CHAPTER 3
A HARMLESS DECEPTION_(Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative continued)_
They say that everyone is capable of one novel. And, in my opinion,most people could write one play.
Whether I wrote mine in an inspiration of despair, I cannot say. Iwrote it.
Three years had passed, and James was still haggling with those who buymen's brains. His earnings were enough just to keep his head abovewater, but not enough to make us two one.
Perhaps, because everything is clear and easy for us now, I amgradually losing a proper appreciation of his struggle. That shouldnever be. He did not win. But he did not lose; which means nearly asmuch. For it is almost less difficult to win than not to lose, so mymother has told me, in modern journalistic London. And I know that hewould have won. The fact that he continued the fight as he did was initself a pledge of ultimate victory. What he went through while tryingwith his pen to make a living for himself and me I learned from hisletters.
"London," he wrote, "is not paved with gold; but in literary fieldsthere are nuggets to be had by the lightest scratching. And thosenuggets are plays. A successful play gives you money and a nameautomatically. What the ordinary writer makes in a year the successfuldramatist receives, without labour, in a fortnight." He went on todeplore his total lack of dramatic intuition. "Some men," he said,"have some of the qualifications while falling short of the others.They have a sense of situation without the necessary tricks oftechnique. Or they sacrifice plot to atmosphere, or atmosphere to plot.I, worse luck, have not one single qualification. The nursing of aclimax, the tremendous omissions in the dialogue, the knack of stagecharacterisation--all these things are, in some inexplicable way,outside me."
It was this letter that set me thinking. Ever since James had left theisland, I had been chafing at the helplessness of my position. While hetoiled in London, what was I doing? Nothing. I suppose I helped him ina way. The thought of me would be with him always, spurring him on towork, that the time of our separation might be less. But it was notenough. I wanted to be _doing_ something.... And it was duringthese restless weeks that I wrote my play.
I think nothing will ever erase from my mind the moment when thecentral idea of _The Girl who Waited_ came to me. It was aboisterous October evening. The wind had been rising all day. Now thebranches of the lilac were dancing in the rush of the storm, and farout in the bay one could see the white crests of the waves gleamingthrough the growing darkness. We had just finished tea. The lamp waslit in our little drawing-room, and on the sofa, so placed that thelight fell over her left shoulder in the manner recommended byoculists, sat my mother with Schopenhauer's _Art of Literature_.Ponto slept on the rug.
Something in the unruffled peace of the scene tore at my nerves. I haveseldom felt so restless. It may have been the storm that made me so. Ithink myself that it was James's letter. The boat had been late thatmorning, owing to the weather, and I had not received the letter tillafter lunch. I listened to the howl of the wind, and longed to be outin it.
My mother looked at me over her book.
"You are restless, Margie," she said. "There is a volume of MarcusAurelius on the table beside you, if you care to read."
"No, thank you, mother," I said. "I think I shall go for a walk."
"Wrap up well, my dear," she replied.
She then resumed her book.
I went out of our little garden, and stood on the cliff. The wind flewat me like some wild thing. Spray stung my face. I was filled with awild exhilaration.
And then the idea came to me. The simplest, most dramatic idea. Quaint,whimsical, with just that suggestion of pathos blended with it whichmakes the fortunes of a play. The central idea, to be brief, of _TheGirl who Waited_.
Of my Maenad tramp along the cliff-top with my brain afire, and myreturn, draggled and dripping, an hour late for dinner; of my writingand re-writing, of my tears and black depression, of the pens I woreout and the quires of paper I spoiled, and finally of the ecstasy ofthe day when the piece began to move and the characters to live, I neednot speak. Anyone who has ever written will know the sensations. Jamesmust have gone through a hundred times what I went through once. Atlast, at long last, the play was finished.
For two days I gloated alone over the great pile of manuscript.
Then I went to my mother.
My diffidence was exquisite. It was all I could do to tell her thenature of my request, when I spoke to her after lunch. At last sheunderstood that I had written a play, and wished to read it to her. Shetook me to the bow-window with gentle solicitude, and waited for me toproceed.
At first she encouraged me, for I faltered over my opening words. Butas I warmed to my work, and as my embarrassment left me, she no longerspoke. Her eyes were fixed intently upon the blue space beyond thelilac.
I read on and on, till at length my voice trailed over the last line,rose gallantly at the last fence, the single word _Curtain_, andabruptly broke. The strain had been too much for me.
Tenderly my mother drew me to the sofa; and quietly, with closedeyelids, I lay there until, in the soft cool of the evening, I askedfor her verdict.
Seeing, as she did instantly, that it would be more dangerous to denymy request than to accede to it, she spoke.
"That there is an absence, my dear Margie, of any relationship withlife, that not a single character is in any degree human, that passionand virtue and vice and real feeling are wanting--this surprises memore than I can tell you. I had expected to listen to a natural,ordinary, unactable episode arranged more or less in steichomuthics.There is no work so scholarly and engaging as the amateur's. But inyour play I am amazed to find the touch of the professional andexperienced playwright. Yes, my dear, you have proved that you happento possess the quality--one that is most difficult to acquire--ofsurrounding a situation which is improbable enough to be convincingwith that absurdly mechanical conversation which the theatre-goingpublic demands. As your mother, I am disappointed. I had hoped fororiginality. As your literary well-wisher, I stifle my maternalfeelings and congratulate you unreservedly."
I thanked my mother effusively. I think I cried a little.
She said affectionately that the hour had been one of great interest toher, and she added that she would be glad to be consulted with regardto the steps I contemplated taking in my literary future.
She then resumed her book.
I went to my room and re-read the last letter I had had from James.
_The Barrel Club, Covent Garden, London._
MY DARLING MARGIE,--I am writing this line simply and solely for the selfish pleasure I gain from the act of writing to you. I know everything will come right some time or other, but at present I am suffering from a bad attack of the blues. I am like a general who has planned out a brilliant attack, and realises that he must fail for want of sufficient troops to carry a position, on the taking of which the whole success of the assault depends. Briefly, my position is like this. My name is pretty well known in a small sort of way among editors and the like as that of a man who can turn out fairly good stuff. Besides this, I have many influential friends. You see where this brings me? I am in the middle of my attacking movement, and I have not been beaten back; but the key to the enemy's position is still uncaptured. You know what this key is from my other letters. It's the stage. Ah, Margie, one acting play! Only one! It would mean everything. Apart from the actual triumph and the direct profits, it would bring so much with it. The enemy's flank would be turned, and the rest of the battle would become a mere rout. I should have an accepted position in the literary world which would convert all the other avenues to wealth on which I have my eye instantly into royal roads. Obstacles would vanish. The fact that I was a successful playwright would make the acceptance of the sort of work I am doing now inevitable, and I should get paid ten times as well for it. And it would mean--well, you
know what it would mean, don't you? Darling Margie, tell me again that I have your love, that the waiting is not too hard, that you believe in me. Dearest, it will come right in the end. Nothing can prevent that. Love and the will of a man have always beaten Time and Fate. Write to me, dear.
_Ever your devoted James._
How utterly free from thought of self! His magnificent loyalty forgotthe dreadful tension of his own great battle, and pictured only thetedium of waiting which it was my part to endure.
I finished my letter to James very late that night. It was a very longand explanatory letter, and it enclosed my play.
The main point I aimed at was not to damp his spirits. He would, I knewwell, see that the play was suitable for staging. He would, in short,see that I, an inexperienced girl, had done what he, a trainedprofessional writer, had failed to do. Lest, therefore, his piqueshould kill admiration and pleasure when he received my work, I wroteas one begging a favour. "Here," I said, "we have the means to achieveall we want. Do not--oh, do not--criticise. I have written down thewords. But the conception is yours. The play was inspired by you. Butfor you I should never have begun it. Take my play, James; take it asyour own. For yours it is. Put your name to it, and produce it, if youlove me, under your own signature. If this hurts your pride, I willword my request differently. You alone are able to manage the businessside of the production. You know the right men to go to. To approachthem on behalf of a stranger's work is far less likely to lead tosuccess. I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to beproduced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own. Claimthe authorship, and all will be well."
Much more I wrote to James in the same strain; and my reward came nextday in the shape of a telegram: "Accept thankfully.--Cloyster."
Of the play and its reception by the public there is no need to speak.The criticisms were all favourable.
Neither the praise of the critics nor the applause of the publicaroused any trace of jealousy in James. Their unanimous note of praisehas been a source of pride to him. He is proud--ah, joy!--that I am tobe his wife.
I have blotted the last page of this commonplace love-story of mine.
The moon has come out from behind a cloud, and the whole bay is onevast sheet of silver. I could sit here at my bedroom window and look atit all night. But then I should be sure to oversleep myself and be latefor breakfast. I shall read what I have written once more, and then Ishall go to bed.
I think I shall wear my white muslin tomorrow.
_(End of Miss Margaret Goodwin's narrative.)_
PART TWO
James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative
Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel Page 3