WOOING THE MUSE
“Five thousand words,” muttered Hugh, and then tilted back in the steady chair he had abstracted from the kitchen for the very purpose. Yes, this was going to be one of his good days—he willed it so. The mood was not there certainly, but then, now the finishing of the book had become a pressing necessity, the mood never was there; it was like a tantalizing butterfly that flitted a second in his face and then led him a desperate chase through a tangle of undergrowth that never ended.
Five thousand words! Yes, he could if he would. Let him brace up his sinews, summon up his blood! The mere act of battling for it hard and earnestly would probably bring the mood back—it had done so many a time ere this.
Let him read over the last chapter or so to get in touch again with his characters.
Great heavens, what balderdash it all was! [p180] He crashed his chair on to its four legs again and reached out blindly for his pen. And now he scored pages and pages across with heavy black lines; he seemed to take a vicious pleasure after a little time in destroying what he had written and went along with his lips tight and a hard look in his eye, weighing every sentence in the balance and adjusting that balance to such nicety that he found nearly every sentence wanting. Out they came: occasionally a fierce black zig-zag on the page he considered sufficient for future deliberations, but more frequently it needed greater physical activity to relieve his state of mind and he ripped the page fiercely off the block, crumpled it in his hand and sent it flying across the room.
If Miss Bibby had happened in that morning she would have come to the conclusion that the eccentricity of genius led it to divert itself at times with the game of paper snowballs.
The heavy slaughtering brought a degree of relief; he looked over his shoulder at the paper-strewn floor and felt a twinge of self-satisfaction: there were authors who would have passed the work quite complacently or at most have considered a little polishing was all it needed. For him it was satisfaction or snowballs—no medium course. But then he groaned, for his eye of a sudden fell on a [p181] calendar. Fell on the calendar, to be exact. Many of his lady friends and admirers invariably presented him with calendars at Christmas time (“Such a suitable present for an author, my dear!”); exquisite works of art some of them were, whose dainty strips of ribbon, adroitly pulled, brought into more or less perfect view the day of the month nestling in the heart of a flower. Or you would turn a gilded handle perhaps and a day of the week would appear on the silver sail of a ship, while another turn would bring the date to the figure head and the pressing of a spring send the name of the month fluttering as a flag on the top of the mast. Hugh had a sincere admiration for this ingenious trifle, and frequently when a hero was behaving untowardly idly amused himself with spinning up the signs.
But of course, if one really wanted to know the date one looked at the plainest one had: this year it happened to be a gratis one, presented with the advertisement pamphlets of some patent medicine, and it had stood Hugh in good stead from January to now, when November’s cloud of heat clung closely to the mountains.
But the sight of it caused him to groan and to realize that the just passed Berserk mood had cost him perhaps seven thousand words; and the seven thousand words represented [p182] all the work he had done up here at “Tenby”—“Tenby” that he had taken expressly for the performance of doughty deeds of literature.
He looked ruefully at his snowballs;—perhaps after all he had been hypercritical, perhaps one or two of those pages might be rescued and smoothed out and made to answer. After all, who else would be the better or the worse for it? All the public wanted of him was a piquant flavour for its jaded appetite and the details on which he bestowed such a fever of care would probably escape its attention altogether. Yes, after all, what was he? Just the paid provider of certain species of mental refreshment,—a sort of fashionable drink that the hurrying public, coming along and seeing others drinking, took a gulp at and went on with its much more important work nor better nor worse for the quaff. Why, an orange boy, selling his honest juicy fruit to a thirsty crowd was a better public benefactor than himself! Pah! he had been over-estimating himself of late; he was not of the authors who might legitimately claim to refresh and stimulate the race to higher things. He was just a maker of “bitters,” and the public, in its charmingly inscrutable fashion, declaring for it as its favourite beverage for the moment, he had become “popular.” Why worry himself ill over the concoction of the bitters; sharp and [p183] strong that was all it asked? Yes, yes, those snowballs on the floor were quite good enough, let him pick them up and uncrumple them and pin them back in their places ready for the typewriter.
But Kate came in,—Kate in one of her fresh-looking pin-spot print frocks. She seemed to exhale something clean, wholesome, stimulating, though she spoke no word and only laid the morning letters down beside him and, when he looked round at her, gave him her cheery smile.
He clutched at her plump, print-covered arm.
“For the love of heaven, K,” he said, “pick all that paper up off the floor and take it away.”
Kate gave him the soothing hand-stroke that nurses keep for feverish patients.
“Of course,” she said, “certainly, straight away, old boy.” She groped about beneath his knees for the wastepaper basket that would be needed as vehicle.
Then he heard her breathing a little hard as she stooped here, there and everywhere for the snowballs.
He did not turn round, but talked during her labours.
“It’s not etiquette I know, girl,” he said, “I wouldn’t dare to present a hero to the public who let a woman pick up her own [p184] handkerchief. But I always was a cowardly chap, wasn’t I? You remember the time I took Jack’s licking at school because I knew if I turned round and let him see it was the wrong fellow, the master would notice my cheek was puffed out with toothache and send me straight off to the dentist’s.”
“Yes, I remember,” said Kate, puffing and panting cheerfully about the room.
“Hurry up, old girl,” he said. “In a second I shan’t be able to restrain myself from clutching some of that stuff back.”
“And it’s genuinely bad?” said Kate, working hard: you might have imagined her engaged in gathering mushrooms at so much a minute.
“The scum of literary abomination,” groaned Hugh.
“And you’re certain you’re not deceiving yourself.”
“Oh, perhaps I am,” he said swinging round, “y-y-yes, I’m pretty sure it’s good enough. Seven thousand words, K, seven thousand p-p-precious words—human nature won’t stand it, will it? Let me have another look at it.”
But now Kate was adamant.
“Good enough is not good enough for Hugh Kinross,” she said sternly and made straight off to the kitchen fire with the overflowing basket clasped firmly in her arms.
[p185]
And now Hugh heaved a sigh of relief and settled down in better heart to his work. He took out a fresh writing-block and firmly and with inspiring assurance inscribed upon it the number of his chapter.
But after regarding this effort with an uplifted look for a second or two his eye fell upon the letters beside him that Kate had laid down.
Now there is something insidiously insistent about the morning post when one is away from all the other corrupting effects of the civilization of cities.
Hugh knew perfectly well that he was trembling on the verge of his precipice when he let his eye linger upon the envelopes; he knew perfectly well that the act of opening one would send his already nearly maddened Muse clean out of the window for the rest of the morning. But yet he dallied.
It was more than possible that there was a highly important letter there, and two or three hours’ delay in opening would mean a serious loss. His last story, for instance, that his London agent was serializing in several countries—yes, it was quite possible some instant information was wanted about it. Or that tale he had offered to an American magazine—probably there was news about it here; it was a decent story too, he would like to find out if it had been appreciated. And [p186] then there were those shares he had taken in that Transvaal concern, suppose news had come of a fall or rise in them? He would not listen to the cold-headed remembrance that whispered that no English, nor American, nor African mail was due to-day. It was perfectly possible that in an undermanned country post office like this these important letters had been left over since last mail and only just delivered. It was really highly important that he should make sure.
He drew the little stack of envelopes towards him and tilted comfortably back while he opened them.
He owed his tailor thirteen pounds eleven and six, he discovered. He discovered that by employing the Reliance Carpet Company his Axminster carpets would be entirely freed from dust and in such a way that he need fear no microbes for his nursery.
The Mission to the Chinese of Wexford Street, and Lower George Street, would be glad of a subscription from him, he learnt.
A Consumptive Hospital, a Crêche for Neglected Infants, a Convalescent Home, an Inebriates’ Retreat all had a similar use for him. While slightly more cheerful, if less urgently necessary methods of spending his money were suggested by requests, (1) to take a few five-shilling tickets for a concert for the purpose of sending a deserving young singer [p187] to Italy; (2) to purchase at a reduction a calf-bound set of the Encyclopædia Cosmopolitana with which the owner, being short of money, was reluctantly compelled to part, and which he, as an author, would doubtless find it to his benefit to acquire; (3) to be present at the banquet of a fellow author, departing for the old country, tickets one guinea. Then there was one typewriting lady who offered to do his work at so much a thousand words, and submitted a sample of her work. And another typewriting lady, who submitted no sample, stated that reverses of fortune had driven her from a high position in the best society to the bitter one of a typist, and she was therefore compelled to solicit his work to enable her to keep herself.
It was quite a pleasant change to discover two people merely wanted his autograph. “Dear sir, I am collecting autographs and have 637; will you please send yours by return post as I enclose a stamp.”
“She encloses a stamp,” murmured Hugh admiringly.
The other seeker accompanied her request with a perfervid letter of praise about his work, but on the heavy autograph album that accompanied the letter he noticed Kate had had to pay tenpence deficient postage and there were no stamps enclosed for the return of the precious volume.
[p188]
A jeweller’s catalogue provided a few minutes’ lighter reading, and its diamond rings and its pearl and diamond necklets and pendants and brooches were so temptingly illustrated, that they awoke the present-giving instinct in the man’s heart and he revolved the question whether etiquette would permit him to give Dora and Beatrice a necklet apiece for their pretty necks and Miss Bibby a chaste brooch. Kate, he reluctantly remembered, cared nothing for jewellery.
But it was upon the last opened missive he wasted most of his time,—possibly because it was the last and Chapter eleven looked large on the horizon again.
It was an advertisement of enamel paint and was accompanied by a most pleasing picture of a gentleman in a frock coat and a lady in a most complicated costume, delicately engaged in making “better than new,” by the aid of this enamel paint, a whole bedroom suite.
Something in the elegant négligé of the attitude of the gentleman in the frockcoat depicted pensively painting the bedstead stimulated Hugh marvellously.
He felt an insane desire to get a pot of the famous paint and set to work himself upon a similar labour.
Kate came gently across the floor and placed [p189] a jug of iced lemon water and a tumbler at his elbow.
She was about to withdraw in perfect silence, but he detained her.
“Kate,” he said.
Her most motherly look was on her face.
“What is it, dear lad?” she said, for her heart was full of futile sympathy for his straits.
“Kate,” he said yearningly. “Do you think Larkin could get me a pot of Perfect Perfection Enamel warranted to dry in ten minutes, all colours kept in stock? If I can’t enamel a bedstead this very minute I won’t answer for my reason.”
Kate walked deliberately across the room and boxed his ears.
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