“MORTIMER STANT”
I
Next morning Peter went round to Cardillac’s flat and made his apologies. Cardillac accepted them at once with the frankest expressions of friendship.
“My dear old Peter, of course,” he said, taking both Peter’s hands in his, “I was horribly blunt and unpleasant about the whole thing. I didn’t mean half what I said, but the fact is that you got angry and then I suppose I got angry — and then we both said more than we meant.”
“No,” said Peter slowly, “for you were quite right. I have been selfish and morbid. I see it all quite clearly. I’m going to be very different now, Cards, old man.”
Cards’ flat was splendid — everything in it from its grey Ascot trouserings kind of wall paper to its beautiful old chairs and its beautiful old china was of the very best — and Cards himself, in a dark blue suit with a black tie and a while pearl and white spats on his shining gleaming shoes, just ready to go out and startle Piccadilly was of the very best. He had never, Peter thought, looked so handsome.
At the door Cards put a hand on Peter’s shoulder.
“Get in late this morning, Peter?”
“Why?” said Peter, turning round.
“Oh, nothing,” Cards regarded him, smiling. “I’ll see you to-night at the Lesters. Until then, old man—”
Neither Mrs. Rossiter nor Clare made any allusion to the quarrel but it had nevertheless, Peter felt, made reconciliation all the more difficult. Mrs. Rossiter now seemed to imply in her additional kindnesses to Cardillac that she felt for him deeply and was sorry that he, too, should have been made to suffer under Peter’s bear-like nature.
There was even an implied atmosphere of alliance in the attitude of the three to Peter, an alliance fostered and cemented by Mrs. Rossiter and spread by her, up and down, in and out about the house.
It was obvious indeed now that Mrs. Rossiter was, never again, under any terms, to be won over. She had decided in her own slow mind that Peter was an objectionable person, that he neglected his wife, quarrelled with his best friends and refused to fulfil the career that he had promised to fulfil. She saw herself now in the role of protectress of her daughter, and that role she would play to the very end. Clare must, at all costs, be happy and, in spite of her odious husband, happy she should be.
Peter discerned Mrs. Rossiter’s state of mind on the whole clearly enough, but with regard to Clare he was entirely in the dark. He devoted his days now to her service. He studied her every want, was ready to abandon his work at any moment to be with her, and was careful also to avoid too great a pestering of her with attentions.
“I know women hate that,” he said to himself, “if you go down on your knees to them and hang around them they simply can’t stand it. I won’t show her that I care.”
And he cared, poor fellow, as he had never cared for her before during their married life. The love that he had had for Stephen he would now give to Stephen’s mother would she but let him.
But it was a difficult business. When Mrs. Rossiter was present he could do nothing right. If he were silent she would talk to Clare about people being morose; and what a pity it was that some people didn’t think of other people a little instead of being miserable about things for which they had nobody to thank but themselves, and if he tried to be light-hearted and amusing Mrs. Rossiter bore with his humour in so patient and self-denying a spirit that his efforts failed lamentably and only made the situation worse than it had been before.
Clare seemed to be now entirely in her mother’s hands; she put her mother’s large flat body between herself and Peter and, through that, they were compelled to talk.
Peter also knew now that Clare was exceedingly uncomfortable in his presence — it was almost as though she had something to conceal. On several occasions he had noticed that his sudden entrance into a room had confused her; once he had caught her hurriedly pushing a letter out of sight. She was now strangely timid when he was there; sometimes with a sudden furious beating of the heart he fancied that she was coming back to him again because she would make little half movements towards him and then draw back. Once he found her crying.
The impulse to beg her to confide in him was almost stronger than he could resist, and yet he was terrified lest by some sudden move he should frighten her and drive her back and so lose the little ground that he had gained. The strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Rossiter herself did not know what Clare’s trouble was. She, of course, put it all down to Peter, but she could accuse him of nothing specific. Clare had not confided in her.
Did Cards know? Peter suddenly asked himself with a strange pang of jealousy. That he should be jealous of Cards, the most splendid, most honourable fellow in the world! That, of course, was absurd. And yet they were together so often, and it was with Jerry Cardillac alone that Clare seemed now at ease.
But Peter put all such thoughts at once away from him. Had it been any other man but Cards he might have wondered... but he would trust Cards alone with his wife in the wilderness and know that no ill could come of it. With — other women Cards might have few scruples — Peter had heard such stories — but with Peter’s wife, no.
Peter wondered whether perhaps Clare did not miss young Stephen more than they knew! Oh, if that were the reason how he could take her into his arms and comfort her and love her! Poor little Clare... the time would come when she would show him that she wanted him.
Meanwhile the months passed, the proofs of “Mortimer Stant” had been corrected and the book was about to appear. To Peter now everything seemed to hang upon this event. It became with him, during the weeks before its appearance, a monomania. If this book were a success why then dare and Mrs. Rossiter and all of them would come round to him. It was the third book which was always so decisive, and there was ground to recover after the comparative failure of the second novel. As he corrected the proofs he persuaded himself that “Mortimer Stant” wasn’t, after all, so bad. It had been ambitious of him, of course, to write about the emotions and experiences of a man of forty and there was perhaps rather an overloaded and crude attempt at atmosphere, but there was life in the book. It had, he thought, more swing in the telling of it than the other two.
It is possible, when one is correcting proofs to persuade oneself of anything. The book appeared and was, from the first moment, loaded with mishap. On the day of publication there was that terrible fire at the Casino theatre — people talked of nothing else for a fortnight. Moreover by an unlucky chance young Rondel’s novel, “The Precipice,” was published on the very same day, and as the precipice was a novel one and there were no less than three young ladies prepared to fall over it at the same moment, it of course commanded instant attention. It was incidentally written with an admirable sense of style and a keen sense of character.
But Peter was now in a fever that saw an enemy round every corner. The English News Supplement only gave him a line:—”’Mortimer Stant.’ A new novel by the author of ‘Reuben Hallard,’ depicting agreeably enough the amorous adventures of a stockbroker of middle-age.” To this had all his fine dreams, his moments of exultation, his fevered inspiration come! He searched the London booksellers but could find no traces of “Mortimer Stant” at any of them. His publishers told him that it was only the libraries that bought any fiction, with the exception of volumes by certain popular authors — and yet he saw at these booksellers novels by numbers of people who could not lay claim to the success that “Reuben Hallard” had secured for its writer.
The reviews came in slowly, and, excepting for the smaller provincial papers, treated him with an indifference that was worse than neglect. “This interesting novel by Mr. Westcott”— “A pleasant tale of country life by the author of ‘Reuben Hallard.’ Will please those who like a quiet agreeable book without too much incident.”
One London weekly review — a paper of considerable importance — took him severely to task, pointed out a number of incoherences of fact, commented on carelessness of style and finally advised Mr. Westcott, “if he is ever to write a book of real importance to work with greater care and to be less easily contented with a superficial facility.”
But worse than these were the opinions of his friends. Henry Galleon was indeed gone, but there were a few — Mrs. Launce, Alfred Lester, William Trent, Alfred Hext — who had taken a real and encouraging interest in him from the beginning. They took him seriously enough to tell him the truth, and tell him the truth they did. Dear Mrs. Launce, who couldn’t bear to hurt anybody and saw perhaps that he was taking the book a great deal more hardly than he had taken the others, veiled it as well as she could:— “I do think it’s got splendid things in it, Peter dear — splendid things. That bit about the swimming and the character of Mrs. Mumps. But it doesn’t hang together. There’s a great deal of repetition. It’s as though you’d written it with your mind on something else all the time.”
And so he had — oh! so he had! What cruel irony that because his mind was set to winning Clare back to him the chief means for gaining her should be ruined by his very care for her.
What to do when all the things of life — the bustle and hurry, the marriages and births and deaths — came in between him and his work so that he could scarcely see it, so many things obscured the way. Poor Mortimer! Lost indeed behind a shifting, whirring cloud of real life — never to emerge, poor man, into anything better than a middle-aged clothes’ prop.
For six weeks the book lingered in the advertisements. A second edition, composed for the most part of an edition for America, was announced, there were a belated review or two ... and then the end. The end of two years’ hopes, ambitions, struggles, sweat and tears — and the end, too, of how much else?
From the beginning, so far back as he could remember, he had believed that he would one day write great books; had believed it from no conceit in him but simply because he clung so tenaciously to ambition that it had become, again and again, almost realised in the intensity of his dreams of it. He had known that this achievement of his would take a long time, that he must meet with many rebuffs, that he must starve and despair and be born again, but, never at any moment, until now, had he, in his heart of hearts, doubted that that great book was in front of him.
He had seen his work, in his dreams, derided, flouted, misunderstood. That was the way with most good work, but what he had never seen was its acceptance amongst the ranks of the “Pretty Good,” its place given it beside that rising and falling tide of fiction that covered every year the greedy rocks of the circulating libraries and ebbed out again leaving no trace behind it.
Now, after the failure of “Mortimer Stant” for the first time, this awful question— “What if, after all, you should be an Ordinary Creature? What if you are no better than that army who fights happily, contentedly, with mediocrity for its daily bread and butter? That army, upon whose serried ranks you have perhaps, unconsciously, but nevertheless with pity, looked down?... What if you are never to write a word that will be remembered, never even to cause a decent attention, amongst your own generation?”
What if after all this stir and fluster, this pain and agony and striving, there should be nothing exceptional about Peter? What rock to stand on then?
He had never, perhaps, analysed his feelings about it all. He had certainly never thought himself an exceptional person ... but always in his heart there had been that belief that, one day, he would write an exceptional book.
He was very young, not yet thirty, but he had had his chance. It seemed to him, in these weeks following the death of “Mortimer Stant,” that his career was already over. There was also the question of ways and means. Just enough to live on with the reviewing and a column for an American paper and Clare’s income, but if the books were all of them to fail as this one had failed — why then it was a dreary future for them both.
In fact there were now, at his feet, pits of so dismal and impenetrable a blackness that he refused to look down, but clung rather to his determination to make all things right with Clare again, and then things would come round.
If that failed him — why then, old black-faced father in Scaw House with your drunken cook and your company of ghosts, you shall have your merry way!
II
Henry Galleon was dead. Mrs. Launce was, unfortunately, during the whole of this period of Peter’s career, away in the country, being burdened with work, children and ill-health. He turned then once again to Bobby.
He had seen very little of Bobby and Alice Galleon lately; he was as fond of Bobby as he had ever been, but Bobby had always been a background, some one who was there, one liked to think, if one wanted him — but if there was any one more exciting, then Bobby vanished. Lately — for quite a long time now — there had been Cardillac — and somehow Cards and Bobby did not get on together and it was impossible to have them both at the same time. But now Peter turned to Bobby with the eagerness of a return to some comfortable old arm-chair after the brilliant new furniture of a friend’s palace. Bobby was there waiting for him. It is not to be denied that the occasional nature of Peter’s appearances had hurt them both — wounded Bobby and made Alice angry.
“He’s given us up, Bobby, now that he’s found so many new friends. I shouldn’t have expected him to do that. I’m disappointed.”
But Bobby nodded his head. “The boy’s all right,” he said, “he’s just trying to forget young Stephen and he forgets things better in Cardillac’s company than he does in mine — I’m not lively enough for that kind of thing. He’ll come back—”
But, at the same time, Bobby was anxious. Things were wrong up there at The Roundabout, very wrong. He knew Clare and Cards and Peter and Mrs. Rossiter, in all probability better than any one alive knew them — and he was no fool.
Then Peter came back to him and was received as though he had never left him; and Alice, who had intended to tell Mr. Peter what she thought of his disloyalty, had no word to say when she saw his white drawn face and his tired eyes.
“There’s something awfully wrong up there,” said Alice to Bobby that night. “Bobby, look after him.”
But Bobby who had heard by that time what Peter had to say shut his mouth tight. Then at last:
“Our friend Cardillac has a good deal to answer for,” and left Alice to make what she could out of it.
Meanwhile up in Bobby’s dusty old room, called by courtesy “The Study” but having little evidence of literature about it save an edition of Whyte-Melville and a miscellaneous collection of Yellow-backs, Peter had poured out his soul:
“Bobby, I feel as though I’d just been set up with my back against the wall for every one to make shies at. Everything’s going wrong — everything. The ground’s crumbling from under my feet. First it’s young Stephen, then it’s Clare, then my book fails (don’t let’s humbug — you know it’s an utter failure) then I quarrel with Cards, then that damned woman—” he stopped at the thought of Mrs. Rossiter and drove his hands together. Then he went on more quietly. “It’s like fighting in a fog, Bobby. There’s the thing I want somewhere, just beside me — I want Clare, Clare as she used to be when we were first married — but I can’t get at her and yet, through it all, I don’t know what it is that stops me.
“I know I hadn’t thought of her enough — with the book and Stephen and everything. Cards told me that pretty straight — but now I’ve seen all that and I’m ready to do anything — anything if she’ll only love me again.”
“Go directly to her and tell her,” said Bobby; “have it all out in the open with her.”
“That’s just it,” Peter answered, “I never seem to get her alone. There’s always either her mother or Cards there. Cards sees her alone much more than I do, but, of course, she likes his company better than mine just now. I’m such a gloomy beggar—”
“Nonsense,” said Bobby roughly. “You believe anything that any one tells you. They tell you that you’re gloomy and depressing and so you think you are. They didn’t find you gloomy at Brockett’s did they? And Alice and I have never found you depressing. Don’t listen to that woman. Clare’s always been under her influence and it’s for you to take her out of it — not to lie down quietly and say she’s too much for you — but there’s another thing,” he added slowly and awkwardly, after a moment’s pause.
“What’s that?” asked Peter.
“Well — Cards,” said Bobby at last. “Oh! I know you’ll say I hate him. But I don’t. I don’t hate him. I’ve always known him for what he was — in those days at Dawson’s when if you flattered him he was kind, and if you didn’t he was contemptuous. At Cambridge it was the same. There was only one fellow there I ever saw him knock under to — a man called Dune — and he was out and away exceptional anyhow, at games and work and everything. Now he made Cards into a decent fellow for the time being, and if he’d had the running of him he might have turned all that brilliance into something worth having.
“But he vanished and Cards has never owned his master since. Everything was there, ready in him, to be turned one way or the other, and after he left Cambridge there was his silly mother and a sillier London waiting to finish him — now he’s nothing but Vanity and Fascination — and soon there’ll be nothing but Vanity.”
“You’re unjust to him, Bobby, you always have been.
“Well, perhaps I am. He’s always treated me with such undisguised contempt that it’s only human that I should be a little prejudiced. But that’s neither here nor there — what is the point, Peter, is that he’s too much up at your place. Too much for his own good, too much for yours, and — too much for — Clare’s.”
“Bobby!”
“Oh yes — I know I’m saying a serious thing — but you asked me for my advice and I give it. I don’t say that Cards means any harm but people will talk and it wouldn’t do you any damage in Clare’s eyes either, Peter, if you were to stand up to him a little.”
Peter smiled. “Dear old Bobby! If any one else in the world had said such a thing of course I should have been most awfully angry, but I’ve always known how unfair you were about Cards. You never liked him, even in the Dawson days. You just don’t suit one another. But I tell you, Bobby, that I’d trust Cards more than I’d trust any one in the world. Of course Clare likes to be with him and of course he likes to be with her. They suit one another exactly. Why, he’s splendid! The other day when I’d been a perfect beast — losing my temper like a boy of ten — you should have heard the way he took it. One day, Bobby, you’ll see how splendid he is.”
Bobby said no more.
Peter went on again: “No, it’s my mother-in-law’s done the damage. You’re right, the thing to do is to get Clare alone and have it right out with her. We’ll clear the mists away.”
Bobby said: “You know Peter, both Alice and I would do anything in the world to make you happy — anything.”
Peter gripped his hand.
“I know you would. If I could forget young Stephen,” he caught his breath— “Bobby, I see him everywhere, all the time. I lie awake hours at night thinking about him. I see him in my sleep, see him sometimes grown-up — splendid, famous.... Sometimes I think he comes back. I can see him, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling, and I say to myself, ‘Now if you don’t move he’ll stay there’ ... and then I move and he’s gone. And I haven’t any one to talk about him to. I never know whether Clare thinks of him or not. He was so splendid, Bobby, so strong. And he loved me in the most extraordinary way. We’d have been tremendous pals if he’d lived.
“I could have stood anything if I’d been able to see him growing up, had him to care about.... I’m so lonely, Bobby — and if I don’t make Clare come back to me, now that the book’s failed, I — I — I’ll go back to Scaw House and just drink myself to the devil there with my old father; he’ll be glad enough.”
“You once told me,” Bobby said, “about an old man in your place when you were a kid, who said once, ‘It isn’t life that matters but the courage you bring to it—’ Well, that’s what you’re proving now, Peter.”
“Yes, but why me? I’ve had a bad time all my life — always been knocked about and cursed and kicked. Why should it go on all the time — all the time?”
“Because They think you’re worth it, I suppose,” said Bobby.
III
And the result of that conversation was that, on that very night Peter made his appeal. They had had a silent evening (Mrs. Rossiter was staying in the house at this time), and at last they all had gone up to bed. Peter stayed for a moment in his dressing-room, seeing his white face in the looking-glass, hearing the beating of his heart and then with a hand that strangely trembled, knocked on Clare’s door.
Her voice sounded frightened, he thought, as she called to him to come in. Indeed, as he entered she folded a letter that she had been reading, and put it in a drawer in the dressing-table at which she was sitting.
It was only seldom now that he disturbed her in that room. She had turned on the electric light over her dressing-table; the rest of the room was in darkness. She seemed to Peter very fragile and tiny as she sat there in her black evening frock, her breast rising and falling as though something had suddenly frightened her, her eyes wide and startled. He felt a gross, coarse brute as he stumbled, coming across the dark floor to her.
“My God,” he cried in his heart, “put everything right now — let this make everything right.”
His big square body flung huge fantastic shadows upon the wall, but he looked, as he faced her, like a boy who had come to his master to confess some crime.
Apparently she was reassured now, for she took off her necklace and moved about the things on her table as though to show him that she was on the point of undressing.
“Well, Peter, what is it?” she said.
“I’ve come — Clare — just a moment — I want a talk.”
“But it’s late, I’m tired — won’t some other time do?”
“No, I want it now.”
“What is it?”
She was looking into the glass as she spoke to him.
He pulled a little chair over to her and sat forward so that his knees nearly touched her thin black dress. He put out his big hand and caught one of her little ones; he thought for a moment that she was going to resist — then it lay there cold as ice.
“Clare — darling — look here, everything’s been wrong with both of us — for ages. And I’ve come — I’ve come — because I know it’s been very largely my fault. And I’ve come to say that everything will be different now and I want you to let things — be — as they were before—”
For a moment he fancied that he saw a light leap into her eyes; he felt her hand tremble for a moment in his. Then the expression was gone.
“How do you mean?” she said, still looking into the glass. “What do you mean, Peter? I haven’t noticed anything different.”
“Oh yes, you have. You know that — ever since Stephen died and before that really — you’ve avoided me. You’d rather be without me than with me. You’ve all thought me selfish and glum and so I suppose I was. But I missed — the kid — a lot.” Again Peter felt her hand tremble. He pressed it. Then he went on, leaning more toward her now and putting an arm out to touch her dress.
“Clare — it’s been like a fog all these weeks — we’ve never had it out, we’ve never talked about it, but you’ve been disappointed in me. You thought I was going to write great books and I haven’t — and then your mother — and I — don’t get on. And then I suppose I’m stupid in society — I can’t talk a lot to any one who comes along as all you people can. I’ve been brought up differently and — and — I know you don’t like to think about that either, and so I’ll never bring my old friends into the house and I’ll see that I’m not such a gawk at your parties—”
He paused for a moment; she was looking down now and he couldn’t see her eyes. He bent forward more closely — his arm caught her waist — his hand crushed hers —
She tried desperately to pull herself together to say something —
“No — there’s nothing. Well, if there is — Of course I suppose it happens to all married people—”
“What happens?”
“Why, they find one another out a little. Things aren’t quite as they thought they’d be. That must happen always.”
“But tell me — tell me the things in me that have disappointed you and then I can alter—”
“Well — it’s a little as you say. You have been rather rude to Mother. And then — your quarrel—”
“What! You mean with Cards!”
“With — Jerry — yes. And then,” her voice was high and sharp now — her eyes avoided his— “I’ve always — been happy, until I married. Things frighten me. You don’t understand me, Peter, how easily I’m frightened — you never seemed to see that. Other people — know.”
“I’ve been selfish — I—”
“Yes,” she went on still in that high voice, “and you never consider me in little things. And you laugh at me as though I were stupid. I don’t suppose it’s all your fault. You were brought up — roughly. But you are rough. You hurt me often. I can’t bear,” her lip was trembling and she was nearly crying— “I can’t bear being unhappy—”
“My God!” cried Peter, “what a beast I am! What a brute I’ve been!”
“Yes — and you never seemed to think that I minded poor little Stephen’s death — the dear little thing — of course it hurt me dreadfully — and you never thought of me—”
“It’s all going to be different now. Love me, Clare — love me and it will all come back. And then if you’ll only love me I’ll be able to write the most wonderful books. I’ll be famous all the world over — if you’ll only love me, Clare darling—”
He dropt on to his knees before her and looking up at her whispered— “Clare — darling, darling — you’re all that I’ve got now — everything in the world. And in return I’ll try to be everything to you. I’ll spend my life in making you happy. I’ll care for only one thing and that is to be your servant. Clare — Clare—”
She gave a little protesting cry— “Peter, Peter — don’t — I — I — can’t—” and then in a shuddering whisper— “Peter — I’m not good enough — I don’t love you now — I — can’t—”
But he had caught her, was holding her to him now, with both his arms round her, pressing her against his shirt, hurting her — at last covering her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks with kisses.
He had not heard those words now, in the triumph of having her back again, his as she had been on the first day of their marriage, did not feel her body unresponsive, her hands cold, nor did he see the appeal, wild and desperate, in her eyes....
At last he left her, closing, softly her door between them.