My American

by Stella Gibbons

  It was the Great War and Lord Northcliffe between them that ended this desirable state of affairs; Lord Northcliffe by tapping a reading public whose appetite for excitement was the stronger because it had not the money with which to buy security and security’s quieter pleasures, and the Great War because it taught millions of such people to question values which their parents had taken for granted as they took the sunrise. The Prize soon found itself struggling in competition with boys’ papers whose wildly sensational stories were neither stiffened by accurate knowledge nor made convincing by a touch of imagination, in which the heroes were almost indistinguishable from the villains and the cautious prophecies of scientists, reported luridly in the press, were distorted to provide the plots.

  Of course, The Prize steadily lost ground. The public for which it had catered was grown up or dead, and its children were more sophisticated and lived at three times the pace their parents had. The Editor and staff began, about 1925, to have the most discouraging and frightening feeling that can creep over a paper or a man … that of being too old and slow for the hurrying world on every side. Lord Welwoodham was obstinate, too; and he would not change the paper’s policy. A group of kind friends had approached him with the suggestion that he should form a limited company with himself as chairman, or amalgamate with some more prosperous paper. They would, they promised, put money into the paper and pep it up. It was a fine old paper with a fine old name; but it must move with the times.

  “The Times doesn’t,” pointed out Lord Welwoodham. “Doesn’t move with the times, if I make myself clear. When The Times does, The Prize will.” He added despondently that he would see everyone frying in the hot place before he pepped up The Prize.

  His friends went away rather offended and waited for the paper to go smash. Every year it earned a little less and the staff (never a large one) was reduced a little more, until it really was a skeleton staff, consisting only of two travellers covering London and the provinces, two space-sellers under Mr. Ramage (Tim had not been replaced), Mr. Ramage himself, Mr. Danesford the sub-editor, Miss Grace the secretary, Lord Welwoodham as Editor, and an office boy, usually coming or going.

  But in spite of the depressing feeling that any week might be its last, that Lord Welwoodham might die and his nephew and heir (a simply ravishing young man who decorated people’s interiors) might do the paper up with a new cover by Rex Whistler and a series of articles on how to make amusing wax flowers, The Prize was a pleasant paper to be on. This group of middle-aged people working on two floors of the little old house in Rosemary Lane had the sense to know that it was safe—while the backwater lasted—in a comfortable Victorian backwater; and as (like most of us nowadays) they placed security above ambition, they took pains to keep it safe so far as they could. No one intrigued, backbit, or jockeyed for place. Miss Grace, the only woman on the staff, might be disagreeable but she did not run down Mr. Danesford. Mr. Danesford might be gloomy but he did not bully Miss Grace, and neither of them carried on the war which the Editorial usually carries on with the Advertising. Their spirits may have been subdued by St. Paul’s Cathedral, most of whose face stared severely in at them through the window of their room. It would take more impudence than either of them possessed to get up a backbiting with that staring in at you.

  The staff had all been there for years, too; that made the situation easy for everyone. They knew each other’s ways; they made allowances, and thought tolerantly when so-and-so was touchy—“It’s the east wind, he never could stand it,” or “His wife’s been cutting up rough about him having his holiday in July, her sister won’t be able to go with them as usual.” They were not exactly matey; a sober cheerfulness best describes their attitude, but they certainly made The Prize a pleasant place in which to work.

  Nevertheless … from Lord Welwoodham down to the just-dismissed Gossey, there was not one of them who did not know that the destruction of their backwater was only a question of time.

  The stories in The Prize were written by men who had made a lifetime’s work of writing stories for boys. Old Antrobus, author of the “Barty” stories that had been running for thirty years and were still the best thing in the paper, was the only contributor of fiction to The Prize who had made a name by writing novels for adults. The “Barty” yarns were only a sideline of his. They were very funny; even after thirty years they were still funny, with dry rather sophisticated plots worked out in absurd literary language that boys loved. “Barty” was a creation: Lord Welwoodham often thought despondently about the gap that would be left at old Antrobus’s death. He was over seventy and could not last for ever … but perhaps The Prize would go first, the last “Barty” story sinking gallantly with it like some old captain who preferred to die with his ship. If Antrobus went first, Lord Welwoodham knew of no writer who could replace him. Mr. Wodehouse was the obvious choice, but his prices were far, far above what The Prize could possibly afford, as befits the prices of a writer of genius whose work has been fully appreciated in his lifetime.

  But apart from old Antrobus, living under layers of comfort in his house in Regent’s Park and fatly enjoying his life though kingdoms crumbled, there were no writers with imagination working regularly nowadays for The Prize. Lord Welwoodham often mused upon the writers who were working regularly for it, and had come to the conclusion that what ailed their work was exactly the fact that they had gone on writing for boys long after their first freshness had withered and they should have been writing for men. To write for boys (mused Lord Welwoodham) a writer needed something of a boy’s own simple yet mysterious picture of the world. But nowadays there seemed hardly any writers with that outlook. Everyone is so damned clever, thought Lord Welwoodham despondently, recalling a volume of short stories which he had picked up in a friend’s house and which had made him feel that the author was uttering a series of sharp yelps—Ow! I can’t bear it! It’s awful. Ow! Take it away! Ooh!—“it” being Life.

  It was his half-expressed dissatisfaction with the contents of The Prize that made him drop so severely upon the literary office boys. What! Did the very office boys feel that the stories were so bad that they could write better ones? It was the last straw; and Lord Welwoodham made the rule about no contributions from the Staff on pain of instant dismissal. They could always hawk their pieces of vileness round to the other boys’ papers, he pointed out, and there they had quite a good chance of being taken. In fact, he had a theory that they often were taken; the stories in The Prize’s rivals all read as though they were written by Hooter, Brabbage, Wamwick and Gossey in collaboration.

  And until writers became less damned clever or until he found a new writer with the fresh mysterious picture of the world in his head that a boy carries, there was nothing to be done about the stories in the dear old Prize that he loved so well.

  On the first Monday that Amy walked up Rosemary Lane to begin her duties she had a disagreeable experience. She was hurrying along with her quick light step, her suitcase and her pigtail swinging and her shadow running beside her in the clear morning sunlight, when she became aware that she was being followed. Or rather, accompanied, for the person whose shadow mingled with her own on the pavement was walking at her side and only very slightly behind her, and mincing along on the tips of his toes in a manner that was plainly an imitation of her own gait, while she could only conclude that a large ball of newspaper which distended the front of his tightly-buttoned jacket was intended to represent her chest (a libel, for it was not fat).

  As she glanced at him, unable for the moment to believe what she saw, he contorted his face in a hideous grimace, squinted, stuck out his tongue further than it seemed possible for a tongue to shoot, and began in a high squeaking voice:

  “Yes, Miss Grace. Ay’ll goo at wence, Miss Grace. Wez thet the phoone? Are you thee-ar? Shall ay lee out fresh blottin’-paper, old Daddy-Bloodyhound-Great-Danesford” (this in a voice thick with bitter spite), “What about a little bit ’er sugar fer the bird? Gar!”

&n
bsp; He made a lightning swoop as though to pick up something at her feet and viciously nipped her calf.

  “Shut up!” blazed Amy, swinging at him with the suitcase but missing.

  “You shut up—half-inching my job!” he cried. “You ain’t fourteen yet, you look ’alf-starved, you do. You wait till my Mum gets ’old o’ you, she won’t half give you something, she won’t, comin’ sneakin’ in and sucking up to old Bloody Great Danesford”—he was running beside her as he talked, to the vast entertainment and amusement of the people hurrying through the lane—“I’ll make it ’ot for you, so you just watch out, Cissy, see?”

  Amy began to run. Oh! if the lock of her suitcase only held! She had a tasty little lunch packed by Mrs. Beeding in there and an exercise book containing two chapters of The Great White Rajah’s Servant.

  The boy began to run too. He was a large roughish boy of about sixteen with patched boots and oily hair that stuck up in quiffs on his forehead.

  “Look here,” panted Amy, glancing from side to side as they drew near the offices of The Prize and hoping that Mr. Danesford and Miss Grace would not see her in this humiliating situation, “if you’ll go away, I’ll give you——”

  But her bribe was never offered, for at that moment a large hand came out and gripped the boy by the scruff of the neck and a pair of grubby hogskin gloves struck him a stinging box first on one ear, then the other.

  “There, you dirty boy,” severely observed an elderly gentleman in a shabby but beautiful dark blue suit. “Go away, be off, do you hear?” And he shook him again.

  “She ’alf-inched my job!” cried the boy, struggling.

  “Bosh. You lost it yourself for breaking office rules. I’ve spoken to Mr. Newton on Thrilling Tales of Space, about you; go home and clean yourself, you very dirty boy, and see him this afternoon. If you worry Miss Lee again I’ll tell your mother.”

  “All right, my lord. Thanks.” Gossey dusted himself down and ran off, without another look at Amy but singing loudly:

  “Skinny Lee

  Caught a flea——.”

  “Go on, go on upstairs, Miss Lee, what’s your name, Amy, isn’t it,” said the tall gentleman, absently shepherding her in front of him with a thick stick of yellow wood topped by a worn silver knob and flapping at her with the gloves. “I’m the editor, Lord Welwoodham, and I always like tea when I’m early. I suppose you can make tea?”

  “Oh, yes. Mrs. Beeding taught me,” she answered confidently, going ahead of him up the stairs, her blood warmed by danger and her eyes sparkling with the fun of being rescued. Suddenly she paused and turned round, waiting for him to draw level with her. When he did so:

  “Please don’t mind me asking,” she said very politely, “but what do I call you? ‘My lord,’ like Gossey did?”

  “You call me Lord Welwoodham when it’s impossible to avoid doing so; otherwise you call me ‘you.’ I shall call you ‘you,’ too, except when I can’t help it and then I shall call you ‘Miss Lee.’ I like the tea very weak with one lump of sugar. Bring it in the minute it’s ready, there’s a dear good fell—a good girl, will you?” And he went into his office and shut the door.

  “What were you doing, Amy, to annoy Gossey like that?” inquired Miss Grace, gliding out from a recess near the window where she had been hanging up a tasteful black silk coat with kilted frills on it wherever the designer could get them, and revealing herself in a bright navy blue silk dress with bunches of flowers all over it and a georgette modesty vest on which was pinned a brooch made like three white enamel daisies in a row, and a necklace of pink crystal beads and pearls, and golden hoop earrings, and three pink carnations pinned on her shoulder by a single silver bar with an aquamarine sparking in it.

  “Good morning, Miss Grace. He was pinching my leg and Lord Welwoodham hit him with his gloves,” replied Amy.

  Miss Grace made a faint sound of disgust at the scene of riot thus conjured, and hauled up the modesty vest.

  “But you must have said something, Amy or done something to annoy him. Gossey used to be a quiet, respectable lad.”

  “No, Miss Grace. He just said I’d taken his job and then he pinched me. Miss Grace, Lord Welwoodham wants his tea. Where is everything, please?”

  “Look in the cupboard,” replied Miss Grace, repressively, pointing with one finger while adjusting the carnations with the other hand, and so the day began.

  Amy’s duties were light and not too dull. She had to answer the telephone, put the rejected manuscripts into the stamped addressed envelopes which had accompanied them to The Prize, and enter their titles and authors’ names in a book, together with the dates of their arrival and return, see that the two desks of her seniors were kept tidy, make the tea at eleven o’clock and again at a quarter-past four, tend the fire in winter and the little electric fan in summer (Lord Welwoodham liked himself and all his staff to be comfortable while at work); and once a month or so, on Press Day, to go round the corner to Paternoster Court, where the printers had their works, to fetch an important proof without which The Prize could not go to press.

  The printers, Messrs. Hobday, had messengers known to the staff of The Prize as Hobday Boys whom they sent round with proofs of the stories and articles as they were set up in print; and as Press Day drew near this stream of boys swelled until they were arriving every half-hour or so with matter to be corrected, and sent off again by the next boy. But on the final day, though the flood of Hobday Boys roared in full spate, it never roared full enough for Lord Welwoodham, who was always poking his head round the door and fretfully asking had not the proof of such-and-such come yet? Where the devil was the Hobday Boy, and would Amy mind running round and fetching it at once?

  Though the Hobday Boy had usually left by another way when she arrived at Paternoster Court, Amy much enjoyed these dashes through the narrow alleys and yards of old brown bricks and plaster black with age; where the spirit of the Cathedral could be felt, even when its bulk was hidden, by the sudden noise of bells and a sensation as of some enormous presence brooding in the sky. And then as she turned a corner she would come upon it again—that vast slope of the soft dark blue of a mussel shell and with something of the same exquisite curve—the Dome.

  She soon became at home in the office—as much, that is, as she was at home anywhere in the real world—and liked being there. Of course she would sooner have been at home in the big-top-front, writing, or in the old exam room at the Anna Bonner, writing, but she liked getting away from the Beedings for nine hours or so every day and enjoyed the journey to and from the City, which she found exciting because she was not yet old enough to find it exhausting. She enjoyed going into the Cathedral three or four times a week in her lunch hour or on her way home, and wandering slowly round it looking at the pictures and statues, particularly The Light of the World by Holman Hunt. She would stand for minutes at a time gazing up at the sad patient face of Jesus waiting in the twilit orchard, where stars are tangled in the branches of the trees and apples lie scattered in the grass so deeply green by the light of the lantern, where withered meadowsweet and rich brambles grow against the cottage door, and beside these familiar flowers are the stars and moon of Heaven on the lantern in Jesus’s hand, throwing up rainbow lights on the white robe.

  Next to this picture, which she loved because it told a story and had gorgeous colours, she liked the grave of an old man who was squashing a lot of guns and cannons under his tombstone as though he had energetically used them as a mere ladder to climb a little nearer to Heaven. Amy had never seen such a sensible and businesslike tombstone, and it was cheerful, too, in a queer way. She never tired of looking at it. For some reason it comforted her, in the same way that Mrs. Beeding did, and helped her to think more calmly about her father and mother lying inside the earth of Highgate Hill. After all, Heaven was true: and that old man’s monument, impatiently crushing the instruments of his earthly fame, seemed somehow, for Amy at least, to make it truer.

  She soon felt at home in St.
Paul’s, which is, indeed, not a gloomy and a solemn place but so gloriously beautiful that it sounds, as one looks up into the Dome, like a colossal shout of praise to God. No one makes any attempt to keep it solemn; guides take visitors round, old ladies pray in corners, men hammer the walls and cheerfully shift benches about with a prolonged thundering echo, office boys nip round and out again, cap in hand, and quiet girls sit and eat their lunch out of paper bags. No noise nor lunch-eating can spoil the solemn yet soaring feeling given to the spirit by those walls of palest pink stone touched here and there with airy gilding, and the wreaths of darker rosy stone on the roof. It is comforting just to stand, and stare and stare, and to know that men once lived whose feeling about God expressed itself thus.