It was very jolly to be back with Turquand. The first evening, while
they smoked with the enjoyable consciousness of there being no last
train to catch, was quick with the sentiment of their old association.
And after a letter arrived from Cynthia, in which she clapped her
hands with pleasure, the respite was complete. Kent had been impatient
to hear how the place struck her, and she wrote that she had been
agreeably astonished. The cottage was roomier than she had expected,
and beautifully located. It was furnished very simply, of course;
but there was a charm in its simplicity and freshness. The landlady
was a rosy-cheeked young woman who had already "fallen in love with
Baby," and overwhelmed her with attentions. "If you do not see what
you want, please step inside and ask for it." Kent smiled at that; it
was a quotation from one of the Streatham shop-windows. Also there was
a quite respectable garden, which her bedroom overlooked. "There are
fruit-trees in it--not my bedroom, the garden--and a little, not too
spidery, bench, where I know I shall sit and read your answer when
it comes." She wrote a very happy, spontaneous sort of letter, and
Kent's spirits rose as he read it. There was the rustle of dimity and
the odour of lavender in the pages, and momentarily he pictured her
sitting on the bench under the fruit-trees, and thought that it would
be delightful if he could run down one day and surprise her there.
It was very jolly to be back with Turquand, though the satisfaction
was perhaps a shade calmer than, during the first year of his married
life, he had fancied that it would be. It was convenient, moreover,
to be in town, and a relief to feel that the unsettled accounts with
the tradespeople round Leamington Road were, at any rate, not waxing
mightier. Nevertheless, he missed Cynthia a good deal; not only in
the daytime when he was alone, but even in minutes during the evening
when he was in Turquand's company. It was curious how much he did
miss her--and the baby: the baby, whose newest accomplishment was
to stroke his father's cheek, and murmur "poor" until the attention
was reciprocated, when he bounded violently and grew red in the face
with ridiculous laughter. Soho, too, though it saved him train-fares,
soon began to appear as distant from a salary as Streatham. Turquand
remained powerless to put any work in his way, and, despite his
economies and the cheapness of Monmouth, Kent found his expenses
dismaying. He was encroaching on the money laid aside for the landlord
and the rates, and, if nothing turned up, there would speedily be
trouble again. The butcher who had supplied No. 64 had been to the
agent for Mr. Kent's address, and he presented himself and his bill
with no redundance of euphemism. When another advertisement had been
inserted ineffectually, the respite was over and anxiety returned.
As yet Kent had not called on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and on the afternoon
following his interview with the butcher he paid his visit to the lady.
He was very frank in his replies to her questions. He did not disguise
that it was imperative for him to secure an appointment at once, and
when she agreed with him that it was immensely difficult, instead of
answering that it was likely some opening might be mentioned to her,
his face fell. He felt that it behoved him to deprecate his confidences.
"You must forgive my boring you about my affairs," he said. "And what
are you doing? Are you at work on another book now?"
"I've a serial running in _Fashion_," she said; "and they print such
ghastly long instalments that it takes me all my time to keep pace with
them. You haven't bored me at all. A post on a paper is a thing you
may have to wait a long time for, I'm afraid. You see, you aren't a
journalist really, are you? You're a novelist."
"I'm nothing," said Kent, with a dreary laugh. "For that matter,
I wouldn't care if it weren't on a paper. I'd jump at anything--a
secretary-ship for preference."
"Secretaryships want personal introductions; they aren't got through
advertisements." She hesitated. "_I_ can tell you how you might make
some money, if you'd like to do it," she added tentatively. "It's
between ourselves--if it doesn't suit you, you'll be discreet?"
"Oh, of course," said Kent, with surprise. "But I can promise you in
advance that _any_ means of making some money will suit me just now.
What are you going to say?"
She looked at him steadily with a slow smile.
"How would you like to write a novel for me?" she asked.
Instantaneously he did not grasp her meaning.
"How?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean you are offering to collaborate with
me?"
"I can't do that," she said quickly. "I'm sure you know I should be
delighted, but I shouldn't get the same terms if I did, and I haven't
the time, either. That's just it! I'm obliged to refuse work because
I haven't time to undertake it. No, but it might be a partnership as
far as the payment goes. If you care to write a novel, I can place it
under my own name, and you can have--well, a couple of hundred pounds
almost as soon as you give it to me! I can guarantee that. You can have
a couple of hundred a week or two after it's finished, whether I sell
serial rights or not."
She took a cigarette out of a box on a table near her and lit it, a
shade nervously. Kent sat pale and disturbed. That such things were
done, at all events in France, he knew, but her proposal startled him
more than he could say, or than he wished to say. His primary emotion
was astonishment that Mrs. Deane-Pitt had had the courage to place her
literary reputation in his hands; and then, as he reflected, an awful
horror seized him at the thought of a year of his toil, of effort and
accomplishment, going out for review with another person's name on it.
The pause lasted some time.
"I don't much fancy the idea," he said at last slowly, "thanks. And it
wouldn't assist me. I want money now, not a year hence."
"A year hence!" she murmured. "A year hence would be no use to _me_.
But you could do it in a month! Pray don't mistake me. I'm not anxious
to get any kudos at your expense, I don't want you to do the kind of
thing that I suppose you have done in this novel of yours that's making
the round now; I don't want introspection and construction, and all
that. All I want is to buy shoes for my poor little children, and what
I suggested was that you should knock off a story at your top speed. I
don't care a pin what it's like; only turn me out a hundred thousand
words!"
"A hundred thousand words," cried Kent, "in a month? You might as well
suggest my carrying off one of the lions out of Trafalgar Square! _The
Eye of the Beholder_ isn't a hundred thousand words, and I worked at
it day and night, and then it took me a year! Besides, that's another
thing; it is going the round--the story mightn't be any use to you if I
did it."
"I can place it," said Mrs. Deane-Pitt, with emphasis. "Don't concern
yourself about its fate, my friend; your responsibility will be limited
to writing it. Your book took a year? I've no doubt you considered, and
corrected, and spent an afternoon polishing a paragraph. Supposing you
take six or seven weeks, then? Do you mean to say you couldn't write
two thousand words a day?"
"No, I don't believe I could--not if you offered me the Mint!" said
Kent.
"But you can put down the first words that come into your head!
_Anything_ will do. Naturally, it would be no use to me if you wrote
'Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard' over all the pages, but any
trivial thing in the shape of a story, I assure you, I can arrange for
at once. Indeed, it _is_ practically arranged for; all that remains is
for you to give it to me."
She puffed her cigarette silently, and the young man mused. The plan
was repugnant to him, but if, as she said, anything would do--well,
perhaps he _could_ manage it in the time; he did not know. Two hundred
pounds would certainly be salvation, and, for seven weeks' work, a
magnificent reward.
"I'll tell you," she continued, after a few moments: "if you liked to
do me a short story or two now and again, we should have money from
those in the meanwhile. I don't want to persuade you against your
convictions, if you have any, but our business together would pay you
better than an appointment, even if you found one; and--though that's
nothing to do with it--it would be a tremendous benefit to me as well.
See, with our two pens we can produce double the work, and we share the
advantage of the popularity I've gained."
"Oh, I quite appreciate the pecuniary pull," he answered. "I could
hardly write short stories while I was fagging at a novel, though."
"I think myself one goes back to the novel all the fresher for the
break," she said; "but, of course, everybody has his own system of
working. Would you care to write me a couple of three-thousand-word
stories first? We can discuss the book later. If you let me have two
stories to-morrow night, I could give you five guineas each for them on
Saturday."
"To-morrow is out of the question. You don't realise how slowly I
write, and I haven't the motives."
"Say the next day--say by Thursday. But it must be by then. The man
goes out of town on Saturday, and I want him to read them before he
goes. If _I_ can have the manuscripts on Thursday, _you_ can have ten
guineas Saturday night."
"It's a very good offer," said Kent. "You must get a royal rate."
"Well, I couldn't always offer you so much, but, then, I don't often
want them quite so long. Two, of three thousand words, and to end
happily, for choice. Not too strong. If they will illustrate well,
all the better, but you needn't give yourself any trouble on that
score--it's the artist's affair."
"I'll do them," said Humphrey. "I suppose I must make an attempt to
imitate your style?"
"It isn't necessary. I generally begin with a very short sentence, like
'It was noon,' or 'It rained'; you might do that; but I really don't
know that it matters.... Mr. Kent----"
"Yes?" he said.
"This is a confidential matter; I rely on your honour not to mention it
to a living soul, of course! I don't know how much married you are, but
I depend on you not to tell your wife. It would ruin me if it came out."
He assured her that she might trust him, and having pledged himself to
the lighter task, he resolved on his way home that he would undertake
the heavier, too. She did not want a year of his best work--he doubted
if he could contemplate that, even if refusal meant Strawberry Hill
for Cynthia and the baby, and the workhouse for himself--she asked
only a few weeks of his worst. Money was indispensable; he must make
it in whatever way he could. A ghost, eh? He was rising finely in the
career of literature. His first novel had received what was almost the
highest possible cachet; his second was "declined with thanks"; and now
no mode of livelihood was left him but to be a ghost. His throat was
tight with shame; there were tears in it.
That passed. He reflected that with two hundred pounds in his pocket
he would be able to sit down to another novel on his own account; he
might be luckier with that than with _The Eye of the Beholder_. What
were a few weeks compared with two hundred pounds? Mrs. Deane-Pitt
must have thought him a fool to hesitate. Practical herself, indeed!
But--well, for all that, it was rather fascinating to feel that so
intimate a confidence was going to subsist between them! She had been
a trifle nervous, too, as she took that cigarette; he hoped he hadn't
been a prig. She was very nice; it distressed him to think that she had
been afraid of him even for a second. Two hundred pounds? He wondered
what share it was--half, or more than half, or less. With a woman,
however, he could not go into that. His admission that five guineas
seemed a lot to him for a three-thousand-word story had probably been
injudicious--and it must have made him sound very ignorant besides.
Well, that couldn't be helped. And he would be glad if the partnership
paid her well; whatever terms she obtained, she must be perfectly
aware that her offer was a liberal one to a man in his position, and
he was grateful to her. He felt it again--she had been "nice." He
began to revolve a plot for the first of the stories, and by the time
he reached home he had vaguely thought of one. When Turquand came in,
it had shaped. Saying that he had work to do, Kent left him, and went
upstairs. He drew a chair to the table, and sat down and wrote--slowly,
painfully. The man was an artist, and he could not help the care he
took. He sneered at himself for it. Mrs. Deane-Pitt had impressed on
him that anything would do, and here he was meditating and revising as
if it were a story to submit to the most exclusive of the magazines in
his own name. He dashed his pen in the ink, and threw a paragraph on
the paper. But he could not go on. His consciousness of that slip-shod
paragraph higher up clogged his invention, so that he had to go back
to it and put it right. Presently a touch of cheerfulness crept into
his mood. That was well said. Yes, she would praise that! The pride
of authorship possessed him; he wrote with pleasure; and at two
o'clock, when a third of the tale was achieved, he went to bed feeling
exhilarated.
It was no easy duty to him to complete both stories by Thursday
morning, and, confronted by the necessity for making Turquand a
further excuse for retirement, he almost wished now that he were
living alone. He was vastly relieved that the other accepted his
allusions to "something that would keep him busy for a month or so"
with no apparent perception of a mystery. After the first inevitable
question was shirked, the journalist put no more, and behaved as if
the explanation had been explicit. Neither Kent's friendship, nor his
admiration for him, had ever been so warm, as while he decided that
Turquand's experience must lead him to suspect something like the truth
and enabled him to conceal the suspicion under his normal demeanour.
With Cynthia the ghost was less fortunate, though he barely divined it
by her answer. He told her as much as he was free to tell: he wrote
that he had work on hand at last, and that they would have ten guineas
on Saturday, and a large sum in a couple of months. Where the stuff
would appear, he could not say without a falsehood, and he trustee! she
would not be curious on the point. The reservation that he regretted
gave to his tone an aloofness that he did not design; Cynthia refrained
from inquiring, but she was hurt. She felt that he might have imparted
such intelligence a little more enthusiastically, at a little greater
length. Did he suppose that her interest was limited to the payment?
Was she only held sympathetic enough, to mind the baby when they were
obliged to discharge the nurse? Now that he returned to work, her
husband was going to treat her as a child again, just as he had done
when he was engaged on his book! She did not perceive that, while he
had been writing the book, she had occupied the position most natural
to her; she did not detect that the attitude in which she recalled it
was a new one. It was, however, the attitude of a woman. The hidden
chagrin and urbanity of her reply was a woman's. These things were part
of a development of which, while they had remained together, neither
she nor the man who missed her had been acutely aware.