Helena Brett's Career Part 32

But outside in the hall she stood for a few moments, dabbing at her eyes with a quite fashionably small handkerchief.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WOMAN PROPOSES

Ruth had abandoned her pleading at a clever moment, for she had left Helena with a sense of pity, and pity means more to a woman than conviction.

Poor old Hubert! She was glad now, oh so glad, that she had spared him. It had been on her tongue yesterday, when he was so contemptuous about her book being popular claptrap, herself an amateur, to answer: "Well, I have found out about your own work too: it tries to be popular and isn't,"--to tell him she had also learnt that one could write without upsetting the whole household by one's fads and poses.... But in the end she hadn't. Perhaps it was as Ruth had said: every one would always spare him. Something, in any case, had held her back, and now she was glad; for that once said, it would have been too late. She felt that Ruth had spoken truly: he never could have cared for her again.

Poor old Hugh!

Buoyed by this feeling, crushing under it all others, she went to her bureau and unlocked the drawer where she kept her secret ma.n.u.script.

There were three chapters. She would destroy them before her mood changed. Then she would go to him and say that he was right, she was not clever in the way that he was--she was an amateur. He would take days perhaps, yes even weeks, before he could forgive her quite; but it was as Ruth had just said. The rivalry gone, he would soon learn to bear the rest. He would have won back his self-sufficiency, ... poor Hugh!

She took out the written sheets with all the feelings of a mother who sacrifices her own son, touching them gently as if even in this last hour they had been something sacred.

Then--weak if you will, but do not be too hard upon the-Mother-soul--then she began to read.... just a few sentences.

And as she read, the whole thing leapt to instant life; began to grow, as poor Virginia had grown. She saw the painter, strong in a way--not Geoffrey Alison at all--but with a fatal vanity. Yes, that would be his fall, of course. He would be all right with the women he admired; there were so many, he was safe enough: but when he met the woman who admired him----!

She had not thought of it like that before. She did not know where the idea had come from now. Before it went she hurriedly seized up her pen, to add a note to the confused synopsis.

Then she remembered.

What was the use if she was just going to destroy it?

If----!

And its constant sequel: Why?

_Why_ should she destroy her work?

It was her work no less than Hubert's work was his, however much more easily she worked. That hers came to her brain, she knew not whence, whilst he hammered out his from formulae, was very likely nothing much against it.

Why had he said this second book would never sell? It interested her: why should it not interest others? How could he possibly know, when he had never seen it?

It was mere jealousy of course.

Ruth had said practically that. She had said that he could not endure rivalry; he must be supreme, if only in a little house. He knew that her book had sold better, ever so much better than any of his own, and that was what he really minded. Yes, she saw it all now; all from the beginning. He had not minded in the least that she should think him (as he still believed) self-centred, cruel, or neglectful; that had not pained him in the least, he had not really minded her publishing the book. No, what had really hurt him always--she saw now--was the book's success; what Ruth had called his own eclipse. He had worked, as he said, for fifteen years; he had called it a "job"; and in one moment she had cut him out!

That, Helena decided in a rapid flash, was the whole mainspring of his anger.

And was she to sacrifice her work to satisfy the petty vanity of such a man? Was she to admit her failure, to feign life-long admiration for his work, when she knew that with practice she could almost certainly do better?

No!

The answer came decisively.

As if to clinch it, she thrust the ma.n.u.script back in its drawer and turned the key with a decisive twist.

She would not sacrifice her own career to his conceit. He had spoilt Ruth's life, used her as a housekeeper until she was too old for anybody else; then turned her out--and now he thought he could spoil hers. And every one would spare him, because they were sorry! Why should she spare him? Why should she be sorry?

Helena stood with her fingers still upon the key, transfixed by the enormity of this new thought.

Why should she either smother her ambition or else creep away, sparing him the reason; leaving Ruth to be his victim once again?--poor Ruth, emerging into life again, escaped from this vampire who had left her an old withered woman at the age of forty.

No, she would not. Others might spare him; _she_ would tell the truth.

She would go now, whilst Ruth was upstairs, and would tell him what she, what Ruth, what everybody thought. She would tell him that he was murdering the love of those who loved him by his own selfish blindness; that all this nonsense about moods and inspiration was mere pose, that you could write quite well wherever your two candlesticks were put; that every one saw through him but himself; that he should be proud of his wife's success, not jealous, if he had a spark of decent feeling in him; would tell him she too was ambitious, though a woman, she too had a life to live; that she was bored all day, with him at work, and now she meant to have her own work too; that Zoe had been right--yes, had been Helena, Helena not then but Helena as she was now; that she saw now, as Zoe had declared, she had been nothing but a background to his work. Now that was over and she would sacrifice herself no longer.

Oh yes, and she would tell him the rest too--that she was fond of him, would always be; admired him for his strength as much as she despised the flabby Mr. Alison of whom he had been jealous; that she would try to make him happy, comfortable and happy, not neglect the house; and they would be proud of each other's work, and even if she was not a success, her little earnings would all help to pay those horrid bills.

And if this did not satisfy him, if he could not live like that--well, then, there was what Ruth had said....

When he had heard the truth, the choice should lie with him! He might choose then between the sister and the author-wife. But they must have the truth. She would not sacrifice poor Ruth to him again. He had been spared enough already. The truth would make him happier. What could a man so selfish know of happiness?

Poor Ruth, contented with her mission, laying on her bed a dress that would astonish Hubert by contrast with the prim grey horrors of old time, little guessed how too thoroughly she had let in the light to Helena's young eyes!

Helena released the key and moved with firm resolve into the hall. She dared not stop to think. She strode across the narrow carpet and boldly turned the handle of his sacred room at this forbidden hour.

She did not even knock.

There is much courage in a symbol.

CHAPTER XXIX

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

Helena stood at the door, as on the day when she had lost her watch; and now again each detail stamped itself instantly upon her brain.

But this time Hubert was not working.

He sat at his desk, his hands stretched forward to hold open a paper laid before him. Helena even observed the wrapper from which it had come, rolled up quite tight beside the blotting-pad. She saw Hubert's air of rapt attention and noticed that he had not heard her enter. She saw two letters unopened on the table, and she thought how like him it was to open first a paper almost certainly sent him because it had some mention of himself. Yes, she could see now the blue pencil marks beside the paragraphs that he was reading. And they were exclamation marks....

Then, last of all, she recognised the paper.

It was _People And Paragraphs_--and he was reading that comment on the Hubert Bretts! She had destroyed the cutting; never thought of his dear friends.

In one moment all the words rehea.r.s.ed died on her tongue. Afterwards perhaps, but for the moment she must comfort him. She could not hurt him more just now.

"Oh, Hubert," she cried, running to him and putting her hand impulsively upon his shoulder, all forgotten save the instinct to console, "they haven't sent you that?"

He turned round with quite a dazed look, apparently not in the least surprised to see her there. "Oh yes," he said in a hard voice, "there'll be lots of those. It's only just beginning." He stared dully at the spiteful, vulgar, words.