He was supported in this trial by the fidelity of his friends. To admire The Cup of Life became a mark of aesthetic acumen: to be shocked by it was to confess yourself a philistine. Mrs. Barton Trafford had no hesitation in saying that it was a masterpiece, and though this wasn’t quite the moment for Barton’s article in the Quarterly, her faith in Edward Driffield’s future remained unshaken. It is strange (and instructive) to read now the book that created such a sensation; there is not a word that could bring a blush to the cheek of the most guileless, not an episode that could cause the novel reader of the present day to turn a hair.
XIX
About six months later, when the excitement over The Cup of Life had subsided and Driffield had already begun the novel which he published under the name of By Their Fruits, I, being then an impatient dresser and in my fourth year, in the course of my duties went one day into the main hall of the hospital to await the surgeon whom I was accompanying on his round of the wards. I glanced at the rack in which letters were placed, for sometimes people, not knowing my address in Vincent Square, wrote to me at the hospital. I was surprised to find a telegram for me. It ran as follows:
Please come and see me at five o’clock this afternoon without fail. Important.
I wondered what she wanted me for. I had met her perhaps a dozen times during the last two years, but she had never taken any notice of me, and I had never been to her house. I knew that men were scarce at teatime and a hostess, short of them at the last moment, might think that a young medical student was better than nothing; but the wording of the telegram hardly suggested a party.
The surgeon for whom I dressed was prosy and verbose. It was not till past five that I was free and then it took me a good twenty minutes to get down to Chelsea. Mrs. Barton Trafford lived in a block of flats on the Embankment. It was nearly six when I rang at her door and asked if she was at home. But when I was ushered into her drawing room and began to explain why I was late she cut me short.
“We supposed you couldn’t get away. It doesn’t matter.”
Her husband was there.
“I expect he’d like a cup of tea,” he said.
“Oh, I think it’s rather late for tea, isn’t it?” She looked at me gently, her mild, rather fine eyes full of kindness. “You don’t want any tea, do you?”
I was thirsty and hungry, for my lunch consisted of a scone and butter and a cup of coffee, but I did not like to say so. I refused tea.
“Do you know Allgood Newton?” asked Mrs. Barton Trafford, with a gesture toward a man who had been sitting in a big armchair when I was shown in, and now got up. “I expect you’ve met him at Edward’s.”
I had. He did not come often, but his name was familiar to me and I remembered him. He made me very nervous and I do not think I had ever spoken to him. Though now completely forgotten, in those days he was the best-known critic in England. He was a large, fat, blond man, with a fleshy white face, pale blue eyes, and graying fair hair. He generally wore a pale blue tie to bring out the colour of his eyes. He was very amiable to the authors he met at Driffield’s and said charming and flattering things to them, but when they were gone he was very amusing at their expense. He spoke in a low, even voice, with an apt choice of words: no one could with more point tell a malicious story about a friend.
Allgood Newton shook hands with me and Mrs. Barton Trafford, with her ready sympathy, anxious to put me at my ease, took me by the hand and made me sit on the sofa beside her. The tea was still on the table and she took a jam sandwich and delicately nibbled it.
“Have you seen the Driffields lately?” she asked me as though making conversation.
“I was there last Saturday.”
“You haven’t seen either of them since?”
“No.”
Mrs. Barton Trafford looked from Allgood Newton to her husband and back again as though mutely demanding their help.
“Nothing will be gained by circumlocution, Isabel,” said Newton, a faintly malicious twinkle in his eye, in his fat precise way.
Mrs. Barton Trafford turned to me.
“Then you don’t know that Mrs. Driffield has run away from her husband.”
“What!”
I was flabbergasted. I could not believe my ears.
“Perhaps it would be better if you told him the facts, Allgood,” said Mrs. Trafford.
The critic leaned back in his chair and placed the tips of the fingers of one hand against the tips of the fingers of the other. He spoke with unction.
“I had to see Edward Driffield last night about a literary article that I am doing for him and after dinner, since the night was fine, I thought I would walk round to his house. He was expecting me; and I knew besides that he never went out at night except for some function as important as the Lord Mayor’s banquet or the Academy dinner. Imagine my surprise then, nay, my utter and complete bewilderment, when as I approached I saw the door of his house open and Edward in person emerge. You know of course that Immanuel Kant was in the habit of taking his daily walk at a certain hour with such punctuality that the inhabitants of Königsberg were accustomed to set their watches by the event and when once he came out of his house an hour earlier than usual they turned
