New Grub Street (62 page)

'What else can you expect?'

'And did you propose to release her from the burden of her
engagement?' Maud inquired.

'It's a confounded pity that you're not rich, Maud,' replied her
brother with an involuntary laugh. 'You would have a brilliant
reputation for wit.'

He walked about and ejaculated splenetic phrases on the subject
of his ill-luck.

'We are here, and here we must stay,' was the final expression
of his mood. 'I have only one superstition that I know of and that
forbids me to take a step backward. If I went into poorer lodgings
again I should feel it was inviting defeat. I shall stay as long as
the position is tenable. Let us get on to Christmas, and then see
how things look. Heavens! Suppose we had married, and after that
lost the money!'

'You would have been no worse off than plenty of literary men,'
said Dora.

'Perhaps not. But as I have made up my mind to be considerably
better off than most literary men that reflection wouldn't console
me much. Things are in statu quo, that's all. I have to rely upon
my own efforts. What's the time? Half-past ten; I can get two
hours' work before going to bed.'

And nodding a good-night he left them.

When Marian entered the house and went upstairs, she was
followed by her mother. On Mrs Yule's countenance there was a new
distress, she had been crying recently.

'Have you seen him?' the mother asked.

'Yes. We have talked about it.'

'What does he wish you to do, dear?'

'There's nothing to be done except wait.'

'Father has been telling me something, Marian,' said Mrs Yule
after a long silence. 'He says he is going to be blind. There's
something the matter with his eyes, and he went to see someone
about it this afternoon. He'll get worse and worse, until there has
been an operation; and perhaps he'll never be able to use his eyes
properly again.'

The girl listened in an attitude of despair.

'He has seen an oculist?—a really good doctor?'

'He says he went to one of the best.'

'And how did he speak to you?'

'He doesn't seem to care much what happens. He talked of going
to the workhouse, and things like that. But it couldn't ever come
to that, could it, Marian? Wouldn't somebody help him?'

'There's not much help to be expected in this world,' answered
the girl.

Physical weariness brought her a few hours of oblivion as soon
as she had lain down, but her sleep came to an end in the early
morning, when the pressure of evil dreams forced her back to
consciousness of real sorrows and cares. A fog-veiled sky added its
weight to crush her spirit; at the hour when she usually rose it
was still all but as dark as midnight. Her mother's voice at the
door begged her to lie and rest until it grew lighter, and she
willingly complied, feeling indeed scarcely capable of leaving her
bed.

The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It
could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low-spirited
languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by
suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the
soul. Her face colourless as the pillow, Marian lay neither
sleeping nor awake, in blank extremity of woe; tears now and then
ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was shaken with a throe
such as might result from anguish of the torture chamber.

Midway in the morning, when it was still necessary to use
artificial light, she went down to the sitting-room. The course of
household life had been thrown into confusion by the disasters of
the last day or two; Mrs Yule, who occupied herself almost
exclusively with questions of economy, cleanliness, and routine,
had not the heart to pursue her round of duties, and this morning,
though under normal circumstances she would have been busy in
'turning out' the dining-room, she moved aimlessly and despondently
about the house, giving the servant contradictory orders and then
blaming herself for her absent-mindedness. In the troubles of her
husband and her daughter she had scarcely greater share—so far as
active participation went—than if she had been only a faithful old
housekeeper; she could only grieve and lament that such discord had
come between the two whom she loved, and that in herself was no
power even to solace their distresses. Marian found her standing in
the passage, with a duster in one hand and a hearth-brush in the
other.

'Your father has asked to see you when you come down,' Mrs Yule
whispered.

'I'll go to him.'

Marian entered the study. Her father was not in his place at the
writing-table, nor yet seated in the chair which he used when he
had leisure to draw up to the fireside; he sat in front of one of
the bookcases, bent forward as if seeking a volume, but his chin
was propped upon his hand, and he had maintained this position for
a long time. He did not immediately move. When he raised his head
Marian saw that he looked older, and she noticed—or fancied she
did—that there was some unfamiliar peculiarity about his eyes.

'I am obliged to you for coming,' he began with distant
formality. 'Since I saw you last I have learnt something which
makes a change in my position and prospects, and it is necessary to
speak on the subject. I won't detain you more than a few
minutes.'

He coughed, and seemed to consider his next words.

'Perhaps I needn't repeat what I have told your mother. You have
learnt it from her, I dare say.'

'Yes, with much grief.'

'Thank you, but we will leave aside that aspect of the matter.
For a few more months I may be able to pursue my ordinary work, but
before long I shall certainly be disabled from earning my
livelihood by literature. Whether this will in any way affect your
own position I don't know. Will you have the goodness to tell me
whether you still purpose leaving this house?'

'I have no means of doing so.'

'Is there any likelihood of your marriage taking place, let us
say, within four months?'

'Only if the executors recover my money, or a large portion of
it.'

'I understand. My reason for asking is this. My lease of this
house terminates at the end of next March, and I shall certainly
not be justified in renewing it. If you are able to provide for
yourself in any way it will be sufficient for me to rent two rooms
after that. This disease which affects my eyes may be only
temporary; in due time an operation may render it possible for me
to work again. In hope of that I shall probably have to borrow a
sum of money on the security of my life insurance, though in the
first instance I shall make the most of what I can get for the
furniture of the house and a large part of my library; your mother
and I could live at very slight expense in lodgings. If the disease
prove irremediable, I must prepare myself for the worst. What I
wish to say is, that it will be better if from to-day you consider
yourself as working for your own subsistence. So long as I remain
here this house is of course your home; there can be no question
between us of trivial expenses. But it is right that you should
understand what my prospects are. I shall soon have no home to
offer you; you must look to your own efforts for support.'

'I am prepared to do that, father.'

'I think you will have no great difficulty in earning enough for
yourself. I have done my best to train you in writing for the
periodicals, and your natural abilities are considerable. If you
marry, I wish you a happy life. The end of mine, of many long years
of unremitting toil, is failure and destitution.'

Marian sobbed.

'That's all I had to say,' concluded her father, his voice
tremulous with self-compassion. 'I will only beg that there may be
no further profitless discussion between us. This room is open to
you, as always, and I see no reason why we should not converse on
subjects disconnected with our personal differences.'

'Is there no remedy for cataract in its early stages?' asked
Marian.

'None. You can read up the subject for yourself at the British
Museum. I prefer not to speak of it.'

'Will you let me be what help to you I can?'

'For the present the best you can do is to establish a
connection for yourself with editors. Your name will be an
assistance to you. My advice is, that you send your "Harrington"
article forthwith to Trenchard, writing him a note. If you desire
my help in the suggestion of new subjects, I will do my best to be
of use.'

Marian withdrew. She went to the sitting-room, where an ochreous
daylight was beginning to diffuse itself and to render the lamp
superfluous. With the dissipation of the fog rain had set in; its
splashing upon the muddy pavement was audible.

Mrs Yule, still with a duster in her hand, sat on the sofa.
Marian took a place beside her. They talked in low, broken tones,
and wept together over their miseries.

The chances are that you have neither understanding nor sympathy
for men such as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. They merely
provoke you. They seem to you inert, flabby, weakly envious,
foolishly obstinate, impiously mutinous, and many other things. You
are made angrily contemptuous by their failure to get on; why don't
they bestir themselves, push and bustle, welcome kicks so long as
halfpence follow, make place in the world's eye—in short, take a
leaf from the book of Mr Jasper Milvain?

But try to imagine a personality wholly unfitted for the rough
and tumble of the world's labour-market. From the familiar point of
view these men were worthless; view them in possible relation to a
humane order of Society, and they are admirable citizens. Nothing
is easier than to condemn a type of character which is unequal to
the coarse demands of life as it suits the average man. These two
were richly endowed with the kindly and the imaginative virtues; if
fate threw them amid incongruous circumstances, is their endowment
of less value? You scorn their passivity; but it was their nature
and their merit to be passive.

Gifted with independent means, each of them would have taken
quite a different aspect in your eyes. The sum of their faults was
their inability to earn money; but, indeed, that inability does not
call for unmingled disdain.

It was very weak of Harold Biffen to come so near perishing of
hunger as he did in the days when he was completing his novel. But
he would have vastly preferred to eat and be satisfied had any
method of obtaining food presented itself to him. He did not starve
for the pleasure of the thing, I assure you. Pupils were difficult
to get just now, and writing that he had sent to magazines had
returned upon his hands. He pawned such of his possessions as he
could spare, and he reduced his meals to the minimum. Nor was he
uncheerful in his cold garret and with his empty stomach, for 'Mr
Bailey, Grocer,' drew steadily to an end.

He worked very slowly. The book would make perhaps two volumes
of ordinary novel size, but he had laboured over it for many
months, patiently, affectionately, scrupulously. Each sentence was
as good as he could make it, harmonious to the ear, with words of
precious meaning skilfully set. Before sitting down to a chapter he
planned it minutely in his mind; then he wrote a rough draft of it;
then he elaborated the thing phrase by phrase. He had no thought of
whether such toil would be recompensed in coin of the realm; nay,
it was his conviction that, if with difficulty published, it could
scarcely bring him money. The work must be significant, that was
all he cared for. And he had no society of admiring friends to
encourage him. Reardon understood the merit of the workmanship, but
frankly owned that the book was repulsive to him. To the public it
would be worse than repulsive—tedious, utterly uninteresting. No
matter; it drew to its end.

The day of its completion was made memorable by an event
decidedly more exciting, even to the author.

At eight o'clock in the evening there remained half a page to be
written. Biffen had already worked about nine hours, and on
breaking off to appease his hunger he doubted whether to finish
to-night or to postpone the last lines till tomorrow. The discovery
that only a small crust of bread lay in the cupboard decided him to
write no more; he would have to go out to purchase a loaf and that
was disturbance.

But stay; had he enough money? He searched his pockets. Two
pence and two farthings; no more.

You are probably not aware that at bakers' shops in the poor
quarters the price of the half-quartern loaf varies sometimes from
week to week. At present, as Biffen knew, it was twopence
three-farthings, a common figure. But Harold did not possess three
farthings, only two. Reflecting, he remembered to have passed
yesterday a shop where the bread was marked twopence halfpenny; it
was a shop in a very obscure little street off Hampstead Road, some
distance from Clipstone Street. Thither he must repair. He had only
his hat and a muffler to put on, for again he was wearing his
overcoat in default of the under one, and his ragged umbrella to
take from the corner; so he went forth.

To his delight the twopence halfpenny announcement was still in
the baker's window. He obtained a loaf wrapped it in the piece of
paper he had brought—small bakers decline to supply paper for this
purpose—and strode joyously homeward again.

Having eaten, he looked longingly at his manuscript. But half a
page more. Should he not finish it to-night? The temptation was
irresistible. He sat down, wrought with unusual speed, and at
half-past ten wrote with magnificent flourish 'The End.'

His fire was out and he had neither coals nor wood. But his feet
were frozen into lifelessness. Impossible to go to bed like this;
he must take another turn in the streets. It would suit his humour
to ramble a while. Had it not been so late he would have gone to
see Reardon, who expected the communication of this glorious
news.