LITTLE RIFTS.
One bright morning in May, not long after the return from the
Continent, Mabel was sitting in her own room at the back of the small
house which had been taken on Campden Hill; she was writing at a table
by the raised window, when the door opened suddenly, and Mark burst
in, in a state of suppressed but very evident excitement. 'I have
brought you something!' he said, and threw down three peacock-blue
volumes upon her open blotting-case; the title, 'Sweet Bells Jangled,'
ran in sprawling silver letters from corner to corner of the covers,
through a medley of cracked bells and withered hyacinths in dull gold;
the general effect being more bold than pleasing. Mabel was just about
to exclaim sympathetically, 'What a frightful binding they've given
you, dear;' when Mark informed her, with some complacency, that it was
his own design. 'Nowadays, you see,' he explained, 'you want something
to catch the eye, or you won't be read!' Inwardly Mabel could not help
wondering that he could condescend to such a device, or think it
necessary in his own case. 'Look at the fly-leaf,' he said, and she
opened the first volume, and read the printed dedication, '_To My
Wife._' 'I thought that must bring me luck,' he said; 'and now,
darling, do you know what you are going to do? You are going to put
away all those confounded letters and sit down here, and read the
opening chapters carefully, and tell me what you think of them.' For
till then he had made continual excuses for not showing her any
portion of his new work, either in manuscript or proof, from mixed
motives of vanity and diffidence.
Mabel laughed with affectionate pride at his anxiety: 'This is what
comes of marrying a great author!' she said; 'go away and let me begin
at once, and tell you at lunch how I enjoyed it.'
'No,' said Mark despotically, 'I'm going to stay here--or you might
try to skip.'
'But I can't allow that,' she protested; 'suppose I find I'm obliged
to skip--suppose it's a terrible disappointment? No, you ridiculous
Mark, I didn't mean it--stay if you like, I'm not afraid of being
disappointed--though I really would enjoy it best in solitude!'
Mark insisted; he felt that at last he was about to be reinstated in
his own opinion, he could wait no longer for the assurance of triumph;
when he saw with his own eyes the effect of his genius upon Mabel,
when he read the startled delight and growing admiration in her face,
then at last he would know that he was not actually an impostor!
There are many methods of self-torture, but perhaps few more ingenious
and protracted than submitting the result of one's brain-work to a
person whose good opinion we covet, and watching the effect. Mark
imposed it on himself, nevertheless, chiefly because in his heart he
had very little fear of the result. He took a rocking-chair and sat
down opposite Mabel, trying to read the paper; by-and-by, as she read
on in silence, his heart began to beat and he rocked himself
nervously, while his eyes kept wandering from the columns to the
pretty hands supporting the volume which hid Mabel's face. Hands
reveal many things, and Mabel's could be expressive enough at
times--but they told him nothing then; he watched them turn a leaf
from time to time, they always did so deliberately, almost
caressingly, he thought, but with no eagerness--although the opening
was full of incident. He calculated that she must be at a place where
there was a brilliant piece of humorous description; she had a fair
share of humour--why didn't she laugh?
'Have you got to that first appearance of the Curate on the
tennis-ground?' he asked at last.
She laid down the volume for an instant, and he saw her eyes--they
were calm and critical. 'Past that! I am beginning Chapter Three,' she
said.
The second chapter had contained some of his most sparkling and
rollicking writing--and it had not even moved her to smile! He
consoled himself with the reflection that the robuster humour never
does appeal to women. He had begun his third chapter with a ludicrous
anecdote which, though it bordered on the profane, he had considered
too good to be lost, but now he had misgivings.
'I'm afraid,' he ventured dubiously, 'you won't quite like that bit
about the bishop, darling?'
'I'm afraid I don't quite,' she replied from behind the book. The
story had no real harm in it, even in Mabel's eyes; the only pity was
that in any part of 'Illusion' it would have been an obvious
blot--and that it did not seem out of keeping in the pages she was
reading now.
She had sat down to read with such high hopes, so sure an anticipation
of real enjoyment, that it was hard to find that the spell was broken;
she tried to believe that she read on because she was interested--her
real reason was a dread of some pause, when she would be asked to give
her opinion. What should she say?
Perhaps it should be explained at once that the book was not a foolish
one; Mark, whatever else he was, could scarcely be called a fool, and
had a certain share of the literary faculty; it was full of smart and
florid passages that had evidently been industriously polished, and
had something of the perishable brilliancy of varnish. There is a kind
of vulgarity of mind so subtle as to resist every test but ink, and
the cheap and flashy element in Mark's nature had formed a deposit,
slight, perhaps, but perceptible in more than one page of 'Sweet Bells
Jangled.' Mabel felt her heart grow heavier as she read. Why had he
chosen to deliberately lower his level like this? Where were the
strong and masterly touch, the tenderness and the dignity of his first
book? That had faults, too, even faults of taste--but here the faults
had almost overgrown the taste! Surely if she read on, she would find
the style attain the old distinction, and the tone grow noble and
tender once again--but she read on, and the style was always the same,
and the tone, if anything, rather worse!
Mark had long since moved to a spot where he could command her face;
her fine eyebrows were slightly drawn, her long lashes lowered, and
her mouth compressed as if with pain--somehow the sight did not
encourage him. She was becoming conscious that her expression was
being closely watched, which seldom adds a charm to reading, and at
last she could persevere no longer, and shut the book with a faint
sigh.
'Well,' said Mark, desperately; he felt as if his fate hung on her
answer.
'I--I--have read so little yet,' she said; 'let me tell you what I
think at the end!'
'Tell me what you think of it so far,' said Mark.
'_Must_ I?' she said, almost imploringly.
'Yes,' said Mark, with a grating attempt at a laugh; 'put me out of my
misery!'
She loved him too well to make some flattering or evasive reply--she
was jealous for his reputation, and could not see him peril it without
a protest. 'Oh, Mark,' she cried, locking her hands and pressing them
tight together, 'you must feel yourself--it is not your best--you have
done such great work--you will again, I know, dear--but this, it is
not worthy of you--it is not worthy of "Illusion"!'
He knew too well that it was his best, that it was not in him to do
better; if the world's verdict agreed with hers, he was a failure
indeed. He had been persuading himself that, after all, he was not a
common impostor, that he had genius of his own which would be
acknowledged far above his friend's talent; now all at once the
conviction began to crumble.
He turned upon her with a white face and a look of anger and
mortification in his eyes. 'The first is always the best, of course,'
he said bitterly; 'that is the regulation verdict. If "Sweet Bells"
had come first, and "Illusion" second, you would have seen this sad
falling off in the _second_ book. I did not think _you_ would be the
first to take up that silly old cry, Mabel--I thought I could always
come to my wife for encouragement and appreciation; it seems I was
mistaken!'
Mabel bit her lip, and her eyes were dazzled for a moment: 'You asked
me what I thought,' she said in a low voice; 'do you think it was
pleasant to tell you? When you ask me again, I shall know better how
you expect to be answered!'
He felt all at once what he had done, and hastened to show his
penitence; she forgave, and did not let him see how deeply she had
been wounded--only from that day some of the poetry of her life had
turned to prose. Of 'Sweet Bells Jangled' she never spoke again, and
he did not know whether she ever read it to the end or not.
They had finished breakfast one Saturday morning, and Mark was
leisurely cutting the weekly reviews, when he suddenly sheltered
himself behind the paper he had been skimming--'Sweet Bells' was
honoured with a long notice. His head swam as he took in the effect
with some effort. The critic was not one of those fallen angels of
literature who rejoice over an unexpected recruit; he wrote with a
kindly recollection of 'Illusion,' and his condemnation was sincerely
reluctant; still, it was unmixed condemnation, and ended with an
exhortation to the author to return to the 'higher and more artistic
aims' of his first work. Mark's hand shook till the paper rustled when
he came to that; he was so long silent that Mabel looked up from
reading her letters, and asked if the new book was reviewed yet.
'Reviewed yet!' said Mark from behind the article; 'why, it hasn't
been out a fortnight.'
'I know,' said Mabel, 'but I thought perhaps that, after
"Illusion"----'
'Every book has to wait its turn!' said Mark, as he saved himself with
all the reviews, and locked himself in the little study where he
sketched out the stories to which he had not as yet found appropriate
endings.
There was another notice amongst the reviews, but in that the critic
was relentless in pointing out that the whilom idol had feet of
clay--and enormous ones; after a very severe elaboration of the
faults, the critic concluded: 'It almost seems as though the author,
weary of the laudation which accompanied the considerable (if, in some
degree, accidental) success of his first book, had taken this very
effectual method of rebuking the enthusiasm. However this may be, one
more such grotesque and ill-considered production as that under
review, and we can promise him an instant cessation of all the
inconveniences of popularity.'
Mark crumpled up the paper and pitched it to the other end of the room
in a fury--it was a conspiracy, they were writing him down--oh, the
malice and cowardice of it! He destroyed both reviews lest Mabel
should see her opinion confirmed, and her faith in him should be
shaken.
However, sundry copies of the reviews in question were forwarded to
him by good-natured people who thought it might amuse him to see them,
and one was even sent to Mabel with red chalk crosses in thoughtful
indication of the more unpleasant passages; she saw the date, and
remembered it as the day on which Mark had fenced himself in at
breakfast. She came in with the paper as he sat in his study, and
putting one hand on his shoulder, bent over him with a loving reproach
in her eyes: 'Someone has just sent me this,' she said; 'you have seen
it I know. Why didn't you trust me, dear? Why have you let this come
from others? Never try to hide things from me again, Mark--not even
for my good! and--and after this let us share everything--sorrow and
all--together!' She kissed him once on the forehead, and left him
there to his own thoughts.
Why, thought Mabel, was he not strong enough to disregard criticism if
he was satisfied with his own work, as he evidently was? She hated to
think of his having tried to keep their notices from her in that weak,
almost underhand, way; she knew that the motive was not consideration
for her feelings, and had to admit sadly that her hero was painfully
human after all.
Still 'Illusion' had revealed a nature the nobility of which no
weaknesses could obscure, and if his daily life did not quite bear out
such indications, he was Mark Ashburn, and she loved him. Nothing
could alter that.
* * * * *
Some weeks later Vincent returned from Italy, and one of the first
persons he met was Harold Caffyn. It was in the City, where Vincent
had had business, and he attempted at first to pass the other by with
the curtest possible recognition; he had never understood his conduct
in the Wastwater episode, and still resented it. But Caffyn would not
allow himself to be cut, and his greeting was blandly affectionate as
he accused his friend of abandoning him up in the Lake district; he
was determined, if he could, to convince Holroyd that his silence as
to Mabel's impending marriage had been due solely to consideration for
his feelings, and then, when confidence was restored, he could sound
him upon the result of his journey to Laufingen. But Vincent, from a
vague feeling of distrust, was on his guard. Caffyn got nothing out of
him, even by the most ingenious pumping; he gathered that he had met
Mark at Laufingen; but with all his efforts he was not able to
discover if that meeting had really been by accident or design. He
spoke casually of 'Illusion,' but Vincent showed no particular
emotion.
'I suppose you don't know,' he added, 'that Mrs. Featherstone has done
it the honour of making a play of it--it's going to be done at the end
of the season at their house, before a select party of distinguished
sufferers.'
Holroyd had not heard that.
'I've been let in for it,' Caffyn continued; 'I'm playing that stick
of a poet, "Julian," the beggar's name is; it's my last appearance on
the boards, till I come out as Benedick--but that won't interest you,
and it's a sort of secret at present.'
Vincent was not curious, and asked no questions.
'Who do you think is to be the Beaumelle, though?' said Caffyn; 'the
author's own wife! Romantic that, eh? She's not half bad at
rehearsals; you must come and see us, my boy!'
'Perhaps I shall,' said Vincent, mechanically, and left him, as much
at fault as ever, but resolved to have patience still.
Caffyn's was a nature that liked tortuous ways for their own sake; he
had kept his suspicions to himself hitherto, he was averse to taking
any direct action until he was quite sure of his ground. He had those
papers in Holroyd's writing, it was true, but he had begun to feel
that they were not evidence enough to act on. If by some extraordinary
chance they were quite compatible with Mark's innocence, then if he
brought a charge against him, or if any slanderous insinuations were
traced to him, he would be placed in an extremely awkward and
invidious position. 'If I'm right,' he thought, 'Master Vincent's
playing some deep game of his own--it may be mine for all I know; at
all events I'll lie low till I can find out where the cards are, and
whether an ace or two has got up my sleeve.'
Vincent had been able to speak with perfect calmness of his lost book,
because he had almost brought himself to a philosophic indifference
regarding it, the more easily as he had had consoling indications
lately that his creative power had not been exhausted with that one
effort, and that with returning health he might yet do good work in
the world.
But now, as he walked on after leaving Caffyn, this indifference
suddenly vanished; his heart beat with a secret and exquisite bliss,
as he thought of this play in which Mabel was to represent his own
heroine. To hear that his work was to receive the rather moderate
distinction which can be conferred by its dramatisation on a private
stage would scarcely have elated him under ordinary circumstances; it
was no longer any concern of his at all. Still he could not resist the
subtle flattery in the knowledge that his conception was about to be
realised in a manner for which few authors would dare to hope--the
woman who had inspired it would lend it all her own grace and beauty
and tenderness to fill the faint outline he had traced with such
loving pains. All the banality of private theatricals could not spoil
that--she need not even act, she had only to be her own sweet self to
give life and charm to the poorest play, and the most incompetent of
performances. And then, as he thought of it, a wild longing came over
him to be there and see her; there might be something grotesque, and,
under the circumstances, almost undignified in such a longing now, but
it possessed him nevertheless. He would not betray himself or Mark,
but this one gratification he hungered for, and neither pride nor
prudence had power to restrain him.
He had meant to see as little as possible of Mabel on his return, but
he broke this resolution now. He would not keep away, he thought;
surely he could trust himself to bear the sight of her happiness; it
ought to reconcile him more fully to all he had endured to secure it,
and then he would be able to find out from her if this, which he had
heard from Caffyn, was really true.
And so, having procured the address from Mrs. Langton, he went on that
same afternoon to Campden Hill, not knowing, nor indeed greatly caring
just then, that this was not the way to deaden the pain at his heart.