Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Mr. Chapley seemed relieved of a latent dread. A little knot of anxiety between his eyes came untied; he did not yet go to the length of laying off his light overcoat, but he set his hat down on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, and he loosed the grip he had kept of his cane.

  “Why, Mr. Brandreth rather looks after that side of the business. He’s more in touch with the younger men — with what’s going on, in fact, than I am. He can tell you all there is about our own small affairs, and put you in relations with other publishers, if you wish.”

  “Thank you—” Ray began.

  “Not at all; it will be to our advantage, I’m sure. We should be glad to do much more for any friend of our old friends” — Mr. Chapley had to refer to the letter-head of the introduction before he could make sure of his old friends’ style—” Schmucker & Wills. I hope they are prospering in these uncertain times?” Ray said they were doing very well, he believed, and Mr. Chapley went on.

  “So many of the local booksellers are feeling the competition of the large stores which have begun to deal in books as well as everything else under the sun, nowadays. I understand they have completely disorganized the book trade in some of our minor cities; completely! They take hold of a book like Robert Elsmere, for instance, as if it were a piece of silk that they control the pattern of, and run it at a price that is simply ruinous; besides doing a large miscellaneous business in books at rates that defy all competition on the part of the regular dealers. But perhaps you haven’t suffered from these commercial monstrosities yet in Midland?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Ray; “We have our local Stewart’s or Macy’s, whichever it is; and I imagine Schmucker & Wills feel it, especially at the holidays.” He had never had to buy any books himself, because he got the copies sent to the Echo for review; and now, in deference to Mr. Chapley, he was glad that he had not shared in the demoralization of the book trade. “But I think,” he added, cheerfully, “that they are holding their own very well.”

  “I am very glad to hear it, very glad, indeed,” said Mr. Chapley. “If we can only get this international copyright measure through and dam up the disorganizing tide of cheap publications at its source, we may hope to restore, the tone of the trade. As it is, we are ourselves constantly restricting our enterprise as publishers. We scarcely think now of looking at the manuscript of an unknown author.”

  Mr. Chapley looked at the manuscript of the unknown author before him, as if he divined it through its wrappings of stiff manilla paper. Ray had no reason to think that he meant to prevent a possible offer of manuscript, but he could not help thinking so, and it cut him short in the inquiries he was going to make as to the extent of the demoralization the book trade had suffered through the competition of the large variety stores. He had seen a whole letter for the Echo in the subject, but now he could not go on. He sat blankly staring at Mr. Chapley’s friendly, pensive face, and trying to decide whether he had’ better get himself away without seeing Mr. Brandreth, or whether he had better stay and meet him, and after a cold, formal exchange of civilities, shake the dust of Chapley & Co.’s publishing house from his feet forever. The distant street door opened again, and a small light figure, much like his own, entered briskly. Mr. Kane turned about at the new-comer’s step as he had turned at Mr. Chapley’s, and sent his cheerful hail across the book counters as before. “Ah, good-morning, good-morning!”

  “Good-morning, Mr. Kane; magnificent day,” said the gentleman, who advanced rapidly towards Ray and Mr. Chapley, with a lustrous silk hat on his head, and a brilliant smile on his face. His overcoat hung on his arm, and he looked fresh and warm as if from a long walk. “Ah, good-morning,” he said to Mr. Chapley; “how are you this morning, sir?” He bent his head inquiringly towards Ray, who stood a moment while Mr. Chapley got himself together and said:

  “This is Mr. — ah — Ray, who brings a letter from our old friends” — he had to glance at the letter-head — — “Schmucker & Wills, of — Midland.”

  “Ah! Midland! yes,” said Mr. Brandreth, for Ray felt it was he, although his name had not been mentioned yet. “Very glad to see you, Mr. Ray. When did you leave Midland? Won’t you sit down? And you, Mr. Chapley?”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Chapley, nervously. “I was going to my own room. How is poor Bella this morning?”

  “Wonderfully well, wonderfully! I waited for the doctor’s visit before I left home, so as to report reliably, and he says he never saw a better convalescence. He promises to let her go out in a fortnight or so, if the weather’s good.”

  “You must be careful! Don’t go too fast!” said Mr. Chapley. And the — child?”

  “Perfectly splendid! He slept like a top last night, and we could hardly get him awake for breakfast.”

  “Poor thing!” said Mr. Chapley. He offered Ray his hand, and said that he hoped they should see him often; he must drop in whenever he was passing. “Mr. Ray,” he explained, “has come on to take up his residence in New York. He remains connected with one of the papers in — Midland; and I have been referring him to you for literary gossip, and that kind of thing.”

  “All right, sir, all right!” said Mr. Brandreth. He laughed out after Mr. Chapley had left them, and then said: “Excuse me, Mr. Ray. You mustn’t mind my smiling rather irrelevantly. We’ve had a great event at my house this week — in fact, we’ve had a boy.”

  “Indeed!” said Ray. He had the sort of contempt a young man feels for such domestic events; but he easily concealed it from the happy father, who looked scarcely older than himself.

  “An eight-pounder,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I have been pretty anxious for the last few weeks, and — I don’t know whether you married or not, Mr. Ray?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then you wouldn’t understand.” Mr. Brandreth arrested himself reluctantly, Ray thought, in his confidences. “But you will, some day; you will, some day,” he added, gayly; “and then you’ll know what it is to have an experience like that go off well. It throws a new light on everything.” A clerk came in with a pile of opened letters and put them on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, with some which were still sealed; Ray rose again. “No, don’t go. But you won’t mind my glancing these over while we talk. I don’t know how much talk you’ve been having with Mr. Chapley — he’s my father-in-law, you know?”

  Ray owned that he did not “Yes; I came into the firm and into the family a little over a year ago. But if there are any points I can give you, I’m quite at your service.”

  “Thank you,” said Ray. “Mr. Chapley was speaking of the effect of the competition of the big variety stores on the regular booksellers.”

  Mr. Brandreth slitted the envelope of one of the letters with a slim paper-knife, and glanced the letter over. “Well, that’s a little matter I differ with Mr. Chapley about. Of course, I know just how he feels, brought up the way he was, in the old traditions of the trade. It seems to him we must be going to the bad because our books are sold over a counter next to a tin-ware counter, or a perfume and essence counter, or a bric-à-brac counter. I don’t think so. I think the great thing is to sell the books, and I wish we could get a book into the hands of one of those big dealers; I should be glad of the chance. We should have to make him a heavy discount; but look at the discounts we have to make to the trade, now! Forty per cent., and ten cents off for cash; so that a dollar and a half book, that it costs twenty-five cents or thirty cents to make, brings you in about seventy cents. Then, when you pay the author his ten per cent copyright, how far will the balance go towards advertising, rent, clerk hire and sundries? If you want to get a book into the news companies, you have got to make them a discount of sixty per cent out of hand.”

  “Is it possible?” asked Ray. “I’d no idea it was anything like that!”

  “No; people haven’t. They think publishers are rolling in riches at the expense of the author and the reader. And some publishers themselves believe that if we could only keep up the old system of letting the regular trade have the lion’s share
on long credit, their prosperity would be assured. I don’t, myself. If’ we could get hold of a good, breezy, taking story, I’d like to try my chance with it in the hands of some large dry-goods man.”

  Ray’s heart thrilled. His own story had often seemed to him good and taking; whether it was breezy or not, he had never thought He wished he knew just what Mr. Brandreth meant by breezy; but he did not like to ask him. His hand twitched nervelessly on the manuscript in his lap, and he said, timidly: “Would it be out of the way for me to refer to some of these facts — they’re not generally known — in my letters? Of course not using your name.”

  “Not at all! I should be very glad to have them understood,” said Mr. Brandreth.

  “And what do you think is the outlook for the winter trade, Mr. Brandreth?”

  “Never better. I think we’re going to have a good trade. We’ve got a larger list than we’ve had for a great many years. The fact is,” said Mr. Brandreth, and he gave a glance at Ray, as if he felt the trust the youthful gravity of his face inspired in most people—” the fact is, Chapley & Co have been dropping too much out of sight, as publishers; and I’ve felt, ever since I’ve been in the firm, that we ought to give the public a sharp reminder that we’re not merely booksellers and jobbers. I want the house to take its old place again. I don’t mean it’s ever really lost caste, or that its imprint doesn’t stand for as much as it did twenty years ago. I’ll just show you our list if you can wait a moment.” Mr. Brandreth closed a pair of wooden mandibles lying on his desk; an electric bell sounded in the distance, and a boy appeared. “You go and ask Miss Hughes if she’s got that list of announcements ready yet.” The boy went, and Mr. Brandreth took up one of the cards of the firm. “If you would like to visit some of the other houses, Mr. Ray, I’ll give you our card,” and he wrote on the card, “Introducing Mr. Ray, of the Midland Echo. P. Brandreth,” and handed it to him. “Not Peter, but Percy,” he said, with a friendly smile for his own pleasantry. “But for business purposes it’s better to let them suppose it’s Peter.”

  Ray laughed, and said he imagined so. He said he had always felt it a disadvantage to have been named Shelley; but he could not write himself P. B. S. Ray, and he usually signed simply S. Ray.

  “Why, then, we really have the same first name,” said Mr. Brandreth. “It’s rather an uncommon name, too. I’m very glad to share it with you, Mr. Ray.” It seemed to add another tie to those that already bound them in the sympathy of youth, and the publisher said, “I wish I could ask you up to my house; but just now, you know, it’s really a nursery.”

  “You are very kind,” said Ray. “I couldn’t think of intruding on you, of course.”

  Their exchange of civilities was checked by the return of the boy, who said Miss Hughes would have the list ready in a few minutes.

  “Well, just ask her to bring it here, will you?” said Mr. Brandreth. “I want to speak to her about some of these letters.”

  “I’m taking a great deal of your time, Mr. Brandreth,” Ray said.

  “Not at all, not at all. I’m making a kind of holiday week of it, anyway. I’m a good deal excited,” and Mr. Brandreth smiled so benevolently that Ray could not help taking advantage of him.

  The purpose possessed him almost before he was aware of its activity; he thought he had quelled it, but now he heard himself saying in a stiff unnatural voice, “I have a novel of my own, Mr. Brandreth, that I should like to submit to you.”

  IX.

  “OH, indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a change in his voice, too, which Ray might well have interpreted as a tone of disappointment and injury. “Just at present, Mr. Ray, trade is rather quiet, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Ray, though he thought he had been told the contrary. He felt very mean and guilty; the blood went to his head, and his face burned “Our list for the fall trade is full, as I was saying, and we couldn’t really touch anything till next spring.”

  “Oh, I didn’t suppose it would be in time for the fall trade,” said Ray, and in the sudden loss of the easy terms which he had been on with the publisher, he could not urge anything further.

  Mr. Brandreth must have felt their estrangement too, for he said, apologetically: “Of course it’s our business to examine manuscripts for publication, and I hope it’s going to be our business to publish more and more of them, but an American novel by an unknown author, as long as we have the competition of these pirated English novels — If we can only get the copyright bill through, we shall be all right.”

  Ray said nothing aloud, for he was busy reproaching himself under his breath for abusing Mr. Brandreth’s hospitality..

  “What is the — character of your novel?” asked Mr. Brandreth, to break the painful silence, apparently, rather than to inform himself.

  “The usual character,” Ray answered, with a listlessness which perhaps passed for careless confidence with the young publisher, and piqued his interest. “It’s a love-story.”

  “Of course. Does it end well? A great deal depends upon the ending with the public, you know.”

  “I suppose it ends badly. It ends as badly as it can,” said the author, feeling that he had taken the bit in his teeth. “It’s unrelieved tragedy.”

  “That isn’t so bad, sometimes,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is, if the tragedy is intense enough. Sometimes a thing of that kind takes with the public, if the love part is good and strong. Have you the manuscript here in New York with you?”

  “I have it here in my lap with me,” said Ray, with a desperate laugh.

  Mr. Brandreth cast his eye over the package. “What do you call it? So much depends upon a title with the public.”

  “I had thought of several titles: the hero’s name for one; the heroine’s for another. Then I didn’t know but A Modem Romeo would do. It’s very much on the lines of the play.”

  “Indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a sudden interest that flattered Ray with fresh hopes. “That’s very curious. I once took part in an amateur performance of Romeo myself. We gave it in the open air. The effect was very novel.”

  “I should think it might be,” said Ray. He hastened to add, “My story deals, of course, with American life, and the scene is laid in the little village where I grew up.”

  “Our play,” said Mr. Brandreth, “was in a little summer place in Massachusetts. One of the ladies gave us her tennis-ground, and we made our exits and our entrances through the surrounding shrubbery. You’ve no idea how beautiful the mediaeval dresses looked in the electric light. It was at night.”

  “It must have been beautiful,” Ray hastily admitted. “My Juliet is the daughter of the village doctor, and my Romeo is a young lawyer, who half kills a cousin of hers for trying to interfere with them.”

  “That’s good,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I took the part of Romeo myself, and Mrs. Brandreth — she was Miss Chapley, then — was cast for Juliet; but another girl who had refused the part suddenly changed her mind and claimed it, and we had the greatest time to keep the whole affair from going to pieces. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you.”

  “Not at all,” said Ray. “It must have been rather difficult. In my story there has been a feud between the families of the lovers about a land boundary; and both families try to break off the engagement.”

  “That’s very odd,” said Mr. Brandreth. “The play nearly broke off my acquaintance with Mrs. Brandreth. Of course she was vexed — as anybody would be — at having to give up the part at the eleventh hour, when she’d taken so much trouble with it; but when she saw my suffering with the other girl, who didn’t know half her lines, and walked through it all like a mechanical doll, she forgave me. Romeo is my favorite play. Did you ever see Julia Marlowe in it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you never saw Juliet! I used to think Margaret Mather was about the loveliest Juliet, and in fact she has a great deal of passion” —

  “My Juliet,” Ray broke in, “is one of those impassioned natures. When she finds
that the old people are inexorable, she jumps at the suggestion of a secret marriage, and the lovers run off and are married, and come back and live separately. They meet at a picnic soon after, where Juliet goes with her cousin, who makes himself offensive to the husband, and finally insults him. They happen to be alone together near the high bank of a river, and the husband, who is a quiet fellow of the deadly sort, suddenly throws the cousin over the cliff. The rest are dancing “We introduced a minuet in our theatricals,” Mr. Brandreth interposed, “and people said it was the best thing in it. I beg your pardon!”

  “Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the cousin’s injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband everywhere, and the girl’s father, who has dabbled in hypnotism, and has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to discover the husband’s whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about, intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to the open window — I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes place in her father’s office, a little building that stands apart from the house, and of course it’s a ground floor — and he sees her stretched out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead.”

  Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. “I must tell you what our Mercutio said — he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the natives, and he made simply a perfect Mercutio. He said that our Juliet was magnificent in the sepulchre scene; and if she could have played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us all!”