My American

by Stella Gibbons

  Only once did she glance across at Mr. Danesford, and it happened to be at the precise moment that he was bending upon her such an awesome gaze—so mournful, severe, disillusioned and at the same time suspicious—that she started as though he had hit her, and returned to her task of entering up the morning’s manuscripts in a state of even greater terror than before.

  Miss Grace was with Lord Welwoodham what seemed to Amy about eight hours, but in fact it was ten minutes. At the end of that time the door opened and Lord Welwoodham, looking agitated and cross, put his head round it. “Danesford, can you spare a minute?” he demanded without a glance at Amy, and Mr. Danesford hastened across to him. The door of the inner office shut. Amy was alone with St. Paul’s staring in through the window, the loudly ticking clock, and her conscience.

  In spite of her terror she could not help feeling triumphant because Lord Welwoodham liked the story so much. She did not like him particularly as a person, but she was excited and pleased because he was—her first reader. He was the only person who had read a story of hers since her mother died, and although of course she, Amy, knew her stories were exciting and good, it was nice to have someone else think so too.

  Oh, do buck up! she inwardly implored her three judges, glancing at the firmly-shut door. What on earth are they going to do to me?

  Then she jumped nearly out of her skin. The door was opening. Out came Miss Grace, out came Mr. Danesford, looking as glum and severe as though they had been to a funeral. LordWelwoodham glanced across at her and held the door open, saying gravely:

  “Come in a moment, will you please, Miss Lee?”

  She got up and went over to him. The other two had seated themselves at their desks and were beginning on their morning’s work, with never a glance at the accused, and she felt a sudden flare of hatred for the pair of them—soppy, miserable old pigs! But not a trace of it showed in her face as she quietly shut the door of the inner office after her, and turned to face the Editor. Her eyes had the old, still, polite expression, wary and secretive, that she had made them wear as a mask ever since she was a child.

  “Sit down, won’t you, Miss Lee,” he said, pointing to the chair opposite his own. She sat down on the edge of it, facing him with the light on her young, thin face and brilliant child’s eyes, the unbecoming plaits of dark hair clamped against her delicate temples, her square rather ugly little hands clenched in the lap of the red and white dress, her small body very upright … and looked politely at Lord Welwoodham, waiting for him to speak. For almost the first time in her life she was in a serious situation and was not pretending to be a hero surrounded by enemies. This was because the situation concerned her previous writing, her stories, the only things she cared about in the real world, and therefore the situation was, for once, completely real to her. The little door in her mind would not open, there was no escape. She sat there with thudding heart and dry mouth, staring politely, with eyes now a little glassy, at Lord Welwoodham.

  “Miss Lee,” he began gravely, “Miss Grace has made a serious accusation against you, and I want you to tell me if it’s true. It appears that she—er—saw you go into Hampstead High Street Post Office yesterday evening and come out with a letter. She suggests that it was the letter written by myself earlier in the day to the writer signing himself A. Lowndes, who submitted a story called The River Boy, which we accepted. She suggests, in fact,” went on Lord Welwoodham, dropping his smart horn-rimmed oval glasses and fumbling irritably for them, “that you—er—wrote The River Boy. Did you?”

  Amy swallowed.

  “That’s right. I did,” she said faintly, her thin young voice almost inaudible.

  Lord Welwoodham stared, and put on the horn rims again. He tried to look severe but it was no use; an expression of the liveliest interest, curiosity and something like wonder had come into his faded blue eyes, and no pretended severity could banish it, even when he said firmly:

  “Then I consider that you have behaved very badly, Miss Lee, quite disgracefully, after the—the confidence and trust that this paper has always reposed in you, especially as you have always been—er—perfectly aware—er—you wrote it entirely yourself, did you, without help of any kind, no-one gave you the plot or anything of—anything of that sort?” he suddenly demanded, vigorously polishing the horn rims and staring at her.

  “Oh, no!” she said, a little louder this time. “Nobody helped me at all.” And she went on (for quite suddenly she had stopped feeling afraid, and knew that he was not angry with her, and that everything would be all right in the end, just as her mother used to say it would be if only she was a brave girl and asked God to help her). “What a funny idea—anyone helping me write a story!”

  “Have you written others, then?” Still polishing and staring.

  “Oh, yes!” she said, and even smiled a little, cautiously, “lots of them! Only no-one knows about it at home, you see, because—” She hesitated.

  “They might not understand?”

  “Yes. My old headmistress at school knew about them. She was awfully kind. She let me write in the old exam room. But she was the only one who knew.”

  “Did she read any of your work?”

  Amy shook her head.

  “Why not? Didn’t you think them good enough to show her?”

  “Oh, no! It wasn’t that. I just didn’t want anyone to read them except me—” She stopped, and the still, guarded look came over her face.

  “What made you send in The River Boy to The Prize, in that case, Miss Lee?”

  “Oh, that was Mr. Antrobus!” she explained quickly, smiling broadly now. “When I went to his house the other day it was all so pretty, I’d never seen anything so pretty in all my life and then he talked to me, you know—”

  “About the circus. Yes, I know,” he nodded.

  “And how all the people were shut up inside his head and trying to come out, and I thought ‘That’s just like me; only me head’s full of stories, not people,’ and then he said everybody wanted stories and if you could tell stories your fortune was made. And that made me want to have people reading my stories, too—”

  “You didn’t only do it to get money, then?” he demanded.

  “Oh, well, I did think it would be nice to have three guineas, of course, but what I really wanted,” her voice deepened, grew strangely warmer in tone, “was to see my name on a story, you know. By Amy Lee. That was what I really wanted. And to think of people reading it—lovely! So that was why I had it typed round the corner at Hilditch’s and fixed up to have it sent back to the Hampstead Post Office if The Prize didn’t like it, because I knew it wouldn’t have a chance, of course, if I sent it in with my own name on it—” her voice faltered, died away as she suddenly realized that she was relating a crime, not a success-story, and she stared at him in dismay.

  Lord Welwoodham was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Miss Lee, I like your story very much, and I want to use it in the next number. I am very annoyed with you, of course, for having sent it in under a false name—wait a moment.” He held up his hand, checking her eager attempt to speak. “But I quite see that in the circumstances you could not do anything else. The whole situation is very unusual—er—most unusual and peculiar. Now, are you willing for us to use the story, Miss Lee, at a fee of ten guineas, as I suggested?”

  “Oh, yes, please, Lord Welwoodham! Only isn’t ten guineas rather a lot of money?”

  (It must here be noted that this was the first, and the last, time that Amy ever suggested she was being overpaid.)

  “The story is worth about four times that amount by modern rates of payment,” he answered rather curtly, “but in fairness to the financial state of this paper I cannot offer you more. Er … about your name … you want your full name to appear, I presume. You would not prefer to use only your initial—‘by A. Lee ’?” There was a hint of hope in his voice, but Amy soon sat on that.

  “Oh, yes, please,” she replied decidedly. “By Amy Lee. In quite large type.”


  “Very well.” Lord Welwoodham made a note. “And now that we have settled that, Miss Lee, I have to break it to you that I must enforce the rule usual in these cases and insist upon your leaving. But,” he added hastily, as her lips parted in dismay (would she be out of work for ten months like Maurice Beeding?), “there is no need for you to leave immediately. I propose to give you a year’s notice. That will give you time to look for another post, will it not?

  “Oh, yes. Thank you very much,” she murmured, feeling grateful but also a little dazed.

  “And now I should like to discuss with you the possibility of writing regularly for us. Something in the nature of a series, perhaps … or a serial. But perhaps,” glancing at her keenly, “you have no more ideas?”

  “Oh, yes I have!” confidently smiling at him. “I’ve got a beauty, another one about The River Boy. I was going to start it to-night. Would you like to see it when it’s done?”

  “Very much indeed,” replied Lord Welwoodham, staring at his editorial assistant, if possible, even more intently than before. “About how long, pray, do you think it will take you to finish it?”

  “Oh, about a week. You see, I haven’t got a place to be properly alone in at home, so I have to write whenever I get the chance—in my lunch-time and in the tube going home (if I get a seat, of course) and so it takes me rather a long time.

  “I see,” he said. “And that was how The River Boy was written?”

  But when she nodded, and added with an uncontrollable giggle that most of The River Boy had been written in St. Paul’s Cathedral, he shook his head a little as though he quite gave it up. And if she had been looking at him at that moment, instead of dreamily staring out of the window at the dark old house opposite, she would have seen his lips shape the word “Wonderful!” But all he said, a little severely, was:

  “Now, Miss Lee, we have been able to come to what I hope will be a satisfactory arrangement, at least for the next year. You will continue to work here at your present salary, and I will pay you ten guineas for every story of yours that we print in The Prize. Is that clear, and does the arrangement satisfy you?”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you very much,” she said, smiling with happiness.

  “You are quite sure? It is only fair to tell you that if you took this story elsewhere you would get much more money for it. I am telling you this because other people—agents and editors and so forth—will very soon be on your track, trying to get you to write for other papers, and I want to know exactly how The Prize stands with you. Would you agree, Miss Lee, to write only for The Prize, say, for the next year?”

  Amy made a faint effort to weigh this proposal and to be very businesslike and wide-awake and smart, but it was no use. Her eye caught someone moving mysteriously behind the curtained window opposite, and off she went into a dreamy state that lasted nearly a minute, while Lord Welwoodham silently studied her, amused and interested by her lack of nervousness, her simplicity, her general oddity, which was now (since his attention had been drawn to her) so striking.

  “Well, Miss Lee?” he inquired at last.

  “Oh, yes.” Her gaze moved from the window, came to rest tranquilly on his face. “Yes, I would agree. I won’t write for anyone but The Prize for a year. Then if I get another job I can try somewhere else with my stories.”

  “Exactly. Well, that is very satisfactory. I will draw up a simple contract that we can both sign, shall I?”

  “Yes, please.” She knew what a contract was: Mr. Danesford and Miss Grace sometimes discussed Mr. Antrobus’s contract with The Prize. It made her feel delightfully important and grown-up to think of having one.

  He stood up, leaning both hands on his desk.

  “That is all, I think, isn’t it, Miss Lee? Is there anything else?”

  “Only … Lord Welwoodham, I was wondering if I might write here? In my spare time, I mean?”

  “Certainly. You want to fit in your writing whenever you have a slack hour in the office, is that it?”

  She nodded.

  “By all means. Can you—er—you don’t find that the presence of other people disturbs you when you’re writing, then?”

  “Oh, no. I don’t notice them, unless they start chinwag—talking, I mean.”

  The reference to Other People reminded them both of the two in the next room, whence came the muffled tap of Miss Grace’s typewriter, the distant baying of Mr. Danesford pursuing some tardy Hobday boy down the telephone; and they both seemed suddenly to return to the world of everyday. Amy’s usual secretive look eclipsed the brightness of pleasure and excitement in her face and Lord Welwoodham coughed and aimlessly moved a glass paperweight along his desk.

  “Well, I think that’s all, Miss Lee.” He glanced at the clock. “Nearly eleven! I suggest that we both get on with some work.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  They smiled at one another with a lingering reflection of the friendly excitement that had linked them a moment since, then, as quietly as she had done any morning during the past four years, Amy went out.

  Left alone, Lord Welwoodham felt so pleased that he had to get up and go over to the window, out of which he stared unseeingly for a minute, humming a little tune to express his sense of energy and excitement. She was a discovery! There was no doubt at all about that. He had been reading boys’ stories since the ’nineties, and the only other stories that had given him the same sensation of delighted surprise and expectation were the youthful stories of George Antrobus and Marjorie Bowen’s Viper of Milan. Amy Lee’s way of writing was remarkable for clearness, richness and a peculiar sensation of speed. The River Boy raced; he could not remember another story in which the words were so completely the perfect vehicle for the action. And she had the same startling originality of plot as Antrobus, the same shapeliness in form that left the reader first awakened, then eagerly following, then completely satisfied by the climax. Above all there was the sense as of a strong personality laying a hand on the reader’s shoulder and saying—Listen … I will tell you a story … possessed by a born story-teller.

  If only the next one is as good! thought Lord Welwoodham, flapping irritably with the hogskin gloves at a bluebottle that had blown in from Rosemary Lane—I hope she won’t be long over it—it’s delightful to think of the dear old Prize printing a first-rate writer again—we haven’t done that since we did the first Barty story and Antrobus, of course, was fairly well established by then. But nobody’s heard of her! She’s only nineteen! She’s completely unknown! This is the first thing she’s ever had printed!

  Really, if she can keep it up, we ought to have a very interesting and stimulating year. Ought to do the circulation a bit of good, too. I will eat my gloves if even the present generation doesn’t like The River Boy. And it would film, too. Lots of possibilities ahead. Gottim! Lord Welwoodham felled the fly to the earth and sat down again in a mood of complete satisfaction.

  There was an exceedingly sour and heated atmosphere in the outer office as though someone had been boiling the vinegar, but nothing was said to Amy about her crime, and by lunch-time she had realized with surprised relief that nothing was going to be said. Miss Grace was cool to her, Mr. Danesford forbidding and aloof, but they were always that. Nothing was said during the afternoon, either, and by tea-time she knew with amazed and slightly malicious delight that Lord Welwoodham had taken her under his wing, had told those two about her stories and what he was going to do about sacking her, and warned them not to start nag-bagging at her. It was amazing, too good to be true, and yet it was true. All that afternoon while she deftly whisked manuscripts about, answered the telephone, made and handed the tea, she was revelling in the fact—the delightful, plain-as-daylight fact, that those two older people had been told her stories were good, and that they must leave her alone! There was triumph in the very curve of her wrist as she slid Miss Grace’s cup on to her desk. She flitted about like an annoying fairy. Miss Grace banged the typewriter keys very hard, Mr. Danesford spread terror an
d desolation among the Hobday boys, and thus worked off their very justifiable indignation.

  That evening just before six o’clock Lord Welwoodham and Mr. Ramage were standing by the window in the editor’s office, staring down into the narrow lane and gossiping. Mr. Ramage had just been hearing about Amy and The River Boy, exclaiming, “How extraordinary!” “Remarkable!” throughout the narrative, his reddish face alight with pleasure and interest and a sensibility—as the father of two daughters—almost tender. Lord Welwoodham had brought out The River Boy and Mr. Ramage had glanced at it and commented, and it was just after the editor had locked the manuscript away, while they were still discussing its admirable qualities, that Mr. Ramage glanced down into the street and observed:

  “There she is.”

  They both watched Amy as she hurried down Rosemary Lane, already half in twilight because of its narrowness but filled with the reflection of a misty golden autumn sunset. She was late this evening; her talk with the editor had thrown her behindhand with her day’s work and she had stayed on to finish it; and now she was hurrying home, moving lightly in and out of the pedestrians in the lane, looking like any other little junior typist on her way back to high tea and the second house at the pictures with her boy, except that she was dowdier than most.