Things were going well now with Florence
Aylmer. She was earning money, and it was unnecessary
for her to live any longer in the top attic of Prince’s
Mansions. She had got over her first discomfort;
her conscience no longer pricked her; she took an
interest in the situation, and sometimes laughed softly
to herself. She knew that she was losing a good
deal: that the worth and stability of her character
were being slowly undermined. But she was winning
success: the world was smiling at her just because
she was successful, and she resolved to go on now,
defying fate.
She wrote often to her mother and
to Kitty Sharston, and told both her mother and Kitty
of her successes. She never wrote to Bertha except
about business. Bertha as a rule, enclosed directed
envelopes to herself, so that Florence’s writing
should not be seen by Mrs. Aylmer or Trevor or any
guests who might be staying in the house. Bertha
was very wise in her generation, and when she did
a wrong thing she knew at least how to do that wrong
thing cleverly.
Florence was now quite friendly with
Edith Franks. Edith took an interest in her;
she still believed that there was something behind
the scenes something which she could not
quite fathom but at the same time she fully
and with an undivided heart believed in Florence’s
great genius, as did also her brother Tom.
By Edith’s advice Florence secured
the room next to hers, and the girls were now constantly
together. Tom often dropped in during the evenings,
and took them many times to the play.
Florence began to own that life could
be enjoyable even with a heavy conscience and tarnished
honour. She was shocked with herself for feeling
so. She knew that she had fallen a good many steps
lower than she had fallen long ago when she was an
inmate of Cherry Court School; nevertheless, there
seemed no hope or chance of going back. She had
to go forward and trust to her secret never being
discovered.
Early in November, or, rather, the
latter end of October, her first story was published
in the Argonaut. It was sufficiently striking,
terse, and original to receive immediate attention
from more than one good review. She was spoken
of as a young writer of great promise, and a well-known
critic took the trouble to write a short paper on her
story. This mention gave her, as Tom assured
her, a complete success. She was quoted in several
society journals, and one well-known paper asked for
her photograph. All the expectations of the Argonaut
were more than realised, and some people said that
Florence was the coming woman, and that her writings
would be quite as popular as those of the best-known
American fiction writers. Hers was the first short
story of any promise which had appeared in the English
magazines for some time. The next from her pen
was eagerly awaited, and it was decided that it was
to be published in the December number.
Bertha, having provided Florence with
the story, she carefully re-wrote it in her own hand,
and it was sent to the editor. It was a better
story than the first, but more critical. There
was a cruel note about it. It was harrowing.
It seemed to go right down into the heart, and to pierce
it with a note of pain. It was a wonderful story
for a girl of Florence’s age to have written.
The editor was charmed.
“I don’t like the tone
of the story,” he said to Franks; “I don’t
think that I should particularly care to have its
author for my wife or daughter, but its genius is
undoubted. That girl will make a very big mark.
We have been looking for someone like her for a long
time. We have had no big stars in our horizon.
She may do anything if she goes on as well as she
has begun.”
“And yet she does not look specially
clever,” said Franks, in a contemplative voice.
“Her speech is nothing at all remarkable; in
fact, in conversation I think her rather dull than
otherwise.”
“I was taken with her face on
the whole,” said the editor; “it was strong,
I think, and, with all our knowledge, we can never
tell what is inside a brain. She at least has
a remarkable one, Franks. We must make much of
her: I don’t want her to be snapped up by
other editors. We must raise her terms.
I will give her three guineas a thousand words for
this new story.”
Franks called upon his sister and
Florence Aylmer on the evening of the day when the
editor of the Argonaut made this remark:
he found them both in his sister’s comfortable
room. Florence was reclining on the sofa, and
Edith was busily engaged over some of her biological
specimens.
“Oh, dear!” said Franks,
as he entered the room; “why do you bring those
horrors home, Edith?”
“They are all right; I keep
them in spirit,” she replied. “Don’t
interrupt me; go and talk to Florence: she is
in a bad humour this evening.”
“In a bad humour, are you?”
said Franks. He drew a chair up, and sat at the
foot of Florence’s sofa.
She was nicely dressed, her hair was
fashionably arranged, she had lost that look of hunger
which had made her face almost painful to see, and
she received Franks with a coolness which was new-born
within her.
“I don’t know why you
should be depressed,” he said; “anyhow,
I hope to have the great pleasure of driving the evil
spirits away. I have come with good news.”
“Indeed!” answered Florence.
“Yes; my editor, Mr. Anderson,
is so pleased with your second story, ‘The Judas
Tree,’ that he is going to raise his terms.
You are to receive three guineas a thousand words
for your manuscript. It is, I think, exactly
six thousand words in length. He has asked me
to hand you a cheque to-night. Will you accept
it?”
As Franks spoke, he took out his pocket-book
and handed Florence a cheque for eighteen guineas.
“You will be a rich girl before long,”
he said.
“It seems like it,” she
answered. She glanced at the cheque without any
additional colour coming to her face, and laid it quietly
on a little table by her side.
“And now, Miss Aylmer, there
is something I specially want you to do for me.
I hope you will not refuse it.”
“I will certainly do what I can,” she
answered.
“It is this. The Argonaut
is, of course, our monthly magazine. It holds
the very first position amongst the six-pennies, and
has, as you doubtless know, an enormous circulation.
You will very soon be the fashion. We are about
to issue a weekly paper, a sort of review. We
trust it will eclipse even the Spectator and
the Saturday, and we want a paper from your
pen. We want it to be on a special subject a
subject which is likely to cause attention. Can
you and will you do it? Anderson begged of me
to put the question to you, and I do so also on my
own account.”
“But what subject do you want
me to write upon?” said Florence, feeling sick
and faint, and yet not knowing at first how to reply.
“The subject is to be about
women as they are. They are coming to the front,
and I want you to talk about them just as you please.
You may be satirical or not, as it strikes your fancy.
I want you in especial to attack them with regard
to the aesthetic craze which is so much in fashion
now. If you like to show them that they look absolutely
foolish in their greenery-yallery gowns, and their
hair done up in a wisp, and all the rest of the thing,
why, do so; then you can throw in a note about a girl
like my sister.”
“Oh, come!” exclaimed
Edith, from her distant table, “that would be
horribly unfair.”
“Anyhow, I want you to write
about woman in her improved aspects; that is the main
thing,” said Franks. “Will you do
it or will you not?”
Florence thought for a wild moment.
It would be impossible for Bertha to help her with
this paper. She could not get information or
subject-matter in time. Dare she do it?
“I would rather not,” she said.
Franks face fell.
“That is scarcely kind,” he said; “you
simply must do it.”
“You will not refuse Tom,”
said Edith, who had apparently not been listening,
but who now jumped up and came forward. “What
is it, Tom? What do you want Florence to do?”
Tom briefly explained matters.
“It is for our new venture,”
he said. “Miss Aylmer is scarcely the fashion
yet, but she soon will be. It is to be a signed
article ’Woman in Her Many Crazes’
can be the title. No one can know more on the
matter than she does.”
“Oh, I’ll prime you up
with facts, if that is all,” said Edith; “you
must do it: it would be most ungenerous and unkind
to refuse Tom after the way he has brought you to
the front.”
“But I must refuse,” said
Florence. She rose from the sofa; her face looked
pale with desperation.
“That horrid secret, whatever
it is, is beginning to awake once more,” thought
the astute Edith to herself. She looked at Florence
with what Tom called her scientific face.
“Sit down,” she said,
“sit down. Why should you not do it?”
“Because I am no good at all with that class
of paper.”
“But your style will be invaluable,
and you need not say much,” said Franks.
“We want just the same simple terse, purely Saxon
style. We want one or two of your ideas.
You need not make it three thousand words long:
it does not really matter. You will be well paid.
I have the editor’s permission to offer you
twelve guineas. Surely you will not refuse such
a valuable cheque.”
Florence looked with almost vacant
eyes at the cheque which was lying on the table near
her. The whole thing seemed like black magic.
“I suppose I must try,”
she said; “I have never written any prose worth
reading in my life. You will be dreadfully disappointed;
I know you will.”
“I am quite certain we shall
not be disappointed; anyhow, I am going to risk it.
You must not go back on your promise. Write your
paper to-morrow morning when you are fresh; then post
it to me in the evening. Good-bye. I am
awfully obliged to you.”
The young journalist took his departure
before Florence had time to realise what she had done.
She heard his steps descending the stairs, and then
turned with lack-leisure eyes to Edith.
“What have I done?” she cried.
“Done?” said Edith, in
a tone of some impatience. “Why, your duty,
of course. You could not refuse Tom after all
his kindness to you. Where would you be but for
him but for me? Do you suppose that,
just because you are clever, you would have reached
the position you have done if it had not been for
my brother? You must do your very best for him.”
“Oh, don’t scold me, please, Edith,”
said poor Florence.
“I don’t mean to; but
really your queer ways of accepting Tom’s favours
exasperate me now and then.”
“Perhaps I had better go to
my own room,” said Florence. “I am
in your way, am I not?”
“When you talk nonsense you
are. When you are sensible I delight to have
you here. Lie down on the sofa once more, and
go on reading this last novel of George Eliot’s:
it will put some grit into you.”
Edith returned once more to her task,
lit a strong lamp which she had got for this special
purpose, put on her magnifying-glasses, adjusted her
microscope, and set to work.
Florence knew that she was lost to
all externals for the next hour or so. She herself
took up her book and tried to read. Half an hour
before this book had interested her, now she found
it dry as sawdust; she could not follow the argument
nor interest herself in the tale. She let it
drop on her lap, and stared straight before her.
How was she to do that which she said she would do?
Her crutch was no longer available. The ghost
who really supplied all her brilliant words and felicitous
turns of speech and quaint ideas was not to be secured
on any terms whatsoever. What could she do?
She felt restless and uncomfortable.
“I did wrong ever to consent
to it, but now that I have begun I must go on taking
in the golden sovereigns,” she said to herself,
and she took up the cheque for eighteen guineas, looked
at it eagerly, and put it into her purse. Starvation
was indeed now far removed. Florence could help
her mother and support herself; but, nevertheless,
although she was now well fed and well clothed and
comfortably housed, she at that moment had the strongest
regret of all her life for the old hungry days when
she had been an honest, good girl, repentant of the
folly of her youth, and able with a clear conscience
to look all men in the face.
“But as I have begun I must
go on,” she said to herself. “To court
discovery now would be madness. I cannot, I will
not court it. Come what may, I must write that
article. How am I to do it, and in twenty-four
hours? Oh, if I could only telegraph to Bertha!”