THE LITERARY MICROBE
“We are contagious,” Pauline announced honestly and courageously at the advent of every stranger, however interesting.
And Lynn, equally careful it has been seen, refused to hold any intercourse with the author at “Tenby” until the searching question, “Have you had whooping cough?” had been put to him.
Yet here was Hugh Kinross himself taking no precaution whatever to protect the neighbouring “Greenways” from contagion, and the result was that the literary microbe was wafted across the road in a surprisingly short space of time.
Miss Bibby certainly could not be said to be infected for the first time, though there was no doubt that since the new tenants had come to “Tenby” the disease had taken a much more aggravated form with her.
But Anna one afternoon made a solemn excursion to the store of Septimus Smith and [p157] purchased one exercise-book, one pen, one bottle of ink and one blotting-pad.
She had hitherto regarded the making of books as some occult art practised by certain persons, mostly as dead and as distant as one Shakespeare whose fame had faintly reached her.
But when there came into the unpretentious cottage across the road the actual author of a printed book that lay on a table in the drawing-room; and when this actual author was discovered on near view to be a rather stout man with a shockingly bad hat and creases all over his linen coats; and when the maid who dwelt in the same house with this actual author testified, during the course of a gossip, that he was in no wise different from other men—which is to say, he made no end of a fuss if the toast was not to his liking and threw his burnt matches down anywhere, and shouted angrily if there was no soap in the bathroom—why then, when all these things were discovered, Anna simply walked up to the store one fine afternoon and set herself up in the stock-in-trade of an author, marvelling that it had never before occurred to her to write a book.
But after she had done a very few chapters she craved a reading audience. Blake the gardener, she determined, was too surly for this office, and too sleepy; his day’s work [p158] so near to Nature’s heart and at such an altitude made him nod by seven o’clock in the evening. And one could hardly follow after him as he trundled about with his barrow in the daytime and read aloud to him how it was discovered that the lovely Annabell Deloitte, who was a nursery governess in a lord’s family, had been changed in the cradle and was really the Lady Florentine Trelawney.
And Miss Bibby, for all her gentleness, was too “stand-offish” for the position of listener. Anna at once rejected any idea of asking that lady to undertake the work.
But the children made a delightful audience and clamoured eagerly, the moment they reached the foot of the waterfall, for the “book” to be produced from the secret recesses of Anna’s umbrella (in which it hid itself from Miss Bibby’s eyes), and for the enthralling woes of the Lady Florentine Trelawney to be at once continued.
So it may be concluded that it was Anna who acted as the direct vehicle for the transmission of the literary infection to the children themselves.
The logic of the matter was very simple.
If Anna could write a book—Anna who was to be frequently seen with black smuts from the stove all over her face; Anna who did not know that the reign of William the [p159] Conqueror was 1066 to 1087, nor where sago came from, nor what were the calyx and the stamen of a flower (had they not themselves tested her?)—well, if Anna could make up a book, so could they—every one of them.
“It will cost us twopence each,” said Pauline calculatingly, “but we can afford it; it’s nearly the day for our sixpences again.”
“I wanted my last tuppence for some pink wool—can’t you find some paper in the house?” said Muffie on discovering that the disbursement Pauline declared necessary was for mere paper.
“No,” said Pauline firmly; “authors always have plenty of clean paper. I won’t use the half sheets Miss Bibby gives us to scribble on.”
“No, no; do let us use proper paper,” cried Lynn, who had had far too many poetic fancies nipped in the bud for want of this precious transmitting material.
So the purchases were made and the eightpennyworth of paper made a very respectable show upon the table of the summer-house, to which they had retreated to ensure privacy to themselves for the arduous undertaking.
Pauline sat at the head of the table, the others ranged almost meekly around her. Hers was a responsible position and she intended them all to realize it.
[p160]
For while it was one thing for all to say lightly, “We will write a book each,” the matter resolved itself into all the actual writing falling to Pauline, for the sad and simple reason that none of the others could write.
So Pauline leaned back and gave herself airs.
“I shall write my own story first,” she said, “and you are none of you to speak a word to interrupt me, or I won’t write yours at all. Max, stop scratching on the table; Muffie, don’t shuffle your feet like that, you put my vein out.” The last was a slightly tangled remark picked up from Miss Kinross who had been heard to speak of various interruptions putting her brother out of vein.
Muffie, thwarted in her desire to scratch a horse upon the surface of the table, fell to filling up a crack in it with sand scooped up from the floor and mixed, when the writing lady was not looking, to a pleasing consistency with ink.
Lynn lay face downwards on a bench and bent all her energies to composing the story that Pauline would shortly write at her dictation.
Max simply strolled to the door; the little girls might be under Pauline’s thumb, but no one expected him really to obey any one except his father.
[p161]
“Call me when you’re leady,” he said to Pauline, “I’ll be sitting on the loof.”
And Muffie, suffering from her enforced inactivity, soon had the tantalizing sight of sections of his brown legs displayed through the lattice work above her head.
Scratch, scratch went Pauline’s pen—scratch, scratch along line after line. Evidently she was not troubled with any lack of ideas.
Twenty minutes, half an hour slipped away. Lynn had long since composed her tale and had fallen to playing a fairy drama at the end of her bench with bits of moss and white pebbles from the floor.
Max had tumbled twice through a hole in the lattice roof, and had on each occasion blotted Pauline’s precious MS by the precipitation of his whole body upon it.
Sore, therefore, about his knees and elbows, he had given up his lofty perch and betaken himself to his oft-essayed task of digging a hole in the ground, to reach the fire that the kindergarten governess had informed him burnt in the middle of the earth.
And Muffie now occupied the seat on the summer-house roof, and did not lose the opportunity of demonstrating to Max that girls kept their balance much better than boys.
“I’ve finished—come and listen,” cried Pauline at last.
[p162]
Lynn sat upright at once and tried to disentangle her drama from her story. Muffie slid comfortably down from her perch. But Max was not ready.
“Wait a minte,” he cried, “I’m nearly down to the fire—oh, oh, I can feel it on my hand—I b’leeve my spade’s aginning to melt.”
But Pauline insisted on his instant attendance within doors.
“‘Once upon a time’,” she began, “‘there was a beautiful mother’.”
“As beautiful as ours?” asked Lynn.
“Beautifuller,” said Pauline.
Lynn argued the point hotly, with Muffie to back her.
“She couldn’t be,” they said.
“Yes, she could—in a book,” said Pauline. “I’m not talking about really truly, of course. But in a book they can be as lovely as lovely.”
“So is mother,” said the little girls stoutly.
“Oh, of course,” said Pauline, and her heart softening to the distant dear one, she said, “Well, ‘once ’pon a time there was a mother as beautiful as our mother, and she died’.”
“Oh, oh,” said Lynn. “Oh, I wish mamma was here. Oh, I don’t like your story a bit, Paul.”
“Silly,” said Paul, “this is only a book mother—it doesn’t hurt book mothers to [p163] die. Now just stop interrupting me. Well, she died—she’s just got to die or the rest of the story can’t happen. The beautiful mother died, ‘and one day when Emmeline was sitting in the spachius drawing-room of the castle—’”
“Who’s Emmeline?” asked Muffie.
“Oh, how stupid you are,” cried Pauline; “she’s the daughter, of course,—‘sitting in the spachius drawing-room of the castle her father strode in, and he led by the hand a very horty lady. “This is your new mother and I command you to obey her, my lady Emmeline,” he said. Emmeline fainted to the ground.
“‘Her father the noble lord was always out at his office and didn’t know how the horty step-mother treated Emmeline, but she grew thinner and paler every day, and all her face went transparant and the blue veins were trased in their pallor and her little hand was like a skellington’s; and the cruel step-mother made her do all the scrubbing and hard work, and treated her like a menient. And one day the Lady Emmeline disappeared and was never found again. But twenty years afterwards the wainscotching in the castle was being mended, and they found her lying behind it, her long eyelashes resting on the marble pallor of her cheeks, her little hands clasped in their last long sleep, quite dead. [p164] And the noble lord wept bitterly and resolved never to have another step-mother, and he built a monyment with a white angel to her memory’.”
Lynn was quite moved by the story, and gulped down a sob which made Paul most gracious and grateful to her.
But Muffie sniffed. “Well, she was a silly,” she said. “Why didn’t she bang and kick on the wall like the time I hid in the cupboard and the door got shut? Every one heard me in a minute.”
“Wainscotching’s much thicker than common cupboards,” said Paul disdainfully.
“I’d have got my axe and chopped and chopped and walked light out and chopped off the woman’s head and put her down my hole,” said Max.
Then it was Lynn’s turn.
She dictated rapidly, occasionally waving her arms dramatically to heighten the effect.
“‘A key lay on the ground. The moon was up. Purple was on the mountains, and all in the valley lay the snow-white mist. Black pine trees stood in a long, long row, like the ghosts of tall soldiers. The sun was setting, and orange and purple flamed in the sky. The moon was very young and thin and was just climbing up the other side of the sky. The sun——’”
“Oh, I say,” said Pauline, “isn’t anything [p165] ever going to happen? I’m tired of the sun and the moon. I always skip that kind of thing in books.”
“Oh, Paul!” said Lynn, “that’s the best part. You can make such lovely pictures.”
“Go on,” said Paul.
“‘The sun was——’”
Pauline folded her arms. “I won’t write another word about the sun,” she said.
“Well, the moon—” said Lynn beseechingly. “Just say ‘the moon looked like a far-off silver boat.’”
“No,” said Paul; “you’ve said once it looked like a starved baby.”
“I didn’t,” said Lynn indignantly.
“Yes—‘young and thin,’ that’s the same thing,” said Pauline. “Now get on to something else. What about the key?”
“‘The key lay on the ground’,” said Lynn resignedly, “‘and sparkled in the darkness’.”
“Keys don’t sparkle in the darkness, but go on,” said Paul, writing away.
“This one did,” persisted the poor little authoress; “the fairies had smeared it with that phis,—phos,—oh, you know, that lovely shiny stuff we saw on the sea at night when we were in the ship.”
“I know,” shouted Max; “lat-poison, like they put down at the tables to kill the lats.”
“It wasn’t,” said Lynn angrily,—“rat-poison indeed,—it was like burning gold.”
[p166]
“Go on,” said Pauline wearily.
“‘Su’nnly out of a snow-white lily stepped a beautious fairy. She had——’”
Scratch, scratch went Pauline’s pen over a couple of pages; the fairy’s eyes were described and likened to stars and other shining things; her ears, her teeth, her neck, her arms and hands were all lingeringly and lovingly enumerated and described.
Max went back disgustedly to his digging for fire.
Muffie nearly fell asleep, Pauline’s hand grew cramped, and still the fairy continued to “have” things.
“‘Her dress was of silver spider’s silk studded all over with dewdrops’,” went on Lynn, beginning now energetically upon every detail of the wardrobe of the “beautious” being.
And Pauline bore even with this, though she heaved a huge sigh of relief when from crown to shoes the entire toilette of the fairy had been dealt with.
But Lynn held her, like the ancient mariner, with a glittering eye.
“‘She was followed by six handmaidens’,” she said, “‘and the first one had——’”
But here Pauline struck. The prospect of describing six more beauteous beings and their toilettes was more than she could contemplate.
“You’ve had your amount,” she cried; [p167] “mine only took five pages, and I’ve done five for you.” And despite Lynn’s wild entreaties, she wrote “The End” at this point of the story, and shook Muffie and informed her it was her turn.
Muffie yawned.
“‘Oncepon a time’,” she said.
“Go on,” said Pauline.
“‘Oncepon a time there was’——”
“I’ve got that, be quick,” said Paul.
“‘Oncepon a time there was a—a——’” Muffie looked appealingly at Lynn.
“A fairy?” suggested Lynn.
“A little dog?” said Max who had strolled back.
“Yes, a little dog,” said Muffie gratefully.
“Go on, I’ve got that,” said Paul.
“‘Oncepon a time there was a little dog and it—it——’”
“Was really a fairy under a enchanting spell?” whispered Lynn.
But Muffie was too sleepy to rise to the occasion. She repeated her formula once more in the hope of helping herself.
“‘Oncepon a time there was a—a dog—and it—it——’”
“Barked?” said Max.
“Yes,” said Muffie thankfully. “That’s all, Paul—write it big, and it will make a lot. Le’s go and see if tea’s ready.”
[p168]
“I haven’t lote my book,” said Max, and looked ready to cry.
“Don’t be so mean, Muffie; sit down and wait,” said Pauline. “Come on Max, darling, Paul will write yours the neatest of all. Now then.”
Max thrust his hands into his ridiculous pockets and stood with his legs well apart. He always told the same class of story though the variations were several.
“Well,” he said slowly, “‘’was a ittle boy, an’ him said to hims mover, can I go down in the deep foresh all by myself, an’ she told him no. And’”—here Max paused very impressively till he had collected the eyes of all his audience—“‘he went. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met’”—another pause, calculated to thrill his listeners—“‘a snake. An’ it clawled light up him an’ it ate him all up. Evly bit of him. Escept hims legs. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met a tiger. An’ e tiger eat ’em up. Evly bit of ’em. Escept hims feet. An’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he walked along, an’ he met a horsh. An’ e horsh ate ’em all up. Evly bit of ’em. An’ nofing was left. Ony hims button. An’ hims mover had no dear ittle boy left’, so there.”
The unique part of the stories Max told [p169] was, he invariably managed to leave the impression that the moral of the tale was the mother should not have refused her consent to his going down the dark forest all alone and that she was the sole sufferer.
Pauline opened and shut her cramped hand half a dozen times.
“Thank goodness they’re done,” she said. “Give me that piece of paper to wrap them in, Muffie, and you go and get some string, Lynn, while I write to him.”
For the final destination of the tales had long since been settled.
So it happened that Hugh Kinross, coming home from the golf links at tea-time, was greeted by a bulky newspaper parcel on his desk, and the laconic note, “Please corect our mistakes and have them made into books like yours, only nicer covers. We like red except Lynn, and she likes green. And we like gold edges and plenty of pictures, and our names at the front in big letters.”
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