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Derrick Vaughan--Novelist

Edna Lyall

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Derrick Vaughan--Novelist

by Edna Lyall

March, 1999 [Etext #1665]

Project Gutenberg Etext Derrick Vaughan--Novelist, by Edna Lyall

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Derrick Vaughan--Novelist

'It is only through deep sympathy that a man can become a great

artist.'--Lewes's Life of Goethe.

'Sympathy is feeling related to an object, whilst sentiment is the

same feeling seeking itself alone.'--Arnold Toynbee.

Chapter I.

'Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; better if

un- or partially occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased

members of the county and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were

buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at seven

years old!'--From Letters of Charles Lamb.

To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the

question, even though he and I have been more or less thrown

together since we were both in the nursery. But I have an odd sort

of wish to note down roughly just a few of my recollections of him,

and to show how his fortunes gradually developed, being perhaps

stimulated to make the attempt by certain irritating remarks which

one overhears now often enough at clubs or in drawing-rooms, or

indeed wherever one goes. "Derrick Vaughan," say these authorities

of the world of small-talk, with that delightful air of omniscience

which invariably characterises them, "why, he simply leapt into

fame. He is one of the favourites of fortune. Like Byron, he woke

one morning and found himself famous."

Now this sounds well enough, but it is a long way from the truth,

and I--Sydney Wharncliffe, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law--

desire, while the past few years are fresh in my mind, to write a

true version of my friend's career.

Everyone knows his face. Has it not appeared in 'Noted Men,' and--

gradually deteriorating according to the price of the paper and the

quality of the engraving--in many another illustrated journal? Yet

somehow these works of art don't satisfy me, and, as I write, I see

before me something very different from the latest photograph by

Messrs. Paul and Reynard.

I see a large-featured, broad-browed English face, a trifle heavy-

looking when in repose, yet a thorough, honest, manly face, with a

complexion neither dark nor fair, with brown hair and moustache, and

with light hazel eyes that look out on the world quietly enough.

You might talk to him for long in an ordinary way and never suspect

that he was a genius; but when you have him to yourself, when some

consciousness of sympathy rouses him, he all at once becomes a

different being. His quiet eyes kindle, his face becomes full of

life--you wonder that you ever thought it heavy or commonplace.

Then the world interrupts in some way, and, just as a hermit-crab

draws down its shell with a comically rapid movement, so Derrick

suddenly retires into himself.

Thus much for his outer man.

For the rest, there are of course the neat little accounts of his

birthplace, his parentage, his education, etc., etc., published with

the list of his works in due order, with the engravings in the

illustrated papers. But these tell us little of the real life of

the man.

Carlyle, in one of his finest passages, says that 'A true

delineation of the smallest man and his scene of pilgrimage through

life is capable of interesting the greatest men; that all men are to

an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem of

every man's; and that human portraits faithfully drawn are of all

pictures the welcomest on human walls.' And though I don't profess

to give a portrait, but merely a sketch, I will endeavour to sketch

faithfully, and possibly in the future my work may fall into the

hands of some of those worthy people who imagine that my friend

leapt into fame at a bound, or of those comfortable mortals who seem

to think that a novel is turned out as easily as water from a tap.

There is, however, one thing I can never do:--I am quite unable to

put into words my friend's intensely strong feeling with regard to

the sacredness of his profession. It seemed to me not unlike the

feeling of Isaiah when, in the vision, his mouth had been touched

with the celestial fire. And I can only hope that something of this

may be read between my very inadequate lines.

Looking back, I fancy Derrick must have been a clever child. But he

was not precocious, and in some respects was even decidedly

backward. I can see him now--it is my first clear recollection of

him--leaning back in the corner of my father's carriage as we drove

from the Newmarket station to our summer home at Mondisfield. He

and I were small boys of eight, and Derrick had been invited for the

holidays, while his twin brother--if I remember right--indulged in

typhoid fever at Kensington. He was shy and silent, and the ice was

not broken until we passed Silvery Steeple.

"That," said my father, "is a ruined church; it was destroyed by

Cromwell in the Civil Wars."

In an instant the small quiet boy sitting beside me was transformed.

His eyes shone; he sprang forward and thrust his head far out of the

window, gazing at the old ivy-covered tower as long as it remained

in sight.

"Was Cromwell really once there?" he asked with breathless interest.

"So they say," replied my father, looking with an amused smile at

the face of the questioner, in which eagerness, delight, and

reverence were mingled. "Are you an admirer of the Lord Protector?"

"He is my greatest hero of all," said Derrick fervently. "Do you

think--oh, do you think he possibly can ever have come to

Mondisfield?"

My father thought not, but said there was an old tradition that the

Hall had been attacked by the Royalists, and the bridge over the

moat defended by the owner of the house; but he had no great belief

in the story, for which, indeed, there seemed no evidence.

Derrick's eyes during this conversation were something wonderful to

see, and long after, when we were not actually playing at anything,

I used often to notice the same expression stealing over him, and

would cry out, "There is the man defending the bridge again; I can

see him in your eyes! Tell me what happened to him next!"

Then, generally pacing to and fro in the apple walk, or sitting

astride the bridge itself, Derrick would tell me of the adventures

of my ancestor, Paul Wharncliffe, who performed incredible feats of

valour, and who was to both of us a most real person. On wet days

he wrote his story in a copy-book, and would have worked at it for

hours had my mother allowed him, though of the manual part of the

work he had, and has always retained, the greatest dislike. I

remember well the comical ending of this first story of his. He

skipped over an interval of ten years, represented on the page by

ten laboriously made stars, and did for his hero in the following

lines:

"And now, reader, let us come into Mondisfield churchyard. There

are three tombstones. On one is written, 'Mr. Paul Wharncliffe.'"

The story was no better than the productions of most eight-year-old

children, the written story at least. But, curiously enough, it

proved to be the germ of the celebrated romance, 'At Strife,' which

Derrick wrote in after years; and he himself maintains that his

picture of life during the Civil War would have been much less

graphic had he not lived so much in the past during his various

visits to Mondisfield.

It was at his second visit, when we were nine, that I remember his

announcing his intention of being an author when he was grown up.

My mother still delights in telling the story. She was sitting at

work in the south parlour one day, when I dashed into the room

calling out:

"Derrick's head is stuck between the banisters in the gallery; come

quick, mother, come quick!"

She ran up the little winding staircase, and there, sure enough, in

the musician's gallery, was poor Derrick, his manuscript and pen on

the floor and his head in durance vile.

"You silly boy!" said my mother, a little frightened when she found

that to get the head back was no easy matter, "What made you put it

through?"

"You look like King Charles at Carisbrooke," I cried, forgetting how

much Derrick would resent the speech.

And being released at that moment he took me by the shoulders and

gave me an angry shake or two, as he said vehemently, "I'm not like

King Charles! King Charles was a liar."

I saw my mother smile a little as she separated us.

"Come, boys, don't quarrel," she said. "And Derrick will tell me

the truth, for indeed I am curious to know why he thrust his head in

such a place."

"I wanted to make sure," said Derrick, "whether Paul Wharncliffe

could see Lady Lettice, when she took the falcon on her wrist below

in the passage. I mustn't say he saw her if it's impossible, you

know. Authors have to be quite true in little things, and I mean to

be an author."

"But," said my mother, laughing at the great earnestness of the

hazel eyes, "could not your hero look over the top of the rail?"

"Well, yes," said Derrick. "He would have done that, but you see

it's so dreadfully high and I couldn't get up. But I tell you what,

Mrs. Wharncliffe, if it wouldn't be giving you a great deal of

trouble--I'm sorry you were troubled to get my head back again--but

if you would just look over, since you are so tall, and I'll run

down and act Lady Lettice."

"Why couldn't Paul go downstairs and look at the lady in comfort?"

asked my mother.

Derrick mused a little.

"He might look at her through a crack in the door at the foot of the

stairs, perhaps, but that would seem mean, somehow. It would be a

pity, too, not to use the gallery; galleries are uncommon, you see,

and you can get cracked doors anywhere. And, you know, he was

obliged to look at her when she couldn't see him, because their

fathers were on different sides in the war, and dreadful enemies."

When school-days came, matters went on much in the same way; there

was always an abominably scribbled tale stowed away in Derrick's

desk, and he worked infinitely harder than I did, because there was

always before him this determination to be an author and to prepare

himself for the life. But he wrote merely from love of it, and with

no idea of publication until the beginning of our last year at

Oxford, when, having reached the ripe age of one-and-twenty, he

determined to delay no longer, but to plunge boldly into his first

novel.

He was seldom able to get more than six or eight hours a week for

it, because he was reading rather hard, so that the novel progressed

but slowly. Finally, to my astonishment, it came to a dead stand-

still.

I have never made out exactly what was wrong with Derrick then,

though I know that he passed through a terrible time of doubt and

despair. I spent part of the Long with him down at Ventnor, where

his mother had been ordered for her health. She was devoted to

Derrick, and as far as I can understand, he was her chief comfort in

life. Major Vaughan, the husband, had been out in India for years;

the only daughter was married to a rich manufacturer at Birmingham,

who had a constitutional dislike to mothers-in-law, and as far as

possible eschewed their company; while Lawrence, Derrick's twin

brother, was for ever getting into scrapes, and was into the bargain

the most unblushingly selfish fellow I ever had the pleasure of

meeting.

"Sydney," said Mrs. Vaughan to me one afternoon when we were in the

garden, "Derrick seems to me unlike himself, there is a division

between us which I never felt before. Can you tell me what is

troubling him?"

She was not at all a good-looking woman, but she had a very sweet,

wistful face, and I never looked at her sad eyes without feeling

ready to go through fire and water for her. I tried now to make

light of Derrick's depression.

"He is only going through what we all of us go through," I said,

assuming a cheerful tone. "He has suddenly discovered that life is

a great riddle, and that the things he has accepted in blind faith

are, after all, not so sure."

She sighed.

"Do all go through it?" she said thoughtfully. "And how many, I

wonder, get beyond?"

"Few enough," I replied moodily. Then, remembering my role,--"But

Derrick will get through; he has a thousand things to help him which

others have not,--you, for instance. And then I fancy he has a sort

of insight which most of us are without."

"Possibly," she said. "As for me, it is little that I can do for

him. Perhaps you are right, and it is true that once in a life at

any rate we all have to go into the wilderness alone."

That was the last summer I ever saw Derrick's mother; she took a

chill the following Christmas and died after a few days' illness.

But I have always thought her death helped Derrick in a way that her

life might have failed to do. For although he never, I fancy, quite

recovered from the blow, and to this day cannot speak of her without

tears in his eyes, yet when he came back to Oxford he seemed to have

found the answer to the riddle, and though older, sadder and graver

than before, had quite lost the restless dissatisfaction that for

some time had clouded his life. In a few months, moreover, I

noticed a fresh sign that he was out of the wood. Coming into his

rooms one day I found him sitting in the cushioned window-seat,

reading over and correcting some sheets of blue foolscap.

"At it again?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I mean to finish the first volume here. For the rest I must be in

London."

"Why?" I asked, a little curious as to this unknown art of novel-

making.

"Because," he replied, "one must be in the heart of things to

understand how Lynwood was affected by them."

"Lynwood! I believe you are always thinking of him!" (Lynwood was

the hero of his novel.)

"Well, so I am nearly--so I must be, if the book is to be any good."

"Read me what you have written," I said, throwing myself back in a

rickety but tolerably comfortable arm-chair which Derrick had

inherited with the rooms.

He hesitated a moment, being always very diffident about his own

work; but presently, having provided me with a cigar and made a good

deal of unnecessary work in arranging the sheets of the manuscript,

he began to read aloud, rather nervously, the opening chapters of

the book now so well known under the title of 'Lynwood's Heritage.'

I had heard nothing of his for the last four years, and was amazed

at the gigantic stride he had made in the interval. For, spite of a

certain crudeness, it seemed to me a most powerful story; it rushed

straight to the point with no wavering, no beating about the bush;

it flung itself into the problems of the day with a sort of sublime

audacity; it took hold of one; it whirled one along with its own

inherent force, and drew forth both laughter and tears, for

Derrick's power of pathos had always been his strongest point.

All at once he stopped reading.

"Go on!" I cried impatiently.

"That is all," he said, gathering the sheets together.

"You stopped in the middle of a sentence!" I cried in exasperation.

"Yes," he said quietly, "for six months."

"You provoking fellow! why, I wonder?"

"Because I didn't know the end."

"Good heavens! And do you know it now?"

He looked me full in the face, and there was an expression in his

eyes which puzzled me.

"I believe I do," he said; and, getting up, he crossed the room, put

the manuscript away in a drawer, and returning, sat down in the

window-seat again, looking out on the narrow, paved street below,

and at the grey buildings opposite.

I knew very well that he would never ask me what I thought of the

story--that was not his way.

"Derrick!" I exclaimed, watching his impassive face, "I believe

after all you are a genius."

I hardly know why I said "after all," but till that moment it had

never struck me that Derrick was particularly gifted. He had so far

got through his Oxford career creditably, but then he had worked

hard; his talents were not of a showy order. I had never expected

that he would set the Thames on fire. Even now it seemed to me that

he was too dreamy, too quiet, too devoid of the pushing faculty to

succeed in the world.

My remark made him laugh incredulously.

"Define a genius," he said.

For answer I pulled down his beloved Imperial Dictionary and read

him the following quotation from De Quincey: 'Genius is that mode

of intellectual power which moves in alliance with the genial

nature, i.e., with the capacities of pleasure and pain; whereas

talent has no vestige of such an alliance, and is perfectly

independent of all human sensibilities.'

"Let me think! You can certainly enjoy things a hundred times more

than I can--and as for suffering, why you were always a great hand

at that. Now listen to the great Dr. Johnson and see if the cap

fits, 'The true genius is a mind of large general powers

accidentally determined in some particular direction.'

"'Large general powers'!--yes, I believe after all you have them

with, alas, poor Derrick! one notable exception--the mathematical

faculty. You were always bad at figures. We will stick to De

Quincey's definition, and for heaven's sake, my dear fellow, do get

Lynwood out of that awful plight! No wonder you were depressed when

you lived all this age with such a sentence unfinished!"

"For the matter of that," said Derrick, "he can't get out till the

end of the book; but I can begin to go on with him now."

"And when you leave Oxford?"

"Then I mean to settle down in London--to write leisurely--and

possibly to read for the Bar."

"We might be together," I suggested. And Derrick took to this idea,

being a man who detested solitude and crowds about equally. Since

his mother's death he had been very much alone in the world. To

Lawrence he was always loyal, but the two had nothing in common, and

though fond of his sister he could not get on at all with the

manufacturer, his brother-in-law. But this prospect of life

together in London pleased him amazingly; he began to recover his

spirits to a great extent and to look much more like himself.

It must have been just as he had taken his degree that he received a

telegram to announce that Major Vaughan had been invalided home, and

would arrive at Southampton in three weeks' time. Derrick knew very

little of his father, but apparently Mrs. Vaughan had done her best

to keep up a sort of memory of his childish days at Aldershot, and

in these the part that his father played was always pleasant. So he

looked forward to the meeting not a little, while I, from the first,

had my doubts as to the felicity it was likely to bring him.

However, it was ordained that before the Major's ship arrived, his

son's whole life should change. Even Lynwood was thrust into the

background. As for me, I was nowhere. For Derrick, the quiet, the

self-contained, had fallen passionately in love with a certain Freda

Merrifield.

Chapter II.

'Infancy? What if the rose-streak of morning

Pale and depart in a passion of tears?

Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning:

Love once: e'en love's disappointment endears;

A moment's success pays the failure of years.'

R. Browning.

The wonder would have been if he had not fallen in love with her,

for a more fascinating girl I never saw. She had only just returned

from school at Compiegne, and was not yet out; her charming

freshness was unsullied; she had all the simplicity and

straightforwardness of unspoilt, unsophisticated girlhood. I well

remember our first sight of her. We had been invited for a

fortnight's yachting by Calverley of Exeter. His father, Sir John

Calverley, had a sailing yacht, and some guests having disappointed

him at the last minute, he gave his son carte blanche as to who he

should bring to fill the vacant berths.

So we three travelled down to Southampton together one hot summer

day, and were rowed out to the Aurora, an uncommonly neat little

schooner which lay in that over-rated and frequently odoriferous

roadstead, Southampton Water. However, I admit that on that

evening--the tide being high--the place looked remarkably pretty;

the level rays of the setting sun turned the water to gold; a soft

luminous haze hung over the town and the shipping, and by a stretch

of imagination one might have thought the view almost Venetian.

Derrick's perfect content was only marred by his shyness. I knew

that he dreaded reaching the Aurora; and sure enough, as we stepped

on to the exquisitely white deck and caught sight of the little

group of guests, I saw him retreat into his crab-shell of silent

reserve. Sir John, who made a very pleasant host, introduced us to

the other visitors--Lord Probyn and his wife and their niece, Miss

Freda Merrifield. Lady Probyn was Sir John's sister, and also the

sister of Miss Merrifield's mother; so that it was almost a family

party, and by no means a formidable gathering. Lady Probyn played

the part of hostess and chaperoned her pretty niece; but she was not

in the least like the aunt of fiction--on the contrary, she was

comparatively young in years and almost comically young in mind; her

niece was devoted to her, and the moment I saw her I knew that our

cruise could not possibly be dull.

As to Miss Freda, when we first caught sight of her she was standing

near the companion, dressed in a daintily made yachting costume of

blue serge and white braid, and round her white sailor hat she wore

the name of the yacht stamped on a white ribbon; in her waist-band

she had fastened two deep crimson roses, and she looked at us with

frank, girlish curiosity, no doubt wondering whether we should add

to or detract from the enjoyment of the expedition. She was rather

tall, and there was an air of strength and energy about her which

was most refreshing. Her skin was singularly white, but there was a

healthy glow of colour in her cheeks; while her large, grey eyes,

shaded by long lashes, were full of life and brightness. As to her

features, they were perhaps a trifle irregular, and her elder

sisters were supposed to eclipse her altogether; but to my mind she

was far the most taking of the three.

I was not in the least surprised that Derrick should fall head over

ears in love with her; she was exactly the sort of girl that would

infallibly attract him. Her absence of shyness; her

straightforward, easy way of talking; her genuine goodheartedness;

her devotion to animals--one of his own pet hobbies--and finally her

exquisite playing, made the result a foregone conclusion. And then,

moreover, they were perpetually together. He would hang over the

piano in the saloon for hours while she played, the rest of us

lazily enjoying the easy chairs and the fresh air on deck; and

whenever we landed, these two were sure in the end to be just a

little apart from the rest of us.

It was an eminently successful cruise. We all liked each other; the

sea was calm, the sunshine constant, the wind as a rule favourable,

and I think I never in a single fortnight heard so many good

stories, or had such a good time. We seemed to get right out of the

world and its narrow restrictions, away from all that was hollow and

base and depressing, only landing now and then at quaint little

quiet places for some merry excursion on shore. Freda was in the

highest spirits; and as to Derrick, he was a different creature.

She seemed to have the power of drawing him out in a marvellous

degree, and she took the greatest interest in his work--a sure way

to every author's heart.

But it was not till one day, when we landed at Tresco, that I felt

certain she genuinely loved him--there in one glance the truth

flashed upon me. I was walking with one of the gardeners down one

of the long shady paths of that lovely little island, with its

curiously foreign look, when we suddenly came face to face with

Derrick and Freda. They were talking earnestly, and I could see her

great grey eyes as they were lifted to his--perhaps they were more

expressive than she knew--I cannot say. They both started a little

as we confronted them, and the colour deepened in Freda's face. The

gardener, with what photographers usually ask for--'just the faint

beginning of a smile,'--turned and gathered a bit of white heather

growing near.

"They say it brings good luck, miss," he remarked, handing it to

Freda.

"Thank you," she said, laughing, "I hope it will bring it to me. At

any rate it will remind me of this beautiful island. Isn't it just

like Paradise, Mr. Wharncliffe?"

"For me it is like Paradise before Eve was created," I replied,

rather wickedly. "By the bye, are you going to keep all the good

luck to yourself?"

"I don't know," she said laughing. "Perhaps I shall; but you have

only to ask the gardener, he will gather you another piece

directly."

I took good care to drop behind, having no taste for the third-

fiddle business; but I noticed when we were in the gig once more,

rowing back to the yacht, that the white heather had been equally

divided--one half was in the waist-band of the blue serge dress, the

other half in the button-hole of Derrick's blazer.

So the fortnight slipped by, and at length one afternoon we found

ourselves once more in Southampton Water; then came the bustle of

packing and the hurry of departure, and the merry party dispersed.

Derrick and I saw them all off at the station, for, as his father's

ship did not arrive till the following day, I made up my mind to

stay on with him at Southampton.

"You will come and see us in town," said Lady Probyn, kindly. And

Lord Probyn invited us both for the shooting at Blachington in

September. "We will have the same party on shore, and see if we

can't enjoy ourselves almost as well," he said in his hearty way;

"the novel will go all the better for it, eh, Vaughan?"

Derrick brightened visibly at the suggestion. I heard him talking

to Freda all the time that Sir John stood laughing and joking as to

the comparative pleasures of yachting and shooting.

"You will be there too?" Derrick asked.

"I can't tell," said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her

tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices--a rich

contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could

hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly--he always

had a bad trick of mumbling.

"You see I am the youngest," she said, "and I am not really 'out.'

Perhaps my mother will wish one of the elder ones to go; but I half

think they are already engaged for September, so after all I may

have a chance."

Inaudible remark from my friend.

"Yes, I came here because my sisters did not care to leave London

till the end of the season," replied the clear contralto. "It has

been a perfect cruise. I shall remember it all my life."

After that, nothing more was audible; but I imagine Derrick must

have hazarded a more personal question, and that Freda had admitted

that it was not only the actual sailing she should remember. At any

rate her face when I caught sight of it again made me think of the

girl described in the 'Biglow Papers':

"''Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look

On sech a blessed creatur.

A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.'"

So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about

Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk

the streets in a sort of dream--he was perfectly well aware that he

had met his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the

way had arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us

young and inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the

usual lover's notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared

to favour the course of his particular passion.

I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by

the ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the

shade of the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great

masses of ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the

place looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge

the dissolute monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that

their church and monastery had to be opened to the four winds of

heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful as when it has the

green grass for its floor and the sky for its roof?

I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick

told me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda's

perfections and the probability of frequent meetings in London. He

had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed

an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then

my thoughts wandered off to the coming month at Mondisfield, and

pictured violet eyes while he talked of grey, it was not from any

lack of sympathy with my friend.

Derrick was not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I knew he

was amazed at the thought that such a girl as Freda could possibly

care for him, yet he believed most implicitly that this wonderful

thing had come to pass; and, remembering her face as we had last

seen it, and the look in her eyes at Tresco, I, too, had not a

shadow of a doubt that she really loved him. She was not the least

bit of a flirt, and society had not had a chance yet of moulding her

into the ordinary girl of the nineteenth century.

Perhaps it was the sudden and unexpected change of the next day that

makes me remember Derrick's face so distinctly as he lay back on the

smooth turf that afternoon in Netley Abbey. As it looked then, full

of youth and hope, full of that dream of cloudless love, I never saw

it again.

Chapter III.

"Religion in him never died, but became a habit--a habit of enduring

hardness, and cleaving to the steadfast performance of duty in the

face of the strongest allurements to the pleasanter and easier

course."

Life of Charles Lamb, by A. Ainger.

Derrick was in good spirits the next day. He talked much of Major

Vaughan, wondered whether the voyage home had restored his health,

discussed the probable length of his leave, and speculated as to the

nature of his illness; the telegram had of course given no details.

"There has not been even a photograph for the last five years," he

remarked, as we walked down to the quay together. "Yet I think I

should know him anywhere, if it is only by his height. He used to

look so well on horseback. I remember as a child seeing him in a

sham fight charging up Caesar's Camp."

"How old were you when he went out?"

"Oh, quite a small boy," replied Derrick. "It was just before I

first stayed with you. However, he has had a regular succession of

photographs sent out to him, and will know me easily enough."

Poor Derrick! I can't think of that day even now without a kind of

mental shiver. We watched the great steamer as it glided up to the

quay, and Derrick scanned the crowded deck with eager eyes, but

could nowhere see the tall, soldierly figure that had lingered so

long in his memory. He stood with his hand resting on the rail of

the gangway, and when presently it was raised to the side of the

steamer, he still kept his position, so that he could instantly

catch sight of his father as he passed down. I stood close behind

him, and watched the motley procession of passengers; most of them

had the dull colourless skin which bespeaks long residence in India,

and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old man was grumbling

loudly as he slowly made his way down the gangway.

"The most disgraceful scene!" he remarked. "The fellow was as drunk

as he could be."

"Who was it?" asked his companion.

"Why, Major Vaughan, to be sure. The only wonder is that he hasn't

drunk himself to death by this time--been at it years enough!"

Derrick turned, as though to shelter himself from the curious eyes

of the travellers; but everywhere the quay was crowded. It seemed

to me not unlike the life that lay before him, with this new shame

which could not be hid, and I shall never forget the look of misery

in his face.

"Most likely a great exaggeration of that spiteful old fogey's," I

said. "Never believe anything that you hear, is a sound axiom. Had

you not better try to get on board?"

"Yes; and for heaven's sake come with me, Wharncliffe!" he said.

"It can't be true! It is, as you say, that man's spite, or else

there is someone else of the name on board. That must be it--

someone else of the name."

I don't know whether he managed to deceive himself. We made our way

on board, and he spoke to one of the stewards, who conducted us to

the saloon. I knew from the expression of the man's face that the

words we had overheard were but too true; it was a mere glance that

he gave us, yet if he had said aloud, "They belong to that old

drunkard! Thank heaven I'm not in their shoes!" I could not have

better understood what was in his mind.

There were three persons only in the great saloon: an officer's

servant, whose appearance did not please me; a fine looking old man

with grey hair and whiskers, and a rough-hewn honest face,

apparently the ship's doctor; and a tall grizzled man in whom I at

once saw a sort of horrible likeness to Derrick--horrible because

this face was wicked and degraded, and because its owner was drunk--

noisily drunk. Derrick paused for a minute, looking at his father;

then, deadly pale, he turned to the old doctor. "I am Major

Vaughan's son," he said.

The doctor grasped his hand, and there was something in the old

man's kindly, chivalrous manner which brought a sort of light into

the gloom.

"I am very glad to see you!" he exclaimed. "Is the Major's luggage

ready?" he inquired turning to the servant. Then, as the man

replied in the affirmative, "How would it be, Mr. Vaughan, if your

father's man just saw the things into a cab? and then I'll come on

shore with you and see my patient safely settled in."

Derrick acquiesced, and the doctor turned to the Major, who was

leaning up against one of the pillars of the saloon and shouting out

"'Twas in Trafalgar Bay," in a way which, under other circumstances,

would have been highly comic. The doctor interrupted him, as with

much feeling he sang how:

"England declared that every man

That day had done his duty."

"Look, Major," he said; "here is your son come to meet you."

"Glad to see you, my boy," said the Major, reeling forward and

running all his words together. "How's your mother? Is this

Lawrence? Glad to see both of you! Why, you'r's like's two peas!

Not Lawrence, do you say? Confound it, doctor, how the ship rolls

to-day!"

And the old wretch staggered and would have fallen, had not Derrick

supported him and landed him safely on one of the fixed ottomans.

"Yes, yes, you're the son for me," he went on, with a bland smile,

which made his face all the more hideous. "You're not so rough and

clumsy as that confounded John Thomas, whose hands are like

brickbats. I'm a mere wreck, as you see; it's the accursed climate!

But your mother will soon nurse me into health again; she was always

a good nurse, poor soul! it was her best point. What with you and

your mother, I shall soon be myself again."

Here the doctor interposed, and Derrick made desperately for a

porthole and gulped down mouthfuls of fresh air: but he was not

allowed much of a respite, for the servant returned to say that he

had procured a cab, and the Major called loudly for his son's arm.

"I'll not have you," he said, pushing the servant violently away.

"Come, Derrick, help me! you are worth two of that blockhead."

And Derrick came quickly forward, his face still very pale, but with

a dignity about it which I had never before seen; and, giving his

arm to his drunken father, he piloted him across the saloon, through

the staring ranks of stewards, officials, and tardy passengers

outside, down the gangway, and over the crowded quay to the cab. I

knew that each derisive glance of the spectators was to him like a

sword-thrust, and longed to throttle the Major, who seemed to enjoy

himself amazingly on terra firma, and sang at the top of his voice

as we drove through the streets of Southampton. The old doctor kept

up a cheery flow of small-talk with me, thinking, no doubt, that

this would be a kindness to Derrick: and at last that purgatorial

drive ended, and somehow Derrick and the doctor between them got the

Major safely into his room at Radley's Hotel.

We had ordered lunch in a private sitting-room, thinking that the

Major would prefer it to the coffee-room; but, as it turned out, he

was in no state to appear. They left him asleep, and the ship's

doctor sat in the seat that had been prepared for his patient, and

made the meal as tolerable to us both as it could be. He was an

odd, old-fashioned fellow, but as true a gentleman as ever breathed.

"Now," he said, when lunch was over, "you and I must have a talk

together, Mr. Vaughan, and I will help you to understand your

father's case."

I made a movement to go, but sat down again at Derrick's request. I

think, poor old fellow, he dreaded being alone, and knowing that I

had seen his father at the worst, thought I might as well hear all

particulars.

"Major Vaughan," continued the doctor, "has now been under my care

for some weeks, and I had some communication with the regimental

surgeon about his case before he sailed. He is suffering from an

enlarged liver, and the disease has been brought on by his

unfortunate habit of over-indulgence in stimulants." I could almost

have smiled, so very gently and considerately did the good old man

veil in long words the shameful fact. "It is a habit sadly

prevalent among our fellow-countrymen in India; the climate

aggravates the mischief, and very many lives are in this way ruined.

Then your father was also unfortunate enough to contract rheumatism

when he was camping out in the jungle last year, and this is

increasing on him very much, so that his life is almost intolerable

to him, and he naturally flies for relief to his greatest enemy,

drink. At all costs, however, you must keep him from stimulants;

they will only intensify the disease and the sufferings, in fact

they are poison to a man in such a state. Don't think I am a bigot

in these matters; but I say that for a man in such a condition as

this, there is nothing for it but total abstinence, and at all costs

your father must be guarded from the possibility of procuring any

sort of intoxicating drink. Throughout the voyage I have done my

best to shield him, but it was a difficult matter. His servant,

too, is not trustworthy, and should be dismissed if possible."

"Had he spoken at all of his plans?" asked Derrick, and his voice

sounded strangely unlike itself.

"He asked me what place in England he had better settle down in,"

said the doctor, "and I strongly recommended him to try Bath. This

seemed to please him, and if he is well enough he had better go

there to-morrow. He mentioned your mother this morning; no doubt

she will know how to manage him."

"My mother died six months ago," said Derrick, pushing back his

chair and beginning to pace the room. The doctor made kindly

apologies.

"Perhaps you have a sister, who could go to him?"

"No," replied Derrick. "My only sister is married, and her husband

would never allow it."

"Or a cousin or an aunt?" suggested the old man, naively unconscious

that the words sounded like a quotation.

I saw the ghost of a smile flit over Derrick's harassed face as he

shook his head.

"I suggested that he should go into some Home for--cases of the

kind," resumed the doctor, "or place himself under the charge of

some medical man; however, he won't hear of such a thing. But if he

is left to himself--well, it is all up with him. He will drink

himself to death in a few months."

"He shall not be left alone," said Derrick; "I will live with him.

Do you think I should do? It seems to be Hobson's choice."

I looked up in amazement--for here was Derrick calmly giving himself

up to a life that must crush every plan for the future he had made.

Did men make such a choice as that while they took two or three

turns in a room? Did they speak so composedly after a struggle that

must have been so bitter? Thinking it over now, I feel sure it was

his extraordinary gift of insight and his clear judgment which made

him behave in this way. He instantly perceived and promptly acted;

the worst of the suffering came long after.

"Why, of course you are the very best person in the world for him,"

said the doctor. "He has taken a fancy to you, and evidently you

have a certain influence with him. If any one can save him it will

be you."

But the thought of allowing Derrick to be sacrificed to that old

brute of a Major was more than I could bear calmly.

"A more mad scheme was never proposed," I cried. "Why, doctor, it

will be utter ruin to my friend's career; he will lose years that no

one can ever make up. And besides, he is unfit for such a strain,

he will never stand it."

My heart felt hot as I thought of Derrick, with his highly-strung,

sensitive nature, his refinement, his gentleness, in constant

companionship with such a man as Major Vaughan.

"My dear sir," said the old doctor, with a gleam in his eye, "I

understand your feeling well enough. But depend upon it, your

friend has made the right choice, and there is no doubt that he'll

be strong enough to do his duty."

The word reminded me of the Major's song, and my voice was

abominably sarcastic in tone as I said to Derrick, "You no longer

consider writing your duty then?"

"Yes," he said, "but it must stand second to this. Don't be vexed,

Sydney; our plans are knocked on the head, but it is not so bad as

you make out. I have at any rate enough to live on, and can afford

to wait."

There was no more to be said, and the next day I saw that strange

trio set out on their road to Bath. The Major looking more wicked

when sober than he had done when drunk; the old doctor kindly and

considerate as ever; and Derrick, with an air of resolution about

that English face of his and a dauntless expression in his eyes

which impressed me curiously.

These quiet, reserved fellows are always giving one odd surprises.

He had astonished me by the vigour and depth of the first volume of

'Lynwood's Heritage.' He astonished me now by a new phase in his

own character. Apparently he who had always been content to follow

where I led, and to watch life rather than to take an active share

in it, now intended to strike out a very decided line of his own.

Chapter IV.

"Both Goethe and Schiller were profoundly convinced that Art was no

luxury of leisure, no mere amusement to charm the idle, or relax the

careworn; but a mighty influence, serious in its aims although

pleasureable in its means; a sister of Religion, by whose aid the

great world-scheme was wrought into reality."

Lewes's Life of Goethe.

Man is a selfish being, and I am a particularly fine specimen of the

race as far as that characteristic goes. If I had had a dozen

drunken parents I should never have danced attendance on one of

them; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick for the line he had

taken, for we mostly do admire what is unlike ourselves and really

noble, though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent to

everything in heaven and earth. But all the same I felt annoyed

about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own

affairs at Mondisfield.

Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness,

and a hard awaking. That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's

story, and may be passed over. In October I settled down in

Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and began to read for the Bar, in about

as disagreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived. One morning I

found on my breakfast table a letter in Derrick's handwriting. Like

most men, we hardly ever corresponded--what women say in the eternal

letters they send to each other I can't conceive--but it struck me

that under the circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to ask

how he was getting on, and my conscience pricked me as I remembered

that I had hardly thought of him since we parted, being absorbed in

my own matters. The letter was not very long, but when one read

between the lines it somehow told a good deal. I have it lying by

me, and this is a copy of it:

"Dear Sydney,--Do like a good fellow go to North Audley Street for

me, to the house which I described to you as the one where Lynwood

lodged, and tell me what he would see besides the church from his

window--if shops, what kind? Also if any glimpse of Oxford Street

would be visible. Then if you'll add to your favours by getting me

a second-hand copy of Laveleye's 'Socialisme Contemporain,' I should

be for ever grateful. We are settled in here all right. Bath is

empty, but I people it as far as I can with the folk out of

'Evelina' and 'Persuasion.' How did you get on at Blachington? and

which of the Misses Merrifield went in the end? Don't bother about

the commissions. Any time will do.

"Ever yours,

"Derrick Vaughan."

Poor old fellow! all the spirit seemed knocked out of him. There

was not one word about the Major, and who could say what

wretchedness was veiled in that curt phrase, "we are settled in all

right"? All right! it was all as wrong as it could be! My blood

began to boil at the thought of Derrick, with his great powers--his

wonderful gift--cooped up in a place where the study of life was so

limited and so dull. Then there was his hunger for news of Freda,

and his silence as to what had kept him away from Blachington, and

about all a sort of proud humility which prevented him from saying

much that I should have expected him to say under the circumstances.

It was Saturday, and my time was my own. I went out, got his book

for him; interviewed North Audley Street; spent a bad five minutes

in company with that villain 'Bradshaw,' who is responsible for so

much of the brain and eye disease of the nineteenth century, and

finally left Paddington in the Flying Dutchman, which landed me at

Bath early in the afternoon. I left my portmanteau at the station,

and walked through the city till I reached Gay Street. Like most of

the streets of Bath, it was broad, and had on either hand dull,

well-built, dark grey, eminently respectable, unutterably dreary-

looking houses. I rang, and the door was opened to me by a most

quaint old woman, evidently the landlady. An odour of curry

pervaded the passage, and became more oppressive as the door of the

sitting-room was opened, and I was ushered in upon the Major and his

son, who had just finished lunch.

"Hullo!" cried Derrick, springing up, his face full of delight which

touched me, while at the same time it filled me with envy.

Even the Major thought fit to give me a hearty welcome.

"Glad to see you again," he said pleasantly enough. "It's a relief

to have a fresh face to look at. We have a room which is quite at

your disposal, and I hope you'll stay with us. Brought your

portmanteau, eh?"

"It is at the station," I replied.

"See that it is sent for," he said to Derrick; "and show Mr.

Wharncliffe all that is to be seen in this cursed hole of a place."

Then, turning again to me, "Have you lunched? Very well, then,

don't waste this fine afternoon in an invalid's room, but be off and

enjoy yourself."

So cordial was the old man, that I should have thought him already a

reformed character, had I not found that he kept the rough side of

his tongue for home use. Derrick placed a novel and a small

handbell within his reach, and we were just going, when we were

checked by a volley of oaths from the Major; then a book came flying

across the room, well aimed at Derrick's head. He stepped aside,

and let it fall with a crash on the sideboard.

"What do you mean by giving me the second volume when you know I am

in the third?" fumed the invalid.

He apologised quietly, fetched the third volume, straightened the

disordered leaves of the discarded second, and with the air of one

well accustomed to such little domestic scenes, took up his hat and

came out with me.

"How long do you intend to go on playing David to the Major's Saul?"

I asked, marvelling at the way in which he endured the humours of

his father.

"As long as I have the chance," he replied. "I say, are you sure

you won't mind staying with us? It can't be a very comfortable

household for an outsider."

"Much better than for an insider, to all appearance," I replied.

"I'm only too delighted to stay. And now, old fellow, tell me the

honest truth--you didn't, you know, in your letter--how have you

been getting on?"

Derrick launched into an account of his father's ailments.

"Oh, hang the Major! I don't care about him, I want to know about

you," I cried.

"About me?" said Derrick doubtfully. "Oh, I'm right enough."

"What do you do with yourself? How on earth do you kill time?" I

asked. "Come, give me a full, true, and particular account of it

all."

"We have tried three other servants," said Derrick; "but the plan

doesn't answer. They either won't stand it, or else they are bribed

into smuggling brandy into the house. I find I can do most things

for my father, and in the morning he has an attendant from the

hospital who is trustworthy, and who does what is necessary for him.

At ten we breakfast together, then there are the morning papers,

which he likes to have read to him. After that I go round to the

Pump Room with him--odd contrast now to what it must have been when

Bath was the rage. Then we have lunch. In the afternoon, if he is

well enough, we drive; if not he sleeps, and I get a walk. Later on

an old Indian friend of his will sometimes drop in; if not he likes

to be read to until dinner. After dinner we play chess--he is a

first-rate player. At ten I help him to bed; from eleven to twelve

I smoke and study Socialism and all the rest of it that Lynwood is

at present floundering in."

"Why don't you write, then?"

"I tried it, but it didn't answer. I couldn't sleep after it, and

was, in fact, too tired; seems absurd to be tired after such a day

as that, but somehow it takes it out of one more than the hardest

reading; I don't know why."

"Why," I said angrily, "it's because it is work to which you are

quite unsuited--work for a thick-skinned, hard-hearted, uncultivated

and well-paid attendant, not for the novelist who is to be the chief

light of our generation."

He laughed at this estimate of his powers.

"Novelists, like other cattle, have to obey their owner," he said

lightly.

I thought for a moment that he meant the Major, and was breaking

into an angry remonstrance, when I saw that he meant something quite

different. It was always his strongest point, this extraordinary

consciousness of right, this unwavering belief that he had to do and

therefore could do certain things. Without this, I know that he

never wrote a line, and in my heart I believe this was the cause of

his success.

"Then you are not writing at all?" I asked.

"Yes, I write generally for a couple of hours before breakfast," he

said.

And that evening we sat by his gas stove and he read me the next

four chapters of 'Lynwood.' He had rather a dismal lodging-house

bedroom, with faded wall-paper and a prosaic snuff-coloured carpet.

On a rickety table in the window was his desk, and a portfolio full

of blue foolscap, but he had done what he could to make the place

habitable; his Oxford pictures were on the walls--Hoffman's 'Christ

speaking to the Woman taken in Adultery,' hanging over the

mantelpiece--it had always been a favourite of his. I remember

that, as he read the description of Lynwood and his wife, I kept

looking from him to the Christ in the picture till I could almost

have fancied that each face bore the same expression. Had this

strange monotonous life with that old brute of a Major brought him

some new perception of those words, "Neither do I condemn thee"?

But when he stopped reading, I, true to my character, forgot his

affairs in my own, as we sat talking far into the night--talking of

that luckless month at Mondisfield, of all the problems it had

opened up, and of my wretchedness.

"You were in town all September?" he asked; "you gave up

Blachington?"

"Yes," I replied. "What did I care for country houses in such a

mood as that."

He acquiesced, and I went on talking of my grievances, and it was

not till I was in the train on my way back to London that I

remembered how a look of disappointment had passed over his face

just at the moment. Evidently he had counted on learning something

about Freda from me, and I--well, I had clean forgotten both her

existence and his passionate love.

Something, probably self-interest, the desire for my friend's

company, and so forth, took me down to Bath pretty frequently in

those days; luckily the Major had a sort of liking for me, and was

always polite enough; and dear old Derrick--well, I believe my

visits really helped to brighten him up. At any rate he said he

couldn't have borne his life without them, and for a sceptical,

dismal, cynical fellow like me to hear that was somehow flattering.

The mere force of contrast did me good. I used to come back on the

Monday wondering that Derrick didn't cut his throat, and realising

that, after all, it was something to be a free agent, and to have

comfortable rooms in Montague Street, with no old bear of a drunkard

to disturb my peace. And then a sort of admiration sprang up in my

heart, and the cynicism bred of melancholy broodings over solitary

pipes was less rampant than usual.

It was, I think, early in the new year that I met Lawrence Vaughan

in Bath. He was not staying at Gay Street, so I could still have

the vacant room next to Derrick's. Lawrence put up at the York

House Hotel.

"For you know," he informed me, "I really can't stand the governor

for more than an hour or two at a time."

"Derrick manages to do it," I said.

"Oh, Derrick, yes," he replied, "it's his metier, and he is well

accustomed to the life. Besides, you know, he is such a dreamy,

quiet sort of fellow; he lives all the time in a world of his own

creation, and bears the discomforts of this world with great

philosophy. Actually he has turned teetotaller! It would kill me

in a week."

I make a point of never arguing with a fellow like that, but I think

I had a vindictive longing, as I looked at him, to shut him up with

the Major for a month, and see what would happen.

These twin brothers were curiously alike in face and curiously

unlike in nature. So much for the great science of physiognomy! It

often seemed to me that they were the complement of each other. For

instance, Derrick in society was extremely silent, Lawrence was a

rattling talker; Derrick, when alone with you, would now and then

reveal unsuspected depths of thought and expression; Lawrence, when

alone with you, very frequently showed himself to be a cad. The

elder twin was modest and diffident, the younger inclined to brag;

the one had a strong tendency to melancholy, the other was blest or

cursed with the sort of temperament which has been said to accompany

"a hard heart and a good digestion."

I was not surprised to find that the son who could not tolerate the

governor's presence for more than an hour or two, was a prime

favourite with the old man; that was just the way of the world. Of

course, the Major was as polite as possible to him; Derrick got the

kicks and Lawrence the half-pence.

In the evenings we played whist, Lawrence coming in after dinner,

"For, you know," he explained to me, "I really couldn't get through

a meal with nothing but those infernal mineral waters to wash it

down."

And here I must own that at my first visit I had sailed rather close

to the wind; for when the Major, like the Hatter in 'Alice,' pressed

me to take wine, I--not seeing any--had answered that I did not take

it; mentally adding the words, "in your house, you brute!"

The two brothers were fond of each other after a fashion. But

Derrick was human, and had his faults like the rest of us; and I am

pretty sure he did not much enjoy the sight of his father's foolish

and unreasonable devotion to Lawrence. If you come to think of it,

he would have been a full-fledged angel if no jealous pang, no

reflection that it was rather rough on him, had crossed his mind,

when he saw his younger brother treated with every mark of respect

and liking, and knew that Lawrence would never stir a finger really

to help the poor fractious invalid. Unluckily they happened one

night to get on the subject of professions.

"It's a comfort," said the Major, in his sarcastic way, "to have a

fellow-soldier to talk to instead of a quill-driver, who as yet is

not even a penny-a-liner. Eh, Derrick? Don't you feel inclined to

regret your fool's choice now? You might have been starting off for

the war with Lawrence next week, if you hadn't chosen what you're

pleased to call a literary life. Literary life, indeed! I little

thought a son of mine would ever have been so wanting in spirit as

to prefer dabbling in ink to a life of action--to be the scribbler

of mere words, rather than an officer of dragoons."

Then to my astonishment Derrick sprang to his feet in hot

indignation. I never saw him look so handsome, before or since; for

his anger was not the distorting, devilish anger that the Major gave

way to, but real downright wrath.

"You speak contemptuously of mere novels," he said in a low voice,

yet more clearly than usual, and as if the words were wrung out of

him. "What right have you to look down on one of the greatest

weapons of the day? and why is a writer to submit to scoffs and

insults and tamely to hear his profession reviled? I have chosen to

write the message that has been given me, and I don't regret the

choice. Should I have shown greater spirit if I had sold my freedom

and right of judgment to be one of the national killing machines?"

With that he threw down his cards and strode out of the room in a

white heat of anger. It was a pity he made that last remark, for it

put him in the wrong and needlessly annoyed Lawrence and the Major.

But an angry man has no time to weigh his words, and, as I said,

poor old Derrick was very human, and when wounded too intolerably

could on occasion retaliate.

The Major uttered an oath and looked in astonishment at the

retreating figure. Derrick was such an extraordinarily quiet,

respectful, long-suffering son as a rule, that this outburst was

startling in the extreme. Moreover, it spoilt the game, and the old

man, chafed by the result of his own ill-nature, and helpless to

bring back his partner, was forced to betake himself to chess. I

left him grumbling away to Lawrence about the vanity of authors, and

went out in the hope of finding Derrick. As I left the house I saw

someone turn the corner into the Circus, and starting in pursuit,

overtook the tall, dark figure where Bennett Street opens on to the

Lansdowne Hill.

"I'm glad you spoke up, old fellow," I said, taking his arm.

He modified his pace a little. "Why is it," he exclaimed, "that

every other profession can be taken seriously, but that a novelist's

work is supposed to be mere play? Good God! don't we suffer enough?

Have we not hard brain work and drudgery of desk work and tedious

gathering of statistics and troublesome search into details? Have

we not an appalling weight of responsibility on us?--and are we not

at the mercy of a thousand capricious chances?"

"Come now," I exclaimed, "you know that you are never so happy as

when you are writing."

"Of course," he replied; "but that doesn't make me resent such an

attack the less. Besides, you don't know what it is to have to

write in such an atmosphere as ours; it's like a weight on one's

pen. This life here is not life at all--it's a daily death, and

it's killing the book too; the last chapters are wretched--I'm

utterly dissatisfied with them."

"As for that," I said calmly, "you are no judge at all. You can

never tell the worth of your own work; the last bit is splendid."

"I could have done it better," he groaned. "But there is always a

ghastly depression dragging one back here--and then the time is so

short; just as one gets into the swing of it the breakfast bell

rings, and then comes--" He broke off.

I could well supply the end of the sentence, however, for I knew

that then came the slow torture of a tete-a-tete day with the Major,

stinging sarcasms, humiliating scoldings, vexations and difficulties

innumerable.

I drew him to the left, having no mind to go to the top of the hill.

We slackened our pace again and walked to and fro along the broad

level pavement of Lansdowne Crescent. We had it entirely to

ourselves--not another creature was in sight.

"I could bear it all," he burst forth, "if only there was a chance

of seeing Freda. Oh, you are better off than I am--at least, you

know the worst. Your hope is killed, but mine lives on a tortured,

starved life! Would to God I had never seen her!"

Certainly before that night I had never quite realised the

irrevocableness of poor Derrick's passion. I had half hoped that

time and separation would gradually efface Freda Merrifield from his

memory; and I listened with a dire foreboding to the flood of

wretchedness which he poured forth as we paced up and down, thinking

now and then how little people guessed at the tremendous powers

hidden under his usually quiet exterior.

At length he paused, but his last heart-broken words seemed to

vibrate in the air and to force me to speak some kind of comfort.

"Derrick," I said, "come back with me to London--give up this

miserable life."

I felt him start a little; evidently no thought of yielding had come

to him before. We were passing the house that used to belong to

that strange book-lover and recluse, Beckford. I looked up at the

blank windows, and thought of that curious, self-centred life in the

past, surrounded by every luxury, able to indulge every whim; and

then I looked at my companion's pale, tortured face, and thought of

the life he had elected to lead in the hope of saving one whom duty

bound him to honour. After all, which life was the most worth

living--which was the most to be admired?

We walked on; down below us and up on the farther hill we could see

the lights of Bath; the place so beautiful by day looked now like a

fairy city, and the Abbey, looming up against the moon-lit sky,

seemed like some great giant keeping watch over the clustering roofs

below. The well-known chimes rang out into the night and the clock

struck ten.

"I must go back," said Derrick, quietly. "My father will want to

get to bed."

I couldn't say a word; we turned, passed Beckford's house once more,

walked briskly down the hill, and reached the Gay Street lodging-

house. I remember the stifling heat of the room as we entered it,

and its contrast to the cool, dark, winter's night outside. I can

vividly recall, too, the old Major's face as he looked up with a

sarcastic remark, but with a shade of anxiety in his bloodshot eyes.

He was leaning back in a green-cushioned chair, and his ghastly

yellow complexion seemed to me more noticeable than usual--his

scanty grey hair and whiskers, the lines of pain so plainly visible

in his face, impressed me curiously. I think I had never before

realised what a wreck of a man he was--how utterly dependent on

others.

Lawrence, who, to do him justice, had a good deal of tact, and who,

I believe, cared for his brother as much as he was capable of caring

for any one but himself, repeated a good story with which he had

been enlivening the Major, and I did what I could to keep up the

talk. Derrick meanwhile put away the chessmen, and lighted the

Major's candle. He even managed to force up a laugh at Lawrence's

story, and, as he helped his father out of the room, I think I was

the only one who noticed the look of tired endurance in his eyes.

Chapter V.

"I know

How far high failure overtops the bounds

Of low successes. Only suffering draws

The inner heart of song, and can elicit

The perfumes of the soul."

Epic of Hades.

Next week, Lawrence went off like a hero to the war; and my friend--

also I think like a hero--stayed on at Bath, enduring as best he

could the worst form of loneliness; for undoubtedly there is no

loneliness so frightful as constant companionship with an

uncongenial person. He had, however, one consolation: the Major's

health steadily improved, under the joint influence of total

abstinence and Bath water, and, with the improvement, his temper

became a little better.

But one Saturday, when I had run down to Bath without writing

beforehand, I suddenly found a different state of things. In Orange

Grove I met Dr. Mackrill, the Major's medical man; he used now and

then to play whist with us on Saturday nights, and I stopped to

speak to him.

"Oh! you've come down again. That's all right!" he said. "Your

friend wants someone to cheer him up. He's got his arm broken."

"How on earth did he manage that?" I asked.

"Well, that's more than I can tell you," said the Doctor, with an

odd look in his eyes, as if he guessed more than he would put into

words. "All that I could get out of him was that it was done

accidentally. The Major is not so well--no whist for us to-night,

I'm afraid."

He passed on, and I made my way to Gay Street. There was an air of

mystery about the quaint old landlady; she looked brimful of news

when she opened the door to me, but she managed to 'keep herself to

herself,' and showed me in upon the Major and Derrick, rather

triumphantly I thought. The Major looked terribly ill--worse than I

had ever seen him, and as for Derrick, he had the strangest look of

shrinking and shame-facedness you ever saw. He said he was glad to

see me, but I knew that he lied. He would have given anything to

have kept me away.

"Broken your arm?" I exclaimed, feeling bound to take some notice of

the sling.

"Yes," he replied; "met with an accident to it. But luckily it's

only the left one, so it doesn't hinder me much! I have finished

seven chapters of the last volume of 'Lynwood,' and was just wanting

to ask you a legal question."

All this time his eyes bore my scrutiny defiantly; they seemed to

dare me to say one other word about the broken arm. I didn't dare--

indeed to this day I have never mentioned the subject to him.

But that evening, while he was helping the Major to bed, the old

landlady made some pretext for toiling up to the top of the house,

where I sat smoking in Derrick's room.

"You'll excuse my making bold to speak to you, sir," she said. I

threw down my newspaper, and, looking up, saw that she was bubbling

over with some story.

"Well?" I said, encouragingly.

"It's about Mr. Vaughan, sir, I wanted to speak to you. I really do

think, sir, it's not safe he should be left alone with his father,

sir, any longer. Such doings as we had here the other day, sir!

Somehow or other--and none of us can't think how--the Major had

managed to get hold of a bottle of brandy. How he had it I don't

know; but we none of us suspected him, and in the afternoon he says

he was too poorly to go for a drive or to go out in his chair, and

settles off on the parlour sofa for a nap while Mr. Vaughan goes out

for a walk. Mr. Vaughan was out a couple of hours. I heard him

come in and go into the sitting-room; then there came sounds of

voices, and a scuffling of feet and moving of chairs, and I knew

something was wrong and hurried up to the door--and just then came a

crash like fire-irons, and I could hear the Major a-swearing

fearful. Not hearing a sound from Mr. Vaughan, I got scared, sir,

and opened the door, and there I saw the Major a leaning up against

the mantelpiece as drunk as a lord, and his son seemed to have got

the bottle from him; it was half empty, and when he saw me he just

handed it to me and ordered me to take it away. Then between us we

got the Major to lie down on the sofa and left him there. When we

got out into the passage Mr. Vaughan he leant against the wall for a

minute, looking as white as a sheet, and then I noticed for the

first time that his left arm was hanging down at his side. 'Lord!

sir,' I cried, 'your arm's broken.' And he went all at once as red

as he had been pale just before, and said he had got it done

accidentally, and bade me say nothing about it, and walked off there

and then to the doctor's, and had it set. But sir, given a man

drunk as the Major was, and given a scuffle to get away the drink

that was poisoning him, and given a crash such as I heard, and given

a poker a-lying in the middle of the room where it stands to reason

no poker could get unless it was thrown--why, sir, no sensible woman

who can put two and two together can doubt that it was all the

Major's doing."

"Yes," I said, "that is clear enough; but for Mr. Vaughan's sake we

must hush it up; and, as for safety, why, the Major is hardly strong

enough to do him any worse damage than that."

The good old thing wiped away a tear from her eyes. She was very

fond of Derrick, and it went to her heart that he should lead such a

dog's life.

I said what I could to comfort her, and she went down again, fearful

lest he should discover her upstairs and guess that she had opened

her heart to me.

Poor Derrick! That he of all people on earth should be mixed up

with such a police court story--with drunkard, and violence, and

pokers figuring in it! I lay back in the camp chair and looked at

Hoffman's 'Christ,' and thought of all the extraordinary problems

that one is for ever coming across in life. And I wondered whether

the people of Bath who saw the tall, impassive-looking, hazel-eyed

son and the invalid father in their daily pilgrimages to the Pump

Room, or in church on Sunday, or in the Park on sunny afternoons had

the least notion of the tragedy that was going on. My reflections

were interrupted by his entrance. He had forced up a cheerfulness

that I am sure he didn't really feel, and seemed afraid of letting

our talk flag for a moment. I remember, too, that for the first

time he offered to read me his novel, instead of as usual waiting

for me to ask to hear it. I can see him now, fetching the untidy

portfolio and turning over the pages, adroitly enough, as though

anxious to show how immaterial was the loss of a left arm. That

night I listened to the first half of the third volume of 'Lynwood's

Heritage,' and couldn't help reflecting that its author seemed to

thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this deadly-lively

place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life.

"How do you manage to write one-handed?" I asked.

And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-weight on the left-hand

corner of the sheet of foolscap, and wrote that comical first

paragraph of the eighth chapter over which we have all laughed. I

suppose few readers guessed the author's state of mind when he wrote

it. I looked over his shoulder to see what he had written, and

couldn't help laughing aloud--I verily believe that it was his way

of turning off attention from his arm, and leading me safely from

the region of awkward questions.

"By-the-by," I exclaimed, "your writing of garden-parties reminds

me. I went to one at Campden Hill the other day, and had the good

fortune to meet Miss Freda Merrifield."

How his face lighted up, poor fellow, and what a flood of questions

he poured out. "She looked very well and very pretty," I replied.

"I played two sets of tennis with her. She asked after you directly

she saw me, seeming to think that we always hunted in couples. I

told her you were living here, taking care of an invalid father; but

just then up came the others to arrange the game. She and I got the

best courts, and as we crossed over to them she told me she had met

your brother several times last autumn, when she had been staying

near Aldershot. Odd that he never mentioned her here; but I don't

suppose she made much impression on him. She is not at all his

style."

"Did you have much more talk with her?" he asked.

"No, nothing to be called talk. She told me they were leaving

London next week, and she was longing to get back to the country to

her beloved animals--rabbits, poultry, an aviary, and all that kind

of thing. I should gather that they had kept her rather in the

background this season, but I understand that the eldest sister is

to be married in the winter, and then no doubt Miss Freda will be

brought forward."

He seemed wonderfully cheered by this opportune meeting, and though

there was so little to tell he appeared to be quite content. I left

him on Monday in fairly good spirits, and did not come across him

again till September, when his arm was well, and his novel finished

and revised. He never made two copies of his work, and I fancy this

was perhaps because he spent so short a time each day in actual

writing, and lived so continually in his work; moreover, as I said

before, he detested penmanship.

The last part of 'Lynwood' far exceeded my expectations; perhaps--

yet I don't really think so--I viewed it too favourably. But I owed

the book a debt of gratitude, since it certainly helped me through

the worst part of my life.

"Don't you feel flat now it is finished?" I asked.

"I felt so miserable that I had to plunge into another story three

days after," he replied; and then and there he gave me the sketch of

his second novel, 'At Strife,' and told me how he meant to weave in

his childish fancies about the defence of the bridge in the Civil

Wars.

"And about 'Lynwood?' Are you coming up to town to hawk him round?"

I asked.

"I can't do that," he said; "you see I am tied here. No, I must

send him off by rail, and let him take his chance."

"No such thing!" I cried. "If you can't leave Bath I will take him

round for you."

And Derrick, who with the oddest inconsistency would let his MS. lie

about anyhow at home, but hated the thought of sending it out alone

on its travels, gladly accepted my offer. So next week I set off

with the huge brown paper parcel; few, however, will appreciate my

good nature, for no one but an author or a publisher knows the

fearful weight of a three volume novel in MS.! To my intense

satisfaction I soon got rid of it, for the first good firm to which

I took it received it with great politeness, to be handed over to

their 'reader' for an opinion; and apparently the 'reader's' opinion

coincided with mine, for a month later Derrick received an offer for

it with which he at once closed--not because it was a good one, but

because the firm was well thought of, and because he wished to lose

no time, but to have the book published at once. I happened to be

there when his first 'proofs' arrived. The Major had had an attack

of jaundice, and was in a fiendish humour. We had a miserable time

of it at dinner, for he badgered Derrick almost past bearing, and I

think the poor old fellow minded it more when there was a third

person present. Somehow through all he managed to keep his

extraordinary capacity for reverencing mere age--even this degraded

and detestable old age of the Major's. I often thought that in this

he was like my own ancestor, Hugo Wharncliffe, whose deference and

respectfulness and patience had not descended to me, while

unfortunately the effects of his physical infirmities had. I

sometimes used to reflect bitterly enough on the truth of Herbert

Spencer's teaching as to heredity, so clearly shown in my own case.

In the year 1683, through the abominable cruelty and harshness of

his brother Randolph, this Hugo Wharncliffe, my great-great-great-

great-great grandfather, was immured in Newgate, and his

constitution was thereby so much impaired and enfeebled that, two

hundred years after, my constitution is paying the penalty, and my

whole life is thereby changed and thwarted. Hence this childless

Randolph is affecting the course of several lives in the 19th

century to their grievous hurt.

But revenons a nos moutons--that is to say, to our lion and lamb--

the old brute of a Major and his long-suffering son.

While the table was being cleared, the Major took forty winks on the

sofa, and we two beat a retreat, lit up our pipes in the passage,

and were just turning out when the postman's double knock came, but

no showers of letters in the box. Derrick threw open the door, and

the man handed him a fat, stumpy-looking roll in a pink wrapper.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "PROOFS!"

And, in hot haste, he began tearing away the pink paper, till out

came the clean, folded bits of printing and the dirty and

dishevelled blue foolscap, the look of which I knew so well. It is

an odd feeling, that first seeing one's self in print, and I could

guess, even then, what a thrill shot through Derrick as he turned

over the pages. But he would not take them into the sitting-room,

no doubt dreading another diatribe against his profession; and we

solemnly played euchre, and patiently endured the Major's withering

sarcasms till ten o'clock sounded our happy release.

However, to make a long story short, a month later--that is, at the

end of November--'Lynwood's Heritage' was published in three volumes

with maroon cloth and gilt lettering. Derrick had distributed among

his friends the publishers' announcement of the day of publication;

and when it was out I besieged the libraries for it, always

expressing surprise if I did not find it in their lists. Then began

the time of reviews. As I had expected, they were extremely

favourable, with the exception of the Herald, the Stroller, and the

Hour, which made it rather hot for him, the latter in particular

pitching into his views and assuring its readers that the book was

'dangerous,' and its author a believer in--various thing especially

repugnant to Derrick, at it happened.

I was with him when he read these reviews. Over the cleverness of

the satirical attack in the Weekly Herald he laughed heartily,

though the laugh was against himself; and as to the critic who wrote

in the Stroller it was apparent to all who knew 'Lynwood' that he

had not read much of the book; but over this review in the Hour he

was genuinely angry--it hurt him personally, and, as it afterwards

turned out, played no small part in the story of his life. The good

reviews, however, were many, and their recommendation of the book

hearty; they all prophesied that it would be a great success. Yet,

spite of this, 'Lynwood's Heritage' didn't sell. Was it, as I had

feared, that Derrick was too devoid of the pushing faculty ever to

make a successful writer? Or was it that he was handicapped by

being down in the provinces playing keeper to that abominable old

bear? Anyhow, the book was well received, read with enthusiasm by

an extremely small circle, and then it dropped down to the bottom

among the mass of overlooked literature, and its career seemed to be

over. I can recall the look in Derrick's face when one day he

glanced through the new Mudie and Smith lists and found 'Lynwood's

Heritage' no longer down. I had been trying to cheer him up about

the book and quoting all the favourable remarks I had heard about

it. But unluckily this was damning evidence against my optimist

view.

He sighed heavily and put down the lists.

"It's no use to deceive one's self," he said, drearily, "'Lynwood'

has failed."

Something in the deep depression of look and tone gave me a

momentary insight into the author's heart. He thought, I know, of

the agony of mind this book had cost him; of those long months of

waiting and their deadly struggle, of the hopes which had made all

he passed through seem so well worth while; and the bitterness of

the disappointment was no doubt intensified by the knowledge that

the Major would rejoice over it.

We walked that afternoon along the Bradford Valley, a road which

Derrick was specially fond of. He loved the thickly-wooded hills,

and the glimpses of the Avon, which, flanked by the canal and the

railway, runs parallel with the high road; he always admired, too, a

certain little village with grey stone cottages which lay in this

direction, and liked to look at the site of the old hall near the

road: nothing remained of it but the tall gate posts and rusty iron

gates looking strangely dreary and deserted, and within one could

see, between some dark yew trees, an old terrace walk with stone

steps and balustrades--the most ghostly-looking place you can

conceive.

"I know you'll put this into a book some day," I said, laughing.

"Yes," he said, "it is already beginning to simmer in my brain."

Apparently his deep disappointment as to his first venture had in no

way affected his perfectly clear consciousness that, come what

would, he had to write.

As we walked back to Bath he told me his 'Ruined Hall' story as far

as it had yet evolved itself in his brain, and we were still

discussing it when in Milsom Street we met a boy crying evening

papers, and details of the last great battle at Saspataras Hill.

Derrick broke off hastily, everything but anxiety for Lawrence

driven from his mind.

Chapter VI.

"Say not, O Soul, thou art defeated,

Because thou art distressed;

If thou of better thing art cheated,

Thou canst not be of best."

T. T. Lynch.

"Good heavens, Sydney!" he exclaimed in great excitement and with

his whole face aglow with pleasure, "look here!"

He pointed to a few lines in the paper which mentioned the heroic

conduct of Lieutenant L. Vaughan, who at the risk of his life had

rescued a brother officer when surrounded by the enemy and

completely disabled. Lieutenant Vaughan had managed to mount the

wounded man on his own horse and had miraculously escaped himself

with nothing worse than a sword-thrust in the left arm.

We went home in triumph to the Major, and Derrick read the whole

account aloud. With all his detestation of war, he was nevertheless

greatly stirred by the description of the gallant defence of the

attacked position--and for a time we were all at one, and could talk

of nothing but Lawrence's heroism, and Victoria Crosses, and the

prospects of peace. However, all too soon, the Major's fiendish

temper returned, and he began to use the event of the day as a

weapon against Derrick, continually taunting him with the contrast

between his stay-at-home life of scribbling and Lawrence's life of

heroic adventure. I could never make out whether he wanted to goad

his son into leaving him, in order that he might drink himself to

death in peace, or whether he merely indulged in his natural love of

tormenting, valuing Derrick's devotion as conducive to his own

comfort, and knowing that hard words would not drive him from what

he deemed to be his duty. I rather incline to the latter view, but

the old Major was always an enigma to me; nor can I to this day make

out his raison-d'etre, except on the theory that the training of a

novelist required a course of slow torture, and that the old man was

sent into the world to be a sort of thorn in the flesh of Derrick.

What with the disappointment about his first book, and the

difficulty of writing his second, the fierce craving for Freda's

presence, the struggle not to allow his admiration for Lawrence's

bravery to become poisoned by envy under the influence of the

Major's incessant attacks, Derrick had just then a hard time of it.

He never complained, but I noticed a great change in him; his

melancholy increased, his flashes of humour and merriment became

fewer and fewer--I began to be afraid that he would break down.

"For God's sake!" I exclaimed one evening when left alone with the

Doctor after an evening of whist, "do order the Major to London.

Derrick has been mewed up here with him for nearly two years, and I

don't think he can stand it much longer."

So the Doctor kindly contrived to advise the Major to consult a

well-known London physician, and to spend a fortnight in town,

further suggesting that a month at Ben Rhydding might be enjoyable

before settling down at Bath again for the winter. Luckily the

Major took to the idea, and just as Lawrence returned from the war

Derrick and his father arrived in town. The change seemed likely to

work well, and I was able now and then to release my friend and play

cribbage with the old man for an hour or two while Derrick tore

about London, interviewed his publisher, made researches into

seventeenth century documents at the British Museum, and somehow

managed in his rapid way to acquire those glimpses of life and

character which he afterwards turned to such good account. All was

grist that came to his mill, and at first the mere sight of his old

home, London, seemed to revive him. Of course at the very first

opportunity he called at the Probyns', and we both of us had an

invitation to go there on the following Wednesday to see the march

past of the troops and to lunch. Derrick was nearly beside himself

at the prospect, for he knew that he should certainly meet Freda at

last, and the mingled pain and bliss of being actually in the same

place with her, yet as completely separated as if seas rolled

between them, was beginning to try him terribly.

Meantime Lawrence had turned up again, greatly improved in every way

by all that he had lived through, but rather too ready to fall in

with his father's tone towards Derrick. The relations between the

two brothers--always a little peculiar--became more and more

difficult, and the Major seemed to enjoy pitting them against each

other.

At length the day of the review arrived. Derrick was not looking

well, his eyes were heavy with sleeplessness, and the Major had been

unusually exasperating at breakfast that morning, so that he started

with a jaded, worn-out feeling that would not wholly yield even to

the excitement of this long-expected meeting with Freda. When he

found himself in the great drawing-room at Lord Probyn's house, amid

a buzz of talk and a crowd of strange faces, he was seized with one

of those sudden attacks of shyness to which he was always liable.

In fact, he had been so long alone with the old Major that this

plunge into society was too great a reaction, and the very thing he

had longed for became a torture to him.

Freda was at the other end of the room talking to Keith Collins, the

well-known member for Codrington, whose curious but attractive face

was known to all the world through the caricatures of it in 'Punch.'

I knew that she saw Derrick, and that he instantly perceived her,

and that a miserable sense of separation, of distance, of

hopelessness overwhelmed him as he looked. After all, it was

natural enough. For two years he had thought of Freda night and

day; in his unutterably dreary life her memory had been his

refreshment, his solace, his companion. Now he was suddenly brought

face to face, not with the Freda of his dreams, but with a

fashionable, beautifully dressed, much-sought girl, and he felt that

a gulf lay between them; it was the gulf of experience. Freda's

life in society, the whirl of gaiety, the excitement and success

which she had been enjoying throughout the season, and his miserable

monotony of companionship with his invalid father, of hard work and

weary disappointment, had broken down the bond of union that had

once existed between them. From either side they looked at each

other--Freda with a wondering perplexity, Derrick with a dull

grinding pain at his heart.

Of course they spoke to each other; but I fancy the merest

platitudes passed between them. Somehow they had lost touch, and a

crowded London drawing-room was hardly the place to regain it.

"So your novel is really out," I heard her say to him in that deep,

clear voice of hers. "I like the design on the cover."

"Oh, have you read the book?" said Derrick, colouring.

"Well, no," she said truthfully. "I wanted to read it, but my

father wouldn't let me--he is very particular about what we read."

That frank but not very happily worded answer was like a stab to

poor Derrick. He had given to the world then a book that was not

fit for her to read! This 'Lynwood,' which had been written with

his own heart's blood, was counted a dangerous, poisonous thing,

from which she must be guarded!

Freda must have seen that she had hurt him, for she tried hard to

retrieve her words.

"It was tantalising to have it actually in the house, wasn't it? I

have a grudge against the Hour, for it was the review in that which

set my father against it." Then rather anxious to leave the

difficult subject--"And has your brother quite recovered from his

wound?"

I think she was a little vexed that Derrick did not show more

animation in his replies about Lawrence's adventures during the war;

the less he responded the more enthusiastic she became, and I am

perfectly sure that in her heart she was thinking:

"He is jealous of his brother's fame--I am disappointed in him. He

has grown dull, and absent, and stupid, and he is dreadfully wanting

in small-talk. I fear that his life down in the provinces is

turning him into a bear."

She brought the conversation back to his book; but there was a

little touch of scorn in her voice, as if she thought to herself, "I

suppose he is one of those people who can only talk on one subject--

his own doings." Her manner was almost brusque.

"Your novel has had a great success, has it not?" she asked.

He instantly perceived her thought, and replied with a touch of

dignity and a proud smile:

"On the contrary, it has been a great failure; only three hundred

and nine copies have been sold."

"I wonder at that," said Freda, "for one so often heard it talked

of."

He promptly changed the topic, and began to speak of the march past.

"I want to see Lord Starcross," he added. "I have no idea what a

hero is like."

Just then Lady Probyn came up, followed by an elderly harpy in

spectacles and false, much-frizzed fringe.

"Mrs. Carsteen wishes to be introduced to you, Mr. Vaughan; she is a

great admirer of your writings."

And poor Derrick, who was then quite unused to the species, had to

stand and receive a flood of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in

a strident voice, and to bear the critical and prolonged stare of

the spectacled eyes. Nor would the harpy easily release her prey.

She kept him much against his will, and I saw him looking wistfully

now and then towards Freda.

"It amuses me," I said to her, "that Derrick Vaughan should be so

anxious to see Lord Starcross. It reminds me of Charles Lamb's

anxiety to see Kosciusko, 'for,' said he, 'I have never seen a hero;

I wonder how they look,' while all the time he himself was living a

life of heroic self-sacrifice."

"Mr. Vaughan, I should think, need only look at his own brother,"

said Freda, missing the drift of my speech.

I longed to tell her what it was possible to tell of Derrick's life,

but at that moment Sir Richard Merrifield introduced to his daughter

a girl in a huge hat and great flopping sleeves, Miss Isaacson,

whose picture at the Grosvenor had been so much talked of. Now the

little artist knew no one in the room, and Freda saw fit to be

extremely friendly to her. She was introduced to me, and I did my

best to talk to her and set Freda at liberty as soon as the harpy

had released Derrick; but my endeavours were frustrated, for Miss

Isaacson, having looked me well over, decided that I was not at all

intense, but a mere commonplace, slightly cynical worldling, and

having exchanged a few lukewarm remarks with me, she returned to

Freda, and stuck to her like a bur for the rest of the time.

We stood out on the balcony to see the troops go by. It was a fine

sight, and we all became highly enthusiastic. Freda enjoyed the

mere pageant like a child, and was delighted with the horses. She

looked now more like the Freda of the yacht, and I wished that

Derrick could be near her; but, as ill-luck would have it, he was at

some distance, hemmed in by an impassable barrier of eager

spectators.

Lawrence Vaughan rode past, looking wonderfully well in his uniform.

He was riding a spirited bay, which took Freda's fancy amazingly,

though she reserved her chief enthusiasm for Lord Starcross and his

steed. It was not until all was over, and we had returned to the

drawing-room, that Derrick managed to get the talk with Freda for

which I knew he was longing, and then they were fated, apparently,

to disagree. I was standing near and overheard the close of their

talk.

"I do believe you must be a member of the Peace Society!" said Freda

impatiently. "Or perhaps you have turned Quaker. But I want to

introduce you to my god-father, Mr. Fleming; you know it was his son

whom your brother saved."

And I heard Derrick being introduced as the brother of the hero of

Saspataras Hill; and the next day he received a card for one of Mrs.

Fleming's receptions, Lawrence having previously been invited to

dine there on the same night.

What happened at that party I never exactly understood. All I could

gather was that Lawrence had been tremendously feted, that Freda had

been present, and that poor old Derrick was as miserable as he could

be when I next saw him. Putting two and two together, I guessed

that he had been tantalised by a mere sight of her, possibly

tortured by watching more favoured men enjoying long tete-a-tetes;

but he would say little or nothing about it, and when, soon after,

he and the Major left London, I feared that the fortnight had done

my friend harm instead of good.

Chapter VII.

"Then in that hour rejoice, since only thus

Can thy proud heart grow wholly piteous.

Thus only to the world thy speech can flow

Charged with the sad authority of woe.

Since no man nurtured in the shade can sing

To a true note one psalm of conquering;

Warriors must chant it whom our own eyes see

Red from the battle and more bruised than we,

Men who have borne the worst, have known the whole,

Have felt the last abeyance of the soul."

F. W. H. Myers.

About the beginning of August, I rejoined him at Ben Rhydding. The

place suited the Major admirably, and his various baths took up so

great a part of each day, that Derrick had more time to himself than

usual, and 'At Strife' got on rapidly. He much enjoyed, too, the

beautiful country round, while the hotel itself, with its huge

gathering of all sorts and conditions of people, afforded him

endless studies of character. The Major breakfasted in his own

room, and, being so much engrossed with his baths, did not generally

appear till twelve. Derrick and I breakfasted in the great dining-

hall; and one morning, when the meal was over, we, as usual,

strolled into the drawing-room to see if there were any letters

awaiting us.

"One for you," I remarked, handing him a thick envelope.

"From Lawrence!" he exclaimed.

"Well, don't read it in here; the Doctor will be coming to read

prayers. Come out in the garden," I said.

We went out into the beautiful grounds, and he tore open the

envelope and began to read his letter as we walked. All at once I

felt the arm which was linked in mine give a quick, involuntary

movement, and, looking up, saw that Derrick had turned deadly pale.

"What's up?" I said. But he read on without replying; and, when I

paused and sat down on a sheltered rustic seat, he unconsciously

followed my example, looking more like a sleep-walker than a man in

the possession of all his faculties. At last he finished the

letter, and looked up in a dazed, miserable way, letting his eyes

wander over the fir-trees and the fragrant shrubs and the flowers by

the path.

"Dear old fellow, what is the matter?" I asked.

The words seemed to rouse him.

A dreadful look passed over his face--the look of one stricken to

the heart. But his voice was perfectly calm, and full of a ghastly

self-control.

"Freda will be my sister-in-law," he said, rather as if stating the

fact to himself than answering my question.

"Impossible!" I said. "What do you mean? How could--"

As if to silence me he thrust the letter into my hand. It ran as

follows:

"Dear Derrick,--For the last few days I have been down in the

Flemings' place in Derbyshire, and fortune has favoured me, for the

Merrifields are here too. Now prepare yourself for a surprise.

Break the news to the governor, and send me your heartiest

congratulations by return of post. I am engaged to Freda

Merrifield, and am the happiest fellow in the world. They are

awfully fastidious sort of people, and I do not believe Sir Richard

would have consented to such a match had it not been for that lucky

impulse which made me rescue Dick Fleming. It has all been arranged

very quickly, as these things should be, but we have seen a good

deal of each other--first at Aldershot the year before last, and

just lately in town, and now these four days down here--and days in

a country house are equal to weeks elsewhere. I enclose a letter to

my father--give it to him at a suitable moment--but, after all, he's

sure to approve of a daughter-in-law with such a dowry as Miss

Merrifield is likely to have.

"Yours affly.,

"Lawrence Vaughan."

I gave him back the letter without a word. In dead silence we moved

on, took a turning which led to a little narrow gate, and passed out

of the grounds to the wild moorland country beyond.

After all, Freda was in no way to blame. As a mere girl she had

allowed Derrick to see that she cared for him; then circumstances

had entirely separated them; she saw more of the world, met

Lawrence, was perhaps first attracted to him by his very likeness to

Derrick, and finally fell in love with the hero of the season, whom

every one delighted to honour. Nor could one blame Lawrence, who

had no notion that he had supplanted his brother. All the blame lay

with the Major's slavery to drink, for if only he had remained out

in India I feel sure that matters would have gone quite differently.

We tramped on over heather and ling and springy turf till we reached

the old ruin known as the Hunting Tower; then Derrick seemed to

awake to the recollection of present things. He looked at his

watch.

"I must go back to my father," he said, for the first time breaking

the silence.

"You shall do no such thing!" I cried. "Stay out here and I will

see to the Major, and give him the letter too if you like."

He caught at the suggestion, and as he thanked me I think there were

tears in his eyes. So I took the letter and set off for Ben

Rhydding, leaving him to get what relief he could from solitude,

space, and absolute quiet. Once I just glanced back, and somehow

the scene has always lingered in my memory--the great stretch of

desolate moor, the dull crimson of the heather, the lowering grey

clouds, the Hunting Tower a patch of deeper gloom against the gloomy

sky, and Derrick's figure prostrate, on the turf, the face hidden,

the hands grasping at the sprigs of heather growing near.

The Major was just ready to be helped into the garden when I reached

the hotel. We sat down in the very same place where Derrick had

read the news, and, when I judged it politic, I suddenly remembered

with apologies the letter that had been entrusted to me. The old

man received it with satisfaction, for he was fond of Lawrence and

proud of him, and the news of the engagement pleased him greatly.

He was still discussing it when, two hours later, Derrick returned.

"Here's good news!" said the Major, glancing up as his son

approached. "Trust Lawrence to fall on his feet! He tells me the

girl will have a thousand a year. You know her, don't you? What's

she like?"

"I have met her," replied Derrick, with forced composure. "She is

very charming."

"Lawrence has all his wits about him," growled the Major. "Whereas

you--" (several oaths interjected). "It will be a long while before

any girl with a dowry will look at you! What women like is a bold

man of action; what they despise, mere dabblers in pen and ink,

writers of poisonous sensational tales such as yours! I'm quoting

your own reviewers, so you needn't contradict me!"

Of course no one had dreamt of contradicting; it would have been the

worst possible policy.

"Shall I help you in?" said Derrick. "It is just dinner time."

And as I walked beside them to the hotel, listening to the Major's

flood of irritating words, and glancing now and then at Derrick's

grave, resolute face, which successfully masked such bitter

suffering, I couldn't help reflecting that here was courage

infinitely more deserving of the Victoria Cross than Lawrence's

impulsive rescue. Very patiently he sat through the long dinner. I

doubt if any but an acute observer could have told that he was in

trouble; and, luckily, the world in general observes hardly at all.

He endured the Major till it was time for him to take a Turkish

bath, and then having two hours' freedom, climbed with me up the

rock-covered hill at the back of the hotel. He was very silent.

But I remember that, as we watched the sun go down--a glowing

crimson ball, half veiled in grey mist--he said abruptly, "If

Lawrence makes her happy I can bear it. And of course I always knew

that I was not worthy of her."

Derrick's room was a large, gaunt, ghostly place in one of the

towers of the hotel, and in one corner of it was a winding stair

leading to the roof. When I went in next morning I found him

writing away at his novel just as usual, but when I looked at him it

seemed to me that the night had aged him fearfully. As a rule, he

took interruptions as a matter of course, and with perfect sweetness

of temper; but to-day he seemed unable to drag himself back to the

outer world. He was writing at a desperate pace too, and frowned

when I spoke to him. I took up the sheet of foolscap which he had

just finished and glanced at the number of the page--evidently he

had written an immense quantity since the previous day.

"You will knock yourself up if you go on at this rate!" I exclaimed.

"Nonsense!" he said sharply. "You know it never tires me."

Yet, all the same, he passed his hand very wearily over his

forehead, and stretched himself with the air of one who had been in

a cramping position for many hours.

"You have broken your vow!" I cried. "You have been writing at

night."

"No," he said; "it was morning when I began--three o'clock. And it

pays better to get up and write than to lie awake thinking."

Judging by the speed with which the novel grew in the next few

weeks, I could tell that Derrick's nights were of the worst.

He began, too, to look very thin and haggard, and I more than once

noticed that curious 'sleep-walking' expression in his eyes; he

seemed to me just like a man who has received his death-blow, yet

still lingers--half alive, half dead. I had an odd feeling that it

was his novel which kept him going, and I began to wonder what would

happen when it was finished.

A month later, when I met him again at Bath, he had written the last

chapter of 'At Strife,' and we read it over the sitting-room fire on

Saturday evening. I was very much struck with the book; it seemed

to me a great advance on 'Lynwood's Heritage,' and the part which he

had written since that day at Ben Rhydding was full of an

indescribable power, as if the life of which he had been robbed had

flowed into his work. When he had done, he tied up the MS. in his

usual prosaic fashion, just as if it had been a bundle of clothes,

and put it on a side table.

It was arranged that I should take it to Davison--the publisher of

'Lynwood's Heritage'--on Monday, and see what offer he would make

for it. Just at that time I felt so sorry for Derrick that if he

had asked me to hawk round fifty novels I would have done it.

Sunday morning proved wet and dismal; as a rule the Major, who was

fond of music, attended service at the Abbey, but the weather forced

him now to stay at home. I myself was at that time no church-goer,

but Derrick would, I verily believe, as soon have fasted a week as

have given up a Sunday morning service; and having no mind to be

left to the Major's company, and a sort of wish to be near my

friend, I went with him. I believe it is not correct to admire Bath

Abbey, but for all that 'the lantern of the west' has always seemed

to me a grand place; as for Derrick, he had a horror of a 'dim

religious light,' and always stuck up for his huge windows, and I

believe he loved the Abbey with all his heart. Indeed, taking it

only from a sensuous point of view, I could quite imagine what a

relief he found his weekly attendance here; by contrast with his

home the place was Heaven itself.

As we walked back, I asked a question that had long been in my mind:

"Have you seen anything of Lawrence?"

"He saw us across London on our way from Ben Rhydding," said

Derrick, steadily. "Freda came with him, and my father was

delighted with her."

I wondered how they had got through the meeting, but of course my

curiosity had to go unsatisfied. Of one thing I might be certain,

namely, that Derrick had gone through with it like a Trojan, that he

had smiled and congratulated in his quiet way, and had done the best

to efface himself and think only of Freda. But as everyone knows:

"Face joy's a costly mask to wear,

'Tis bought with pangs long nourished

And rounded to despair;"

and he looked now even more worn and old than he had done at Ben

Rhydding in the first days of his trouble.

However, he turned resolutely away from the subject I had introduced

and began to discuss titles for his novel.

"It's impossible to find anything new," he said, "absolutely

impossible. I declare I shall take to numbers."

I laughed at this prosaic notion, and we were still discussing the

title when we reached home.

"Don't say anything about it at lunch," he said as we entered. "My

father detests my writing."

I nodded assent and opened the sitting-room door--a strong smell of

brandy instantly became apparent; the Major sat in the green velvet

chair, which had been wheeled close to the hearth. He was drunk.

Derrick gave an ejaculation of utter hopelessness.

"This will undo all the good of Ben Rhydding!" he said. "How on

earth has he managed to get it?"

The Major, however, was not so far gone as he looked; he caught up

the remark and turned towards us with a hideous laugh.

"Ah, yes," he said, "that's the question. But the old man has still

some brains, you see. I'll be even with you yet, Derrick. You

needn't think you're to have it all your own way. It's my turn now.

You've deprived me all this time of the only thing I care for in

life, and now I turn the tables on you. Tit for tat. Oh! yes, I've

turned your d--d scribblings to a useful purpose, so you needn't

complain!"

All this had been shouted out at the top of his voice and freely

interlarded with expressions which I will not repeat; at the end he

broke again into a laugh, and with a look, half idiotic, half

devilish, pointed towards the grate.

"Good Heavens!" I said, "what have you done?"

By the side of the chair I saw a piece of brown paper, and, catching

it up, read the address--"Messrs. Davison, Paternoster Row"; in the

fireplace was a huge charred mass. Derrick caught his breath; he

stooped down and snatched from the fender a fragment of paper

slightly burned, but still not charred beyond recognition like the

rest. The writing was quite legible--it was his own writing--the

description of the Royalists' attack and Paul Wharncliffe's defence

of the bridge. I looked from the half-burnt scrap of paper to the

side table where, only the previous night, we had placed the novel,

and then, realising as far as any but an author could realise the

frightful thing that had happened, I looked in Derrick's face. Its

white fury appalled me. What he had borne hitherto from the Major,

God only knows, but this was the last drop in the cup. Daily

insults, ceaseless provocation, even the humiliations of personal

violence he had borne with superhuman patience; but this last

injury, this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate destruction of

an amount of thought, and labour, and suffering which only the

writer himself could fully estimate--this was intolerable.

What might have happened had the Major been sober and in the

possession of ordinary physical strength I hardly care to think. As

it was, his weakness protected him. Derrick's wrath was speechless;

with one look of loathing and contempt at the drunken man, he strode

out of the room, caught up his hat, and hurried from the house.

The Major sat chuckling to himself for a minute or two, but soon he

grew drowsy, and before long was snoring like a grampus. The old

landlady brought in lunch, saw the state of things pretty quickly,

shook her head and commiserated Derrick. Then, when she had left

the room, seeing no prospect that either of my companions would be

in a fit state for lunch, I made a solitary meal, and had just

finished when a cab stopped at the door and out sprang Derrick. I

went into the passage to meet him.

"The Major is asleep," I remarked.

He took no more notice than if I had spoken of the cat.

"I'm going to London," he said, making for the stairs. "Can you get

your bag ready? There's a train at 2.5."

Somehow the suddenness and the self-control with which he made this

announcement carried me back to the hotel at Southampton, where,

after listening to the account of the ship's doctor, he had

announced his intention of living with his father. For more than

two years he had borne this awful life; he had lost pretty nearly

all that there was to be lost and he had gained the Major's

vindictive hatred. Now, half maddened by pain, and having, as he

thought, so hopelessly failed, he saw nothing for it but to go--and

that at once.

I packed my bag, and then went to help him. He was cramming all his

possessions into portmanteaux and boxes; the Hoffman was already

packed, and the wall looked curiously bare without it. Clearly this

was no visit to London--he was leaving Bath for good, and who could

wonder at it?

"I have arranged for the attendant from the hospital to come in at

night as well as in the morning," he said, as he locked a

portmanteau that was stuffed almost to bursting. "What's the time?

We must make haste or we shall lose the train. Do, like a good

fellow, cram that heap of things into the carpet-bag while I speak

to the landlady."

At last we were off, rattling through the quiet streets of Bath, and

reaching the station barely in time to rush up the long flight of

stairs and spring into an empty carriage. Never shall I forget that

journey. The train stopped at every single station, and sometimes

in between; we were five mortal hours on the road, and more than

once I thought Derrick would have fainted. However, he was not of

the fainting order, he only grew more and more ghastly in colour and

rigid in expression.

I felt very anxious about him, for the shock and the sudden anger

following on the trouble about Freda seemed to me enough to unhinge

even a less sensitive nature. 'At Strife' was the novel which had,

I firmly believe, kept him alive through that awful time at Ben

Rhydding, and I began to fear that the Major's fit of drunken malice

might prove the destruction of the author as well as of the book.

Everything had, as it were, come at once on poor Derrick; yet I

don't know that he fared worse than other people in this respect.

Life, unfortunately, is for most of us no well-arranged story with a

happy termination; it is a chequered affair of shade and sun, and

for one beam of light there come very often wide patches of shadow.

Men seem to have known this so far back as Shakespeare's time, and

to have observed that one woe trod on another's heels, to have

battled not with a single wave, but with a 'sea of troubles,' and to

have remarked that 'sorrows come not singly, but in battalions.'

However, owing I believe chiefly to his own self-command, and to his

untiring faculty for taking infinite pains over his work, Derrick

did not break down, but pleasantly cheated my expectations. I was

not called on to nurse him through a fever, and consumption did not

mark him for her own. In fact, in the matter of illness, he was

always a most prosaic, unromantic fellow, and never indulged in any

of the euphonious and interesting ailments. In all his life, I

believe, he never went in for anything but the mumps--of all

complaints the least interesting--and, may be, an occasional

headache.

However, all this is a digression. We at length reached London, and

Derrick took a room above mine, now and then disturbing me with

nocturnal pacings over the creaking boards, but, on the whole,

proving himself the best of companions.

If I wrote till Doomsday, I could never make you understand how the

burning of his novel affected him--to this day it is a subject I

instinctively avoid with him--though the re-written 'At Strife' has

been such a grand success. For he did re-write the story, and that

at once. He said little; but the very next morning, in one of the

windows of our quiet sitting-room, often enough looking despairingly

at the grey monotony of Montague Street, he began at 'Page I,

Chapter I,' and so worked patiently on for many months to re-make as

far as he could what his drunken father had maliciously destroyed.

Beyond the unburnt paragraph about the attack on Mondisfield, he had

nothing except a few hastily scribbled ideas in his note-book, and

of course the very elaborate and careful historical notes which he

had made on the Civil War during many years of reading and research-

-for this period had always been a favourite study with him.

But, as any author will understand, the effort of re-writing was

immense, and this, combined with all the other troubles, tried

Derrick to the utmost. However, he toiled on, and I have always

thought that his resolute, unyielding conduct with regard to that

book proved what a man he was.

Chapter VIII.

"How oft Fate's sharpest blow shall leave thee strong,

With some re-risen ecstacy of song."

F. W. H. Myers.

As the autumn wore on, we heard now and then from old Mackrill the

doctor. His reports of the Major were pretty uniform. Derrick used

to hand them over to me when he had read them; but, by tacit

consent, the Major's name was never mentioned.

Meantime, besides re-writing 'At Strife,' he was accumulating

material for his next book and working to very good purpose. Not a

minute of his day was idle; he read much, saw various phases of life

hitherto unknown to him, studied, observed, gained experience, and

contrived, I believe, to think very little and very guardedly of

Freda.

But, on Christmas Eve, I noticed a change in him--and that very

night he spoke to me. For such an impressionable fellow, he had

really extraordinary tenacity, and, spite of the course of Herbert

Spencer that I had put him through, he retained his unshaken faith

in many things which to me were at that time the merest legends. I

remember very well the arguments we used to have on the vexed

question of 'Free-will,' and being myself more or less of a

fatalist, it annoyed me that I never could in the very slightest

degree shake his convictions on that point. Moreover, when I

plagued him too much with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of

retaliating, and would foist upon me his favourite authors. He was

never a worshipper of any one writer, but always had at least a

dozen prophets in whose praise he was enthusiastic.

Well, on this Christmas Eve, we had been to see dear old Ravenscroft

and his grand-daughter, and we were walking back through the quiet

precincts of the Temple, when he said abruptly:

"I have decided to go back to Bath to-morrow."

"Have you had a worse account?" I asked, much startled at this

sudden announcement.

"No," he replied, "but the one I had a week ago was far from good if

you remember, and I have a feeling that I ought to be there."

At that moment we emerged into the confusion of Fleet Street; but

when we had crossed the road I began to remonstrate with him, and

argued the folly of the idea all the way down Chancery Lane.

However, there was no shaking his purpose; Christmas and its

associations had made his life in town no longer possible for him.

"I must at any rate try it again and see how it works," he said.

And all I could do was to persuade him to leave the bulk of his

possessions in London, "in case," as he remarked, "the Major would

not have him."

So the next day I was left to myself again with nothing to remind me

of Derrick's stay but his pictures which still hung on the wall of

our sitting-room. I made him promise to write a full, true, and

particular account of his return, a bona-fide old-fashioned letter,

not the half-dozen lines of these degenerate days; and about a week

later I received the following budget:

"Dear Sydney,--I got down to Bath all right, and, thanks to your

'Study of Sociology,' endured a slow, and cold, and dull, and

depressing journey with the thermometer down to zero, and spirits to

correspond, with the country a monotonous white, and the sky a

monotonous grey, and a companion who smoked the vilest tobacco you

can conceive. The old place looks as beautiful as ever, and to my

great satisfaction the hills round about are green. Snow, save in

pictures, is an abomination. Milsom Street looked asleep, and Gay

Street decidedly dreary, but the inhabitants were roused by my

knock, and the old landlady nearly shook my hand off. My father has

an attack of jaundice and is in a miserable state. He was asleep

when I got here, and the good old landlady, thinking the front

sitting-room would be free, had invited 'company,' i.e., two or

three married daughters and their belongings; one of the children

beats Magnay's 'Carina' as to beauty--he ought to paint her. Happy

thought, send him and pretty Mrs. Esperance down here on spec. He

can paint the child for the next Academy, and meantime I could enjoy

his company. Well, all these good folks being just set-to at roast

beef, I naturally wouldn't hear of disturbing them, and in the end

was obliged to sit down too and eat at that hour of the day the

hugest dinner you ever saw--anything but voracious appetites

offended the hostess. Magnay's future model, for all its angelic

face, 'ate to repletion,' like the fair American in the story. Then

I went into my father's room, and shortly after he woke up and asked

me to give him some Friedrichshall water, making no comment at all

on my return, but just behaving as though I had been here all the

autumn, so that I felt as if the whole affair were a dream. Except

for this attack of jaundice, he has been much as usual, and when you

next come down you will find us settled into our old groove. The

quiet of it after London is extraordinary. But I believe it suits

the book, which gets on pretty fast. This afternoon I went up

Lansdowne and right on past the Grand Stand to Prospect Stile, which

is at the edge of a high bit of tableland, and looks over a splendid

stretch of country, with the Bristol Channel and the Welsh hills in

the distance. While I was there the sun most considerately set in

gorgeous array. You never saw anything like it. It was worth the

journey from London to Bath, I can assure you. Tell Magnay, and may

it lure him down; also name the model aforementioned.

"How is the old Q.C. and his pretty grandchild? That quaint old

room of theirs in the Temple somehow took my fancy, and the child

was divine. Do you remember my showing you, in a gloomy narrow

street here, a jolly old watchmaker who sits in his shop-window and

is for ever bending over sick clocks and watches? Well, he's still

sitting there, as if he had never moved since we saw him that

Saturday months ago. I mean to study him for a portrait; his

sallow, clean-shaved, wrinkled face has a whole story in it. I

believe he is married to a Xantippe who throws cold water over him,

both literally and metaphorically; but he is a philosopher--I'll

stake my reputation as an observer on that--he just shrugs his

sturdy old shoulders, and goes on mending clocks and watches. On

dark days he works by a gas jet--and then Rembrandt would enjoy

painting him. I look at him whenever my world is particularly awry,

and find him highly beneficial. Davison has forwarded me to-day two

letters from readers of 'Lynwood.' The first is from an irate

female who takes me to task for the dangerous tendency of the story,

and insists that I have drawn impossible circumstances and

impossible characters. The second is from an old clergyman, who

writes a pathetic letter of thanks, and tells me that it is almost

word for word the story of a son of his who died five years ago.

Query: shall I send the irate female the old man's letter, and save

myself the trouble of writing? But on the whole I think not; it

would be pearls before swine. I will write to her myself. Glad to

see you whenever you can run down.

"Yours ever,

"D. V."

("Never struck me before what pious initials mine are.")

The very evening I received this letter I happened to be dining at

the Probyn's. As luck would have it, pretty Miss Freda was staying

in the house, and she fell to my share. I always liked her, though

of late I had felt rather angry with her for being carried away by

the general storm of admiration and swept by it into an engagement

with Lawrence Vaughan. She was a very pleasant, natural sort of

talker, and she always treated me as an old friend. But she seemed

to me, that night, a little less satisfied than usual with life.

Perhaps it was merely the effect of the black lace dress which she

wore, but I fancied her paler and thinner, and somehow she seemed

all eyes.

"Where is Lawrence now?" I asked, as we went down to the dining-

room.

"He is stationed at Dover," she replied. "He was up here for a few

hours yesterday; he came to say good-bye to me, for I am going to

Bath next Monday with my father, who has been very rheumatic lately-

-and you know Bath is coming into fashion again, all the doctors

recommend it."

"Major Vaughan is there," I said, "and has found the waters very

good, I believe; any day, at twelve o'clock, you may see him getting

out of his chair and going into the Pump Room on Derrick's arm. I

often wonder what outsiders think of them. It isn't often, is it,

that one sees a son absolutely giving up his life to his invalid

father?"

She looked a little startled.

"I wish Lawrence could be more with Major Vaughan," she said; "for

he is his father's favourite. You see he is such a good talker, and

Derrick--well, he is absorbed in his books; and then he has such

extravagant notions about war, he must be a very uncongenial

companion to the poor Major."

I devoured turbot in wrathful silence. Freda glanced at me.

"It is true, isn't it, that he has quite given up his life to

writing, and cares for nothing else?"

"Well, he has deliberately sacrificed his best chance of success by

leaving London and burying himself in the provinces," I replied

drily; "and as to caring for nothing but writing, why he never gets

more than two or three hours a day for it." And then I gave her a

minute account of his daily routine.

She began to look troubled.

"I have been misled," she said; "I had gained quite a wrong

impression of him."

"Very few people know anything at all about him," I said warmly;

"you are not alone in that."

"I suppose his next novel is finished now?" said Freda; "he told me

he had only one or two more chapters to write when I saw him a few

months ago on his way from Ben Rhydding. What is he writing now?"

"He is writing that novel over again," I replied.

"Over again? What fearful waste of time!"

"Yes, it has cost him hundreds of hours' work; it just shows what a

man he is, that he has gone through with it so bravely."

"But how do you mean? Didn't it do?"

Rashly, perhaps, yet I think unavoidably, I told her the truth.

"It was the best thing he had ever written, but unfortunately it was

destroyed, burnt to a cinder. That was not very pleasant, was it,

for a man who never makes two copies of his work?"

"It was frightful!" said Freda, her eyes dilating. "I never heard a

word about it. Does Lawrence know?"

"No, he does not; and perhaps I ought not to have told you, but I

was annoyed at your so misunderstanding Derrick. Pray never mention

the affair; he would wish it kept perfectly quiet."

"Why?" asked Freda, turning her clear eyes full upon mine.

"Because," I said, lowering my voice, "because his father burnt it."

She almost gasped.

"Deliberately?"

"Yes, deliberately," I replied. "His illness has affected his

temper, and he is sometimes hardly responsible for his actions."

"Oh, I knew that he was irritable and hasty, and that Derrick

annoyed him. Lawrence told me that, long ago," said Freda. "But

that he should have done such a thing as that! It is horrible!

Poor Derrick, how sorry I am for him. I hope we shall see something

of them at Bath. Do you know how the Major is?"

"I had a letter about him from Derrick only this evening," I

replied; "if you care to see it, I will show it you later on."

And by-and-by, in the drawing-room, I put Derrick's letter into her

hands, and explained to her how for a few months he had given up his

life at Bath, in despair, but now had returned.

"I don't think Lawrence can understand the state of things," she

said wistfully. "And yet he has been down there."

I made no reply, and Freda, with a sigh, turned away.

A month later I went down to Bath and found, as my friend foretold,

everything going on in the old groove, except that Derrick himself

had an odd, strained look about him, as if he were fighting a foe

beyond his strength. Freda's arrival at Bath had been very hard on

him, it was almost more than he could endure. Sir Richard, blind as

a bat, of course, to anything below the surface, made a point of

seeing something of Lawrence's brother. And on the day of my

arrival Derrick and I had hardly set out for a walk, when we ran

across the old man.

Sir Richard, though rheumatic in the wrists, was nimble of foot and

an inveterate walker. He was going with his daughter to see over

Beckford's Tower, and invited us to accompany him. Derrick, much

against the grain, I fancy, had to talk to Freda, who, in her winter

furs and close-fitting velvet hat, looked more fascinating than

ever, while the old man descanted to me on Bath waters, antiquities,

etc., in a long-winded way that lasted all up the hill. We made our

way into the cemetery and mounted the tower stairs, thinking of the

past when this dreary place had been so gorgeously furnished. Here

Derrick contrived to get ahead with Sir Richard, and Freda lingered

in a sort of alcove with me.

"I have been so wanting to see you," she said, in an agitated voice.

"Oh, Mr. Wharncliffe, is it true what I have heard about the Major?

Does he drink?"

"Who told you?" I said, a little embarrassed.

"It was our landlady," said Freda; "she is the daughter of the

Major's landlady. And you should hear what she says of Derrick!

Why, he must be a downright hero! All the time I have been half

despising him"--she choked back a sob--"he has been trying to save

his father from what was certain death to him--so they told me. Do

you think it is true?"

"I know it is," I replied gravely.

"And about his arm--was that true?"

I signed an assent.

Her grey eyes grew moist.

"Oh," she cried, "how I have been deceived and how little Lawrence

appreciates him! I think he must know that I've misjudged him, for

he seems so odd and shy, and I don't think he likes to talk to me."

I looked searchingly into her truthful grey eyes, thinking of poor

Derrick's unlucky love-story.

"You do not understand him," I said; "and perhaps it is best so."

But the words and the look were rash, for all at once the colour

flooded her face. She turned quickly away, conscious at last that

the midsummer dream of those yachting days had to Derrick been no

dream at all, but a life-long reality.

I felt very sorry for Freda, for she was not at all the sort of girl

who would glory in having a fellow hopelessly in love with her. I

knew that the discovery she had made would be nothing but a sorrow

to her, and could guess how she would reproach herself for that

innocent past fancy, which, till now, had seemed to her so faint and

far-away--almost as something belonging to another life. All at

once we heard the others descending, and she turned to me with such

a frightened, appealing look, that I could not possibly have helped

going to the rescue. I plunged abruptly into a discourse on

Beckford, and told her how he used to keep diamonds in a tea-cup,

and amused himself by arranging them on a piece of velvet. Sir

Richard fled from the sound of my prosy voice, and, needless to say,

Derrick followed him. We let them get well in advance and then

followed, Freda silent and distraite, but every now and then asking

a question about the Major.

As for Derrick, evidently he was on guard. He saw a good deal of

the Merrifields and was sedulously attentive to them in many small

ways; but with Freda he was curiously reserved, and if by chance

they did talk together, he took good care to bring Lawrence's name

into the conversation. On the whole, I believe loyalty was his

strongest characteristic, and want of loyalty in others tried him

more severely than anything in the world.

As the spring wore on, it became evident to everyone that the Major

could not last long. His son's watchfulness and the enforced

temperance which the doctors insisted on had prolonged his life to a

certain extent, but gradually his sufferings increased and his

strength diminished. At last he kept his bed altogether.

What Derrick bore at this time no one can ever know. When, one

bright sunshiny Saturday, I went down to see how he was getting on,

I found him worn and haggard, too evidently paying the penalty of

sleepless nights and thankless care. I was a little shocked to hear

that Lawrence had been summoned, but when I was taken into the sick

room I realised that they had done wisely to send for the favourite

son.

The Major was evidently dying.

Never can I forget the cruelty and malevolence with which his

bloodshot eyes rested on Derrick, or the patience with which the

dear old fellow bore his father's scathing sarcasms. It was while I

was sitting by the bed that the landlady entered with a telegram,

which she put into Derrick's hand.

"From Lawrence!" said the dying man triumphantly, "to say by what

train we may expect him. Well?" as Derrick still read the message

to himself, "can't you speak, you d--d idiot? Have you lost your d-

-d tongue? What does he say?"

"I am afraid he cannot be here just yet," said Derrick, trying to

tone down the curt message; "it seems he cannot get leave."

"Not get leave to see his dying father? What confounded nonsense.

Give me the thing here"; and he snatched the telegram from Derrick

and read it in a quavering, hoarse voice:

"Impossible to get away. Am hopelessly tied here. Love to my

father. Greatly regret to hear such bad news of him."

I think that message made the old man realise the worth of

Lawrence's often expressed affection for him. Clearly it was a

great blow to him. He threw down the paper without a word and

closed his eyes. For half an hour he lay like that, and we did not

disturb him. At last he looked up; his voice was fainter and his

manner more gentle.

"Derrick," he said, "I believe I've done you an injustice; it is you

who cared for me, not Lawrence, and I've struck your name out of my

will--have left all to him. After all, though you are one of those

confounded novelists, you've done what you could for me. Let some

one fetch a solicitor--I'll alter it--I'll alter it!"

I instantly hurried out to fetch a lawyer, but it was Saturday

afternoon, the offices were closed, and some time passed before I

had caught my man. I told him as we hastened back some of the facts

of the case, and he brought his writing materials into the sick room

and took down from the Major's own lips the words which would have

the effect of dividing the old man's possessions between his two

sons. Dr. Mackrill was now present; he stood on one side of the

bed, his fingers on the dying man's pulse. On the other side stood

Derrick, a degree paler and graver than usual, but revealing little

of his real feelings.

"Word it as briefly as you can," said the doctor.

And the lawyer scribbled away as though for his life, while the rest

of us waited in a wretched hushed state of tension. In the room

itself there was no sound save the scratching of the pen and the

laboured breathing of the old man; but in the next house we could

hear someone playing a waltz. Somehow it did not seem to me

incongruous, for it was 'Sweethearts,' and that had been the

favourite waltz of Ben Rhydding, so that I always connected it with

Derrick and his trouble, and now the words rang in my ears:

"Oh, love for a year, a week, a day,

But alas! for the love that loves alway."

If it had not been for the Major's return from India, I firmly

believed that Derrick and Freda would by this time have been

betrothed. Derrick had taken a line which necessarily divided them,

had done what he saw to be his duty; yet what were the results? He

had lost Freda, he had lost his book, he had damaged his chance of

success as a writer, he had been struck out of his father's will,

and he had suffered unspeakably. Had anything whatever been gained?

The Major was dying unrepentant to all appearance, as hard and

cynical an old worldling as I ever saw. The only spark of grace he

showed was that tardy endeavour to make a fresh will. What good had

it all been? What good?

I could not answer the question then, could only cry out in a sort

of indignation, "What profit is there in his blood?" But looking at

it now, I have a sort of perception that the very lack of apparent

profitableness was part of Derrick's training, while if, as I now

incline to think, there is a hereafter where the training begun here

is continued, the old Major in the hell he most richly deserved

would have the remembrance of his son's patience and constancy and

devotion to serve as a guiding light in the outer darkness.

The lawyer no longer wrote at railroad speed; he pushed back his

chair, brought the will to the bed, and placed the pen in the

trembling yellow hand of the invalid.

"You must sign your name here," he said, pointing with his finger;

and the Major raised himself a little, and brought the pen

quaveringly down towards the paper. With a sort of fascination I

watched the finely-pointed steel nib; it trembled for an instant or

two, then the pen dropped from the convulsed fingers, and with a cry

of intolerable anguish the Major fell back.

For some minutes there was a painful struggle; presently we caught a

word or two between the groans of the dying man.

"Too late!" he gasped, "too late!" And then a dreadful vision of

horrors seemed to rise before him, and with a terror that I can

never forget he turned to his son and clutched fast hold of his

hands: "Derrick!" he shrieked.

Derrick could not speak, but he bent low over the bed as though to

screen the dying eyes from those horrible visions, and with an odd

sort of thrill I saw him embrace his father.

When he raised his head the terror had died out of the Major's face;

all was over.

Chapter IX.

"To duty firm, to conscience true,

However tried and pressed,

In God's clear sight high work we do,

If we but do out best."

Lawrence came down to the funeral, and I took good care that he

should hear all about his father's last hours, and I made the

solicitor show him the unsigned will. He made hardly any comment on

it till we three were alone together. Then with a sort of kindly

patronage he turned to his brother--Derrick, it must be remembered,

was the elder twin--and said pityingly, "Poor old fellow! it was

rather rough on you that the governor couldn't sign this; but never

mind, you'll soon, no doubt, be earning a fortune by your books; and

besides, what does a bachelor want with more than you've already

inherited from our mother? Whereas, an officer just going to be

married, and with this confounded reputation of hero to keep up,

why, I can tell you it needs every penny of it!"

Derrick looked at his brother searchingly. I honestly believe that

he didn't very much care about the money, but it cut him to the

heart that Lawrence should treat him so shabbily. The soul of

generosity himself, he could not understand how anyone could frame a

speech so infernally mean.

"Of course," I broke in, "if Derrick liked to go to law he could no

doubt get his rights, there are three witnesses who can prove what

was the Major's real wish."

"I shall not go to law," said Derrick, with a dignity of which I had

hardly imagined him capable. "You spoke of your marriage, Lawrence;

is it to be soon?"

"This autumn, I hope," said Lawrence; "at least, if I can overcome

Sir Richard's ridiculous notion that a girl ought not to marry till

she's twenty-one. He's a most crotchety old fellow, that future

father-in-law of mine."

When Lawrence had first come back from the war I had thought him

wonderfully improved, but a long course of spoiling and flattery had

done him a world of harm. He liked very much to be lionised, and to

see him now posing in drawing-rooms, surrounded by a worshipping

throng of women, was enough to sicken any sensible being.

As for Derrick, though he could not be expected to feel his

bereavement in the ordinary way, yet his father's death had been a

great shock to him. It was arranged that after settling various

matters in Bath he should go down to stay with his sister for a

time, joining me in Montague Street later on. While he was away in

Birmingham, however, an extraordinary change came into my humdrum

life, and when he rejoined me a few weeks later, I--selfish brute--

was so overwhelmed with the trouble that had befallen me that I

thought very little indeed of his affairs. He took this quite as a

matter of course, and what I should have done without him I can't

conceive. However, this story concerns him and has nothing to do

with my extraordinary dilemma; I merely mention it as a fact which

brought additional cares into his life. All the time he was doing

what could be done to help me he was also going through a most

baffling and miserable time among the publishers; for 'At Strife,'

unlike its predecessor, was rejected by Davison and by five other

houses. Think of this, you comfortable readers, as you lie back in

your easy chairs and leisurely turn the pages of that popular story.

The book which represented years of study and long hours of hard

work was first burnt to a cinder. It was re-written with what

infinite pains and toil few can understand. It was then six times

tied up and carried with anxiety and hope to a publisher's office,

only to re-appear six times in Montague Street, an unwelcome

visitor, bringing with it depression and disappointment.

Derrick said little, but suffered much. However, nothing daunted

him. When it came back from the sixth publisher he took it to a

seventh, then returned and wrote away like a Trojan at his third

book. The one thing that never failed him was that curious

consciousness that he HAD to write; like the prophets of old, the

'burden' came to him, and speak it he must.

The seventh publisher wrote a somewhat dubious letter: the book, he

thought, had great merit, but unluckily people were prejudiced, and

historical novels rarely met with success. However, he was willing

to take the story, and offered half profits, candidly admitting that

he had no great hopes of a large sale. Derrick instantly closed

with this offer, proofs came in, the book appeared, was well

received like its predecessor, fell into the hands of one of the

leaders of Society, and, to the intense surprise of the publisher,

proved to be the novel of the year. Speedily a second edition was

called for; then, after a brief interval, a third edition--this time

a rational one-volume affair; and the whole lot--6,000 I believe--

went off on the day of publication. Derrick was amazed; but he

enjoyed his success very heartily, and I think no one could say that

he had leapt into fame at a bound.

Having devoured 'At Strife,' people began to discover the merits of

'Lynwood's Heritage;' the libraries were besieged for it, and a

cheap edition was hastily published, and another and another, till

the book, which at first had been such a dead failure, rivalled 'At

Strife.' Truly an author's career is a curious thing; and precisely

why the first book failed, and the second succeeded, no one could

explain.

It amused me very much to see Derrick turned into a lion--he was so

essentially un-lion-like. People were for ever asking him how he

worked, and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon him once at a

dinner-party with the embarrassing request:

"Now, do tell me, Mr. Vaughan, how do you write stories? I wish you

would give me a good receipt for a novel."

Derrick hesitated uneasily for a minute; finally, with a humorous

smile, he said:

"Well, I can't exactly tell you, because, more or less, novels grow;

but if you want a receipt, you might perhaps try after this

fashion:--Conceive your hero, add a sprinkling of friends and

relatives, flavour with whatever scenery or local colour you please,

carefully consider what circumstances are most likely to develop

your man into the best he is capable of, allow the whole to simmer

in your brain as long as you can, and then serve, while hot, with

ink upon white or blue foolscap, according to taste."

The young lady applauded the receipt, but she sighed a little, and

probably relinquished all hope of concocting a novel herself; on the

whole, it seemed to involve incessant taking of trouble.

About this time I remember, too, another little scene, which I

enjoyed amazingly. I laugh now when I think of it. I happened to

be at a huge evening crush, and rather to my surprise, came across

Lawrence Vaughan. We were talking together, when up came Connington

of the Foreign Office. "I say, Vaughan," he said, "Lord Remington

wishes to be introduced to you." I watched the old statesman a

little curiously as he greeted Lawrence, and listened to his first

words: "Very glad to make your acquaintance, Captain Vaughan; I

understand that the author of that grand novel, 'At Strife,' is a

brother of yours." And poor Lawrence spent a mauvais quart d'heure,

inwardly fuming, I know, at the idea that he, the hero of Saspataras

Hill, should be considered merely as 'the brother of Vaughan, the

novelist.'

Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his own pernicious

actions, did not deal kindly just now with Lawrence. Somehow Freda

learnt about that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content

meekly to adore her fiance and deem him faultless, she 'up and

spake' on the subject, and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had

another mauvais quart d'heure. It was not this, however, which led

to a final breach between them; it was something which Sir Richard

discovered with regard to Lawrence's life at Dover. The engagement

was instantly broken off, and Freda, I am sure, felt nothing but

relief. She went abroad for some time, however, and we did not see

her till long after Lawrence had been comfortably married to 1,500

pounds a year and a middle-aged widow, who had long been a hero-

worshipper, and who, I am told, never allowed any visitor to leave

the house without making some allusion to the memorable battle of

Saspataras Hill and her Lawrence's gallant action.

For the two years following after the Major's death, Derrick and I,

as I mentioned before, shared the rooms in Montague Street. For me,

owing to the trouble I spoke of, they were years of maddening

suspense and pain; but what pleasure I did manage to enjoy came

entirely through the success of my friend's books and from his

companionship. It was odd that from the care of his father he

should immediately pass on to the care of one who had made such a

disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the less compunction

at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called for at that time,

because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a necessity for

Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not immediately

thrust themselves into his life he carefully hunts them up. During

these two years he was reading for the Bar--not that he ever

expected to do very much as a barrister, but he thought it well to

have something to fall back on, and declared that the drudgery of

the reading would do him good. He was also writing as usual, and he

used to spend two evenings a week at Whitechapel, where he taught

one of the classes in connection with Toynbee Hall, and where he

gained that knowledge of East-end life which is conspicuous in his

third book--'Dick Carew.' This, with an ever increasing and often

very burdensome correspondence, brought to him by his books, and

with a fair share of dinners, 'At Homes,' and so forth, made his

life a full one. In a quiet sort of way I believe he was happy

during this time. But later on, when, my trouble at an end, I had

migrated to a house of my own, and he was left alone in the Montague

Street rooms, his spirits somehow flagged.

Fame is, after all, a hollow, unsatisfying thing to a man of his

nature. He heartily enjoyed his success, he delighted in hearing

that his books had given pleasure or had been of use to anyone, but

no public victory could in the least make up to him for the loss he

had suffered in his private life; indeed, I almost think there were

times when his triumphs as an author seemed to him utterly

worthless--days of depression when the congratulations of his

friends were nothing but a mockery. He had gained a striking

success, it is true, but he had lost Freda; he was in the position

of the starving man who has received a gift of bon-bons, but so

craves for bread that they half sicken him. I used now and then to

watch his face when, as often happened, someone said: "What an

enviable fellow you are, Vaughan, to get on like this!" or, "What

wouldn't I give to change places with you!" He would invariably

smile and turn the conversation; but there was a look in his eyes at

such times that I hated to see--it always made me think of Mrs.

Browning's poem, 'The Mask':

"Behind no prison-grate, she said,

Which slurs the sunshine half a mile,

Live captives so uncomforted

As souls behind a smile."

As to the Merrifields, there was no chance of seeing them, for Sir

Richard had gone to India in some official capacity, and no doubt,

as everyone said, they would take good care to marry Freda out

there. Derrick had not seen her since that trying February at Bath,

long ago. Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts.

And so the years rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving

his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of an

author's life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in

circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing

at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he

received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be

made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor.

One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at

the same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and

perhaps it was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire

after her.

"She has not been well," said Lady Probyn, "and they are sending her

back to England; the climate doesn't suit her. She is to make her

home with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always

been my favourite niece. I don't know what it is about her that is

so taking; she is not half so pretty as the others."

"But so much more charming," I said. "I wonder she has not married

out in India, as everyone prophesied."

"And so do I," said her aunt. "However, poor child, no doubt, after

having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of

Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone

again."

"Do you think that affair ever went very deep?" I ventured to ask.

"It seemed to me that she looked miserable during her engagement,

and happy when it was broken off."

"Quite so," said Lady Probyn; "I noticed the same thing. It was

nothing but a mistake. They were not in the least suited to each

other. By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is married."

"Derrick?" I exclaimed; "oh, no, that is a mistake. It is merely

one of the hundred and one reports that are for ever being set

afloat about him."

"But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said Lady Probyn, by no

means convinced.

"Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no

doubt, and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he

marry? He has been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since

our cruise in the Aurora."

Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation.

"Poor fellow!" she said, after a minute's thought; "that explains

much to me."

She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our

tete-a-tete was interrupted.

Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared

chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party,

Derrick came in with a face of such radiant happiness that I

couldn't imagine what good luck had befallen him.

"What do you think?" he exclaimed; "here's an invitation for a

cruise in the Aurora at the end of August--to be nearly the same

party that we had years ago," and he threw down the letter for me to

read.

Of course there was special mention of "my niece, Miss Merrifield,

who has just returned from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air."

I could have told that without reading the letter, for it was

written quite clearly in Derrick's face. He looked ten years

younger, and if any of his adoring readers could have seen the

pranks he was up to that morning in our staid and respectable

chambers, I am afraid they would no longer have spoken of him "with

'bated breath and whispering humbleness."

As it happened, I, too, was able to leave home for a fortnight at

the end of August; and so our party in the Aurora really was the

same, except that we were all several years older, and let us hope

wiser, than on the previous occasion. Considering all that had

intervened, I was surprised that Derrick was not more altered; as

for Freda, she was decidedly paler than when we first met her, but

before long sea-air and happiness wrought a wonderful transformation

in her.

In spite of the pessimists who are for ever writing books, even

writing novels (more shame to them), to prove that there is no such

thing as happiness in the world, we managed every one of us heartily

to enjoy our cruise. It seemed indeed true that:

"Green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,

And singing and loving all come back together."

Something, at any rate, of the glamour of those past days came back

to us all, I fancy, as we laughed and dozed and idled and talked

beneath the snowy wings of the Aurora, and I cannot say I was in the

least surprised when, on roaming through the pleasant garden walks

in that unique little island of Tresco, I came once more upon

Derrick and Freda, with, if you will believe it, another handful of

white heather given to them by that discerning gardener! Freda once

more reminded me of the girl in the 'Biglow Papers,' and Derrick's

face was full of such bliss as one seldom sees.

He had always had to wait for his good things, but in the end they

came to him. However, you may depend upon it, he didn't say much.

That was never his way. He only gripped my hand, and, with his eyes

all aglow with happiness, exclaimed "Congratulate me, old fellow!"

End of Project Gutenberg Etext Derrick Vaughan--Novelist, by Edna Lyall

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