The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 42

"What do I mean? Why, you have hounded me about this city until I'm crazy.

There's no place I can go to escape you. You come to my office, you come here, you come to my club! You have made yourself a perfect pest at the publishers to every one! Why--"

He stopped out of breath. Of course I have no courage or head with men--I was ready to grovel at his feet. "My dear sir," I pleaded, "I a.s.sure you I didn't mean to do anything of the kind--it was only that the clerk kept telling me--"

"I don't care what the clerk kept telling you! I tell you that that ma.n.u.script has been in the hands of the company since the day I told you I would leave it there. Of course there have been delays, there is all sorts of routine to go through with; but suppose all our contributors did the same thing--what would we do?"

He was talking at me as if expecting a reply. Fortunately the right words came to my lips--I was really ready to cry with shame and perplexity.

"I don't think it is quite the same with all your contributors," I said, with a trembling voice. "While I have been waiting I have been simply starving."

It seemed to clear the atmosphere. He stared at me, and then he sat down.

He was ashamed of himself, I could see. "Why," he said, "you couldn't have been paid anything for months."

"I didn't know," I said, "I didn't know anything about it. But I have been starving."

He spoke more quietly. "Mr. Stirling," he said, "I'm very sorry about this, the whole thing has been unfortunate. Excuse me that I spoke angrily; let us not think any more about it."

I stood there, feeling almost like crying, I was so nervous.

"Now, about that ma.n.u.script," he went on, "I'm doing what I can to learn about it. It's been there all along, as I told you, and you will hear about it soon. Why, Mr. Stirling, I even took the trouble to send my secretary down there yesterday to make sure that it was all right."

"I did not want you to go to any such trouble," I stammered.

"That's all right," he said, "don't mention it. Now they will have decided in a few days, and I will write you--"

"No, please do not," I said, still with my abject humility. "Don't take any more trouble--let me go there and find out--"

"By no means!" said he. "Take my advice and don't go near there again under any circ.u.mstances. You can't tell how much an author hurts himself by troubling a publisher as you have done. Don't go near there--let me write to you."

I promised that I would; and then with more abjectness I got myself out of that room, and I went out and sat down upon a step near by, simply shaking like a leaf.

"Oh, heavens!" I gasped. "That was horrible! Horrible!"

I sat dazed--thinking about it--thinking it over and over--I couldn't understand it, try as I might. Why should he have been so angry _that_ day--had he not told me to come there? And had he not said I should have a report?

--And then suddenly something flashed over me that made me leap! That firm had written him a letter the day before yesterday asking about the ma.n.u.script, and _that_ was why he was angry! And he had sent his secretary down to inquire!--But why in Heaven's name should he send his secretary down to inquire _when he had a telephone connecting with the firm right there in his office_!

And so I saw it--all in one instant the thing flashed over me!

I was so wild I paid a car-fare--I rode straight as a die down to that place, and I went in and saw the clerk.

"He has sent the ma.n.u.script now," I said, "hasn't he?"

"Yes," she said.

"He sent it in yesterday?" I said.

"Yes."

"He sent it by his secretary, didn't he?"

"Yes," she said again.

"Thank you," I answered, and went out.

Is not that simply monstrous, simply awful beyond words? I have been beside myself tonight with rage, with amazement, with perplexity. Oh, think what I have suffered at the hands of that frightful man! And what have I _done_ to him--why should he have treated me so? What does it mean? I am baffled every way I turn.

The thing is like flame in my blood--like acid in my veins. It makes me hysterical with pain. I cry aloud.

--What do you mean by it, you monster, you wretch? Why, here for eleven weeks I have been hanging upon your every word--eleven weeks of my life spent in torment--absolutely flung away! _Eleven weeks!_ And you have lied to me--and you have kicked me about like a dog!

What do you mean? What do you mean? Tell me, above all, _why_ you did it! Were you torturing me on purpose? Or did you simply forget it? But then, how could you forget it when you had to tell me all those miserable falsehoods? And when you had to write me those letters?

And then to-day!

That is the thing that goads me most--to-day! I stood there cringed before you like a beaten cur--you kicked me--you spit upon me! And it was every bit of it a lie! That insolent rage of yours--why, it wasn't even genuine!

You weren't even angry--you knew that you had no reason to be angry--that you had treated me as if I were a worm to tread on! And yet you stood there and abused me!

Oh--why, the thing is madness to think of! It is more madness the more you realize it! I have never known anything like it before in my life.

Yes--actually--it is something quite new to me. I have met blind people--people who would not heed me--but a really evil person I have never known before! A person who has no respect for another's rights--who would trample upon another! Oh, you miserable wretch--and the lies--the lies! The hateful sneaking of it--you black-hearted, insolent man! The ma.n.u.script had been there all the time! _The delays, the routine_! And you had sent your secretary down to inquire! And above all--oh, above all--the prince of them--I must not go near there lest I should injure myself! I must not go near them--they were so weary of seeing me! And I never saw a single soul there in my life but one clerk!

I never suffered such a thing as this before in all my days--deliberate, brutal injustice! And that I should be so placed as to be a victim of such a thing--that I should have to hang upon your words and to be at your mercy for eleven weeks of agony! You are a great editor, a clubman, a rich man!

You have fame and power and wealth--and you stand up there and scald me with your rage--and with your heart a mess of lies all the time!

--But _why_ did you do it? That is the thing I ask myself in consternation. Why? _Why?_--Were you not interested in my work? If you weren't--why didn't you give it back to me, and let me go my way? And if you were--if you had any idea of publis.h.i.+ng it--then why did you use me in this way? Where was the ma.n.u.script all this time? What did you mean to do with it? How long did you expect me to wait? And what object did you have in telling me untruths about it meanwhile?

--The whole thing is as blank to me as night. That a man should have in him so much infinite indifference about another as to leave that ma.n.u.script in a drawer, and write me that I was to "have a report on it within a week"!

Why, it is something of which I can not even think. And then to get out of it by that sham anger and that sneaking!--

April 20th.

I have done absolutely nothing but brood over this thing and rage all day.

What am I to do?--I sat and wondered if there was anything I could do but go and shoot that man. And I asked myself: Ought I not at least to go and get the ma.n.u.script from that accursed place this instant? Ought I not to have taken it then and there? But see the utter misery of my situation, the abject shame of it--suppose they were to take the thing! It is my one hope in this world--I dare not lose it--I have to leave it there!