“To duty firm, to conscience true,
However tried and pressed,
In God’s clear sight high work we do,
If we but do out best.”
Lawrence came down to the funeral, and I took good care that he should
hear all about his father’s last hours, and I made the solicitor show
him the unsigned will. He made hardly any comment on it till we three
were alone together. Then with a sort of kindly patronage he turned to
his brother--Derrick, it must be remembered, was the elder twin--and
said pityingly, “Poor old fellow! it was rather rough on you that the
governor couldn’t sign this; but never mind, you’ll soon, no doubt, be
earning a fortune by your books; and besides, what does a bachelor want
with more than you’ve already inherited from our mother? Whereas, an
officer just going to be married, and with this confounded reputation of
hero to keep up, why, I can tell you it needs every penny of it!”
Derrick looked at his brother searchingly. I honestly believe that he
didn’t very much care about the money, but it cut him to the heart that
Lawrence should treat him so shabbily. The soul of generosity himself,
he could not understand how anyone could frame a speech so infernally
mean.
“Of course,” I broke in, “if Derrick liked to go to law he could no
doubt get his rights, there are three witnesses who can prove what was
the Major’s real wish.”
“I shall not go to law,” said Derrick, with a dignity of which I had
hardly imagined him capable. “You spoke of your marriage, Lawrence; is
it to be soon?”
“This autumn, I hope,” said Lawrence; “at least, if I can overcome Sir
Richard’s ridiculous notion that a girl ought not to marry till she’s
twenty-one. He’s a most crotchety old fellow, that future father-in-law
of mine.”
When Lawrence had first come back from the war I had thought him
wonderfully improved, but a long course of spoiling and flattery had
done him a world of harm. He liked very much to be lionised, and to see
him now posing in drawing-rooms, surrounded by a worshipping throng of
women, was enough to sicken any sensible being.
As for Derrick, though he could not be expected to feel his bereavement
in the ordinary way, yet his father’s death had been a great shock to
him. It was arranged that after settling various matters in Bath
he should go down to stay with his sister for a time, joining me in
Montague Street later on. While he was away in Birmingham, however, an
extraordinary change came into my humdrum life, and when he rejoined me
a few weeks later, I--selfish brute--was so overwhelmed with the trouble
that had befallen me that I thought very little indeed of his affairs.
He took this quite as a matter of course, and what I should have done
without him I can’t conceive. However, this story concerns him and has
nothing to do with my extraordinary dilemma; I merely mention it as a
fact which brought additional cares into his life. All the time he was
doing what could be done to help me he was also going through a most
baffling and miserable time among the publishers; for ‘At Strife,’
unlike its predecessor, was rejected by Davison and by five other
houses. Think of this, you comfortable readers, as you lie back in your
easy chairs and leisurely turn the pages of that popular story. The book
which represented years of study and long hours of hard work was first
burnt to a cinder. It was re-written with what infinite pains and toil
few can understand. It was then six times tied up and carried with
anxiety and hope to a publisher’s office, only to re-appear six times in
Montague Street, an unwelcome visitor, bringing with it depression and
disappointment.
Derrick said little, but suffered much. However, nothing daunted him.
When it came back from the sixth publisher he took it to a seventh, then
returned and wrote away like a Trojan at his third book. The one thing
that never failed him was that curious consciousness that he HAD to
write; like the prophets of old, the ‘burden’ came to him, and speak it
he must.
The seventh publisher wrote a somewhat dubious letter: the book, he
thought, had great merit, but unluckily people were prejudiced, and
historical novels rarely met with success. However, he was willing to
take the story, and offered half profits, candidly admitting that he
had no great hopes of a large sale. Derrick instantly closed with this
offer, proofs came in, the book appeared, was well received like its
predecessor, fell into the hands of one of the leaders of Society, and,
to the intense surprise of the publisher, proved to be the novel of
the year. Speedily a second edition was called for; then, after a brief
interval, a third edition--this time a rational one-volume affair; and
the whole lot--6,000 I believe--went off on the day of publication.
Derrick was amazed; but he enjoyed his success very heartily, and I
think no one could say that he had leapt into fame at a bound.
Having devoured ‘At Strife,’ people began to discover the merits of
‘Lynwood’s Heritage;’ the libraries were besieged for it, and a cheap
edition was hastily published, and another and another, till the book,
which at first had been such a dead failure, rivalled ‘At Strife.’ Truly
an author’s career is a curious thing; and precisely why the first book
failed, and the second succeeded, no one could explain.
It amused me very much to see Derrick turned into a lion--he was so
essentially un-lion-like. People were for ever asking him how he
worked, and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon him once at a
dinner-party with the embarrassing request:
“Now, do tell me, Mr. Vaughan, how do you write stories? I wish you
would give me a good receipt for a novel.”
Derrick hesitated uneasily for a minute; finally, with a humorous smile,
he said:
“Well, I can’t exactly tell you, because, more or less, novels grow;
but if you want a receipt, you might perhaps try after this
fashion:--Conceive your hero, add a sprinkling of friends and relatives,
flavour with whatever scenery or local colour you please, carefully
consider what circumstances are most likely to develop your man into the
best he is capable of, allow the whole to simmer in your brain as long
as you can, and then serve, while hot, with ink upon white or blue
foolscap, according to taste.”
The young lady applauded the receipt, but she sighed a little, and
probably relinquished all hope of concocting a novel herself; on the
whole, it seemed to involve incessant taking of trouble.
About this time I remember, too, another little scene, which I enjoyed
amazingly. I laugh now when I think of it. I happened to be at a huge
evening crush, and rather to my surprise, came across Lawrence Vaughan.
We were talking together, when up came Connington of the Foreign Office.
“I say, Vaughan,” he said, “Lord Remington wishes to be introduced
to you.” I watched the old statesman a little curiously as he greeted
Lawrence, and listened to his first words: “Very glad to make your
acquaintance, Captain Vaughan; I understand that the author of that
grand novel, ‘At Strife,’ is a brother of yours.” And poor Lawrence
spent a mauvais quart d’heure, inwardly fuming, I know, at the idea that
he, the hero of Saspataras Hill, should be considered merely as ‘the
brother of Vaughan, the novelist.’
Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his own pernicious actions,
did not deal kindly just now with Lawrence. Somehow Freda learnt about
that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content meekly to adore
her fiance and deem him faultless, she ‘up and spake’ on the subject,
and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had another mauvais quart d’heure.
It was not this, however, which led to a final breach between them; it
was something which Sir Richard discovered with regard to Lawrence’s
life at Dover. The engagement was instantly broken off, and Freda, I am
sure, felt nothing but relief. She went abroad for some time, however,
and we did not see her till long after Lawrence had been comfortably
married to 1,500 pounds a year and a middle-aged widow, who had long
been a hero-worshipper, and who, I am told, never allowed any visitor to
leave the house without making some allusion to the memorable battle of
Saspataras Hill and her Lawrence’s gallant action.
For the two years following after the Major’s death, Derrick and I, as I
mentioned before, shared the rooms in Montague Street. For me, owing to
the trouble I spoke of, they were years of maddening suspense and
pain; but what pleasure I did manage to enjoy came entirely through the
success of my friend’s books and from his companionship. It was odd that
from the care of his father he should immediately pass on to the care of
one who had made such a disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the
less compunction at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called
for at that time, because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a
necessity for Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not
immediately thrust themselves into his life he carefully hunts them
up. During these two years he was reading for the Bar--not that he ever
expected to do very much as a barrister, but he thought it well to have
something to fall back on, and declared that the drudgery of the reading
would do him good. He was also writing as usual, and he used to spend
two evenings a week at Whitechapel, where he taught one of the classes
in connection with Toynbee Hall, and where he gained that knowledge
of East-end life which is conspicuous in his third book--‘Dick Carew.’
This, with an ever increasing and often very burdensome correspondence,
brought to him by his books, and with a fair share of dinners, ‘At
Homes,’ and so forth, made his life a full one. In a quiet sort of way I
believe he was happy during this time. But later on, when, my trouble
at an end, I had migrated to a house of my own, and he was left alone in
the Montague Street rooms, his spirits somehow flagged.
Fame is, after all, a hollow, unsatisfying thing to a man of his nature.
He heartily enjoyed his success, he delighted in hearing that his books
had given pleasure or had been of use to anyone, but no public victory
could in the least make up to him for the loss he had suffered in his
private life; indeed, I almost think there were times when his triumphs
as an author seemed to him utterly worthless--days of depression when
the congratulations of his friends were nothing but a mockery. He had
gained a striking success, it is true, but he had lost Freda; he was in
the position of the starving man who has received a gift of bon-bons,
but so craves for bread that they half sicken him. I used now and
then to watch his face when, as often happened, someone said: “What
an enviable fellow you are, Vaughan, to get on like this!” or, “What
wouldn’t I give to change places with you!” He would invariably smile
and turn the conversation; but there was a look in his eyes at such
times that I hated to see--it always made me think of Mrs. Browning’s
poem, ‘The Mask’:
“Behind no prison-grate, she said,
Which slurs the sunshine half a mile,
Live captives so uncomforted
As souls behind a smile.”
As to the Merrifields, there was no chance of seeing them, for Sir
Richard had gone to India in some official capacity, and no doubt,
as everyone said, they would take good care to marry Freda out there.
Derrick had not seen her since that trying February at Bath, long ago.
Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts.
And so the years rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving
his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of
an author’s life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in
circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at
them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received,
and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that
there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor.
One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at the
same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and perhaps it
was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire after her.
“She has not been well,” said Lady Probyn, “and they are sending her
back to England; the climate doesn’t suit her. She is to make her home
with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always been my
favourite niece. I don’t know what it is about her that is so taking;
she is not half so pretty as the others.”
“But so much more charming,” I said. “I wonder she has not married out
in India, as everyone prophesied.”
“And so do I,” said her aunt. “However, poor child, no doubt, after
having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of
Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone again.”
“Do you think that affair ever went very deep?” I ventured to ask. “It
seemed to me that she looked miserable during her engagement, and happy
when it was broken off.”
“Quite so,” said Lady Probyn; “I noticed the same thing. It was
nothing but a mistake. They were not in the least suited to each other.
By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is married.”
“Derrick?” I exclaimed; “oh, no, that is a mistake. It is merely one
of the hundred and one reports that are for ever being set afloat about
him.”
“But I saw it in a paper, I assure you,” said Lady Probyn, by no means
convinced.
“Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no doubt,
and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he marry? He has
been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since our cruise in the
Aurora.”
Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation.
“Poor fellow!” she said, after a minute’s thought; “that explains much
to me.”
She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our
tete-a-tete was interrupted.
Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared
chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party, Derrick
came in with a face of such radiant happiness that I couldn’t imagine
what good luck had befallen him.
“What do you think?” he exclaimed; “here’s an invitation for a cruise in
the Aurora at the end of August--to be nearly the same party that we had
years ago,” and he threw down the letter for me to read.
Of course there was special mention of “my niece, Miss Merrifield, who
has just returned from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air.” I could
have told that without reading the letter, for it was written quite
clearly in Derrick’s face. He looked ten years younger, and if any of
his adoring readers could have seen the pranks he was up to that morning
in our staid and respectable chambers, I am afraid they would no longer
have spoken of him “with ‘bated breath and whispering humbleness.”
As it happened, I, too, was able to leave home for a fortnight at the
end of August; and so our party in the Aurora really was the same,
except that we were all several years older, and let us hope wiser, than
on the previous occasion. Considering all that had intervened, I was
surprised that Derrick was not more altered; as for Freda, she was
decidedly paler than when we first met her, but before long sea-air and
happiness wrought a wonderful transformation in her.
In spite of the pessimists who are for ever writing books, even writing
novels (more shame to them), to prove that there is no such thing as
happiness in the world, we managed every one of us heartily to enjoy our
cruise. It seemed indeed true that:
“Green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing and loving all come back together.”
Something, at any rate, of the glamour of those past days came back to
us all, I fancy, as we laughed and dozed and idled and talked beneath
the snowy wings of the Aurora, and I cannot say I was in the least
surprised when, on roaming through the pleasant garden walks in that
unique little island of Tresco, I came once more upon Derrick and Freda,
with, if you will believe it, another handful of white heather given
to them by that discerning gardener! Freda once more reminded me of the
girl in the ‘Biglow Papers,’ and Derrick’s face was full of such bliss
as one seldom sees.
He had always had to wait for his good things, but in the end they came
to him. However, you may depend upon it, he didn’t say much. That was
never his way. He only gripped my hand, and, with his eyes all aglow
with happiness, exclaimed “Congratulate me, old fellow!”