Part 26 (1/2)
”It perched itself upon the corner of my desk beside the loaded pistol, and sat there bolt upright looking at me; and I, pus.h.i.+ng back my chair, sat looking at it. And there came a letter telling me that a man of whose name I had never heard had been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a legacy of three thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant relative of my own who had died peacefully and utterly insolvent eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir and representative, and I put the revolver back into the drawer.”
”Do you think Pyramids would come and stop with me for a week?” I asked, reaching over to stroke the cat as it lay softly purring on d.i.c.k's knee.
”Maybe he will some day,” replied d.i.c.k in a low voice, but before the answer came--I know not why--I had regretted the jesting words.
”I came to talk to him as though he were a human creature,” continued d.i.c.k, ”and to discuss things with him. My last play I regard as a collaboration; indeed, it is far more his than mine.”
I should have thought d.i.c.k mad had not the cat been sitting there before me with its eyes looking into mine. As it was, I only grew more interested in his tale.
”It was rather a cynical play as I first wrote it,” he went on, ”a truthful picture of a certain corner of society as I saw and knew it.
From an artistic point of view I felt it was good; from the box-office standard it was doubtful. I drew it from my desk on the third evening after Pyramids' advent, and read it through. He sat on the arm of the chair and looked over the pages as I turned them.
”It was the best thing I had ever written. Insight into life ran through every line, I found myself reading it again with delight. Suddenly a voice beside me said:--
”'Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. If you would just turn it topsy-turvy, change all those bitter, truthful speeches into n.o.ble sentiments; make your Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (who never has been a popular character) die in the last act instead of the Yorks.h.i.+reman, and let your bad woman be reformed by her love for the hero and go off somewhere by herself and be good to the poor in a black frock, the piece might be worth putting on the stage.'
”I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The opinions sounded like those of a theatrical manager. No one was in the room but I and the cat.
No doubt I had been talking to myself, but the voice was strange to me.
”'Be reformed by her love for the hero!' I retorted, contemptuously, for I was unable to grasp the idea that I was arguing only with myself, 'why it's his mad pa.s.sion for her that ruins his life.'
”'And will ruin the play with the great B.P.,' returned the other voice.
'The British dramatic hero has no pa.s.sion, but a pure and respectful admiration for an honest, hearty English girl--p.r.o.nounced ”gey-url.” You don't know the canons of your art.'
”'And besides,' I persisted, unheeding the interruption, 'women born and bred and soaked for thirty years in an atmosphere of sin don't reform.'
”'Well, this one's got to, that's all,' was the sneering reply, 'let her hear an organ.'
”'But as an artist--,' I protested.
”'You will be always unsuccessful,' was the rejoinder. 'My dear fellow, you and your plays, artistic or in artistic, will be forgotten in a very few years hence. You give the world what it wants, and the world will give you what you want. Please, if you wish to live.'
”So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I re-wrote the play, and whenever I felt a thing to be utterly impossible and false I put it down with a grin. And every character I made to talk clap-trap sentiment while Pyramids purred, and I took care that everyone of my puppets did that which was right in the eyes of the lady with the lorgnettes in the second row of the dress circle; and old Hewson says the play will run five hundred nights.
”But what is worst,” concluded d.i.c.k, ”is that I am not ashamed of myself, and that I seem content.”
”What do you think the animal is?” I asked with a laugh, ”an evil spirit”? For it had pa.s.sed into the next room and so out through the open window, and its strangely still green eyes no longer drawing mine towards them, I felt my common sense returning to me.
”You have not lived with it for six months,” answered d.i.c.k quietly, ”and felt its eyes for ever on you as I have. And I am not the only one. You know Canon Whycherly, the great preacher?”
”My knowledge of modern church history is not extensive,” I replied. ”I know him by name, of course. What about him?”
”He was a curate in the East End,” continued d.i.c.k, ”and for ten years he laboured, poor and unknown, leading one of those n.o.ble, heroic lives that here and there men do yet live, even in this age. Now he is the prophet of the fas.h.i.+onable up-to-date Christianity of South Kensington, drives to his pulpit behind a pair of thorough-bred Arabs, and his waistcoat is taking to itself the curved line of prosperity. He was in here the other morning on behalf of Princess ---. They are giving a performance of one of my plays in aid of the Dest.i.tute Vicars' Fund.”
”And did Pyramids discourage him?” I asked, with perhaps the suggestion of a sneer.
”No,” answered d.i.c.k, ”so far as I could judge, it approved the scheme.
The point of the matter is that the moment Whycherly came into the room the cat walked over to him and rubbed itself affectionately against his legs. He stood and stroked it.”