I
I had done a few things and earned a few pence--I had perhaps even
had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the
patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety
habit, for it’s none of the longest yet) I count my real start from
the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a
service. He had done more things than I, and earned more pence, though
there were chances for cleverness I thought he sometimes missed. I could
only however that evening declare to him that he never missed one for
kindness. There was almost rapture in hearing it proposed to me to
prepare for _The Middle_, the organ of our lucubrations, so called
from the position in the week of its day of appearance, an article for
which he had made himself responsible and of which, tied up with a
stout string, he laid on my table the subject. I pounced upon my
opportunity--that is on the first volume of it--and paid scant attention
to my friend’s explanation of his appeal. What explanation could be more
to the point than my obvious fitness for the task? I had written on Hugh
Vereker, but never a word in _The Middle_, where my dealings were mainly
with the ladies and the minor poets. This was his new novel, an advance
copy, and whatever much or little it should do for his reputation I
was clear on the spot as to what it should do for mine. Moreover, if I
always read him as soon as I could get hold of him, I had a particular
reason for wishing to read him now: I had accepted an invitation to
Bridges for the following Sunday, and it had been mentioned in Lady
Jane’s note that Mr. Vereker was to be there. I was young enough to have
an emotion about meeting a man of his renown, and innocent enough to
believe the occasion would demand the display of an acquaintance with
his “last.”
Corvick, who had promised a review of it, had not even had time to
read it; he had gone to pieces in consequence of news requiring--as on
precipitate reflection he judged--that he should catch the night-mail to
Paris. He had had a telegram from Gwendolen Erme in answer to his letter
offering to fly to her aid. I knew already about Gwendolen Erme; I had
never seen her, but I had my ideas, which were mainly to the effect that
Corvick would marry her if her mother would only die. That lady seemed
now in a fair way to oblige him; after some dreadful mistake about some
climate or some waters, she had suddenly collapsed on the return from
abroad. Her daughter, unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a
rush for home but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our friend’s
assistance, and it was my secret belief that at the sight of him Mrs.
Erme would pull round. His own belief was scarcely to be called
secret; it discernibly at any rate differed from mine. He had showed me
Gwendolen’s photograph with the remark that she wasn’t pretty but was
awfully interesting; she had published at the age of nineteen a novel
in three volumes, “Deep Down,” about which, in _The Middle_, he had been
really splendid. He appreciated my present eagerness and undertook that
the periodical in question should do no less; then at the last, with
his hand on the door, he said to me: “Of course you’ll be all right,
you know.” Seeing I was a trifle vague he added: “I mean you won’t be
silly.”
“Silly--about Vereker! Why, what do I ever find him but awfully clever?”
“Well, what’s that but silly? What on earth does ‘awfully clever’
mean? For God’s sake try to get _at_ him. Don’t let him suffer by our
arrangement. Speak of him, you know, if you can, as should have spoken
of him.”
I wondered an instant. “You mean as far and away the biggest of the
lot--that sort of thing?”
Corvick almost groaned. “Oh, you know, I don’t put them back to back
that way; it’s the infancy of art! But he gives me a pleasure so rare;
the sense of “--he mused a little--“something or other.”