PART III
CHAPTER I
"What are you doing, Gareth?"
"Reading. Do you want anything, dear?"
"No. Do you always prefer to read in that special position?"
He made no reply. He was very gentle now with Kathleen; very considerate. Perhaps his high-coloured boyish notions of ideal knighthood were never so nearly realized in him as during the present uncomplaining acceptance of his self-imposed life sentence.
Kneeling before the desk in the dining-room, he bent his head once more over the pile of type-script so engrossing him. His shoulders were hunched between Kathleen and the open lower drawer, as if to conceal from her its contents.
"You'll strain your eyes, so far from the light."
Apparently he did not hear.
Sighing restlessly, she rose and went into the kitchen, on the pretext of helping Maggie with the potatoes. At least, the kitchen was always warm—a species of thick concentrated warmth; whereas the arc of heat spread by the dining-room fire was slashed across and across by evil currents of cold air, entering by who knows what mysterious loopholes of Pacific Villa. Huddled in her enormous grey shawl, Kathleen looked as if removed by years from the radiant creature in the brown picture-hat, of five weeks before. She had never heard again from Napier.... But the newspapers had informed her who had won the International Automobile Cup Race.... She had never had any doubt of it. Sometimes she wondered if any of his pleasure in the achievement had been marred by lack of her as audience; and whether he would attempt to communicate with her on his return....
He did not.
Reluctantly quitting Spain, Napier had fortified regret by buoyant self-assurance that things would be "all right" with Grace, now he was coming back to her in a dazzle of glory. The Cup was bound to make all the difference.... She could not but welcome him in the proper spirit of femininity towards victory. "That was a narrow shave I had!" contemplating the momentary folly which had caused him to invite Kathleen to go with him; and his subsequent relief when at the eleventh hour she had inexplicably failed to turn up.
"She'd have been an awful nuisance...."
He intended to make Grace a present of the Cup. And pictured her delight....
"Dap cobes back to-borrow," announced old Mrs. Kirby, quite superfluously, for the fiftieth time.
"OhLord!" groaned Teddy, "won't he swank just!" He added discontentedly: "We were quite all right without him. Yesterday was huge sport—I like Pater ever so much better than Nap." Grace yawned, and stretched her arms languidly behind her head.
"Never mind, Teddums—we need only listen once each to the tale of How I Pulled It Off. But it's a pity ... he'd have been so much more reticent if he had lost...."
"The Round Adventure" was within a few chapters of completion. But through all his hours of frenzied toil, its author knew the spell of creation had snapped on the night "The Reverse of the Medal" was among the pile of manuscripts submitted to his judgment. What he now composed was bad stuff compared to the earlier portion of the book. Nevertheless the idea, the central idea, would be sufficient to pull it through to success, if—if he got in with it first.... A furtive look towards the bottom drawer, and Gareth wrote on. Sick sometimes with loathing of his own meanness, he wrote on.
The manuscript in the bottom drawer obsessed him entirely. His eyes flew in that direction whenever he entered the room; fastened themselves mechanically on the cheap metal handle, each time he paused in his labours to worry out some knotty point. Directly some household trifle, dishcloth or corkscrew, was mislaid, he waited resignedly for Kathleen to say: "I'll just see if it can possibly have slipped into the bottom drawer of the desk;" and then: "Gareth, did you know that somebody's book has been accidentally shoved away to the back of this drawer? You had better take it up to the office to-morrow...."
Nor were his daylight hours made pleasanter by the momentary expectation of Alexander's annoyed tones: "Temple, I've just had an enquiry respecting a MS. entitled—ah, yes, "The Reverse of the Medal." I believe that you...."
Thank goodness, Campbell at least was away till the New Year.
The black china cat was exceedingly amused by all these futile terrors. His opinion of Gareth in the criminal line might be summed up by the one word "amateurish." Far beyond his loathing of himself, Gareth loathed that mean dusty little cat with the glassy yellow stare. Pat O'Neill stood third on the list of hatred. At the beginning of things he had stood first—but that was before Gareth had read the second half of "The Reverse of the Medal."
He was reading it when Kathleen wandered into the kitchen to peel potatoes. He went on reading, held by the same subtle fascination as had drawn him unwillingly to the pile of type-script. In style, "The Reverse of the Medal" was a complete contrast to "The Round Adventure." Pat O'Neill was evidently no word-spinner; lacked that tender magic of the sound and shape and colour of phrase which was so essentially Gareth's. O'Neill disdained words and was impatient of phrases; he was racingly in love with ideas, and lingered to swaddle them by language as much only as was barely necessary for interpretation to the reader. The author galloped his idea from the first page to the last, as a cavalryman might do astride of a horse from whom all burdensome equipment has been stripped. Then was Pat O'Neill himself Robert Nugent, the hero of the novel; the man so magnetic, so clear of brain, so full of ordinary human exasperating faults, of unexpected laughter, that his swift death in the last chapter caused a shock of rising tears to Gareth as he read of it. The theme now lay proven: that who lives his life as a conscious experience, must equally in this spirit accept death—more than accept it—go voluntarily to meet it ... even if he has from the very beginning carried deeply the panic of death in his soul.
Yes.... Robert Nugent realized that there are two sides to a medal, as Kay Rollinson had seen the downward as well as the upward curve to completion of a circle. And both had met with death by water—the one boldly, in fear of death; and the other mysteriously, in fear of water; after each had worked out his episode of love to discover that loss of love is as much "part of the fun" as the advent of love.
But how had this boy, this Pat O'Neill, earned the idea he exploited so brilliantly? Was it from what he had himself done? Or, as in Gareth's case, had failed to do?
For the first time, since sixteen years ago he had seen the profession of reader bathed in a glow of romance, Gareth began to muse on the personality at the other end.... Who was he? What was he? Strange how these books drifted in from complete darkness.
Pat O'Neill. Young, certainly; for since in no passage did he dwell on the marvel of youth, he must obviously be in that one state when the marvel would not strike him. Young—and a genius—how well he would have taken his place as One of Them, if.... But that could never be, while Gareth was holding back the book till his own should be published, and render stale the other.
Sudden memory of Graham Carr, in unwonted confidential mood:
"I used to pace up and down outside here, before you decided on my fate. What a period that was of ghastly thrills, imagining all the accidents of fire and water which were destroying my precious manuscript. Yet, 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. One is possessed by the spirit of fatalism where one's first book is concerned...."
Was that what it meant to Pat O'Neill? Was he even now chafing, in cramped circumstances, starved and shabby, fierily impatient of this delay to ambition? And if the delay were removed.... Gareth's imagination was imprinted with a very clear picture of something dark and eager and divinely insolent, seated high among "Campbell's Young Men" as their very latest and most successful acquisition. Nobody standing between him and his throne but Gareth ... who suddenly felt very weak and futile, pushing stubbornly against the vigorous onslaught of the unseen unknown personality at the other end.
"He shan't get in—with my idea; he shan't—!" Just because Pat O'Neill would have fitted there so marvellously; would, certainly, have looked down on the mere reader of other people's books.
"Can I see Mr. Campbell?"
"What name, please?" asked Gareth, standing up at his desk, and looking at the girl in the heavy dark green cloth, tailor-made, who had just entered through the swing-doors. He was alone in the office. Alexander was lunching an important client; and Guy Burnett was at Watford, interviewing the printers. Even Jimmy had just staggered off to the post, with an accumulation of rejected manuscripts.
"What name, please?"
"O'Neill."
... But Gareth had known it before she spoke. He had known at first sight of her, that the boy Pat O'Neill was a myth of his imagination. And that now and inevitably he was face to face with the consequences of a mean sin.
"Mr. Campbell is away."
She smiled ... and the tilted curve of her lips, slow, mocking, hauntingly sad, broke with startling contrast across the conception of jolly roguish smile one might have been led to expect by her spirited poise, and wide-set happy green eyes, streaked and spotted with gold, and veiled by the defiant upward-curling lashes of dusky gold. She was tall, as a goddess is tall; and broad-shouldered; with supple hips; and thick white skin that was powdered by a shower of tiny cowslip freckles round the bridge of her short blunt nose. Her hair, under its green leather slouch hat, was gold also, dull warm gold; and sprang back squarely from her forehead, to be coiled again in a square frame round her cheeks and neck. A magnificent creature; radiance and strength personified, even to the deep cleft in her chin ... until she challenged her own strength by that smile, and scorned her radiance.
"That dear little lad who tried to stop me at the foot of the stairs also told me Mr. Campbell was away," she remarked thoughtfully. "You stick to it?"
"Mr. Campbellisaway."
Pat O'Neill regarded him steadily. Then with scornful deliberation crossed the room to the inner door marked Private, and flung it open.
The room beyond was empty of occupant.... She looked back at Gareth, recognized something gravely whimsical in his expression—and burst out laughing.
"I'm disappointed, Mr. Campbell. I frankly own it. I expected to expose you with fine dramatic effect—and all the while here you are quite tame, and ready to eat out of my hand."
He assured her patiently: "Mr. Campbell is away. On my word of honour I'm not he. You'll never find a publisher on view in the front office; they're always strongly entrenched behind barricades of our unsold 'favourite novels' in the cellar. Would you care to go down and dig for him?"
He had to talk nonsense to this girl; even aware of her errand; aware of the unspeakable wrong he had done her; and of the lies he was bound in due course to utter under scrutiny of those straight gold-fringed eyes, still he had to talk to her in this wise. She exhilarated him past all sense....
"Who are you, then? Another partner?"
"Mr. Alexander is the junior partner. He's out at present. That is to say, he's also down in the cellar. I'm reader to the firm. Is there anything I can do for you?"
And he asked this ... marvelling at his dispassionate insolence. If she knew——!
"Yes. I sent up a novel, about six weeks ago. It was called "The Reverse of the Medal." Nothing to you, of course. Bores you to death. I'm not expecting any rampant animation on the subject. But, being mine, I have a fond fancy to know what's happening to it."
"You've heard nothing from us?"
"A printed slip of acknowledgment, that's all."
Calmly Gareth verified her information from the volume in which the receipt of all manuscripts was noted down and dated.
"Yes, here we are ... by Pat O'Neill ... is that right?"
"Quite. I'm Patricia really; but I thought it sounded haughty."
"I prefer you as Patricia," he reflected.
"That's very dear and sweet of you, but—where's my book?"
"It may have been mislaid; I'll make due enquiries; and we will let you know our decision as soon as possible."
Patricia O'Neill pondered on this for a moment. Then shook her head. "Not good enough. If I went to the boarding-school where I had placed my wee childie—be not amazed; this is pure hypothesis!—and they said: 'She—or he—may have been mislaid,' I wouldn't say: 'Thank you very much,' and go home to my tea; dear me, no; not a bit of it!"
"Does the book mean as much to you as a child?" He had to torment himself with these questions.... And quite irrelevantly, he wondered how old she was; she looked about twenty-three.
"Well, just at present it's rather in the middle of my world, and——Hang your questions!" she flared at him, in sudden hot indignation; "are they going to accept it or not? Youmustknow—and Iwillknow."
He sharpened a pencil to a very minute point, before, carefully non-committal, he informed her: "I think I can promise you a decision in a week from to-day."
"Come now, that's very pleasing—almost human,"—with one of her mournful tantalizing smiles she apologized for her recent outburst. "I'll reward you by going at once, so that those two poor harassed fellows skulking below can come up and have their tea in peace."
Gareth badly wanted to ask her to come out and have tea with him; but some hidden impulse forbade any such proceeding until he should have remedied the injury of her book held back.
"Good afternoon, Miss O'Neill." And before he had fully grasped to what fantastic extremes of behaviour the wild stimulation of her visit had brought him, he heard himself ask, as he held open the door: "How old are you?"
She halted, unastonished; and leant against the portal, hands clasped behind her back.
"Is this official enquiry? Shall I have to tell my age to the seven-and-seventy publishers who refuse the book? Because it might get about that way."
"Please forgive me. I—I can't think what came over me for the moment," painfully abashed.
"My dear man, I love your healthy young interest. I'm twenty-two-and-a-half. How old are you? Let's be frankly curious, by all means. What's your name. How many glass marbles have you got to play with?"
"My name is Gareth Temple. I'm forty-and-a-half. And I have one glass marble to play with.... At least, I had. But it's smashed."
"Recently?"
"Very recently."
"Something is amusing you; what is it?"
"Nothing...."
"You were right to shut all your dreams into one glass marble, Mr. Temple."
"It's the way of a fool, Miss O'Neill."
"No, it's the way of a wise man, who realizes that the big marble smashed is worth more to him than all the little ones still rolling about the floor."
"If he has deliberately shut all his dreams into the one marble, and is aware that the loss of it is as much his gain as the gain of it—then yes. But not if he is simply a blind weakling who can't help loving the one marble—clutches it so tightly that he smashes it—and resents furiously the escape of his dreams...."
"The marble would need to be of very brittle glass——" She regarded him quizzically: "These metaphorical metaphysics are miles beyond me, you know! Besides which, it happens to be the theme of my book—or rather, its antithesis, which you have been so merrily expounding. Out with the truth, Mr. Temple—you've read it after all."
His features stiffened to immobility. "Ah, yes, your book; I will make enquiries at once. The delay is quite unforgivable. Good afternoon, Miss O'Neill."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Temple."
Gareth, shutting the door on the lazy mischievous banter of her voice, felt as though since half an hour he had been walking on thick resilient turf. He sat dreaming at his desk ... dreaming of the girl Patricia ... spinning webs of words over her personality, with the ease and busyness of the diligent spider....
Patricia!... Oh, the flush and stir of romance in her; not romance faintly suggested, but expression of the thing itself, incarnate and unconscious, in the splendour of her build, her long loose limbs and negligent bearing; in the clean backward spring of her hair, and in that haunting amazing smile, and in her careless quip of speech ... inexhaustible romance!
... The wraith of a girl who was pale and frail and slender, with eyes that were blue hyacinths drenched in rain; a girl whose thoughts were like silent places, and whose touch was as cool as the sand in a cave, hovered forlornly on the dim borderlands of nowhere-at-all, whither she had been rudely expelled by the intruder. Her look was a reproachful reminder to Gareth—"I was your dream."...
Pat O'Neill! How she had made the empty flat spaces throb with her presence. And she was a genius; had written that book—tumbled it forth out of sheer vitality of brain.... He was glad he had said: "I prefer Patricia"—it had given him the chance to speak her name aloud. She was a genius—at twenty-two.... Oh Heavens, twenty-two! And he almost double that age with not a single achievement he could produce to show to her—except, of course (with a pang of relief) his book....
His book. He had forgotten.
For an instant the old hatred was stirred, of the author who had anticipated him in his idea.... Surely, surely, Pat O'Neill might have hit on something else; might so easily have hit on something else. And thus they could each have published a masterpiece, and have met proudly on equal ground.... What a hypocritical cur he felt himself now, having lied to the girl Patricia....
His book.... "Ah well, the one is bound to knock out the other; and she was first in——"
When he got home that evening, the reader sat down and wrote for Leslie Campbell an enthusiastic report in praise of "The Reverse of the Medal." Then he took the manuscript from the bottom drawer of the desk, and tied it up in a parcel, preparatory to taking it the following morning to the office.
"And with that, my friend," bestowing a little twisted smile on the black china cat, "with that, goes any hope we may have had of being ourselves One of Them."
"Couldn't pull it through, eh?" jeered the cat.