New Grub Street (39 page)

'Any company with her?'

'A lady—Mrs Carter.'

'Then please to give my name, and ask if Mrs Yule can see
me.'

He was speedily conducted to the drawing-room, where he found
the lady of the house, her son, and Mrs Carter. For Mrs Reardon his
eye sought in vain.

'I'm so glad you have come,' said Mrs Yule, in a confidential
tone. 'I have been wishing to see you. Of course, you know of our
sad trouble?'

'I have heard of it only to-day.'

'From Mr Reardon himself?'

'No; I haven't seen him.'

'I do wish you had! We should have been so anxious to know how
he impressed you.'

'How he impressed me?'

'My mother has got hold of the notion,' put in John Yule, 'that
he's not exactly compos mentis. I'll admit that he went on in a
queer sort of way the last time I saw him.'

'And my husband thinks he is rather strange,' remarked Mrs
Carter.

'He has gone back to the hospital, I understand—'

'To a new branch that has just been opened in the City Road,'
replied Mrs Yule. 'And he's living in a dreadful place—one of the
most shocking alleys in the worst part of Islington. I should have
gone to see him, but I really feel afraid; they give me such an
account of the place. And everyone agrees that he has such a very
wild look, and speaks so strangely.'

'Between ourselves,' said John, 'there's no use in exaggerating.
He's living in a vile hole, that's true, and Carter says he looks
miserably ill, but of course he may be as sane as we are.

Jasper listened to all this with no small astonishment.

'And Mrs Reardon?' he asked.

'I'm sorry to say she is far from well,' replied Mrs Yule.
'To-day she has been obliged to keep her room. You can imagine what
a shock it has been to her. It came with such extraordinary
suddenness. Without a word of warning, her husband announced that
he had taken a clerkship and was going to remove immediately to the
East-end. Fancy! And this when he had already arranged, as you
know, to go to the South Coast and write his next book under the
influences of the sea air. He was anything but well; we all knew
that, and we had all joined in advising him to spend the summer at
the seaside. It seemed better that he should go alone; Mrs Reardon
would, of course, have gone down for a few days now and then. And
at a moment's notice everything is changed, and in such a dreadful
way! I cannot believe that this is the behaviour of a sane
man!'

Jasper understood that an explanation of the matter might have
been given in much more homely terms; it was natural that Mrs Yule
should leave out of sight the sufficient, but ignoble, cause of her
son-in-law's behaviour.

'You see in what a painful position we are placed,' continued
the euphemistic lady. 'It is so terrible even to hint that Mr
Reardon is not responsible for his actions, yet how are we to
explain to our friends this extraordinary state of things?'

'My husband is afraid Mr Reardon may fall seriously ill,' said
Mrs Carter. 'And how dreadful! In such a place as that!'

'It would be so kind of you to go and see him, Mr Milvain,'
urged Mrs Yule. 'We should be so glad to hear what you think.'

'Certainly, I will go,' replied Jasper. 'Will you give me his
address?'

He remained for an hour, and before his departure the subject
was discussed with rather more frankness than at first; even the
word 'money' was once or twice heard.

'Mr Carter has very kindly promised,' said Mrs Yule, 'to do his
best to hear of some position that would be suitable. It seems a
most shocking thing that a successful author should abandon his
career in this deliberate way; who could have imagined anything of
the kind two years ago? But it is clearly quite impossible for him
to go on as at present—if there is really no reason for believing
his mind disordered.'

A cab was summoned for Mrs Carter, and she took her leave,
suppressing her native cheerfulness to the tone of the occasion. A
minute or two after, Milvain left the house.

He had walked perhaps twenty yards, almost to the end of the
silent street in which his friends' house was situated, when a man
came round the corner and approached him. At once he recognised the
figure, and in a moment he was face to face with Reardon. Both
stopped. Jasper held out his hand, but the other did not seem to
notice it.

'You are coming from Mrs Yule's?' said Reardon, with a strange
smile.

By the gaslight his face showed pale and sunken, and he met
Jasper's look with fixedness.

'Yes, I am. The fact is, I went there to hear of your address.
Why haven't you let me know about all this?'

'You went to the flat?'

'No, I was told about you by Whelpdale.'

Reardon turned in the direction whence he had come, and began to
walk slowly; Jasper kept beside him.

'I'm afraid there's something amiss between us, Reardon,' said
the latter, just glancing at his companion.

'There's something amiss between me and everyone,' was the
reply, in an unnatural voice.

'You look at things too gloomily. Am I detaining you,
by-the-bye? You were going—'

'Nowhere.'

'Then come to my rooms, and let us see if we can't talk more in
the old way.'

'Your old way of talk isn't much to my taste, Milvain. It has
cost me too much.'Jasper gazed at him. Was there some foundation
for Mrs Yule's seeming extravagance? This reply sounded so
meaningless, and so unlike Reardon's manner of speech, that the
younger man experienced a sudden alarm.

'Cost you too much? I don't understand you.'

They had turned into a broader thoroughfare, which, however, was
little frequented at this hour. Reardon, his hands thrust into the
pockets of a shabby overcoat and his head bent forward, went on at
a slow pace, observant of nothing. For a moment or two he delayed
reply, then said in an unsteady voice:

'Your way of talking has always been to glorify success, to
insist upon it as the one end a man ought to keep in view. If you
had talked so to me alone, it wouldn't have mattered. But there was
generally someone else present. Your words had their effect; I can
see that now. It's very much owing to you that I am deserted, now
that there's no hope of my ever succeeding.'

Jasper's first impulse was to meet this accusation with
indignant denial, but a sense of compassion prevailed. It was so
painful to see the defeated man wandering at night near the house
where his wife and child were comfortably sheltered; and the tone
in which he spoke revealed such profound misery.

'That's a most astonishing thing to say,' Jasper replied. 'Of
course I know nothing of what has passed between you and your wife,
but I feel certain that I have no more to do with what has happened
than any other of your acquaintances.'

'You may feel as certain as you will, but your words and your
example have influenced my wife against me. You didn't intend that;
I don't suppose it for a moment. It's my misfortune, that's
all.'

'That I intended nothing of the kind, you need hardly say, I
should think. But you are deceiving yourself in the strangest way.
I'm afraid to speak plainly; I'm afraid of offending you. But can
you recall something that I said about the time of your marriage?
You didn't like it then, and certainly it won't be pleasant to you
to remember it now. If you mean that your wife has grown unkind to
you because you are unfortunate, there's no need to examine into
other people's influence for an explanation of that.'

Reardon turned his face towards the speaker.

'Then you have always regarded my wife as a woman likely to fail
me in time of need?'

'I don't care to answer a question put in that way. If we are no
longer to talk with the old friendliness, it's far better we
shouldn't discuss things such as this.'

'Well, practically you have answered. Of course I remember those
words of yours that you refer to. Whether you were right or wrong
doesn't affect what I say.'

He spoke with a dull doggedness, as though mental fatigue did
not allow him to say more.

'It's impossible to argue against such a charge,' said Milvain.
'I am convinced it isn't true, and that's all I can answer. But
perhaps you think this extraordinary influence of mine is still
being used against you?'

'I know nothing about it,' Reardon replied, in the same
unmodulated voice.

'Well, as I have told you, this was my first visit to Mrs Yule's
since your wife has been there, and I didn't see her; she isn't
very well, and keeps her room. I'm glad it happened so—that I
didn't meet her. Henceforth I shall keep away from the family
altogether, so long, at all events, as your wife remains with them.
Of course I shan't tell anyone why; that would be impossible. But
you shan't have to fear that I am decrying you. By Jove! an amiable
figure you make of me!'

'I have said what I didn't wish to say, and what I oughtn't to
have said. You must misunderstand me; I can't help it.'

Reardon had been walking for hours, and was, in truth,
exhausted.

He became mute. Jasper, whose misrepresentation was wilful,
though not maliciously so, also fell into silence; he did not
believe that his conversations with Amy had seriously affected the
course of events, but he knew that he had often said things to her
in private which would scarcely have fallen from his lips if her
husband had been present—little depreciatory phrases, wrong rather
in tone than in terms, which came of his irresistible desire to
assume superiority whenever it was possible. He, too, was weak, but
with quite another kind of weakness than Reardon's. His was the
weakness of vanity, which sometimes leads a man to commit
treacheries of which he would believe himself incapable.
Self-accused, he took refuge in the pretence of misconception,
which again was a betrayal of littleness.

They drew near to Westbourne Park station.

'You are living a long way from here,' Jasper said, coldly. 'Are
you going by train?'

'No. You said my wife was ill?'

'Oh, not ill. At least, I didn't understand that it was anything
serious. Why don't you walk back to the house?'

'I must judge of my own affairs.'

'True; I beg your pardon. I take the train here, so I'll say
good-night.'

They nodded to each other, but did not shake hands.

A day or two later, Milvain wrote to Mrs Yule, and told her that
he had seen Reardon; he did not describe the circumstances under
which the interview had taken place, but gave it as his opinion
that Reardon was in a state of nervous illness, and made by
suffering quite unlike himself. That he might be on the way to
positive mental disease seemed likely enough. 'Unhappily, I myself
can be of no use to him; he has not the same friendly feeling for
me as he used to have. But it is very certain that those of his
friends who have the power should exert themselves to raise him out
of this fearful slough of despond. If he isn't effectually helped,
there's no saying what may happen. One thing is certain, I think:
he is past helping himself. Sane literary work cannot be expected
from him. It seems a monstrous thing that so good a fellow, and one
with such excellent brains too, should perish by the way when
influential people would have no difficulty in restoring him to
health and usefulness.'

All the months of summer went by. Jasper kept his word, and
never visited Mrs Yule's house; but once in July he met that lady
at the Carters', and heard then, what he knew from other sources,
that the position of things was unchanged. In August, Mrs Yule
spent a fortnight at the seaside, and Amy accompanied her. Milvain
and his sisters accepted an invitation to visit friends at
Wattleborough, and were out of town about three weeks, the last ten
days being passed in the Isle of Wight; it was an extravagant
holiday, but Dora had been ailing, and her brother declared that
they would all work better for the change. Alfred Yule, with his
wife and daughter, rusticated somewhere in Kent. Dora and Marian
exchanged letters, and here is a passage from one written by the
former:

'Jasper has shown himself in an unusually amiable light since we
left town. I looked forward to this holiday with some misgivings,
as I know by experience that it doesn't do for him and us to be too
much together; he gets tired of our company, and then his
selfishness—believe me, he has a good deal of it—comes out in a way
we don't appreciate. But I have never known him so forbearing. To
me he is particularly kind, on account of my headaches and general
shakiness. It isn't impossible that this young man, if all goes
well with him, may turn out far better than Maud and I ever
expected. But things will have to go very well, if the improvement
is to be permanent. I only hope he may make a lot of money before
long. If this sounds rather gross to you, I can only say that
Jasper's moral nature will never be safe as long as he is exposed
to the risks of poverty. There are such people, you know. As a poor
man, I wouldn't trust him out of my sight; with money, he will be a
tolerable creature—as men go.'

Dora, no doubt, had her reasons for writing in this strain. She
would not have made such remarks in conversation with her friend,
but took the opportunity of being at a distance to communicate them
in writing.

On their return, the two girls made good progress with the book
they were manufacturing for Messrs Jolly and Monk, and early in
October it was finished. Dora was now writing little things for The
English Girl, and Maud had begun to review an occasional novel for
an illustrated paper. In spite of their poor lodgings, they had
been brought into social relations with Mrs Boston Wright and a few
of her friends; their position was understood, and in accepting
invitations they had no fear lest unwelcome people should pounce
down upon them in their shabby little sitting-room. The younger
sister cared little for society such as Jasper procured them; with
Marian Yule for a companion she would have been quite content to
spend her evenings at home. But Maud relished the introduction to
strangers. She was admired, and knew it. Prudence could not
restrain her from buying a handsomer dress than those she had
brought from her country home, and it irked her sorely that she
might not reconstruct all her equipment to rival the appearance of
well-to-do girls whom she studied and envied. Her disadvantages,
for the present, were insuperable. She had no one to chaperon her;
she could not form intimacies because of her poverty. A rare
invitation to luncheon, a permission to call at the sacred hour of
small-talk—this was all she could hope for.