Part 20

The next objects that caught his eye were two umbrellas. They stood side by side, curiously contrasted: the one a dainty trifle of violet silk and crystal, encircled with a gold band; and the other large and massive with a symbolic shepherd's crook as a handle. These arrested Mark's attention. He remembered that he had chaffed Betty about her umbrella, telling her that it was too smart for a parson's wife, and absurdly frail as a protection against anything save a passing shower. She retorted that a wise woman never braves a storm, and then she had said with the smile he knew so well: "My umbrella, which, after all, is an _en tout cas_, is just like me: made for sunshine rather than rain."

He sat down, waiting, staring at Betty's umbrella. When he looked up Lady Randolph was coming down the stairs very slowly--a white-haired old woman. Something in her face choked the question which fluttered to his lips. To gain an instant's time, he opened the library door and called to his brother--

"Archie!"

Archibald appeared instantly.

"A girl has been born," said Lady Randolph, "but she is dead."

"Dead?" repeated Archibald.

"And Betty?" Mark demanded hoarsely.

"The doctors think she is safe."

The three passed into the dining-room, where some food had been laid out. Lady Randolph gave details in a worn voice. Betty's pluck had been amazing; she had displayed a fortitude lacking which she would probably have succumbed. The consulting surgeon, who entered shortly afterwards, assured the husband that, humanly speaking, the danger was over. Almost at once Archibald recovered his normal composure and dignified deportment. Mark, on the other hand, exhibited signs of collapse. He sat down shivering, as if he had been attacked by malignant malaria.

Next day he saw Betty for a couple of minutes. She smiled and thanked him, intimating that Archibald had told her that the suspense would have been intolerable had not Mark helped him to bear it. Of the loss of her baby she said nothing, but before Mark left the room she exacted a promise that he would come to see her during the period of convalescence.

About this time he began his third novel, _The Songs of the Angels_. Conquest asked him if he were setting to work on the theme suggested by him, and when Mark pleaded inability to guide a young and beautiful heiress through the slums of Stepney, the great man shrugged his shoulders--a gesture now associated in Mark's mind with derision and contempt. Conquest then demanded what he was doing, and hearing the synopsis of the new story shrugged his vast shoulders once more.

"That won't sell," he said. "You could have handled my theme--if you had tried. By the way, that brother of yours has jumped at Vauxhall's offer. I knew he would. He'll go very far, that young man. Even the Basilica won't be big enough to hold him."

He laughed loudly and strode away.

During July Mark saw Betty regularly twice a week. Archibald was working harder than ever in and out of St. Anne's parish, but of the Basilica, now nearing completion, not a word was said by either husband or wife. Mark wondered if Betty knew. Her recovery was slow and intermittent.

"Are you worried about anything?" Mark asked one day.

"Yes," she admitted, after a minute's hesitation; then she continued quickly, "Have you noticed another falling off in Archie's sermons?"

"He's unequal, of course," Mark replied. "And the best brains refuse to work in a tired body."

"I wish you'd say a word about that. He'd take anything from you."

Again she caught a glimpse of that derisive smile of Mark's which she could not interpret, as he promised to speak to his brother. Did he reap his reward when Betty said, three weeks later, "Archie has preached splendidly the last two Sundays. Has he told you that he has been commanded to preach again at Windsor?"

Mark nodded rather coldly, so Betty thought. He reflected that he was the man with one talent. How much better that it should be given to the man who had ten rather than be atrophied by disuse, buried, so to speak, in one upon whom silence was imposed. Every pang of envy which twisted his heart he tried to assuage with the anodyne of kind actions. But the faith which had never failed him when he was sick seemed to have forsaken him utterly now that he was whole.

When _The Songs of the Angels_ was half written, telegrams summoned Mark and his brothers to Pitt Hall, where the Squire lay dying, senseless and speechless. He had been seized with a fit, after returning from a long day's hunting on Christmas Eve. The doctors said at once that nothing could be done. Pitt Hall was hung with holly and mistletoe; and Mark, coming out of the room where his father lay dead, saw the servants pulling down the decorations. It seemed to him that the old house would never be the same again. It never was--to him.

The will revealed a terrible state of affairs. After the widow's jointure was paid, only enough money would be left to keep the estate out of the market. George, in any case, would have to let it for a term of years and economise closely, if he hoped to cancel the mortgages. Low prices, bad years, and a disastrous attempt to recover losses by speculation had almost wrecked one of the finest properties in Slowshire. The younger sons, as residuary legatees, found themselves absolutely unprovided for. This, it is true, made no difference to Archibald, but Mark told himself ruefully that he only possessed his books and simple furnishings and some ninety pounds. George was unable to do anything; but Archibald offered his brother the same allowance he had been in the habit of receiving. Mark refused it.

"I think I can pay my way," said Mark.

"I owe you that--and more too."

"Oh, rubbish!"

"If you would live with us, and become my paid secretary. You could have your afternoons and evenings free."

"I shall not leave my pines," said Mark. "Many thanks, but I'm going to score off my own bat."

This conversation took place upon the afternoon of the funeral. That evening, in the smoking-room, the question of the living again presented itself. George Samphire had inherited his father's manner and ideas, the latter tempered, possibly, by life in a cavalry regiment.

"By Jove!" said he, "there's King's Charteris for you, Mark. The rector, they tell me, won't see Easter. It's the very thing, and you can keep an eye on my tenant. That's settled, thank the Lord!"

An awkward pause followed. At his father's grave Mark had worn, and wore still, black clothes of clerical cut.

"I am a layman," said Mark.

"What? You've chucked it! But you can't--can he, Archie? Once a parson, always a parson. Archie can arrange anything."

"True," said Archibald, "but----" He glanced at Mark, who had risen.

"Don't badger me, George," Mark said quietly. "You must find a better fellow than I for King's Charteris. It's been a terrible day. I'm off to bed."

He marched out of the room, leaving George agape with astonishment.

"What the devil's the meaning of this?" he asked of Archibald.

"I'm afraid he's an agnostic."

"Ag--wha-a-t!"

Archibald explained the meaning of the word, not so familiar then as now. George listened, frowning, interjecting many an "Oh!" and "Ah!" and "By Jove!" as the speaker delicately conveyed the impression that he did not despair of leading this errant sheep back into the fold.

"Mark," he concluded, "has shown a great deal of right feeling, my dear George. I cannot doubt but that it will be well with him. But he is not one to be pressed."

"That's sound enough, old Slow-and-Sure, and I suppose we can get some fellow to keep King's Charteris warm for him--eh? And they tell me you'll have livings to give away one of these fine days. Good Lord! what a mess the poor governor has made of things!"

Saying this, the new squire of Pitt Hall sighed, poured himself out a whisky and soda, drank it, lit a candle, and went to bed, followed by Archibald.

Within the week Mark saw Conquest, by appointment, and told him what had happened, asking at the same time for a settlement of his small account. To his dismay he learned that he was in the debt of Wisden and Evercreech. What was due for his first short story and the illustrated interview with the Rector of St. Anne's was swallowed up in the bill for printing the novel. Of this, not counting press copies, some three hundred and fifty had been sold, of which--as had been said--Jim Corrance bought one hundred outright.

"Our bill needn't bother you," said Conquest. "And the novel may square it yet. You ask for my advice. Frankly, then, I say--journalism, but it's uphill work. You've got to make a special study of editors--and what they want. The stuff which Jones prints and pays for, Smith, perhaps, won't even take the trouble to return as unavailable."

"Can you give me anything?"

"Nothing except advice, Samphire, and a letter or two. We are chock full. Of course I'll always consider what you send me, but we have our regular staff, and fifty besides waiting to step into their shoes."

"If I could get a sub-editorship?"

"Ask for the moon at once. You don't know the ropes. Every fool thinks he can edit or sub-edit a paper, but the proprietors are not of their mind. You're a clever fellow, Samphire, but you'll pardon me for saying that you're kinky, and you seem to possess a vermiform appendix of a conscience. You can support yourself with your pen, when you know how to use it."

"I'm much obliged to you," said Mark humbly.

Conquest sent him half a dozen letters, which were presented in person. The editors, somehow, managed to convey the impression that they were obliging Conquest rather than the bearer of his credentials. Each promised, more or less courteously, to consider any work submitted. Tommy Greatorex, the pessimist, proved an unexpected source of sympathy and help. He learned that Mark spoke Italian. Together they explored Eyre Street Hill and the purlieus about Hatton Garden, an expedition which took concrete form in the shape of a paper dealing with the ice-cream vendors, the plaster-cast image sellers, and the like. Tommy sold the paper for twenty guineas, and divided the cheque with Mark. By chance Conquest learned of this, and wired for Mark.

"Greatorex says you talk Italian like a Dago. Would you care to translate an Italian novel for us? We'll pay you sixty pounds."

"Thank you very much," said Mark.

Conquest handed him the proof sheets of the novel.

"You must translate with discretion," he said carelessly; "but don't emasculate it! After all, we are not publishing for schoolgirls."

Mark left Paternoster Row, and mounted a 'bus in St. Paul's Churchyard. When he had taken his seat, he looked at the sheets and began to read them very rapidly. Tommy Greatorex was waiting for him at the Scribblers.

"Has Conquest given you Nespoli's novel?"

"It's in my pocket," said Mark, rather red in the face. "And it ought to be in the public sewer. I shan't translate it."

"Phew-w-w!" said Tommy. "What's the use of being so bally particular? What did he offer? Seventy-five? Oh, sixty--the Shylock. Well, old chap, if you don't take the job, somebody else will."

"There's not a particle of doubt about that," said Mark.

But when he returned the novel to Conquest, he saw that he had offended the great man, who shrugged his shoulders and said curtly that Mark had better buy a little lamb and play with it. This was too much. Mark flamed.

"I've stood your sneers long enough, Conquest," he said. "You've done me some good turns----"

"Hold on," said Conquest, black and grim. "Don't flatter yourself that I did them for you. You are the brother of Archibald Samphire, and that's about the only claim you have to _my_ consideration. Now then--march!"

He pointed insolently to the door, towering above the slight figure confronting him. Mark recovered his temper.

"I'd hit you," he said politely, "if you were smaller, but I can't reach your brazen face, you b-b-bully and b-b-blusterer. And I couldn't injure your thick skin with an axe."

The door between the sanctum and the room where the typewriters were clicking stood ajar. When Mark ended his sentence a sound of giggling was heard. Conquest, cursing, turned and kicked the door with violence. Mark laughed and disappeared, leaving an unscrupulous enemy behind him.

Misfortune, however, introduces us to friends as well as enemies. Mark had been hurt because Jim Corrance had not repeated his visit to Weybridge. Jim, he had said to himself, was cold, absorbed in money-getting, unmindful even of his mother, dear soul, who must often yearn for the companionship of her son. But when Jim heard of the Squire's will, he rushed down to Weybridge, taking with him an enormous hamper. Mark told Betty what passed.

"Jim arrived with a hamper. I believe he thought I was starving. He brought champagne, cigars, and every potted thing which grows in Fortnum and Mason's. And he told me that he was looking for a confidential clerk at five hundred a year. And would I do him the favour to take the billet. By Heaven--his face warmed my heart through and through."

"You look," said Betty, "as if someone had left you a fortune! Those potted things may come in handy, if you insist on refusing the help which your friends are only too glad to offer."

"I shall make my way, Betty."

Her eyes were troubled, as she said hurriedly, "Are you sure of that, Mark? If--_if_ you should break down again. Oh, I know what's in your mind. You are going to drudge. And why should you, when Archie and I would be so delighted to have you here? You could help him. He has told me----"

"What has he told you?"

His sharp interrogation slightly puzzled her.

"Oh, he says that your hints have been invaluable."

So Archibald had withheld the truth. He heard Betty's voice entreating him to come to Cadogan Place. His heart was throbbing. Perhaps she wanted him.

"I c-c-can't," he stammered. "I have my p-pride."

"So had Lucifer," she retorted.

That she supposed him cold, he knew. When they parted, he smiled to himself because she said angrily: "You think of nothing but your _Songs of the Angels_!"

"Angels won't sing in London," he said.

Shortly after this he received a letter from Dudley McIntyre, the head of an historic publishing house. McIntyre had read the novel which would not sell, and begged to have the pleasure of meeting the author at an early date. This again was a piece of luck which Mark discovered, later, to be due to Tommy Greatorex. Tommy, who loathed Conquest, had told McIntyre of what had passed. McIntyre had no love for Conquest and despised his business methods. When he met Mark, he took a fancy to him. Mark, for his part, was charmed with McIntyre, who represented the publisher of the old school: being all that Conquest was not: courteous, sympathetic, speaking with precision in well-chosen words untainted by slang. McIntyre, however, published _belles lettres_, biographies, books of travel, rather than novels. Still, he expressed a wish to see _The Songs of the Angels_, and said that the theme appealed to him.

"Not that I pretend to be a judge of what will sell or not sell," he concluded. "And I seldom pass an opinion upon a manuscript."

"I should be glad to undertake translations," said Mark.

"Will that be worth your while, Mr. Samphire?"

Mark frankly explained his position. He thought he was qualified to translate either French or Italian books. McIntyre said he would make a note of it, and did so, entering Mark's address in a small pocket-book.

"Finish your novel," said he at parting. "And give it undivided attention."

Accordingly, Mark remained at Weybridge. He realised that if this novel failed, he must become, as Betty said, a drudge; and he was certain that hack-writing meant the sacrifice of higher literary ambitions. McIntyre was right. He must make the effort of his life to grasp something substantial. If he failed, let him clutch at straws!

Necessity lent edge to the enterprise. Each morning he woke with an appetite for work which seemed to increase rather than diminish. He became so absorbed in his task that everything and everybody became subservient to it. Archibald had taken Betty abroad; Pynsent was in Paris; Jim Corrance had been summoned to New York; David Ross still held aloof. So, for six weeks or more, he was undisturbed by the claims of friendship: the only claims at that time which he would have considered.

But to such a temperament as Mark's, speech is vital. Having no one else, he talked with Mary. He told himself that Mary was a remarkable girl, endowed with a fund of practical common sense upon which he was entitled to draw. Mary walked every other Sunday, if it was fine, with the young fellow of whom mention has been made. The rest of her time was spent with her mother and in the prosecution of duties which lay within the apple-green palings of her home. Mrs. Dew kept one servant, a cook; Mary worked in the house and in the garden.

The Dews, mother and daughter, knew that Mark was a writer. Mrs. Dew, however, considered literary work not quite "genteel." When Mark said to her: "You know, Mrs. Dew, that I'm an author," she sniffed and replied: "I didn't think you liked it mentioned."

It is curious and instructive to trace any friendship to its source. Mark had a character in his book not unlike Mary. The reviewers of his first novel agreed that Mark drew men with a firm touch; his women, on the other hand, were unconvincing, artificial, idealised. It was the most natural thing that he should say to Mary in his pleasant, friendly voice: "I s-s-say, Honeydew, if you found yourself in such-and-such a quandary, what would you do?"

Mary answered this first question so simply and convincingly that it led to many others. Mark ignored her sex, talking to her as he talked to Pynsent and Corrance.

"Such a lot depends upon the success of this book," he told her. "Journalism means bread-and-scrape, at best cakes and ale, but I'm hungering for the nectar and ambrosia of Literature. I feel my power with the men, but with the women--I grope. What I don't know about your delightful sex, Mary, would fill an encyclopaedia."

He eyed Mary with wrinkled irritability as a type of composite womanhood. After all, he reflected, "Judy O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under their skins!" Mary was a bridge by which a poor ignorant man might cross the gulf which separates the sexes. _The Songs of the Angels_ was a love story. He submitted the plot to Mary, who confounded him by an apt suggestion.

"By Jove, Honeydew, you know all about it. I suppose you've had half a dozen lovers?"

Mary blushed.

"Only Albert Batley."

He spared her confusion, but Mrs. Dew supplied details. Albert Batley had a nice growing business, as a contractor, in and about Weybridge, where houses were popping up like mushrooms in a night. Mrs. Dew fretfully complained that Mary did not know her own mind. Albert, it appeared, was quite willing to accept a mother-in-law as a permanent guest, if Mary would only accept him. "But naturally I'm not considered," she concluded, in that querulous whine which penetrated so far.

"Now, Mrs. Dew," Mark replied, "that won't do with me. Mary is as good as gold and your faithful slave."

"She won't have me long, Mr. Samphire. I'd like to see her settled, before I die."

Mark had met Albert, and been much entertained by him. Without wasting time in superfluous verbiage, Mr. Batley had given Mark to understand that he was ready to buy a wedding-ring, not to mention other trinkets, as soon as Mary gave him the word. If ever man was deeply, inextricably in Cupid's toils, Mr. Batley was he. _A propos_ of this Mark said one day:

"You see, Honeydew, when a man is in love, he knows it."

"It works the same way with a woman," said Mary. "Only more so."

"Eh?" said Mark.

Mary explained that a girl really and truly in love was of necessity aware of her condition, because the fermentation, so to speak, took place in the bottle, instead of in the barrel with the bung out. "With men," she concluded, "it often bubbles away."

Mark detected a note of pain.

"My poor little Honeydew," he said, with warm sympathy. "You have suffered. Some day you must tell me about it."

"I cared for a man," she murmured, "who cared nothing for me; but that's over and done with." Then she added, blushing: "Albert knows all about it, and he says he doesn't mind."

"There's no chance of the other----"

"No, no," Mary interrupted. "He married."

"You will make Albert very happy," said Mark; "and you will be happy yourself."

"I am happy now," she replied with conviction.

Mark said no more; but Mary's words gave him pause. She called herself happy. Happy--in what? Only one answer was possible. Inasmuch as she had given in fullest measure to others, happiness had been given to her.

*CHAPTER XXX*

*A NOTE OF INTERROGATION*

The Samphires returned to Cadogan Place in November. It was now settled that Archibald should take the Basilica whenever it was finished, but the world knew nothing of this till after Christmas, when there appeared paragraphs in the papers controlled by Conquest. One of these caught the eye of Betty, and she took it to her husband, with the direct question: "Are you thinking of leaving St. Anne's?"

He replied with a certain air of restraint: "Yes."

"Why?"

"My dearest, I can do better work there than here. I had not meant to speak about it to you--yet. Lord Vauxhall has paid me a very great compliment."

"What sort of compliment has he paid me? Did he ask you to keep so important a matter from your wife?"

"I so understood him."

"And your word is pledged?"

"Yes."

"Has he offered you more than you receive here?"

"We shall be richer by some hundreds a year."

"I am sorry," said Betty, with heightened colour. "Lord Vauxhall is shrewd. Had you seen fit to consult me, I should have implored you to remain where you are. Money is no object to you."

"True. But preferment----"

"Preferment! Promotion! That implies service. You have only been here eighteen months. There will be gossip about this."

"As if I cared for gossip."

"We will say no more about it," said Betty; "but I tell you frankly that I am hurt!"

She turned and left the room. That he should not have trusted her was hard to be borne; yet later she made allowances for him. Doubtless, Lord Vauxhall had insisted upon secrecy. Her husband's sense of honour had closed his lips. She had been unjust, unkind, a disloyal wife. She had even insulted him, hinting that an increase of income had lured him from duty. At this point she bathed her eyes, arranged her hair, and ran downstairs to beg pardon and entreat forgiveness. Archibald was magnanimous.

"You have shown the right feeling, dear Betty, which I knew you possessed. I am acting according to my lights."

Next day the Rector of St. Anne's wired to Mark to come to town; Mark replied that he had had a bad bout of influenza, in those days a new and virulent disease. Archibald, nervous about his Lenten sermons but laughing to scorn the possibility of catching influenza, went down to Weybridge in the afternoon. He found Mark looking pale and thin, but otherwise in good spirits, and on the high road to recovery.

"You're a valiant man to visit me. This confounded disease is so infectious. You laugh? You'll cry if you get it! I've been as weak as a baby. If it had not been for Honeydew----"

He spoke enthusiastically of all his nurse had done for him. Archibald nodded absently, turning over in his mind certain possible themes which he wished Mark to consider.

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "She did what she could, I make no doubt."