"Your fun?" he queried surprisedly--"I thought it was fame you wanted, more than fun!"
I laughed aloud.
"I"m not such a fool as to suppose that fame is secured by advertis.e.m.e.nt," I said--"For instance I am one of those who think the fame of Millais as an artist was marred when he degraded himself to the level of painting the little green boy blowing bubbles of Pears"s Soap.
That was an advertis.e.m.e.nt. And that very incident in his career, trifling though it seems, will prevent his ever standing on the same dignified height of distinction with such masters in art as Romney, Sir Peter Lely, Gainsborough or Reynolds."
"I believe there is a great deal of justice in what you say;" and Morgeson shook his head wisely--"Viewed from a purely artistic and sentimental standpoint you are right." And he became suddenly downcast and dubious. "Yes,--it is a most extraordinary thing how fame does escape people sometimes just when they seem on the point of grasping it.
They are "boomed" in every imaginable way, and yet after a time nothing will keep them up. And there are others again who get kicked and buffeted and mocked and derided----"
"Like Christ?" I interposed with a half smile. He looked shocked,--he was a Non-conformist,--but remembering in time how rich I was, he bowed with a meek patience.
"Yes"--and he sighed--"as you suggest, Mr Tempest, like Christ. Mocked and derided and opposed at every turn,--and yet by the queerest caprice of destiny, they succeed in winning a world-wide fame and power----"
"Like Christ again!" I said mischievously, for I loved to jar his non-conformist conscience.
"Exactly!" He paused, looking piously down. Then with a return of secular animation he added--"But I was not thinking of the Great Example just then, Mr Tempest--I was thinking of a woman."
"Indeed!" I said indifferently.
"Yes--a woman, who despite continued abuse and opposition is rapidly becoming celebrated. You are sure to hear of her in literary and social circles"--and he gave me a furtive glance of doubtful inquiry--"but she is not rich, you know,--only famous. However,--we have nothing to do with her just now--so let us return to business. The one uncertain point in the matter of your book"s success is the att.i.tude of the critics.
There are only six leading men who do the reviews, and between them they cover all the English magazines and some of the American too, as well as the London papers. Here are their names"--and he handed me a pencilled memorandum,--"and their addresses, as far as I can ascertain them, or the addresses of the papers for which they most frequently write. The man at the head of the list, David McWhing, is the most formidable of the lot. He writes everywhere about everything,--being a Scotchman he"s bound to have his finger in every pie. If you can secure McWhing, you need not trouble so much about the others, as he generally gives the "lead," and has his own way with the editors. He is one of the "personal friends" of the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ for example, and you would be sure to get a notice there, which would otherwise be impossible. No reviewer _can_ review anything for that magazine unless he _is_ one of the editor"s friends.[2] You must manage McWhing, or he might, just for the sake of "showing off," cut you up rather roughly."
"That would not matter," I said, diverted at the idea of "managing McWhing,"--"A little slating always helps a book to sell."
"In some cases it does,"--and Morgeson stroked his thin beard perplexedly--"But in others it most emphatically does _not_. Where there is any very decided or daring originality, adverse criticism is always the most effective. But a work like yours requires fostering with favour,--wants "booming" in short----"
"I see!" and I felt distinctly annoyed--"You don"t think my book original enough to stand alone?"
"My dear sir!--you are really--really--! what shall I say?" and he smiled apologetically--"a little brusque? I think your book shows admirable scholarship and delicacy of thought,--if I find fault with it at all, it is perhaps because I am dense. The only thing it lacks in my opinion is what I should call _tenaciousness_, for want of a better expression,--the quality of holding the reader"s fancy fixed like a nail. But after all this is a common failing of modern literature; few authors feel sufficiently themselves to make others feel."
I made no reply for a moment. I was thinking of Lucio"s remarks on this very same subject.
"Well!" I said at last--"If I had no feeling when I wrote the book, I certainly have none now. Why man, I felt every line of it!--painfully and intensely!"
"Ay, ay indeed!" said Morgeson soothingly--"Or perhaps you _thought_ you felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament.
You see, to convince people at all, you must first yourself be convinced. The result of this is generally a singular magnetic attraction between author and public. However I am a bad hand at argument,--and it is possible that in hasty reading I may have gathered a wrong impression of your intentions. Anyhow the book shall be a success if we can make it so. All I venture to ask of you is that you should personally endeavour to manage McWhing!"
I promised to do my best, and on this understanding we parted. I realised that Morgeson was capable of greater discernment than I had imagined, and his observations had given me material for thought which was not altogether agreeable. For if my book, as he said, lacked tenacity, why then it would not take root in the public mind,--it would be merely the ephemeral success of a season,--one of those brief "booms"
in literary wares for which I had such unmitigated contempt,--and Fame would be as far off as ever, except that spurious imitation of it which the fact of my millions had secured. I was in no good humour that afternoon, and Lucio saw it. He soon elicited the sum and substance of my interview with Morgeson, and laughed long and somewhat uproariously over the proposed "managing" of the redoubtable McWhing. He glanced at the five names of the other leading critics and shrugged his shoulders.
"Morgeson is quite right,"--he said--"McWhing is intimate with the rest of these fellows--they meet at the same clubs, dine at the same cheap restaurants and make love to the same painted ballet-girls. All in a comfortable little fraternal union together, and one obliges the other on their several journals when occasion offers. Oh yes! I should make up to McWhing if I were you."
"But how?" I demanded, for though I knew McWhing"s name well enough having seen it signed _ad nauseam_ to literary articles in almost every paper extant, I had never met the man; "I cannot ask any favour of a press critic."
"Of course not!" and Lucio laughed heartily again--"If you were to do such an idiotic thing what a slating you"d get for your pains! There"s no sport a critic loves so much as the flaying of an author who has made the mistake of lowering himself to the level of asking favours of his intellectual inferiors! No, no, my dear fellow!--we shall manage McWhing quite differently,--_I_ know him, though you do not."
"Come, that"s good news!" I exclaimed--"Upon my word Lucio, you seem to know everybody."
"I think I know most people worth knowing--" responded Lucio quietly--"Though I by no means include Mr McWhing in the category of worthiness. I happened to make his personal acquaintance in a somewhat singular and exciting manner. It was in Switzerland, on that awkward ledge of rock known as the Mauvais Pas. I had been some weeks in the neighbourhood on business of my own, and being surefooted and fearless, was frequently allowed by the guides to volunteer my services with theirs. In this capacity of amateur guide, capricious destiny gave me the pleasure of escorting the timid and bilious McWhing across the chasms of the Mer de Glace, and I conversed with him in the choicest French all the while, a language of which, despite his boasted erudition, he was deplorably ignorant. I knew who he was I must tell you, as I know most of his craft, and had long been aware of him as one of the authorised murderers of aspiring genius. When I got him on the Mauvais Pas, I saw that he was seized with vertigo; I held him firmly by the arm and addressed him in sound strong English thus--"Mr McWhing, you wrote a d.a.m.nable and scurrilous article against the work of a certain poet" and I named the man--"an article that was a tissue of lies from beginning to end, and which by its cruelty and venom embittered a life of brilliant promise, and crushed a n.o.ble spirit. Now, unless you promise to write and publish in a leading magazine a total recantation of this your crime when you get back to England,--_if_ you get back!--giving that wronged man the "honourable mention" he rightly deserves,--down you go! I have but to loosen my hold!" Geoffrey, you should have seen McWhing then! He whined, he wriggled, he clung! Never was an oracle of the press in such an unoracular condition.
"Murder!--murder!" he gasped, but his voice failed him. Above him towered the snow peaks like the summits of that Fame he could not reach and therefore grudged to others,--below him the glittering ice-waves yawned in deep transparent hollows of opaline blue and green,--and afar off the tinkling cowbells echoed through the still air, suggestive of safe green pastures and happy homes. "Murder!" he whispered gurglingly.
"Nay!" said I, "tis I should cry Murder!--for if ever an arresting hand held a murderer, mine holds one now! Your system of slaying is worse than that of the midnight a.s.sa.s.sin, for the a.s.sa.s.sin can but kill the body,--_you_ strive to kill the soul. You cannot succeed, "tis true, but the mere attempt is devilish. No shouts, no struggles will serve you here,--we are alone with Eternal Nature,--give the man you have slandered his tardy recognition, or else, as I said before--down you go!" Well, to make my story short, he yielded, and swore to do as I bade him,--whereupon placing my arm round him as though he were my tender twin-brother, I led him safely off the Mauvais Pas and down the kindlier hill, where, what with the fright and the remains of vertigo, he fell a"weeping grievously. Would you believe it, that before we reached Chamounix we had become the best friends in the world? He explained himself and his rascally modes of action, and I n.o.bly exonerated him,--we exchanged cards,--and when we parted, this same author"s bug-bear McWhing, overcome with sentiment and whisky toddy (he is a Scotchman you know) swore that I was the grandest fellow in the world, and that if ever he could serve me he would. He knew my princely t.i.tle by this time, but he would have given me a still higher name. "You are not--_hic_--a poet yourself?" he murmured, leaning on me fondly as he rolled to bed. I told him no. "I am sorry--very!" he declared, the tears of whisky rising to his eyes, "If you had been I would have done a great thing for you,--I would have boomed you,--_for nothing_!" I left him snoring n.o.bly, and saw him no more. But I think he"ll recognize me, Geoffrey;--I"ll go and look him up personally. By all the G.o.ds!--if he had only known Who held him between life and death upon the Mauvais Pas!"
I stared, puzzled.
"But he did know"--I said--"Did you not say you exchanged cards?"
"True, but that was afterwards!" and Lucio laughed; "I a.s.sure you, my dear fellow, we can "manage" McWhing!"
I was intensely interested in the story as he told it,--he had such a dramatic way of speaking and looking, while his very gestures brought the whole scene vividly before me like a picture. I spoke out my thought impulsively.
"You would certainly have made a superb actor, Lucio!"
"How do you know I am not one?" he asked with a flashing glance, then he added quickly--"No,--there is no occasion to paint the face and prance over the boards before a row of tawdry footlights like the paid mimes, in order to be histrionically great. The finest actor is he who can play the comedy of life perfectly, as I aspire to do. To walk well, talk well, smile well, weep well, groan well, laugh well--and die well!--it is all pure acting,--because in every man there is the dumb dreadful immortal Spirit who is real,--who cannot act,--who Is,--and who steadily maintains an infinite though speechless protest against the body"s Lie!"
I said nothing in answer to this outburst,--I was beginning to be used to his shifting humours and strange utterances,--they increased the mysterious attraction I had for him, and made his character a perpetual riddle to me which was not without its subtle charm. Every now and then I realized, with a faintly startled sense of self-abas.e.m.e.nt, that I was completely under his dominance,--that my life was being entirely guided by his control and suggestion,--but I argued with myself that surely it was well it should be so, seeing he had so much more experience and influence than I. We dined together that night as we often did, and our conversation was entirely taken up with monetary and business concerns.
Under Lucio"s advice I was making several important investments, and these matters gave us ample subject for discussion. At about eleven o"clock, it being a fine frosty evening and fit for brisk walking, we went out, our destination being the private gambling club to which my companion had volunteered to introduce me as a guest. It was situated at the end of a mysterious little back street, not far from the respectable precincts of Pall-Mall, and was an unpretentious looking house enough outside, but within, it was sumptuously though tastelessly furnished.
Apparently, the premises were presided over by a woman,--a woman with painted eyes and dyed hair who received us first of all within the lamp-lighted splendours of an Anglo-j.a.panese drawing-room. Her looks and manner undisguisedly proclaimed her as a _demi-mondaine_ of the most p.r.o.nounced type,--one of those "pure" ladies with a "past" who are represented as such martyrs to the vices of men. Lucio said something to her apart,--whereupon she glanced at me deferentially and smiled,--then rang the bell. A discreet looking man-servant in sober black made his appearance, and at a slight sign from his mistress who bowed to me as I pa.s.sed her, proceeded to show us upstairs. We trod on a carpet of the softest felt,--in fact I noticed that everything was rendered as noiseless as possible in this establishment, the very doors being covered with thick baize and swinging on silent hinges. On the upper landing, the servant knocked very cautiously at a side-door,--a key turned in the lock, and we were admitted into a long double room, very brilliantly lit with electric lamps, which at a first glance seemed crowded with men playing at _rouge et noir_ and _baccarat_. Some looked up as Lucio entered and nodded smilingly,--others glanced inquisitively at me, but our entrance was otherwise scarcely noticed. Lucio drawing me along by the arm, sat down to watch the play,--I followed his example and presently found myself infected by the intense excitement which permeated the room like the silent tension of the air before a thunderstorm. I recognised the faces of many well known public men,--men eminent in politics and society whom one would never have imagined capable of supporting a gambling club by their presence and authority.
But I took care to betray no sign of surprise, and quietly observed the games and the gamesters with almost as impa.s.sive a demeanour as that of my companion. I was prepared to play and to lose,--I was not prepared however for the strange scene which was soon to occur and in which I, by force of circ.u.mstances was compelled to take a leading part.
[2] The author has Mr Knowles"s own written authority for this fact.
X
As soon as the immediate game we were watching was finished, the players rose, and greeted Lucio with a good deal of eagerness and effusion. I instinctively guessed from their manner that they looked upon him as an influential member of the club, a person likely to lend them money to gamble with, and otherwise to oblige them in various ways, financially speaking. He introduced me to them all, and I was not slow to perceive the effect my name had upon most of them. I was asked if I would join in a game of baccarat, and I readily consented. The stakes were ruinously high, but I had no need to falter for that. One of the players near me was a fair-haired young man, handsome in face and of aristocratic bearing,--he had been introduced to me as Viscount Lynton. I noticed him particularly on account of the reckless way he had of doubling his stakes suddenly and apparently out of mere bravado, and when he lost, as he mostly did, he laughed uproariously as though he were drunk or delirious. On first beginning to play I was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game, caring nothing at all as to whether I had losses or gains. Lucio did not join us, but sat apart, quietly observant, and watching me, so I fancied, more than anyone. And as chance would have it, all the luck came my way, and I won steadily. The more I won the more excited I became, till presently my humour changed and I was seized by a whimsical desire to lose. I suppose it was the touch of some better impulse in my nature that made me wish this for young Lynton"s sake. For he seemed literally maddened by my constant winnings, and continued his foolhardy and desperate play,--his young face grew drawn and sharply thin, and his eyes glittered with a hungry feverishness. The other gamesters, though sharing in his run of ill-luck, seemed better able to stand it, or perhaps they concealed their feelings more cleverly,--anyhow I know I caught myself very earnestly wishing that this devil"s luck of mine would desert me and set in the young Viscount"s direction. But my wishes were no use,--again and again I gathered up the stakes, till at last the players rose, Viscount Lynton among them.
"Well, I"m cleaned out!" he said, with a loud forced laugh. "You must give me my chance of a _revanche_ to-morrow, Mr Tempest!"
I bowed.
"With pleasure!"
He called a waiter at the end of the room to bring him a brandy and soda, and meanwhile I was surrounded by the rest of the men, all of them repeating the Viscount"s suggestion of a "revanche," and strenuously urging upon me the necessity of returning to the club the next night in order to give them an opportunity of winning back what they had lost. I readily agreed, and while we were in the midst of talk, Lucio suddenly addressed young Lynton.
"Will you make up another game with me?" he inquired. "I"ll start the bank with this,"--and he placed two crisp notes of five hundred pounds each on the table.
There was a moment"s silence. The Viscount was thirstily drinking his brandy-and-soda, and glanced over the rim of his tall tumbler at the notes with covetous bloodshot eyes,--then he shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I can"t stake anything," he said; "I"ve already told you I"m cleaned out,--"stony-broke," as the slang goes. It"s no use my joining."
"Sit down, sit down, Lynton!" urged one man near him. "I"ll lend you enough to go on with."
"Thanks, I"d rather not!" he returned, flushing a little. "I"m too much in your debt already. Awfully good of you all the same. You go on, you fellows, and I"ll watch the play."
"Let me persuade you Viscount Lynton," said Lucio, looking at him with his dazzling inscrutable smile--"just for the fun of the thing! If you do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn"--and here he took up a counter--"This frequently represents fifty pounds,--let it represent for once something that is not valuable like money,--your soul, for example!" A burst of laughter broke from all the men. Lucio laughed softly with them.
"We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware that there is no such thing as a soul in existence"--he continued.