Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Hamish saw his wife's work-box on a table, looked in it, and found some black sewing-silk. This he wound round and round the ring hastily, for he knew dinner must be ready. Thus secured, he put it on again, and left the room. The children heard his step, and came bounding out of the nursery, Miss Nelly springing into his arms.

He kissed her very tenderly; he lovingly put back her golden hair. He took up the other little things and kissed them in turn, asking if they had had love-letters from papa. Looking into the nursery, he inquired whether they had plenty of jam and such-like good things on the tea-table, telling nurse to see that little Rosy, who could not fight for herself, got her share. And then, leaving them with his pleasant nod, his sunny smile, he went to the drawing-room, and gave their mother his arm to take her down to dinner, whispering to her--for she seemed in a low state, her tears on the point of bursting out--that he would make it all right for her until her husband came home. And it was that husband, that father, who had worked him all the ill! Hamish suspected it not. Cowards and malicious ones, such as Gerald, stab in the dark.

And so September went on, and October drew near, and by and bye Mr. Gerald Yorke arrived at home again. Winny, who had no more tact than her youngest infant, the little Rosy, greeted her husband with a flood of tears, and the news of how she had been obliged to pay away the twenty-five pounds in settling his bills. Gerald called her a fool to her face, and frowned awfully. Winny only sobbed. Next he demanded, with a few more ugly words that might have been left out, how the devil she had managed to go on. Between choking and shrinking, the answer was nearly inaudible, and Gerald bent his head to catch it: she had had a little more help from "mamma."

Was Mrs. Gerald Yorke's deceit excusable? Even under the circumstances few may think it so. And yet--it was a choice between this help, and the very worst discomfort that could fall upon her: debt. Winny was shrewd in some things: she knew all about her husband's ill-feeling to Mr. Channing: she knew about the reviews; and she really did believe that if Gerald got to hear whence her help had come, he would shake her as he shook Kitty. In her utter lack of moral courage, she could but keep up the deception.

But Gerald Yorke had come home in feather, a prize-rose in his button-hole. By dint of plausible statements to Mr. Fuller, he had got that honourable friend to lend him two hundred pounds. Or rather, strictly speaking, to get it lent to him. With this money safely buttoned up in his pocket, Winny's penniless state was not quite so harshly condemned as it might otherwise have been: but when Winny timidly asked for some money to "pay mamma back," Gerald shortly answered that he had none, mamma must wait.

And so, at this, the opening of the third part of the story, Gerald Yorke was flourishing. A great man he, in his chambers again, free from duns for a time, giving his wine parties, entering into the gaieties of social life, with all their waste of time and money. Winny got her rent paid now, regularly, and some new bonnets for herself and the children.

"I am so glad to hear you are more at ease, Gerald," Hamish Channing said, meeting him one day accidentally, and speaking with genuine kindness, but never hinting at any debt that might be due to himself. "How have you managed it, old friend?"

"Oh--aw--I--paid the harpies a--aw--trifle, and have--aw--got some credit again," answered Gerald, evading the offered hand. "Good day. I'm in a hurry."

But Gerald Yorke, though flourishing in funds, was not flourishing in temper. Upon one subject it was chronically bad, and he just as angry and mortified as he could be. And that was in regard to his future prospects in the field, of literature. Three or four days after his return, he paid a visit to his publishers, sanguinely hoping there might be a good round sum coming to him, the proceeds of his book. Alas for sublunary expectations! The acting partner met him with a severely cold face and very ill news. The flashing laudatory reviews, written (as may be remembered) by Gerald himself or his bosom friends, had not much served the book, after all, in the long run. When they appeared, it caused demands for it to flow in, and a considerable number of copies went out. But when the public got the book, they could not or would not read it; and the savage libraries returned the copies to the publishers, wholly refusing to pay for them. They sent them back in shoals: they vowed that the puffing of an utterly miserable book in the extraordinary style this one had been puffed, was nothing less than fraud: some went so far as to say that the publishers and the author and the reviewers ought all to be indicted together for conspiracy. In short, the practical result was, that the book might almost be said to be withdrawn, so few copies remained in circulation. In all respects it was an utter failure. No wonder the unhappy publisher, knowing himself wholly innocent in the matter, smarting under a considerable loss, besides the fifty pounds that ought to have been advanced by Gerald, and never yet had been, no wonder he met Mr. Gerald Yorke with a severe face. The only gratification afforded him lay in telling this, and enlarging rather insultingly on the worthlessness of the book.

"You, a reviewer, could not have failed to know it was bad, Mr. Yorke; one that was certain to fail signally."