“I have made a decided improvement,” said Theo dryly. “My manuscripts are now refused with a written acknowledgment instead of a printed slip. In two cases I have even been asked to submit further efforts. I worked for nearly a month on one story for Mr Hammond, and he said it was ‘crude.’ I wrote another in one afternoon, and he said it was ‘charming, but not suitable for his magazine.’ I have sent it to three other editors since then, and the unanimity of opinion is most impressive. I gathered together all my rejected addresses and offered them to a publisher. He said that volumes of short stories had been overdone, and that—except in a few exceptional cases—they were not publishing any more. I was determined to earn money somehow, so I turned to children’s stories and paragraphs for penny papers. I get a sovereign each for the stories, and five shillings a page for the paragraphs. I wrote an article on ‘Advice to Young Authors,’ and it was accepted on its first journey. I also perpetrated a penny novelette, with detailed descriptions of the heroine’s frocks, and an earl for hero. The editor accepted it, and corrected my English according to his lights. I cringed over the printed copy, and blushed to my ears. Altogether I have amassed seventeen pounds—minus, of course, my expenses and the fortune expended on stamps!”
“I wish I had done as well,” said Hope sadly. She was as pretty as ever, but her face was thinner and the mischievous dimples came more rarely into sight. “I had eight ‘social engagements’ during the Christmas holidays, for four of which I have to thank my friend the conjurer. Then my market was practically closed for another year. Minnie Caldecott sang my song at Aunt Loftus’s reception, and again at the Welsby’s, and the publisher printed it ‘as sung by Miss Minnie Caldecott,’ just as I wished. They would not pay anything down, but promised a royalty if the sales exceeded five hundred. Last time I inquired they had sold forty-eight copies. Oh dear! I got some transposing and copying to do, which paid rather better than making matches. I swallowed mountains of pride and prejudice and advertised myself as an instructor of youth—the one thing I had always vowed I would not do—and I have one pupil with warts on her fingers, who snores all the while she is torturing the ‘Village Blacksmith.’ I—I always thought I was amiable before, but I have felt—I’ve felt murderous to that child! I have earned nineteen pounds, Philippa, spent five on my dress, three on my cloak, over two on cabs and gloves; grand total for a year’s effort—ten pounds sterling!”
“I’ve not made a cent, but I’ve done my best, and saints can do no more,” cried Madge breezily. “I designed Christmas-cards and composed sensible verses to be printed on them; not the—
“May all your life be bright and gay,
As cloudless as a summer day!
“Kind of business, but reasonable good wishes which had some chance of being fulfilled. The first firm kept them for months, and could not be induced to return them until I had written four times, and the second said that it was too late in the season to consider new designs. I have sent headings and initial letters to magazines, and have had heaps of compliments, but nothing more substantial. I have likewise had heaps of snubs at the Slade, but I bob up again like a cork after each fresh dousing, and am more determined than ever to get on and make a name. The mistake we have made is in being too proud to begin at the beginning. Hope is the most humble-minded of the family; but she expected to become well-known in one season, and to sell her song by the hundreds. Theo wanted to write for the Casket, and I hoped to be exhibiting before now. We must crawl down, and be content to drudge before we soar. My serious studies leave much to be desired, but I can caricature with the best. The other day I amused myself in the lunch hour by drawing the pupils in the life, and one of the girls’ carried off the sketch and stuck it on her easel. Just then in came Pepper, as we call him—he is so horribly stinging and bitter in his criticisms—and walked straight up to look at it. Oh, my heart! He was quite silent, but I saw his shoulders shaking, and when he turned round his face was red. ‘Whose work is this?’ he asked; and I suppose guilt was written large on my expressive features, for he came up to me and said, ‘I shall have to inflict a punishment for this, Miss Charrington. I cannot have my pupils ridiculed and their work interrupted in this manner. The punishment is—that you draw a caricature of me on the other side of the sheet!’
“He put the paper on my easel, and all the girls giggled and peered round to witness my collapse. But I wasn’t going to be floored by a little thing like that. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stood opposite me, and I set to work to draw him then and there. He was easy to caricature, for he has a curious, sheep-dog kind of face, with two deep lines running down from the nose, humped-up shoulders, and a mop of hair. It really was like him, and what I call a polite caricature, so that his feelings shouldn’t be hurt. He tried to look solemn when I gave it to him, but his lips twitched, and he walked straight out of the room and took it with him. Next day, when he was abusing my drawing as usual, he said, ‘You had better caricature your subjects at once. You will make far more out of them in that way than in any other.’ That was quite a compliment coming from Pepper, and I’ve taken it to heart. After much cogitation I have evolved an idea which, with Theo’s co-operation, I am going to put into action forthwith. I sha’n’t tell you what it is until I see how I succeed, but I don’t mind confessing that it is hardly high-class. We might call it the lowest rung of the ladder.”
“Be careful, deary. Don’t do anything that you would be sorry for afterwards. Promise me to be careful,” pleaded the anxious housekeeper; and Madge promised gaily, and carried Theo away into another room to talk over the new idea without further delay.
Hope sat still, gazing into the fire with wistful eyes; and Philippa, watching her anxiously, wondered, as she had often done of late, if it were only the strain of money-making which had brought such sadness into the sweet face. Hope had told her nothing of Ralph Merrilies; and indeed there was little to tell, for, with the exception of two occasions when she had met him at her uncle’s house and exchanged a few commonplace sentences, he had practically dropped out of her life since the evening when he had offered his escort and had been treated with such apparent rudeness in response. Hope had given over telling herself that a fortnight’s acquaintance could not possibly influence a lifetime, for the impression was too strong to be reasoned away. The picture of the strong, dark face was imprinted on her brain; in every moment of leisure her thoughts drifted back to Ralph as the needle to the pole. The longing to see him again was sometimes so strong as to be an actual physical pain. Now, as she sat staring into the fire, she was reviewing her life, telling herself that love was a thing forbidden, and pondering on what remained, until, Philippa’s fixed gaze attracting her attention, she looked up with a flickering smile.
“I was thinking, Phil. Our talk has made me think. I have worked so hard this last year, and the result is so poor—so unsatisfactory!” She rose, and coming close to Philippa’s side, took hold of her hand and cried, with sudden passion, “Phil, I can’t do it—I can’t go on! I could give my life, I could work for nothing, gladly and cheerfully, if it were for some noble end, but I can’t sell it for a mess of pottage! I can’t go on smiling and acting and trampling on my feelings, and associating with Minnie Caldecott and her friends for the sake of what I can make out of them. And I can’t earn enough to help you. I am only a burden. I want to give it up, Phil, and devote my life to doing good. I want to enter a home for deaconesses, and be trained for work among the poor. There is no question of money there, for you get barely enough to live in the plainest way, but I should be doing some good in the world—”
“Sit down, Hope,” said Philippa quietly. She waited in silence until the trembling hand lay quietly on her own, and then began her reply. “I know a girl who went to pay a visit at a country-house. It was, on the face of it, merely a pleasure visit, but while there she managed to rouse a very selfish girl to the consciousness that there were other needs in the world besides her own. Later on she gave real hard work to the carrying out of a scheme which she had suggested, and which has put fresh life into many tired workers this summer. I know a girl who has three quick-tempered, sharp-tongued sisters, and who keeps peace among them by her sweet influence. I know a girl who can make home cheerful by the exercise of her talent, and so keep a young brother happy and occupied many times when he would otherwise be roaming about in search of amusement. He is only a boy, but he thinks himself a man, and he is so easily—so easily influenced for good or bad! If that girl left her home, and her sisters’ lives were made more difficult, and that poor boy went astray, would she be ‘doing good’? Would she be doing the duty that lay at her hand?”