‘Nothing could be better,’ said Amy in colloquy with her husband. ‘If he will pay for the extra time, we shall be only too glad.’
Reardon mused and looked gloomy. He could not bring himself to regard the experiment before him with hopefulness, and his heart sank at the thought of parting from Amy.
‘You are very anxious to get rid of me,’ he answered, trying to smile.
‘Yes, I am,’ she exclaimed; ‘but simply for your own good, as you know very well.’
‘Suppose I can’t sell this book?’
‘You will have a few pounds. Send your “Pliny” article to The Wayside. If you come to an end of all your money, mother shall lend you some.’
‘I am not very likely to do much work in that case.’
‘Oh, but you will sell the book. You’ll get twenty pounds for it, and that alone would keep you for three months. Think—three months of the best part of the year at the seaside! Oh, you will do wonders!’
The furniture was to be housed at Mrs Yule’s. Neither of them durst speak of selling it; that would have sounded too ominous. As for the locality of Reardon’s retreat, Amy herself had suggested Worthing, which she knew from a visit a few years ago; the advantages were its proximity to London, and the likelihood that very cheap lodgings could be found either in the town or near it. One room would suffice for the hapless author, and his expenses, beyond a trifling rent, would be confined to mere food.
Oh yes, he might manage on considerably less than a pound a week.
Amy was in much better spirits than for a long time; she appeared to have convinced herself that there was no doubt of the issue of this perilous scheme; that her husband would write a notable book, receive a satisfactory price for it, and so re-establish their home. Yet her moods varied greatly. After all, there was delay in the letting of the flat, and this caused her annoyance. It was whilst the negotiations were still pending that she made her call upon Maud and Dora Milvain; Reardon did not know of her intention to visit them until it had been carried out. She mentioned what she had done in almost a casual manner.
‘I had to get it over,’ she said, when Reardon exhibited surprise, ‘and I don’t think I made a very favourable impression.’
‘You told them, I suppose, what we are going to do?’
‘No; I didn’t say a word of it.’
‘But why not? It can’t be kept a secret. Milvain will have heard of it already, I should think, from your mother.’
‘From mother? But it’s the rarest thing for him to go there. Do you imagine he is a constant visitor? I thought it better to say nothing until the thing is actually done. Who knows what may happen?’
She was in a strange, nervous state, and Reardon regarded her uneasily. He talked very little in these days, and passed hours in dark reverie. His book was finished, and he awaited the publisher’s decision.
One of Reardon’s minor worries at this time was the fear that by chance he might come upon a review of ‘Margaret Home.’ Since the publication of his first book he had avoided as far as possible all knowledge of what the critics had to say about him; his nervous temperament could not bear the agitation of reading these remarks, which, however inept, define an author and his work to so many people incapable of judging for themselves. No man or woman could tell him anything in the way of praise or blame which he did not already know quite well; commendation was pleasant, but it so often aimed amiss, and censure was for the most part so unintelligent. In the case of this latest novel he dreaded the sight of a review as he would have done a gash from a rusty knife. The judgments could not but be damnatory, and their expression in journalistic phrase would disturb his mind with evil rancour. No one would have insight enough to appreciate the nature and cause of his book’s demerits; every comment would be wide of the mark; sneer, ridicule, trite objection, would but madden him with a sense of injustice.
His position was illogical—one result of the moral weakness which was allied with his aesthetic sensibility. Putting aside the worthlessness of current reviewing, the critic of an isolated book has of course nothing to do with its author’s state of mind and body any more than with the condition of his purse. Reardon would have granted this, but he could not command his emotions. He was in passionate revolt against the base necessities which compelled him to put forth work in no way representing his healthy powers, his artistic criterion. Not he had written this book, but his accursed poverty. To assail him as the author was, in his feeling, to be guilty of brutal insult. When by ill-hap a notice in one of the daily papers came under his eyes, it made his blood boil with a fierceness of hatred only possible to him in a profoundly morbid condition; he could not steady his hand for half an hour after. Yet this particular critic only said what was quite true—that the novel contained not a single striking scene and not one living character; Reardon had expressed himself about it in almost identical terms. But he saw himself in the position of one sickly and all but destitute man against a relentless world, and every blow directed against him appeared dastardly. He could have cried ‘Coward!’ to the writer who wounded him.
The would-be sensational story which was now in Mr Jedwood’s hands had perhaps more merit than ‘Margaret Home’; its brevity, and the fact that nothing more was aimed at than a concatenation of brisk events, made it not unreadable. But Reardon thought of it with humiliation. If it were published as his next work it would afford final proof to such sympathetic readers as he might still retain that he had hopelessly written himself out, and was now endeavouring to adapt himself to an inferior public. In spite of his dire necessities he now and then hoped that Jedwood might refuse the thing.
At moments he looked with sanguine eagerness to the three or four months he was about to spend in retirement, but such impulses were the mere outcome of his nervous disease. He had no faith in himself under present conditions; the permanence of his sufferings would mean the sure destruction of powers he still possessed, though they were not at his command. Yet he believed that his mind was made up as to the advisability of trying this last resource; he was impatient for the day of departure, and in the interval merely killed time as best he might. He could not read, and did not attempt to gather ideas for his next book; the delusion that his mind was resting made an excuse to him for the barrenness of day after day. His ‘Pliny’ article had been despatched to The Wayside, and would possibly be accepted. But he did not trouble himself about this or other details; it was as though his mind could do nothing more than grasp the bald fact of impending destitution; with the steps towards that final stage he seemed to have little concern.
One evening he set forth to make a call upon Harold Biffen, whom he had not seen since the realist called to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of ‘Margaret Home’ left at his lodgings when he was out. Biffen resided in Clipstone Street, a thoroughfare discoverable in the dim district which lies between Portland Place and Tottenham Court Road. On knocking at the door of the lodging-house, Reardon learnt that his friend was at home. He ascended to the third storey and tapped at a door which allowed rays of lamplight to issue from great gaps above and below. A sound of voices came from within, and on entering he perceived that Biffen was engaged with a pupil.
‘They didn’t tell me you had a visitor,’ he said. ‘I’ll call again later.’
‘No need to go away,’ replied Biffen, coming forward to shake hands. ‘Take a book for a few minutes. Mr Baker won’t mind.’
It was a very small room, with a ceiling so low that the tall lodger could only just stand upright with safety; perhaps three inches intervened between his head and the plaster, which was cracked, grimy, cobwebby. A small scrap of weedy carpet lay in front of the fireplace; elsewhere the chinky boards were unconcealed. The furniture consisted of a round table, which kept such imperfect balance on its central support that the lamp entrusted to it looked in a dangerous position, of three small cane-bottomed chairs, a small wash-hand-stand with sundry rude appurtenances, and a chair-bedstead which the tenant opened at the hour of repose and spread with certain primitive trappings at present kept in a cupboard. There was no bookcase, but a few hundred battered volumes were arranged some on the floor and some on a rough chest. The weather was too characteristic of an English spring to make an empty grate agreeable to the eye, but Biffen held it an axiom that fires were unseasonable after the first of May.
The individual referred to as Mr Baker, who sat at the table in the attitude of a student, was a robust, hard-featured, black-haired young man of two-or three-and-twenty; judging from his weather-beaten cheeks and huge hands, as well as from the garb he wore, one would have presumed that study was not his normal occupation. There was something of the riverside about him; he might be a dockman, or even a bargeman. He looked intelligent, however, and bore himself with much modesty.
‘Now do endeavour to write in shorter sentences,’ said Biffen, who sat down by him and resumed the lesson, Reardon having taken up a volume. ‘This isn’t bad—it isn’t bad at all, I assure you; but you have put all you had to say into three appalling periods, whereas you ought to have made about a dozen.’
‘There it is, sir; there it is!’ exclaimed the man, smoothing his wiry hair. ‘I can’t break it up. The thoughts come in a lump, if I may say so. To break it up—there’s the art of compersition.’
Reardon could not refrain from a glance at the speaker, and Biffen, whose manner was very grave and kindly, turned to his friend with an explanation of the difficulties with which the student was struggling.
‘Mr Baker is preparing for the examination of the outdoor Customs Department. One of the subjects is English composition, and really, you know, that isn’t quite such a simple matter as some people think.’
Baker beamed upon the visitor with a homely, good-natured smile.
‘I can make headway with the other things, sir,’ he said, striking the table lightly with his clenched fist. ‘There’s handwriting, there’s orthography, there’s arithmetic; I’m not afraid of one of ‘em, as Mr Biffen’ll tell you, sir. But when it comes to compersition, that brings out the sweat on my forehead, I do assure you.
‘You’re not the only man in that case, Mr Baker,’ replied Reardon.
‘It’s thought a tough job in general, is it, sir?’
‘It is indeed.’
‘Two hundred marks for compersition,’ continued the man. ‘Now how many would they have given me for this bit of a try, Mr Biffen?’
‘Well, well; I can’t exactly say. But you improve; you improve, decidedly. Peg away for another week or two.’
‘Oh, don’t fear me, sir! I’m not easily beaten when I’ve set my mind on a thing, and I’ll break up the compersition yet, see if I don’t!’
Again his fist descended upon the table in a way that reminded one of the steam-hammer cracking a nut.
The lesson proceeded for about ten minutes, Reardon, under pretence of reading, following it with as much amusement as anything could excite in him nowadays. At length Mr Baker stood up, collected his papers and books, and seemed about to depart; but, after certain uneasy movements and glances, he said to Biffen in a subdued voice:
‘Perhaps I might speak to you outside the door a minute, sir?’
He and the teacher went out, the door closed, and Reardon heard sounds of muffled conversation. In a minute or two a heavy footstep descended the stairs, and Biffen re-entered the room.
‘Now that’s a good, honest fellow,’ he said, in an amused tone. ‘It’s my pay-night, but he didn’t like to fork out money before you. A very unusual delicacy in a man of that standing. He pays me sixpence for an hour’s lesson; that brings me two shillings a week. I sometimes feel a little ashamed to take his money, but then the fact is he’s a good deal better off than I am.’
‘Will he get a place in the Customs, do you think?’
‘Oh, I’ve no doubt of it. If it seemed unlikely, I should have told him so before this. To be sure, that’s a point I have often to consider, and once or twice my delicacy has asserted itself at the expense of my pocket. There was a poor consumptive lad came to me not long ago and wanted Latin lessons; talked about going in for the London Matric., on his way to the pulpit. I couldn’t stand it. After a lesson or two I told him his cough was too bad, and he had no right to study until he got into better health; that was better, I think, than saying plainly he had no chance on earth. But the food I bought with his money was choking me. Oh yes, Baker will make his way right enough. A good, modest fellow.
You noticed how respectfully he spoke to me? It doesn’t make any difference to him that I live in a garret like this; I’m a man of education, and he can separate this fact from my surroundings.’
‘Biffen, why don’t you get some decent position? Surely you might.’
‘What position? No school would take me; I have neither credentials nor conventional clothing. For the same reason I couldn’t get a private tutorship in a rich family. No, no; it’s all right. I keep myself alive, and I get on with my work.—By-the-bye, I’ve decided to write a book called “Mr Bailey, Grocer.”’
‘What’s the idea?’
‘An objectionable word, that. Better say: “What’s the reality?” Well, Mr Bailey is a grocer in a little street by here. I have dealt with him for a long time, and as he’s a talkative fellow I’ve come to know a good deal about him and his history. He’s fond of talking about the struggle he had in his first year of business. He had no money of his own, but he married a woman who had saved forty-five pounds out of a cat’s-meat business. You should see that woman! A big, coarse, squinting creature; at the time of the marriage she was a widow and forty-two years old. Now I’m going to tell the true story of Mr Bailey’s marriage and of his progress as a grocer. It’ll be a great book—a great book!’
He walked up and down the room, fervid with his conception.
‘There’ll be nothing bestial in it, you know. The decently ignoble—as I’ve so often said. The thing’ll take me a year at least. I shall do it slowly, lovingly. One volume, of course; the length of the ordinary French novel. There’s something fine in the title, don’t you think? “Mr Bailey, Grocer”!’
‘I envy you, old fellow,’ said Reardon, sighing. ‘You have the right fire in you; you have zeal and energy. Well, what do you think I have decided to do?’
‘I should like to hear.’
Reardon gave an account of his project. The other listened gravely, seated across a chair with his arms on the back.
‘Your wife is in agreement with this?’
‘Oh yes.’ He could not bring himself to say that Amy had suggested it. ‘She has great hopes that the change will be just what I need.’
‘I should say so too—if you were going to rest. But if you have to set to work at once it seems to me very doubtful.’
‘Never mind. For Heaven’s sake don’t discourage me! If this fails I think—upon my soul, I think I shall kill myself.’
‘Pooh!’ exclaimed Biffen, gently. ‘With a wife like yours?’
‘Just because of that.’
‘No, no; there’ll be some way out of it. By-the-bye, I passed Mrs Reardon this morning, but she didn’t see me. It was in Tottenham Court Road, and Milvain was with her. I felt myself too seedy in appearance to stop and speak.’
‘In Tottenham Court Road?’
That was not the detail of the story which chiefly held Reardon’s attention, yet he did not purposely make a misleading remark. His mind involuntarily played this trick.
‘I only saw them just as they were passing,’ pursued Biffen. ‘Oh, I knew I had something to tell you! Have you heard that Whelpdale is going to be married?’
Reardon shook his head in a preoccupied way.
‘I had a note from him this morning, telling me. He asked me to look him up to-night, and he’d let me know all about it. Let’s go together, shall we?’
‘I don’t feel much in the humour for Whelpdale. I’ll walk with you, and go on home.’
‘No, no; come and see him. It’ll do you good to talk a little.—But I must positively eat a mouthful before we go. I’m afraid you won’t care to join?’
He opened his cupboard, and brought out a loaf of bread and a saucer of dripping, with salt and pepper.
‘Better dripping this than I’ve had for a long time. I get it at Mr Bailey’s—that isn’t his real name, of course. He assures me it comes from a large hotel where his wife’s sister is a kitchen-maid, and that it’s perfectly pure; they very often mix flour with it, you know, and perhaps more obnoxious things that an economical man doesn’t care to reflect upon. Now, with a little pepper and salt, this bread and dripping is as appetising food as I know. I often make a dinner of it.’
‘I have done the same myself before now. Do you ever buy pease-pudding?’
‘I should think so! I get magnificent pennyworths at a shop in Cleveland Street, of a very rich quality indeed. Excellent faggots they have there, too. I’ll give you a supper of them some night before you go.’
Biffen rose to enthusiasm in the contemplation of these dainties.
He ate his bread and dripping with knife and fork; this always made the fare seem more substantial.
‘Is it very cold out?’ he asked, rising from the table. ‘Need I put my overcoat on?’
This overcoat, purchased second-hand three years ago, hung on a door-nail. Comparative ease of circumstances had restored to the realist his ordinary indoor garment—a morning coat of the cloth called diagonal, rather large for him, but in better preservation than the other articles of his attire.
Reardon judging the overcoat necessary, his friend carefully brushed it and drew it on with a caution which probably had reference to starting seams. Then he put into the pocket his pipe, his pouch, his tobacco-stopper, and his matches, murmuring to himself a Greek iambic line which had come into his head a propos of nothing obvious.
‘Go out,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll extinguish the lamp. Mind the second step down, as usual.’
They issued into Clipstone Street, turned northward, crossed Euston Road, and came into Albany Street, where, in a house of decent exterior, Mr Whelpdale had his present abode. A girl who opened the door requested them to walk up to the topmost storey.
A cheery voice called to them from within the room at which they knocked. This lodging spoke more distinctly of civilisation than that inhabited by Biffen; it contained the minimum supply of furniture needed to give it somewhat the appearance of a study, but the articles were in good condition. One end of the room was concealed by a chintz curtain; scrutiny would have discovered behind the draping the essential equipments of a bedchamber.
Mr Whelpdale sat by the fire, smoking a cigar. He was a plain-featured but graceful and refined-looking man of thirty, with wavy chestnut hair and a trimmed beard which became him well. At present he wore a dressing-gown and was without collar.
‘Welcome, gents both!’ he cried facetiously. ‘Ages since I saw you, Reardon. I’ve been reading your new book. Uncommonly good things in it here and there—uncommonly good.’
Whelpdale had the weakness of being unable to tell a disagreeable truth, and a tendency to flattery which had always made Reardon rather uncomfortable in his society. Though there was no need whatever of his mentioning ‘Margaret Home,’ he preferred to frame smooth fictions rather than keep a silence which might be construed as unfavourable criticism.
‘In the last volume,’ he went on, ‘I think there are one or two things as good as you ever did; I do indeed.’
Reardon made no acknowledgment of these remarks. They irritated him, for he knew their insincerity. Biffen, understanding his friend’s silence, struck in on another subject.
‘Who is this lady of whom you write to me?’
‘Ah, quite a story! I’m going to be married, Reardon. A serious marriage. Light your pipes, and I’ll tell you all about it. Startled you, I suppose, Biffen? Unlikely news, eh? Some people would call it a rash step, I dare say. We shall just take another room in this house, that’s all. I think I can count upon an income of a couple of guineas a week, and I have plans without end that are pretty sure to bring in coin.’
Reardon did not care to smoke, but Biffen lit his pipe and waited with grave interest for the romantic narrative. Whenever he heard of a poor man’s persuading a woman to share his poverty he was eager of details; perchance he himself might yet have that heavenly good fortune.
‘Well,’ began Whelpdale, crossing his legs and watching a wreath he had just puffed from the cigar, ‘you know all about my literary advisership. The business goes on reasonably well. I’m going to extend it in ways I’ll explain to you presently. About six weeks ago I received a letter from a lady who referred to my advertisements, and said she had the manuscript of a novel which she would like to offer for my opinion. Two publishers had refused it, but one with complimentary phrases, and she hoped it mightn’t be impossible to put the thing into acceptable shape. Of course I wrote optimistically, and the manuscript was sent to me.
Well, it wasn’t actually bad—by Jove! you should have seen some of the things I have been asked to recommend to publishers! It wasn’t hopelessly bad by any means, and I gave serious thought to it. After exchange of several letters I asked the authoress to come and see me, that we might save postage stamps and talk things over. She hadn’t given me her address: I had to direct to a stationer’s in Bayswater. She agreed to come, and did come. I had formed a sort of idea, but of course I was quite wrong. Imagine my excitement when there came in a very beautiful girl, a tremendously interesting girl, about one-and-twenty—just the kind of girl that most strongly appeals to me; dark, pale, rather consumptive-looking, slender—no, there’s no describing her; there really isn’t! You must wait till you see her.’
‘I hope the consumption was only a figure of speech,’ remarked Biffen in his grave way.
‘Oh, there’s nothing serious the matter, I think. A slight cough, poor girl.’
‘The deuce!’ interjected Reardon.
‘Oh, nothing, nothing! It’ll be all right. Well, now, of course we talked over the story—in good earnest, you know. Little by little I induced her to speak of herself—this, after she’d come two or three times—and she told me lamentable things. She was absolutely alone in London, and hadn’t had sufficient food for weeks; had sold all she could of her clothing; and so on. Her home was in Birmingham; she had been driven away by the brutality of a stepmother; a friend lent her a few pounds, and she came to London with an unfinished novel. Well, you know, this kind of thing would be enough to make me soft-hearted to any girl, let alone one who, to begin with, was absolutely my ideal. When she began to express a fear that I was giving too much time to her, that she wouldn’t be able to pay my fees, and so on, I could restrain myself no longer. On the spot I asked her to marry me. I didn’t practise any deception, mind. I told her I was a poor devil who had failed as a realistic novelist and was earning bread in haphazard ways; and I explained frankly that I thought we might carry on various kinds of business together: she might go on with her novel-writing, and—so on. But she was frightened; I had been too abrupt. That’s a fault of mine, you know; but I was so confoundedly afraid of losing her. And I told her as much, plainly.’
Biffen smiled.
‘This would be exciting,’ he said, ‘if we didn’t know the end of the story.’
‘Yes. Pity I didn’t keep it a secret. Well, she wouldn’t say yes, but I could see that she didn’t absolutely say no. “In any case,” I said, “you’ll let me see you often? Fees be hanged! I’ll work day and night for you. I’ll do my utmost to get your novel accepted.” And I implored her to let me lend her a little money. It was very difficult to persuade her, but at last she accepted a few shillings. I could see in her face that she was hungry. Just imagine! A beautiful girl absolutely hungry; it drove me frantic!
But that was a great point gained. After that we saw each other almost every day, and at last—she consented! Did indeed! I can hardly believe it yet. We shall be married in a fortnight’s time.’
‘I congratulate you,’ said Reardon.
‘So do I,’ sighed Biffen.
‘The day before yesterday she went to Birmingham to see her father and tell him all about the affair. I agreed with her it was as well; the old fellow isn’t badly off; and he may forgive her for running away, though he’s under his wife’s thumb, it appears. I had a note yesterday. She had gone to a friend’s house for the first day. I hoped to have heard again this morning—must to-morrow, in any case. I live, as you may imagine, in wild excitement. Of course, if the old man stumps up a wedding present, all the better. But I don’t care; we’ll make a living somehow. What do you think I’m writing just now? An author’s Guide. You know the kind of thing; they sell splendidly. Of course I shall make it a good advertisement of my business. Then I have a splendid idea. I’m going to advertise: “Novel-writing taught in ten lessons!” What do you think of that? No swindle; not a bit of it. I am quite capable of giving the ordinary man or woman ten very useful lessons. I’ve been working out the scheme; it would amuse you vastly, Reardon. The first lesson deals with the question of subjects, local colour—that kind of thing. I gravely advise people, if they possibly can, to write of the wealthy middle class; that’s the popular subject, you know. Lords and ladies are all very well, but the real thing to take is a story about people who have no titles, but live in good Philistine style. I urge study of horsey matters especially; that’s very important. You must be well up, too, in military grades, know about Sandhurst, and so on. Boating is an important topic. You see? Oh, I shall make a great thing of this. I shall teach my wife carefully, and then let her advertise lessons to girls; they’ll prefer coming to a woman, you know.’
Biffen leant back and laughed noisily.
‘How much shall you charge for the course?’ asked Reardon.
‘That’ll depend. I shan’t refuse a guinea or two; but some people may be made to pay five, perhaps.’
Someone knocked at the door, and a voice said:
‘A letter for you, Mr Whelpdale.’
He started up, and came back into the room with face illuminated.
‘Yes, it’s from Birmingham; posted this morning. Look what an exquisite hand she writes!’
He tore open the envelope. In delicacy Reardon and Biffen averted their eyes. There was silence for a minute, then a strange ejaculation from Whelpdale caused his friends to look up at him. He had gone pale, and was frowning at the sheet of paper which trembled in his hand.
‘No bad news, I hope?’ Biffen ventured to say.
Whelpdale let himself sink into a chair.
‘Now if this isn’t too bad!’ he exclaimed in a thick voice. ‘If this isn’t monstrously unkind! I never heard anything so gross as this—never!’
The two waited, trying not to smile.
‘She writes—that she has met an old lover—in Birmingham—that it was with him she had quarrelled-not with her father at all—that she ran away to annoy him and frighten him—that she has made it up again, and they’re going to be married!’
He let the sheet fall, and looked so utterly woebegone that his friends at once exerted themselves to offer such consolation as the case admitted of. Reardon thought better of Whelpdale for this emotion; he had not believed him capable of it.
‘It isn’t a case of vulgar cheating!’ cried the forsaken one presently. ‘Don’t go away thinking that. She writes in real distress and penitence—she does indeed. Oh, the devil! Why did I let her go to Birmingham? A fortnight more, and I should have had her safe. But it’s just like my luck. Do you know that this is the third time I’ve been engaged to be married?—no, by Jove, the fourth! And every time the girl has got out of it at the last moment. What an unlucky beast I am! A girl who was positively my ideal! I haven’t even a photograph of her to show you; but you’d be astonished at her face. Why, in the devil’s name, did I let her go to Birmingham?’
The visitors had risen. They felt uncomfortable, for it seemed as if Whelpdale might find vent for his distress in tears.
‘We had better leave you,’ suggested Biffen. ‘It’s very hard—it is indeed.’
‘Look here! Read the letter for yourselves! Do!’
They declined, and begged him not to insist.
‘But I want you to see what kind of girl she is. It isn’t a case of farcical deceiving—not a bit of it! She implores me to forgive her, and blames herself no end. Just my luck! The third—no, the fourth time, by Jove! Never was such an unlucky fellow with women. It’s because I’m so damnably poor; that’s it, of course!’
Reardon and his companion succeeded at length in getting away, though not till they had heard the virtues and beauty of the vanished girl described again and again in much detail. Both were in a state of depression as they left the house.
‘What think you of this story?’ asked Biffen. ‘Is this possible in a woman of any merit?’
‘Anything is possible in a woman,’ Reardon replied, harshly.
They walked in silence as far as Portland Road Station. There, with an assurance that he would come to a garret-supper before leaving London, Reardon parted from his friend and turned westward.
As soon as he had entered, Amy’s voice called to him:
‘Here’s a letter from Jedwood, Edwin!’
He stepped into the study.
‘It came just after you went out, and it has been all I could do to resist the temptation to open it.’
‘Why shouldn’t you have opened it?’ said her husband, carelessly.
He tried to do so himself, but his shaking hand thwarted him at first. Succeeding at length, he found a letter in the publisher’s own writing, and the first word that caught his attention was ‘regret.’ With an angry effort to command himself he ran through the communication, then held it out to Amy.
She read, and her countenance fell. Mr Jedwood regretted that the story offered to him did not seem likely to please that particular public to whom his series of one-volume novels made appeal. He hoped it would be understood that, in declining, he by no means expressed an adverse judgment on the story itself &c.
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ said Reardon. ‘I believe he is quite right. The thing is too empty to please the better kind of readers, yet not vulgar enough to please the worse.’
‘But you’ll try someone else?’
‘I don’t think it’s much use.’
They sat opposite each other, and kept silence. Jedwood’s letter slipped from Amy’s lap to the ground.
‘So,’ said Reardon, presently, ‘I don’t see how our plan is to be carried out.’
‘Oh, it must be!’
‘But how?’
‘You’ll get seven or eight pounds from The Wayside. And—hadn’t we better sell the furniture, instead of—’
His look checked her.
‘It seems to me, Amy, that your one desire is to get away from me, on whatever terms.’
‘Don’t begin that over again!’ she exclaimed, fretfully. ‘If you don’t believe what I say—’
They were both in a state of intolerable nervous tension. Their voices quivered, and their eyes had an unnatural brightness.
‘If we sell the furniture,’ pursued Reardon, ‘that means you’ll never come back to me. You wish to save yourself and the child from the hard life that seems to be before us.’
‘Yes, I do; but not by deserting you. I want you to go and work for us all, so that we may live more happily before long. Oh, how wretched this is!’
She burst into hysterical weeping. But Reardon, instead of attempting to soothe her, went into the next room, where he sat for a long time in the dark. When he returned Amy was calm again; her face expressed a cold misery.
‘Where did you go this morning?’ he asked, as if wishing to talk of common things.
‘I told you. I went to buy those things for Willie.’
‘Oh yes.’
There was a silence.
‘Biffen passed you in Tottenham Court Road,’ he added.
‘I didn’t see him.’
‘No; he said you didn’t.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Amy, ‘it was just when I was speaking to Mr Milvain.’
‘You met Milvain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. I can’t mention every trifle that happens.’
‘No, of course not.’
Amy closed her eyes, as if in weariness, and for a minute or two Reardon observed her countenance.
‘So you think we had better sell the furniture.’
‘I shall say nothing more about it. You must do as seems best to you, Edwin.’
‘Are you going to see your mother to-morrow?’
‘Yes. I thought you would like to come too.’
‘No; there’s no good in my going.’
He again rose, and that night they talked no more of their difficulties, though on the morrow (Sunday) it would be necessary to decide their course in every detail.
Amy did not go to church. Before her marriage she had done so as a mere matter of course, accompanying her mother, but Reardon’s attitude with regard to the popular religion speedily became her own; she let the subject lapse from her mind, and cared neither to defend nor to attack where dogma was concerned. She had no sympathies with mysticism; her nature was strongly practical, with something of zeal for intellectual attainment superadded.
This Sunday morning she was very busy with domestic minutiae. Reardon noticed what looked like preparations for packing, and being as little disposed for conversation as his wife, he went out and walked for a couple of hours in the Hampstead region. Dinner over, Amy at once made ready for her journey to Westbourne Park.
‘Then you won’t come?’ she said to her husband.
‘No. I shall see your mother before I go away, but I don’t care to till you have settled everything.’
It was half a year since he had met Mrs Yule. She never came to their dwelling, and Reardon could not bring himself to visit her.
‘You had very much rather we didn’t sell the furniture?’ Amy asked.
‘Ask your mother’s opinion. That shall decide.’
‘There’ll be the expense of moving it, you know. Unless money comes from The Wayside, you’ll only have two or three pounds left.’
Reardon made no reply. He was overcome by the bitterness of shame.
‘I shall say, then,’ pursued Amy, who spoke with averted face, ‘that I am to go there for good on Tuesday? I mean, of course, for the summer months.’
‘I suppose so.’
Then he turned suddenly upon her.
‘Do you really imagine that at the end of the summer I shall be a rich man? What do you mean by talking in this way? If the furniture is sold to supply me with a few pounds for the present, what prospect is there that I shall be able to buy new?’
‘How can we look forward at all?’ replied Amy. ‘It has come to the question of how we are to subsist. I thought you would rather get money in this way than borrow of mother—when she has the expense of keeping me and Willie.’
‘You are right,’ muttered Reardon. ‘Do as you think best.’ Amy was in her most practical mood, and would not linger for purposeless talk. A few minutes, and Reardon was left alone.
He stood before his bookshelves and began to pick out the volumes which he would take away with him. Just a few, the indispensable companions of a bookish man who still clings to life—his Homer, his Shakespeare—
The rest must be sold. He would get rid of them to-morrow morning. All together they might bring him a couple of sovereigns.
Then his clothing. Amy had fulfilled all the domestic duties of a wife; his wardrobe was in as good a state as circumstances allowed. But there was no object in burdening himself with winter garments, for, if he lived through the summer at all, he would be able to repurchase such few poor things as were needful; at present he could only think of how to get together a few coins. So he made a heap of such things as might be sold.
The furniture? If it must go, the price could scarcely be more than ten or twelve pounds; well, perhaps fifteen. To be sure, in this way his summer’s living would be abundantly provided for.
He thought of Biffen enviously. Biffen, if need be, could support life on three or four shillings a week, happy in the thought that no mortal had a claim upon him. If he starved to death—well, many another lonely man has come to that end. If he preferred to kill himself, who would be distressed? Spoilt child of fortune!
The bells of St Marylebone began to clang for afternoon service. In the idleness of dull pain his thoughts followed their summons, and he marvelled that there were people who could imagine it a duty or find it a solace to go and sit in that twilight church and listen to the droning of prayers. He thought of the wretched millions of mankind to whom life is so barren that they must needs believe in a recompense beyond the grave. For that he neither looked nor longed. The bitterness of his lot was that this world might be a sufficing paradise to him if only he could clutch a poor little share of current coin. He had won the world’s greatest prize—a woman’s love—but could not retain it because his pockets were empty.
That he should fail to make a great name, this was grievous disappointment to Amy, but this alone would not have estranged her. It was the dread and shame of penury that made her heart cold to him. And he could not in his conscience scorn her for being thus affected by the vulgar circumstances of life; only a few supreme natures stand unshaken under such a trial, and though his love of Amy was still passionate, he knew that her place was among a certain class of women, and not on the isolated pinnacle where he had at first visioned her. It was entirely natural that she shrank at the test of squalid suffering. A little money, and he could have rested secure in her love, for then he would have been able to keep ever before her the best qualities of his heart and brain. Upon him, too, penury had its debasing effect; as he now presented himself he was not a man to be admired or loved. It was all simple and intelligible enough—a situation that would be misread only by shallow idealism.
Worst of all, she was attracted by Jasper Milvain’s energy and promise of success. He had no ignoble suspicions of Amy, but it was impossible for him not to see that she habitually contrasted the young journalist, who laughingly made his way among men, with her grave, dispirited husband, who was not even capable of holding such position as he had gained. She enjoyed Milvain’s conversation, it put her into a good humour; she liked him personally, and there could be no doubt that she had observed a jealous tendency in Reardon’s attitude to his former friend—always a harmful suggestion to a woman. Formerly she had appreciated her husband’s superiority; she had smiled at Milvain’s commoner stamp of mind and character. But tedious repetition of failure had outwearied her, and now she saw Milvain in the sunshine of progress, dwelt upon the worldly advantages of gifts and a temperament such as his. Again, simple and intelligible enough.
Living apart from her husband, she could not be expected to forswear society, and doubtless she would see Milvain pretty often. He called occasionally at Mrs Yule’s, and would not do so less often when he knew that Amy was to be met there. There would be chance encounters like that of yesterday, of which she had chosen to keep silence.
A dark fear began to shadow him. In yielding thus passively to stress of circumstances, was he not exposing his wife to a danger which outweighed all the ills of poverty? As one to whom she was inestimably dear, was he right in allowing her to leave him, if only for a few months? He knew very well that a man of strong character would never have entertained this project. He had got into the way of thinking of himself as too weak to struggle against the obstacles on which Amy insisted, and of looking for safety in retreat; but what was to be the end of this weakness if the summer did not at all advance him? He knew better than Amy could how unlikely it was that he should recover the energies of his mind in so short a time and under such circumstances; only the feeble man’s temptation to postpone effort had made him consent to this step, and now that he was all but beyond turning back, the perils of which he had thought too little forced themselves upon his mind.
He rose in anguish, and stood looking about him as if aid might somewhere be visible.
Presently there was a knock at the front door, and on opening he beheld the vivacious Mr Carter. This gentleman had only made two or three calls here since Reardon’s marriage; his appearance was a surprise.
‘I hear you are leaving town for a time,’ he exclaimed. ‘Edith told me yesterday, so I thought I’d look you up.’
He was in spring costume, and exhaled fresh odours. The contrast between his prosperous animation and Reardon’s broken-spirited quietness could not have been more striking.
‘Going away for your health, they tell me. You’ve been working too hard, you know. You mustn’t overdo it. And where do you think of going to?’
‘It isn’t at all certain that I shall go,’ Reardon replied. ‘I thought of a few weeks—somewhere at the seaside.’
‘I advise you to go north,’ went on Carter cheerily. ‘You want a tonic, you know. Get up into Scotland and do some boating and fishing—that kind of thing. You’d come back a new man. Edith and I had a turn up there last year, you know; it did me heaps of good.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I should go so far as that.’
‘But that’s just what you want—a regular change, something bracing. You don’t look at all well, that’s the fact. A winter in London tries any man—it does me, I know. I’ve been seedy myself these last few weeks. Edith wants me to take her over to Paris at the end of this month, and I think it isn’t a bad idea; but I’m so confoundedly busy. In the autumn we shall go to Norway, I think; it seems to be the right thing to do nowadays. Why shouldn’t you have a run over to Norway? They say it can be done very cheaply; the steamers take you for next to nothing.’
He talked on with the joyous satisfaction of a man whose income is assured, and whose future teems with a succession of lively holidays. Reardon could make no answer to such suggestions; he sat with a fixed smile on his face.
‘Have you heard,’ said Carter, presently, ‘that we’re opening a branch of the hospital in the City Road?’
‘No; I hadn’t heard of it.’
‘It’ll only be for out-patients. Open three mornings and three evenings alternately.’
‘Who’ll represent you there?’
‘I shall look in now and then, of course; there’ll be a clerk, like at the old place.’
He talked of the matter in detail—of the doctors who would attend, and of certain new arrangements to be tried.
‘Have you engaged the clerk?’ Reardon asked.
‘Not yet. I think I know a man who’ll suit me, though.’
‘You wouldn’t be disposed to give me the chance?’
Reardon spoke huskily, and ended with a broken laugh.
‘You’re rather above my figure nowadays, old man!’ exclaimed Carter, joining in what he considered the jest.
‘Shall you pay a pound a week?’
‘Twenty-five shillings. It’ll have to be a man who can be trusted to take money from the paying patients.’
‘Well, I am serious. Will you give me the place?’
Carter gazed at him, and checked another laugh.
‘What the deuce do you mean?’
‘The fact is,’ Reardon replied, ‘I want variety of occupation. I can’t stick at writing for more than a month or two at a time. It’s because I have tried to do so that—well, practically, I have broken down. If you will give me this clerkship, it will relieve me from the necessity of perpetually writing novels; I shall be better for it in every way. You know that I’m equal to the job; you can trust me; and I dare say I shall be more useful than most clerks you could get.’
It was done, most happily done, on the first impulse. A minute more of pause, and he could not have faced the humiliation. His face burned, his tongue was parched.
‘I’m floored!’ cried Carter. ‘I shouldn’t have thought—but of course, if you really want it. I can hardly believe yet that you’re serious, Reardon.’
‘Why not? Will you promise me the work?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘When shall I have to begin?’
‘The place’ll be opened to-morrow week. But how about your holiday?’
‘Oh, let that stand over. It’ll be holiday enough to occupy myself in a new way. An old way, too; I shall enjoy it.’
He laughed merrily, relieved beyond measure at having come to what seemed an end of his difficulties. For half an hour they continued to talk over the affair.
‘Well, it’s a comical idea,’ said Carter, as he took his leave, ‘but you know your own business best.’
When Amy returned, Reardon allowed her to put the child to bed before he sought any conversation. She came at length and sat down in the study.
‘Mother advises us not to sell the furniture,’ were her first words.
‘I’m glad of that, as I had quite made up my mind not to.’ There was a change in his way of speaking which she at once noticed.
‘Have you thought of something?’
‘Yes. Carter has been here, and he happened to mention that they’re opening an out-patient department of the hospital, in the City Road. He’ll want someone to help him there. I asked for the post, and he promised it me.’
The last words were hurried, though he had resolved to speak with deliberation. No more feebleness; he had taken a decision, and would act upon it as became a responsible man.
‘The post?’ said Amy. ‘What post?’
‘In plain English, the clerkship. It’ll be the same work as I used to have—registering patients, receiving their “letters,” and so on. The pay is to be five-and-twenty shillings a week.’
Amy sat upright and looked steadily at him.
‘Is this a joke?’
‘Far from it, dear. It’s a blessed deliverance.’
‘You have asked Mr Carter to take you back as a clerk?’
‘I have.’
‘And you propose that we shall live on twenty-five shillings a week?’
‘Oh no! I shall be engaged only three mornings in the week and three evenings. In my free time I shall do literary work, and no doubt I can earn fifty pounds a year by it—if I have your sympathy to help me. To-morrow I shall go and look for rooms some distance from here; in Islington, I think. We have been living far beyond our means; that must come to an end. We’ll have no more keeping up of sham appearances. If I can make my way in literature, well and good; in that case our position and prospects will of course change. But for the present we are poor people, and must live in a poor way. If our friends like to come and see us, they must put aside all snobbishness, and take us as we are. If they prefer not to come, there’ll be an excuse in our remoteness.’
Amy was stroking the back of her hand. After a long silence, she said in a very quiet, but very resolute tone:
‘I shall not consent to this.’
‘In that case, Amy, I must do without your consent. The rooms will be taken, and our furniture transferred to them.’
‘To me that will make no difference,’ returned his wife, in the same voice as before. ‘I have decided—as you told me to—to go with Willie to mother’s next Tuesday. You, of course, must do as you please. I should have thought a summer at the seaside would have been more helpful to you; but if you prefer to live in Islington—’
Reardon approached her, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘Amy, are you my wife, or not?’
‘I am certainly not the wife of a clerk who is paid so much a week.’
He had foreseen a struggle, but without certainty of the form Amy’s opposition would take. For himself he meant to be gently resolute, calmly regardless of protest. But in a man to whom such self-assertion is a matter of conscious effort, tremor of the nerves will always interfere with the line of conduct he has conceived in advance. Already Reardon had spoken with far more bluntness than he proposed; involuntarily, his voice slipped from earnest determination to the note of absolutism, and, as is wont to be the case, the sound of these strange tones instigated him to further utterances of the same kind. He lost control of himself. Amy’s last reply went through him like an electric shock, and for the moment he was a mere husband defied by his wife, the male stung to exertion of his brute force against the physically weaker sex.
‘However you regard me, you will do what I think fit. I shall not argue with you. If I choose to take lodgings in Whitechapel, there you will come and live.’
He met Amy’s full look, and was conscious of that in it which corresponded to his own brutality. She had become suddenly a much older woman; her cheeks were tight drawn into thinness, her lips were bloodlessly hard, there was an unknown furrow along her forehead, and she glared like the animal that defends itself with tooth and claw.
‘Do as YOU think fit? Indeed!’
Could Amy’s voice sound like that? Great Heaven! With just such accent he had heard a wrangling woman retort upon her husband at the street corner. Is there then no essential difference between a woman of this world and one of that? Does the same nature lie beneath such unlike surfaces?
He had but to do one thing: to seize her by the arm, drag her up from the chair, dash her back again with all his force—there, the transformation would be complete, they would stand towards each other on the natural footing. With an added curse perhaps—Instead of that, he choked, struggled for breath, and shed tears.
Amy turned scornfully away from him. Blows and a curse would have overawed her, at all events for the moment; she would have felt: ‘Yes, he is a man, and I have put my destiny into his hands.’ His tears moved her to a feeling cruelly exultant; they were the sign of her superiority. It was she who should have wept, and never in her life had she been further from such display of weakness.
This could not be the end, however, and she had no wish to terminate the scene. They stood for a minute without regarding each other, then Reardon faced to her.
‘You refuse to live with me, then?’
‘Yes, if this is the kind of life you offer me.’
‘You would be more ashamed to share your husband’s misfortunes than to declare to everyone that you had deserted him?’
‘I shall “declare to everyone” the simple truth. You have the opportunity of making one more effort to save us from degradation. You refuse to take the trouble; you prefer to drag me down into a lower rank of life. I can’t and won’t consent to that. The disgrace is yours; it’s fortunate for me that I have a decent home to go to.’
‘Fortunate for you!—you make yourself unutterably contemptible. I have done nothing that justifies you in leaving me. It is for me to judge what I can do and what I can’t. A good woman would see no degradation in what I ask of you. But to run away from me just because I am poorer than you ever thought I should be—’
He was incoherent. A thousand passionate things that he wished to say clashed together in his mind and confused his speech. Defeated in the attempt to act like a strong man, he could not yet recover standing-ground, knew not how to tone his utterances.
‘Yes, of course, that’s how you will put it,’ said Amy. ‘That’s how you will represent me to your friends. My friends will see it in a different light.’
‘They will regard you as a martyr?’
‘No one shall make a martyr of me, you may be sure. I was unfortunate enough to marry a man who had no delicacy, no regard for my feelings.—I am not the first woman who has made a mistake of this kind.’
‘No delicacy? No regard for your feelings?—Have I always utterly misunderstood you? Or has poverty changed you to a woman I can’t recognise?’
He came nearer, and gazed desperately into her face. Not a muscle of it showed susceptibility to the old influences.
‘Do you know, Amy,’ he added in a lower voice, ‘that if we part now, we part for ever?’
‘I’m afraid that is only too likely.’
She moved aside.
‘You mean that you wish it. You are weary of me, and care for nothing but how to make yourself free.’
‘I shall argue no more. I am tired to death of it.’
‘Then say nothing, but listen for the last time to my view of the position we have come to. When I consented to leave you for a time, to go away and try to work in solitude, I was foolish and even insincere, both to you and to myself. I knew that I was undertaking the impossible. It was just putting off the evil day, that was all—putting off the time when I should have to say plainly: “I can’t live by literature, so I must look out for some other employment.” I shouldn’t have been so weak but that I knew how you would regard such a decision as that. I was afraid to tell the truth—afraid. Now, when Carter of a sudden put this opportunity before me, I saw all the absurdity of the arrangements we had made. It didn’t take me a moment to make up my mind. Anything was to be chosen rather than a parting from you on false pretences, a ridiculous affectation of hope where there was no hope.’
He paused, and saw that his words had no effect upon her.
‘And a grievous share of the fault lies with you, Amy. You remember very well when I first saw how dark the future was. I was driven even to say that we ought to change our mode of living; I asked you if you would be willing to leave this place and go into cheaper rooms. And you know what your answer was. Not a sign in you that you would stand by me if the worst came. I knew then what I had to look forward to, but I durst not believe it. I kept saying to myself: “She loves me, and as soon as she really understands—” That was all self-deception. If I had been a wise man, I should have spoken to you in a way you couldn’t mistake. I should have told you that we were living recklessly, and that I had determined to alter it. I have no delicacy? No regard for your feelings? Oh, if I had had less! I doubt whether you can even understand some of the considerations that weighed with me, and made me cowardly—though I once thought there was no refinement of sensibility that you couldn’t enter into. Yes, I was absurd enough to say to myself: “It will look as if I had consciously deceived her; she may suffer from the thought that I won her at all hazards, knowing that I should soon expose her to poverty and all sorts of humiliation.” Impossible to speak of that again; I had to struggle desperately on, trying to hope. Oh! if you knew—’
His voice gave way for an instant.
‘I don’t understand how you could be so thoughtless and heartless. You knew that I was almost mad with anxiety at times. Surely, any woman must have had the impulse to give what help was in her power. How could you hesitate? Had you no suspicion of what a relief and encouragement it would be to me, if you said: “Yes, we must go and live in a simpler way?” If only as a proof that you loved me, how I should have welcomed that! You helped me in nothing. You threw all the responsibility upon me—always bearing in mind, I suppose, that there was a refuge for you. Even now, I despise myself for saying such things of you, though I know so bitterly that they are true. It takes a long time to see you as such a different woman from the one I worshipped. In passion, I can fling out violent words, but they don’t yet answer to my actual feeling. It will be long enough yet before I think contemptuously of you. You know that when a light is suddenly extinguished, the image of it still shows before your eyes. But at last comes the darkness.’
Amy turned towards him once more.
‘Instead of saying all this, you might be proving that I am wrong. Do so, and I will gladly confess it.’
‘That you are wrong? I don’t see your meaning.’
‘You might prove that you are willing to do your utmost to save me from humiliation.’
‘Amy, I have done my utmost. I have done more than you can imagine.’
‘No. You have toiled on in illness and anxiety—I know that. But a chance is offered you now of working in a better way. Till that is tried, you have no right to give all up and try to drag me down with you.’
‘I don’t know how to answer. I have told you so often—You can’t understand me!’
‘I can! I can!’ Her voice trembled for the first time. ‘I know that you are so ready to give in to difficulties. Listen to me, and do as I bid you.’ She spoke in the strangest tone of command.
It was command, not exhortation, but there was no harshness in her voice. ‘Go at once to Mr Carter. Tell him you have made a ludicrous mistake—in a fit of low spirits; anything you like to say. Tell him you of course couldn’t dream of becoming his clerk. To-night; at once! You understand me, Edwin? Go now, this moment.’
‘Have you determined to see how weak I am? Do you wish to be able to despise me more completely still?’
‘I am determined to be your friend, and to save you from yourself. Go at once! Leave all the rest to me. If I have let things take their course till now, it shan’t be so in future. The responsibility shall be with me. Only do as I tell you.’
‘You know it’s impossible—’
‘It is not! I will find money. No one shall be allowed to say that we are parting; no one has any such idea yet. You are going away for your health, just three summer months. I have been far more careful of appearances than you imagine, but you give me credit for so little. I will find the money you need, until you have written another book. I promise; I undertake it. Then I will find another home for us, of the proper kind. You shall have no trouble. You shall give yourself entirely to intellectual things.
But Mr Carter must be told at once, before he can spread a report. If he has spoken, he must contradict what he has said.’
‘But you amaze me, Amy. Do you mean to say that you look upon it as a veritable disgrace, my taking this clerkship?’
‘I do. I can’t help my nature. I am ashamed through and through that you should sink to this.’
‘But everyone knows that I was a clerk once!’
‘Very few people know it. And then that isn’t the same thing. It doesn’t matter what one has been in the past. Especially a literary man; everyone expects to hear that he was once poor. But to fall from the position you now have, and to take weekly wages—you surely can’t know how people of my world regard that.’
‘Of your world? I had thought your world was the same as mine, and knew nothing whatever of these imbecilities.’
‘It is getting late. Go and see Mr Carter, and afterwards I will talk as much as you like.’
He might perhaps have yielded, but the unemphasised contempt in that last sentence was more than he could bear. It demonstrated to him more completely than set terms could have done what a paltry weakling he would appear in Amy’s eyes if he took his hat down from the peg and set out to obey her orders.