by Ellen Wood
He could not find it. One or two bad passages, that he specially remembered, caught his eye; they were there still, unaltered. Had Gerald carelessly overlooked them? Hamish was turning over the pages in some wonder, when Winny came in.
Came in, cross, fractious, tearful. Lonely as Mrs. Gerald Yorke’s life had been in Gloucestershire, she had long wished herself back, for the one in London was becoming too trying. Winny had none of the endurance that some wives can show, and love and suffer on.
She came up to Hamish with outstretched hand. But that he and Ellen proved the generous friends they did, she could not have borne things. Many and many a day there would have been no dinner for the poor little girls, no stop-gap for the petty creditors supplying the daily wants, no comforts of any sort at home, save for the unobtrusive, silently aiding hand of Hamish Channing.
“What is the matter, Winny?” asked Hamish, in relation to the tears. And he spoke very much as he would to a child. In fact, Mrs. Gerald Yorke had mostly to be treated as one.
“Gerald has been so cross; he boxed little Kitty’s ears, and nearly boxed mine,” pleaded poor Winny, putting herself into, a low rocking-chair, near the window. “It is so unreasonable of him, you know, Mr. Channing, to vent it upon us. It’s just as if it were our fault.”
“Vent what?” asked Hamish, taking a seat at the table, and turning to face her.
“All of it,” said Winny, in her childish, fractious way. “His shortness of money, and the many bothers he is in. I can’t help it I would if I could, but if I can’t, I can’t, and Gerald knows I can’t.”
“In bothers as usual?” spoke Hamish, in his gay way.
“He is never out of them, Mr. Channing; you know he is not; and they get worse and worse. Gerald has no certain income at all; and it seems to me that what he earns by writing, whether it’s for magazines or whether it’s for newspapers, is always drawn beforehand, for he never has any money to bring home. Of course the tradespeople come and ask for their money; of course the landlady expects to be paid her weekly rent; and when they insist on seeing Gerald, or stop him when he goes out, he comes back in such a passion you never saw. She made him savage this evening, and he took and boxed Kitty.”
“She! Who?”
“The landlady — Miss Cook.”
“Winny, I paid Miss Cook myself, last week.”
“Oh, but I didn’t tell you there was more owing to her; I didn’t like to,” answered helpless Winny. “There is; and she has begun to worry always. She gets things in for us, and wants to be paid for them.”
“Of course she does,” thought Hamish. “Where’s Gerald?” he asked.
“Gone out somewhere. You know that money you let me have to pay the horrible bill I couldn’t sleep for, and didn’t dare to give to Gerald,” she continued, putting up her hands to her little distressed face. “I’ve got something to tell you about it.”
Hamish was at a loss. The bills he and his wife had advanced money for were getting numerous. Winny, rocking herself gently, saw he did not recollect.
“It was for the shoes and stockings for the children and the boots for me; we had nothing to our feet. Ellen brought me the money last Saturday — three pounds — though the bill was not quite that.
Well, (Jerald saw the sovereigns lying in the dressing-table drawer — it was so stupid of me to leave them there! — and he took them. First he asked me where I’d got them from; I said I had scraped them up to pay for the children’s shoes. Upon that, he put them in his pocket, saying he had bills far more pressing than children’s shoe-bills, and must take them for his own use. O-o-o-o-o-oh!” concluded the young wife, with a burst of her childish grief, “I am very miserable.”
“You should have told your husband the money belonged to Mrs. Channing — and was given to you by her for a special purpose.”
“Good gracious!” cried Winny, astonishment arresting the tears in her pretty eyes. “As if I would dare to tell him that! If Gerald thought you or Ellen helped me, he would be in the worst passion of all. I’m not sine but he’d beat me.”
“Why?”
“He would think I was running up a great debt on my own score for him to pay back sometime. And he has such oceans of pride, besides. You must never tell him, Mr. Channing.”
“How does he think the accounts get paid?” asked Hamish.
“He does not think about it,” she answered, eagerly. “So long as he is not bothered, he won’t be bothered. He will never look at a single bill, or hear me speak of one. As far as he knows, the people and Miss Cook come and worry me for money regularly. But oh! Mr. Channing! if I were to be worried to any degree, I should die. I should wish to die, for I could not bear it. Ellen knows I could not.”
Yes; in a degree, Hamish and his wife both knew this. Winny Yorke was quite unfitted to battle with the storms of the world; they could not see her breasting them, and not help. A brother of hers — and Gerald was aware of this — who had been overwhelmed with the like, proved how ill he was fitted to bear, by putting a terrible end to them and all else.
“And so, that bill for the shoes and stockings was not paid, and they came after it to-day, and abused Gerald — for I had said to them it would be ready money,” pursued Winny, rocking away. “Oh, he was so angry! he forbid me to buy shoes; he said the children must go barefoot until he was in a better position. If the man comes to-morrow, and insists on seeing me, I shall have to run away. And Fredy’s ill.” The wind-up was rather unexpected, and given in a different tone. Fredy was the eldest of the little girls, Kitty the second, Rosy the third.
“If she should be going to have measles, the others will be sure to catch it, and then what should I do?” went on Winny, piteously. “There’d be a doctor to pay for, and medicine to be got, and I don’t think druggists give credit to strangers. It may turn out to be only a bad cold.”
“To be sure it may,” said Hamish, cheerily. “Hope for the best, Mrs. Yorke. Ellen always does.”
Mrs. Yorke sighed. Ellen’s husband was very different from hers.
“Gerald is in luck; he will soon, I think, be able to get over his difficulties. Have you read these reviews?” continued Hamish, laying his hand upon the journals at his elbow.
“Oh yes, I’ve read them,” was the answer, given with slighting discontent.
“I never read anything finer — in the way of praise — than this review in the Snarler” spoke Hamish. “He wrote that himself.”
“Wrote what?”
“That review in the Snarler.”
“Who wrote it?” pursued Hamish rather at sea. “Gerald did.”
“Nonsense, Winny. You must be mistaken.”
“I’m sure I’m not,” said Winny. “He wrote it at this very table. He was three hours writing it, and then he was nearly as long altering it: taking out words and sentences and putting in stronger ones.”
Hamish, when his surprise was over, laughed slightly. It had a little destroyed his romance.
“And two friends of Gerald’s wrote the other reviews,” said Winny, continuing her revelations. “Gerald has great influence with the reviewing people; he says he can get any work made, or marred.”
“Oh, can he?” quoth Hamish, with light goodnature. “At least, these reviews will tell well with the public and sell the book. Why, Winny, instead of being low-spirited, you have cause to be just the other way. It is a great thing to have got this book so well out. It may make Gerald’s fortune.”
Winny sat bolt upright in the rocking-chair, and looked at Hamish, with a puzzled, cross face. He supposed that she did not understand.
“What I mean, Winny, is that this book may lead really to fortune in the end. If Gerald once becomes known as a successful author—”
“The bringing out of the book has caused him to be ten times more worried than before,” interrupted Winny. “Of course it is known that he has a book out, and the consequence is that everybody who has got sixpence owing by either of us, is dunning him for money — just
as if the book had made his fortune! He cannot go to his chambers, unless he shoots in like a cat; and he is getting afraid to come here. My opinion is, that he’d have been better off without the book than with it.”
This was not a particularly pleasant view of affairs; but Hamish was far from subscribing to all Winny said. He answered with his cheering smile, that was worth its weight in gold, and rose to leave.
“Things are always darkest just before dawn, Mrs. Yorke. And I must repeat my opinion — that this book will lay the foundation of Gerald’s fortune. He will soon get out of his embarrassments.”
“Well, I don’t understand it, but I know he says the book has plunged him into fresh debt,” returned Winny, gloomily. “I think he has had to pay an immense deal to get it out.”
Hamish was turning over the leaves of the book as he stood. Winny at once offered to lend it him: there were two or three copies about the house, she said. Accepting the offer, for he really wished to see the good and great alterations Gerald must have made, Hamish was putting the three volumes under his arm, when the street door opened, and Gerald came running up.
“Well, old friend!” cried Hamish, heartily, as he shook Gerald’s hand. “I came to wish you joy.” Winny disappeared. Never feeling altogether at ease in the presence of her clever, stern, arbitrary husband, she was glad to get away from it when she could. Hamish and Gerald stood at the window, talking together in the fading light, their theme Gerald’s book, the reviews, and other matters connected with it. Hamish spoke the true sentiments of his heart when he said how glad and proud he was, for Gerald’s sake.
“I have been telling your wife that it is the first stepping-stone to fortune. It must be a great success, Gerald.”
“Ah, I thought you were a little out in the opinion you formed of it,” said Gerald loftily.
“I am thankful that it has proved so. You have taken pains to alter it, Gerald.”
“Not much: I thought it did very well as it was. And the result proves I was right,” added Gerald complacently. “Have you read the reviews?”
“I should think I have,” said Hamish warmly. “They brought me here to-night. Reviews such as those will take the public by storm.”
“Yes, they tell rather a different tale from the verdict passed by you. You assured me I should never succeed in fiction; had mistaken my vocation; got no elements for it within me; might shut up shop. What do the reviews say? Look at that one in the Snarler,” continued Gerald, snatching up that noted authority, and holding it to the twilight, formed by the remnant of day and the light of the street-lamps, while he read an extract from its pages aloud.
“We do not know how to find terms of praise sufficiently high for this marvellously beautiful book of fiction. The grateful public, now running after its three volumes, cannot be supplied fast enough. From the first page to the last, attention is rapturously enchained; one cannot put the book down—”
“And so on, and so on,” continued Gerald breaking off the laudatory recital suddenly, and flinging the paper behind him again. “No good to continue, as you’ve read it. Yes, that is praise from the Snarler. Worth having, I take it,” he concluded in unmistakable triumph over his fellow-man and author, quite unconscious that poor simple Winny had let the cat out of the bag.
“If reviews ever sell a book, these must sell yours, Gerald.”
“I think so. We shall see whether your book gets such; it’s finished, I hear,” spoke Gerald, leaning from the window to survey a man who had just crossed the street. “One never can tell what luck a work will have while it is in manuscript.”
“One can tell what it ought to have.”
“Ought! oughts don’t go for much now-a-days; favour does, though. The devil take the fellow.”
This last genial wish applied to the man, who had made for the house-door and was ringing its bell. Gerald grew just a little troubled, and betrayed it.
“Don’t let these matters disturb your peace, Gerald,” advised Hamish in his kindest and most impressive manner. “You cannot fail to get on now. Have the publishers paid you anything yet?”
“Paid me!” retorted Gerald rather savagely, “they are asking for the money I owe them. It was arranged that I should advance fifty pounds towards bringing the book out. And I’ve not been able to give it them yet.”
Gerald spoke truly. The confiding publishers, not knowing the true state of Mr. Yorke’s finances, but supposing there could be no danger with a man in his position — living in the great world, of aristocratic connections, getting his name up in journalism — had accepted in all good faith his plausible excuses for the non-prepayment of the fifty pounds, and brought out the book at their own cost. They were reminding him of it now; and more than hinting that a bargain was a bargain.
“And how I am to stave them off, the deuce only knows,” observed Gerald. “I want to keep in with them if I can. The notion of my finding fifty pounds!”
“There must be proceeds from a book with such reviews as these,” said Hamish. “Let them take it out of their first returns.”
“Oh, ah! that’s all very well; but I don’t know,” was the answer given gloomily.
“Well, good night, old friend, for I must be off; you have my best wishes in every way. I am going to take home the book for a day; I should like to look over it; Winny says you have other copies.”
“Take it if you like,” growled Gerald, who heard the maid’s step on the stairs, and knew he was going to be appealed to. “Now then!” he angrily saluted her, as she came in. “I’ve told you before you are not to bring messages up to me after dusk. How dare you disobey?”
“It’s that gentleman that always will see you, sir,” spoke the discomfited girl.
“I am gone to bed,” roared Gerald; “be off and say so.”
And Hamish Channing, running lightly down stairs, heard the bolt of the room slipped, as the servant came out of it. That Gerald had a good deal of this kind of worry, there was no doubt; but he did not go the best way to work to prevent it.
As soon as Hamish got home, he sat down to his writing-table, and set himself to examine Gerald’s book. Gradually, as he turned page after page of the three volumes in rotation, a perplexed, dissatisfied look, mixed with much disappointment, seated itself in his face.
There had been no alterations made at all. All the objectionable elements were there, just as they had been in the manuscript. The book was, in fact, exactly what Hamish had found it — utterly worthless and terribly fast. It had not a chance of ultimate success. Not one reader in ten, beginning the book, would be able to call up patience to finish it. And Hamish was grievously vexed for Gerald’s sake; he could have set on to bewail and bemoan aloud.
Suddenly the reviews flashed over his mind; their glowing descriptions, their subtle praise, their seductive, lavish promises. In spite of himself, of his deep feeling, his real vexation, he burst into a fit of laughter, prolonged until he had to hold his sides, at the thought of how the very innocent and helpless public would be taken in.
CHAPTER XXI.
Roland Yorke’s Shoulder to the Wheel THE weeks went on. Roland Yorke was hard at work, carrying out his resolve of “putting his shoulder to the wheel.” Vague ideas of getting into something good, by which a fortune might be made, floated through his brain in rose-coloured clouds. What the something was to be he did not exactly know; meanwhile, as a preliminary to it, he sought and obtained copying from Greatorex and Greatorex, to be done in spare hours at home. Of which fact Roland (unlike Mr. Brown) made no secret; he talked of it to the whole office; and Mr. Brown supplied him openly.
It was an excessively hot evening, getting now towards dusk. Roland had carried his work to Mrs. Jones’s room, not so much because his own parlour was rather close and stuffy, as that he might obtain slight intervals of recreative gossip. He had it to himself, however, for Mrs. Jones was absent on household cares. The window looked on a back-yard, in which the maid, who had come out, was hanging up a red table-co
ver to dry, that had evidently had something spilled on it. Of course Roland arrested his pen to watch the process. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, and had just complained aloud that it was hotter than Africa.
“Who did that?” he called out through the open window. “You?”
“Mr. Ollivera, sir. He upset some ink; and mistress have been washing the place out in layers of cold water. She don’t think it’ll show.”
“What d’ye call layers?”
“Different lots, sir. About nineteen bowlfuls she swilled it through; and me a emptying of ’em at the sink, and droring off fresh water ready to her hand.”
The hanging-out and pulling the damaged part straight took a tolerably long time; Roland, in the old seduction of any amusement being welcome as an accompaniment to work, continued to look on and talk.
Suddenly, he remembered his copying, and the young lady for whose sake he had undertaken the labour.
“This is not sticking to it,” he soliloquised. “And if I am to have her, I must work for her. Won’t I work, that’s all! I’ll stick at it like any brick! But this copying is poor stuff to get a fellow on. If I could only slip into something better!”
Considering that Mr. Roland Yorke’s earnings the past week, what with mistakes and other failures, had been one shilling and ninepence, and the week previous to that fifteenpence, it certainly did not look as though the copying would prove the high road to fortune. He began casting about other projects in his mind, as he wrote.
“If they’d give me a place under Government, it would be the very thing. But they don’t. Old Dick Yorke’s as selfish as a camel, and Carrick’s hiding his head, goodness knows where. So I am thrown on my own resources. Bless us all! when a fellow wants to get on in this world, he can’t.”
At this juncture Roland came to the end of his paper. As it was a good opportunity for taking a little respite, he laid down his pen, and exercised his thoughts.
“There’s those photographing places — lots of them springing up. You can’t turn a corner into a street but you come bang upon a fresh establishment. They can’t require a fellow to have any previous knowledge, they can’t. I wonder if any of them would take me on, and give me a couple of guineas a-week, or so? Nothing to do there, but talk to the visitors, and take their faces. I should make a good hand at that. But, perhaps, she’d not like it! She might object to marry a man of that sort. What a difficulty it is to get into anything! I must think of the other plan.”