New Grub Street (57 page)

The conversation with Amy Reardon did not tend to put his mind
at rest. Amy was astonished at so indiscreet a step in a man of his
calibre. Ah! if only Amy herself were free, with her ten thousand
pounds to dispose of! She, he felt sure, did not view him with
indifference. Was there not a touch of pique in the elaborate irony
with which she had spoken of his choice?—But it was idle to look in
that direction.

He was anxious on his sisters' account. They were clever girls,
and with energy might before long earn a bare subsistence; but it
began to be doubtful whether they would persevere in literary work.
Maud, it was clear, had conceived hopes of quite another kind. Her
intimacy with Mrs Lane was effecting a change in her habits, her
dress, even her modes of speech. A few days after their
establishment in the new lodgings, Jasper spoke seriously on this
subject with the younger girl.

'I wonder whether you could satisfy my curiosity in a certain
matter,' he said. 'Do you, by chance, know how much Maud gave for
that new jacket in which I saw her yesterday?'

Dora was reluctant to answer.

'I don't think it was very much.'

'That is to say, it didn't cost twenty guineas. Well, I hope
not.

I notice, too, that she has been purchasing a new hat.'

'Oh, that was very inexpensive. She trimmed it herself.'

'Did she? Is there any particular, any quite special, reason for
this expenditure?'

'I really can't say, Jasper.'

'That's ambiguous, you know. Perhaps it means you won't allow
yourself to say?'

'No, Maud doesn't tell me about things of that kind.'

He took opportunities of investigating the matter, with the
result that some ten days after he sought private colloquy with
Maud herself. She had asked his opinion of a little paper she was
going to send to a ladies' illustrated weekly, and he summoned her
to his own room.

'I think this will do pretty well,' he said. 'There's rather too
much thought in it, perhaps. Suppose you knock out one or two of
the less obvious reflections, and substitute a wholesome
commonplace? You'll have a better chance, I assure you.'

'But I shall make it worthless.'

'No; you'll probably make it worth a guinea or so. You must
remember that the people who read women's papers are irritated,
simply irritated, by anything that isn't glaringly obvious. They
hate an unusual thought. The art of writing for such papers—indeed,
for the public in general—is to express vulgar thought and feeling
in a way that flatters the vulgar thinkers and feelers. Just
abandon your mind to it, and then let me see it again.'

Maud took up the manuscript and glanced over it with a
contemptuous smile. Having observed her for a moment, Jasper threw
himself back in the chair and said, as if casually:

'I am told that Mr Dolomore is becoming a great friend of
yours.'

The girl's face changed. She drew herself up, and looked away
towards the window.

'I don't know that he is a "great" friend.'

'Still, he pays enough attention to you to excite remark.'

'Whose remark?'

'That of several people who go to Mrs Lane's.'

'I don't know any reason for it,' said Maud coldly.

'Look here, Maud, you don't mind if I give you a friendly
warning?'

She kept silence, with a look of superiority to all
monition.

'Dolomore,' pursued her brother, 'is all very well in his way,
but that way isn't yours. I believe he has a good deal of money,
but he has neither brains nor principle. There's no harm in your
observing the nature and habits of such individuals, but don't
allow yourself to forget that they are altogether beneath you.'

'There's no need whatever for you to teach me self-respect,'
replied the girl.

'I'm quite sure of that; but you are inexperienced. On the
whole, I do rather wish that you would go less frequently to Mrs
Lane's.

It was rather an unfortunate choice of yours. Very much better
if you could have got on a good footing with the Barnabys. If you
are generally looked upon as belonging to the Lanes' set it will
make it difficult for you to get in with the better people.'

Maud was not to be drawn into argument, and Jasper could only
hope that his words would have some weight with her. The Mr
Dolomore in question was a young man of rather offensive
type—athletic, dandiacal, and half-educated. It astonished Jasper
that his sister could tolerate such an empty creature for a moment;
who has not felt the like surprise with regard to women's
inclinations? He talked with Dora about it, but she was not in her
sister's confidence.

'I think you ought to have some influence with her,' Jasper
said.

'Maud won't allow anyone to interfere in—her private
affairs.''It would be unfortunate if she made me quarrel with
her.'

'Oh, surely there isn't any danger of that?'

'I don't know, she mustn't be obstinate.'

Jasper himself saw a good deal of miscellaneous society at this
time. He could not work so persistently as usual, and with wise
tactics he used the seasons of enforced leisure to extend his
acquaintance. Marian and he were together twice a week, in the
evening.

Of his old Bohemian associates he kept up intimate relations
with one only, and that was Whelpdale. This was in a measure
obligatory, for Whelpdale frequently came to see him, and it would
have been difficult to repel a man who was always making known how
highly he esteemed the privilege of Milvain's friendship, and whose
company on the whole was agreeable enough. At the present juncture
Whelpdale's cheery flattery was a distinct assistance; it helped to
support Jasper in his self-confidence, and to keep the brightest
complexion on the prospect to which he had committed himself.

'Whelpdale is anxious to make Marian's acquaintance,' Jasper
said to his sisters one day. 'Shall we have him here tomorrow
evening?'

'Just as you like,' Maud replied.

'You won't object, Dora?'

'Oh no! I rather like Mr Whelpdale.'

'If I were to repeat that to him he'd go wild with delight. But
don't be afraid; I shan't. I'll ask him to come for an hour, and
trust to his discretion not to bore us by staying too long.'

A note was posted to Whelpdale; he was invited to present
himself at eight o'clock, by which time Marian would have arrived.
Jasper's room was to be the scene of the assembly, and punctual to
the minute the literary adviser appeared. He was dressed with all
the finish his wardrobe allowed, and his face beamed with
gratification; it was rapture to him to enter the presence of these
three girls, one of whom he had, more suo, held in romantic
remembrance since his one meeting with her at Jasper's old
lodgings. His eyes melted with tenderness as he approached Dora and
saw her smile of gracious recognition. By Maud he was profoundly
impressed. Marian inspired him with no awe, but he fully
appreciated the charm of her features and her modest gravity. After
all, it was to Dora that his eyes turned again most naturally. He
thought her exquisite, and, rather than be long without a glimpse
of her, he contented himself with fixing his eyes on the hem of her
dress and the boot-toe that occasionally peeped from beneath
it.

As was to be expected in such a circle, conversation soon turned
to the subject of literary struggles.

'I always feel it rather humiliating,' said Jasper, 'that I have
gone through no very serious hardships. It must be so gratifying to
say to young fellows who are just beginning:

"Ah, I remember when I was within an ace of starving to death,"
and then come out with Grub Street reminiscences of the most
appalling kind. Unfortunately, I have always had enough to
eat.'

'I haven't,' exclaimed Whelpdale. 'I have lived for five days on
a few cents' worth of pea-nuts in the States.'

'What are pea-nuts, Mr Whelpdale?' asked Dora.

Delighted with the question, Whelpdale described that
undesirable species of food.

'It was in Troy,' he went on, 'Troy, N.Y. To think that a man
should live on pea-nuts in a town called Troy!'

'Tell us those adventures,' cried Jasper. 'It's a long time
since I heard them, and the girls will enjoy it vastly.'

Dora looked at him with such good-humoured interest that the
traveller needed no further persuasion.

'It came to pass in those days,' he began, 'that I inherited
from my godfather a small, a very small, sum of money. I was making
strenuous efforts to write for magazines, with absolutely no
encouragement. As everybody was talking just then of the Centennial
Exhibition at Philadelphia, I conceived the brilliant idea of
crossing the Atlantic, in the hope that I might find valuable
literary material at the Exhibition—or Exposition, as they called
it—and elsewhere. I won't trouble you with an account of how I
lived whilst I still had money; sufficient that no one would accept
the articles I sent to England, and that at last I got into
perilous straits. I went to New York, and thought of returning
home, but the spirit of adventure was strong in me. "I'll go West,"
I said to myself. "There I am bound to find material." And go I
did, taking an emigrant ticket to Chicago. It was December, and I
should like you to imagine what a journey of a thousand miles by an
emigrant train meant at that season. The cars were deadly cold, and
what with that and the hardness of the seats I found it impossible
to sleep; it reminded me of tortures I had read about; I thought my
brain would have burst with the need of sleeping. At Cleveland, in
Ohio, we had to wait several hours in the night; I left the station
and wandered about till I found myself on the edge of a great cliff
that looked over Lake Erie. A magnificent picture! Brilliant
moonlight, and all the lake away to the horizon frozen and covered
with snow. The clocks struck two as I stood there.'

He was interrupted by the entrance of a servant who brought
coffee.

'Nothing could be more welcome,' cried Dora. 'Mr Whelpdale makes
one feel quite chilly.'

There was laughter and chatting whilst Maud poured out the
beverage. Then Whelpdale pursued his narrative.

'I reached Chicago with not quite five dollars in my pockets,
and, with a courage which I now marvel at, I paid immediately four
dollars and a half for a week's board and lodging. "Well," I said
to myself, "for a week I am safe. If I earn nothing in that time,
at least I shall owe nothing when I have to turn out into the
streets." It was a rather dirty little boarding-house, in Wabash
Avenue, and occupied, as I soon found, almost entirely by actors.
There was no fireplace in my bedroom, and if there had been I
couldn't have afforded a fire. But that mattered little; what I had
to do was to set forth and discover some way of making money. Don't
suppose that I was in a desperate state of mind; how it was, I
don't quite know, but I felt decidedly cheerful. It was pleasant to
be in this new region of the earth, and I went about the town like
a tourist who has abundant resources.'

He sipped his coffee.

'I saw nothing for it but to apply at the office of some
newspaper, and as I happened to light upon the biggest of them
first of all, I put on a bold face, marched in, asked if I could
see the editor. There was no difficulty whatever about this; I was
told to ascend by means of the "elevator" to an upper storey, and
there I walked into a comfortable little room where a youngish man
sat smoking a cigar at a table covered with print and manuscript. I
introduced myself, stated my business. "Can you give me work of any
kind on your paper?" "Well, what experience have you had?" "None
whatever." The editor smiled. "I'm very much afraid you would be no
use to us. But what do you think you could do?" Well now, there was
but one thing that by any possibility I could do. I asked him: "Do
you publish any fiction—short stories?" "Yes, we're always glad of
a short story, if it's good." This was a big daily paper; they have
weekly supplements of all conceivable kinds of matter. "Well," I
said, "if I write a story of English life, will you consider it?"
"With pleasure." I left him, and went out as if my existence were
henceforth provided for.'

He laughed heartily, and was joined by his hearers.

'It was a great thing to be permitted to write a story, but
then—what story? I went down to the shore of Lake Michigan; walked
there for half an hour in an icy wind. Then I looked for a
stationer's shop, and laid out a few of my remaining cents in the
purchase of pen, ink, and paper—my stock of all these things was at
an end when I left New York. Then back to the boarding-house.
Impossible to write in my bedroom, the temperature was below zero;
there was no choice but to sit down in the common room, a place
like the smoke-room of a poor commercial hotel in England. A dozen
men were gathered about the fire, smoking, talking, quarrelling.
Favourable conditions, you see, for literary effort. But the story
had to be written, and write it I did, sitting there at the end of
a deal table; I finished it in less than a couple of days, a good
long story, enough to fill three columns of the huge paper. I stand
amazed at my power of concentration as often as I think of it!'

'And was it accepted?' asked Dora.

'You shall hear. I took my manuscript to the editor, and he told
me to come and see him again next morning. I didn't forget the
appointment. As I entered he smiled in a very promising way, and
said, "I think your story will do. I'll put it into the Saturday
supplement. Call on Saturday morning and I'll remunerate you." How
well I remember that word "remunerate"! I have had an affection for
the word ever since. And remunerate me he did; scribbled something
on a scrap of paper, which I presented to the cashier. The sum was
eighteen dollars. Behold me saved!'

He sipped his coffee again.