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 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.
CHAPTER II
"Can't you be in time?" demanded Kathleen, not in the harsh tones of the scold, but with tragedy quivering behind her tense demand; "you knew the Collins were invited to dinner."