The Man Who Understood Women and Other Stories/Time, the Humorist
TIME, THE HUMORIST
Herbert Harding was one of the most distinguished dramatic critics in London, one of the most scholarly and acute. Yet no man is a prophet to his family, and at home "H.H." was considered to be "wasting his life at the game."
Of course, the old people took the paper in which his first-night notices appeared, and they wrestled with his essays in volume form—essays, by the way, which will always be ranked among the most valuable contributions to the psychology of the theatre; but the references to Diderot, and Stendhal, and other persons of whom they had never heard before baffled them mightily, and if the book had been written by anybody but Herbert, they would never have read a dozen pages of it. As Harding senior, a sensible and hearty Englishman, used to say to his wife, "Thank God, he wasn't literary himself, and to discuss whether the heroine of a play would have behaved like this, or have behaved like that, when one knew that she wasn't a real woman at all, seemed to him the sort of tomfoolishness for young girls in a drawing-room, and not the kind of thing he would have expected a son of his to do for a living, damn it!"
There were persons who professed to see in the fact that Harding had always been unappreciated by his relatives, the explanation of his marriage. But there were many cultured women who admired him; Gertrude Millington's homage was not singular. She was, certainly, amiable, and she "wrote"; yet when one remembers the triviality of her stories, one would have supposed her authorship would deter, rather than attract, a man like Harding. Besides, he had privately resented the necessity for making her acquaintance.
She was a friend of one of his sisters—he had met her when he went down to his people for a fortnight in the autumn; and his mother had said:
"Oh, my son Herbert—Miss Millington. You have often heard us talk of Miss Millington, Herbert? You two should find lots to say to each other, both being writers."
Harding, who had never heard Miss Millington's name till then, there or anywhere else, thought that his mother ought to have known better.
Perhaps the girl thought so, too, for her smile was embarrassed.
"I never expected to get the chance to meet Mr. Harding," she said reverentially.
Harding thawed. Since she recognised him as a master, he was prepared to tolerate her. In five minutes he had gathered that to be talking to him was one of the events of her life.
Naturally they talked of the theatre, and though her attitude towards the drama was untrained, Harding perceived an eagerness to be enlightened, a quickness of intelligence that saved him from being bored. That, at any rate, was how he put it to himself, though whether her eagerness and intelligence would have interested him if she had not been passably good-looking is a doubtful point.
The fortnight proved uncommonly pleasant to him, and as he did not have an opportunity for looking at any of her work until they were back in town and he was well in love with her, the crudity of her fiction did not infuriate him so violently as it would have done otherwise. On the contrary, he persuaded himself that, underlying the immaturities of style and characterisation, there was the glint of genuine talent.
His income, derived solely from his pen, was slender; but everything is relative, and Miss Millington lived in a boarding-house at West Kensington. Compared with her own, his means were substantial. To cut the courtship short, he married her. Miss Millington, the unknown, became the wife of Harding, the august. Women who had made a reputation called on them, and "wondered what he could have seen in her, they were sure!" His best friends confessed themselves "a bit surprised at his choice"; and Harding, with all the ardour of his intellect and his affection, proceeded to cultivate his wife's mind.
Never was a disciple more devoted. She put her story-writing aside—he had advised her to do that until she was more widely read—and plodded conscientiously through the list of classics that he drew up for her improvement. As often as he obtained two seats, she went to the theatre with him, and listened absorbed to his catalogue of the play's defects. Because she loved him dearly and panted to please, she never failed to assure him that she understood, and thoroughly agreed with everything he said—though this was a flagrant lie—and Harding promoted her to Ibsen, and expounded his qualities to her for hours on end.
She grew to miss her scribbling by degrees. By degrees she grew to sicken at the intellectual stuffing. Before long, her delight at going to a theatre was marred by her dread of the critic's edifying monologue when they returned. But she never yawned, she never faltered—she endured the deadly dulness of her education without a murmur.
Her confinement was a holiday. Harding, however, was far too fond of his wife to neglect her because he had a son, and after she was up again, he devoted as much earnest attention to her as before. By this time she could give forth dozens of his opinions with all the fidelity of a phonograph, and he contemplated her progress with the tenderest pride.
The baby, and a nurse, and the necessary change in the domestic arrangements meant increased expenses, and now she sometimes reflected that the modest cheques obtainable by her pen would be an aid.
Once she said to him:
"Herbert, when do you think I might go back to my work? Don't you think I might write something again now?"
"What do you want to write?" he asked, with an indulgent smile.
"I suppose what I ought to do is another book; I should like to write a play, though."
"A play?" He stared. "My child, you aren't a dramatist."
"Well, I never shall be one if I don't make a beginning. I should think I ought to be able to manage a piece, after all I've read."
Harding smiled again, wryly. The temerity of the novice was a wonderful thing.
"You know more than you did, but dramatic construction isn't to be mastered in a year and a half, goose, even by the born playwright."
"It's never to be mastered at all without trying, is it?"
There was a touch of obstinacy in her tone, and he was greatly disappointed. Since she could speak in so light a fashion of accomplishing a play, it seemed that she had learnt nothing after all. The magnitude of the undertaking did not impress her in the least—she talked like the proverbial amateur.
"Doesn't it occur to you," he said patiently, "that, although I know considerably more about it than you do, I don't write plays? I recognise what I lack. And I recognise what you lack. I'm not trying to make a dramatist of you, my child—I simply want you to have an acquaintance with what is best in dramatic literature; I want you to be able to discriminate. As to your writing again, perhaps you will. But not yet. Not yet, by any means! And when you do, of course it should be a story. Really whether you write, or whether you don't, is of no importance—why aspire to authorship?"
Before they married she had counted herself an author already. She winced. But his remonstrance, affectionate as it was, took the pluck out of her. She let the subject down, and put her aspirations on the shelf. She divided her time between the baby and the books henceforth, though the baby came gradually to receive the larger share.
They had three children, and an odious little house in Balham when she did pencil "Act I.—A Drawing-Room" at last. She did not mean to let Harding guess her project till the comedy was finished; she knew that he would have discouraged her, that he would have repeated that she had no qualifications for dramatic work, or, at best, that it was years too soon for her to attempt it. But she told herself that when the piece was done, when she read it to him, and saw his pleasure, that would make amends for everything. She pictured his surprise as she said carelessly, "Oh, by the way, if you can spare an hour this evening, there's something I want you to hear!" The anxiety of his gaze as she produced the manuscript and announced "A Comedy in Three Acts," she could imagine that too! He would sit down nervously, twisting his moustache, and, of course, her voice would wobble frightfully. Then presently his face would change—she foresaw his smile, the sudden lift of his head at a good line, the growing wonder of his expression. In her hopes she heard him exclaim that her work had wit, brilliance, and, above all, reality—that she had amazed and made him proud of her. It was a young and rather foolish woman's dream, but it sprang from her love for him quite as much as from her personal ambitions.
And she wrote. She drove her pen in secret for months; she was not a slow writer—far from it—but there were few occasions on which she could feel confident of being undisturbed. Her best hours were when there was a "first night" somewhere, for then there was no danger of Harding popping into the room before she could thrust the manuscript out of sight. While the critic sat in judgment at the theatre, his wife sat in Balham scribbling dialogue with a rapidity that would have horrified him. Indeed, it made her distrust herself in moments; she questioned if it was possible for first-rate work to be produced so quickly. Yet when she read the scene, it sounded capital. She came to the conclusion that her swiftness proved her to be even more accomplished as a dramatist than she had supposed. Harding generally found her in high good-humour when he returned. And though it was very late, for now his notices had to be delivered before he went home, he used to tell her the plot of the play that he had been to see, and she would agree sapiently with all his observations.
The disciple had, in fact, become a companion by now, and, despite the state of the exchequer, Harding knew no regret for having married her. When he recalled the uncultured girl of the honeymoon, and constrasted her with the woman who understood most of his English references and quotations, he was delighted with the success he had effected. It was with a shock, a shudder, one day, that he picked off the mantelpiece a bill for typewriting "The Audacity of Dinah, in three acts." Forebodings hinted that his success wasn't quite so triumphant as he had thought.
"What's this?"
"Oh!" How stupid she had been to leave it there! Now she had to tell him the great news differently from the way she had planned. "It's mine."
"I see it is," said Harding. "‘The Audacity of Dinah'?"
Her nod was embarrassed. "Yes."
"I didn't know you were writing."
"No, I didn't want you to know till I could read it to you; I meant to tell you after dinner. I—I'm very anxious to hear if you think it will do." She flushed, and smiled shyly. "I'm rather pleased with it; I've been at it a long time; I think—I think I've done something you'll find a good word for."
"Baby!" said Harding, pinching her cheek; "I've no doubt I shall find a good word for it, but I'm afraid I shall have to say things you won't like, too. I shall be quite candid with you, I warn you."
"Oh, that's just what I want," she declared, laughing happily; "I want you to forget who I am altogether—you must be just Herbert Harding listening to a new author. No compliments, no—what's the word?—euphemisms. It's to be real criticism, please."
"All right," he said. "Well, when am I to hear it—at once?"
"I think after dinner will be best—I've always pictured you listening to it after dinner. And there'll be nothing to interrupt us when the last post has been. Mind, I shall be awfully frightened; you must make allowances for that."
Something in her hearing, in her voice—more still, perhaps, something in the fact that she was dear to him—raised his hopes. His suspense was nearly as keen as her own while they dined. And when the servant had shut the door, and Gertrude commanded him to "sit down in that chair," and to refrain from looking at her for the first few minutes, his hands were not quite steady as he filled his pipe.
She drew her own chair to the table, and after an instant's hesitation, began to read.
Harding listened intently, his gaze fixed on the fire. And before she had read for half an hour astonishment laid hold of him. Awhile ago, catching something of her excitement, he had fancied that the play might reveal a talent that he had underrated, a promise of good things to come; originally, he had fancied that it would repel him; but at no time had he fancied that it would be quite so dejecting as it was. He was astounded that any woman who had studied so much good work could be capable of writing so badly. The man suffered—silently and acutely suffered—as, gaining courage, she declaimed her travesty of human nature with gusto. He pitied her, he could have wept for her, he would rather have been compelled to sit out a pantomime every night for a year than to tell her the truth.
But she closed the covers of Act I., and said, with her soul in her eves, "Well?"
He shifted the pipe between his teeth, and stifled a groan. "Let me hear it right through," he answered, postponing the evil moment.
"Act II.," she continued in a clear voice.
It was eleven o'clock when the ordeal ended. His wife leant back in her seat, her hands clasped in her lap, and waited.
Despairingly he sought for some particle of honest praise.
"The theme isn't bad," he said.
"Ah!"
"But it isn't worked out properly."
"Oh!"
He hastened to add, "There are lots of very pretty lines."
"That's nice!" She beamed.
"You put them in the wrong people's mouths, though. In the last act, you make your misanthrope talk like the Cheeryble Brothers."
"Kindness has changed his nature then. Don't you like the girl?"
"She's not consistent," he complained; "she's seventeen one minute, and thirty-five the next. She has had 'no social experience,' yet she scores off the woman of the world in every answer. That's the fault all through—if you see a chance for something smart, you can't resist it, whether it's appropriate to the character or not. The mother makes an epigram in the situation where she thinks her son has been killed—she'd be inarticulate, she wouldn't fire off epigrams."
There was a long pause. At last she said, stonily:
"In other words, you don't think anything of it?"
He shifted the pipe again. "Well"
"Oh, be frank, Herbert!" she cried. She was very white. "There musn't be any humbug between you and me!"
"It's no good, Gertie," he confessed wretchedly.
She gathered it up, and put it in a drawer, and shut the drawer very quietly. Her mouth had hardened. He was a distinguished critic, and her husband; but she was an author, and her pride was in arms. For the first time she doubted his wisdom. For the first time she opposed her will to his. It was "no good," he had said—she could not accept the pronouncement, she would prove to him that he was wrong!
"We won't talk any more about it," she said presently, when he offered some feeble comfort. "I've made a mistake, that's all." But she meant that her mistake was having invited his opinion, not having written the comedy.
She determined to submit it to the Piccadilly Theatre without delay. Of course, she would not put her own name to it now—as he thought it so worthless he would probably object to its being known as his wife's even if it were produced. She would choose a pseudonym. And if her work were taken, if it made a success, she would mention to him, very gently, but firmly, that he was too ready to find fault, that his prejudices warped his judgment—in fact, that he wasn't quite so excellent a critic as he believed himself to be.
At this point it may be stated that his criticism of The Audacity of Dinah was absolutely sound. The piece was every bit as bad as he thought it.
She posted the manuscript the following afternoon, and many weeks later it was returned to her with "regret." The Piccadilly, she said doggedly, was not the only theatre in London—she made up the parcel once more and sent it to the Diadem. The Diadem also "regretted," and took longer to communicate the fact. To several West End theatres the comedy was offered unavailingly; and then—she re-read the brief note with rapture several times—a manager wrote asking her to call.
Not before the contract was signed and stamped did she announce her news to Harding. It was a great moment for her. Nearly eighteen months had passed since the day of the reading, but she had not forgotten the humiliation that he had inflicted. He realised that suddenly, discomfitingly, by the inflexions of her voice, by the look in her eyes, by her new air of self-esteem.
"I'm very glad for you," he faltered. And she replied, "I'm sure you are, dear," with a touch of patronage.
He did not attend the production himself; as he explained to her, he would have been bound to express his convictions sincerely. The Editor put on another man to "do" The Audacity of Dinah, and, on the whole, the other man's notice was favourable. With a few exceptions, all the Press was tolerant. Better still, the piece captured the Public. The booking next day was brisk, and increased steadily through the week. On the second Saturday night they played to "the capacity of the house." The comedy came to be known as one of the few genuine successes of the year, and of course it had leaked out that the author was Mrs. Herbert Harding. The illustrated journals devoted a page to her photograph, favouring their readers with details of her "literary methods," and with her views on the world in general. A manufacturer's advertisements informed the kingdom that The Audacity of Dinah had been written with a "Dashaway Fountain Pen (price 10s. 6d., of all stationers)." She lectured to the Front Row Club on "How to Write a Play." Posters proclaimed the "300th Performance." And various theatrical managers expressed a deferential hope that they, too, might be privileged to produce some of her brilliant work.
They were. She has never written anything so popular since, but she has reeled out several successful plays, of similar quality. The Hardings have removed from Balham, and live in a high-sounding Terrace at a fashionable Gate, and the children often caution Herbert "not to make a noise on the stairs, because mamma is busy." Gertrude is a personage who speaks with quiet authority in the home to-day, and drives to rehearsal in a thousand-guinea motor-car. When he goes alone, the critic takes an omnibus, and feels more cheerful. In spite of the luxurious ménage that she provides, he wishes frequently that he were alone for good.