The House in Marsh Road by Laurence Meynell

Author:Laurence Meynell
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER XII

“How did you get on in London yesterday?”

Arthur had come back late and unsober and Jean had wisely left any discussion of his day till the following morning.

But he seemed a good deal more interested in his Daily Mail than in anything else and it was clear from his non-committal grunts that the conversation was not likely to prosper.

“Did you see Vincent Andrews?”

“Yes. Of course. That’s why I went to London. I said so. You know that.”

“Of course I know you said so—”

“Why ask then?”

After half a minute Jean tried again.

“But Arthur, I’m interested in this. I want to know how you got on with Andrews. Has he read those first five chapters?”

“He wouldn’t have sent for me otherwise.”

“Does he like them?”

Arthur, with his eyes still on his paper, nodded.

“Yes, he thinks they are all right.”

He didn’t enjoy telling this particular lie but he simply could not bring himself to admit the truth, because only he could know just how bad the truth was … the truth was that he was washed up and finished as a writer. He could turn out an adequate review or knock up an occasional article on some given subject but when it came to original creative work he was finished. Vincent Andrews had pronounced sentence on him … worse than bad; mediocre; no bite; nothing … He was dry, wrung out. He had made the book he was trying to write a test case with himself. If this failed, if he couldn’t make the grade with this one, then he knew he was on the way out.

But something within him, some stubbornness or even some relic of pride, would not let him acknowledge this aloud. So he answered woodenly:

“Yes, he thinks they are all right”; and for fear that the talk would be prolonged he gathered up his paper and marched off to the study.

He didn’t attempt to do any work; he simply sat there smoking and still idly looking at the paper.

Presently he turned the Daily Mail to one side and stared out at the garden. He didn’t see the garden, which he hated anyway; he was thinking about what Leonard Hunt had suggested to him; he was thinking, if you had a rich aunt and she died suddenly and left you say six and a half thousand pounds by God what you could do with it. For one thing you could tell all the smug bastards like Vincent Andrews to go to hell and stay there. He was thinking of Valerie Stockley. Even if he had tried to get away from it he wouldn’t have been able to. She coloured his thoughts most of the time.

When he thought about her he didn’t know whether she was laughing at him or not. Sometimes he thought she was. He thought she despised him for not being more successful; but only because underneath she believed he could be successful. “You need organising,” she had said and he knew it was true. He needed her to organise him.

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