Chapter 4

"Oh, Mr. Rowlandson's. He sent you here. He would, to be sure. My oldest lodger, sir, and the easiest to do for--though odd. Here's Genevieve with the tea. Don't put the tray on the sofa, Genevieve On the table, of course. Whenever will you learn? Here, drink this, my deary dear. It will prepare your stomach for something more. I am getting your supper ready now downstairs, and the young gentleman's. There's a chop. Do drink a little of the tea, my dear, even if you don't want it. It's for your best. Do you like apricots as well as ever you did? Oh, whoever has had the bringing of you up, that I should have had! The many times I've thought. And your poor dear mother and father both taken at once, too."

"I went to my Uncle Peter," said Phyllis "I have lived there ever since."

"Sir Peter Oglebay--your father's brother I might have known." Mrs. Farquharson nodded her head vigorously. "Though he was terrible down on your--To think of that now! And so you have been here in London all these many years! And me never to know! Deary me!"

"We--my uncle did everything to find you," Phyllis assured her. "He even advertised for you. I cried for you very often when I was little, dear Farquharson."

"Did you, indeed, my dear?" asked Mrs. Farquharson, smiling, and wiping her eyes with her apron. "And advertised for me. In the papers. Reward offered and no questions asked. I've read them myself, but never did I think."

"Oh, yes. I wanted you very badly," Phyllis assured her again. "I used to tease Burbage when I was naughty, by telling her you were never cross with me."

"And who is Burbage?" asked Mrs. Farquharson.

"She is my uncle's housekeeper. She was very good to me, too. But I missed you dreadfully. You know, John, my mother and father were away from home for weeks at a time, and Farquharson took such care of me."

"Such games as we had," said Mrs. Farquharson reflectively; and then to John,--"She was everything whatever from Mary, Queen of Scots, to a dromedary, I've beheaded her many's the time, and her humps was the pillows off her little bed. If Genevieve hasn't burned those chops to a cinder, they must be ready, and why ever she doesn't bring them up I do not know."

What a dainty supper! John did full justice to it.

Mrs. Farquharson brooded over Phyllis; but she could eat nothing.

The kind-hearted woman maintained a constant stream of talk, in which lodgers, rooms, chops, apricots, and toast, and the old times were inextricably intermingled.

The first-floor front and his wife had seen better days; in stocks, they were. The vagaries of Mr. Rowlandson, the bookseller, third-floor front, the walls of his rooms lined with--what do you think? No, not with books, nor pictures, but with glazed cases containing old patch-boxes and old fans. Mrs. Farquharson had seen Mr. Singleton and Mr. Leonard once. But the trio of painters was inseparable no longer. Mr. Knowles had married their favorite model. "The hussy!" said Mrs. Farquharson.

One reminiscence followed another.

"Ah, me," she sighed. "Your father and mother was a pair of lovers if ever there was a pair. As long as I knew them, they never had a word--much less words. 'Pard' he called her. 'What shall we do to-day, Pard?' he would ask her of a morning. She would want him to be at his pictures 'On such a sunshiny morning!' he would say. And the next day, maybe, it would rain. 'You know I can't paint these dark days,' says he. And off they would go, on some harum-scarum or other, like a couple of children. Like a couple of children--and so they ever were, too. Do you mind my speaking of them?"

"I love it," Phyllis assured her. "I--you know I have had no one with whom I could talk about my mother and father. Uncle Peter--" She could not finish the sentence.

"Yes, yes, my deary dear, I know," said Mrs. Farquharson soothingly. "Your mother knew what he thought. Often and often she told me she wished she could find a way to make Sir Peter not think so hard of her. 'Oh, Farquharson,' says she, 'he thinks I snared Robert. If he only knew how hard I tried to refuse him.' She was wild for a stage career when first they met. It grieved her sorely that your uncle didn't know the rights of it; but, bless your heart, she couldn't bear the thought of any one, high or low, not being good friends with her. She was that tender-hearted, you wouldn't believe. But along with it as proud as--as--I can't think of his name--that makes the matches. You know, my dear."

Mrs. Farquharson mused over her memories

"Your father was her first love-affair," she resumed. "She was wrapped up in her acting till she met him. Her mother and father were both on the stage. Did you know that? Yes, my deary dear, she told me a costume-trunk was her cradle, and a dressing-room the only nursery that ever she knew. She hated to give it all up, but she did; your mother loved your father beyond all that ever I saw or heard of, and he worshiped the ground she walked on. Strong words, my dear, but true as true."

It was midnight before they knew it. The dark circles under her darling's eyes gave Mrs. Farquharson occasion for concern. Genevieve had visited the bedroom with clean linen in her arms.

"I will take a short walk," whispered John to Phyllis.

Poor Phyllis. She needed her old nurse; the excitement and fatigue had exhausted her completely.

Standing in the square, looking upward at the stars, a white-faced poet, his thoughts unutterable, at last saw the lights in her windows grow dim and disappear.

On the stairs he met Mrs. Farquharson. Her voice was anxious as she bade him good night.

From the little sitting-room John could see into the bedroom. The light shone on the face of Phyllis asleep.

He sat watching the dying fire for a long while. Finally he rose, slowly wound up his watch, turned out the gas, and lay down on the sofa. He soon slumbered peacefully.

In the gray dawn Phyllis awakened. Recollections slowly crowded upon her consciousness. She rose and stood by the window, looking out on the quiet square, and at the houses, opposite, emerging from obscurity with the growing light. She stepped to the door and peeped into the other room. John lay on the sofa, sleeping soundly, one arm flung boyishly over his head.

The rooms were very cold. She took the coverlet from her bed and spread it over him.

He stirred a little. "Thanks, old chap," he murmured sleepily.

Phyllis tiptoed back to bed.

VII

Within a fortnight their rooms were transformed. Mrs. Farquharson declared she would not have known them herself.

John's old room, dismantled, yielded his bookshelves and his books; his father's old desk, a Sheraton, and therefore a beauty and joy forever; and his armchair, which took its place in a corner of the cheery sitting-room and seemed to say--"Come, sit here, and be comfortable," as naturally as though it had been established there for years. Certainly it had this advantage over the other chairs; it was so roomy John and Phyllis could sit in it together; and often did.

There were photographs of his father as a young man; and of his mother, a flower-like creature, who had faded like a flower, leaving a fragrant memory. Phyllis gazed at her picture with wistful eyes; and once, when John was absent, held it to her lips.

But Phyllis's old valentines gave the rooms their charm. A dozen or more, framed in dull gold, hung on the walls, their delicate coloring softened by the passing of many years; their sentiment as fresh and gentle as of yesterday.

On the day after her marriage, Phyllis had written this letter:--

DEAR UNCLE PETER:--

John Landless and I were married yesterday. We have found a pleasant place to live, with Farquharson, my old nurse. I hope you will try to think of me as kindly as you can, and kindly, too, of John, whose heart is pure gold, and all mine, as mine is his. I want you to know I am sorry, even when I am happiest,--and, indeed, Uncle Peter, I am happy,--sorry for the pain my thoughtlessness gave you? sorry for the mischief that was done, unconsciously, because I did not tell you, long ago, that I was learning to love him. It would have been far, far better to have told you? I am truly, truly sorry. Some day, when you want me to, I hope to tell you all this much better than I can write it.

I have a favor to ask of you, Uncle Peter. I want my valentines. Could Burbage put them all in the leather cases, and send them, by Thompson, to Saint Ruth's? And, please, I ask you to send nothing else? just the valentines, please, Uncle Peter.

Always lovingly, PHYLLIS.

On the following afternoon, John went to Saint Ruth's to tell the news, and announce his unavoidable absence from the Settlement for the month to be devoted to his book.

"And to you," he said, as he kissed Phyllis good-bye.

"Tell Mrs. Thorpe we shall both be back in a month, eager to do more than ever," was her reply to this. "Tell her, please, not to think we are selfish; but the little book is so important just now."

Phyllis listened, smilingly, to Mrs. Farquharson's gossip about her lodgers.

"'Never again,' he says to me solemnly, and pointing at me with his long finger. 'The keys I shall leave in the cases as I ever have, but never again touch dust-cloth to my fans and patch-boxes!' And never have I since that day, which is seven years if it's a minute. He dusts them himself of a Sunday morning. I've caught him at it!" Mrs. Farquharson picked a thread from her skirt, and carefully wound it around her finger.

"Speaking of catching him at it reminds me of that Mrs. Burbage," she continued. She never referred to her save as "that" Mrs. Burbage; the designation expressed anathema. "I have wondered, did ever it occur to you whether Sir Peter asked that Mrs. Burbage to take the advertisements to the papers; it being my belief that if he ever did she never did. And consequently, however could I see them, and know my deary dear wanted her old nurse?"

The whir of a motor, immediately below the windows, caused Mrs. Farquharson to look out.

"Whoever is that now? A man in leggings and a middle-aged woman in spectacles. I never set eyes on her before. He's beginning to take the little leather trunks out. Whatever is--"

Phyllis's intuition was swift as light. A glimpse from another window, and--

"It is Uncle Peter's car, Farquharson," she exclaimed. "The boxes are the old Valentines you remember so well--that I sent for yesterday. The woman is----"

"That Mrs. Burbage, of course. She found me quick enough when she wanted to!"

Phyllis was in flight down the stairs. Mrs. Farquharson smoothed her hair, and followed majestically. They met in the hall. While Thompson carried the boxes up, Phyllis introduced the rivals. They talked for a few moments constrainedly, surveying each other as though watchful for an opening. When the last of the cases had gone up Phyllis said:--

"I want to hear news of my uncle, and show Burbage our pretty rooms. You will excuse us, Farquharson, won't you?"

"Certainly, my dear," she replied; then, addressing Mrs. Burbage--"Shall I light the gas for you, ma'am? I see your age is beginning to tell on your eyes."

"Oh, no, thank you, ma'am," replied Burbage. "I can see perfectly. Though your hall _is_ uncommonly dark."

Both shots told. Phyllis hurried Burbage upstairs.

There was little to learn. Sir Peter had not spoken her name since she had left. He had given her note to Burbage.

"Carry out these directions implicitly," he had said. But Burbage allowed herself latitude; the directory gave Mrs. Farquharson's address--and here, rather than to Saint Ruth's she had brought the valentines--eager to see her darling,--now a bride.

Phyllis chatted happily with her for an hour. She spoke affectionately of her uncle. "It will all come out right in the end," she concluded.

Burbage promised to come often to see her.

"My pretty," she whispered, as she held Phyllis's hand, in parting, "I warn you of this Mrs. Farquharson. A woman with eyes like hers is not to be trusted."

The framed valentines were hung when John came home. Thus they were the first of their Lares and Penates; the first of the pretty things that made a home of lodgings.

"Ah, John, you have no idea how I love my old valentines," said Phyllis that evening, as they looked around the rooms. "I love them dearly for themselves--as well as for their association with my mother. Aren't they sweet and pretty?"

"Indeed, they are," said John warmly. "Don't they light up the rooms, though?"

And so, with John's books and furniture, and Phyllis's valentines, the rooms were transformed. "I wouldn't know them myself" was Mrs. Farquharson's oft-repeated comment.

* * * * *

Of course you have read "Old Valentines, and Other Poems," by John Landless; that is the disadvantage under which this story labors. You know, beforehand, that the little book won instant hearing; you know that "Lyrics" quickly followed, and the favorable verdict of the critics whose good opinion was most worth having. When that wonderful epic--"London: A Poem"--made its appearance, our poet was fairly on the royal road.

But you must pretend you don't know all this; and that "Lyrics" and "London" are not, at this moment, in plain sight on your reading-table. You must forget that you saw John's portrait in the last "Bookman." Unless you are good at make-believe, it is no fun at all. You must know nothing of the rosy glow on the peaks of Parnassus, so that you may struggle with John and Phyllis up the first, heart-breaking, storm-swept steeps.

We are back in their pretty rooms now. Are you there? Very well, then; we proceed.

They had lived at Mrs. Farquharson's for a fortnight. John worked steadily at his desk; Phyllis sewed. Poetry reads very smoothly on a printed page; but Phyllis had not realized that ten satisfying lines is a fair morning's stint; nor that a little book of synonyms is first aid in emergency cases; nor that one may talk as much as one pleases at times, but must be quiet as a mouse when the pen is scratching away so busily; she had to learn that when John's eyes were full of anguish he was probably at his best.

"Phyllis," said John, one morning, looking up from his writing.

"Yes, dear."

"That's all--just Phyllis," he replied, smiling.

She beamed at him over her embroidery. The pen resumed its slow progress. Phyllis rocked happily. When the pen paused again, she watched his face. It welcomed speech, so--

"What word from the publishers?" asked Phyllis.

"They will have none of it," replied John. "They all tell me the verses have merit; they all regret the public taste; but--in short, business is business."

Phyllis bit her thread in two. John continued

"If I could get the first little book out,--and reviewed in the papers that count,--I have enough verses for a second, to follow at once, and catch the favoring breeze;--but if there is no first, how can there be a second?"

Phyllis shook her head. The idiosyncrasies of the publishing trade were beyond her comprehension. How they could refuse such beautiful--Well!

"I had a proposal from Kendall, Ransome & Company yesterday afternoon that I meant to have told you about--only Miss Neville's and Mark Holroyd's coming to spend the evening knocked it out of my head."

"Wasn't it dear of them! Didn't Peggy look sweet in that blue gown? What was the proposal, John? Any proposal is encouraging isn't it?" asked Phyllis.

"I suppose so," John answered, running his hand through his hair. "But this one couldn't be accepted under the circumstances They offered to publish the book if I would pay the cost of printing and relinquish copyright."

"The idea!" exclaimed Phyllis.

"I laughed at it myself," replied John. "I had another reason for laughing than the one they knew, though. For, really, I am so sure of my little book that I might have accepted the offer--if I had the money."

"Would it cost a great sum?" inquired Phyllis.

"Something less than fifty pounds for the first edition; a small edition. If there were a second, of course, they would pay the charges, but I should get nothing."

Phyllis sat sewing thoughtfully. Suddenly John saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"If there weren't me to think of, you might--" she began.

John had her in his arms in the big chair in less time than it takes to tell it. When her troubled heart was comforted, he returned to his desk.

"However, I have been the rounds of the publishers now. I started with the best and I have seen them all. I have condescended to the smallest. I have even tried the Populars. But it has all been of no use. Same story everywhere. 'Marked ability, but we regret.'"

"If you had friends with influence----" Phyllis began, but John interrupted her.

"I wouldn't if I could, and I haven't if I would," said he. "But the fact is there's less of that than you think. 'Pull' isn't required; I can say that even when I am at the end of my rope. Books are published honestly, on their quality; mine simply hasn't the quality the public likes. It may be Art--but will it sell? That's the question."

Having plumbed the depths, John took up his pen again; his chin resolute as ever.

That evening when Mrs. Farquharson tapped at the door, John was teaching Phyllis chess.

"Just in time, Farquharson," said Phyllis. "I am routed horse and foot--by a man without a queen, too."

The chessboard was set aside; a chair brought forward; but Mrs. Farquharson would not sit down; she rarely would when John was present.

"No, my dear, no. I just dropped in for a minute--not to disturb ever. Besides, Genevieve's walking out with her young man, and there's the bell to watch. No, I just dropped in to say that Mr. Rowlandson--the rooms over yours, Mr. Landless--Mr. Rowlandson says, 'Tell the young lady she may like to go up to my rooms some morning when I am not there to bother her,' he says, 'and look at my fans and patch-boxes. They're pretty, too,' says he, 'as pretty as her valentines.' And so they are, my deary dear, and you must go up and see them. Oh, yes, he knows all about your valentines. He bought them for your uncle, at your father's sale, and a pretty penny they cost. More than two hundred pounds. It seems your uncle was bidding against some public institution."

Mrs. Farquharson replaced the proffered chair.

"Is the poetry book to be out soon, sir?" she asked. "I hope so, I am sure. I'm that anxious to see your name in gold letters on the cover. Good-night, sir. Good-night, my dear. Are you certain you don't want more coals? Well, then, good-night."

John and Phyllis had their usual good-night talk by the fire.

"And so Mark Holroyd and the Honorable Margaret are engaged," said John, replacing a fallen coal with the tongs.

Phyllis put her feet on the low, brass fender, and tucked in her skirt.

"Yes, they are engaged," she replied. "It is to be announced very soon. Peggy says it shouldn't be called an engagement, but rather a two-year probationary period. She could hardly wait to tell me. The darling! That was why she was so anxious to help me unwrap the rug in the little room."

An old prayer-rug, with a golden tree of life in its deep blue center, was the Honorable Margaret's wedding gift; Mark sent a coffee percolator.

Phyllis sighed.

"She will have a beautiful wedding," she said softly. "Ah, John, you don't know what that means to a girl."

John poked the fire.

Suddenly Phyllis laughed.

"How could I have forgotten to tell you about the cards?" she continued. "It was so funny, and so like Peggy Neville. You see,--her card was fastened to the rug with a bit of ribbon--and on it was written---'With love and sympathy.' When Peggy saw it she shrieked. 'Oh, Phyllis!' she said, 'mother's cousin, Caroline Molesworth, has been at the hospital for a week; day before yesterday she had her surgical operation, and yesterday I sent flowers. I wrote the cards at home,--and they got mixed. On hers is written--"May all your days be as full of joy as these last few days have been!"'"

* * * * *

In the night Phyllis found herself wide awake. She lay quietly considering a new thought that had come to her, somehow, while she slept. If she only dared! Oh, no, no! She couldn't ask him. And yet--She fell asleep again wondering whether--perhaps, just possibly--she could do it, if she kept her mind firmly fixed on John's book.

VIII

Bookshops are the most charming of all shops because they relate themselves so intimately to their visitors. Mr. Rowlandson's gained by its setting--at the corner of the green square. Not a very good place for trade, you would say. However, he thrived.

His shop-window does not differ from a score of others one may see, on a morning's walk: a shallow bay-window, with small, square panes of inferior glass; the familiar array of old books turn their mellow title-pages toward the light; a window designed for lingering. Three rows, or four, of books--and a few old prints--may be examined from the front; these whet the appetite. But two other rows are so set in the window as to necessitate sidelong inspection, and tempt the observer to take two steps around the corner. Here, to be at ease, one must stand with one foot on the first of the four stone stairs leading downward to the door; stairs worn by the footfalls of four generations of book-hunters. Just within the door one sees an alluring stack of books, the topmost sustaining a neatly printed sign--"Sixpence--your choice."

In short--the foot once placed upon the first of these descending stairs returns not to its fellow. A little bell rings, and one is inside.

Against the background of his overflowing shelves, with his old-fashioned clothes, his stooping shoulders, his iron-gray hair, and his firm, tender, and melancholy face,--you will never visit Samuel Rowlandson's shop without wishing to frame him as he stands, and set him in the window, among the other rare old prints.

He must have known you a long, long time to intrude a particular book upon your notice; and then with the air of consulting a connoisseur rather than suggesting a purchase. Yet he is a shrewd dealer. Not for Samuel Rowlandson is the fairly marked price on the fly-leaf; nor even hieroglyphics representing cost. A book is worth what it will fetch; and every customer's purchasing power is appraised with discrimination, concealed, indeed, but most effective.

The shop grows larger as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom of its remoter part. There are four thousand books on those overweighted shelves; all sorts and conditions of books; big folios and little duodecimos, ragged books and books clothed by Rivière and Bedford. Once he thought a Roger Payne binding had found its way to the shop, an inadvertent bargain; but, alas! the encyclopædia dashed his tremulous hopes; years before the date on the title-page that seedy but glorious craftsman had laid down his tools forever.

The shelves are catholic: Samuel Pepys, immortally shameless; Adam Smith, shaken; Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio as they should always be found; Boswell's Johnson, of course, but Blackstone's "Commentaries" also; Plutarch's "Lives" and Increase Mather's witches; all of Fielding in four stately quarto volumes; Sterne, stained and shabby; Congreve, in red morocco, richly gilt; Molière, pocket size, in an English translation; Gibbon in sober gray; Burton's "Anatomy"----

"The only book," says Mr. Rowlandson, "that ever put me to sleep two hours before I wished."

Here is Addison's "Spectator," its near neighbor Steele; the "Gentleman's Magazine," a long run this, but not complete; rare Ben Jonson, rubbed at the joints; Spenser's "Faerie Queen," with marginal notes in a contemporary hand; the "History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant," in sable morocco, with armorial decorations; Tacitus in all his atrocity, Herbert, all gentleness.