New Grub Street (7 page)

'I will, by Jove!' he said within himself at last. 'Just to
prove I have complete command of myself. It's to be a display of
strength, not weakness.'

At the house door he inquired for Mr Alfred Yule. That gentleman
had gone in the carriage to Wattleborough, half an hour ago, with
his brother.

'Miss Yule?'

Yes, she was within. Jasper entered the sitting-room, waited a
few moments, and Marian appeared. She wore a dress in which Milvain
had not yet seen her, and it had the effect of making him regard
her attentively. The smile with which she had come towards him
passed from her face, which was perchance a little warmer of hue
than commonly.

'I'm sorry your father is away, Miss Yule,' Jasper began, in an
animated voice. 'I wanted to say good-bye to him. I return to
London in a few hours.'

'You are going sooner than you intended?'

'Yes, I feel I mustn't waste any more time. I think the country
air is doing you good; you certainly look better than when I passed
you that first day.'

'I feel better, much.'

'My sisters are anxious to see you again. I shouldn't wonder if
they come up this afternoon.'

Marian had seated herself on the sofa, and her hands were linked
upon her lap in the same way as when Jasper spoke with her here
before, the palms downward. The beautiful outline of her bent head
was relieved against a broad strip of sunlight on the wall behind
her.

'They deplore,' he continued in a moment, 'that they should come
to know you only to lose you again so soon.

'I have quite as much reason to be sorry,' she answered, looking
at him with the slightest possible smile. 'But perhaps they will
let me write to them, and hear from them now and then.'

'They would think it an honour. Country girls are not often
invited to correspond with literary ladies in London.'

He said it with as much jocoseness as civility allowed, then at
once rose.

'Father will be very sorry,' Marian began, with one quick glance
towards the window and then another towards the door. 'Perhaps he
might possibly be able to see you before you go?'

Jasper stood in hesitation. There was a look on the girl's face
which, under other circumstances, would have suggested a ready
answer.

'I mean,' she added, hastily, 'he might just call, or even see
you at the station?'

'Oh, I shouldn't like to give Mr Yule any trouble. It's my own
fault, for deciding to go to-day. I shall leave by the 2.45.'

He offered his hand.

'I shall look for your name in the magazines, Miss Yule.'

'Oh, I don't think you will ever find it there.'

He laughed incredulously, shook hands with her a second time,
and strode out of the room, head erect—feeling proud of
himself.

When Dora came home at dinner-time, he informed her of what he
had done.

'A very interesting girl,' he added impartially. 'I advise you
to make a friend of her. Who knows but you may live in London some
day, and then she might be valuable—morally, I mean. For myself, I
shall do my best not to see her again for a long time; she's
dangerous.'

Jasper was unaccompanied when he went to the station. Whilst
waiting on the platform, he suffered from apprehension lest Alfred
Yule's seamed visage should present itself; but no acquaintance
approached him. Safe in the corner of his third-class carriage, he
smiled at the last glimpse of the familiar fields, and began to
think of something he had decided to write for The West End.

Eight flights of stairs, consisting alternately of eight and
nine steps. Amy had made the calculation, and wondered what was the
cause of this arrangement. The ascent was trying, but then no one
could contest the respectability of the abode. In the flat
immediately beneath resided a successful musician, whose carriage
and pair came at a regular hour each afternoon to take him and his
wife for a most respectable drive. In this special building no one
else seemed at present to keep a carriage, but all the tenants were
gentlefolk.

And as to living up at the very top, why, there were distinct
advantages—as so many people of moderate income are nowadays
hastening to discover. The noise from the street was diminished at
this height; no possible tramplers could establish themselves above
your head; the air was bound to be purer than that of inferior
strata; finally, one had the flat roof whereon to sit or expatiate
in sunny weather. True that a gentle rain of soot was wont to
interfere with one's comfort out there in the open, but such
minutiae are easily forgotten in the fervour of domestic
description. It was undeniable that on a fine day one enjoyed
extensive views. The green ridge from Hampstead to Highgate, with
Primrose Hill and the foliage of Regent's Park in the foreground;
the suburban spaces of St John's Wood, Maida Vale, Kilburn;
Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, lying low by the
side of the hidden river, and a glassy gleam on far-off hills which
meant the Crystal Palace; then the clouded majesty of eastern
London, crowned by St Paul's dome. These things one's friends were
expected to admire. Sunset often afforded rich effects, but they
were for solitary musing.

A sitting-room, a bedroom, a kitchen. But the kitchen was called
dining-room, or even parlour at need; for the cooking-range lent
itself to concealment behind an ornamental screen, the walls
displayed pictures and bookcases, and a tiny scullery which lay
apart sufficed for the coarser domestic operations. This was Amy's
territory during the hours when her husband was working, or
endeavouring to work. Of necessity, Edwin Reardon used the front
room as his study. His writing-table stood against the window; each
wall had its shelves of serried literature; vases, busts,
engravings (all of the inexpensive kind) served for ornaments.

A maid-servant, recently emancipated from the Board school, came
at half-past seven each morning, and remained until two o'clock, by
which time the Reardons had dined; on special occasions, her
services were enlisted for later hours. But it was Reardon's habit
to begin the serious work of the day at about three o'clock, and to
continue with brief interruptions until ten or eleven; in many
respects an awkward arrangement, but enforced by the man's
temperament and his poverty.

One evening he sat at his desk with a slip of manuscript paper
before him. It was the hour of sunset. His outlook was upon the
backs of certain large houses skirting Regent's Park, and lights
had begun to show here and there in the windows: in one room a man
was discoverable dressing for dinner, he had not thought it worth
while to lower the blind; in another, some people were playing
billiards. The higher windows reflected a rich glow from the
western sky.

For two or three hours Reardon had been seated in much the same
attitude. Occasionally he dipped his pen into the ink and seemed
about to write: but each time the effort was abortive. At the head
of the paper was inscribed 'Chapter III.,' but that was all.

And now the sky was dusking over; darkness would soon fall.

He looked something older than his years, which were
two-and-thirty; on his face was the pallor of mental suffering.
Often he fell into a fit of absence, and gazed at vacancy with
wide, miserable eyes. Returning to consciousness, he fidgeted
nervously on his chair, dipped his pen for the hundredth time, bent
forward in feverish determination to work. Useless; he scarcely
knew what he wished to put into words, and his brain refused to
construct the simplest sentence.

The colours faded from the sky, and night came quickly. Reardon
threw his arms upon the desk, let his head fall forward, and
remained so, as if asleep.

Presently the door opened, and a young, clear voice made
inquiry:

'Don't you want the lamp, Edwin?'

The man roused himself, turned his chair a little, and looked
towards the open door.

'Come here, Amy.'

His wife approached. It was not quite dark in the room, for a
glimmer came from the opposite houses.

'What's the matter? Can't you do anything?'

'I haven't written a word to-day. At this rate, one goes crazy.
Come and sit by me a minute, dearest.'

'I'll get the lamp.'

'No; come and talk to me; we can understand each other
better.'

'Nonsense; you have such morbid ideas. I can't bear to sit in
the gloom.'

At once she went away, and quickly reappeared with a
reading-lamp, which she placed on the square table in the middle of
the room.

'Draw down the blind, Edwin.'

She was a slender girl, but not very tall; her shoulders seemed
rather broad in proportion to her waist and the part of her figure
below it. The hue of her hair was ruddy gold; loosely arranged
tresses made a superb crown to the beauty of her small, refined
head. Yet the face was not of distinctly feminine type; with short
hair and appropriate clothing, she would have passed unquestioned
as a handsome boy of seventeen, a spirited boy too, and one much in
the habit of giving orders to inferiors. Her nose would have been
perfect but for ever so slight a crook which made it preferable to
view her in full face than in profile; her lips curved sharply out,
and when she straightened them of a sudden, the effect was not
reassuring to anyone who had counted upon her for facile humour. In
harmony with the broad shoulders, she had a strong neck; as she
bore the lamp into the room a slight turn of her head showed
splendid muscles from the ear downward. It was a magnificently
clear-cut bust; one thought, in looking at her, of the
newly-finished head which some honest sculptor has wrought with his
own hand from the marble block; there was a suggestion of 'planes'
and of the chisel. The atmosphere was cold; ruddiness would have
been quite out of place on her cheeks, and a flush must have been
the rarest thing there.

Her age was not quite two-and-twenty; she had been wedded nearly
two years, and had a child ten months old.

As for her dress, it was unpretending in fashion and colour, but
of admirable fit. Every detail of her appearance denoted scrupulous
personal refinement. She walked well; you saw that the foot,
however gently, was firmly planted. When she seated herself her
posture was instantly graceful, and that of one who is indifferent
about support for the back.

'What is the matter?' she began. 'Why can't you get on with the
story?'

It was the tone of friendly remonstrance, not exactly of
affection, not at all of tender solicitude.

Reardon had risen and wished to approach her, but could not do
so directly. He moved to another part of the room, then came round
to the back of her chair, and bent his face upon her shoulder.

'Amy—'

'Well.'

'I think it's all over with me. I don't think I shall write any
more.'

'Don't be so foolish, dear. What is to prevent your
writing?'

'Perhaps I am only out of sorts. But I begin to be horribly
afraid. My will seems to be fatally weakened. I can't see my way to
the end of anything; if I get hold of an idea which seems good, all
the sap has gone out of it before I have got it into working shape.
In these last few months, I must have begun a dozen different
books; I have been ashamed to tell you of each new beginning. I
write twenty pages, perhaps, and then my courage fails. I am
disgusted with the thing, and can't go on with it—can't! My fingers
refuse to hold the pen. In mere writing, I have done enough to make
much more than three volumes; but it's all destroyed.'

'Because of your morbid conscientiousness. There was no need to
destroy what you had written. It was all good enough for the
market.'

'Don't use that word, Amy. I hate it!'

'You can't afford to hate it,' was her rejoinder, in very
practical tones. 'However it was before, you must write for the
market now. You have admitted that yourself.'

He kept silence.

'Where are you?' she went on to ask. 'What have you actually
done?'

'Two short chapters of a story I can't go on with. The three
volumes lie before me like an interminable desert. Impossible to
get through them. The idea is stupidly artificial, and I haven't a
living character in it.'

'The public don't care whether the characters are living or
not.—Don't stand behind me, like that; it's such an awkward way of
talking. Come and sit down.'

He drew away, and came to a position whence he could see her
face, but kept at a distance.

'Yes,' he said, in a different way, 'that's the worst of
it.'

'What is?'

'That you—well, it's no use.'

'That I—what?'

She did not look at him; her lips, after she had spoken, drew in
a little.

'That your disposition towards me is being affected by this
miserable failure. You keep saying to yourself that I am not what
you thought me. Perhaps you even feel that I have been guilty of a
sort of deception. I don't blame you; it's natural enough.'

'I'll tell you quite honestly what I do think,' she replied,
after a short silence. 'You are much weaker than I imagined.
Difficulties crush you, instead of rousing you to struggle.'

'True. It has always been my fault.'

'But don't you feel it's rather unmanly, this state of things?
You say you love me, and I try to believe it. But whilst you are
saying so, you let me get nearer and nearer to miserable, hateful
poverty. What is to become of me—of us? Shall you sit here day
after day until our last shilling is spent?'

'No; of course I must do something.'

'When shall you begin in earnest? In a day or two you must pay
this quarter's rent, and that will leave us just about fifteen
pounds in the world. Where is the rent at Christmas to come
from?

What are we to live upon? There's all sorts of clothing to be
bought; there'll be all the extra expenses of winter. Surely it's
bad enough that we have had to stay here all the summer; no holiday
of any kind. I have done my best not to grumble about it, but I
begin to think that it would be very much wiser if I did
grumble.'