Chapter 23

"At present, Mac, you're merely bumptious. I was like that when I first came to London. I had noble ideals, but I very soon discovered that the other high-minded men were not quite so idealistic as I was. I know one high-souled fellow who went into a newspaper office and asked to be allowed to review a novel with the express intention of damning it because he had some grudge against the author. Half the exalted scribblers in London are busily employed scratching each other's backs, and if you aren't in their little gang, you either are not noticed at all in their papers or you are unfairly judged or very, very faintly praised. You've either got to be in a gang in London or to be so immeasurably great or lucky that you can disregard gangs ... otherwise there's very little likelihood of you getting a foothold in what you call good papers. I know these papers. Mr. Noblemind is editor of one paper and Mr. Greatfellow is a regular contributor to another and Mr. PraisemeandI'llpraiseyou is the literary editor of a third, and they employ each other; and Mr. Noblemind calls attention to the beauty of his pals' work in his paper, and they call attention to the beauty of his in theirs. My dear Mac, if you really want to know what dishonesty in journalism is, worm yourself into the secrets of the highbrow Press and the noble poets. I'm a Yellow Journalist and a failure, but by heaven, I'm an honest Yellow Journalist and an honest failure. I'm not an indifferent journalist pretending to be a poet!..."

"I don't see what all this has got to do with me," John said.

"No," Hinde replied in a quieter tone. "No, I suppose it hasn't anything to do with you. You're quite right. I'm in a bad temper to-night. I'm glad you're engaged to that girl. She looks a sensible sort of woman. Heard any more about your book?"

"Yes. It's been returned to me!..."

"Oh, my dear chap, I'm very sorry!"

"I've sent it out again. It's sure to be printed by someone," John said.

"I hope so. I wish you'd let me read it!"

"Yes, I'd like you to read it. I wish I'd kept it back a while. But you'll see it some day. Good-night!"

"Good-night, Mac!"

VI

The Creams returned to Miss Squibb's on the following evening, and Cream came to see Hinde and John soon after they arrived. Dolly, he said, was too tired after her journey to do more than send a friendly greeting to them.

"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John. "It's very good, of course, quite classy, in fact, but it wants tightening up. Snap! That's what it wants. And a little bit of vulgarity. Oh, not too much. Of course not. But it doesn't do to overlook vulgarity, Mac. We've all got a bit of it in us, and pers'nally, I see no harm in it, _pro_-vided ... _pro-vided_, mind you ... that it's comic. That's the only excuse for vulgarity ... that it's comic. Now, the first thing is the title!"

Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table. "This won't do at all," he said, pointing to the title-page of the play. "_Love's Tribute!_ My dear old Mac, what the hell's the good of a title like that? Where's the snap in it? Where's the attraction, the allurement? Nowhere. A title like that wouldn't draw twopence into a theatre. _Love's Tribute!_ I ask you!..." His feelings made him inarticulate and he gazed round the room in a helpless manner.

"Well, what would you call it?" John demanded.

"Something snappy. I often say a title's half the play. Now, take a piece like _The Girl Who Lost Her Character_ or _The Man With Two Wives_ ... there's a bit of snap about that. Titles like those simply haul 'em into the theatre. _Snap! Go! Ginger!_ Something that sounds 'ot, but isn't ... that's the stuff to give the British public. You make 'em think they're going to see something ... well, _you_ know ... and they'll stand four deep in the snow waiting to get into the theatre. If you were to put the Book of Genesis on the stage and call it _The Girl Who Took The Wrong Turning_, people 'ud think they'd seen something they oughtn't to ... and they'd tell all their friends. Now, how about _The Guilty Woman_ for your sketch, Mac?"

John looked at him in astonishment. "But the woman in it isn't guilty of anything," he protested.

"That doesn't matter. The title needn't have anything to do with it. Very few titles have anything to do with the piece. So long as they're snappy, that's all you need think about. Pers'nally, I like _The Guilty Woman_ myself; but Dolly's keen on _The Sinful Woman_. And that just reminds me, Mac! Here's a tip for you. Always have _Woman_ in your title if you can. _A Sinful Woman_'ll draw better than _A Sinful Man_. People seem to expect women to be more sinful than men when they are sinful ... or p'raps they're more used to men being sinful than women. I dunno. But it's a fact ... _Woman_ in the title is a bigger draw than _Man_. And you got to think of these little things. If you want to make a fortune out of a piece, take my advice and think of a snappy adjective to put in front of _Woman_ or _Girl!_ Really, you know, play-writing's very simple, if you only remember a few tips like that!..."

"But my play isn't about sin at all," John protested.

"Well, what's the good of it then?" Cream demanded. "All plays are about sin of some sort, aren't they? If people aren't breaking a rule or a commandment, there's no plot, and if there's no plot, there's no play. Of course, Bernard Shaw and all these chaps, they don't believe in plots or climaxes or anything, and they turn out pieces that sound as if they'd wrote the first half in their Oxford days and the second half when they were blind drunk. You've got to have a plot, Mac, and if you've got to have a plot, you've got to have sin. What 'ud Hamlet be without the sin in it? Nothing! Why, there wasn't any drama in the world 'til Adam and Eve fell! You take it from me, Mac, there'll be no drama in heaven. Why? Because there'll be no sin there. But there'll be a hell of a lot in hell! Now, I like _The Guilty Woman_. It's not quite so bare-faced as _The Sinful Woman_, but as Dolly likes it better ... she's more intense than I am ... we'll have to have it, I expect!"

"I don't like either of those titles," John said, gulping as he spoke, for he felt that there was a difference of view between Cream and him that could not be overcome.

"Well, think of a better one then," Cream good-naturedly answered. "There's another thing. As I said, the piece wants overhauling, but you can leave that to me. When I've had a good go at it!..."

"But!..."

"Now, look here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had a most unhappy end to _The Profligate_ ... the hero committed suicide in the last act ... but the public wouldn't have it. They said they wanted a happy end, and Pinero had the good sense to give it to them. In my opinion the public was right. The happy end was the right end for that piece!..."

"But artistically!..." John pleaded.

"Artistically!" Cream exclaimed in mocking tones to Hinde. "I ask you! Artistically! What's Art? Pleasing people. That's what Art is!"

"Oh, no," John protested. "Pleasing yourself, perhaps!..."

"And aren't you most pleased when you feel that people are pleased with you, I ask you! What do you publish books for if you only want to please yourself? Why don't you keep your great thoughts to yourself if you don't want to please anybody else? Yah-r-r, this Art talk makes me feel sick. You'd rather sell two thousand copies of a book than two hundred, wouldn't you? Of course, you would. I've heard these highbrow chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few. I acted in a play once by a fellow who was always bleating about the Tasteful Few ... and you should have heard the way he went on when his play only drew the Tasteful Few to see it. If his piece had had a chance of a long run, do you think he'd have stopped it at the end of a month because he objected to long runs as demoralizing to Art? Not likely, my lad!... Now, this piece of yours, Mac, has too much talk in it and not enough incident, see! You'll have to cut some of it. The talk's good, but in plays the talk mustn't take the audience off the point, no matter how good it is. See! You don't want long speeches: you want short ones. The talk ought to be like a couple of chaps sparring ... only not too much fancy work. I've seen a lot of boxing in my time. There's boxers that goes in for what's called pretty work ... nice, neat boxing ... but the spectators soon begin to yawn over it. What people like to see is one chap getting a smack on the jaw and the other chap getting a black eye. And it's the same with everything. Ever seen Cinquevalli balancing a billiard ball on top of another one? Took him years to learn that trick, but he'll tell you himself ... he lives round the corner from here ... that his audiences take more interest in some flashy-looking thing that's dead easy to do. When he throws a cannon-ball up into the air and catches it on the back of his neck ... they think that's wonderful ... but it isn't half so wonderful as balancing one billiard ball on top of another one. See? So it's no good being subtle before simple people. They don't understand you, and they just get up and walk out or give you the bird!..."

"I'm going to tell you something," he continued, as if he had not said a word before. "I've noticed human nature a good deal, and I think I know something about it. There was a sketch we did once, called _The Twiddley Bits_. It was written by the same chap that did _The Girl Who Gets Left_ ... he had a knack, that chap ... only he took to drink and died. There was a joke in _The Twiddley Bits_ that went down everywhere. Here it is. I played the part of a comic footman, and I had to say to the villain, 'What are you looking at, guv'nor?' and he replied, 'I'm wondering what on earth that is!' and then he pointed to my face. That got a laugh to start with. Then I had to say, 'It's my face. What did you think it was? A sardine tin?' That got a roar. Brought the house down, that did. We played that piece all over the world, Mac, and that joke never failed once. Not once. We played it in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and it never missed once. Fetched 'em every time. Human nature's about the same everywhere, once you get to understand it, Mac, and if you like you can put that joke in your play. It'll help it out a bit in the middle!..."

VII

"Well?" said Hinde to John when Cream had left them.

"I'd rather sell happorths of tea and sugar than write the kind of play he wants," John replied.

Hinde paused for a few moments. Then he said, "Why don't you sell tea and sugar. You've got a shop, haven't you?"

"Because I'm going to write books," John answered tartly.

"I see," said Hinde.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

I

Three months after Mrs. MacDermott departed from London, Eleanor and John were married. They walked into St. Chad's Church in the Bayswater Road, accompanied by Mr. Hinde and Mrs. MacDermott (who had come hurriedly to London again for the ceremony) and Lizzie and a cousin of Eleanor's who excited John's wrath by using the marriage ceremony for propaganda purposes in connexion with Women's Suffrage; and there, prompted by an asthmatic curate, they swore to love and cherish each other until death did them part. Mrs. MacDermott had begged for a Presbyterian marriage in Ballyards ... "where your da and me were married"... but there were difficulties in the way of satisfying her desire, and she had consented to see them married in what, to her mind, was an imitation of a Papist church. Eleanor had stipulated for at least a year's engagement, partly so that they might become more certain of each other and partly to enable John to prove that he could earn enough money to maintain a home, but John had worn down her opposition to an immediate marriage by asserting repeatedly that he could easily earn money for her, would, in fact, be better able to do so because of his marriage which would stimulate him to greater activity, and, finally, by his announcement that his tragedy had been accepted for production by the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. The manager had written to him to say that the Reading Committee were of opinion that his interesting play should be performed, and he enclosed an agreement which he desired John to sign and return to him at his convenience. He had not been able to restrain his joy when he received the letter, and he had hurried to the nearest post office so that he might telephone the news to Eleanor.

"My dear!" she said proudly over the telephone.

"Didn't I tell you I could do it," he exclaimed. "Didn't I?"

"Yes, darling, you did!"

"Wait till Hinde conies back! This'll be one in the eye for him. He thought the play was a very ordinary one, but this proves that it isn't, doesn't it, Eleanor?"

"Yes, dear!"

"It's a well-known theatre, the Cottenham Repertory. One of the best-known in the world. Can you get off for the day, do you think, and we'll go out and celebrate it?..."

"Don't be silly, John!..."

"Well, we'll have lunch together. We'll have wine for lunch!... Oh, my dear, I'm nearly daft with joy. We ought to make enough money out of the play to set up house at once. I don't know how much you make out of plays, but you make a great deal. We'll get married at once!..."

"But we can't!..."

"Och, quit, woman! This makes all the difference In the world. Aren't you just aching for a wee house of your own, the same way that I am!..."

And after a struggle for time to think, Eleanor had consented to be married much sooner than she had ever meant to be. They were married in June, and the play was to be performed at the Cottenham Repertory Theatre in the following September. The manager had written to John, after the business preliminaries were settled, to say that if the play were successful in Cottenham, he would include it in the Company's repertoire of pieces to be performed in London during their annual season. "And of course, it'll be successful," said John when he had read the letter to Eleanor. "I should think we'd easily make several hundred pounds out of the play ... and there's always the chance that it may be a popular success!" His high hopes were dashed by the return of his novel from Messrs. Gooden and Knight who regretted that the novel was not suitable for publication by them; but he recovered some of them when he reflected that the fame he would achieve with his play would cause Messrs. Gooden and Knight to feel exceedingly sorry that they had not jumped at the chance of publishing his book. Hinde had read it and thought it was as good as most first novels. "Nothing very great about it," he said, "but it isn't contemptible!" That seemed very chilly praise to John, and he was grateful to Eleanor for her enthusiasm about the book. "Of course, it has faults," she admitted. "I daresay it has, but then it's your _first book_. You wouldn't be human if you could write a great book at the first attempt, would you?"

That had consoled him for much, and very hopefully he sent the book on its third adventure, this time to Mr. Claude Jannissary, who called himself "The Progressive Publisher."

II

On the night before he was married, John, vaguely nervous, left his mother at Miss Squibb's and went for a walk. All day, he had been "on pins and needles," and now, although it was nine o'clock, he could not remain in the house any longer. He felt that his head would burst if he stayed indoors. The house seemed to be unusually stuffy, and the spectacle of Lizzie gazing at him with mawkish interest, made him wish to rise up and assault her. He had fidgetted about the room, taking a book from its shelf and then, without reading in it, replacing it, until his mother, observing him with cautious eyes, proposed that he should go for a walk. "I won't wait up for you," she said, "so you needn't hurry back!"

"Very well, ma!" he said, getting ready to go out.

He left the house and started to walk towards Streatham, but before he had gone very far, he felt drawn away from Streatham, and he turned and walked past his home and on towards Kennington. At the Horns, he paused indecisively. There were more light and stir towards the Elephant and Castle than there was in the Kennington Road, and light and stir were attractive to him, but to-night he ought to be in quiet places and in shadows. He was beginning to feel dubious about himself. Marriage, after all, was a very serious business, but here he was thrusting himself into it with very little consideration. Eleanor had protested all along that they were insufficiently acquainted with each other and had pleaded for a long engagement, but he had overruled her: they knew each other well enough. The best way for a man and woman to get to know each other, he said, was to marry. Eleanor had exclaimed against that doctrine because, she said, if the couple discovered that they did not care for each other, they could not get free without misery and possibly disgrace.

"You have to run the risk of that," said John.

That always had been his determining argument: that one must take risks. Now, on this night before his marriage, the risk he was about to take alarmed him. The fidgettiness, the nervous irritability which had been characteristic of him all day now concretely became fright. Who was this woman he was about to marry? What did he know of her? She was a pleasant, nice-looking girl and she had an extraordinary power over him ... but what did he _know_ of her? Nothing. Nothing whatever. He liked kissing her and holding her in his arms, but he had liked kissing Maggie Carmichael and holding her in his arms; and now he was very thankful he had not married Maggie. How was he to know that he would feel any more for Eleanor in six months' time than he now felt for Maggie ... for whom he had once felt everything? Eleanor had told him that she only liked him ... was not in love with him ... that he was one of a hundred men, anyone of whom she might have married and lived with in tolerable happiness!...

A cold shiver ran through his body as he thought that he might be about to make the greatest mistake that any man could make ... marry the wrong woman. Ought he to postpone the marriage so that Eleanor and he should have more time in which to consider things? Postponement would mean terrible inconvenience to everybody, but it would be better to suffer such inconvenience than to enter into a dismal marriage because one was reluctant to upset arrangements. This marrying was a terrible affair!... He walked steadily along the Kennington Road and presently found himself in Westminster Bridge Road, and then he crossed the river and turned on to the Embankment. There was a cool breeze blowing from the sea, and he took his hat off and let the air play about his head. He leant against the parapet and gazed across the water to the dark warehouses on the Lambeth side and wondered why they were so beautiful at night when they were so hideous by day. Even the railway bridge at Charing Cross seemed to be beautiful in the dusk, and when a train rumbled across it, sending up clouds of lit smoke from the funnel of the engine and making flickering lights as the carriages rolled past the iron bars of the bridge-side, it seemed to him to be a very wonderful and appealing spectacle. His fidgettiness fell from him as he contemplated the swift river and the great dark shapes of warehouses and the black hulks of barges going down to the Pool and the immutable loveliness of Waterloo Bridge. He had walked along the Embankment past Hungerford Bridge, and then had stopped to look at Waterloo Bridge for a few moments. Even the moving lights of the advertisements of tea and whiskey on the Lambeth side of the river made beauty for him as they were reflected in the water. There were little crinkled waves of green and red and gold on the river as the changing lights of the advertisements ran up and down.... He had seen articles in the newspapers protesting against these illuminated signs ... "the ugly symbols of commercialism" ... but to-night they had the look of loveliness in his eyes. Very often since he had come to London had he found himself in disagreement with the views of men who wrote as if Almighty God had committed Beauty to their charge ... he had never been able to understand or agree with their arguments against great engines and the instruments of power and energy ... and it seemed to him that many of these writers were querulous, fractious people who had not the capacity to make themselves at ease in a striving world. That poet fellow ... what was his name? ... whom he had met at Hampstead ... Palfrey, that was the man's name ... had sneered at Commerce! John had not been able to make head or tail of his arguments against Commerce, and he had found himself defending it against the Poet ... "the very word is beautiful!" he had asserted several times ... mainly on his recollection of his Uncle William. Palfrey had had the best of the argument, because Palfrey could use his tongue more effectively, but John had felt certain that the truth was not in Palfrey, and here to-night, in this place where Commerce was most compactly to be seen, he knew that there was Beauty in the labours of men, that bargaining and competition and striving energies and rivalry in skill were elements of loveliness. "These little poets sitting in their stuffy attics scribbling about the moon!... Yah-rr-r!" he said, putting his hat on to his head again.

His mind was quieter now. He was certain of his love for Eleanor. How wise his mother had been to suggest that he should go out for a walk. She had guessed, no doubt, that he was ill at ease and full of doubt, and had sent him forth to find rest in movement and ease in energy. It was a great comfort to have his mother by him now. That morning he had looked at her, sitting in the light of the window, and had seen for the first time the great depth of her eyes and the wonderful patience in her face.... He must consider her more in future. Eleanor liked her, and she liked Eleanor. That was all to the good!... He must go home now. He would walk to Blackfriars Bridge, cross the river and go home by the Elephant and Castle. He started to walk briskly along the Embankment, but he had not gone very far on his way when he heard his name called.

"Oh, John!" the call was, and looking round, he saw Eleanor rising from one of the garden-seats near the kerb.

"Eleanor!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

She came quickly to him and he took hold of her hands.

"I was frightened," she said, half sobbing as she spoke.

"Frightened!"

"Yes. I lost my nerve this evening and I ... I came out to think. Oh, I wonder are we wise!..."

He drew her arm in his. "Come home, my dear," he said.

He led her across the road, through the District Railway Station and up Villiers Street to the Strand, and as they walked along he told her of his own fears. "You were frightened, too?" she said in astonishment.

"Not frightened," he replied, "only ... well, dubious!"

"Perhaps we'd better wait," she suggested.

"Oh, no, no. I should feel such a fool if I were to tell people we'd postponed our marriage because we'd both got scared about it!"

"It's better to feel a fool than!..."