The Author of "Trixie"/Chapter 1
THE AUTHOR
OF "TRIXIE"
"Every man and woman," said the Bishop of Pontefract, "has one novel in them."
There are not many clubs where you can hear things as good as that, things so original, so profound, so well expressed. In fact there is but one—the Athenæum. I need not fear to say this, for I am not a member.
They were chatting over their after-luncheon coffee, the Bishop, the Master of the Buckhounds, the King's Remembrancer and old Mr. Lucas-Gore. Not far away sat Archdeacon Roach, listening to what they were saying while he pretended to read the Church Times.
"I wonder," he thought, "if I have a novel in me," and smiled.
The idea was indeed sufficiently fantastic. Anyone less likely than the Archdeacon to give birth to so lewd a thing as a work of fiction can not readily be imagined.
Notorious throughout England alike for his learning (he had edited the Commentaries of Lactantius on the Epistles of Dolens) and for his piety (vide that immensely successful little book of his, "Thoughts About Heaven"), he demonstrated his respectability by living with a wife and seven daughters in a great big Queen Anne house in the heart of Old Kensington, of which parish he was the Vicar. An admirable man. A splendid fellow. Rich, too, very, through his wife, who had been a Whitley of Bradford. Yes, a very fine type of clergyman. And he looked it. He was big and burly—almost, indeed, beefy—copiously chinned, generously curved in front, with large, shapely legs which filled out his gaiters as gaiters ought to be filled out. He had heaps of beautiful wavy hair, partly white and partly red, in streaks. His eyebrows were huge—almost they suggested toothbrushes—and quite red. His round and wide-set eyes were pale blue, a very unusual tint. His nose was a promontory. His whiskers were burning bushes. His vast mouth—but I waste our time in thus cataloguing the features of a face whose true glory was its saintly yet genial expression. Here was no rigid ascetic; here no fanatical persecutor. When you looked on Archdeacon Roach you were apt to be reminded neither of Simeon on his pillar nor of Torquemada tightening his thumbscrews. Did you think of St. Francis of Assisi? But this is unprofitable. I only want to make it clear to you that Archdeacon Roach was both a very good and a very broad man; he could, I mean, temper if not with tolerance, at least with sympathy that uncompromising attitude towards the vices and follies of other men which, as a clergyman, he was bound to maintain. But this is not to say that he was the sort of clergyman whom you would expect to find writing a novel. Emphatically, he wasn't. Emphatically, too, he never expected to find himself doing such a thing. That is why he smiled a moment ago behind the Church Times, just as anyone else would have smiled at the idea of Archdeacon Roach coming out as a fictioneer.
"I wonder," he thought, "if I have a novel in me," and smiled and slowly broke off the ash of his Corona against the edge of the ash-tray and slowly sipped from his glass of very old cognac. "I wonder," he thought, and smiled again. But this time the smile was a trifle fatuous. The idea now pleased rather than amused him. He dismissed it (for old Mr. Lucas-Gore had started out upon an anecdote concerning Henry James, the point of which escaped him just as he got there), and it sank quietly into his subconscious mind. About an hour later, while he strolled back to Kensington (he was, to be precise, passing the Albert Memorial), it rose again as quietly, and this time the smile which it provoked was definitely a friendly one. Familiarity with this idea had bred in the Archdeacon not contempt but affection. He was beginning, you perceive, to toy with it. This time he didn't dismiss it. He thought, "And why not?"
He was lost.
From that moment he had no peace. I don't propose to detail his struggles. They would not repay our examination. Everybody has gone through something of the kind. I don't mean that everybody has written a novel. That, of course, would not be quite true. But everybody has at least thought of doing it, and nearly everybody has tried. Of those who have tried, only about ten per cent. have failed, while of the ninety per cent. who have carried the adventure through I suppose a generous three-quarters must have been published. So it would be foolish of me to dwell at any length upon the gestation and genesis of the Archdeacon's book, since practically everybody who reads this one of mine has first-hand experience of these uncomfortable processes.
It is enough if I say that, five months later, the good man's tale was written and that no living soul but himself knew it. Yes, clandestine had been his dallying with the Muse, clandestine and therefore exquisite. Not a moment but had been delicious that he had filched, for this doubtful purpose, from hours properly attributable to the performance of his archidiaconal functions. And how many of such moments there were his recording angel—not the Archdeacon—had noted. Yes, this great Churchman, this pattern father and husband, had listened to the voice of the inward tempter and was now, poor wretch, no better than a secret novelist.
Worse.
Since he could not conceal from his wife and daughters the fact that he was spending several hours each day behind the locked door of his study, and since he realised that they must be curious as to what the business might be which so steadily occupied him, he gave out to them that he was engaged upon a careful revision of his Lactantius, preliminary to producing a second edition of that work. In other words, he lied to them in the most barefaced and detestable fashion.
This is a miserable beginning to what you hoped was to be a pleasant story; but I can't help it. And there is far worse to come: far, far worse. I am very sorry, but what am I to do? Abandon my project and take another theme? Impossible! This tale is in me and has got to come out if it will. One does not abandon one's themes, though it is a fact that now and then they abandon one—and what a relief that is! No, even if I drive you into the arms of a rival my tale must forth.
The Archdeacon, then, having done this dreadful thing, found that two courses were open to him: (1) to suppress by fire the bright creature of his fancy, or (2) to give it to the world. The first alternative, for reasons which I shall tell you in a moment, was unthinkable. The second, however, seemed to be impossible; for not without exciting a horrible scandal, not without furnishing to the enemy cause most joyously to blaspheme, might the reputable Vicar of Old Kensington proclaim himself a romancer, if ever, at any rate, he meant to be a bishop. And he meant most resolutely to be a bishop; if not an archbishop. His wife wished it. But that was nothing. He wished it himself.
He was sufficiently well read to be aware that at least two of England's greatest novelists have been clergymen of her Church; but what, he felt, was all very well for cock-fighting, three-bottle, eighteenth-century clerics (a Dean though one of them might be) was not at all well for a modern metropolitan archdeacon, who had edited Lactantius and published his thoughts about Heaven and meant to be a bishop.
No.
Even had his novel been of a religious character the thing was impossible. And the character of his novel was not in the least religious. Its morals, he trusted, were sound; vice didn't triumph over virtue or anything like that; but he could not pretend that his story was in the least calculated to turn anybody's feet from the broad into the narrow path. While preparing it, he had allowed the Artist (whom he had so happily discovered within him) to have his way entirely. The Pastor of souls had strictly not been allowed to collaborate.
No, it was out of the question for the name of Archdeacon Roach to appear upon the cover of "Trixie." Quite absolutely not to be thought of.
Yet it was equally out of the question that the story should not appear. There was that Artist fellow to be reckoned with. Was he the man to allow the fruit of his five months' labour to be abolished or hidden away in a drawer? He was not. Out the book must come, to court the verdict of the public—the verdict which that Artist rather flattered himself was going to be not wholly unfavourable. Not wholly. No.
He suggested to the Pastor of Souls the adoption of an alias. The Pastor shook his head. He gravely misdoubted the security of an alias. To adopt an alias is to set every busybody to the work of discovering whom it conceals; and sooner or later the truth is ferreted out. And this particular truth must, simply, not be ferreted out.
Anonymity, then? How about anonymity?
No, thought the Pastor; anonymity wouldn't do either. Anonymity was just as dangerous as pseudonymity. Equally calculated to set the busybodies going. Sooner or later, sooner or later, the cloak of anonymity was sure to be torn away. Sure. Absolutely.
"Why, then," said the Artist; "I'll tell you what."
"What?" inquired the Pastor of Souls.
"Do," said the Artist, "as Bacon did. Get a Shakespeare. Publish 'Trixie' under the name of some other man, someone who can actually be pointed out as the author, someone whose photograph can be published in the magazines, someone who can be interviewed and run after. If you do that there will be nothing to excite the curiosity of the busybodies. Your secret will be as safe as houses."
"Now," said the Pastor of Souls," that's a very clever idea of yours. Very clever indeed. It certainly seems to deserve consideration. Yes. I should say that it is decidedly worth thinking about. Decidedly."
The Archdeacon proceeded to think about it.