Chapter 28. What Comes Of Publishing A Book

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_ CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK

It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about him in _The Tyrian Daily Mail_, and that he intended to buy "the work" as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song!

Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty pounds profit to share between them.

That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love?

Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, unseen, the nutritive oil of praise.

This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the letter coldly.

"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?"

"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry.

"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers."

"Angel dear, what _do_ you mean?"

"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!"

"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each other, are we to have no other friends?"

"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to see their letters."

"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help him with his.

The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of 'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" officially stamped upon it.

He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether it will be 'not known' then!"

The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was beginning already to smile.

But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman.

"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, you have recently published a book."

Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed of.

"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his own humour.

"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none.

"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and sincere well-wishers."

The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be something of a nuisance to business-men.

When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's time his preliminary meals were to come from.

Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of freedom all things might be hoped.

Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them.

His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the temples to mark the lapse of time.

And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked L5 apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed.

And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or another of those partners followed the opening of the front door.

The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"?

Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home.

Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern.

Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection.

Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they had spent together.

The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume of Henry's life was finally closed. _

Read next: Chapter 29. Mike's Turn To Move

Read previous: Chapter 27. The Book Of Angelica

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