My American

by Stella Gibbons

  She took the money and the sweet, said prettily, “Good-bye, thank you very much, Mr. Antrobus” (which he received with a wave of his unoccupied hand but did not turn round) and hurried away. On the landing she stood aside to let a slender lady of about sixty, elegantly dressed in a frock of blue and grey silk stripes which matched her white hair glinting with a blue rinse, come slowly up the stairs. The lady, whose face wore an amused, patient expression, glanced at her and said kindly:

  “Did you get the copy, my dear? And did my husband give you your taxi-fare?” And as Amy nodded, murmuring, “Yes, thank you,” she smiled and went slowly up the next flight.

  Amy enjoyed hailing the taxi and riding in grandeur through the wide squares and crescents and the narrow canyon of Fleet Street back to The Prize, but she would have enjoyed it far more if her head had not been so full of what Mr. Antrobus had said about writing. If you can tell stories … it’s stories, you know, that everybody wants. …

  She paid the driver off and ran lightly upstairs and tapped on the private door of Lord Welwoodham’s office, for she had been told to take the copy straight to him.

  When he had opened it and glanced over it in a satisfied way he said casually:

  “Well, how did you get on with Mr. Antrobus?”

  “Oh, he was very nice,” she said, smiling. “He gave me some peppermint creams and paid for me to have a taxi back because——”

  “‘If you can tell stories, your fortune’s made,’ eh?” quoted Lord Welwoodham absently, still skimming through the Barty story. “And did you hear about the circus going on inside his head, and about the cheque fluttering on to the brown serge tablecloth in our front parlour, and about thanking Whatever you worship for the gift itself? Yes, I can see by your face,” glancing up at her despondently, “that you did. So, to his downfall did Gossey. It was Mr. Antrobus who started Gossey on his career; and he would have started a good many more people if they had been asses enough to take him seriously. Now don’t you be led astray, as Gossey was, and try to make your fortune out of The Prize, will you, Miss Lee?”

  “Oh no, I won’t,” she said, rather faintly, and got out of the room as quickly as she could.

  Mr. Danesford had already departed to the old-fashioned Italian restaurant where he had lunched every day for the last forty years; and Miss Grace was putting the final irresistible tilt to a pale blue hat with daisy buds adorning its crown when Amy entered the outer office. One glance at her face, which still faintly reflected her inward excitement, and Miss Grace observed (the elders on The Prize never lost an opportunity, even after four years without one sign of literary ambition on her part, of warning their office-girl against having any):

  “I suppose Mr. Antrobus talked a lot to you about his writing, Amy? He used to talk to Gossey, too, whenever the poor lad went up there to fetch copy. He only talks like that to people when he knows they can’t write, you know. So I hope you won’t go getting ideas into your head. Because it would only be a waste of time. You know the rule here.”

  “Yes, Miss Grace.”

  Miss Grace went out.

  When she had gone, Amy lavishly licked her forefinger, tiptoed over to Miss Grace’s chair, and touched the seat. This insulting ceremony, known to her as Putting Spit, somewhat relieved her feelings.

  CHAPTER XV

  A FEW DAYS later Lord Welwoodham was sitting in his office reading through the morning’s batch of manuscripts, already weeded by Mr. Danesford. He was trying to concentrate upon his task a mind still bemused with the colours, smells and sounds of the New Forest, where his family place was, and where he had passed the week-end. He could still see, more clearly than the manuscripts on his desk, the solemn blue-green of the pines and their rough rosy trunks, the thin emerald moss fostered by the damp wind on oak boles, the long hollow rides ending in a square of silver daylight down which his horse had cantered so surely, loving the fresh smell of woods in the early morning and eager to go fast. On the edge of the Forest near Bucklers Hard he owned a large Victorian-Gothic palace; difficult to run and expensive to keep up, the satisfaction of his enemies (he was not a mild man and had more than a few) and the despair of his friends. But he and Lady Georgina were contented there. Lady Georgina, an elegant old lady whose religion was music, had never liked marriage but did like old Gus Welwoodham and as they both loved the place, they had made a go of their forty-five years together.

  As well as being full of New Forest smells and colours, Lord Welwoodham’s head was buzzing with a long list of autumn plants and winter plants and fertilizers to be ordered on behalf of Lady Welwoodham. He would not make a list (“Georgy, you know I never make a list”) for he prided himself at seventy-two, upon his memory; but relaxed and sleepy with fresh air and exercise as he was, he found it difficult to concentrate upon the manuscripts before him and also remember what he must presently order from Whiteleys.

  But he was soothed as well as relaxed, and disposed to deal mildly with the usual rubbish spread before him. Even The Stratosphere Scouts! did not make him more than mutter, “Bosh, what bosh.” He skimmed The Horror at Hurley Dene! without comment, and likewise The Prehistoric Circus! which was about two jolly Neanderthal boys named Ug and Mug who tamed a diplodocus and charged their parents two flints a head to watch it do tricks. There was an article on how to keep racing pigeons which he put aside to discuss with Mr. Danesford; and then the last of the batch—a story called, The River Boy, by A. Lowndes, neatly typed (but to do them justice all the contributions were that) in a green cover.

  The simple title caught Lord Welwoodham’s attention because it had no exclamation point. He opened the story in the middle, and read a few lines. He read a few more lines, then suddenly pushed all the other manuscripts on the desk aside, so that some of them fell on the floor, put The River Boy on the space thus cleared, leaned forward with his chin on one fist, and quickly—as though he were afraid the thing were going to vanish before his eyes—turned back to the beginning and began to read.

  … Of course, it is impossible for the thousands of readers who love The River Boy to imagine the first time anyone ever read the first of the stories. There it lay on Lord Welwoodham’s desk, the fresh-mined, yet unminted gold of what was to become a beloved minor classic—the commas and semicolons still in a molten state, as it were, the final sheen not yet on the surface, for here and there a sentence was pencilled through or a word neatly printed (not written) above a correction. Yet that first reader, the old man sitting absorbed at his desk in the offices of The Prize on that sunny autumn morning shared something with the latest scrubby little prep school boy who got The River Boy from an aunt last Christmas: delight.

  But just as it is useless to try and convey in words the freshness of woods in the early morning, so it is useless to try and convey in words the spell exercised by a writer of genius; and therefore no attempt shall be made to tell those who have not read The River Boy what it is like, beyond saying that Lord Welwoodham had found, at long last, his writer who looked at the world with the simple yet mysterious vision of a boy.

  He read it three times before he looked up from the page and gently, almost reverently, shut the folder. “That’s good,” he muttered, staring down at it. “By George, that’s a fine story. What a plot! with a beginning, a middle—and I’m damned if it hasn’t got an end as well! I must … here, where’s Danesford——”

  He got up and went quickly across to the outer office.

  “Danesford,” he called, standing at the open door with the manuscript in his hand. “Can you come in a minute? I’ve got something quite extraordinarily good here I’d like you to look at.”

  “Is that The River Boy?” inquired Mr. Danesford in his deep baying voice, loping into the inner office while his editor held the door open for him. “I only glanced at the beginning, but I thought you’d better see it; it looked promising, I thought, very promising.”

  “It’s a beauty,” said Lord Welwoodham; he added absently without looking at his
editorial assistant, “Miss Lee, will you be so good as to make my tea, please,” and shut the inner office door.

  Miss Lee, with very pink cheeks and very cold hands which found difficulty in striking matches, put the kettle on.

  “We are out of biscuits,” observed Miss Grace without looking up from her work. “I reminded you yesterday. At lunch-time, you may remember,” continued Miss Grace in a voice laden with the doubly voluptuous pleasure of ticking somebody off and regretting lost opportunities. “I said to you, if you remember, ‘Amy, don’t whatever you do forget the biscuits’.”

  “I know, Miss Grace. I’m awfully sorry.” Amy spoke in a muffled voice because she was kneeling in front of the cupboard getting out the cups and saucers.

  “You had better slip out now while the kettle is coming to the boil and get Sixpenny worth of Mixed,” pursued Miss Grace.

  Amy said nothing but continued to clank about with the crockery. She was a long time over it, so long that only when Miss Grace remarked again:

  “Hurry up, Amy, the kettle is nearly boiling,” did she jam on her hat, snatch sixpence out of the Petty Cash, and march out of the room with furious face.

  Didn’t want to go. Lazy. Miss Grace, continuing unmovedly with her typing, knew quite well what had been going on. Do her good. Never does a girl any harm to break her will. Now why didn’t she want to go, just at this minute? She’s usually only too pleased to go out in office hours. Queer. More in this than meets the eye. Shall keep both mine open. Miss Grace continued to type.

  When Amy got back breathless with the biscuits Mr. Danesford had come out of Lord Welwoodham’s room and was standing by Miss Grace’s desk, outlining a letter.

  “… we like his story and would like to use it and will pay him ten guineas for it.”

  Miss Grace glanced up at Mr. Danesford. Mr. Danesford met the surprised glance of her flat grey eyes with his own sad brown ones and nodded portentously.

  “Lord Welwoodham is very much impressed with this story,” confided Mr. Danesford. “He considers we have found an important new writer for boys—if he can keep it up, of course.” Miss Grace nodded tolerantly. In her experience they seldom could keep it up.

  “… and if he has any more work, say a story between forty and fifty thousand words that we could use as a serial, we should be very pleased to consider it. Oh—and if he is in the City at all during this week Lord Welwoodham would be glad if he could make it convenient to call here to discuss the possibility of regular contributions for us. That,” concluded Mr. Danesford, “is all.”

  “A. Lowndes, c/o. Hampstead High Street Post Office, N.W.3” read back Miss Grace. “Postal address, eh? Rather unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Lord Welwoodham thinks he may be an unmarried naval or military man on leave, without a permanent address, or possibly someone whose work makes it necessary for him to travel about a good deal and therefore has no fixed abode,” said Mr. Danesford, his gloomy voice giving a blasted heath, fleeing-from-justice colour to the picture.

  “I suppose it is a ‘he’?” said Miss Grace idly—idly, that is, for Miss Grace. She never spoke quite idly, though often she dropped sharp remarks more by instinct than by reason.

  Mr. Danesford actually gave a short baying laugh, but otherwise he did not trouble to reply. As though Lord Welwoodham would accept a story for The Prize written by a female! The only female who had ever been thus honoured was Charlotte M. Yonge; even E. Nesbit had been considered too fanciful and feminine for The Prize.

  Now just as Mr. Danesford gave his laugh Miss Grace happened to dart a glance across at Amy, who was absorbed in pouring out Lord Welwoodham’s tea. Miss Grace did not glance at Amy for any reason except the fact that she was always darting glances at the young and subordinate just to see that they were behaving themselves, but in this case her dart was rewarded, for Amy was not behaving herself; she was steadily pouring Lord Welwoodham’s tea over the cup and into the saucer and on to the table, with a crimson face and eyes that actually glittered with excitement.

  “Amy! The tea! What are you doing!” cried Miss Grace in a warning but low tone, for Lord Welwoodham must not hear female screams coming from the other office.

  “Get the Cloth—the Cloth, quickly, and wipe it up!”

  Amy got the Cloth, which had lived over the cloakroom basin almost as long as Mr. Danesford had washed his hands there, and mopped up the tea and carried the cup into Lord Welwoodham, but not before Miss Grace, studying her shaking hands, flushed cheeks and feverishly shining eyes, had jumped to a wild, an amazing, yet not an utterly impossible suspicion, and had resolved to put her suspicion to the proof.

  That evening she was going to play badminton with a friend who lived in Hampstead, and this friend’s bedroom happened to command a view of no less a place than the Hampstead High Street Post Office. Miss Grace remembered this well, for many a time while powdering her long mauve nose at her friend’s dressing-table she had absently observed out of the corner of her eye the postman making the six-thirty collection from the High Street box.

  It will all fit in perfectly, thought Miss Grace. I can be there easily by a quarter to six if I leave early and I think I will; yes, I will certainly leave early, on purpose, and wait at the window (having Explained to Joan) until … anything should happen. I may be wrong. I hope (she didn’t) that I am. But at least it can do no harm to Watch.

  As soon as Miss Grace had admitted her wild suspicion to her mind, she began to behave as though it were true; for towards lunch-time when Amy was gathering the letters from the wire tray to take to the post, Miss Grace slid a dry chalky hand over her shoulder and abstracted two—one to Mr. Antrobus with his monthly cheque and the other addressed to A. Lowndes, Esq., announcing:

  “These are important, Amy: I myself will post these,” and took them out with her to lunch. She wanted to be sure of the Lowndes letter arriving at Hampstead by six o’clock.

  Amy went out to lunch at one; and sat for an hour in St. Paul’s picking bits off a twopenny ham-roll and staring at the Whispering Gallery. Sometimes she smiled to herself, and sometimes she looked very frightened and sometimes she looked quite bewildered, as though she had not the least idea what she was going to do next. By two o’clock she was back in the office, industriously filing letters while Lord Welwoodham talked on the telephone with the door open to somebody named Squire whom Amy knew to be a friend of his; telling him what a first-rate story he had got hold of for the next number of The Prize and asking him if he, Squire, had ever heard of A. Lowndes? But apparently Squire had not. In the pause immediately before tea Miss Grace daintily picked up The River Boy from Mr. Danesford’s desk and skimmed its pages while Amy, busy with the tea kettle, covertly watched her. Presently Miss Grace put it down again, observing to Mr. Danesford:

  “Rather far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  “Lord Welwoodham does not think so,” bayed Mr. Danesford reprovingly. “I myself have not read it.”

  Miss Grace sharply asked Amy was the kettle boiling yet?

  Miss Grace’s friend was very pleased to see Miss Grace, and at once conducted her to the bedroom, and while Miss Grace was taking off her dove-grey hat with two red roses on its brim she told her friend what she suspected, and asked if she might watch out of the bedroom window for half an hour or so? You can be getting on with supper, suggested Miss Grace. The friend, who was large and red and cheerful and worked in a Government office, said that of course she could and added admiringly, “You little devil, Lena. Nobody can put anything over on you, can they?”

  “What is it? What are you girls gossiping about in there?” called the friend’s old mother from the next room. She was in bed with an Attack and had not had much fun lately. “Nothing wrong at Lena’s office, I hope?” she added eagerly.

  “Couldn’t Mother watch with you?” suggested the friend scripturally.

  Miss Grace said of course, it would be company for her, so the old mother hobbled in between the two of them and was put at
the window in a chair wrapped round with a blanket and nearly wrecked the proceeding by having the Attack again with excitement.

  “Been stealing something, has she, the wicked thing?” demanded the friend’s mother. “Ah, trust Lena to catch her out. I wonder she dared to do it with Lena in the office. Much, was it? Poor, is she? What does she want more money for, eh? Paint and powder and all this hair-dressing. I know. Eh?”

  The friend said good-naturedly: “No, Mother. It isn’t stealing. Now just keep quiet, there’s a dear, and Lena will tell you all about it afterwards, won’t you, Lena?”

  Miss Grace, looking steadily through the cream net curtains, said nothing but nodded.

  For a while nothing exciting happened. People went into the post office and came out pressing stamps on letters and posted them. A lady bought a bunch of crimson dahlias from the flower man outside the furnishing-and-decorating shop on the corner. Miss Grace watched steadily, her fingers clutching the curtain.

  Suddenly her clutch tightened and she gave a little gasp. Someone whom she knew was crossing the road from the tube-station, and they went into the post office.

  “Is that her?—Show me?—Which is it? That one in the red and white? Why, she’s quite young!” cried the friend’s old mother, bending eagerly forward and peering through the curtains.

  “Old enough to know better,” pronounced Miss Grace solemnly, letting the curtain fall as the figure, having been inside for some moments, reappeared at the post office door carrying a letter and insolently swinging its hat. “Well—this evening you’ve seen a girl who will very shortly be in want of a job, Mrs. Naseby.”

  “Fancy, Lena! Do tell me all about it? What’s she been up to?”

  And so Miss Grace told.

  The next morning when Amy got to the office she found Miss Grace already there. This was unusual. When Miss Grace took absolutely no notice of her “Good morning, Miss Grace,” but continued to rub Glymiel jelly into her hands in awful silence, Amy began to feel frightened. When Mr. Danesford arrived, carrying the light macintosh which never left him throughout the summer and hung up his dark soft hat and put his umbrella in the stand and Miss Grace said levelly: “Can I speak to you for a moment?” and they retired to the window and spoke earnestly together for several minutes without once glancing in her direction, she was more frightened still, and when, at last, at a quarter to ten and after nearly half an hour of agonizing suspense on Amy’s part, Lord Welwoodham arrived swinging a new pair of hogskin gloves that were getting dirty nicely and Miss Grace said sepulchrally, “Lord Welwoodham, may I speak to you for a moment, please?” and Lord Welwoodham said, “Of course, Miss Grace. Come in, won’t you?” and held the door open for her—then did the full force of terror fall upon Amy, and she sat at the table by the door shaking from head to foot.