A Practical Novelist.

by John Davidson.

CHAPTER I

BAGGING A HERO

'WELL, but the novel is played out, Carry. It has run to seed.

Anybody can get the seed; anybody can sow it. If it goes on at this rate, novel-writers will soon be in a majority, and novel-reading will become a lucrative employment.'

'What are you going to do, then, Maxwell? Here's Peter out of work, and my st.i.tching can't support three.'

The three in question were Maxwell Lee, his wife Caroline, and her brother, Peter Briscoe. Lee was an unsuccessful literary man; his brother-in-law, Briscoe, an unsuccessful business-man. Caroline, on the other hand, was entirely successful in an arduous endeavour to be a man, hoping and working for all three.

We have nothing whatever to do with the past of these people. We start with the conversation introduced in the first sentence.

Caroline had urged on Lee the advisability of accepting an offer from the editor of a country weekly. But Lee, who had composed dramas and philosophical romances which no publisher, nor editor could be got to read, refused scornfully the task of writing an 'ordinary, vulgar, sentimental and sensational story of the kind required.'

'What am I going to do?' he said. 'I'll tell you: I am going to create a novel. Practical joking is the new novel in its infancy.

The end of every thought is an action; and the centuries of written fiction must culminate in an age of acted fiction. We stand upon the threshold of that age, and I am destined to open the door.'

Caroline sighed, and Briscoe shot out his underlip: evidence that they were accustomed to this sort of thing.

Lee continued: 'You shall collaborate with me in the production of this novel. Think of it! Novel-writing is effete; novel-creation is about to begin. We shall cause a novel to take place in the world. We shall construct a plot; we shall select a hero; we shall enter into his life, and produce the series of events before determined on. Consider for a minute. We can do nothing else now.

The last development, the naturalist school, is a mere copying, a bare photographing of life--at least, that is what it professes to be. This is not art. There can never be an art of novel-writing.

But there can be--there shall be, you will aid me to begin the art of novel-creation.'

'Do you propose to make a living by it?' inquired Briscoe.

'Certainly.'

Briscoe rose, and without comment left the house. Caroline looked at her husband with a glance of mingled pity and amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Why are you so fantastic?' she asked softly.

'You laugh at my idea now, because you do not see it as I see it.

Wait till it is completely developed before you condemn it.'

Caroline made no reply; but went on with her sewing. Lee threw himself at full length on a rickety sofa and closed his eyes.

Besides the sofa, two chairs and a table, a rag of carpet before the fire-place, a shelf with some books of poetry and novels, and an old oil-painting in a dark corner, made up the furniture of the room. There were three other apartments, a kitchen and two bedrooms, all as scantily furnished. The house was in the top flat of a four-storey land in Peyton Street, Glasgow.

Lee dozed and dreamed. Caroline sewed steadily. An hour elapsed without a word from either. Then both were aroused by the noisy entrance of Briscoe, who, having let himself into the house by his latch-key, strode into the parlour with a portmanteau in either hand. He thrashed these down on the floor with defiant emphasis, and said, frowning away a grin: 'Your twin-brother's traps, Lee.

I'll bring _him_ upstairs, too.'

He went out immediately, as if afraid of being recalled.

'Your twin-brother!' exclaimed Mrs. Lee. 'I never heard of him.'

'And I hear of him for the first time.'

They waited in amazement the return of Briscoe. Soon an irregular and shuffling tread sounded from the stair; and in a minute he and a cabman entered the parlour, bearing between them what seemed the lifeless body of a man. This they placed on the sofa. The cabman looked about him curiously; but, being apparently satisfied with his fare, withdrew.

When he was gone, Briscoe spoke: 'This is the first chapter of your novel, Lee. Something startling to begin with, eh?'

'What do you mean?'

'I've bagged a hero for you.'

'Bagged a hero!'

'Yes; kidnapped a millionaire in the middle of Glasgow in broad daylight. Here's how it happened: one instant I saw a man with his head out of a cab-window, shouting to the driver; the next, the cab-door, which can't have been properly fastened, sprang open, and the man was lying in the street. On going up to him, I said to myself, "Maxwell Lee, as I'm a sinner!" You're wonderfully like, even when I look at your faces alternately. Well, I shouted in his ear, "Chartres! Chartres!" seeing his name in his hat which had fallen off, and pretending to know him perfectly. I felt so mad at you and your absurd notions of creating novels, that, without thinking of the consequences, I got him into the cab again, told the policeman that he was my brother-in-law, and drove straight here. It was all done so suddenly, and I a.s.sumed such confidence, that the police did not so much as demand my address. Of course, if you don't want to have anything to do with him, I suppose we can make it out a case of mistaken ident.i.ty.'

'Who is he, I wonder?' said Lee, whose eyes were sparkling.

'There's his name and address,' replied Briscoe, pointing to the portmanteaus.

Lee read aloud: '"Mr. Henry Chartres, Snell House, Gourock, N.B."'

He then pressed his head in both hands, knit his brows, tightened his mouth, and regarded the floor for fully a minute.

As soon as Chartres had been laid on the sofa, Caroline wiped the mud from his face and hands. There was not a cushion in the room, but she brought two pillows from her own bed, and with them propped the head and shoulders of the unconscious man. While Lee was still contemplating the floor, she said, 'We must get a doctor at once.'

Lee's response was a muttered 'Yes, yes;' but the question brought him nearer the facts of the case than he had been since Briscoe explained his motive in possessing himself of Mr. Chartres.

'A doctor!' repeated Caroline.

'Of course, of course,' said Lee, approaching the sofa for the first time. He studied the still unconscious face while Caroline and Briscoe watched him: the first wondering that he should seem to hesitate to send for a doctor, and the other with an incredulous curiosity. Briscoe, an ill-natured, half-educated man, had been seized by a sudden inspiration on seeing the likeness between Chartres and his brother-in-law. He thought to overset Lee's new idea by showing him its impracticability. He believed that failure had unhinged his brother-in-law's mind; and knew for certain that no argument could possibly avail. He trusted that by introducing Chartres under such extraordinary circ.u.mstances into what he regarded as Lee's insane waking dream the gross absurdity of it--absurd at least in his impecunious state--would become apparent to him. Having once unfixed this idea, he hoped, with the help of Mrs. Lee, to force his acceptance of the commission for the country weekly. The result was not going to be what he expected. Lee was taking his brother's collaboration seriously. A childish smile of wonder and delight overspread his features, as his likeness to Chartres appeared more fully, in his estimation, upon a detailed examination. He got a looking-gla.s.s, and compared the two faces, placing the mirror so that the reflection of his lay as if he had rested his head on Chartres' shoulder. Thick, soft, grey hair, inclined still to curl, and divided on the left side; a broad forehead, perpendicular for an inch above the eyebrows, then sloping inordinately to the beginning of the hair; eyebrows distinctly marked, but not heavy; a well-formed nose, rather long, and approaching the aquiline; full, curved lips; the mouth not small, but liker a woman's than a man's; the chin, almost feminine, little and rounded; the cheeks smooth, and the face clean shaved. There was no doubt that the men might have been twins, and that their most intimate a.s.sociates would have been constantly mistaking them.

'It's wonderful--wonderful, Peter!' said Lee. 'What a brilliant stroke of yours this is!'

'But the doctor, Maxwell!' cried Caroline, who was becoming impatient.

'Perhaps we'll not need one,' replied her husband. 'See, he's coming round!'

Chartres began to move uneasily; the blood dawned in his cheeks; and his breathing grew more vigorous. He opened his eyes and attempted to raise his head; but a twinge of pain forced a groan from him, and he again fainted.

'We must get him into bed, in the first place,' said Lee.

With much difficulty this was accomplished. Then Caroline renewed her demand for a doctor; but her husband, professing to have some skill in medicine, declared himself able to treat Chartres, who seemed to have fallen on the top of his head. Cold water, he a.s.sured his wife, would soon remove the effects of the concussion.

Briscoe also said that there was no need for a doctor. Mrs. Lee did not feel called on to dispute the point; and was about to resume the cold applications, when it struck her, for the first, how very extraordinary a thing it was that this stranger should be in their house.

'Why is he here?' she cried. 'What are you going to do with him?'

'We are going to make use of him in our story, my dear,' said Lee, mildly. 'We will not do him any harm, but we may keep him prisoner here for a little.'

'How cruel! Besides, it would be a crime,' remonstrated his wife.

Lee answered very calmly, but with a consuming fire in his eyes: