A Book o' Nine Tales Part 28

_Mr. T._ May I have the honor, Mrs. Brown?

_Miss S._ But we can't go to dinner now. Mr. Robinson is called away, and that leaves us thirteen again.

[_An awful hush ensues, during which Mr. Robinson, finding himself regarded as a criminal, suddenly slips away, leaving the company to extricate themselves from their trying situation as best they can. The hush is followed by a Babel of voices, in which all sorts of suggestions are made._]

_Mr. J._ (_with heroic and renunciatory self-denial_) Let me speak, please, Mrs. Thompson. It was very kind in your husband to invite me to remain to dinner, but now that I shall be the thirteenth, I am sure you'll excuse me.

_Mr. T._ But it seems so inhospitable.

_Mrs. T._ But it is more generous to deprive ourselves of Mr. Jones's company than to be the means of bringing ill-luck upon him.

_Mr. J._ Quite right. I bid you good evening, Mrs. Thompson. I sincerely hope nothing further will occur to mar the pleasure of your evening.

[_Mr. Jones having retired, a move is at once made toward the dining-room, but just as Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Brown reach the drawing-room door, they are confronted by Mr. Robinson, who comes in breathless but triumphant._]

_Mr. R._ I thought it was so unkind of me to throw all your arrangements into confusion after the ill-luck of numbers you have already had, that I concluded to telegraph to my brother instead of going. Phew! How I have hurried! I am glad I am in time.

_Mrs. Brown._ Mr. Thompson, I positively cannot sit down at table with thirteen. My aunt died of it, and my second cousin. I am positive it runs in the family, and I know I should be the one to bear the consequence if we had thirteen at any table where I sat down.

[_The greatest confusion follows. Miss Maria Smith is heard to declare that_ "Fate takes delight in persecuting her!" _while young Algernon White mumbles something which has a distinct flavor of the Apostles'

Creed. Mr. Robinson shows a disposition to consider himself a most ill-used individual, thus to be rewarded for the trouble he has taken._]

_Mr. T._ My dear, what shall we do now?

_Mrs. T._ There is only one thing that I can think of; we can send across the street for Widow Ellis. You might go yourself and explain to her how it is.

[_This suggestion being acted upon, the company settles into a solemn gloom, pending the return of the host with Widow Ellis. Every one knows the dinner will be spoiled, none being more acutely conscious of that fact than the hostess, and every one is nearly perishing with hunger.

More grewsome and melancholy stories are told, but in a wavering and subdued manner, as if they are being offered as excuses for resisting the cravings of appet.i.te, which are rapidly becoming insupportable.

Young White is heard to mutter, with fresh suspicions of theological terms, that one might as well die of thirteen at table as of starvation, and that for his part he prefers the former method of extinction.

The return of Mr. Thompson with the Widow Ellis awakens some feeble enthusiasm, but it is evident that nothing short of a substantial dinner can restore the spirits of the company._]

_Mr. P._ Well, nephew, now I hope we may have some dinner. I, for one, am faint with hunger.

_Mr. T._ Oh, immediately. Mrs. Brown, we--

[_At this juncture poor Mrs. Thompson, overcome with anxiety, fatigue, and hunger, produces a diversion by falling in a dead faint. The shrieks of Miss Maria Smith are re-enforced by those of other ladies of the company, and it is to be feared that Mr. Algernon White no longer enjoys the exclusive privilege of indulging in ecclesiastical references. The excitement usual upon such occasions reigns, and when at length Mrs.

Thompson is restored to consciousness, but is found to be too ill to stand, and is borne off to her chamber, the company, once more reduced to thirteen, distributes itself in a stricken and overwhelmed state about the drawing-room, with the air of having ceased to struggle against an adverse fate._]

_Widow E._ We are thirteen again, neighbor; and if you'll excuse me--

_Mr. P._ Thirteen or no thirteen, nephew, I'm going to have something to eat if it's in this house.

[_He disappears toward the dining-room, and as the resolution of Widow Ellis seems to have solved once more the dreadful conundrum of the fated number, the company hastily follow, too nearly famished to notice that the lady does not carry out her apparent intention of returning home, so that after all they sit down thirteen at table._]

Tale the Eighth.

APRIL'S LADY.

APRIL'S LADY.

It was fortunate that when the editor of the "Dark Red" magazine first did me the honor to request a story from my pen, I had one ready for him, and one, moreover, with which I was so well satisfied. I had so long vainly desired to be really asked for a contribution, and thus raised from the numerous and indiscriminate company of scribblers who send hopeful ma.n.u.scripts to the magazines, and in trembling uncertainty await the issue, that it is not strange my bosom swelled with gratified pride, and that I dispatched my copy with so perfect a sense of complacency that I almost seemed to condescend a little in letting the editor have it.

I was fond of that story. I experienced a certain delight in recalling the circ.u.mstances under which it was composed, and I felt in it that confidence which an author is sure to have in work which has sprung spontaneously, and as it were full-grown, from his brain. Every literary worker, down to the veriest penny-a-liner of them all, knows the difference between a tale which makes itself, so to speak, growing unforced into beauty and completeness like a crystal, and a laboriously constructed piece of work, be it contrived never so ingeniously and cleverly. The fiction I sent to the editor of the "Dark Red" was of the former variety. It had come into my head all of itself, as the children say, while I was travelling between New York and Boston, so complete and so distinct that I scarcely seemed to have more to do with its creation than the later putting upon paper.

The circ.u.mstances were these:--

I had reached the Grand Central Station just in time to catch the morning train; and as the cars swept out into the daylight, I settled myself into a seat with a comfortable and something too self-satisfied feeling. In the first place, I was glad to be out of New York,--partly because it was hot and dusty there, partly because I am not over-fond of Gotham, and partly because sundry pleasant bachelor friends and divers good times were awaiting me at the Boston end of the journey.

I looked out upon the sunny landscape, over which the splendors of an April day cast a glow of warmth and brightness, smiled at the remembrance of a retort I had made at the Century Club on the previous evening, which seemed to me rather neat, and then with a sort of mental nod of farewell to all the outside world I took up my book and prepared to follow the fortunes of the woful and wicked, but thoroughly charming French heroine with whose adventures I was at that particular time occupying myself. To my vexation, however, I discovered that instead of the second volume I had taken the first, and as I had no especial desire to peruse again the somewhat detailed account of the heroine's youth, her career at school, her first confession and early marriage,--all these being preliminary to the impropriety and the interest of the book, which, after the reprehensible manner of French novels, began together,--I laid down the volume with a sigh, and resigned myself to a ride of unalleviated dulness.

A resource instantly presented itself, however, in the page which the lady in the seat before me was reading. As I glanced up I saw that she was entertaining herself with poetry, and the next moment a familiar line caught my eye:--

"If you were April's lady, and I were lord of May."

"Swinburne," I mused, "or a collection of selected poems, perhaps.

Wiseacres would say one ought to know what a reader is like by the book she reads; but in the first place that's nonsense, and in the second place I don't know what book she is reading. She has an exquisite ear, and her hair is something bewildering. 'If you were April's lady.'

April's lady should be a capricious creature, all smiles and tears, with winning ways and wilful wiles,--impulsive and wayward, and thoroughly enchanting. It would not,"--my thoughts ran on in a professional turn, while my eyes dwelt appreciatively, if somewhat presumptuously, upon the lovely curve of my neighbor's neck,--"it would not be a bad notion to write a story of such a maiden and call it 'April's Lady.' Let me see, what should it be like?"

And upon this impulse I fell to pondering, when suddenly, as if by magic, a tale presented itself all complete in my mind. My mental action appeared to me more like that of remembering than of creating, so real and so complete was the pretty history. The self-willed, volatile damsel whose fortunes it concerned seemed one whom I had known, and whom I might meet again some day. In my mind she a.s.sumed, it is true, an outward semblance similar to that of the lady before me, upon whose back I fixed my regards in an absorbed stare, which should have disturbed her could looks make themselves felt. She did not move, however, and as she did not turn the leaf of her book, I fancied she might have fallen into a reverie as deep as my own. I had not been able fully to see her face, although a lucky turn had given me a glimpse of a profile full of character and beauty, and which made me desire to behold more. I did not, however, trouble myself about the exact details of my heroine's features, since every story-teller has a stock of choice personal charms with which to endow his fict.i.tious children, but continued to gloat over my little romance; and so vividly was the tale of "April's Lady" impressed upon my mind that although some weeks elapsed before I found time to put it upon paper, I had not the slightest difficulty in recalling even its most trifling incidents.

Almost the whole of my journey was taken up in turning the story over in my mind, and when we drew into the Boston station, and my neighbor closed her volume to begin the collection of her numerous feminine possessions, I had half a mind to lean forward and thank her for having given me, although unconsciously, so good a story.

It did seem to me, even after I had sent my ma.n.u.script off and the dreadful moment came when one realizes that it is too late to make changes and consequently thinks of plenty of things he wishes to alter, that "April's Lady" was the best work I had ever done. I had let a month or two pa.s.s between its first writing and the final revision, and I was pretty well satisfied that I had produced a really capital story. I fondly hoped Mr. Lane, the editor of the "Dark Red," would be moved by its excellence to give me further orders; and the eagerness with which I one morning tore open an envelope upon which I recognized his handwriting, may be easily enough imagined, at least by members of the literary guild. My impatience gave place to profound astonishment as I read the following note:--

OFFICE DARK RED MAGAZINE, BOSTON, September 27.

MY DEAR MR. GRAY,--Can you drop into my office to-morrow about noon?

By some odd coincidence I received a story very similar to your "April's Lady," and bearing the same t.i.tle, several days earlier, and should like to talk with you about it.

Very truly yours, J. Q. LANE.

I was utterly confounded. I racked my brains to discover who could possibly have stolen my story, and even suspected the small black girl who dusted my rooms, although the sooty little morsel did not know one letter from another. The first draft of the story had lain in my desk for some time, it was true, yet that any literary burglar should have forced an entrance and then contented himself with copying this seemed, upon the whole, scarcely probable. I ransacked my memory for some old tale which I might unconsciously have plagiarized, but I could think of nothing; and, moreover, I reflected that the coincidence of names certainly could not be accounted for in this way, even did I recall the germ of my plot.

I presented myself at the office of the "Dark Red" at the hour appointed with a clear conscience, it is true, but with positively no suggestion whatever to offer in regard to the method by which a copy of my story could have reached the editor in advance of my own ma.n.u.script.

Mr. Lane received me with the conventionally cordial manner which is as much a part of editorial duties as is the use of the blue pencil, and without much delay came to the business of the call.

"There is something very singular about this affair," he said, laying out my ma.n.u.script, and beside it another which I could see was written in a running feminine hand. "If the stories were a little more alike, I should be sure one was copied from the other; as it is, it is inconceivable that they have not at least a common origin. Where did you get your idea?"

"Why, so far as I know," I replied in perplexity, "I evolved it from my inner consciousness; but the germ may have been the unconscious recollection of some incident or floating idea. I've tried to discover where I did get the fancy, but without a glimmer of success. Who sent you the other version?"

"A lady of whose integrity I am as sure as I am of yours. That's the odd part of it. Besides, you are both of you too clever to plagiarize, even if you weren't too honest. The mere similarity of theme isn't so strange; that happens often enough; but that the t.i.tle of the stories should be identical, and that in each the heroine should be named May--"