CHAPTER IIITHE DAWN
Itwas the postman, not the usual bearer of dejected manuscripts; another, older, more distinguished.
“Registered letter, Monsieur.”
Wonderingly I signed for it. The man lingered, but I had no offering for the great godPourboire. I regarded the letter curiously. It was from MacWaddy & Wedge, the last people to whom I had sentTom, Dick and Harry. All I knew of them was that they were a new firm who had adopted the advertising methods of the Yankees, to the horror of the old and crusted British publisher. In consequence they had done well, and were disposed to take risks where new writers were concerned.
Well, what was in the letter? Like a man who stands before a closed door, which may open on Hell or Heaven, I hesitated. Then in fear and trembling I broke the seal. This is what I read:
“Dear Sir,—We have perused with interest your novel,Tom, Dick and Harry, and are minded to include it in our Frivolous Fiction Library. As your work is entirely unknown, and we will find it necessary to do a great deal of advertising in connection with it, we are thus incurring a considerable financial risk. Nevertheless, we are prepared to offer you a five per cent. royalty on all sales; or, if you prefer it, we will purchase the British and Colonial rights for one hundred pounds.“Yours very truly,“MacWaddy&Wedge.“P.S.—Our Mr. Wedge is at present in Paris for a day or two, so if you call on him you might arrange details of publication. His address is the Hotel Cosmopolitan.”
“Dear Sir,—We have perused with interest your novel,Tom, Dick and Harry, and are minded to include it in our Frivolous Fiction Library. As your work is entirely unknown, and we will find it necessary to do a great deal of advertising in connection with it, we are thus incurring a considerable financial risk. Nevertheless, we are prepared to offer you a five per cent. royalty on all sales; or, if you prefer it, we will purchase the British and Colonial rights for one hundred pounds.
“Yours very truly,“MacWaddy&Wedge.
“P.S.—Our Mr. Wedge is at present in Paris for a day or two, so if you call on him you might arrange details of publication. His address is the Hotel Cosmopolitan.”
I sat staring at the letter. It had come at last,—Success! One hundred pounds! Twenty-five hundred francs! Why, at the present rate of living it would keep us for two years; at the rate of the rue Mazarin, nearly twelve months. Never before had I realised that money meant so much. The prospect of living once more at the rate of two hundred and fifty francs a month intoxicated me. It meant chicken and champagne suppers; it meant evenings at the moving picture show; it even meant indulgence in a meerschaum pipe. Hurrah! How lovely everything would be again. As I executed a wild dance of delight I waved the letter triumphantly in the air. All the joy, the worth-whileness of life, surged back again. I wanted to rush away and tell Anastasia; then suddenly I sobered myself.
“I must contrive to see this Mr. Wedge at once. And I mustn’t go looking like an understudy for a scarecrow. Happy thought—Helstern.”
I found the sculptor in bed. “Hullo, old man!” I cried, “if you love me lend me a collar. I’ve got to interview a blooming publisher. Just sold a novel—a hundred quid.”
“Congratulations,” growled Helstern from the blankets. “Take anything you want. Light the gas when you go out, and put on my kettle.”
So I selected a collar; then a black satin tie tempted me; then a waistcoat seemed to match it so well; then a coat seemed to match the waistcoat; then I thought I might as well make a complete job and take a pair oftrousers and a long cape-coat. As Helstern is bulkier than I, the clothes fitted where they touched, but the ensemble was artistic enough.
“I’m off, oh, sleepy one!” I called. “Be back in two hours or so. Your water’s nearly boiling. By the way, how did you leave the Môme?”
“Better, thank Heaven. I do believe the kid’s going to pull through. Last night she seemed to chirp up some. She actually deigned to notice her Teddy bear.”
“Good. I’m so glad. You know, I believe the New Year’s going to open up a new vein of happiness for us all.”
“We need it. Well, come back and we’ll drink to the healths of Publishers and Sinners.”
It seemed my luck was holding, for I caught Mr. Wedge just as he was leaving the luxurious hotel. I gave my name and stated my business.
“Come in,” said the publisher, leading the way to the gorgeous smoking-room. Mr. Wedge was a blonde, bland man, designed on a system of curves. He was the travelling partner, the entertainer, the upholder of the social end of the business. Immensely popular was Mr. Wedge. Mr. MacWaddy, I afterwards found, was equally the reverse. A meagre little man, spectacled and keen as a steel trap, he was so Scotch that it was said he did not dot his “i’s” in order to save the ink. However, with MacWaddy’s acumen and Wedge’s urbanity, the combination was a happy one.
“Yes,” said the latter affably, offering me a cigar with a gilt band, “we’ll be glad to publish your book, Mr. Madden. By the way, no connection of Madden, the well-known American novelist; writes under the name of Norman Dane?”
“Ye-es—only a distant one.”
“How interesting. Wish you could get him to throw something our way. We’d be awfully glad to show what we could do with his books. They’re just the sort of thing we go in for—light, sensational, easy-to-read novels. He’s a great writer, your cousin—I think you said your cousin?—knows how to hit the public taste. His books may not be literary, but theysell; and that’s how we publishers judge books. Well, I hope you’re going to follow in his footsteps. Seems to run in the family, the fiction gift. By the way, I’d better make out a contract form, and, while I think of it, I’ll give you an advance. Twenty pounds do?”
“You might make it forty, if it’s all the same.”
Mr. Wedge drew his cheque for that amount, and I signed a receipt.
“I’m just going round to the bank,” he continued. “Come with me, and I’ll get the cheque cashed for you.”
So in ten minutes’ time I said good-bye to him and was hurrying home with the money in my pocket. The sun was shining, the sky a dome of lapis lazuli, the Seine affable as ever. Once again it was the dear Paris I loved, the city of life and light. In a perfect effervescence of joy I bounded upstairs to the garret. Then quite suddenly and successfully I concealed my elation.
“Hullo, Little Thing!” I sighed. “What have you got for dinner? It’s foolish how I am hungry.”
“I have do the best I can, darleen,” Anastasia said sadly. “There was not much of money—only forty-five centimes. See, I have buy sausage and salad and some bread. That leave for supper to-night four sous. Go on. Eat, darleen. I don’t want anything.”
I looked at the glossy redsaucissson-a-la-mulet, thestringy head of chicory, the stale bread. After all, spread out there and backed by a steaming jug of coffee, it didn’t look such a bad repast. I kissed her for the pains she had taken.
“Hold up your apron,” I said sadly.
Wonderingly she obeyed. Then I threw into it one by one ten crisp pink bank-notes, each for one hundred francs. I thought her eyes would drop out, they were so wide.
“Eight—nine—ten hundred. There, I guess we can afford to go out todéjeûnerto-day. What do you say to our old friend, the café Soufflet?”
“It is not true, this money? You are not doing this for laughing?”
“You bet your life. It’s real money. There’s more of it coming up, fifteen more of thesebillets deux. So come on to the café, Little Thing, and I’ll tell you all the good tidings.”
Seated in the restaurant, I was in the dizziest heights of rapture, and bubbling over with plans. Such a dramatic plunge into prosperity dazzled me.
“First of all,” I said, “we must both from head to heel get a complete outfit of new clothes. We’ll each take a hundred francs and spend the afternoon buying things. Then I’ll get our stuff out of pawn. Then as soon as we get things straight we’ll find a new apartment.”
Suddenly she stopped me. “Mon Dieu!Where you get the clothes?”
“Oh, I quite forgot. They’re Helstern’s. I’ll just run round to his place to return them. He might want to go out. Here, give me one of those bits of paper and I’ll pay my debts.”
I found the sculptor in his underwear, philosophically smoking his Turk’s head pipe.
“Awfully obliged, old man, for the togs. I never could have ventured into that hotel in my old ones. Well, here’s the money you lent me, and a thousand thanks.”
“Sure you can spare it?”
“Yes, and another if you want it. Why, man, I’m a little Crœsus. I’m simply reeking with the stuff. I feel as if I could buy up the Bank of France. Just touched a thou’, and more coming up.”
“Well, I’m awfully glad for your sake. I’m glad to get this money, too. D’ye know what I’m going to do with it? I’m going to hire a nurse for Solonge. It will relieve the tension somewhat. What with watching and anxiety, we’re all worn out. And, Madden, excuse me mentioning it, but that little woman of yours wants looking after. She’s not overstrong, in any case, and she’s been working herself to death. I don’t know what we would have done without her down there, but there were times when I was on the point of sending her home.”
“All right. Thanks for telling me. I say, as far as the Môme is concerned. I’d like to do something. Let’s give you another hundred.”
“No, no, I don’t think it’s necessary in the meantime. If I want more I’ll call on you. You’re off? Well, good-bye just now.”
As far as they concerned Anastasia I thought a good deal over his words, and when I returned, after an afternoon spent in buying a new suit, hat, boots, I found her lying on her bed, her hundred intact.
When a woman is too sick to spend money in newclothes it’s time to call a doctor. This, in spite of her protestations, I promptly did, to be told as promptly that she was a very sick woman indeed. She had, said the medico, never fully recovered from her confinement, and had been running down ever since. For the present she must remain in bed.
Then he hesitated. “If your wife is not carefully looked after there is danger of her becomingpoitrinaire.”
I was startled. In the tension of literary effort, in the egotism of art, I had paid little heed to her. If she had been less perfect, perhaps I should have thought more of her. But she just fitted in, made things smooth, effaced herself. She was of that race that make the best wives in the world. The instinct is implanted in them by long heredity. Anastasia was a born wife, just as she was a born mother. Yes, I had neglected her, and the doctor left me exceedingly pensive and remorseful.
“You must hurry up and get well, child,” I said, as she lay there looking frail and wistful. “Then we’re going away on a holiday. We’re going to Brittany by the sea. I’m tired of grey days. I want them all blue and gold. We’ll wander down lanes sweet with may, and sit on the yellow sands.”
She listened fondly, as I painted pictures, growing ever more in love with my vision.
“Yes, I try to get well, queek, just to please you, darleen. Excuse me, I geeve you too much trooble. I want so much to be good wife to you. That is the bestest thing for me. I don’t want ever you be sorry you marry me. If you was, I sink I die.”
Once I had conceived myself in the part of a nurse,I entered into it with patience and enthusiasm. I am not lavish in the display of affection; but in these days I was more tender and considerate than ever I had been, and Anastasia was duly grateful. So passed two weeks—the daily visits of the doctor, patient vigils on my part, hours of pain and ease on hers.
In Bohemia it never rains but it pours; so with cruel irony in the face of my good fortune other successes began to surprise me. Within two weeks I had seven of my stories accepted, and the total revenue from them was twelve pounds. I felt that the worst of the fight was over. I had enough now to carry me on till I had written another novel. I need not do this pot-boiling work any more.
Every day came Helstern with news of the growing prowess of the Môme. She was able to sit up a little. Her legs were like spindles, and she could not walk; but she looked rarely beautiful, almost angelic. In a few days he was going to get a chair on wheels, and take her out in the gardens.
“I can’t make this out,” I said, chaffingly. “You must have made an awful hit with Frosine. Why don’t you marry the girl?”
He looked startled.
“Don’t be absurd. Why, I’m twenty years older than she is. Besides, I’m a cripple. Besides, I’m a confirmed bachelor. Besides, she’s a confirmed widow.”
“No young woman’s ever a confirmed widow. Besides—she’s no widow.”
“Good Heavens! You don’t mean to tell me Solonge is—”
“Why, yes, I thought you knew. Anyway, there was no reason to tell you anything like that.”
Helstern rose slowly. My information seemed to be exceedingly painful to him. That firm mouth with its melancholy twist opened as if to speak. Then, without saying a word, he took his hat and went off.
“After all,” I thought, “why not? Frosine is as good as gold, a serene, sensible woman. I’d marry her myself if I wasn’t already married to Anastasia. I wonder....”
Thereupon I started upon my career as a matchmaker. Why is it that the married man is so anxious to induce others to embrace matrimony? Is it a sense of duty, a desire to prevent other men shirking their duty? Or (as no woman is perfect) is it a desire to see the flies in our ointment outnumbered by the flies in our neighbour’s? Or, as marriage is a meritorious compulsion to behave, is it a desire to promote merit among our bachelor friends by making them behave also? In any case, behold me as a bachelor stalker, Helstern my first quarry. I did not see him for a week, then one afternoon I came across him by the great gloomy pile of the Pantheon, gazing at Rodin’s statue of the Thinker.
How often have I stood in front of it myself! That figure fascinates me as does no other in modern sculpture. The essence of simplicity, it seems to say unutterable things. Arms of sledge-hammer force, a great back corded with muscle, legs banded as if with iron, could anything be more expressive of magnificent strength? Yet, oh, the pathos of it—the small, undeveloped skull, the pose of perplexed, desperate thought!
So must primitive man have crouched and agonised in that first dim dawn of intelligence. Within thatbrain of a child already glimmers the idea of something greater than physical force; within that brute man Mind is beginning its supreme struggle over Matter. Here is the birth of brain domination. Here is the savage, thwarted, mocked, impotent; yet trying with every fibre of his being to enter that world of thought which he is so conscious of, and cannot yet understand. Pathetic! Yes, it typifies the ceaseless struggle of man from the beginning, the agony of effort by which he has raised himself from the mire. Far from a Newton, a Darwin, a Goethe, this crude, elementary Thinker! Yet, with his brain of a child as he struggles for Light, who shall say he is not in his way as great. Salute him! He stands for the cumulative effort of the race.
Helstern himself, as he stood there in his black cloak, leaning on his stick with the gargoyle head, was no negligible figure. I was struck by a resemblance to a great actor, and the thought came that here, but for that misshapen foot, was a tragedian lost to the world. This was strengthened by the voice of the man. Helstern, in his deep vibrating tones, could have held a crowd spellbound while he told them how he missed his street car.
“Great,” I said, indicating the statue.
“Great, man! It’s a glory and a despair. To me it represents the vast striving of the spirit, and its impotence to express its dreams. I, too, think as greatly as a Rodin, but my efforts to give my thoughts a form are only a mockery and a pain. I, too, have agonised to do; yet what am I confronted with?—Failure. For twenty years I’ve studied, worked, dreamed of success, and to-day I am as far as ever from the goal. Yes, I realise my impotence. I have lived my life in vain.Old, grey, a cripple, a solitary. What is there left for me?”
He finished with a lofty gesture.
“Nothing left,” I said, “but to have a drink. Come on.”
But no. Helstern reposed on his dignity, and refused to throw off the mantle of gloom.
“I tell you what it is,” I suggested. “I think you’re in love.”
“Bah! I was never in love but once, and that was twenty years ago. We were going to be married. The day was fixed. Then on the marriage eve she went to try on the wedding gown. There was a large fire in the room, and suddenly as she was bending before the mirror to tie a riband, the flimsy robe caught the flame. In a moment she was ablaze. Screaming and panic-stricken she ran, only to fall unconscious. After three days of agony she died. I attended a funeral, not a wedding.”
I shuddered—not at his story, but because the incident occurred in my novel,The Cup and The Lip. Alas! How Life plagiarizes Fiction. I murmured huskily:
“Cheer up, old man!”
He laughed bitterly. “Twenty years! I might have had sons and daughters grown up by now. Perhaps even grandchildren like Solonge. How strange it seems! What a failure it’s all been! And now it’s too late. I’m a weary unloved old man.”
“Oh, rot,” I said. “Look here, be sensible. Why don’t you and Frosine hitch up? There’s a fine, home-loving woman, and she thinks you’re a little tin god.”
“How d’ye know that?” he demanded, eagerly.
“Isn’t she always saying so to my wife?” (This was a little exaggeration on my part.) “I tell you, Helstern, that woman adores you. Just think how different that unkempt studio of yours would be with such a bright soul to cheer it.”
“I’ve a good mind to ask her.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Well, to give you the truth, old man, I’ve been trying to, but I haven’t the courage. I’ve got the frame of a lion, Madden, with the heart of a mouse.”
“I’ll tell you what. If I go down and speak for you will you go through it?”
“Yes, I will; but—there’s no hurry, you know. To-morrow....”
“Come on. No time like the present. We’ll find her at work.”
“Yes, but ... will you go in and sound her first?”
“Yes, yes. Don’t be such a coward. You can wait outside.”
He stumped along beside me till we came to the rue Mazarin, and I left him while I went to interview Frosine.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said gladly. “Come in. It’s early, but I put Solonge to bed so that I could get a lot of work finished. See! it’s a wedding trousseau. How is Madame? Is everything well? Can I do anything for you? Solonge remembered you in her prayers. You may kiss her if you like.”
“How lovely she is,” I said, stooping over the child. I was trying to think of some way in which to lead up to my subject.
Frosine never left off working. Once more she wasthe bright, practical woman, capable of fighting for herself in the struggle of life.
“How hard you work! Do you never tire, never get despondent?”
She looked at me with a happy laugh. The fine wrinkles seemed to radiate from her eyes.
“No; why should I? I have my child. I am free. There’s no one on my back. You see I’m proud. I don’t like any one over me. Freedom is a passion with me.”
“Yes, but you can’t always work. You must think of the future. Some day you’ll grow old.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “There will still be Solonge.”
“Yes, but you must think of her too. Listen to me, Mademoiselle Frosine. I’m your friend. I would like to see you beyond the need of such toil as this. Well, I come to make you an offer of marriage.”
She stared at me.
“I mean, I come on behalf of a friend of mine. He is very lonely, and he wants you to be his wife. I refer to Monsieur Helstern.”
She continued to stare as if amazed.
“It is droll Monsieur Helstern cannot speak for himself,” she said at last.
“He has been trying to, but—well, you know Helstern. He’s as shy as a child.”
Her face changed oddly. The laughter went out of it. Her head drooped, and she gazed at her work in an unseeing way. She was silent so long that I became uncomfortable. Then suddenly she looked up, and her eyes were aglitter with tears.
“Listen, my friend. I want you to hear my story, then tell me if I ought to marry Monsieur Helstern.
“I’ve got to go back many years—fifteen. My father was in business, and I was sheltered as all French girls of that class are. Then father died, leaving mother with scarcely a sou. I had to work. Well, I was expert with my needle, and soon found employment with a dressmaker.
“You know how it is with us when one has nodot. It is nearly impossible to make a marriage in one’s own class. One young man loved me and wanted to marry me; but his mother would not hear of it because I was poor. She had another girl with a gooddotpicked out for him, and as children are not allowed to marry without their parents’ consent he became discouraged. I do not blame him. It was his duty to marry as his mother wished.
“Well, it was hard for me. It was indeed long before my smiles came back. But it makes no difference if one’s heart aches; one must work. I went on working to keep a roof over my mother’s head.
“By and by she died and I was alone. That was not very cheerful. I had to live by myself in a little room. Oh! I was so lonely and sad! Remember that I was not a girl of the working class. I had been educated. I could not bring myself to marry a workman who would come home drunk and beat me. No, I preferred to sit and sew in my garret. And the thought came to me that this was going to be my whole life—this garret, this sewing. What a destiny! To go on till I was old and worn out; then a pauper’s grave. My spirit was not broken. Can you wonder that I rebelled?
“When I was a little girl I was always playing with my dollies. When I got too old for them I took to nursing other little ones. It seemed an instinct. And so, whenever I thought of marriage it was with the idea of having children of my own to love and care for.
“Imagine me then with my hopes of marriage destroyed. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Is my life to be so barren? Am I to live like many other women, without hope or joy? Surely this is not intended. Surely I am meant to enjoy happiness.’
“Then,” she went on, “one evening I was standing before a print-shop looking at some drawings when a tall, fair man stopped to examine them too. He was an artist, an Englishman. Somehow he spoke to me, then walked with me as far as my home. Well, to make my story short, he was the father of Solonge.
“I never was so happy as then. I did not dream such happiness could be. If I was sorry for anything it was that my happiness came in this way. And I knew this great happiness could not last. In time he had to go. His home, his mother, called him. We were both very sad, for we loved one another. But what would you? We all know these things must have an end. It’s the life.
“The parting was so sad. I cried three days. But I told him he must go. He must think of his position, his family. I was only a poor little French girl who did not matter. He must forget me.
“I did not tell him I was going to have a child though. He would never have gone then. He would have made me marry him, and then I would have spoiled his career. No, I said nothing. But, oh, how thethought glowed in me! At last I would have a child, my own.
“He wanted to settle money on me, but I would not have it. Then, with tears in his eyes, he went away, swearing that he would come back. Perhaps he would have, I don’t know. He was killed in a railway accident. That is one reason I do not wish to be reminded of artists. He was a famous artist. You would know his name if I told it. But I never will. I am afraid his family would try to take away Solonge.
“You see I have worked away, and my garret has been full of sunshine. Oh, how different it was! I sang, I laughed, I was the happiest woman in Paris. I’m not sorry for anything. I think I did right. Now I’ve told you, do you still think Monsieur Helstern would be willing to marry me?”
“More so than ever,” I said. “As far as I know he has pretty much the same views as you have.”
“He says so little to me. But he has been so kind, so good. I believe I owe it to him that I still have my little one.”
“Yes, he’s not a bad old sort. I don’t think you’d ever regret it.”
“You may tell him my story, then, and if he doesn’t think I’m a bad woman....”
“He’ll understand. But let me go and tell him now. He’s waiting round the corner.”
“Stop! Stop!” she protested. But I hurried away and found the sculptor seated outside the nearest café, divided between anxiety and a glass of beer.
“It’s all right, old chap,” I cried. “I’ve squared it all for you. Now you must go right in and clinch things.”
“But I’m not prepared. I—”
“Come on. Strike while the iron’s hot. I’ve just been getting the sad story of her life, and she is in a sentimental mood. Now’s the time.”
So I dragged him to Frosine’s door and pushed him in.
Then this was what I heard, for Helstern’s voice would almost penetrate a steel safe.
“You know, Mademoiselle Frosine, I—I love your daughter.”
“Yes, Monsieur Helstern.”
“I love her so much that I want to ask you if you’ll let me be a father to her.”
“But do you love me?”
“I—I don’t know. I’ve never thought of that. But we both love Solonge. Won’t that be enough?”
“I don’t know. Let us wait awhile. Ask me some months from now. Perhaps you’ve made a mistake. I want you to be quite sure. If by then you find you’ve not made a mistake, I—I might let myself love you very easily.”
“You’ve made me strangely happy. Everything seems changed to me. I may hope then?”
“Yes.”
I did not hear any more. But a moment after Helstern joined me.
“Oh, Madden, how can I ever thank you! You’ve made me the happiest of men.”
Looking back at the lighted window we saw Frosine bent again over her work, trying to make up for lost time. Helstern gazed at the shadow and I could scarce draw him away. What fools these lovers be!