"Very sensible! Short and to the point. How can he tell what sort of rubbish you write!" said Steve.
"Hope you notice the dash under the "short"! No chance for your novel, my dear. He doesn"t see himself sitting down to read hundreds of pages of your appalling fist. Grows more like lattice-work every day!"
Philippa cried severely.
"I can just imagine what he is like! A proper little person, with a shiny bald head. Fancy writing love-scenes for his inspection! My hat!" and Madge lengthened her chin in an expressive grimace.
"The worst of it is, I don"t know what to send. I have nothing short that"s good enough. It ought to be striking, arresting, original. I--I want an idea," cried poor Theo, staring frantically at the coffee-cups, and wrinkling her brow until she looked ten years older on the spot.
"It"s finding a subject that is the hardest part. I love the writing when I"m once well started. I can"t possibly send anything before next week."
"Don"t try. Take your time, and do your very best. Send a letter to say you will forward a MS in the course of the next few weeks. It"s important that you should send your best work, and you can"t write happily with a feeling of hurry. It must be a story, of course, not an article."
"Mind you have a nice hero: six feet high--broad shoulders--big moustache--"
"No, no; clean shaven--clean shaven, with a firm, determined chin; big feet and hands, quick-tempered, but too sweet for anything to the girl he loves."
"Make her slim and willowy, with grey eyes; rather wistful-looking, not exactly pretty, but with "a way with her" that simply mows "em down!"
"Give her some spirit, mind!" cried Madge once more. "I hate your mawkish heroines--sort of creature you would call "The Maiden." Don"t call her "The Maiden," Theo, if you wish me to buy a copy; and whatever you do, I pray and beseech you, don"t write in the present tense: "I am leaning against a stile; the roses are falling in heavy cl.u.s.ters by my side; the rays of the sun are pouring on my uncovered head and turning to gold the wayward curls which refuse to lie straight despite all my efforts." Don"t you know the kind of thing! I feel inclined to throw a book in the fire when it begins like that. Don"t let your heroine have "wayward curls," Theo. Don"t let her have "little tendrils wandering over her brow." Don"t say in every chapter that "she had never looked more lovely;" and for goodness" sake don"t let the husband and wife behave like idiots, and quarrel all the time, though they are really expiring of love!"
"Well, really! Any more instructions? It"s a pity you don"t write the whole thing while you are about it," said Theo testily as she pushed her choir from the table.
The family had grown to dread the times when Theo was settling on a plot for a new story. She was so restless; she wandered about in such an aimless manner; she looked so thoroughly worried and unhappy. Sometimes the girls would try to help her with suggestions, and then she would listen with a forbearing smile, and say, "Oh, thank you! Yes, it"s _very_ good. I should think a capital story might be made out of it, but somehow it doesn"t appeal to me."
At other times, when they were never thinking of helping, and were engaged in what seemed the most ordinary conversation, Theo would suddenly clap her hands and cry, "Oh, that will do! Good! _Now_ I"ve got it!" and rush excitedly from the room, leaving her sisters to discuss what in the world they had said that could possibly suggest a romance. Verily, an author in the household was a difficult person with whom to deal!
For the next few days Theo sat alone in her room making futile efforts at a beginning, going out for long walks along the crowded streets, or sitting shivering on the seats in the Park. In deference to her condition, Hope kept away from the piano while she was at home; but no sooner was the door closed behind her than she flew to try the effect of the new song, and to alter and re-alter the more troublesome bars. She must practise, too, for with the hope of public work before her it would never do to lose execution and flexibility of finger. Already she was making arrangements for lessons in harmony, and her time seemed filling up.
In the energy which distinguishes all beginnings, Hope practised scales and exercises for a good three hours one Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and towards the end of the time was much exercised to account for the meaning of a thumping noise that seemed to rise from the ground beneath her feet.
She stopped playing; the noise stopped also. She began again; the noise was repeated. Philippa, summoned to decide whether or no they were the proud possessors of a unique sort of echo, immediately arrived at a more prosaic explanation.
"It"s some one knocking from underneath. It must be the Hermit, that bachelor creature who lives just below. He wants you to stop."
"What cheek!" cried Hope. She was, as a rule, discreet and punctilious in her language, but there are points upon which the meekest among us are keenly sensitive, and when it came to interference with her practising, propriety flew to the winds. "What _hateful_ cheek! What right has he to interfere! Has he hired the whole building? Does he think we are going to consult _him_ about what we do? What next, indeed? I"ll try chromatics now, and see how he will like them. Cheek!
Abominable cheek?"
She went to work more vigorously than ever, and Philippa thought it prudent to refrain from interference, but contented herself with hurrying preparations for tea; and for the time being there was no more knocking. Presumably the chromatics had reduced the listener to a condition of helpless despair.
On the third evening Theo made her appearance wearing her best fichu, and with a face wreathed in smiles. "I"ve got it!" she announced; and there was no need to ask to what she referred. The tension was over for the time being, and the young author worked up her subject with the usual enjoyment. When the story was finished the girls begged for a private reading; a request against which, as a rule, the author steadily set her face, so that, as usual, the first response was a refusal.
"I can"t. It is too cold-blooded. The members of one"s own family are too painfully critical. I"d rather face a dozen editors than you three girls."
"Very unkind of you, then; that"s all I have to say," said Philippa severely. "You know how interested we are; and if we _are_ critical, surely it"s better to discuss faults with us than to let them go uncorrected. This is a special story, and in consideration of our anxiety--"
"Oh, well!" said Theo unwillingly, "I"ll read it if you like. Get your sewing, and don"t stare at me all the time. It"s quite short. You won"t like it, I expect. Let me sit near the lamp."
She was evidently nervous, and her voice was decidedly shaky for the first few pages; but after that she forgot herself, and read with expression and power. If one of the girls moved, she looked up with a frown; and when Madge groaned and clasped her hands over her heart at a particularly touching part of the love-story, she stopped short and fixed her with a basilisk glare. It was a story of a truly modern type, which, so to speak, began at the end and worked slowly but surely back to the beginning. It was by no means certain, too, what the heroine did, or why she did it; and if one had been sceptically minded, one would have doubted whether the author knew herself. Hope was puzzled, Madge engrossed and curious; Philippa was frankly bored. Her own nature was straightforward and outspoken, and she had no patience with what seemed to be wilful obtuseness. Her attention waned as a Martha-like anxiety seized her in its grip; her eyes wandered to the clock, and her brow grew furrowed. Alas for the trials of the author in the household!
At the very moment when Theo was preparing to deliver the crucial sentence on which hung the whole construction of the plot--in that thrilling moment wherein she paused and drew breath, the better to deliver it with due emphasis and dramatic effect--an anxious voice claimed precedence and cried loudly:
"_Hope_! It"s after five. _Did_ you remember to order the fish?"
It was too much for flesh and blood to endure. Up bounced Theo; down dashed the MS on the table; bang went the door after her departing figure as she fled to her bedroom for refuge, while the two younger sisters stared across the room with eyes large with reproach.
"Phil, how could you? How cruel! At the most exciting point! How _could_ you do it?"
"I"m sorry," said Philippa; and she really looked it. "I didn"t mean to vex her; but Steve will be home in less than an hour, and there is only cold meat. I was so anxious about the fish. Was there much more to read? You might finish it, and then we can tell her what we think of it. I don"t like it; do you?"
"It"s clever," said Madge decidedly. "It"s atrociously clever. I"m dying to know how it ends."
But when the MS was finished Madge"s curiosity remained unsatisfied, for what happened to the heroine was as uncertain as everything else in her career.
Theo did not make her appearance again until dinner was on the table, when she came into the room with her head in the air and her lip curled in disdain. "I have to live with these poor, grovelling worms, but at least I need not a.s.sociate with them!" So said her expression as plainly as words could speak. She had, however, reckoned without her sense of humour, which, fortunately for her readers, was particularly acute; and no sooner was the cover removed from the belated fish than her lips began to twitch and her eyes to twinkle. Her cheeks grew red, her shoulders heaved, and finally out came a great burst of laughter; and there she sat, rocking to and fro in her chair, gasping out short, strangled sentences, with her hands gripped convulsively over her heart.
"Oh-h! Oh! Have you ordered the fish? The _fish_! Oh, a prophet--is not a prophet--_Fish_! Oh!"
"Might make a joke somehow about fish and Jonah, mightn"t you?" said Madge, laughing, scarcely less heartily, in the relief of seeing Theo"s descent from her high horse. "I can"t quite see how it is to be done, but it has possibilities. I finished reading your story, my dear, and I feel inclined to shake you. Why couldn"t you make a happy ending while you were about it?"
"Too commonplace!" said the author scornfully. "You didn"t expect me to make them "live happily ever after," did you? I haven"t quite descended to that, I hope. Well, what do you think of it?"
"I don"t like it nearly so well as some of your others. I was sorry that I interrupted you, dear; but I am afraid it was because I didn"t like it," confessed Philippa honestly. "I loved that pretty little story about the poor governess and the rich lover who came home from Australia. Do send that to Mr Hammond; it is really very much nicer."
"Nicer!" repeated Theo. "Pretty!" Her voice rang with an incredulous disdain. "I want something strong and powerful. Hope, what do _you_ think? Don"t you like it either?"
Hope wrinkled her brows, and looked puzzled and distressed.
"I can"t decide. It"s so queer! Does it really mean that she marries him in the end, or that she refuses him because she loves him? I keep thinking and thinking, and it is so confusing."
"It is the most maddening story I ever read," chimed in Madge decisively, "for it tells you nothing that you want to know, and it makes you want to know so much that you can hardly live for suspense.
You ought to hate that exasperating girl, and yet you feel that life is not worth living without her. I will say for you, my dear, that you have achieved the most worrying, unsatisfactory muddle I can possibly imagine. I believe I shall dream of it to-night."
"Hurrah!" cried Theo--"hurrah!" and she tossed her bread in the air, and caught it again with a wave of triumph. "I _am_ pleased! I won"t alter a single word, but will send it off to-night. If Hope keeps worrying about it while she is awake, and Madge dreams of it while she is asleep, I don"t want any higher praise. Never mind if the impression is painful; it _is_ an impression, and that"s the great object of story-telling. Thank you both. I"m so relieved."
"Humph!" muttered Philippa shortly, and added something under her breath about "executions making a painful impression, if you come to that;"
which the others judiciously affected not to hear. Phil had her own grievance by this time, for it is not pleasant to have one"s criticisms overlooked as beneath consideration, and to be calmly ignored by artistic striplings as a good, commonplace creature who cannot be expected to rise to the intellectual level of her companions. Like all housekeepers, Philippa experienced moments of weariness and revolt against the everlasting "trivial round"--moments of longing for a more interesting life-work--and at such times the att.i.tude of her younger sisters made her lot doubly hard. She struggled against the temptation to say something sharp and cutting, and Stephen, watching her face from the other end of the table, divined the hidden thoughts. He was not a brilliant nor, to outsiders, a particularly interesting young fellow, but just one of those kindly, single-hearted men who are born to make some woman"s life safe and happy; and as, so far, Philippa was his lady-love, he could not rest while that shadow was on her brow. Before they went to bed he made an excuse to call her into the dining-room, and to lead the conversation in such a direction as would invite her to give him her confidence.
"It is a little hard, isn"t it?" she said wistfully. "You saw how Theo ignored my criticism, and the others never even seemed to notice. I work for them all day long, keeping the house comfortable and mending their things, to set them free for their own work, and I am only despised for it. It makes me mad, Steve; and, worse still, it makes me sad."
"Poor old girl!" said Stephen softly. He leant his elbows on the mantelpiece and ruffled his hair nervously. If Philippa had been his wife he would have taken her in his arms and spoken all that was in his heart, but a man feels an embarra.s.sment in "letting himself go" before a sister not known in the nearer and dearer relationship. He wanted to say that the woman who makes a home has achieved a greater and n.o.bler work than the one who produces a mere book or picture, and that in his eyes at least she is first and best. But he had a horror of appearing sentimental, and what he really said was: "Horribly bad form! Upsetting young cubs! They will get a little of the starch knocked out of them when they find what a poor place they take among the rest."
"Oh, I don"t want that! I want them to succeed," cried Philippa quickly; and then she began to laugh and to look herself once more. "We are like a nice, prosaic old father and mother, Steve, whose children are so alarmingly clever that we are half-afraid of them. I am glad you are ordinary like myself. You wouldn"t be half such a strength to me if you were a genius too."
"Poor old girl!" said Stephen again, and let his hand drop on her shoulder with a helpful grip. He did not say that she could trust him to stand by her always, and to uphold her in every difficulty, but she understood the unspoken promise, and went to bed soothed and comforted.
Theo"s MS was posted to Mr Hammond, and in due course an answer was received containing no reference to the story, but simply naming an hour for the proposed interview. The young author tried to read signs of increased deference and respect for her attainments between the lines, but even her optimism failed in the attempt. She grew nervous as the time approached, and looked decidedly pale as she partook of a strengthening cup of cocoa before dressing for the important expedition.
"What are you going to wear?" Madge inquired, and the author curled her lip in disdain.
"My dear, how ridiculous! As if it mattered! Do you suppose for one moment that it will make any difference to Mr Hammond whether I look charming or a perfect fright! Are you so innocent as to believe that he would accept a story that he didn"t like from the greatest beauty on earth?"