From that time forward the village, its inmates, and the school became
blanks to her. True, the school dragged her down like a prison chain
each day, for she had grown to hate teaching, almost to loathe it. She
watched the clock from hour to hour as it crawled slowly round, and
longed with feverish impatience for the time when the trivial lessons
should be over and she free to write again.
Never before had she written with such an absorbed interest, nor been
so utterly unconscious of everything around.
After the first few chapters of her book had been written a new light
suddenly burst upon it. It was as if in some curious way the crowd that
had always stood around in that other world was standing there. And
like lightning speed one night it came to her.
“These are the audience, those the living players,” said a voice.
“Well,” she thought, stopping in the middle of a line, “how very
curious. And that crowd has always bothered me so. I could never
understand it.”
And she went on again and never stopped; the whole thing seemed to have
gained a broader and a clearer meaning.
But progress in her writing meant sitting up many nights till midnight
and after, and next day the constant absorption would tell upon her,
and school became a species of martyrdom. The least noise would set
every nerve working, and the fidgetiness and ordinary naughtiness of
the children tried her almost beyond endurance. She did her best not
to show it, since one of the first rules of teaching is “Never be
irritable with the children.” Like all other perfect rules it is almost
an impossibility. It might with advantage be amended to this—“Be
irritable as rarely as possible, and let every offence you commit in
that direction translate itself into a firm resolve to guard as much
as possible against that error in the future.” The whole force of the
precept lies in the second part.
As the story grew Deborah found herself more and more entangled in it
and had no wish nor power to draw out. One night there came swimming
up in her brain the words of the fortune-teller. She remembered the
night well; it had been stormy and heavy, and there had been some peals
of thunder and flashes of lightning. Suddenly there had grown up an
intense desire to take the part of the leading woman in her book. It
was not as if she had ever liked theatres, it was not as if the glamour
of footlights and applause had ever appealed to her; no, it grew out of
a wild and unrestrained jealousy.
“I love this man,” she said to herself. “I’ve known him for fifteen
years and over, and he’s always lived in my other world, and I can’t
bear that he should belong to anybody else. I love this woman too,
and I’ve always known her, and I know exactly how she looks, and
laughs, and moves, and speaks, and I can do everything just as she
does—because—I don’t know—because I can.”
And Deborah was happy, for the world showed itself in all its glorious
silver light. Each night when she sat up writing alone she would take
the plain framed photo from the mantelpiece and set it there on the
table by her side, and before she put the light out she always kissed
it.
“You’re not quite as good as my man,” she would say, “but you’re the
next best thing. And you will find this part just suits you.”
Thus the time flew on till the book was finished. A glorious, rosy,
golden time, in which every vision of ambition flashed across the
hitherto dull landscape.
At times would come that whispering warning,—
“Suppose—suppose it should fail like all the rest.”
And then the pain was like a ragged knife. She would walk across the
little sitting-room, back and forwards, back and forwards.
“No, no, it can’t. It’s all too real and true to me to ever fail. If
it fails it’ll nearly kill me. I can’t write anything better. I never
shall, however hard I try.”
So, because she dared not, she never thought of failure.
As the last chapters drew to an end, there arose that most anxious
question to the uninitiated—“Where must I send it?”
Editors she had tried till she had sickened of the process; besides,
it was longer than the usual MSS. sent, and not quite suitable for a
serial story. So she began to look round for a publisher, and picked
out one at random—one of whom she had never before heard; for of the
business part of literature she was deplorably ignorant.
Next she decided, or thought she herself decided, to take it up to
town. That was a very unusual kind of thing for her to do, as she was
very nervous of strangers and strange places; but it showed what a
desperate state she had come to when she even determined to brave such
a very great man as a publisher.
“I’ll just ask him if he’d mind reading it through carefully, because
when stories are sent by post I don’t believe they ever look at them.
Perhaps if I did take the trouble to go myself they would look at a
chapter or two. And after that I think they’d understand.”
In the meantime she had sent the manuscript to be typewritten; but she
had given the typewriters rather short notice, and they were very busy,
and by the time the day arrived for her to go up to town a few of the
chapters were still missing.
She had made up her mind to go on a certain Saturday, but was delayed
on account of the slowness of the typewriters till the following
Thursday, when she went either from impatience or from a stronger
impulse, which she did not understand, for some of the chapters were
missing still.
* * * * *
Ah, Deborah! little do you foresee the terrible journey before you on
which your eager young heart is urging you—the horrible, treacherous
pitfalls, the cruel rocks, the wild, lonesome moors and wastes, the
vale of agony and humiliation, the sombre, silent forest of failure and
despair!
* * * * *
“And so,” said Plucritus to Genius, “and so the time is drawing near
for the fulfilment of the curse?”
“The removal you mean.”
“I mean what I say. Can you seriously imagine that a book so full of
crudities and absurdities might be successful?”
“Why, yes. The world is so full of common sense and wisdom that we can
afford to be magnanimous.”
“And you intend to carry it through to the end?”
“Yes—to the bitter end.”
“That is a very apt expression—it implies so much, though frequent use
has made it commonplace. For all that you do not expect there will be
any bitter end; you expect this to go through fairly easily.”
“Well, yes, if things run smoothly; but I have always to reckon with
you.”
“And I am a dangerous enemy. That book has not tended to make us any
better friends. I have been drawn into it with a familiarity which I
resent. Caricature and laughter at the expense of those in power is
only excusable in the ignorant, and rarely pardonable even in them.”
“You mistake,” said Genius, laughing. “The cap was never meant to fit
you; but if it does, why, then, you had better wear it.”
Plucritus was silent, till at last he remarked, with a decided sneer,—
“Deborah expects great things from this book. It is to be the making
of her name and fortune, and is to translate her from a plain and
insignificant village schoolmistress into one of the first actresses of
the day.”
Genius interjected: “Deborah is so wrapped up in me that she is
unconscious what she wants; however, that will settle itself later.”
“Well, yes,” rejoined Plucritus, and he laughed. “A bigger fool than
she never walked this earth. Experience scarcely seems to have the
power to teach her anything.”
“You should blame me,” said Genius. “Deborah, apart from teaching
children, is very irresponsible.”
“Well, and it is my duty,” observed Plucritus, in his hardest,
cruellest voice, “to make all people on this earth responsible; we do
not recognise an irresponsible person. They are useless except to form
the everlasting bulwarks. But may I ask you (since you wish to bring
the responsibility upon yourself), may I ask you why you have thrown
yourself so signally on the side of Virginius? He regards you with
little favour and no friendship, and for the last twelve years or more
he has been perfectly immaterial.”
“I have thrown myself on his side,” said Genius, “because, try as I
will, I cannot but admire him. I have watched him narrowly though he
seems but a negative, silent power, and I have been more than struck by
the patient dignity with which he has stood under insults and lies and
calumny. Probably it is the attraction of opposites—as my own impulse
is to answer fire for fire and be magnanimous only in victory.”
“Are you quite sure your twelve years’ study have been profitable?”
asked Plucritus.
“Quite.”
“If you had taken my advice you would have left studying spirits and
have confined your attention to the world.”
“The world!” cried Genius. “I have studied the world, and have found
it about as interesting as a repeating decimal, a long continuance of
redundancy.”
“Once Virginius advised you to restrain your contempt for the world.
It was the only piece of wise advice he ever gave you. But we will
wait and see the issue of this marvellous book, which is to remove
hereditary curses, lighten the author’s faith, and work as many
impossibilities as are contained in its leaves themselves.”