My American

by Stella Gibbons

  “Look, Mrs. Beeding. Wind-bells. Aren’t they pretty? The Chinese hang them outside their houses.”

  “I wonder they don’t get stolen,” marvelled Mrs. Beeding, looking at the slender strips of glass painted with flowers moving gently in the breeze. “They’re ever so pretty.”

  “The Chinese are very honest, Mrs. Beeding. All over the East they’re known and respected for their honesty,” reproved Amy, and was going on to relate a story which had much taken her fancy about a Chinese merchant who hired a motor launch at enormous expense to himself in which to dash after an American vessel and pay the captain a dollar he owed him—when Mrs. Beeding announced, “Here we are, luv,” and stopped in front of a little shop whose window was full of books, with a large notice outside, “BARGAINS IN BIBLES.”

  Above this window hung a signboard on which was painted a scene very familiar to Amy—a boy going up some steps to take a casket from a man with a beard, the setting sun in the background (or perhaps it was the rising sun: Amy had always wondered about that). It was the cover design of The Prize, and on the windows above it was written in gold letters the name of the paper.

  They went in at a side door and up a dark but clean old stairway until they came to a door with The Prize: Enquiries. Please Knock, on it, but before they could knock, someone came quickly down the stairs from the next landing and they looked up and there was Mr. Ramage.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Beeding. Good morning, Amy. I’m only here to wish you good luck. I passed your letter on to Lord Welwoodham (that’s the editor), and he asked Mr. Danesford to see you. Luckily for you we do happen to want a boy. … Lord Welwoodham sacked one yesterday for trying to get a story he’d written printed in the paper. … I hope, Amy, that you don’t write?” suddenly turning a sharp yet amused look on her.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Ramage,” said Mrs. Beeding, rather shocked, and Amy shook her head.

  “Well, I mustn’t keep you.” And he nodded and smiled at the door. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you very kindly, Mr. Ramage. Amy, say thank you to Mr. Ramage.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Ramage,” repeated Amy, almost in a whisper, lifting her eyes to his. She looked dazed and frightened. Not too good, thought Mr. Ramage. He went upstairs quickly, and Mrs. Beeding knocked at the door. After a pause a female voice called (in a cool, absorbed sort of tone as though it was busy reading an important document and had momentarily glanced up from its task to wonder who that could possibly be at the door:)

  “Come een!”

  They pushed open the door and went in.

  In a small light room with two desks, a very smart lady of about forty-three was seated in front of a typewriter, reading a sheet of figures. She was dressed in a grey skirt of finely striped cloth and a pink silk blouse fastened at the neck by a gold brooch with “L” on it in seed pearls. A little above the brooch came a triangular piece of white silk edged with snow-white lace, then came a section of exceedingly skinny chest, then a turquoise cross, and finally a gold chain from which the cross depended. Above the cross was a skinny neck, and ultimately a face chiefly remarkable for two very deep lines running down on either side of a mouth that descended at the corners. A careful layer of pinkish-purple powder covered the face. Two flat round grey eyes, behind pink-rimmed glasses, glanced coldly across at Amy and Mrs. Beeding for an instant; then the lady absently waved a dry chalky hand with two rings at two empty chairs.

  “Mr. Danesford will see you in a minute. Sit down, will you?”

  They sat down. The lady went on studying the sheet of figures, an old-fashioned clock with a noticeably white face ticked slowly high on the wall, and one shaft of sunlight burned its way steadily across the bound volumes of The Prize lining the shelves on three sides of the room. In a far corner was a door marked Editor: Private. Amy stared out of the window and felt sick. She wished she had never left school, never let Mrs. Beeding write the letter to Mr. Ramage, never come after the job. She suddenly discovered that she hated and feared strangers. She did not care much for the people she knew, but at least she was used to them and could get on with her own affairs without noticing them or them noticing her. But strangers—there was no telling what strangers would do next! She sat there with her hands feeling light and chilly, her mouth dry and her heart beating hard.

  Suddenly, as though a door had opened, she saw herself talking easily and without fear to the unknown Mr. Danesford in the next room, seeing him as no more than a blur rather like Mr. Ramage, and, just as it had on the occasion when she had seen herself speaking to the American boy at Kenwood and when she had seen herself asking Miss Lathom to take care of her stories, the fear vanished as she ran through that open door in her mind, and escaped. And just as she looked quickly up, the dazed expression no longer in her eyes, a bell rang somewhere and the smart lady slowly got up from her desk, observing:

  “Mr. Danesford will see you now,” and went across to the door marked Editor: Private.

  Amy followed her without one glance at poor Mrs. Beeding. She was not in the least afraid now. She was Lawrence surrounded by Turks, Lindbergh alone over the Atlantic. I must be cool and wary and betray nothing. Bluff wins.

  Miss Grace (this was the lady in the pink blouse) marched into the Editor’s room and sat down, and Amy followed her, with the dismayed and un-Lindberghlike reflection, “Oh, lord, is she going to be here too?” For she had taken a dislike to the Vision.

  But the next instant she was no longer aware of anyone but Mr. Danesford.

  She never forgot her first sight of Mr. Danesford, and never quite conquered the awe of him which sank into her spirit as he slowly rose from behind the desk at which he sat, resting his outspread fingers upon it and looking steadily at her from under thick overhanging eyebrows. He was an unusually tall man, wide-shouldered yet gaunt in build, with something actorish, blue-chinned and bloodhoundish in his heavy features and skin suffused with a dark flush. Black hair receded from his high shiny brow and was carefully brushed over the back of his head, from neatness rather than vanity, for it was thick as a boy’s. He was dressed in a shabby frock-coat, grey striped trousers, wing collar and broad black stock caught by a black pearl pin. He had a strangely youthful look, yet it was impossible to mistake his age for anything but sixty; he seemed one of those men who might wake any morning to find themselves old. When he addressed himself to Amy, still steadily regarding her, his deep, measured voice seemed to match his face and huge-boned body.

  “So you are Miss Lee,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Miss Grace, busily pulling up the snow-white lace frill and at the same time refreshing herself by a peep down her own neck (a ritual that it was as well Miss Grace performed from time to time, as it was most unlikely that her neck would ever be peeped down by anyone else). “The other one’s waiting outside.”

  “Oh, yes.” Mr. Danesford glanced at Miss Grace, then slowly sat down again. Amy, Lindbergh forgotten, was too frightened by his size, face and voice to utter a word.

  “Well, Miss Lee. I understand that you were at the Anna Bonner School for Girls in Highbury.”

  “Yes. She’s just left,” said Miss Grace, adjusting the turquoise cross and repinning the seed pearl “L.”

  “Are you used to the telephone?”

  Miss Grace, faced at last by a question that she could not answer, looked at Amy and said sharply, “Well? Are you used to the telephone?”

  Amy shook her head.

  “She’s not used to it,” said Miss Grace to Mr. Danesford triumphantly, pushing in a hairpin.

  “But I could learn.” Amy found her voice, though it sounded hoarse and queer. “I mean, I could learn.”

  Mr. Danesford nodded. All this time he had never taken his eyes off her. They were large blue bloodshot eyes with red rims, mournful and dignified and severe like some old dog’s.

  “Have you a specimen of your handwriting, Miss Lee?”

  “Pardon?” whispered Amy, moistening her lips, though she had heard perfectly
.

  “Your writing. Writing. Write something,” snapped Miss Grace, getting up irritably in the act of re-fastening a gold curb bracelet and rummaging about on the desk. “Here. Write your name and address and the date. That’ll do.” She pushed a fountain pen and scribbling block at Amy.

  Amy took it; and the familiar friendly feeling of a pen between her fingers encouraged her. At least she could write! Obediently she bent over the block, holding it on her knee, and wrote. While she did so they both studied her.

  They saw a thin girl in a dark red dress with white collar and cuffs, black shoes with high heels, light silk stockings that were a little too big for her thin legs. A severe black straw hat decorated with a little cockade of red ribbon sat firmly on her head and her pigtail was neatly finished by a black satin bow. All her clothes were modern as the lorries rumbling down Cheapside, yet she had an old-fashioned air that matched (both Miss Grace and Mr. Danesford were honest enough to admit this to themselves, though reluctantly) the premises and policy of The Prize. She was simply not of the same world as the ambitious Gossey and the rest of his tribe.

  They had both been prepared to dismiss her as hopeless at the first glance but found themselves, in dutifulness to Lord Welwoodham, unable to do so. Also, when once they had accepted the idea of having an office girl instead of an office boy at The Prize, all kinds of advantages in the plan suggested themselves. Girls were neater, politer, more punctual, less rebellious, more contented, quieter, less ambitious, than boys. They did not feel it their duty to smoke, drink, swear and fight—at least, not in their mid-teens. They often enjoyed their work. They could be paid less. Oh, they had many advantages over boys. And Miss Lee (if she came, though, she would, of course, be addressed as Amy; “Miss Lee” was absurd at her age) seemed the sort of girl who would do as she was told (if she doesn’t I’ll know the reason why, thought Miss Grace, pulling down her blouse) and her appearance was undoubtedly satisfactory; clean and neat yet smart. That is, Mr. Danesford thought it was smart but Miss Grace only thought it was clean and neat. No more than it should be, too.

  Amy looked up and timidly handed the paper to Miss Grace who surveyed it and passed it with an inscrutable face to Mr. Danesford.

  “Yes. Yes. You write a plain hand, I see,” said he, putting it down on the desk beside him. He added, “Readable. How old are you, Miss Lee?”

  “I’ll be sixteen on the 31st of October,” she answered, a little more confidently, looking across at him with large bright brown eyes.

  “And this is your first application for a post?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I suppose that if I wrote to the Headmistress of your school she would be able to give me some idea of your capabilities—whether you are quick, and neat in your work, and—er—polite, and so on?”

  “Oh, yes. She said she would. It’s Miss Lathom. Miss M. Lathom. B.A.”

  “Well, I will do so, Miss Lee, and then I will write to you again in a few days and let you know what I have decided. I think we must leave the matter there.”

  He stood up and so did Miss Grace, fastening a button on her cuff, so Amy stood up as well. But before she could move to the door:

  “In the matter of salary, Miss Lee,” added Mr. Danesford, “we pay our office boys twenty shillings a week. You would receive the same amount—if we decide you are to come, that is.” He paused. “Suppose we did decide that you were to come, when could you begin your duties?”

  “As soon as you wanted me to,” retorted Lindbergh firmly, considering and dismissing in an instant the idea of hesitating and hinting that she had another job in view.

  “I see. Well, you will hear from us. Good morning.”

  “Good morning. Thank you very much for seeing me, Mr. Danesford,” said Amy, surprising both her audience and herself by her pat use of his name. (Not so quiet as she looks, I’d better make sure she doesn’t want to write, thought Miss Grace, shepherding her out of the room. That was how Gossey and Brabbage and Hooter and Wamwick started—very quiet, and then suddenly had a lot to say for themselves. I’ll sound her at once.)

  Mrs. Beeding’s anxious face, one large question, greeted them as they came back into the other room but the words “Did yer get it, luv?” died upon her lips as she met Miss Grace’s cold stare.

  “Mr. Danesford’s going to write to Miss Lathom about me, Mrs. Beeding, and then let me know whether I’ve got it,” said Amy at once, ignoring Miss Grace and her stares.

  “Ay, is he?’ Well, that’s better than a poke in the eye luv, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Beeding, disappointed that no immediately favourable decision had been reached but relieved that Amy had not been rejected outright. “Well, I s’pose we better be getting along home. Good morning,” to Miss Grace, “thank you kindly.”

  Miss Grace took absolutely no notice, being apparently absorbed in reading some shorthand notes, until they got to the door. Then she looked up and said in a quiet tone:

  “Amy?”

  “Yes?” whispered Amy, very frightened by this sudden and unexpected use of her Christian name, which made her feel as though Miss Grace were God and knew everything (an effect upon which Miss Grace had counted).

  “Do you know why Gossey (Gossey was the last office boy here) was dismissed?” pursued Miss Grace in the same low expressionless voice.

  Amy shook her head. Mrs. Beeding’s lips formed the sentence, “Fer not lickin’ someone’s boot polish.”

  “He was dismissed for wasting office time in writing a rubbishy story, on office paper, in office hours, and then having the impudence to try and sell the story to the paper,” said Miss Grace. “Another boy, called Hooter, was dismissed for the same reason. So was a boy named Brabbage. Also a boy named Wamwick. If you come here, and if you ever write a story, like those boys did, on office paper, in office time, and then try to sell your rubbish to the paper, you will be dismissed too. Without a reference. So remember, Amy.”

  “Yes,” whispered Amy. “Thank you. Good morning.”

  They went out.

  Going down the stairs Mrs. Beeding said, “If I had a face like that I’d pawn it and lose the ticket. Never you mind, luv. She mayn’t like you, silly old date, but she means to have you, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t,” answered Amy. “Mind, I mean.”

  “What was th’ chap like?”

  “Mrs. Beeding, he was the most frightening person I’ve ever seen in all my life,” answered Amy solemnly. “He made my hands go all cold, truly he did.”

  “They’re a rum lot down there, I will say; the freaks at the World’s Fair aren’t in it with them. Come on, luv, let’s get home an’ have a bit o’ dinner an’ we’ll feel better.”

  As soon as the sound of their retreating steps had died away down the stairs, Mr. Danesford came through into the office where Miss Grace was, and sat down at his own desk. Miss Grace glanced across at him and he at her.

  “Well? What did you think of her?” They spoke together.

  “I was impressed rather favourably, on the whole,” admitted Mr. Danesford. “Much more so than I expected to be, I must confess. What did you feel about it?”

  “A bit too good to be true, I thought,” said Miss Grace, who had not thought anything of the kind but who intended to be in the position of one who had never been deceived for one moment just in case Amy did something awful later on. “All the same, one can read her writing and she looks neat. And with the Double Number coming on and everything. … Of course, I don’t care for girls myself, so I may be prejudiced, I’m quite ready to admit that I’m a man’s woman, and always have been.”

  Mr. Danesford said nothing. He never did when Miss Grace made this confession, which she did about seventy-four times a year.

  “But I really haven’t anything against her, apart from that,” ended Miss Grace with an indulgent giggle. “And I certainly should be glad if I could give my mind to the Double Number without having to worry about getting a new boy.”

  “Yes. That would cer
tainly be an advantage. Well, I will write to Lord Welwoodham this morning and as soon as I hear from him, I will write to—Miss Lathom?—yes, that was the name … Lathom. And if her reply is satisfactory, perhaps you will be good enough to write to the girl—to Miss Lee—offering her the post.”

  “Not offering. Saying she’s got it. Begin as you mean to go on,” said Miss Grace crisply, running the carriage of her typewriter along with a whirr and bang.

  The result of this discussion was a postcard from the editor saying, “Pray do as you like. Every confidence. W.”; and on Friday morning the Beedings crowding round Amy, cheering and slapping her on the back because she had got the job.

  CHAPTER XII

  LORD WELWOODHAM HAD INHERITED The Prize from his father, who founded it. In the ’sixties, when there were few papers for young people, it had been by far the most successful of all the boys’ journals; with an imposing list of contributors which included some of the famous artists of the period, as well as all the best-known writers of stories for boys and occasionally the name of a literary giant who did not usually write for boys, but who was pleased to send his slighter work to such a well-written, well-known and well-bred paper as The Prize. From the ’sixties to just before the Great War The Prize had also earned a pleasantly solid income for its proprietor; it was not large, of course, but it was large enough to make the present Lord Welwoodham sigh when he compared it with what The Prize had earned for him in the years immediately after the Great War.

  The former Lord Welwoodham had cared much more about The Prize’s tradition than about the money it brought him; its high standard in boys’ stories, its articles on technical subjects written clearly by first-class experts, its reticent yet sincere patriotic and religious references, the simplicity of its ideals.

  He loved to think of his paper going into thousands of homes all over England on the first day of every month, and of young grubby hands impatiently turning the pages to get to the more important of the two serials; of little sisters waiting meekly until George or Willy had finished with it; of sixpences hoarded in money boxes on the schoolroom mantelpiece or saved with unbelievable self-control from the maw of the school’s tuck-shop; of big brothers on vacation from their university saying carelessly, “Hullo, is that the old Prize? Is there a ‘Barty’ story? Good heavens, I thought that chap Antrobus must be dead years ago”; of governesses glancing indulgently through its pages at the end of the evening when the last gaping sock had been darned and placed on the neat pile by the work-basket; of the bound volumes filling shelves in many a vicarage dining-room and many a nursery bookshelf in London and provincial towns. He never imagined The Prize in children’s hospitals or in Boys’ Clubs in the slums, because he was a delightful, happy old man who did not think about the sufferings of people without enough money, but The Prize often found its way to such places and brought as much pleasure to poor children as it did to rich ones. In its pages goodness was rewarded and wickedness was punished, and it was made to seem passionately important that a boy should be brave, truthful and kind. Any child, rich or poor, young or old, enjoys a story with those values; and as the stories in The Prize were also simple and exciting, thousands upon thousands of children in England did enjoy them, for the fifty-four years before the Great War.