PART II
CHAPTER I
"Good-bye, Kathleen; no, I won't forget about the fish." Gareth Temple ran down the steps of Pacific Villa, and swung the gate behind him. He carried under his arm a bundle of manuscript, which he had been examining the evening before. When he reached the office, more manuscript would be awaiting him. For he was still a reader of books. Three years ago he had transferred his services from Messrs. Dale and Dawson to the newer firm of Leslie Campbell. That was all the change of fortune which sixteen years had brought about.
Campbell had himself been a reader at Dale and Dawson, publishers. An excitable and energetic little Scotsman with no prudent instincts whatsoever, he set up business in a third-floor room above the bustling offices of a popular magazine. Assets: Four hundred pounds capital, and the assistance of one impertinent small boy. Invisible asset, a soul that was an infallible touchstone for genius. Gradually he made himself a name for the publication of works by that brilliant intolerant set of young writers who flourished under the banners of Impressionism, Futurism, Iconoclasm, Realism and Super-Realism, New Thought and Modern Decadence, with equal pleasure and superiority. Presently, and without need to reproach himself with any pandering to popular taste, he was able to boast an inner room to his offices; and added to his staff Gareth Temple and Guy Burnett, in capacities of reader and confidential clerk. Nevertheless, the firm's treasury continued to be fed for the most part on Campbell's enthusiasm; till, by way of steadying himself, he took into partnership Vincent Alexander, lately an undergraduate of Balliol; who, frigid and level-headed, succeeded by sheer weight of his twenty-five imperturbable years, in setting a limit to the indecent exuberances of Campbell's middle-age.
Then Graham Carr wrote "Piccadilly." And the firm began to prosper.
Gareth turned off the Strand, up a by-street, till he came to a shop-window flaunting innumerable replicas of the July number of "The Blue Sky"; design consisting of a smiling maiden running precariously along a rainbow, and leading a peacock on a red ribbon. He passed through a side-entrance and up a wooden stairway, till confronted by the familiar black lettering: "Leslie Campbell, Publisher," on an opaque glass door. Then he heard the quick pattering trip of Mr. Campbell on the stairs behind him; and waited, holding the door open.
"Thank ye, Temple. Ah, while I think of it, mek out a report on this, will ye?" A bulky parcel was thrust into the reader's arms. "And ye needn't let Mr. Alexander see it ... just yet. Understand?"
Gareth understood that the senior partner had happened upon a new genius who might, with luck, sell about ninety-seven copies of an edition.
"Very well, Mr. Campbell."
Together they entered the outer office, as Guy Burnett banged the telephone receiver back on its hook.
"Hale's, sir. Two-fifty more copies of 'Piccadilly' wanted immediately for the branch libraries."
"Of 'Piccadilly'?"
Campbell groaned aloud. "Piccadilly" was the so-called Book of the Year. The volume in its dull red binding had since four months become an obsession in the office. They breathed, talked, dreamt "Piccadilly." It littered the floor, the desks, the tables, the shelves. Every 'phone call concerned "Piccadilly"; every letter. They took up a paper and read reviews of "Piccadilly." They went for a walk and the cover stared at them from library windows. The entire firm had floated to affluence on "Piccadilly." And one and all, Campbell and his partner; Guy Burnett, the clerk; Gareth Temple, the reader; and Jimmy, the Heart-breaker; one and all were deadly sick of "Piccadilly." Graham Carr was the only person who was not sick of it. Graham Carr had written it.
"Aweel, send Jimmy over to interview the binder." Campbell disappeared into his inner sanctum. Alexander, by way of reproof to enthusiasm, never arrived on the spot till noon.
The Heart-breaker was despatched on his congenial errand. Then, cheered and refreshed, returned to his task of making into parcels the rejected manuscripts. Merrily he whistled, as he jerked the string into knots; merrily he whistled as he banged the door behind him, and set off to catch the post. Jimmy, aged thirteen, had been the very first within these walls to break an unknown heart by dispatching a package with slip of paper enclosed: "Mr. Campbell has considered your MS. with much care, but regrets——" Consequently his title and his importance.
Burnett was called into the inner room to be dictated a letter which the senior partner was anxious to dispatch on the sly, before his relentless junior should appear. An exceedingly popular lady novelist, commanding the best existing sale of sentimental fiction, had offered her wares to Leslie Campbell, for the prestige of seeing his name stamped at the foot of her cover. Alexander was considering the advisability of lowering their standards to accept these overtures: "Psychology will never make us a fortune, Campbell; and we can't live for ever on the proceeds of 'Piccadilly.'" Now, sneakingly, and with immense delight, Campbell dictated his uncompromising refusal of Miss Ethel Erskine's offer. He would have nothing but the Intellectuals. The little Scotsman's admiration of his "Young Men" and their style of authorship was almost fanatical.
Gareth found them tiring. He felt always acutely conscious of being an outsider. Not that it mattered—he was only the reader; and though his judgment could be relied on as sound and scholarly, Campbell never made an intimate of him; never called him "my boy," as he did young Burnett, for instance. As for Alexander, he disapproved altogether of the reader, whom he classified as an idealist lacking in guts.
Temple was older than any of the others; older than the head of the firm, even. And sitting there at his desk, he seemed to have grown just a little dusty; to lag a few paces behind the times—while "Campbell's Young Men" rushed fully twenty years ahead of them.
The clock ticked fussily through the stillness. Gareth, proof-correcting, bent wearily over the long strips of evil-smelling print. Quick steps on the stone stairs outside; and the door burst open to admit a man in a worn Norfolk jacket, and square heavy boots; giving him, with his tanned skin and boyish blue eyes, somewhat the appearance of a country squire.
"Hullo. Where's everybody?"
"That you, Mr. Carr? The chief is busy, I think; shall I call him?"
"No, it's all right; I only strolled in to sit on the table and swing my legs." He glanced humorously at Gareth; and, having nothing better to do for the moment, dropped into casual conversation: "Has it ever struck you, Temple, what a wonderful thing it is to have the right to break in without apologies on a real live publisher, and swing one's legs from his real live dirty untidy desk? I used to pace up and down outside here, before you had decided on my fate—God! what a time it lasted!—and picture myself doing just that."
"Were we a long time? Yes, I remember now, the Chief was away. But you never enquired?"
"No. And d'you know, if the ordeal of waiting had lasted a decade longer, I should never have screwed myself to the point of asking for a decision."
"Why?"
"One is possessed by a curious spirit of fatalism where the first book is concerned. Things must take their course. What a period that was of ghastly thrills, imagining all the accidents of fire and water which were destroying my precious manuscript. And now——"
"Now you've got there, yes. There's been an order from Hale's for two-fifty more copies of 'Piccadilly.'"
"Good!" Carr made as if to pass on; then paused to say. "Had anything worth while up lately?"
Gareth's face was expressive.
"As bad as that?" laughed Carr. "You are fond of reading, of course?" He flung himself into a battered leather arm-chair, hands thrust deep into his pockets, legs stretched out towards the empty grate. He had never bothered much with the reader before now, and it struck him that this reserved man with the stern mouth and grey-flecked hair, might reward closer study. "You are fond of reading?"
"I—loathe—it."
The words were pushed out with such intense vehemence, that Carr was startled. "I didn't think it possible for an intelligent man to dislike books."
"Perhaps not. As a young man I loved them so much that the day I got my first job as a reader I walked through London with my head among the stars. But books were then magical mysterious things, that grew on trees, and dropped into my hands. I never gave a thought to the mechanism of producing them: authors, manuscripts, typists, publishers, readers, printers, binders, contracts, proofs—they were hard facts, and had nothing to do with just books. For the first time that evening I read with my brain instead of my heart ... and I've been reading with my brain ever since, till it's dog-tired. Good Lord, man!Ican't enjoy a book; I have to be on the look-out for tautology and anachronisms and split infinitives. Books are my bread-and-butter; they nauseate me; it's all I can do not to send up one damning report after another. I read books all day, and carry home a pile with me to read at night. My imaginative chords have been thumped till they hang loose as a broken bell-rope. Books—I can't get outside them, their mechanism and jargon. The world is one vast book, clipped together in chapters. I'm surrounded by men like you, who never drop a pencil without turning it into an incident for their books." From a fierce abstraction, Gareth wheeled suddenly on his hearer. "Now, this very minute, you are thinking I would be an excellent tragic character for your next book: the reader who detests reading. Are you?"
Carr flushed a guilty crimson; he had just succeeded in placing Gareth in the third chapter of "The Gnome."
"Well—er—I think I'll go inside. I've got a new contributor to propose for the White 'un."
"What's that?"
Not to have heard of the "White Review" monthly journal whose issue the firm had been contemplating and discussing for weeks—well, for a week, ever since Ran Wyman, author of "Tom Tiddler's Ground" and spoiltenfant terribleat the office, had first mooted the notion? Carr explained, amazed at the other's ignorance.
"No, I've been told nothing about it. Oh, yes, I saw that some special scheme was in the air, but I'm used to that here. It sounds good enough; more destructive than beautiful, though."
"Oh—beautiful!" Carr shrugged his shoulders; no doubt of it, the reader was inclined to be old-fashioned. "All the same, Temple, I don't think you hate books; only other people's books. Why don't you write one yourself?"
"To add to the output of rubbish?"
"Thank you," laughed the author of "Piccadilly," then turned to Alexander, who, very sleek and immaculate, was in the act of hanging up his hat.
"Morning, Alex. Feel like contemplating a new series of explosions for the White 'un?"
"Yours?"
"No. Discovery of mine. Polish woman. I want to show some of her stuff to Campbell; it's soul-shattering."
"Then don't show it to him," languidly protested the junior partner; "already the journal is likely to be poison to the average intelligence. I intend asking Ethel Erskine to contribute an antidote." This, unaware of the letter reposing at the foot of the nearest pillar-box. Beneath his attitude of careful restraint, Vincent Alexander concealed an appreciation of talent as quick and keen as Campbell's own; but he considered the chief ought not to be indulged. With a careless "good morning" to Temple, he drew Carr through the swing-door marked "private."
Gareth sighed. Though he would not have owned it for worlds, had never owned it even to himself, he did sometimes long to be admitted into the charmed circle; the splendid bumptious fellowship of creators. To be acknowledged One of Them; himself to swagger into publishers' offices, pass the reader with a casual nod, sit on the tables and swing his legs and patronize young aspirants to fame. To have Leslie Campbell call him "my boy," and be in the confidence of Vincent Alexander; initiated into whatever literary scheme was afoot—nay, himself boldly to propound these schemes, and have them heard with respect. One of "Campbell's Young Men." One of Them....
He did not often sit dreaming thus. His sixteen years as reader had drained him not only of ambition, but of a great deal of his happy illusions. At whiles, he used to ask himself why he continued this especial work which had turned to drab substance what was once his fabric of enchantment. It was so difficult to break away from things. Gareth remained a reader. And the past few years had hardened him to mechanical acquiescence.
But his recent outbreak to Graham Carr seemed again to loosen discontent. Without thought of rebellion, merely with the mournful recognition upon him of how far he stood from the inner shrine of fellowship, he sat idly at his desk, hearing the occasional laughter which drifted from the room beyond. Even young Burnett was allowed at these confabulations; a mere boy of nineteen, he was engrossed in the writing of an "Episode in the Life of a Navvy," backed by the hearty encouragement of his two chiefs. Yes, Burnett had started already—and he, Gareth, was now in his fortieth year. Why had he never written his great book? Perhaps Carr had been right in saying that other people's books had swamped him entirely.
Leslie Campbell's office was not a good place for introspection. The telephone bell rang repeatedly. A miscellaneous procession of callers kept the swing-door in an endless gale and motion. The designer of the cover to the shilling edition of "Piccadilly" came to submit his rough idea of the sketch, comprising a hectic young man staring wildly into a candle-flame, above which floated a grinning skull: a bright and attractive notion which mightily pleased Campbell, but was rejected by Carr and Alexander both, since there was nothing in the text of either skulls or candles. Youthful authors of both sexes, timorous or determined, knocked continually at the outer gates, requesting interviews with Mr. Campbell. Jimmy's job to attend to these, whenever he was present; but Gareth had been steeled to execute hope with as little compunction as the Heart-breaker himself. The designer emerged from his colloquy within: "You had better ask the pretty-cover artist on the 'Blue Sky' to do your next job," sarcastically—and in his blind rage collided with Mona Gurney on the top stair. "Come in, my lass; you're the verra person we need," cried Campbell, catching sight of her; and she joined the conclave of Olympians. A thin slip of a girl, demure and refined as one of Jane Austen's heroines, she was the only woman writer whose books had attained the honour of being published by Leslie Campbell; great strapping books, reeking of the soil. "Campbell's Young Men" held her in profound respect; nay, Alexander almost committed the indiscretion of loving her, because her tailor-mades were of such irreproachable fit; the two would discuss fashion by the hour, interrupted ever by Campbell's disgusted comments, which but effected that they would mince their tones the more. You could do no wrong if you were One of Them.
The July sun filtered through the dirt-specked windows, on to the litter of books and papers, on to the dusty floor and splashed walls. Gareth had not moved for several minutes, engrossed in the study of a typed manuscript sent up for approval. "Spring-fret," by Moll Aynsleigh. And underneath the title-page, the quotation:
"Grant the path be clear before youWhen the old spring-fret comes o'er you...."
"Grant the path be clear before youWhen the old spring-fret comes o'er you...."
"Grant the path be clear before youWhen the old spring-fret comes o'er you...."
"Grant the path be clear before you
When the old spring-fret comes o'er you...."
Crude as the veriest green apple, and sentimental as a love-song heard by moonlight, Moll Aynsleigh was in all probability a young girl embarked tremulously on the wonderful adventure of a first novel. Not thus could one enter the favoured ranks of Leslie Campbell. Yet there was that in the hackneyed theme, the quest for Prince Charming, which sprayed on Gareth's parched imagination like water from a fountain. Love and an April dawn—children playing in a garden—the hopeless, laughably hopeless, despair of youth at grown-up frustration of their plans,—a certain tumultuous "I-want-I-know-not-what" which beat through every page like the beating of a little schoolgirl's heart.... Gareth, in midsummer, fell victim to a bad attack of spring-fret, vague and troubled and wishful. Knew that he should not be seeing the sunshine's gold splashing through grimy London panes; knew now that he had missed things; knew that he was over forty, and a failure.
He glanced at the end of the book; and set it aside for Jimmy to pack and return. Silly little Moll Aynsleigh ought to have known better than to send her romance to this address. Nevertheless, Gareth was sorry.
"Grant the path be clear before you ..." how hot and stuffy was the inside of the bus which carried him that evening to Hammersmith. No room on the roof; or else Gareth was not quick enough to shove a passage through the struggling mass on the step. The air was fetid with breath and the smell of clothing and an indefinable odour of food; the narrow seats crowded with a selection of the fat of the land, so that elbows were tightly wedged, and bodies sweltered in torturing proximity. "Grant the path be clear before you" ... he knew that path; had seen it often: it wound over a hill, a low hill, easy and pleasant to the climber; hill which humped a sun-slippery shoulder from among the silvery morning mists. And thence, on the further side, the path would dip to a young wood; the youngest wood in all the world; younger even than when broidered with the tender green tips and tassels of spring; younger far than when garbed in the self-satisfied foliage of summer or the crudely flaming tints of autumn. A wood with promises unfulfilled, soul unawakened. A wood of February. And here the hill-path would be laid with a carpet of sodden purple; the hollows spun by webs of glittering frost. Over all the bare branches of the tree-tops stole a haze of white and a cloud of dim mauve; but save for these it stood a bridal wood, pale and intangible; its mesh of lower boughs devoid of all colour; its spaces silent of all sound but the cold clean trill of single bird, awake too soon. Somewhere, the thin trickle of unseen water; somewhere, a dark pool with darker shadows. The sun slid faltering down the sentinel tree-trunks of that wood, dared not enter in. A wood haunted, yet passionless. A waiting wood; not for mischievous pixie or leaf-crowned Dryad; but for some wan girl, whose garments hung tattered as the tattered shreds of autumn yet lingering on the hedges; whose ankles were bare and slim; and whose eyes, blue hyacinths washed with rain, seemed mutely to wait their tryst with a lover so young as to know naught of evil. Gareth knew where she could be found: at the far end of the empurpled path; seated upon a broken gate. He would come upon her when he was hot and tired from climbing the hill....
He was made aware of the bus-conductor, who wanted his twopence. Of a bony female, stamping furiously upon his feet, because he had not risen to give her room, and of a basket dug into his side by a man in villainous corduroys, basket that evidently contained cheese of a vicious and unforgettable character. Gareth was glad when the Hammersmith vehicle finally jolted him forth at the nearest corner to his street. He knew he was late for dinner; he was usually late; but it was too hot to hurry. The evening had brought with it no relief of wind; merely a greater heaviness to the stale air. The shouts of swarming children free from the Board Schools, sounded intolerably shrill and close to his ear. The sun gave no sign of ever setting. Corners of houses and their roofs, chimneys and telegraph wires sawed and carved the sky into the various bright blue segments of a jig-saw puzzle. A passing water-cart raised longings in the heart and dust in the road, with equal incapacity to deal with either. And here at last was Pacific Villa; hideously uniform with its neighbours on the right and left; square of front garden, devoid of shade, devoid of grass, of everything save a few sticks at various angles of hopelessness; lace curtains at the dining-room window; blobs of lighter brown on the brown front door where the blistered paint had peeled away. Gareth fumbled for his latchkey; before he could find it, the door was burst open to him.