This mishap appeared to have damped his ardour, for he sighed and removed his cap and apron. “Can anyone open this bottle of olives? And the cocktails? Here, Stephen, you can tackle the cheese; it seems rather shy, it won’t leave its kennel.” In the end it was Stephen and the cook who must do all the work, while Brockett sat down on the floor and gave them ridiculous orders.
III
Brockett it was who ate most of the dinner, for Stephen was too overtired to feel hungry; while Puddle, whose digestion was not what it had been, was forced to content herself with a cutlet. But Brockett ate largely, and as he did so he praised himself and his food between mouthfuls.
“Clever of me to have discovered this pâté—I’m so sorry for the geese though, aren’t you, Stephen? The awful thing is that it’s simply delicious—I wish I knew the esoteric meaning of these mixed emotions!” And he dug with a spoon at the side that appeared to contain the most truffles.
From time to time he paused to inhale the gross little cigarettes he affected. Their tobacco was black, their paper was yellow, and they came from an unpropitious island where, as Brockett declared, the inhabitants died in shoals every year of some tropical fever. He drank a good deal of the Rose’s lime-juice, for this strong, rough tobacco always made him thirsty. Whiskey went to his head and wine to his liver, so that on the whole he was forced to be temperate; but when he got home he would brew himself coffee as viciously black as his tobacco.
Presently he said with a sigh of repletion: “Well, you two, I’ve finished—let’s go into the study.”
As they left the table he seized the mixed biscuits and the caramel creams, for he dearly loved sweet things. He would often go out and buy himself sweets in Bond Street, for solitary consumption.
In the study he sank down on to the divan. “Puddle dear, do you mind if I put my feet up? It’s my new bootmaker, he’s given me a corn on my right little toe. It’s too heartbreaking. It was such a beautiful toe,” he murmured; “quite perfect—the one toe without a blemish!”
After this he seemed disinclined to talk. He had made himself a nest with the cushions, and was smoking, and nibbling rich-mixed biscuits, routing about in the tin for his favourites. But his eyes kept straying across to Stephen with a puzzled and rather anxious expression.
At last she said: “What’s the matter, Brockett? Is my necktie crooked?”
“No—it’s not your necktie; it’s something else.” He sat up abruptly. “As I came here to say it, I’ll get the thing over!”
“Fire away, Brockett.”
“Do you think you’ll hate me if I’m frank?”
“Of course not. Why should I hate you?”
“Very well then, listen.” And now his voice was so grave that Puddle put down her embroidery. “You listen to me, you, Stephen Gordon. Your last book was quite inexcusably bad. It was no more like what we all expected, had a right to expect of you after The Furrow, than that plant I sent Puddle is like an oak tree—I won’t even compare it to that little plant, for the plant’s alive; your book isn’t. Oh, I don’t mean to say that it’s not well written; it’s well written because you’re just a born writer—you feel words, you’ve a perfect ear for balance, and a very good all-round knowledge of English. But that’s not enough, not nearly enough; all that’s a mere suitable dress for a body. And this time you’ve hung the dress on a dummy—a dummy can’t stir our emotions, Stephen. I was talking to Ogilvy only last night. He gave you a good review, he told me, because he’s got such a respect for your talent that he didn’t want to put on the damper. He’s like that—too merciful I always think—they’ve all been too merciful to you, my dear. They ought to have literally skinned you alive—that might have helped to show you your danger. My God! and you wrote a thing like The Furrow! What’s happened? What’s undermining your work? Because whatever it is, it’s deadly! it must be some kind of horrid dry rot. Ah, no, it’s too bad and it mustn’t go on—we’ve got to do something, quickly.”
He paused, and she stared at him in amazement. Until now she had never seen this side of Brockett, the side of the man that belonged to his art, to all art—the one thing in life he respected.
She said: “Do you really mean what you’re saying?”
“I mean every word,” he told her.
Then she asked him quite humbly: “What must I do to save my work?” for she realized that he had been speaking the stark, bitter truth; that indeed she had needed no one to tell her that her last book had been altogether unworthy—a poor, lifeless thing, having no health in it.
He considered. “It’s a difficult question, Stephen. Your own temperament is so much against you. You’re so strong in some ways and yet so timid—such a mixture—and you’re terribly frightened of life. Now why? You must try to stop being frightened, to stop hiding your head. You need life, you need people. People are the food that we writers live on; get out and devour them, squeeze them dry, Stephen!”
“My father once told me something like that—not quite in those words—but something very like it.”
“Then your father must have been a sensible man,” smiled Brockett. “Now I had a perfect beast of a father. Well, Stephen, I’ll give you my advice for what it’s worth—you want a real change. Why not go abroad somewhere? Get right away for a bit from your England. You’ll probably write it a damned sight better when you’re far enough off to see the perspective. Start with Paris—it’s an excellent jumping-off
