Part 18 (1/2)

”_My darling boy----_”

He could hear that gentle voice of hers--like the sound you may hear in the ring of an old china tea-cup--he could hear it, as she had dictated it to his father to write----

”_This is where I begin counting the days to your visit. I dare not begin sooner--too many figures always bewildered me. It is now just about three months. Your father is much better than he was, and is doing a little work these days._”

And here was added in a quaint little parenthesis of his father's: ”_She calls it work, my dear boy, just to please me--but when old men play, they like to hear it called work. You've got to do my work. And she is so quick--she has seen I have been writing more than she has said. I shall persuade her to let this stay in nevertheless._”

Then, uninterrupted for a s.p.a.ce the letter continued.

”_I'm so pleased that your work is going on so well. I thought your last story was too sad, though. Must stories end unhappily? Yours always seem to. But I think I guess. They won't always end like that.

But your father says I am not to worry you on that point; that you can't paint in a tone of gold what you see in a tone of grey, and that what you see now in a tone of grey, you will as likely as not see one day in a tone of gold._”

Then, here, another parenthesis.

”_You will understand what I mean, my dear boy. I've read the story, and I don't think it ought to end sadly, and you will no doubt say, 'Oh, he's quite old-fas.h.i.+oned; he does not know that a sad ending is an artistic ending.' But that is not because I am old-fas.h.i.+oned. It is simply because I am old. When you are young, you see unhappy endings because you are young enough to bear the pain of them. It is only when you get older that you see otherwise. When you have had your sorrow, which, you know, only as an artist I wish for you, then you will write in another strain. Go on with your unhappy endings. Don't take any notice of us. All your work will be happy one day, and remember, you are not writing for but because of us. By the way, I think you spelt paregoric wrong._”

Now again the dictation.

”_Well, anyhow, though I know nothing about it, I feel you write as though you loved. You would tell me, would you not, if you did? I am sure it must be the way to write, the way, in fact, to do everything.

Your father says the pictures he paints now lack strength and vigour; but I find them just as beautiful; they are so gentle._”

Parenthesis.

”_One can't always love as one did at twenty-six--T.G. That sounds like reverential grat.i.tude for the fact, but you understand it is only my initials._”

”_He has written something again, John--and he won't tell me what it is.

If he has said he is getting too old to love, don't believe him. He has just leant forward and kissed me on my forehead. I have insisted upon his writing this down. Your story about the girl in the chapel and the last candle amused us very much. It interested me especially. If it had been me, I should have fallen in love with you then and there for being so considerate. What was she like? Have you ever seen her since?

I can't feel that you were meant to meet her for nothing. I have tried to think, too, what she could have been praying to St. Joseph for, but it is beyond me. It is not like a woman to pray for money for herself.

Perhaps some of her relations have money troubles. That is all I can imagine, though I have thought over it every day since I got your letter. G.o.d bless you, my darling. We are waiting eagerly for the reviews of your new book. When will it be out--the exact date? I want to say a novena for it, so let me know in good time. And if you meet the Lady of St. Joseph--as you call her--again, you must promise to tell me all about it. Your father wants the rest of the sheet of note-paper on which to say something to you--so, G.o.d bless you always._”

”_Don't read the reviews when they come out, John. Send them along to me, and I'll sort out the best ones and send them back to you to read.

As far as I can see, there are so many critics who get the personal note into their criticisms, and to read these, whether praising or blaming, won't do you any good; so send them all along to me before you look at them. The first moment you can send me a copy, of course, you will.

Your loving father._”

Here the letter ended. Long as it was, it might well have been longer.

They were good company, those two old people, talking to him through those thin sheets of foreign paper, one breaking in upon the other with all due courtesy, just as they might with a ”Finish what you have to say, my dear,” in ordinary conversation.

And now they had gone to the country, too--they had left him alone.

When he had folded up the letter, it was almost as if he could hear the door bang again for the third time.

He leant back in his chair with an involuntary sigh. What a few people, after all, there were in the world whom he really knew! What a few people who would seek out his company on such a day as this! He stood up and stretched out his arms above his head--it was----

He stopped. A sound had struck to his heart and set it beating, as when the bull's-eye of a target is. .h.i.t.

The bell had rung! His electric bell! The electric bell which had raised him immeasureably in station above Mrs. Morrell and Mrs. Brown, who had only a knocker common to the whole house--one, in fact, of the landlord's fixtures! It had rung, and his heart was beating to the echoes of it.

In another second, he had opened his door; in another moment, he was flying down the uncarpeted wooden stairs, five at a time. At the door itself, he paused, playing with the sensation of uncertainty. Who could it be? If the honest truth be known, it scarcely mattered. Someone!