CHAPTER XVII
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.”