Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  They talked for some time about the book, Constance assuming an air of mystery as regards its future and George speaking of it with the utmost indifference. At the last minute, when he had risen to go and was standing beside her, she laid her hand upon his arm.

  “You do not think I am heartless, do you?” she asked, looking at a particular button on his coat.

  “No,” George answered. “I think you are very sincere. I sometimes wish you would forget to be so sincere with yourself. I wish you would let yourself run away with yourself now and then.”

  “That would be very wrong. It would be very unfair and unjust to you. Suppose — only suppose, you know — that I made up my mind to marry you, and then discovered when it was too late that I did not love you. Would not that be dreadful? Is it not better to wait a little longer?”

  “You shall never say that I have pressed you into a decision against your will,” said George, betraying in one speech his youth, his ignorance of woman in general and his almost quixotic readiness to obey Constance in anything and everything.

  “You are very generous,” she answered, still looking at the button. “But I will not feel that I am spoiling your life — no, let me speak — to keep you in this position much longer would be doing that, indeed it would. In six months from now you will be famous. I know it, though you laugh at me. Then you will be able to marry whom you please. I cannot marry you now, for I do not love you enough. You are free, you must not feel that I want to bind you, do you understand. You will travel this summer, for you have told me that you are going to make several visits in country-houses. If you see any one you like better than me, do not feel that you are tied by any promises. It would not break my heart, if you married some one else.”

  In spite of her calmness there was a slight tremor in her voice which did not escape George’s ear.

  “I shall never love any one else,” he said simply.

  “You may. I may. But waiting must have a limit — —”

  “Say this, Constance,” said George. “Say that if, by next May, you do not love me less than you do now, you will be my wife.”

  “No. I must love you more. If I love you better than now, it will show that my love is always to increase, and I will marry you.”

  “In May?”

  “In May, next year. But this is no engagement. I make no promise, and I will take none from you. You are free, and so am I, until the first of May — —”

  “I shall never be free again, dear,” said George, happily, for he anticipated great things of the strange agreement she proposed. He put his arm about her and drew her to him very tenderly. Another second and his lips would have touched her cheek, just where they had touched it once before. But Constance drew back quickly and slipped from his arm.

  “No, no,” she laughed, “that is not a part of the agreement. It is far too binding.”

  George’s face was grave and sad. Her action had given him a sharp thrust of painful disappointment, and he did his best not to hide it. Constance looked at him a moment.

  “Am I not right?” she asked.

  “You are always right — even when you give me pain,” he answered with a shade of bitterness.

  “Have I given you pain now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you think, from the way I behaved, that I would let you kiss me for good-bye?”

  “Yes.”

  “You shall not say that I hurt you, and you shall not go away believing that I deceived you,” said Constance, coming back to him.

  She put her two hands round his neck and drew down his willing face. Then she kissed him softly on both cheeks.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean to hurt you. Good-bye — dear.”

  George left the house feeling very happy, but persuaded that neither he nor any other man could ever understand the heart of woman, which, after all, seemed to be the only thing in the world worth understanding. He had ample time for reflection in the course of the summer, but without the reality before him the study of the problem grew more and more perplexing.

  The weather grew very warm in the end of June, and George left New York. He had written much in the course of the year and had earned enough money to give himself a rest during the hot months. He tried to persuade his father to accompany him and to spend the time by the seaside while George himself made his promised visits. But Jonah Wood declared that he preferred New York in the summer and that nothing would induce him to waste money on such folly as travelling. To tell the truth, the old gentleman had grown accustomed to rigid economy in his little house in town, but he could not look forward with any pleasure to the discomforts of second-rate hotels in second-rate places. So George went away alone.

  He had already begun another book. He did not look upon his first effort in the light of a book at all, but he had tasted blood, and the thirst was upon him, and he must needs quench it. This time, however, he set himself steadily to work to do the very best he could, labouring to repress his own vivacity and trying to keep out of the fever that was threatening to carry him away outside of himself. He limited his work strictly to a small amount every day, polishing every sentence and thinking out every phrase before it was set down. Working in this way he had written about half a volume by the end of August, when he found himself in a pleasant country-house by the sea in the midst of a large party of people. He had all but forgotten his first book, and had certainly but a very dim recollection of what it contained. He looked back upon its feverish production as upon a sort of delirious dream during which he had raved in a language now strange to his memory.

  One afternoon, in the midst of a game of lawn-tennis, a telegram was brought to him.

  “Rob Roy and Co. publish book immediately England and America. Have undertaken that you accept royalty ten per cent retail advertised price. Wire reply. C. F.”

  George possessed a very considerable power of concealing his emotions, but this news was almost too much for his equanimity. He thrust the despatch into his pocket and went on playing, but he lost the game in a shameful fashion and was roundly abused by his cousin Mamie Trimm, who chanced to be his partner. Mamie and her mother were stopping in the same house, by what Mrs. Sherrington Trimm considered a rather unfortunate accident, since Mamie was far too fond of George already. In reality, the excellent hostess had an idea that George loved the girl, and as the match seemed most appropriate in her eyes, she had brought them together on purpose.

  As soon as possible he slipped away, put on his flannel jacket and went to the telegraph office, reading the despatch he had received over and over again as he hurried along the path, and trying to compose his answer at the same time. Constance’s message seemed amazingly neat, business-like and concise, and he wondered whether some one else had not been concerned in the affair. The phrase about the royalty did not sound like a woman’s expression, though she might have copied it from the publisher’s letter.

  George had formerly imagined that if his first performance were really in danger of being published, he should do everything in his power to prevent such a catastrophe. He felt no such impulse now, however. Messrs. Rob Roy and Company were very serious people, great publishers, whose name alone gave a book a chance of success. They bore an exceptional reputation in the world of books, and George knew very well that they would not publish trash. But he was not elated by the news, however much surprised he might be. It was strange, indeed, that a firm of such good judgment should have accepted his novel, but it could not but be a failure, all the same. He would get the proofs as soon as possible, and he would do what he could to make the work decently presentable by inserting plentiful improvements.

  His answer to Constance’s telegram was short.

  “Deplore catastrophe. Pity public. Thank publisher. Agree terms. Where are proofs? G. W.”

  By the time the proofs were ready, George was once more in New York, though Constance had not yet returned. He was hard at work upon his second book and looked with some dis
gust at the package of printed matter that lay folded as it had come, upon his table. Nevertheless he opened the bundle and looked at them.

  “Confound them!” he exclaimed. “They have sent me a paged proof instead of galleys!”

  It was evident that he could not insert many changes, where the matter was already arranged in book form, and he anticipated endless annoyance in pasting in extensive “riders” of writing-paper in order to get room for the vast changes he considered necessary.

  An hour later he was lying back in his easy-chair reading his own novel with breathless interest. He had not yet made a correction of any kind in the text. It was not until the following day that he was able to go over it all more calmly, but even then, he found that little could be done to improve it. When he had finished, he sent the proofs back and wrote a letter to Constance.

  “I have read the book over,” he wrote, among other things, “and it is not so bad as I supposed. I know that it cannot be good, but I am convinced that worse novels have found their way into print, if not into notice. I take back at least one-tenth of all I said about it formerly, and I will not abuse it in the future, leaving that office to those who will doubtless command much forcible language in support of their just opinion. Am I to thank you, too? I hardly know. There are other things for which I would rather be in a position to owe you thanks. However, the die is cast, you have made a skipping-rope of the Rubicon and have whisked it under my feet without my consent. Let the poor book take its chance. Its birth was happy, may its death at least be peaceful.”

  To this Constance replied three weeks later.

  “I am glad to see that a disposition to repentance has set in. You are wise in not abusing my book any more. You ought to be doing penance in sackcloth and ashes before that bench in Central Park on which I sat when I told you it was good. The children would all laugh at you, and throw stones at you, and I should be delighted. I am not coming to town until it is published and is a success. Grace thinks I have gone into speculations, because I get so many letters and telegrams about it. I shall not tell you what the people who read the manuscript said about it. You can find that out for yourself.”

  George awoke one morning to find himself, if not famous, at least the topic of the day in more countries than one. A week had not elapsed before the papers were full of notices of his book and speculations as to his personality. No one seemed to consider that George Winton Wood, the novelist, could be the same man as G. W. Wood, the signer of modest articles in the magazines. The first review called him an unknown person of surprising talent, the second did not hesitate to describe him as a man of genius, and the third — branded him as a plagiarist who had stolen his plot from a forgotten novel of the beginning of the century and had somehow — this was not clear in the article — made capital out of the writings of Macrobius, he was a villain, a poacher, a pickpocket novelist, a literary body-snatcher, in fact in the eyes of all but the over-lax law, little short of a thief. George knew that sort of style, and he read the abuse over again and again with unmitigated delight. He had done as much himself in the good old days when the editors would let him. He did not show this particular notice to his father, however, and only handed him those that were favourable — and they were many. Jonah Wood sat reading them all day long, over and over again.

  “I am very glad, George,” he said, repeatedly. “I am very proud of you. It is splendid. But do you think all this will bring you much pecuniary remuneration?”

  “Ten per cent on the advertised retail price of each copy,” was George’s answer.

  He entered the railway station one day and was amazed to see the walls of the place covered with huge placards, three feet square, bearing the name of his book and his own, alternately, in huge black letters on a white ground. The young man at the bookstall was doing a thriving business. George went up to him.

  “That book seems to sell,” he said quietly.

  “Like hot cakes,” answered the vendor, offering him his own production. “One dollar twenty-five cents.”

  “Thank you,” said George. “I would not give so much for a novel.”

  “Well, there are others will, I guess,” answered the young man. “Step aside if you please and give these ladies a chance.”

  George smiled and turned away.

  CHAPTER XI.

  SHERRINGTON TRIMM HAD kept Mr. Craik’s secret as well as he could, but although he had not told his wife anything positive concerning the will that had been so hastily drawn up, he had found it impossible not to convey to Totty such information about the matter as was manifestly negative. She had seen very soon that he considered the inheritance of her brother’s money as an illusion, upon which he placed no faith whatever, and she had understood that in advising her not to think too much about it, he meant to do more than administer one of his customary rebukes to her covetousness. At last, she determined to know the truth and pressed him with the direct question.

  “So far as I know, my dear,” he answered, gravely, “you will never get that money, so you may just as well put the subject out of your mind, and be satisfied with what you have.”

  Neither diplomacy nor cajolery nor reproaches could force anything more definite than this from Sherrington Trimm’s discreet lips, though Totty used all her weapons, and used them very cleverly, in her untiring efforts to find out the truth. Was Tom going to leave his gold to a gigantic charity? Sherry’s round, pink face grew suddenly stony. Was it a hospital or an asylum for idiots? — he really might tell her! His expression never changed. Totty was in despair, and her curiosity tormented her in a way that would have done credit to the gad-fly which tortured Io of old. Neither by word, nor look, nor deed could Sherry be made to betray his brother-in-law’s secret. He was utterly impenetrable, as soon as the subject was brought up, and Totty even fancied that he knew beforehand when she was about to set some carefully-devised trap for him, so ready was he to oppose her wiles.

  On the other hand since old Mr. Craik had recovered, his sister had shown herself more than usually anxious to please him. In this she argued as her husband had done, saying that a man who had changed his will once might very possibly change it again. She therefore spared no pains in consulting Tom’s pleasure whenever occasion offered, and she employed her best tact in making his life agreeable to him. He, on his part, was even more diverted than she intended that he should be, and he watched all her moves with inward amusement. There had never been any real sympathy between them. He had been the first child, and several others had died in infancy during a long series of years, Totty, the youngest of all, alone surviving, separated from her brother in age by nearly twenty years. From her childhood, she had always been trying to get something from him, and whenever the matters in hand did not chance to clash with his own interests, he had granted her request. Indeed, on the whole, and considering the man’s grasping character, he had treated her with great generosity. Totty’s gratitude, however, though always sincere, was systematically prophetic in regard to favours to come, and Tom had often wondered whether anything in the world would satisfy her.

  Of late she seemed to have developed an intense interest in the means of prolonging life, and she did not fail to give him the benefit of all the newest theories on the subject. Tom, however, did not feel that he was going to die, and was more and more irritated by her officious suggestions. One day she took upon herself to be more than usually pressing. He had been suffering from a slight cold, and she had passed an anxious week.

  “There is nothing for you, Tom,” she said, “but a milk cure and massage. They say there is nothing like it. It is perfectly wonderful — —”

  Her brother raised his bent head and looked keenly at her, while a sour smile passed over his face.

  “Look here, Totty,” he answered, “don’t you think I should keep better in camphor?”

  “How can you be so unkind!” exclaimed Totty, blushing scarlet. She rarely blushed at all, and her brother’s amusement increased, until it reach
ed its climax and broke out in a hard, rattling laugh.

  After this, Mrs. Trimm grew more cautious. She talked less of remedies and cures and practised with great care a mournfully sympathetic expression. In the course of a week or two this plan also began to wear upon Craik’s nerves, for she made a point of seeing him almost every day.

  “I say, Totty,” he said suddenly. “If anybody is dead, tell me. If you think anybody is going to die, send for the doctor. But if they are all alive and well, don’t go round looking like an undertaker’s wife when the season has been too healthy.”

  “How can you expect me to look gay?” Totty asked with a sad smile. “Do you think it makes me happy to see you going on in this way?”

  “Which way?” inquired Mr. Craik with a pleased grin.

  “Why, you won’t have massage, and you won’t take the milk cure, and you won’t go to Aix, and you won’t let me do anything for you, and — and I’m so unhappy! Oh Tom, how unkind you are!”

  Thereupon Mrs. Trimm burst into tears with much feeling. Tom Craik looked at her for some seconds and then, being in his own house, rang the bell, sent for the housekeeper and a bottle of salts, and left Totty to recover as best she might. He knew very well that those same tears were genuine and that they had their source in anger and disappointment rather than in any sympathy for himself, and he congratulated himself upon having changed his will in time.

  The old man watched George Wood’s increasing success with an interest that would have surprised the latter, if he had known anything of it. It seemed as if, by assuring him the reversion of the fortune, Tom Craik had given him a push in the right direction. Since that time, indeed, George’s luck had begun to turn, and now, though still unconscious of the wealth that awaited him, he was already far on the road to celebrity and independence. The lonely old man of business found a new and keen excitement in following the doings of the young fellow for whom he had secretly prepared such an overwhelming surprise. He was curious to see whether George would lose his head, whether he would turn into the fatuous idol of afternoon tea-parties, or whether he would fall into vulgar dissipation, whether he would quarrel with his father as soon as he was independent, or whether he would spend his earnings in making the old gentleman more comfortable.