Helena Brett's Career Part 17

She told n.o.body; not even Ally, who liked her to be ambitious.

No, it was her secret.

CHAPTER XIV

WAS IT WORTH WHILE?

Love in a cottage is admittedly no failure, quite delightful; but those who have tried it usually end by owning that love in comfort would be no less charming.

So it was with Hubert.

n.o.body, he told himself, could be a better little housekeeper than Helena, no little home more fresh and dainty than their own: but though she never worried him, cleverly adapting their ways to a variable income, he was always faced by the uncomfortable thought: "If this book fails--" or "unless I write some short stories--" and after a while these things begin to tell. Within two years from marriage they had told upon Hubert Brett.

And so had come into being that pot-boiler, confessed to Helena with such solemnity on the wide, prudent, s.p.a.ces of the Heath.

At first he had thought that it would be a hards.h.i.+p to exchange his own realistic method, his studies of character, for those ba.n.a.lities of plot and action independent of all motive, which wearied him even when read, boiled down, in a magazine. But slowly his mood of cynical disdain changed to a real enjoyment, for any task is splendid so soon as a man gets at firm grips with it. He began to see that when once you had got rid of the idea that action must proceed from character, there was a certain joy in letting wild event pile up on wild event and then be rapidly forgotten under even wilder. When once you had abandoned all reserve, there was a fierce delight in splas.h.i.+ng pages with unfettered sentiment; making frank puppets think, love, and renounce as they had thought, loved, and renounced since the old fruity days of the three-volume novel. Of course it was all footle, balderdash, but still (he told himself with pride) it was good footle, splendid balderdash. He had bought some of the most "popular" of recent novels in six-penny editions, novels that had brought fortunes to their authors, and by comparison with his, they did the same thing in a bungling manner. No able novelist, he cynically told his wife, had ever tried till now to write a really good bad novel!

Helena loathed the whole enterprise, not only because she vaguely felt that it was marriage with her which had made it needful, but because she thought it so unworthy. And not least unworthy, not least loathsome, did she find his way of talking. It had been so splendid to hear him speak about his work in the old days: and now it was so horrible.

"I've found a t.i.tle at last," he said, emerging at lunch-time one day when the book was in its revision-stage, and coming to her in the drawing-room as usual.

"Hooray!" she cried, genuinely pleased because he had been worried as to that and this would mean a cheery walk. "What is it? Is it good?"

"Couldn't be better," he replied, and as usual she missed the irony.

He paused and then; "_Was It Worth While?_"

"Oh, Hugh," she could not help exclaiming. "That _isn't_ the t.i.tle?"

"Don't you like it?" he enquired sardonically and let himself down cheerily upon the sofa.

Helena of late had begun to express quite elaborate opinions even to Hubert, who somehow always terrified her, rather, when it came to intellect. He was so much cleverer, she knew, and never seemed to take her views as anything except a joke. She always spoke a little timidly. He would have been surprised to hear how cleverly she talked to Alison and others. But that is true of many married couples.

"No," she began slowly. "It's so--I don't know, but--well, so cheap.

All your others were so dignified and simple; I think _Wandering Stars_ was simply excellent; but this--it sort of reminds me of those plays with names like _Did She Do It?_ You know what I mean!"

Hubert smiled grimly. "You seem to think I'm trying to be dignified.

Not a bit of it: we're out for money! Money, my dear Helena: no more worry about bills, and our own motor-car!" She could not bring herself to be amused and he went on more moodily: "Do you imagine any woman wants novels with t.i.tles that are dignified? and men aren't fools enough to read them. Of course you picked out my best seller for your argument; but look at _The Bread of Idleness_. That was dignified enough and splendidly reviewed and sold two thousand copies; just about a hundred pounds for me for one year's work! No thanks, I've done with dignity, _pro tem_. There may be just about two thousand women with a taste in dignity, but I want all the shop-girls this time: I'm out for my hundred thousand! I want them when they go to the seaside library and pay their twopences to notice _Was It Worth While?_ in big letters on a purple ground. That'll make them think! No more dignity for me: you want to make them think, to make them wonder "Why?" I'd call the book _Why Smith Left Home_, if only it was new."

She did not answer for a few moments: then she said very gently but with a new firmness; "Hugh dear, is it really necessary to do all this?

Can't we just go on as we have been doing? I dare say I could manage better, really, and I've often told you I simply don't know what to do with my allowance: it's eating its head off in the bank! Surely we're not so hard up as all that? I hate the whole idea."

"What whole idea?" he asked coldly. One did look for encouragement from one's own wife. He got up to leave her.

"This pot-boiler, as you call it; the t.i.tle; the way you talk about it; everything. It's all so different, and I've been so proud of the others." She gathered courage and went on: "Look here, Hugh, why not give it up; start on a really good one that'll help your name; and we'll live meanwhile on all that from my allowance in the bank?" She rose and took him by the arm persuasively.

"My dear child," he said with condescension, "you seem to think it's all just money. Tear the whole book up? Don't worry your little head with such things, but just go and see if Lily can't give us some early lunch and then we'll go to Kew for tea!"

Helena, released with a kiss, went out feeling oddly rebellious in spite of the Kew treat; and as for him, he was annoyed. Give it up, indeed! She talked as though "all this" (for she had called it that) were something criminal, instead of merely a book that was bound to sell! He certainly had no idea of sacrificing all his work for her absurd dislikes....

Even the best artists do not so much object to popularity, when they reach thirty-eight.

Hubert Brett, indeed, was more excited over this novel's birth than over that of any other. Almost every day he had to go up to see agent, publisher, or editor. He told Helena, as his excuse for leaving her so much, that it was most important this book, as a "popular" one, should be widely advertised and publishers were such eternal fools about that sort of thing. They always spent all their money upon other people's trash and then said they could not afford to help on your own books!

As the day for publis.h.i.+ng drew nearer, this theory bulked almost into an obsession. Helena came to dread the paper boy's arrival. Hubert would tear the dailies open, dash by instinct to the literary page, and then give a discordant laugh of scorn or anger.

"Of course not," he would say. "They won't tell any one till it's been out a week! They mean to keep it dark, trust them!"

"I dare say they're saving up for later on, dear," was her soothing reply. It was not always she, by now, who was the child.

But he would not be soothed.

Helena was glad when the day arrived, although it was a nervous time.

He had been full, the night before, of how amusing it would be to hear the critics slang him for a change, instead of finding all those dull superlatives that put the public off: but remembering his past fury with those few reviews which found some blemish in his work, she had her misgivings.

"Only I expect," she said, "it may seem rather curious at first--having bad notices, I mean." She looked across at him covertly and anxiously.

She had begun, by now, to knit waistcoats for him and felt as though they had been married for eternity.

Hubert, lounging idly in the other armchair, merely laughed. "Curious?

Well, amusing.... It'll certainly be something new to be slated by the critics and rushed after by the libraries. It's usually been the other way about!" He knew, himself, that he would feel the blame from critics who had liked his work, but then---- After all, if the readers liked it and were thousands where they had been hundreds----! And there was the money....

Next morning the paper boy delivered a specially large roll of papers and Hubert flung himself upon them with unusual vigour. Helena, her eyes fixed on a letter where the words all flickered, was anxious to what might seem an unjustified extent. She could just see him with one corner of her eye.

Paper after paper was torn open; his gaze ran greedily along the columns; but he never paused to read.

At length he flung the last one down with a fierce gesture.

"It's a boycott," he cried petulantly. "I've always had at least two notices, for years, upon the day. We sent them out early on purpose.

It's nothing but a boycott."

He seemed to find some consolation in that word with its historical immensity.

"How too bad, dearest," murmured Helena, in duty and with a sinking heart. She saw no cause for any boycott. And she knew that his other novels had better deserved any privilege.

On four dreary mornings the same tragic farce took place, and also with the evening papers. Then on the fifth day Hubert's fast-travelling eyes stopped abruptly, he said "Ha!" and then read out with a nave joy "_Was It Worth While?_"

"Good," exclaimed Helena, still doubtful.

Suddenly he gave a wild laugh. "I like that," he said. "That is rich." He put the paper down very gently on the table. Then he raised the cover from the b.u.t.tered eggs.

"What is it, dear?" she compelled herself to ask.

"They say," announced Hubert in extremely level tones, "this habit of publis.h.i.+ng a well-known author's early works as new is one that has grown far too common."

Then, letting himself go; "Early works? I'll show them! It is libellous. I can prove my case to the hilt."