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E. V. Lucas - "The Slowcoach"

Andy Adams - "The Outlet"

Henry Lawson - "Over the Sliprails"

Oscar Wilde - "Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde"

New Grub Street

G >> George Gissing >> New Grub Street




'No doubt it was they,' said the visitor. 'Mrs Yule hasn't come;
I hardly expected she would, you know. So very unfortunate when
there are difficulties of that kind, isn't it?'

She smiled confidentially.

'The poor girl must feel it,' said Mrs Milvain.

'I'm afraid she does. Of course it narrows the circle of her
friends at home. She's a sweet girl, and I should so like you to
meet her. Do come and have tea with us to-morrow afternoon, will
you? Or would it be too much for you just now?'

'Will you let the girls call? And then perhaps Miss Yule will be
so good as to come and see me?'

'I wonder whether Mr Milvain would like to meet her father? I
have thought that perhaps it might be some advantage to him.
Alfred is so closely connected with literary people, you know.'

'I feel sure he would be glad,' replied Mrs Milvain. 'But--what
of Jasper's friendship with Mrs Edmund Yule and the Reardons?
Mightn't it be a little awkward?'

'Oh, I don't think so, unless he himself felt it so. There would
be no need to mention that, I should say. And, really, it would
be so much better if those estrangements came to an end. John
makes no scruple of speaking freely about everyone, and I don't
think Alfred regards Mrs Edmund with any serious unkindness. If
Mr Milvain would walk over with the young ladies to-morrow, it
would be very pleasant.'

'Then I think I may promise that he will. I'm sure I don't know
where he is at this moment. We don't see very much of him, except
at meals.'

'He won't be with you much longer, I suppose?'

'Perhaps a week.'

Before Miss Harrow's departure Maud and Dora reached home. They
were curious to see the young lady from the valley of the shadow
of books, and gladly accepted the invitation offered them.

They set out on the following afternoon in their brother's
company. It was only a quarter of an hour's walk to Mr Yule's
habitation, a small house in a large garden. Jasper was coming
hither for the first time; his sisters now and then visited Miss
Harrow, but very rarely saw Mr Yule himself who made no secret of
the fact that he cared little for female society. In
Wattleborough and the neighbourhood opinions varied greatly as to
this gentleman's character, but women seldom spoke very
favourably of him. Miss Harrow was reticent concerning her
brother-in-law; no one, however, had any reason to believe that
she found life under his roof disagreeable. That she lived with
him at all was of course occasionally matter for comment, certain
Wattleborough ladies having their doubts regarding the position
of a deceased wife's sister under such circumstances; but no one
was seriously exercised about the relations between this sober
lady of forty-five and a man of sixty-three in broken health.

A word of the family history.

John, Alfred, and Edmund Yule were the sons of a Wattleborough
stationer. Each was well educated, up to the age of seventeen, at
the town's grammar school. The eldest, who was a hot-headed lad,
but showed capacities for business, worked at first with his
father, endeavouring to add a bookselling department to the trade
in stationery; but the life of home was not much to his taste,
and at one-and-twenty he obtained a clerk's place in the office
of a London newspaper. Three years after, his father died, and
the small patrimony which fell to him he used in making himself
practically acquainted with the details of paper manufacture, his
aim being to establish himself in partnership with an
acquaintance who had started a small paper-mill in Hertfordshire.

His speculation succeeded, and as years went on he became a
thriving manufacturer. His brother Alfred, in the meantime, had
drifted from work at a London bookseller's into the modern Grub
Street, his adventures in which region will concern us hereafter.

Edmund carried on the Wattleborough business, but with small
success. Between him and his eldest brother existed a good deal
of affection, and in the end John offered him a share in his
flourishing paper works; whereupon Edmund married, deeming
himself well established for life. But John's temper was a
difficult one; Edmund and he quarrelled, parted; and when the
younger died, aged about forty, he left but moderate provision
for his widow and two children.

Only when he had reached middle age did John marry; the
experiment could not be called successful, and Mrs Yule died
three years later, childless.

At fifty-four John Yule retired from active business; he came
back to the scenes of his early life, and began to take an
important part in the municipal affairs of Wattleborough. He was
then a remarkably robust man, fond of out-of-door exercise; he
made it one of his chief efforts to encourage the local Volunteer
movement, the cricket and football clubs, public sports of every
kind, showing no sympathy whatever with those persons who wished
to establish free libraries, lectures, and the like. At his own
expense he built for the Volunteers a handsome drill-shed; he
founded a public gymnasium; and finally he allowed it to be
rumoured that he was going to present the town with a park. But
by presuming too far upon the bodily vigour which prompted these
activities, he passed of a sudden into the state of a confirmed
invalid. On an autumn expedition in the Hebrides he slept one
night under the open sky, with the result that he had an all but
fatal attack of rheumatic fever. After that, though the direction
of his interests was unchanged, he could no longer set the
example to Wattleborough youth of muscular manliness. The
infliction did not improve his temper; for the next year or two
he was constantly at warfare with one or other of his colleagues
and friends, ill brooking that the familiar control of various
local interests should fall out of his hands. But before long he
appeared to resign himself to his fate, and at present
Wattleborough saw little of him. It seemed likely that he might
still found the park which was to bear his name; but perhaps it
would only be done in consequence of directions in his will. It
was believed that he could not live much longer.

With his kinsfolk he held very little communication. Alfred Yule,
a battered man of letters, had visited Wattleborough only
twice(including the present occasion) since John's return hither.
Mrs Edmund Yule, with her daughter--now Mrs Reardon--had been
only once, three years ago. These two families, as you have
heard, were not on terms of amity with each other, owing to
difficulties between Mrs Alfred and Mrs Edmund; but John seemed
to regard both impartially. Perhaps the only real warmth of
feeling he had ever known was bestowed upon Edmund, and Miss
Harrow had remarked that he spoke with somewhat more interest of
Edmund's daughter, Amy, than of Alfred's daughter, Marian. But it
was doubtful whether the sudden disappearance from the earth of
all his relatives would greatly have troubled him. He lived a
life of curious self-absorption, reading newspapers (little
else), and talking with old friends who had stuck to him in spite
of his irascibility.

Miss Harrow received her visitors in a small and soberly
furnished drawing-room. She was nervous, probably because of
Jasper Milvain, whom she had met but once--last spring--and who
on that occasion had struck her as an alarmingly modern young
man. In the shadow of a window-curtain sat a slight, simply-
dressed girl, whose short curly hair and thoughtful countenance
Jasper again recognised. When it was his turn to be presented to
Miss Yule, he saw that she doubted for an instant whether or not
to give her hand; yet she decided to do so, and there was
something very pleasant to him in its warm softness. She smiled
with a slight embarrassment, meeting his look only for a second.

'I have seen you several times, Miss Yule,' he said in a friendly
way, 'though without knowing your name. It was under the great
dome.'

She laughed, readily understanding his phrase.

'I am there very often,' was her reply.

'What great dome?' asked Miss Harrow, with surprise.

'That of the British Museum Reading-room,' explained Jasper;
'known to some of us as the valley of the shadow of books. People
who often work there necessarily get to know each other by sight.

In the same way I knew Miss Yule's father when I happened to pass
him in the road yesterday.'

The three girls began to converse together, perforce of
trivialities. Marian Yule spoke in rather slow tones,
thoughtfully, gently; she had linked her fingers, and laid her
hands, palms downwards, upon her lap--a nervous action. Her
accent was pure, unpretentious; and she used none of the
fashionable turns of speech which would have suggested the habit
of intercourse with distinctly metropolitan society.

'You must wonder how we exist in this out-of-the-way place,'
remarked Maud.

'Rather, I envy you,' Marian answered, with a slight emphasis.

The door opened, and Alfred Yule presented himself. He was tall,
and his head seemed a disproportionate culmination to his meagre
body, it was so large and massively featured. Intellect and
uncertainty of temper were equally marked upon his visage; his
brows were knitted in a permanent expression of severity. He had
thin, smooth hair, grizzled whiskers, a shaven chin. In the
multitudinous wrinkles of his face lay a history of laborious and
stormy life; one readily divined in him a struggling and
embittered man. Though he looked older than his years, he had by
no means the appearance of being beyond the ripeness of his
mental vigour.

'It pleases me to meet you, Mr Milvain,' he said, as he stretched
out his bony hand. 'Your name reminds me of a paper in The
Wayside a month or two ago, which you will perhaps allow a
veteran to say was not ill done.'

'I am grateful to you for noticing it,' replied Jasper.

There was positively a touch of visible warmth upon his cheek.
The allusion had come so unexpectedly that it caused him keen
pleasure.

Mr Yule seated himself awkwardly, crossed his legs, and began to
stroke the back of his left hand, which lay on his knee. He
seemed to have nothing more to say at present, and allowed Miss
Harrow and the girls to support conversation. Jasper listened
with a smile for a minute or two, then he addressed the
veteran.'Have you seen The Study this week, Mr Yule?'

'Yes.'

'Did you notice that it contains a very favourable review of a
novel which was tremendously abused in the same columns three
weeks ago?'

Mr Yule started, but Jasper could perceive at once that his
emotion was not disagreeable.

'You don't say so.'

'Yes. The novel is Miss Hawk's "On the Boards." How will the
editor get out of this?'

'H'm! Of course Mr Fadge is not immediately responsible; but
it'll be unpleasant for him, decidedly unpleasant.' He smiled
grimly. 'You hear this, Marian?'

'How is it explained, father?'

'May be accident, of course; but--well, there's no knowing. I
think it very likely this will be the end of Mr Fadge's tenure of
office. Rackett, the proprietor, only wants a plausible excuse
for making a change. The paper has been going downhill for the
last year; I know of two publishing houses who have withdrawn
their advertising from it, and who never send their books for
review. Everyone foresaw that kind of thing from the day Mr Fadge
became editor. The tone of his paragraphs has been detestable.
Two reviews of the same novel, eh? And diametrically opposed? Ha!

ha!'

Gradually he had passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to
undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name 'Mr
Fadge' sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal
discontent with the editor of The Study.

'The author,' remarked Milvain, 'ought to make a good thing out
of this.'

'Will, no doubt. Ought to write at once to the papers, calling
attention to this sample of critical impartiality. Ha! ha!'

He rose and went to the window, where for several minutes he
stood gazing at vacancy, the same grim smile still on his face.
Jasper in the meantime amused the ladies (his sisters had heard
him on the subject already) with a description of the two
antagonistic notices. But he did not trust himself to express so
freely as he had done at home his opinion of reviewing in
general; it was more than probable that both Yule and his
daughter did a good deal of such work.

'Suppose we go into the garden,' suggested Miss Harrow,
presently. 'It seems a shame to sit indoors on such a lovely
afternoon.'

Hitherto there had been no mention of the master of the house.
But Mr Yule now remarked to Jasper:

'My brother would be glad if you would come and have a word with
him. He isn't quite well enough to leave his room to-day.'

So, as the ladies went gardenwards, Jasper followed the man of
letters upstairs to a room on the first floor. Here, in a deep
cane chair, which was placed by the open window, sat John Yule.
He was completely dressed, save that instead of coat he wore a
dressing-gown. The facial likeness between him and his brother
was very strong, but John's would universally have been judged
the finer countenance; illness notwithstanding, he had a
complexion which contrasted in its pure colour with Alfred's
parchmenty skin, and there was more finish about his features.
His abundant hair was reddish, his long moustache and trimmed
beard a lighter shade of the same hue.

'So you too are in league with the doctors,' was his bluff
greeting, as he held a hand to the young man and inspected him
with a look of slighting good-nature.

'Well, that certainly is one way of regarding the literary
profession,' admitted Jasper, who had heard enough of John's way
of thinking to understand the remark.

'A young fellow with all the world before him, too. Hang it, Mr
Milvain, is there no less pernicious work you can turn your hand
to?'

'I'm afraid not, Mr Yule. After all, you know, you must be held
in a measure responsible for my depravity.'

'How's that?'

'I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the
making of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so
abundant, people wouldn't have so much temptation to scribble.'

Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.

'I think you are cornered, John.'

'I wish,' answered John, 'that you were both condemned to write
on such paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of whitey-
brown, used by shopkeepers.'

He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box
of cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each
took one as he offered them, and began to smoke.

'You would like to see literary production come entirely to an
end?' said Milvain.

'I should like to see the business of literature abolished.'

'There's a distinction, of course. But, on the whole, I should
say that even the business serves a good purpose.'

'What purpose?'

'It helps to spread civilisation.'

'Civilisation!' exclaimed John, scornfully. 'What do you mean by
civilisation? Do you call it civilising men to make them weak,
flabby creatures, with ruined eyes and dyspeptic stomachs? Who is
it that reads most of the stuff that's poured out daily by the
ton from the printing-press? Just the men and women who ought to
spend their leisure hours in open-air exercise; the people who
earn their bread by sedentary pursuits, and who need to live as
soon as they are free from the desk or the counter, not to moon
over small print. Your Board schools, your popular press, your
spread of education! Machinery for ruining the country, that's
what I call it.'

'You have done a good deal, I think, to counteract those
influences in Wattleborough.'

'I hope so; and if only I had kept the use of my limbs I'd have
done a good deal more. I have an idea of offering substantial
prizes to men and women engaged in sedentary work who take an
oath to abstain from all reading, and keep it for a certain
number of years. There's a good deal more need for that than for
abstinence from strong liquor. If I could have had my way I would
have revived prize-fighting.'

His brother laughed with contemptuous impatience.

'You would doubtless like to see military conscription introduced
into England?' said Jasper.

'Of course I should! You talk of civilising; there's no such way
of civilising the masses of the people as by fixed military
service. Before mental training must come training of the body.
Go about the Continent, and see the effect of military service on
loutish peasants and the lowest classes of town population. Do
you know why it isn't even more successful? Because the damnable
education movement interferes. If Germany would shut up her
schools and universities for the next quarter of a century and go
ahead like blazes with military training there'd be a nation such
as the world has never seen. After that, they might begin a
little book-teaching again--say an hour and a half a day for
everyone above nine years old. Do you suppose, Mr Milvain, that
society is going to be reformed by you people who write for
money? Why, you are the very first class that will be swept from
the face of the earth as soon as the reformation really begins!'

Alfred puffed at his cigarette. His thoughts were occupied with
Mr Fadge and The Study. He was considering whether he could aid
in bringing public contempt upon that literary organ and its
editor. Milvain listened to the elder man's diatribe with much
amusement.

'You, now,' pursued John, 'what do you write about?'

'Nothing in particular. I make a salable page or two out of
whatever strikes my fancy.'

'Exactly! You don't even pretend that you've got anything to say.
You live by inducing people to give themselves mental
indigestion--and bodily, too, for that matter.'

'Do you know, Mr Yule, that you have suggested a capital idea to
me? If I were to take up your views, I think it isn't at all
unlikely that I might make a good thing of writing against
writing. It should be my literary specialty to rail against
literature. The reading public should pay me for telling them
that they oughtn't to read. I must think it over.'

'Carlyle has anticipated you,' threw in Alfred.

'Yes, but in an antiquated way. I would base my polemic on the
newest philosophy.'

He developed the idea facetiously, whilst John regarded him as he
might have watched a performing monkey.

'There again! your new philosophy!' exclaimed the invalid. 'Why,
it isn't even wholesome stuff, the kind of reading that most of
you force on the public. Now there's the man who has married one
of my nieces--poor lass! Reardon, his name is. You know him, I
dare say. Just for curiosity I had a look at one of his books; it
was called "The Optimist." Of all the morbid trash I ever saw,
that beat everything. I thought of writing him a letter, advising
a couple of anti-bilious pills before bedtime for a few weeks.'

Jasper glanced at Alfred Yule, who wore a look of indifference.

'That man deserves penal servitude in my opinion,' pursued John.
'I'm not sure that it isn't my duty to offer him a couple of
hundred a year on condition that he writes no more.'

Milvain, with a clear vision of his friend in London, burst into
laughter. But at that point Alfred rose from his chair.

'Shall we rejoin the ladies?' he said, with a certain pedantry

of phrase and manner which often characterised him.

'Think over your ways whilst you're still young,' said John as he
shook hands with his visitor.

'Your brother speaks quite seriously, I suppose?' Jasper remarked
when he was in the garden with Alfred.

'I think so. It's amusing now and then, but gets rather tiresome
when you hear it often. By-the-bye, you are not personally
acquainted with Mr Fadge?'

'I didn't even know his name until you mentioned it.'

'The most malicious man in the literary world. There's no
uncharitableness in feeling a certain pleasure when he gets into
a scrape. I could tell you incredible stories about him; but that
kind of thing is probably as little to your taste as it is to
mine.'

Miss Harrow and her companions, having caught sight of the pair,
came towards them. Tea was to be brought out into the garden.

'So you can sit with us and smoke, if you like,' said Miss Harrow
to Alfred. 'You are never quite at your ease, I think, without a
pipe.'

But the man of letters was too preoccupied for society. In a few
minutes he begged that the ladies would excuse his withdrawing;
he had two or three letters to write before post-time, which was
early at Finden.

Jasper, relieved by the veteran's departure, began at once to
make himself very agreeable company. When he chose to lay aside
the topic of his own difficulties and ambitions, he could
converse with a spontaneous gaiety which readily won the
good-will of listeners. Naturally he addressed himself very often
to Marian Yule, whose attention complimented him. She said
little, and evidently was at no time a free talker, but the smile
on her face indicated a mood of quiet enjoyment. When her eyes
wandered, it was to rest on the beauties of the garden, the
moving patches of golden sunshine, the forms of gleaming cloud.
Jasper liked to observe her as she turned her head: there seemed
to him a particular grace in the movement; her head and neck were
admirably formed, and the short hair drew attention to this.

It was agreed that Miss Harrow and Marian should come on the
second day after to have tea with the Milvains. And when Jasper
took leave of Alfred Yule, the latter expressed a wish that they
might have a walk together one of these mornings.



CHAPTER III. HOLIDAY

Jasper's favourite walk led him to a spot distant perhaps a mile
and a half from home. From a tract of common he turned into a
short lane which crossed the Great Western railway, and thence by
a stile into certain meadows forming a compact little valley. One
recommendation of this retreat was that it lay sheltered from all
winds; to Jasper a wind was objectionable. Along the bottom ran
a clear, shallow stream, overhung with elder and hawthorn bushes;
and close by the wooden bridge which spanned it was a great ash
tree, making shadow for cows and sheep when the sun lay hot upon
the open field. It was rare for anyone to come along this path,
save farm labourers morning and evening.

But to-day--the afternoon that followed his visit to John Yule's
house--he saw from a distance that his lounging-place on the
wooden bridge was occupied. Someone else had discovered the
pleasure there was in watching the sun-flecked sparkle of the
water as it flowed over the clean sand and stones. A girl in a
yellow-straw hat; yes, and precisely the person he had hoped, at
the first glance, that it might be. He made no haste as he drew
nearer on the descending path. At length his footstep was heard;
Marian Yule turned her head and clearly recognised him.

She assumed an upright position, letting one of her hands rest
upon the rail. After the exchange of ordinary greetings, Jasper
leaned back against the same support and showed himself disposed
for talk.

'When I was here late in the spring,' he said, 'this ash was only
just budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.'

'An ash, is it?' murmured Marian. 'I didn't know. I think an oak
is the only tree I can distinguish. Yet,' she added quickly, 'I
knew that the ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my
memory.'

'Which are those?'

'Delaying, as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself when all the woods are green,

somewhere in the "Idylls."'

'I don't remember; so I won't pretend to--though I should do so
as a rule.'

She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did not.

'You have had little experience of the country?' Jasper
continued.

'Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?'

'In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people
have always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I
have really no friends here; either they have lost interest in
me, or I in them. What do you think of the girls, my sisters?'

The question, though put with perfect simplicity, was
embarrassing.

'They are tolerably intellectual,' Jasper went on, when he saw
that it would be difficult for her to answer. 'I want to persuade
them to try their hands at literary work of some kind or other.
They give lessons, and both hate it.'

'Would literary work be less--burdensome?' said Marian, without
looking at him.

'Rather more so, you think?'

She hesitated.

'It depends, of course, on--on several things.'

'To be sure,' Jasper agreed. 'I don't think they have any marked
faculty for such work; but as they certainly haven't for
teaching, that doesn't matter. It's a question of learning a
business. I am going through my apprenticeship, and find it a
long affair. Money would shorten it, and, unfortunately, I have
none.'

'Yes,' said Marian, turning her eyes upon the stream, 'money is a
help in everything.'

'Without it, one spends the best part of one's life in toiling
for that first foothold which money could at once purchase. To
have money is becoming of more and more importance in a literary
career; principally because to have money is to have friends.
Year by year, such influence grows of more account. A lucky man
will still occasionally succeed by dint of his own honest
perseverance, but the chances are dead against anyone who can't
make private interest with influential people; his work is simply
overwhelmed by that of the men who have better opportunities.'

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