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"I CAN never," said Mrs. Fetherel, "hear the bell ring without a
shudder."
Her unruffled aspect--she was the kind of woman whose emotions never
communicate themselves to her clothes--and the conventional
background of the New York drawing-room, with its pervading
implication of an imminent tea-tray and of an atmosphere in which
the social functions have become purely reflex, lent to her
declaration a relief not lost on her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from
the other side of the fireplace, agreed with a glance at the
clock, that it _was_ the hour for bores.
"Bores!" cried Mrs. Fetherel impatiently. "If I shuddered at _them_,
I should have a chronic ague!"
She leaned forward and laid a sparkling finger on her cousin's
shabby black knee. "I mean the newspaper clippings," she whispered.
Mrs. Clinch returned a glance of intelligence. "They've begun
already?"
"Not yet; but they're sure to now, at any minute, my publisher tells
me."
Mrs. Fetherel's look of apprehension sat oddly on her small
features, which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of
being set in order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there
were rumors that it was her cousin) had once said that Paula
Fetherel would have been very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a
moral axiom in a copy-book hand.
Mrs. Clinch received her confidence with a smile. "Well," she said,
"I suppose you were prepared for the consequences of authorship?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed brightly. "It isn't their coming," she
owned--"it's their coming _now_."
"Now?"
"The Bishop's in town."
Mrs. Clinch leaned back and shaped her lips to a whistle which
deflected in a laugh. "Well!" she said.
"You see!" Mrs. Fetherel triumphed.
"Well--weren't you prepared for the Bishop?"
"Not now--at least, I hadn't thought of his seeing the clippings."
"And why should he see them?"
"Bella--_won't_ you understand? It's John."
"John?"
"Who has taken the most unexpected tone--one might almost say out of
perversity."
"Oh, perversity--" Mrs. Clinch murmured, observing her cousin
between lids wrinkled by amusement. "What tone has John taken?"
Mrs. Fetherel threw out her answer with the desperate gesture of a
woman who lays bare the traces of a marital fist. "The tone of being
proud of my book."
The measure of Mrs. Clinch's enjoyment overflowed in laughter.
"Oh, you may laugh," Mrs. Fetherel insisted, "but it's no joke to
me. In the first place, John's liking the book is so--so--such a
false note--it puts me in such a ridiculous position; and then it
has set him watching for the reviews--who would ever have suspected
John of knowing that books were _reviewed?_ Why, he's actually found
out about the Clipping Bureau, and whenever the postman rings I hear
John rush out of the library to see if there are any yellow
envelopes. Of course, when they _do_ come he'll bring them into the
drawing-room and read them aloud to everybody who happens to be
here--and the Bishop is sure to happen to be here!"
Mrs. Clinch repressed her amusement. "The picture you draw is a
lurid one," she conceded, "but your modesty strikes me as abnormal,
especially in an author. The chances are that some of the clippings
will be rather pleasant reading. The critics are not all union men."
Mrs. Fetherel stared. "Union men?"
"Well, I mean they don't all belong to the well-known
Society-for-the-Persecution-of-Rising-Authors. Some of them have
even been known to defy its regulations and say a good word for a
new writer."
"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Fetherel, with the laugh her cousin's
epigram exacted. "But you don't quite see my point. I'm not at all
nervous about the success of my book--my publisher tells me I have
no need to be--but I _am_ afraid of its being a succes de scandale."
"Mercy!" said Mrs. Clinch, sitting up.
The butler and footman at this moment appeared with the tea-tray,
and when they had withdrawn, Mrs. Fetherel, bending her brightly
rippled head above the kettle, continued in a murmur of avowal, "The
title, even, is a kind of challenge."
"'Fast and Loose,'" Mrs. Clinch mused. "Yes, it ought to take."
"I didn't choose it for that reason!" the author protested. "I
should have preferred something quieter--less pronounced; but I was
determined not to shirk the responsibility of what I had written. I
want people to know beforehand exactly what kind of book they are
buying."
"Well," said Mrs. Clinch, "that's a degree of conscientiousness that
I've never met with before. So few books fulfil the promise of their
titles that experienced readers never expect the fare to come up to
the menu."
"'Fast and Loose' will be no disappointment on that score," her
cousin significantly returned. "I've handled the subject without
gloves. I've called a spade a spade."
"You simply make my mouth water! And to think I haven't been able to
read it yet because every spare minute of my time has been given to
correcting the proofs of 'How the Birds Keep Christmas'! There's an
instance of the hardships of an author's life!"
Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose
to experienced authors there's always something absurd in the
nervousness of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake;
I've put so much of myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being
misunderstood...of being, as it were, in advance of my time...
like poor Flaubert....I _know_ you'll think me ridiculous...
and if only my own reputation were at stake, I should never give
it a thought...but the idea of dragging John's name through the
mire..."
Mrs. Clinch, who had risen and gathered her cloak about her, stood
surveying from her genial height her cousin's agitated countenance.
"Why did you use John's name, then?"
"That's another of my difficulties! I _had_ to. There would have
been no merit in publishing such a book under an assumed name; it
would have been an act of moral cowardice. 'Fast and Loose' is not
an ordinary novel. A writer who dares to show up the hollowness of
social conventions must have the courage of her convictions and be
willing to accept the consequences of defying society. Can you
imagine Ibsen or Tolstoy writing under a false name?" Mrs. Fetherel
lifted a tragic eye to her cousin. "You don't know, Bella, how often
I've envied you since I began to write. I used to wonder
sometimes--you won't mind my saying so?--why, with all your
cleverness, you hadn't taken up some more exciting subject than
natural history; but I see now how wise you were. Whatever happens,
you will never be denounced by the press!"
"Is that what you're afraid of?" asked Mrs. Clinch, as she grasped
the bulging umbrella which rested against her chair. "My dear, if I
had ever had the good luck to be denounced by the press, my brougham
would be waiting at the door for me at this very moment, and I
shouldn't have to ruin this umbrella by using it in the rain. Why,
you innocent, if I'd ever felt the slightest aptitude for showing up
social conventions, do you suppose I should waste my time writing
'Nests Ajar' and 'How to Smell the Flowers'? There's a fairly steady
demand for pseudo-science and colloquial ornithology, but it's
nothing, simply nothing, to the ravenous call for attacks on social
institutions--especially by those inside the institutions!"
There was often, to her cousin, a lack of taste in Mrs. Clinch's
pleasantries, and on this occasion they seemed more than usually
irrelevant.
"'Fast and Loose' was not written with the idea of a large sale."
Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed. "Perhaps that's just as well," she
returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The surprise will be all the
pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously;
especially if you can get the press to denounce it."
"Bella, how _can_ you? I sometimes think you say such things
expressly to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would
understand my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed
to me that the message I had to deliver was not for myself alone,
but for all the other women in the world who have felt the
hollowness of our social shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the
idols of the market, but have lacked either the courage or the power
to proclaim their independence; and I have fancied, Bella dear, that,
however severely society might punish me for revealing its
weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy of those who, like
you"--Mrs. Fetherel's voice sank--"have passed through the deep
waters."
Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free
her ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to
have traversed.
"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll
find, my dear, that women who've had any wading to do are rather shy
of stirring up mud. It sticks--especially on white clothes."
Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she
proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a
clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she
exclaimed, "and I know it's the Bishop!"
It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced
by Mrs. Fetherel's butler, now made an entry that may best be
described as not inadequate to the expectations the announcement
raised. The Bishop always entered a room well; but, when unannounced,
or preceded by a Low Church butler who gave him his surname, his
appearance lacked the impressiveness conferred on it by the due
specification of his diocesan dignity. The Bishop was very fond of
his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one of the traits he most valued in her
was the possession of a butler who knew how to announce a bishop.
Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she
possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself open to her uncle's
criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of
going into five or ten editions, while the fruits of his own
episcopal leisure--"The Wail of Jonah" (twenty cantos in blank
verse), and "Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora
Memorial Window"--inexplicably languished on the back shelves of a
publisher noted for his dexterity in pushing "devotional goods."
Even this indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned, had
his niece thought fit to turn to him for support and advice at the
painful juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became
necessary for her to invite Mr. Clinch to look out for another
situation. Mr. Clinch's misconduct was of the kind especially
designed by Providence to test the fortitude of a Christian wife and
mother, and the Bishop was absolutely distended with seasonable
advice and edification; so that when Bella met his tentative
exhortations with the curt remark that she preferred to do her own
housecleaning unassisted, her uncle's grief at her ingratitude was
not untempered with sympathy for Mr. Clinch.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bishop's warmest greetings
were always reserved for Mrs. Fetherel; and on this occasion Mrs.
Clinch thought she detected, in the salutation which fell to her
share, a pronounced suggestion that her own presence was
superfluous--a hint which she took with her usual imperturbable good
humor.
Read next: CHAPTER II
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