Miss Primrose Part 5

"How is Mrs. b.u.t.ters?" she inquired instead.

"About as well as common, which is to say, poorly--very poorly, thank you."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Editor b.u.t.ters seemed downcast.

"She's tried everything," he said. "Even had a pocket made in her gown to hold a potato and a horse-chestnut--but this rheumatism does beat all, I tell you. How's the old gentleman?"

"The doctor says he will never walk."

"Yes, so I heard," muttered the editor. "It's a d.a.m.ned shame."

He was fumbling with his proofs and did not see her face--yet, after all, she could feel the sympathy even in his rudeness.

"Still hatching poems, I suppose?"

Her heart, which had warmed even as her cheeks had colored at his other words, grew cold at these. What manner of toil it was that brought forth things so pure and beautiful in her sight, what labor of love and travail of spirit it was to him, she alone would ever know who watched beside him, seeing his life thus ebbing, dream by dream. She sat silent, crumpling those precious pages in her hands.

"Well," b.u.t.ters went on, gruffly, clearing his throat, "he's a good hand at it." He was not looking at Let.i.tia, but kept his eyes upon a ring of keys with which he played nervously; and now when he spoke it was more spasmodically, as if reluctant to broach some matter for which, however, he felt the time had come. "Yes, he's a good hand at it. Used to be even better than he is now--but that's natural. I wish, though--you'd just suggest when it comes handy--just in a quiet sort of way, you know--some day when you get the chance--that he's getting just a leetle bit--you can say it better than I can--but I mean long-winded for the _Gazette_.

It's natural, of course, but you see--you see, Miss Primrose, if we print one long-winded piece, you know--you can see for yourself--why, every other poet in Gra.s.sy Ford starts firing epics at us, which is natural, of course, but--hard on me. And if I refuse 'em, why, then, they just naturally up and say, 'Well, you printed Primrose's; why not mine?' and there they have you--there they have you right by the--yes, sir, there they have you; and there's the devil to pay. Like as not they get mad then and stop their papers, which they don't pay for--and that's natural, too, only it causes feeling and doesn't do me any good, or your father either."

"But, Mr. b.u.t.ters, you printed Mr. Banks's letter on carrots, and that was--"

The editor fairly leaped in his chair.

"There, you have it!" he cried. "Just what I said! There's that confounded letter of Jim Banks's, column-long on carrots, a-staring me in the face from now till kingdom come when any other idiot wants to print something a column long. Just what I say, Miss Primrose; but you must remember that the readers of the _Gazette_ do raise carrots, and they _don't_ raise--well, now, for instance, and not to be mean or personal at all, Miss Primrose--not at all--they _don't_ raise Agamemnons or Theocrituses. I suppose I should say Theocriti--singular, Theocritus; plural, Theocriti. No, sir, they don't raise Theocriti--which is natural, of course, and reminds me--while we are _on_ the subject--reminds me, Miss Primrose, that I've been thinking--or wondering--in fact, I've been going to ask you for some time back, only I never just got the chance--ask you if you wouldn't--just kind of speak to your father, to kind of induce him, you know, to--to write on--about--well, about _livelier_ things. You see, Miss Primrose, it's natural, of course, for scholars to write about things that are dead and gone. They wouldn't _be_ scholars if they wrote what other people knew about. That's only natural. Still--still, Miss Primrose, if the old gentleman _could_ just give us a poem or two on the--well, the issues of the day, you know--oh, he's a good writer, Miss Primrose! Mind, I'm not saying a word--not a word--against that. I'd be the last--Good G.o.d, what's the matter, girl! What have I done? Oh, I say now, that's too bad--that's too bad, girlie. Come, don't do that--don't--Why, if I'd a-known--"

Let.i.tia, "Jerusalem" crushed in her right hand, had buried her face among the proof-sheets on his desk. Woolier than ever in his bewilderment, the editor rose--sat--rose again--patted gingerly (he had never had a daughter), patted Let.i.tia's shaking shoulders and strove to soothe her with the only words at his command: "Oh, now, I say--I--why, say, if I'd a-known"--till Let.i.tia raised her dripping face.

"You m-mustn't mind, Mr. B-b.u.t.ters," she said, smiling through her tears.

"Why, say, Miss Primrose, if I'd a-dreamed--"

"It's all my f-fault, Mr. B-b.u.t.ters."

"d.a.m.n it, no! It's mine. It's mine, I tell you. I might a-known you'd think I was criticising your father."

"Oh, it's not that exactly, Mr. b.u.t.ters, but you see--"

She put her hair out of her eyes and smoothed the ma.n.u.script.

"Egad! I see; you had one of the old gentleman's--"

Let.i.tia nodded.

"Egad!" he cried again. "Let's see, Miss Primrose."

"Oh, there isn't the slightest use," she said. "It's too long, Mr.

b.u.t.ters."

"No, no. Let's have a look at it."

"No," she answered. "No, it's _altogether_ too long, Mr. b.u.t.ters."

"But let's have a look at it."

She hesitated. His hand was waiting; but she shook her head.

"No. It's the longest poem he ever wrote, Mr. b.u.t.ters. It's his masterpiece."

"By George! let's see it, then. Let's see it."

"Why, it's as long, Mr. b.u.t.ters--it's as long as 'Lycidas.'"

"Long as--hm!" he replied. "Still--still, Miss Primrose," he added, cheerfully, "that isn't so long when you come to think of it."

"But that's not all," Let.i.tia said. "It's about--it's called--oh, you'll _never_ print it, Mr. b.u.t.ters!"

She rose with the poem in her hand.

"Print it!" cried b.u.t.ters. "Why, of course I'll print it. I'll print it if every cussed poet in Gra.s.sy--"

"Oh, _will_ you, Mr. b.u.t.ters?"

"Will I? Of course I will."

He took it from her unresisting fingers.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" he cried, fluttering the twenty pages.

"Yes," she said, "that's--that's the name of it, Mr. b.u.t.ters," and straightway set herself to rights again.

IV

THE SEVENTH SLICE

It was the editor himself who told me the story years afterwards--b.u.t.ters of "The Pide Bull," as he ever afterwards called his shop, for in her grat.i.tude Let.i.tia had pointed out to him how natural it was that he of all men should be the patron of poets, since beyond a doubt, she averred, he was descended from that very Nathaniel b.u.t.ter for whom was printed the first quarto edition of _King Lear_. Indeed, with the proofs of "Jerusalem" she brought him the doctor's Shakespeare, and showed him in the preface to the tragedy the record of an antique t.i.tle-page bearing these very words:

"Printed for _Nathaniel b.u.t.ter_, and are to be sold at his shop in _Paul's_ Churchyard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere St.

Austin's Gate, 1608."

"Egad!" said b.u.t.ters, "I never heard that before. Well, well, well, well."

"I think there is no doubt, Mr. b.u.t.ters," said Let.i.tia, "that he was your ancestor."