HEMMING had a home, and dearly he loved everything in it--with one
exception. He loved the furnace, and the kitchen range with its warm
ruddy glow, and the violet-coloured wafer of expensive aromatic soap
that always mysteriously appeared on the marble wash-basin when
visitors came. He loved the little glass towel racks, and the miniature
embroidered hand towels with Mrs. Hemming's maiden initials on them,
which also appeared, white and fragrant, whenever there was any special
festivity. Those little towels were to him a kind of symbol of the first
ecstatic days of their married life, and he could not bear to think of
the inevitable time when they would be frayed and discarded. He loved
the shelf over the fireplace where his brown-stained corncob pipe waited
for the after-supper smoke. He loved the little porch where the baby
carriage stood, and the tulip beds that he and Janet had planted
together, and the mission dining table, now blistered and scarred, that
had been their very first piece of furniture.
But in the little den upstairs stood his desk, and how he hated it!
Hemming, you see, had literary ambitions, and that desk meant to him
every circumstance, every long-drawn torment, of weariness and toil. It
had meant much pleasure, too, in hours when his writing had prospered;
but how the bitter outnumbered the sweet! How many hundred evenings he
had dragged himself to it, in lassitude and lethargy; had forced his
drowsy, unwilling mind to the task at hand. How many nights, nodding
over the typewriter, he had stumbled on and on. Over his desk he kept,
ironically, a letter he had once had from an editor, which said: _We
like stories. They have a joyous freshness. You write as though you
enjoyed it._
Hemming was no quick and easy composer. His stories emerged slowly,
painfully, hammered and wrenched from the stubborn tissues of a weary
brain. When his whole soul and body cried out for a comfortable stretch
on the couch, with pipe and book, and a gradual, blissful lapse into
slumber, he would throw off his coat, stick his head out of the window
for a dozen gulps of cool night air, and then sit down at the wheezy old
typewriter.
Its yellow keys seemed a kind of doleful rosary on which he told long
petitions to whatever gods look down pityingly on young writers. He
would think how wonderful it would be if he could only do his writing
in the morning when he was fresh. To leap out of bed in the crisp early
air, to plunge into the cold bath where the water shimmered a pale green
by catching the tint of the big maple tree just outside the bathroom, to
swallow two cups of hot coffee, two slices of buttered toast, and then
sit down to his desk. In the zest and lustihood of the morning, how the
thoughts would throng, how the great empire of words would unroll before
him, far away to the blue hills where lived his unwritten poems! Such
was his daily thought as he hurried down the hill on bright mornings to
catch the 8.13 train to town. But to come back at night after a long day
at the office, and after helping Janet wash the dishes, and stoking the
furnace or mowing the lawn or planting bulbs in the garden--then to try
to write seemed tough indeed.
Still, it had to be done, and Hemming threw his manhood into the task.
In his little den there was just space for a couch, his desk, and
his books, which were littered about the room. His only chance of
accomplishing anything was to get Janet safely installed on the couch,
for if he once lay down there work was impossible. She would curl up
under a steamer rug, tired out from a long day with the house and
the baby, reading a book or the evening paper. And then the stumbling
clatter of the typewriter would begin.
After a while there always came what they humorously called “the
pathetic little moment.” This was the time when Janet's book or paper
would slip from her hand, she would turn away from the light, and coast
down the long, smooth toboggan of sleep. Then Hemming would switch off
the reading lamp above her head (with the secret economic satisfaction
young householders always feel when they switch off a light), touch the
soft cheek with a friendly finger, and climb the keys once more. His
writing always seemed to go better after the “pathetic little moment”
was past. There was a kind of subconscious satisfaction in the feeling
that Janet was there, asleep, and that he was working for her. And Janet
used to affirm that there was no lullaby like the irregular thumping of
those keys and levers.
There was another catchword they had, which also moved stealthily in the
back passages of his mind as he mulled over his manuscripts. Janet badly
needed a new bonnet--a “pert little hat,” she liked to call it--and
Hemming had pledged himself to write something that would bring her the
saucy little ornament she craved in time for Christmas. She was a
slender, bright-faced creature, and no one could wear an innocently
tilted turban with more grace. But these had been hard days for small
incomes. Winter coal, and warm clothes for the Urchin, and the cook's
wages (when they had one), and Liberty Bonds--all these had taken
precedence over the pert little hat. It had been talked of so long, it
had become a kind of joyous legend, which Janet hardly expected to see
realized on her head. She used to say wistfully, as she coasted off to
sleep on the couch: “Would it be unpatriotic to think about the pert
little hat?” And her husband would vow that patriotism that excluded
pert little hats was no patriotism at all. So he had sworn that the
bonnet should be millinered on the clacking loom of his typewriter. They
used to laugh about it, and say that the little hat ought to be trimmed
with carbon typewriter ribbons.
But Hemming did not know that Janet was not always asleep after the
so-called “pathetic moment” when she ostensibly gave up the struggle
with drowsiness. The twanging springs of the old couch made less noise
than the typewriter keys, but they, too, moved to a secret creative
refrain. There were times when Janet lay watching the lamplight on the
rows of books, and little pictures of stories that she would like
to write flashed into her head. They often used to come to her at
inopportune periods during the day, when the Urchin was in his bath or
when she was taking stock of the ice-box. Of course her husband was the
literary man of the family, and she had no thought of setting up her
simple imaginings against his more serious efforts. But one night, when
he was engrossed in some intractable plot, Janet slipped away into the
little guest room and shut herself in. With a stub pencil, on odd sheets
of notepaper, she began scribbling hotly. Two hours later, when Hemming
came back to earth and hunted her out, she was still at it.
“What on earth are you up to, monk?” he asked.
“Making out laundry lists,” she said.
More observant husbands might have wondered what occasion there would be
for a laundry list on Thursday evening, but Hemming was always drowned
in his dreams of literary fame.
His story, on which he had laboured at night for two months, and hers,
which had taken the spare hours of three days, were finished almost at
the same time. After dinner one night, when he had read the manuscript
of his story aloud, Janet handed him her venture, with some trepidation.
At first he seemed a little nettled that she should have done such a
thing.
“Look here, monk,” he said, “you oughtn't to wear yourself out trying
to write. You have quite enough to do with the house and the baby.
Moreover, you don't know how discouraging it is. It takes years of
patient apprenticeship before one can get anything across with the
editors. This is my job, brownie.”
“But I enjoyed doing it,” she said.
“That's a bad sign. All really good stories take fearful effort. How
long did you spend on this?”
“Oh, quite a while,” she said, vaguely. She did not like to admit that
her little story had involved no “patient apprenticeship.”
He lit his pipe and began reading the sheets on which her quick pencil
had flashed with such enthusiasm. She sat with her sewing, watching him
shyly.
“Very nice,” was his comment; but privately he wondered how he was to
avoid hurting her feelings. It seemed to him that the story had all the
faults of the amateur.
“Would you submit it anywhere?” she asked, eagerly. “Do you think any
magazine would buy it?”
He evaded the question. “Would you like me to type it for you?” he said.
“Oh, _would_ you?”
“I'll tell you what I'll do,” he said, “I'll be sending my manuscript to
Mr. Edwards to-morrow. I'll type yours and send it, too.”
Janet was delighted, and she fell asleep that night with the sweet music
of the thumping keys in her ears. As she heard the staccato clicking,
she thought: “I wonder how far he has got now? How good of him to take
all that trouble to copy my poor little story.”
Hemming sat up very late that night, copying Janet's manuscript and
planning what to say to Mr. Edwards, the editor of the _Colonial
Magazine_, who had been very cordial to him. He resisted the temptation
to alter Janet's naïve phrasing here and there, to improve her technique
by recasting some of the situations in her story. It was long past
midnight when both manuscripts were ready to go into the stout manila
envelope. Then, after some meditation, Hemming added the following note:
_Dear Mr. Edwards:_
_I am sending you herewith my new story, and hope you may like it. I am
also enclosing a manuscript from my wife. Of course she is an untrained
writer--this is her first attempt--but I think her story has a certain
charm. Won't you, if you can, give her any encouragement you feel
proper? If you would write her a personal note of comment it would mean
a great deal to her. You know how tenderly one feels toward one's maiden
effort._
_Sincerely yours,_
_Godfrey Hemming._
It was very late when Hemming folded the carefully typed sheets and
placed them in the precious envelope. He was utterly weary, which must
be the explanation of a curious error he made. It was his custom to type
his name and address on a separate sheet of paper which was clipped to
the story he was submitting. He put his own name on one sheet, and his
wife's on another. But in arranging the manuscripts for the envelope
he inadvertently put his name-page with his wife's manuscript, and vice
versa. Then he went to bed with the satisfaction of well-earned fatigue,
and wondering how soon he would be able to order the “pert little hat”.
It was two weeks later, and the Urchin had just murmured himself off
into his morning nap, when Janet heard the postman's whistle, and ran
down to receive an envelope with the name of the _Colonial Magazine_
engraved upon it. Eagerly she tore it open.
My Dear Mrs. Hemming:
Your husband was good enough to send me the manuscript of your story,
which I have read with interest. It is an able piece of work, and shows
unusual technical skill for a beginner. But I must caution you not to
let your pen follow the track of your husband's method too closely.
Naturally enough, perhaps, your style seems to have modeled itself on
his: but this is a mistake, because it is quite evident that you have
ability enough to strike out on your own line. I wish you would study
carefully Mr. Hemming's last story, “Three Is Company,” which shows a
freshness and spontaneous originality better than anything he has done
before. It has a touch of charming humour which is new to his work.
If you can do us something of that sort, we shall be only too happy to
publish it.