Chapter 25 A Chat With James

Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell seemed somehow to drift away after that. Apparently I went to sleep again, and she didn't wait.

When I woke, it was getting on for two o'clock. I breakfasted, with that magnificent telegram propped up against the teapot; had a bath, dressed, and shortly before five was well on my way to Walpole Street.

The more I thought over the thing, the more it puzzled me. Why had James done this? Why should he wish to treat Eva in this manner? I was delighted that he had done so, but why had he? A very unexpected person, James.

James was lying back in his shabby old armchair, smoking a pipe. There was tea on the table. The room seemed more dishevelled than ever. It would have been difficult to say which presented the sorrier spectacle, the room or its owner.

He looked up as I came in, and nodded listlessly. I poured myself out a cup of tea, and took a muffin. Both were cold and clammy. I went to the bell.

"What are you doing?" asked James.

"Only going to ring for some more tea," I said.

"No, don't do that. I'll go down and ask for it. You don't mind using my cup, do you?"

He went out of the room, and reappeared with a jug of hot water.

"You see," he explained, "if Mrs. Blankley brings in another cup she'll charge for two teas instead of one."

"It didn't occur to me," I said. "Sorry."

"It sounds mean," mumbled James.

"Not at all," I said. "You're quite right not to plunge into reckless extravagance."

James blushed slightly--a feat of which I was surprised to see that he was capable.

"The fact is----" he began.

I interrupted him.

"Never mind about that," I said. "What I want to know is--what's the meaning of this?" And I shoved the bilious-hued telegraph form under his nose, just as Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell had shoved it under mine.

"It means that I'm done," he said.

"I don't understand."

"I'll explain. I have postponed my marriage for the same reason that I refused you a clean cup--because I cannot afford luxuries."

"It may be my dulness; but, still, I don't follow you. What exactly are you driving at?"

"I'm done for. I'm on the rocks. I'm a pauper."

"A what?"

"A pauper."

I laughed. The man was splendid. There was no other word for it.

"And shall I tell you something else that you are?" I said. "You are a low, sneaking liar. You are playing it low down on Eva."

He laughed this time. It irritated me unspeakably.

"Don't try to work off the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me," I said, "because it won't do. You're a blackguard, and you know it."

"I tell you I'm done for. I've barely a penny in the world."

"Rot!" I said. "Don't try that on me. You've let Eva down plop, and I'm jolly glad; but all the same you're a skunk. Nothing can alter that. Why don't you marry the girl?"

"I can't," he said. "It would be too dishonourable."

"Dishonourable?"

"Yes. I haven't got enough money. I couldn't ask her to share my poverty with me. I love her too dearly."

I was nearly sick. The beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft-music voice as if he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. The stained-glass expression on his face made me feel homicidal.

"Oh, drop it," I said. "Poverty! Good Lord! Isn't two thousand a year enough to start on?"

"But I haven't got two thousand a year."

"Oh, I don't pretend to give the figures to a shilling."

"You don't understand. All I have to live on is my holiday work at the _Orb_."

"What!"

"Oh, yes; and I'm doing some lyrics for Briggs for the second edition of _The Belle of Wells_. That'll keep me going for a bit, but it's absolutely out of the question to think of marrying anyone. If I can keep my own head above water till the next vacancy occurs at the _Orb_ I shall be lucky."

"You're mad."

"I'm not, though I dare say I shall be soon, if this sort of thing goes on."

"I tell you you are mad. Otherwise you'd have called in your work, and saved yourself having to pay those commissions to Hatton and the others. As it is, I believe they've somehow done you out of your cheques, and the shock of it has affected your brain."

"My dear Julian, it's a good suggestion, that about calling in my work. But it comes a little late. I called it in weeks ago."

My irritation increased.

"What is the use of lying like that?" I said angrily. "You don't seem to credit me with any sense at all. Do you think I never read the papers and magazines? You can't have called in your work. The stuff's still being printed over the signatures of Sidney Price, Tom Blake, and the Rev. John Hatton."

I caught sight of a _Strawberry Leaf_ lying on the floor beside his chair. I picked it up.

"Here you are," I said. "Page 324. Short story. 'Lady Mary's Mistake,' by Sidney Price. How about that?"

"That's it, Julian," he said dismally; "that's just it. Those three devils have pinched my job. They've learned the trick of the thing through reading my stuff, and now they're turning it out for themselves. They've cut me out. My market's gone. The editors and publishers won't look at me. I have had eleven printed rejection forms this week. One editor wrote and said that he did not want John-Hatton-and-water. That's why I sent the wire."

"Let's see those rejection forms."

"You can't. They're burnt. They got on my nerves, and I burnt them."

"Oh," I said, "they're burnt, are they?"

He got up, and began to pace the room.

"But I shan't give up, Julian," he cried, with a sickening return of the melodrama hero manner; "I shan't give up. I shall still persevere. The fight will be terrible. Often I shall feel on the point of despair. Yet I shall win through. I feel it, Julian. I have the grit in me to do it. And meanwhile"--he lowered his voice, and seemed surprised that the orchestra did not strike up the slow music--"meanwhile, I shall ask Eva to wait."

To wait! The colossal, the Napoleonic impudence of the man! I have known men who seemed literally to exude gall, but never one so overflowing with it as James Orlebar Cloyster. As I looked at him standing there and uttering that great speech, I admired him. I ceased to wonder at his success in life.

I shook my head.

"I can't do it," I said regretfully. "I simply cannot begin to say what I think of you. The English language isn't equal to it. I cannot, off-hand, coin a new phraseology to meet the situation. All I can say is that you are unique."

"What do you mean?"

"Absolutely unique. Though I had hoped you would have known me better than to believe that I would swallow the ludicrous yarn you've prepared. Don't you ever stop and ask yourself on these occasions if it's good enough?"

"You don't believe me!"

"My dear James!" I protested. "Believe you!"

"I swear it's all true. Every word of it."

"You seem to forget that I've been behind the scenes. I'm not simply an ordinary member of the audience. I know how the illusion is produced. I've seen the strings pulled. Why, dash it, _I_ showed you how to pull them. I never came across a finer example of seething the kid in its mother's milk. I put you up to the system, and you turn round and try to take me in with it. Yes, you're a wonder, James."

"You don't mean to say you think----!"

"Don't be an ass, James. Of course I do. You've had the brazen audacity to attempt to work off on Eva the game you played on Margaret. But you've made a mistake. You've forgotten to count me."

I paused, and ate a muffin. James watched me with fascinated eyes.

"You," I resumed, "ethically, I despise. Eva, personally, I detest. It seems, therefore, that I may expect to extract a certain amount of amusement from the situation. The fun will be inaugurated by your telling Eva that she may have to wait five years. You will state, also, the amount of your present income."

"Suppose I decline?"

"You won't."

"You think not?"

"I am sure."

"What would you do if I declined?"

"I should call upon Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell and give her a quarter of an hour's entertainment by telling her of the System, and explaining to her, in detail, the exact method of its working and the reason why you set it going. Having amused Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in this manner, I should make similar revelations to Eva. It would not be pleasant for you subsequently, I suppose, but we all have our troubles. That would be yours."

He hesitated.

"As if they'd believe it," he said, weakly.

"I think they would."

"They'd laugh at you. They'd think you were mad."

"Not when I produced John Hatton, Sidney Price, and Tom Blake in a solid phalanx, and asked them to corroborate me."

"They wouldn't do it," he said, snatching at a straw. "They wouldn't give themselves away."

"Hatton might hesitate to, but Tom Blake would do it like a shot."

As I did not know Tom Blake, a moment's reflection might have told James that this was bluff. But I had gathered a certain knowledge of the bargee's character from James's conversation, and I knew that he was a drunken, indiscreet sort of person who might be expected to reveal everything in circumstances such as I had described; so I risked the shot, and it went home. James's opposition collapsed.

"I shall then," administering the _coup de grace_, "arrange a meeting between the Gunton-Cresswells and old Mrs. Goodwin."

"Thank you," said James, "but don't bother. On second thoughts I will tell Eva about my income and the five years' wait."

"Thanks," I said; "it's very good of you. Good-bye."

And I retired, chuckling, to Rupert Street.