VI

“I hope, Uncle Peter,” said Francis, “that Mr. Herrick and Mr. Bumpus will excuse me for not being present at their literary inauguration. I have very little time to myself, and I am obliged to deny myself all recreative reading, and being read to must be counted under that head, I think. So, if you will make my apologies to the authors, I will leave you before they come in. Though I admit it hardly seems fair to deny myself as audience, as I am safe in that way myself. We clergymen have an unfair advantage.”

“Yes, the poor laity!” said Miss Lydia.

“The arrangement was just for Peter and me to hear the books,” said Theresa.

“Yes, yes,” said Francis, in a kindly voice. “Then I may betake myself with a clear conscience to the solid pursuits which must be my portion, I fear.”

“I too must go to my solid pursuits,” said Miss Lydia. “But the dear men things! How interested they have been in it all!”

“Well, listeners never hear good of themselves,” said Bumpus, coming in.

“But they don’t often hear anything as bad as that,” said Emily. “What are we to say? People don’t speak about their own kindness, and of course it is kindness in Dickie and Nicholas to be going to read their books to us.”

“Ah, yes, yes, it is all for us,” said Miss Lydia. “And we must not underrate the pleasure things.”

“Well, we shall not overrate them,” said Herrick.

“Could we overrate things of that kind?” said Emily. “Well, are you going boldly to begin, or am I to work at leading up to it? I couldn’t expect anyone else to do that. Peter admires you too much, and Lydia not nearly enough, and William and Theresa are above leading up to things.”

“Well, well, we might begin,” said Herrick.

“Yes, yes, begin, Herrick,” said Bumpus.

“Yes, it is your business, dear,” said Emily. “Dickie is a relative, and has to be put last in everything. It would be presuming upon your intimacy with the house to hold back.”

“It is so nice to help in any way,” said Miss Lydia.

“I said that Lydia did not admire you nearly enough,” said Emily.

“She really admires us terribly little,” said Bumpus.

“Well, she has killed any desire in me, but to do my simple best in anything I may undertake,” said Herrick, opening his papers.

“Yes, we must keep Lydia here. She will put the right spirit into it,” said Bumpus.

“Oh, no, no, I can’t be here. But it is so nice to be wanted, thank you, thank you. So nice to go off to what calls me most, feeling that I should be welcome at what calls me less, calls me too, though it does not need me. For it does call me. It does call me. But I must go to the need.”

“I am so proud of you for writing the book, Nicholas,” said Emily, “and especially for going to be known to have written it. And so remorseful for thinking you might not be great, when you always hinted. But the great always forgive.”

“Well, well,” said Herrick. “It came to me, you know, that night when we sat up in turns with old Crabbe. The whole thing came upon me, just through that little service to somebody else.”

“It was really too much reward,” said Emily. “But of course you deserved it.”

“Why, Bumpus,” said Herrick, looking at Bumpus’ papers over his shoulder; “your beginning sentence is the same as mine!”

“The same as yours?” said Bumpus. “Why, it can’t be. It can’t be, surely. Why, there wouldn’t be anything in common in our books.”

“Dickie, don’t say out what is in your mind openly to Nicholas,” said Emily.

“Why, what is there in an opening sentence?” said Herrick. “All opening sentences are much on a line, aren’t they? All books have got to begin.”

“Nicholas, you have had faith in yourself,” said Emily. “Do let us get it over. Anyhow, you have one sentence as good as Dickie. So let us have the beginning. That may be the only part we can bear.”

“Yes, get on, Herrick,” said Bumpus. “Your book is ready to the word, and mine isn’t. You are a greater than I. You have your own mind in hand.”

“I have sympathy with boasting,” said Emily. “I hope Nicholas has.”

“Yes, it is ready, Bumpus, it is ready,” said Herrick. “It may be the last and only thing, but something it is at last. You may all like to remember the day, when you heard it from my own lips.”

“But don’t spoil it for me by reminding me that I may be without a breadwinner,” said Emily; “especially as you don’t win any bread. Dickie is not doing things like that. I think I have proposed to you, Dickie. But we haven’t time to go on about it now.”

“Mine is not such a one as this one,” said Bumpus. “I have had some delay with it. I left it in old Crabbe’s room that night he died; and it was got rid of with the other things. Crabbe’s illness brought on your novel, Herrick, but it held back mine. But it is the better for the rewriting of it.”

“Old Crabbe’s room? That night he died?” said Herrick. “Did you leave your book in the room, did you say, Bumpus? Ah, yes, it was a sad night, that, for us. Good old Crabbe! I always wondered that he never wrote. I have often said it. Did you leave your book in the room, did you say, Bumpus?”

“He never wrote. Not a line,” said Bumpus. “He was of the different kind. Yes, I left my only copy of it in the room, the typed copy; I always tear up manuscript; and it was cleared away with the other things. And rewriting it has meant reworking at it. You must make the best of it. I find I don’t take up writing again so easily. My best went into that early thing. Well, I have told my tale. That is the better thing, there where it is. Not that that matters now.”

“Couldn’t you write the early one again?” said Emily, keeping her face turned from her brother. “You could make it come back to you. A book when it is written could hardly go. William and I are the only people Nicholas has no influence over. It makes me admire Nicholas, but not you.”

“Well, does one do that thing?” said Bumpus. “Having done the other. Besides, that sort of thing comes and goes, and then exists of itself, if it has got on paper. But I confess I should like to be able to bring it out, and have the credit of it.”

“Exists of itself when it has got on paper!” said Emily. “It was as good as that, was it? Then I wish you could have the credit of it.”

“Perhaps somebody could really begin to read it,” said Mr. Fletcher.

“Perhaps it could read itself,” said Theresa.

“Emily, Emily!” said Herrick. “Please forgive this sister of mine, Bumpus. She quite puts me off reading my own book today. She does indeed. We will just have yours. Anyhow, we will have yours first. Yours is not finished, so anything we don’t like in it, we shall think is not going to be there. So it is easier for you.”

“Why should the first be last, and the last first?” said Bumpus. “Mine will not bear hearing as yours will. My real book is where we know it is.”

“Why, yours will do as well, Dickie,” said Emily. “Much better, I am afraid. You can see that Nicholas is too frightened to read his, now that the moment comes. And perhaps it is a good sign. Good writers always feel a great wave of depression about their work: and Nicholas’ symptoms were so bad. Yours are all right now.”

“Well, well, then, I will start,” said Bumpus. “But I wish it were not this book that I was reading.”

“Richard,” said Masson, in a quick, expressionless voice, “you know that copy of your other book, that you gave to me once, when you thought it was too illegible to be used? I think now is the time to tell you that I kept it. I put it by, before⁠ ⁠… when there was no question of the book’s not coming out. And then I did not feel sure in taking on myself to destroy it. So I have it, if you can use it.”

“You have it? You kept the copy? That copy I gave you all those years ago, that I was going to burn? Oh, I remember now. You had not read it, had you? We were going to put it on the fire without your reading it?”

“I did not read it then,” said Masson. “I seldom read any but scientific books, as you know, even my friends’ books. I did not even in those days. But when it was to go, I read it; to have my own impression of something of yours. I knew I had been at liberty to read it. And then I could not feel sure in destroying it. I should not have spoken of it, had you not expressed a wish for it, and I had provided for it to be burned at my death. I may seem to have taken much on myself. But I was helpless. I felt I could do nothing else.”

There was a silence.

“Oh, well, I will look over it again,” said Bumpus. “It may not be what I thought. But it is good news to me in a way. Thank you, William, thank you. I will try to use it, indeed. I will let this one go by for the time, and get the other out as soon as possible. After all, it is foolish not to change my mind when I have really changed it. And I have shown you all that I have done that.”

“Yes, even William,” said Emily. “And it is such an opportunity for being above self-consciousness and convention and other things. It would be dreadful to waste it.”

“Well, I will not waste it,” said Bumpus. “I would rather work on the other book. I couldn’t deal with the two at once. I dare say it isn’t as good as I thought. I was greatly younger then. But I don’t feel I could go against you, William. Or myself either. And I won’t read this one today. This book will go to the wall for some time to come. Who ever had so good a friend?”

“And I won’t read mine,” said Herrick. “I too will wait for a future day. It wouldn’t be a good thing now. I shouldn’t take any interest in it, myself. My congratulations, my congratulations, Bumpus. I am glad, glad for you. I think you will always be the man of letters of us. I feel doubts about my own book after all. I feel a great wave of doubt about it. I believe I shall not have it finished for a spell of time, I believe I shall be like Crabbe, a man that all his friends think ought to write, and who never does. But I hope that like him, I shall encourage my friends.”

“No, no, no. What reason is there in this?” said Mr. Fletcher. “Why should we be baulked of the present books? You can read yours, surely, Richard, and then go on and finish it, before you get on to the other. And we must hear yours, Herrick; if not now, at some time very soon. Whatever has come to both of you?”

“I couldn’t read this one today,” said Bumpus. “William has put me off it, thrown me right back from it. I couldn’t get the other out of my head. I must go straight on to it. I am on it at this moment, in my mind. I shan’t be on this one again until the other is done. And it may have to be remodelled then, in the light of the old one. A man can’t do his own books entirely apart. I may have got some of the one into the other. The old one was so much a part of myself. But I dare say it isn’t so much good, really. I took things hard when I was young. Well, well, let us leave it all alone. How patient you all are! I must be getting away.”

“What insight we are getting into the minds of writers!” said Emily. “No wonder they are not much good at things that can’t so well be held up. Dickie and Nicholas have both proved that they are authors at heart. But what they are in any other way, we are not to know yet. Nicholas, you must work some more at your book, to make up for not having an extra one from your youth. It is such a pity you haven’t one. It makes you so inferior to Dickie now, and it left you so much time then for other things.”

“Oh, I think I shall leave my books to chance, and interest myself in Richard’s,” said Herrick.

“But are we not to have the books?” said Masson.

“You are not the one to complain,” said Emily. “You have had one of Dickie’s books to yourself, and no one else has had anything at all. And don’t be out of sympathy with the erraticisms of genius, because no one should be too far removed from it.”

“We are carrying it off very shamelessly,” said Bumpus.

“Are you?” said Emily. “That always seems to me the one thing authors are not, shameless. I think it would be better and safer for you to go, for fear we might bring it home to you. Peter and William were trying.”

“Two books in the hand, and now one in the bush,” said Theresa.

“Theresa, you are really the only genius here,” said Emily. “Genius is spontaneous, and the genius of Dickie and Nicholas doesn’t seem to be that. You had better go home, Nicholas dear, and leave Dickie and William on your way. You want a rest, and you can’t get that with greatness about. Dickie is great intellectually, and William morally. Moral greatness is the best, though I have always wondered if that was true. And I am going to talk to Theresa. Peter will walk with all of you, won’t you, Peter?”

“Isn’t it your birthday today, dear?” said Theresa, as the two women were left alone.

“Yes, so it is,” said Emily. “That is why I am out of spirits. I am fifty-one; and I don’t like getting to have so little life left. And yet I don’t much like living, which is absurd, and makes it impossible for things to be planned for me; because what can be done?”

“You don’t like living, dear?” said Theresa.

“No,” said Emily. “Of course I don’t like it. This has been the worst birthday of all the fifty.”

“What is it? What is it all?” said Theresa. “I see something, and yet I don’t know quite what to see.”

“Oh, Theresa,” said Emily. “Did you see? Did you see? Nobody else saw? The men didn’t see? I always thought I had a man’s mind, but I must have a woman’s instinct after all. At any other time I should be ashamed of that.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, dear.”

“No, but Nicholas has not much,” said Emily. “Why shouldn’t he have a book, when Mr. Crabbe was dead and didn’t want it? Dickie found that a book wasn’t any good to a dead friend. After thirty years of thinking about it, he found that. And what was Dickie doing, leaving a book about, when Nicholas wanted one so much, and couldn’t make one for himself? And Dickie knew he couldn’t. He always unkindly never deceived Nicholas about it.”

“Mr. Crabbe?” said Theresa. “Mr. Crabbe? I only half understand yet. Was the book Mr. Crabbe’s? I thought it was Richard who left the book in the room? Oh, your brother thought the book was Mr. Crabbe’s? Oh, I see now. I thought he did not guess whose it was. I see now. I see.”

“Yes, that is it, I am sure,” said Emily. “But do you see the other thing? Did you see about Dickie? That book that he left in the room, that he had to write again, was the same as his early book, that was buried with his friend! I believe it was. I am certain it was. Did you feel that, when William and he were talking? He couldn’t begin his book, because William had read it. Of course I am not sure. But then I am. That is why Dickie is putting it away for the time. It is a good thing the book did not begin to read itself, as you said.”

“Oh!” said Theresa. “There was only one book, then? All three were the same book? Your brother’s and Richard’s, and the other of Richard’s that William kept? They were all just Richard’s old book?”

“Yes,” said Emily. “It sounds clever of Dickie, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t think one book would have to go so far. Dickie and Nicholas were both wonderful about managing things. You wouldn’t think they would find books so difficult. Poor Nicholas wanted a book so. And he knew Mr. Crabbe was dying and friendless, so that no one could have read his book. And it was typed, so that he couldn’t tell it by the handwriting. He thought it out so cleverly. Of course it makes it much worse of him. But perhaps he forgot all that. Criminals do forget something.”

“It was a shame!” said Theresa. “So you think that Richard remembered his book, and wrote it again? And then again, after your brother had⁠—had taken it?”

“Yes,” said Emily. “He had a lot of trouble, hadn’t he? But it was his own book. That seems quite good and strange of him. And worth the trouble, really. He was always saying how his book went back to his youth. He almost told us. He was really rather honest, considering everything. And William had read the book, which isn’t like William. That must have been put into William’s heart. Because of course Dickie wasn’t doing quite rightly.”

“Suppose any one of them had begun to read it,” said Theresa.

“Oh, I was afraid you would begin to suppose that! To read it! How dreadfully you realize the thing! And your sinister notion that the book might begin to read itself! I believe in religion now, and about our never being given to bear what is beyond our strength. Anyhow we shouldn’t be on our birthday. If it had happened, Nicholas and Dickie and William and I, and Peter⁠—but does Peter know?⁠—could never have met again. And we none of us know anyone else.”

“Peter does not know,” said Theresa, firmly. “What a thing for your brother that you have never married, dear! But I have often thought you would both be happier. Your brother married, as well.”

“Nicholas and I happier married! You don’t think, Theresa. Wives can’t think. Married people reveal all their past to each other, don’t they? Peter must have had a lovely past. Nicholas couldn’t do that. He hadn’t ever a good past, not at marriageable age. And he certainly couldn’t now. And he is seventy. He would have to marry an old lady. And she would not like the noise of the school. And it would really be taking advantage of Mr. Merry, because old ladies have so many little extra wants.”

“Does William suspect anything about the books?” said Theresa.

“No, they none of them saw anything. Even Dickie and Nicholas each thought he was the only bad one. But they had enough to think of. So I know for certain that I could never marry William. For I find that I only like wickedness and penetration.”

“Shall you tell your brother that you know? Does he know you know?” said Theresa.

“I shall tell him nothing. If he thinks I know, or may know, we just shall not speak of it. Then that will be the same to him as my not knowing. Nicholas is like that. And what is adorable about him is, that he would think no less of Dickie. He never despises baseness. That is why it is so right of him to be base. I should appreciate him better, and owe him more, if I were more base.”

“No, it isn’t much good to you, dear.”

“No,” said Emily. “That is what I am saying. It hasn’t been quite fair to Nicholas.”

“Shall you tell him about Richard? Does he suspect?”

“I think he is not subtle enough, and was too absorbed in his own affairs. No wonder. Of course I shall not tell him. It is no business of mine. I am not even sure. I ought not to have said a word to you. I knew you couldn’t really know. They are none of them as base as me. I am quite a chance for Nicholas, if only he knew. But you won’t say a word, Theresa? Not a word.”

“Oh, no, dear,” said Theresa.

“I think I can trust you,” said Emily. “I know you don’t mind that kind of wickedness. So why should you reveal it?”

“What an extraordinary thing that they didn’t give themselves away!” said Theresa. “It all fell about in such a minute, too. It almost seems as if something must have been there to prevent it.”

“Hardly anything providential,” said Emily. “They couldn’t be thought to deserve that. But you and I certainly didn’t deserve its being spun out. Nicholas was afraid to read a thing that he couldn’t have written. Because of course he couldn’t have written Dickie’s book. He was always leading up to the shock of it. And it was natural for Dickie to tell us that he had had to rewrite his book. All that rewriting would have to make an impression. It was really unlucky that he hadn’t told us before. Things always happen so hardly on Nicholas.”

“But Richard might have begun to read his book,” said Theresa. “It was only William who by chance prevented him.”

“Yes,” said Emily. “If we are to persist in thinking unproved evil of Dickie, and of course we are to do that. That must have been providential, and I told you I had got religion from it. So organic too, for William to prevent it, when it was only he, who made the prevention necessary! William couldn’t have been so egotistic by himself. This may have happened to convince you how far he and I are from each other. Providential things seem to be circuitous, like that.”

“I can’t think why Richard couldn’t have said that his book was the old one,” said Theresa.

“When one book was so much above the average, too,” said Emily. “But he didn’t know it was. He thought it was being just equal to Nicholas, and that has never done for Dickie. Did you see the shock he had in thinking one sentence was the same? I wish my shock had only been that. And then there was going back on what he had done. That was the trouble. Knowing William would make that very difficult.”

“I don’t know why he should want two kinds of credit,” said Theresa. “Not Richard.”

“That is beautiful of you towards him,” said Emily. “Why shouldn’t he want two kinds of credit? You wouldn’t ask that if you lived with Nicholas. Living with Peter must be so ennobling. There are Lydia and Peter coming up the road. It is nice to see Peter in innocent company again. I can’t meet them, Theresa. I am going home to write it all in my diary. I keep a diary, because I think I have that kind of personality. I must put in my will that it is to be destroyed at my death. For fear somebody should read it, and publish it, and pretend they had written it. Unless I leave it to Nicholas, so that he can have written a book after all. I hope he will outlive me. I would commit suicide, except that now I believe in religion, and religion does not allow that. And I am not single for the sake of Nicholas. I read in a book that no woman could love a man she did not make sacrifices for. But there is so much falseness about books. Too much, I think.”

“Emily is worth a thousand Lydias,” said Theresa, as her husband entered the study alone.

“Oh, you are too wise to talk of some people in terms of others, my dear. Emily is rare, of course.”

“Oh, you see that, do you, Peter?”

“Yes, I see that, my dear. I see.”

Theresa looked at her husband, and did not speak.

Emily went back to her brother, and found him sitting by his fire, dreamy and unoccupied.

“Well, darling,” she said. “So you have given up your book! Have you done away with it?”

“Yes, I have destroyed it,” said Herrick, smiling at her. “Destroyed it, my Emily. I don’t like books, and that is the truth. I am quite put off them. Do you know, dear old Bumpus made a confession to Masson and me? He confessed that he had remembered his old book, called it up to his mind again, the one that was supposed to be in his friend’s grave, that is actually there; and made out that it was this new one. This one he was to have read tonight. The one that was destroyed in old Crabbe’s room. And to own that up before Masson and Fletcher! I couldn’t have done it, Emily. And I don’t think it is incumbent upon a man to keep nothing of his secret doings to himself.”

“Neither do I,” said Emily. “We should be afraid of having anybody talk to us. And we certainly couldn’t talk to anybody. I don’t mean it wasn’t wonderful of Dickie. But what he had done wasn’t enough to be a tax on anybody. For his very worst.”

“No,” said Herrick. “There was no great harm in it. But I confess I don’t readily follow a stretch of doubleness like that. A sudden temptation and yielding to it! That I understand. I think the highest type of person might be prone to it.”

“Everyone can understand that,” said Emily. “And the lowest type of person would be even more prone to it. But everything else just follows from it. That does want a little more cleverness to understand, or else experience. But I am sure you understand it, darling. Did William and Peter say anything?”

“They neither of them said a word,” said Herrick. “But they will not in the future. It is all over for Bumpus. Well, I don’t like books, to bring old Bumpus to that. Dear old Bumpus! It was a fine thing of him, when he was a young man, and a fine thing of him now to tell us of it. He told us to tell you, Emily. He remembered your making the suggestion that he should rewrite the book. It was not easy to him, I think, to have you told. I think he found me the easiest. And I confess I like to think that.”

“So should I,” said Emily. “You were rather unkind about me. I suppose I have proved that I should have done the same in Dickie’s place. I don’t know why he should find me difficult.”

“Dear old Bumpus!” said Herrick. “My dear old gifted, erring friend! Well, well, we all err. And this kind of thing, this literary ambition, is the thing that most of all leads men to error, I think. Do you know, Emily, I think that the best achievement of a man, the highest and largest thing, is to feel tolerance and generous love for a man who can do what is denied to himself to do. I do indeed. As I feel for Bumpus tonight. As I feel for my friend. I do indeed feel it, Emily.”

“Nicholas, you really are a genius,” said Emily.