Poor Derrick! That he of all people on earth should be mixed up with such a police court story--with drunkard, and violence, and pokers figuring in it! I lay back in the camp chair and looked at Hoffman's 'Christ,' and thought of all the extraordinary problems that one is for ever coming across in life. And I wondered whether the people of Bath who saw the tall, impassive-looking, hazel-eyed son and the invalid father in their daily pilgrimages to the Pump Room, or in church on Sunday, or in the Park on sunny afternoons had the least notion of the tragedy that was going on. My reflections were interrupted by his entrance. He had forced up a cheerfulness that I am sure he didn't really feel, and seemed afraid of letting our talk flag for a moment. I remember, too, that for the first time he offered to read me his novel, instead of as usual waiting for me to ask to hear it. I can see him now, fetching the untidy portfolio and turning over the pages, adroitly enough, as though anxious to show how immaterial was the loss of a left arm. That night I listened to the first half of the third volume of 'Lynwood's Heritage,' and couldn't help reflecting that its author seemed to thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this deadly-lively place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life.
"How do you manage to write one-handed?" I asked.
And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-weight on the left-hand corner of the sheet of foolscap, and wrote that comical first paragraph of the eighth chapter over which we have all laughed. I suppose few readers guessed the author's state of mind when he wrote it. I looked over his shoulder to see what he had written, and couldn't help laughing aloud--I verily believe that it was his way of turning off attention from his arm, and leading me safely from the region of awkward questions.
"By-the-by," I exclaimed, "your writing of garden-parties reminds me. I went to one at Campden Hill the other day, and had the good fortune to meet Miss Freda Merrifield."
How his face lighted up, poor fellow, and what a flood of questions he poured out. "She looked very well and very pretty," I replied.
"I played two sets of tennis with her. She asked after you directly she saw me, seeming to think that we always hunted in couples. I told her you were living here, taking care of an invalid father; but just then up came the others to arrange the game. She and I got the best courts, and as we crossed over to them she told me she had met your brother several times last autumn, when she had been staying near Aldershot. Odd that he never mentioned her here; but I don't suppose she made much impression on him. She is not at all his style."
"Did you have much more talk with her?" he asked.
"No, nothing to be called talk. She told me they were leaving London next week, and she was longing to get back to the country to her beloved animals--rabbits, poultry, an aviary, and all that kind of thing. I should gather that they had kept her rather in the background this season, but I understand that the eldest sister is to be married in the winter, and then no doubt Miss Freda will be brought forward."
He seemed wonderfully cheered by this opportune meeting, and though there was so little to tell he appeared to be quite content. I left him on Monday in fairly good spirits, and did not come across him again till September, when his arm was well, and his novel finished and revised. He never made two copies of his work, and I fancy this was perhaps because he spent so short a time each day in actual writing, and lived so continually in his work; moreover, as I said before, he detested penmanship.
The last part of 'Lynwood' far exceeded my expectations; perhaps--yet I don't really think so--I viewed it too favourably. But I owed the book a debt of gratitude, since it certainly helped me through the worst part of my life.
"Don't you feel flat now it is finished?" I asked.
"I felt so miserable that I had to plunge into another story three days after," he replied; and then and there he gave me the sketch of his second novel, 'At Strife,' and told me how he meant to weave in his childish fancies about the defence of the bridge in the Civil Wars.
"And about 'Lynwood?' Are you coming up to town to hawk him round?"
I asked.
"I can't do that," he said; "you see I am tied here. No, I must send him off by rail, and let him take his chance."
"No such thing!" I cried. "If you can't leave Bath I will take him round for you."
