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Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge
from conversation by offering him a cup of tea. The Bishop accepted
with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment, tea is but
a subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and
knowing that the surest way of distracting attention from one's own
affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she
hastily asked if her uncle had come to town on business.
"On business--yes--" said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had
to see my publisher, who has been behaving rather unsatisfactorily
in regard to my last book."
"Ah--your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense
of her inability to recall the name or nature of the work in
question, and a mental vow never again to be caught in such
ignorance of a colleague's productions.
"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis
which revealed his detection of her predicament. "You may remember
that I sent you a copy last Christmas?"
"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful
story of the poor consumptive girl who had no money, and two little
brothers to support--"
"Sisters--idiot sisters--" the Bishop gloomily corrected.
"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a
beautiful memorial window to her--her grandfather, whom she had
never seen--"
"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during
her long struggle with poverty and disease." The Bishop gave the
satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A
touching subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice; at least,
so my friends assured me."
"Why, yes--I remember there was a splendid review of it in the
'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by the incipient instinct of
reciprocity.
"Yes--by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean
Gollinger, was under very particular obligations to me. Mrs.
Gollinger is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my
book was unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned
fare, and the approval of a thoughtful churchwoman carries less
weight than the sensational comments of an illiterate journalist."
The Bishop lent a meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the
risk of horrifying you, my dear," he added, with a slight laugh, "I
will confide to you that my best chance of a popular success would
be to have my book denounced by the press."
"Denounced?" gasped Mrs. Fetherel. "On what ground?"
"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze.
"Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of course; but I am only
repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic
could be induced--I mean, if a critic were to be found, who called
in question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health
and that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window
to her grandfather, it would probably raise a general controversy in
the newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen
thousand within the next year. If he described her as morbid or
decadent, it might even run to twenty thousand; but that is more than
I permit myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any
general charge of immorality." The Bishop sighed again. "I need
hardly tell you that I am actuated by no mere literary ambition.
Those whose opinion I most value have assured me that the book is
not without merit; but, though it does not become me to dispute
their verdict, I can truly say that my vanity as an author is not at
stake. I have, however, a special reason for wishing to increase the
circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly'; it was written for a
purpose--a purpose I have greatly at heart--"
"I know," cried his niece sympathetically. "The chantry window--?"
"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence,
my little book might be the means of filling it. All our wealthy
parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for
this reason that, in writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my
appeal more especially to the less well-endowed, hoping by the
example of my heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums
throughout the entire diocese, and perhaps beyond it. I am sure,"
the Bishop feelingly concluded, "the book would have a wide-spread
influence if people could only be induced to read it!"
His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in
Mrs. Fetherel's vibrating nerve-centers. "I never thought of that!"
she cried.
The Bishop looked at her inquiringly.
"That one's books may not be read at all! How dreadful!" she
exclaimed.
He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an
authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have dared to inflict my
troubles on any one not of the craft."
Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her
involuntary self-betrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she murmured.
"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to
brush away her scruples, "I came here partly to speak to you about
your novel. 'Fast and Loose,' I think you call it?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed assentingly.
"And is it out yet?" the Bishop continued.
"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and
it must be quite cold. Let me give you another cup..."
"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland
inexorableness with which, in his younger days, he had been known to
continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at
his watch--"my reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too
late to induce you to change the title."
Mrs. Fetherel set down the cup she had filled. "The title?" she
faltered.
The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me, dear
child; don't for a moment imagine that I take it to be in anyway
indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for
that. My first idea was that it had probably been forced on you by
an unscrupulous publisher--I know too well to what ignoble
compromises one may be driven in such cases!..." He paused, as
though to give her the opportunity of confirming this conjecture, but
she preserved an apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though
taking up the second point in his sermon--"Or, again, the name may
have taken your fancy without your realizing all that it implies to
minds more alive than yours to offensive innuendoes. It
is--ahem--excessively suggestive, and I hope I am not too late to
warn you of the false impression it is likely to produce on the very
readers whose approbation you would most value. My friend Mrs.
Gollinger, for instance--"
Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in
theory a woman of independent views; and if in practise she
sometimes failed to live up to her standard, it was rather from an
irresistible tendency to adapt herself to her environment than from
any conscious lack of moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had
excited in her that sense of opposition which such admonitions are
apt to provoke; but as he went on she felt herself gradually
enclosed in an atmosphere in which her theories vainly gasped for
breath. The Bishop had the immense dialectical advantage of
invalidating any conclusions at variance with his own by always
assuming that his premises were among the necessary laws of thought.
This method, combined with the habit of ignoring any classifications
but his own, created an element in which the first condition of
existence was the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so that his
niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs. Gollinger's Mechlin cap
spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow and the
"Revue de Paris" at her elbow turning into a copy of the "Reredos."
She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware of the
significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been
deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her novel, and
that the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class
of readers for whose susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words
were almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion conveyed by
the Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic
murmur, "Oh, uncle, you mustn't think--I never meant--" How much
farther this current of reaction might have carried her, the
historian is unable to computer, for at this point the door opened
and her husband entered the room.
"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow
envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're here!"
Though the trials of married life have been classified and
catalogued with exhaustive accuracy, there is one form of conjugal
misery which has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is
the suffering of the versatile woman whose husband is not equally
adapted to all her moods. Every woman feels for the sister who is
compelled to wear a bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but
how much sympathy is given to her whose husband refuses to harmonize
with the pose of the moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been
done to the misunderstood wife whose husband persists in
understanding her; to the submissive helpmate whose taskmaster shuns
every opportunity of browbeating her; and to the generous and
impulsive being whose bills are paid with philosophic calm. Mrs.
Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt from trials of this
nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by pronounced brutality
or indifference, had at least the negative merit of being her
intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware of the
usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can form
an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn such
deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had
made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to
every one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate
such a woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he
did his best to invalidate this advantage by admiring her without
pretending to understand her. What she most suffered from was this
fatuous approval: the maddening sense that, however she conducted
herself, he would always admire her. Had he belonged to the class
whose conversational supplies are drawn from the domestic circle,
his wife's name would never have been off his lips; and to Mrs.
Fetherel's sensitive perceptions his frequent silences were
indicative of the fact that she was his one topic.
It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation
that had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship. She had fancied that
even the most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at
least negatively, an attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her
anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness of
her act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact
complicated by an irrepressible tendency to be fond of him; and
there was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that
justified the most explicit expiation.
These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the
book with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy
to his mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the
reviewers. It was perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that
made his wife doubly alive to his special defects; so that his
inopportune entrance was aggravated by the very sound of his voice
and the hopeless aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant,
is more indicative of a man's character and circumstances than his
way of entering a room. The Bishop of Ossining, for instance,
brought with him not only an atmosphere of episcopal authority, but
an implied opinion on the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and
on the attitude of the church toward divorce; while the appearance
of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an immediate impression of
domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that there was a
well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did not sew on
his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that task;
that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with
his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock.
All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with
which he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel's
clutch; and knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be
silly, she said, with a dry despair, "You're boring the Bishop
horribly."
Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all
horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted.
"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably.
"Read it? Of course not--it's just this minute come. I say, Bishop,
you're not going--?"
"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his
chair with an indulgent smile.
His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense
detain you," she entreated.
"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as
one of his sermons--won't take me five minutes to read. Here, listen
to this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism
and decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer
to open one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the
sewer--'"
Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a
gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze
fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to
his hand.--"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder
is proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly
inoffensive as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is,
we believe, a new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent
traces of inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her
pure, fresh view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for
the reader's moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its
distinctly misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant
picture of domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force
in character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be
described as a distinctly pretty story.'"
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