Part 31 (1/2)
”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-gla.s.ses, 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!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
ALMOST BETRAYED.
Florence spent a restless night. She rose early in the morning, avoided Edith, and went off as soon as she could to the British Museum. She resolved to write her article in the reading-room. She was soon supplied with books and pamphlets on the subject, and began to read them. Her brain felt dull and heavy; her restless night had not improved her mental powers; try hard as she would, she could not think. She had never been a specially good writer of the Queen's English, but she had never felt worse or more incapable of thought than she did this morning. Write something, however, she must. Tossed about as she had been in the world, she had not studied the thoughts of men and women on this special subject. She could not, therefore, seize the salient points from the pamphlets and books which she glanced through.
The paper was at last produced, and was not so good as the ordinary schoolgirl's essay. It was feeble, without metaphor, without point, without ill.u.s.tration. She did not dare to read it over twice.
”It must go,” she said to herself; ”I can make up for it by a specially brilliant story of Bertha's for the next number. What will Mr. Franks say? I only trust he won't find me out.”
She directed her miserable ma.n.u.script to Thomas Franks, Esq., at the office of the _Argonaut_, and as she left the museum late in the afternoon of that day dropped the packet into the pillar-box. She then went home.
Edith Franks was waiting for her, and Edith happened to be in a specially good humour.
”Have you done the article?” she said.
”Yes,” replied Florence, in a low voice.
”I am glad of it. I felt quite uneasy about you. You seemed so unwilling to do such a simple thing last night.”
”It was not at all a simple thing to me. I am no good at anything except fiction.”
Edith gave her foot an impatient stamp.
”Don't talk rubbish,” she said; ”you know perfectly well that your style must come to your aid in whatever you try to write. Then your fiction is not so remarkable for plot as for the careful development of character and your pithy remarks. Your powers of epigram would be abundantly brought to the fore in such a subject as Tom asked you to write about.
But never mind, my dear, it is your pleasure to duplicate yourself--I do not think it is at all a worldly-wise habit; but, of course, that is your affair. Now come into the dining-saloon at once. I have good news for you. Tom has obtained tickets for us all three to see Irving in his great piece--'The Bells.'”
Florence certainly was cheered up by this news. She wanted to forget herself, to forget the miserable article which she vainly and without real knowledge of the ordinary duties of an editor hoped that Tom Franks would not even read. She ate her dinner with appet.i.te, and went upstairs to her room in high good humour. Her means were sufficiently good to enable her to dress prettily, and she, Edith, and Tom found themselves just before the curtain rose in comfortable stalls at the theatre. Franks was in an excellent humour and in high spirits. He chatted merrily to both girls, and Florence had never looked better.
Franks gave her a glance of downright admiration from time to time.
Suddenly he bent forward and whispered to her: ”What about my article?”