When I began to put down things about our life and adventures in the ‘Stretford Arms,’ I thought to myself, “Now I am my own mistress, I shall be able to have a quiet hour now and then, and to take more trouble with my composition;” but, bless you, I am not sure that I am not worse off, so far as authorship is concerned, now than when I was a servant.
I declare I never get a real quiet hour, for there is always something to be seen to, or somebody wanting to see me; and if it isn’t that, it’s baby or Harry.
To tell you the truth, I sometimes think Harry is a little jealous of my writing. I don’t mean jealous in a bad sense; but, from one or two remarks he has let drop, he doesn’t like my going and shutting myself away and writing. He says when we have half an hour to spare we might as well spend it together.
Of course I am always glad to have a quiet hour with my husband, but it’s no good my trying to write while he’s in the room. He will keep on talking to me, and nothing will stop him; and if he doesn’t speak, I think every minute that he is going to, and that’s worse, for it makes me nervous and fidgety, and the ideas all get mixed up in my head together, and I can’t tell my story straightforward, as I always like to do.
Sometimes it is a whole fortnight before I get a chance of writing anything in my book that I keep, and it has been even longer than that.
This is what a real author or authoress never has to put up with. I believe, from what I’ve heard, that they have a beautiful room full of dictionaries for the hard words and the foreign words, and maps hung all round the room, and they sit in it all day long quite quiet, and nobody is allowed to come in and interrupt.
I should think anybody could write like that. It must be very easy, if you’ve got anything in you at all. But it’s very different when you’ve got a house, and an hotel, and servants, and a baby, and a husband to look after, and if you take your eyes off for a minute, something is bound to go wrong.
Once or twice while I have been sitting in my own room writing, having given orders that I was not to be disturbed, something has gone wrong, and Harry has said, “You were writing your book, I suppose;” and I’ve said, “Yes”; and then he’s said, “It’s my opinion, my dear, that if you don’t make haste and finish that book, that book will finish us.”
Of course to anybody who hates what they call “pens and ink”—and some people do, like poison—writing seems dreadfully silly and a waste of time; and I’m afraid that Harry, with all his good qualities, hasn’t much respect for literature. He certainly hasn’t the slightest idea how difficult it is to write. I once said to him that I believed he thought I could make out a bill with one hand and write my “Memoirs” with the other, and talk to a customer at the same time, and all he said was, “Why not?”
“Why not!” It really made me so cross I could have cried with vexation; for it was just when I had got in rather a muddle with my book about the ‘Stretford Arms,’ finding that the housemaid had taken a lot of pages that I had written notes on and lighted the fire with them, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the notes were.