ACROSS THE RUBICON
But Larkin came along, Larkin, his auriferous hair glinting in the sun,
Larkin, with his empty grocery basket swung on his rein arm, and a sheaf
of papers under the other.
Larkin came along. And the whole course of Miss Bibby's life was thereby
changed.
"Good-morning, ma'am," said the boy; "anything I can fetch yer down fer
tea?"
"No, thank you," said Miss Bibby.
"I'll post yer letters for you," continued the youth; "I'm going
straight back."
Miss Bibby reflected a moment.
It would certainly save her some time if he did so, and she had nothing
now to do until tea--yes, it would give her a chance to read Thomas's
letter once more, and consider things quietly.
"It's a bit 'ot, walking," Larkin said encouragingly. She handed him the
letters.
"Put them in your pocket," she said, "and be sure to post them very
carefully."
"I posts a good few 'ereabouts, and no complaints," smiled Larkin. "So
nothing's wanted?" There was a note of sadness in the last question.
"Well, perhaps I could do with a tin of sponge fingers," said Miss Bibby
softening.
"Thank you, Miss Bibby, ma--am, twopence," said Larkin, digging his heel
into his horse and flying off. Twopence represented his commission; of
course, without knowing it, he was falling into the habit of calculating
it aloud.
Miss Bibby walked slowly back along the path, and with one slender white
hand drew out again from her sleeve the agitating letter from Thomas.
Again she read it steadily. Again she walked back to the gate, thinking
deeply.
Actually at the gate she lifted her eyes and looked, with a quivering
sigh at "Tenby," blinking shadeless in the afternoon sun.
The thing was impossible, of course. Not for anything in the world could
she march up to that dread door and calmly propose to interview its
almost sacred tenant.
Yet what a chance it was--in very truth the chance of all her lifetime!
To have a story in print and paid for, she had craved this during all
the long years that separate fourteen from thirty-six.
Again she walked towards the house, again back, this time along a
higher path, to look yet again across the front hedge to the fateful
cottage opposite.
And this time the higher position disclosed a view of the cottage not
obtainable from the big gate. And this view included a little side
verandah. And the little side verandah included Miss Kinross, her ample
proportions disposed upon a small rocking-chair,--Miss Kinross amiably
engaged in eating bananas, and reading a penny woman's paper in the hope
of finding therein some new dish with which to tempt Hugh's appetite.
How very ordinary she looked, how very good-natured and stout!
Sudden and brilliant ideas came more seldom to Miss Bibby than to the
children she was "care-taking." But undoubtedly one seized her now. The
author himself was plainly either out, pacing a mountain top as he
worked out his ideas, or else shut up securely in his study.
What if one threw oneself on the mercy of the stout, kindly-faced lady
over there and implored her aid in the delicate task!
Miss Bibby did what she had probably never done since she was
twenty--acted upon a sudden impulse instead of weighing and considering
her action for days and weeks. She found herself moving across the road,
lifting the latch of "Tenby's" gate, walking, not to the front door and
ringing the bell in a respectable fashion, but forcing her trembling
knees to carry her directly round to the side verandah.
Miss Kinross looked annoyed; few of us like to be caught by a stranger
when we are tilted well back in a rocking-chair eating bananas in our
fingers instead of upon a fruit plate and with orthodox knife and fork.
"Oh," said Miss Bibby, "pray don't be vexed; pray forgive me, it must
seem unpardonably rude, but I--I----" She put her hand to her throat a
moment, too agitated to continue.
Miss Kinross laid down her banana skin and rose to her feet, rapidly
disarmed.
"It is Miss Bibby, is it not?" she said, holding her hand out with her
most pleasant smile. "My brother told me your name; now where will you
sit, do you like a low chair? try this one. It is kind of you to look us
up so early."
Miss Bibby sat down still struggling with her agitation.
"I," she said--"I--not a visit--should not presume--an author's time--I
came simply to ask a favour of you--so great a favour I--simply feel now
I am actually here that it is impossible to ask it."
"Well, you must think better of that feeling, for I really love any one
to ask me a favour. I believe all stout people are the same, a little
weakness of the flesh, you know"; and Miss Kinross gave her visitor a
smile so winning, so encouraging, that Miss Bibby's heart began to beat
in its normal fashion again.
"But first," continued Miss Kinross, "we will have some tea. Now don't
say you have had yours, if there is one thing I dislike it is drinking
my afternoon tea in solitary state."
No, Miss Bibby had not had tea; Thomas's letter and the Serenade
together had put even her severe afternoon drink of plain cold water out
of her head.
But when Miss Kinross made a favour of it like that, how could she
refuse to receive a cup when the maid carried out the tray?
"Yes," she said to the query about sugar, and "Yes" to milk. And "Yes,
fairly strong," when asked how she liked it. No one would have dreamed
it was more than six years since her last cup.
Possibly it was the unaccustomed stimulant that loosened her tongue;
possibly it was the warm womanly sympathy that shone in her hostess's
brown eyes--eyes that had made more than one person declare that Kate
Kinross was absolutely beautiful, despite her avoirdupois. At any rate,
Miss Bibby found herself pouring out all the story of her thwarted life,
all the long tragedy of the seven declined novels in the trunk across
the road.
Miss Kinross gave eager sympathy. That was nothing, nothing; many
authors now famous had been declined again and again.
"Seven times?" asked Miss Bibby, with gentle mournfulness.
"Certainly," said Miss Kinross stoutly. "Why, look at Hugh, it is his
favourite boast that there isn't a publisher in England who has not
refused him at one time or another; nor one who wouldn't be glad to
accept him to-day."
"Mr. Kinross--refused!" echoed Miss Bibby. Her world seemed in need of
reconstruction for a minute. Then a strange warmth and comfort gathered
about her poor heart. This made the author less terribly aloof, less
altogether impossible to question if she should have the happiness of
obtaining an interview.
She put her request at last very timidly to her new friend.
"Do you think he would give me an interview--just a very, very short
one?"
But now Kate Kinross was perturbed.
"My dear girl," she said (all women she liked were "dear girls" to
Kate), "I simply dare not ask him. He has stood out against it so
persistently all these five years. He simply hates publicity; he says
all he asks is to do his work, to do it as he likes, and to go his own
way as unmolested and as privately as a bricklayer does."
"But just a very, very short one," pleaded Miss Bibby. She went on to
tell Kate about Thomas's letter, the editor's offer, this chance of a
lifetime for herself.
Kate almost groaned.
"Five years have I kept them off him," she said, "five whole years, and
not one interviewer have I even allowed to get across the doorway! And
you would have me plot against his peace like this!"
Miss Bibby urged no more, just sat still and swallowed heroically once
or twice, and then said smilingly that it "didn't matter at all."
But Kate's keen eyes were on her all the time. Something about this
slender woman with the grey, half-startled eyes, and the soft mouth that
quivered so easily, and the soft, thin cheek where the pink pulsed to
and fro as rapidly as in a young girl's, touched her curiously.
She stood up at last and put a hand on her visitor's shoulder in a
hearty, encouraging way.
"My dear girl," she said, "come along, you shall have your chance. He
had his, I'll remind him of that. He will probably never forgive me, but
I will risk that. Come along."
"But not now--you don't mean now?" gasped Miss Bibby, shrinking back in
actual alarm, for her hostess seemed seeking to pilot her into the
house. It would certainly take a week or two to persuade the author, she
counted, and she herself would consequently have that length of time in
which to screw up her courage.
"Certainly now," said Miss Kinross, "this minute. Why not? He's only in
that room across the hall."
"Oh, oh," gasped Miss Bibby, "I--I must have time--I--I daren't--Oh,
Oh--don't knock at the door--for Heaven's sake."
Kate laughed and drew back one moment.
"My dear girl," she said, "he's not in the least brutal, as he seems
from his books. You couldn't meet with a more harmless man if you hunted
for a year. Don't you be alarmed--why, you silly girl, you are actually
trembling! He is nearly as stout as I am, and much more good-natured,
and you're not afraid of me. Now, come along."
She opened a door without knocking and put in her head.
"Hugh," she said, in as bland a tone as she could call up, "I have
brought a lady to interview you for the _Evening Mail_. I have assured
her you will not object. Well, I shall see you again in half an hour,
Miss Bibby."
And Miss Bibby felt herself pushed gently into the study of Hugh
Kinross, and all retreat cut off behind her by the silent closing of the
door.