We Two Part 31

"Falling between two stools," said Charles Osmond, half to himself. "But don't lose heart, Erica: 'A stone that is fit for the wall will not be left in the way;' there is work for you somewhere. By the way, I might see old Crutchley he knows all the literary folk, and might get you an introduction to some one, at any rate."

Just as Erica was leaving Brian came in from his rounds, and they met at the door. Had he known her trouble and perplexity as to work, no power on earth could have induced him to keep silence any longer; but he knew nothing. She looked a little pale, but that was natural enough, and in her eyes he could see a peace which he had never seen there before. Then deep unselfish happiness filled his heart again, and Erica recognized in his greeting a great deal more than an ordinary by-stander would have seen. She went away feeling bettered by that handclasp.

"That is a downright good man!" she thought to herself. "Perhaps by the time he's fifty-five, he'll be almost equal to his father."

CHAPTER XXII. An Editor

Socrates How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem; and I can not help thinking that, if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about G.o.d trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows. Plato

That Erica should live any longer upon the money which her father chiefly made by the dissemination of views with which she disagreed was clearly impossible, at least impossible to one of her sincere and thorough nature. But to find work was very difficult, indeed. After an anxious waiting and searching, she was one day surprised by receiving through Charles Osmond's friend, Mr. Crutchley, an introduction to the editor of a well-known and widely read paper. Every one congratulated her, but she could not feel very hopeful, it seemed too good to prove true it was, in fact, so exactly the position which she would herself have chosen that it seemed unlikely it should ever really be hers. Still of course she hoped, and arrangements were made for an interview with Mr. Bircham, editor and part proprietor of the "Daily Review."

Accordingly, one hot summer morning Erica dressed herself carefully, tried to look old and serious, and set off with Tom to the city.

"I'll see you safe to the door of the lion's den," said Tom as they made their way along the crowded streets. "I only wish I could be under the table during the interview; I should like to see you doing the dignified journalist."

"I wouldn't have you for the world!" said Erica, laughing. Then, growing grave again, "Oh, Tom! How I wish it were over! It's worse than three hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one."

"Appalling prospect!" said Tom. "I can exactly picture what it will be. BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be a sort of editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, bl.u.s.tering way, and you'll feel exactly like a journalistic Smike."

"No," said Erica, laughing. "He'll be a neat little dapper man, very smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal."

"Tell him at once that you hero-wors.h.i.+p Sir Michael Cunningham, the statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'"

"Tom, do be quiet!" said Erica. "I wish you had never thought of that horrid name."

"Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it. If you like, you can offer the pun on reasonable terms to Mr. Bircham."

"Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this?" said Erica, with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck. "We must be quite near."

"Nearer than near," said Tom. "Now then, left wheel! Here we are, you see. It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green like the sea-green Robespierre. Go in looking as pretty as that, and Mr. Squeers will graciously accept your services, unless he's sand-blind."

"What a tease you are. Do be quiet!" implored Erica. And then, in what seemed to her an alarmingly short time she was actually left by herself to beard the lion, and a clerk was a.s.suring her that Mr. Bircham was in, and would she walk upstairs.

For reasons best known to himself, the editor of the "Daily Review" had his private room at the very top of the house. A sedate clerk led the way up a dingy staircase, and Erica toiled after him, wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she reached the end. On one of the landings she caught sight of a sandy cat and felt a little rea.s.sured at meeting such an every-day creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she pa.s.sed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have picked it up and taken it with her. That would have been undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room only a very observant person could have discovered in her frank, self-possessed manner any trace of nervousness.

So different was Mr Bircham from their preconceived notions that she could almost have laughed at the contrast. He was very tall and pompous, he wore a lank brown wig which looked as if it might come off at any moment, he had little keen gray eyes which twinkled, and a broad mouth which shut very closely; whether it was grim or humorous she could not quite decide. He was sitting in a swivel chair, and the table strewn with letters, and the desk with its pigeon holes crammed with papers, looked so natural and so like her father's that she began to feel a rea.s.suring sense of fellows.h.i.+p with this entire stranger. The inevitable paste-pot and scissors, the piles of newspapers, the books of reference, all looked homelike to her.

Mr. Bircham rose and bowed rather formally, motioned her to a seat, and swung round his own seat so that they faced one another. Then he scanned her from head to foot with the sort of appraising glance to which she was only too well accustomed a glance which said as plainly as words: "Oh! So you are that atheist's daughter are you?"

But whatever impression Erica made upon Mr. Bircham, not a muscle of his face altered, and he began to discuss business in a most formal and business-like way. Things did not seem very hopeful, and Erica began to doubt more and ore whether she had the smallest chance of acceptance.

Something in the dry formal manner of the editor struck a chill to her heart. So much, so very much depended on this interview, and already the prospect seemed far from hopeful.

"I should like to see some of your work," observed Mr. Bircham. "How long have you been in the habit of writing in Mr. Raeburn's organ?"

"For the last five years," said Erica.

Mr. Bircham lifted his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows at this, for Erica looked even younger than she really was. However, he made no comment, but took up the end of a speaking tube.

"Send up Jones with the file of 'Idol-Breakers' I ordered."

Erica's color rose. Presently the answer from the lower regions appeared in the shape of the sedate clerk carrying a great bundle of last year's 'Idol-Breakers.'

"Perhaps you will show me one or two of your average articles," said Mr.

Bircham, and, while Erica searched through the bundle of papers, he took up one of the copies which she had put aside, and studied the outside page critically. "'The Idol-Breaker:' Advocate of Freethought and Secularism. Edited by Luke Raeburn."

"They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three."

Mr. Bircham put it down and began to watch her attentively. She was absorbed in her search, and was quite unconscious of his scrutiny. Even had she noticed him, she would not have understood what was pa.s.sing in his mind. His little gray eyes grew bright; then he pushed back his wig impatiently; then he cleared his throat; finally he took snuff, sneezed violently, and walked to the window. When he returned he was even more dry and formal than before.

"These, I think, are fairly representative," said Erica. "I have marked them on the margin."

He took the three or four copies she handed to him, and began to look through one of the articles, muttering a sentence half aloud every now and then, and making little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns which might have been either approval or disapproval.

Finally the interview ended. Mr. Bircham put down the papers with a sigh of utter weariness, Erica thought.

"Well, Miss Raeburn," he remarked, "I will look at one or two of your other articles, and will communicate with you in a few days' time."

Then he shook hands with her with frigid politeness, and in another minute she was slowly making her way down the dingy staircase. Partly from the reaction after her excitement, partly from mental worry and physical weariness, she felt by the time she was fairly out of the office as if she could hardly drag herself along. Her heart was like lead, blank loss of hope and weary anxiety as to the next effort to be made were weighing her down. She was naturally high-spirited, but when high-spirited people do get depressed, they go down to the very deepest depths; and her interview with Mr. Bircham, by its dry cheerlessness, by its lack of human interest, had chilled her all through. If he had even made a remark on the weather, she thought she could have liked him better; if he had expressed an opinion on any subject, even if she had disagreed with him, it would have been a relief; as it was, he seemed to her more like a hard steel pen dressed in broadcloth than a man.

As to his last remark, that could only mean one thing. He did not like to tell her to her face that she would not suit him, but, he would communicate with her in a few days, and say it comfortably on paper.

She had never felt quite so desolate and forlorn and helpless as she felt that day when she left the "Daily Review" office, and found herself in the noise and bustle of Fleet Street. The midday sun blazed down upon her in all its strength; the pavements seemed to scorch her feet; the weary succession of hurrying, pus.h.i.+ng, jostling pa.s.sengers seemed to add to her sense of isolation. Presently a girl stopped her, and asked the way to Basinghall Street. She knew it well enough, but felt too utterly stupid to direct her.

"You had better ask a policeman," she replied, wearily.

Then, recollecting that she had several commissions to do for her father, besides a great deal to do at the stores, she braced herself up, and tried to forget Mr. Bircham, and to devote her whole mind to the petty details of shopping.

The next evening she was in the study with her father when Tom brought in a bundle of letters. One of them was for Erica. She at once recognized Mr. Bircham's writing, and a new pang of disappointment shot through her, though she had really lost all hope on the previous day.

This very speedy communication could only mean that his mind had been practically made up before. She began to think of her next chance, of the next quarter she must try, and slowly opened the unwelcome letter.

But in a moment she had sprung to her feet in an ecstasy of happiness.

"Oh, father! Oh, Tom! He will have me!"

Raeburn looked up from his correspondence, and together they read Mr.

Bircham's letter. It was quite as business-like as he himself had been at the interview.

"Dear Madame, Having fully considered the matter, we are prepared to offer you a place on our staff. The work required was explained to you yesterday. For this we offer a salary of 200 pounds per annum. Should you signify your acceptance of these terms, we will send you our usual form of agreement. I am yours faithfully, Jacob Bircham.

"To Miss Raeburn."

"Commend me to people who don't raise one's expectations!" said Erica, rapturously. "Three cheers for my dear, stiff old editor!"

So that anxiety was over, and Erica was most thankful to have such a load taken off her mind. The comfort of it helped her through a very trying summer.