Helena Brett's Career Part 21

"Joan," he repeated, and she felt quite ashamed already: he made it sound so long and flat. "No, no; not Joan. That is like Jones with the last letter dropped. It must be something literary. I know." He hesitated, as though weighing the discovered nugget: then, satisfied; "We'll call you Zoe Baskerville."

"Splendid!" she laughed. Already this was a new interest in life.

Then a doubt struck her. "_Are_ those literary names? Who were they both?"

"I'm blest if I know," he confessed; "but I've seen both in catalogues." So that was settled.

"I never liked Helena for you," he said. "Zoe is just the name. I shall always think of you as Zoe." Then, greatly daring, with a swift rush; "May I call you Zoe?"

He felt as though he were upon the absolute edge of his chair, but she seemed to think nothing of his question. "If you like it," she said, off-hand. "You want some revenge for Ally! But not in front of Hugh or he'll guess when the book comes out, and that would be too terrible."

"No," he said with feeling, "that shall be our secret," and leant slightly forward.

"When will it appear?" she asked excitedly: and he was as near cursing the book, now, as he had been to blessing it, a moment earlier.

He left the house, however, shortly before seven o'clock, stepping upon air. He had never expected to get her consent. Old Blatchley would think him no end of a clever devil and Blatchley was a useful man.

Besides, the comedy and excitement of it all! And, best of all, it was a new bond with--Zoe!

Gad, fancy having a ripping little girl like that as pal; and a secret between them absolutely, from her husband even; and calling her Zoe, which he knew in some odd Greek way was a jolly daring sort of name, though he forgot quite how....

Yes, Geoffrey Alison was satisfied.

And as for Helena, with certain shapeless misgivings and fears there mingled a most natural exaltation: since whether one writes for fame or mere "fun," what can be more exciting than the acceptance of one's first book by the first publisher who sees it?

She still could not understand it. She did not realise of course how fresh her view of married life had been: she did not guess perhaps in quite what sense her new-appointed agent had used the word "intimate"; she did not realise that the book's very blemishes were its chief claim to Truth. She could see nothing in the thing at all.

But it was all exciting, very. She would just end it up: make poor Virginia, who was Zoe now, work her way round to happiness, as Ally had said that she must not kill her; then send it up to him and he had vowed she should not even get a single letter; he literally would "do the rest." Then if it failed, no harm was done and she had made her secret yet more thrilling: whilst if in some mad way the book caught on and she received those hundreds--well what a blessing they would be just now with bills, and Hubert who was so silly with practical affairs like that would merely imagine that she was running things more cheaply. (Every woman, deep down, thinks every man a child.)

Besides--if Geoffrey Alison stepped lightly homewards upon air, Helena too felt that the grey world stretched a little softer under her. That shapeless longing for development of a real Self, that almost morbid shame of her own ignorance, had issued finally in something tangible.

She was an auth.o.r.ess!

No doubt her book was not like Hubert's, built up carefully on scientific scaffolding; but still--it had pleased Mr. Alison and it had satisfied a publisher!

Small wonder, then, if totally forgetful though she was of her new theories on Hubert's mode of work--immersed by now in the palpitating thrill of her new secret--she yet sat opposite to him this night at dinner with a less feeling of abas.e.m.e.nt, a new confidence. She found it hard at moments to attend to him and throw in, as she usually did, appreciative comments now and then.

"Of course," he was saying now, criticising a review, "all this about 'painting' with a pen is rubbish. The two arts have no resemblance.

The painter used to be a monk--and is a mountebank! He never yet has been a writer."

"Oh, I don't know. What about Rossetti? Or even Whistler?" she put in absently, just as though it had been Geoffrey Alison.

Hubert was brought up with a jerk. He hated people who corrected one.

It was like Mrs. Boyd, exactly. Of course he knew that she was right and he wrong, handsomely--although he'd no idea _she_ knew--but it would be so dull if every one was accurate!

"My dear," he said coldly, "I know all about that, but do you think you need interrupt my argument to tell me? I shall be afraid to speak at all if I am going to be heckled!"

He waved the thing aside with a short laugh, as though to say she was forgiven. But something in his manner had annoyed Helena to-night.

"I wasn't 'heckling'," she said, trying to speak lightly; "but you know, Hugh, it's a bit mediaeval if I know things and mayn't say anything!"

Hubert gaped at her.

Mediaeval! That was a real Mrs. Boyd idea. He made no answer, but he was more than vaguely annoyed. This was his simple little Helena no longer. It was those d.a.m.ned lectures....

He felt that from this moment they stood on a new footing.

PART III

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

CHAPTER XVIII

ZOe

Helena unfolded the slip, pasted on its blue half-sheet, and began to read it, thoroughly engrossed. She seemed forgetful of Geoffrey Alison, who in turn watched her with hardly less attention, more anxiety. He knew the thing by heart.

"_Confessions of an Author's Wife_ (Blatchley & Co.) is by its name confessed as of the Human Doc.u.ment category, and this sort of book is never without its attraction. The present volume, chastely bound in green appropriately virginal, recounts the growth of a young girl married to a more or less successful author. Zoe Baskerville, who on one page lets somebody call her Virginia (a lapse not making for conviction), tells in the first person her laudable efforts to develop an ego in the face of a husband who has enough of it for ten. His selfish absorption in his own moods and the conditions suitable to his own labours not unnaturally create in Zoe a feeling of thwarted ambition, which results in a watered, girlish, form of cynicism about Man and Woman. This, however, pa.s.ses off in the last chapter, where for some reason not easy of access to the mere reader Zoe suddenly sloughs her despondency and bursts into an exultant Credo: 'I believe that Life, all in all, is the most splendid gift a kind G.o.d could give to his children. I believe that Man'--and so on for the last four pages.

"It will be seen that subtlety and cohesion are not the strongest points in these confessions, which we hope we have taken seriously enough. About their popularity there can be no doubt. The book possesses pathos, humour, freshness; a mixture beyond failing; and moreover, impinges on life, married life, at moments with a frankness more essentially French than English. This fact may induce those still in Zoe's earlier mood of cynicism to suspicion a male, Fleet Street, author: but for our part, remembering the navete of female Youth and that incriminating name Virginia, we are quite ready to accept the volume's authenticity, if we mis...o...b.. somewhat The End's sincerity.

"Taken thus, as a real doc.u.ment, the book has a persuasive charm.

Pathetic little Zoe is a figure as real as her selfish husband, who emerges in some way as less great than has been actually stated.

(Perhaps we were wrong in denying the book any subtlety.) We can foresee a long and lucrative discussion as to the Author's ident.i.ty.

For our part, we make a gift of the discovered clue 'Virginia,' and shall wait patiently until the publisher, as a good man and true, duly announces the authorship before issuing a cheap edition. Till that day we shall hope to live our lives in much the same round as before."

Helena stared so long at the narrow slip, obviously deep in thought, that Geoffrey Alison found his anxiety turn to a nervous guilt.

Of course, he told himself, he knew the part that worried her in this, her first review. He would have kept it back if he had been quite sure that she would never see it. He rather wished now that he had. It was that stupid bit of course about more French than English. He only hoped they wouldn't all be like that--and none of them worse.

He recalled, as moment joined past moment, his own amus.e.m.e.nt at some of the pa.s.sages. They had solved all his problems about Helena. No one but a really innocent girl could be so frank, because to the impure all truth is suspicious. It was only after reading these delicious pa.s.sages two or three times that Geoffrey Alison, getting a tardy view of the whole book, realised how it might interest the world at large and seem worth while to that shrewd devil Blatchley.

Now, when still she sat impa.s.sive, looking at that notice with a slight frown on her forehead, he began to suspect that possibly he had been just a little of a cad. He ought perhaps to have warned her that some of it, though absolutely all right if everybody had pure minds,----

Yet after all, how could he have told her that? It would be jolly awkward, you know, and only putting ideas into her head. Besides, of course, with those bits cut out, Blatchley would probably have called it tame and struck.... His silence had been really for her good.

At last these alternate surges of guilt and self-justification grated on his nerves. He could endure her silence not a moment longer.

"That's only the first one," he said; "and it's not much of a paper."

Now for the reproaches! Better to turn the tap on than to shiver, waiting.

But not for the first time he had misjudged her. It was not that part of the review which had struck home to her so different mind.

"Do you really think the husband stands out as such a brute as all that?" she surprised him by asking.