MALAKOFF TERRACE.
After parting from Vincent at the end of Rotten Row, Mark Ashburn
continued his walk alone through Kensington High Street and onwards,
until he came to one of those quiet streets which serve as a sort of
backwater to the main stream of traffic, and, turning down this, it
was not long before he reached a row of small three-story houses, with
their lower parts cased in stucco, but the rest allowed to remain in
the original yellow-brown brick, which time had mellowed to a pleasant
warm tone. 'Malakoff Terrace,' as the place had been christened (and
the title was a tolerable index of its date), was rather less
depressing in appearance than many of its more modern neighbours, with
their dismal monotony and pretentiousness. It faced a well-kept
enclosure, with trim lawns and beds, and across the compact laurel
hedges in the little front gardens a curious passer-by might catch
glimpses of various interiors which in nearly every case left him with
an impression of cosy comfort. The outline of the terrace was broken
here and there by little verandahs protecting the shallow balconies
and painted a deep Indian-red or sap-green, which in summer time were
gay with flowers and creepers, and one seldom passed there then on
warm and drowsy afternoons without undergoing a well-sustained fire
from quite a masked battery of pianos, served from behind the
fluttering white curtains at most of the long open windows on the
first floor.
Even in winter and at night the terrace was cheerful, with its variety
of striped and coloured blinds and curtains at the illuminated
windows; and where blinds and curtains were undrawn and the little
front rooms left unlighted, the firelight flickering within on shining
bookcases and picture frames was no less pleasantly suggestive. Still,
in every neighbourhood there will always be some houses whose
exteriors are severely unattractive; without being poverty-stricken,
they seem to belong to people indifferent to all but the absolutely
essential, and incapable of surrounding themselves with any of the
characteristic contrivances that most homes which are more than mere
lodgings amass almost unconsciously. It was before a house of this
latter kind that Mark stopped--a house with nothing in the shape of a
verandah to relieve its formality. Behind its front railings there
were no trim laurel bushes--only an uncomfortable bed of equal parts
of mould and broken red tiles, in which a withered juniper was dying
hard; at the windows were no bright curtain-folds or hanging baskets
of trailing fern to give a touch of colour, but dusty wire blinds and
hangings of a faded drab.
It was not a boarding-house, but the home in which Mark Ashburn lived
with his family, who, if they were not precisely gay, were as
respectable as any in the terrace, which is better in some respects
than mere gaiety.
He found them all sitting down to dinner in the back parlour, a
square little room with a grey paper of a large and hideous design.
His mother, a stout lady with a frosty complexion, a cold grey eye,
and an injured expression about the mouth and brow, was serving out
soup with a touch of the relieving officer in her manner; opposite to
her was her husband, a mild little man in habitually low spirits; and
the rest of the family, Mark's two sisters, Martha and Trixie, and his
younger brother, Cuthbert, were in their respective places.
Mrs. Ashburn looked up severely as he came in. 'You are late again,
Mark,' she said; 'while you are under this roof' (Mrs. Ashburn was
fond of referring to the roof) 'your father and I expect you to
conform to the rules of the house.'
'Well, you see, mother,' explained Mark, sitting down and unfolding
his napkin, 'it was a fine afternoon, so I thought I would walk home
with a friend.'
'There is a time for walking home with a friend, and a time for
dinner,' observed his mother, with the air of quoting something
Scriptural.
'And I've mixed them, mother? So I have; I'm sorry, and I won't do it
again. There, will that do?'
'Make haste and eat your soup, Mark, and don't keep us all waiting for
you.'
Mrs. Ashburn had never quite realised that her family had grown up.
She still talked to Mark as she had done when he was a careless
schoolboy at St. Peter's; she still tried to enforce little moral
lessons and even petty restrictions upon her family generally; and
though she had been long reduced to blank cartridges, it worried them.
The ideal family circle, on re-assembling at the close of the day,
celebrate their reunion with an increasing flow of lively
conversation; those who have been out into the great world describe
their personal experiences, and the scenes, tragic or humorous, which
they have severally witnessed during the day; and when these are
exhausted, the female members take up the tale and relate the humbler
incidents of domestic life, and so the hours pass till bedtime.
Such circles are in all sincerity to be congratulated; but it is to be
feared that in the majority of cases the conversation of a family
whose members meet every day is apt, among themselves, to become
frightfully monosyllabic. It was certainly so with the Ashburns. Mark
and Trixie sometimes felt the silences too oppressive to be borne, and
made desperate attempts at establishing a general discussion on
something or anything; but it was difficult to select a topic that
could not be brought down by an axiom from Mrs. Ashburn, which
disposed of the whole subject in very early infancy. Cuthbert
generally came back from the office tired and somewhat sulky; Martha's
temper was not to be depended upon of an evening; and Mr. Ashburn
himself rarely contributed more than a heavy sigh to the common stock
of conversation.
Under these circumstances it will be readily believed that Mark's
'Evenings at Home' were by no means brilliant. He sometimes wondered
himself why he had borne them so long; and if he had been able to
procure comfortable lodgings at as cheap a rate as it cost him to live
at home, he would probably have taken an early opportunity of bursting
the bonds of the family dulness. But his salary was not large, his
habits were expensive, and he stayed on.
The beginning of this particular evening did not promise any marked
increase in the general liveliness. Mrs. Ashburn announced
lugubriously to all whom it might concern that she had eaten no lunch;
Martha mentioned that a Miss Hornblower had called that
afternoon--which produced no sensation, though Cuthbert seemed for a
moment inclined to ask who Miss Hornblower might happen to be, till he
remembered in time that he really did not care, and saved himself the
trouble. Then Trixie made a well-meant, but rather too obvious, effort
to allure him to talk by an inquiry (which had become something of a
formula) whether he had 'seen any one' that day, to which Cuthbert
replied that he had noticed one or two people hanging about the City;
and Martha observed that she was glad to see he still kept up his
jokes, moving him to confess sardonically that he knew he was a funny
dog, but when he saw them all--and particularly Martha--rollicking
round him, he could not help bubbling over with merriment himself.
Mrs. Ashburn caught the reply, and said severely: 'I do _not_ think,
Cuthbert, that either I or your father have ever set you the example
of "rollicking," as you call it, at this table. Decent mirth and a
cheerful tone of conversation we have always encouraged. I don't know
why you should receive a mother's remarks with laughter. It is not
respectful of you, Cuthbert, I must say!'
Mrs. Ashburn would probably have proceeded to further defend herself
and family from the charge of rollicking, and to draw uncomplimentary
parallels from the Proverbs between the laughter of certain persons
and the crackling of thorns under a pot, when a timely diversion was
effected by a sounding knock at the little front door. The maid put
down the dish she was handing and vanished; after which there were
sounds of a large body entering the passage, and a loud voice
exclaiming, 'All in, hey? and at dinner, are they? Very well, my dear;
tell 'em I'm here. I know my way in.'
'It's Uncle Solomon!' went round the table. They refrained from any
outward expression of joy, because they were naturally a quiet family.
'Well,' said Mrs. Ashburn, who seemed to put her own construction on
this reserve, 'and I'm sure if there is any table at which my only
brother Solomon should be a welcome guest, it's _this_ table.'
'Quite so, my dear; quite so,' said Mr. Ashburn, hastily. 'He was here
last week; but we're all glad to see him at any time, I'm sure.'
'I hope so, indeed! Go in, Trixie, and help your uncle off with his
coat,' for there were snorting and puffing signs from the next room,
as if their relative were in difficulties; but before Trixie could
rise the voice was heard again, 'That's it, Ann, thanky--you're called
Ann, aren't you? I thought so. Ah, how's the baker, Ann--wasn't it
the baker I caught down the airy now? _wasn't_ it, hey?'
And then a large red-faced person came in, with a puffy important
mouth, a fringe of whiskers meeting under his chin, and what Trixie,
in speaking privately of her relative's personal appearance, described
as 'little piggy eyes,' which had, however, a twinkle of a rather
primitive kind of humour in them.
Solomon Lightowler was a brother of Mrs. Ashburn's, a retired business
man, who had amassed a considerable fortune in the hardware trade.
He was a widower and without children, and it was he who, fired with
the ambition of placing a nephew in the Indian Civil Service as a
rising monument to his uncle's perception, had sent Mark to the
crammer's--for Mr. Ashburn's position in the Inland Revenue Office
would scarcely have warranted such an outlay.
Mark's performances at his first examination, as has been said, had
not been calculated to encourage his uncle's hopes, but the latter had
been slightly mollified by his nephew's spirit in carrying off the
Cambridge scholarship soon afterwards, and with the idea of having one
more attempt to 'see his money back,' Mr. Lightowler had consented to
keep him for the necessary time at the University. When that
experiment also had ended in disaster, Uncle Solomon seemed at one
time to have given him up in disgust, only reserving himself, as the
sole value for his money, the liberty of reproach, and Mark was of
opinion that he had already gone far towards recouping himself in this
respect alone.
'Hah! phew--you're very hot in here!' he remarked, as an agreeable
opening--he felt himself rich enough to be able to remark on other
people's atmospheres; but Cuthbert expressed a _sotto voce_ wish that
his uncle were exposed to an even higher temperature.
'We can't all live in country houses, Solomon,' said his sister, 'and
a small room soon gets warm to any one coming in from the cold air.'
'Warm!' said Mr. Lightowler, with a snort; 'I should think you must
all of you be fired like a set of pots! I don't care where I sit, so
long as I'm well away from the fire. I'll come by you, Trixie,
eh--you'll take care of your uncle, won't you?'
Trixie was a handsome girl of about eighteen, with abundant auburn
hair, which was never quite in good order, and pretty hands of which
most girls would have been more careful; she had developed a limp
taste for art of late, finding drawing outlines at an art school less
irksome than assisting in the housekeeping at home. Uncle Solomon
always alarmed her because she never knew what he would say next; but
as it was a family rule to be civil to him, she made room for him with
great apparent alacrity.
'And how are you all, boys and girls, eh?' asked Uncle Solomon, when
he was comfortably seated; 'Mark, you've got fuller in the waist of
late; you don't take 'alf enough exercise. Cuthbert, lad, you're
looking very sallow under the eyes--smoking and late hours, _that's_
the way with all the young men nowadays! Why don't you talk to him,
eh, Matthew? I should if he was a boy o' mine. Well, Martha, has any
nice young man asked you to name a day yet?--he's a long time coming
forward, Martha, that nice young man; why, let me see, Jane, she must
be getting on now for--she was born in the year fifty-four, was
it?--four it was; it was in the war time, I remember, and you wanted
her christened Alma, but I said an uncommon name is all very well if
she grows up good-looking, but if she's plain it only sounds
ridiklous; so, very fortunately as things turn out, you had her
christened Martha. There's nothing to bite your lips over, my dear; no
one blames you for it, we can't be all born 'andsome. It's Trixie here
who gets all the love-letters, isn't it, Trixie?--ah, I _thought_ I
should see a blush if I looked! Who is it now, Trixie, and where do we
meet him, and when is the wedding? Come, tell your old uncle.'
'Don't put such nonsense into the child's head, Solomon,' said his
sister, in a slightly scandalised tone.
'That would be coals to Newcastle with a vengeance,' he chuckled; 'but
you mustn't mind my going on--that's my way; if people don't like it I
can't help it, but I always speak right out.'
'Which is the reason we love him,' came in a stage aside from
Cuthbert, who took advantage of a slight deafness in one of his
uncle's ears.
'Well, Mr. Schoolmaster,' said the latter, working round to Mark
again, 'and how are _you_ gettin' on? If you'd worked harder at
College and done me credit, you'd 'a' been a feller of your college,
or a judge in an Indian court, by this time, instead of birching
naughty little boys.'
'It's a detail,' said Mark; 'but I don't interfere in that
department.'
'Well, you _are_ young to be trusted with a birch. I'm glad they look
at things that way. If _you're_ satisfied with yourself, I suppose I
ought to be, though I did look forward once to seeing a nephew of mine
famous. You've '_ad_ all your fame at Cambridge, with your papers, and
your poems, and your College skits--a nice snug little fame all to
yourself.'
Martha tittered acidly at this light badinage, but it brought a pained
look into Trixie's large brown eyes, who thought it was a shame that
poor Mark should never be allowed to hear the last of his Cambridge
_fiasco_.
Even Mrs. Ashburn seemed anxious to shield Mark. 'Ah, Solomon,' she
said, 'Mark sees his folly now; he knows how wrong he was to spend his
time in idle scribbling to amuse thoughtless young men, when he ought
to have studied hard and shown his gratitude to you for all you have
done for him.'
'Well, I've been a good friend to him, Jane, and I could have been a
better if he'd proved deserving. I'm not one to grudge any expense.
And if I thought, even now, that he'd really given up his
scribbling----'
Mark thought it prudent to equivocate: 'Even if I wished to write,
uncle,' he said, 'what with my school-work, and what with reading for
the Bar, I should not have much time for it; but mother is right, I
_do_ see my folly now.'
This pleased Uncle Solomon, who still clung to the fragments of his
belief in Mark's ability, and had been gratified upon his joining one
of the Inns of Court by the prospect of having a nephew who at least
would have the title of barrister; he relaxed at once: 'Well, well,
let bygones be bygones, you may be a credit to me yet. And now I think
of it, come down and stay Sunday at "The Woodbines" soon, will you?
it'll be a rest for you, and I want you to see some of that 'Umpage's
goings on at the church.' (Uncle Solomon not unfrequently dropped an
'h,' but with a deliberation that seemed to say that he was quite
aware it was there, but did not consider it advisable to recognise it
just then.) 'He's quite got round the Vicar; made him have flowers and
a great brass cross and candles on the Communion table, and 'Umpage
all the time a feller with no more religion inside him than'--here he
looked round the table for a comparison--'ah, than that jug has! He's
talked the Vicar into getting them little bags for collections now,
all because he was jealous at the clerk's putting the plate inside my
pew reg'lar for _me_ to hold. It isn't that I care about 'olding a
plate, but to see 'Umpage smirking round with one of them red velvet
bags makes me downright sick--they'll drive me to go over and be a
Baptist one of these fine days.'
'You don't like Mr. Humpage, do you, uncle?' said Trixie.
''Umpage and me are not friendly--though contiguous,' said he; 'but as
for liking, I neither like nor dislike the man; we 'old no
intercourse, beyond looking the other way in church and 'aving words
across the fence when his fowls break through into my garden--he won't
have the hole seen to, so I shall get it done myself and send the bill
in to him--that's what _I_ shall do.--A letter for you, Matthew? read
away, don't mind me,' for the maid had come in meanwhile with a
letter, which Matthew Ashburn opened and began to read at this
permission.
Presently he rubbed his forehead perplexedly: 'I can't make head or
tail of it,' he said feebly; 'I don't know who they are, or what they
write all this to _me_ for!'
''And it over to me, Matthew; let's see if _I_ can make it any plainer
for you,' said his brother-in-law, persuaded that to his powerful mind
few things could long remain a mystery.
He took the letter, solemnly settled his double eyeglasses well down
on his broad nose, coughed importantly, and began to read: 'Dear Sir,'
he began in a tone of expounding wisdom--'well, that's straightforward
enough--Dear Sir, we have given our best consideration to the--hey!'
(here his face began to grow less confident) 'the sweet--what?--ah,
sweet bells, sweet bells jangled. What have you been jangling _your_
bells about, eh, Matthew?'
'I think they're mad,' said poor Mr. Ashburn; 'the bells in this house
are all right, I think, my dear?'
'I'm not aware that any of them are out of order; they rehung the bell
in the area the other day--it's some mistake,' said Mrs. Ashburn.
'Which,' continued Uncle Solomon, 'you 'ave been good enough to submit
to us (pretty good that for a bell-'anger, hey?) We regret, however,
to say that we do not find ourselves in a position to make any
overtures to you in the matter. Well,' he said, though not very
confidently, 'you've been writing to your landlord about the fixtures,
and these are his lawyers writing back--isn't _that_ it now?'
'What should I write to _him_ for?' said Mr. Ashburn; 'that's not it,
Solomon--go on, it gets worse by-and-by!'
'Your one fair daughter also (hullo, Trixie!) we find ourselves
compelled to decline, although with more reluctance; but, in spite of
some considerable merits, there is a slight roughness (why, her
complexion's clear enough!), together with a certain immaturity and
total lack of form and motive (you _are_ giddy, you know, Trixie, I
always told you so), which are in our opinion sufficient to prevent us
from making any proposals to you in the matter.'
Uncle Solomon laid down the letter at this point, and looked around
open-mouthed: 'I thought I could make out most things,' he said; 'but
this is rather beyond me, I must say.'
''Ere are these people--what's their names? Leadbitter and Gandy (who
I take it are in the gas-fitting and decorating line)--writing to say
in the same breath that they can't come and see to your bells, and
they don't want to marry your daughter. Who asked them?--you ain't
come down so low in the world to go and offer Trixie to a gas-fitter,
I should 'ope, Matthew!--and yet what else _does_ it mean--tell me
that, and I'll thank you.'
'Don't ask _me_,' said the unhappy father; 'they're perfect
strangers.'
'Trixie, you know nothing about it, I hope?' said Mrs. Ashburn, rather
suspiciously.
'No, ma dear,' said Trixie; 'but I don't want to marry either Mr.
Leadbitter or Mr. Gandy.'
The situation had become too much for Mark; at first he had hoped that
by holding his tongue he might escape being detected, while the
rejection of both the novels from which he had hoped so much was a
heavy blow which he felt he could scarcely bear in public; but they
seemed so determined to sift the matter to the end that he decided to
enlighten them at once, since it must be only a question of time.
But his voice was choked and his face crimson as he said, 'I think
perhaps I can explain it.'
'You!' they all cried, while Uncle Solomon added something about
'young men having grown cleverer since his young days.'
'Yes, that letter is addressed to me--M. Ashburn, you see, stands for
Mark, not Matthew. It's from--from a firm of publishers,' said the
unlucky Mark, speaking very hoarsely; 'I sent them two novels of
mine--one was called "One Fair Daughter," and the other "Sweet Bells
Jangled"--and they, they won't take them--that's all.'
There was a 'sensation,' as reporters say, at this announcement:
Martha gave a sour little laugh of disgust; Cuthbert looked as if he
thought a good deal which brotherly feeling forbade him to put in
words; but Trixie tried to take Mark's hand under the table--he
shrank from all sympathy, however, at such a moment, and shook her off
impatiently, and all she could do was to keep her eyes in pity from
his face.
Mrs. Ashburn gave a tragic groan and shook her head: to her a young
man who was capable of writing novels was lost; she had a wholesome
horror of all fiction, having come from a race of Dissenters of the
strict old-fashioned class, whose prejudices her hard dull nature had
retained in all their strength. Her husband, without any very clear
views of his own, thought as she did as soon as he knew her opinions,
and they all left it to Mr. Lightowler to interpret the 'evident sense
of the house.'
He expanded himself imposingly, calling up his bitterest powers of
satire to do justice to the occasion: 'So _that's_ all, is it?' he
said; 'ah, and quite enough, too, _I_ should think; so it was the
bells on _your_ cap that were jingling all the time?'
'Since you put it in that pleasant way,' said Mark, 'I suppose it
was.'
'And that's how you've been studying for the Bar of evenings, this is
the way you've overcome your fondness for scribbling nonsense? I've
spent all the money I've laid out on you' (it was a way of his to talk
as if Mark had been a building estate), 'I've given you a good
education, all to 'ave you writing novels and get 'em "returned with
thanks!"--you might have done that much without going to College!'
'Every writer of any note has had novels declined at some time,' said
Mark.
'Well,' said Uncle Solomon, ponderously, 'if that's all, you've made a
capital start. You can set up as a big littery pot at once, _you_ can,
with a brace of 'em. I 'ope you're satisfied with all this, Jane, I'm
sure?'
'It's no use saying anything,' she said; 'but it's a bad return after
all your kindness to him.'
'A return with thanks,' put in Cuthbert, who was not without some
enjoyment of Mark's discomfiture; he had long had a certain contempt
for his elder brother as a much overrated man, and he felt, with
perfect justice, that had Fortune made him his uncle's favourite, he
had brains which would have enabled him to succeed where Mark had
failed; but he had been obliged to leave school early for a City
office, which had gone some way towards souring him.
'There's an old Latin proverb,' said Mr. Ashburn, with a feeling that
it was his turn--'an old Latin proverb, "_Nec suetonius ultra
crepitam_."'
'No, excuse me, you 'aven't _quite_ got it, Matthew,' said his
brother-in-law, patronisingly; 'you're very near it, though. It runs,
if I don't make a mistake, "Ne plus ultra sutorius (not
_suetonius_--_he_ was a Roman emperor)--crepitam," a favourite remark
of the poet Cicero--"Cobbler stick to your last," as _we_ have it more
neatly. But your father's right on the main point, Mark. I don't say
you need stick to the schoolmastering, unless you choose. I'll see you
started at the Bar; I came this very evening to 'ave a talk with you
on that. But what do you want to go and lower yourself by literature
for? There's a littery man down at our place, a poor feller that
writes for the "Chigbourne and Lamford Gazette," and gets my gardener
to let him take the measure of my gooseberries; he's got a hat on him
my scarecrow wouldn't be seen in. That's what you'll come to!'
'There's some difference,' said Mark, getting roused, 'between the
reporter of a country paper and a novelist.'
'There's a difference between you and him,' retorted his uncle; 'he
gets what he writes put in and paid so much a line for--_you_ don't.
That's all the difference _I_ can see.'
'But when the books are accepted, they will be paid for,' said Mark,
'and well paid for too.'
'I always thought that dog and the shadow must ha' been a puppy, and
now I know it,' said his uncle, irritably. 'Now look here, Mark, let's
have no more nonsense about it. I said I came here to have a little
talk with you, and though things are not what I expected, 'ave it I
will. When I saw you last, I thought you were trying to raise yourself
by your own efforts and studying law, and I said to myself, "I'll
give him another chance." It seems now that was all talk; but I'll
give you the chance for all that. If you like to take it, well and
good; if not, I've done with you this time once for all. You go on and
work 'ard at this Law till you've served your time out, or kept your
terms, or whatever they call it, and when you get called you can give
'em notice to quit at your school. _I'll_ pay your fees and see you
started in chambers till you're able to run alone. Only, and mind
this, no more of your scribbling--drop that littery rubbish once for
all, and I stand by you; go on at it, and I leave you to go to the
dogs your own way. That's my offer, and I mean it.'
There are few things so unpleasantly corrective to one's self-esteem
as a letter of rejection such as had come to Mark--the refusal of the
school committee was insignificant in comparison; only those who have
yielded to the subtle temptation to submit manuscript to an editor or
a publisher's reader, and have seen it return in dishonour, can quite
realise the dull anguish of it, the wild, impotent rebellion that
follows, and the stunned sense that all one's ideas will have somehow
to be readjusted; perhaps an artist whose pictures are not hung feels
something of it, but there one's wounded vanity can more easily find
salves.
Mark felt the blow very keenly; for weeks he had been building hopes
on these unfortunate manuscripts of his; he had sent both to a firm
under whose auspices he was particularly anxious to come before the
world, in the hope that one at least would find favour with them, and
now the two had been unequivocally declined; for a moment his
confidence in himself was shaken, and he almost accepted the verdict.
And yet he hesitated still: the publisher might be wrong; he had heard
of books riding out several such storms and sailing in triumphantly at
last. There was Carlyle, there was Charlotte Brontë, and other
instances occurred to him. And he longed for speedy fame, and the law
was a long avenue to it.
'You hear what your uncle says?' said his mother. 'Surely you won't
refuse a chance like this.'
'Yes, he will,' said Martha. 'Mark would rather write novels than
work, wouldn't you, Mark? It must be so amusing to write things which
will never be read, I'm sure.'
'Leave Mark alone, Martha,' said Trixie. 'It's a shame--it is.'
'I don't know why you should all be down on me like this,' said Mark;
'there's nothing positively immoral in writing books--at least when it
never goes any further. But I daresay you're right, and I believe
_you_ mean to be kind at any rate, uncle. I'll take your offer. I'll
read steadily, and get called, and see if I'm good for anything at the
Bar, since it seems I'm good for nothing else.'
'And you'll give up the writing, hey?' said his uncle.
'Oh, yes,' said Mark, irritably, 'anything you please. I'm a reformed
character; I'll take the pledge to abstain from ink in all forms if
you like.' It was not a very gracious way of accepting what was by no
means an unhandsome offer; but he was jarred and worried, and scarcely
knew what he said.
Mr. Lightowler was not sensitive, and was too satisfied at having
gained his object to cavil at Mark's manner of yielding. 'Very well;
that's settled,' he said. 'I'm glad you've come to your senses, I'm
sure. We'll have you on the Woolsack yet, and we'll say no more about
the other business.'
'And now,' said Mark, with a forced smile, 'I think I'll say good
night. I'll go and attack the law-books while I'm in the humour for
them.'
Upstairs in his room he got out his few elementary text-books, and
began to read with a sort of sullen determination; but he had not gone
very far in the 'descent of an estate-tail,' before he shut the book
up in a passion: 'I can't read to-night,' he said savagely; 'it isn't
easy to hug my chains all at once; it will be a long time before I
come out strong on estates-tail. If Holroyd (who says he _likes_ the
jargon) can't get a living by it, there's not much hope for me. I
loathe it! I'm sure I had a chance with those books of mine, too; but
that's all over. I must burn them, I suppose---- Who's there?' for
there was a tap at the door.
'It's me, Mark--Trixie--let me in.' Mark rose and opened the door to
Trixie, in a loose morning wrapper. 'Mark, I'm so sorry, dear,' she
said softly.
'Sorry! you ought to rejoice, Trixie,' said Mark, with a bitter laugh.
'I'm a brand from the burning--a repentant novelist, I've seen my
errors and am going to turn Lord Chancellor.'
'You mustn't be angry with them,' said Trixie. 'Dear ma is very
strict; but then she is so anxious to see you making a living, Mark,
and you know they don't give you very much at St. Peter's. And Martha
and Cuthbert can't help saying disagreeable things. Don't you think,
perhaps,' she added timidly, 'that it's better for you to give up
thinking about writing any more?'
'Well, I've done it, Trixie, at any rate. I'm not so bad as that
fellow Delobelle, in "Fromont Jeune," with his "Je n'ai pas le droit
de renoncer au théâtre!" am I? I've renounced _my_ stage. I'm a good
little boy, and won't make a mess with nasty ink and pens any more.
When I get those confounded books back they shall go into the fire--by
Jove they shall!'
'No, Mark, don't, it would be such a pity,' cried Trixie. 'I'm sure
they were beautifully written; quite as well as some that get printed.
I wish you could write novels and be Lord Chancellor too, Mark.'
'Bring out Acts in three volumes, and edit Judicature Rules in fancy
covers for railway reading? It would be very nice, Trixie, wouldn't
it? But I'm afraid it wouldn't do, even if I wrote them in secret,
under the Woolsack. If I write anything now, it must be a smart spicy
quarto on Bankruptcy, or a rattling digest on the Law of Settlement
and Highways. My fictions will be all legal ones.'
'I know you will do your best,' said Trixie, simply.
Mark dreamed that night--much as other disappointed literary aspirants
have dreamed before him--that a second letter had come from the
publishers, stating that they had reconsidered their decision, and
offering repentantly to publish both novels on fabulous terms. He was
just rushing to call Trixie, and tell her the good news, when the
dream faded, and he awoke to the consciousness of his very different
circumstances.
Literature had jilted him. The Law was to be his mistress henceforth:
a bony and parchment-faced _innamorata_, with a horsehair wig; and he
thought of the task of wooing her with a shudder.