ say, I fancy, something about its “not
being quite up to my usual.” They didn’t know it was my maiden effort
at original composition, and I couldn’t tell them. It was galling,
you’ll admit.
However, I quickly forgot my own troubles in wondering what Mr.
Cloyster was doing. No editor, I foresaw, would accept his society
stuff as long as mine was in the market. They wouldn’t pay for Cloyster
whilst they were offered the refusal of super-Cloyster. Wasn’t likely.
You must understand I wasn’t over-easy in my conscience about the
affair. I had, in a manner of speaking, pinched Mr. Cloyster’s job. But
then, I argued to myself, he was earning quite as much as was good for
any one man by his serious verse.
And at that very minute our slavey, little Ethelbertina, knocked at my
bedroom door and gave me a postcard. It was addressed to me in thick,
straggly writing, and was so covered with thumb-marks that a Bertillon
expert would have gone straight off his nut at the sight of it. “My
usbend,” began the postcard, “as received yourn. E as no truk wif the
other man E is a pots imself an e can do a job of potry as orfen as e
’as a mine to your obegent servent Ada Blake. P.S. me an is ole ant do
is writin up for im.”
So then I saw how that “Cry” thing in the _St. Stephen’s_ had come
there.
You heard me give my opinion about telling Norah my past life. Well,
you’ll agree with me now that there’s practically nothing to tell her.
There _is_, of course, little Miss Richards, the waitress in the
smoking-room of the Piccadilly Cabin. Her, I mean, with the fuzzy
golden hair done low. You’ve often exchanged “Good evening” with her,
I’m sure. Her hair’s done low: she used to make rather a point of
telling me that. Why, I don’t know, especially as it was always tidy
and well off her shoulders.
And then there was the haughty lady who sold programmes in the
Haymarket Amphitheatre—but she’s got the sack, so Cookson informs me.
Therefore, as I shall tell Norah plainly that I disapprove of the
Cabin, the past can hatch no egg of discord in the shape of the
Cast-Off Glove.
The only thing that I can think of as needing suppression is the part I
played in Mr. Cloyster’s system.
There’s no doubt that the Reverend, Blake and I have, between us, put a
fairly considerable spoke in Mr. Cloyster’s literary wheel. But what am
I to do? To begin with, it’s no use my telling Norah about the affair,
because it would do her no good, and might tend possibly to lessen her
valuation of my capabilities. At present, my dialogues dazzle her; and
once your _fiancée_ is dazzled the basis of matrimonial happiness is
assured. Again, looking at it from Mr. Cloyster’s point of view, what
good would it be to him if I were to stop writing? Both the editor and
the public have realised by now that his work is only second-rate. He
can never hope to get a tenth of his original prices, even if his work
is accepted, which it won’t be; for directly I leave his market clear,
someone else will collar it slap off.
Besides, I’ve no right to stop my dialogues. My duty to Norah is
greater than my duty to Mr. Cloyster. Unless I continue to be paid by
literature I shall not be able to marry Norah until three years next
quarter. The “Moon” has passed a rule about it, and an official who
marries on an income not larger than eighty pounds per annum is liable
to dismissal without notice.
Norah’s mother wouldn’t let her wait three years, and though fellows
have been known to have had a couple of kids at the time of their
official marriage, I personally couldn’t stand the wear and tear of
that hole-and-corner business. It couldn’t be done.
_(End of Sidney Price’s narrative_.)
Julian Eversleigh’s Narrative