The Divine Fire Part 102

"Well, if they happen wrong, and I can help you, you've only got to come to me."

Never in all his life had Jewdwine so nearly achieved the grace of humility as in this offer of his help. He would have given anything if Rickman could have accepted it, but refusal was a foregone conclusion.

And yet he offered it.

"Thanks--thanks awfully." It was Rickman who appeared nervous and ashamed. His mouth twitched; he held out his hand abruptly; he was desperately anxious to say good-night and get it over. It seemed to him that he had been six years taking leave of Jewdwine; each year had seen the departure of some quality he had known him by. He wanted to have done with it now for ever.

But Jewdwine would not see his hand. He turned away; paced the floor; swung back on a hesitating heel and approached him, smiling.

"You're not going to disappear altogether, are you? You'll turn up again, and let me know how you're getting on?"

To Rickman there was something tragic and retrospective in Jewdwine's smile. It had no joy in it, but an appeal, rather, to the memory of what he had been. He found it irresistible.

"Thanks. I shall get on all right; but I'll turn up again sometime."

Jewdwine's smile parted with its pathos, its appeal. It conveyed a promise, an a.s.surance that whatever else had perished in him his friends.h.i.+p was not dead.

For there were ways, apart from the ways of journalism, in which Jewdwine could be n.o.ble still. And still, as he watched Rickman's departing back, the back that he seemed doomed to know so well, he said to himself--

"He's magnificent, but I can't afford him."

CHAPTER LXIX

In all this his history had only repeated itself. When six years ago he had turned his back on Rickman's he had made it inevitable that he should turn his back on Jewdwine now. On each occasion his behaviour had provoked the same melancholy admission, from Jewdwine--"He is magnificent, but I can't afford him"; from Isaac Rickman--"I can't afford to pay your price, my boy." The incredible thing was that Jewdwine should have been brought to say it. Jewdwine was changed; but Rickman was the same Rickman who had swung the shop door behind him, unmoved by the separation from his salary.

But after all he could only keep half of that rash vow he had made to himself on the way to Hampstead. He must give up the Editor of _Metropolis_; but he could not give up Horace Jewdwine. It was not the first time he had been compelled to admit the distinction which Maddox for decency's sake had insisted on. When it came to the point, as now, he found himself insisting on it with even greater emphasis than Maddox. He knew that in his soul Jewdwine still loved and wors.h.i.+pped what was admirable, that in his soul he would have given anything to recall his injustice to young Paterson. But young Paterson was too great to have need either of Jewdwine or of him. Young Paterson had his genius to console him. His profounder pity was for the man who had inflicted such awful injuries on himself; the great man who had made himself mean; the spiritual person who had yielded to a material tyranny; the incorruptible person who had sold his soul, who only realized the value of his soul now that he had sold it.

And yet he knew that there could be nothing more sundering than such meanness, such corruptibility as Jewdwine's. Their friends.h.i.+p could never be the same. There was a certain relief in that. There could never be any hypocrisy, any illusion in their relations now. And n.o.body knew that better than Jewdwine. Well, the very fact that Jewdwine had still desired and chosen that sad-hearted, clear-eyed communion argued a certain greatness in him.

Therefore he resolved to spare him. It would cost him the friends.h.i.+p of better men than he; but that could not be helped. They must continue to think that he had sold or at any rate lent himself at interest to Jewdwine. Honour debarred him from all explanation and defence, an honour so private and personal that it must remain unsuspected by the world. In the beginning he had made himself almost unpleasantly conspicuous by the purity of his literary morals; his innocence had been a hair-lifting spectacle even to honest journalists. And now the fame he would have among them was the fame of a literary prost.i.tute, without a prost.i.tute's wages.

On the contrary he would have to pay heavily for the spiritual luxury of that break with the editor of _Metropolis_. When he reached his comfortable room on the third floor in Torrington Square, he sat down by his writing-table, not to write but to think. It was war-time, fatal to letters. Such terrors arose before him as must arise before a young man severed by his own rash act from the sources of his income.

What a moment he had chosen for the deed, too! When money was of all things the thing he most pa.s.sionately desired; when to his fancy the sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds was the form that most nearly, most divinely presented the adored perfection; when, too, that enchanting figure was almost in his grasp. A few brief spasms of economy, and ten months of _Metropolis_ would have seen him through.

And yet there was no bitterness in the dismay with which he contemplated his present forlorn and impecunious state. It was inevitable that he should sever himself from the sources of his income when they were found to be impure. Much more inevitable than that he should have cut off that untainted supply which six months ago would have flowed to him through Maddox. Common prudence had not restrained him from quarrelling with Maddox over a point of honour that was shadowy compared with this. It was hardly likely that it should have restrained him now. There were few things that he would not do for Lucia Harden, but not even for her sake could he have done otherwise than he had done. It was the least that honour could require of him, the very least.

His att.i.tude to honour had in a manner changed. Eight years ago it had seemed to him the fantastic child of a preference for common honesty, coupled with a preposterous pa.s.sion for Lucia Harden. He had indulged it as a man indulges the creature of fantasy and caprice, and had felt that he was thrusting a personal infatuation into a moral region where such extravagances are unknown. It belonged rather to the realm of imagination, being essentially a poet's honour, a winged and lyric creature, a creature altogether too radiant and delicate to do battle with the gross material world, a thing as mysterious and indomitable as his genius; a very embarra.s.sing companion for a young journalist in his first start in life. And now he had grown so used to it that it seemed to him no longer mysterious and fantastic; obedience to it was as simple as the following of a natural impulse, a thing in no way conspicuous and superb. It was the men who knew nothing of such leaders.h.i.+p who seemed to him separated from the order of the world.

But to the friends who watched him Rickman's honour had been always an amazing spectacle. Like another genius it had taken possession of him and led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism, so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean places in that difficult way. Like another genius it had lured him, laughing and reckless, along paths perilous and impossible to other men. How glad he had been to follow that bright-eyed impetuous leader.

And this was where it had led him to, the radiant and delicate comrade of his youth. As he sat propping his chin up with his hands the face that confronted destiny had grown haggard in an hour.

He pulled himself together, and deliberately reviewed the situation.

He had at that moment three and eightpence in his pocket, and lying about somewhere in the table-drawer there was part of last week's salary and a cheque for nine pounds, the price of a recent article.

He could count on five pounds at Michaelmas, the quarterly rent of the furniture in the little house at Ealing. Added to these certain sums there was that unknown incalculable amount that he might yet receive for unsolicited contributions. He had made seventy-five pounds in this way last year. The casual earnings of ninety-nine were no security for nineteen hundred; still, invincible hopefulness fixed the probabilities at that figure.

But it was now January, and d.i.c.ky Pilkington's bill would be due in November. By successive triumphs of ingenious economy he had reduced that once appalling seven hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five. He couldn't actually count on more than twenty-six pounds three and eightpence with which to meet the liability. And he had also to live for ten months before he met it. Even invincible Hope was nervous facing those formidable figures. It did indeed suggest the presence of a shadowy army in the rear, whole columns of figures marching invincibly to his aid. They were the sums that might, that ought to be obtained by a dramatic poet in the hour of his success.

But Rickman had not been born over a bookseller's shop for nothing; and an austere hereditary voice reminded him that he couldn't really count on a penny from his tragedy. He couldn't even afford to write it. The thing was, economically speaking, a crime. It would of course be finished, as it had been begun, in defiance of economy, as of all other human pieties and laws, but it would be unreasonable to expect that any financial blessing could rest on it.

He had only got ten months to raise the money in. It would probably take him that time to find regular work, if he found it. There was not an editor in London to whom the initials S.K.R. conveyed the unique significance they did to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin. He now thought with regret of the introductions he had refused in the insolence of his youth. To Hanson for instance. Hanson was a good sort, and he might have come in very handy now. A few other names pa.s.sed before him, men whom it would be useless for him to approach.

There was old Mackinnon, though, who was a good sort, too. He had long ago forgotten that ancient jest which compared his head with the dome of the Museum. He had been the most frequent entertainer of advent.i.tious prose. Mackinnon might be good for something. He had half a mind to look him up. The thought of Mackinnon made him feel almost cheerful again.

Before he went to bed he put ten pounds into a tobacco-jar on an inaccessible shelf, keeping one pound three and eightpence for the expenses of the coming week. The next morning he looked Mackinnon up.

Now Mackinnon's head was so far unlike the dome of the Museum that it was by no means impervious to light; and where Mackinnon's interests were concerned it was positively limpid in its transparency. So that Mackinnon was not slow to perceive the advantages of an alliance with impecunious brilliance. The brilliance he was already familiar with, the impecuniosity he inferred from the more than usual offhandedness of Rickman's manner. The war had hit Mackinnon also; the affairs of the _Literary Observer_ were not so flouris.h.i.+ng as Mackinnon could have wished, and he was meditating some reductions in his staff. He reflected that young men in Rickman's mood and Rickman's circ.u.mstances were sometimes willing to do the work of two journalists for a lower salary than he had been paying to one. And when he further learnt that Rickman had left _Metropolis_, he felt that besides these solid advantages a subtler satisfaction would be his. Jewdwine, corruptible or incorruptible, had not endeared himself to other editors, and even the sober Mackinnon was unable to resist the temptation of annexing the great man's great man. But the dome-like head, impenetrable in this, betrayed none of the thoughts that were going on inside it, and in the bargaining that followed it was concealed from Rickman that his connection with _Metropolis_ had in any way increased his market value. He made the best terms he could; and the end of the interview found him retained on Mackinnon's staff as leader, writer and dramatic critic at a salary of two pounds ten a week. Mackinnon had offered two pounds, Rickman had held out for three, and they split the difference.

As the poet left the room Mackinnon turned to his desk with a smile of satisfaction that seemed to illuminate the dome. He had effected a considerable saving by that little transaction.

And for the poet it did not prove so bad a bargain after all. He had now a more ample leisure; and for the first time in his journalistic career he knew what it was to be left mercifully, beneficently alone.

He had cut himself off from all his friends; and though at times his heart suffered, his genius profited by the isolation. It was not until he had escaped from Jewdwine that he realized what that special deliverance meant for him. He could not well have encountered a more subtle and dangerous influence than that of the author of the _Prolegomena to aesthetics_. Jewdwine had been hostile to his genius from the beginning, though he had cared for it, too, in his imperious way. He would have tamed the young, ungovernably ardent thing and wedded it to his own beautiful and pa.s.sionless idea; an achievement which would have reflected some glory on Jewdwine as the matchmaker.

But he had left off caring when he found that he had less to gain from Rickman's genius than from his talent, and had turned his attention to the protection and encouragement of the more profitable power. As that talent ran riot in the columns of _Metropolis_ Rickman himself was unaware how relentlessly it drew on the vitality that sustained his genius. It was Jewdwine's excuse that the vitality seemed inexhaustible.

Jewdwine, as he had once said, dreaded the divine fire. He would ultimately have subdued the flame by a persistent demand for brilliance of another kind. Even Maddox (who adored his Rickman) had not seen that his Rickman, his young divinity, must change and grow.

He admired his immortal adolescence; he would have him young and lyrical for ever. He had discovered everything in him but the dramatic poet he was yet to be. Thus, through the very fervour of his superst.i.tion, Maddox had proved hostile, too. But in Mackinnon Rickman found no malign disturbing influence, no influence of any kind at all.

No thought of capturing his genius or exploiting his talent had ever entered into the dome-like head. Mackinnon, his mortal nature appeased by his victory over Jewdwine and further gratified by the consciousness of having secured a good man cheap, made no exorbitant claims on his contributor. Let Rickman write what he would, Mackinnon knew he had got his money's worth.

Rickman squared himself n.o.bly for the next round with fortune. And d.i.c.ky, in his att.i.tude of enthusiastic but not uninterested spectator, cheered him on, secretly exultant. d.i.c.ky was now serenely sure of his odds. It was war-time; and Rickman could not hold out long after such an injury to his income.

But Rickman, unconquered, made matters even by reducing his expenditure. It was winter, and the severity of the weather would have ruined him in coal alone had he not abandoned the superst.i.tion of a fire. With an oil-stove there was always some slight danger of asphyxia, but Rickman loved the piquancy of danger. By many such ingenious subst.i.tutions he effected so prodigious a saving that three-fifths or more of his salary went into the tobacco-jar and thence into d.i.c.ky Pilkington's pocket. He rejoiced to see it go, so completely had he subdued the l.u.s.t of spending, so ardently embraced the life of poverty; if it were poverty to live on a pound a week. Was it not rather wanton, iniquitous extravagance to have allowed himself three times that amount? But for that his position at this moment would have been such that three months on the _Literary Observer_ would have cleared him. As he stood, the remainder of his debt loomed monstrous under the shadow of next November.

And it was this moment (when he should have been turning his talent into ready-money by unremitting journalism), that he chose for finis.h.i.+ng his tragedy. If he could be said to have chosen it; for it was rather the Tragic Muse that had claimed him for her own. She knew her hour, the first young hour of his deliverance, when he had ceased from hungering and thirsting after life, and from the violence and stress of living, and was no more tormented by scruple and by pa.s.sion; when the flaming orgy of his individuality no longer confused the pageant of the world. He had been judging by himself when he propounded the startling theory that lyric poets must grow into dramatic poets if they grow at all. It was now, when his youth no longer sang aloud in him, that he heard the living voices of the men and women whom he made. Their flesh and blood no longer struggled violently for birth, no longer tortured the delicate tissue of the dream. His dreams themselves were brought forth incarnate, he being no longer at variance with himself as in the days of neo-cla.s.sic drama.

And so now, when he contemplated his poverty, he saw in it the dream-crowned head and austere countenance of an archangel destiny. In the absence of all visible and material comfort the invisible powers a.s.sumed their magnificent dominion. He gave his evenings to Mackinnon and his mornings, his fresh divine mornings, to the Tragic Muse, thus setting a blessed purifying interval of sleep between his talent and his genius. But through it all, while he slept and while he worked, and while he scribbled with a tenth part of his brain, mechanically filling in his columns of the _Literary Observer_, he felt that his genius, conscious of its hour, possessed him utterly. Not even for Lucia's sake could he resist the G.o.d who was so tyrannous and strong.

In his heart he called on her to forgive him for writing unsaleable tragedies when he ought to have been making money for her. His heart kept on accusing him. "You would write tragedies if she were starving," it said. And the G.o.d, indignant at the interruption, answered it, "You wouldn't, you fool, you know you wouldn't. And she isn't starving. It's you who'll starve, if anybody does; so fire away." And he fired away; for hope, still invincible, told him that he could afford to do it, that he had in a drawer fifty pounds' worth of unpublished articles, works of the baser power, and that, war or no war, he could surely sell them. He could sell his furniture also; and if the worst came to the worst, he could sell his books (his own books, not Lucia's). Meanwhile he must get on with his tragedy. He could easily finish it in six weeks, and expiate the crime by months of journalism.

He did finish it in six weeks; and when the Spring came he began another; for the hand of the G.o.d was heavy upon him. This he knew was madness, though a madness divine and irresistible. In view of its continuance he called upon Mackinnon and inquired whether at any time, if the occasion should arise, he could count upon an advance of salary. Mackinnon, solid, impenetrable, but benignant, replied that very possibly it might be so. This Rickman interpreted as a distinct encouragement to dally with the Tragic Muse. It was followed by a request from Mackinnon that Rickman on his part should oblige him with a few columns in advance. This he did. He was now, though he was blissfully unaware of it, the last man on the paper. In six months from the time of his joining its staff the _Literary Observer_ ceased from observing, and Mackinnon retired suddenly into private life.

d.i.c.ky, who had watched with joy the decline of the _Literary Observer_, chuckled openly at its fall. He was sorry for old Razors, though. It was hard luck on him. Old Razors, in d.i.c.ky's opinion, was about done for now.

It might have seemed so to Rickman but that the experience had sobered him. He rose from the embraces of the Tragic Muse. Yet dizzy with the august rapture, he resisted and defied the G.o.d. He thrust his tragedy from him into the hindmost obscurity of his table-drawer. Then he betook himself, in a mood more imperative than solicitous, to Hanson.

Hanson who had labelled him Decadent, and lumped him with Letheby. It was no matter now. Whatever Hanson thought of his genius, there could be but one opinion of his talent.

Hanson was genial and complimentary. He, like Mackinnon, knew his business too well to let Savage Keith Rickman slip through his fingers. Like Mackinnon he was pleased with the idea of securing a deserter from the insufferable Jewdwine. But the _Courier_ was full up with war news and entirely contented with its staff. Hanson was only good for occasional contributions.

Rickman again overhauled his complicated accounts. By what seemed to him a series of miracles he had saved seventy-five pounds somehow during those six months with Mackinnon; but how he was going to raise a hundred in four months he did not know. That was what he meant to try for, though. It was July; and he loved more than ever the green peace of Torrington Square, and the room a.s.sociated with the first austere delights of poverty and the presence of the Tragic Muse. But he could forego even peace for four months. After much search in the secret places of Bloomsbury, he found an empty attic in Howland Street. The house was clean, decent, and quiet for a wonder. Thither he removed himself and his belongings. He had parted with all but the absolutely essential, among which he reckoned all Lucia's books and a few of his own. He had stripped himself for this last round with Fortune. He would come out of it all right if he wrote nothing but articles, lived on ten s.h.i.+llings a week and sold the articles; which, meant that in the weeks when no articles were sold he must live on less. It meant, too, that he must make his own bed, sweep his own room, and cook his own meals when they were cooked at all; that to have clean linen he must pay the price of many meals, as he counted meals.

The attic was not a nice place in July and August. Though the house was quiet, there flowed through it, in an incessant, suffocating, sickly stream, the untamed smells and noises of the street. For the sake of peace he took to working through the night and going to bed in the day-time; an eccentricity which caused him to be regarded with some suspicion by his neighbours. In spite of their apparent decency he had judged it expedient to keep his door locked, a lack of confidence that wounded them. The lodger in the garret next to his went so far as to signify by laughter her opinion of his unfriendly secrecy. Her own door was never shut except when he shut it. This interference with her liberty she once violently resented, delivering herself of a jet of oratory that bore with far-fetched fancy on his parentage and profession. For her threshold was her vantage ground.

Upon it she stood and waited, listening for the footsteps of her luck.

It was a marvel to him how under these conditions he could turn out the amount of work he did. For some nights were as noisy as the day.

There was no sort of repose about his next-door neighbour. At times she coughed all night, at times she sang. Or again, by sounds of sobbing he gathered that the poor wretch was not prospering in her trade. Still, there were long and blessed intervals of peace when she roamed farther afield; intervals which might or might not be prolonged by alcoholic stupor after her return. It may have been owing to these influences that he began to notice a decided deterioration in his prose. Hanson had returned his last article. He had worked poor Hanson's geniality for all it was worth, and he felt that in common prudence he must withdraw from the _Courier_ for a season. Meanwhile his best prose, the articles he had by him, remained unpublished. In war-time there was no market for such wares.

It was now October, and he had paid off but fifteen pounds of the hundred he still owed. The lease of the little house at Ealing was out at Michaelmas; he had the five pounds provided every quarter by the furniture. He sold his furniture and the last of his books, but when d.i.c.ky's bill fell due in November he was still fifty pounds to the bad. The fact that he had already paid three thousand and thirty-five would not prevent the sale and dispersal of part, and perhaps the most valuable part, of the Harden Library. In that event he would get the money, not the books, and it was the books, all the books, he wanted.

He had persuaded himself that the actual redemption of the whole was the only legitimate means by which he could now approach Lucia Harden.

The mere repayment of the money was a coa.r.s.er and more difficult method. And now at the last moment the end, all but achieved, was as far from him as ever, supposing d.i.c.ky should refuse to renew his bill.

But d.i.c.ky did not refuse. He gave him another two months. No longer term could be conceded; but, yes, he would give him another two months. "Just for the almighty fun of the thing. If there's one thing I like to see," said d.i.c.ky, "it's pluck." d.i.c.ky was more than ever sure of his game. He argued rightly that Rickman would never have sold his books if he could have sold his articles or borrowed from a friend; that, as he had nothing else to sell or offer as security, his end was certain. But it was so glorious to see the little fellow fighting his luck. d.i.c.ky was willing to prolong the excitement for another two months.