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diff --git a/old/dvnvl10.txt b/old/dvnvl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a78bd9c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dvnvl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3364 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext Derrick Vaughan--Novelist, by Edna Lyall + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset + + + + + +Derrick Vaughan--Novelist + + + + +'It is only through deep sympathy that a man can become a great +artist.'--Lewes's Life of Goethe. + + +'Sympathy is feeling related to an object, whilst sentiment is the +same feeling seeking itself alone.'--Arnold Toynbee. + + + +Chapter I. + + +'Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; better if +un- or partially occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased +members of the county and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were +buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at seven +years old!'--From Letters of Charles Lamb. + + +To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the +question, even though he and I have been more or less thrown +together since we were both in the nursery. But I have an odd sort +of wish to note down roughly just a few of my recollections of him, +and to show how his fortunes gradually developed, being perhaps +stimulated to make the attempt by certain irritating remarks which +one overhears now often enough at clubs or in drawing-rooms, or +indeed wherever one goes. "Derrick Vaughan," say these authorities +of the world of small-talk, with that delightful air of omniscience +which invariably characterises them, "why, he simply leapt into +fame. He is one of the favourites of fortune. Like Byron, he woke +one morning and found himself famous." + +Now this sounds well enough, but it is a long way from the truth, +and I--Sydney Wharncliffe, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law-- +desire, while the past few years are fresh in my mind, to write a +true version of my friend's career. + +Everyone knows his face. Has it not appeared in 'Noted Men,' and-- +gradually deteriorating according to the price of the paper and the +quality of the engraving--in many another illustrated journal? Yet +somehow these works of art don't satisfy me, and, as I write, I see +before me something very different from the latest photograph by +Messrs. Paul and Reynard. + +I see a large-featured, broad-browed English face, a trifle heavy- +looking when in repose, yet a thorough, honest, manly face, with a +complexion neither dark nor fair, with brown hair and moustache, and +with light hazel eyes that look out on the world quietly enough. +You might talk to him for long in an ordinary way and never suspect +that he was a genius; but when you have him to yourself, when some +consciousness of sympathy rouses him, he all at once becomes a +different being. His quiet eyes kindle, his face becomes full of +life--you wonder that you ever thought it heavy or commonplace. +Then the world interrupts in some way, and, just as a hermit-crab +draws down its shell with a comically rapid movement, so Derrick +suddenly retires into himself. + +Thus much for his outer man. + +For the rest, there are of course the neat little accounts of his +birthplace, his parentage, his education, etc., etc., published with +the list of his works in due order, with the engravings in the +illustrated papers. But these tell us little of the real life of +the man. + +Carlyle, in one of his finest passages, says that 'A true +delineation of the smallest man and his scene of pilgrimage through +life is capable of interesting the greatest men; that all men are to +an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem of +every man's; and that human portraits faithfully drawn are of all +pictures the welcomest on human walls.' And though I don't profess +to give a portrait, but merely a sketch, I will endeavour to sketch +faithfully, and possibly in the future my work may fall into the +hands of some of those worthy people who imagine that my friend +leapt into fame at a bound, or of those comfortable mortals who seem +to think that a novel is turned out as easily as water from a tap. + +There is, however, one thing I can never do:--I am quite unable to +put into words my friend's intensely strong feeling with regard to +the sacredness of his profession. It seemed to me not unlike the +feeling of Isaiah when, in the vision, his mouth had been touched +with the celestial fire. And I can only hope that something of this +may be read between my very inadequate lines. + +Looking back, I fancy Derrick must have been a clever child. But he +was not precocious, and in some respects was even decidedly +backward. I can see him now--it is my first clear recollection of +him--leaning back in the corner of my father's carriage as we drove +from the Newmarket station to our summer home at Mondisfield. He +and I were small boys of eight, and Derrick had been invited for the +holidays, while his twin brother--if I remember right--indulged in +typhoid fever at Kensington. He was shy and silent, and the ice was +not broken until we passed Silvery Steeple. + +"That," said my father, "is a ruined church; it was destroyed by +Cromwell in the Civil Wars." + +In an instant the small quiet boy sitting beside me was transformed. +His eyes shone; he sprang forward and thrust his head far out of the +window, gazing at the old ivy-covered tower as long as it remained +in sight. + +"Was Cromwell really once there?" he asked with breathless interest. + +"So they say," replied my father, looking with an amused smile at +the face of the questioner, in which eagerness, delight, and +reverence were mingled. "Are you an admirer of the Lord Protector?" + +"He is my greatest hero of all," said Derrick fervently. "Do you +think--oh, do you think he possibly can ever have come to +Mondisfield?" + +My father thought not, but said there was an old tradition that the +Hall had been attacked by the Royalists, and the bridge over the +moat defended by the owner of the house; but he had no great belief +in the story, for which, indeed, there seemed no evidence. + +Derrick's eyes during this conversation were something wonderful to +see, and long after, when we were not actually playing at anything, +I used often to notice the same expression stealing over him, and +would cry out, "There is the man defending the bridge again; I can +see him in your eyes! Tell me what happened to him next!" + +Then, generally pacing to and fro in the apple walk, or sitting +astride the bridge itself, Derrick would tell me of the adventures +of my ancestor, Paul Wharncliffe, who performed incredible feats of +valour, and who was to both of us a most real person. On wet days +he wrote his story in a copy-book, and would have worked at it for +hours had my mother allowed him, though of the manual part of the +work he had, and has always retained, the greatest dislike. I +remember well the comical ending of this first story of his. He +skipped over an interval of ten years, represented on the page by +ten laboriously made stars, and did for his hero in the following +lines: + +"And now, reader, let us come into Mondisfield churchyard. There +are three tombstones. On one is written, 'Mr. Paul Wharncliffe.'" + +The story was no better than the productions of most eight-year-old +children, the written story at least. But, curiously enough, it +proved to be the germ of the celebrated romance, 'At Strife,' which +Derrick wrote in after years; and he himself maintains that his +picture of life during the Civil War would have been much less +graphic had he not lived so much in the past during his various +visits to Mondisfield. + +It was at his second visit, when we were nine, that I remember his +announcing his intention of being an author when he was grown up. +My mother still delights in telling the story. She was sitting at +work in the south parlour one day, when I dashed into the room +calling out: + +"Derrick's head is stuck between the banisters in the gallery; come +quick, mother, come quick!" + +She ran up the little winding staircase, and there, sure enough, in +the musician's gallery, was poor Derrick, his manuscript and pen on +the floor and his head in durance vile. + +"You silly boy!" said my mother, a little frightened when she found +that to get the head back was no easy matter, "What made you put it +through?" + +"You look like King Charles at Carisbrooke," I cried, forgetting how +much Derrick would resent the speech. + +And being released at that moment he took me by the shoulders and +gave me an angry shake or two, as he said vehemently, "I'm not like +King Charles! King Charles was a liar." + +I saw my mother smile a little as she separated us. + +"Come, boys, don't quarrel," she said. "And Derrick will tell me +the truth, for indeed I am curious to know why he thrust his head in +such a place." + +"I wanted to make sure," said Derrick, "whether Paul Wharncliffe +could see Lady Lettice, when she took the falcon on her wrist below +in the passage. I mustn't say he saw her if it's impossible, you +know. Authors have to be quite true in little things, and I mean to +be an author." + +"But," said my mother, laughing at the great earnestness of the +hazel eyes, "could not your hero look over the top of the rail?" + +"Well, yes," said Derrick. "He would have done that, but you see +it's so dreadfully high and I couldn't get up. But I tell you what, +Mrs. Wharncliffe, if it wouldn't be giving you a great deal of +trouble--I'm sorry you were troubled to get my head back again--but +if you would just look over, since you are so tall, and I'll run +down and act Lady Lettice." + +"Why couldn't Paul go downstairs and look at the lady in comfort?" +asked my mother. + +Derrick mused a little. + +"He might look at her through a crack in the door at the foot of the +stairs, perhaps, but that would seem mean, somehow. It would be a +pity, too, not to use the gallery; galleries are uncommon, you see, +and you can get cracked doors anywhere. And, you know, he was +obliged to look at her when she couldn't see him, because their +fathers were on different sides in the war, and dreadful enemies." + +When school-days came, matters went on much in the same way; there +was always an abominably scribbled tale stowed away in Derrick's +desk, and he worked infinitely harder than I did, because there was +always before him this determination to be an author and to prepare +himself for the life. But he wrote merely from love of it, and with +no idea of publication until the beginning of our last year at +Oxford, when, having reached the ripe age of one-and-twenty, he +determined to delay no longer, but to plunge boldly into his first +novel. + +He was seldom able to get more than six or eight hours a week for +it, because he was reading rather hard, so that the novel progressed +but slowly. Finally, to my astonishment, it came to a dead stand- +still. + +I have never made out exactly what was wrong with Derrick then, +though I know that he passed through a terrible time of doubt and +despair. I spent part of the Long with him down at Ventnor, where +his mother had been ordered for her health. She was devoted to +Derrick, and as far as I can understand, he was her chief comfort in +life. Major Vaughan, the husband, had been out in India for years; +the only daughter was married to a rich manufacturer at Birmingham, +who had a constitutional dislike to mothers-in-law, and as far as +possible eschewed their company; while Lawrence, Derrick's twin +brother, was for ever getting into scrapes, and was into the bargain +the most unblushingly selfish fellow I ever had the pleasure of +meeting. + +"Sydney," said Mrs. Vaughan to me one afternoon when we were in the +garden, "Derrick seems to me unlike himself, there is a division +between us which I never felt before. Can you tell me what is +troubling him?" + +She was not at all a good-looking woman, but she had a very sweet, +wistful face, and I never looked at her sad eyes without feeling +ready to go through fire and water for her. I tried now to make +light of Derrick's depression. + +"He is only going through what we all of us go through," I said, +assuming a cheerful tone. "He has suddenly discovered that life is +a great riddle, and that the things he has accepted in blind faith +are, after all, not so sure." + +She sighed. + +"Do all go through it?" she said thoughtfully. "And how many, I +wonder, get beyond?" + +"Few enough," I replied moodily. Then, remembering my role,--"But +Derrick will get through; he has a thousand things to help him which +others have not,--you, for instance. And then I fancy he has a sort +of insight which most of us are without." + +"Possibly," she said. "As for me, it is little that I can do for +him. Perhaps you are right, and it is true that once in a life at +any rate we all have to go into the wilderness alone." + +That was the last summer I ever saw Derrick's mother; she took a +chill the following Christmas and died after a few days' illness. +But I have always thought her death helped Derrick in a way that her +life might have failed to do. For although he never, I fancy, quite +recovered from the blow, and to this day cannot speak of her without +tears in his eyes, yet when he came back to Oxford he seemed to have +found the answer to the riddle, and though older, sadder and graver +than before, had quite lost the restless dissatisfaction that for +some time had clouded his life. In a few months, moreover, I +noticed a fresh sign that he was out of the wood. Coming into his +rooms one day I found him sitting in the cushioned window-seat, +reading over and correcting some sheets of blue foolscap. + +"At it again?" I asked. + +He nodded. + +"I mean to finish the first volume here. For the rest I must be in +London." + +"Why?" I asked, a little curious as to this unknown art of novel- +making. + +"Because," he replied, "one must be in the heart of things to +understand how Lynwood was affected by them." + +"Lynwood! I believe you are always thinking of him!" (Lynwood was +the hero of his novel.) + +"Well, so I am nearly--so I must be, if the book is to be any good." + +"Read me what you have written," I said, throwing myself back in a +rickety but tolerably comfortable arm-chair which Derrick had +inherited with the rooms. + +He hesitated a moment, being always very diffident about his own +work; but presently, having provided me with a cigar and made a good +deal of unnecessary work in arranging the sheets of the manuscript, +he began to read aloud, rather nervously, the opening chapters of +the book now so well known under the title of 'Lynwood's Heritage.' + +I had heard nothing of his for the last four years, and was amazed +at the gigantic stride he had made in the interval. For, spite of a +certain crudeness, it seemed to me a most powerful story; it rushed +straight to the point with no wavering, no beating about the bush; +it flung itself into the problems of the day with a sort of sublime +audacity; it took hold of one; it whirled one along with its own +inherent force, and drew forth both laughter and tears, for +Derrick's power of pathos had always been his strongest point. + +All at once he stopped reading. + +"Go on!" I cried impatiently. + +"That is all," he said, gathering the sheets together. + +"You stopped in the middle of a sentence!" I cried in exasperation. + +"Yes," he said quietly, "for six months." + +"You provoking fellow! why, I wonder?" + +"Because I didn't know the end." + +"Good heavens! And do you know it now?" + +He looked me full in the face, and there was an expression in his +eyes which puzzled me. + +"I believe I do," he said; and, getting up, he crossed the room, put +the manuscript away in a drawer, and returning, sat down in the +window-seat again, looking out on the narrow, paved street below, +and at the grey buildings opposite. + +I knew very well that he would never ask me what I thought of the +story--that was not his way. + +"Derrick!" I exclaimed, watching his impassive face, "I believe +after all you are a genius." + +I hardly know why I said "after all," but till that moment it had +never struck me that Derrick was particularly gifted. He had so far +got through his Oxford career creditably, but then he had worked +hard; his talents were not of a showy order. I had never expected +that he would set the Thames on fire. Even now it seemed to me that +he was too dreamy, too quiet, too devoid of the pushing faculty to +succeed in the world. + +My remark made him laugh incredulously. + +"Define a genius," he said. + +For answer I pulled down his beloved Imperial Dictionary and read +him the following quotation from De Quincey: 'Genius is that mode +of intellectual power which moves in alliance with the genial +nature, i.e., with the capacities of pleasure and pain; whereas +talent has no vestige of such an alliance, and is perfectly +independent of all human sensibilities.' + +"Let me think! You can certainly enjoy things a hundred times more +than I can--and as for suffering, why you were always a great hand +at that. Now listen to the great Dr. Johnson and see if the cap +fits, 'The true genius is a mind of large general powers +accidentally determined in some particular direction.' + + +"'Large general powers'!--yes, I believe after all you have them +with, alas, poor Derrick! one notable exception--the mathematical +faculty. You were always bad at figures. We will stick to De +Quincey's definition, and for heaven's sake, my dear fellow, do get +Lynwood out of that awful plight! No wonder you were depressed when +you lived all this age with such a sentence unfinished!" + +"For the matter of that," said Derrick, "he can't get out till the +end of the book; but I can begin to go on with him now." + +"And when you leave Oxford?" + +"Then I mean to settle down in London--to write leisurely--and +possibly to read for the Bar." + +"We might be together," I suggested. And Derrick took to this idea, +being a man who detested solitude and crowds about equally. Since +his mother's death he had been very much alone in the world. To +Lawrence he was always loyal, but the two had nothing in common, and +though fond of his sister he could not get on at all with the +manufacturer, his brother-in-law. But this prospect of life +together in London pleased him amazingly; he began to recover his +spirits to a great extent and to look much more like himself. + +It must have been just as he had taken his degree that he received a +telegram to announce that Major Vaughan had been invalided home, and +would arrive at Southampton in three weeks' time. Derrick knew very +little of his father, but apparently Mrs. Vaughan had done her best +to keep up a sort of memory of his childish days at Aldershot, and +in these the part that his father played was always pleasant. So he +looked forward to the meeting not a little, while I, from the first, +had my doubts as to the felicity it was likely to bring him. + +However, it was ordained that before the Major's ship arrived, his +son's whole life should change. Even Lynwood was thrust into the +background. As for me, I was nowhere. For Derrick, the quiet, the +self-contained, had fallen passionately in love with a certain Freda +Merrifield. + + + +Chapter II. + + 'Infancy? What if the rose-streak of morning + Pale and depart in a passion of tears? + Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning: + Love once: e'en love's disappointment endears; + A moment's success pays the failure of years.' + R. Browning. + +The wonder would have been if he had not fallen in love with her, +for a more fascinating girl I never saw. She had only just returned +from school at Compiegne, and was not yet out; her charming +freshness was unsullied; she had all the simplicity and +straightforwardness of unspoilt, unsophisticated girlhood. I well +remember our first sight of her. We had been invited for a +fortnight's yachting by Calverley of Exeter. His father, Sir John +Calverley, had a sailing yacht, and some guests having disappointed +him at the last minute, he gave his son carte blanche as to who he +should bring to fill the vacant berths. + +So we three travelled down to Southampton together one hot summer +day, and were rowed out to the Aurora, an uncommonly neat little +schooner which lay in that over-rated and frequently odoriferous +roadstead, Southampton Water. However, I admit that on that +evening--the tide being high--the place looked remarkably pretty; +the level rays of the setting sun turned the water to gold; a soft +luminous haze hung over the town and the shipping, and by a stretch +of imagination one might have thought the view almost Venetian. +Derrick's perfect content was only marred by his shyness. I knew +that he dreaded reaching the Aurora; and sure enough, as we stepped +on to the exquisitely white deck and caught sight of the little +group of guests, I saw him retreat into his crab-shell of silent +reserve. Sir John, who made a very pleasant host, introduced us to +the other visitors--Lord Probyn and his wife and their niece, Miss +Freda Merrifield. Lady Probyn was Sir John's sister, and also the +sister of Miss Merrifield's mother; so that it was almost a family +party, and by no means a formidable gathering. Lady Probyn played +the part of hostess and chaperoned her pretty niece; but she was not +in the least like the aunt of fiction--on the contrary, she was +comparatively young in years and almost comically young in mind; her +niece was devoted to her, and the moment I saw her I knew that our +cruise could not possibly be dull. + +As to Miss Freda, when we first caught sight of her she was standing +near the companion, dressed in a daintily made yachting costume of +blue serge and white braid, and round her white sailor hat she wore +the name of the yacht stamped on a white ribbon; in her waist-band +she had fastened two deep crimson roses, and she looked at us with +frank, girlish curiosity, no doubt wondering whether we should add +to or detract from the enjoyment of the expedition. She was rather +tall, and there was an air of strength and energy about her which +was most refreshing. Her skin was singularly white, but there was a +healthy glow of colour in her cheeks; while her large, grey eyes, +shaded by long lashes, were full of life and brightness. As to her +features, they were perhaps a trifle irregular, and her elder +sisters were supposed to eclipse her altogether; but to my mind she +was far the most taking of the three. + +I was not in the least surprised that Derrick should fall head over +ears in love with her; she was exactly the sort of girl that would +infallibly attract him. Her absence of shyness; her +straightforward, easy way of talking; her genuine goodheartedness; +her devotion to animals--one of his own pet hobbies--and finally her +exquisite playing, made the result a foregone conclusion. And then, +moreover, they were perpetually together. He would hang over the +piano in the saloon for hours while she played, the rest of us +lazily enjoying the easy chairs and the fresh air on deck; and +whenever we landed, these two were sure in the end to be just a +little apart from the rest of us. + +It was an eminently successful cruise. We all liked each other; the +sea was calm, the sunshine constant, the wind as a rule favourable, +and I think I never in a single fortnight heard so many good +stories, or had such a good time. We seemed to get right out of the +world and its narrow restrictions, away from all that was hollow and +base and depressing, only landing now and then at quaint little +quiet places for some merry excursion on shore. Freda was in the +highest spirits; and as to Derrick, he was a different creature. +She seemed to have the power of drawing him out in a marvellous +degree, and she took the greatest interest in his work--a sure way +to every author's heart. + +But it was not till one day, when we landed at Tresco, that I felt +certain she genuinely loved him--there in one glance the truth +flashed upon me. I was walking with one of the gardeners down one +of the long shady paths of that lovely little island, with its +curiously foreign look, when we suddenly came face to face with +Derrick and Freda. They were talking earnestly, and I could see her +great grey eyes as they were lifted to his--perhaps they were more +expressive than she knew--I cannot say. They both started a little +as we confronted them, and the colour deepened in Freda's face. The +gardener, with what photographers usually ask for--'just the faint +beginning of a smile,'--turned and gathered a bit of white heather +growing near. + +"They say it brings good luck, miss," he remarked, handing it to +Freda. + +"Thank you," she said, laughing, "I hope it will bring it to me. At +any rate it will remind me of this beautiful island. Isn't it just +like Paradise, Mr. Wharncliffe?" + +"For me it is like Paradise before Eve was created," I replied, +rather wickedly. "By the bye, are you going to keep all the good +luck to yourself?" + +"I don't know," she said laughing. "Perhaps I shall; but you have +only to ask the gardener, he will gather you another piece +directly." + +I took good care to drop behind, having no taste for the third- +fiddle business; but I noticed when we were in the gig once more, +rowing back to the yacht, that the white heather had been equally +divided--one half was in the waist-band of the blue serge dress, the +other half in the button-hole of Derrick's blazer. + +So the fortnight slipped by, and at length one afternoon we found +ourselves once more in Southampton Water; then came the bustle of +packing and the hurry of departure, and the merry party dispersed. +Derrick and I saw them all off at the station, for, as his father's +ship did not arrive till the following day, I made up my mind to +stay on with him at Southampton. + +"You will come and see us in town," said Lady Probyn, kindly. And +Lord Probyn invited us both for the shooting at Blachington in +September. "We will have the same party on shore, and see if we +can't enjoy ourselves almost as well," he said in his hearty way; +"the novel will go all the better for it, eh, Vaughan?" + +Derrick brightened visibly at the suggestion. I heard him talking +to Freda all the time that Sir John stood laughing and joking as to +the comparative pleasures of yachting and shooting. + +"You will be there too?" Derrick asked. + +"I can't tell," said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her +tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices--a rich +contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could +hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly--he always +had a bad trick of mumbling. + +"You see I am the youngest," she said, "and I am not really 'out.' +Perhaps my mother will wish one of the elder ones to go; but I half +think they are already engaged for September, so after all I may +have a chance." + +Inaudible remark from my friend. + +"Yes, I came here because my sisters did not care to leave London +till the end of the season," replied the clear contralto. "It has +been a perfect cruise. I shall remember it all my life." + +After that, nothing more was audible; but I imagine Derrick must +have hazarded a more personal question, and that Freda had admitted +that it was not only the actual sailing she should remember. At any +rate her face when I caught sight of it again made me think of the +girl described in the 'Biglow Papers': + + "''Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look + On sech a blessed creatur. + A dogrose blushin' to a brook + Ain't modester nor sweeter.'" + +So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about +Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk +the streets in a sort of dream--he was perfectly well aware that he +had met his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the +way had arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us +young and inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the +usual lover's notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared +to favour the course of his particular passion. + +I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by +the ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the +shade of the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great +masses of ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the +place looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge +the dissolute monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that +their church and monastery had to be opened to the four winds of +heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful as when it has the +green grass for its floor and the sky for its roof? + +I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick +told me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda's +perfections and the probability of frequent meetings in London. He +had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed +an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then +my thoughts wandered off to the coming month at Mondisfield, and +pictured violet eyes while he talked of grey, it was not from any +lack of sympathy with my friend. + +Derrick was not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I knew he +was amazed at the thought that such a girl as Freda could possibly +care for him, yet he believed most implicitly that this wonderful +thing had come to pass; and, remembering her face as we had last +seen it, and the look in her eyes at Tresco, I, too, had not a +shadow of a doubt that she really loved him. She was not the least +bit of a flirt, and society had not had a chance yet of moulding her +into the ordinary girl of the nineteenth century. + +Perhaps it was the sudden and unexpected change of the next day that +makes me remember Derrick's face so distinctly as he lay back on the +smooth turf that afternoon in Netley Abbey. As it looked then, full +of youth and hope, full of that dream of cloudless love, I never saw +it again. + + + +Chapter III. + +"Religion in him never died, but became a habit--a habit of enduring +hardness, and cleaving to the steadfast performance of duty in the +face of the strongest allurements to the pleasanter and easier +course." + Life of Charles Lamb, by A. Ainger. + +Derrick was in good spirits the next day. He talked much of Major +Vaughan, wondered whether the voyage home had restored his health, +discussed the probable length of his leave, and speculated as to the +nature of his illness; the telegram had of course given no details. + +"There has not been even a photograph for the last five years," he +remarked, as we walked down to the quay together. "Yet I think I +should know him anywhere, if it is only by his height. He used to +look so well on horseback. I remember as a child seeing him in a +sham fight charging up Caesar's Camp." + +"How old were you when he went out?" + +"Oh, quite a small boy," replied Derrick. "It was just before I +first stayed with you. However, he has had a regular succession of +photographs sent out to him, and will know me easily enough." + +Poor Derrick! I can't think of that day even now without a kind of +mental shiver. We watched the great steamer as it glided up to the +quay, and Derrick scanned the crowded deck with eager eyes, but +could nowhere see the tall, soldierly figure that had lingered so +long in his memory. He stood with his hand resting on the rail of +the gangway, and when presently it was raised to the side of the +steamer, he still kept his position, so that he could instantly +catch sight of his father as he passed down. I stood close behind +him, and watched the motley procession of passengers; most of them +had the dull colourless skin which bespeaks long residence in India, +and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old man was grumbling +loudly as he slowly made his way down the gangway. + +"The most disgraceful scene!" he remarked. "The fellow was as drunk +as he could be." + +"Who was it?" asked his companion. + +"Why, Major Vaughan, to be sure. The only wonder is that he hasn't +drunk himself to death by this time--been at it years enough!" + +Derrick turned, as though to shelter himself from the curious eyes +of the travellers; but everywhere the quay was crowded. It seemed +to me not unlike the life that lay before him, with this new shame +which could not be hid, and I shall never forget the look of misery +in his face. + +"Most likely a great exaggeration of that spiteful old fogey's," I +said. "Never believe anything that you hear, is a sound axiom. Had +you not better try to get on board?" + +"Yes; and for heaven's sake come with me, Wharncliffe!" he said. +"It can't be true! It is, as you say, that man's spite, or else +there is someone else of the name on board. That must be it-- +someone else of the name." + +I don't know whether he managed to deceive himself. We made our way +on board, and he spoke to one of the stewards, who conducted us to +the saloon. I knew from the expression of the man's face that the +words we had overheard were but too true; it was a mere glance that +he gave us, yet if he had said aloud, "They belong to that old +drunkard! Thank heaven I'm not in their shoes!" I could not have +better understood what was in his mind. + +There were three persons only in the great saloon: an officer's +servant, whose appearance did not please me; a fine looking old man +with grey hair and whiskers, and a rough-hewn honest face, +apparently the ship's doctor; and a tall grizzled man in whom I at +once saw a sort of horrible likeness to Derrick--horrible because +this face was wicked and degraded, and because its owner was drunk-- +noisily drunk. Derrick paused for a minute, looking at his father; +then, deadly pale, he turned to the old doctor. "I am Major +Vaughan's son," he said. + +The doctor grasped his hand, and there was something in the old +man's kindly, chivalrous manner which brought a sort of light into +the gloom. + +"I am very glad to see you!" he exclaimed. "Is the Major's luggage +ready?" he inquired turning to the servant. Then, as the man +replied in the affirmative, "How would it be, Mr. Vaughan, if your +father's man just saw the things into a cab? and then I'll come on +shore with you and see my patient safely settled in." + +Derrick acquiesced, and the doctor turned to the Major, who was +leaning up against one of the pillars of the saloon and shouting out +"'Twas in Trafalgar Bay," in a way which, under other circumstances, +would have been highly comic. The doctor interrupted him, as with +much feeling he sang how: + + "England declared that every man + That day had done his duty." + +"Look, Major," he said; "here is your son come to meet you." + +"Glad to see you, my boy," said the Major, reeling forward and +running all his words together. "How's your mother? Is this +Lawrence? Glad to see both of you! Why, you'r's like's two peas! +Not Lawrence, do you say? Confound it, doctor, how the ship rolls +to-day!" + +And the old wretch staggered and would have fallen, had not Derrick +supported him and landed him safely on one of the fixed ottomans. + +"Yes, yes, you're the son for me," he went on, with a bland smile, +which made his face all the more hideous. "You're not so rough and +clumsy as that confounded John Thomas, whose hands are like +brickbats. I'm a mere wreck, as you see; it's the accursed climate! +But your mother will soon nurse me into health again; she was always +a good nurse, poor soul! it was her best point. What with you and +your mother, I shall soon be myself again." + +Here the doctor interposed, and Derrick made desperately for a +porthole and gulped down mouthfuls of fresh air: but he was not +allowed much of a respite, for the servant returned to say that he +had procured a cab, and the Major called loudly for his son's arm. + +"I'll not have you," he said, pushing the servant violently away. +"Come, Derrick, help me! you are worth two of that blockhead." + +And Derrick came quickly forward, his face still very pale, but with +a dignity about it which I had never before seen; and, giving his +arm to his drunken father, he piloted him across the saloon, through +the staring ranks of stewards, officials, and tardy passengers +outside, down the gangway, and over the crowded quay to the cab. I +knew that each derisive glance of the spectators was to him like a +sword-thrust, and longed to throttle the Major, who seemed to enjoy +himself amazingly on terra firma, and sang at the top of his voice +as we drove through the streets of Southampton. The old doctor kept +up a cheery flow of small-talk with me, thinking, no doubt, that +this would be a kindness to Derrick: and at last that purgatorial +drive ended, and somehow Derrick and the doctor between them got the +Major safely into his room at Radley's Hotel. + +We had ordered lunch in a private sitting-room, thinking that the +Major would prefer it to the coffee-room; but, as it turned out, he +was in no state to appear. They left him asleep, and the ship's +doctor sat in the seat that had been prepared for his patient, and +made the meal as tolerable to us both as it could be. He was an +odd, old-fashioned fellow, but as true a gentleman as ever breathed. + +"Now," he said, when lunch was over, "you and I must have a talk +together, Mr. Vaughan, and I will help you to understand your +father's case." + +I made a movement to go, but sat down again at Derrick's request. I +think, poor old fellow, he dreaded being alone, and knowing that I +had seen his father at the worst, thought I might as well hear all +particulars. + +"Major Vaughan," continued the doctor, "has now been under my care +for some weeks, and I had some communication with the regimental +surgeon about his case before he sailed. He is suffering from an +enlarged liver, and the disease has been brought on by his +unfortunate habit of over-indulgence in stimulants." I could almost +have smiled, so very gently and considerately did the good old man +veil in long words the shameful fact. "It is a habit sadly +prevalent among our fellow-countrymen in India; the climate +aggravates the mischief, and very many lives are in this way ruined. +Then your father was also unfortunate enough to contract rheumatism +when he was camping out in the jungle last year, and this is +increasing on him very much, so that his life is almost intolerable +to him, and he naturally flies for relief to his greatest enemy, +drink. At all costs, however, you must keep him from stimulants; +they will only intensify the disease and the sufferings, in fact +they are poison to a man in such a state. Don't think I am a bigot +in these matters; but I say that for a man in such a condition as +this, there is nothing for it but total abstinence, and at all costs +your father must be guarded from the possibility of procuring any +sort of intoxicating drink. Throughout the voyage I have done my +best to shield him, but it was a difficult matter. His servant, +too, is not trustworthy, and should be dismissed if possible." + +"Had he spoken at all of his plans?" asked Derrick, and his voice +sounded strangely unlike itself. + +"He asked me what place in England he had better settle down in," +said the doctor, "and I strongly recommended him to try Bath. This +seemed to please him, and if he is well enough he had better go +there to-morrow. He mentioned your mother this morning; no doubt +she will know how to manage him." + +"My mother died six months ago," said Derrick, pushing back his +chair and beginning to pace the room. The doctor made kindly +apologies. + +"Perhaps you have a sister, who could go to him?" + +"No," replied Derrick. "My only sister is married, and her husband +would never allow it." + +"Or a cousin or an aunt?" suggested the old man, naively unconscious +that the words sounded like a quotation. + +I saw the ghost of a smile flit over Derrick's harassed face as he +shook his head. + +"I suggested that he should go into some Home for--cases of the +kind," resumed the doctor, "or place himself under the charge of +some medical man; however, he won't hear of such a thing. But if he +is left to himself--well, it is all up with him. He will drink +himself to death in a few months." + +"He shall not be left alone," said Derrick; "I will live with him. +Do you think I should do? It seems to be Hobson's choice." + +I looked up in amazement--for here was Derrick calmly giving himself +up to a life that must crush every plan for the future he had made. +Did men make such a choice as that while they took two or three +turns in a room? Did they speak so composedly after a struggle that +must have been so bitter? Thinking it over now, I feel sure it was +his extraordinary gift of insight and his clear judgment which made +him behave in this way. He instantly perceived and promptly acted; +the worst of the suffering came long after. + +"Why, of course you are the very best person in the world for him," +said the doctor. "He has taken a fancy to you, and evidently you +have a certain influence with him. If any one can save him it will +be you." + +But the thought of allowing Derrick to be sacrificed to that old +brute of a Major was more than I could bear calmly. + +"A more mad scheme was never proposed," I cried. "Why, doctor, it +will be utter ruin to my friend's career; he will lose years that no +one can ever make up. And besides, he is unfit for such a strain, +he will never stand it." + +My heart felt hot as I thought of Derrick, with his highly-strung, +sensitive nature, his refinement, his gentleness, in constant +companionship with such a man as Major Vaughan. + +"My dear sir," said the old doctor, with a gleam in his eye, "I +understand your feeling well enough. But depend upon it, your +friend has made the right choice, and there is no doubt that he'll +be strong enough to do his duty." + +The word reminded me of the Major's song, and my voice was +abominably sarcastic in tone as I said to Derrick, "You no longer +consider writing your duty then?" + +"Yes," he said, "but it must stand second to this. Don't be vexed, +Sydney; our plans are knocked on the head, but it is not so bad as +you make out. I have at any rate enough to live on, and can afford +to wait." + +There was no more to be said, and the next day I saw that strange +trio set out on their road to Bath. The Major looking more wicked +when sober than he had done when drunk; the old doctor kindly and +considerate as ever; and Derrick, with an air of resolution about +that English face of his and a dauntless expression in his eyes +which impressed me curiously. + +These quiet, reserved fellows are always giving one odd surprises. +He had astonished me by the vigour and depth of the first volume of +'Lynwood's Heritage.' He astonished me now by a new phase in his +own character. Apparently he who had always been content to follow +where I led, and to watch life rather than to take an active share +in it, now intended to strike out a very decided line of his own. + + + +Chapter IV. + +"Both Goethe and Schiller were profoundly convinced that Art was no +luxury of leisure, no mere amusement to charm the idle, or relax the +careworn; but a mighty influence, serious in its aims although +pleasureable in its means; a sister of Religion, by whose aid the +great world-scheme was wrought into reality." + Lewes's Life of Goethe. + +Man is a selfish being, and I am a particularly fine specimen of the +race as far as that characteristic goes. If I had had a dozen +drunken parents I should never have danced attendance on one of +them; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick for the line he had +taken, for we mostly do admire what is unlike ourselves and really +noble, though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent to +everything in heaven and earth. But all the same I felt annoyed +about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own +affairs at Mondisfield. + +Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness, +and a hard awaking. That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's +story, and may be passed over. In October I settled down in +Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and began to read for the Bar, in about +as disagreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived. One morning I +found on my breakfast table a letter in Derrick's handwriting. Like +most men, we hardly ever corresponded--what women say in the eternal +letters they send to each other I can't conceive--but it struck me +that under the circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to ask +how he was getting on, and my conscience pricked me as I remembered +that I had hardly thought of him since we parted, being absorbed in +my own matters. The letter was not very long, but when one read +between the lines it somehow told a good deal. I have it lying by +me, and this is a copy of it: + +"Dear Sydney,--Do like a good fellow go to North Audley Street for +me, to the house which I described to you as the one where Lynwood +lodged, and tell me what he would see besides the church from his +window--if shops, what kind? Also if any glimpse of Oxford Street +would be visible. Then if you'll add to your favours by getting me +a second-hand copy of Laveleye's 'Socialisme Contemporain,' I should +be for ever grateful. We are settled in here all right. Bath is +empty, but I people it as far as I can with the folk out of +'Evelina' and 'Persuasion.' How did you get on at Blachington? and +which of the Misses Merrifield went in the end? Don't bother about +the commissions. Any time will do. + "Ever yours, + "Derrick Vaughan." + +Poor old fellow! all the spirit seemed knocked out of him. There +was not one word about the Major, and who could say what +wretchedness was veiled in that curt phrase, "we are settled in all +right"? All right! it was all as wrong as it could be! My blood +began to boil at the thought of Derrick, with his great powers--his +wonderful gift--cooped up in a place where the study of life was so +limited and so dull. Then there was his hunger for news of Freda, +and his silence as to what had kept him away from Blachington, and +about all a sort of proud humility which prevented him from saying +much that I should have expected him to say under the circumstances. + +It was Saturday, and my time was my own. I went out, got his book +for him; interviewed North Audley Street; spent a bad five minutes +in company with that villain 'Bradshaw,' who is responsible for so +much of the brain and eye disease of the nineteenth century, and +finally left Paddington in the Flying Dutchman, which landed me at +Bath early in the afternoon. I left my portmanteau at the station, +and walked through the city till I reached Gay Street. Like most of +the streets of Bath, it was broad, and had on either hand dull, +well-built, dark grey, eminently respectable, unutterably dreary- +looking houses. I rang, and the door was opened to me by a most +quaint old woman, evidently the landlady. An odour of curry +pervaded the passage, and became more oppressive as the door of the +sitting-room was opened, and I was ushered in upon the Major and his +son, who had just finished lunch. + +"Hullo!" cried Derrick, springing up, his face full of delight which +touched me, while at the same time it filled me with envy. + +Even the Major thought fit to give me a hearty welcome. + +"Glad to see you again," he said pleasantly enough. "It's a relief +to have a fresh face to look at. We have a room which is quite at +your disposal, and I hope you'll stay with us. Brought your +portmanteau, eh?" + +"It is at the station," I replied. + +"See that it is sent for," he said to Derrick; "and show Mr. +Wharncliffe all that is to be seen in this cursed hole of a place." +Then, turning again to me, "Have you lunched? Very well, then, +don't waste this fine afternoon in an invalid's room, but be off and +enjoy yourself." + +So cordial was the old man, that I should have thought him already a +reformed character, had I not found that he kept the rough side of +his tongue for home use. Derrick placed a novel and a small +handbell within his reach, and we were just going, when we were +checked by a volley of oaths from the Major; then a book came flying +across the room, well aimed at Derrick's head. He stepped aside, +and let it fall with a crash on the sideboard. + +"What do you mean by giving me the second volume when you know I am +in the third?" fumed the invalid. + +He apologised quietly, fetched the third volume, straightened the +disordered leaves of the discarded second, and with the air of one +well accustomed to such little domestic scenes, took up his hat and +came out with me. + +"How long do you intend to go on playing David to the Major's Saul?" +I asked, marvelling at the way in which he endured the humours of +his father. + +"As long as I have the chance," he replied. "I say, are you sure +you won't mind staying with us? It can't be a very comfortable +household for an outsider." + +"Much better than for an insider, to all appearance," I replied. +"I'm only too delighted to stay. And now, old fellow, tell me the +honest truth--you didn't, you know, in your letter--how have you +been getting on?" + +Derrick launched into an account of his father's ailments. + +"Oh, hang the Major! I don't care about him, I want to know about +you," I cried. + +"About me?" said Derrick doubtfully. "Oh, I'm right enough." + +"What do you do with yourself? How on earth do you kill time?" I +asked. "Come, give me a full, true, and particular account of it +all." + +"We have tried three other servants," said Derrick; "but the plan +doesn't answer. They either won't stand it, or else they are bribed +into smuggling brandy into the house. I find I can do most things +for my father, and in the morning he has an attendant from the +hospital who is trustworthy, and who does what is necessary for him. +At ten we breakfast together, then there are the morning papers, +which he likes to have read to him. After that I go round to the +Pump Room with him--odd contrast now to what it must have been when +Bath was the rage. Then we have lunch. In the afternoon, if he is +well enough, we drive; if not he sleeps, and I get a walk. Later on +an old Indian friend of his will sometimes drop in; if not he likes +to be read to until dinner. After dinner we play chess--he is a +first-rate player. At ten I help him to bed; from eleven to twelve +I smoke and study Socialism and all the rest of it that Lynwood is +at present floundering in." + +"Why don't you write, then?" + +"I tried it, but it didn't answer. I couldn't sleep after it, and +was, in fact, too tired; seems absurd to be tired after such a day +as that, but somehow it takes it out of one more than the hardest +reading; I don't know why." + +"Why," I said angrily, "it's because it is work to which you are +quite unsuited--work for a thick-skinned, hard-hearted, uncultivated +and well-paid attendant, not for the novelist who is to be the chief +light of our generation." + +He laughed at this estimate of his powers. + +"Novelists, like other cattle, have to obey their owner," he said +lightly. + +I thought for a moment that he meant the Major, and was breaking +into an angry remonstrance, when I saw that he meant something quite +different. It was always his strongest point, this extraordinary +consciousness of right, this unwavering belief that he had to do and +therefore could do certain things. Without this, I know that he +never wrote a line, and in my heart I believe this was the cause of +his success. + +"Then you are not writing at all?" I asked. + +"Yes, I write generally for a couple of hours before breakfast," he +said. + +And that evening we sat by his gas stove and he read me the next +four chapters of 'Lynwood.' He had rather a dismal lodging-house +bedroom, with faded wall-paper and a prosaic snuff-coloured carpet. +On a rickety table in the window was his desk, and a portfolio full +of blue foolscap, but he had done what he could to make the place +habitable; his Oxford pictures were on the walls--Hoffman's 'Christ +speaking to the Woman taken in Adultery,' hanging over the +mantelpiece--it had always been a favourite of his. I remember +that, as he read the description of Lynwood and his wife, I kept +looking from him to the Christ in the picture till I could almost +have fancied that each face bore the same expression. Had this +strange monotonous life with that old brute of a Major brought him +some new perception of those words, "Neither do I condemn thee"? +But when he stopped reading, I, true to my character, forgot his +affairs in my own, as we sat talking far into the night--talking of +that luckless month at Mondisfield, of all the problems it had +opened up, and of my wretchedness. + +"You were in town all September?" he asked; "you gave up +Blachington?" + +"Yes," I replied. "What did I care for country houses in such a +mood as that." + +He acquiesced, and I went on talking of my grievances, and it was +not till I was in the train on my way back to London that I +remembered how a look of disappointment had passed over his face +just at the moment. Evidently he had counted on learning something +about Freda from me, and I--well, I had clean forgotten both her +existence and his passionate love. + +Something, probably self-interest, the desire for my friend's +company, and so forth, took me down to Bath pretty frequently in +those days; luckily the Major had a sort of liking for me, and was +always polite enough; and dear old Derrick--well, I believe my +visits really helped to brighten him up. At any rate he said he +couldn't have borne his life without them, and for a sceptical, +dismal, cynical fellow like me to hear that was somehow flattering. +The mere force of contrast did me good. I used to come back on the +Monday wondering that Derrick didn't cut his throat, and realising +that, after all, it was something to be a free agent, and to have +comfortable rooms in Montague Street, with no old bear of a drunkard +to disturb my peace. And then a sort of admiration sprang up in my +heart, and the cynicism bred of melancholy broodings over solitary +pipes was less rampant than usual. + +It was, I think, early in the new year that I met Lawrence Vaughan +in Bath. He was not staying at Gay Street, so I could still have +the vacant room next to Derrick's. Lawrence put up at the York +House Hotel. + +"For you know," he informed me, "I really can't stand the governor +for more than an hour or two at a time." + +"Derrick manages to do it," I said. + +"Oh, Derrick, yes," he replied, "it's his metier, and he is well +accustomed to the life. Besides, you know, he is such a dreamy, +quiet sort of fellow; he lives all the time in a world of his own +creation, and bears the discomforts of this world with great +philosophy. Actually he has turned teetotaller! It would kill me +in a week." + +I make a point of never arguing with a fellow like that, but I think +I had a vindictive longing, as I looked at him, to shut him up with +the Major for a month, and see what would happen. + +These twin brothers were curiously alike in face and curiously +unlike in nature. So much for the great science of physiognomy! It +often seemed to me that they were the complement of each other. For +instance, Derrick in society was extremely silent, Lawrence was a +rattling talker; Derrick, when alone with you, would now and then +reveal unsuspected depths of thought and expression; Lawrence, when +alone with you, very frequently showed himself to be a cad. The +elder twin was modest and diffident, the younger inclined to brag; +the one had a strong tendency to melancholy, the other was blest or +cursed with the sort of temperament which has been said to accompany +"a hard heart and a good digestion." + +I was not surprised to find that the son who could not tolerate the +governor's presence for more than an hour or two, was a prime +favourite with the old man; that was just the way of the world. Of +course, the Major was as polite as possible to him; Derrick got the +kicks and Lawrence the half-pence. + +In the evenings we played whist, Lawrence coming in after dinner, +"For, you know," he explained to me, "I really couldn't get through +a meal with nothing but those infernal mineral waters to wash it +down." + +And here I must own that at my first visit I had sailed rather close +to the wind; for when the Major, like the Hatter in 'Alice,' pressed +me to take wine, I--not seeing any--had answered that I did not take +it; mentally adding the words, "in your house, you brute!" + +The two brothers were fond of each other after a fashion. But +Derrick was human, and had his faults like the rest of us; and I am +pretty sure he did not much enjoy the sight of his father's foolish +and unreasonable devotion to Lawrence. If you come to think of it, +he would have been a full-fledged angel if no jealous pang, no +reflection that it was rather rough on him, had crossed his mind, +when he saw his younger brother treated with every mark of respect +and liking, and knew that Lawrence would never stir a finger really +to help the poor fractious invalid. Unluckily they happened one +night to get on the subject of professions. + +"It's a comfort," said the Major, in his sarcastic way, "to have a +fellow-soldier to talk to instead of a quill-driver, who as yet is +not even a penny-a-liner. Eh, Derrick? Don't you feel inclined to +regret your fool's choice now? You might have been starting off for +the war with Lawrence next week, if you hadn't chosen what you're +pleased to call a literary life. Literary life, indeed! I little +thought a son of mine would ever have been so wanting in spirit as +to prefer dabbling in ink to a life of action--to be the scribbler +of mere words, rather than an officer of dragoons." + +Then to my astonishment Derrick sprang to his feet in hot +indignation. I never saw him look so handsome, before or since; for +his anger was not the distorting, devilish anger that the Major gave +way to, but real downright wrath. + +"You speak contemptuously of mere novels," he said in a low voice, +yet more clearly than usual, and as if the words were wrung out of +him. "What right have you to look down on one of the greatest +weapons of the day? and why is a writer to submit to scoffs and +insults and tamely to hear his profession reviled? I have chosen to +write the message that has been given me, and I don't regret the +choice. Should I have shown greater spirit if I had sold my freedom +and right of judgment to be one of the national killing machines?" + +With that he threw down his cards and strode out of the room in a +white heat of anger. It was a pity he made that last remark, for it +put him in the wrong and needlessly annoyed Lawrence and the Major. +But an angry man has no time to weigh his words, and, as I said, +poor old Derrick was very human, and when wounded too intolerably +could on occasion retaliate. + +The Major uttered an oath and looked in astonishment at the +retreating figure. Derrick was such an extraordinarily quiet, +respectful, long-suffering son as a rule, that this outburst was +startling in the extreme. Moreover, it spoilt the game, and the old +man, chafed by the result of his own ill-nature, and helpless to +bring back his partner, was forced to betake himself to chess. I +left him grumbling away to Lawrence about the vanity of authors, and +went out in the hope of finding Derrick. As I left the house I saw +someone turn the corner into the Circus, and starting in pursuit, +overtook the tall, dark figure where Bennett Street opens on to the +Lansdowne Hill. + +"I'm glad you spoke up, old fellow," I said, taking his arm. + +He modified his pace a little. "Why is it," he exclaimed, "that +every other profession can be taken seriously, but that a novelist's +work is supposed to be mere play? Good God! don't we suffer enough? +Have we not hard brain work and drudgery of desk work and tedious +gathering of statistics and troublesome search into details? Have +we not an appalling weight of responsibility on us?--and are we not +at the mercy of a thousand capricious chances?" + +"Come now," I exclaimed, "you know that you are never so happy as +when you are writing." + +"Of course," he replied; "but that doesn't make me resent such an +attack the less. Besides, you don't know what it is to have to +write in such an atmosphere as ours; it's like a weight on one's +pen. This life here is not life at all--it's a daily death, and +it's killing the book too; the last chapters are wretched--I'm +utterly dissatisfied with them." + +"As for that," I said calmly, "you are no judge at all. You can +never tell the worth of your own work; the last bit is splendid." + +"I could have done it better," he groaned. "But there is always a +ghastly depression dragging one back here--and then the time is so +short; just as one gets into the swing of it the breakfast bell +rings, and then comes--" He broke off. + +I could well supply the end of the sentence, however, for I knew +that then came the slow torture of a tete-a-tete day with the Major, +stinging sarcasms, humiliating scoldings, vexations and difficulties +innumerable. + +I drew him to the left, having no mind to go to the top of the hill. +We slackened our pace again and walked to and fro along the broad +level pavement of Lansdowne Crescent. We had it entirely to +ourselves--not another creature was in sight. + +"I could bear it all," he burst forth, "if only there was a chance +of seeing Freda. Oh, you are better off than I am--at least, you +know the worst. Your hope is killed, but mine lives on a tortured, +starved life! Would to God I had never seen her!" + +Certainly before that night I had never quite realised the +irrevocableness of poor Derrick's passion. I had half hoped that +time and separation would gradually efface Freda Merrifield from his +memory; and I listened with a dire foreboding to the flood of +wretchedness which he poured forth as we paced up and down, thinking +now and then how little people guessed at the tremendous powers +hidden under his usually quiet exterior. + +At length he paused, but his last heart-broken words seemed to +vibrate in the air and to force me to speak some kind of comfort. + +"Derrick," I said, "come back with me to London--give up this +miserable life." + +I felt him start a little; evidently no thought of yielding had come +to him before. We were passing the house that used to belong to +that strange book-lover and recluse, Beckford. I looked up at the +blank windows, and thought of that curious, self-centred life in the +past, surrounded by every luxury, able to indulge every whim; and +then I looked at my companion's pale, tortured face, and thought of +the life he had elected to lead in the hope of saving one whom duty +bound him to honour. After all, which life was the most worth +living--which was the most to be admired? + +We walked on; down below us and up on the farther hill we could see +the lights of Bath; the place so beautiful by day looked now like a +fairy city, and the Abbey, looming up against the moon-lit sky, +seemed like some great giant keeping watch over the clustering roofs +below. The well-known chimes rang out into the night and the clock +struck ten. + +"I must go back," said Derrick, quietly. "My father will want to +get to bed." + +I couldn't say a word; we turned, passed Beckford's house once more, +walked briskly down the hill, and reached the Gay Street lodging- +house. I remember the stifling heat of the room as we entered it, +and its contrast to the cool, dark, winter's night outside. I can +vividly recall, too, the old Major's face as he looked up with a +sarcastic remark, but with a shade of anxiety in his bloodshot eyes. +He was leaning back in a green-cushioned chair, and his ghastly +yellow complexion seemed to me more noticeable than usual--his +scanty grey hair and whiskers, the lines of pain so plainly visible +in his face, impressed me curiously. I think I had never before +realised what a wreck of a man he was--how utterly dependent on +others. + +Lawrence, who, to do him justice, had a good deal of tact, and who, +I believe, cared for his brother as much as he was capable of caring +for any one but himself, repeated a good story with which he had +been enlivening the Major, and I did what I could to keep up the +talk. Derrick meanwhile put away the chessmen, and lighted the +Major's candle. He even managed to force up a laugh at Lawrence's +story, and, as he helped his father out of the room, I think I was +the only one who noticed the look of tired endurance in his eyes. + + + +Chapter V. + + "I know + How far high failure overtops the bounds + Of low successes. Only suffering draws + The inner heart of song, and can elicit + The perfumes of the soul." + Epic of Hades. + +Next week, Lawrence went off like a hero to the war; and my friend-- +also I think like a hero--stayed on at Bath, enduring as best he +could the worst form of loneliness; for undoubtedly there is no +loneliness so frightful as constant companionship with an +uncongenial person. He had, however, one consolation: the Major's +health steadily improved, under the joint influence of total +abstinence and Bath water, and, with the improvement, his temper +became a little better. + +But one Saturday, when I had run down to Bath without writing +beforehand, I suddenly found a different state of things. In Orange +Grove I met Dr. Mackrill, the Major's medical man; he used now and +then to play whist with us on Saturday nights, and I stopped to +speak to him. + +"Oh! you've come down again. That's all right!" he said. "Your +friend wants someone to cheer him up. He's got his arm broken." + +"How on earth did he manage that?" I asked. + +"Well, that's more than I can tell you," said the Doctor, with an +odd look in his eyes, as if he guessed more than he would put into +words. "All that I could get out of him was that it was done +accidentally. The Major is not so well--no whist for us to-night, +I'm afraid." + +He passed on, and I made my way to Gay Street. There was an air of +mystery about the quaint old landlady; she looked brimful of news +when she opened the door to me, but she managed to 'keep herself to +herself,' and showed me in upon the Major and Derrick, rather +triumphantly I thought. The Major looked terribly ill--worse than I +had ever seen him, and as for Derrick, he had the strangest look of +shrinking and shame-facedness you ever saw. He said he was glad to +see me, but I knew that he lied. He would have given anything to +have kept me away. + +"Broken your arm?" I exclaimed, feeling bound to take some notice of +the sling. + +"Yes," he replied; "met with an accident to it. But luckily it's +only the left one, so it doesn't hinder me much! I have finished +seven chapters of the last volume of 'Lynwood,' and was just wanting +to ask you a legal question." + +All this time his eyes bore my scrutiny defiantly; they seemed to +dare me to say one other word about the broken arm. I didn't dare-- +indeed to this day I have never mentioned the subject to him. + +But that evening, while he was helping the Major to bed, the old +landlady made some pretext for toiling up to the top of the house, +where I sat smoking in Derrick's room. + +"You'll excuse my making bold to speak to you, sir," she said. I +threw down my newspaper, and, looking up, saw that she was bubbling +over with some story. + +"Well?" I said, encouragingly. + +"It's about Mr. Vaughan, sir, I wanted to speak to you. I really do +think, sir, it's not safe he should be left alone with his father, +sir, any longer. Such doings as we had here the other day, sir! +Somehow or other--and none of us can't think how--the Major had +managed to get hold of a bottle of brandy. How he had it I don't +know; but we none of us suspected him, and in the afternoon he says +he was too poorly to go for a drive or to go out in his chair, and +settles off on the parlour sofa for a nap while Mr. Vaughan goes out +for a walk. Mr. Vaughan was out a couple of hours. I heard him +come in and go into the sitting-room; then there came sounds of +voices, and a scuffling of feet and moving of chairs, and I knew +something was wrong and hurried up to the door--and just then came a +crash like fire-irons, and I could hear the Major a-swearing +fearful. Not hearing a sound from Mr. Vaughan, I got scared, sir, +and opened the door, and there I saw the Major a leaning up against +the mantelpiece as drunk as a lord, and his son seemed to have got +the bottle from him; it was half empty, and when he saw me he just +handed it to me and ordered me to take it away. Then between us we +got the Major to lie down on the sofa and left him there. When we +got out into the passage Mr. Vaughan he leant against the wall for a +minute, looking as white as a sheet, and then I noticed for the +first time that his left arm was hanging down at his side. 'Lord! +sir,' I cried, 'your arm's broken.' And he went all at once as red +as he had been pale just before, and said he had got it done +accidentally, and bade me say nothing about it, and walked off there +and then to the doctor's, and had it set. But sir, given a man +drunk as the Major was, and given a scuffle to get away the drink +that was poisoning him, and given a crash such as I heard, and given +a poker a-lying in the middle of the room where it stands to reason +no poker could get unless it was thrown--why, sir, no sensible woman +who can put two and two together can doubt that it was all the +Major's doing." + +"Yes," I said, "that is clear enough; but for Mr. Vaughan's sake we +must hush it up; and, as for safety, why, the Major is hardly strong +enough to do him any worse damage than that." + +The good old thing wiped away a tear from her eyes. She was very +fond of Derrick, and it went to her heart that he should lead such a +dog's life. + +I said what I could to comfort her, and she went down again, fearful +lest he should discover her upstairs and guess that she had opened +her heart to me. + +Poor Derrick! That he of all people on earth should be mixed up +with such a police court story--with drunkard, and violence, and +pokers figuring in it! I lay back in the camp chair and looked at +Hoffman's 'Christ,' and thought of all the extraordinary problems +that one is for ever coming across in life. And I wondered whether +the people of Bath who saw the tall, impassive-looking, hazel-eyed +son and the invalid father in their daily pilgrimages to the Pump +Room, or in church on Sunday, or in the Park on sunny afternoons had +the least notion of the tragedy that was going on. My reflections +were interrupted by his entrance. He had forced up a cheerfulness +that I am sure he didn't really feel, and seemed afraid of letting +our talk flag for a moment. I remember, too, that for the first +time he offered to read me his novel, instead of as usual waiting +for me to ask to hear it. I can see him now, fetching the untidy +portfolio and turning over the pages, adroitly enough, as though +anxious to show how immaterial was the loss of a left arm. That +night I listened to the first half of the third volume of 'Lynwood's +Heritage,' and couldn't help reflecting that its author seemed to +thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this deadly-lively +place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life. + +"How do you manage to write one-handed?" I asked. + +And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-weight on the left-hand +corner of the sheet of foolscap, and wrote that comical first +paragraph of the eighth chapter over which we have all laughed. I +suppose few readers guessed the author's state of mind when he wrote +it. I looked over his shoulder to see what he had written, and +couldn't help laughing aloud--I verily believe that it was his way +of turning off attention from his arm, and leading me safely from +the region of awkward questions. + +"By-the-by," I exclaimed, "your writing of garden-parties reminds +me. I went to one at Campden Hill the other day, and had the good +fortune to meet Miss Freda Merrifield." + +How his face lighted up, poor fellow, and what a flood of questions +he poured out. "She looked very well and very pretty," I replied. +"I played two sets of tennis with her. She asked after you directly +she saw me, seeming to think that we always hunted in couples. I +told her you were living here, taking care of an invalid father; but +just then up came the others to arrange the game. She and I got the +best courts, and as we crossed over to them she told me she had met +your brother several times last autumn, when she had been staying +near Aldershot. Odd that he never mentioned her here; but I don't +suppose she made much impression on him. She is not at all his +style." + +"Did you have much more talk with her?" he asked. + +"No, nothing to be called talk. She told me they were leaving +London next week, and she was longing to get back to the country to +her beloved animals--rabbits, poultry, an aviary, and all that kind +of thing. I should gather that they had kept her rather in the +background this season, but I understand that the eldest sister is +to be married in the winter, and then no doubt Miss Freda will be +brought forward." + +He seemed wonderfully cheered by this opportune meeting, and though +there was so little to tell he appeared to be quite content. I left +him on Monday in fairly good spirits, and did not come across him +again till September, when his arm was well, and his novel finished +and revised. He never made two copies of his work, and I fancy this +was perhaps because he spent so short a time each day in actual +writing, and lived so continually in his work; moreover, as I said +before, he detested penmanship. + +The last part of 'Lynwood' far exceeded my expectations; perhaps-- +yet I don't really think so--I viewed it too favourably. But I owed +the book a debt of gratitude, since it certainly helped me through +the worst part of my life. + +"Don't you feel flat now it is finished?" I asked. + +"I felt so miserable that I had to plunge into another story three +days after," he replied; and then and there he gave me the sketch of +his second novel, 'At Strife,' and told me how he meant to weave in +his childish fancies about the defence of the bridge in the Civil +Wars. + +"And about 'Lynwood?' Are you coming up to town to hawk him round?" +I asked. + +"I can't do that," he said; "you see I am tied here. No, I must +send him off by rail, and let him take his chance." + +"No such thing!" I cried. "If you can't leave Bath I will take him +round for you." + +And Derrick, who with the oddest inconsistency would let his MS. lie +about anyhow at home, but hated the thought of sending it out alone +on its travels, gladly accepted my offer. So next week I set off +with the huge brown paper parcel; few, however, will appreciate my +good nature, for no one but an author or a publisher knows the +fearful weight of a three volume novel in MS.! To my intense +satisfaction I soon got rid of it, for the first good firm to which +I took it received it with great politeness, to be handed over to +their 'reader' for an opinion; and apparently the 'reader's' opinion +coincided with mine, for a month later Derrick received an offer for +it with which he at once closed--not because it was a good one, but +because the firm was well thought of, and because he wished to lose +no time, but to have the book published at once. I happened to be +there when his first 'proofs' arrived. The Major had had an attack +of jaundice, and was in a fiendish humour. We had a miserable time +of it at dinner, for he badgered Derrick almost past bearing, and I +think the poor old fellow minded it more when there was a third +person present. Somehow through all he managed to keep his +extraordinary capacity for reverencing mere age--even this degraded +and detestable old age of the Major's. I often thought that in this +he was like my own ancestor, Hugo Wharncliffe, whose deference and +respectfulness and patience had not descended to me, while +unfortunately the effects of his physical infirmities had. I +sometimes used to reflect bitterly enough on the truth of Herbert +Spencer's teaching as to heredity, so clearly shown in my own case. +In the year 1683, through the abominable cruelty and harshness of +his brother Randolph, this Hugo Wharncliffe, my great-great-great- +great-great grandfather, was immured in Newgate, and his +constitution was thereby so much impaired and enfeebled that, two +hundred years after, my constitution is paying the penalty, and my +whole life is thereby changed and thwarted. Hence this childless +Randolph is affecting the course of several lives in the 19th +century to their grievous hurt. + +But revenons a nos moutons--that is to say, to our lion and lamb-- +the old brute of a Major and his long-suffering son. + +While the table was being cleared, the Major took forty winks on the +sofa, and we two beat a retreat, lit up our pipes in the passage, +and were just turning out when the postman's double knock came, but +no showers of letters in the box. Derrick threw open the door, and +the man handed him a fat, stumpy-looking roll in a pink wrapper. + +"I say!" he exclaimed, "PROOFS!" + +And, in hot haste, he began tearing away the pink paper, till out +came the clean, folded bits of printing and the dirty and +dishevelled blue foolscap, the look of which I knew so well. It is +an odd feeling, that first seeing one's self in print, and I could +guess, even then, what a thrill shot through Derrick as he turned +over the pages. But he would not take them into the sitting-room, +no doubt dreading another diatribe against his profession; and we +solemnly played euchre, and patiently endured the Major's withering +sarcasms till ten o'clock sounded our happy release. + +However, to make a long story short, a month later--that is, at the +end of November--'Lynwood's Heritage' was published in three volumes +with maroon cloth and gilt lettering. Derrick had distributed among +his friends the publishers' announcement of the day of publication; +and when it was out I besieged the libraries for it, always +expressing surprise if I did not find it in their lists. Then began +the time of reviews. As I had expected, they were extremely +favourable, with the exception of the Herald, the Stroller, and the +Hour, which made it rather hot for him, the latter in particular +pitching into his views and assuring its readers that the book was +'dangerous,' and its author a believer in--various thing especially +repugnant to Derrick, at it happened. + +I was with him when he read these reviews. Over the cleverness of +the satirical attack in the Weekly Herald he laughed heartily, +though the laugh was against himself; and as to the critic who wrote +in the Stroller it was apparent to all who knew 'Lynwood' that he +had not read much of the book; but over this review in the Hour he +was genuinely angry--it hurt him personally, and, as it afterwards +turned out, played no small part in the story of his life. The good +reviews, however, were many, and their recommendation of the book +hearty; they all prophesied that it would be a great success. Yet, +spite of this, 'Lynwood's Heritage' didn't sell. Was it, as I had +feared, that Derrick was too devoid of the pushing faculty ever to +make a successful writer? Or was it that he was handicapped by +being down in the provinces playing keeper to that abominable old +bear? Anyhow, the book was well received, read with enthusiasm by +an extremely small circle, and then it dropped down to the bottom +among the mass of overlooked literature, and its career seemed to be +over. I can recall the look in Derrick's face when one day he +glanced through the new Mudie and Smith lists and found 'Lynwood's +Heritage' no longer down. I had been trying to cheer him up about +the book and quoting all the favourable remarks I had heard about +it. But unluckily this was damning evidence against my optimist +view. + +He sighed heavily and put down the lists. + +"It's no use to deceive one's self," he said, drearily, "'Lynwood' +has failed." + +Something in the deep depression of look and tone gave me a +momentary insight into the author's heart. He thought, I know, of +the agony of mind this book had cost him; of those long months of +waiting and their deadly struggle, of the hopes which had made all +he passed through seem so well worth while; and the bitterness of +the disappointment was no doubt intensified by the knowledge that +the Major would rejoice over it. + +We walked that afternoon along the Bradford Valley, a road which +Derrick was specially fond of. He loved the thickly-wooded hills, +and the glimpses of the Avon, which, flanked by the canal and the +railway, runs parallel with the high road; he always admired, too, a +certain little village with grey stone cottages which lay in this +direction, and liked to look at the site of the old hall near the +road: nothing remained of it but the tall gate posts and rusty iron +gates looking strangely dreary and deserted, and within one could +see, between some dark yew trees, an old terrace walk with stone +steps and balustrades--the most ghostly-looking place you can +conceive. + +"I know you'll put this into a book some day," I said, laughing. + +"Yes," he said, "it is already beginning to simmer in my brain." +Apparently his deep disappointment as to his first venture had in no +way affected his perfectly clear consciousness that, come what +would, he had to write. + +As we walked back to Bath he told me his 'Ruined Hall' story as far +as it had yet evolved itself in his brain, and we were still +discussing it when in Milsom Street we met a boy crying evening +papers, and details of the last great battle at Saspataras Hill. + +Derrick broke off hastily, everything but anxiety for Lawrence +driven from his mind. + + + +Chapter VI. + + "Say not, O Soul, thou art defeated, + Because thou art distressed; + If thou of better thing art cheated, + Thou canst not be of best." + T. T. Lynch. + +"Good heavens, Sydney!" he exclaimed in great excitement and with +his whole face aglow with pleasure, "look here!" + +He pointed to a few lines in the paper which mentioned the heroic +conduct of Lieutenant L. Vaughan, who at the risk of his life had +rescued a brother officer when surrounded by the enemy and +completely disabled. Lieutenant Vaughan had managed to mount the +wounded man on his own horse and had miraculously escaped himself +with nothing worse than a sword-thrust in the left arm. + +We went home in triumph to the Major, and Derrick read the whole +account aloud. With all his detestation of war, he was nevertheless +greatly stirred by the description of the gallant defence of the +attacked position--and for a time we were all at one, and could talk +of nothing but Lawrence's heroism, and Victoria Crosses, and the +prospects of peace. However, all too soon, the Major's fiendish +temper returned, and he began to use the event of the day as a +weapon against Derrick, continually taunting him with the contrast +between his stay-at-home life of scribbling and Lawrence's life of +heroic adventure. I could never make out whether he wanted to goad +his son into leaving him, in order that he might drink himself to +death in peace, or whether he merely indulged in his natural love of +tormenting, valuing Derrick's devotion as conducive to his own +comfort, and knowing that hard words would not drive him from what +he deemed to be his duty. I rather incline to the latter view, but +the old Major was always an enigma to me; nor can I to this day make +out his raison-d'etre, except on the theory that the training of a +novelist required a course of slow torture, and that the old man was +sent into the world to be a sort of thorn in the flesh of Derrick. + +What with the disappointment about his first book, and the +difficulty of writing his second, the fierce craving for Freda's +presence, the struggle not to allow his admiration for Lawrence's +bravery to become poisoned by envy under the influence of the +Major's incessant attacks, Derrick had just then a hard time of it. +He never complained, but I noticed a great change in him; his +melancholy increased, his flashes of humour and merriment became +fewer and fewer--I began to be afraid that he would break down. + +"For God's sake!" I exclaimed one evening when left alone with the +Doctor after an evening of whist, "do order the Major to London. +Derrick has been mewed up here with him for nearly two years, and I +don't think he can stand it much longer." + +So the Doctor kindly contrived to advise the Major to consult a +well-known London physician, and to spend a fortnight in town, +further suggesting that a month at Ben Rhydding might be enjoyable +before settling down at Bath again for the winter. Luckily the +Major took to the idea, and just as Lawrence returned from the war +Derrick and his father arrived in town. The change seemed likely to +work well, and I was able now and then to release my friend and play +cribbage with the old man for an hour or two while Derrick tore +about London, interviewed his publisher, made researches into +seventeenth century documents at the British Museum, and somehow +managed in his rapid way to acquire those glimpses of life and +character which he afterwards turned to such good account. All was +grist that came to his mill, and at first the mere sight of his old +home, London, seemed to revive him. Of course at the very first +opportunity he called at the Probyns', and we both of us had an +invitation to go there on the following Wednesday to see the march +past of the troops and to lunch. Derrick was nearly beside himself +at the prospect, for he knew that he should certainly meet Freda at +last, and the mingled pain and bliss of being actually in the same +place with her, yet as completely separated as if seas rolled +between them, was beginning to try him terribly. + +Meantime Lawrence had turned up again, greatly improved in every way +by all that he had lived through, but rather too ready to fall in +with his father's tone towards Derrick. The relations between the +two brothers--always a little peculiar--became more and more +difficult, and the Major seemed to enjoy pitting them against each +other. + +At length the day of the review arrived. Derrick was not looking +well, his eyes were heavy with sleeplessness, and the Major had been +unusually exasperating at breakfast that morning, so that he started +with a jaded, worn-out feeling that would not wholly yield even to +the excitement of this long-expected meeting with Freda. When he +found himself in the great drawing-room at Lord Probyn's house, amid +a buzz of talk and a crowd of strange faces, he was seized with one +of those sudden attacks of shyness to which he was always liable. +In fact, he had been so long alone with the old Major that this +plunge into society was too great a reaction, and the very thing he +had longed for became a torture to him. + +Freda was at the other end of the room talking to Keith Collins, the +well-known member for Codrington, whose curious but attractive face +was known to all the world through the caricatures of it in 'Punch.' +I knew that she saw Derrick, and that he instantly perceived her, +and that a miserable sense of separation, of distance, of +hopelessness overwhelmed him as he looked. After all, it was +natural enough. For two years he had thought of Freda night and +day; in his unutterably dreary life her memory had been his +refreshment, his solace, his companion. Now he was suddenly brought +face to face, not with the Freda of his dreams, but with a +fashionable, beautifully dressed, much-sought girl, and he felt that +a gulf lay between them; it was the gulf of experience. Freda's +life in society, the whirl of gaiety, the excitement and success +which she had been enjoying throughout the season, and his miserable +monotony of companionship with his invalid father, of hard work and +weary disappointment, had broken down the bond of union that had +once existed between them. From either side they looked at each +other--Freda with a wondering perplexity, Derrick with a dull +grinding pain at his heart. + +Of course they spoke to each other; but I fancy the merest +platitudes passed between them. Somehow they had lost touch, and a +crowded London drawing-room was hardly the place to regain it. + +"So your novel is really out," I heard her say to him in that deep, +clear voice of hers. "I like the design on the cover." + +"Oh, have you read the book?" said Derrick, colouring. + +"Well, no," she said truthfully. "I wanted to read it, but my +father wouldn't let me--he is very particular about what we read." + +That frank but not very happily worded answer was like a stab to +poor Derrick. He had given to the world then a book that was not +fit for her to read! This 'Lynwood,' which had been written with +his own heart's blood, was counted a dangerous, poisonous thing, +from which she must be guarded! + +Freda must have seen that she had hurt him, for she tried hard to +retrieve her words. + +"It was tantalising to have it actually in the house, wasn't it? I +have a grudge against the Hour, for it was the review in that which +set my father against it." Then rather anxious to leave the +difficult subject--"And has your brother quite recovered from his +wound?" + +I think she was a little vexed that Derrick did not show more +animation in his replies about Lawrence's adventures during the war; +the less he responded the more enthusiastic she became, and I am +perfectly sure that in her heart she was thinking: + +"He is jealous of his brother's fame--I am disappointed in him. He +has grown dull, and absent, and stupid, and he is dreadfully wanting +in small-talk. I fear that his life down in the provinces is +turning him into a bear." + +She brought the conversation back to his book; but there was a +little touch of scorn in her voice, as if she thought to herself, "I +suppose he is one of those people who can only talk on one subject-- +his own doings." Her manner was almost brusque. + +"Your novel has had a great success, has it not?" she asked. + +He instantly perceived her thought, and replied with a touch of +dignity and a proud smile: + +"On the contrary, it has been a great failure; only three hundred +and nine copies have been sold." + +"I wonder at that," said Freda, "for one so often heard it talked +of." + +He promptly changed the topic, and began to speak of the march past. +"I want to see Lord Starcross," he added. "I have no idea what a +hero is like." + +Just then Lady Probyn came up, followed by an elderly harpy in +spectacles and false, much-frizzed fringe. + +"Mrs. Carsteen wishes to be introduced to you, Mr. Vaughan; she is a +great admirer of your writings." + +And poor Derrick, who was then quite unused to the species, had to +stand and receive a flood of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in +a strident voice, and to bear the critical and prolonged stare of +the spectacled eyes. Nor would the harpy easily release her prey. +She kept him much against his will, and I saw him looking wistfully +now and then towards Freda. + +"It amuses me," I said to her, "that Derrick Vaughan should be so +anxious to see Lord Starcross. It reminds me of Charles Lamb's +anxiety to see Kosciusko, 'for,' said he, 'I have never seen a hero; +I wonder how they look,' while all the time he himself was living a +life of heroic self-sacrifice." + +"Mr. Vaughan, I should think, need only look at his own brother," +said Freda, missing the drift of my speech. + +I longed to tell her what it was possible to tell of Derrick's life, +but at that moment Sir Richard Merrifield introduced to his daughter +a girl in a huge hat and great flopping sleeves, Miss Isaacson, +whose picture at the Grosvenor had been so much talked of. Now the +little artist knew no one in the room, and Freda saw fit to be +extremely friendly to her. She was introduced to me, and I did my +best to talk to her and set Freda at liberty as soon as the harpy +had released Derrick; but my endeavours were frustrated, for Miss +Isaacson, having looked me well over, decided that I was not at all +intense, but a mere commonplace, slightly cynical worldling, and +having exchanged a few lukewarm remarks with me, she returned to +Freda, and stuck to her like a bur for the rest of the time. + +We stood out on the balcony to see the troops go by. It was a fine +sight, and we all became highly enthusiastic. Freda enjoyed the +mere pageant like a child, and was delighted with the horses. She +looked now more like the Freda of the yacht, and I wished that +Derrick could be near her; but, as ill-luck would have it, he was at +some distance, hemmed in by an impassable barrier of eager +spectators. + +Lawrence Vaughan rode past, looking wonderfully well in his uniform. +He was riding a spirited bay, which took Freda's fancy amazingly, +though she reserved her chief enthusiasm for Lord Starcross and his +steed. It was not until all was over, and we had returned to the +drawing-room, that Derrick managed to get the talk with Freda for +which I knew he was longing, and then they were fated, apparently, +to disagree. I was standing near and overheard the close of their +talk. + +"I do believe you must be a member of the Peace Society!" said Freda +impatiently. "Or perhaps you have turned Quaker. But I want to +introduce you to my god-father, Mr. Fleming; you know it was his son +whom your brother saved." + +And I heard Derrick being introduced as the brother of the hero of +Saspataras Hill; and the next day he received a card for one of Mrs. +Fleming's receptions, Lawrence having previously been invited to +dine there on the same night. + +What happened at that party I never exactly understood. All I could +gather was that Lawrence had been tremendously feted, that Freda had +been present, and that poor old Derrick was as miserable as he could +be when I next saw him. Putting two and two together, I guessed +that he had been tantalised by a mere sight of her, possibly +tortured by watching more favoured men enjoying long tete-a-tetes; +but he would say little or nothing about it, and when, soon after, +he and the Major left London, I feared that the fortnight had done +my friend harm instead of good. + + + +Chapter VII. + + "Then in that hour rejoice, since only thus + Can thy proud heart grow wholly piteous. + Thus only to the world thy speech can flow + Charged with the sad authority of woe. + Since no man nurtured in the shade can sing + To a true note one psalm of conquering; + Warriors must chant it whom our own eyes see + Red from the battle and more bruised than we, + Men who have borne the worst, have known the whole, + Have felt the last abeyance of the soul." + F. W. H. Myers. + +About the beginning of August, I rejoined him at Ben Rhydding. The +place suited the Major admirably, and his various baths took up so +great a part of each day, that Derrick had more time to himself than +usual, and 'At Strife' got on rapidly. He much enjoyed, too, the +beautiful country round, while the hotel itself, with its huge +gathering of all sorts and conditions of people, afforded him +endless studies of character. The Major breakfasted in his own +room, and, being so much engrossed with his baths, did not generally +appear till twelve. Derrick and I breakfasted in the great dining- +hall; and one morning, when the meal was over, we, as usual, +strolled into the drawing-room to see if there were any letters +awaiting us. + +"One for you," I remarked, handing him a thick envelope. + +"From Lawrence!" he exclaimed. + +"Well, don't read it in here; the Doctor will be coming to read +prayers. Come out in the garden," I said. + +We went out into the beautiful grounds, and he tore open the +envelope and began to read his letter as we walked. All at once I +felt the arm which was linked in mine give a quick, involuntary +movement, and, looking up, saw that Derrick had turned deadly pale. + +"What's up?" I said. But he read on without replying; and, when I +paused and sat down on a sheltered rustic seat, he unconsciously +followed my example, looking more like a sleep-walker than a man in +the possession of all his faculties. At last he finished the +letter, and looked up in a dazed, miserable way, letting his eyes +wander over the fir-trees and the fragrant shrubs and the flowers by +the path. + +"Dear old fellow, what is the matter?" I asked. + +The words seemed to rouse him. + +A dreadful look passed over his face--the look of one stricken to +the heart. But his voice was perfectly calm, and full of a ghastly +self-control. + +"Freda will be my sister-in-law," he said, rather as if stating the +fact to himself than answering my question. + +"Impossible!" I said. "What do you mean? How could--" + +As if to silence me he thrust the letter into my hand. It ran as +follows: + +"Dear Derrick,--For the last few days I have been down in the +Flemings' place in Derbyshire, and fortune has favoured me, for the +Merrifields are here too. Now prepare yourself for a surprise. +Break the news to the governor, and send me your heartiest +congratulations by return of post. I am engaged to Freda +Merrifield, and am the happiest fellow in the world. They are +awfully fastidious sort of people, and I do not believe Sir Richard +would have consented to such a match had it not been for that lucky +impulse which made me rescue Dick Fleming. It has all been arranged +very quickly, as these things should be, but we have seen a good +deal of each other--first at Aldershot the year before last, and +just lately in town, and now these four days down here--and days in +a country house are equal to weeks elsewhere. I enclose a letter to +my father--give it to him at a suitable moment--but, after all, he's +sure to approve of a daughter-in-law with such a dowry as Miss +Merrifield is likely to have. + "Yours affly., + "Lawrence Vaughan." + +I gave him back the letter without a word. In dead silence we moved +on, took a turning which led to a little narrow gate, and passed out +of the grounds to the wild moorland country beyond. + +After all, Freda was in no way to blame. As a mere girl she had +allowed Derrick to see that she cared for him; then circumstances +had entirely separated them; she saw more of the world, met +Lawrence, was perhaps first attracted to him by his very likeness to +Derrick, and finally fell in love with the hero of the season, whom +every one delighted to honour. Nor could one blame Lawrence, who +had no notion that he had supplanted his brother. All the blame lay +with the Major's slavery to drink, for if only he had remained out +in India I feel sure that matters would have gone quite differently. + +We tramped on over heather and ling and springy turf till we reached +the old ruin known as the Hunting Tower; then Derrick seemed to +awake to the recollection of present things. He looked at his +watch. + +"I must go back to my father," he said, for the first time breaking +the silence. + +"You shall do no such thing!" I cried. "Stay out here and I will +see to the Major, and give him the letter too if you like." + +He caught at the suggestion, and as he thanked me I think there were +tears in his eyes. So I took the letter and set off for Ben +Rhydding, leaving him to get what relief he could from solitude, +space, and absolute quiet. Once I just glanced back, and somehow +the scene has always lingered in my memory--the great stretch of +desolate moor, the dull crimson of the heather, the lowering grey +clouds, the Hunting Tower a patch of deeper gloom against the gloomy +sky, and Derrick's figure prostrate, on the turf, the face hidden, +the hands grasping at the sprigs of heather growing near. + +The Major was just ready to be helped into the garden when I reached +the hotel. We sat down in the very same place where Derrick had +read the news, and, when I judged it politic, I suddenly remembered +with apologies the letter that had been entrusted to me. The old +man received it with satisfaction, for he was fond of Lawrence and +proud of him, and the news of the engagement pleased him greatly. +He was still discussing it when, two hours later, Derrick returned. + +"Here's good news!" said the Major, glancing up as his son +approached. "Trust Lawrence to fall on his feet! He tells me the +girl will have a thousand a year. You know her, don't you? What's +she like?" + +"I have met her," replied Derrick, with forced composure. "She is +very charming." + +"Lawrence has all his wits about him," growled the Major. "Whereas +you--" (several oaths interjected). "It will be a long while before +any girl with a dowry will look at you! What women like is a bold +man of action; what they despise, mere dabblers in pen and ink, +writers of poisonous sensational tales such as yours! I'm quoting +your own reviewers, so you needn't contradict me!" + +Of course no one had dreamt of contradicting; it would have been the +worst possible policy. + +"Shall I help you in?" said Derrick. "It is just dinner time." + +And as I walked beside them to the hotel, listening to the Major's +flood of irritating words, and glancing now and then at Derrick's +grave, resolute face, which successfully masked such bitter +suffering, I couldn't help reflecting that here was courage +infinitely more deserving of the Victoria Cross than Lawrence's +impulsive rescue. Very patiently he sat through the long dinner. I +doubt if any but an acute observer could have told that he was in +trouble; and, luckily, the world in general observes hardly at all. +He endured the Major till it was time for him to take a Turkish +bath, and then having two hours' freedom, climbed with me up the +rock-covered hill at the back of the hotel. He was very silent. +But I remember that, as we watched the sun go down--a glowing +crimson ball, half veiled in grey mist--he said abruptly, "If +Lawrence makes her happy I can bear it. And of course I always knew +that I was not worthy of her." + +Derrick's room was a large, gaunt, ghostly place in one of the +towers of the hotel, and in one corner of it was a winding stair +leading to the roof. When I went in next morning I found him +writing away at his novel just as usual, but when I looked at him it +seemed to me that the night had aged him fearfully. As a rule, he +took interruptions as a matter of course, and with perfect sweetness +of temper; but to-day he seemed unable to drag himself back to the +outer world. He was writing at a desperate pace too, and frowned +when I spoke to him. I took up the sheet of foolscap which he had +just finished and glanced at the number of the page--evidently he +had written an immense quantity since the previous day. + +"You will knock yourself up if you go on at this rate!" I exclaimed. + +"Nonsense!" he said sharply. "You know it never tires me." + +Yet, all the same, he passed his hand very wearily over his +forehead, and stretched himself with the air of one who had been in +a cramping position for many hours. + +"You have broken your vow!" I cried. "You have been writing at +night." + +"No," he said; "it was morning when I began--three o'clock. And it +pays better to get up and write than to lie awake thinking." + +Judging by the speed with which the novel grew in the next few +weeks, I could tell that Derrick's nights were of the worst. + +He began, too, to look very thin and haggard, and I more than once +noticed that curious 'sleep-walking' expression in his eyes; he +seemed to me just like a man who has received his death-blow, yet +still lingers--half alive, half dead. I had an odd feeling that it +was his novel which kept him going, and I began to wonder what would +happen when it was finished. + +A month later, when I met him again at Bath, he had written the last +chapter of 'At Strife,' and we read it over the sitting-room fire on +Saturday evening. I was very much struck with the book; it seemed +to me a great advance on 'Lynwood's Heritage,' and the part which he +had written since that day at Ben Rhydding was full of an +indescribable power, as if the life of which he had been robbed had +flowed into his work. When he had done, he tied up the MS. in his +usual prosaic fashion, just as if it had been a bundle of clothes, +and put it on a side table. + +It was arranged that I should take it to Davison--the publisher of +'Lynwood's Heritage'--on Monday, and see what offer he would make +for it. Just at that time I felt so sorry for Derrick that if he +had asked me to hawk round fifty novels I would have done it. + +Sunday morning proved wet and dismal; as a rule the Major, who was +fond of music, attended service at the Abbey, but the weather forced +him now to stay at home. I myself was at that time no church-goer, +but Derrick would, I verily believe, as soon have fasted a week as +have given up a Sunday morning service; and having no mind to be +left to the Major's company, and a sort of wish to be near my +friend, I went with him. I believe it is not correct to admire Bath +Abbey, but for all that 'the lantern of the west' has always seemed +to me a grand place; as for Derrick, he had a horror of a 'dim +religious light,' and always stuck up for his huge windows, and I +believe he loved the Abbey with all his heart. Indeed, taking it +only from a sensuous point of view, I could quite imagine what a +relief he found his weekly attendance here; by contrast with his +home the place was Heaven itself. + +As we walked back, I asked a question that had long been in my mind: +"Have you seen anything of Lawrence?" + +"He saw us across London on our way from Ben Rhydding," said +Derrick, steadily. "Freda came with him, and my father was +delighted with her." + +I wondered how they had got through the meeting, but of course my +curiosity had to go unsatisfied. Of one thing I might be certain, +namely, that Derrick had gone through with it like a Trojan, that he +had smiled and congratulated in his quiet way, and had done the best +to efface himself and think only of Freda. But as everyone knows: + + "Face joy's a costly mask to wear, + 'Tis bought with pangs long nourished + And rounded to despair;" + +and he looked now even more worn and old than he had done at Ben +Rhydding in the first days of his trouble. + +However, he turned resolutely away from the subject I had introduced +and began to discuss titles for his novel. + +"It's impossible to find anything new," he said, "absolutely +impossible. I declare I shall take to numbers." + +I laughed at this prosaic notion, and we were still discussing the +title when we reached home. + +"Don't say anything about it at lunch," he said as we entered. "My +father detests my writing." + +I nodded assent and opened the sitting-room door--a strong smell of +brandy instantly became apparent; the Major sat in the green velvet +chair, which had been wheeled close to the hearth. He was drunk. + +Derrick gave an ejaculation of utter hopelessness. + +"This will undo all the good of Ben Rhydding!" he said. "How on +earth has he managed to get it?" + +The Major, however, was not so far gone as he looked; he caught up +the remark and turned towards us with a hideous laugh. + +"Ah, yes," he said, "that's the question. But the old man has still +some brains, you see. I'll be even with you yet, Derrick. You +needn't think you're to have it all your own way. It's my turn now. +You've deprived me all this time of the only thing I care for in +life, and now I turn the tables on you. Tit for tat. Oh! yes, I've +turned your d--d scribblings to a useful purpose, so you needn't +complain!" + +All this had been shouted out at the top of his voice and freely +interlarded with expressions which I will not repeat; at the end he +broke again into a laugh, and with a look, half idiotic, half +devilish, pointed towards the grate. + +"Good Heavens!" I said, "what have you done?" + +By the side of the chair I saw a piece of brown paper, and, catching +it up, read the address--"Messrs. Davison, Paternoster Row"; in the +fireplace was a huge charred mass. Derrick caught his breath; he +stooped down and snatched from the fender a fragment of paper +slightly burned, but still not charred beyond recognition like the +rest. The writing was quite legible--it was his own writing--the +description of the Royalists' attack and Paul Wharncliffe's defence +of the bridge. I looked from the half-burnt scrap of paper to the +side table where, only the previous night, we had placed the novel, +and then, realising as far as any but an author could realise the +frightful thing that had happened, I looked in Derrick's face. Its +white fury appalled me. What he had borne hitherto from the Major, +God only knows, but this was the last drop in the cup. Daily +insults, ceaseless provocation, even the humiliations of personal +violence he had borne with superhuman patience; but this last +injury, this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate destruction of +an amount of thought, and labour, and suffering which only the +writer himself could fully estimate--this was intolerable. + +What might have happened had the Major been sober and in the +possession of ordinary physical strength I hardly care to think. As +it was, his weakness protected him. Derrick's wrath was speechless; +with one look of loathing and contempt at the drunken man, he strode +out of the room, caught up his hat, and hurried from the house. + +The Major sat chuckling to himself for a minute or two, but soon he +grew drowsy, and before long was snoring like a grampus. The old +landlady brought in lunch, saw the state of things pretty quickly, +shook her head and commiserated Derrick. Then, when she had left +the room, seeing no prospect that either of my companions would be +in a fit state for lunch, I made a solitary meal, and had just +finished when a cab stopped at the door and out sprang Derrick. I +went into the passage to meet him. + +"The Major is asleep," I remarked. + +He took no more notice than if I had spoken of the cat. + +"I'm going to London," he said, making for the stairs. "Can you get +your bag ready? There's a train at 2.5." + +Somehow the suddenness and the self-control with which he made this +announcement carried me back to the hotel at Southampton, where, +after listening to the account of the ship's doctor, he had +announced his intention of living with his father. For more than +two years he had borne this awful life; he had lost pretty nearly +all that there was to be lost and he had gained the Major's +vindictive hatred. Now, half maddened by pain, and having, as he +thought, so hopelessly failed, he saw nothing for it but to go--and +that at once. + +I packed my bag, and then went to help him. He was cramming all his +possessions into portmanteaux and boxes; the Hoffman was already +packed, and the wall looked curiously bare without it. Clearly this +was no visit to London--he was leaving Bath for good, and who could +wonder at it? + +"I have arranged for the attendant from the hospital to come in at +night as well as in the morning," he said, as he locked a +portmanteau that was stuffed almost to bursting. "What's the time? +We must make haste or we shall lose the train. Do, like a good +fellow, cram that heap of things into the carpet-bag while I speak +to the landlady." + +At last we were off, rattling through the quiet streets of Bath, and +reaching the station barely in time to rush up the long flight of +stairs and spring into an empty carriage. Never shall I forget that +journey. The train stopped at every single station, and sometimes +in between; we were five mortal hours on the road, and more than +once I thought Derrick would have fainted. However, he was not of +the fainting order, he only grew more and more ghastly in colour and +rigid in expression. + +I felt very anxious about him, for the shock and the sudden anger +following on the trouble about Freda seemed to me enough to unhinge +even a less sensitive nature. 'At Strife' was the novel which had, +I firmly believe, kept him alive through that awful time at Ben +Rhydding, and I began to fear that the Major's fit of drunken malice +might prove the destruction of the author as well as of the book. +Everything had, as it were, come at once on poor Derrick; yet I +don't know that he fared worse than other people in this respect. + +Life, unfortunately, is for most of us no well-arranged story with a +happy termination; it is a chequered affair of shade and sun, and +for one beam of light there come very often wide patches of shadow. +Men seem to have known this so far back as Shakespeare's time, and +to have observed that one woe trod on another's heels, to have +battled not with a single wave, but with a 'sea of troubles,' and to +have remarked that 'sorrows come not singly, but in battalions.' + +However, owing I believe chiefly to his own self-command, and to his +untiring faculty for taking infinite pains over his work, Derrick +did not break down, but pleasantly cheated my expectations. I was +not called on to nurse him through a fever, and consumption did not +mark him for her own. In fact, in the matter of illness, he was +always a most prosaic, unromantic fellow, and never indulged in any +of the euphonious and interesting ailments. In all his life, I +believe, he never went in for anything but the mumps--of all +complaints the least interesting--and, may be, an occasional +headache. + +However, all this is a digression. We at length reached London, and +Derrick took a room above mine, now and then disturbing me with +nocturnal pacings over the creaking boards, but, on the whole, +proving himself the best of companions. + +If I wrote till Doomsday, I could never make you understand how the +burning of his novel affected him--to this day it is a subject I +instinctively avoid with him--though the re-written 'At Strife' has +been such a grand success. For he did re-write the story, and that +at once. He said little; but the very next morning, in one of the +windows of our quiet sitting-room, often enough looking despairingly +at the grey monotony of Montague Street, he began at 'Page I, +Chapter I,' and so worked patiently on for many months to re-make as +far as he could what his drunken father had maliciously destroyed. +Beyond the unburnt paragraph about the attack on Mondisfield, he had +nothing except a few hastily scribbled ideas in his note-book, and +of course the very elaborate and careful historical notes which he +had made on the Civil War during many years of reading and research- +-for this period had always been a favourite study with him. + +But, as any author will understand, the effort of re-writing was +immense, and this, combined with all the other troubles, tried +Derrick to the utmost. However, he toiled on, and I have always +thought that his resolute, unyielding conduct with regard to that +book proved what a man he was. + + + +Chapter VIII. + + "How oft Fate's sharpest blow shall leave thee strong, + With some re-risen ecstacy of song." + F. W. H. Myers. + +As the autumn wore on, we heard now and then from old Mackrill the +doctor. His reports of the Major were pretty uniform. Derrick used +to hand them over to me when he had read them; but, by tacit +consent, the Major's name was never mentioned. + +Meantime, besides re-writing 'At Strife,' he was accumulating +material for his next book and working to very good purpose. Not a +minute of his day was idle; he read much, saw various phases of life +hitherto unknown to him, studied, observed, gained experience, and +contrived, I believe, to think very little and very guardedly of +Freda. + +But, on Christmas Eve, I noticed a change in him--and that very +night he spoke to me. For such an impressionable fellow, he had +really extraordinary tenacity, and, spite of the course of Herbert +Spencer that I had put him through, he retained his unshaken faith +in many things which to me were at that time the merest legends. I +remember very well the arguments we used to have on the vexed +question of 'Free-will,' and being myself more or less of a +fatalist, it annoyed me that I never could in the very slightest +degree shake his convictions on that point. Moreover, when I +plagued him too much with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of +retaliating, and would foist upon me his favourite authors. He was +never a worshipper of any one writer, but always had at least a +dozen prophets in whose praise he was enthusiastic. + +Well, on this Christmas Eve, we had been to see dear old Ravenscroft +and his grand-daughter, and we were walking back through the quiet +precincts of the Temple, when he said abruptly: + +"I have decided to go back to Bath to-morrow." + +"Have you had a worse account?" I asked, much startled at this +sudden announcement. + +"No," he replied, "but the one I had a week ago was far from good if +you remember, and I have a feeling that I ought to be there." + +At that moment we emerged into the confusion of Fleet Street; but +when we had crossed the road I began to remonstrate with him, and +argued the folly of the idea all the way down Chancery Lane. + +However, there was no shaking his purpose; Christmas and its +associations had made his life in town no longer possible for him. + +"I must at any rate try it again and see how it works," he said. + +And all I could do was to persuade him to leave the bulk of his +possessions in London, "in case," as he remarked, "the Major would +not have him." + +So the next day I was left to myself again with nothing to remind me +of Derrick's stay but his pictures which still hung on the wall of +our sitting-room. I made him promise to write a full, true, and +particular account of his return, a bona-fide old-fashioned letter, +not the half-dozen lines of these degenerate days; and about a week +later I received the following budget: + +"Dear Sydney,--I got down to Bath all right, and, thanks to your +'Study of Sociology,' endured a slow, and cold, and dull, and +depressing journey with the thermometer down to zero, and spirits to +correspond, with the country a monotonous white, and the sky a +monotonous grey, and a companion who smoked the vilest tobacco you +can conceive. The old place looks as beautiful as ever, and to my +great satisfaction the hills round about are green. Snow, save in +pictures, is an abomination. Milsom Street looked asleep, and Gay +Street decidedly dreary, but the inhabitants were roused by my +knock, and the old landlady nearly shook my hand off. My father has +an attack of jaundice and is in a miserable state. He was asleep +when I got here, and the good old landlady, thinking the front +sitting-room would be free, had invited 'company,' i.e., two or +three married daughters and their belongings; one of the children +beats Magnay's 'Carina' as to beauty--he ought to paint her. Happy +thought, send him and pretty Mrs. Esperance down here on spec. He +can paint the child for the next Academy, and meantime I could enjoy +his company. Well, all these good folks being just set-to at roast +beef, I naturally wouldn't hear of disturbing them, and in the end +was obliged to sit down too and eat at that hour of the day the +hugest dinner you ever saw--anything but voracious appetites +offended the hostess. Magnay's future model, for all its angelic +face, 'ate to repletion,' like the fair American in the story. Then +I went into my father's room, and shortly after he woke up and asked +me to give him some Friedrichshall water, making no comment at all +on my return, but just behaving as though I had been here all the +autumn, so that I felt as if the whole affair were a dream. Except +for this attack of jaundice, he has been much as usual, and when you +next come down you will find us settled into our old groove. The +quiet of it after London is extraordinary. But I believe it suits +the book, which gets on pretty fast. This afternoon I went up +Lansdowne and right on past the Grand Stand to Prospect Stile, which +is at the edge of a high bit of tableland, and looks over a splendid +stretch of country, with the Bristol Channel and the Welsh hills in +the distance. While I was there the sun most considerately set in +gorgeous array. You never saw anything like it. It was worth the +journey from London to Bath, I can assure you. Tell Magnay, and may +it lure him down; also name the model aforementioned. + +"How is the old Q.C. and his pretty grandchild? That quaint old +room of theirs in the Temple somehow took my fancy, and the child +was divine. Do you remember my showing you, in a gloomy narrow +street here, a jolly old watchmaker who sits in his shop-window and +is for ever bending over sick clocks and watches? Well, he's still +sitting there, as if he had never moved since we saw him that +Saturday months ago. I mean to study him for a portrait; his +sallow, clean-shaved, wrinkled face has a whole story in it. I +believe he is married to a Xantippe who throws cold water over him, +both literally and metaphorically; but he is a philosopher--I'll +stake my reputation as an observer on that--he just shrugs his +sturdy old shoulders, and goes on mending clocks and watches. On +dark days he works by a gas jet--and then Rembrandt would enjoy +painting him. I look at him whenever my world is particularly awry, +and find him highly beneficial. Davison has forwarded me to-day two +letters from readers of 'Lynwood.' The first is from an irate +female who takes me to task for the dangerous tendency of the story, +and insists that I have drawn impossible circumstances and +impossible characters. The second is from an old clergyman, who +writes a pathetic letter of thanks, and tells me that it is almost +word for word the story of a son of his who died five years ago. +Query: shall I send the irate female the old man's letter, and save +myself the trouble of writing? But on the whole I think not; it +would be pearls before swine. I will write to her myself. Glad to +see you whenever you can run down. + "Yours ever, + "D. V." + +("Never struck me before what pious initials mine are.") + +The very evening I received this letter I happened to be dining at +the Probyn's. As luck would have it, pretty Miss Freda was staying +in the house, and she fell to my share. I always liked her, though +of late I had felt rather angry with her for being carried away by +the general storm of admiration and swept by it into an engagement +with Lawrence Vaughan. She was a very pleasant, natural sort of +talker, and she always treated me as an old friend. But she seemed +to me, that night, a little less satisfied than usual with life. +Perhaps it was merely the effect of the black lace dress which she +wore, but I fancied her paler and thinner, and somehow she seemed +all eyes. + +"Where is Lawrence now?" I asked, as we went down to the dining- +room. + +"He is stationed at Dover," she replied. "He was up here for a few +hours yesterday; he came to say good-bye to me, for I am going to +Bath next Monday with my father, who has been very rheumatic lately- +-and you know Bath is coming into fashion again, all the doctors +recommend it." + +"Major Vaughan is there," I said, "and has found the waters very +good, I believe; any day, at twelve o'clock, you may see him getting +out of his chair and going into the Pump Room on Derrick's arm. I +often wonder what outsiders think of them. It isn't often, is it, +that one sees a son absolutely giving up his life to his invalid +father?" + +She looked a little startled. + +"I wish Lawrence could be more with Major Vaughan," she said; "for +he is his father's favourite. You see he is such a good talker, and +Derrick--well, he is absorbed in his books; and then he has such +extravagant notions about war, he must be a very uncongenial +companion to the poor Major." + +I devoured turbot in wrathful silence. Freda glanced at me. + +"It is true, isn't it, that he has quite given up his life to +writing, and cares for nothing else?" + +"Well, he has deliberately sacrificed his best chance of success by +leaving London and burying himself in the provinces," I replied +drily; "and as to caring for nothing but writing, why he never gets +more than two or three hours a day for it." And then I gave her a +minute account of his daily routine. + +She began to look troubled. + +"I have been misled," she said; "I had gained quite a wrong +impression of him." + +"Very few people know anything at all about him," I said warmly; +"you are not alone in that." + +"I suppose his next novel is finished now?" said Freda; "he told me +he had only one or two more chapters to write when I saw him a few +months ago on his way from Ben Rhydding. What is he writing now?" + +"He is writing that novel over again," I replied. + +"Over again? What fearful waste of time!" + +"Yes, it has cost him hundreds of hours' work; it just shows what a +man he is, that he has gone through with it so bravely." + +"But how do you mean? Didn't it do?" + +Rashly, perhaps, yet I think unavoidably, I told her the truth. + +"It was the best thing he had ever written, but unfortunately it was +destroyed, burnt to a cinder. That was not very pleasant, was it, +for a man who never makes two copies of his work?" + +"It was frightful!" said Freda, her eyes dilating. "I never heard a +word about it. Does Lawrence know?" + +"No, he does not; and perhaps I ought not to have told you, but I +was annoyed at your so misunderstanding Derrick. Pray never mention +the affair; he would wish it kept perfectly quiet." + +"Why?" asked Freda, turning her clear eyes full upon mine. + +"Because," I said, lowering my voice, "because his father burnt it." + +She almost gasped. + +"Deliberately?" + +"Yes, deliberately," I replied. "His illness has affected his +temper, and he is sometimes hardly responsible for his actions." + +"Oh, I knew that he was irritable and hasty, and that Derrick +annoyed him. Lawrence told me that, long ago," said Freda. "But +that he should have done such a thing as that! It is horrible! +Poor Derrick, how sorry I am for him. I hope we shall see something +of them at Bath. Do you know how the Major is?" + +"I had a letter about him from Derrick only this evening," I +replied; "if you care to see it, I will show it you later on." + +And by-and-by, in the drawing-room, I put Derrick's letter into her +hands, and explained to her how for a few months he had given up his +life at Bath, in despair, but now had returned. + +"I don't think Lawrence can understand the state of things," she +said wistfully. "And yet he has been down there." + +I made no reply, and Freda, with a sigh, turned away. + +A month later I went down to Bath and found, as my friend foretold, +everything going on in the old groove, except that Derrick himself +had an odd, strained look about him, as if he were fighting a foe +beyond his strength. Freda's arrival at Bath had been very hard on +him, it was almost more than he could endure. Sir Richard, blind as +a bat, of course, to anything below the surface, made a point of +seeing something of Lawrence's brother. And on the day of my +arrival Derrick and I had hardly set out for a walk, when we ran +across the old man. + +Sir Richard, though rheumatic in the wrists, was nimble of foot and +an inveterate walker. He was going with his daughter to see over +Beckford's Tower, and invited us to accompany him. Derrick, much +against the grain, I fancy, had to talk to Freda, who, in her winter +furs and close-fitting velvet hat, looked more fascinating than +ever, while the old man descanted to me on Bath waters, antiquities, +etc., in a long-winded way that lasted all up the hill. We made our +way into the cemetery and mounted the tower stairs, thinking of the +past when this dreary place had been so gorgeously furnished. Here +Derrick contrived to get ahead with Sir Richard, and Freda lingered +in a sort of alcove with me. + +"I have been so wanting to see you," she said, in an agitated voice. +"Oh, Mr. Wharncliffe, is it true what I have heard about the Major? +Does he drink?" + +"Who told you?" I said, a little embarrassed. + +"It was our landlady," said Freda; "she is the daughter of the +Major's landlady. And you should hear what she says of Derrick! +Why, he must be a downright hero! All the time I have been half +despising him"--she choked back a sob--"he has been trying to save +his father from what was certain death to him--so they told me. Do +you think it is true?" + +"I know it is," I replied gravely. + +"And about his arm--was that true?" + +I signed an assent. + +Her grey eyes grew moist. + +"Oh," she cried, "how I have been deceived and how little Lawrence +appreciates him! I think he must know that I've misjudged him, for +he seems so odd and shy, and I don't think he likes to talk to me." + +I looked searchingly into her truthful grey eyes, thinking of poor +Derrick's unlucky love-story. + +"You do not understand him," I said; "and perhaps it is best so." + +But the words and the look were rash, for all at once the colour +flooded her face. She turned quickly away, conscious at last that +the midsummer dream of those yachting days had to Derrick been no +dream at all, but a life-long reality. + +I felt very sorry for Freda, for she was not at all the sort of girl +who would glory in having a fellow hopelessly in love with her. I +knew that the discovery she had made would be nothing but a sorrow +to her, and could guess how she would reproach herself for that +innocent past fancy, which, till now, had seemed to her so faint and +far-away--almost as something belonging to another life. All at +once we heard the others descending, and she turned to me with such +a frightened, appealing look, that I could not possibly have helped +going to the rescue. I plunged abruptly into a discourse on +Beckford, and told her how he used to keep diamonds in a tea-cup, +and amused himself by arranging them on a piece of velvet. Sir +Richard fled from the sound of my prosy voice, and, needless to say, +Derrick followed him. We let them get well in advance and then +followed, Freda silent and distraite, but every now and then asking +a question about the Major. + +As for Derrick, evidently he was on guard. He saw a good deal of +the Merrifields and was sedulously attentive to them in many small +ways; but with Freda he was curiously reserved, and if by chance +they did talk together, he took good care to bring Lawrence's name +into the conversation. On the whole, I believe loyalty was his +strongest characteristic, and want of loyalty in others tried him +more severely than anything in the world. + +As the spring wore on, it became evident to everyone that the Major +could not last long. His son's watchfulness and the enforced +temperance which the doctors insisted on had prolonged his life to a +certain extent, but gradually his sufferings increased and his +strength diminished. At last he kept his bed altogether. + +What Derrick bore at this time no one can ever know. When, one +bright sunshiny Saturday, I went down to see how he was getting on, +I found him worn and haggard, too evidently paying the penalty of +sleepless nights and thankless care. I was a little shocked to hear +that Lawrence had been summoned, but when I was taken into the sick +room I realised that they had done wisely to send for the favourite +son. + +The Major was evidently dying. + +Never can I forget the cruelty and malevolence with which his +bloodshot eyes rested on Derrick, or the patience with which the +dear old fellow bore his father's scathing sarcasms. It was while I +was sitting by the bed that the landlady entered with a telegram, +which she put into Derrick's hand. + +"From Lawrence!" said the dying man triumphantly, "to say by what +train we may expect him. Well?" as Derrick still read the message +to himself, "can't you speak, you d--d idiot? Have you lost your d- +-d tongue? What does he say?" + +"I am afraid he cannot be here just yet," said Derrick, trying to +tone down the curt message; "it seems he cannot get leave." + +"Not get leave to see his dying father? What confounded nonsense. +Give me the thing here"; and he snatched the telegram from Derrick +and read it in a quavering, hoarse voice: + +"Impossible to get away. Am hopelessly tied here. Love to my +father. Greatly regret to hear such bad news of him." + +I think that message made the old man realise the worth of +Lawrence's often expressed affection for him. Clearly it was a +great blow to him. He threw down the paper without a word and +closed his eyes. For half an hour he lay like that, and we did not +disturb him. At last he looked up; his voice was fainter and his +manner more gentle. + +"Derrick," he said, "I believe I've done you an injustice; it is you +who cared for me, not Lawrence, and I've struck your name out of my +will--have left all to him. After all, though you are one of those +confounded novelists, you've done what you could for me. Let some +one fetch a solicitor--I'll alter it--I'll alter it!" + +I instantly hurried out to fetch a lawyer, but it was Saturday +afternoon, the offices were closed, and some time passed before I +had caught my man. I told him as we hastened back some of the facts +of the case, and he brought his writing materials into the sick room +and took down from the Major's own lips the words which would have +the effect of dividing the old man's possessions between his two +sons. Dr. Mackrill was now present; he stood on one side of the +bed, his fingers on the dying man's pulse. On the other side stood +Derrick, a degree paler and graver than usual, but revealing little +of his real feelings. + +"Word it as briefly as you can," said the doctor. + +And the lawyer scribbled away as though for his life, while the rest +of us waited in a wretched hushed state of tension. In the room +itself there was no sound save the scratching of the pen and the +laboured breathing of the old man; but in the next house we could +hear someone playing a waltz. Somehow it did not seem to me +incongruous, for it was 'Sweethearts,' and that had been the +favourite waltz of Ben Rhydding, so that I always connected it with +Derrick and his trouble, and now the words rang in my ears: + + "Oh, love for a year, a week, a day, + But alas! for the love that loves alway." + +If it had not been for the Major's return from India, I firmly +believed that Derrick and Freda would by this time have been +betrothed. Derrick had taken a line which necessarily divided them, +had done what he saw to be his duty; yet what were the results? He +had lost Freda, he had lost his book, he had damaged his chance of +success as a writer, he had been struck out of his father's will, +and he had suffered unspeakably. Had anything whatever been gained? +The Major was dying unrepentant to all appearance, as hard and +cynical an old worldling as I ever saw. The only spark of grace he +showed was that tardy endeavour to make a fresh will. What good had +it all been? What good? + +I could not answer the question then, could only cry out in a sort +of indignation, "What profit is there in his blood?" But looking at +it now, I have a sort of perception that the very lack of apparent +profitableness was part of Derrick's training, while if, as I now +incline to think, there is a hereafter where the training begun here +is continued, the old Major in the hell he most richly deserved +would have the remembrance of his son's patience and constancy and +devotion to serve as a guiding light in the outer darkness. + +The lawyer no longer wrote at railroad speed; he pushed back his +chair, brought the will to the bed, and placed the pen in the +trembling yellow hand of the invalid. + +"You must sign your name here," he said, pointing with his finger; +and the Major raised himself a little, and brought the pen +quaveringly down towards the paper. With a sort of fascination I +watched the finely-pointed steel nib; it trembled for an instant or +two, then the pen dropped from the convulsed fingers, and with a cry +of intolerable anguish the Major fell back. + +For some minutes there was a painful struggle; presently we caught a +word or two between the groans of the dying man. + +"Too late!" he gasped, "too late!" And then a dreadful vision of +horrors seemed to rise before him, and with a terror that I can +never forget he turned to his son and clutched fast hold of his +hands: "Derrick!" he shrieked. + +Derrick could not speak, but he bent low over the bed as though to +screen the dying eyes from those horrible visions, and with an odd +sort of thrill I saw him embrace his father. + +When he raised his head the terror had died out of the Major's face; +all was over. + + + +Chapter IX. + + "To duty firm, to conscience true, + However tried and pressed, + In God's clear sight high work we do, + If we but do out best." + +Lawrence came down to the funeral, and I took good care that he +should hear all about his father's last hours, and I made the +solicitor show him the unsigned will. He made hardly any comment on +it till we three were alone together. Then with a sort of kindly +patronage he turned to his brother--Derrick, it must be remembered, +was the elder twin--and said pityingly, "Poor old fellow! it was +rather rough on you that the governor couldn't sign this; but never +mind, you'll soon, no doubt, be earning a fortune by your books; and +besides, what does a bachelor want with more than you've already +inherited from our mother? Whereas, an officer just going to be +married, and with this confounded reputation of hero to keep up, +why, I can tell you it needs every penny of it!" + +Derrick looked at his brother searchingly. I honestly believe that +he didn't very much care about the money, but it cut him to the +heart that Lawrence should treat him so shabbily. The soul of +generosity himself, he could not understand how anyone could frame a +speech so infernally mean. + +"Of course," I broke in, "if Derrick liked to go to law he could no +doubt get his rights, there are three witnesses who can prove what +was the Major's real wish." + +"I shall not go to law," said Derrick, with a dignity of which I had +hardly imagined him capable. "You spoke of your marriage, Lawrence; +is it to be soon?" + +"This autumn, I hope," said Lawrence; "at least, if I can overcome +Sir Richard's ridiculous notion that a girl ought not to marry till +she's twenty-one. He's a most crotchety old fellow, that future +father-in-law of mine." + +When Lawrence had first come back from the war I had thought him +wonderfully improved, but a long course of spoiling and flattery had +done him a world of harm. He liked very much to be lionised, and to +see him now posing in drawing-rooms, surrounded by a worshipping +throng of women, was enough to sicken any sensible being. + +As for Derrick, though he could not be expected to feel his +bereavement in the ordinary way, yet his father's death had been a +great shock to him. It was arranged that after settling various +matters in Bath he should go down to stay with his sister for a +time, joining me in Montague Street later on. While he was away in +Birmingham, however, an extraordinary change came into my humdrum +life, and when he rejoined me a few weeks later, I--selfish brute-- +was so overwhelmed with the trouble that had befallen me that I +thought very little indeed of his affairs. He took this quite as a +matter of course, and what I should have done without him I can't +conceive. However, this story concerns him and has nothing to do +with my extraordinary dilemma; I merely mention it as a fact which +brought additional cares into his life. All the time he was doing +what could be done to help me he was also going through a most +baffling and miserable time among the publishers; for 'At Strife,' +unlike its predecessor, was rejected by Davison and by five other +houses. Think of this, you comfortable readers, as you lie back in +your easy chairs and leisurely turn the pages of that popular story. +The book which represented years of study and long hours of hard +work was first burnt to a cinder. It was re-written with what +infinite pains and toil few can understand. It was then six times +tied up and carried with anxiety and hope to a publisher's office, +only to re-appear six times in Montague Street, an unwelcome +visitor, bringing with it depression and disappointment. + +Derrick said little, but suffered much. However, nothing daunted +him. When it came back from the sixth publisher he took it to a +seventh, then returned and wrote away like a Trojan at his third +book. The one thing that never failed him was that curious +consciousness that he HAD to write; like the prophets of old, the +'burden' came to him, and speak it he must. + +The seventh publisher wrote a somewhat dubious letter: the book, he +thought, had great merit, but unluckily people were prejudiced, and +historical novels rarely met with success. However, he was willing +to take the story, and offered half profits, candidly admitting that +he had no great hopes of a large sale. Derrick instantly closed +with this offer, proofs came in, the book appeared, was well +received like its predecessor, fell into the hands of one of the +leaders of Society, and, to the intense surprise of the publisher, +proved to be the novel of the year. Speedily a second edition was +called for; then, after a brief interval, a third edition--this time +a rational one-volume affair; and the whole lot--6,000 I believe-- +went off on the day of publication. Derrick was amazed; but he +enjoyed his success very heartily, and I think no one could say that +he had leapt into fame at a bound. + +Having devoured 'At Strife,' people began to discover the merits of +'Lynwood's Heritage;' the libraries were besieged for it, and a +cheap edition was hastily published, and another and another, till +the book, which at first had been such a dead failure, rivalled 'At +Strife.' Truly an author's career is a curious thing; and precisely +why the first book failed, and the second succeeded, no one could +explain. + +It amused me very much to see Derrick turned into a lion--he was so +essentially un-lion-like. People were for ever asking him how he +worked, and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon him once at a +dinner-party with the embarrassing request: + +"Now, do tell me, Mr. Vaughan, how do you write stories? I wish you +would give me a good receipt for a novel." + +Derrick hesitated uneasily for a minute; finally, with a humorous +smile, he said: + +"Well, I can't exactly tell you, because, more or less, novels grow; +but if you want a receipt, you might perhaps try after this +fashion:--Conceive your hero, add a sprinkling of friends and +relatives, flavour with whatever scenery or local colour you please, +carefully consider what circumstances are most likely to develop +your man into the best he is capable of, allow the whole to simmer +in your brain as long as you can, and then serve, while hot, with +ink upon white or blue foolscap, according to taste." + +The young lady applauded the receipt, but she sighed a little, and +probably relinquished all hope of concocting a novel herself; on the +whole, it seemed to involve incessant taking of trouble. + +About this time I remember, too, another little scene, which I +enjoyed amazingly. I laugh now when I think of it. I happened to +be at a huge evening crush, and rather to my surprise, came across +Lawrence Vaughan. We were talking together, when up came Connington +of the Foreign Office. "I say, Vaughan," he said, "Lord Remington +wishes to be introduced to you." I watched the old statesman a +little curiously as he greeted Lawrence, and listened to his first +words: "Very glad to make your acquaintance, Captain Vaughan; I +understand that the author of that grand novel, 'At Strife,' is a +brother of yours." And poor Lawrence spent a mauvais quart d'heure, +inwardly fuming, I know, at the idea that he, the hero of Saspataras +Hill, should be considered merely as 'the brother of Vaughan, the +novelist.' + +Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his own pernicious +actions, did not deal kindly just now with Lawrence. Somehow Freda +learnt about that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content +meekly to adore her fiance and deem him faultless, she 'up and +spake' on the subject, and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had +another mauvais quart d'heure. It was not this, however, which led +to a final breach between them; it was something which Sir Richard +discovered with regard to Lawrence's life at Dover. The engagement +was instantly broken off, and Freda, I am sure, felt nothing but +relief. She went abroad for some time, however, and we did not see +her till long after Lawrence had been comfortably married to 1,500 +pounds a year and a middle-aged widow, who had long been a hero- +worshipper, and who, I am told, never allowed any visitor to leave +the house without making some allusion to the memorable battle of +Saspataras Hill and her Lawrence's gallant action. + +For the two years following after the Major's death, Derrick and I, +as I mentioned before, shared the rooms in Montague Street. For me, +owing to the trouble I spoke of, they were years of maddening +suspense and pain; but what pleasure I did manage to enjoy came +entirely through the success of my friend's books and from his +companionship. It was odd that from the care of his father he +should immediately pass on to the care of one who had made such a +disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the less compunction +at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called for at that time, +because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a necessity for +Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not immediately +thrust themselves into his life he carefully hunts them up. During +these two years he was reading for the Bar--not that he ever +expected to do very much as a barrister, but he thought it well to +have something to fall back on, and declared that the drudgery of +the reading would do him good. He was also writing as usual, and he +used to spend two evenings a week at Whitechapel, where he taught +one of the classes in connection with Toynbee Hall, and where he +gained that knowledge of East-end life which is conspicuous in his +third book--'Dick Carew.' This, with an ever increasing and often +very burdensome correspondence, brought to him by his books, and +with a fair share of dinners, 'At Homes,' and so forth, made his +life a full one. In a quiet sort of way I believe he was happy +during this time. But later on, when, my trouble at an end, I had +migrated to a house of my own, and he was left alone in the Montague +Street rooms, his spirits somehow flagged. + +Fame is, after all, a hollow, unsatisfying thing to a man of his +nature. He heartily enjoyed his success, he delighted in hearing +that his books had given pleasure or had been of use to anyone, but +no public victory could in the least make up to him for the loss he +had suffered in his private life; indeed, I almost think there were +times when his triumphs as an author seemed to him utterly +worthless--days of depression when the congratulations of his +friends were nothing but a mockery. He had gained a striking +success, it is true, but he had lost Freda; he was in the position +of the starving man who has received a gift of bon-bons, but so +craves for bread that they half sicken him. I used now and then to +watch his face when, as often happened, someone said: "What an +enviable fellow you are, Vaughan, to get on like this!" or, "What +wouldn't I give to change places with you!" He would invariably +smile and turn the conversation; but there was a look in his eyes at +such times that I hated to see--it always made me think of Mrs. +Browning's poem, 'The Mask': + + "Behind no prison-grate, she said, + Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, + Live captives so uncomforted + As souls behind a smile." + +As to the Merrifields, there was no chance of seeing them, for Sir +Richard had gone to India in some official capacity, and no doubt, +as everyone said, they would take good care to marry Freda out +there. Derrick had not seen her since that trying February at Bath, +long ago. Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts. + +And so the years rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving +his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of an +author's life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in +circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing +at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he +received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be +made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor. + +One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at +the same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and +perhaps it was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire +after her. + +"She has not been well," said Lady Probyn, "and they are sending her +back to England; the climate doesn't suit her. She is to make her +home with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always +been my favourite niece. I don't know what it is about her that is +so taking; she is not half so pretty as the others." + +"But so much more charming," I said. "I wonder she has not married +out in India, as everyone prophesied." + +"And so do I," said her aunt. "However, poor child, no doubt, after +having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of +Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone +again." + +"Do you think that affair ever went very deep?" I ventured to ask. +"It seemed to me that she looked miserable during her engagement, +and happy when it was broken off." + +"Quite so," said Lady Probyn; "I noticed the same thing. It was +nothing but a mistake. They were not in the least suited to each +other. By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is married." + +"Derrick?" I exclaimed; "oh, no, that is a mistake. It is merely +one of the hundred and one reports that are for ever being set +afloat about him." + +"But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said Lady Probyn, by no +means convinced. + +"Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no +doubt, and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he +marry? He has been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since +our cruise in the Aurora." + +Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation. + +"Poor fellow!" she said, after a minute's thought; "that explains +much to me." + +She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our +tete-a-tete was interrupted. + +Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared +chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party, +Derrick came in with a face of such radiant happiness that I +couldn't imagine what good luck had befallen him. + +"What do you think?" he exclaimed; "here's an invitation for a +cruise in the Aurora at the end of August--to be nearly the same +party that we had years ago," and he threw down the letter for me to +read. + +Of course there was special mention of "my niece, Miss Merrifield, +who has just returned from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air." +I could have told that without reading the letter, for it was +written quite clearly in Derrick's face. He looked ten years +younger, and if any of his adoring readers could have seen the +pranks he was up to that morning in our staid and respectable +chambers, I am afraid they would no longer have spoken of him "with +'bated breath and whispering humbleness." + +As it happened, I, too, was able to leave home for a fortnight at +the end of August; and so our party in the Aurora really was the +same, except that we were all several years older, and let us hope +wiser, than on the previous occasion. Considering all that had +intervened, I was surprised that Derrick was not more altered; as +for Freda, she was decidedly paler than when we first met her, but +before long sea-air and happiness wrought a wonderful transformation +in her. + +In spite of the pessimists who are for ever writing books, even +writing novels (more shame to them), to prove that there is no such +thing as happiness in the world, we managed every one of us heartily +to enjoy our cruise. It seemed indeed true that: + + "Green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, + And singing and loving all come back together." + +Something, at any rate, of the glamour of those past days came back +to us all, I fancy, as we laughed and dozed and idled and talked +beneath the snowy wings of the Aurora, and I cannot say I was in the +least surprised when, on roaming through the pleasant garden walks +in that unique little island of Tresco, I came once more upon +Derrick and Freda, with, if you will believe it, another handful of +white heather given to them by that discerning gardener! Freda once +more reminded me of the girl in the 'Biglow Papers,' and Derrick's +face was full of such bliss as one seldom sees. + +He had always had to wait for his good things, but in the end they +came to him. However, you may depend upon it, he didn't say much. +That was never his way. He only gripped my hand, and, with his eyes +all aglow with happiness, exclaimed "Congratulate me, old fellow!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Derrick Vaughan--Novelist, by Edna Lyall + diff --git a/old/dvnvl10.zip b/old/dvnvl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7addd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dvnvl10.zip |