Cynthia / With an Introduction by Maurice Hewlett

by Leonard Merrick

He was still wishing that she had a sense of humour and occasionally made a witty remark.

"What?" he asked.

"Yours. I want to call him 'Humphrey.' What do you say to it?"

"What for? It's ugly. You said so the first time you heard it. I think we might choose something better than that."

"But it's yours," she persisted. "I want him called by your name—I do, I do!" She held his hand tightly, and her lips trembled. "If ... if I were ever to lose you, Humphrey, I should like our child to have your name. Don't laugh at me, I can't help feeling that. That night when he was born—oh, that night! shall I ever forget it?—and Dr. Roberts looked across at me and said, 'Well, you have a little son come to see you, Mrs. Kent,' the first thing I thought was, 'We can call him "Humphrey."' I wanted to say it to you when they let you in, but I couldn't, I was so tired; I thought it instead. When nurse brought him over to me, or when he cried, or when I saw him moving under the blanket in the bassinet, I thought, 'There's my other Humphrey!'"

He kissed her, and sat staring at the fire, his conscience clamorous. He had not realised that he had grown so dear to her, and the discovery made his own dissatisfaction crueller. He felt a thankless brute, a beast. It seemed to him momentarily that the situation would be much less painful if the disappointment were mutual—if she, too, were discontented with the bargain she had made. To listen to her speaking in such a way, to accept her devotion, knowing how little devotion she inspired in return, stabbed him. He asked himself what he had done that she should love him so fondly. He had not openly neglected her, but secretly he had done it often, and with relief. Had she missed him when he had shut himself in his room, not to write, but to wish that he had never met her? His mind smote him.

The question obtruded itself during the following days, but now at least his plea of being busy was always genuine enough; he was writing fiercely. The pile of manuscript to which he added sheet after sheet was heavy and thick. Then there came a morning when he went to bed at three, and rose again at eight, to begin his final chapter, having told the servant to bring him a sandwich and a glass of claret for luncheon. When one o'clock struck, and she entered, tobacco had left him with no appetite and a furred tongue. He threw a "thank you" at her, and remained in the same bent attitude, his pen traversing the paper steadily. He was working with an exaltation which rarely seized him, the exaltation with which the novelist is depicted in fiction as working all the time. His aspect was untidy enough for him to have served as an admirable model for that personage. He had not shaved for three days, and a growth of stubbly beard intensified the haggardness that came of insufficient sleep.

The wind was causing the fire to be more a nuisance than a comfort, and every now and then a gust of smoke shot out of the narrow stove, obscuring the page before him, and making him cough and swear. The atmosphere was villainous, but, excepting in these moments, he was unconscious of it. He was near the closing lines. His empty pipe was gripped between his teeth, and he wanted to refill it, but he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes from the paper while he stretched for his pouch and the matches. He meant to refill it the instant he had written the last words, but now an access of uncertainty assailed him and he could not decide upon them. He stared at the paper without daring to set a sentence down, and drew at the empty bowl mechanically, his palate craving for the taste of tobacco, while his sight was magnetised by the pen's point hovering under his hand. He sat so for a quarter of an hour. Then he wrote with supreme satisfaction what he had thought of first and rejected. His pen was dropped. He drew a breath of relief and thanksgiving, and lit his pipe. His novel was done.

Unlike the novelist in fiction again, he did not mourn beautifully that the characters who had peopled his solitude for twelve months, and whom he loved, were about to leave him for the harsher criticism of the world. He was profoundly glad of it. He felt exhilaration leap in his jaded veins as he picked up his pen and added "The End." He felt that he was free of an enormous load, a tremendous responsibility, of which he had acquitted himself well. Almost every morning, with rare exceptions, for a year he had, so to speak, awakened with this unfinished novel staring him in the face; almost every night for a year he had gone up the stairs to the bedroom remembering what a lump of writing had still to be accomplished. And now it was done; and he couldn't do it better. Blessed thought! If he recast it chapter by chapter and phrase by phrase, he could not handle the idea more carefully or strongly than he had handled it in the bulky package that lay in front of him—the story told!

He was eager to forward it to the publishers without delay, but Turquand had so recently referred to his expectation of reading it in the manuscript that he sent it to Soho first. "Let me have it back quickly," he begged; and the journalist's answer in returning the parcel reached him on the next evening but one. He showed it to Cynthia with delight; Turquand wrote very warmly. The manuscript was submitted to Messrs. Cousins with a note, requesting them to give it their early consideration; and now Kent was asked constantly by the Walfords if they had written yet, and what terms he had obtained. Cynthia had not regained strength enough to care to travel at present, and her parents and brother generally spent the evening at No. 64, where, truth to tell, Kent found their interest rather a nuisance. His father-in-law evidently held that it was derogatory for him to be kept waiting a fortnight for his publishers' offer, and Mrs. Walford made so many foolish inquiries and ridiculous suggestions that he was sometimes in danger of being rude. Cæsar alone displayed no curiosity in a matter so frivolous, but listened with his superior air, which tried Kent's patience even more. The fat young man's debut had been postponed again. Now he was to appear for certain in the spring, and he explained, in a tone implying that he could, if he might, impart esoteric facts, that the delay had been discreet.