*PART I*
'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child....'
*CHAPTER I*
Aunt Constance was away, but, as it was my birthday, I invited myself to
lunch with Uncle Jasper. Father and Ross came too. In the middle of
lunch my uncle looked at me over the top of his glasses and said,--
'Well, Meg, so you are seventeen and have left school. What are you
going to do now?'
An idea that had been simmering in my mind for some days suddenly came
on top,--
'I'm going to write a book.'
Ross stared at me, aghast. 'Jerubbesheth!' he exclaimed, 'when you
could hunt three days a week, walk a puppy, and do the things that
really matter. What fools girls are!'
'Have you sufficient knowledge of any one subject to write a book about
it?' Uncle Jasper inquired.
'Oh, my angel,' I exclaimed, 'I don't refer to the stuff you and father
produce. I'm not going to write a treatise on architecture, or Dante,
or the Cumulative Evidences of the Cherubim. I mean fiction--a story--a
novel.'
'But even so,' persisted my uncle, 'you can't write about things of
which you know nothing!'
'But you don't have to know about things when you write fiction. You
make it up as you go along, don't you see?'
'You only want a hero and a heroine and a plot,' my brother giggled.
'And a strong love interest,' said father, and he twinkled at me; 'even
Dante----'
'Oh, daddy, _must_ you bring in Dante?' I said. 'He was such a terrible
old bore and he didn't even marry the girl.'
Uncle Jasper gazed at me as if I were a tame gorilla or a missing link,
or something that looked as if it ought to have brains but somehow
hadn't. 'Dear me!' he said. 'Well, go on, Meg, but if you merely make
up your story as you go along you will get your background dim and
confused and your characterisation weak.'
'I can't think what you mean,' I groaned.
'Why, Meg, if you lay your plot in the fourteenth century, for instance,
your characters must be clear cut, mediaeval, and tone with the
background, don't you see? It would require a great deal of research to
get the atmosphere of your century right.'
'But I shan't write about the fourteenth century,' I said in slow
exasperation. 'My book will be about the present time. I shall write
of the things I know.'
'Well, but what _do_ you know, little 'un? That's what we are trying to
get at,' said daddy, with his appalling habit of bringing things
suddenly to a head.
'It's rather difficult to say offhand, father, but I know something of
the fauna of the South Pole, and about Influenza (I've had it four
times), and a lot about ski-ing----'
'If you could see yourself ski-ing you wouldn't say so,' said my brother
with his usual candour, 'your methods are those of a Lilienfeldian
wart-hog, and as for your Telemarks--ye gods!'
I ignored my brother and continued: 'My knowledge of flowers is
extensive, and I know two bits of history and----'
'Could we have the two bits now without waiting for the novel?'
'Oh, certainly, Uncle Jasper.' (I always like to oblige my family when I
can). 'The first is the one that everybody remembers: William I., 1066,
married Matilda of Flanders, but I have had an expensive education, as
daddy often says, so I know, too, that William II., 1087, never
married.'
'Dear me,' said my uncle, again with his indulgent-to-the-tame-gorilla
look.
Daddy laughed and got up. 'Well, I should think it would be a most
interesting book, though how you will work in the two bits of history
with the fauna of the South Pole, influenza, and ski-ing passes the
comprehension of a mere male thing!'
Then he kissed me for some extraordinary reason and said that he
expected I should get to know some other things as I went along, and
Uncle Jasper blew his nose violently, and Ross observed that I was a
funny little ass. After that we went home.
Father had a choir practice or something after dinner, and Ross said he
had to see a man about a dog (he can't possibly want another), so I
retired to my own special domain to start my novel.
I was rummaging in my handkerchief box for a pencil when Nannie came in
with a ream of sermon paper and a quart bottle of ink, followed by a
procession of servants bearing the _New English Dictionary_ as far as
the letter T, which Daddy thought might be useful. In the course of the
next hour Ross sent up a wet towel and a can marked 'Midnight Oil,' and
a note arrived from Uncle Jasper to say that he had omitted to mention
that it was better 'to resolutely avoid' split infinitives (whatever
they are), and that if I felt bound at times to write of things I didn't
know, it was quite a good tip to shove in a quotation from the best
authority on the subject, and that his library was at my disposal at any
time. He said, too, that he had a spare copy of the _Record
Interpreter_, if it would be of any use.
My uncle's jokes are like that; no ordinary person can see them at all.
But two can play at 'pulling legs,' so I sewed up the legs of my
brother's pyjamas, put the wet towel and the can of oil in his bed, and
the dictionary in father's, and, having poured the quart of ink in their
two water-jugs, I sat down with great contentment to fulfil my life's
ambition.
I thought over the subjects on which my knowledge was irrefutable, but a
novel inspired by any one of them seemed impossible, and by 10.30 p.m. I
was suffering from bad brain fag. Then Nannie came in to brush my hair,
so I confided my troubles to her, as I always do.
'I seem to be a most ignorant person, Nannie; the only thing I really
know about is the family.'
'Well, write a book about that, dearie, I'm sure it's mad enough.'
'But then there wouldn't be a plot.'
'No more there is in most people's lives, not the women's, anyway.'
'Has your life been very dull, darling?' I asked.
'My life,' said Nannie solemnly, 'has been one large hole with bits of
stocking round that I have had to try and draw together.'
When Ross came up his remarks about his bed were of so sulphurous a
character that I swear I could almost see the brimstone blowing under my
door. And in the silent watches of the night I decided that my book
_shall_ be about the family, from the time it was born to the day it was
buried. Surely something in the nature of a plot will turn up in
between.
*CHAPTER II*
To begin at the beginning. When I was waiting to be born I must have
run up to God and said,--
'Please, _could_ this little boy come, too?'