The Disentanglers Part 27

'"Conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Bacon says,' replied Merton, 'or at least of such of us as are unenlightened. But to come to business. What do you think of asking our young friend down to lecture--on Friday week, I think you said--on the Use and Abuse of Novels? You could easily persuade her, I dare say, to stay over Sunday--longer if necessary--and then young Mr. Warren would at least find out that there is more than one young woman in the world.'

'I shall be delighted to see your friend,' answered Mr. Warren. 'At Bulcester we welcome intellect, and a real novelist of moral tendencies would make quite a sensation in our midst.'

'They are but too scarce at present,' Merton answered--'novelists of high moral tone.'

'She is not a Christian Scientist?' asked Mr. Warren anxiously. 'They reject vaccination, like all other means appointed, and rely on miracles, which ceased with the Apostolic age, being no longer necessary.'

'The lady, I can a.s.sure you, is not a Christian Scientist,' said Merton 'but comes of an Evangelical family. Shall I give you her address? In my opinion it would be best to write to her from Bulcester, on the official paper of the Literary Society.' For Merton wished to acquaint Miss Martin with the nature of her mission, lecturing being an art which she had never cultivated.

'There is just one thing,' remarked Mr. Warren hesitatingly. 'This young lady, if our James lets his affections loose on her--how would _that_ be, sir?'

Merton smiled.

'Why, no great harm would be done, Mr. Warren. You need not fear any complication: any new matrimonial difficulty. The affection would be all on one side, and that side would not be the lady lecturer's. I happen to know that she has a prior attachment.'

'Vaccinated!' cried Mr. Warren, letting a laugh out of him.

'Exactly,' said Merton.

Mr. Warren now gladly concurred in the plan of his adviser, after which the interview was concerned with financial details. Merton usually left these vague, but in Mr. Warren he saw a client who would feel more confidence if everything was put on a strictly business footing. The client retired in a hopeful frame of mind, and Merton went to look for Miss Martin at her club, where she was usually to be found at the hour of tea.

He was fortunate enough to find her, dressed by no means after the style of her portrait in _The Young Girl_, but still very well dressed. She offered him the refreshment of tea and toast--very good toast, Merton thought--and he asked how her craft as a novelist was prospering. Friends of Miss Martin were obliged to ask, for they did not read _The Young Girl_, or the other and less domestic serials in which her works appeared.

'I am doing very well, thank you,' said Miss Martin. 'My tale _The Curate's Family_ has raised the circulation of _The Young Girl_; and, mind you, it is no easy thing for a novelist to raise the circulation of any periodical. For example, if _The Quarterly Review_ published a new romance, even by Mr. Thomas Hardy, I doubt if the end would justify the proceedings.'

'It would take about four years to get finished in a quarterly,' said Merton.

'And the nonagenarians who read quarterlies,' said Miss Martin, with the flippancy of youth, 'would go to their graves without knowing whether the heroine found a lenient jury or not. I have six heroines in _The Curate's Family_, and I own their love affairs tend to get a little mixed. I have rigged up a small stage, with puppets in costume to represent the characters, and keep them straight in my mind; but Ethelinda, who is engaged to the photographer, as nearly as possible eloped with the baronet last week.'

'Anything else on?' asked Merton.

'An up-to-date story, all heredity and evolution,' said Miss Martin. 'The father has his legs bitten off by a shark, and it gets on the nerves of his wife, the Marchioness, and two of the girls are born like mermaids.

They have immense popularity at bathing-places on the French coast, but it is not easy for them to go into general society.'

'What nonsense!' exclaimed Merton.

'Not worse than other stuff that is highly recommended by eminent reviewers,' said Miss Martin.

'Anything else?'

'Oh, yes; there is "The Pope's Poisoner, a Tale of the Borgias." That is a historical romance, I got it up out of Histories of the Renaissance.

The hero (Lionardo da Vinci) is the Pope's bravo, and in love with Lucrezia Borgia.'

'Are the dates all right?' asked Merton.

'Oh, bother the dates! Of course he is a bravo _pour le bon motif_, and frustrates the pontifical designs.'

'I want you,' said Merton, 'you have such a fertile imagination, to take part in a little plot of our own. Beneficent, of course, but I admit that my fancy is baffled. Could we find a room less crowded? This is rather private business.'

'There is never anybody in the smoking-room at the top of the house,'

said Miss Martin, 'because--to let out a secret--none of us ever smoke, except at public dinners to give tone. But _you_ may.'

She led Merton to a sepulchral little chamber upstairs, and he told her all the story of Mr. Warren, his son, and the daughter of the minister.

'Why don't they elope?' asked Miss Martin.

'The Nonconformist conscience is unfriendly to elopements, and the young man has no accomplishment by which he could support his bride except the art of making oilcloth.'

'Well, what do you want me to do?'

Merton unfolded the scheme of the lady lecturer, and prepared Miss Martin to receive an invitation from Mr. Warren.

'Can you write a lecture on "The Use and Abuse of Novels" before Friday week?' he asked.

'Say seven thousand words? I could do it by to-morrow morning,' said Miss Martin.

'You know you must be very careful?'

'Style of answers to correspondents in _The Young Girl_,' said Miss Martin. 'I know my way about.'

'Then you really will essay the adventure?'

'Like a bird,' answered the lady. 'It will be great fun. I shall pick up copy about the habits of the middle cla.s.ses in the Midlands.'

'They won't recognise you as the author of your more criminal romances?'

'How can they? I sign them "Pa.s.sion Flower" and "Nightshade," and "La Tofana," and so on.'

'You will dress as in your photograph in _The Young Girl_?'

'I will, and take a _fichu_ to wear in the evening. They always wear _fichus_ in evening dress. But, look here, do you want a happy ending to this romance?'

'How can it be happy if you are to be successful? Miss Jane Truman will be miserable, and Mr. James Warren will die of remorse and a broken heart, when you--'

'Fail to crown his flame, and Jane has too much pride to welcome back the wanderer?'

'I'm afraid that, or something like that, will be the end of it,' said Merton, 'and, perhaps, on reflection, we had better drop the affair.'

'But suppose I could manage a happy ending? Suppose I reconcile Mr.

Warren to the union? I am all for happy endings myself. I drink to King Charles II., who declared that while _he_ was king all tragedies should end happily.'

'You don't mean that you can persuade Jane to be vaccinated?'

'One never knows till one tries. You'll find that I shall make a happy conclusion to my Borgia novel, and _that_ is not so easy. You see Lionardo goes to the Pope's jeweller and exchanges the--'

Miss Martin paused and remained absorbed in thought.

Suddenly she danced round the room with much grace and _abandon_, while Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded the performance.