The Time of Roses Part 31

"Oh, don't scold me, please, Edith," said poor Florence.

"I don't mean to; but really your queer ways of accepting Tom's favours exasperate me now and then."

"Perhaps I had better go to my own room," said Florence. "I am in your way, am I not?"

"When you talk nonsense you are. When you are sensible I delight to have you here. Lie down on the sofa once more, and go on reading this last novel of George Eliot's: it will put some grit into you."

Edith returned once more to her task, lit a strong lamp which she had got for this special purpose, put on her magnifying-gla.s.ses, adjusted her microscope, and set to work.

Florence knew that she was lost to all externals for the next hour or so. She herself took up her book and tried to read. Half an hour before this book had interested her, now she found it dry as sawdust; she could not follow the argument nor interest herself in the tale. She let it drop on her lap, and stared straight before her. How was she to do that which she said she would do? Her crutch was no longer available. The ghost who really supplied all her brilliant words and felicitous turns of speech and quaint ideas was not to be secured on any terms whatsoever. What could she do?

She felt restless and uncomfortable.

"I did wrong ever to consent to it, but now that I have begun I must go on taking in the golden sovereigns," she said to herself, and she took up the cheque for eighteen guineas, looked at it eagerly, and put it into her purse. Starvation was indeed now far removed. Florence could help her mother and support herself; but, nevertheless, although she was now well fed and well clothed and comfortably housed, she at that moment had the strongest regret of all her life for the old hungry days when she had been an honest, good girl, repentant of the folly of her youth, and able with a clear conscience to look all men in the face.

"But as I have begun I must go on," she said to herself. "To court discovery now would be madness. I cannot, I will not court it. Come what may, I must write that article. How am I to do it, and in twenty-four hours? Oh, if I could only telegraph to Bertha!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

ALMOST BETRAYED.

Florence spent a restless night. She rose early in the morning, avoided Edith, and went off as soon as she could to the British Museum. She resolved to write her article in the reading-room. She was soon supplied with books and pamphlets on the subject, and began to read them. Her brain felt dull and heavy; her restless night had not improved her mental powers; try hard as she would, she could not think. She had never been a specially good writer of the Queen's English, but she had never felt worse or more incapable of thought than she did this morning. Write something, however, she must. Tossed about as she had been in the world, she had not studied the thoughts of men and women on this special subject. She could not, therefore, seize the salient points from the pamphlets and books which she glanced through.

The paper was at last produced, and was not so good as the ordinary schoolgirl's essay. It was feeble, without metaphor, without point, without ill.u.s.tration. She did not dare to read it over twice.

"It must go," she said to herself; "I can make up for it by a specially brilliant story of Bertha's for the next number. What will Mr. Franks say? I only trust he won't find me out."

She directed her miserable ma.n.u.script to Thomas Franks, Esq., at the office of the _Argonaut_, and as she left the museum late in the afternoon of that day dropped the packet into the pillar-box. She then went home.

Edith Franks was waiting for her, and Edith happened to be in a specially good humour.

"Have you done the article?" she said.

"Yes," replied Florence, in a low voice.

"I am glad of it. I felt quite uneasy about you. You seemed so unwilling to do such a simple thing last night."

"It was not at all a simple thing to me. I am no good at anything except fiction."

Edith gave her foot an impatient stamp.

"Don't talk rubbish," she said; "you know perfectly well that your style must come to your aid in whatever you try to write. Then your fiction is not so remarkable for plot as for the careful development of character and your pithy remarks. Your powers of epigram would be abundantly brought to the fore in such a subject as Tom asked you to write about.

But never mind, my dear, it is your pleasure to duplicate yourself--I do not think it is at all a worldly-wise habit; but, of course, that is your affair. Now come into the dining-saloon at once. I have good news for you. Tom has obtained tickets for us all three to see Irving in his great piece--'The Bells.'"

Florence certainly was cheered up by this news. She wanted to forget herself, to forget the miserable article which she vainly and without real knowledge of the ordinary duties of an editor hoped that Tom Franks would not even read. She ate her dinner with appet.i.te, and went upstairs to her room in high good humour. Her means were sufficiently good to enable her to dress prettily, and she, Edith, and Tom found themselves just before the curtain rose in comfortable stalls at the theatre. Franks was in an excellent humour and in high spirits. He chatted merrily to both girls, and Florence had never looked better.

Franks gave her a glance of downright admiration from time to time.

Suddenly he bent forward and whispered to her: "What about my article?"

"I posted it to you some hours ago," she answered.

"Ah! that is good." A smile of contentment played round his lips. "I look forward most eagerly to reading it in the morning," he said: "it will be at my office by the first post, of course."

"I suppose so," said Florence, in a listless voice. Her gaiety and good humour suddenly deserted her.

The play proceeded; Edith was all critical attention, Franks also warmly approved, and Florence forgot herself in her absorbing interest. But between the acts the thought of her miserable schoolgirl essay came back to haunt her. Just before the curtain rose for the final act she touched Franks on his sleeve.

"What is it?" he said, looking at her.

"I wish you would make me a promise."

"What is that?"

"Don't read the stuff I have sent you; it is not good. If you don't like it, send it back to me."

"I cannot do that, for I have advertised your name. You simply must put something into the first number, but of course it will be good: you could not write anything poor."

"Oh, you don't know. Mine is a queer brain: sometimes it won't act at all. I was not pleased with the article. Perhaps the public would overlook it, if you would only promise not to read it."

"My dear Miss Aylmer, I would do a great deal for you, but now you ask for the impossible. I must read what you have written. I have no doubt I shall be charmed with it."

Florence sat back in her seat; she could do nothing further.

The next day, when he arrived at his office, Tom Franks eagerly pounced upon Florence's foolscap envelope. He tore it open and began to read the silly stuff she had written. He had not gone half-way down the first page before the whole expression of his face altered. Bewilderment, astonishment, almost disgust, spread themselves over his features. He turned page after page, looked back at the beginning, glanced at the end, then set himself deliberately to digest Florence's poor attempt from the first word to the last. He flung the paper from him with a gesture of despair. Had she done it to trick him? Positively the production was scarcely respectable. A third-form schoolgirl would have done better. There were even one or two mistakes in spelling, the grammar was slipshod, the different utterances what few schoolgirls would have attempted to make: so ba.n.a.l, so threadbare, so used-up were they. Where was that terse and vigorous style? Where were those epigrammatic utterances? Where was the pure Saxon which had delighted his scholarly mind in the stories which she had written?

He rang his office bell sharply. A clerk appeared.

"Bring me the last number of the _Argonaut_," he said.

It was brought immediately, and Franks opened it at Florence's last story. He read a sentence or two, compared the style of the story with the style of the article, and finally shut up the _Argonaut_ and went into his chief's room.

"I have a disappointment for you, Mr. Anderson," he said.

"What is that, Franks?" asked the chief, raising his head from a pile of papers over which he was bending.

"Why, our _rara avis_, our new star of the literary firmament, has come to a complete collapse. Something has snuffed her out; she has written rubbish."

"What? you surely do not allude to Miss Aylmer?"

"I do. I asked her to do a paper for the _General Review_, thinking that her name would be a great catch in the first number. She consented, I must say with some unwillingness, and sent me _this_. Look it over and tell me what you think."

Mr. Anderson read the first one or two sentences.

"She must have done it to play a trick on us," he said; "it is absolutely impossible that this can be her writing."

"It cannot be printed," said Franks; "what is to be done?"