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A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
. HM 
 
 WHS 
 
 A Writer of Fiction 
 
 CLIVE HOLLAND 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘ MY JAPANESE WIFE,’ ETC. 
 
 Q$C0fmtnefer 
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. 
 
 1897 
 
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty 
 
TO 
 
 SEPTIMUS P. MOORE 
 
 LL.B., B.Sc. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF MANY PLEASANT DAYS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 John March Cardew had married light- 
 heartedly enough at six-and-twenty ; and now, 
 sixteen years afterwards, he lay awake in a 
 lodging-house tortured by the reflection that 
 it had all been a terrible mistake—for the 
 woman he had married. 
 
 In the watches of the night—alas ! now of 
 almost every night—when he did not sleep 
 the heavy, unrestful sleep that comes of brain 
 exhaustion, he lay and thought over the 
 beautiful chimaeras which had flitted through 
 his brain during the years of early success. 
 And thus the strident morning noises of the 
 mean semi-suburban street found him, and 
 kept him so even when his eyelids, leaden 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 from want of rest, would have dropped over 
 his smarting eyes. 
 
 The shrill cry of the early coster, which 
 would have distracted him later in the day, 
 now only caused him vaguely to attempt to 
 discover what the lusty-lunged vendor was 
 selling. Then he heard the familiar sound 
 of the man in the room above getting out of 
 bed, and whistling as he douched himself 
 nonchalantly in the cold water preparatorily 
 to jumping into his clothes so as to catch his 
 train, and begin another day of humdrum, it 
 respectable, existence. 
 
 All this time, and whilst other dwellers in 
 the house were getting up with the indiffer¬ 
 ence to other people’s comfort which seems 
 inbred with the genus c lodger,’ the woman 
 slept. 
 
 Through the flimsy blinds of glazed calico, 
 once a straw yellow sprayed with pink rose¬ 
 buds and vivid green leaves, now a neutral 
 blend of these three colours, the light filtered 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 3 
 
 strongly enough for Cardew to see the face 
 of his wife at his side. It was a really 
 beautiful one—one of those faces which dead 
 hopes and lost ambitions seem unable to 
 spoil, and only succeed in chastening. The 
 lips were parted slightly, as if the sleeper 
 were about to speak ; and the brown hair, 
 so thick and long, lay a dark mass on the 
 pillow, and strayed in truant curls over the 
 smooth white brow. A faint colour suffused 
 the upturned cheek, and a smile, or the 
 emotion of a pleasant dream, stole across the 
 mouth. Cecily Cardew passed amongst Car- 
 dew’s literary friends as a ‘fine woman’— 
 quite ‘ statuesque,’ Sefton-Bell called her—but 
 the lodging-house landlady was nearer the 
 mark when she spoke of her as c noble.’ 
 Cardew himself knew that in her he pos¬ 
 sessed a wife among ten thousand, and his 
 disposition made this at one and the same 
 time a joy and a torment. 
 
 Working late, he had robbed the night of 
 
4 
 
 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 several hours, and now he lay watching her, 
 with his restless, over-active brain thinking 
 and thinking of the uselessness of it all. 
 Even when, to give expression to his irre¬ 
 sistible longing to do something for her 
 sake, to place comfort and freedom from 
 anxiety once more within her grasp, he 
 kissed her lightly on the brow, she did not 
 stir. 
 
 The clock at the head of the stairs just 
 outside the room door gave a premonitory 
 whirr and rattle ere striking six on its tune¬ 
 less wire ‘ gong.’ The noise disturbed the 
 woman, who, turning over with a sleepy 
 smile and pulling her husband’s face nearer 
 hers, asked— 
 
 ‘ What time was that that struck, John ? ’ 
 Before they had come to 26 Ophelia Road, 
 Kentish Town, she always called him 
 c March,’ but with intuition she had recog¬ 
 nised ‘John’ was good enough for meanly 
 furnished lodgings in such a street. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 5 
 
 ‘ Six, dear. I think I had better get up 
 soon. Isn’t that Sylvia stirring ? ’ 
 
 C I should rest a while. You must be 
 tired; you came in very late. I wish it 
 weren’t necessary for you to work so hard.’ 
 And then she listened. 
 
 Through the embarrassingly thin wall, 
 which separated the room adjoining scarcely 
 in anything save sight, came the sounds of 
 the occupant arising. Indeed, houses in 
 Ophelia Road could possess few secrets. 
 First the sound of a child’s bare feet, then 
 muffled sounds, then the sharp gurgling swish 
 of poured-out water, the noise of the soap 
 being dropped carelessly back in a cracked 
 dish, and a girl’s voice humming the air of 
 a popular tune. This ceased in the middle 
 of a bar, as if the singer had become suddenly 
 conscious that she might disturb some one. 
 Then the bedstead was evidently pushed 
 back against the partition wall. Some one 
 was speaking, and Cardew knew from the 
 
6 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 monotone what was taking place. He 
 listened, but could at first only catch a word 
 here and there. After a minute or so, how¬ 
 ever, the tone became more earnest, and he 
 heard distinctly the ensuing sentences right 
 on till the voice ceased :— 
 
 1 Please make father’s book a success, so 
 that mother may be less troubled, and we 
 may go back to u The Lilacs,” or some other 
 nice place away from all this noise and dirt, 
 and the rude boys and girls,’ Cardew heard, 
 and then he edged away from the wall so as 
 to hear no more, without turning his face 
 towards his wife. 
 
 c Even Sylvia feels the noise and squalor. 
 What about Cecily ? God help me, and her, 
 my Cecily! ’ 
 
 c Is there anything the matter, dear ? ’ 
 c No, nothing. I must get up. There’s 
 that chapter,’ Cardew replied, in as steady a 
 voice as he could assume. 
 
 c Always that chapter,’ exclaimed the 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 7 
 
 woman, in a voice which for the moment 
 had almost a ring of gaiety in it. ‘ What a 
 book it will be ! You won’t be going to the 
 city to-day, dear ? ’ 
 
 c No ;—but I don’t know, after all. I shall 
 see what turns up,’ was the answer, as he 
 commenced to dress, thankful at heart that 
 the rickety dressing-table was so placed that he 
 could do so without turning his face towards 
 the bed, where the woman was now putting 
 up her wealth of brown hair. 
 
 As soon as he had hurried on his coat, he 
 went hastily downstairs. He could not bear 
 to see his wife putting on garments which 
 were such silent, compromising witnesses 
 of better days. The shabby dress, which 
 showed only wear, and not dust nor dirt, 
 always neat, and telling of better times by 
 its accurate fit and style; and the other gar¬ 
 ments mended and mended again, so that 
 the children might be kept above the level 
 of their surroundings, and retain self-respect 
 
8 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 thereby,—all were, at times, too terrible for 
 him to contemplate unmoved. 
 
 Cardew, before anxiety and failure had set 
 their seal upon him, had been a handsome 
 man. Of more than the average height, he 
 was well built, with black hair, a good- 
 featured face, and grey-blue eyes, keen and 
 intellectual-looking. 
 
 The girl of fifteen, who was seated in the 
 window of the one sitting-room the Car- 
 dews occupied, evidently learning her lessons, 
 according to the landlady, ‘took after both 
 her father and mother.’ At all events, no 
 one would fail to mistake her as Cardew’s 
 daughter. 
 
 c Why, Sylvia, child, you are early ! how 
 long have you been down ? ’ exclaimed her 
 father, as she rose, and, crossing the room, 
 put up her pretty face to his for a kiss, and 
 said, ‘Two, please, daddie.’ 
 
 ‘ Where’s Ned ? ’ asked the latter. 
 
 ‘ In bed,’ was the answer, laughingly fol- 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 9 
 
 lowed by, c Why, that’s rhyme, or poetry, 
 or something, daddie ! we ’ll have to—what 
 you call it—Ah, that’s it—collaborate.’ 
 
 c The lazy young imp ! Go and call him. 
 Your mother will be down in a minute 
 or two, and I want to get breakfast over 
 quickly this morning, so that I can go to 
 work.’ 
 
 When the girl had left the room, Cardew 
 crossed to the breakfast-table, and wearily 
 took up the three or four letters which lay 
 near his plate. A bulky packet bearing the 
 label of a publishing house struck a chill to 
 his heart. 
 
 He opened one letter, from his literary 
 agents, in the faint hope that it might con¬ 
 tain some c good news.’ It began : 
 
 ‘ 298 Paternoster Square, E.C., 
 ‘ London, June yd, 1892. 
 
 4 Dear Mr. Cardew,— You will believe 
 me that it is with the most sincere 
 
10 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 reluctance that we venture to suggest that 
 at least for the present you abstain from 
 sending us any mss., either of novels or 
 short stories. 
 
 ‘You will remember that we have already 
 in our possession several, which we have 
 unfortunately failed to place. No doubt 
 your market will improve, and in doing so 
 permit us to dispose of your work as easily 
 as of yore. 
 
 ‘ But, just now, the demand seems chiefly 
 for the work of the newer school of writers, 
 and we are compelled to supply existing 
 fashions in literature to the best of our 
 ability. 
 
 ‘ However, we shall use our earnest en¬ 
 deavours, as heretofore, to place the mss. 
 with which you have been good enough to 
 favour us. 
 
 ‘ Again, we could not conscientiously 
 accept fees for work we, at present, see no 
 reasonable hope of performing. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION n 
 
 c Trusting that you and Mrs. Cardew are 
 well, believe us to be, yours faithfully, 
 
 c Graham and Senior. 
 
 ‘ To J. March Cardew, Esq., 
 
 ‘ 26 Ophelia Road, 
 
 ‘ Kentish Town, N.W.’ 
 
 Cardew re-read the letter with a blanching 
 face. There could be little room for doubt 
 of its meaning. It was plain enough. All 
 the carefully formed phrases—kindly meant, 
 no doubt—were but so many admissions that 
 his work was unsaleable. Graham and 
 Senior’s failure to place his last two books 
 had caused him many an anxious hour and 
 sleepless night, and now literary extinction 
 was threatened. The agents were no men 
 of straw ; to have a work submitted by them 
 had come to be regarded by both publishers 
 and authors alike as some sort of guarantee of 
 its worth and the ability of its writer. And 
 now they could not even undertake their 
 office for him. He glanced at the small 
 
12 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 bookcase of stained and varnished deal in 
 the corner of the room, which contained in 
 some twenty of its volumes the evidence of 
 his life’s work. Was he now never to add 
 another? Was everything he had lived and 
 worked for to be at an end ? The other 
 letters remained for the moment unthought 
 of and unread. 
 
 When the door opened, Cardew pulled 
 himself together with an effort; but the 
 traces of the c bad news,’ which, as the 
 children said, was now always coming at 
 breakfast-time, could not be thus lightly 
 effaced. 
 
 Seating himself at the breakfast-table, he 
 commenced to cut the bread. 
 
 c Aren t you well, daddie ? ’ exclaimed 
 Sylvia, who had come to his side, and rested 
 her pretty, golden-crowned head against his 
 shoulder. 
 
 ‘ Yes > dear—I’m all right. It is nothing. 
 Pour me out some coffee—there’s a good 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 13 
 
 child. And then get your breakfast, or 
 you ’ll lose your train and be late for school.’ 
 
 Adversity is a hard school, but it sharpens 
 the wits and perceptive faculties of its scholars. 
 
 c Not those horrid publishers again, 
 daddie ? ’ questioned the girl, as she poured 
 out the coffee, which smelt so differently 
 from that they used to have at 4 The Lilacs.’ 
 
 c I wish they wouldn’t bother so, or that 
 you could do without them. Why must 
 authors be under—under obligations to pub¬ 
 lishers ? ’ Sylvia glanced up, as there was 
 no answer forthcoming, and the look of 
 pain on her father’s face checked any further 
 speculations concerning this subject. 
 
 4 Never mind, daddie,’ she resumed, taking 
 his coffee round the oval-shaped table, which, 
 like them, had seen better days, and was now 
 so rickety that it had to be periodically 
 4 levelled up,’ so to speak, with pieces of paper 
 or old envelopes. 4 Your stories are the love¬ 
 liest in the world. But why are they so sad ? 
 
i 4 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 I don’t understand all of them, and mother 
 says I shan’t till I grow up; but I like them, 
 all the same.’ 
 
 Whilst the child was speaking, Cecily 
 Cardew entered. ‘ Why are they so sad ? ’ 
 She had caught the words. She knew, but 
 the children must be made as happy as cir¬ 
 cumstances would permit. 
 
 c Where’s Ned, dear ? Has he gone ? ’ 
 ‘Gone!’ laughed the girl. ‘Yes, I ex¬ 
 pect so. Gone to sleep again. Why are 
 boys such terribly sleepy creatures, I wonder ? 
 He’ll never get off to school. But here he 
 comes at last.’ 
 
 The boy of thirteen who entered was 
 extremely handsome. His features were 
 regular as a girl’s, but had a certain strength 
 which saved his face from any approach to 
 insipidity. He was tall for his age, and al¬ 
 ready was ‘the very miniature image of his 
 father,’ according to Mrs. Morriston, the 
 landlady, with whom he was a great favourite. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 15 
 
 Blue eyes and curly brown hair—at present 
 several shades lighter than his mother’s— 
 gave him, with a boyish carelessness, a cer¬ 
 tain happiness of expression, which even 
 dingily furnished lodgings and a brooding 
 sense of calamity that of late had hovered 
 over the Cardew household had not succeeded 
 in eliminating. 
 
 c Overslept myself, father. I’m awfully 
 sorry; but Sylvia knows what a fellow I am, 
 and she might knock louder.’ 
 
 c Oh, I like that! ’ said the girl, who was 
 glancing at the big-faced, nickel-plated clock 
 on the mantelshelf. ‘ I banged till I thought 
 I should have burst the door in. Anyway, 
 you answered, and the young man who’s in 
 the room opposite said you must sleep like 
 Momus—Morpheus I suppose he meant, but 
 that doesn’t matter, it was near enough for 
 him ’ (with fine contempt) ; ‘ I heard you 
 turn over and go to sleep again.’ 
 
 The boy took his seat at the table, and 
 
16 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 without another word commenced to eat his 
 breakfast in hot haste. 
 
 4 What could a fellow do with a girl who 
 bantered and cornered him like that ? ’ was 
 the thought which occupied his mind. He 
 took it all in good part, however : the two 
 were excellent chums; and whenever Ned 
 felt worsted in this way, boy-like, he sought 
 to console himself with the reflection 
 that there were a good many things Sylvia 
 couldn’t do which he could. Ergo, he was 
 a superior sort of being to his pretty, keen¬ 
 witted sister, after all. 
 
 Cecily Cardew was a wise woman ; she 
 never spoke of nor referred to disagreeable 
 subjects at breakfast or late at night, nor, 
 indeed, before the children at all. c They 
 must be kept happy and free from care as 
 long as possible.’ Such was her opinion and 
 her constant endeavour. 
 
 When she entered the room, the look 
 upon the face of the man she loved told her 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 i7 
 
 something unfortunate had again occurred; 
 but she only gave him a quick glance of 
 sympathy, another glance at the bulky brown- 
 paper parcel on the table, and then waited for 
 explanations till the children had gone to 
 school. 
 
 Ten minutes later, and Cardew and she 
 were alone. She with her mind already 
 en g a g e d in seeking to devise new schemes 
 of economy to meet the disaster which it, 
 accustomed to such things, presaged. He 
 with his tormented by the additional burden 
 which would be laid upon her frail woman’s 
 shoulders, and the terrible sense of failure 
 which weighed upon his heart,—the waning 
 of his powers, which every day seemed to 
 make more certain, robbing him of every 
 shred of happiness and self-respect. 
 
 B 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 4 John, what is the matter ? ’ said the woman, 
 coming over to him as the street door banged 
 after the children, and the brass knocker 
 lifted and fell to echo the bang. 
 
 John Cardew looked into the face which 
 was close to his, and tried to smile away the 
 concern he saw upon it. 
 
 4 1 have had this letter,’ he replied after a 
 pause, the silence of which was broken by 
 the noises of the street, and the undignified, 
 hasty ticking of the cheap American clock 
 on the mantelpiece. 4 You had better read 
 it. I’m afraid, Cecily, it means a good deal 
 to me, and through me to us all.’ And then, 
 as his wife took it from him with trembling 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 19 
 
 fingers, he turned silently away to the win¬ 
 dow. 
 
 For once the squalor of the street failed to 
 impress itself on his mind ; the dirty children 
 were mere misty objects, almost transfigured 
 by the brilliant June sunshinej the hansom 
 cab which, penetrating this region as a short 
 cut to one of the railway termini, excited 
 the curiosity—so rarely was one seen—of 
 every one in the road, aroused none in him. 
 In his mind just then was nothing save the 
 terrible last question of the Man of Galilee, 
 to which no answer came to him. 
 
 The woman read the letter, and re-read 
 it, as he had. Yes, it was a serious blow. 
 Something must be done ; could she suggest 
 anything ? 
 
 ‘John, dear, I’m so sorry. But we must 
 not despair.’ 
 
 ‘Yes,’ said the man, turning away wearily 
 from the window. ‘You’re a good woman, 
 Cecily. But this finishes me—finishes all I 
 
20 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 have to do. Do you remember when we 
 were first married—what plans we made, 
 you and I ? I, who was to have done so 
 much, have actually done so little. You 
 have done your part. I—O God, I have 
 failed—failed to do mine ! ’ 
 
 John Cardew was speaking very rapidly ; 
 he was overwrought. His wife did not 
 interrupt him ; she only pointed silently to 
 a row of books upon the shelves. 
 
 ‘Yes, yes, Cecily, I know; but the last. 
 When did you place the last there ? Two 
 years ago ? ’ 
 
 The woman loved him, so she said, ‘ Yes ; 
 but what of the one before that and ever so 
 many more ? They are live books, every one 
 of them—books which many men who are 
 successful would give much to have written, 
 to be able to write. Come, dear, it is all 
 very terrible, but the day will return when, 
 as Graham and Senior say, M your market will 
 improve.” Is this all ? ’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 21 
 
 4 There are not many women, Cecily,’ 
 said John quite calmly, almost stung into 
 cynicism by the latest experience of ill-for¬ 
 tune, 4 who would look ruin in the face and 
 then ask that. But no.’ 
 
 Her glance followed his to the breakfast- 
 table, on which still lay the brown-paper parcel. 
 
 4 You have not opened it ? ’ 
 
 4 No. It is only ’ Twixt Two Opinions 
 come back from Jellaby and Hodge’s. There 
 is their letter ; what do they say ? Read it, 
 dear; somehow or other I cannot see.’ 
 
 Both husband and wife knew perfectly 
 well what the letter would contain. 
 
 The usual thing: ‘Messrs Jellaby and Hodge 
 beg to return by Parcels Post Mr. John 
 March Cardew’s ms. entitled ’ Twixt Two 
 Opinions , of which they regret the report of 
 their reader does not offer them sufficient en¬ 
 couragement to undertake its publication. 
 
 4 P.S. —Messrs J. and H. wish it, however, 
 to be distinctly understood ’ — oh, beautiful 
 
22 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 sophistry !— 4 that they offer no opinion as 
 to the merits or demerits of the ms. in 
 question.’ 
 
 4 You must send it elsewhere, John. You 
 have only tried three or four publishers ; there 
 are plenty more. Oh, I know it is painful 
 to offer one’s books the round like this,’ she 
 added after a pause, observing his face twitch 
 at the suggestion. 4 But we will conquer 
 misfortune in the end.’ 
 
 4 1 must go to work,’ said Cardew as 
 answer, with his hand at the door of the 
 cupboard-like room, opening out of the sitting- 
 room, which had been turned into and dig¬ 
 nified with the title of‘study.’ 
 
 4 Very well, dear. What are you going to 
 write ? ’ 
 
 c Who knows ? ’ and the door was suddenly 
 shut. 
 
 There was so little for Cecily Cardew to 
 do nowadays. One of her greatest trials 
 was this fact. There were clothes to be 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 23 
 
 altered, patched, contrived, or mended; but 
 what she most missed—what often brought 
 the tears of recollection into her eyes—was 
 the sweet control of the household she had 
 lost when they migrated into lodgings. All 
 those hundred little opportunities of doing 
 something, which none save the housewife 
 knows. The man on the other side of the 
 study door never knew what the woman felt. 
 Sometimes the meanly furnished room, with 
 its staring wall-paper, which Mrs. Morriston 
 had obtruded on her notice with such evident 
 pride when they came to take the rooms, 
 with the remark, ‘There, mum, that's what 
 I calls a nice, cheerful sort er paper,’ seemed 
 almost intolerable. And it was with a set 
 face that she drove from her mind recollec¬ 
 tions of c The Lilacs,’ their home at Turnham 
 Green, whilst the tears would fall. 
 
 She would be brave; yes, she would be 
 brave—brave for his sake and that of the 
 children. 
 
24 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 They had not left Turnham Green without 
 a struggle. Four years ago she was as fertile 
 of resources as now, as clever in devising 
 those pitiful derniers ressorts of humanity 
 started on the down-grade as now. But 
 they had availed nothing ; bills accumulated, 
 the discharge of the second servant was but 
 a very temporary relief. And then the trouble 
 commenced over again. The man missed 
 the servant; but, absorbed in his work and 
 the increasingly severe struggle for existence, 
 scarcely realised that it was his wife who was 
 principally doing the extra work. 
 
 It was always, £ Father must not be 
 troubled,’ to the children ; to the remaining 
 servant, c Mr. Cardew must on no account 
 be disturbed. It is most important that he 
 should not have his thoughts interrupted.’ 
 
 With strange irony of fate, John Cardew, 
 before his marriage, had written a novel of 
 literary life, in which the author’s wife in it 
 was thus described : c She was a brave woman: 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 25 
 
 for months she interposed her heart between 
 him and the sense of failure j and then, when 
 to do so became no longer possible, she stood 
 at bay guarding the life of the man she loved 
 and believed in from a thousand and one 
 petty cares and annoyances, and keeping the 
 wolf of poverty from the door. A sublime 
 figure of womanhood, on which the angels 
 must have looked with pity and admiration.’ 
 The writer had forgotten the passage long 
 ago ; but some one in the household at 26 
 Ophelia Road often took the novel from its 
 place on the shelf, and read the words over 
 and over again. So often, indeed, that the 
 volume now opened, as a matter of course, at 
 the page desired. 
 
 The Cardews had not at once descended 
 from the pretty little Queen Anne villa at 
 Turnham Green to the dinginess of Mrs. 
 Morriston’s superior apartments. 
 
 There had been three stages of the fight 
 against social and literary extinction, mark- 
 
26 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 ing distinctly the growing infrequency and 
 diminution in the value of the cheques 
 received by the man who wrote books. 
 From Turnham Green to a by-road off 
 Clapham Common, where the house was 
 still more bijou (as to size), and the outlook 
 correspondingly less cheerful, then to part 
 of a house in Kentish Town, and then to 
 lodgings pure and simple in Ophelia Road 
 —one of those mean-looking streets which 
 huddle against the outskirts of more well- 
 to-do quarters of the suburbs proper, with 
 the houses all alike, as if their erection and 
 design had been controlled by some stringent 
 and inartistic Act of Uniformity for the Better 
 Degradation of Architecture. 
 
 Whilst residing at Clapham the Cardews 
 were not altogether cut off from literary 
 society ; John knew several editors and 
 journalists who lived on Clapham Common, 
 and occasionally they invited Cecily and 
 him to their literary at-homes, or dropped 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 27 
 
 in—the more genial and less busy of them, 
 that is—for a chat and a pipe. Their wives 
 and daughters gauged the decline in the 
 Cardew menage , very accurately on the 
 whole, by Cecily’s dress, and some treated 
 them accordingly. Their menkind, un¬ 
 practised in such subtleties, did not pay 
 much attention to Cardew’s increasing air 
 of shabby gentility, or, if they did, attributed 
 it to artistic carelessness, or to the fact that 
 he might be temporarily down on his luck. 
 
 A sale before the Cardews moved to 
 Kentish Town was the first unmistakable 
 sign they had of how matters were going. 
 The man’s brief explanation, c It ’ll be handier 
 for work,’ might have deceived them, workers 
 themselves; but the sale, coupled with the 
 damning fact that Mrs. Cardew hadn’t had 
 a new dress for months, was quite enough 
 for the sex which possess such a faculty for 
 ‘ putting two and two together.’ 
 
 From Kentish Town they drifted to 
 
28 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 Ophelia Road, a district of pepper-and- 
 salt-coloured houses, chiefly let in apart¬ 
 ments, which was only Kentish Town 
 by the courtesy of the Postmaster-General, 
 or the officials responsible for the apportion¬ 
 ment of the metropolis into districts. Here 
 editors did not call upon them, nor did cards 
 for their wives’ at-homes find them out even 
 if they were posted. And the only journalist 
 who ever came to No. 26 was Sefton Bell, 
 a young fellow to whom John Cardew had, 
 some years previously, lent a helping hand. 
 
 The noises of such a neighbourhood were 
 at first a terrible torment to him. But as 
 time went on he ceased to notice them so 
 much as at first; but the want of light, of 
 brightness, atmosphere, even of air, had a 
 permanent effect upon him. 
 
 The close association with people whose 
 ways were not his ways, with those who 
 could not comprehend him,—the sense of 
 isolation in the midst of hundreds of his 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 29 
 
 genus, yet not one of his species,—added its 
 weight of depression. 
 
 Indeed, had it not been for Cicely, he 
 would have knocked under long ago. 
 
 c Things will improve. Think of what 
 you have accomplished,’ prompted by her 
 infinite faith, spurred him to fresh, if un¬ 
 fruitful, effort. 
 
 Everything must be sacrificed to him. 
 Whatever heartaches she had, whatever vexa¬ 
 tions—and they were many—he must be 
 spared. When they left Clapham, and he 
 had seated himself sorrowfully to select what 
 books he could spare to put in the sale, she 
 had been the one to say, ‘ No, no, not the 
 books, dear. We couldn’t do without them. 
 You mustn’t think of selling those. Besides ’ 
 —O subtle suggestion !—‘ they will be more 
 valuable too, later on, for there are so many 
 first editions.’ 
 
 ‘Yes, very true,’ was the at first hesitant 
 reply. 
 
3 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 And so they were not put in the sale. 
 
 From the study, littered with rough pack¬ 
 ing-cases, obtained from the hardware dealer 
 in an adjacent road, in which Cardew was 
 carefully stowing his literary treasures, she 
 had gone to her own room, now stripped of 
 its dainty—if cheap—hangings and orna¬ 
 ments, under the inexorable hands of the 
 auctioneer’s clerk engaged in cataloguing. 
 From the dressing-table drawer, on the 
 swinging glass of which the small strip of 
 gummed paper, bearing in thick black figures 
 the lot number, was already fixed, she took 
 her jewel-case—a wedding present. 
 
 ‘Anything to save him anxiety. It is so 
 important that his mind should be untroubled,’ 
 she thought, as she opened the case, with lips 
 set firm to keep back the tears. 
 
 There were several things she did not 
 want; this and that were quite useless ; they 
 would not be asked out much, so he would 
 not miss that for months—perhaps not at all. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 31 
 
 And so, while the little heap of ornaments 
 and jewels in her lap grew larger and the 
 tears more numerous, another of those 
 women’s tragedies was played out to the 
 end, before no audience save the angels and 
 the all-seeing eye of God. 
 
 And then, when their selection was com¬ 
 plete, and the jewellery was neatly packed 
 in a small cardboard box, she laved her eyes 
 and face and went down to help her husband 
 as if nothing unusual had occurred. And he 
 noticed nothing. 
 
 Sefton Bell, in whose hands she had trusted 
 the jewellery for disposal, handed her fifty-five 
 pounds a few days later, telling her nothing 
 of his tramp half over London to obtain their 
 second-hand value to the uttermost. This 
 money she kept as her reserve fund, and she 
 had her reward in the blessed sense of security 
 it gave her when things went wrong, and 
 with each step along the down - grade the 
 money grew larger as social needs grew less. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 When the door of his study had closed, 
 John Cardew, placing the parcel from Jel- 
 laby and Hodge upon the table, sat down 
 beside it to think. 
 
 He knew that his wife was also thinking 
 on the other side of the door, which had 
 its dingy buff-coloured paint knocked and 
 scarred with the ill-usage of previous lodgers. 
 The shut door, which seemed just now to 
 be so typical of that which every one seemed 
 
 so eager to close in the face of his literary 
 efforts. 
 
 He knew what thoughts her mind would 
 first formulate : ‘ He is at work. How he 
 struggles for me and the children ! Dear 
 
 32 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 33 
 
 John ! he does too much. He must rest.’ 
 And then he remembered how strange his 
 face had looked in the glass that morning, 
 and became possessed of an intense desire to 
 get up, open the door softly, and then, if 
 discovered, to walk past the woman who was 
 seated at work in the window as if nothing 
 were the matter, and go into the bedroom, 
 just to see if he really were so changed. 
 
 Resisting the desire, he sat for several 
 minutes resting his elbows on the plain deal 
 table, with two drawers, which had long ago 
 replaced the walnut escritoire of more pro¬ 
 sperous days, contemplating the brown-paper 
 parcel, which was still unopened. 
 
 How sick he was of the ms. it contained, 
 copied and re-copied with infinite care for 
 construction and literary polish ! 
 
 And yet, after all, what did it avail ? No¬ 
 thing. The novel came back after absences 
 of variable length—generally of from two to 
 three months—with depressing persistence. 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 It was nearly six months’ work, during 
 which period, although he had worked 
 feverishly in odd hours at more ephemeral 
 things, he had earned a few guineas, and 
 that was all. 
 
 Had he really become old-fogeyish ? Were 
 the novel’s subject and matter really so out 
 of date that no one would undertake its 
 publication ? 
 
 With Jellaby and Hodge’s polite letter of 
 refusal before him, he cut the string of the 
 parcel. The fact that the ms. it contained 
 had an indefinable air of not having been 
 recently read fell as a balm upon his sore heart. 
 
 How sick he was of those opening sen¬ 
 tences, which he had written, and re-written 
 again, to ensure a good effect : c “ Very well, 
 I have no more to say,” exclaimed Gerald 
 Austen, regarding the tearful girl before 
 him’ ! The opening words had burnt them¬ 
 selves long ago into his brain, and now 
 revived with renewed force. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 35 
 
 When he had written the story, the pages 
 of which he now turned over with so heavy 
 a heart, he had even been interested in it. 
 Cecily had told him it was good ; but what 
 was her opinion against those of the four 
 publishers who had seen it—or had the op¬ 
 portunity of doing so—and had declined it ? 
 
 ‘ But there are plenty more,’ as Cecily 
 had said. He must send it to one of these 
 without delay. Where ? He was too tired 
 to think—somewhere, anywhere, so that he 
 could earn something. 
 
 Taking up an old copy of the Bookman , 
 he settled on a firm, wrote the note to ac¬ 
 company the ms., did up the parcel, and 
 directed it. 
 
 Then he sat still for a time, thinking, un¬ 
 able to work, with the sweat-beads standing 
 out upon his forehead at the thought of the 
 possibility of the ms. again being refused. 
 
 All the while he heard Cecily’s movements 
 in the other room. Of late he had become 
 
36 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 strangely nervous; once these soft, as it were 
 hushed, movements had soothed him, these 
 passings to and fro, doing things which men 
 vaguely wonder at when they see the results ; 
 lately they irritated him. To-day they dis¬ 
 turbed the work, which, however, quite 
 independently of them, he knew would not 
 have been done, so he got up, and prepared 
 to go out. 
 
 If he could only get away from every¬ 
 thing ! 
 
 ‘Are you going out, dear?’ asked Cecily, 
 as he came across to the window with the 
 parcel in his hand. 
 
 ‘Yes, somehow I cannot work. It is no 
 good my tackling that chapter after all. I 
 can think of nothing. What shall I do, 
 Cecily—what shall I do if this goes on ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Rest, dear. Oh, I wish we could afford 
 for you to have a real holiday ! To go right 
 away somewhere — right away into the 
 country or by the seaside. There are 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 37 
 
 homes and holiday homes for every one now¬ 
 adays except poor authors, who need them 
 as much as most.’ 
 
 c It is out of the question,’ replied Cardew, 
 hastily, lest she should suggest some one 
 more personal sacrifice for his sake. 
 
 c I could not afford the time, to begin 
 with,’ he continued firmly, whilst in his 
 heart he knew his work, this important 
 work which would even have kept him tied 
 to his desk had he been rich instead of poor, 
 was so much fruitless toil after all. c You 
 see,’ with a pitiful assumption of urgency, 
 ‘ it must be done. There is no question 
 about it y it must be done, dear.’ 
 
 ‘ I see, I see, of course.’ 
 
 And then she helped him into his best 
 coat, brushed his hat, and took his gloves 
 from a drawer in the little crazy-legged 
 work-table by her side. 
 
 She was so particular still about all these 
 things. Whatever she lacked herself, her 
 
38 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 husband must go about like a gentleman. 
 
 ‘ It is a sheer matter of business,’ she used 
 to say, when he objected to the expense of 
 his gloves being cleaned or a new coat being 
 purchased, when a new dress was evidently 
 so much more needed by her. 
 
 She had a high opinion of the dignity of 
 literature, had Cecily Cardew, even though 
 a man could not live by it. Besides, as she 
 often said, ‘geniuses may not nowadays 
 appear in a shabby coat, at least not literary 
 geniuses. Long hair is all that remains to 
 them.’ 
 
 And Cardew was forced to admit that 
 there was something to be said in favour of 
 creating a good impression. 
 
 Indeed, most of the men who were suc¬ 
 cessful nowadays appeared, both in their 
 portraits and in ordinary life, in immaculate 
 frock-coats, which it would have been ridi¬ 
 culous to have assumed were borrowed. 
 
 Thanks to his wife’s tender sophistries 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 39 
 
 and care, John Cardew always sallied forth 
 from the meanness of Ophelia Road like a 
 gentleman. 
 
 At first, as was perhaps only natural, Mrs. 
 Morriston regarded his gentility with little 
 favour. ‘If there’s one thing more than 
 another I can’t abide, as I always used to 
 tell poor Morriston,’ she was wont to say to 
 Rosy Vere, a lodger of somewhat dubious 
 reputation, c it’s to see a man do all the 
 dressin’, and the wife go that shabby’; and 
 the girl of immaculate petticoats and flashy 
 dress agreed. After a while, however, Mrs. 
 Morriston altered her opinion, admitting to 
 herself that ‘Mrs. Cardew is a plucky one 
 and no mistake. And, after all, I like to see 
 a woman who makes her man hold his head 
 up, and does it herself.’ 
 
 John Cardew was a handsome man; and 
 when he left the house and turned to glance 
 up at the window at which he knew his 
 wife would be standing, she experienced one 
 
40 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 of those glad, brief moments of possession ere 
 he vanished with long, swift strides down 
 the street and round the corner. 
 
 And then—well, then tears came into her 
 eyes, and she could no longer see the houses 
 opposite, save indistinctly, as a blurred mass 
 of obtrusive ugliness. 
 
 At the corner of an adjacent street, Car- 
 dew took an omnibus which ran to Gray’s 
 Inn Road. He was a pretty frequent patron, 
 for to ride was almost cheaper than the wear 
 and tear of shoe leather. And walking, 
 besides tiring him terribly of late, was apt 
 to encourage appetite, the means of satisfy¬ 
 ing which he did not possess—two things to 
 be avoided. 
 
 The ’bus was already in motion when he 
 reached the corner ; but c the hold gent, what 
 arter all ain’t hold, Jim,’ as the conductor 
 put it, was always waited for; and so the 
 Jim referred to put his foot on the brake, 
 and listened for the stamp which would 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 41 
 
 tell him the well-known passenger was 
 inside. 
 
 On this bright June morning a terrible 
 fear began to formulate itself in Cardew’s 
 mind, to the exclusion of almost everything 
 else. As a rule, he found plenty of interest 
 in studying the occupants of the ’bus, with 
 its advertisement-covered interior, shabby 
 crimson-velvet cushions, and damaged paint¬ 
 work. But to-day even the girl with a 
 story in her face, seated with defiant attitude 
 in the far corner, dressed in fashionably un¬ 
 becoming colours, failed to interest him. 
 And the work-girl opposite, clad in rusty 
 black, with a cough on even this warm June 
 day, anaemic, and with death written on her 
 face, held his attention but for a moment. 
 Only sufficiently long, indeed, for him to 
 recognise the fact that, for a writer of ‘ new ’ 
 fiction, the girl would have formed an all- 
 sufficient motif for a slender sex-study in the 
 c Dominant ’ series. The shabby man in 
 
42 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 the corner near the door, who fidgeted, and 
 crossed his feet awkwardly so as to hide a 
 slit in the side of his patent-leather boots, 
 through which a strip of cotton sock showed, 
 attracted him for an instant, because his face 
 proclaimed him a gentleman, because they 
 were both travelling the same road. But 
 the interest aroused was transitory, and 
 Cardew returned to the fearful thing which 
 stood, as it were, right in front of him. 
 
 The ’bus rumbled on towards the city 
 with a chattering vibration of glass when 
 its wheels struck the tram lines, and a 
 swaying, staggering motion, as if overcome 
 by the heat of the shadeless roads along 
 which it ran ; past the corners of by-streets, 
 where unwanted children were playing, hat¬ 
 less and shoeless, in the overpowering heat, 
 which gave excuse to the women to idly 
 stand in their doorways with bare arms and 
 half-undressed in search of a draught of air. 
 
 Down these by - streets the heated air 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 43 
 
 hung like a gauze veil, vibrating, shimmer¬ 
 ing, and mysteriously quivering. In the 
 distance, behind the ’bus, along the main 
 travelled road, was the same visible heat, 
 only ceasing where the sharp shadows, like 
 dark grey silhouettes, were thrown across 
 the pavement into the roadway. 
 
 Cardew paid his fare mechanically, and 
 was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice 
 that the ’bus was about to turn into 
 Holborn. 
 
 ‘’Olborn,’ said the conductor, touching 
 him lightly, though familiarly, on the 
 shoulder, so often had his silent passenger 
 travelled to the point of stoppage. 
 
 ‘ Thanks,’ said Cardew, noticing for the 
 first time that the ’bus was empty, c I had 
 forgotten.’ 
 
 When he had crossed the road to the 
 shady side, the conductor stepped to the 
 front of the ’bus. 
 
 c Hi ! matey,’ he said, indicating Cardew 
 
44 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 ere he was swallowed up by the stream of 
 people, ‘ ’e’s terrible down, ’e is—’e’s a gent 
 too. Never looks after the girls, ’e don’t. 
 Ain’t like some of them ; ’e’s got a good 
 missus too.’ 
 
 c Garn, ’ow d’ ye know ? ’ 
 
 c Never you mind. Wait till you’ve got 
 a missus. Then you’ll know.’ 
 
 Cardew walked along Holborn and New¬ 
 gate Street, and at length found his way 
 through a shady by-street into Paternoster 
 Row. 
 
 He had climbed many a time the long, 
 dark flight of stairs which confronted him on 
 turning into the doorway of No. 4 ° 9 * He 
 was too well seasoned to feel any trepida¬ 
 tion ; and so, though he had a sad heart, he 
 knocked with a firm hand at the door on 
 the top of the stairs, across the ground glass 
 of which appeared in large letters the words, 
 ‘Clerks’ Office,’ and in smaller letters 
 below them, c Inquiries.’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 45 
 
 ‘ Is Mr. Hollings in ? ’ Cardew inquired 
 of a sharp-featured boy, who, gorgeous in a 
 necktie of many colours, knotted round a 
 dubiously white collar, had come forward to 
 the ink-stained mahogany counter in response 
 to Cardew’s knock. 
 
 ‘ Yes, sir. D’ ye want to see him ? ’ 
 
 Cardew nodded his head. 
 
 ‘ What name, please ? * 
 
 ‘John March Cardew.’ 
 
 ‘Just step inside here/ opening a glazed 
 door co-terminous with the long counter-like 
 desk, disclosing thereby a small waiting-room 
 in which there were two leather-seated chairs, 
 ‘ and I ’ll go and see.’ 
 
 Fi ve minutes later Cardew was seated in 
 the publisher’s private room. A room sur¬ 
 rounded with bookshelves, packed with copies 
 of the volumes in Fiction, Poetry, and Gene¬ 
 ral Literature which the firm, represented by 
 Mr. Brant Hollings, had issued during the 
 ten years or so of its successful existence. 
 
46 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 Mr. Brant Hoilings made some pretence 
 of publishing on philanthropic lines, but this 
 fact detracted not a whit from his ability to 
 make a good bargain. He knew Cardew 
 slightly; in more prosperous days he had paid 
 him fairly good prices for a couple of books, 
 but had tried to ‘ drive a bargain ’ over a 
 third, and in doing so the two men dis¬ 
 agreed. 
 
 As he climbed up the stairs, Cardew had 
 wondered vaguely whether it was altogether 
 wise of him to offer his ms. in such a quarter. 
 
 c Sit down, Mr. Cardew,’ exclaimed the 
 publisher, who immediately himself got up to 
 stand on the hearth-rug, so that his brown 
 bearded face had a background of framed 
 original drawings, which were hung over the 
 bric-a-brac encumbered mantelshelf. 
 
 ‘ I have called in to see if this novel might 
 not suit you,’ said Cardew, untying the 
 parcel upon the corner of the table, and 
 taking out the note which he had written to 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 47 
 
 leave with it, should Mr. Hollings prove 
 unseeable. 
 
 c I’m fearfully overdone with novels,’ ex¬ 
 plained the publisher, with an airy assump¬ 
 tion of literary repletion. ‘I think it is only 
 fair to say so at the outset. My series are 
 full up for months to come. I have dozens of 
 mss. offered for each one I am able to accept. 
 All the big names are anxious to appear in 
 the series j I have no difficulty whatever as to 
 that, I can assure you.’ 
 
 c Yes, yes,’ exclaimed the other hastily, look¬ 
 ing up at the tall, burly figure with its head 
 obscuring a wash-drawing of Italian scenery 
 in a Birket Foster frame. c You must be 
 overdone. But this is altogether too long 
 for any series. It is of two-volume length. 
 And-’ 
 
 c Oh, two-volume length ! ’ interpolated the 
 other. ‘That may make a slight difference. 
 But still it will have to be a good story for 
 me to be able to touch it.’ 
 
48 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 ‘I hope you will find it so,’ Cardew 
 answered hesitatingly. ‘ I think it would 
 
 prove a success if-’ and then he stopped 
 
 with an overpowering sense of the degrada¬ 
 tion of thus crying his own wares. 
 
 ‘No,’ he thought fiercely, ‘nothing shall 
 make me descend to that,’ so he rose hastily, 
 saying— 
 
 ‘ I ’ll leave it for your consideration, Mr. 
 Hollings. It would be a great favour if you 
 will let me have a decision as promptly as 
 you conveniently can.’ 
 
 ‘ I will place the ms. in my reader’s hands 
 at once,’ Brant Hollings replied. ‘You shall 
 have my decision in a fortnight, and let us 
 hope that I may be able to make you an 
 offer for it, Mr. Cardew. Good-day.’ 
 
 On leaving the Row, Cardew made his 
 way into St. Paul’s Churchyard, and thence 
 down Ludgate Hill to a small cook-shop in 
 Farringdon Street. Money was of conse¬ 
 quence, and, as in everything else, his sinking 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 49 
 
 fortunes might have been easily and accur¬ 
 ately traced by the status of the restaurants 
 he had successively patronised during the last 
 three years. 
 
 For a long time he had almost felt ashamed 
 of being seen coming out of such a place— 
 the resort of packers, carmen, and messen¬ 
 gers. But when once the step was taken, 
 he discovered with a somewhat melancholy 
 satisfaction that he had hit unknowingly 
 upon a place where one could get, as the 
 card stated, ‘ the cheapest meal in London.’ 
 That was the main point, so, choosing a 
 dark, quiet corner, he became an habitue 
 whenever he was obliged to come to the 
 city. 
 
 A frock-coat and a silk hat, even if shabby, 
 singled him out for some amount of curiosity 
 on the first few occasions. 
 
 ‘ ’E’s mistook ’is Club,’ a drayman said to 
 a companion, with a wink. 
 
 c Interviewin’ on ’ow the poor live on 
 
 D 
 
5 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 tuppenny busters,’ was the comment of a 
 weedy-looking junior clerk. 
 
 c Down on his luck,’ was another remark, 
 which reached Cardew’s ears on the occasion 
 of his first visit. 
 
 c Down on his luck.’ ‘ Ah, that’s just it,’ he 
 thought. And the desire to admit the fact, 
 and thus do away with the need for further 
 speculation, almost overpowered him. 
 
 All that sort of annoyance, however, was 
 now happily past, and out of the scorching 
 heat Cardew turned with the celerity of a 
 frequent patron into the odorous shade—if 
 only comparative coolness—of the low-ceiled 
 dining-saloon. 
 
 He never told Cecily that his dinner cost 
 him fourpence or fivepence, as the case 
 might be. What was the good ? If she 
 asked him, he said he had dined well—had 
 had all he wanted. And if she inquired 
 where, he said indefinitely, c Near Fleet 
 Street,’ and she knew that there were some 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 51 
 
 good restaurants in the neighbourhood, and 
 was satisfied. 
 
 The girls were very attentive to him, and 
 so his sausages were never overdone, nor his 
 potatoes c sad.’ 
 
 C I know a gentleman when I see one,’ 
 the elder of the two had declared ; and the 
 younger, whose opinions were always coloured 
 by her companion’s views, accepted the im¬ 
 plied certificate. 
 
 At first, until he ceased to take much 
 interest in anything except his own depress¬ 
 ing affairs, Cardew used to be at times 
 immensely entertained by his fellow-diners, 
 and their views upon sport, art, literature, 
 and the drama, all off-shoots of their various 
 occupations, carried on mostly in Fleet Street 
 and its purlieus. 
 
 Once he was grateful to a boy at the next 
 table, who was reading a copy of one of his 
 novels, for his pronouncement that the tale 
 was c rippin’, and got it out of the tuppenny 
 
52 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 box too.’ Oh, that i tuppenny box,’ the ulti¬ 
 mate goal of how many budding ambitions ! 
 
 To-day it was different; he was there, 
 seated at a table in his own far corner, but he 
 troubled nothing at all about his neighbours 
 or his surroundings. 
 
 After a little while the place grew darker, 
 things near him began to recede. Surely he 
 must be near the seashore, there was such a 
 thundering in his ears, and then black dark¬ 
 ness. 
 
 c The gent’s fainted.’ 
 
 c It’s a fit.’ 
 
 c No, it ain’t. You shut up. ’E’s cornin’ 
 to.’ 
 
 Where was he ? How did he get stretched 
 full length on the slippery bench covered in 
 American cloth ? And with his collar off, 
 the hair on his temples wet, and his coat and 
 waistcoat open. 
 
 c You came over queer, sir,’ said the elder 
 girl. c I think you fainted, but you ’ll be all 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 53 
 
 right now. I Ve done it myself in the hot 
 weather,’ in a reassuring tone, ‘when I first 
 had to stand all these hours, and wasn’t 
 brought up to it neither.’ 
 
 With brusqueness, almost amounting to 
 rudeness, Cardew thanked the girl, sat up, 
 put on his collar, and then as quickly as he 
 could paid his bill, and went rapidly, though 
 unsteadily, out of the shop. 
 
 He had never fainted before. 
 
 He seemed to remember nothing; he even 
 wondered how he came to be in the shop, in 
 the City at all. He must say nothing to 
 Cecily. No, nothing. It was doubtless only 
 the heat. And yet, and yet. There was 
 that dread spectre, and with that there was 
 no knowing. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ‘There is something wrong, dear!’ ex¬ 
 claimed Cecily as Cardew sank down into a 
 seat. 
 
 ‘ No, I am only a little over-tired, that is 
 all,’ he answered almost mechanically. ‘The 
 heat has been horrible in the City.’ 
 
 ‘Yes; but you look so unusually pale. 
 I am sure there is something seriously 
 wrong.’ And she knew she was right, 
 although he still persisted, and exclaimed 
 almost sharply— 
 
 ‘No, I assure you; I am tired — that 
 is all.’ 
 
 Cecily Cardew made no rejoinder ; she 
 merely got his slippers, drew down the blind 
 
 54 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 55 
 
 at the side window, through which the fierce 
 afternoon sun was streaming, and went on 
 with her work of letting down a serge skirt 
 for Sylvia. 
 
 Cardew closed his eyes, and, without 
 appearing to do so, his wife regarded him 
 earnestly; and as she did, the same spectre 
 which had begun to haunt the man crept 
 close to the woman’s heart also, and clutched 
 it with an icy hand. 
 
 Cecily stitched on, patiently waiting for 
 him to unclose them, and wondering what 
 she would do when all Sylvia’s dresses were 
 lengthened and altered, and economy of that 
 kind could no longer be practised. 
 
 Things could not go on in this way for 
 ever. Bills would soon again become due, 
 and there was something terribly distasteful 
 to both of them in being in debt. Thank 
 God! they had never been that yet; but how 
 long would she be able to say, c I owe 
 nothing which I cannot pay ’ ? 
 
56 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 Suddenly Cardew opened his eyes, and 
 remarked, as a man often does, as if she 
 knew all about it— 
 
 c I Ve seen Brant Hollings, and I left 
 ’Twixt Two Opinions for him to see.’ Then 
 he paused, as if expecting her to say some¬ 
 thing. 
 
 ‘Pm sorry you went to him,’ Cecily 
 remarked slowly after a minute or so. 
 
 ‘I was half-afraid that you wouldn’t like 
 it, Cardew continued, interrupting her. 
 
 C But there was just a chance, and I thought 
 I’d try him. Why do you object? He 
 has a very good standing.’ 
 
 Yes, I know all that, but I am afraid 
 that he will try and take advantage of you. 
 He must know that we have been unfortu¬ 
 nate lately. And I so distrust him. I don’t 
 like men who pretend that their business is 
 conducted philanthropically, any more than 
 I do those who make a business of philan¬ 
 thropy. And, dear, we do want 
 
 money so 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 57 
 
 badly; I don’t like to trouble you; but— 
 
 but-’ and the woman with the beautiful 
 
 sad face made a gallant attempt to force back 
 the tears. 
 
 c Cecily, Cecily, I can’t bear it! Don’t, 
 dear. There is just a chance of his taking 
 it, and he ought to give me ^50. I am 
 tired of trying other people. You’re a good 
 woman, Cecily. I don’t know what I 
 should do without you. Unfortunately,’ he 
 went on rapidly and bitterly, getting up and 
 resting his hand on her shoulder, c God put a 
 conscience in me. If He hadn’t troubled me 
 with it, I could make money like many other 
 men. Sometimes I begin to think the devil’s 
 a better paymaster.’ 
 
 ‘ John, what are you saying ? Think, 
 what are you saying ? We have much to 
 thank God for—Sylvia, and Fred with all 
 his naughty ways.’ 
 
 ‘ And these lodgings instead of our pretty 
 little house,’ Cardew broke in, pacing the 
 
58 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 room. 4 And the squalor and misery of the 
 street outside, and your white tired face, and 
 the tears you shed in the night, with your 
 face turned away from me ; and those I shed 
 when I think you are asleep. And the chil¬ 
 dren to be brought in daily contact with 
 all that s vulgar and low. Little Sylvia to 
 meet every day a woman who stands at 
 the street corners, whose ways lead down 
 into the pit. We have all this to be 
 thankful for. Yes, we have all this to 
 thank God for.’ 
 
 The woman shuddered. 
 
 He had never before spoken like this. 
 There must be something strangely wrong. 
 
 He was commencing to speak again. 
 They think it is only the poor—the very 
 poor who suffer; but it is we whose souls 
 are taken out of the gutter, we who have 
 brains to feel the ignominy of debt, who 
 truly suffer.’ 
 
 There were footsteps coming up the stairs, 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 59 
 
 and Cecily put her hand up as if to stay the 
 torrent of bitterness. 
 
 ‘ Sylvia : hush, John.’ 
 
 When she entered, a ray of sunshine 
 seemed to come in with her. 
 
 ‘A kiss, daddie, please. How tired you 
 look ! I know you’ve been working too hard 
 again. I wouldn’t let you do it, if I were 
 mother ; but she’s as bad—always stitching 
 away at something. I’m sure that skirt 
 won’t let down any more now, and I shall be 
 glad if it won’t mean mother having to get a 
 new one for me. 
 
 ‘I hate long dresses; they may be dignified, 
 but they’re a terrible nuisance, always getting 
 in the way. Fred isn’t half grateful enough 
 for having been born a boy.’ 
 
 c That’s chatter enough, Sylvia dear,’ in¬ 
 terrupted Cecily. ‘Father’s tired, and tea 
 has been ready ever so long. Go and take 
 off your things.’ 
 
 Meal-times were almost the happiest parts 
 
6 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 of the day to the girl, because she sat near 
 her father, and some of the indescribable 
 gloom which of late had seemed to hover 
 over the Cardew household, and at times 
 invest her life with indefinable sadness, was 
 at such times somewhat dissipated. 
 
 Both her father and mother made an effort 
 to be cheerful, and then there were the 
 doings of the day to be discussed ; the 
 hundred and one things which had amused 
 or interested her ; the trivialities, which 
 her keen sense of observation turned to 
 account; the incidentals of the High School 
 life, in which her mother always seemed so 
 interested. 
 
 To-night, however, her father, who usually 
 took some part in the conversation, was un- 
 wontedly silent. He felt a weariness, an 
 unstrung lassitude, such as he had never before 
 experienced. 
 
 At the end of the meal he knew, if he were 
 not to alarm his wife, he must retire into 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 61 
 
 the stuffy study to work, as had been his 
 custom for months. 
 
 Work at what ? What for ? What was 
 the use of it all ? These were the questions 
 which presented themselves for solution so 
 persistently nowadays, at all hours, in sea¬ 
 son and out of season—questions which, 
 incapable of answering themselves, he never 
 himself succeeded in answering. 
 
 ‘Make as little noise as you can, Sylvia, 
 when Fred comes in,’ Cardew enjoined as he 
 rose from the table. 
 
 ‘Very well, father. But you know what 
 a boy he is, and I’m not much quieter, I ’m 
 afraid.’ 
 
 ‘ You must not work late to-night, John,’ 
 said Cecily, with a troubled face, ere the 
 study door closed. ‘You’re not looking 
 well; I suppose it’s the heat.’ 
 
 ‘ Don’t you worry, dear; I shall be all 
 right,’ and with that the door closed. 
 
 For a minute or two Cardew gazed round 
 
62 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 the cupboard-like room as if he had never 
 been in it before. 
 
 He knew well enough the dwarf bookcases 
 of stained and varnished deal which hemmed 
 him in when he sat at his table, so con¬ 
 veniently at hand when he first occupied the 
 room, and now so oppressively near. But 
 to-night everything seemed so strange. He 
 had even forgotten that it was Sylvia’s baby 
 fingers which had here and there pulled off 
 the small serrated circles of the green leather 
 shelf-edging, and wondered when the damage 
 could have been done. 
 
 When he sat down at his desk, which was 
 covered with old papers, mss. that had failed 
 to find a home, newspaper cuttings and books, 
 he was confronted by that terrible blank page 
 of ruled paper, flanked by a small heap of 
 other pages, which he had thrown aside with 
 the first few lines only written on them, 
 futile efforts of a flagging brain to form the 
 sentences which were to bring daily bread. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 63 
 
 When first he had commenced to write, 
 how suggestive these clean white pages used 
 to prove! They were soon covered with 
 sentences in which he took a pride, words 
 which conveyed some clear meaning to his 
 mind, and brought praise from those whose 
 judgment was worth having. Now, it was 
 all so different. When he sat down he knew 
 that looking at the confronting paper would 
 only serve to bring the sweat-drops of despair 
 out on his forehead. 
 
 Every day the same drama was acted in 
 the close little study ; the same actor was 
 shoved with trembling limbs, bewildered 
 brain, and clamminess of terror, lest again it 
 should be failure, before that most terrible of 
 the audiences of one, his own consciousness. 
 And on the other side of the thin partition 
 sat the actor’s wife, troubled lest he who 
 actually accomplished so little should do too 
 much. 
 
 The heat of the little room, which was 
 
64 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 intense, though the narrow window was open 
 at the top, the strident noises of the street, 
 in which children played roughly, and women 
 talked with their neighbours without leaving 
 their own doorsteps, the sharp click of the 
 tip-cat on the pavement immediately opposite, 
 and the shrill cry of children quarrelling, 
 being beaten, or in pain, to-night made no 
 impression on the man seated at the desk. 
 If he noticed these things at all, they seemed 
 too far removed for him to trouble about 
 them. 
 
 He sat motionless in front of that accusing 
 sheet of blank paper, pen in hand. 
 
 Fred had come in : for a moment’s space 
 there had been a commotion. A cry of 
 simulated vexation from Sylvia, as the boy 
 gave a whistle at the lengthened skirt, which 
 had just been slipped on as a trial, and his 
 remark that she would soon be putting her 
 hair up, aping the young lady and getting 
 a waist} and then there was nothing to be 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 65 
 
 heard save the low hum of conversation 
 being carried on in an undertone, and the 
 occasional clatter of a cup and saucer or plate 
 of the boy at his tea. 
 
 When the dusk began to fall, and the 
 street grew greyer and quieter, and the shrill 
 cries of the children less strident and less 
 frequent, there came the usual knock at the 
 study door; and, in response to Cardew’s 
 i Come in,’ Sylvia entered with the green- 
 shaded lamp, a pretty play of light and 
 shadow from it falling upon her lithe, grace¬ 
 ful figure and piquant face. 
 
 ‘Mother thought you must be wanting 
 the light, daddie. What with our dress¬ 
 making and talk, I forgot all about it.’ 
 
 Then, noticing that there was no trace of 
 her father’s having been at work at least for 
 some time, she continued, 4 Oh, daddie, I hope 
 you’ve not been waiting ! Why didn’t you 
 knock, and then I would have brought it 
 sooner ? Couldn’t you see ? ’ 
 
 E 
 
66 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 ‘No, Sylvia,’ Cardew replied abstractedly, 
 c I couldn’t see ; so I’ve been thinking.’ 
 
 < There ! ’ placing the lamp on the corner 
 of the table, which she had cleared of papers. 
 c Shall I shut the window ? No ? Then I ’ll 
 only pull down the blind. I mustn’t inter¬ 
 rupt you any more ; and besides, I’ve got my 
 lessons to do.’ 
 
 A sudden idea seemed to occur to Cardew, 
 for he said hastily, as the girl turned away— 
 c Stop a moment, Sylvia. Shut the door. 
 I have something to say to you, dear. You 
 are getting along well at school ? ’ 
 
 ‘Yes, daddie. Miss Lomax thinks I am 
 safe for the scholarship now. Won’t it be 
 lovely ? ’ 
 
 The girl had seated herself on the edge of 
 the table, and was wondering vaguely what 
 her father was going to say next. 
 
 Cardew had done his best for his children 
 as far as education was concerned. Things 
 began to go badly with him—after a long 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 67 
 
 and serious illness—just about the time it 
 became necessary to send Sylvia to school. 
 But he had said to Cecily that they must 
 make a great effort to send the girl to a 
 good school, and Fred also when the proper 
 time came. 
 
 Sylvia herself had so often heard him say, 
 ‘ You children will have had a good education, 
 and I am afraid that is nearly all I shall be 
 able to ensure for you,’ that the possibility of 
 her having yet to leave school never entered 
 her head. 
 
 ‘Would you be very sorry to leave the 
 High School, dear ? ’ Cardew asked, after a 
 pause, glancing at her face to note the effect 
 of his words. 
 
 ‘Daddie! Why, of course! I really 
 couldn’t—not before the scholarship,’ and 
 an almost frightened expression came into 
 her violet-coloured eyes. ‘ Why, daddie, 
 you wanted me to get it, and I’ve worked 
 so hard—so very hard ! You don’t mean it, 
 
68 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 do you?’ and the girl’s eyes began to fill 
 with tears. 
 
 ‘No, child, no; I don’t mean it,’ Cardew 
 hastily replied. ‘ There, be a good girl, and 
 forget all about it. But, Sylvia, you must 
 work hard for the scholarship right up to the 
 last, because we’re very poor just now— 
 mother and I—and I don’t know how much 
 longer after next term I shall be able to let 
 you remain at Miss Lomax’s.’ 
 
 ‘ I ’ll work—never you fear, daddie,’ and 
 with a suddenly lightened heart she got off 
 the table and, kissing her father, left him. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 When the two children were in bed and 
 asleep, Cardew and Cecily continued the 
 talk which had been interrupted by Sylvia’s 
 entrance in the afternoon. 
 
 Things were going from bad to worse; 
 and unwilling as Cecily always was to let 
 her husband know what a struggle she had 
 to make both ends meet, it had now become 
 necessary to do so. 
 
 Their talk lasted long into the night. It 
 was so difficult to devise any further economy, 
 or a practicable scheme to increase the slender 
 income. 
 
 When sitting in his chair in that room, 
 away from pens and paper, Cardew experi- 
 
 69 
 
7 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 enced once again the mirage-like sensation, 
 that he had nothing but to get up and re¬ 
 enter his study to enable him to set down, in 
 the clearest possible manner, the ideas and 
 sentences which had proved so elusive during 
 the day. 
 
 When first this occurred, he had risen 
 abruptly, and, making Cecily some excuse, 
 had re-entered his study. But no sooner 
 was he seated in front of the blank page, 
 than the idea, present in his mind a moment 
 before, was gone, and no effort succeeded in 
 recapturing it. He suffered the agonies of 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 He never spoke to his wife of this feeling. 
 What was the use ? If she understood at all, 
 it would only worry her, perhaps even cause 
 her the dread which seized upon him so fre¬ 
 quently, and which came to him when rest¬ 
 less and sleepless in the watches of the night; 
 those dreary hours spent with Cecily un¬ 
 conscious and breathing placidly at his side. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 71 
 
 The piece of paper in Cecily’s hand was 
 covered with sums which he had jotted down 
 as they talked, figures which confronted 
 them so inexorably. When he had finished 
 writing, and Cecily had glanced over them, 
 she felt a shock such as one experiences at 
 the receipt of bad news. 
 
 They were in debt, and unless something 
 were done, some literary success came, they 
 would go on and on until the millstone around 
 their necks dragged them down. 
 
 k What did Mr. Hollings say ? ’ she asked, 
 after a painful pause. 
 
 ‘ That he might be able to take the book. 
 That he hoped that he would be able to 
 do so.’ 
 
 c Nothing more definite ? ’ 
 
 ‘No. I am afraid, Cecily, we must not 
 build too hopefully on that. He also said the 
 usual thing, that he was very full up. Was 
 declining a dozen—or was it a hundred ?— 
 mss. for each one he was able to accept. 
 
72 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 But he hoped—yes, he said that distinctly— 
 mine would suit him. If it does, he ought to 
 give me enough to relieve us of anxiety for a 
 time.’ 
 
 4 For a time!’ It was always that now, 
 the woman thought sadly. 
 
 Was John failing? Were his stories not 
 so good as they used to be ? What was the 
 meaning of it all ? Did her passionate love 
 for him blind her, and was her faculty of 
 judgment obscured thereby ? 
 
 There was a sudden clatter of hoofs in the 
 road. They stopped outside, a latch-key was 
 thrust in the street door lock. There was a 
 sound of a horse starting suddenly under a 
 cut from the whip. Cicely herself started 
 and shivered. The sounds were the same as 
 those which at first woke her so frequently 
 in the night till she got accustomed to them. 
 The street door was pushed back so roughly 
 against the passage wall that the cheaply 
 built house itself vibrated. There were 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 73 
 
 sounds of a girl’s voice raised high, and then 
 steps coming carelessly up the stairs. Then 
 the girl began to sing in an uncertain voice 
 a music-hall song, the words of which grew 
 suddenly indistinct as a room door was shut 
 with a bang. 
 
 ‘ Do you know the time ? ’ exclaimed 
 Cardew, seeming to rouse himself with an 
 effort; ^ it is past one.’ 
 
 Cecily was thinking of Sylvia. What if 
 she should have been aroused. 
 
 ‘ Is it really so late ? We had better go to 
 bed, dear.’ 
 
 The man and woman looked into each 
 other’s eyes, and saw that they were thinking 
 the same thought. 
 
 When Cecily opened the door, whilst 
 Cardew turned out the lamp, she started 
 back. On the mat, framed by the doorway, 
 with a background of pale moonlight which 
 seemed to have become a soiled grey in pass¬ 
 ing through the uncleaned window at the 
 
74 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 end of the shabby, narrow passage, stood 
 Sylvia, only half-awake, with but half-opened, 
 terrified eyes. 
 
 c Oh, mother, I am so frightened ! I looked 
 for you in your room, and you weren’t there ; 
 I must have fallen asleep. Something woke 
 me up, and I heard people coming up the 
 stairs, and that Rosy Vere singing, and then 
 she laughed horribly, and—and I heard a 
 strange man’s voice.’ 
 
 ‘ Never mind, dear, you ’ve been dreaming 
 too, I expect,’ Cecily said tenderly ; and as the 
 noises had ceased, the drowsy child began to 
 be uncertain if she had not really dreamed. 
 c You are frightened. I will ask father to 
 let you sleep with me to-night.’ 
 
 When John Cardew threw himself on 
 Sylvia’s little bed, it was not to sleep. He 
 had knelt at the side of it, vaguely thinking 
 that, perhaps, God might hear him, in the 
 room where an innocent child had just been 
 sleeping peacefully. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 75 
 
 The inarticulate cry which went up from 
 the bottom of his soul in agony had nothing 
 to do with him; Sylvia and Cecily—the 
 weakest first—were those for whom he 
 prayed. Now he was with them $ perhaps 
 some day he should be gone. And then 
 would the God who through these last three 
 years had sat on His throne, seemingly so far 
 off, come down near to them ? 
 
 Cecily believed in God, he knew, but then 
 good women were always religious. He had 
 an idea that all women were so by natural 
 inclination. They seldom became entirely 
 
 y 
 
 absorbed in any art to the exclusion of Him, 
 as did men. He even, as he lay with wake¬ 
 ful eyes and weary though excited brain, 
 remembered that he had once written in one 
 of his books : < God has no rivals to fear in a 
 good woman’s heart save her husband and 
 children,’ and Cecily had said she thought it 
 was, in a sense, very true. 
 
 When he was gone, perhaps, what men 
 
76 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 called c luck,’ and Christians spoke of as ‘ Pro¬ 
 vidence,’ would change. 
 
 At last he fell asleep, and it was not till 
 Sylvia knocked at the door to come in and 
 dress that he woke up to find himself gone to 
 bed in his things. 
 
 Calling out, c Wait a minute, dear,’ he 
 hastily washed to disguise the aberration of 
 which somehow he felt strangely ashamed. 
 On opening the door, however, he was re¬ 
 assured by the girl’s exclamation, ‘ Why, 
 daddie, you are early ! Mother didn’t think 
 you would be awake, much less up. I feel 
 so awfully sorry I turned you out last night, 
 and now I can’t remember at all clearly what 
 it was for. I think I was frightened at some 
 noise or other.’ 
 
 c Yes, yes,’ he said, and the white figure 
 with the grey shawl wrapped round its 
 shoulders slipped across the threshold and 
 firmly closed the door by the bolt which had 
 been put to replace the long-lost key. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 77 
 
 During the week following nothing un¬ 
 usual occurred in the Cardew household. 
 Indeed, now scarcely anything save the chil¬ 
 dren’s departure for and return from school, 
 and the postman’s infrequent visits, broke 
 the monotony of existence to the occupants 
 of Mrs. Morriston’s principal rooms at 26 
 Ophelia Road. 
 
 Cardew felt better again. He was able to 
 do some amount of work, although he soon 
 tired, and a return of the terrible blankness 
 and fearful nervous sweats immediately re¬ 
 sulted. As yet he assured himself that Cecily 
 had noticed nothing unusual, and he continued 
 his gallant fight against his terrors, and the 
 spectre horror they produced, behind the 
 closed door of his study. 
 
 In accordance with a suggestion of Sefton 
 Bell’s, whom he had met at the Literary 
 Club—the one luxury he permitted himself, 
 on Cecily’s earnest representations that it 
 would never do for him to fall out of touch 
 
78 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 with literary things altogether,—he had re¬ 
 cently written some slight sketches and 
 articles in the hope that they might bring 
 in a few guineas. Several, fortunately, got 
 accepted; but a man cannot live by chance 
 articles merely (let alone a family), and he 
 was moreover quite disqualified by his general 
 inclination and literary training from continu¬ 
 ing such a course of writing for any length of 
 time. Still it was something, as Cecily cheer¬ 
 fully said ; and she understood the effort it 
 had been for him to descend to this ephemeral 
 sort of work, and loved him all the better for 
 his renunciation. 
 
 The idea that he should abandon litera¬ 
 ture, should seek to fill a niche in some other 
 walk in life, simply never suggested itself to 
 
 her mind or his. Whatever happened_ 
 
 strange to say—the position was literature or 
 starvation, not literature or something else. 
 
 Cecily would probably have opened her 
 eyes at such a suggestion, and replied, c My 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 79 
 
 husband is a literary man; of course, he 
 cannot do anything else. Literature cannot 
 
 spare him. No indeed, the idea is prepos¬ 
 terous.’ 
 
 With Cardew’s wife, as with himself, it 
 was literature first and the rest of the profes¬ 
 sions nowhere. And it mattered nothing 
 
 that a valet or a clever mechanic earned more 
 than he did. 
 
 Even Sefton Bell, a happy-go-lucky jour¬ 
 nalistic free-lance, would have agreed with 
 hei. No, the thing was quite impossible to 
 Cardew, and so there was an end of it. 
 
 After a few days’ work of this miscellaneous 
 character, Cardew again tackled his book. 
 For a time all went well. The change of work 
 had acted somewhat on his brain as a change 
 of air would have done upon a fatigued or 
 exhausted body; he wrote fairly easily for 
 two days, and then the old terror revived, 
 the page once more presented its white sur¬ 
 face in vain for the words to be set down 
 
8 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 upon it, and the cold sweat of exasperation 
 at the futility of his efforts broke out on his 
 forehead and body afresh. 
 
 It was after a day of torturing inaction 
 that the last post brought the expected letter 
 from Brant Hollings. 
 
 Cecily came in with it to him. There 
 was an anxious look on her face, which even 
 the carefully shaded lamp failed to render 
 invisible. 
 
 ‘ Is this all ? There is no parcel ? ’ Car- 
 dew added, upon turning the letter over and 
 observing from whom it came. 
 
 c No, dear, none.’ 
 
 c Thank God ! ’ he said mechanically, as 
 though addressing no one in particular. 
 c Then there is some hope.’ 
 
 Cecily sat on the arm of the chair and 
 placed her hand on his shoulder. ‘ Aren’t 
 you going to open it ? ’ 
 
 ‘Yes. I was only thinking. It means so 
 much, Cecily.’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 81 
 
 He took up an inkstained bone paper-knife 
 and opened the letter. 
 
 Cecily leaned over and read it:— 
 
 ‘ 409 Paternoster Row, 
 
 ‘ Telegraphic Address, London, E.C. 
 
 “ Integrity,” London. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir,— 
 
 c Re ’Twixt Two Opinions ms. 
 
 ‘My reader’s report is so far favourable that I 
 am disposed to make you the following offer, 
 vi z . ^25, payable on passing of final proofs, for 
 a first edition, to consist of the number of copies 
 which it may be deemed advisable to print. 
 Any future edition (if any) to be the subject 
 of mutual agreement and arrangement. 
 
 ‘ In making you the foregoing offer, I am 
 to a certain extent speculating, and may 
 very possibly lose on the transaction. As I 
 remarked during our interview of some ten 
 days ago, it is increasingly difficult to make 
 any novel of that length do more than pay 
 expenses and a small sum over, unless the 
 work of the very front rank men. 
 
 F 
 
82 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 c Should you feel disposed to accept these 
 terms, I shall be glad if you will call in some 
 time during the present week, when the 
 agreement can be ready for signing.—Believe 
 me, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 c Brant Hollings. 
 
 ‘John March Cardew, Esq.’ 
 
 There was a cloud of bitter disappoint¬ 
 ment upon Cardew’s face as he turned to 
 Cecily and asked, ‘ What shall I do ? ’ 
 
 In her own heart the feeling was none the 
 less keen, but she would not let it appear. 
 
 ‘ Accept the offer.’ 
 
 ‘Accept it! Take ^25 for nearly six 
 months’ work ! It is nothing less than a 
 beggarly offer. If it is worth that, it is 
 worth more. Speculation indeed ! Non¬ 
 sense ! Brant Hollings is not the man to 
 speculate — except with a sure profit in 
 view.’ 
 
 Cecily let him run on. At length he 
 ceased speaking. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 83 
 
 Then she said with her hand clasped over 
 his— 
 
 c Dear, to me it is worth far more. To 
 me it is worth far more. To me it is one of 
 the best books ever written, for we have 
 lived parts of it together. But, dear, we 
 cannot disguise that we are terribly poor, so 
 poor that we cannot afford to reject even the 
 crumbs which fall from the rich man’s table. 
 God knows how I long to tell you to refuse 
 it, how I wish that you might write and 
 decline the money with dignity. But, but 
 there is Sylvia-’ 
 
 John Cardew covered his eyes with his 
 hands for a moment. That last argument 
 settled it. 
 
 ‘Very well, I will write “Yes,” and say I 
 will call in during the week. But I shall 
 stipulate that I must be paid at once.’ 
 
 ‘There’s my brave husband!’ she said, for 
 she knew how the battle had waged, and left 
 him without speaking again. 
 
84 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 When the study door had closed, the pent- 
 up despair of the man broke out. 
 
 c If I were alone, if she and the children 
 did not starve with me, I would throw the 
 money in his face ! Oh, my God, twenty- 
 five pounds for six months’ toil, for all the 
 agony, the burden of dead hopes ! ’ 
 
 After a few minutes’ almost incoherent 
 murmuring, he calmed himself with an effort, 
 wrote the letter, and went out to post it. 
 The cool air tempted him past the pillar-box 
 at the corner of the street; and at length, 
 from the crest of an adjacent road, which, 
 with its small semi-detached villas with trim 
 window-boxes and two limes apiece in minia¬ 
 ture front gardens, was so near and yet so 
 far removed from the meanness and poverty 
 of Ophelia Road, he could see the curtain 
 of luminous cloud hanging over the city, 
 the murmurous roar of whose throbbing life 
 found an aching echo in his brain. 
 
 As he stood there, a solitary figure in the 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 85 
 
 deep shadow cast by one of the houses, he 
 longed with an indescribable longing to 
 trample on those who trampled him down, 
 on those who had destroyed his dreams, and 
 for a time reality, of success; to see that 
 lowering mammoth city, with all its failure, 
 even its success, destroyed. 
 
 Nothing save such a mighty retribution 
 would avenge his wrongs. 
 
 When he turned away, he started, almost 
 expecting to see his own face staring at him 
 on an impalpable curtain—the face he had 
 imagined he saw in the glass after a restless 
 night. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The twenty-five pounds Cardew received 
 for his ms. * Twixt Two Opinions melted away 
 with startling rapidity; indeed, with a celerity 
 which caused Cecily many sleepless hours. 
 When she had paid the bills, that had such 
 a terrible facility for accumulating, and had 
 purchased the few necessaries which had been 
 done without till such a thing was no longer 
 possible, only a very few pounds remained. 
 
 The novel was not a pronounced success. 
 
 The younger order of critics, seemingly 
 unaware that Cardew had written half a 
 dozen good novels whilst they were still in 
 knickerbockers, treated it as a c first effort, 
 indicative more of promise than fulfilment ’; 
 
 86 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 87 
 
 or, treating the story in the semi-jocosely 
 sarcastic manner so much in vogue, referred 
 to it as ‘aptly named, the author having 
 evidently himself two opinions as to the 
 working out of the situation chosen as the 
 central idea.’ The older men, who had 
 known Cardew in more prosperous days, 
 took a different line. They treated it either 
 as ‘an experiment which we cannot advise 
 the author to pursue further,’ frankly urged 
 him c to return to the metier in which he had 
 earned a well-deserved success,’ or, as one 
 rather brutally asserted, c there can be no two 
 opinions about this book. It is bad. In fact, 
 the author is evidently worked out, and his 
 imagination at the point of extinction.’ 
 
 It was this last review appearing in the 
 columns of an organ of literary criticism 
 enjoying the premier position amongst its 
 contemporaries that caused Cecily to read 
 the book again herself. 
 
 When she sat herself down to read in the 
 
88 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 terrible airless heat of an August afternoon 
 alone in the dingy lodgings—for Cardew and 
 the children, at her earnest request, had gone 
 to spend the day on Hampstead Heath—there 
 was a great and all-absorbing fear clutching 
 at her heart-strings. 
 
 What if the unknown critics’ verdict were 
 correct! 
 
 i No,’ she said to herself over and over 
 again, c no, God would never put that 
 burden upon her. Not the God that she be¬ 
 lieved in. Not He whom, when things went 
 wrong, she could stretch out her hands to 
 and seem to touch. Surely not, surely not.’ 
 
 She read on and on, taking no heed of 
 time, forgetting that she had had no food, 
 her love carrying her over the hard places; 
 those where at first reading there seemed a 
 confusion of meaning, such as several of the 
 reviewers had noted. 
 
 At length she finished the last page and 
 closed the volume. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 89 
 
 They were nearly all wrong; yes, there 
 was no doubt about it. 
 
 The critics did not understand the hidden 
 meaning of the story. They were either 
 fools or dolts. She could write better criti¬ 
 cism herself. John, her John, had written a 
 fine novel, one that had brought tears to 
 her eyes, the reason for which, when she 
 thought of it, she failed to discover. 
 
 The stern desire to discover the truth 
 which had possessed her at the outset had 
 been insensibly abandoned as she read on, 
 and now, after the strain, she felt the room 
 unspeakably lonely. 
 
 It was quite late when Cardew and the 
 children came in. The latter were full of 
 the joy of living, and brought something of 
 the fresh air they had themselves breathed 
 into the narrow confines of their home in 
 Ophelia Road. 
 
 There was something strangely wearied in 
 the attitude of the man, and for the first 
 
90 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 time Cecily recognised with a pang that 
 physical exertion began to tell on him un¬ 
 duly. 
 
 When the children had gone to their 
 bedrooms to wash, Cecily rose and threw her 
 soft, clinging arms round her husband’s neck. 
 
 ‘John,’ she said, looking anxiously into his 
 face, c I have been reading the book ; I have 
 read it all through; and, dear, the reviewers 
 are all wrong—you mustn’t mind what they 
 say. They simply don’t know.’ 
 
 They were standing so that Cardew’s face 
 was quite in the shadow, or Cecily, when she 
 kissed him and clung to him, would surely 
 have noticed the weary and even strange 
 expression upon it. Her inner sensitiveness 
 must, however, have caught some hint of 
 this, for she said— 
 
 ‘John, I have been so lonely ! It is very 
 foolish, but I think I am a little unnerved 
 about something. You will never leave me 
 for long ? ’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 91 
 
 c No,’ he replied absently; c no, Cecily. 
 Why should I ? ’ 
 
 Then after a pause : ‘You’ve read ’Twixt 
 Two Opinions through again. What a strange 
 idea ! But we won’t talk about it, will we ? 
 It ought to have been better. If only I had 
 to write it over again.’ 
 
 But, all the same, he had the feeling that 
 it would have made no difference after all. 
 
 Later in the evening Sefton Bell dropped 
 in, as he occasionally did. Some remarks he 
 had overheard at the Literary Club had made 
 him anxious about Cardew. 
 
 He was a much younger man than his 
 friend, altogether of a more modern type. Not 
 trammelled greatly by literary ideals, he had 
 succeeded where Cardew had failed. But he 
 never pretended to cheaply despise what he 
 did not himself possess. Somehow or other, 
 with all his Bohemianism, Sefton Bell was a 
 man to be depended upon; and Cecily, who 
 had regarded him with clear, questioning eyes 
 
92 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 the first time he came, had taken him into 
 the family circle without hesitation. So 
 the young fellow, who seemed so full of 
 energy, and was so modestly flushed with 
 success, came to know much more than 
 any one else of the state of affairs with 
 the Cardews. 
 
 On this particular evening he went away 
 far sadder at heart than usual. Things 
 were sure to be exaggerated, but there could 
 be no reasonable doubt that there was a 
 noticeable change in John Cardew. In the 
 family circle it was not so apparent. But 
 whilst talking over literary matters in the 
 little study, where the two men had retired 
 for a chat, Bell’s suspicions received ample 
 confirmation. 
 
 When he left, Cardew happened to be out 
 of the room, so he said tentatively to Cecily, 
 
 4 Don’t you think Mr. Cardew is rather over¬ 
 worked ? ’ 
 
 Cecily paused for a moment, and then re- 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 93 
 
 plied hesitatingly, 4 I don’t think he is very 
 well, but he has not been working quite so 
 hard lately,’ adding somewhat bitterly : 4 You 
 see, there is no need.’ 
 
 4 Perhaps he is tired, 5 Sefton Bell said 
 meditatively, 4 but I don’t think him look¬ 
 ing very well,’ and then the subject was 
 dropped. 
 
 However, whilst he was walking towards 
 the ’bus terminus, he thought : 4 There is 
 something seriously wrong with Cardew. I 
 don’t think I should take things quite so 
 calmly if I were his wife.’ And then his 
 own work obtruded itself upon him, thrusting 
 for a time the Cardews and their affairs quite 
 into the background. 
 
 In Cardew’s own mind there had been at 
 first some faint hope of a second edition of 
 his novel. Following hard on some of the 
 least favourable reviews had come several 
 which, doubtless prompted by feelings of 
 friendship, had noticed the most striking 
 
94 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 portions of what Sefton Bell had reluctantly 
 admitted to be a singularly unequal book, and 
 charitably passed over most of its manifest 
 shortcomings. Even if the author had been 
 cognisant of this gentle log-rolling, he would 
 scarcely have been astonished at it; for the 
 pastime was a favourite one with critics, one 
 was always given to understand, and why 
 should it always be to them that have ? This 
 hope, like so many others during the last 
 three years, was doomed to disappointment. 
 Not only did ’Twixt Two Opinions fail to 
 create such a demand as to warrant reprint¬ 
 ing ; but Brant Hollings frankly told Cardew, 
 when he called in to see how the sales 
 worked out, that he had nearly lost money 
 by the venture. What this statement actu¬ 
 ally meant, Cardew did not succeed in dis¬ 
 covering. 
 
 When he told Cicely, she set her face 
 very firmly. 
 
 At times she felt almost conquered $ the 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 95 
 
 heat of the summer had tried her severely, 
 and she recognised that it was almost the 
 last rally. 
 
 Cardew had lately seemed very exhausted. 
 A weary look had crept into his eyes, an 
 expression which occasionally filled her with 
 a vague foreboding. Often she lay awake 
 almost all night long startled by the inde¬ 
 finite noises of a London street, at last only 
 half-slumbering till daybreak. She must do 
 something. 
 
 But what was there for her to do ? There 
 were not many means of earning money open 
 to a lady who had no special talents other than 
 those inherent with tender, self-sacrificing 
 womanliness. 
 
 What could she do ? What could she do? 
 The question repeated itself over and over 
 again in her mind, and at last an answer 
 came. There was no hesitation. She could 
 do it, that was sufficient. To-morrow she 
 would set about it. And then, weary enough, 
 
96 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 she turned over, even glad of the one more 
 sacrifice, and slept. 
 
 During breakfast next morning, if John 
 Cardew had not been so absorbed in his own 
 thoughts, he might have noticed that the 
 colour in his wife’s face was unusually 
 deep, and that there was even a suspicion of 
 nervousness about her manner and move¬ 
 ments. Most women have a feeling almost 
 approaching reverence for custom and tradi¬ 
 tion. Cecily was no exception to the general 
 rule ; so far as she knew, no woman in her 
 family had ever specifically earned anything, 
 and the idea of doing so was eminently dis¬ 
 tasteful to her. Not that she saw anything 
 derogatory in the practice, but merely because 
 of its somewhat repellent novelty. 
 
 She had decided to say nothing to Cardew 
 about it : she might fail after all; and he 
 was sure to offer some objection. It was 
 not easy to combat him 5 the logic of a 
 woman’s ‘ must ’ was not always an effective 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 97 
 
 answer, she had found. And, indeed, she 
 mistrusted herself. What if she should be 
 over-persuaded by him ? Was she so deter¬ 
 mined on this sacrifice as she imagined ? 
 These questions and fears decided, when he 
 retired to his study, and the children had 
 gone, she found herself alone, so, taking up 
 a stray copy of a ladies’ paper which had 
 been sent them, she carefully copied out 
 the address and particulars therefrom. Then, 
 after writing a short note, which she placed 
 on the handle of the study door, she dressed 
 herself and walked hurriedly down the street, 
 lest her husband should catch sight of her 
 and, suspecting her errand, call her back. 
 
 An hour later she alighted from the ’bus 
 in which she had travelled to her destination, 
 and had but little difficulty in finding the 
 number in Great Portland Street of which 
 she was in search. 
 
 Womanlike, she reconnoitred, and then 
 spent several minutes in feasting her eyes 
 
 G 
 
98 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 upon the dainty feminine garments displayed 
 in the window. 
 
 The shop had one of those unobtrusive 
 and even shabby exteriors which are not 
 infrequently associated with what has got to 
 be called an ‘exclusive* clientele . To a 
 woman’s mind the satisfactory display of 
 luxury and good taste in the narrow and 
 even old-fashioned windows suggested infinite 
 possibilities within. 
 
 Just as she was entering, and, indeed, 
 whilst she still had a trembling hand on the 
 door-handle, a card in the side window with 
 the words 
 
 Fine Needlewoman Wanted 
 Apply Within 
 
 caught her eye. 
 
 There could be no mistake, then, and 
 this fact gave her a certain amount of satis¬ 
 faction and courage. 
 
 When she entered, and found herself con- 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 99 
 
 fronted by even more daintiness and luxury 
 of attire than she had anticipated, she scarcely 
 possessed courage to reply to the polite in¬ 
 quiry of the fashionably dressed young lady 
 who came forward to wait upon her. 
 
 ‘What can I have the pleasure of showing 
 you, madame ? * 
 
 ‘ Nothing, thank you. I saw an advertise¬ 
 ment in the Queen, and I have come about 
 that,’ Cecily replied, with a consciousness that 
 her voice was very low and far-off sounding. 
 
 ‘ Oh, I beg your pardon,’ was the answer, 
 in a quickly assumed patronising tone. ‘ You 
 had better see Miss Jemmans.’ 
 
 c I suppose we ’re not suited ?’ continued the 
 girl, speaking over her shoulder to a com¬ 
 panion who was ‘ dressing ’ a showcase. 
 
 c Not that I know of,’ with a glance at 
 Cecily. 
 
 Cecily Cardew had learned one art, that 
 of the needle, as few modern women do. 
 The taste for fine needlework had run in her 
 
100 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 family ; and so when Miss Jemmans produced 
 her daintiest garments—made for the trous¬ 
 seau of a peer’s daughter—and said, ‘ That is 
 the style of thing we want. If you can 
 work like that, we shall be able to give you 
 a trial at all events,’ she felt no hesitation in 
 saying, ‘Yes, I can do it.’ 
 
 She had heard something about ‘sweating’; 
 she had been led from what she knew to 
 expect very little for such work ; and when 
 the sum was named, it surprised her that she 
 could make so much. 
 
 When the parcel, containing two ‘ model ’ 
 garments, a length or two of lawn, cambric, 
 and lace, such as Cecily at the time thought 
 it would be a delight to handle, was ready, she 
 had so far become accustomed to her strange 
 role as to reply to Miss Jemmans’ request for 
 her name and address without embarrassment 
 or hesitation. 
 
 ‘ Cardew.’ 
 
 ‘ Mrs. Cardew ? ’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION ioi 
 c Yes.’ 
 
 The forewoman looked at her keenly 
 whilst Cecily hunted for a card, with an idea 
 of giving it to her, only to change her mind 
 on remembering that it bore her Clapham 
 address. The inspection was evidently satis¬ 
 factory ; for as the young lady who opened 
 the door for her remarked to her companion 
 in a tone of mild astonishment, ‘Fancy, 
 Jemmans never asked for a deposit ! ’ 
 
 As for Cecily, she knew nothing of this 
 special favour of exemption from what would 
 have overtaxed the slender sum in her posses¬ 
 sion, but she had obtained work that she could 
 do and that she liked. Surely Providence 
 had smiled upon her. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Cardew had not noticed Cecily’s absence; 
 and even when he came out of his study just 
 before one o’clock, and found her engaged, 
 just as if she had been there all the morning, 
 in ‘cutting out’ upon the rickety oval dining- 
 table, the presence of dainty lace and yards 
 of the finest cambric in themselves conveyed 
 no inkling of what had occurred to his some¬ 
 what preoccupied masculine intelligence. 
 
 Even when Cecily, with a flush, half of 
 pride at her success and half of fear lest he 
 should be vexed at what she had done, com¬ 
 menced to explain, he cut her off short, 
 evidently supposing she was making some 
 
 garments for Sylvia or herself, saying— 
 
 102 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 103 
 
 c It’s all right, dear; you ’re not one to 
 spend money unnecessarily. No doubt they 
 were wanted.’ 
 
 Cecily regarded him with amusement. c I 
 suppose, John dear, you ’ll not be in the least 
 surprised that this lace cost, some of it, five 
 shillings a yard, if not more. And this 
 cambric,’ tossing up a billowy mass of the 
 fine white material as she spoke, c not much 
 less.’ 
 
 Cardew’s face was a study, but his look of 
 blank amazement was too deeply tinged with 
 distress and concern for Cecily to keep him 
 unenlightened any longer. So, sitting down 
 on the arm of the chair in which he had 
 seated himself, she said— 
 
 c These things are neither for Sylvia nor 
 me, John; they are for young Lady Aline 
 Templetown, who is going to be married.’ 
 
 ‘ Whatever have you got to do with it ? ’ 
 ejaculated Cardew, in a tone of surprised 
 inquiry. 
 
io 4 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 c I am going to make some of her trous¬ 
 seau, and be well paid for doing so.’ 
 
 < Paid ? ’ 
 
 Cardew’s first impulse was to forbid Cecily 
 so demeaning herself. Surely they had not 
 fallen quite so low. And then his mind was 
 possessed once more by that terrible rage 
 against fate, and he could have got up and 
 trampled the dainty lace-trimmed garments 
 and snowy fabrics underfoot. 
 
 In the end, however, Cecily had her way. 
 With delicate feminine diplomacy she showed 
 him that it would be an intense pleasure for 
 her to exercise her talent in this way. She 
 could never hope to keep up her proficiency 
 in the art of the needle. ‘ You know, John,’ 
 she wound up her argument, £ I cannot afford 
 to buy such materials, and what I receive ’— 
 she had been on the point of saying c earn ’ 
 — £ will at least pay for Sylvia’s winter things 
 and mine.’ 
 
 Cardew made no further objection. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 105 
 
 He was not altogether satisfied, however. 
 
 He looked upon Cecily’s earning anything 
 as a distinct disgrace, in which, through his 
 inability to make such a course of action 
 unnecessary, he bore no inconsiderable part. 
 After Cecily’s protestations of satisfaction, 
 manlike, it never even occurred to him that 
 she had made any personal sacrifice. So he 
 simply said, ‘Very well. After all, no one 
 need know ’ (which made her choke back 
 some rising tears), and left her to her work. 
 
 Cecily was passionately fond of this fine, 
 intricate art of the needle, and of the elabor¬ 
 ate multitudinous tuckings and cobwebby 
 insertions and trimmings, which under her 
 nimble fingers transformed the simplest of 
 garments into the most complicated. 
 
 Through the week as she stitched away 
 she thought of all the happy girlhood days, 
 and that later time when she had been 
 engaged over similar work for herself, the 
 remnants of which she still treasured. And 
 
io6 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 then, although she was no longer young, she 
 wove romances whilst fashioning these gar¬ 
 ments, which in very truth were, as Sylvia 
 said, ‘ fit for a fairy princess,’ and her needle 
 darted in and out with marvellous rapidity. 
 
 Indeed, she was almost too busy to notice 
 any change in Cardew. 
 
 At meal-times he seemed somewhat more 
 preoccupied than usual; but, after all, there 
 was nothing very alarming in that. For 
 a time her work absorbed her more than 
 she was aware. The children when at home 
 were by no means neglected, but things had 
 so arranged themselves that autumn as to 
 leave her unusually free. Fred had joined 
 technical classes at a neighbouring School of 
 Science and Art, and Sylvia when not reading 
 for her scholarship loved nothing better than 
 to sit with her mother and help her with the 
 plainer part of the sewing. 
 
 One night, not long after she had returned 
 her first parcel of completed work, and had 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 107 
 
 heard from the forewoman that she might 
 reckon on more or less permanent employ¬ 
 ment, she had suddenly realised a great fear 
 as regarded Sylvia. 
 
 For the last few months the class of lodgers 
 at Ophelia Road had deteriorated. 
 
 Rosy Vere had been supplemented by at 
 least two other girls of similarly dubious 
 character, and Cecily regarded this fact in 
 the light of an additional menace to her 
 child. Some days elapsed ere she broached 
 the subject to Cardew, who readily agreed 
 that they must move as soon as possible. 
 But there was the difficulty : the rent was 
 in arrear. And although Mrs. Morriston was 
 singularly easy-going so far as the Cardews 
 were concerned, it was scarcely to be ex¬ 
 pected that she would allow them to quit 
 her rooms without discharging what they 
 owed. Cecily had a shrewd suspicion of the 
 real reason underlying the landlady’s leniency. 
 She would have had her view confirmed had 
 
108 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 she overheard Mrs. Morriston explain to a 
 neighbour that c them Cardews are so respect¬ 
 able, they give quite an air of gentility to the 
 house.’ Certain it is that she never hesitated 
 to make use of their so-called < gentility ’ as 
 a bait for obtaining other lodgers. 
 
 Cardew was at one with his wife concern¬ 
 ing the usual result from touching pitch; and 
 he accepted the fact that for the present they 
 were unable to leave Ophelia Road as but 
 one more manifestation of their persistent ill- 
 fortune. 
 
 Cecily worked more diligently than ever, 
 far harder than her strength would for long 
 endure. Every shilling she was able to put 
 aside—and with Cardew again unable to do 
 anything, and tortured with an ever-growing 
 fear, how few they were !—served to lighten 
 the burden on her mind. 
 
 They had struggled through the winter ; 
 how she scarcely knew. The spring was 
 again coming. Fred had taken a situation 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 109 
 
 as a junior clerk and office-boy in a city 
 solicitor’s office; and Sylvia, except for the 
 kindness of her schoolmistress, who took a 
 deep interest in her promising pupil, would 
 also have had to leave school before obtaining 
 the coveted scholarship. 
 
 For several weeks Cardew had apparently 
 been closely at work ; Cecily, so terribly and 
 ceaselessly busy, saw him writing whenever 
 she had occasion to enter the study, now 
 almost denuded of its books ; but once, when 
 she ventured to inquire what he was doing, 
 he had repulsed her with, ‘You shall see by 
 and by; I must not be interrupted. If my 
 thoughts are disturbed, I shall be useless. 
 No, go away now, and I will tell you all in 
 good time.’ 
 
 She was terribly frightened a few days 
 afterwards. 
 
 She entered the study, hearing, as she 
 thought, a groan, and found Cardew with his 
 head upon the table unconscious. It was 
 
no A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 alarming enough, but scarcely serious. She 
 would not allow herself to consider it any¬ 
 thing save a fainting fit, although he seemed 
 very strange and vacant throughout the even¬ 
 ing. Mrs. Morriston, however (whom she 
 had summoned in her alarm and extremity), 
 held a different opinion ; though, with a re¬ 
 straint rare amongst women of her class, it 
 was not to Cecily, but to one of the other 
 lodgers, she expressed her conviction that 
 c Mr. Cardew had been took with a stroke.’ 
 
 Next day, and indeed for several following, 
 John Cardew was very unwell, and Cecily 
 became so far alarmed as to urge him to see 
 a doctor. But upon that point he was obdur¬ 
 ate. He would be better in a day or two, 
 he exclaimed ; it was quite unnecessary for 
 a doctor to see him. 
 
 He could easily have told the doctor what 
 was the matter with him, he knew, and he 
 made up his mind that none should know. 
 
 Cecily pressed the matter as far as possible, 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION hi 
 
 and then, finding that he grew terribly ex¬ 
 cited at the idea, ceased to urge it further. 
 
 Really, after all, there seemed no need, for 
 at the end of the week Cardew was again in 
 his study feverishly at work, and Cecily was 
 once more able to resume her sewing with¬ 
 out the constant interruption caused by the 
 querulousness of an invalid. 
 
 Lately she had been almost compelled to 
 take Sylvia into her confidence, to break 
 through her resolution to keep the clouds off 
 her children’s faces as long as possible. She 
 felt so terribly lonely at times with Cardew 
 shut up in his study, and only coming from 
 it when worked out, and consequently both 
 unfit and disinclined for talk. A knowledge 
 of their real position, of the fact that ruin 
 was again staring them in the face, came as 
 a terrible shock to the girl. She had much 
 of her mother’s force of character, and the 
 idea which at once presented itself to her 
 mind was that she must earn something; 
 
112 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 and it was only Cecily’s most strenuous 
 opposition which prevented her from leaving 
 school. 
 
 c I see that is what daddie meant,’ she said, 
 c when he spoke to me a long while back, 
 last summer.’ 
 
 At night she lay awake thinking if there 
 was anything to be done at odd times that 
 would prove more profitable than helping her 
 mother with the plainer parts of her work. 
 Now she had late classes, she frequently met 
 the other girls in the house, coming down 
 the stairs dressed to go out, when she came 
 home of an evening. They had lace petti¬ 
 coats, she noticed, almost as good as those her 
 mother made, patent-leather shoes, and new 
 and showy, if cheap, hats almost ad libitum. 
 Such things were now likely to arouse vague 
 questionings in her mind. Moreover, of late 
 the girl Rosy Vere had several times nodded 
 to her, and then spoken. 
 
 At first Sylvia had taken no notice. She 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION n 3 
 
 was certainly not a lady, even though she 
 dressed so well; but when one day Rosy had 
 laughed up at the girl who was following 
 her down the stairs, saying, < Too good for 
 us, eh ? The stuck-up minx ! and the whole 
 lot as poor as paupers,’ Sylvia determined not 
 to again lay herself open to such a remark. 
 
 It was about a week after Cardew had so 
 far recovered from the effects of his illness as 
 to be able to work again, and whilst Cecily 
 was busily engaged at her interminable stitch¬ 
 ing, that Sylvia, entering, said, after kissing 
 her— 
 
 c Mother, what is it Rosy Vere does?’ 
 Cecily caught her breath ; and as she did not 
 repiy, the girl went on: 4 1 didn’t want to 
 go a bit, but she half pulled me into her 
 room, saying she wanted to show me some- 
 thing. Mother, where can she get the things 
 rrom ? I never saw such beautiful clothes, 
 except what you make, petticoats with three 
 flounces of lace and insertions, and all the 
 
 H 
 
11 4 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 rest to match. And then when she saw how 
 much I admired them, she said any girl as 
 pretty as I was—mind, I ’m telling you exactly 
 what she said, mother, not that I believe it— 
 could get plenty of things, and keep you and 
 daddie into the bargain, if I did as she does. 
 What is it she does, mother ? When I 
 asked her she wouldn’t tell me. She only 
 laughed, and pushed me out of the room, 
 saying you called me, and that she would 
 perhaps tell me some day if I liked. But 
 something in her face whilst she was show¬ 
 ing me her lovely things frightened me. I 
 felt as if I were just going to look down into 
 a horrible pit.’ 
 
 Cecily Cardew’s face was very white as she 
 drew Sylvia gently down on to her knees 
 beside her. 
 
 c Sylvia, dear little Sylvia,’ she said at last, 
 with an infinite tenderness, c there are things 
 in the world which mother cannot tell you 
 —things which God knows are too terrible 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 115 
 
 for human telling—things, Sylvia, which 
 mother thanks God every day she knows so 
 little of, and prays to Him that you, darling, 
 may know even less of. You love me, you 
 believe I know best ? You must always trust 
 me won’t you, Sylvia, till you ’re old enough 
 to judge and act for yourself? You must 
 not ask me to explain why, but I would 
 sooner see you lying dead at my feet than 
 that you should ever do what Rosy Vere 
 does. Promise me that you will never speak 
 to her or any of the other girls in this house 
 again. Promise me solemnly, Sylvia.’ 
 
 The girl had a passionate love for her 
 mother and father ; and although she scarcely 
 understood the former’s solemnity and dis¬ 
 tress, she promised without hesitation. And 
 
 Sylvia’s word was never broken, her mother 
 knew. 
 
 The episode quite unnerved Cecily. Her 
 one desire more than ever now was to get 
 away from the horrible contamination which 
 
116 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 seemed to hem her in, and to surround her 
 darling with such terrible possibilities. Oh, 
 the horror that they could not go until they 
 were free from debt ! 
 
 That night when the children had gone 
 to bed, and Cardew was still at work in his 
 study, she reviewed the position. 
 
 There were still a few pounds remaining 
 in the bank of the sum realised for her by 
 Sefton Bell by the sale of her jewellery. 
 And she had her mother’s ring, and a few 
 other small articles to sell; oh, it was terribly 
 hard, terribly hard ! God was drawing so 
 far off; and yet if she believed, she might, 
 perhaps, again touch His garment, feel His 
 presence. And whilst she thought, there 
 crept into her weary, fainting soul the feeling 
 of the presence she craved, and the God of 
 her mother again seemed to make her sore- 
 tried heart His dwelling-place. 
 
 Cecily Cardew never lacked decision, and 
 she had soon made up her mind. Leave the 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 117 
 
 morally tainted atmosphere of 26 Ophelia 
 Road they must. To-morrow she would 
 write to Sefton Bell to ask him to dispose of 
 the few heirlooms of any value she still pos¬ 
 sessed. Then Mrs. Morriston should be paid 
 to the uttermost farthing, and at the end of 
 the month they would go. 
 
 At night she told Cardew what had oc¬ 
 curred. He took it much more quietly than 
 she had anticipated ; and though he agreed 
 that they must remain no longer than abso¬ 
 lutely necessary at Ophelia Road, he seemed 
 anxious to make no change until his new 
 book was completed. 
 
 This mysterious work, in which she some¬ 
 times sadly felt that she had no share. 
 
 The next few days were spent by her in 
 anxiety lest, after all, the few poor ornaments 
 which she had looked out to give to Sefton Bell 
 with scarcely controlled tears, and a terrible 
 sadness such as one experiences when parting 
 from dear friends, should fail to realise the 
 
118 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 required money. As a fact they did not, but 
 she never knew, for Sefton Bell was an 
 excellent deceiver. 
 
 When she gave Mrs. Morriston notice, the 
 landlady expressed her surprise and regret, 
 for she was genuinely sorry to lose the Car- 
 dews, and liked Cecily with a sincere liking, 
 the reason for which she herself would have 
 found a difficulty in describing. She ven¬ 
 tured to hope in conventional phrases that 
 they were suited with other apartments, and 
 even suggested that they might have had 
 some money left them. 
 
 c No,’ Cecily replied, ( we have no other 
 apartments yet. There is plenty of time, you 
 see, Mrs. Morriston; we shall not be leaving 
 for a month.’ 
 
 ‘ Well, I ’ve always liked you, mum, and all 
 the family so far as that goes,’ exclaimed the 
 other, with a genuine ring of regret in her 
 tone, which touched Cecily to the heart. c I 
 am sure I’ve tried to give satisfaction.’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 119 
 
 Cecily had instinctively avoided giving the 
 real reason for their so suddenly leaving; now 
 she felt almost compelled to do so. 
 
 Mrs. Morriston made no comment while 
 she was speaking, but when she had finished 
 she said simply— 
 
 4 No more ’n than I’ve expected, mum ; 
 I was only telling them girls they must be 
 quieter the other night. If I was a lady like 
 you, I wouldn’t stay myself. No, I wouldn’t 
 run no risks with a girl like yours, bless her 
 heart. 
 
 4 You’re quite right, mum. Thanks be! 
 my girls was married before I left the country 
 and took to lodgings after we was turned 
 from the farm when the new Squire came 
 into the property. And yet I can’t have the 
 heart to turn the girls out, poor things. And 
 them paying reg’lar too.’ 
 
 4 No,’ said Cecily, with her thoughts far 
 off, 4 1 suppose not.’ 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 When it was once settled they were to leave 
 Ophelia Road, Cecily’s mind was so far relieved 
 that she suddenly became aware John was 
 very much altered—that what Sefton Bell 
 had suggested must be true. 
 
 For the previous few weeks she had scarcely 
 had time to take particular notice of little 
 actions which now began to bear witness to 
 overstrain, if to nothing more serious. There 
 was, for one thing, a growing irritability in 
 Cardew. The slightest interruption, the 
 least thing ‘gone wrong,’ seemed to distress 
 him unspeakably. Never a bad-tempered 
 man, he still controlled everything except 
 the expression of his eyes and face, though 
 
 often evidently with an effort. 
 
 120 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 121 
 
 All day long he worked in his little study, 
 disturbed by the noises of the street, until in 
 sheer desperation he placed cotton-wool in 
 his ears. Such work, too ! The novel he 
 was writing was to retrieve their fallen for¬ 
 tunes, but at what a cost ! 
 
 For days before he had commenced it he 
 sat racked by terrible indecision. What 
 would Cecily say ? It was such a terrible 
 story. Sometimes, indeed, he found himself 
 thinking that no one but a madman would 
 have imagined it, and having done so, dared 
 to write it. 
 
 Then his brain seemed dominated by the 
 idea. Surely anything was better than the 
 terrible blankness of the page which had 
 confronted him day after day for so long, and 
 caused him such agony at the impotence of 
 his imagination. And so, with the furtive¬ 
 ness of those whose mind is diseased, he first 
 assured himself that Cecily was, as usual, 
 busily engaged with her work, and then, 
 
122 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 firmly shutting the door, he commenced to 
 write. 
 
 He almost laughed at the ease with which 
 the long withheld words now came; and he 
 only paused when, seized with a fear lest he 
 should not, after all, have secured the door, 
 he felt compelled to get up from the table 
 to reassure himself. 
 
 But Cecily was both incurious and busy, 
 so there was no real cause for his fear. 
 When she asked him what he was writing, 
 he replied, < A book,’ and that she should 
 know all about it by and by; all in good 
 time. 
 
 Now there was not so very much more to 
 write. He would be able to finish it before 
 they moved. And then, perhaps, when it 
 came out, and the money was plentiful once 
 again, Cecily would forgive him his succes de 
 scandale , his (as the critics would probably 
 call it) ‘ brutal frankness.’ 
 
 One thing he could not do. He would 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 123 
 
 never again suffer those agonising hours spent 
 alone with the terrible blank sheet of white 
 paper in front of him, with lines so intermin¬ 
 able upon it, when the words would not come 
 nor the sentences shape themselves. 
 
 Cecily had been complaining that her eye¬ 
 sight was not so good as it once was. Those 
 innumerable fine tucks, eight of them mea¬ 
 suring but an inch in width, and stitches 
 almost imperceptible to the ordinary eye, 
 which Miss Jemmans extolled so highly, 
 were ruinous to her eyes. But this fact 
 troubled Cardew nothing at all. He was so 
 full of his book, for one thing ; besides, he 
 had once more become frightened of his face 
 in the glass. It looked so terrible. He used 
 to leave his writing and creep into the little 
 bedroom to assure himself that he was mis¬ 
 taken. Then he could not satisfy himself, 
 and questioned Cecily, trembling with alarm 
 when he had done so. 
 
 No ! it was not an unmixed evil that 
 
124 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 Cecily’s eyes were not so keen-sighted as 
 formerly. 
 
 Just a fortnight before the date on which 
 they were to leave Ophelia Road, Cardew 
 had completed and put the finishing touches 
 to his book. Nothing now remained to be 
 done except to forward it to the publishers he 
 had already interviewed with reference to it. 
 
 The firm was a new one, which had gained 
 some amount of reputation by the issue of 
 fin-de-s'iecle , and for most people somewhat 
 unpleasantly suggestive, novels, by c new 
 writers.’ The banning of several of these 
 books by the better sort of libraries had only 
 served to attract public attention to the 
 volumes, and people bought where they most 
 probably would otherwise have borrowed. 
 P'abulous sums were spoken of as having 
 been made by both the authors and the 
 publishers ; and a paragraph making such a 
 statement, which caught Cardew’s eye, had 
 set him thinking of the book he ultimately 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 125 
 
 wrote. It was to be anonymous ; there was 
 not the least objection to that, the publishers 
 agreed ; perhaps even it was an advantage. 
 And so, whilst he still felt the degradation, 
 he tried to deceive his own soul. 
 
 As he was writing the last words a vague 
 presentiment assailed him that he was sud¬ 
 denly become old, and was failing. He 
 seemed all at once to have no longer any 
 interest in life. After the strain of the last 
 two months his brain appeared atrophied. 
 No doubt it would recover after a time. 
 Castelmeyer and Co. would take fully a fort¬ 
 night to consider the terms, and then there 
 would be plenty of time to decide about any 
 further writing. 
 
 He would go into his study just the same. 
 He should not interrupt Cecily’s work there ; 
 and besides, he felt uncomfortable when alone 
 with her for any length of time. One never 
 knew what her clear grey eyes might not 
 see, nor what inconvenient questions she 
 
126 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 might not ask. The ms. had been despatched 
 whilst she was out on one of her weekly visits 
 to Great Portland Street. She was as yet 
 even unaware that the book was finished. 
 
 And so he went into his little room pre¬ 
 cisely as before, and Cecily thought that he 
 was hard at work, when in reality he sat hour 
 after hour turning over fantastic thoughts, 
 only stirred into actual consciousness when 
 aroused by some unusual noise in the street 
 below his window. 
 
 At length it became a labour even to 
 think. The apathy to his surroundings in¬ 
 creased. He scarcely at times remembered 
 his own existence, or that of Cecily and the 
 children. Then this inertness would be suc¬ 
 ceeded by brief intervals of feverish, torturing 
 activity, followed in turn by moments of 
 confused ecstasy, when he felt all he had to 
 do to conquer the world was to set his 
 thoughts upon paper. But he never did so. 
 The feeling was so transient, that these won- 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 127 
 
 derful ideas and imaginings were gone ere he 
 could precipitate them upon the page, which 
 only stared back from in front of him with a 
 devilish blankness. 
 
 Once or twice he had suffered from slight 
 returns of the giddiness and confusion which 
 had caused Cecily such alarm some few 
 months before, but as they passed off he took 
 little notice of the matter. He was so ter¬ 
 ribly afraid of her suspecting anything. 
 
 Then he was feverishly anxious that Cas- 
 telmeyer’s should settle about the book. Such 
 delay was abominable. He could have no 
 peace till they did. Once he had the money 
 for it, he would wash his hands of the whole 
 thing, and would try and forget it altogether. 
 
 They would go and live in the country, 
 away from the squalor and the noises, which 
 sometimes almost caused him to desire to put 
 an end to it all. 
 
 Perhaps he would be able to work in the 
 quiet and peace of the country. Do work 
 
128 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 as he used to. Write books which Cecily 
 might read ; set down his thoughts without 
 fear lest she might come in and, glancing 
 over his shoulder, read them. 
 
 Who could tell ? 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon, and Cecily had 
 tried to persuade him to go for a walk with 
 the children whilst she went as usual to 
 Great Portland Street. During dinner she 
 had become suddenly aware how haggard 
 and worn he was looking. No doubt it was 
 working so hard, coupled with his desire to 
 get away from their present surroundings as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 ‘No,’ Cardew replied; ‘it was quite out 
 of the question. He could not spare the 
 time.’ So Sylvia and Fred went out by 
 themselves, and he into his study after Cecily 
 had also gone. 
 
 Midway through the afternoon Mrs. Mor- 
 riston thought that she heard a strange noise 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 129 
 
 in Cardew’s room. But, with her sleeves 
 rolled up preparing for Sunday’s dinner, she 
 was too busy to go and see. Perhaps he 
 was packing up ; they were going to leave 
 in less than a fortnight—not that they had 
 so very much to take with them after all ; 
 and with these reflections the incident passed 
 from her mind. 
 
 It was quite dusk when Cecily came in. 
 She had been delayed, for Miss Jemmans had 
 kept her to see the new models of lingerie 
 she had brought back from Paris, and which 
 she wished her to copy. The tea had been 
 laid by the hard worked little general, whose 
 face was never clean, and whose very smile 
 was outlined with dust and blacklead ; but 
 the lamp had not been lit, and no strip of 
 light on the shabby carpet marked the shrink¬ 
 age of the study door. 
 
 When she had taken off her things, and 
 placed the precious parcel of work upon the 
 bookcase in the corner, she lighted the china 
 
 I 
 
1 3 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 lamp, and crossed the room to her husband’s 
 room-door. 
 
 She knocked with an elation of spirits 
 caused by her walk and temporary freedom 
 from the depressing influence of the dingy 
 house. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Again she knocked, and again there was 
 no answering c Come in.’ 
 
 c Probably he has, after all, gone out,’ she 
 thought—to the post, perhaps; and then 
 she turned the handle and pushed open the 
 door. 
 
 For a moment it would not go back. 
 Then it suddenly cleared the obstruction. 
 She glanced down. 
 
 Cardew lay upon the floor, partly on his 
 side, with his face perfectly white and still, 
 staring up at her in the dusk. 
 
 With a cry she knelt down, and, raising 
 his head, covered his face with her kisses. 
 But she could not deceive herself for long. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 131 
 
 She tried to lift him from the floor, but her 
 woman’s strength was unequal to the task. 
 Leaving him for an instant, she crossed the 
 room, the light from which fell in a slanting 
 patch across the dark, inert body in the study 
 doorway, and rang the bell violently again 
 and again. Then she returned, and, resting 
 the poor white face on her knee, took one 
 of his hands in hers. It was very cold, and 
 sent a shudder through her; but she held it 
 fast until the door of the sitting-room opened 
 and Mrs. Morriston entered. 
 
 Then she broke down. 
 
 £ Cheer up, my poor dear. It’s only a 
 faint,’ said the landlady, without conviction 
 in her voice. ‘ Loosen his collar. There ! 
 you help me, and we ’ll get him on the sofey, 
 and Maria shall run for the doctor.’ 
 
 With a great effort the two women suc¬ 
 ceeded in lifting Cardew and placing him on 
 the sofa. 
 
 Whilst waiting for the doctor they rubbed 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 his hands, and chafed his temples with some 
 eau-de-cologne, which a lodger thoughtfully 
 brought them. But from the first Cecily 
 knew that he was dead. 
 
 At last the doctor arrived, and, pushing his 
 way through the small knot of horrified 
 though fascinated women and girls, who had 
 congregated round the door on learning of 
 the tragedy, came to the side of the sofa. 
 
 A single glance sufficed him. 
 
 4 You are Mrs.-? ’ he said, addressing 
 
 Cecily, and pausing. 
 
 4 Cardew.’ 
 
 c Mrs. Cardew. How long is it since— 
 since it occurred ? ’ 
 
 c I was out; he—my husband was at work 
 in his study,’ indicating the dark doorway of 
 the little room. 
 
 4 1 heard a noise about four or thereabouts,’ 
 exclaimed Mrs. Morriston, as Cecily, bursting 
 into tears, covered her face in her hands. 
 4 But I didn’t pay much attention, I was-’ 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 133 
 
 ‘Yes, yes,’ said the doctor somewhat 
 brusquely. ‘And you have only just dis¬ 
 covered it. He has been dead about three 
 hours. No one could have done anything ; 
 it was paralysis of the brain. A stroke,’ 
 he explained, seeing that Mrs. Morriston did 
 not understand. 
 
 ‘Just what I feared,’ said the latter ; ‘he 
 used to work terrible hard.’ 
 
 Cecily sat stunned by her sudden bereave¬ 
 ment. 
 
 ‘John was dead. John had died alone. 
 He had never said good-bye to her,’ she kept 
 repeating to herself. 
 
 By the time the doctor and one of the 
 men lodgers, who had just come in from 
 work, had carried Cardew’s body into the 
 other room and laid it on the bed, she had 
 somewhat recovered herself. 
 
 ‘ You have no friends you could send for ? ’ 
 the doctor asked. 
 
 ‘No, none. I have my two children; 
 
i 3 4 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 they will be back presently,’ and then, at the 
 thought of them, she again broke down. 
 
 4 If I can be of any use,’ he continued, 
 genuinely touched at the woman’s loneliness, 
 4 I shall be very glad. Let me know. But I 
 wish you had a man to carry out the neces¬ 
 sary arrangements. You are sure there is 
 no one ? ’ 
 
 4 There is a friend of ours, a journalist,’ 
 Cecily replied after a pause, during which 
 she had been evidently collecting her scattered 
 thoughts. 4 I will write to him. He will 
 come to me, I am sure.’ 
 
 4 I will come in and see you to-morrow 
 evening,’ said the doctor, shaking hands, 4 and 
 perhaps he, your friend, might manage to 
 meet me.’ 
 
 4 1 will write and ask him to come.’ When 
 he had gone, Cecily asked Mrs. Morriston to 
 leave her. She wanted to be alone, to realise 
 everything, to form the words in which she 
 would break the news to Sylvia and Fred. 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 135 
 
 c If he had lived,’ the doctor had said, in 
 the hope of giving one tiny grain of comfort, 
 ‘ he would probably have become insane.’ 
 
 She should not tell the children that. Till 
 they came, she would go and be with him, 
 and there, perhaps, in the solemn stillness of 
 that death chamber, she might find courage 
 for her task. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Sefton Bell received Cecily Cardew’s brief 
 letter at the Literary Club. She had sent 
 it there, knowing that if he were in town 
 he always lunched at the Club. 
 
 He was terribly shocked, although not 
 entirely surprised. It was merely that he 
 had not expected the end so soon. 
 
 ‘My husband died suddenly about four 
 o’clock this afternoon,’ Cecily wrote, and a 
 terrible dread lest these few words veiled 
 ‘suicide’ crept into his heart. 
 
 He was lunching at one of the small 
 double tables in one of the windows over¬ 
 looking the Embankment with a fellow- 
 journalist, who, noticing his sudden pallor, 
 exclaimed— 
 
 136 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 137 
 
 ‘ What’s the matter, old man ? Not bad 
 news, I hope.’ 
 
 4 Yes, replied Sefton Bell; 4 poor Cardew’s 
 dead. A terribly sudden affair; leaves a 
 widow and two children.’ 
 
 4 Been rather down on his luck lately, 
 hasn’t he ? ’ queried the other. 4 1 haven’t 
 seen him here for an age.’ 
 
 4 Yes. Gone down and down.’ 
 
 4 Cardew gone! ’ said the man at the corner 
 of the next table. Then adding, 4 Poor 
 devil ! I meant to have looked him up. 
 Only thought about it the other day. He 
 went out awfully suddenly. Haven’t seen 
 anything of his for a year. If there’s any¬ 
 thing wanted, Bell, I ’ll do what I can.’ 
 And he made a note on the back of an 
 envelope for an obituary paragraph. 
 
 Sefton Bell reached Ophelia Road an 
 hour before the time appointed to meet Dr. 
 Watson. He found Cecily more composed 
 than he had anticipated. 
 
138 a writer of fiction 
 
 She excused herself with a wan smile of 
 welcome. ‘There is so much to do. Our 
 time is so short. Besides, it keeps me from 
 thinking and thinking. And when I think 
 of it all, I break down utterly, and then 
 there are the children. I must be brave 
 for their sake.’ 
 
 Sefton had a long talk with Cecily con¬ 
 cerning her plans. She had enough money 
 to pay for the funeral and leave a little for 
 emergencies after the expenses of moving. 
 She was going to finally engage their new 
 rooms directly everything was over. No, 
 she said, he could not help her with Cardew’s 
 papers ; she would see to those herself. 
 
 The funeral was an extremely simple one. 
 In a better-class neighbourhood it would 
 scarcely have attracted any notice at all. 
 But for Ophelia Road it was asserted to be a 
 c grand affair.’ Never before in the memory 
 of any of its present inhabitants had two 
 private carriages, in addition to the mourning 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 139 
 
 coach, followed the hearse. Mrs. Morriston’s 
 claim for the gentility of her lodgers was 
 finally and firmly established. The Road 
 was veritably en fete. Scarcely a window 
 was unoccupied, and, with the inherent 
 morbidness of the very poor, every detail 
 was discussed and debated. 
 
 However, underlying all this curiosity 
 was a genuine feeling of sympathy and 
 kindliness which prompted the numerous 
 bunches of the commoner sorts of season¬ 
 able flowers laid on the plain oak coffin, 
 or sent in on the previous day. 
 
 The only persons following besides Fred 
 and the doctor were Sefton Bell, Brant 
 Hollings, and a literary friend of days 
 gone by. 
 
 Sefton Bell returned to the house, and 
 then left, promising to come the next even¬ 
 ing if possible, to see if he could be of any 
 service in arranging Cardew’s affairs. 
 
 Next morning Cecily nerved herself for 
 
1 4 o A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 the ordeal before her, and entered the little 
 study, now instinct with such sorrowful 
 memories. 
 
 As she had suspected, Cardew’s papers 
 were in great confusion. Sylvia had wished 
 to help her, but she had refused; she would 
 be alone, where no human eye could see 
 her grief, nor human ear hear her sobs. It 
 were better so, she told herself. She would 
 go through with it alone. 
 
 There were several unfinished mss. in 
 the table - drawers. But a glance showed 
 her that had they been completed, their inco¬ 
 herent nature would have precluded their 
 being of value. These she destroyed. 
 They could never have been anything save 
 a terrible reminder of the writer’s decline. 
 Two or three more mss. were finished; she 
 placed them on one side. It was whilst 
 sorting these that she came across some 
 loose pages of ms., evidently from their 
 numbering belonging to a work of con- 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 141 
 
 siderable length, pages thrown aside in the 
 desire for nicety of penmanship or com¬ 
 position. 
 
 She glanced at them quite casually at 
 first, and then her eyes caught some words 
 which riveted her attention, and finally 
 brought a look of horrified amazement into 
 her face. 
 
 She leaned back in her chair, and read on. 
 At the end of the last page she buried her 
 face in her hands. 
 
 Suddenly the explanation of the dead 
 man’s secrecy concerning his last work 
 broke in upon her. 
 
 He had been unwilling that she should 
 know the terrible book he was writing. 
 
 It was all so horrible, this trampling upon 
 all the beliefs she held dear, this tearing 
 aside the veil, and exhibiting to the curious 
 public eye the sanctities of woman’s nature, 
 this laying bare of a woman’s soul with, as 
 it were, a scalpel. 
 
I 4 2 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 After a short time, during which she sat 
 with terror in her heart and shame dyeing 
 her cheeks, which were so colourless but a 
 little while ago, she commenced a feverish 
 search for other portions of the book amongst 
 the remaining unsorted papers. 
 
 The few sheets of the ms. she came across 
 she laid aside with the others to be put in a 
 place of safety. 
 
 It was quite late in the day ere her task 
 was completed. Except for a few stray 
 memoranda of small sums still owing for 
 contributions from various papers and maga¬ 
 zines _several of which she, from past ex¬ 
 
 perience, recognised would probably never be 
 paid—there was no money to be received. 
 
 This fact, however, scarcely affected her 
 at all 5 her mind was too fully engrossed with 
 the terrible discovery she had made, this last 
 
 effort of a diseased mind. 
 
 After all, she thought, there would be little 
 difficulty in finding out if the ms. had been 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 x 43 
 
 despatched to any publisher. Cardew had 
 always made a methodical practice of enter¬ 
 ing such things in his diary. 
 
 She turned to the page comprising the 
 last week of his life ; there was an entry in 
 the space just a week before. 
 
 ‘Sent ms. of-to Castelmeyer and 
 
 Co. To hear from them within a fortnight.’ 
 
 ‘ Castelmeyer and Co. ! What did she 
 know of them ? ’ 
 
 T hen she got up from her seat and 
 searched hurriedly amongst a pile of old 
 literary and daily papers which littered the 
 farther corner of the study. 
 
 At last she found what she wanted, an 
 advertisement of the firm, and in the same 
 issue of the paper a review of a book 
 published by them, headed c One man may,’ 
 etc., which concluded in the words which 
 she had vaguely remembered as having some¬ 
 where read. ‘ This volume, which is one 
 of an equally—shall we say “suggestive” ?— 
 
144 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 series, affords food for reflection quite outside 
 the feeling of disgust with which we have 
 put it down. One is tempted, remembering 
 the vigorous prosecution of a well-known 
 publisher now deceased for venturing to 
 issue translations of Zola and other modern 
 French authors, to wonder whether the 
 erstwhile Public Prosecutor is sleeping, or 
 peradventure is on a journey. It is, at all 
 events, time that his attention should be 
 called to at least the most flagrant examples 
 of this series of fin-de-siecle fiction. As an 
 example of “ new woman’s ” apparent liking 
 for the unsavoury topics of life it is certainly 
 no less remarkable.’ Cecily’s woman’s wit at 
 once decided that the novel which the diary 
 noted as having been sent to Castelmeyer 
 and Co. was the completed ms. of which she 
 had only been able to discover detached pages. 
 
 There was but one thing to be done. The 
 book must be recalled. 
 
 She was unwilling to even let Sefton Bell 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 145 
 
 know that her husband had written such 
 a book. No, she must do the work of 
 recovery alone. For one thing, being a man, 
 and without that subtle essence of innate 
 purity which dominates a good woman, he 
 might even attempt to persuade her to forgo 
 her determination. He would certainly not 
 see the tenor of the book in the light she 
 did. And remembering the phenomenal 
 success books in this series had met with, 
 he might even urge her for the sake of the 
 children to do nothing in the matter; even 
 to accept the money which would probably 
 result from such a course, every coin of 
 which would call a burning flush of shame 
 to her cheeks. At all events, he, being a man, 
 would not understand her attitude in this 
 matter. She would risk nothing by telling 
 him. 
 
 That night, when she lay down in the 
 darkness and awful loneliness, she became 
 consumed by a terrible anxiety lest she 
 
 K 
 
146 a writer of fiction 
 
 should be too late ; lest the publishers should 
 decline to see her, or refuse to give up the 
 ms. She could not sleep ; and when she 
 turned over instinctively for companionship 
 and comfort, she burst out into terrible 
 sobs, for there was none for her any more. 
 
 At last she crept out of bed; and in 
 her agony of loneliness and dread lest she 
 should fail in what she had to do, she knelt 
 and prayed, her face buried in her hands to 
 shut out the darkness— 
 
 c Oh God, why didst Thou take him from 
 me ? Why didst Thou ? Thou knewest I 
 wanted him more than Thou didst, who hast 
 myriads of souls at Thy beck and call. Oh 
 God, pity my loneliness ! He would never 
 have written such things ’ (and she shuddered 
 in the darkness) c ifhe had not been mad. It 
 was Thou, Thou, God, who gavest him those 
 gifts, and tookest them from him. Whose is 
 the blame ? Oh God, dear God, let me be in 
 time, let me be in time to save his name from 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 147 
 
 defilement ! There are the children, God. 
 If Thou wilt not hear me, think of them.’ 
 And then she became calmer, and fearful 
 lest in her distress she should have addressed 
 God too familiarly; and so she crept back into 
 bed, shivering with cold and excitement. 
 
 Next morning Cecily set out directly after 
 breakfast to call on the publishers. 
 
 She had little difficulty in finding their 
 business premises, situated in one of the new 
 streets in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross. 
 
 Messrs. Castelmeyer and Co. were success¬ 
 ful publishers of successful authors. All the 
 new writers with grievances against either 
 their Maker, man, or Society came to them. 
 c Advanced women ’ novels with a dominant 
 note of sex, and ‘studies’ by decadent men, 
 were their specialities. Their premises were 
 as aggressively modern as their publications 
 were advanced. 
 
 Cecily pushed back the swing door, glazed 
 with stained-glass art panels, and asked of 
 
148 a writer of fiction 
 
 the clerk who came forward if she could 
 see the head of the firm on a matter of 
 urgent necessity. 
 
 After a few minutes of waiting she was 
 shown into the senior partner’s room, an 
 almost luxuriously furnished apartment of 
 considerable size. 
 
 He was a short, stoutly built man with 
 sandy hair, and rather a loud manner. 
 
 ‘ Mrs. Cardew, I presume,’ he said, getting 
 up and placing a chair for Cecily near the 
 corner of the table at which he had evidently 
 been writing. 
 
 ‘Yes,’ replied Cecily in a low tone. ‘I 
 have come about a ms. of my husband’s. You 
 have heard—have heard ?’ 
 
 ‘Yes,’ said the man in a sympathetic tone. 
 
 ‘ I am extremely sorry. In fact, I have only 
 just written yesterday afternoon. Here is 
 the letter; I kept it back to submit it to 
 my partner to propose terms, which I think 
 would have proved eminently satisfactory 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 149 
 
 to the author, and now hope you will be 
 prepared to accept them, so that the book 
 may be placed in the printer’s hands at once.’ 
 
 ‘ I can accept no terms for my husband’s 
 book,’ Cecily replied in a low voice, which 
 trembled. ‘ I wish to take the ms. away, 
 to withdraw it.’ 
 
 c Withdraw it ? God bless my soul ! 
 Excuse me, Mrs. Cardew, but do you know 
 what you are refusing ? I have made an 
 offer ’ (taking up a letter from off the table 
 and referring to the inner page) ‘of £200 
 for the book, with a further royalty equal 
 to ^50 for every thousand copies after 
 5000. We have every reason to anticipate 
 that the sales, of what I am willing to admit 
 is a very remarkable book, will far exceed 
 that number. The Shrine of Venus and A 
 Little Knowledge , to name only two of our 
 successful books, are in their 21,000 and 
 16,000 respectively, and neither is so good 
 as Mr. Cardew’s.’ 
 
150 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 ‘ Money is of no consequence to me in 
 such a matter as this,’ replied Cecily firmly. 
 c I shall be grateful if you will spare me any 
 further discussion ’—and her voice trembled 
 — c and give me the ms.’ 
 
 ‘I will give you ^300 down. I will 
 write you the cheque now,’ exclaimed the 
 publisher, mistaking her emotion for signs of 
 relenting. 
 
 c No,’ said Cecily. c Nothing you can 
 offer me, Mr. Castelmeyer, will purchase 
 the book.’ 
 
 4 It is needless to ask if there be any other 
 publisher in the case,’ continued Mr. Castel¬ 
 meyer, c after that.’ 
 
 c No, there is none. The book will simply 
 not appear.’ 
 
 c Are you quite justified ? ’ asked the pub¬ 
 lisher, at the same time pressing the knob 
 of an electric bell. c It is a work of art, 
 perhaps a little caviare to the general public, 
 but still a powerful book, of which I 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 151 
 
 make no doubt a large number will be 
 called for. But-’ 
 
 c I entreat you,’ said Cecily, interrupting 
 him, c not to prolong this interview.’ 
 
 ‘Very well, madam.’ To a clerk who had 
 just entered, ‘ Bring Mr. Cardew’s ms. It 
 is done up to go to Hesselmont and Jones’.’ 
 
 Five minutes later Cecily was walking 
 rapidly away, as if fearing pursuit, in the 
 direction of Trafalgar Square, with the 
 brown-paper parcel under her arm, and 
 tears in her eyes, which even her thick 
 
 widow’s veil could not entirely hide. 
 
 • 
 
 In the evening she wrote a note to Mr. 
 Castelmeyer asking him to respect her 
 desire that Cardew’s last book might be a 
 ‘ dead book ’; that he would tell no one of 
 it, nor of her action. ‘The money you 
 tempted me with,’ she wrote, ‘ meant more 
 to us than you could have guessed. But I 
 do not wish to pose as a martyr, modern 
 
152 A WRITER OF FICTION 
 
 martyrs being chiefly those whose martyr¬ 
 dom is that of their own obstinacy or indis¬ 
 cretion. I simply wished to preserve my 
 husband’s memory clean and unsullied.’ 
 
 The publisher read the letter, exclaimed, 
 
 ‘A-good woman, a remarkable woman! ’ 
 
 and then dismissed the subject from his 
 busy mind. 
 
 When the house was still, about mid- 
 night, she lit the fire, and sat down beside 
 it to burn the ms. contained in the parcel, 
 which she had not had the heart as yet to 
 untie. 
 
 As the pile of closely written sheets lay 
 on her knees, her tears fell fast upon them. 
 It was hard that she should have to destroy 
 as unclean the last thing he had written. 
 
 Then as the flames leapt up with a hungry 
 crackling, she set about her task. 
 
 With the relentlessness of a woman doing 
 right, she laid the pages, a few at a time, upon 
 the fire, and watched them curl and brown, 
 
A WRITER OF FICTION 153 
 
 and then burst into sudden flames. And 
 when the grate became choked with ashes, 
 she thrust them down remorselessly into the 
 still glowing heart of the fire. 
 
 At last the final pages were placed in 
 the grate. She held her breath to watch 
 them catch fire ; and then when at length 
 they blazed up and lit the room with a 
 sudden fitful glare, she rose from her seat, 
 and went with a glad smile upon her face 
 softly into the chamber of her o-reat loneliness. 
 
 J C 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constabi.e, Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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