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B. M. Bower - "Cow Country"

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New Grub Street

G >> George Gissing >> New Grub Street




'This afternoon?' all exclaimed. 'But Monday is your day.'

'No, I shall go this afternoon, by the 2.45.'

And he left the room. Mrs Milvain and the girls exchanged looks.

'I suppose he thinks the Sunday will be too wearisome,' said the
mother.

'Perhaps so,' Maud agreed, carelessly.

Half an hour later, just as Dora was ready to leave the house for
her engagements in Wattleborough, her brother came into the hall
and took his hat, saying:

'I'll walk a little way with you, if you don't mind.'

When they were in the road, he asked her in an offhand manner:

'Do you think I ought to say good-bye to the Yules? Or won't it
signify?'

'I should have thought you would wish to.'

'I don't care about it. And, you see, there's been no hint of a
wish on their part that I should see them in London. No, I'll
just leave you to say good-bye for me.'

'But they expect to see us to-day or to-morrow. You told them you
were not going till Monday, and you don't know but Mr Yule might
mean to say something yet.'

'Well, I had rather he didn't,' replied Jasper, with a laugh.

'Oh, indeed?'

'I don't mind telling you,' he laughed again. 'I'm afraid of that
girl. No, it won't do! You understand that I'm a practical man,
and I shall keep clear of dangers. These days of holiday idleness
put all sorts of nonsense into one's head.'

Dora kept her eyes down, and smiled ambiguously.

'You must act as you think fit,' she remarked at length.

'Exactly. Now I'll turn back. You'll be with us at dinner?'

They parted. But Jasper did not keep to the straight way home.
First of all, he loitered to watch a reaping-machine at work;
then he turned into a lane which led up the hill on which was
John Yule's house. Even if he had purposed making a farewell
call, it was still far too early; all he wanted to do was to pass
an hour of the morning, which threatened to lie heavy on his
hands. So he rambled on, and went past the house, and took the
field-path which would lead him circuitously home again.

His mother desired to speak to him. She was in the dining-room;
in the parlour Maud was practising music.

'I think I ought to tell you of something I did yesterday,
Jasper,' Mrs Milvain began. 'You see, my dear, we have been
rather straitened lately, and my health, you know, grows so
uncertain, and, all things considered, I have been feeling very
anxious about the girls. So I wrote to your uncle William, and
told him that I must positively have that money. I must think of
my own children before his.'

The matter referred to was this. The deceased Mr Milvain had a
brother who was a struggling shopkeeper in a Midland town. Some
ten years ago, William Milvain, on the point of bankruptcy, had
borrowed a hundred and seventy pounds from his brother in
Wattleborough, and this debt was still unpaid; for on the death
of Jasper's father repayment of the loan was impossible for
William, and since then it had seemed hopeless that the sum would
ever be recovered. The poor shopkeeper had a large family, and
Mrs Milvain, notwithstanding her own position, had never felt
able to press him; her relative, however, often spoke of the
business, and declared his intention of paying whenever he could.

'You can't recover by law now, you know,' said Jasper.

'But we have a right to the money, law or no law. He must pay
it.'

'He will simply refuse--and be justified. Poverty doesn't allow
of honourable feeling, any more than of compassion. I'm sorry you
wrote like that. You won't get anything, and you might as well
have enjoyed the reputation of forbearance.'

Mrs Milvain was not able to appreciate this characteristic
remark. Anxiety weighed upon her, and she became irritable.

'I am obliged to say, Jasper, that you seem rather thoughtless.
If it were only myself I would make any sacrifice for you; but
you must remember--'

'Now listen, mother,' he interrupted, laying a hand on her
shoulder; 'I have been thinking about all this, and the fact of
the matter is, I shall do my best to ask you for no more money.
It may or may not be practicable, but I'll have a try. So don't
worry. If uncle writes that he can't pay, just explain why you
wrote, and keep him gently in mind of the thing, that's all. One
doesn't like to do brutal things if one can avoid them, you
know.'

The young man went to the parlour and listened to Maud's music
for awhile. But restlessness again drove him forth. Towards
eleven o'clock he was again ascending in the direction of John
Yule's house. Again he had no intention of calling, but when he
reached the iron gates he lingered.

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

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

'Miss Yule?'

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

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

'You are going sooner than you intended?'

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

'I feel better, much.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He offered his hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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


CHAPTER IV. AN AUTHOR AND HIS WIFE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Come here, Amy.'

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

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

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

'I'll get the lamp.'

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

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

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

'Draw down the blind, Edwin.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Amy--'

'Well.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

He kept silence.

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

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

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

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

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

'What is?'

'That you--well, it's no use.'

'That I--what?'

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

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

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

'True. It has always been my fault.'

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

'No; of course I must do something.'

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

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

She squared her shoulders, and gave her head just a little shake,
as if a fly had troubled her.

'You bear everything very well and kindly,' said Reardon. 'My
behaviour is contemptible; I know that. Good heavens! if I only
had some business to go to, something I could work at in any
state of mind, and make money out of! Given this chance, I would
work myself to death rather than you should lack anything you
desire. But I am at the mercy of my brain; it is dry and
powerless. How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in
the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question
of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and
when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, they are
free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to
make literature one's only means of support! When the most
trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of
work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To
make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a
brutal folly.'

He turned away in a passion of misery.

'How very silly it is to talk like this!' came in Amy's voice,
clearly critical. 'Art must be practised as a trade, at all
events in our time. This is the age of trade. Of course if one
refuses to be of one's time, and yet hasn't the means to live
independently, what can result but breakdown and wretchedness?
The fact of the matter is, you could do fairly good work, and
work which would sell, if only you would bring yourself to look
at things in a more practical way. It's what Mr Milvain is always
saying, you know.'

'Milvain's temperament is very different from mine. He is
naturally light-hearted and hopeful; I am naturally the opposite.

What you and he say is true enough; the misfortune is that I
can't act upon it. I am no uncompromising artistic pedant; I am
quite willing to try and do the kind of work that will sell;
under the circumstances it would be a kind of insanity if I
refused. But power doesn't answer to the will. My efforts are
utterly vain; I suppose the prospect of pennilessness is itself a
hindrance; the fear haunts me. With such terrible real things
pressing upon me, my imagination can shape nothing substantial.
When I have laboured out a story, I suddenly see it in a light of
such contemptible triviality that to work at it is an impossible
thing.'

'You are ill, that's the fact of the matter. You ought to have
had a holiday. I think even now you had better go away for a week
or two. Do, Edwin!'

'Impossible! It would be the merest pretence of holiday. To go
away and leave you here--no!'

'Shall I ask mother or Jack to lend us some money?'

'That would be intolerable.'

'But this state of things is intolerable!'

Reardon walked the length of the room and back again.

'Your mother has no money to lend, dear, and your brother would
do it so unwillingly that we can't lay ourselves under such an
obligation.'

'Yet it will come to that, you know,' remarked Amy, calmly.

'No, it shall not come to that. I must and will get something
done long before Christmas. If only you--'

He came and took one of her hands.

'If only you will give me more sympathy, dearest. You see, that's
one side of my weakness. I am utterly dependent upon you. Your
kindness is the breath of life to me. Don't refuse it!'

'But I have done nothing of the kind.'

'You begin to speak very coldly. And I understand your feeling of
disappointment. The mere fact of your urging me to do anything
that will sell is a proof of bitter disappointment. You would
have looked with scorn at anyone who talked to me like that two
years ago. You were proud of me because my work wasn't altogether
common, and because I had never written a line that was meant to
attract the vulgar. All that's over now. If you knew how dreadful
it is to see that you have lost your hopes of me!'

'Well, but I haven't--altogether,' Amy replied, meditatively. 'I
know very well that, if you had a lot of money, you would do
better things than ever.'

'Thank you a thousand times for saying that, my dearest.'

'But, you see, we haven't money, and there's little chance of our
getting any. That scrubby old uncle won't leave anything to us; I
feel too sure of it. I often feel disposed to go and beg him on
my knees to think of us in his will.' She laughed. 'I suppose
it's impossible, and would be useless; but I should be capable of
it if I knew it would bring money.'

Reardon said nothing.

'I didn't think so much of money when we were married,' Amy
continued. 'I had never seriously felt the want of it, you know.
I did think--there's no harm in confessing it--that you were sure
to be rich some day; but I should have married you all the same
if I had known that you would win only reputation.'

'You are sure of that?'

'Well, I think so. But I know the value of money better now. I
know it is the most powerful thing in the world. If I had to
choose between a glorious reputation with poverty and a
contemptible popularity with wealth, I should choose the latter.'

'No!'

'I should.'

'Perhaps you are right.'

He turned away with a sigh.

'Yes, you are right. What is reputation? If it is deserved, it
originates with a few score of people among the many millions who
would never have recognised the merit they at last applaud.
That's the lot of a great genius. As for a mediocrity like me--
what ludicrous absurdity to fret myself in the hope that
half-a-dozen folks will say I am "above the average!" After all,
is there sillier vanity than this? A year after I have published
my last book, I shall be practically forgotten; ten years later,
I shall be as absolutely forgotten as one of those novelists of
the early part of this century, whose names one doesn't even
recognise. What fatuous posing!'

Amy looked askance at him, but replied nothing.

'And yet,' he continued, 'of course it isn't only for the sake of
reputation that one tries to do uncommon work. There's the
shrinking from conscious insincerity of workmanship--which most
of the writers nowadays seem never to feel. "It's good enough for
the market"; that satisfies them. And perhaps they are justified.

I can't pretend that I rule my life by absolute ideals; I admit
that everything is relative. There is no such thing as goodness
or badness, in the absolute sense, of course. Perhaps I am
absurdly inconsistent when--though knowing my work can't be first
rate--I strive to make it as good as possible. I don't say this
in irony, Amy; I really mean it. It may very well be that I am
just as foolish as the people I ridicule for moral and religious
superstition. This habit of mine is superstitious. How well I can
imagine the answer of some popular novelist if he heard me speak
scornfully of his books. "My dear fellow," he might say, "do you
suppose I am not aware that my books are rubbish? I know it just
as well as you do. But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have
a luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful
to me for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret,
and, what's worse, make your wife and children share it with you,
that's your concern." The man would be abundantly right.'

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