You have used my face, sir," said Herbert Leadbetter, spluttering with anger.
"A fine face, if I may say so. Well suited to the purpose. It took us a long time to find the right face for the job."
"The job?"
"For the author of Love's Illusion. We combed far and wide."
"But you have used it without my permission. You had no business."
"On the contrary, sir. It is our business. We will pay you amply. Backdated, and with compound interest."
Herbert Leadbetter stared at the man. Was he so out of touch? Had England changed so much during his 15-year absence that this kind of conversation was considered normal now?
"Pay me?" he repeated incredulously. Surely this made no commercial sense. And yet, as he himself would be the first to admit, Leadbetter possessed no commercial skills. He had shown himself lacking in whatever it was that enabled some men to turn their dreams and efforts into cash. He thought back to that dread morning a few months ago when the apologetic bailiff had arrived, puffing up the remote hill, a man with whom he had shared a drink on a number of occasions at the club. He had been pleasant enough while going about his wretched task, even managing to convince Herbert that he was doing him a favour, removing the worry, drawing a line. When all the machinery and chattels were labelled, the man had shaken him by the hand, thanked him for his cooperation and predicted that one day he would remember this moment and be glad. "I've seen it time and again, sir," he said as he climbed back on to his horse. "My advice to you is to go back to England, put this behind you, start anew."
"Grow what?" Margaret had demanded. She always said coffee was a mistake. Everyone knew it was tea that grew best in Ceylon. After 15 years she had been proved right. They had had to sell his father's gold watch to pay for their passages home.
"Indeed," Mr Preinter said. "We will pay you well."
"For what, exactly?" Herbert pulled out a chair and sat down. Preinter, whose office this was, sat down too.
"For the use of your face, of course."
"This is absurd. You have stolen..."
"We have taken nothing from you."
"But there are people out there who believe..."
Herbert felt feverish. He leant over the desk and picked up a copy of the offending article. Love's Illusion! He turned it over and contemplated the picture of himself-undeniably of himself-printed on the back. "People will look at that photograph and see my name and believe I did it. It is an absurd situation. You are obviously the individual responsible."
Preinter cupped his hands and rested them complacently on his desk. "I can claim that honour."
"Honour?-it is an outrage."
"How so? The volume is in its 11th impression. We have ordered a 12th. Love's Illusion has become a sensation. A succès fou, as we say in the profession."
"Profession! What kind of profession is it that can turn a law-abiding citizen like myself into a..."
"Come now, sir, you are still a law-abiding citizen. You have not-certainly in so far as this matter is concerned-broken any laws."
"You have turned me into some kind of impostor. A man others believe to have written a damnable best seller, 11 impressions of which have already, apparently, been let loose on the streets. It is a scandal."
"Only if you make it one."
"I beg your pardon!"
"We at Preinter & Preinters have no interest in this affair ever becoming known beyond these walls. Indeed, we are prepared to pay you a sizeable sum of money for it to remain a secret between ourselves."
"You are going to pay me to..."
"We will pay you to be Herbert Leadbetter..."
"I am Herbert Leadbetter!"
"...author of this book."
"I have never written a word in my life."
"You do not need to. The book is written. Its author, conveniently, is known to be a recluse." Preinter picked up the copy of Love's Illusion and read from the biographical note beneath the photograph, which he himself had composed. "'A retiring man wedded to his typewriter, who spends his days in a darkened, book-lined study hidden away in the shires.' All we ask of you is that you stay in your book-lined study. We will pay you to do so."
"You are forgetting something, sir."
"What is that?"
"I am not wedded to my typewriter. I do not even have a typewriter. I am, though, wedded. To a wife who will most certainly not like any of this. Margaret is a straightforward, honest woman. She is in poor health. The tropics have not been kind to her. Her sister came out to live with us a few years ago after both their parents had passed on, and herself died only recently, shortly before my coffee estate failed. It was touch and go whether poor Margaret would make it to Southampton. She is now in need of expensive medical treatment."
"The arrangement between us will provide all the medical treatment your wife can require. She will assuredly be pleased."
It was ages since anything had pleased Margaret. She would surely take a dim view. Her younger sister, though, would have giggled. Dear Catherine would have insisted on going over the details of this encounter, laughing uproariously. "A pince-nez? Mr Preinter wears a pince-nez?" She had always delighted in anything absurd, which was why she had encouraged Mr McBeanie, their neighbour in Ceylon, when she had no intention of accepting him.
With a jolt, Herbert recalled a very odd evening a few years back, when he had been at the club in the company of this same McBeanie. The man had introduced a photographer, a fellow Scot, whom he said was passing through. At the time, Leadbetter had thought it unusual. No one "passed through" those parts. The visitor had bought him a drink and then insisted on taking his photograph. Late into the evening, McBeanie had told the man that Leadbetter lived in the hills with two sisters. There had been something spiteful about the way he had spoken. "He keeps the pair of them for his own exclusive use," were McBeanie's words. Could this affair constitute the disappointed McBeanie's revenge? Herbert eyed Preinter. "How did you acquire my picture?" he asked.
Preinter replied readily: "From one of those photographers who go round the world discovering likenesses to purvey for purposes such as these. We were told you lived several days' ride from the nearest town and enjoyed unusual domestic arrangements which made it unlikely you would return to England."
Herbert shrugged. It was true he had not expected to return. He had not known Catherine would die, or that his crop would fail. He stared at Preinter. "It is all such a confounded cheek," he said weakly.
Preinter smiled. "Have you spoken of this to others? Have you taken your wife, or any other person, into your confidence?"
"No, indeed, when I found out about it I came straight here. We arrived at Southampton at first light yesterday and immediately took the train to London. Our fellow passengers went to a hotel near the docks but we were anxious to see a physician who had been recommended to us. On the train, I noticed a man reading a book with a photograph on the back. He kept glancing at me and then at his book jacket, so frequently that I became uncomfortable. My wife was luckily too languid to notice. By the time we reached London I had determined to speak to the fellow, but just as we were getting off the train he thrust a pen into my hand and asked me to sign his book. I tried to decline, but my wife was fretting over the luggage, so I took his pen and scribbled, "With best wishes from the author," thinking that the author would like as not wish the man well. He went off happily and I did not give the matter further thought until the evening when, my wife having been consigned to a clinic, I was dining alone. This time, a young woman accosted me. She started talking with such enthusiasm of my work that I had no opportunity to put a halt to her attentions. Indeed, she ended up dining with me."
"Did you let on?"
"That was what was so awkward. Because I did not do so at once it became impossible subsequently. It was only this morning, finding myself in Cornhill, I decided to..." Herbert did not feel the need to explain how he had met the girl again that morning and that she had accompanied him on his walk. It was she who had drawn attention to Preinters.
"Oh, I say!" the girl had gasped. "Preinter & Preinters. Two doors along. Have you come to talk to them about another book?"
"Another book?" Herbert faltered. "Talk to who?"
"You can't hide anything from me," she giggled. " I have been trying to publish, myself. Without success. I once visited Preinter & Preinters to deliver a manuscript. But they sent it back the next day. I do not think they read a single page. How I long to see my photograph on the back of a book. Perhaps you would put in a good word?"
He smiled encouragingly at her and she squeezed his arm affectionately. Then she halted beside a doorway and pointed up some stairs. "They are on the first floor. If you get a chance you might remind them of Charmian Rivers-that's the name I use. Tell them I shall be sending another novel shortly. Set in Paris. If you could persuade..."
"I will do my best, my dear," Herbert heard himself telling her. The girl fluttered her fingers at him as he turned and began to make his way up the stairs.
"What of the real author? Why could he not have his name and picture attached to the book?"
"Ah!" Preinter smiled. "I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Instead of relying on one particular writer to write as the fancy takes him, we at Preinter & Preinters prefer to spread the effort and control the outcome. Books are a crop-like your coffee-which we harvest as and when we please. We pay you to be the author and we employ others to do the work. It is a common enough arrangement and quite satisfactory."
"I never heard of such a thing," Herbert muttered.
"You only have to look at the number of books which authors like Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope are supposed to have produced. Ha, ha! It is obviously not possible for single individuals to turn out so many words. Mr Trollope, after all, was meant to be holding down a post at the post office. Mr Dickens had a career as an actor. Their publishers rather overdid it, but the public seem happy to be taken in."
"I must admit, I have often thought that both those gentlemen scribbled rather a lot."
"There you are, then. And while we are on the subject, I will let you into another secret. I myself am known to the world as Preinter. Mr Preinter of Preinter & Preinters. It was how I introduced myself when you came through the door."
Herbert nodded.
"I am, in fact, the tenth Preinter to occupy this chair. The 10th impression, you might say. The original Mr Preinter left the firm decades ago. Whoever sits here and does the work of Mr Preinter, becomes Mr Preinter. This is his pince-nez. When people have dealings with Preinter & Preinters they like to speak to Mr Preinter and not feel fobbed off with some minion who has no proper grasp of the business." Preinter leant towards Herbert, evidently intending to impart some significant literary gossip. "At Lawrence & Mayhews this practice caused a funny situation a few years back. There had been the usual succession of able men working quite happily as Mr Lawrence and Mr Mayhew, until one Mr Lawrence died and the man appointed to replace him was a Humphrey Mayhew. That was fine. He duly became Mr Lawrence. Then it happened a few years later that the job of Mr Mayhew became vacant and the man who came to fill it was a go-ahead fellow called Ronald Lawrence. These two men decided that it made no sense for a Mayhew to work as a Lawrence and for a Lawrence to work as a Mayhew-so they swapped desks. It caused quite a stir. No one was surprised when the firm filed for bankruptcy a year later. You can't trifle with the system."
Herbert shook his head. The subtleties of the commercial world were beyond him.
"But that is all by the by," Preinter went on. "Regarding this business, I think you have already discovered that finding yourself suddenly an author of books has its compensations. Shall we regard it as settled? We will pay you ?1,000 annually to take yourself off to your book-lined study. Never speak of your work except in the broadest terms when it cannot be helped. It might be advisable to purchase a type-writing machine and be heard occasionally to tap at it. Cultivate a mystery around your person. Explain, perhaps, to your wife when her nerves are recovered, that all the while she thought you were growing coffee, you were in fact secretly penning a work which has caught the popular imagination. When she thought you were typing letters and invoices you were in fact constructing the sentences which have made your photograph famous. No wonder your coffee concern failed; you were too preoccupied elsewhere. Maintain that fiction, and there is no reason why this lucrative arrangement should not pertain between us for years-the amount to be increased annually in line, of course, with the profitability of titles ascribed to... Herbert Leadbetter."
"There are to be more volumes, then?"
"I have staff working on them as we speak. A sequel to Love's Illusion to be followed rapidly by... but you do not want to concern yourself with details. Let me, instead, write you out our first cheque."
Herbert strolled down Cornhill a happier man than he had been in years. To find himself back in cold, damp, England, rich and famous! He resolved to purchase a watch and chain, larger and fatter than the one his father had owned. The sort of watch, indeed, that the author of Love's Illusion would be expected to possess. How Catherine would have laughed, but even the thought of the poor girl-consigned to her unmarked grave on that lonely hillside on the other side of the world, her stillborn baby in her arms-could not dampen his spirits now.
"If you would be so good?" At the end of the street an eager female thrust a copy of Love's Illusion into his hands. "I have been following you," she said. "I said to my friend, it can't be! But it is!"
"Certainly, my dear," Herbert smiled affably. He took her pen and squiggled elaborately on the front page. Then he gave her a peck on the cheek. "I hope you enjoy the sequel," he said. He would find that book-lined study in some quiet country backwater as soon as possible and establish the ailing Margaret there. He would employ a nurse to take charge of the woman so that occasionally he could journey up to London. Perhaps he would call from time to time on Preinter and see how sales of his books were doing. Poor Margaret, he thought. He almost felt sorry for her. Authors' wives had a lot to put up with. n
