PART IV
CHAPTER I
"Very distinguished-looking, with all that wavy grey hair," pronounced Mrs. O'Neill, after the first visit paid her by the prospective son-in-law whom Patricia had so bewilderingly tumbled out of the clouds; "but—Pat darling—he's almost old enough to be my husband."
"I shall take the utmost care that he is not," retorted Pat, sitting on the sofa-end, and puffing at her cigarette; "forgive me for mentioning that you've already had two of these necessary aids to comfort."
"And not an especially good match, is he?"
"Rotten bad!" her step-daughter assented sunnily; "reader to a firm of publishers, at two-fifty per annum or thereabouts. Excellent dad, to have left each of us girls two hundred a year when we marry."
"But with your fascination, Pat—I hate to make you conceited, but Dr. Andrews was saying only the other day that you were a ripe young Amazon."
"Indecent old satyr! Believe me, mother, I've considered my prospects mathematically. I put it to you: two-thirds of the men I meet are smaller than myself. No man can do with a girl who overtops him. Rule them out. Of the remaining one-third, two-thirds again have a preference for slender little clinging maidens. Which reduces my chances to one-third of one-third of the entire male population."
"Even that allowance might be enough for you," remarked Mrs. O'Neill, who was not devoid of gentle humour.
"Oh well," with a gurgle of laughter, "leave it at Gareth."
"I certainly was favourably impressed by the way he holds open the door for one."
"The lamb!" Patricia whispered to her cigarette.
"Only it's all so——How often had you met him, dear, before he proposed to you?"
"Thousands of times. Twice, to be exact."
She had already told her mother that she went to the firm of Leslie Campbell to purchase a special book published by them, which the libraries had informed her was out of print. For Gareth's sake she wanted as few persons as possible to know of "The Reverse of the Medal."
"We ought to ask some of his family, his near relations, to dinner. It's the proper thing to do. Do you know any of them, Pat?"
"Only Kathleen," murmured Patricia.
"His sister? How nice. Would she come?"
"N-no. I'm not sure that it would be frightfully nice.... Perhaps it had better not be put to the test, anyway. He has no relatives, mother; at least," darkly, "not presentable ones."
Mrs. O'Neill took the hint. But she was anxious not to offend etiquette over the details of Pat's engagement. People might hint that any deviation from the usual course was because it was not Ann engaged, or Hetty, her own daughters. She was always morbidly afraid of being saddled with the qualities of the traditional and legendary step-mother. And she happened to be warmly fond of Pat, and very dependent upon her.
"Then the firm of publishers, his employers—should they be invited to dine? What did you say were their names? Pat, I can see no reason to laugh."
"Sweetheart ... if I were walking out with a salesman at Lipton's, I shouldn't expect you to entertain Sir Thomas to high tea. The notion of a godfatherly Mr. Campbell and Mr. Alexander cutting the cake for me and Gareth, overpowers me. It does, verily."
"I only hope, Patricia," with dignity, "that considering the disgraceful haste of your engagement, you will not require the offices of anyone to cut the cake, for a long while to come."
"Heavens, no. Not for ages. Not until the tenth of February." Patricia sprang from her perch to anticipate with a rush of dishevelling kisses any objection the good lady might be likely to raise. For this was the twenty-ninth of January.
Neither she nor Gareth cared to wait. Hers was not a nature to brook delay; and he was feverish lest again he should be thwarted of this gift of wedlock which promised to be so fair. He had always desired to be married; as a young man, dreamt of it; later, mused on the state with the wistful envy of one who sees no hope of it for himself. All the failure of his union with Kathleen, he now arbitrarily set down to the fact that she had never been his wife. Nor did he realize that owing to his dislike of the relationship between them, it was never accepted by them openly and proudly; in which acceptance might have lain their only possibility of finding happiness. It was he who had first created tension, by his sensitive disposition to avoid the subject; skirmishing round every allusion; doing his utmost to spare her, taking for granted a shame in her which had never existed save by his assumption. Thus Gareth had damaged irrevocably Kathleen's experiment of a passionate free comradeship, by his always delicate and chivalrous attempts to reassure her that they were tighter bound than if they had been indeed man and wife. Little deceptions and pretences and silences, swelling to giant proportions ... till they were a guilty furtive nagging couple, nothing more noble than that; pitiful enough end to his boyish high hopes—to the Songs his Mother Taught Him.
And suppose there had been children—Gareth shuddered at the illimitable possibilities of misery entailed....
But Patricia had consented to marry him. They might have as many children as they pleased. And a home without the forbidden subject to make it ghastly. It would be all right this time—all right—Gareth Albert Temple to Patricia O'Neill, on the tenth of February, nineteen hundred and fourteen.
In anticipation of which date of release, release from the intolerable wearying necessity of the outcast forever compelled to beat out a fresh track untrodden by custom, Gareth, on the night of February the ninth, stretched the cramped limbs of his dreams, with a great sigh of thanks to Patricia, the wonderful girl who had freed him from his bondage of freedom. On the morrow he might slacken his tautly drawn initiative; settle down into a condition socially and legally sanctioned. Oh, the hushed benison of rest which Patricia had achieved for him! Patricia ... beloved ... he murmured her name as though in prayer to a goddess. Patricia ... wife ... and his very soul he could have flooded like moonlight at her feet. He would be such a husband as had never before existed, so faithful in guardianship and vigilant in loyalty. Supposing she were ever ill—almost he could have wished her ill at once, for an opportunity to set in motion his solicitude and tenderness. Patricia ... home ... with—hazily—a luxurious aroma about it of comfort and harmony, which Kathleen had never succeeded in imparting to Pacific Villa; but which his imagination infallibly allied to Patricia, as mistress of the quaint squat old-maidish house they had rented furnished in St. John's Wood.
He recollected with drowsy satisfaction ... the dining-room fire was burning low now, and it was late—his last night at Pacific Villa ... the sybaritic effect of Patricia's own sitting-room at Sydenham.
Raising his heavy eyes, he became aware of the black china cat; and by way of a last precaution, knocked it with his foot off the mantelpiece, and broke it.
On the same memorable eve of the tenth, Mrs. O'Neill was trying to make up her mind to go to Patricia's room, and talk to her for a little while ... the child had no mother of her own. The bride-to-be had behaved all through dinner with what looked like the wildest high spirits, but which Mrs. O'Neill did not doubt was hysteria; and then in the traditional manner of brides-to-be, had vanished early to bed. Mrs. O'Neill's hesitation in going up to her, arose from a misty apprehension—engendered she knew not where nor how—that she would find Patricia lying across her bed, shaken by sobs, and moaning: "I can't! I can't! I can't!"...
And what was the proper conversational reply to be made by one who was not quite the girl's mother, when confronted by this painful stress of emotion, the sweet-faced little lady had not the remotest notion. But she nerved herself finally to go upstairs. As she neared Pat's room, she heard sounds that were ominous. And yet—surely, surely it could not be that the girl wassinging?
"Pat ... how—how are you?"
"Very brisk indeed, darling," Patricia assured her; Patricia, who was neither prone across the bed, nor in floods of tears, nor protesting that she would rather die ... nor in any way giving vent to maidenly sentiments.
Mrs. O'Neill was mightily relieved; and—faintly disappointed.
"Is there nothing—nothing you want to ask me about, my dear? I thought ... I wondered...."
And suddenly Patricia understood; and understood the disappointment as well; and choked down the mischievous retort so ready to her lips. The twentieth-century girl has little need of this stammering hour of instruction.... But Pat crossed the room to her step-mother, and dropped on both her knees in front of her, taking her hands.
"I'm so glad you came up.... Yes, please, you can help me.... I want to know——"
They went for a short wedding-journey to the Fen Country. Patricia had roamed before on and about these eerie desolate lands; and found a curious fascination in the monotony of ancient sea-wall and sluggish river, and sail flat against the unchanging horizon. So did Gareth; at least, he thought he did, but was not quite sure. He was so happy that he would have glorified Wormwood Scrubbs or Manchester as ideal honeymoon resorts. He flung such quantities of word-drapery over the landscape; over the little inn at which they stayed; over sky and water and oozing mud-creeks; over Fen-legend and tradition, and the Isle of Ely and the port of Lynn; over Patricia herself and the future, and the books that might be written—should be written, and the books that were already written; and over infinity, and the wonder of their daily breakfast together ... until Patricia protested at last that in view of the fact that she had married a strong, silent man, his fluent babblings were disgracefully out of character.
Then home to number seventeen Blenheim Terrace. Gareth returned to his work at the firm of Leslie Campbell. And Patricia applied herself seriously to the suppression of her restive desire for authorship.... It wasfunto be aware of this power within her, and voluntarily to keep it under hatches like a mutineer; fun ... perpetual bonfire to the altar she had set up in the middle of her world; fun, to refrain from writing, that Gareth should write and write and write.
She awoke to the fact that Gareth was not writing. And that his book still awaited completion. Seemingly he had forgotten all about it. Incredible. She spurred him with eager reminder.
"It's nearly finished," he assured her contentedly.
"Oh, you've been working at it in secret. Good."
"Well, not lately. But it only wants another half-dozen chapters or so."
"Hurry up with them then, you tortoise. I haven't even read the masterpiece yet—think of it! And here I am, wilting away for want of proof that I've married a genius."
He twinkled a fond look at her ... his wife. "I'm not used to brilliantly overwhelming apparitions like yourself flashing into my sober life. You've rather taken my breath away. Make allowances for that, Patricia."
"I didn't notice it—at Lynn," she laughed; "sucha little chatterbox!"
Promptly he exacted penance for her raillery.... And the subject of the book was for the moment shelved.
But a few days later she resumed it. She was truly impatient to witness "The Round Adventure" published; to hear the acclamation, critical or enthusiastic, which should be apology for allowing her own talent to lie fallow. Above all, she longed for the sight of his happiness when his fellows should at last hail him as true artist, as One of Them ... he had confided in her all those dreams of his.
Just at present, the machinery which should produce this sequence of publication and recognition seemed to be unaccountably clogged. A touch from her finger would suffice to set it in motion again. She touched—in fact, sublimely unaware that delicacy was needed, she banged.
"Gareth, call me a shrew and a harridan, but I insist that you should unhand me this very instant, and retire to the library for an evening of diligent inspiration. Your slothful aspect is a great grief to me; it is, truly."
"Adorable, I'm not in the mood to-night."
"Oh dear—enter the artistic temperament! Would it start the mood, do you suppose, if I were to prepare you a cup of cocoa beaten up with white of egg and a drop of rum—or some such invigorating cordial?"
"God forbid! You're an invigorating cordial all by yourself. What I need is a soothing syrup." "Man—man—and I putting all my soul into an effort to be a Good Wife to you!"
He suggested, with a whimsical glance around the room, that she might put a little of that same soul into an effort to make a bright and cosy home for a fellow returning tired and dispirited from his day's toil....
"Yes?" submissively. "I foresee already that I'm to be heavily lectured. What, may I ask, is wrong with the brightness and cosiness of seventeen Blenheim Terrace?"
He frowned in an attempt to explain what had been dimly perceptible to him from the first: that Patricia lacked that indefinable something which might have given to her surroundings that likewise indefinable something....
"Quite," said Patricia. "He expresses himself with such remarkable coherence and style, that I am moved to rescue him from these flounderings. You had pictured me straying about from room to room, with a song upon my lips; achieving with a deft hand a sort of—of draped charm. Isn't that it?... Here and there looping things ... here and there a flower or two ... me in a white gown. Have I given speech to your silent longings?"
She had; and so truly that he could not refrain from laughter, though he was slightly annoyed as well.
"Burlesque it or not," he said; "but thereissuch a thing as working one's personality into a room, till it becomes beautiful. And you know it as well as I, because I felt just this in your own sitting-room at Sydenham. A sort of rhythm and colour which was—you."
"What you felt there, darling, was the je-ne-say-kwah of my mother's housemaid.... Personally, I don't care a fig for my inanimate surroundings. They're so subordinate, aren't they? Do they really affect you?"
"When they're wrong, yes. But I've never had them right, so it doesn't much matter."
He smiled at her rather sadly. And with a quick rush of repentance that was still non-comprehending, she vowed to put a daily vase of daffodils upon his writing-table, as is done by the very best type of Novelist's-Wife, if only he would promise to apply himself to the task of becoming illustrious.
Secretly she was not a little astonished at his reluctance to get on with the book. She had anticipated that she would have to restrain him from feverishly over-working. It had meant so much to him. She remembered his account of that awful moment when Pat O'Neill had cut across and cut him out; and the note of despair in his voice: "I was middle-aged, and a failure—and this one idea had come to me—and I could write only this one book...."
Well, and now that all obstacles were cleared away, why didn't he? Why? Why? Patricia, never a very patient person, was suddenly exasperated at the sight of the tall figure placid and inert every evening in an arm-chair before the dining-room fire. Walking up to him, she seized the journal he held, and flung it into a far corner.
"Damn you, Gareth!—go and write."
She was laughing ... and was not prepared for the deep intensity of his upward look—fear and pleading commingled. Without a word he rose and went into the library.
He could not write. He knew that beforehand. The atmosphere was too expectant. Patricia was too expectant. Before, when his book had been a secret thing ... but now he was paralysed by the sense that ithadto be finished, because something had been sacrificed for it ... something big ... that other book, as good as his own, or—better? "The Round Adventure" was no longer a matter for his own delight, a spontaneous wonder that had been dropped into his brain to do with as he pleased.... Was there more implied than mere concern for his advancement, in Patricia's ceaseless urgings that he should idle no longer? Was there the unspoken reproach: "I gave up my book for you. Mine is wasted. Do you suppose I'll allow it to be wasted for nothing. You owe it to me to make good!"
Yes—of course he must make a start on those last half-dozen chapters. This dallying was absurd; he had so looked forward to the creation of just this latter portion of Kay Rollinson's round adventure. If he could write before, he could write now. Especially for Patricia's sake.
And again the panic seized him. He could not write—not a line. He dared not write—what phrases would be good enough? By sacrifice she had solidified his dream-bubble to such a great important heavy ball; ball of lead ... all the airy rainbow hues turned to a sulky grey. Such a heavy ball—he could not keep it aloft by his mere breath. Such a heavy responsibility.... It was not his book any longer; he had forfeited all right to abandon it if the humour took him thus; Patricia was waiting for him to finish it, and to finish it worthily. There were things she might say, otherwise....
It took him nine weeks of joyless plodding, before he could put into her hands the completed manuscript. It was by no means a new emotion to be working under dread of the suspended lash. He could have wished with it all, that he had loved Patricia a little less. But this temporary clouding of their happiness was not her fault; an accidental blend of circumstances; he absolved her from all blame.
She started the book on the evening he yielded it to her; and read it through at top speed during the whole of the next day while he was not there, that she might not have to sit another evening with his dark pleading eyes fixed steadily upon her face, as she turned page after page.... She read with a beating hope that by this would be smothered an uprising suspicion that she had made a mistake; that her last idea had carried her above and beyond reality; that this man before whom she had chosen to sweep all her previous litter of trifles into a supreme consummation of fire, was not quite big enough—the altar not big enough for the offering.
Of course, he was a dear....
Gareth came home late ... and at dinner performed pretty and intricate little step-dances around the subject of which he most desired to speak. After dinner, in the library, he attempted to resume the step-dance, but Patricia straightway tripped him up.
"I've read it, Gareth."
"Oh?" casually.
She came and sat on the arm of his chair, slipped her arm about his shoulders, leant a soft cheek against his.... And he knew she had been disappointed.
"It's unequal; that's the worst that can be said about it. The first half is charming; your style hasn't got a blemish to it—and I'm a judge of style ... when it isn't my own!" She had made a slip here; she ought not to have referred to her writing; rather more hurriedly she went on: "And I especially love your detail work; all the quaint and whimsical passages; they remind me very much of Richard Pryce—do you know his stuff? The description of the harbour is delicious; and that wood in early spring; and the girl, Sheila. But——"
She paused. And Gareth, neither moving away from her light caress, nor responding to it, said dully: "Yes. Go on."
"But the whole treatment is not quite strong or vital enough to carry the central theme."
Another pause. And then Gareth gave the same stolid assent. "No. I suppose it isn't."
He was waiting for her to remark that the idea of the central theme had been hers as well as his; and that in her case she had not spoilt it utterly....
"And the last third of the book is—futile!" concluded Pat's clear young voice, without any palliative or mercy.
He sprang upright, pushing her away from him.
"It isn't! It isn't!... Or do you think that I overestimated it on purpose, so that you should ... I suppose you think I talked big about it on purpose?"
She too was on her feet by now, surveying him scornfully.
"Oh, if you had wanted to be treated like a baby, and given sugar-plums only——"
And then suddenly she remembered that just to-night she must be very good to him—because of that doubt in her heart which had been finally and unquestioningly acknowledged as a certainty. Just to-night she must be very pitiful with him ... she could not quite answer for herself in the future.
"Dear old man, I'm an ignorant brute, and ought to be kicked for my bumptiousness. But I imagined you would rather have heard straight out what I really thought. The first twenty chapters are so first-class that it would have been a miracle if you could have kept it up all through. Honestly and truly, Gareth, I expect it will do tremendously well when it appears."
He put both his hands on her shoulders, smiling rather wryly.
"All right, darling; it's I who deserve the kicking; I'm one of those terrible persons who wince at candid criticism ... the reader read, you know. But I'm glad you liked the book."
He submitted it to Messrs. Jernyngham, of the Booke-Shoppe, who refused it with praiseworthy promptitude, and quite sincere regrets that the latter portion of the book had not fulfilled the promise of its opening. They hoped, however, to have an opportunity of seeing more of Mr. Temple's work.
"Send it to Locker and Swyn," advised Patricia, when her husband, with a poor attempt at a laugh, informed her of the rejection.
"Yes, it's more in their line," he agreed.
He thought. "Supposing no publishing-house will accept it, and I shall have to tell her each time it comes back.... She will remember how quickly Campbell snapped up hers. Nonsense, she remembers already. How long can the MS. travel round? How many publishers of fiction are there in the United Kingdom? She won't let me give in before it has been sent back by every one. But it's as good as hers, quite as good; this is only my old luck dogging me. Say a hundred and fifty publishers and three and a half weeks at each——"
Locker and Swyn freed him from this sort of arithmetic by accepting "The Round Adventure." They asked him if he could polish up its most conspicuous inequalities; and he replied, albeit grateful to them for the release, that he was incapable of adding or subtracting a single word from the original. And this was not author's arrogance, but a genuine statement of fact. So they shrugged their shoulders; made him a tolerable contract; and promised to bring the book out in the autumn season. "Say in October, Mr. Temple." He assented. It was now April. Six months to wait before the solid consummation of all his illusions.
There had been sadly little illusion about the actual acceptance of the book. Locker and Swyn themselves were dummies; and the business was run by a very practical manager, John Forrester; who, keen to win the same prestige for "spotting genius" as Leslie Campbell, lacked the little Scotsman's real enthusiasm for first-class stuff and supreme indifference to big sales. It was reported that Forrester's beard had gone hoary from the day that "Piccadilly" went into its thirty-seventh edition.... He had been one of the famous Nineteen who had turned down Graham Carr; and like his eighteen sorrowing confrères, could instantly be subdued by airy mention of this instance of his blindness. Alexander was exceedingly assiduous in reminder when chance threw him together with the manager of the rival firm.
Patricia spent the summer in pursuit of as many sports as were possible to one whose headquarters were in St. John's Wood. She was essentially of the type who, given the opportunity, would have made a splendid shot and an excellent horsewoman. As it was, she played golf; learnt to drive a friend's motor; dashed down for several week-ends to the seaside bungalow of another friend, for the sake of the swimming; and when nothing better was forthcoming, took Vercingetorix for long country tramps. She seemed eager to avoid more thoughtful indoor occupations. Her creed was to soar with an idea, and accept with decent cheerfulness the risk of broken bones. She had, metaphorically, broken a good many bones on her fall from this last star-scamper, which had landed her for good or for evil Gareth Temple's wife.... And one might as well walk and swim and drive and golf.
Poor old Gareth—was he brooding too? But his book was accepted; and he still loved her. Whereas her book was waste stuff; and——
Kathleen had foreseen all this. Patricia thought she had penetrated at last with exact apprehension to that lady's point of view. It had puzzled her before that the other should have yielded her claims so easily. But now her motive was stripped bare. "Lord!Idon't blame her. Sixteen years of it. And no tangible grievance to lay at his door. Just that—that dry-rot in his system. No wonder she wanted me to have a taste of the same Hell!"
Wherein Patricia's judgment fell short of the mark. But then she did not know of the Napier Kirby episode. None of Kathleen's animosity had been for the girl who was a second and more vivid edition of herself; none at all.
"I wonder what has become of her?" mused Patricia, also without any rancour. "Fallen on her feet somehow, certainly. If only Gareth, bless him, didn't look so unutterably miserable at every subject I manage to broach, I'd ask him quite merrily if he corresponds with her."
Gareth did not correspond with Kathleen. He spent his intervals between busy reading for the firm—it was an eruptive season for new authors,—in chafing at the shortcomings of housekeeping in his home; in wondering where Pat could be; in wishing she had not quite such a large and clamorous circle of friends, and would not rush about such a lot, and would attend to him more. Put into words, his own words, there was nothing lacking in the description he inspired, of grey-haired scholarly husband looking indulgently upon his young wife's unconquerable questing spirit. He welcomed her always with his old adoring smile and slow courtliness of manner, when she did eventually return from whatsoever bout of new energy had engaged her.... And within five minutes, as she had herself noticed, she would by some quite inconsequent remark contrive to render him unutterably miserable.
For there was so much he dreaded to hear, and which at any moment he might be forced to hear, and to which any haphazard topic might be introduction. For instance: "Gareth, when are you going to set to work at another book?" But that question he fancied he could shelve adroitly when it came, by the reply: "Oh, directly 'The Round Adventure' comes out in the autumn; I want to benefit by what the critics have to say." Temporary reprieve, at all events. Much, much worse than this, Would be: "Gareth, I'm going to set to work at another book."... And here he was helpless; for after all, though she had voluntarily withdrawn "The Reverse of the Medal" from the press, because it had trespassed on his chances, that was no guarantee that she never intended to write again. He might have to sit week after week watching her pen tearing its way towards success. That it would be very definite success, his discrimination did not allow him to doubt. She was the very incarnation of triumphant achievement. Which led to the next unspoken possibility: "You know, Gareth," and quite simply this could be said, "my book is better than yours." And: "Queer, isn't it, that our marriage is as much a failure as though——Well, I mean, it doesn't make much difference in the long run whether one is married or not, does it?"
This was one of the things that Gareth had realized very slowly, and with the painful astonishment of a disappointed child. The actual fact of the ceremony had made no difference whatsoever! It must therefore be something in himself that prevented harmony with either of those different two who had at different times so passionately and inevitably attracted him. Comparing the then and the now, he speculated in a troubled unhappy sort of fashion whether it were really impossible for a pair to dwell together without their peace forever threatened by the one thing unmentionable, the worst of all. One?—a great many things ... they knocked wearily about in his brain, until, to escape their persistent clangour and jar, he drifted again into the habit of dreams ... old dreams—wan shadow-dreams—dreams of a girl ... whose touch was cool.