AN EDITING PENCIL
And now he swept all his own work out of the way and, sitting firmly
down once more upon his chair from the kitchen, spread out upon his
time-be desk, Miss Bibby's MS.
He had read it through no less than three times.
At the first reading he had laughed, indeed he had leaned back in his
chair and fairly yelled with laughing.
For he could so plainly recognize his own influence, and the incongruity
of it against the gentle, colourless background of the tale was in truth
amusing. A more ludicrous effect could hardly have been obtained, if
Miss Bibby herself, clad in the limp lavender muslin, had been
encountered lashing about with a stockwhip or hurling blue metal wildly
in all directions.
But then he sobered himself with an effort and read the tale again. And
this time a hopeless look settled upon his face. It would have been so
pleasant, so easy to praise warmly, point out a trifling error or two
and so have done with his self-imposed task.
But it was so plain, so very plain that the woman could not
write,--would never write. Her characters were paper dolls and lay on
the typed sheets as flat as paper dolls. No breath of air, of motion,
was in all the tale. No glint of humour, no suspicion of literary grace,
not one even faintly original observation made it possible for him to
hope there might be any promise of success before the woman. Stereotyped
characters talking stereotyped talk and working out a thin stereotyped
little plot, such was the hopeless material before him, while here and
there on the dull grey of it, like patches of amazing scarlet clumsily
stitched on, were cutting phrases and sardonic observations closely
imitated from _Liars All_.
He tossed the stuff aside impatiently after the second reading and shot
an indignant glance through the window at "Greenways." But "Greenways"
only showed dimly through a mist that was rolling through the garden, so
imagination had to call up the offending figure of the would-be
authoress. And call her up it did,--kindly tender imagination! It
flashed two glimpses of her before Hugh's eyes, one as she knelt on the
path and dragged at a child's obstinate shoe biting her lips while the
marauding ants ran up her own sleeves. And the other as she faced him,
white-cheeked against the ruddy waratahs, and told him she "preferred to
talk of the New Zealand Terraces."
He drew the poor MS towards him again and glanced through it once more
desperately.
Then he took off his coat as a signal of earnest determination and
filled his pen afresh and pulled a sheaf of paper towards him and
settled down to see what might be done.
Two hours later he was still battling with it. He told himself it was
his expiation. He had galvanized a few of the paper dolls into something
a little resembling life, had put a dash of humour here and there and in
some slight degree strengthened the plot. All this by putting in slips
between the pages or by writing in the margin. But it was still a sorry
story.
He stood up, yawned relievedly and went to the window. "Greenways" was
smiling in the sunshine now as if it had never had such a garden guest
as mist.
"My dear lady," he said--he had a habit of thinking aloud when he was
alone like this--"that is not a kind action I have done you, though you
will probably thank me profusely. You can't always be edited like this,
and even with all this assistance you won't have the least idea how the
thing is done. As the Snark said,
'The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain--
But yet much remains to be said.'
Anyway I've done my best to atone."
Kate came in with a telegram in her hand.
"And have you sixpence about you?" she said. "Of course it's not in
Larkin's day's work to deliver telegrams."
It was not--officially. But your telegram would lie on the little
counter of the post office for a whole day waiting for you to chance
in--unless Larkin looked to the matter. So he used to pop his red head
in at the post-office door, whenever he was near, just to ascertain if
there were a blue envelope lying there for one of his clients. And if
there were, that client was in possession of it in a few minutes.
"By George, K,--I've got to catch the one-thirty," said Hugh, and he
strode this way across his little room and then that way, and knocked a
chair over, and seized hold of his coat and began to struggle into it,
and still seemed no farther on his way.
"All right,--don't get excited, old fellow," said Kate, "I'll manage
it,--no, never mind that coat, you can't travel in it. Shall I pack your
bag for only one day or longer?" Hugh read the message again, but it did
not seem to help him with the amount of clothing he would need; indeed
it merely sent his thoughts off at a tangent.
"Never mind," Kate said briskly, "a few extra things won't be in the
way. Now see here, Hugh, go in and shave, I'll bring your hot water,
then dress, your brown suit and your new Panama--I wonder where your
travelling cap is? No need to get flurried, you can have twenty minutes
to dress and then take a comfortable half-hour for lunch. Larkin's here,
luckily; I can send him for a wagonette, so you won't have to waste time
walking to the station."
Hugh felt his chin.
"I suppose I must shave? I shouldn't meet any one by this train." He
looked at her anxiously for indulgence.
"Certainly you must," she said severely, and then he knew there was no
hope.
"Do you want any of this with you?" she added, nodding across to his
paper-strewn table, "or shall I put it all in a safe place till you come
back?"
"Oh, by Jove," he said,--"yes, there's that short story of mine, 'Fools
of Fortune'--I've promised that for the _Melbourne Review_, it ought to
have been posted last night. And then there's that woman's stuff--I
suppose there's no time for me to run across to Miss Bibby, eh, K?"
"Certainly there is not," said Kate decisively, "you don't stir from
here without a comfortable lunch."
"Well," said Hugh, "see here, K, I'll leave her stuff here on the desk
in this envelope, and you take it over to her and tell her I think if
she goes more on these lines the tale will be stronger."
"All right," said Kate, "and what about the other tale,--the one for the
_Melbourne Review_?"
Hugh hastily stuffed some more MS into an envelope, wrote a few lines to
accompany it, and scribbled an address.
"See it is posted at once," he said; "I've addressed it to Miss Brown,
and told her to type it and to post it on to the _Review_."
"I'm sure I could start again," said Kate, "let me do it as usual."
But a slight eye trouble she had suffered from lately had made Hugh lock
his sister's machine for the time.
"Don't waste time talking," he said, "just send it to the post as it
is."
"Oh, very well," said Kate, "Larkin can take it with him. Now go and
shave _instantly_ and, remember--your _brown_ suit."
All was managed so well that Hugh had nearly ten minutes to spare after
lunch in which to smoke and luxuriate in the knowledge that all was well
with him, his bag properly packed, his cap in his pocket, his flask
filled, and money for the journey in the pocket of the suit on his back
instead of in the one dangling in his wardrobe as had occurred before
this, when Kate had not been there.
He looked at her gratefully. She was as good-tempered as ever; not in
the least flustered or put out.
"Jove, K," he said, "I should be a fool to marry. For real solid
satisfaction give me a sister."
"Why?" said Kate amusedly. "Do you think your wife wouldn't pack your
bag for you?"
He considered Bee for a moment in a wifely, packing attitude, then Dora.
"Not all wives," he said a little vaguely. "At all events they'd pout
and worry to know why I was going and what the horrid telegram was
about, and when was I coming back, and where was I going to stay--and so
on till the train was lost. And look at you--not a word!"
"Oh, I should have asked you fast enough--when you came back," said
Kate, "and that is the same thing."
"No, faith, it's not, Kate; I'd have had leisure to invent my own
account by that time," said Hugh.
"Very well," said Kate, "next time I shall pout."
Hugh struck a match.
"I can tell you now, as there's time. I felt I wasn't making money fast
enough by books for our old age, K, and I've been speculating a bit.
It's helped to worry me and keep me from work lately. But the shares are
rising and I'm going down to be on the spot."
Then the wagonette drove up and he seized his bag and his hat, and Kate
ran after him to the gate with his pipe.
When Miss Bibby heard from the children that he had gone away, she
sighed deeply. And at night when the little ones were all asleep, and
Anna, her face smeared with Pauline's sunburn cream, her hair damp with
the preparation bought to improve Muffie's thin hair, and her teeth
ashine with the family tooth powder, was on her way to bed, and the mist
had crept up to the windows and wrapped everything in its eerie shroud,
Miss Bibby sighed again.