HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY
There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on
the next Saturday afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at
six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the
part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in
China. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie had charge of the department of
sandwiches, and they asked Henry whether he should be present at the
entertainment. They were not surprised, however, when he answered that
the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance
impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was
quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the
world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry wrote to
Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on
that Saturday night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed.
Then Henry changed his tailor, and could not help blushing when he gave
his order to the new man, who had a place in Conduit Street and a way of
looking at the clothes Henry wore that reduced those neat garments to
shapeless and shameful rags.
The first fatal steps in a double life having been irrevocably taken,
Henry drew a long breath, and once more seriously addressed himself to
book number two. But ideas obstinately refused to show themselves above
the horizon. And yet nothing had been left undone which ought to have
been done in order to persuade ideas to arrive. The whole domestic
existence of the house in Dawes Road revolved on Henry's precious brain
as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a
study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the
apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed
a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study
with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it nearly every night and
laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to
question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they
must ask him again in a month or so; and they smiled in sure
anticipation of the beautiful thing that was in store for them and the
public.
He had no one to consult in his dilemma. Every morning he received
several cuttings, chiefly of an amiable character, about himself from
the daily and weekly press; he was a figure in literary circles; he had
actually declined two invitations to be interviewed; and yet he knew no
more of literary circles than Sarah did. His position struck him as
curious, bizarre, and cruel. He sometimes felt that the history of the
last few months was a dream from which he would probably wake up by
falling heavily out of bed, so unreal did the events seem. One day, when
he was at his wits' end, he saw in a newspaper an advertisement of a
book entitled _How to become a Successful Novelist_, price half-a-crown.
Just above it was an advertisement of the thirty-eighth thousand of
_Love in Babylon_. He went into a large bookseller's shop in the Strand
and demanded _How to become a Successful Novelist_. The volume had to
be searched for, and while he was waiting Henry's eyes dwelt on a high
pile of _Love in Babylon_, conspicuously placed near the door. Two
further instalments of the Satin Library had been given to the world
since _Love in Babylon_, but Henry noted with satisfaction that no
excessive prominence was accorded to them in that emporium of
literature. He paid the half-crown and pocketed _How to become a
Successful Novelist_ with a blush, just as if the bookseller had been
his new tailor. He had determined, should the bookseller recognise
him--a not remote contingency--to explain that he was buying _How to
become a Successful Novelist_ on behalf of a young friend. However, the
suspicions of the bookseller happened not to be aroused, and hence there
was no occasion to lull them.
That same evening, in the privacy of his study, he eagerly read _How to
become a Successful Novelist_. It disappointed him; nay, it desolated
him. He was shocked to discover that he had done nothing that a man must
do who wishes to be a successful novelist. He had not practised style;
he had not paraphrased choice pages from the classics; he had not kept
note-books; he had not begun with short stories; he had not even
performed the elementary, obvious task of studying human nature. He had
never thought of 'atmosphere' as 'atmosphere'; nor had he considered the
important question of the 'functions of dialogue.' As for the
'significance of scenery,' it had never occurred to him. In brief, he
was a lost man. And he could detect in the book no practical hint
towards salvation. 'Having decided upon your theme----' said the writer
in a chapter entitled 'The Composition of a Novel.' But what Henry
desired was a chapter entitled 'The Finding of a Theme.' He suffered the
aggravated distress of a starving man who has picked up a cookery-book.
There was a knock at the study door, and Henry hastily pushed _How to
become a Successful Novelist_ under the blotting-paper, and assumed a
meditative air. Not for worlds would he have been caught reading it.
'A letter, dear, by the last post,' said Aunt Annie, entering; and then
discreetly departed.
The letter was from Mark Snyder, and it enclosed a cheque for a hundred
pounds, saying that Mr. Onions Winter, though under no obligation to
furnish a statement until the end of the year, had sent this cheque on
account out of courtesy to Mr. Knight, and in the hope that Mr. Knight
would find it agreeable; also in the hope that Mr. Knight was proceeding
satisfactorily with book number two. The letter was typewritten, and
signed 'Mark Snyder, per G. F.,' and the 'G. F.' was very large and
distinct.
Henry instantly settled in his own mind that he would attempt no more
with book number two until the famous dinner with 'G. F.' had come to
pass. He cherished a sort of hopeful feeling that after he had seen her,
and spent that about-to-be-wonderful evening with her, he might be able
to invent a theme. The next day he cashed the cheque. The day after that
was Saturday, and he came home at two o'clock with a large flat box,
which he surreptitiously conveyed to his bedroom. Small parcels had been
arriving for him during the week. At half-past four Mrs. Knight and Aunt
Annie, invading the study, found him reading _Chambers' Encyclopaedia_.
'We're going now, dear,' said Aunt Annie.
'Sarah will have your tea ready at half-past five,' said his mother.
'And I've told her to be sure and boil the eggs three and three-quarter
minutes.'
'And we shall be back about half-past nine,' said Aunt Annie.
'Don't stick at it too closely,' said his mother. 'You ought to take a
little exercise. It's a beautiful afternoon.'
'I shall see,' Henry answered gravely. 'I shall be all right.'
He watched the ladies down the road in the direction of the tea-meeting,
and no sooner were they out of sight than he nipped upstairs and locked
himself in his bedroom. At half-past five Sarah tapped at his door and
announced that tea was ready. He descended to tea in his overcoat, and
the collar of his overcoat was turned up and buttoned across his neck.
He poured out some tea, and drank it, and poured some more into the
slop-basin. He crumpled a piece or two of bread-and-butter and spread
crumbs on the cloth. He shelled the eggs very carefully, and, climbing
on to a chair, dropped the eggs themselves into a large blue jar which
stood on the top of the bookcase. After these singular feats he rang the
bell for Sarah.
'Sarah,' he said in a firm voice, 'I've had my tea, and I'm going out
for a long walk. Tell my mother and aunt that they are on no account to
wait up for me, if I am not back.'
'Yes, sir,' said Sarah timidly. 'Was the eggs hard enough, sir?'
'Yes, thank you.' His generous, kindly approval of the eggs cheered this
devotee.
Henry brushed his silk hat, put it on, and stole out of the house
feeling, as all livers of double lives must feel, a guilty thing. It was
six o'clock. The last domestic sound he heard was Sarah singing in the
kitchen. 'Innocent, simple creature!' he thought, and pitied her, and
turned down the collar of his overcoat.