Helena Brett's Career Part 18

"I shouldn't worry with them," she said, feeling inadequate. "Perhaps it will just make the book sell? We expected them to be all nasty, didn't we?" She tried to speak brightly. Then an inspiration came to her. "Perhaps there are some better ones?" she said. The great thing would be to divert his mind. A law-case would be terrible. n.o.body got anything, ever, except the barristers.

He pa.s.sed the heap of unopened papers scornfully across to her. "You look at them," he said. "I don't know why I do or why one cares.

They're just a pack of failures. I always despise myself for looking at their stuff at all." He opened a letter with unneeded violence.

With slow unpractised fingers Helena began to search for reviews. "No, no," she said at each, until she thought (he was so quiet), that this might be annoying him and went on with her task in silence.

Then her hands suddenly clutched the paper tightly, symbolic of her effort to say nothing, for her eyes had caught the heading, _Was It Worth While?_ The notice ran to half a column and this was an important paper. She blessed her cleverness in having looked.

One moment later, she was blessing her forethought in not saying anything. For this was the review:

"_Was It Worth While?_

"For some time now it has been an interesting question, with those who can find any interest at all in the popular novels of to-day, as to what exactly may be the peculiar touchstone of popularity. We can most of us recall the names of two or three books which have run into their quarter of a million copies, according to advertis.e.m.e.nts: and in reading them hungrily for a solution of the problem, we have been more than a little astounded by the crudeness of the fare submitted. We have been unwilling, as good optimists of human nature, to believe that mere literary vices can account for any library demand.

"Mr. Hubert Brett, perhaps unconsciously, has done us a good service.

We do not, let it be premised at once, refer to our grat.i.tude for his latest novel. Some of Mr. Brett's work, notably _Splendid Misery_ and _The Bread of Idleness_, has been praised in these columns for the sincere attempt which the author made in it to get at grips with the problems of real life, forgetting (as few authors can) the fictionists who went before him. In _Was It Worth While?_ he seems to have thought, for a change, of almost nothing else. The book is a weird salad of remembered scenes, an olla podrida of episodes we wish we could forget. It would be wasting time and s.p.a.ce indeed to attempt synopsis of Mr. Brett's astounding tale--for it is not a novel, however one define that vaguest of all literary products. By lumping together the worst and cheapest portion of all the bad and clap-trap tales which have seen light since printing was unhappily invented, one may arrive at a far better notion of this book than can be gained by wading through its crowded pages. The process, let us add, is also less fatiguing.

"But this is where Mr. Brett has done us, we repeat, a service. _Was It Worth While?_ (the name alone is symptomatic) has all the qualities of its successful predecessors: the well-worn types, that call for no brain-effort after work; the utterly untrammelled sentiment; the shapeless slices of religion: he has put into his salad all the right ingredients, except one, which he, less lucky than the other cooks, did not possess. And that ingredient, we now believe, is no less than sincerity. The other writers have done this sort of thing well, because they could do no better; and whilst the large public applauded, we have pitied. Mr. Brett has done this sort of thing, although he can do better; and whilst the public will see through him, we despise his effort. Into his motives it would be impertinent to enquire. Perhaps, after all, the book is a mere literary squib. Mr. Brett, it well may be, has no desire to gull the public into a belief in his weak sentiment and crude religion: he wishes to deride those qualities in others. If so, we congratulate and thank him once again: we understand at last the essential quality (and it is, we confess, a fine one) in the Library big-seller. On any other ground, however, it certainly was not _Worth While_."

Helena did not dare to read all down the column. She read the last words and she bit her lips to keep back tears of which she was ashamed.

She knew that it was true--and she hated, loathed the man or woman who had written it. She would give anything, all she possessed, all that poor Hubert had thought he would make from the horrid book, to spare him this review: to s.h.i.+eld him from the pain that she knew it was bound to give him.

"Found one?" he asked. Her hands almost dropped the paper.

"No," she said. "There don't seem any more, unless I've managed to miss one. Now I'm seeing what has happened!" And she contrived to laugh.

He appeared to feel relief rather than disappointment.

"You don't often do that," he said cheerily enough. "I thought you despised politics and everything like that?"

"I don't often get the chance to read them," she said and hurriedly turned on to the next page, "considering you always cling firmly to the D.T. till I've got to begin my housework!" This last was her name for what he, in a Yankee spirit, nicknamed "ch.o.r.es."

So for the moment that danger was averted, but Helena knew it was really no more than postponed, and long before the day was over, wished that she had faced it instantly.

When he came in to her just before dinner she knew that he had seen before he spoke a word. He drew the notice, neatly cut out, from his pocket, and she made a pretence of reading it.

"It's merely spite," was all he said. "How dare they call me insincere? They know it's a good seller and that's just what they can't stand. I've written to the editor and I hope I get that swine the boot."

"Is that very kind, dear?" she asked. "It's his job, you know, and you said bad reviews would sell the book."

He gave an angry snort. "Yes, I dare say, but not this kind. No plot, nothing except that its fatiguing and _may_ be a burlesque. English people hate being puzzled even more than they hate being bored."

This saying had the effect, she thought, of cheering him a little, for he gave a sardonic laugh and said:

"Well, no matter, let them do their worst. Trust the public later on to find out that the novel's bad! ... When's dinner?"

CHAPTER XV

DISCOVERIES

An Ethical Society might pa.s.s a winter's evening in this debate: Does it need more strength to endure failure or to bear success? The dangers upon either road stand out easily, for all but the actual wayfarer. By the one he may fall into the slough of Bitterness, whilst the other, far more pleasant as it draws him on, may lead to no more than the pitiable, luxurious cities of Arrogance and Meanness.

The problem certainly needs no elaboration in this place, since Hubert's path lay all too clearly towards failure. "I fear," wrote his publisher as an old friend, "it is no use concealing the fact that people do not want the book. There have as yet been no repeat orders from libraries or booksellers. We can only face the fact and hope to do better with the next. As you know, in my opinion the book was not up to your usual high level."

"Who wants his d.a.m.ned opinion?" growled Hubert out loud, though alone, and crumpled up the letter. Why, publishers weren't even critics!

As to these last, their unanimity for once was wonderful.

There are ingenious authors who amuse themselves by printing excerpts from reviews of their last novel, alternately conflicting, thuswise; "An able novel: _Tooting Sentinel_. Weak and formless: _Times_. An arresting piece of work, whoever by: _Stafford News_. An amateur affair: _Standard_;"--thinking in this manner to have blackened for evermore the ancient art of Criticism in any decent-minded person's eyes. They scarcely realise, poor injured souls, that the thing is an Art. Were it but a machine, it doubtless would attain the same result from each book, whether put before it by a Fleet Street expert or a Stafford tyro. Because it is an Art, however, and all Art is merely the expression of an individual emotion, it follows that each book must react on every critic in a different way. These notices, so pompous with _The Times_ or _Stafford News_ above them, are not worked out with prayer by the whole paper's staff; they stand for one opinion, no less--and no more--than the opinion of a woman-reader over the tea-tray. Opinions, moreover, vary; praise to G.o.d! How fresh and hopeful, what a message, seems this story to the un-read Staffordian; how stale and hopeless, what an ancient dish, it appears to him of Printing House Square, who has read more than he can hope ever to forget!

And yet beneath it all there is a principle. Bad Of Its Sort is bad, whatever sort one likes; which is all Plato's Ideas in a convenient nutsh.e.l.l.

And every one agreed that _Was it Worth While?_ was bad of its sort.

It tried to be something it was not, and what can be more shocking?

Hubert, then, had an admirable chance of showing what effect a failure, after some years of moderate success, had on his character; and took it to the full. As the reviews came in, he grew more and more violent.

It was not many days before he countermanded all the extra papers, but his faithful Press-Cutters sent in the notices religiously and he could not help reading them. Helena would come down first (she always did) at breakfast time and hide the small green envelopes, which then arrived by the last post and were brought in at 9 p.m. by the complaisant Lily.

Then what a flow of words! Poor critics, publishers, and readers; what a set they were, how blind, how asinine, how spiteful! Sometimes he would at once go to his study and write a reply, which Helena did not in every case succeed in rescuing before it got into the pillar-box, though certainly her score was bigger.

It was a trying month and he did not spare even her. When there were no reviews to tear verbally--and sometimes other ways--in fragments, he would moan plaintively that this meant he would never get another sou out of the book beyond the small advance already paid, and n.o.body would want to read the next one either, and Heaven knew how they would pay the house-bills.

"I don't suppose any one will even publish it," he would say, almost gloating, like a schoolboy probing his cut finger.

"Oh, Hugh!" she cried, believing him, "it does seem awful. And to think you were so successful till you married me and had to write this terrible pot-boiler. Oh, how I wish you'd never done it!"

"What, married you?" he asked, suddenly laughing. "Bother shop! Come along out and see if we can't find a good stick to throw for the hound;" and as he pa.s.sed, he kissed her on the hair and drew her up on to her feet.

His moods were so abrupt, just now, that sometimes she grew frightened.

It was lucky, then, that she had got her consolation; the great secret.

Geoffrey Alison was far less frequent in the house these days, not having totally forgotten yet that grip upon his throat, and she would have been very desolate when Hubert was locked in with his work if she could not have flown excitedly to hers. Absorbed entirely in the opinion and career of the increasingly contemptible Virginia, she found herself free for a while from all the worries of real life, returning to them with a mind refreshed as by the most luxurious of sleep; the reason why there will be always writers, even when cinemas and cheap editions have made it not a paid, but an extravagant, profession.

So utterly absorbed was she, indeed, about six weeks after the fatal day of publication, that the drawing-room door was open before she had noticed any warning noise outside. Helena realised that it was far too late by now to hide the sheets of ma.n.u.script and subst.i.tute a letter, as she always did. Any attempt like that would only make detection certain--and far worse.

To her relief it was not Hubert, only Mr. Alison, with Lily holding the door open. She would not so much mind his knowing--he was so encouraging--supposing that he noticed.

And this of course he promptly did.

"Hullo!" was in fact his very first remark. "Are you too among the authors?" He waved his hand towards the little pile of ma.n.u.script that should have been inside a drawer.

"Yes," she said, hoping that she was not blus.h.i.+ng. "But not too loud as it's an awful secret. Hubert doesn't know."

He tip-toed at it with exaggerated caution. "Oh-ho!" he whispered.