Fan : The Story of a Young Girl's Life

by W. H. Hudson

He, too, grew white as she spoke, and was silent for a while, then said, “Mary, has some new growth taken the place of the old roots, which you say were killed and turned to ashes? There would be a hollow place where they existed—an emptiness which is hateful to Nature.”

“Still pounding away at the same metaphor!” she returned, trying with poor success to speak in a mocking tone, and laughing in a strange, almost hysterical way.

“Yes, still at the same metaphor,” he returned, with a keen glance at her face. Her tone, her strained laughter, something in her expression, told him that she had spoken falsely—that he might still hope. “You have not answered my question, Mary.”

“You have no right to expect an answer,” she returned, angry at her own weakness and his keenness in detecting it. “But I don't mind telling you that no other growth has occupied that hollow empty place you described.” Her voice had recovered its steadiness, and growing bolder she added, “I don't believe that Nature really hates hollow empty places, as you say—the world itself is hollow. Anyhow, it doesn't matter to me in the least what she hates or likes: Nature is Nature, and I am I.”

“But answer me this: If you can suffer me, are not my chances equally good with those of any other man?”

“Jack, I am getting heartily tired of this. Why do you keep on harking back to the subject when I have spoken so plainly? Whether I shall ever feel towards any other man as I did towards you, to my sorrow, I cannot say; but this I can say, even if that dead feeling I once had for you should come to life again, it would avail you nothing. I shall say no more—except one thing, which you had better know. I shall always be friendly, and shall never think about the past unless you yourself remind me of it, as you did just now. This much you owe to Fan.”

He took the proffered hand in his, and bending, touched his lips to it. Then they rose and walked on in silence—she grave, yet with a feeling of triumph in her heart, for the feared moment had come, and she had not been weak, and the cup of shame had passed for ever from her lips; he profoundly sad, for it had been revealed to him that the old feeling, in spite of her denial, was not wholly dead, and yet he knew that he had lost her.

Meanwhile that important literary matter was being discussed on another portion of the cliff by the curate and Constance. It referred to the tale she had written, which he had submitted to a publisher, who had offered a small sum for the copyright. The book, the publisher had said, was moderately good, but it formed only one volume; readers preferred their novels in three volumes, even if they had to put up with inferior quality. Besides, there was always a considerable risk in bringing out a book by an unknown hand, with more in the same strain of explanation of the smallness of the sum offered for the manuscript. The price being so small, Constance was not strongly tempted to accept it. Then she wanted to get the manuscript back. The thought of appearing as a competitor for public favour in the novel-writing line began to produce a nervousness in her similar to the stage-fright of young actors on their first appearance. She had not taken pains enough, and could improve the work by introducing new and better scenes; she had imprudently said things she ought not to have said, and could imagine the reviewers (orthodox to a man) tearing her book to pieces in a fine rage, and scattering its leaves to the four winds of heaven.

Mr. Northcott smiled at her fears. He maintained that the one fault of the book was that the style was too good—for a novel. It was not well, he said, to write too well. On the contrary, a certain roughness and carelessness had their advantage, especially with critical readers, and served to show the hand of the professed novelist who, sick or well, in the spirit or not, fills his twenty-four or thirty-six quarto pages per diem. A polished style, on the other hand, exhibited care and looked amateurish. He had no very great opinion of this kind of writing, and advised her to get rid of the delusion that when she wrote a novel she made literature. To clinch the argument, he proceeded to put a series of uncomfortable questions to her. Did she expect to live by novel-writing? How long would it take her to write three volumes? How long could she maintain existence on the market price of a three-volume novel? It was clear that, unless she was prepared to live on bread-and-cheese, she could not afford to re-write anything. As for the reviewers, if they found her book tiresome, they would dismiss it in a couple of colourless or perhaps contemptuous paragraphs; if they found it interesting, they would recommend it; but about her religious opinions expressed in it they would not think it necessary to say anything.

When this matter had been settled, and she had agreed, albeit with some misgivings, to accept the publisher's offer and let the book take its chance, they passed to other subjects.