‘You are asking too much,’ he said, with unexpected coldness. ‘If my opinions are so valueless to you that you dismiss them like those of a troublesome child, I wonder you think it worth while to try and keep up appearances about me. It is very simple: make known to everyone that you are in no way connected with the disgrace I have brought upon myself. Put an advertisement in the newspapers to that effect, if you like—as men do about their wives’ debts. I have chosen my part. I can’t stultify myself to please you.’
She knew that this was final. His voice had the true ring of shame in revolt.
‘Then go your way, and I will go mine!’
Amy left the room.
When Reardon went into the bedchamber an hour later, he unfolded a chair-bedstead that stood there, threw some rugs upon it, and so lay down to pass the night. He did not close his eyes. Amy slept for an hour or two before dawn, and on waking she started up and looked anxiously about the room. But neither spoke.
There was a pretence of ordinary breakfast; the little servant necessitated that. When she saw her husband preparing to go out, Amy asked him to come into the study.
‘How long shall you be away?’ she asked, curtly.
‘It is doubtful. I am going to look for rooms.’
‘Then no doubt I shall be gone when you come back. There’s no object, now, in my staying here till to-morrow.’
‘As you please.’
‘Do you wish Lizzie still to come?’
‘No. Please to pay her wages and dismiss her. Here is some money.’
‘I think you had better let me see to that.’
He flung the coin on to the table and opened the door. Amy stepped quickly forward and closed it again.
‘This is our good-bye, is it?’ she asked, her eyes on the ground.
‘As you wish it—yes.’
‘You will remember that I have not wished it.’
‘In that case, you have only to go with me to the new home.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then you have made your choice.’
She did not prevent his opening the door this time, and he passed out without looking at her.
His return was at three in the afternoon. Amy and the child were gone; the servant was gone. The table in the dining-room was spread as if for one person’s meal.
He went into the bedroom. Amy’s trunks had disappeared. The child’s cot was covered over. In the study, he saw that the sovereign he had thrown on to the table still lay in the same place.
As it was a very cold day he lit a fire. Whilst it burnt up he sat reading a torn portion of a newspaper, and became quite interested in the report of a commercial meeting in the City, a thing he would never have glanced at under ordinary circumstances. The fragment fell at length from his hands; his head drooped; he sank into a troubled sleep.
About six he had tea, then began the packing of the few books that were to go with him, and of such other things as could be enclosed in box or portmanteau. After a couple of hours of this occupation he could no longer resist his weariness, so he went to bed. Before falling asleep he heard the two familiar clocks strike eight; this evening they were in unusual accord, and the querulous notes from the workhouse sounded between the deeper ones from St Marylebone. Reardon tried to remember when he had last observed this; the matter seemed to have a peculiar interest for him, and in dreams he worried himself with a grotesque speculation thence derived.
Before her marriage Mrs Edmund Yule was one of seven motherless sisters who constituted the family of a dentist slenderly provided in the matter of income. The pinching and paring which was a chief employment of her energies in those early days had disagreeable effects upon a character disposed rather to generosity than the reverse; during her husband’s lifetime she had enjoyed rather too eagerly all the good things which he put at her command, sometimes forgetting that a wife has duties as well as claims, and in her widowhood she indulged a pretentiousness and querulousness which were the natural, but not amiable, results of suddenly restricted circumstances.
Like the majority of London people, she occupied a house of which the rent absurdly exceeded the due proportion of her income, a pleasant foible turned to such good account by London landlords. Whereas she might have lived with a good deal of modest comfort, her existence was a perpetual effort to conceal the squalid background of what was meant for the eyes of her friends and neighbours. She kept only two servants, who were so ill paid and so relentlessly overworked that it was seldom they remained with her for more than three months. In dealings with other people whom she perforce employed, she was often guilty of incredible meanness; as, for instance, when she obliged her half-starved dressmaker to purchase material for her, and then postponed payment alike for that and for the work itself to the last possible moment. This was not heartlessness in the strict sense of the word; the woman not only knew that her behaviour was shameful, she was in truth ashamed of it and sorry for her victims. But life was a battle. She must either crush or be crushed. With sufficient means, she would have defrauded no one, and would have behaved generously to many; with barely enough for her needs, she set her face and defied her feelings, inasmuch as she believed there was no choice.
She would shed tears over a pitiful story of want, and without shadow of hypocrisy. It was hard, it was cruel; such things oughtn’t to be allowed in a world where there were so many rich people. The next day she would argue with her charwoman about halfpence, and end by paying the poor creature what she knew was inadequate and unjust. For the simplest reason: she hadn’t more to give, without submitting to privations which she considered intolerable.
But whilst she could be a positive hyena to strangers, to those who were akin to her, and those of whom she was fond, her affectionate kindness was remarkable. One observes this peculiarity often enough; it reminds one how savage the social conflict is, in which those little groups of people stand serried against their common enemies; relentless to all others, among themselves only the more tender and zealous because of the ever-impending danger. No mother was ever more devoted. Her son, a gentleman of quite noteworthy selfishness, had board and lodging beneath her roof on nominal terms, and under no stress of pecuniary trouble had Mrs Yule called upon him to make the slightest sacrifice on her behalf. Her daughter she loved with profound tenderness, and had no will that was opposed to Amy’s. And it was characteristic of her that her children were never allowed to understand of what baseness she often became guilty in the determination to support appearances. John Yule naturally suspected what went on behind the scenes; on one occasion—since Amy’s marriage—he had involuntarily overheard a dialogue between his mother and a servant on the point of departing which made even him feel ashamed. But from Amy every paltriness and meanness had always been concealed with the utmost care; Mrs Yule did not scruple to lie heroically when in danger of being detected by her daughter.
Yet this energetic lady had no social ambitions that pointed above her own stratum. She did not aim at intimacy with her superiors; merely at superiority among her intimates. Her circle was not large, but in that circle she must be regarded with the respect due to a woman of refined tastes and personal distinction. Her little dinners might be of rare occurrence, but to be invited must be felt a privilege. ‘Mrs Edmund Yule’ must sound well on people’s lips; never be the occasion of those peculiar smiles which she herself was rather fond of indulging at the mention of other people’s names.
The question of Amy’s marriage had been her constant thought from the time when the little girl shot into a woman grown. For Amy no common match, no acceptance of a husband merely for money or position. Few men who walked the earth were mates for Amy. But years went on, and the man of undeniable distinction did not yet present himself. Suitors offered, but Amy smiled coldly at their addresses, in private not seldom scornfully, and her mother, though growing anxious, approved. Then of a sudden appeared Edwin Reardon.
A literary man? Well, it was one mode of distinction. Happily, a novelist; novelists now and then had considerable social success.
Mr Reardon, it was true, did not impress one as a man likely to push forward where the battle called for rude vigour, but Amy soon assured herself that he would have a reputation far other than that of the average successful storyteller. The best people would regard him; he would be welcomed in the penetralia of culture; superior persons would say: ‘Oh, I don’t read novels as a rule, but of course Mr Reardon’s—’ If that really were to be the case, all was well; for Mrs Yule could appreciate social and intellectual differences.
Alas! alas! What was the end of those shining anticipations?
First of all, Mrs Yule began to make less frequent mention of ‘my son-in-law, Mr Edwin Reardon.’ Next, she never uttered his name save when inquiries necessitated it. Then, the most intimate of her intimates received little hints which were not quite easy to interpret. ‘Mr Reardon is growing so very eccentric—has an odd distaste for society—occupies himself with all sorts of out-of-the-way interests. No, I’m afraid we shan’t have another of his novels for some time. I think he writes anonymously a good deal. And really, such curious eccentricities!’ Many were the tears she wept after her depressing colloquies with Amy; and, as was to be expected, she thought severely of the cause of these sorrows. On the last occasion when he came to her house she received him with such extreme civility that Reardon thenceforth disliked her, whereas before he had only thought her a good-natured and silly woman.
Alas for Amy’s marriage with a man of distinction! From step to step of descent, till here was downright catastrophe. Bitter enough in itself, but most lamentable with reference to the friends of the family. How was it to be explained, this return of Amy to her home for several months, whilst her husband was no further away than Worthing? The bald, horrible truth—impossible! Yet Mr Milvain knew it, and the Carters must guess it. What colour could be thrown upon such vulgar distress?
The worst was not yet. It declared itself this May morning, when, quite unexpectedly, a cab drove up to the house, bringing Amy and her child, and her trunks, and her band-boxes, and her what-nots.
From the dining-room window Mrs Yule was aware of this arrival, and in a few moments she learnt the unspeakable cause.
She burst into tears, genuine as ever woman shed.
‘There’s no use in that, mother,’ said Amy, whose temper was in a dangerous state. ‘Nothing worse can happen, that’s one consolation.’
‘Oh, it’s disgraceful! disgraceful!’ sobbed Mrs Yule. ‘What we are to say I can NOT think.’
‘I shall say nothing whatever. People can scarcely have the impertinence to ask us questions when we have shown that they are unwelcome.’
‘But there are some people I can’t help giving some explanation to. My dear child, he is not in his right mind. I’m convinced of it, there! He is not in his right mind.’
‘That’s nonsense, mother. He is as sane as I am.’
‘But you have often said what strange things he says and does; you know you have, Amy. That talking in his sleep; I’ve thought a great deal of it since you told me about that. And—and so many other things. My love, I shall give it to be understood that he has become so very odd in his ways that—’
‘I can’t have that,’ replied Amy with decision. ‘Don’t you see that in that case I should be behaving very badly?’
‘I can’t see that at all. There are many reasons, as you know very well, why one shouldn’t live with a husband who is at all suspected of mental derangement. You have done your utmost for him. And this would be some sort of explanation, you know. I am so convinced that there is truth in it, too.’
‘Of course I can’t prevent you from saying what you like, but I think it would be very wrong to start a rumour of this kind.’
There was less resolve in this utterance. Amy mused, and looked wretched.
‘Come up to the drawing-room, dear,’ said her mother, for they had held their conversation in the room nearest to the house-door. ‘What a state your mind must be in! Oh dear! Oh dear!’
She was a slender, well-proportioned woman, still pretty in face, and dressed in a way that emphasised her abiding charms. Her voice had something of plaintiveness, and altogether she was of frailer type than her daughter.
‘Is my room ready?’ Amy inquired on the stairs.
‘I’m sorry to say it isn’t, dear, as I didn’t expect you till tomorrow. But it shall be seen to immediately.’
This addition to the household was destined to cause grave difficulties with the domestic slaves. But Mrs Yule would prove equal to the occasion. On Amy’s behalf she would have worked her servants till they perished of exhaustion before her eyes.
‘Use my room for the present,’ she added. ‘I think the girl has finished up there. But wait here; I’ll just go and see to things.’
‘Things’ were not quite satisfactory, as it proved. You should have heard the change that came in that sweetly plaintive voice when it addressed the luckless housemaid. It was not brutal; not at all. But so sharp, hard, unrelenting—the voice of the goddess Poverty herself perhaps sounds like that.
Mad? Was he to be spoken of in a low voice, and with finger pointing to the forehead? There was something ridiculous, as well as repugnant, in such a thought; but it kept possession of Amy’s mind. She was brooding upon it when her mother came into the drawing-room.
‘And he positively refused to carry out the former plan?’
‘Refused. Said it was useless.’
‘How could it be useless? There’s something so unaccountable in his behaviour.’
‘I don’t think it unaccountable,’ replied Amy. ‘It’s weak and selfish, that’s all. He takes the first miserable employment that offers rather than face the hard work of writing another book.’
She was quite aware that this did not truly represent her husband’s position. But an uneasiness of conscience impelled her to harsh speech.
‘But just fancy!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘What can he mean by asking you to go and live with him on twenty-five shillings a week? Upon my word. if his mind isn’t disordered he must have made a deliberate plan to get rid of you.’
Amy shook her head.
‘You mean,’ asked Mrs Yule, ‘that he really thinks it possible for all of you to be supported on those wages?’
The last word was chosen to express the utmost scorn.
‘He talked of earning fifty pounds a year by writing.’
‘Even then it could only make about a hundred a year. My dear child, it’s one of two things: either he is out of his mind, or he has purposely cast you off.’
Amy laughed, thinking of her husband in the light of the latter alternative.
‘There’s no need to seek so far for explanations,’ she said. ‘He has failed, that’s all; just like a man might fail in any other business. He can’t write like he used to. It may be all the result of ill-health; I don’t know. His last book, you see, is positively refused. He has made up his mind that there’s nothing but poverty before him, and he can’t understand why I should object to live like the wife of a working-man.’
‘Well, I only know that he has placed you in an exceedingly difficult position. If he had gone away to Worthing for the summer we might have made it seem natural; people are always ready to allow literary men to do rather odd things—up to a certain point. We should have behaved as if there were nothing that called for explanation. But what are we to do now?’
Like her multitudinous kind, Mrs Yule lived only in the opinions of other people. What others would say was her ceaseless preoccupation. She had never conceived of life as something proper to the individual; independence in the directing of one’s course seemed to her only possible in the case of very eccentric persons, or of such as were altogether out of society. Amy had advanced, intellectually, far beyond this standpoint, but lack of courage disabled her from acting upon her convictions.
‘People must know the truth, I suppose,’ she answered dispiritedly.
Now, confession of the truth was the last thing that would occur to Mrs Yule when social relations were concerned. Her whole existence was based on bold denial of actualities. And, as is natural in such persons, she had the ostrich instinct strongly developed; though very acute in the discovery of her friends’ shams and lies, she deceived herself ludicrously in the matter of concealing her own embarrassments.
‘But the fact is, my dear,’ she answered, ‘we don’t know the truth ourselves. You had better let yourself be directed by me. It will be better, at first, if you see as few people as possible. I suppose you must say something or other to two or three of your own friends; if you take my advice you’ll be rather mysterious. Let them think what they like; anything is better than to say plainly. “My husband can’t support me, and he has gone to work as a clerk for weekly wages.” Be mysterious, darling; depend upon it, that’s the safest.’
The conversation was pursued, with brief intervals, all through the day. In the afternoon two ladies paid a call, but Amy kept out of sight. Between six and seven John Yule returned from his gentlemanly occupations. As he was generally in a touchy temper before dinner had soothed him, nothing was said to him of the latest development of his sister’s affairs until late in the evening; he was allowed to suppose that Reardon’s departure for the seaside had taken place a day sooner than had been arranged.
Behind the dining-room was a comfortable little chamber set apart as John’s sanctum; here he smoked and entertained his male friends, and contemplated the portraits of those female ones who would not have been altogether at their ease in Mrs Yule’s drawing-room. Not long after dinner his mother and sister came to talk with him in this retreat.
With some nervousness Mrs Yule made known to him what had taken place. Amy, the while, stood by the table, and glanced over a magazine that she had picked up.
‘Well, I see nothing to be surprised at,’ was John’s first remark. ‘It was pretty certain he’d come to this. But what I want to know is, how long are we to be at the expense of supporting Amy and her youngster?’
This was practical, and just what Mrs Yule had expected from her son.
‘We can’t consider such things as that,’ she replied. ‘You don’t wish, I suppose, that Amy should go and live in a back street at Islington, and be hungry every other day, and soon have no decent clothes?’
‘I don’t think Jack would be greatly distressed,’ Amy put in quietly.
‘This is a woman’s way of talking,’ replied John. ‘I want to know what is to be the end of it all? I’ve no doubt it’s uncommonly pleasant for Reardon to shift his responsibilities on to our shoulders. At this rate I think I shall get married, and live beyond my means until I can hold out no longer, and then hand my wife over to her relatives, with my compliments. It’s about the coolest business that ever came under my notice.’
‘But what is to be done?’ asked Mrs Yule. ‘It’s no use talking sarcastically, John, or making yourself disagreeable.’
‘We are not called upon to find a way out of the difficulty. The fact of the matter is, Reardon must get a decent berth. Somebody or other must pitch him into the kind of place that suits men who can do nothing in particular. Carter ought to be able to help, I should think.’
‘You know very well,’ said Amy, ‘that places of that kind are not to be had for the asking. It may be years before any such opportunity offers.’
‘Confound the fellow! Why the deuce doesn’t he go on with his novel-writing? There’s plenty of money to be made out of novels.’
‘But he can’t write, Jack. He has lost his talent.’
‘That’s all bosh, Amy. If a fellow has once got into the swing of it he can keep it up if he likes. He might write his two novels a year easily enough, just like twenty other men and women. Look here, I could do it myself if I weren’t too lazy. And that’s what’s the matter with Reardon. He doesn’t care to work.’
‘I have thought that myself;’ observed Mrs Yule. ‘It really is too ridiculous to say that he couldn’t write some kind of novels if he chose. Look at Miss Blunt’s last book; why, anybody could have written that. I’m sure there isn’t a thing in it I couldn’t have imagined myself.’
‘Well, all I want to know is, what’s Amy going to do if things don’t alter?’
‘She shall never want a home as long as I have one to share with her.’
John’s natural procedure, when beset by difficulties, was to find fault with everyone all round, himself maintaining a position of irresponsibility.
‘It’s all very well, mother, but when a girl gets married she takes her husband, I have always understood, for better or worse, just as a man takes his wife. To tell the truth, it seems to me Amy has put herself in the wrong. It’s deuced unpleasant to go and live in back streets, and to go without dinner now and then, but girls mustn’t marry if they’re afraid to face these things.’
‘Don’t talk so monstrously, John!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘How could Amy possibly foresee such things? The case is quite an extraordinary one.’
‘Not so uncommon, I assure you. Some one was telling me the other day of a married lady—well educated and blameless—who goes to work at a shop somewhere or other because her husband can’t support her.’
‘And you wish to see Amy working in a shop?’
‘No, I can’t say I do. I’m only telling you that her bad luck isn’t unexampled. It’s very fortunate for her that she has good-natured relatives.’
Amy had taken a seat apart. She sat with her head leaning on her hand.
‘Why don’t you go and see Reardon?’ John asked of his mother.
‘What would be the use? Perhaps he would tell me to mind my own business.’
‘By jingo! precisely what you would be doing. I think you ought to see him and give him to understand that he’s behaving in a confoundedly ungentlemanly way. Evidently he’s the kind of fellow that wants stirring up. I’ve half a mind to go and see him myself. Where is this slum that he’s gone to live in?’
‘We don’t know his address yet.’
‘So long as it’s not the kind of place where one would be afraid of catching a fever, I think it wouldn’t be amiss for me to look him up.’
‘You’ll do no good by that,’ said Amy, indifferently.
‘Confound it! It’s just because nobody does anything that things have come to this pass!’
The conversation was, of course, profitless. John could only return again and again to his assertion that Reardon must get ‘a decent berth.’ At length Amy left the room in weariness and disgust.
‘I suppose they have quarrelled terrifically,’ said her brother, as soon as she was gone.
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Well, you must do as you please. But it’s confounded hard lines that you should have to keep her and the kid. You know I can’t afford to contribute.’
‘My dear, I haven’t asked you to.’
‘No, but you’ll have the devil’s own job to make ends meet; I know that well enough.’
‘I shall manage somehow.’
‘All right; you’re a plucky woman, but it’s too bad. Reardon’s a humbug, that’s my opinion. I shall have a talk with Carter about him. I suppose he has transferred all their furniture to the slum?’
‘He can’t have removed yet. It was only this morning that he went to search for lodgings.’
‘Oh, then I tell you what it is: I shall look in there the first thing to-morrow morning, and just talk to him in a fatherly way. You needn’t say anything to Amy. But I see he’s just the kind of fellow that, if everyone leaves him alone, he’ll be content with Carter’s five-and-twenty shillings for the rest of his life, and never trouble his head about how Amy is living.’
To this proposal Mrs Yule readily assented. On going upstairs she found that Amy had all but fallen asleep upon a settee in the drawing-room.
‘You are quite worn out with your troubles,’ she said. ‘Go to bed, and have a good long sleep.’
‘Yes, I will.’
The neat, fresh bedchamber seemed to Amy a delightful haven of rest. She turned the key in the door with an enjoyment of the privacy thus secured such as she had never known in her life; for in maidenhood safe solitude was a matter of course to her, and since marriage she had not passed a night alone. Willie was fast asleep in a little bed shadowed by her own. In an impulse of maternal love and gladness she bent over the child and covered his face with kisses too gentle to awaken him.
How clean and sweet everything was! It is often said, by people who are exquisitely ignorant of the matter, that cleanliness is a luxury within reach even of the poorest. Very far from that; only with the utmost difficulty, with wearisome exertion, with harassing sacrifice, can people who are pinched for money preserve a moderate purity in their persons and their surroundings. By painful degrees Amy had accustomed herself to compromises in this particular which in the early days of her married life would have seemed intensely disagreeable, if not revolting. A housewife who lives in the country, and has but a patch of back garden, or even a good-sized kitchen, can, if she thinks fit, take her place at the wash-tub and relieve her mind on laundry matters; but to the inhabitant of a miniature flat in the heart of London anything of that kind is out of the question.
When Amy began to cut down her laundress’s bill, she did it with a sense of degradation. One grows accustomed, however, to such unpleasant necessities, and already she had learnt what was the minimum of expenditure for one who is troubled with a lady’s instincts.
No, no; cleanliness is a costly thing, and a troublesome thing when appliances and means have to be improvised. It was, in part, the understanding she had gained of this side of the life of poverty that made Amy shrink in dread from the still narrower lodgings to which Reardon invited her. She knew how subtly one’s self-respect can be undermined by sordid conditions. The difference between the life of well-to-do educated people and that of the uneducated poor is not greater in visible details than in the minutiae of privacy, and Amy must have submitted to an extraordinary change before it would have been possible for her to live at ease in the circumstances which satisfy a decent working-class woman. She was prepared for final parting from her husband rather than try to effect that change in herself.
She undressed at leisure, and stretched her limbs in the cold, soft, fragrant bed. A sigh of profound relief escaped her. How good it was to be alone!
And in a quarter of an hour she was sleeping as peacefully as the child who shared her room.
At breakfast in the morning she showed a bright, almost a happy face. It was long, long since she had enjoyed such a night’s rest, so undisturbed with unwelcome thoughts on the threshold of sleep and on awaking. Her life was perhaps wrecked, but the thought of that did not press upon her; for the present she must enjoy her freedom. It was like a recovery of girlhood. There are few married women who would not, sooner or later, accept with joy the offer of some months of a maidenly liberty. Amy would not allow herself to think that her wedded life was at an end. With a woman’s strange faculty of closing her eyes against facts that do not immediately concern her, she tasted the relief of the present and let the future lie unregarded. Reardon would get out of his difficulties sooner or later; somebody or other would help him; that was the dim background of her agreeable sensations.
He suffered, no doubt. But then it was just as well that he should. Suffering would perhaps impel him to effort. When he communicated to her his new address—he could scarcely neglect to do that—she would send a not unfriendly letter, and hint to him that now was his opportunity for writing a book, as good a book as those which formerly issued from his garret-solitude. If he found that literature was in truth a thing of the past with him, then he must exert himself to obtain a position worthy of an educated man. Yes, in this way she would write to him, without a word that could hurt or offend.
She ate an excellent breakfast, and made known her enjoyment of it.
‘I am so glad!’ replied her mother. ‘You have been getting quite thin and pale.’
‘Quite consumptive,’ remarked John, looking up from his newspaper. ‘Shall I make arrangements for a daily landau at the livery stables round here?’
‘You can if you like,’ replied his sister; ‘it would do both mother and me good, and I have no doubt you could afford it quite well.’
‘Oh, indeed! You’re a remarkable young woman, let me tell you. By-the-bye, I suppose your husband is breakfasting on bread and water?’
‘I hope not, and I don’t think it very likely.’
‘Jack, Jack!’ interposed Mrs Yule, softly.
Her son resumed his paper, and at the end of the meal rose with an unwonted briskness to make his preparations for departure.
Nor would it be true to represent Edwin Reardon as rising to the new day wholly disconsolate. He too had slept unusually well, and with returning consciousness the sense of a burden removed was more instant than that of his loss and all the dreary circumstances attaching to it. He had no longer to fear the effects upon Amy of such a grievous change as from their homelike flat to the couple of rooms he had taken in Islington; for the moment, this relief helped him to bear the pain of all that had happened and the uneasiness which troubled him when he reflected that his wife was henceforth a charge to her mother.
Of course for the moment only. He had no sooner begun to move about, to prepare his breakfast (amid the relics of last evening’s meal), to think of all the detestable work he had to do before to-morrow night, than his heart sank again. His position was well-nigh as dolorous as that of any man who awoke that morning to the brutal realities of life. If only for the shame of it! How must they be speaking of him, Amy’s relatives, and her friends? A novelist who couldn’t write novels; a husband who couldn’t support his wife and child; a literate who made eager application for illiterate work at paltry wages—how interesting it would all sound in humorous gossip! And what hope had he that things would ever be better with him?
Had he done well? Had he done wisely? Would it not have been better to have made that one last effort? There came before him a vision of quiet nooks beneath the Sussex cliffs, of the long lines of green breakers bursting into foam; he heard the wave-music, and tasted the briny freshness of the sea-breeze. Inspiration, after all, would perchance have come to him.
If Amy’s love had but been of more enduring quality; if she had strengthened him for this last endeavour with the brave tenderness of an ideal wife! But he had seen such hateful things in her eyes. Her love was dead, and she regarded him as the man who had spoilt her hopes of happiness. It was only for her own sake that she urged him to strive on; let his be the toil, that hers might be the advantage if he succeeded.
‘She would be glad if I were dead. She would be glad.’
He had the conviction of it. Oh yes, she would shed tears; they come so easily to women. But to have him dead and out of her way; to be saved from her anomalous position; to see once more a chance in life; she would welcome it.
But there was no time for brooding. To-day he had to sell all the things that were superfluous, and to make arrangements for the removal of his effects to-morrow. By Wednesday night, in accordance with his agreement, the flat must be free for the new occupier.
He had taken only two rooms, and fortunately as things were. Three would have cost more than he was likely to be able to afford for a long time. The rent of the two was to be six-and-sixpence; and how, if Amy had consented to come, could he have met the expenses of their living out of his weekly twenty-five shillings? How could he have pretended to do literary work in such cramped quarters, he who had never been able to write a line save in strict seclusion? In his despair he had faced the impossible. Amy had shown more wisdom, though in a spirit of unkindness.
Towards ten o’clock he was leaving the flat to go and find people who would purchase his books and old clothing and other superfluities; but before he could close the door behind him, an approaching step on the stairs caught his attention. He saw the shining silk hat of a well-equipped gentleman. It was John Yule.
‘Ha! Good-morning!’ John exclaimed, looking up. ‘A minute or two and I should have been too late, I see.’
He spoke in quite a friendly way, and, on reaching the landing, shook hands.
‘Are you obliged to go at once? Or could I have a word with you?’
‘Come in.’
They entered the study, which was in some disorder; Reardon made no reference to circumstances, but offered a chair, and seated himself.
‘Have a cigarette?’ said Yule, holding out a box of them.
‘No, thank you; I don’t smoke so early.’
‘Then I’ll light one myself; it always makes talk easier to me. You’re on the point of moving, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I am.’
Reardon tried to speak in quite a simple way, with no admission of embarrassment. He was not successful, and to his visitor the tone seemed rather offensive.
‘I suppose you’ll let Amy know your new address?’
‘Certainly. Why should I conceal it?’
‘No, no; I didn’t mean to suggest that. But you might be taking it for granted that—that the rupture was final, I thought.’
There had never been any intimacy between these two men. Reardon regarded his wife’s brother as rather snobbish and disagreeably selfish; John Yule looked upon the novelist as a prig, and now of late as a shuffling, untrustworthy fellow. It appeared to John that his brother-in-law was assuming a manner wholly unjustifiable, and he had a difficulty in behaving to him with courtesy. Reardon, on the other hand, felt injured by the turn his visitor’s remarks were taking, and began to resent the visit altogether.
‘I take nothing for granted,’ he said coldly. ‘But I’m afraid nothing is to be gained by a discussion of our difficulties. The time for that is over.
‘I can’t quite see that. It seems to me that the time has just come.’
‘Please tell me, to begin with, do you come on Amy’s behalf?’
‘In a way, yes. She hasn’t sent me, but my mother and I are so astonished at what is happening that it was necessary for one or other of us to see you.’
‘I think it is all between Amy and myself.’
‘Difficulties between husband and wife are generally best left to the people themselves, I know. But the fact is, there are peculiar circumstances in the present case. It can’t be necessary for me to explain further.’
Reardon could find no suitable words of reply. He understood what Yule referred to, and began to feel the full extent of his humiliation.
‘You mean, of course—’ he began; but his tongue failed him.
‘Well, we should really like to know how long it is proposed that Amy shall remain with her mother.’
John was perfectly self-possessed; it took much to disturb his equanimity. He smoked his cigarette, which was in an amber mouthpiece, and seemed to enjoy its flavour. Reardon found himself observing the perfection of the young man’s boots and trousers.
‘That depends entirely on my wife herself;’ he replied mechanically.
‘How so?’
‘I offer her the best home I can.’
Reardon felt himself a poor, pitiful creature, and hated the well-dressed man who made him feel so.
‘But really, Reardon,’ began the other, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, ‘do you tell me in seriousness that you expect Amy to live in such lodgings as you can afford on a pound a week?’
‘I don’t. I said that I had offered her the best home I could. I know it’s impossible, of course.’
Either he must speak thus, or break into senseless wrath. It was hard to hold back the angry words that were on his lips, but he succeeded, and he was glad he had done so.
‘Then it doesn’t depend on Amy,’ said John.
‘I suppose not.’
‘You see no reason, then, why she shouldn’t live as at present for an indefinite time?’
To John, whose perspicacity was not remarkable, Reardon’s changed tone conveyed simply an impression of bland impudence. He eyed his brother-in-law rather haughtily.
‘I can only say,’ returned the other, who was become wearily indifferent, ‘that as soon as I can afford a decent home I shall give my wife the opportunity of returning to me.’
‘But, pray, when is that likely to be?’
John had passed the bounds; his manner was too frankly contemptuous.
‘I see no right you have to examine me in this fashion,’ Reardon exclaimed. ‘With Mrs Yule I should have done my best to be patient if she had asked these questions; but you are not justified in putting them, at all events not in this way.’
‘I’m very sorry you speak like this, Reardon,’ said the other, with calm insolence. ‘It confirms unpleasant ideas, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why, one can’t help thinking that you are rather too much at your ease under the circumstances. It isn’t exactly an everyday thing, you know, for a man’s wife to be sent back to her own people—’
Reardon could not endure the sound of these words. He interrupted hotly.
‘I can’t discuss it with you. You are utterly unable to comprehend me and my position, utterly! It would be useless to defend myself. You must take whatever view seems to you the natural one.’
John, having finished his cigarette, rose.
‘The natural view is an uncommonly disagreeable one,’ he said. ‘However, I have no intention of quarrelling with you. I’ll only just say that, as I take a share in the expenses of my mother’s house, this question decidedly concerns me; and I’ll add that I think it ought to concern you a good deal more than it seems to.’
Reardon, ashamed already of his violence, paused upon these remarks.
‘It shall,’ he uttered at length, coldly. ‘You have put it clearly enough to me, and you shan’t have spoken in vain. Is there anything else you wish to say?’
‘Thank you; I think not.’
They parted with distant civility, and Reardon closed the door behind his visitor.
He knew that his character was seen through a distorting medium by Amy’s relatives, to some extent by Amy herself; but hitherto the reflection that this must always be the case when a man of his kind is judged by people of the world had strengthened him in defiance. An endeavour to explain himself would be maddeningly hopeless; even Amy did not understand aright the troubles through which his intellectual and moral nature was passing, and to speak of such experiences to Mrs Yule or to John would be equivalent to addressing them in alien tongues; he and they had no common criterion by reference to which he could make himself intelligible. The practical tone in which John had explained the opposing view of the situation made it impossible for him to proceed as he had purposed. Amy would never come to him in his poor lodgings; her mother, her brother, all her advisers would regard such a thing as out of the question. Very well; recognising this, he must also recognise his wife’s claim upon him for material support. It was not in his power to supply her with means sufficient to live upon, but what he could afford she should have.
When he went out, it was with a different purpose from that of half an hour ago. After a short search in the direction of Edgware Road, he found a dealer in second-hand furniture, whom he requested to come as soon as possible to the flat on a matter of business. An hour later the man kept his appointment. Having brought him into the study, Reardon said:
‘I wish to sell everything in this flat, with a few exceptions that I’ll point out to you’.
‘Very good, sir,’ was the reply. ‘Let’s have a look through the rooms.’
That the price offered would be strictly a minimum Reardon knew well enough. The dealer was a rough and rather dirty fellow, with the distrustful glance which distinguishes his class. Men of Reardon’s type, when hapless enough to be forced into vulgar commerce, are doubly at a disadvantage; not only their ignorance, but their sensitiveness, makes them ready victims of even the least subtle man of business. To deal on equal terms with a person you must be able to assert with calm confidence that you are not to be cheated; Reardon was too well aware that he would certainly be cheated, and shrank scornfully from the higgling of the market. Moreover, he was in a half-frenzied state of mind, and cared for little but to be done with the hateful details of this process of ruin.
He pencilled a list of the articles he must retain for his own use; it would of course be cheaper to take a bare room than furnished lodgings, and every penny he could save was of importance to him. The chair-bedstead, with necessary linen and blankets, a table, two chairs, a looking-glass—strictly the indispensable things; no need to complete the list. Then there were a few valuable wedding-presents, which belonged rather to Amy than to him; these he would get packed and send to Westbourne Park.
The dealer made his calculation, with many side-glances at the vendor.
‘And what may you ask for the lot?’
‘Please to make an offer.’
‘Most of the things has had a good deal of wear—’
‘I know, I know. Just let me hear what you will give.’
‘Well, if you want a valuation, I say eighteen pound ten.’
It was more than Reardon had expected, though much less than a man who understood such affairs would have obtained.
‘That’s the most you can give?’
‘Wouldn’t pay me to give a sixpence more. You see—’
He began to point out defects, but Reardon cut him short.
‘Can you take them away at once?’
‘At wunst? Would two o’clock do?’
‘Yes, it would.’
‘And might you want these other things takin’ anywheres?’
‘Yes, but not till to-morrow. They have to go to Islington. What would you do it for?’
This bargain also was completed, and the dealer went his way. Thereupon Reardon set to work to dispose of his books; by half-past one he had sold them for a couple of guineas. At two came the cart that was to take away the furniture, and at four o’clock nothing remained in the flat save what had to be removed on the morrow.
The next thing to be done was to go to Islington, forfeit a week’s rent for the two rooms he had taken, and find a single room at the lowest possible cost. On the way, he entered an eating-house and satisfied his hunger, for he had had nothing since breakfast. It took him a couple of hours to discover the ideal garret; it was found at length in a narrow little by-way running out of Upper Street. The rent was half-a-crown a week.
At seven o’clock he sat down in what once was called his study, and wrote the following letter:
‘Enclosed in this envelope you will find twenty pounds. I have been reminded that your relatives will be at the expense of your support; it seemed best to me to sell the furniture, and now I send you all the money I can spare at present. You will receive to-morrow a box containing several things I did not feel justified in selling. As soon as I begin to have my payment from Carter, half of it shall be sent to you every week. My address is: 5 Manville Street, Upper Street, Islington.—EDWIN REARDON.’
He enclosed the money, in notes and gold, and addressed the envelope to his wife. She must receive it this very night, and he knew not how to ensure that save by delivering it himself. So he went to Westbourne Park by train, and walked to Mrs Yule’s house.
At this hour the family were probably at dinner; yes, the window of the dining-room showed lights within, whilst those of the drawing-room were in shadow. After a little hesitation he rang the servants’ bell. When the door opened, he handed his letter to the girl, and requested that it might be given to Mrs Reardon as soon as possible. With one more hasty glance at the window—Amy was perhaps enjoying her unwonted comfort—he walked quickly away.
As he re-entered what had been his home, its bareness made his heart sink. An hour or two had sufficed for this devastation; nothing remained upon the uncarpeted floors but the needments he would carry with him into the wilderness, such few evidences of civilisation as the poorest cannot well dispense with. Anger, revolt, a sense of outraged love—all manner of confused passions had sustained him throughout this day of toil; now he had leisure to know how faint he was. He threw himself upon his chair-bedstead, and lay for more than an hour in torpor of body and mind.
But before he could sleep he must eat. Though it was cold, he could not exert himself to light a fire; there was some food still in the cupboard, and he consumed it in the fashion of a tired labourer, with the plate on his lap, using his fingers and a knife. What had he to do with delicacies?
He felt utterly alone in the world. Unless it were Biffen, what mortal would give him kindly welcome under any roof? These stripped rooms were symbolical of his life; losing money, he had lost everything. ‘Be thankful that you exist, that these morsels of food are still granted you. Man has a right to nothing in this world that he cannot pay for. Did you imagine that love was an exception? Foolish idealist! Love is one of the first things to be frightened away by poverty. Go and live upon your twelve-and-sixpence a week, and on your memories of the past.’
In this room he had sat with Amy on their return from the wedding holiday. ‘Shall you always love me as you do now?’—‘For ever! for ever!’—‘Even if I disappointed you? If I failed?’—‘How could that affect my love?’ The voices seemed to be lingering still, in a sad, faint echo, so short a time it was since those words were uttered.
His own fault. A man has no business to fail; least of all can he expect others to have time to look back upon him or pity him if he sink under the stress of conflict. Those behind will trample over his body; they can’t help it; they themselves are borne onwards by resistless pressure.
He slept for a few hours, then lay watching the light of dawn as it revealed his desolation.
The morning’s post brought him a large heavy envelope, the aspect of which for a moment puzzled him. But he recognised the handwriting, and understood. The editor of The Wayside, in a pleasantly-written note, begged to return the paper on Pliny’s Letters which had recently been submitted to him; he was sorry it did not strike him as quite so interesting as the other contributions from Reardon’s pen.
This was a trifle. For the first time he received a rejected piece of writing without distress; he even laughed at the artistic completeness of the situation. The money would have been welcome, but on that very account he might have known it would not come.
The cart that was to transfer his property to the room in Islington arrived about mid-day. By that time he had dismissed the last details of business in relation to the flat, and was free to go back to the obscure world whence he had risen. He felt that for two years and a half he had been a pretender. It was not natural to him to live in the manner of people who enjoy an assured income; he belonged to the class of casual wage-earners. Back to obscurity!
Carrying a bag which contained a few things best kept in his own care, he went by train to King’s Cross, and thence walked up Pentonville Hill to Upper Street and his own little by-way. Manville Street was not unreasonably squalid; the house in which he had found a home was not alarming in its appearance, and the woman who kept it had an honest face. Amy would have shrunk in apprehension, but to one who had experience of London garrets this was a rather favourable specimen of its kind. The door closed more satisfactorily than poor Biffen’s, for instance, and there were not many of those knot-holes in the floor which gave admission to piercing little draughts; not a pane of the window was cracked, not one. A man might live here comfortably—could memory be destroyed.
‘There’s a letter come for you,’ said the landlady as she admitted him. ‘You’ll find it on your mantel.’
He ascended hastily. The letter must be from Amy, as no one else knew his address. Yes, and its contents were these:
‘As you have really sold the furniture, I shall accept half this money that you send. I must buy clothing for myself and Willie. But the other ten pounds I shall return to you as soon as possible. As for your offer of half what you are to receive from Mr Carter, that seems to me ridiculous; in any case, I cannot take it. If you seriously abandon all further hope from literature, I think it is your duty to make every effort to obtain a position suitable to a man of your education.—AMY REARDON.’
Doubtless Amy thought it was her duty to write in this way. Not a word of sympathy; he must understand that no one was to blame but himself; and that her hardships were equal to his own.
In the bag he had brought with him there were writing materials. Standing at the mantelpiece, he forthwith penned a reply to this letter:
‘The money is for your support, as far as it will go. If it comes back to me I shall send it again. If you refuse to make use of it, you will have the kindness to put it aside and consider it as belonging to Willie. The other money of which I spoke will be sent to you once a month. As our concerns are no longer between us alone, I must protect myself against anyone who would be likely to accuse me of not giving you what I could afford. For your advice I thank you, but remember that in withdrawing from me your affection you have lost all right to offer me counsel.’
He went out and posted this at once.
By three o’clock the furniture of his room was arranged. He had not kept a carpet; that was luxury, and beyond his due. His score of volumes must rank upon the mantelpiece; his clothing must be kept in the trunk. Cups, plates, knives, forks, and spoons would lie in the little open cupboard, the lowest section of which was for his supply of coals. When everything was in order he drew water from a tap on the landing and washed himself; then, with his bag, went out to make purchases. A loaf of bread, butter, sugar, condensed milk; a remnant of tea he had brought with him. On returning, he lit as small a fire as possible, put on his kettle, and sat down to meditate.
How familiar it all was to him! And not unpleasant, for it brought back the days when he had worked to such good purpose. It was like a restoration of youth.
Of Amy he would not think. Knowing his bitter misery, she could write to him in cold, hard words, without a touch even of womanly feeling. If ever they were to meet again, the advance must be from her side. He had no more tenderness for her until she strove to revive it.
Next morning he called at the hospital to see Carter. The secretary’s peculiar look and smile seemed to betray a knowledge of what had been going on since Sunday, and his first words confirmed this impression of Reardon’s.
‘You have removed, I hear?’
‘Yes; I had better give you my new address.’
Reardon’s tone was meant to signify that further remark on the subject would be unwelcome. Musingly, Carter made a note of the address.
‘You still wish to go on with this affair?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Come and have some lunch with me, then, and afterwards we’ll go to the City Road and talk things over on the spot.’
The vivacious young man was not quite so genial as of wont, but he evidently strove to show that the renewal of their relations as employer and clerk would make no difference in the friendly intercourse which had since been established; the invitation to lunch evidently had this purpose.
‘I suppose,’ said Carter, when they were seated in a restaurant, ‘you wouldn’t object to anything better, if a chance turned up?’
‘I should take it, to be sure.’
‘But you don’t want a job that would occupy all your time? You’re going on with writing, of course?’
‘Not for the present, I think.’
‘Then you would like me to keep a look-out? I haven’t anything in view—nothing whatever. But one hears of things sometimes.’
‘I should be obliged to you if you could help me to anything satisfactory.’
Having brought himself to this admission, Reardon felt more at ease. To what purpose should he keep up transparent pretences? It was manifestly his duty to earn as much money as he could, in whatever way. Let the man of letters be forgotten; he was seeking for remunerative employment, just as if he had never written a line.
Amy did not return the ten pounds, and did not write again. So, presumably, she would accept the moiety of his earnings; he was glad of it. After paying half-a-crown for rent, there would be left ten shillings. Something like three pounds that still remained to him he would not reckon; this must be for casualties.
Half-a-sovereign was enough for his needs; in the old times he had counted it a competency which put his mind quite at rest.
The day came, and he entered upon his duties in City Road. It needed but an hour or two, and all the intervening time was cancelled; he was back once more in the days of no reputation, a harmless clerk, a decent wage-earner.