The Author of "Trixie"/Chapter 12
ThE Archdeacon arrived for luncheon am in good time and better temper. He made no sort of doubt that this was the last day of his sojourn in the purgatory of non-recognition. In his pocket were a number of copies of a letter which he proposed to send, signed by Dunkle and himself, to the Editors of The Times, The Morning Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Westminster Gazette, and some fifty more periodicals of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly appearance. It read as follows:
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, beg to inform you that "Trixie" and "Edgar and Lilian" were both written wholly by the first of us and that the second of us did nothing but lend his name (for reasons which need not be specified) to the two works in question.
(Signed) Samson Roach,
Bisham Dunkle.
The Archdeacon was not a little proud of this composition. How short and to the point it was, he thought. How simple and intelligible! Not a superfluous word. Not an ambiguity anywhere. Was ever a piece of information so astonishing conveyed to the public with greater directness and economy of effort? He thought not. A statement, this, that he who ran might read and comprehend.
No sooner, accordingly, had the after-luncheon coffee been served and drunk than he rose and held the door open, saying; "Pray don't let us keep you, Chloë."
Chloë sat tight. She lit a new cigarette, inhaled smoke, leaned back in her chair and discharged a tenuous cloud. "That's all right, Pontifex," she said. "Resume your seat, my very dear and venerable sir. Far from making my exit here, this is where my big scene comes. Isn't it, Bish?"
"Yes, Archdeacon," said Dunkle. "We can't spare dear Chloë yet awhile."
The Archdeacon, looking rather like a fool, closed the door and returned to his seat at table. It was pretty plain to him that something was going to happen; something for which, while making his dispositions, he had not allowed; something, briefly, in the nature of a jar, and, judging from Chloë's smile, a nasty one. A cold feeling passed down his spine and one bead of perspiration started upon his brow.
"Now then, Chloë, old stunt," said Dunkle, and helped himself to port.
Chloë helped herself to whisky. "So it appears, father mine," she observed, "that the rôle of shrinking violet no longer charms you. Fame, and plenty of it, is what you're after now. Henceforth it's the limelight for you, eh?" She drank.
"She's in the know," said Dunkle simply. "I mean about those two novels of yours. I hope you don't mind."
"No," said the Archdeacon. "Why should I mind? To-morrow all the world will be, as you say, in the know."
"Wrong," said Chloë. "Hopelessly wrong, Venerable."
"I don't think so," said the Archdeacon, He spoke with some appearance of boldness, but his spirit quaked. That voice which Chloë had now adopted. He knew it well and it portended his discomfiture.
"You don't, eh?" she asked. "Why ever not?"
He turned his shoulder to her and hauled out his bunch of letters from his pocket. "Here, Bisham," he said, "are some letters which I propose you and I should sign and send to the Press. They state the facts quite shortly, quite simply and quite sufficiently. Perhaps we might sign them now, if you have your fountain pen on you."
Chloë got up slowly and came round the table to him. She took the packet of letters gently from his hand and put it in the fire. Paralysed, he watched her push them with the poker in among the red coals; saw them burst into bright flame; heard her say, "We shan't need these"; perceived her returning to her chair.
"Now see here, dada," she said as she sat down, "stop looking like a shark that's missed its bite and just listen to me. You've got to understand, once and for all, that Bish and I strongly disapprove of what you want to do and that we don't mean to let you do it, comprenny? No, don't speak. It's not necessary. We're not interested in your point of view. I am, however, quite willing to tell you why we have adopted this attitude. You see, if you announce yourself as a popular novelist and establish your claim to be one it will play the very devil with your chances of advancement in the Church. No novelist-clergyman even became a Bishop yet, and a Bishop is what dear mother wants you to be. You know as well as I do that she's set her heart right on it, ever since that fortune-teller at Harrogate told her that he saw a palace in her tea-leaves. Well, I'm not going to have you disappoint mother if I can help it. I don't pretend that I'm exorbitantly fond of her, but she's not half a bad old soul and I don't care to see her vexed. So what you've got to do, my jolly old hierophant, is to concentrate on the next rung upwards of the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment and put out of your mind all thoughts of claiming public recognition for your talents as a novelizer."
The Archdeacon leaned his head on his hand and stared downwards upon the cloth.
"I've thought of all this, Chloë," he said brokenly. "It's not lightly that I've come to this resolution to announce myself as the author of these two books. I realise perfectly that to do so will be to commit suicide, so far as preferment is concerned. I know perfectly well that it will grieve your dear mother dreadfully. I am aware that it will cause a grave scandal in the Church at a moment when grave scandals in the Church are peculiarly to be deplored. But I can only say that this thing is stronger than myself. I cannot, I simply cannot continue this deception. I won't pretend to you, as I once tried to pretend to Bisham, that it is my conscience that troubles me. It isn't. It's simply that I can't stand having Bisham praised for what I have made. I can't stand seeing his photograph in the magazines, when I know that it ought to be mine. I can't stand having him entertained by literary dining clubs, who ought to be entertaining me. I can't stand hearing people say what a clever fellow he is, when it's I that am the clever fellow. I know that I'm foolish, mad, cruel, wicked if you please, but I can't help it. Your mother must bear her disappointment as best she can; the Church must survive this scandal or succumb to it; all I know is that I have got to have the fame which is my due and that have it I will!"
"I understand," Chloë said presently, "that you've got another manuscript of 'Edgar and Lilian' and that if Bisham denies your authorship you mean to bring this thing out in proof of your claim."
"To do so," said her father, "is my settled resolve."
"All right," she said, "then I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll" And she told him.
"And now, my dear father," she concluded, "now that you know what's in store for you if you go ahead with this scheme of yours, what do you decide? Is it to be war, or is it to be peace? Are you in one breath to be acclaimed author of 'Trixie' by an astounded (and largely offended) universe, and in the next to be hissed off the scene for a common and rather foolish kind of dirty swindler; or are you to keep your mouth shut and continue to enjoy the esteem and confidence of the British public, with the strong probability of finding yourself made a bishop within the next couple of years? Speak, old sir, and that might quickly."
The Archdeacon passed his hand across his eyes. "I can't guess, Chloë," he said in a dull voice, "how you found out about that miserable affair of the third-class ticket, but I am not going to deny your accusation. Nor need I say very much in defence of my conduct. I will only say this. To have given my real name and address would have been to ensure the appearance of a Canon (as I was at that time) of the Church of England in the dock of a police court and it was most clearly my duty to prevent, by any means in my power, the occurrence of a catastrophe so unedifying. A clergyman who gets himself into a false position must always bear in mind the fact that he is a member of a body the maintenance of whose good fame is of inappreciable importance to mankind. It is surely more to be desired that one clerk in holy orders should fail to purge his individual offence than that the cloth he wears should be brought into disrepute. He who, in such circumstances, boldly takes a falsehood upon his conscience does well, Chloë, and not ill. But why should I waste my time and breath in self-justification? It is not as if I either wished or hoped to deflect you from your unfilial purpose. For the truth is, my dear child, that I don't care a button what you do if only I can satisfy this awful craving to be recognised by the world as the veritable author of 'Trixie.' Besides, I don't believe that you'll do what you threaten."
Dunkle knocked the ash off his cigar. "He's called your bluff, old hoot," he said to his wife.
"Bluff be boiled!" she responded. "He'll jolly soon find out that it's no bluff. He needn't imagine that because he's my father I'm going to spare him. The fact that I'm his daughter doesn't seem to suggest to him that he should spare me. If he puts me to the everlasting shame of being known as the child of the man who wrote 'Trixie,' why should I hesitate to give him away to the Great Western? I suppose," she went on to the Archdeacon, "it's useless for me to appeal to you on my mother's account. They'll point her out as the wife of a swindler; but you won't care, will you?"
"I shall care very much," said the Archdeacon. "It is very, very far from my wish to grieve your dear mother; but, as I've told you, this thing is stronger than myself and, be the consequences what they may, whether to me or to others, this announcement must be made, and immediately. I simply cannot remain unknown any longer. And so, if Bisham will not join me in making a statement, I must do it alone and, dispensing with his corroboration, rely upon that of my second manuscript. It will be convincing. I shall invite the Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Authors to be present with a small ad hoc committee, named by him, when I open the parcel at the Sloane Street Safe Deposit."
He rose. "To-morrow," he said, "I shall write to the newspapers. I will give you, Bisham, twenty-four hours in which to make up your mind whether or no you are to stand by me. I cannot think that you will refuse."
He passed through the dining-room door.
"Twenty-four hours, eh?" said Chloë thoughtfully. "Well, twenty-four hours are always twenty-four hours."
"Yes," said Dunkle. "Always. But what's to be done? Has it got to be murder after all?"
"No," she replied. "Not that, Bish. It would mean my going into mourning just as I've laid in my whole spring wardrobe, and that I decline absolutely to do. We must think of something a trifle less drastic than doing the old gent in. Suppose you pop off to the club for the afternoon and leave me alone to hatch out a scheme. If I want you, I'll telephone; and, if you care to be a perfect darling, you'll fetch a couple of pounds of nutty chocolates home with you. I'm right out of goodies."
After Dunkle had gone Chloë betook herself to her boudoir, where she loosened her stays, lit her hookah, and stretched herself at her ease among the yielding cushions of her Westmorland.
"The problem," she reflected, "can be simply stated. How, within the next twenty-four hours, is the Venerable to be dissuaded from carrying out his programme? Since my threat of handing him over to justice doesn't seem to be going to work—for I don't fancy he was bluffing when he defied me to do my worst—it's pretty evident that nothing either Bish or I can say will have any effect on him. It remains for us to do. But what? To act. But how?
"We might have him certified insane and put away, but there's hardly time for that. Besides, I don't know any venal doctors. I fancy, moreover, that it's not as easy nowadays as it used to be during the reign of Queen Victoria. I've a sort of idea that private lunatic asylums aren't allowed any longer. To burgle the safe deposit for that manuscript, again, is quite a hopeless plan. Yet if we could get hold of the manuscript and burn it, the Archdeak wouldn't have a leg to stand on. He could never hope to make out his case without that bundle of paper. There's not a soul alive who'd accept his story. On the face of it, it's simply crazy. We could have him behind bars in half an hour. But so long as he can produce the manuscript he has us on toast. If we could only get him to take the thing out of the safe deposit, we might be able to lay hands on it and abolish it. But what's going to make or persuade him to take it out? Nothing short of torture."
At this moment a barrel-organ, outside the house, struck up the air of a song which Chloë knew well. She had sung the words of its chorus a thousand times while threading the mazes of the seven step. And now, from force of habit, she began to sing them yet again. They were:
That's where she dwells, my own little China girl,
My own baby China Girl,
With her eyes so blue
And true.
You never, never, never saw a finer Girl.
For her cunning name is Wei-hai-wei.
Sweet little almond blossom
Of Shanghai.
As she pronounced the last word of this last word in jazz band minstrelsy she rose suddenly into a sitting posture and slapped her forehead with her open left hand. And, "Hah and ho!" she cried. "Likewise whoop and eureka!' She bounded from the Westmorland and a moment later she was talking to her father by telephone.
"That you, parent?" she cried. "Good! Well, it's just to tell you that Bisham and I surrender. You shall have it as you want it and Bisham will sign that letter to the press. So will you make out another fifty copies of it this afternoon and bring them round here to Grosvenor Street after dinner to-night—say about nine. No, we won't dine with you, thanks. We've got some blokes and maidens dining and dancing here, you see. But Bisham will be able to take half an hour off from doing the politeful in order to sign those letters with you in the study, and then you can post them as you go home. Is that all right, then? Yes? Good! Give my love to mother and the girls." She rang off and at once called up the Aspidistra Club (Dunkle had been expelled from the Bards' upon the publication of "Trixie,") and commanded the porter to send her husband home the moment he put in an appearance.