Parson's Nine

by Noel Streatfeild

  “I don’t care a damn what they say; anyway, plenty of it will be true.”

  “And what are you going to do now?”

  “Eat tea, I hope.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand. What’s going to take the place of the gay life?”

  “I’m not sure I can tell you. It’s not all my own secret. You see, I’m going to try and finish something, something somebody else left not quite done.”

  The maid brought in the tea-things; she fidgeted about, arranging the tray, putting a small table by Susanna, placing the cakes and scones where both the women could reach them. Mrs. Cary paid no attention to her, but lay back staring at the ceiling. When the door had closed, she abstractedly poured out two cups of tea and helped herself to a scone, then suddenly she leaned across the table.

  “Susanna, if there’s one thing I loathe more than anything else in this world it’s interference, but in your case I’ve interfered so much already.” She stopped a movement of disagreement from Susanna. “Oh yes, I have, far more than you realise, that I feel I might just as well interfere a little more, so I’m going to ask you to take me into your confidence over the ‘something’ you’re going to finish. I’ve always had an idea the day was coming when you’d find out exactly what you wanted to do with your life. All this mannequin, cinema, photographing rubbish was so many hours filled in till you got on the right track. I think perhaps you’re on it now, and if you are I’d like to help you, with encouragement, if nothing else is needed.”

  Susanna chewed her cake in silence, not an embarrassed silence, but a comfortable, thought-collecting pause.

  “It’s to do with my twin,” she said at last.

  “Baruch?” Mrs. Cary almost breathed, terrified to break the mood which allowed Susanna to mention him to her.

  Susanna nodded.

  “He wrote things. Nobody knew it but me; he started when he first went to school, when we were eight, and he always wrote after that. It began by being a sort of fairy story about a queer land on an island, and bits of poetry about it. We both lived there. But the end is different; only Baruch’s there generally and he’s sort of invisible, and things, trees, wind, sun, the rain, they are real, and people don’t matter. I don’t understand that part quite. Some of it’s written in an awful hurry, and he uses the wrong words. I’m going to alter those; he wouldn’t mind, we always did everything together.”

  “And you think it might get published?”

  “It might. I could try.”

  “What an interesting thing to do. Will it take you long?”

  “The beginning will—the part written when we were little; none of that would do in a real book. I’ll just write it again; most of the ideas I’ll keep.”

  “Do you feel you know which parts he would have kept?”

  Susanna looked up with the bewildered eyes of a person stunned at the stupidity of another.

  “Feel I know? But I do know.”

  Mrs. Cary, crushed, allowed a moment to pass in silence before she asked cautiously:

  “If he had lived, would your brother have gone on writing?”

  “I don’t think so. You see we’d have gone to Canada, and he’d have liked that so much he’d never have bothered to write again. He never wrote because he wanted to exactly, but to take him away from where he was. He hated school.”

  “What an interesting boy he must have been.”

  Baruch as “an interesting boy” didn’t sound to Susanna like himself at all, so she changed the subject.

  “I shall start writing tomorrow.”

  During the next two or three months she wrote regularly every day. She wrote in her bedroom. Carefully locking her door, she would collect the pile of Baruch’s exercise books, open the one she was at, at the page she had left the day before, and then, when all was ready, fetch his photo, place it on the table in front of her, and discuss out loud with it any alteration she proposed to make before she made it.

  “I don’t believe you meant the ‘Rain was like a tent,’ did you? You meant it was so heavy it covered you, made you invisible. Don’t you think ‘tent’s’ very ugly? Like that one we had trimmed with red braid at Hastings?”

  Sometimes it was merely in agreement and praise that she spoke.

  “Oh, Baruch, I do like what you say here about the trees. ‘They appeared proud, but it was really reserve; they had plenty to say but saw no reason to get into crowds to say it, for the winds would carry all that mattered out to the world by and by.’ ”

  When she had reached his last books she spoke to him less. Much of this was in the form of conversations with gods and spirits, and spoke of odd beliefs and worships. She knew he would not have allowed her to alter any of it, so only when she came across words obviously useless to convey his meaning, did she venture to replace them with others. Once, as she copied out a long conversation between him and some strange being, she stopped, startled, and exclaimed:

  “Oh, Baruch, it wasn’t because you thought I wouldn’t understand you stopped showing me your books, was it?”

  Never for one moment did she imagine herself in contact with his spirit; her long talks with him were to clarify her own ideas as to what he would wish, nothing more. She never pretended to herself that he would have been pleased that she was trying to get his book published, but she hoped for it passionately on his behalf. “I do so want to feel proud of you,” she explained to his picture. “And it would be nice if you could feel proud of me.” And then added in the same breath: “But you never would; you’d never have wanted me to do anything; you liked me just being me.”

  When the last page was revised, she came down with all her carefully-written sheets of foolscap in her arms, her hair on end, and a smudge of ink across her nose.

  “It’s done,” she said to Mrs. Cary. “Do you know how I get somebody who’d type?”

  “I do. When it comes back may I read it?”

  “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  “Never mind. Let me read it, and if it’s the sort of book I think it is, I’ll send it to a cousin of my husband’s; he’s partner in a publishing firm, and they rather specialise in out-of-the-way books.”

  But Susanna looked doubtful.

  “I would love it to be published, but I don’t think you’ll think it can be; it’s not like a real book, you know, the sort you buy at railway stations.”

  “Well, give it me and I’ll see.”

  Susanna, overwhelmed with admiration at the beauty of the book in type, gave it to Mrs. Cary at once.

  “Perhaps you will like it after all; it does look nice, I do think.”

  Mrs. Cary read it at a sitting. She was fascinated by its oddness. She sent it at once to her cousin with a note:

  “DEAR ANGUS,

  I want you to read this: I think you will want to publish it. It has a curious history which I shall not tell you but which you will learn for yourself if you like the book sufficiently to interview its author.

  Love,

  ANNE.”

  A couple of months later, Susanna opened a letter addressed to Baruch:

  “DEAR MR. CHURSTON,

  I have been very interested to read your book ‘Our Land,’ and should like to publish it. Would you and your wife (forgive me if I am wrong in this surmise) find it convenient to call on me here, say next Thursday at four-thirty?

  Yours sincerely,

  ANGUS OGLEBY.”

  Mrs. Cary got a letter by the same post.

  “DEAR ANNE,

  You are quite right, we do ‘want to publish it.’ It is odd, and uneven, but teeming with ideas and a certain strangeness which is a great quality.

  Love,

  ANGUS.

  P.S.—What do you mean about ‘curious history’? And why ‘its author’ when there are two of them?”

 
; Susanna arrived outside the publisher’s some time before her appointment, and spent the time walking up and down until one minute before the half-hour, then very timidly she went in, and was shown straight up to Angus Ogleby’s office. He came forward to greet her, looking puzzled.

  “I take it you are Susanna Churston; did they announce you as ‘Miss’ ”? Susanna nodded. “Then Baruch Churston is your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t he coming today?”

  “No, he’s dead. He died more than three years ago.”

  Abstractedly he pulled forward a chair for her, then sat himself at his desk and tapped the typed copy of Our Land which lay at his elbow.

  “Is this spirit-writing then?”

  “Is it what?”

  “Do you consider it’s been dictated to you by your dead brother’s spirit?”

  “Goodness, no! He wrote it when he was at school.”

  “Thank the Lord for that! I hate all this spirit business; makes me nervous as a cat. I’d hardly have dared talk to you in case you started hearing raps and things. I think the best thing we can do now is to have tea while you tell me all about it.”

  Angus Ogleby was not only a born listener, but had the rare gift of saying just that word at the right moment which will prod the speaker into further expansiveness. He succeeded in dragging out of Susanna the almost complete history of the writing of Our Land from its start by Baruch, aged eight, to its final shaping. Some links in the story he knew were missing, but he had the clearest vision of the sympathy and understanding there had been between the twins, and was therefore the more puzzled by her insistence that it was all his work, and that she had merely edited it. Obviously this wasn’t true, for none of the part written when he was a small child remained; in fact, none of it probably before he was seventeen. As twins they had utterly understood the word “share.” Why, then, was she so insistent on pushing one of them now?

  “Was your brother ill long before he died?” he asked.

  “He wasn’t ill at all; he fell out of a window.”

  “Three years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you do then? Did you start editing this right away?”

  “No, I only began writing last May.”

  “I see.” (“I wish I dared ask her what happened in between,” he thought. “I bet she was knocked out.”)

  “Did you know that you could write?”

  “I don’t suppose I can; this is all Baruch.”

  “Forgive me contradicting you, but that’s not quite true. The idea is your brother’s, and the last part is probably entirely his, and it’s weird and intensely interesting, but it’s the sensitive writing of the first part which makes the book.”

  Susanna flushed with annoyance.

  “That’s silly, it was Baruch who wrote nearly all of it, and I think he wrote beautifully.”

  “So he did for a schoolboy, but you do for a woman, and that’s why I’m labouring the point, because you’ve got to start in right away and write something else.”

  “Me! Alone? Oh, but I couldn’t.”

  “Of course you could.”

  “What could I write about?”

  “I don’t know; why not try a novel?”

  “Make it up, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I know I couldn’t.”

  He laughed.

  “Think about it, it’ll come. You certainly can’t produce this,” he patted the manuscript, “and leave it there. I believe you’ve got a future; you’ve got to go on.”

  Susanna climbed on to her bus to go home, and sat down deep in thought. That having finished with Our Land she should ever write again was an idea which simply hadn’t entered her head. That any merit there was in Our Land belonged to Baruch she was positive, and she thought it very stupid of Angus Ogleby not to see it. But she had enjoyed writing; she’d liked her mornings locked away in her bedroom, and she had been feeling bored and flat these last two months with nothing to do. Why, then, shouldn’t she try and write something of her own? It wouldn’t do any harm, and it would be fun to make the attempt, even if she never got it finished. A novel! That meant a whole book with a story running through it. She didn’t believe she knew a story long enough to make a book. She gazed idly out of the window and happened to see a bookseller’s, which gave her an idea. All her queer friends that she had known in her months of oat-sowing, they were exactly like people on the covers of books, on the sort of books sold on railway stations, and they had owned enough queer histories between them to fill a dozen novels. “That’s what I’ll do, I’ll write about them,” she said to herself.

  “Well, what did Angus say to you?” Mrs. Cary asked her when she got in.

  “He said he was going to publish it.”

  “Did he like it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Did you like him?”

  Susanna thought back to her interview, to Angus Ogleby’s interested eyes and red hair.

  “He was nice. I’m going to write him a novel.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Our land was a success. Before it was published, Angus Ogleby asked Susanna to come and see him.

  “John Forde is going to write a preface to your book. Isn’t it marvellous?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, aren’t you thrilled?”

  “No. Who is he?”

  “My dear girl, only about the biggest figure in the world of literature today. Don’t you ever read?”

  “Not often. Sometimes a magazine.”

  He groaned.

  “I must remedy that. I’ll send you some books.”

  “I haven’t much time now; I’m writing your novel.”

  His face lit up.

  “You’ve started? Splendid! How’s it going?”

  “Very well, I think. I hope you’ll like it. I think it’s exciting.”

  “Exciting! What on earth are you writing about?”

  “I shan’t tell you; I’ll keep it as a surprise.”

  “All right, as long as it’s a nice one.”

  Susanna had insisted that John Forde’s preface should be devoted to Baruch, but he had succeeded in sketching in a delicate portrait of the two children’s linked lives, and through writing of the tragedy of Baruch’s early death, was able to show Susanna completing his work. But in spite of this, she only came in for secondary interest. The book, though not having an enormous sale, caused a lot of discussion among the literary, but it was Baruch that they talked about, seeing him as a lost genius, giving him credit for all that they liked most, and blaming Susanna’s less gifted pen for all they found disappointing.

  “Well, you’ve done what you wanted to: you’ve made a name for your brother,” Angus said to Susanna.

  Her eyes shone.

  “Yes. I wonder if he’d be pleased.”

  “Good lord, no! He’s gone to the hilltops where he belonged, ‘Over the hills and far away.’ He wouldn’t care for fame.”

  “No. But I do for him.”

  “I know you do. But I wish you’d care a little about it for yourself instead. Ever since you’ve been born you’ve been saying ‘he,’ or occasionally ‘us,’ but never ‘me.’ Now you’re on your own, and you’ve established your brother as far as that’s possible, so how about establishing yourself? I’m not going to argue with you about your brother’s gifts, but believe me, you have a gift of your own to cultivate. Now drop your twin, you’ve done all you can for him, and think of yourself.”

  “Well, I am writing a novel.”

  Yes, but is it a way of filling up hours? Or is it because Susanna wants to achieve something on her own?”

  “Achieve something on her own,” Susanna thought, and in spite of the finished sheets of foolscap at home, knew the idea
was ridiculous.

  “Well, anyhow, I’m writing,” she said crossly.

  The publication of Our Land came as a complete surprise to her family. She sent them her complimentary copies, and got letters from them all in return, except from her grandfather, and he wrote to Catherine:

  “DEAR DAUGHTER,

  What is this book Susanna has sent me? I see it is supposed to have been written by both her and Baruch, which is ridiculous, for the boy could never have written a word of it; he was still at school when the accident happened. Very good of a man like Forde to write the preface; he was at school with Dan. I could not make head nor tail of the rest of the book, so I only read the beginning, which I must say was written in very nice English. For goodness’ sake marry that girl of yours off, for there is quite enough rubbish published every year without her perpetrating any more.

  Your very loving,

  FATHER.”

  Susanna got her family letters within a day or two of each other:

  “MY DARLING SUSANNA,

  I had no idea Baruch wrote; what a secret little pair you were. It’s a delicious book, and you have done your work beautifully, keeping all his ideas and embellishing them with your writing. Crossy is swollen with pride; she says she always knew you would write. What with your book, and Judith standing for Parliament, she feels she has not lived in vain. I do hope you will be able to come home for a holiday some day, but you know what is best for yourself. Bless you.

  Your very loving,

  MOTHER.”

  “MY DEAR DAUGHTER,

  Thank you for your book. I had no idea Baruch wrote, and I feel perhaps you have made a mistake in allowing his work to get into print. Were he alive today, he would, I know, have regretted those last chapters and wished to use his gift only to the glory of God, for which all gifts are given us. I am sure, darling, you corrected and presented the book from entirely selfless motives, wishing only for his honour, in which purpose you have been (from a worldly standpoint) successful, for I read a great deal about him in the literary columns, and many old friends have written to me in congratulatory spirit, and also in one of sympathy, in that God (in His infinite mercy) should have removed so promising a young life. Do not think I write only to criticise, for indeed a lot of the book is very beautiful, but there is a slightly anti-Christian note towards the end, which is, I know, foreign to both you and Baruch.