 Chapter 5 of New Grubb Street, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Brown. New Grubb Street by George Gissing. Chapter 5 The Way Hither Even in the mid-rapture of his marriage month he had foreseen this possibility. But fate had hitherto rescued him in sudden ways when he was on the brink of self-abandonment. And it was hard to imagine that this culmination of triumphant joy could be a preface to base miseries. He was the son of a man who had followed many different pursuits and in none had done much more than earn a livelihood. At the age of forty, when Edwin, his only child, was ten years old, Mr. Reardon established himself in the town of Hereford as a photographer, and there he abode until his death nine years after, occasionally risking some speculation not inconsistent with the photographic business, but always with the result of losing the little capital he ventured. Mrs. Reardon died when Edwin had reached his fifteenth year. In breeding and education she was superior to her husband, to whom, moreover, she had brought something between four and five hundred pounds. Her temper was passionate in both senses of the word and the marriage could hardly be called a happy one, though it was never disturbed by serious discord. The photographer was a man of whims and idealisms. His wife had a strong vein of worldly ambition. They made few friends, and it was Mrs. Reardon's frequently expressed desire to go and live in London, where fortune, she thought, might be kinder to them. Reardon had all but made up his mind to try this venture when he suddenly became a widower. After that he never summoned energy to embark on new enterprises. The boy was educated at an excellent local school. At eighteen he had a far better acquaintance with the ancient classics than most lads who have been expressly prepared for a university. And thanks to an anglicized Swiss, who acted as an assistant in Mr. Reardon's business, he not only read French, but could talk it with a certain haphazard fluency. These attainments, however, were not of much practical use. The best that could be done for Edwin was to place him in the office of an estate agent. His health was indifferent, and it seemed likely that open air exercise, of which he would have a good deal under the particular circumstances of the case, might counteract the effects of study too closely pursued. At his father's death he came into possession. Practically it was put at his disposal at once, though he was little more than nineteen, of about two hundred pounds. A life insurance for five hundred had been sacrificed to exigencies not very long before. He had no difficulty in deciding how to use this money. His mother's desire to live in London had in him the force of an inherited motive. As soon as possible he released himself from his uncongenial occupations, converted into money all the possessions of which he had not immediate need, and betook himself to the metropolis. To become a literary man, of course. His capital lasted him nearly four years, for notwithstanding his age he lived with painful economy. The strangest life of almost absolute loneliness. From a certain point of Tottenham Court Road there is visible a certain garret window in a certain street which runs parallel with that thoroughfare. For the greater part of these four years the garret in question was reared in his home. He paid only three and six pence a week for the privilege of living there. His food cost him about a shilling a day. On clothing and other unavoidable expenses he laid out some five pounds yearly. Then he bought books. Volumes which cost anything between two pence and two shillings. Further than that he durst not go. A strange time, I assure you. When he had completed his twenty-first year he desired to procure a reader's ticket for the British Museum. Now this was not such a simple matter as you may suppose. It was necessary to obtain the signature of some respectable householder, and Reardon was acquainted with no such person. His landlady was a decent woman enough, and a pair of rates and taxes, but it would look odd to say the least of it to present himself in Great Russell Street armed with this person's recommendation. There was nothing for it but to take a bold step to force himself upon the attention of a stranger, the thing from which his pride had always shrunk. He wrote to a well-known novelist, a man with whose works he had some sympathy. I am trying to prepare myself for a literary career. I wish to study in the reading-room of the British Museum, but have no acquaintance to whom I can refer in the ordinary way. Will you help me? I mean in this particular only. That was the substance of his letter. For reply came an invitation to a house in the West End. With fear and trembling, Reardon answered the summons. He was so shabbily attired. He was so diffident from the habit of living quite alone. He was horribly afraid lest it should be supposed that he looked for other assistance than he had requested. Well, the novelist was a rotund and jovial man. His dwelling and his person smelt of money. He was so happy himself that he could afford to be kind to others. Have you published anything? he inquired, for the young man's letter had left this uncertain. Nothing. I have tried the magazines, but as yet without success. But what do you write? Chiefly essays on literary subjects. I can understand that you would find a difficulty in disposing of them. That kind of thing is supplied either by men of established reputation or by anonymous writers who have a regular engagement on papers and magazines. Give me an example of your topics. I have written something lately about Tbilis. Oh dear, forgive me, Mr. Reardon, my feelings were too much for me. Those names have been my horror ever since I was a schoolboy. Far be it for me to discourage you if your line is to be solid literary criticism. I will only mention as a matter of fact that such work is indifferently paid and in very small demand. It hasn't occurred to you to try your hand at fiction. In uttering the word he beamed to hymn it meant a thousand or so a year. I'm afraid I have no talent for that. The novelist could do no more than grant his genial signature for the specified purpose and add good wishes in abundance. Reardon went home with his brain in a whirl. He had had his first glimpse of what was meant by literary success. That luxurious study with its shelves of handsomely bound books, its beautiful pictures, its warm, fragrant air. Great heavens, what might not a man do who set at his ease amid such surroundings? He began to work at the reading room, but at the same time he thought often of the novelist's suggestion and before long had written two or three short stories. No editor would accept them, but he continued to practice himself in that art, and by degrees came to fancy that, after all, perhaps he had some talent for fiction. It was significant, however, that no native impulse had directed him to novel writing. His intellectual temper was that of the student, the scholar, but strongly blended with a love of independence which had always made him think with the distaste of a teacher's life. The stories he wrote were scraps of immature psychology, the last thing a magazine would accept from an unknown man. His money dwindled, and there came a winter during which he suffered much from cold and hunger. What a blessed refuge it was, there under the great dome when he must else have sat in his windy garret with the mere pretense of a fire. The reading room was his true home. It's warmth enwrapped him kindly. The peculiar odor of its atmosphere. At first a cause of headache grew dear and delightful to him, but he could not sit here until his last penny should be spent. Something practical must be done, and practicality was not his strong point. Friends in London he had none, but for an occasional conversation with his landlady he would scarcely have spoken a dozen words a week. His disposition was the reverse of democratic, and he could not make acquaintances below his own intellectual level. Solitude fostered a sensitiveness which to begin with was extreme. The lack of stated occupation encouraged his natural tendency to dream and procrastinate and hope for the improbable. He was a reckless in the midst of millions, and viewed with dread the necessity of going forth to fight for daily food. Little by little he had ceased to hold any correspondence with his former friends at Hereford. The only person to whom he still wrote and from whom he still heard was his mother's father. An old man who lived at Darby retired from the business of a draper and spending his last years pleasantly enough with a daughter who had remained single. Edwin had always been a favorite with his grandfather, though they had met only once or twice during the past eight years. But in writing he did not allow it to be understood that he was in actual want, and he felt that he must come to dire extremities before he could bring himself to beg assistance. He had begun to answer advertisements, but the state of his wardrobe forbade his applying for any but humble positions. Once or twice he presented himself personally at offices, but his reception was so mortifying that death by hunger seemed preferable to a continuance of such experiences. The injury to his pride made him savagely arrogant. For days after the last rejection he hid himself in his garret, hating the world. He sold his little collection of books, and of course they brought only a trifling sum. That exhausted he must begin to sell his clothes. And then? But help was at hand. One day he saw it advertised in a newspaper that the secretary of a hospital in the north of London was in need of a clerk. Application was to be made by letter. He wrote, and two days later, to his astonishment received a reply asking him to wait upon the secretary at a certain hour. In a fever of agitation he kept the appointment and found that his business was with a young man in the very highest spirits who walked up and down a little office. The hospital was of the special order, a house of no great size, and treated the matter in hand as an excellent joke. I thought you knew of engaging someone much younger, quite a lad in fact. But look there, those are the replies to my advertisement. He pointed to a heap of five or six hundred letters and laughed consumedly. Impossible to read them all, you know, it seemed to me that the fairest thing would be to shake them together, stick my hand in and take out one by chance. If it didn't seem very promising, I would try a second time. But the first letter was yours, and I thought the fair thing to do was at all events to see you, you know. The fact is I'm only able to offer a pound a week. I shall be very glad indeed to take that, said Reardon, who was bathed in perspiration. Then what about references, and so on, proceeded the young man, chuckling and rubbing his hands together. The applicant was engaged. He had barely strength to walk home. The sudden relief from his miseries made him, for the first time, sensible of the extreme physical weakness into which he had sunk. For the next week he was very ill, but he did not allow this to interfere with his new work which was easily learnt and not burdensome. He held this position for three years, and during that time important things happened. When he had recovered from his state of semi-starvation, and was living in comfort, a pound a week is a very large sum if you have previously had to live on tin shillings. Reardon found that the impulse to literary production awoke in him more strongly than ever. He generally got home from the hospital about six o'clock, and the evening was his own. In this leisure time he wrote a novel in two volumes. One publisher refused it, but a second offered to bring it out on the terms of half-profits to the author. The book appeared, and was well spoken of in one or two papers, but profits there were none to divide. In the third year of his clerkship he wrote a novel in three volumes. For this his publishers gave him twenty-five pounds, with again a promise of half the profits after deduction of the sum advanced. Again there was no pecuniary success. He had just got to work upon a third book when his grandfather at Darby died and left him four hundred pounds. He could not resist the temptation to recover his freedom. Four hundred pounds at the rate of eighty pounds a year meant five years of literary endeavor. In that period he could certainly determine whether or not it was his destiny to live by the pin. In the meantime his relations with the secretary of the hospital, Carter by name, had grown very friendly. When Reardon began to publish books the high-spirited Mr. Carter looked upon him with something of awe. And when the literary man ceased to be a cleric there was nothing to prevent association on equal terms between him and his former employer. They continued to see a good deal of each other and Carter made Reardon acquainted with certain of his friends, among whom was one John Newell, an easygoing, selfish, semi-intellectual young man who had a place in a government office. The time of solitude had gone by for Reardon. He began to develop the power that was in him. Those two books of his were not of a kind to win popularity. They dealt with no particular class of society unless one makes a distinct class of people who have brains and they lacked local color. Their interest was almost purely psychological. It was clear that the author had no faculty for constructing a story and that pictures of active life were not to be expected of him. He could never appeal to the multitude. But strong characterization was within his scope and an intellectual fervor appetizing to a small section of refined readers marked all his best pages. He was the kind of man who cannot struggle against adverse conditions, but whom prosperity warms to the exercise of his powers. Anything like the cares of responsibility would sooner or later harass him into unproductiveness. That he should produce much was in any case out of the question. Possibly a book every two or three years might not prove too great a strain upon his delicate mental organism. But for him to attempt more than that would certainly be fatal to the peculiar merit of his work. Of this he was dimly conscious. And on receiving his legacy he put aside for nearly twelve months the new novel he had begun. To give his mind a rest he wrote several essays much mature than those which had formerly failed to find acceptance. And two of these appeared in magazines. The money thus earned he spent at a tailor's. His friend Carter ventured to suggest this mode of outlay. His third book sold for fifty pounds. It was a great improvement on its predecessors, and the reviews were generally favorable. For the story which followed, on neutral ground, he received a hundred pounds. On the strength of that he spent six months traveling in the south of Europe. He returned to London at mid-June, and on the second day after his arrival befell an incident which was to control the rest of his life. Busy with the pictures in the Grovener Gallery he heard himself addressed in a familiar voice, and on turning he was aware of Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter was splendid in fashionable summer attire, and accompanied by a young lady of some charms. Reardon had formerly feared encounters of this kind, too conscious of the defects of his attire. But at present there was no reason why he should shirk social intercourse. He was passively dressed, and the half-year of travel had benefited his appearance in no slight degree. Carter presented him to the young lady, of whom the novelist had already heard as a fiancée to his friend. Whilst they stood conversing, there approached two ladies, evidently mother and daughter, whose attendant was another of Reardon's acquaintances, Mr. John Ewell. This gentleman stepped briskly forward, and welcomed the returned wanderer. Let me introduce you, he said, to my mother and sister. Your fame has made them anxious to know you. Reardon found himself in a position of which the novelty was embarrassing, but scarcely disagreeable. Here were five people grouped around him, all of whom regarded him unaffectedly as a man of importance. For though strictly speaking he had no fame at all, these persons had kept up with the progress of his small repute, and were all distinctly glad to number among their acquaintances an unmistakable author. One, two, who was fresh from Italy and Greece. Mrs. Ewell, a lady rather too pretentious in her tone to be attractive to a man of Reardon's refinement, hastened to assure him how well his books were known in her house. Though for the run of ordinary novels we don't care much, Mrs. Ewell, not at all pretentious in speech and seemingly reserved of disposition, was good enough to show frank interest in the author. As for the poor author himself, well, he merely fell in love with Mrs. Ewell at first sight, and there was an end of the matter. A day or two later he made a call at their house, in the region of Westbourne Park. It was a small house, and rather showily than handsomely furnished. No one, after visiting it, would be astonished to hear that Mrs. Edmund Ewell had but a small income, and that she was often put to desperate expedience to keep up the gloss of easy circumstances. In the gauzy and fluffy and varnishing little drawing room, Reardon found a youngish gentleman already in conversation with the widow and her daughter. This proved to be one Mr. Jasper Milvane, also a man of letters. Mr. Milvane was glad to meet Reardon, whose books he had read with decided interest. Really, exclaimed Mrs. Ewell, I don't know how it is that we have had to wait so long for the pleasure of knowing you, Mr. Reardon. If John were not so selfish, he would have allowed us a share in your acquaintance long ago. Ten weeks thereafter, Miss Ewell became Mrs. Reardon. It was a time of frantic exultation with the poor fellow. He had always regarded the winning of a beautiful and intellectual wife as the crown of a successful literary career. But he had not dared to hope that such a triumph would be his. Life had been too hard with him on the whole. He, who hungered for sympathy, who thought of a woman's love as the prize of mortals supremely blessed, had spent the fresh years of his youth in monkish solitude. Now of a sudden came friends and flattery, eye and love itself. He was wrapped to the seventh heaven. Indeed it seemed that the girl loved him. She knew that he had but a hundred pounds or so left over from that little inheritance. That his books sold for a trifle. That he had no wealthy relatives from whom he could expect anything. Yet she hesitated not a moment when he asked her to marry him. I have loved you from the first. How is that possible, he urged? What is there lovable in me? I am afraid of waking up and finding myself in my old garret, cold and hungry. You will be a great man. I implore you not to count on that. In many ways I am wretchedly weak. I have no such confidence in myself. Then I will have confidence for both. But how can you love me for my own sake? Love me as a man. I love you. And the words sang about him, filled the air with a mad pulsing of intolerable joy, made him desire to fling himself in passionate humility at her feet, to weep hot tears, to cry to her in insane worship. He thought her beautiful beyond anything his heart had imagined. Her warm gold hair was the rapture of his eyes and of his revered hand. Though slenderly fashioned, she was so gloriously strong. Not a day of illness in her life, said Mrs. Ewell, and one could readily believe it. She spoke with such a sweet decision. Her I love you was a bond with eternity. In the simplest, as in the greatest things, she saw his wish and acted frankly upon it. No pretty petulance, no affectation of silly sweet languishing, none but the weaknesses of woman, and so exquisitely fresh in her twenty years of maidenhood with bright young eyes that seemed to bid defiance to all the years to come. He went about like one dazzled with excessive light. He talked as he had never talked before, recklessly, exultantly, insolently. In the nobler sense, he made friends on every hand. He welcomed all the world to his bosom. He felt the benevolence of a God. I love you. It breathed like music at his ears when he fell asleep in weariness of joy. It awakened him on the morrow, as with a glorious ringing summons to renewed life. Delay! Why should there be delay? Amy wished nothing but to become his wife, idle to think of his doing any more work, until he sat down in the home of which she was mistress. His brain burned with visions of the books he would henceforth write, but his hand was incapable of anything but a love letter. And what letters? Reared and never published anything equal to those. I have received your poem, Amy replied to one of them. And she was right, not a letter but a poem he had sent her, with every word on fire. The hours of talk, it enraptured him to find how much she had read, and with what clearness of understanding. Latin and Greek? No. Ah, but she should learn them both, that there might be nothing wanting in the communion between his thought and hers, for he loved the old writers with all his heart. They had been such strength to him in his days of misery. They would go together to the charmed lands of the south. No, not now, for their marriage holiday. Amy said that would be an imprudent expense, but as soon as he had got a good price for a book, will not the publishers be kind? If they knew what happiness lurked in embryo within their foolish checkbooks, he woke of a sudden, in the early hours of one morning, a week before the wedding day. You know that kind of a waking, so complete in an instant, caused by the pressure of some troublesome thought upon the dreaming brain. Suppose I should not succeed his forth. Suppose I could never get more than this poor hundred pounds for one of the long books, which cost me so much labor. I shall perhaps have children to support. And Amy, how would Amy bear poverty? He knew what poverty means, the chilling of brain and heart, the unnerving of the hands, the slow gathering about one fear and shame, and impotent wrath, the dread feeling of helplessness, of the world's base indifference. Poverty. Poverty. And for hours he could not sleep. His eyes kept filling with tears. The beating of his heart was low, and in his solitude he called upon Amy with pitiful intrigue. Do not forsake me. I love you. I love you. But that went by. Six days. Five days. Four days. Will one's heart burst with happiness? The flat is taken, is furnished up there towards the sky, eight flights of stone steps. You're a confoundedly lucky fellow, Reardon, remarked Milvane, who had already become very intimate with his new friend. A good fellow, too, and you deserve it. But at first I had a horrible suspicion. I guess what you mean. No, I wasn't even in love with her, though I admired her. She would never have cared for me in any case. I am not sentimental enough. It's a deuce. I mean in an ineffensive sense. She and I are rather too much alike, I fancy. How do you mean, as Reardon puzzled and not very well pleased? There's a great deal of pure intellect about Miss you, you know. She was sure to choose a man of the passionate kind. I think you are talking nonsense, my dear fellow. Well, perhaps I am. To tell you the truth, I have by no means completed my study of women yet. It is one of the things in which I hope to be a specialist someday. Though I don't think I shall ever make use of it in novels, rather perhaps in life. Three days. Two days. One day. Now let every joyous sound which the great globe can utter ring forth in one burst of harmony. Is it not well done to make the village bells chant merrily when a marriage is over? Here in London we can have no such music. But for us, my dear one, all the roaring life of the great city is wedding hymn. Sweet pure face under its bridal veil. The face which shall, if fate's spirit, be as dear to me many a long year hence, as now at the culminating moment of my life. As he trudged on in the dark, his tortured memory was living through that time again. The images forced themselves upon him, however much he tried to think of quite other things, of some fictitious story on which he might set to work. In the case of his earlier books he had waited quietly until some suggestive situation, some group of congenial characters came with sudden delightfulness before his mind and urged him to write. But nothing so spontaneous could now be hoped for. His brain was too weary with months of fruitless harassing endeavor. Moreover he was trying to devise a plot, the kind of literary jack-in-the-box which might excite interest in the mass of readers, and this was alien to the natural working of his imagination. He suffered the torments of nightmare, an oppression of the brain and heart which must soon be intolerable. Chapter 6 The Practical Friend When her husband had set forth, Amy seated herself in the study and took up a new library volume as if to read. But she had no real intention of doing so. It was always disagreeable to her to sit in the manner of one totally unoccupied, with hands on lap, and even when she consciously gave herself up to musing an open book was generally before her. She did not in truth read much nowadays. Since the birth of her child she had seemed to care less than before for disinterested study. If a new novel that had succeeded came into her hands she perused it in a very practical spirit, commenting to Reardon on the features of the work which had made it popular. Formerly she would have thought much more of its purely literary merits for which her eye was very keen. How often she had given her husband the thrill of exquisite pleasure by pointing to some merit or defect of which the common reader would be totally insensible. Now she spoke less frequently on such subjects. Her interests were becoming more personal. She liked to hear details of the success of popular authors about their wives or husbands, as the case might be, their arrangements with publishers, their methods of work. The gossip columns of literary papers, and of some that were not literary, had an attraction for her. She talked of questions such as international copyright, was anxious to get an insight into the practical conduct of journals and to magazines, liked to know who read for the publishing houses. To an impartial observer it might have appeared that her intellect was growing more active and mature. More than half an hour passed. It was not a pleasant train of thought that now occupied her. Her lips were drawn together. Her brows were slightly wrinkled. The self-control, which at other times was agreeably expressed upon her features, had become rather too cold and decided. At one moment it seemed to her that she heard a sound in the bedroom. The doors were purposely left ajar. And her head turned quickly to listen, the look in her eyes instantaneously softening. But all remained quiet. The street would have been silent, but for a cab that now and then passed. The swing of a handsome or the roll of a four-wheeler. And within the buildings nothing whatever was audible. Yes, a footstep briskly mounting the stone stairs. Not like that of the postman. A visitor, perhaps, to the other flat on the topmost landing. But the final pause was in this direction, and then came a sharp rat-tat at the door. Amy rose immediately and went to open. Jasper Milvane raised his urban silk hat, then held out his hand with the greeting of frank friendship. His inquiries were in so loud a voice that Amy checked him with a forbidding gesture. You'll wake willy. By Job I always forget, he exclaimed, in subdued tones. Does the infant flourish? Oh yes. Reared and out. I got back on Saturday evening, but couldn't come round before this. It was Monday. How close it is in here. I suppose the roof gets so heated during the day. Glorious weather in the country, and I have no end of things to tell you. He won't be long, I suppose. I think not. He left his hat and stick in the passage, came into the study, and glanced about as if he expected to see some change since he was last here three weeks ago. So you have been enjoying yourself, said Amy, as after listening for a moment at the door she took a seat. Oh, a little freshening of the faculties, but whose acquaintance do you think I have made? Down there? Yes, your Uncle Alfred and his daughter were staying at John Ewell's, and I saw something of them. I was invited to the house. Did you speak of us? To Miss Ewell only. I happened to meet her on a walk, and in a blundering way I mentioned Reared and's name. But of course it didn't matter in the least. She inquired about you with a good deal of interest. Asked if you were as beautiful as you promised to be years ago, Amy laughed. Doesn't that proceed from your fertile invention, Mr. Milvane? Not a bit of it, by the by. What would be your natural question concerning her? Do you think she gave promise of good looks? I'm afraid I can't say that she did. She had a good face, but rather plain. I see. Jasper threw back his head and seemed to contemplate an object in memory. Well, I shouldn't wonder if most people called her a trifle plain even now. And yet, no, that's hardly possible after all. She has no color. Where is her hair short? Oh, I don't mean the smooth, boyish hair with a parting. Not the kind of hair that would be lank if it grew long. Curly all over. Looks uncommonly well, I assure you. She has a capital head. Odd girl. Very odd girl. Quiet, thoughtful. Not very happy, I'm afraid. Seems to think with the dread of a return to books. Indeed, but I had understood she was a reader. Reading, enough for six people, probably. Perhaps her health is not very robust. Though I knew her by sight quite well, had seen her at the reading room. She's the kind of girl that gets into one's head, you know? Suggestive. Much more in her than comes out, until one knows her very well. I should hope so, remarked Amy with a peculiar smile. But that's by no means a matter of course. They didn't invite me to come and see them in London. I suppose Marion mentioned your acquaintance with this branch of the family. I think not. At all events, she promised me she wouldn't. Amy looked at him inquiringly, in a puzzled way. She promised you? Voluntarily. We got rather sympathetic. Your uncle, Alfred, I mean, is a remarkable man. But I think he regarded me as a youth of no particular importance. Well, how do things go? Amy shook her head. No progress? None, whatever. He can't work. I begin to be afraid that he is really ill. He must go away before the fine weather is over. Do persuade him tonight. I wish you could have had a holiday with him. Out of the question now, I'm sorry to say. I must work, sanagely. But can't you all manage a fortnight somewhere? Hastings? Eastburn? It would be simply rash. One goes on saying, What does a pound or two matter? But it begins at length to matter a great deal. I know, gone found it all. I think how it would amuse some rich grocer's son who pitches his half-sovereign to the waiter when he has dined himself into good humor. But I tell you what it is. You must really try to influence him towards practicality. Don't you think? He paused, and Amy set looking at her hands. I've made an attempt, she said at length, in a distant undertone. You really have? Gisper leaned forward, his clasped hands hanging between his knees. He was scrutinizing her face, and Amy, conscious of the too-fixed regard, at length moved her head uneasily. It seems very clear to me, she said, that a long book is out of the question for him at present. He writes so slowly, and is so fastidious, it would be a fatal thing to hurry through something weaker, even than the last. You think the optimist weak? Gisper asked, half-absolutely. I don't think it worthy of Edwin. I don't see how anyone can. I have wondered what your opinion was. Yes, he ought to try a new tack, I think. Just then there came the sound of a latchkey, opening the outer door. Gisper lay back in his chair, and waited with a smile for his expected friend's appearance. Amy made no movement. Oh, there you are, said Reardon, presenting himself with a dazzled eye of one who has been in darkness. He spoke in a voice of genial welcome, though it still had the note of depression. When did you get back? Milvane began to recount what he had told in the first part of his conversation with Amy. As he did so, the latter withdrew, and was absent for five minutes. On reappearing, she said, You'll have supper with us, Mr. Milvane. I think I will, please. Shortly after, all repaired to the eating-room where conversation had to be carried on in a low tone, because of the proximity of the bed-chamber in which lay the sleeping child. Jasper began to tell of certain things that had happened to him since his arrival in town. It was a curious coincidence, but, by the by, have you heard what the study has been doing? I should think rather so, replied Reardon, his face lighting up, with no small satisfaction. Delicious, isn't it? exclaimed his wife. I thought it too good to be true when Edwin heard of it from Mr. Biffin. All three laughed in subdued chorus, for the moment Reardon became a new man in his exultation over the contradictory reviewers. Oh, Biffin told you did he. Well, continued Jasper. It was an odd thing, but when I reached my lodgings on Saturday evening, there lay a note from Horace Barlow, inviting me to go and see him on Sunday afternoon out at Wimbledon. The special reason being that the editor of the study would be there, and Barlow thought I might like to meet him. Now this letter gave me a fit of laughter, not only because of those precious reviews, but because Alfred, you, had been telling me all about this same editor, who rejoices in the name of Faj. Your uncle, Mrs. Reardon, declares that Faj is the most malicious man in the literary profession, though that saying such a very great deal. Well, never mind. Of course I was delighted to go and meet Faj. At Barlow's I found the queerest collection of people, most of them women of the inkiest description. The great Faj himself surprised me. I expected to see a gaunt, billious man, and he was the rosiest and dumpiest little dandy you can imagine. A fellow of forty-five, I daresay, with thin yellow hair and blue eyes, and a manner of extreme innocence. Faj flattered me with confidential chat, and I discovered at length why Barlow had asked me to meet him. It's Faj that is going to edit Colpepper's new monthly. You've heard about it? And he had actually thought it worthwhile to enlist me among contributors. Now how's that for a piece of news? The speaker looked from Reardon to Amy with a smile of vast significance. I rejoiced to hear it, said Reardon fervently. You see, you see, cried Jasper, forgetting all about the infant in the next room. All things come to the man who knows how to wait. But I'm hanged if I expected a thing of this kind to come so soon. Why, I'm a man of distinction. My doings have been noted. The admirable qualities of my style have drawn attention. I'm looked upon as one of the coming men. Thanks, I confess, in some measure to old Barlow. He seems to have amused himself with cracking me up to all-end sundry. That last thing of mine in the West End has done me a vast amount of good, it seems. And Alfred Yule himself had noticed that paper in the wayside. That's how things work, you know. Reputation comes with a burst, just when you're not looking for anything of the kind. What's the new magazine to be called? Asked Amy. Why, they propose The Current. Not bad in a way, though you imagine a fellow saying, Have you seen The Current, Current? It all events, the tone is to be up-to-date. And the articles are to be short. No padding. Marron Saul from Cover to Cover. What do you think I've undertaken to do for a start? A paper consisting of sketches, of typical readers of each of the principle daily and weekly papers. A duced good idea, you know, my own, of course, but ducidly hard to carry out. I shall rise to the occasion, see if I don't. I'll rival Fadge himself in maliciousness. Though I must confess, I discovered no particular malice in the fellow's way of talking. The article shall make a sensation. I'll spend a whole month on it, and to make it a perfect piece of satire. Now that's the kind of thing that inspires me with awe and envy, said Reardon. I could no more write such a paper than an article on fluctuations. Tis my vocation howled? You might think I hadn't experienced enough to begin with, but my intuition is so strong that I can make a little experience go an immense way. Most people would imagine I had been wasting my time these last few years, just sauntering about, reading nothing but periodicals, making acquaintance with loafers of every description. The truth is I have been collecting ideas, and ideas that are convertible into coin of the realm, my boy. I have the special faculty of an extemporary writer. Never in my life shall I do anything of solid literary value. I shall always despise the people I write for. But my path will be that of success. I have always said it, and now I am sure of it. Does Fadge retire from the study then? Inquired Reardon, when he had received this tirade with a friendly laugh. Yes, he does. It was going to, it seems, in any case. Of course, I heard nothing about the two reviews, and I was almost afraid to smile whilst Fadge was talking with me, lest I should betray my thought. Did you know anything about the fellow before? Not I. Didn't know who edited the study. Nor I, either. Remarkable what a number of illustrious obscure are going about. But I have still something else to tell you. I am going to set my sisters afloat in literature. How? Well, I don't see why they shouldn't try their hands at a little writing, instead of giving lessons which don't suit them a bit. Last night, when I got back from Wimbledon, I went to look up Davies. Perhaps you don't remember my mentioning him, a fellow who was at Jolly and Monks, the publishers. Up to a year ago, he edits a trade journal now, and I see very little of him. However, I found him at home and had a long practical talk with him. I wanted to find out the state of the market as to such wares as Jolly and Monk dispose of. He gave me some very useful hints, and the result was that I went off this morning and saw Monk himself. No Jolly exists at present. Mr. Monk, I began in my blandest tone. You know it. I am requested to call upon you by a lady who thinks of preparing a little volume to be called a child's history of the English Parliament. Her idea is that, and so on. Well, I got on admirably with Monk, especially when he learned that I was to be connected with Colpepper's new venture. He smiled upon the project and said he should be very glad to see a specimen chapter. If that pleased him, we could then discuss terms. But has one of your sisters really begun such a book, inquired Amy? Neither of them knows anything of the matter, but they are certainly capable of doing the kind of thing I have in mind, which will consist largely of anecdotes of prominent statesmen. I myself shall write the specimen chapter and send it to the girls to show them what I propose. I shouldn't wonder if they make some fifty pounds out of it. There are a few books that will be necessary. They can either get it at Wattleboro Library or I can send them. Your energy is remarkable all of a sudden, said Reardon. Yes, the hour has come, I find. There is a tide to quote something that has the charm of freshness. The supper which consisted of bread and butter, cheese, sardines, cocoa was now over, and a jasper still enlarging on his recent experiences and future prospects. Led the way back to the sitting room. Not very long after this, Amy left the two friends to their pipes. She was anxious that her husband should discuss his affairs privately with Milvane and give ear to the practical advice which she knew would be tendered him. I hear that you are still stuck fast, began Jasper, when they had smoked a while in silence. Yes, getting rid of the serious I should fear isn't it? Yes, repeated Reardon in a low voice. Come, come, old man, you can't go on in this way. Would it or wouldn't it be any use if you took a seaside holiday? Not in the least, I am incapable of holiday if the opportunity were offered. Do something I must, or I shall fret myself into imbecility. Very well, what is it to be? I shall try to manufacture two volumes. They needn't run more than about 270 pages and those well spaced out. This is refreshing, this is practical. But look now, let it be something rather sensational. Couldn't we invent a good title, something to catch eye and ear? The title would suggest the story, you know? Reardon laughed, contemptuously, but the scorn was directed rather against himself than Milvane. Let's try, he muttered. Both appeared to exercise their minds on the problem for a few minutes, then Jasper slapped his knee. How would this do? The weird sisters. Devilish good, eh? Suggests all sorts of things, both to the vulgar and the educated. Nothing brutally claptrap about it, you know. But what does it suggest to you? Oh, which, like mysterious girls, or women, think it over? There was another long silence. Reardon's face was that of a man in blank misery. I have been trying, he said at length, after an attempt to speak which was checked by a huskiness in his throat. To explain to myself how this state of things has come about, I almost think I can do so. How? That half year abroad, in the extraordinary shock of happiness, which followed it once upon it, have disturbed the balance of my nature. It was adjusted to circumstances of hardship, privation, struggle, a temperament like mine can't pass through such a violent change of conditions without being greatly affected. I have never since been the man I was before I left England. The stage I had then reached was the result of a slow and elaborate building up. I could look back and see the processes by which I had grown from the boy who was a mere bookworm to the man who had all but succeeded as a novelist. It was a perfectly natural sober development. But in the last two years and a half I can distinguish no order. In living through it I have imagined from time to time that my powers were coming to their ripest. But that was mere delusion. Intellectually I have fallen back. The probability is that this wouldn't matter. If only I could live on in peace of mind. I should recover my equilibrium and perhaps once more understand myself. But the due course of things is troubled by my poverty. He spoke in a slow meditative way, in a monotonous voice, and without raising his eyes from the ground. I can understand, put in Jasper, that there may be philosophical truth in all this, all the same. It's a great pity that you should occupy your mind with such thoughts. A pity? No. I must remain a reasoning creature. Disaster may end by driving me out of my wits. But till then I won't abandon my heritage of thought. Let us have it out then. You think it was a mistake to spin those months abroad? A mistake from the practical point of view. That vast broadening of my horizon lost me the command of my literary resources. I lived in Italy and Greece as a student, concerned especially with the old civilizations. I read little but Greek and Latin. That brought me out of the track I had laboriously made for myself. I often thought with disgust of the kind of work I had been doing. My novels seemed vapid stuff, so wretchedly and shallowly modern. If I had had the means, I should have devoted myself to the life of a scholar. That, I quite believe, is my natural life. It's only the influence of recent circumstances that has made me a writer of novels. A man who can't journalize, yet must earn his bread by literature, nowadays inevitably turns to fiction, as the Elizabethan men turned to drama. Well, I should have got back, I think, into the old line of work. It was my marriage that completed what the time abroad had begun. He looked up suddenly and added, I am speaking as if to myself. You, of course, don't misunderstand me and think I am accusing my wife. No, I don't take you to mean that, by any means. No, no, of course not. All this wrong is my accursed want of money. But that threatens to be such a fearful wrong that I begin to wish I had died before my marriage day. Then Amy would have been saved. The Philistines are right. A man has no business to marry unless he has a secured income equal to all natural demands. I behave with the grossest selfishness. I might have known that such happiness was never meant for me. Do you mean by all this that you seriously doubt whether you will ever be able to write again? In awful seriousness, I doubt it, replied Reardon with haggard face. It strikes me as extraordinary in your position I should work as I never had done before. Because you are the kind of man who is roused by necessity. I am overcome by it. My nature is feeble and luxurious. I never in my life encountered and overcame a practical difficulty. Yes, when you got to work at the hospital, all I did was to write a letter in chance made it effective. My view of the case, Reardon, is that you are simply ill. Certainly I am, but the ailment is desperately complicated. Tell me, do you think I might possibly get any kind of stated work to do? Should I be fit for any place in a newspaper office, for instance? I fear not. You are the last man to have anything to do with journalism. If I appealed to my publishers, could they help me? I don't see how. They would simply say, write a book and we'll buy it. Yes, there's no help but that. If only you were able to write short stories, fadge might be useful. But what's the use? I suppose I might get ten guineas at most for such a story. I need a couple of hundred pounds at least. Even if I could finish a three volume book, I'd doubt if they would give me a hundred again for the failure of the optimist. No, they wouldn't. But to sit and look forward in this way is absolutely fatal, my dear fellow. Get to work at your two volume story, call it The Weird Sisters, or anything better that you can devise, but get it done. So many pages a day. If I go ahead as I begin to think I shall, I shall soon be able to assure you good notices in a lot of papers. Your misfortune has been that you had no influential friends. By the by, how has the study been in the habit of treating you? Scrubbly. I'll make an opportunity of talking about your books to fadge. I think fadge and I shall get on pretty well together. Alfred Yule hates the man fiercely for some reason or other. By the way, I may as well tell you that I broke off short with the Yule's on purpose. Oh, I had begun to think far too much about the girl. I wouldn't do, you know, I must marry someone with money, and a good deal of it. That's a settled point with me. Then you are not at all likely to meet them in London. Not at all. And if I get allied with fadge, no doubt you will involve me in his savage feeling. You see how wisely I acted. I have a sense for the prudent course. They talked for a long time, but again chiefly of Milvane's affairs. Reardon indeed cared little to say anything more about his own. Talk was mere vanity and vexation of spirit, for the spring of his volitions seemed to be broken, and whatever resolve he might utter, he knew that everything depended on influences he could not even foresee. The recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Brown. New Grubb Street by George Gissing. Chapter 7. Marian's Home Three weeks after her return from the country, which took place a week later than that of Jasper Milvane, Marian Ewell was working one afternoon at her usual place in the museum reading room. It was three o'clock, and with the interval of half an hour at mid-day, when she went away for a cup of tea and a sandwich. She had been closely occupied since half past nine. Her task at present was to collect materials for a paper on French authorises of the seventeenth century. The kind of thing which her father supplied on stipulated terms for anonymous publication. Marian was by this time almost able to complete such a piece of manufacture herself, and her father's share in it was limited to a few hints and corrections. The greater part of the work by which Ewell earned his moderate income was anonymous. Volumes and articles which bore his signature dealt with much of the same subjects as his unsigned matter, but the writing was laboured with a conscientiousness unusual in men of his position. The result, unhappily, was not correspondent with the efforts. Alfred Ewell had made a recognisable name among the critical writers of the day, seeing him in the title lists of a periodical. Most people knew what to expect, but not a few for bore the cutting open of the pages he occupied. He was learned it copious, occasionally mordant in style, but grace had been denied him. He had of late begun to perceive the fact that those passages of Marian's writing, which were printed just as they came from her pin, had a merit of a kind quite distinct from anything of which he himself was capable. And it began to be a question with him whether it would not be advantageous to let the girls sign these compositions. A matter of business, to be sure, at all of its in the first instance. For a long time Marian had scarcely looked up from the desk, but at this moment she found it necessary to refer to the invaluable LaRuce. As so often happened, the particular volume of which she had need was not upon the shelf. She turned away and looked about her in the gaze of weary disappointment. At a little distance were standing two young men, engaged as their faces showed in facetious colloquy. As soon as she observed them, Marian's eyes fell, but the next moment she looked again in that direction. Her face had wholly changed. She wore a look of timid expectancy. The men were moving towards her, still talking and laughing. They turned to the shelves and affected to search for a book. The voices drew near and one of them was well known to her. Now she could hear every word. Now the speakers were gone by. Was it possible that Mr. Milvane had not recognized her? She followed him with her eyes and saw him take a seat not far off. He must have passed without even being aware of her. She went back to her place and it set trifling with a pin. When she made a show of resuming work it was evident that she could no longer apply herself as before. Every now and then she glanced at people who were passing there were intervals when she wholly lost herself in reverie. She was tired and had even a slight headache. When the hand of the clock pointed to half past three she closed the volume from which she had been copying extracts and to begin to collect her papers. A voice spoke close behind her. Where's your father, Miss Ewell? The speaker was a man of sixty. Short, stout, tonsured by the hand of time. He had a broad, flabby face, the color of an ancient turnip, save where one of the cheeks was marked with a mulberry stain. His eyes gray-orbed in a yellow setting, paired with good-humored inquisitiveness. And his mouth was that of the confirmed gossip. For eyebrows he had two little patches of reddish stubble. From a stash what looked like a bit of discolored toe and scraps of similar material hanging beneath his creasy chin represented a beard. His garb must have seen a great deal of museum service. It consisted of a jacket, between brown and blue, hanging in capacious shapelessness, a waistcoat half-open for lack of buttons, and with one of the pockets coming unsone, a pair of bronze-hued trousers, which had all run to knee. Necktie he had none, and his linen made distinct appeal to the laundress. Maryon shook hands with him. He went away at half-past two, and was her reply to his question. How annoying! I wanted particularly to see him. I have been running about all day and couldn't get here before. Something important. Most important, at all of this I can tell you, but I entreat you that you won't breathe a word saved to your father. Mr. Quaramby, that was his name, had taken a vacant chair and drawn it close to Maryon's. He was in a state of joyous excitement and talked in thick, rather pompous tones with a pant at the end of a sentence. To emphasize the extremely confidential nature of his remarks, he brought his head almost in contact with the girls, and one of her thin, delicate hands was covered with his red, pudgy fingers. I have had a talk with Nathaniel Walker. He continued a long talk, a talk of vast importance. You know Walker? No, no, how should you? He's a man of business, close friend of Rackett's, Rackett you know, the owner of the study. Upon this he made a grave pause and glared more excitedly than ever. I have heard of Mr. Rackett, said Maryon. Of course, of course. And you must also have heard that Rackett leaves the study at the end of the year, eh? Father told me it was probable. Rackett and he have done nothing but quarrel for months. The paper is falling off seriously. Well now, when I came across Nat Walker this afternoon, the first thing he said to me was, you know, Alfred, you will pretty well, I think? Pretty well, I answered. Why? I'll tell you, he said, but it's between you and me, you understand? He's thinking about him in connection with the study. I'm delighted to hear it. To tell you the truth went on that. I shouldn't wonder if you'll gets the editorship, but you understand that it would be altogether premature to talk about it. Now, what do you think of this, eh? It's very good news, answered Maryon. I should think so, ho, ho! Mr. Quarmbay laughed in a peculiar way, which was the result of long years of mirth subdual in the reading room, but not a breath to anyone but your father. He'll be here tomorrow. Break it gently to him, you know? He's an excitable man. Can't take things quietly like I do. Ho, ho! His suppressed laugh ended in a fit of coughing. The reading room cough. When he had recovered from it, he pressed Maryon's hand with paternal fervor and waddled off to chatter with someone else. Maryon replaced several books on the reference shelves, returned others to the central desk, and was just leaving the room when again a voice made demand upon her attention. Miss Ewell, one moment if you please. It was a tall, meager, dry featured man dressed with the painful neatness of self-respecting poverty. The edges of his coat sleeves were carefully darned. His black necktie and skull cap, which covered his baldness, were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly, intimately with blue, roomy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand. I've been looking for your father, he said, as Maryon turned. Isn't he here? He is gone, Mr. Hinks. Ah, then would you do me the kindness to take a book for him? In fact, it's my little essay on the historical drama just out. He spoke with nervous hesitation and in a tone which seemed to make apology for his existence. Oh, father will be glad to have it. If you will kindly wait one minute, Miss Ewell, is it my place over there? He went off with long strides and speedily came back panting. In his hand a thin new volume. My kind regards to him, Miss Ewell, you are quite well, I hope. I won't detain you. And he backed into a man who was coming in observantly this way. Maryon went to the ladies cloakroom, put on her hat and jacket and left the museum. Someone passed out through the swing door a moment before her, and as soon as she had issued beneath the portico she saw that it was Jasper Milvane. She must have followed him through the hall, but her eyes had been cast down. The young man was now alone. As he descended the steps he looked to left and right, but not behind him. Maryon followed at a distance of two or three yards. Nearing the gateway she quickened her pace a little, so as to pass out into the street almost at the same moment as Milvane. But he did not turn his head. He took to the right. Maryon had fallen back again, but she still followed at a very little distance. His walk was slow, and she might easily have passed him in quite a natural way. In that case he could not help seeing her, but there was an uneasy suspicion in her mind that he really must have noticed her in the reading room. This was the first time she had seen him since their parting at Finden. Had he any reason for avoiding her? Did he take it ill that her father had shown no desire to keep up his acquaintance? She allowed the interval between them to become greater. In a minute or two Milvane turned up Charlotte Street, and so she lost sight of him. In Tottenham Court Road she waited for an omnibus that would take her to the remote part of Camden Town. Obtaining a corner seat she drew as far back as possible and paid no attention to her fellow passengers. At a point in Camden Road she had links alighted, and after ten minutes' walk reached her destination in a quiet byway called St. Paul's Crescent, consisting of small, decent houses. That at which she paused had an exterior promising comfort within. The windows were clean and neatly curtained, and the polishable appurtenances of the door gleamed to perfection. She admitted herself with a latch-key and went straight upstairs without encountering anyone. Descending again in a few moments she entered the front room on the ground floor. This served both as parlor and dining room. It was comfortably furnished without much attempt at adornment. On the walls were a few auto-types and old engravings. A recess between fireplace and window was fitted with shelves, which supported hundreds of volumes, the overflow of Ewell's library. The table was laid for a meal. It best suited the convenience of the family to dine at five o'clock. A long evening, so necessary to most literary people, was thus assured. Marian, as always, when she had spent a day at the museum, was faint with weariness and hunger. She cut a small piece of bread from a loaf on the table and sat down in an easy chair. Presently appeared a short, slight woman of middle age, plainly dressed in serviceable gray. Her face could never have been very comely and it expressed but moderate intelligence. Its lines, however, were those of gentleness and good feeling. She had the look of one who is making a painful effort to understand something. This was fixed upon her features and probably resulted from the peculiar conditions of her life. Rather early, aren't you, Marian? She sat as she closed the door and came forward to take a seat. Yes, I have a little headache. Oh, dear, is that beginning again? Mrs. Ewell's speech was seldom ungrammatical and her intonation was not flagrantly vulgar but the accent of the London poor, which brands as with hereditary baseness, still clung to her words, rendering futile such propriety of phrase as she owed to years of association with educated people. In the same degree did her bearing fall short of that which distinguishes a lady. The London work-girl is rarely capable of raising herself or being raised to a place in life above that to which she was born. She cannot learn how to stand and sit and to move like a woman bred to refinement any more than she can fashion her tongue to graceful speech. Mrs. Ewell's behaviour to Marian was marked with a singular diffidence. She looked and spoke affectionately, but not with a mother's freedom. One might have taken her for a trusted servant waiting upon her mistress. Whenever opportunity offered, she watched the girl, in a curiously furtive way, that puzzled look on her face becoming very noticeable. Her consciousness was never able to accept, as a familiar and unimportant fact, a vast difference between herself and her daughter. Marian's superiority in native powers, in delicacy of feeling, in the results of education could never be lost sight of. Under ordinary circumstances she addressed the girl as if tentatively, however sure of anything from her own point of view, she knew that Marian as often as not had quite a different criterion. She understood that the girl frequently expressed an opinion by mere reticence, and hence the carefulness with which, when conversing, she tried to discover the real effect of her words in Marian's features. Hungry too, she said, seeing the crust Marian was nibbling. You really must have more lunch, dear. It isn't right to go so long. You'll make yourself ill. Have you been out, Marian asked? Yes, I went to Holloway. Mrs. Yule sighed and looked very unhappy. By going to Holloway was always meant to visit to her own relatives, a married sister with three children, and a brother who inhabited the same house. To her husband she scarcely ever ventured to speak of these persons. Yule had no intercourse with them, but Marian was always willing to listen sympathetically, and her mother often exhibited a touching gratitude for this condescension, as she deemed it. Are things no better the girl inquired? Worse as far as I can see. John has begun his drinking again, and him and Tom quarrel every night. There's no peace in the house. If ever Mrs. Yule lapsed into gross errors of pronunciation or phrase, it was when she spoke of her kin's folk the subject seemed to throw her back into a former condition. He ought to go and live by himself, said Marian, referring to her mother's brother, the Thirsty John. So he ought to be sure. I'm always telling them so. But there he don't seem to be able to persuade them. They're that silly an obstinate. It's Susan. She only gets angry with me, and tells me not to talk in a stuck-up way. I'm sure I never say a word that could offend her. I'm too careful for that. And there's Annie, no doing anything with her. She's about the streets at all hours, and what'll be the end of it no one can say. They're getting that ragged, all of them. It isn't Susan's fault. Indeed it isn't. She does all that woman can. But Tom hasn't brought home tin shillings the last month. And it seems to me as if he was getting careless. I gave her half a crown. It was all I could do. And the worst of it is, they'd think I could do so much more if I liked. They're always hinting that we are rich people, and it's no good my trying to persuade them. They think I'm telling falsehoods, and it's very hard to be looked at in that way. It is indeed, Marian. You can't help it, Mother. I suppose their suffering makes them unkind and unjust. That's just what it does, my dear. You never said anything truer. Poverty will make the best people bad, if it gets hard enough. Why, there's so much of it in the world, I'm sure I can't see. I suppose Father will be back soon. He said dinner time. Mr. Quaramby has been telling me something which is wonderfully good news, if it's really true. But I can't help feeling doubtful. He says that Father may perhaps be main editor of the study at the end of this year. Mrs. Ewell, of course, understood in Outline these affairs of the literary world. She thought of them only from the pecuniary point of view. But that made no essential distinction between her and the mass of literary people. My word, she exclaimed, what a thing that would be for us. Marion had begun to explain her reluctance to base any hopes on Mr. Quaramby's prediction when the sound of a postman's knock at the house door caused her mother to disappear for a moment. It's for you, said Mrs. Ewell, returning from the country. Marion took the letter and examined its address with interest. It must be one of the Miss Milvane's. Yes, Dora Milvane. After Jasper's departure from Finden, his sisters had seen Marion several times. And the mutual liking between her and them had been confirmed by opportunity of conversation. The promise of correspondence had hitherto waited for fulfillment. It seemed natural to Marion that the younger of the two girls should write. Maude was attractive and agreeable and probably clever, but Dora had more spontaneity in friendship. It will amuse you to hear, wrote Dora, that the literary project our brother mentioned in a letter whilst you were still here is really to come to something. He has sent us a specimen chapter written by himself of the child's history of Parliament. And Maude thinks she could carry it on in that style. If there's no hurry, she and I have both set to work on English histories, and we shall be authorities before long. Jolly and Monk offer thirty pounds for their little book it suits them, when finished, with certain possible profits in the future. Trust Jasper for making a bargain. So perhaps our literary career will be something more than a joke after all. I hope it may. Anything rather than a life of teaching. We shall be so glad to hear from you. If you still care to trouble about country girls, and so on, Marion read with a please to smile, then acquainted her mother with the contents. I'm very glad, said Mrs. Ewe. It's so seldom you get a letter. Yes. Marion seemed desirous of saying something more, and her mother had a thoughtful look, suggestive of sympathetic curiosity. Is their brother likely to call here? Mrs. Ewe asked with misgiving. No one has invited him to, was the girl's quiet reply. He wouldn't come without that. It's not likely that he even knows the address. Your father won't be seeing him, I suppose. By chance perhaps, I don't know. It was very rare indeed for these two to touch upon any subject, save those of everyday interest. In spite of the affection between them, their exchange of confidence did not go very far. Mrs. Ewe, who had never exercised maternal authority since Marion's earliest childhood, claimed no maternal privileges, and Marion's natural reserve had been strengthened by her mother's respectful aloofness. The English fault of domestic reticence could scarcely go further than it did in their case. Its exaggeration is, of course, one of the characteristics of those unhappy families severed by differences of education between the old and the young. I think, said Marion, in a forced tone, that father hasn't much liking for Mr. Milvane. She wished to know if her mother had heard any private remarks on this subject, but she could not bring herself to ask directly. I'm sure I don't know, replied Mrs. Ewe, smoothing her dress. He hasn't said anything to me, Marion. An awkward silence. The mother had fixed her eyes on the mantelpiece and was thinking hard. Otherwise, said Marion, he would have said something, I should think, about meeting in London. But is there anything in this gentleman that he wouldn't like? I don't know of anything. Impossible to pursue the dialogue, Marion moved uneasily. Then Rose said something about putting the letter away and left the room. Shortly after, Alfred Ewe entered the house. It was no uncommon thing for him to come home in a mood of silent moroseness. And this evening, the first glimpse of his face was sufficient warning. He entered the dining room and stood on the hearth rug, reading an evening paper. His wife made a pretense of straightening things upon the table. Well, he exclaimed irritably, it's after five, why isn't dinner served? It's just coming, Alfred. Even the average man of a certain age is an alarming creature when dinner delays itself. The literary man in such a moment goes beyond all parallel. If there be added the fact that he has just returned from a very unsatisfactory interview with a publisher, and a daughter may indeed regard the situation as appalling. Marion came in and at once observed her mother's frightened face. Father, she said, hoping to make a diversion, Mr. Hinks has sent you his new book and wishes. Then take Mr. Hinks' new book back to him and tell him that I have quite enough to do without reading tedious trash. He needn't expect that I'm going to write a notice of it. This simpleton pesters me beyond endurance. I wish to know if you please, he added with Savage Kong, when dinner will be ready. If there's time to write a few letters, just tell me at once that I may not waste half an hour. Marion resented this unreasonable anger, but she durst not reply. At that moment the servant appeared with a smoking joint, and a Mrs. Ewell followed carrying dishes of vegetables. The man of letters seated himself and carved angrily. He began his bill by drinking half a glass of ale. Then he ate a few mouthfuls in a quick hungry way. His head bent closely over the plate. It happened commonly enough that dinner passed without a word of conversation, and that seemed likely to be the case this evening. Part 2 of New Grubb Street. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Brown. New Grubb Street by George Gissing. Chapter 7 Marion's Home Part 2 To his wife Ewell, he missed anything but a curt inquiry or caustic comment. If he spoke humanly at table, it was to Marion. Ten minutes passed. Then Marion resolved to try any means of clearing the atmosphere. Mr. Quaramby gave me a message for you, she said, a friend of his. Nathaniel Walker has told him that Mr. Rackett will very likely offer you the editorship of the study. You'll stop in the act of mastication. He fixed his eyes intently on the sirloin for half a minute. Then, by way of the beer jug and the salt cellar, turned them upon Marion's face. Walker told him that. Poo! It was a great secret. I wasn't to breathe a word to anyone but you. Walker's a fool and Quaramby's an ass, remarked her father. But there was a tremulousness in his bushy eyebrows, his forehead half unread itself. He continued to eat more slowly, and as if with appreciation of the vines. What did he say? Repeat it to me in his words. Marion did so as nearly as possible. He listened with a scoffing expression, but still his features relaxed. I don't credit Rackett with enough good-sense for such a proposal, he said deliberately. And I'm not very sure I should accept it if it were made. That fellow fag is all but ruined the paper. It will amuse me to see how long it takes him to make Colpepper's new magazine a distinct failure. A silence of five minutes ensued. The Newell said of a sudden. Where's Hink's book? Marion reached it from a side table. Under this roof literature was regarded almost as a necessary part of table garnishing. I thought it would be bigger than this, Ewell muttered, as he opened the volume in a way peculiar to bookish men. A page was turned down as if to draw attention to some passage. Ewell put on his eyeglasses and soon made a discovery which had the effect of completing the transformation of his visage. His eyes glinted. His chin worked in pleasurable emotion. In a moment he handed the book to Marion indicating the small type of a footnote. It embodied an effusive eulogy introduced apropos of some literary discussion of Mr. Alfred Ewell's critical acumen, scholarly research, lucid style, and sundry other distinguished merits. That is kind of him, said Marion. Good old Hinks, I suppose I must try to get him a half a dozen readers. May I see, asked Mrs. Ewell under her breath, bending to Marion. Her daughter passed on the volume and Mrs. Ewell read the footnote with that look of slow appreciation which is so pathetic when it signifies the heart's goodwill thwarted by the mind's defect. That'll be good for you, Alfred, won't it? She said, glancing at her husband. Certainly, he replied with a smile of contemptuous irony. If Hinks goes on he'll establish my reputation. And he took a draft of ale like one who is reinvigorated for the battle of life. Marion, regarding him a scans, mused on what seemed to her a strange anomaly in his character. It had often surprised her that a man of his temperament and powers should be so dependent to the praise and blame of people whom he justly deemed his inferiors. Ewell was glancing over the pages of the work. Pity the man can't write English. What vocabulary! Obstruant. Reliable. Particularization. Fabulosity. Different to. Averse to. Did one ever come across such a antique pedantry and modern vulgarism? Surely he has his name from the German Hinken. Eh, Marion? With a laugh he tossed the book away again. His mood was wholly changed. He gave various evidences of enjoying the meal and began to talk freely with his daughter. Finished the authorises? Not quite. No hurry. When you have time I want you to read Ditchley's new book down a selection of his worst sentences. I'll use them for an article on contemporary style. It occurred to me this afternoon. He smiled grimly. Mrs. Ewell's face exhibited much contentment which became radiant joy when her husband remarked casually that the custard was very well made today. Dinner over he rose without ceremony and went off to his study. The man had suffered much and toiled stupendously. It was not inexplicable that dyspepsia, and to many another ill that literary flesh is heir to, wracked him sore. Go back to the days when he was an assistant at a bookseller's in Holburn. Already ambition devoured him and the genuine love of knowledge goaded his brain. He allowed himself but four hours of sleep. He wrought doggedly at languages ancient and modern. He tried his hand at metrical translations. He planned tragedies. Practically he was living in a past age. His literary ideals were formed on the study of Boswell. The head assistant in the shop went away to pursue a business which had come into his hands on the death of a relative. Housed in an alley off the strand into Mr. Polo, a singular name to become well known in the course of time, had his ideas about its possible extension. Among other instances of activity he started a penny weekly paper called All sorts. And in the pages of this periodical Alfred Ewell first appeared as an author. Before long he became the director of all sorts. Then actual director of the paper. He said goodbye to the bookseller and his literary career fairly began. Mr. Polo used to say that he never knew a man who could work so many consecutive hours as Alfred Ewell. A faithful account of all that the young man learned and wrote from 1855 to 1860. That is, his 25th to his 30th year would have the look of burlesque exaggeration. He had set it before him to become a celebrated man. And he was not unaware that the attainment of that end would cost him quite exceptional labour. Seeing that nature had not favoured him with brilliant parts. No matter his name should be spoken among men unless he killed himself in the struggle for success. In the meantime he married, living in a garret and supplying himself with the materials of his scanty meals. He was in the habit of making purchases at a little chandler's shop where he was waited upon by a young girl of no beauty but as it seemed to him of amiable disposition. One holiday he met this girl as she was walking with a younger sister in the streets. He made her nearer acquaintance and before long she consented to be his wife and share his garret. His brothers John and Edmund cried out that he had made an unpardonable fool of himself in marrying so much beneath him that he might well have waited until his income improved. This was all very well but they might just as reasonably have bidden him reject plain food because a few years hence he would be able to purchase luxuries. He could not do without nourishment of some sort and the time had come when he could not do without a wife. Many a man with brains but no money has been compelled to the same step. Educated girls have a pronounced distaste for London garrets. Not one in fifty thousand would share poverty with the brightest genius ever born. Seeing that marriage is so often indispensable to that very success which would enable a man of parts to mate equally there is nothing for it but to look below one's own level and be grateful to the untaught woman who has pity on one's loneliness. Unfortunately Alfred Ewell was not so grateful as he might have been. His marriage proved far from unsuccessful. Alfred himself united to a vulgar shrew whereas the girl had the great virtues of humility and kindliness. She endeavored to learn of him but her dullness and his impatience made this attempt a failure. Her human qualities had to suffice. And they did until Ewell began to lift his head above the literary mob. Previously he often lost his temper with her but never expressed or felt repentance of his marriage. Now he began to see only the disadvantages of his position and forgetting the facts of the case to imagine that he might well have waited for a wife who could share his intellectual existence. Mrs. Ewell had to pass through a few years of much bitterness already a martyr to dyspepsia and often suffering from bilious headaches of extreme violence. Her husband now and then lost all control of his temper all sense of kind feeling even of decency and reproached the poor woman with her ignorance her stupidity her low origin. Naturally enough she defended herself with such weapons as a sense of cruel injustice to the child. More than once the two all but parted it did not come to an actual rupture chiefly because Ewell could not do without his wife her tendons had become indispensable and then there was the child to consider. From the first it was Ewell's dread lest Marion should be infected permit his wife to talk to the child at the earliest possible moment Marion was sent to a day school and in her tenth year she went as weakly border to an establishment at Fulham any sacrifice of money to ensure her growing up with the tongue and the manners of a lady it can scarcely have been a light trial to the mother to know that contact with her was regarded as her child's danger but in her humility and her love for Marion she offered no resistance and so it came to pass that one day the little girl hearing her mother make some flagrant grammatical error turned to the other parent and asked gravely why doesn't mother speak as properly as we do? Well that is one of the results of such marriages one of the myriad miseries that result from poverty the end was gained at all hazards Marion grew up everything that her father desired not only had she the bearing of refinement but it early became obvious that nature had well endowed her with brains from the nursery her talk was of books and at the age of twelve she was already able to give her father some assistance as an emmanuensis at that time Edmund Ewell was still living he had overcome his prejudices and there was intercourse between his household and that of the literary man intimacy it could not be called for Mrs. Edmund who was the daughter of a law stationer had much difficulty in behaving to Mrs. Alfred with show of suavity still the cousins Amy and Marion from time to time saw each other and were not unsuitable companions it was the death of Amy's father that brought these relations to an end left to the control of her own affairs Mrs. Edmund was not long in giving offense to Mrs. Alfred and so to Alfred himself the man of letters might be inconsiderate enough in his behavior to his wife but as soon as anyone else treated her with disrespect that was quite another matter purely on this account he quarreled violently with his brother's widow and from that day the two families kept apart the chapter of quarrels was one of no small importance in Alfred's life his difficult temper and an ever increasing sense of neglected merit frequently put him at war with publishers editors, fellow authors and he had an unhappy trick of exciting the hostility of men who were most likely to be useful to him with Mr. Polo for instance who held him in esteem and whose commercial success made him a valuable connection Alfred ultimately broke on a trifling matter of personal dignity later came the great quarrel with Clement Fadge an affair of considerable advantage in the way of advertisement to both men concerned it happened in the year of 1873 at that time Ewell was editor of a weekly paper called The Balance a literary organ which aimed high and failed to hit the circulation essential to its existence Fadge, a younger man did reviewing for The Balance he was in needy circumstances and had wrought himself Ewell's good opinion by judicious flattery but with a clear eye for the main chance Mr. Fadge soon perceived that Ewell could only be of temporary use to him and that the editor of a well established weekly which lost no opportunity of throwing scorn upon Ewell and all his works would be a much more profitable conquest he succeeded in transferring his services to the more flourishing paper and struck out a special line of work by the free exercise of a malicious flippancy which was then without rival in the periodical press when he had thoroughly got his hand in it fell to Mr. Fadge in the mere way of business to review a volume of his old editors a rather pretentious and long-winded but far from worthless essay on imagination as a national characteristic the notice was a masterpiece its exquisite virulence set the literary circles chuckling concerning the authorship there was no mystery and Alfred Ewell had the indiscretion to make a violent reply the savage assault upon Fadge in the columns of the balance Fadge desired nothing better the uproar which arose chaff, fury, grave comments sneering spite could only result in drawing universal attention to his anonymous cleverness and throwing ridicule upon the heavy conscientious man well you probably remember all about it it ended in the disappearance of Ewell's struggling paper and the establishment on a firm basis of Fadge's reputation it would be difficult to mention any department of literary endeavor in which Ewell did not at one time or another try his fortune turn to his name in the museum catalog the list of works appended to it will amuse you in his 30th year he published a novel it failed completely and the same result awaited a similar experiment five years later he wrote a drama of modern life some years strove to get it acted but in vain finally it appeared for the closet giving Clement Fadge such an opportunity as he seldom enjoyed the one noteworthy thing about these productions and about others of equally mistaken direction was the sincerity of their workmanship had Ewell been content to manufacture a novel or a play with due disregard for literary honor he might perchance have made a mercantile success but the poor fellow had not pliancy enough for this he took his efforts thought he was producing works of art pursued his ambition in the spirit of fierce conscientiousness in spite of all he remained only a journeyman the kind of work he did best was poorly paid and could bring no fame at the age of fifty he was still living in a poor house in an obscure quarter he earned enough for his actual needs and was under no pressing fear from the morrow so long as his faculties remained unimpaired but there was no disguising from himself that his life had been a failure and the thought tormented him now there had come unexpectedly a gleam of hope if indeed the man racket thought of offering him the editorship of the study he might even yet taste the triumphs for which he had so vehemently longed the study was a weekly paper of fair repute Faj had harmed it no doubt of that by giving it a tone which did not suit the majority of its readers serious people who thought that the criticism of contemporary writing offered an opportunity for something better than a display of malevolent wit but a return to the old earnestness would doubtless set all right again and the joy of sitting in that dictatorial chair the delight of having his own organ once more of making himself a power in the world of letters of emphasizing to a large audience his developed methods of criticism an embittered man is a man beset by evil temptations the study contained each week certain columns of flying gossip and when he thought of this you will also thought of Clement Faj and sundry other of his worst enemies how the gossip column can be used for hostile purposes yet without the least overt offense he had learned only too well sometimes the mere omission of a man's name from a list of authors can mortify and injure in our day the manipulation of such paragraphs has become a fine art but he recalled numerous illustrations Alfred knew well enough how incessantly the tempter he said to himself that in certain instances yielding would be no dishonor he himself had many a time been mercilessly treated in the very interest of the public it was good that certain men should suffer a snubbing and his fingers itched to have hold of the editorial pin ha ha like the war horse he snuffed the battle far off no work this evening though there were tasks which pressed for completion his study the only room on the ground level except the dining room was small and even a good deal of the floor was encumbered with books but he found space for walking nervously hither and thither he was doing this when about half past nine his wife appeared at the door bringing him a cup of coffee and some biscuits his wanted supper Marian generally waited upon him at this time and he asked why she had not come she has one of her headaches again I'm sorry to say miss you replied I persuaded her to go to bed early having placed the tray upon the table books had to be pushed aside she did not seem disposed at all are you busy Alfred why I thought I should like just to speak of something she was using the opportunity of his good humor you will spoke to her with the usual carelessness but not forbiddingly what is it those Holloway people are warrant no no it's about Marian she had a letter from one of those young ladies asked you with impatience of this circuitous approach the miss mill veins well there's no harm that I know of they're decent people yes so you told me but she began to speak about their brother and what about him do say what you want to say and have done with it I can't help thinking Alfred that she's disappointed you didn't ask him to come here and credit her in slight surprise he was still not angry and seemed quite willing to consider this matter suggested to him so timorously oh you think so well I don't know why should I have asked him it was only because Miss Harrow seemed to wish it that I saw him down there I have no particular interest in him and as for he broke off and seated himself as his yule stood at a distance we must remember her age she said yes of course he mused and began to nibble a biscuit and you know Alfred she never does meet any young men I've often thought it wasn't right to her hmm but this lad mill vein is a very doubtful sort of customer to begin with he has nothing and they tell me his mother for the most part supports him I don't quite approve of that she isn't well off and he ought to have been making a living by now he has a kind of cleverness may do something but there's no being sure of that these thoughts were not coming into his mind for the first time on the occasion when he met Milvane and Marion together in the country road he had necessarily reflected upon the possibilities of such intercourse and with the issue that he did not care to give any particular encouragement to its continuance he of course heard of Milvane's leave taking call and he purposely refrained from seeing the young man after that the matter took no very clear shape in his meditations he saw no likelihood that either of the young people would think much of the other after their parting and time enough to trouble one's head with such subjects when they could no longer be postponed it would not have been pleasant to him to foresee a life of spinsterhood for his daughter but she was young and she was a valuable assistant how far did that latter consideration way with him he put the question pretty distinctly to himself now that his wife had broached the matter thus unexpectedly prepared to behave with deliberate selfishness never yet had any conflict been manifested between his interests and Marions practically he was in the habit of counting upon her aid for an indefinite period if indeed he became editor of the study why in that case her assistants would be less needful and indeed it seemed probable that young Milvane had a future before him but in any case he said aloud partly continuing his thoughts partly replying to a look of disappointment on his wife's face how do you know that he has any wish to come and see Marion I don't know anything about it of course and you may have made a mistake about her what made you think she had him in mind well it was her way of speaking you know and then she asked if you had got a dislike to him she did hmm well I don't think Milvane is any good to Marion he's just the kind of man to make himself agreeable to a girl for the fun of the thing Mrs. Ewell looked alarmed oh if you really think that don't let him come I wouldn't for anything I don't say it for certain he took a sip of his coffee I have had no opportunity of observing him with much attention but he's not the kind of man I care for then no doubt it's better as it is yes I don't see anything that could be done now we shall see whether he gets on I advise you not to mention him to her oh no I won't she moved as if to go away but her heart had been made uneasy by that short conversation which followed on Marion's reading the letter there were still things she wished to put into words if those ladies go on writing to her I dare say they'll often speak about their brother yes it's rather unfortunate and you know Alfred he may have asked them to do it I suppose there's one subject on which all women can be subtle Mother Duel smiling the remark was not a kind one but he did not make it worse the listener failed to understand him and looked with a familiar expression of mental effort we can't help that he added with a reference to her suggestion if he has any serious thoughts well let him go on and wait for opportunities it's a great pity isn't it that she can't see more people of the right kind no use talking about it things are as they are happy it isn't very happy you think not I'm sure it isn't if I get the study things may be different though but it's no use talking about what can't be helped now don't you go encouraging her to think herself lonely and so on it's best for her to keep close to work I'm sure of that perhaps it is I'll think it over her sewing she had understood that though and the what can't be helped such illusions reminded her of a time unhappier than the present when she had been wont to hear plainer language she knew too well that had she been a woman of education her daughter would not now be suffering from loneliness it was her own choice that she did not go with her husband and marry into John Newles she made an excuse that the house could not be left to one servant but in any case she would have remained at home for her presence must needs be an embarrassment both to father and daughter Alfred was always ashamed of her before strangers he could not conceal his feeling either from her or from other people who had reason for observing him Marion was not perhaps ashamed but such companionship put restraint upon her freedom and would it not always be the same supposing Mr. Milvane were to come to this house would it not repel him when he found what sort of person Marion's mother was she shed a few tears over her needlework at midnight the study door opened you came to the dining room to see that all was right and it surprised him to find his wife still sitting there why are you so late I forgot the time forgotten, forgotten don't go back to that kind of language again come put the light out end of chapter 7