Love and Scandal, page 26
And yet she knew she must bear it, and in time it would become nothing to her. She must be stoic. She could not, even if she wanted to, run now. It would leave Philoxia in a dreadful position, as a woman who had promised a treat and then reneged. It would be seen in those terms. Some might even think she had made it all up to cause a sensation, and then her carefully wrought reputation as a literary hostess would crumble and she would be a laughing-stock.
The portly, self-important butler moved toward the door to let in the first visitors. He opened the large double doors and two footmen dashed out to help the ladies and gentlemen down from carriages. Philoxia took Collette’s hand, gave it another reassuring squeeze and then moved forward to greet her guests as they came up the stairs from the street below.
“Good evening! Welcome to my home. I am so glad you could come tonight!”
Twenty-Two
“I think it is going marvelously,” Philoxia whispered to Collette.
“We haven’t told them anything yet,” Collette whispered back, and then smiled at the gentlemen standing in a ring around her, talking.
“In due time.”
The evening so far had consisted of casual conversation, a brief talk by a publisher on the direction of English fiction—Collette and Philoxia had decided that since her own publishers had been so unhelpful, and in fact, possibly had aided the perpetrator of the gossip, they would not be invited to her unveiling—and then a light repast.
The time was drawing near, Collette thought. She could feel a shift in the mood of the assembled company, an expectation that moved over them one by one like a shadow, until all were gazing expectantly at Philoxia, who had strolled casually toward the hearth, where a blaze was crackling merrily. She wondered if the reporter Randall Proctor was there. She hadn’t asked Philoxia if he had come, not really wanting to know yet. She was almost sick with nerves and that would only make it worse.
Philoxia cleared her throat, and the crowd gradually quieted.
It is time, Collette thought, and her knees weakened and her stomach churned. She had eaten nothing, not being able to stand the thought of anything in her stomach, but she had drunk some champagne. The champagne was a mistake. It was making her lightheaded.
Philoxia smiled at the assembled guests. “You have all been very patient this evening.” Her gazed drifted over the crowd of about fifty, evenly divided among black-coated men and brilliantly gowned women. “I know that you are waiting for the momentous occasion when I introduce to you Colin Jenkins, but you will have to be patient for a few moments more.
“This last spring a marvelous novel, a brilliant novel, was published by Rosewood Publishing. We all read The Last Days of a Rake, commented on it, criticized it, lauded it, whatever our consciences bade us do. I read it myself soon after it came out, and thought it was probably the most honest treatment of relations between men and women I had read in a long time. I was impressed, especially since I had never heard of the author before, and the publishers made it plain that this was a first effort by a new novelist.”
Collette, near the back of the assembled crowd, felt them getting restless. Her nerves were so frayed that she had to clasp her hands together to keep them from trembling, as the time drew near for her to step forward. Was she doing the right thing? She no longer knew. But it was what she was doing, nevertheless. For better or for worse, she was going to claim her rightful name and place in literary society.
Philoxia continued. “It soon became evident that the author was not a part of the London literary society, that loose-knit group of like-minded men and women…mostly men…that writes and publishes and talks about writing and publishing. So who was this new talent? Why had no one ever met the author? It soon became clear that the name Colin Jenkins was a nom de plume.”
“Everyone knows it is Charles Jameson,” a heavily whiskered gentleman said, moving restlessly and gathering in other people’s glances with his own. “That paper, Wilson’s Gazette, already said that!”
“Ah, but Mr. Jameson himself did not admit it, you know. He said he couldn’t be bothered to deny it, and that is not an admission.”
A door at the back of the long room opened and then closed again. Collette twisted around to see whether someone had come in or had left, but she could not see past the taller gentlemen around her. She could barely see Philoxia’s face, in fact. She hoped she saw the signal that she was to start through the crowd when Philoxia gave it.
“But he didn’t exactly say he wasn’t either! And it all fits,” another voice said. “The writer must be a rake, or he wouldn’t be able to write about that kind of fellow’s thoughts, would he?”
“Ah, Mr. Proctor,” Philoxia said, her voice lowered to a silky, dangerous tone. “You have no proof Mr. Jameson is Mr. Jenkins, do you?”
“Well, not proof, so to speak.”
“But you were sure before you printed that?”
“As sure as I could be!”
“As sure as you ever are when you write something, in other words.” Her voice held a note of scorn, as sharp-edged as a razor. “With no proof you blithely make statements and…well, why do we not just say it? You write gossip, innuendo, unfounded trash you make up because you write the gossip column in Wilson’s Gazette too, do you not?”
There was a collective gasp and sigh from the gathering.
Collette wished she could see! All she heard from the reporter was a sputtering sound.
“But we are not here to castigate this man,” Philoxia said, raising her voice over the murmur of the crowd. “You all came because I promised you would meet the real Colin Jenkins! And you shall, because…”
“He is right here,” another voice called out.
The crowd parted and Collette turned around to see Jameson standing alone, the light from the gasolier glinting on his dark and glossy hair. The cad! He had not been invited. What was he doing here? He would steal her thunder yet again!
Philoxia, a hint of desperation in her voice, now that things were starting to disintegrate on her, called out, “No! He is not Colin Jenkins. Are you, Mr. Jameson?”
Swallowing hard and gazing into Collette’s angry eyes, he said, “No. I am not Colin Jenkins.”
“Then if not this bloke, who is? Why din’t the feller come forward before now?” said the reporter, having recovered from his exposure as the gossip columnist.
“I am the author!” Collette said, finding her voice at last. This was not how she had intended to announce herself, but Jameson had forced her to blurt it out. “I am Colin Jenkins, the sole author of The Last Days of a Rake.”
That was when the party really got interesting.
Several of the men started laughing. A gentleman Collette had been introduced to earlier, a Mr. Stanley Peckham, said, “You? A woman? I don’t think so!”
The woman with him bridled and glared at him over her lorgnette. “And why should she not be?”
“Because women are not capable of that kind of writing! Women write romantic tripe. Everyone knows that!”
“Everyone knows that? You mean the ignorant! Maybe they write ‘romantic tripe’ because that is all you men will allow us to publish!” the angry woman retorted.
“This is not about the kind of work other women write,” Collette said, attempting to keep the conversation from being sidelined. “I will not have other women’s novels dismissed as ‘romantic tripe’!”
No one heard her. From there, the affair devolved into a furious clash between the men and the women, and Collette stood, forgotten, laughing until her stomach hurt. Philoxia tried in vain to regain the crowd’s attention, and when she couldn’t, she made her way to Collette’s side. She was almost in tears.
“I am so sorry, my dear! I tried, I really…” She sobbed and clapped her hands over her ears against the acrimonious sounds of people quarreling.
Collette pulled Loxy’s hands away from her ears. There were tears in her own eyes, but they were tears of laughter and she hugged her friend. “Don’t worry, dear,” she shouted over the crowd. “I think this is the funniest thing I have ever seen or heard!”
“How can you say that? This is a debacle!”
“Don’t you see, Loxy? I was so worried about being the center of attention, and…and…” She broke into laughter again, indicated the crowd around them and then folded her arms over her stomach as tears coursed down her cheeks. She was almost doubled over, her stomach hurt so much with laughter.
“Miss Jardiniere!” Randall Proctor shouted above the hubbub.
“Mr. Proctor,” she said, straightening slightly.
“This ain’t fair, y’know. You could have just told me, an’ I woulda broke the real story as an exclusive!”
“You were far too busy dragging my reputation through the muck, sir. Why would I even think to give you such a boon, such a gift, as the truth, when you were out to destroy me?”
He looked down at his shoes and shuffled.
“Innocent women suffer when gossip-mongers like you and your infamous rag print filth dressed as news. Muck thrown at a lily-white cloth may slide off, but it leaves a stain.”
“All right…it’s true. I bin a bastard—uh, a devil to you, an’ I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“That’s better. You can atone by using your indubitable talent to titillate in other ways, sir, perhaps by writing something that will actually help people rather than harm them.”
Jameson surged through the bickering crowd. Where the devil had Collette disappeared to? One minute the crowd had parted and the next they had closed around him again. What a disaster this was, and it was all directly attributable to that bastard, Proctor! If the reporter hadn’t spoken up and forced their hand, Collette could have been introduced with the dignity that befitted a budding author of her caliber. Jameson had intended to point her out and escort her forward with all the ceremony she deserved. He had thought it fitting that the fake Colin Jenkins should introduce the real Colin Jenkins.
Instead, this chaos had erupted.
He caught sight of Collette and Mrs. Bertrand, standing together, isolated in the nattering crowd. And Randall Proctor was there! A dark red wind of rage swept through Jameson when he saw the author of Collette’s misfortune nattering at her. He would be damned before he would allow that beast to torment her, to harry the woman he loved!
He stormed through the crowd, elbowing his way as the view of Collette, with Randall Proctor heading toward her, urged him forward. The reporter was saying something to her. What could he possibly have to say?
The crowd was still gabbling, rings of gentlemen murmuring, groups of ladies shrilling, occasional couples arguing, and he could hear nothing but their babble. He pushed through another group, but a gentleman grabbed a hold of his coat.
“I say, Jameson, we all thought you was Jenkins. Is that little filly really the writer fellow? How can that be?”
“She is that ‘writer fellow’! Now let go of my coat, you jackanapes,” Jameson snarled, pulling his jacket out of the startled man’s grasp.
“Well, really! Of all the ill-mannered, uncouth, boorish…”
The rest of his words were lost on Jameson as he saw Proctor still talking to Collette, bending over her, touching her arm as if he had a right to be anywhere near her! The anger that had been simmering just beneath the surface boiled over, and Jameson charged the rest of the way and flew at Proctor, fists flying.
“You stay away from her, you lout,” he hollered as he tackled the man. Proctor went down underneath him with a thud. This was the moment he had been looking forward to for some time, and it was so very satisfying to feel his fist jam into the fellow’s chin, even as the reporter tried to twist away. Jameson straddled him and looked down into the man’s face, a crimson welt blooming on his chin.
“Now you are going to get what you have coming to you,” he growled, and proceeded to batter the fellow as best he could since the writer was putting up a valiant fight, trading blow for blow even in his inferior position under Jameson.
The crowd abandoned their bickering and circled the two combatants, shouting, “A mill, a mill!”
Jameson was dimly aware of Collette, standing on the sidelines shrieking something, but all his attention was focused on the tussle and he had no idea what she was saying.
“Damn you! Damn you, Charles Jameson, you fool, you idiot!” Collette hopped around in her elegant gown, so angry it was all she could do to keep from wading into the fray and hauling Jameson out of it so she could box his ears. “He was apologizing, you great, hulking imbecile! He was going to print a retraction!”
Philoxia took her arm and gazed down at the twisting, rolling, struggling duo. “Never mind, my dear,” she said, fighting back laughter, which bubbled out of her in gasping gales. “He will not listen to you until he has worked all the violence out of his system. He is only a man, after all.”
“Damn him! I hope he gets a good crack on the skull for his trouble! I am leaving!” Collette stomped away and flung herself up the stairs to the private area of the house, where she changed back into her street clothes and escaped out the back, using Philoxia’s carriage and driver to return her to Marian and George’s house.
“I’m all packed. I shall be leaving first thing in the morning,” Collette said, standing beside the table where Marian labored on a long piece on a German poet. “I shall not interrupt you further. I know how hard you are both working just now”
Marian looked up from her writing with a ready smile. “There is always work, my dear. It pays the rent and puts food on the table. Someday I pray it does more than that.” She put her hand over Collette’s, covering it completely. “I’m so sorry things did not work out as you hoped last night,” she said.
“I have no complaints,” Collette sighed. “I am thoroughly exposed as the writer Colin Jenkins, and that was my aim, was it not? Even though the whole thing turned from a drama into a farce.”
“I hope you know, though, that there was nothing wrong with writing under a male name in the first place. I have considered doing the same, should I write fiction, for my own reasons, of course,” she said, shrugging as she referred obliquely to her shattered reputation. “Men do take you more seriously if they think you one of their own!” Her voice had a bitter edge to it. But then she looked over at George, sprawled on the sofa in the corner, reading a paper, and her expression gentled. “Of course some men are not threatened by intelligent women.”
Collette followed her gaze and smiled with her. George, completely immersed in his reading, did not hear them. She had learned much from the pair about relations between men and women, and she thought that when she wrote her book about Susan, she would find a man like George, a good, ugly, compassionate man, for her heroine to settle down with at the end of her tribulations, as a reward for strength and courage.
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know,” Marian said, turning her gaze back to her younger friend.
“I thank you. Philoxia wants me to come stay with her, too, but I think I’ll go home to Listerwood for at least a while first. I have had a couple of anxious letters from Aunt Nettie, and one rather rambling, but also worried, tome from the Professor. If I do not go home soon, I fear they will descend upon London, and I think the city is not yet ready for the Professor’s advanced scientific theories.”
“Hey, you must read this,” George said, sitting up suddenly and waving the paper around.
“What is it now?” Collette asked. Randall Proctor had written his promised retraction in Wilson’s Gazette, and very thorough and contrite it was too, canvassing completely his mistaken attribution of her as Jameson’s mistress as well as his misidentification of Jameson as the author of Last Days. Just that morning, in return, he had been given an interview with her, the first real interview with Colin Jenkins. It had been a good exchange. She had gotten what she wanted in the end.
Marian moved to the couch, sitting down beside George and taking up the paper. She read silently and then looked up over the paper with raised eyebrows.
“Well! I did not think he had it in him,” she said. “Perhaps I have misjudged him.”
“What is it?” Collette asked. She took the paper, slid down onto the floor, slipped her spectacles on and read the piece to which Marian pointed.
The Last Days of a Fake
As most Londoners now know, I, Charles Stonehampton Jameson, am not the novelist Colin Jenkins. I never said I was, but I realize I never said I wasn’t either, and that led to some nasty repercussions that rebounded on a young lady who did not deserve the attention.
I am a fake.
I have nothing to say in my defense.
What prompted my peculiar reticence, my failure to declare myself NOT Colin Jenkins? Looking back on the occurrences of the past few months, I would say it was a mixture of things. A misplaced sense of humor played a part. I thought it was rather funny that anyone would think me a novelist, especially since they had picked one writer I would emulate and the one book I would write if I but could.
Also, I had a desire to flush the real author out of his cover, and thought the misidentification might do it.
But the real root of my failure to disavow any writerly abilities was jealousy. I have always admired those to whom the gift of literary talent is given. Since I was a boy books have been my entertainment, my moral guide, my friends. But I found, as I grew to be a man, that the most I could do was read, admire, collect and discuss. And then, this past spring, a novel came out that was close to the book I wish I could write. I felt an envy so strong I allowed it to mislead me. I very much wanted to meet the writer and tried the normal avenues. I spoke to the publisher, but he made it very clear that the author wished to maintain his privacy.
And so when a reporter confronted me with rumors that had circulated London, rumors that I just might be the author Colin Jenkins, some devil prompted me to not deny it. I told him I would not deny it because he wouldn’t believe me, which left him with the impression I was hedging because I really was Jenkins. I misled him deliberately.
