She loved him. When they married, perhaps neither had literally loved
the other, but the girl had roused much stronger feelings in the man
than the man had wakened in the girl. To-day the position was reversed;
and her perception that he did not find her so companionable as she had
dreamed was the beginning of a struggle to render herself a companion
to him.
If she had been a woman of keener intuitions, she must have perceived
it long ago, but her intuitions were not keen. She was not so dull as
he thought her, nor was she so dull as when she married, but a woman of
the most rapid intelligence she would never be. Her heart was greater
than her mind--much greater; her heart entitled her to a devotion that
she was far from receiving. To her mind marriage had made a trifling
difference; her sensibilities it had developed enormously. Her husband
overlooked her sensibilities, and chafed at her mind. Fortunately for
her peace, her tardy perception of their relations did not embrace
quite so much as that.
She stayed at Bournemouth for a fortnight, and when she came home her
efforts to acquire the quickness that she lacked, to talk in the same
strain as Kent, to utter the kind of extravagance which seemed to be
his idea of wit, were laboured and pathetic. Especially as he did not
notice them. She read the books that he admired, and was bored by them
more frequently than she was moved. She attempted, in fact, to mould
herself upon him, and she attempted it with such scanty encouragement,
and with so little apparent result, that, if her imitation had not
become instinctive by degrees, she would have been destined to renounce
it in despair.
He was not at this time the most agreeable of models; he was too
much humiliated and too anxious. Though Mr. and Mrs. Walford were
superficially affable again, he felt a difference that he could
not define in their manner, and was always uncomfortable in their
presence. He had called the book _The Eye of the Beholder_, and he
submitted it to Messrs. Percival and King. But February waned without
any communication coming from the firm, and once more the Walfords
asked him almost every day if he had "any news." His only prop now
was Turquand, whom he often went to town to see. Turquand had been
genuinely dismayed, by Messrs. Cousins' refusal, and it was by his
advice that the author had chosen Percival and King. Kent awaited their
verdict feverishly. Not only was his humiliation bad to bear, but his
financial position was beginning to be serious, and the Walfords'
knowledge of the fact aggravated the unpleasantness of it.
Messrs. Percival sent the manuscript back at the end of April. They
did not offer any criticism upon the work; they regretted merely that
in the present state of the book market they could not undertake the
publication of _The Eye of the Beholder_.
Then the novelist packed it up again, and posted it to Fendall and
Green. Messrs. Fendall and Green were longer in replying, and the fact
of the second rejection could not be withheld from the Walfords. After
they had heard of it, the change in their manner towards him was more
marked. They obviously regarded him as a poor pretender in literature,
and her mother admitted as much to Cynthia once.
"Well, mamma," said Cynthia valiantly, "I don't see how you can speak
like that! It's terribly unfortunate, and he's very worried, but you
know what Humphrey's reviews have been--nothing can take away the
success he has had."
"Oh, 'reviews'!" said Mrs. Walford, with impatience. "He mustn't talk
to us about 'reviews'!"
"Of course all those were 'worked' for him by Cousins. We are behind
the scenes, we know what such things are worth."
This conviction of hers, that his publishers had paid a few pounds to
the leading London papers to praise him in their columns, was not to be
shaken. Cynthia did not repeat it to him, and Kent did not divine it,
but Miss Wix--who had consented to remain at The Hawthorns--appeared
quite a lovable person to him now in comparison with his wife's mother.
Of intention Louisa did not snub him, the stock-jobber was not rude
to him deliberately, but both felt that their girl had done badly
indeed for herself, and their very tones in addressing him were new and
resentful.
In secret they were passionately mortified on another score. Their
prodigy, the coming bass, had once more failed to secure a debut, and
at last there was nothing for it but to admit that the thought of a
musical career must be abandoned. The circumstances surrounding this
final failure were veiled in mystery, even from Cynthia, but the fact
was sufficiently damning in itself. The wily Pincocca was paid fees
no longer, and Cæsar took a trip to Berlin with a company-promoter
whom his father knew, and who did not speak German, while his mother
invented an explanation.
It was trying for the Walfords, both their swans turning out to be
ganders at the same time, and that one of them had been acquired, not
hatched, was more than they could forgive themselves, or him. There
were occasions soon when Kent was more than slighted, when no disguise
was made at all. One day in July, Walford said to him:
"I tell you what it is, Humphrey, this can't go on! You'll have to give
your profession up and look for a berth, my boy. How's your account
now?"
"Pretty low," confessed his son-in-law, feeling like a lad rebuked for
a misdemeanour.
Walford looked at him indignantly.
"Ha!" he said. "It's a nice position, 'pon my word! And no news, I
suppose--nothing fresh?".
"Nothing, sir."
"You'll have to chuck it all. You'll have to chuck this folly of yours,
and put your shoulder to the wheel and work."
"I thought I did work," said Kent doggedly. "Do you think literature is
a game?"
"I think it's an infernal rotten game--yes!"
"Ah, well, there," said Kent, "many literary men have agreed with you."
"You'll have to put your mind to something serious. If you only earn
thirty bob a week, it's more than your novels bring you in. What your
wife and child will do, God knows--have to come to us, I suppose. A
fine thing for a girl married eighteen months!"
"She hasn't arrived at it yet," answered Kent, very pale, "and I don't
fancy she will. Many thanks for the invitation."
Walford stopped short--they had met in the High Road--and cocked his
head, his legs apart.
"Will you take a berth in the City for a couple of quid, if I can get
you one?" he demanded sharply.
"No," said Kent, "I'll be damned if I will! I'll stick to my pen,
whatever happens, and I'll stick to my wife and child, too!"
The other did not pursue the conversation, but the next time that
Humphrey saw Mrs. Walford she told him that his father-in-law was very
much incensed against him for his ingratitude.
"It is sometimes advisable for a man to change his business," she said.
"A man goes into one business, and if it doesn't pay he tries another.
Your father-in-law is much older than you, and--er--naturally more
experienced. I think you ought to listen to his opinion with more
respect. Especially under the circumstances."
"Oh?" he murmured. "Have you said that to Cynthia?"
"No; it is not necessary to say it to anybody but you. And it might
make her unhappy. She is troubled enough without!"
She had, as a matter of fact, said it to her with much eloquence the
previous afternoon.
"And another thing," she continued: "I am bound to say I don't see any
grounds for your believing--er--er--that your profession has any prizes
in store for you, even if you could afford to remain in it. You mustn't
mind my speaking plainly, Humphrey. You are a young man, and--er--you
have no one to advise you, and you may thank me for it one day."
"Let me thank you now," he said, fighting to conceal his rage.
"If you can," she said; "if you feel it, I am very glad. You see what
you have done: you wrote a book, which you got very little for--some
nice reviews"--she smiled meaningly--"which we needn't talk about. And
then you spend a year on another, which nobody wants. To succeed as a
novelist, one must have a very strong gift; there is no doubt about
it. A novelist must be very brilliant to do any good to-day--very
brilliant. He wants--er--to know the world--to know the world,
and--er--oh, he must be very polished--very smart!"
"I see," he said shakily, as she paused. "You don't think I've the
necessary qualifications?"
"You have aptitude," she said; "you have a certain aptitude, of
course, but to make it your profession----So many young men, who
have been educated, could write a novel. _You_ happen to have done
it; others haven't had the time. They open a business, or go on the
Stock Exchange, or perhaps they haven't the patience. I'm afraid your
publishers did you a mistaken kindness by those unfortunate reviews."
"How do you mean?" he asked. "Yes, the reviewers didn't agree with you,
did they?"
She smiled again, and waved her hands expressively.
"Oh, they were very pretty, very nice to have; but--er--newspaper
notices do not take us in. Naturally, they were paid for. Cousins
arranged with the papers for all that."
"With----"
He looked at her open-mouthed, as the names of some of the papers
recurred to him.
"With them all," she said. "Oh yes! You must remember we are quite
behind the scenes."
"Pincocca," he said musingly. "Yes, you knew Pincocca. But he was a
singing-master, and he doesn't come here now."
"Oh, Pincocca was one of many--one of very many." She giggled
nervously. "How very absurd that you should suppose I meant Pincocca!
You mustn't forget that Cæsar knows everybody. I'm almost glad he isn't
going on the stage, for that reason. He brought such crowds to the
house at one time that really we lived in a whirl. I believe--between
ourselves--that this man he has gone to Berlin with is at the bottom
of his throwing up his career. A financier. A Mr. McCullough. One of
the greatest powers in the City. And--er--Cæsar was always wonderfully
shrewd in these things. Don't say anything, but I believe McCullough
wants to keep him!"
"I won't say anything," he said.
"McCullough controls millions!" she gasped. "And your father-in-law
thinks, from rumours that are going about, that he's persuaded Cæsar to
join him in some negotiations that he has with the German Government.
Of course we mustn't breathe a word about it. Sh! What were we saying?
Oh yes, I'm afraid those unfortunate reviews did you more harm than
good. Nothing great in the City can be got for you, because you haven't
the commercial experience, but a clerkship would be better than doing
nothing. You must really think about it, Humphrey, if you can't do
anything for yourself. As your father-in-law says, you are sitting down
with your hands in your pockets, eating up your last few pounds." It
occurred to her that a clerkship might look small beside the ease with
which her son was securing a partnership in millions. "Of course," she
added, "Cæsar always did have a head for finance. And--er--he's a way
with him. He has _aplomb--aplomb_ that makes him immensely valuable for
negotiations with a Government. It's different for Cæsar."
Kent left her, and cursed aloud. He went the same evening to
Turquand's, partly as a relief to his feelings, and partly to ask his
friend's opinion of the feasibility of his obtaining journalistic work.
"For Heaven's sake, talk!" he exclaimed, as he flung himself into the
rickety chair that used to be his own. "Say anything you like, but
talk. I've just had an hour and a half of my mother-in-law neat! Take
the taste out of my mouth. Turk, I wish I were dead! What the devil is
to be the end of it? The Walfords say 'a clerk-ship'! Oh, my God, you
should hear the Walfords! I've 'a little aptitude,' but I mustn't be
conceited. I mustn't seriously call myself a novelist. I've frivolled
away a year on _The Eye of the Beholder_, and Cousins squared the
reviewers for me on _The Spectator_ and _The Saturday_ and the rest!
Look here, I must get something to do. Don't you know of anything,
can't you I introduce me to an editor, isn't there anything stirring
at all? _I_'m buried; I live in a red-brick tomb in Streatham; I hear
nothing, and see nobody, except my blasted parents-in-law. But you're
in the thick of it; you sniff the mud of Fleet Street every day; you're
the salaried sub of a paper that's going to put a cover on itself and
'throw it in' at the penny; you----"
"Yes," said Turquand, "I
'Ave flung my thousands gily ter the benefit of tride,
And gin'rally (they tells me) done the grand.'
It looks like it, doesn't it?"
"I know all about that! But surely you can tell me of a chance? I don't
say an opening, but a chance of an opening. Man, the outlook's awful. I
shall be stony directly. You must!"
"Fendall and Green haven't written, eh?"
"No; their regrets haven't come yet. How about short stories?"
"You didn't find 'em particularly lucrative, did you?"
"A guinea each; one in six months. No; but I want to be invited to
contribute: 'Can you let us have anything this month, Mr. Kent?'"
"My dear chap! should I have stuck to _The Outpost_ all these years if
I had such advice to give away? I did"--he coughed, and spat out an
invisible shred of tobacco--"I did stick to it."
"You weren't going to say that! You were going to say, 'I did advise
you once, but you _would marry_!' Well, I don't complain that I
married. The only fault I have to find with my wife is that she's the
Walford's daughter. She's not literary, but she's a very good girl.
Don't blink facts, Turk; my money would have lasted longer if I hadn't
married, but I shouldn't have got my novel taken on that account. The
point of this situation is that, after being lauded to the skies by
every paper of importance in England, I can't place the book I write
next at any price at all, nor find a way to earn bread and cheese by my
pen! If a musician had got such criticisms on a composition, he'd be a
made man. If an artist had had them on a picture, the ball would be at
his feet. If an actor had got them on a performance, he'd be offered
engagements at a hundred a week. It's only in literature that such an
anomalous and damnable condition of affairs as mine is possible. You
can't deny it."
"I don't," said Turquand.