Balloons | Page 9

the flavour of Wall Street and serve at the right temperature.
He wasn't proud of his writing--or, rather, he wasn't proud of it with

every one. In his heart of hearts, what he wanted was not the applause
of the public, but the faith of a coterie, to be a martyr, misunderstood
by the many, worshipped by the few. A Bloomsbury hero, a Chelsea
King! "We confess that as a writer Mr. Delancey Woburn is altogether
too rarefied for our taste. His work is far too impregnated by the stamp
of a tiny clique of rather self-conscious superintellectuals. Reading his
books, we feel as if we had suddenly entered a room full of people who
know one another very well. In other words, we feel out of it."
What would not Delancey have given for a review that began like that!
Instead of which the best that he could hope for in "shorter notices"
would be an announcement that "Mr. Woburn's many admirers will no
doubt find his last book eminently to their taste. He provides a lavish
supply of the features they are accustomed to look for in his work."
Poor Delancey, his stories did sell so well! And there was his flat in
Grafton Street with the beautiful new taffetas curtains and the cigars
that had just arrived from Havana, with his own initials on.
So from week to week he put off becoming an artist and one year (after
a four-month love affair and two lacquer cabinets) he made a lecture
tour in America.
"Was it a success?" I asked wearily (Delancey's success is always such
a terribly foregone conclusion).
"Tremendous," he beamed. "I was careful to be a little dull because
then they think they're learning something." But he was out of love, the
flat was overcrowded, money continued to pour in and he knew terribly
well that he was not making a contribution to contemporary literature.
He had always assured me at intervals that some day he would write his
"real book" but I think it was after his tour in America that the dream
became a project. He burst in to tell me about it. Delancey always
begins things with a sudden noisy rush.
"Charlotte," he said, "I have made up my mind."

"It sounds very momentous," I teased. He decided years ago that I was
grave, fastidious, whimsical, aloof and (I suspect) a little faded. I have
long given up fighting my own battle (to be known) because I realise
that Delancey never revises the passports given to old ideas. There is
always, to him, something a little bit sacred about the accepted. "I can't
go on with it any longer," he explained.
"Go on with what?"
"My damned stories."
"How ungrateful you are," I murmured, thinking of the lacquer cabinets,
"you have a market, you can command a price. Each of your love
affairs is more magnificently studded with flowers than the last----"
"Be quiet," he said. "I came to you because I knew that you would
understand."
"You are trying to blackmail me."
"Do be serious," he pleaded. "I am going to give all that up. I have
determined to settle down and dedicate myself entirely to my book."
"But," I expostulated, "have you thought of the yearning _Saturday
Evening Post, of the deserted Strand_?"
"I have thought of everything," he said, "I shall be sacrificing 5,000
pounds a year, but what is 5,000 pounds a year?"
I thought of the taffetas curtains and the cigars, but I answered quite
truthfully.
"I don't know."
"You see, Charlotte," he dropped the noble for the confidential, "I have
got things to say, things that are vital to me. I couldn't put them in my
other work. How could I? It would have seemed--you will think me
ridiculous--a kind of prostitution."

"Yes," I said.
"But they were clamouring for expression all the time. And I have kept
them down till I couldn't keep them down any longer. Of course, I
know my book won't be a success--a popular success, I mean--but it
won't have been written for the multitude but for the few--the people
who really care, who really understand. It may be even thought," there
was exultation in his voice, "dull."
"Well," I said, "I think it is very brave of you--and quite right. Truly I
do."
"I think I shall take a tiny cottage in a fishing village in Devonshire,"
Delancey was as usual seeing things pictorially--bare white-washed
walls, blue and white linen curtains and a pot of wall flowers.
A week later he came to see me again.
"When are you off to Devonshire?" I asked.
"I have decided to stay here," he answered, "there is a roar of life in
London, a vibrating pulse, a muffled thunder." I began to be afraid that