‘But it was his own wish,’ she went on after a pause. ‘He planned out everything. You see that although our writings—compilations should I call them?’ she said with a faint attempt at a smile—‘brought us in a nice income, yet we were pleasure-loving people, and had always been accustomed to plenty of society, and we had saved nothing out of it. We have two children, a boy at Rugby, and a daughter at an expensive school; and there is poor Charlie’s sister, the lady who accompanies me, and she has no one else to depend upon but me. Besides, as Charlie urged before he died: “I am not Collingwood Dawson,” he said; “why should my death be the cause of his? Keep him alive, old woman, to be a support to you and the children and Lizzie.” Those were almost his last words, dear brave fellow!’ She rose and left the room, overcome by uncontrollable emotion.
My thoughts, after Mrs Collingwood quitted me, were rather of a serious turn. I reflected that my own interests were bound up in the same cause, and that my own livelihood hung very much upon keeping up Mr Collingwood Dawson as a going concern. It was too late to go back now. If I had gained experience I had lost connection. My own place had been filled up. Mr Collingwood Dawson had become as necessary to me as to the widow and her family. Still the idea of a person who never died, who enjoyed a sort of corporate existence, or like the living Buddha, transferred his identity from one body to another, a being who could go on writing novels and publishing them till the crack of doom, struck one with a kind of awe.
As a relief to the troubled current of my thoughts I took up a newspaper which Mrs Collingwood had brought with her. It was the Hebdomadal Review, the number containing the review of Collingwood Dawson’s last novel. I turned to the page with a kind of pleased excitement, for the short abstract that I had seen in the advertisement, as you have seen, was calculated to give me the impression that the critique was an appreciative one. It was so short that I have no scruple in giving it in extenso: ‘If it be necessary, and we suppose it is, that silly ill-educated people should be supplied with the morbid trash suited to their high capacity, there is no reason why Mr Collingwood Dawson should not cater for their wants. We can say of his novel that it is very good stuff of the kind. The pity is that there should be so many readers for this kind of stuff. We only hope that young ladies of the class who find Mr Dawson’s compilations acceptable, will not be unduly led away from the paramount claims of seam and gusset and band by the enticing interest of his story.’
Satire like this does not hit very hard, however, and my only feeling after the first disappointment was of amusement at the ingenuity that had been able to extract the sting from it and secure the latent honey. One word, however, seemed dangerous—‘compilations.’ Was it possible that the critic had discovered the composite nature of Mr Collingwood Dawson?
‘Can you lend me five pounds?’ said a gruff voice behind me. I turned and saw the squat figure of M. Houlot close to my chair.
It was an embarrassing question. There was nothing in M. Houlot’s appearance to invite confidence—at all events to the extent of five pounds. At the same time, M. Houlot had in my mind loomed into considerable importance, for since I had heard Mrs Collingwood’s story, I had identified him with the third portion of Mr Collingwood Dawson.
‘Oh, if it requires consideration, don’t think about it,’ said Houlot roughly. ‘I won’t trouble you.’
‘Stop a minute,’ I replied; ‘wait. I don’t know whether I have the money. I must ask my wife.’
‘Oh, you are one of the wretched slaves of a petticoat, are you?’ said Houlot with a rasping laugh. ‘I should have thought you had lived through that stage of your development.’
‘As she will be the principal sufferer if the money should not be returned, she is entitled to a voice in the matter.’