A Great Man Part 17

'Three thousand pounds is three thousand pounds,' said Mark Snyder with terrible emphasis. And suddenly he laughed. 'You really wish me to act for you?'

'I do,' said Henry.

'Very well. Go home and finish book number two. And don't let it be a page longer than the first one. I'll see Onions Winter. With care we may clear a couple of thousand out of book number two, even on that precious screed you call an agreement. Perhaps more. Perhaps I may have a pleasant little surprise for you. Then you shall do a long book, and we'll begin to make money, real money. Oh, you can do it! I've no fear at all of you fizzling out. You simply go home and sit down and _write_.

I'll attend to the rest. And if you think Powells can struggle along without you, I should be inclined to leave.'

'Surely not yet?' Henry protested.

'Well,' said Snyder in a different tone, looking up quickly from his desk, 'perhaps you're right. Perhaps it will be as well to wait a bit, and just make quite sure about the quality of the next book. Want any money?'

'No,' said Henry.

'Because if you do, I can let you have whatever you need. And you can carry off these piracies if you like.'

As he thoughtfully descended the stairways of Kenilworth Mansions, Henry's mind was an arena of emotions. Undoubtedly, then, a considerable number of hundreds of pounds were to come from _Love in Babylon_, to say nothing of three thousand lost! Two thousand from the next book! And after that, 'money, real money'! Mark Snyder had awakened the young man's imagination. He had entered the parlour of Mark Snyder with no knowledge of the Transatlantic glory of _Love in Babylon_ beyond the fact, gathered from a newspaper cutting, that the book had attracted attention in America; and in five minutes Mark had opened wide to him the doors of Paradise. Or, rather, Mark had pointed out to him that the doors of Paradise were open wide. Mr. Snyder, as Henry perceived, was apt unwittingly to give the impression that he, and not his clients, earned the wealth upon which he received ten per cent. commission. But Henry was not for a single instant blind to the cert.i.tude that, if his next book realized two thousand pounds, the credit would be due to himself, and to no other person whatever. Henry might be tongue-tied in front of Mark Snyder, but he was capable of estimating with some precision their relative fundamental importance in the scheme of things.

In the clerks' office Henry had observed numerous tin boxes inscribed in white paint with the names of numerous eminent living authors. He wondered if Mr. Snyder played to all these great men the same role--half the frank and bluff uncle, half the fairy-G.o.dmother. He was surprised that he could remember no word said about literature, ideas, genius, or even talent. No doubt Mr. Snyder took such trifles for granted. No doubt he began where they left off.

He sighed. He was dazzled by golden visions, but beneath the dizzy and delicious fabric of the dream, eating away at the foundations, lurked always that dreadful apprehension.

As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting into the lift. She turned sharply, gave a joyous and yet timid commencement of a scream, and left the lift to the liftman.

'I'm so glad I've not missed you,' she said, holding out her small gloved hand, and putting her golden head on one side, and smiling. 'I was afraid I should. I had to go out. Don't tell me that interview was too awful. Don't crush me. I know it was pretty bad.'

So her name was Geraldine.

'I thought it was much too good for its subject,' said Henry. He saw in the tenth of a second that he had been wholly wrong, very unjust, and somewhat cruel, to set her down as a pus.h.i.+ng little thing. She was nothing of the kind. She was a charming and extremely stylish woman, exquisitely feminine; and she admired him with a genuine admiration. 'I was just going to write and thank you,' he added. And he really believed that he was.

What followed was due to the liftman. The impatient liftman, noticing that the pair were enjoying each other's company, made a disgraceful gesture behind their backs, slammed the gate, and ascended majestically alone in the lift towards some high alt.i.tude whence emanated an odour of boiled Spanish onions. Geraldine Foster glanced round carelessly at the rising and beautiful flunkey, and it was the sudden curve of her neck that did it. It was the sudden curve of her neck, possibly a.s.sisted by Henry's appreciation of the fact that they were now un.o.bserved and solitary in the hall.

Henry was made aware that women are the only really interesting phenomena in the world. And just as he stumbled on this profound truth, Geraldine, for her part, caught sight of the pirated editions in his hand, and murmured: 'So Mr. Snyder has told you! _What a shame_, isn't it?'

The sympathy in her voice, the gaze of her eyes under the lashes, finished him.

'Do you live far from here?' he stammered, he knew not why.

'In Chenies Street,' she replied. 'I share a little flat with my friend upstairs. You must come and have tea with me some afternoon--some Sat.u.r.day or Sunday. Will you? Dare I ask?'

He said he should like to, awfully.

'I was dining out last night, and we were talking about you,' she began a few seconds later.

Women! Wine! Wealth! Joy! Life itself! He was swept off his feet by a sudden and tremendous impulse.

'I wish,' he blurted out, interrupting her--'I wish you'd come and dine with _me_ some night, at a restaurant.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'I should love it.'

'And we might go somewhere afterwards.' He was certainly capable of sublime conceptions.

And she exclaimed again: 'I should love it!' The nave and innocent candour of her bliss appealed to him with extraordinary force.

In a moment or so he had regained his self-control, and he managed to tell her in a fairly usual tone that he would write and suggest an evening.

He parted from her in a whirl of variegated ecstasies. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' he remarked to the street. What he meant was that, after more than a month's excogitation, he had absolutely failed to get any single shred of a theme for the successor to _Love in Babylon_--that successor out of which a mere couple of thousand pounds was to be made; and that he didn't care.

CHAPTER XV

HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY

There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in China. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie had charge of the department of sandwiches, and they asked Henry whether he should be present at the entertainment. They were not surprised, however, when he answered that the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry wrote to Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on that Sat.u.r.day night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed.

Then Henry changed his tailor, and could not help blus.h.i.+ng when he gave his order to the new man, who had a place in Conduit Street and a way of looking at the clothes Henry wore that reduced those neat garments to shapeless and shameful rags.

The first fatal steps in a double life having been irrevocably taken, Henry drew a long breath, and once more seriously addressed himself to book number two. But ideas obstinately refused to show themselves above the horizon. And yet nothing had been left undone which ought to have been done in order to persuade ideas to arrive. The whole domestic existence of the house in Dawes Road revolved on Henry's precious brain as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it nearly every night and laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they must ask him again in a month or so; and they smiled in sure antic.i.p.ation of the beautiful thing that was in store for them and the public.

He had no one to consult in his dilemma. Every morning he received several cuttings, chiefly of an amiable character, about himself from the daily and weekly press; he was a figure in literary circles; he had actually declined two invitations to be interviewed; and yet he knew no more of literary circles than Sarah did. His position struck him as curious, bizarre, and cruel. He sometimes felt that the history of the last few months was a dream from which he would probably wake up by falling heavily out of bed, so unreal did the events seem. One day, when he was at his wits' end, he saw in a newspaper an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a book ent.i.tled _How to become a Successful Novelist_, price half-a-crown.

Just above it was an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the thirty-eighth thousand of _Love in Babylon_. He went into a large bookseller's shop in the Strand and demanded _How to become a Successful Novelist_. The volume had to be searched for, and while he was waiting Henry's eyes dwelt on a high pile of _Love in Babylon_, conspicuously placed near the door. Two further instalments of the Satin Library had been given to the world since _Love in Babylon_, but Henry noted with satisfaction that no excessive prominence was accorded to them in that emporium of literature. He paid the half-crown and pocketed _How to become a Successful Novelist_ with a blush, just as if the bookseller had been his new tailor. He had determined, should the bookseller recognise him--a not remote contingency--to explain that he was buying _How to become a Successful Novelist_ on behalf of a young friend. However, the suspicions of the bookseller happened not to be aroused, and hence there was no occasion to lull them.

That same evening, in the privacy of his study, he eagerly read _How to become a Successful Novelist_. It disappointed him; nay, it desolated him. He was shocked to discover that he had done nothing that a man must do who wishes to be a successful novelist. He had not practised style; he had not paraphrased choice pages from the cla.s.sics; he had not kept note-books; he had not begun with short stories; he had not even performed the elementary, obvious task of studying human nature. He had never thought of 'atmosphere' as 'atmosphere'; nor had he considered the important question of the 'functions of dialogue.' As for the 'significance of scenery,' it had never occurred to him. In brief, he was a lost man. And he could detect in the book no practical hint towards salvation. 'Having decided upon your theme----' said the writer in a chapter ent.i.tled 'The Composition of a Novel.' But what Henry desired was a chapter ent.i.tled 'The Finding of a Theme.' He suffered the aggravated distress of a starving man who has picked up a cookery-book.

There was a knock at the study door, and Henry hastily pushed _How to become a Successful Novelist_ under the blotting-paper, and a.s.sumed a meditative air. Not for worlds would he have been caught reading it.

'A letter, dear, by the last post,' said Aunt Annie, entering; and then discreetly departed.

The letter was from Mark Snyder, and it enclosed a cheque for a hundred pounds, saying that Mr. Onions Winter, though under no obligation to furnish a statement until the end of the year, had sent this cheque on account out of courtesy to Mr. Knight, and in the hope that Mr. Knight would find it agreeable; also in the hope that Mr. Knight was proceeding satisfactorily with book number two. The letter was typewritten, and signed 'Mark Snyder, per G. F.,' and the 'G. F.' was very large and distinct.

Henry instantly settled in his own mind that he would attempt no more with book number two until the famous dinner with 'G. F.' had come to pa.s.s. He cherished a sort of hopeful feeling that after he had seen her, and spent that about-to-be-wonderful evening with her, he might be able to invent a theme. The next day he cashed the cheque. The day after that was Sat.u.r.day, and he came home at two o'clock with a large flat box, which he surrept.i.tiously conveyed to his bedroom. Small parcels had been arriving for him during the week. At half-past four Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie, invading the study, found him reading _Chambers' Encyclopaedia_.

'We're going now, dear,' said Aunt Annie.

'Sarah will have your tea ready at half-past five,' said his mother.

'And I've told her to be sure and boil the eggs three and three-quarter minutes.'

'And we shall be back about half-past nine,' said Aunt Annie.

'Don't stick at it too closely,' said his mother. 'You ought to take a little exercise. It's a beautiful afternoon.'

'I shall see,' Henry answered gravely. 'I shall be all right.'

He watched the ladies down the road in the direction of the tea-meeting, and no sooner were they out of sight than he nipped upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom. At half-past five Sarah tapped at his door and announced that tea was ready. He descended to tea in his overcoat, and the collar of his overcoat was turned up and b.u.t.toned across his neck.

He poured out some tea, and drank it, and poured some more into the slop-basin. He crumpled a piece or two of bread-and-b.u.t.ter and spread crumbs on the cloth. He sh.e.l.led the eggs very carefully, and, climbing on to a chair, dropped the eggs themselves into a large blue jar which stood on the top of the bookcase. After these singular feats he rang the bell for Sarah.

'Sarah,' he said in a firm voice, 'I've had my tea, and I'm going out for a long walk. Tell my mother and aunt that they are on no account to wait up for me, if I am not back.'

'Yes, sir,' said Sarah timidly. 'Was the eggs hard enough, sir?'