I had to put a strong constraint on myself, or I should have communicated all that was passing in my mind to William before our friends at the farmhouse. But I knew it was best to wait until we were alone, and I did wait. What a relief it was when we all got up at last to say good-night!
The moment we were in our own room, I could not stop to take so much as a pin out of my dress before I began. “My dear,” said I, “I never heard you tell that gambling-house adventure so well before. What an effect it had upon our friends! what an effect, indeed, it always has wherever you tell it!”
So far he did not seem to take much notice. He just nodded, and began to pour out some of the lotion in which he always bathes his poor eyes the last thing at night.
“And as for that, William,” I went on, “all your stories seem to interest people. What a number you have picked up, first and last, from different sitters, in the fifteen years of your practice as a portrait-painter! Have you any idea how many stories you really do know?”
No: he could not undertake to say how many just then. He gave this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time at his eyes with the sponge and lotion. He did it so awkwardly and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him and applied the lotion tenderly myself.
“Do you think,” said I, “if you turned over one of your stories carefully in your mind beforehand–say the one you told to-night, for example–that you could repeat it all to me so perfectly and deliberately that I should be able to take it down in writing from your lips?”
Yes: of course he could. But why ask that question?
“Because I should like to have all the stories that you have been in the habit of relating to our friends set down fairly in writing, by way of preserving them from ever being forgotten.”
Would I bathe his left eye now, because that felt the hottest tonight? I began to forbode that his growing indifference to what I was saying would soon end in his fairly going to sleep before I had developed my new idea, unless I took some means forthwith of stimulating his curiosity, or, in other words, of waking him into a proper state of astonishment and attention. “William,” said I, without another syllable of preface, “I have got a new plan for finding all the money we want for our expenses here.”
He jerked his head up directly, and looked at me. What plan?
“This: The state of your eyes prevents you for the present from following your profession as an artist, does it not? Very well. What are you to do with your idle time, my dear? Turn author! And how are you to get the money we want? By publishing a book!”
“Good gracious, Leah! are you out of your senses?” he exclaimed.
I put my arm round his neck and sat down on his knee (the course I always take when I want to persuade him to anything with as few words as possible).
“Now, William, listen patiently to me,” I said. “An artist lies under this great disadvantage in case of accidents–his talents are of no service to him unless he can use his eyes and fingers. An author, on the other hand, can turn his talents to account just as well by means of other people’s eyes and fingers as by means of his own. In your present situation, therefore, you have nothing for it, as I said before, but to turn author. Wait! and hear me out. The book I want you to make is a book of all your stories. You shall repeat them, and I will write them down from your dictation. Our manuscript shall be printed; we will sell the book to the public, and so support ourselves honorably in adversity, by doing the best we can to interest and amuse others.”
While I was saying all this–I suppose in a very excitable manner–my husband looked, as our young sailor-friend would phrase it, quite taken aback. “You were always quick at contriving, Leah,” he said; “but how in the world came you to think of this plan?”
“I thought of it while you were telling them the gambling-house adventure downstairs,” I answered.
“It is an ingenious idea, and a bold idea,” he went on, thoughtfully. “But it is one thing to tell a story to a circle of friends, and another thing to put it into a printed form for an audience of strangers. Consider, my dear, that we are neither of us used to what is called writing for the press.”
“Very true,” said I, “but nobody is used to it when they first begin, and yet plenty of people have tried the hazardous literary experiment successfully. Besides, in our case, we have the materials ready to our hands; surely we can succeed in shaping them presentably if we aim at nothing but the simple truth ”
“Who is to do the eloquent descriptions and the striking reflections, and all that part of it?” said William, perplexedly shaking his head.
“Nobody!” I replied. “The eloquent descriptions and the striking reflections are just the parts of a story-book that people never read. Whatever we do, let us not, if we can possibly help it, write so much as a single sentence that can be conveniently skipped. Come! come!” I continued, seeing him begin to shake his head again; “no more objections, William, I am too certain of the success of my plan to endure them. If you still doubt, let us refer the new project to a competent arbitrator. The doctor is coming to see you to-morrow. I will tell him all that I have told you; and if you will promise on your side, I will engage on mine to be guided entirely by his opinion.”
William smiled, and readily gave the promise. This was all I wanted to send me to bed in the best spirits. For, of course, I should never have thought of mentioning the doctor as an arbitrator, if I had not known beforehand that he was sure to be on my side.
6th.–The arbitrator has sho wn that he deserved my confidence in him. He ranked himself entirely on my side before I had half done explaining to him what my new project really was. As to my husband’s doubts and difficulties, the dear good man would not so much as hear them mentioned. “No objections,” he cried, gayly; “set to work, Mr. Kerby, and make your fortune. I always said your wife was worth her weight in gold–and here she is now, all ready to get into the bookseller’s scales and prove it. Set to work! set to work!”
“With all my heart,” said William, beginning at last to catch the infection of our enthusiasm. “But when my part of the work and my wife’s has been completed, what are we to do with the produce of our labor?”
“Leave that to me,” answered the doctor. “Finish your books and send it to my house; I will show it at once to the editor of our country newspaper. He has plenty of literary friends in London, and he will be just the man to help you. By-the-by,” added the doctor, addressing me, “you think of everything, Mrs. Kerby; pray have you thought of a name yet for the new book?”
At that question it was my turn to be “taken aback.” The idea of naming the book had never once entered my head.
“A good title is of vast importance,” said the doctor, knitting his brows thoughtfully. “We must all think about that. What shall it be? eh, Mrs. Kerby, what shall it be?”
“Perhaps something may strike us after we have fairly set to work,” my husband suggested. “Talking of work,” he continued, turning to me, “how are you to find time, Leah, with your nursery occupations, for writing down all the stories as I tell them?”
“I have been thinking of that this morning,” said I, “and have come to the conclusion that I shall have but little leisure to write from your dictation in the day-time. What with dressing and washing the children, teaching them, giving them their meals, taking them out to walk, and keeping them amused at home–to say nothing of sitting sociably at work with the dame and her two girls in the afternoon–I am afraid I shall have few opportunities of doing my part of the book between breakfast and tea-time. But when the children are in bed, and the farmer and his family are reading or dozing, I should have at least three unoccupied hours to spare. So, if you don’t mind putting off our working-time till after dark–“