The Grey Lady Part 38

"No," she answered.

He sat up and looked at her with a kind admiration.

"You are refreshing," he said, "very, especially to a man who has seen stout and elderly females sit in that same chair and state their conviction that they were destined to be George Eliots or Charlotte Brontes, women who had written one improper or irreligious novel, which had obtained a certain success in the foolish circles."

"Do you think I have," asked Eve, "the--the makings of an income?"

John Craik reflected.

"A small one," he said bluntly.

"That is all I want."

Craik raised his eyebrows.

"And renown," he said, "do you want that?"

"Not in the least, except for its intrinsic value."

Craik banged his hand down on the arm of his chair and laughed aloud.

"This is splendid!" he cried. "I have never met such a practical person. Then you would be content to work for a sufficient income without ever being known to the world?"

"Yes, provided that the work was genuine and not given to me out of mere charity."

The editor of the Commentator looked at her gravely. He had suddenly remembered Cipriani de Lloseta.

"Oh, you are proud!" he said.

Eve laughed with a negative shake of the head.

"Not more than other people," she answered.

"Not more than other people. Well, we will have it so. And not ambitious."

"No, I think not."

"You may thank G.o.d for that," said John Craik, half to himself. "An ambitious woman is not a pleasant person."

There was a little pause, during which John Craik rubbed his chin reflectively with his bony fingers.

"And now," he said, "that I know something about you, I will tell you why I asked you to be good enough to come and see me. To begin with, I am an old man; you can see that for yourself. I am a martyr to rheumatism, and I frequently suffer from asthma, otherwise I should have done myself the pleasure of calling on you. I wanted to see you, because lady authors are uncertain creatures. A large majority of them have nothing better to do, and therefore write.

Others do not care for the money, but they do most decidedly for the renown. The nudge and whisper of society is nectar to them. Others again are brilliant in flashes and dull in long periods. Few, very few are content to work with their pen as their poorer sisters are forced to work with their needles. In that lies the secret of the more permanent success of men journalists and men authors. The journalism and the authorship are not the men, but merely the business of their lives. Now will you be content to work hard and steadily without any great hope of renown--to work, in fact, anonymously for a small but certain income?"

"Yes," answered Eve, without hesitation.

Craik nodded his head gravely and thoughtfully. He was too deeply experienced to fall into the error of thinking that Eve was different from other women. He did not for a moment imagine that he had secured in her a permanent subscriber to the Commentator-- possibly he did not want her as such. He was merely doing a good deed--no new thing to him, although his right hand hardly knew what his left was doing. He liked Eve, he admired her, and was interested in her. Cipriani de Lloseta he was deeply interested in, and he knew, with the keen instinct of the novelist, that he was being drawn into one of those romances of real life which exists in the matter-of-fact nineteenth century atmosphere that we breathe.

So Eve Challoner left John Craik's office an independent woman for the time being, and the charity was so deeply hidden that her ever- combative pride had failed to detect it.

CHAPTER X. THE CURTAIN LOWERS.

The shadow, cloaked from head to foot, Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.

As she walked back to Grosvenor Gardens, Eve reflected with some satisfaction that the Ingham-Bakers had left Mrs. Harrington's hospitable roof. From this shelter they had gone forth into a world which is reputed cold, and has nevertheless some shelter still for such as are prepared to cringe to the overbearing, to flatter the vain, to worship riches.

Eve wanted time to think over her new position, to reflect with satisfaction over her new independence, for the Caballero Challoner, if he had bequeathed little else, had left to her a very active pride. She knew so little of the world that she never paused to wonder why John Craik should have made her a proposal which could hardly be beneficial to himself. She was innocent enough to think that the good things of this world are given just where and when they are wanted.

Captain Bontnor was the chief object of her thoughts, and she was already dreaming of restoring him to Malabar Cottage and his bits of things. So engrossed was she in these reflections, that she noticed nothing unusual in the face of the butler who opened the door which had shut upon Luke FitzHenry some years before.

"I'm glad you're back, miss," he said gravely.

Something in his tone--cold and correct--caught Eve's attention.

"Why?" she asked, and a consoling knowledge that the Terrific was safe in Chatham Dockyard leapt into her mind.

"Mrs. Harrington's been took rather bad, miss."

The man's manner said more than his words. Eve hurried upstairs to Mrs. Harrington's bedroom. She tapped at the door and went in without waiting. There was a strong smell of ammonia in the air.

The blinds were half lowered, and in the dim light Eve did not see very clearly. Presently, from the depths of a huge four-poster bed, she descried a pair of keen eyes--the face of Mrs. Harrington. The face, the eyes, the mind were alive, the body was stricken; it was almost dead already. Mrs. Harrington looked down at the shapeless limbs beneath the coverlet with something like fear in her eyes, something of the expression of a dog that has been run over. This woman meant to die hard.

Eve knew little of life, but she was no stranger to death. She recognised our last enemy in the grey face beneath the canopy of the four-poster.

"Where have you been so long, child?" said Mrs. Harrington querulously, "leaving me to these fools of servants. I have been unwell, but I'm better now. They've sent for the doctor. I shall be better presently. I have no pain, only--only a sort of numbness."

She looked down at her left hand, which lay outside the coverlet, and fear was in her eyes. She had defied men too long to be afraid of G.o.d, but she did not want to die; she had too keen an enjoyment for the good things of this world.

Eve came to the bedside.

Mrs. Harrington's face was drawn together in anger. She was annoyed that Death should have come for her, and, true to herself, she insulted him by deliberately ignoring his presence. There was something defiant in her cold eyes still, something unbeaten, although she knew that there was no one on her side. The general feeling was against her. So far as the world was concerned, Death could have her.

Eve turned away from the bed and faced the doctor, who was coming into the room with Mrs. Harrington's maid. No one displayed the slightest emotion. A selfish life and a happy death are rarely vouchsafed to the same person. The doctor did not ask Eve to stay, so she went downstairs and wrote to Fitz, sending the note round to his rooms in Jermyn Street by a servant. It was the second time in her life that she had sent for Fitz.

When the doctor came downstairs, Eve went out into the hall. He pointed with his finger to the room from which she came, and followed her back there. He was a middle-aged man, educated to the finger-tips--all science and no heart.

"Are you a relation of Mrs. Harrington's?" he inquired.

"We are distantly connected," answered Eve.

The doctor was not giving much attention to her answer. He had a habit of tapping his teeth with his thumbnail, which made Eve dislike him at sight.

"Has she any one else?" he asked. "Any one who--cares?"

He was quite without the intention of being rude but he was absorbed in his profession, and had a large practice. He wanted to go.

"She has a nephew. I have sent for him."