Plashers Mead Part 39

I wonder do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the gra.s.s, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May?

They would drive out from the city along the Appian Way and turn aside to sit among the ghostliness of innumerable gra.s.ses in those primal fields, the air of which would be full of the feathery seeds and the dry scents of that onrus.h.i.+ng Summer. There would be no thought of time and no need for words; there would merely be the two of them on a morn of Rome and May. And later in the warm afternoon they would drive home, coming back to the city's heart to eat their dinner within sound of the Roman fountains. Then all the night-time she would be his, not his in frightened gasps as when wintry England was forbidding all joy to their youth, but his endlessly, utterly, gloriously. They would travel farther south and perhaps come to that Parthenopean sh.o.r.e calling to him still now from the few days he had spent upon its silver heights and beside its azure waters. In his dream Pauline was leaning on his shoulder beneath an Aleppo pine, at the cliff's edge--Pauline, whose alien freshness would bring a thought of England to sigh through its boughs, and a cooler world to the aromatic drought. Theirs should be sirenian moons and dawns, and life would be this dream's perfect fulfilment. In what loggia, firefly-haunted, would he hold her? The desire with which the picture flamed upon his imagination was almost intolerable, and here he always brought her back to Plashers Mead on a June dusk. Then she could be conjured in this house, summoned in spirit here to this very room; and if they had loved Italy, how they would love England as they walked across their meadows, husband and wife! With such visions Guy set on fire each January night that floated frorely into his bedroom, until one morning a letter arrived from Mr. William Worrall that made his fingers tremble as he broke the envelope and read the news:

217 COVENT GARDEN, W.C., _January 6th_.

DEAR SIR,--I have looked at the poems you were kind enough to send for my consideration, and I shall be happy to hand them to a reader for his opinion. The reader's fee is one guinea. Should his opinion be favorable, I shall be glad to discuss terms with you.

Yours faithfully, WILLIAM WORRALL.

Guy threw the letter down in a rage. He would almost have preferred a flat refusal to this request for money to enable some jaded hack to read his poems. The proposal appeared merely insolent, and he wrote curtly to Mr. William Worrall to demand the immediate return of his ma.n.u.script.

But after all, if Worrall did not accept his work, who would? Money was an ulterior consideration when the great object was to receive such unanimous approval as would justify the apparent waste of time in which he had been indulging. The moment his father acknowledged the right he had to be confident, he in turn would try to show by following his father's advice that he was not the wrong-headed idler of his reputation. Perhaps he would send the guinea to Worrall. He tore up his first letter and wrote another in which a cheque was inclosed. Then he began to add up the counterfoils of his cheque-book, a depressing operation that displayed an imminent financial crisis. He had overdrawn 5 last quarter. That left 32 10_s_. of the money paid in on December 21st. The quarter's rent was 4 10_s_. That left 28. Miss Peasey's wages were in arrears, and he must pay her 4 10_s_. on the fifteenth of this month. That would leave 23 10_s_., and he must knock off 7_s_.

6_d_. for Bob's license. About 3 had gone at Christmas and there were the books still to pay. Twenty pounds was not much for current expenses until next Lady Day. However, he decided that he could manage in Wychford, if he did not have to pay out money for Oxford debts, the creditors of which were pressing him harder each week.

_s_. _d_.

_Lampard_. Books. 39 15 0 _Harker_. Furniture. 17 18 0 _Faucett_. Books. 22 16 6 _Williamson_. Books. 13 19 0 _Ambrose_. Books. 4 7 0 _Brough_. Tobacco. 9 19 0 _Clary_. Clothes. 44 4 0 _Miscellaneous_. Books, Clothes, Stationery, Chemist, etc., etc. about 50

A total of 202 18_s_. 6_d_. Practically he might say that 200 would clear everything. Yet was 50 enough to allow for those miscellaneous accounts? Here, for instance, was a bill of 11 for boots and another of 14 for hats, apparently, though how the deuce he could have spent all that on hats he did not know. It would be wiser to say that 250 was required to free himself from debt. Guy read through the tradesmen's letters and detected an universal impatience, for they all reminded him that not merely for fifteen months had they received nothing on account of large outstanding bills, but also they made it clear that behind reiterated demands and politeness strained to breaking-point stood darkly the law. That brute Ambrose, to whom, after all, he owed only 4 7_s_., was the most threatening. In fact, he would obviously have to pay the ruffian in full. That left only 15 13_s_. for current expenses to Lady Day, or rather 14 12_s_., for, by the way, Worrall's guinea had been left out of the reckoning.

Guy wondered if he ought to get rid of Miss Peasey and manage for himself in future. Yet the housekeeper probably earned her wages by what she saved him, and if he relied on a woman who "came in" every morning, that meant feeding a family. It would be better to sell a few books. He might raise 50 that way. Ten pounds to both Lampard and Clary, and six fivers among the rest, would postpone any violent pressure for a while.

Guy at once began to choose the books with which he could most easily part. It was difficult to put aside as many as might be expected to raise 50, for his collection did not contain rarities, and it would be a sheer quant.i.ty of volumes, the extraction of which would horribly deplete his shelves, upon which he must rely.

The January rain dripped monotonously on the window-sills while Guy dragged book after book from the shelves that for only fifteen months had known their company. They were a melancholy sight when he had stacked on the floor as many books as he could bear to lose, each shelf looking as disreputable as a row of teeth after a fight. A hundred volumes were gone, scarcely a dozen of which had he sacrificed without a pang. But a hundred volumes in order to raise 50 must sell at an average of ten s.h.i.+llings apiece, and in the light of such a test of value he regarded dismayfully the victims. Precious though they were to him, he could not fairly estimate the price they would fetch at more than five s.h.i.+llings each. That meant the loss of at least a hundred more books. Guy felt sick at the prospect and looked miserably along the rows for the further tribute of martyrs they must be forced to yield. With intense difficulty he gathered together another fifty, and then with a final effort came again for still another fifty. Here was the first edition of Swinburne's _Essays and Studies_. That must go, for it might count as ten s.h.i.+llings and therefore save a weaker brother. Rossetti's Poems in this edition of 1871 must go in order to save the complete works, for he could copy out the sonnet which was not reprinted in the later edition. Here was Payne's translation of Villon, which could certainly go, for it would fetch at least fifteen s.h.i.+llings, and he still possessed that tattered little French edition at two francs. The collected Verlaine might as well go, and the Mallarme with the Rops frontispiece: the six volumes would save others better loved. Besides, he was sick of French poetry, wretched stuff most of it. Yet, here was Heredia and the Pleiad and de Vigny, all of whom were beloved exceptions. He must preserve, too, the Italians (what a solace Leopardi had been), though here were a couple of Infernos, one of which could surely be sacrificed. He opened the first:

_Amor, chee a nullo amato amar perdona,_ _Mi pres del costui piacer si forte,_ _Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona._

The words were stained with the blue anemone to which he had likened Pauline's eyes that first day of their love's declaration. He opened the other:

_Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse,_ _Quando leggemmo il disiato riso_ _Esser baciato da cotanto amante,_ _Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,_ _La bocca mi baci tutto tremante:_

And in this volume the words were stained with a ragged-robin which unnoticed had come back to Plashers Mead in his pocket that May eve, and which when it fell out later he had pressed between those burning pages.

It was doubtless the worst kind of sentiment, but the two books must go back upon their shelves, and never must they be lost, even if everything but Shakespeare went.

Guy put his hand to his forehead and found that it was actually wet with the agony of what on this January afternoon he had been compelling himself to achieve. Each book before it was condemned he stroked fondly and smelled like incense the fragrant mustiness of the pages, since nearly every volume still commemorated either the pleasure of the moment when he had bought it or some occasion of reading equally good to recall. Then he covered the pile with a shroud of tattered stuff and wrote a letter offering them to the only bookseller in Oxford with whom he had never dealt. Two days later an a.s.sistant came over to inspect the booty.

"Well?" said Guy, painfully, when the a.s.sistant put away his note-book and shot his cuffs forward.

"Well, Mr. Hazlewood, we can offer you thirty-five pounds for that little lot."

Guy stammered a repet.i.tion of the disappointing sum.

"That's right, sir. And we don't really want them."

"But surely fifty pounds...."

The a.s.sistant smiled in a superior way.

"We must _try_ and make a _little_ profit," he murmured.

"Oh, G.o.d, you'll do that! Why, I must have paid very nearly a hundred for them, and they were practically all second hand when I bought them."

The a.s.sistant shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sorry, sir, but in offering you thirty-five pounds I'm offering too much as it is. We don't really want them, you see. They're not really any good to us."

"You're simply being d.a.m.ned charitable in fact," said Guy. "All right.

Give me a cheque and take them away when you like ... the sooner the better."

He could have kicked that pile of books he had with such hards.h.i.+p chosen; already they seemed to belong to this smart young a.s.sistant with the satin tie; and he began to hate this agglomeration which had cost him such agony, and in the end had swindled him out of 15. The a.s.sistant sat down and wrote a cheque for Guy, took his receipt, and bowed himself out, saying that he would send for the books in the course of the week.

Through the rain Guy went for consolation to Pauline. He told her of his sacrifice, and she with all she could give of exquisite compa.s.sion listened to his tale.

"But, Guy, my darling, why don't you borrow the money from Father? I am sure he'd be delighted to lend it to you."

Guy shook his head.

"It's impossible. My debts must be paid by myself. I wouldn't even borrow from Michael Fane. Dearest, don't look so sad. I would sell my soul for you. Kiss me. Kiss me. I care for nothing but your kisses. You must promise not to say a word of this to any one. Besides, it's no sacrifice to do anything that brings our marriage nearer by an inch.

These debts are weighting me down. They stifle me. I am miserable, too, about the poems. I haven't told you yet. It's really a joke in one way.

Yes, it's really funny. Worrall wrote to ask for a guinea before he read them. Now, don't you think there is something very particularly humorous in being charged a guinea by a reader? However, don't worry about that."

"How could he be so stupid?" she cried. "I hope you took them away from him."

"Oh no. I sent the guinea. They must be published. Pauline, I must have done something soon or I shall go mad! Surely you see the funny side of his offer? I think the notion of my expecting to get five s.h.i.+llings apiece out of a lot of readers, and my only reader's getting a guinea out of me is funny. I think it's quite humorous."

"Nothing is funny to me that hurts you," Pauline murmured. "And I'm heartbroken about the books."

"Oh, when I'm rich I can buy plenty."

"But not the same books."

"That's mere sentiment," he laughed. "And the only sentiment I allow myself is in connection with things that you have sanctified."

Then he told her about the flowers pressed in the two volumes of Dante, both in that same fifth canto.

"And almost, you know," Guy whispered, "I value most the ragged-robin, because it commemorates the day you really began to love me."

"Ah no," she protested. "Guy, don't say that. I always loved you, but I was shy before. I could not tell you. Sometimes I wish I were shy now.

It would make our love so much less of a strain."

"Is it a strain?"

"Oh, sometimes!" she cried, nearly in tears, her light-brown hair upon his shoulder. "Oh yes, yes, Guy! I can't bear to feel.... I'm frightened sometimes, and when Mother has been cross with me, I've not known what to do. Guy, you won't ever ask me to come out again at night?"

"Not if it worries you afterwards."

"Oh yes, it has, it has! Guy, when shall we be married?"

"This year. It shall be this year," he vowed. "Let us believe that, Pauline. You do believe that?"