Chapter 27. The Book Of Angelica

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_ CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA

The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written to her in his capacity of man in possession.

The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not "the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible.

Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched precarious hours.

Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the end, of his career.

So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy."

Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and some taste in it.

"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot.

"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed."

Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called "The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that the mere outside should attract buyers.

Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica."

Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be!

"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?"

"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world."

That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all. _

Read next: Chapter 28. What Comes Of Publishing A Book

Read previous: Chapter 26. Concerning The Best Kind Of Wife For A Poet

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