 8. To the winning side. Of the acquaintances Yule had retained from his earlier years, several were in the well-defined category of men with unpresentable wives. There was Hinks, for instance, whom, though in anger he spoke of him as a bore, Elford held in some genuine regard. Hinks made perhaps a hundred a year out of a kind of writing which only certain publishers can get rid of, and of this income he spent about a third on books. His wife was the daughter of a laundress, in whose house he had lodged thirty years ago, when new to London, but already long acquainted with hunger. They lived in complete harmony, but Mrs. Hinks, who was four years the elder, still spoke the laundress tongue, unmitigated and unmitigatable. Another pair were Mr. and Mrs. Gorbut. In this case there were no narrow circumstances to contend with, for the wife, originally a nursemaid, not long after her marriage, inherited house property from a relative. Mr. Gorbut deemed himself a poet, since his accession to an income he had published, at his own expense, a yearly volume of verses, the only result being to keep a live ranker in his wife, who was both persimmonous and vain. Making no secret of it, Mrs. Gorbut rude the day on which she had wedded a man of letters, when by waiting so short a time she would have been enabled to aim at a prosperous tradesman, who kept his gig and had everything handsome about him. Mrs. Yule suspected, not without reason, that this lady had an inclination to strong liquors. Thirdly came Mr. and Mrs. Christofferson, who were poor as church mice. Even in a friend's house they wrangled incessantly, and made tragic comical revelations of their home life. The husband worked casually at irresponsible journalism, but his chosen study was metaphysics. For many years he had had a huge and profound book on hand, which he believed would bring him fame, though he was not so unsettled in mind as to hope for anything else. When an article or two had earned enough money for immediate necessities he went off to the British Museum, and then the difficulty was to recall him to profitable exertions. Yeah, husband and wife had an affection for each other. Mrs. Christofferson came from Camberwell, where her father, once upon a time, was the smallest of small butchers. Disagreeable stories were whispered concerning her earlier life, and probably the metaphysician did not care to look back in that direction. They had had three children. All were happily buried. These men were capable of better things than they had done or would ever do. In each case their failure to fulfill youthful promise was largely explained by the unpresentable wife. They should have waited. They might have married a social equal at something between fifty and sixty. Another old friend was Mr. Cormby. One wedded he, and perpetually exultant over men who, as he phrased it, had noosed themselves. He made a fair living, but like Dr. Johnson had no passion for clean linen. Yule was not disdainful of these old companions, and the fact that all had a habit of looking up to him increased his pleasure in their occasional society. If, as happened once or twice in half a year, several of them were gathered together at his house, he tasted a sham kind of social and intellectual authority, which he could not help relishing. On such occasions he threw off his habitual gloom, and talked vigorously, making natural display of his learning and critical ability. The topic sooner or later was that which is inevitable in such a circle, the demerits, the pretentiousness, the personal weakness of prominent contemporaries in the world of letters. Ended the room ring with scornful laughter, with boisterous satire, with shouted irony, with fierce invective. After an evening of that kind, Yule was unwell and miserable for several days. It was not to be expected that Mr. Cormby, inveterate chatterbox of the reading-room and other resorts, should keep silence concerning what he had heard of Mr. Rackett's intentions. The rumor soon spread that Alfred Yule was to succeed Fadge in the direction of the study, with the necessary consequence that Yule found himself an object of affectionate interest to a great many people, of whom he knew little or nothing. At the same time the genuine old friends pressed warmly about him, with congratulations, with hints of their sincere readiness to assist in filling the columns of the paper. All this was not disagreeable, but in the meantime Yule had heard nothing whatever from Mr. Rackett himself, and his doubts did not diminish as week after week went by. The event justified him. At the end of October appeared an authoritative announcement that Fadge's successor would be—not Alfred Yule, but a gentleman who till of late had been quietly working as a sub-editor in the provinces, and who had neither friendships nor admitties among the people of the London literary press—a young man comparatively fresh from the university, and said to be strong in pure scholarship. The choice, as you are aware, proved a good one, and the study became an organ of more repute than ever. Yule had been secretly conscious that it was not to men such as he that positions of this kind are nowadays entrusted. He tried to persuade himself that he was not disappointed. But when Mr. Cormby approached him with a blank face he spoke certain wrathful words which long wrinkled in that worthy's mind. At home he kept soul in silence. No, not to such men as he, poor, and without social recommendations. Besides he was growing too old. In literature, as in most other pursuits, the press of energetic young men was making it very hard for a veteran even to hold the little grazing plot he had won by hard fighting. Still, Cormby's story had not been without foundation. It was true that the proprietor of the study had for a moment thought of Alfred Yule, doubtless as to the natural contrast to Clement Vege, whom he would have liked to mortify if the thing were possible. But councillors had proved to Mr. Rackett the disadvantages of such a choice. Mrs. Yule and her daughter foresaw but too well the results of this disappointment, notwithstanding that Alfred announced it to them with dry indifference. The month that followed was a time of misery for all in the house. Day after day Yule sat at his meals in sullen muteness. To his wife he scarcely spoke at all, and his conversation with Marion did not go beyond necessary questions and remarks on topics of business. His face became so strange a colour that one would have thought him suffering from an attack of jaundice. Billy's headaches exasperated his savage mood. Mrs. Yule knew from long experience how worse than useless it was for her to attempt consolation. In silence was her only safety. Nor did Marion venture to speak directly of what had happened. But one evening when she had been engaged in the study and was now saying good night, she laid her cheek against her father's, an unwanted caress which had a strange effect upon him. The expression of sympathy caused his thoughts to reveal themselves as they never yet had done before his daughter. It might have been very different with me, he exclaimed abruptly, as if they had already been conversing on the subject. When you think of my failures, and you must often do so now you are grown up and understand things, don't forget the obstacles that have been in my way. I don't like you to look upon your father as a thick head who couldn't be expected to succeed. Look at Fadge. He married a woman of good social position. She brought him friends and influence. But for that he would never have been editor of the study, a place for which he wasn't in the least fit. But he was able to give dinners. He and his wife went into society. Everybody knew him and talked of him. How has it been with me? I live here like an animal in its hole, and go blinking about if by chance I find myself among the people with whom I ought naturally to associate. If I had been able to come in direct contact with racket and other men of that kind, to dine with them, and have them to dine with me, to belong to a club, and so on, I shouldn't be what I am at my age. My one opportunity, when I edited The Balance, wasn't worth much. There was no money behind the paper. We couldn't hold out long enough. But even then, if I could have assumed my proper social standing, if I could have opened my house freely to the right kind of people, how was it possible? Marion could not raise her head. She recognized the portion of truth in what he said. But it shocked her that he should allow himself to speak thus. Her silence seemed to remind him how painful it must be to her to hear these accusations of her mother. And with a sudden, good night, he dismissed her. She went up to her room, and wept over the wretchedness of all their lives. Her loneliness had seemed harder to bear than ever since that last holiday. For a moment, in the lanes about Finden, there had come to her a vision of joy such as fate owed her youth. But it had faded, and she could no longer hope for its return. She was not a woman, but a mere machine for reading and writing. Did her father never think of this? He was not the only one to suffer from the circumstances in which poverty had involved him. She had no friends to whom she could utter her thoughts. Dora Milvane had written a second time, and more recently had come a letter from Maud. But in replying to them, she could not give a true account of herself. Impossible to them. From what she wrote, they would imagine her contentedly busy, absorbed in the affairs of literature. To no one could she make known the aching sadness of her heart, the dreariness of life as it lay before her. That beginning of half-confidence between her and her mother had led to nothing. Mrs. Yule found no second opportunity of speaking to her husband about Jasper Milvane, and purposely she refrained from any further hint or question to Marion. Everything must go on as hitherto. The days darkened. Through November rains and fogs, Marion went her usual way to the museum, and toiled there among the other toilers. Perhaps once a week she allowed herself to stray about the ellies of the reading-room, scanning furtively those who sat at the desks. But the face she might per chance have discovered was not there. One day, at the end of the month, she sat with books open before her. But by no effort could fix her attention upon them. It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read. A taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, head-achey air. Such profound discouragement possessed her that she could not even maintain the pretense of study. Heedless whether any one observed her, she let her hands fall and her head droop. She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any mortal could cope with in his lifetime, here was she exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be more than a commodity for the day's market. What unspeakable folly! To write was not that the joy and the privilege of one who had an urgent message for the world. Her father, she knew well, had no such message. He had abandoned all thought of original production, and only wrote about writing. She herself would throw away her pen with joy, but for the need of earning money. And all these people about her, what aim had they saved to make new books out of those already existing, that yet newer books might in turn be made out of theirs? This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print. How intolerably it weighed upon the spirit! Oh, to go forth and later with one's hands, to do any poorest commonest work of which the world had truly need. It was ignoble to sit here and support the paltry pretense of intellectual dignity. A few days ago, her startled eye had caught an advertisement in the newspaper, headed Literary Machine. Had it then been invented at last, some automaton to supply the place of such poor creatures as herself to turn out books and articles? Alas, the machine was only one for holding volumes conveniently, that the work of literary manufacture might be physically lightened. But surely before long some Edison would make the true automaton, the problem must be comparatively such a simple one. Only to throw in a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernized, into a single one for today's consumption. The fog grew thicker. She looked up at the windows beneath the dome, and saw that they were a dusky yellow. Then her eye discerned an official, walking along the upper gallery, and in pursuance of her grotesque humor, her mocking misery, she likened him to a black, lost soul, doomed to wander in an eternity of vain research, along endless shelves. Or again, the readers who sat here at these radiating lines of desks, what were they, but hapless flies, caught in a huge web? It's nucleus, the great circle of the catalog. Darker, darker, from the towering wall of volumes seemed to emanate visible motes, intensifying the obscurity. In a moment the beclined circumference of the room would be but a featureless prison limit. But then flashed forth the spluttering whiteness of the electric light, and its ceaseless hum was henceforth a new source of headache. It reminded her how little work she had done today. She must, she must force herself to think of the task in hand. A machine has no business to refuse its duty. But the pages were blue and green and yellow before her eyes. The uncertainty of the light was intolerable. Right or wrong she would go home and hide herself, and let her heart unburden itself of tears. On her way to return books she encountered Jasper Milvain. Face to face, no possibility of his avoiding her. And indeed he seemed to have no such wish. His countenance lighted up with unmistakable pleasure. At last we meet, as they say in the melodramas. Oh, do let me help you with those volumes, which won't even let you shake hands. How do you do? How do you like this weather? And how do you like this light? It's very bad. That'll do both for weather and light, but not for yourself. How glad I am to see you. Are you just going? Yes. I have scarcely been here half a dozen times since it came back to London. But you are writing still? Oh, yes. But I draw upon my genius and my stores of observation and the living world. Marion received her vouchers for the volumes, and turned to face Jasper again. There was a smile on her lips. The fog is terrible, Milvain went on. How do you get home? By Amnibus from Tottenham Court Road. Then do let me go a part of the way with you. I live in Mornington Road, up yonder, you know. I have only just come in to waste half an hour, and after all, I think I should be better at home. Your father is all right, I hope. He is not quite well. I'm sorry to hear that. You are not exactly up to the mark, either. What weather? What a place to live in, this London in winter. It would be a little better down at Finden. A good deal better, I should think. If the weather were bad, it would be bad in a natural way. But this is artificial misery. I don't let it affect me much, said Milvain. Just of late I have been in remarkably good spirits. I'm doing a lot of work. No end of work. More than I've ever done. I'm very glad. Where are you out of door things? I think there's a lady's vestry somewhere, isn't there? Oh, yes. Then will you go and get ready? I'll wait for you in the hall. But, by the by, I'm taking it for granted that you were going alone. I was quite alone. The quite seemed excessive, it made Jasper smile. And also, he added, that I should not annoy you by offering my company. Why should it annoy me? Good. Milvain had only to wait a minute or two. He surveyed Marion from head to foot when she appeared, and impertinent as unintentional as that occasionally noticeable in his speech, and smiled approval. They went out into the fog, which was not one of London's densest, but made walking disagreeable enough. You have heard from the girls, I think, Jasper resumed. Your sisters? Yes, they have been so kindest to write to me. Told you all about their great work? I hope it'll be finished by the end of the year. The bits they have sent me will do very well indeed. I knew they had it in them to put sentences together. Now I want them to think of patching up something or other for the English girl. You know the paper. I have heard of it. I happen to know Mrs. Boston Wright, who edits it, met her at a house the other day, and told her frankly that she would have to give my sister something to do. It's the only way to get on. One has to take it for granted that people are willing to help you. I have made a host of new acquaintances just lately. I'm glad to hear it, said Marion. Do you know—but how should you? I'm going to write for the new magazine, The Current—indeed, edited by that man, Fadge. Yes. Your father has no affection for him, I know. He has no reason to have, Mr. Milvain. No, no—Fadge is an offensive fellow, when he likes, and I fancy he very often does like. Well, I must make what use of him I can. You won't think worse of me because I write for him. I know that one can't exercise choice in such things. True. I shouldn't like to think that you regard me as a Fadge-like individual, a natural Fadgeite. Marion laughed. There's no danger of my thinking that. But the fog was making their eyes water and getting into their throats. By when they reached Tottenham Court Road they were both thoroughly uncomfortable. The bus had to be waited for, and in the meantime they talked scrappily, coffily. In the vehicle things were a little better, but here one could not converse with freedom. But pestilent conditions of life exclaimed Jasper, putting his face rather near to Marion's. I wish to goodness we were back in those quiet fields—you remember?—with the September sun warm about us. Shall you go to Findon again before long? I really don't know. I'm sorry to say my mother is far from well, in any case I must go at Christmas, but I'm afraid it won't be a cheerful visit. Arrived in Hampstead Road he offered his hand for good-bye. I wanted to talk about all sorts of things, but perhaps I shall find you again some day. He jumped out and waved his hat in the lowered fog. End of Chapter 8, Section 1 Chapter 8, Part 2 of New Grub Street. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. New Grub Street, by George Gissing Chapter 8, Part 2 To the Winning Side Shortly before the end of December appeared the first number of the current. Yule had once or twice referred to the forthcoming magazine with accurate contempt, and of course he did not purchase a copy. So young Milvain has joined Fadge's hopeful standard, he remarked, a day or two later at breakfast. They say his paper is remarkably clever. I could wish it had appeared anywhere else—evil communications, etc. But I shouldn't think there's any personal connection, said Marion. Very likely not, but Milvain has been invited to contribute, you see. Do you think he ought to have refused? Oh no, it's nothing to me, nothing whatever. Mrs. Yule glanced at her daughter, but Marion seemed unconcerned. The subject was dismissed. In introducing it, Yule had had his purpose. There had always been an unnatural avoidance of Milvain's name and conversation, and he wished to have an end of this. Hither, too, he had felt a troublesome uncertainty regarding his position in the matter. From what his wife had told him, it seemed pretty certain that Marion was disappointed by the abrupt closing of her brief acquaintance with the young man. And Yule's affection for his daughter caused him to feel uneasy in the thought that perhaps he had deprived her of a chance of happiness. His conscience readily took hold of an excuse for justifying the course he had followed. Milvain had gone over to the enemy. Whether or not the young man understood how relentless the hostility was between Yule and Fadge mattered little. The probability was that he knew all about it. In any case, intimate relations with him could not have survived this alliance with Fadge. So that, after all, there had been wisdom in letting the acquaintance lapse. To be sure nothing could have come of it. Milvain was the kind of man who weighed opportunities. Every step he took would be regulated by considerations of advantage. At all events, that was the impression his character had made upon Yule. Any hopes that Marion might have been induced to form would assuredly have ended in disappointment. It was kindness to interpose before things had gone so far. Henceforth, if Milvain's name was unavoidable, it should be mentioned, just like that of any other literary man. It seemed very unlikely indeed that Marion would continue to think of him with any special and personal interest. The fact of her having got into correspondence with his sisters was unfortunate, but this kind of thing rarely went on for very long. Yule spoke of the matter with his wife that evening. By the by, has Marion heard from those girls at Finden lately? She had a letter one afternoon last week. Do you see these letters? No, she told me what was in them at first, but now she doesn't. She hasn't spoken to you again, if Milvain? Not a word. Well, I understood what I was about, Yule remarked, with the confident air of one who doesn't wish to remember that he had ever felt doubtful. There was no good in having the fellow here. He has gotten in with a set that I don't at all care for. If she ever says anything, you understand, you can just let me know. Marion had already procured a copy of the current, and read it privately. Of the cleverness of Milvain's contribution there could be no two opinions. It drew the attention of the public, and all notices of the new magazine made special reference to this article. With keen interest Marion saw after comments of the press. When it was possible she cut them out and put them carefully away. January passed, and February. She saw nothing of Jasper. A letter from Dora in the first week of March made announcement that the child's history of the English Parliament would be published very shortly. It told her too that Mrs. Milvain had been very ill indeed, but that she seemed to recover a little strength as the weather improved. Of Jasper there was no mention. A week later came the news that Mrs. Milvain had suddenly died. This letter was received at breakfast time. The envelope was an ordinary one, and so little did Marion anticipate the nature of its contents, that at the first sight of the words she uttered an exclamation of pain. Her father, who had turned from the table to the fireside with his newspaper, looked round and asked what was the matter. Mrs. Milvain died the day before yesterday. Indeed. He everted his face again, and seemed disposed to say no more. But in a few moments he inquired, what are her daughters likely to do? I have no idea. Do you know anything of their circumstances? I believe they will have to depend upon themselves. Nothing more was said. Afterwards Mrs. Yole made a few sympathetic inquiries, but Marion was very brief in her replies. Ten days after that, on a Sunday afternoon, when Marion and her mother were alone in the sitting-room, they heard the knock of a visitor at the front door. Yole was out, and there was no likelihood of the visitors wishing to see anyone but him. They listened. The servant went to the door, and, after a murmur of voices, came to speak to her mistress. It's a gentleman called Mr. Milvain, the girl reported, in a way that proved how seldom collars presented themselves. He asked for Mr. Yole, and when I said he was out, then he asked for Miss Yole. Mother and daughter looked anxiously at each other. Mrs. Yole was nervous and helpless. Show Mr. Milvain into the study, said Marion, with sudden decision. Are you going to see him there? Asked her mother, in a hurried whisper. I thought you would prefer that to his coming in here. Yes, yes, but suppose father comes back before he's gone. What will it matter? You forget that he asked for father first. Oh, yes, then don't wait. Marion, scarcely thus agitated then her mother, was just leaving the room, when she turned back again. If father comes in, you will tell him before he goes into the study. Yes, I will. The fire in the study was on the point of extinction. This was the first thing Marion's eye perceived on entering, and it gave her assurance that her father would not be back for some hours. Evidently, he had intended it to go out. Small economies of this kind, unintelligible to people who have always lived at ease, had been the lifelong rule with him. With a sensation of gladness at having free time before her, Marion turned to where Milvane was standing, in front of one of the book cases. He wore no symbol of mourning, but his countenance was far graver than usual, and rather paler. They shook hands in silence. I am so grieved, Marion began, with broken voice. Thank you. I know the girls have told you all about it. We knew for the last month that it must come before long, though there was a deceptive improvement just before the end. Pleased to sit down, Mr. Milvane, father went out not long ago, and I don't think he will be back very soon. It was not really Mr. Yule I wish to see, said Jasper, frankly. If he had been at home, I should have spoken with him about what I have in mind. But if you will kindly give me a few minutes, it will be much better. Marion glanced at the expiring fire. Her curiosity, as to what Milvane had to say, was mingled with an anxious doubt whether it was not too late to put on fresh coals. Already the room was growing very chill, and this appearance of inhospitality troubled her. Do you wish to save it? Jasper asked, understanding her look and movement. I'm afraid it has got too low. I think not. Life in lodgings has made me skillful at this kind of thing. Let me try my hand. He took the tongs, and carefully disposed small pieces of coal upon the glow that remained. Marion stood apart, with a feeling of shame and annoyance. But it is so seldom that situations in life arranged themselves with dramatic propriety, and after all this vulgar necessity made the beginning of the conversation easier. That will be all right now, said Jasper at length, as little tongs of flame began to shoot here and there. Marion said nothing, but seated herself and waited. I came up to town yesterday, Jasper began. Of course we have had a great deal to do and think about. Miss Harrow has been very kind indeed to the girls, so have several of her old friends and model-bro. It was necessary to decide at once what Maude and Dora are going to do, and it is on their account that I've come to see you. The listener kept silence, with a face of sympathetic attention. We have made up our minds that they may as well come to London. It's a bold step. I'm by no means sure that the result will justify it. But I think they are perhaps right in wishing to try it. They will go on with literary work? Well, it's our hope that they may be able to. Of course there's no chance if they're earning enough to live upon for some time. But the matter stands like this. They have a trifling sum of money, on which at a pinch they could live in London for perhaps a year and a half. In that time they may find their way to a sort of income. At all events the chances are that a year and a half hence I shall be able to help them to keep body and soul together. The money of which he spoke was the debt owed to their father by William Milvane. In consequence of Mrs. Milvane's pressing application, half of the sum had at length been paid, and the remainder was promised in a year's time, greatly to Jasper's astonishment. In addition there would be the trifle realized by the sale of furniture, though most of this might have to go in payment of rent, unless the house could be re-laid immediately. They have made a good beginning, said Marion. She spoke mechanically, for it was impossible to keep her thoughts under control. If Maude and Dora came to live in London it might bring about a most important change in her life. She could scarcely imagine the happiness of having two such friends always near. On the other hand how would it be regarded by her father? She was at a loss amid conflicting emotions. It's better than if they had done nothing at all, Jasper replied to her remark, and the way they knocked that trifle together promised as well. They did it very quickly, and in far more workman-like way than I should have thought possible. No doubt they share your own talent. Perhaps so. Of course I know that I have talent of a kind, though I don't rate it very high. We shall have to see whether they can do anything more than mere booksellers work. They are both very young, you know. I think they may be able to write something that'll do for the English girl. And no doubt I can hit upon a second idea that will appeal to Jolly and Monk. At all events they'll have books within reach and better opportunities every way than at Finden. How do their friends in the country think of it? Very dubiously. But then what else was to be expected? Of course the respectable and intelligible path marked out for both of them points to a life of governessing. But the girls have no relish for that, they'd rather do almost anything. We talked over all the aspects of the situation seriously enough. It is desperately serious. No doubt of that. I told them fairly all the hardships they would have to face, described the typical London lodgings, and so on. Still, there's an adventurous vein in them, and they decided for the risk. If it came to the worst, I suppose they could still find governess work. Let us hope better things. Yes, but now I should have felt far more reluctant to let them come here in this way, had and it been, that they regard you as a friend. Tomorrow morning you will probably hear from one or both of them. Perhaps it would have been better if I had left them to tell you all this. But I felt I should like to see you, and put it in my own way. I think you'll understand this feeling, Miss Yule. I wanted, in fact, to hear from yourself that you would be a friend to the poor girls. Oh, you already know that. I shall be so very glad to see them often. Marion's voice lented self very naturally and sweetly to the expression of warm feeling. Emphasis was not her habit. It only needed that she should put off her ordinary reserve, utter quietly the emotional thought which so seldom might declare itself, and her tones had an exquisite womanliness. Jasper looked full into her face. In that case they won't miss the comfort of home so much. Of course they will have to go into the very modest lodgings, indeed. I have already been looking about. I should like to find rooms for them somewhere near my own place. It's a decent neighborhood, and the park is at hand, and then they wouldn't be very far from you. They thought it might be possible to make a joint establishment with me, but I'm afraid that's out of the question. The lodgings we should want in that case, everything considered, would cost more than the sum of our expenses if we live apart. Besides, there's no harm in saying that I don't think we should get along very well together. We're all of us rather qurelsome to tell the truth, and we try each other's tempers. Marion smiled and looked puzzled. Shouldn't you have thought that? I have seen no signs of qurelsomness. I'm not sure that the worst fault is on my side. Why should one condemn oneself against conscience? Maud is perhaps the hardest to get along with. She has a sort of arrogance, an exaggeration of something I'm quite aware of in myself. You have noticed that trait in me. Arrogance? I think not. You have self-confidence. Which goes into extremes now and then, but putting myself aside, I feel pretty sure that the girls won't seem qurelsome to you. They would have to be very fractious indeed before that were possible. We shall continue to be friends, I am sure. Jasper let his eyes wander about the room. This is your father's study? Yes. Perhaps it would have seemed odd to Mr. Yeel if I had come in and begun to talk to him about these purely private affairs. He knows me so very slightly, but in calling here for the first time, an unusual embarrassment checked him. I will explain to father your very natural wish to speak of these things, said Marion, with tact. She thought uneasily of her mother in the next room. To her there appeared no reason whatever why Jasper should not be introduced to Mrs. Yeel, yet she could not venture to propose it. Remembering her father's last remarks about Milvane in connection with Fadge's magazine, she must wait for distinct permission before offering the young man encouragement to repeat his visit. Perhaps there was complicated trouble in store for her. Impossible to say how her father's deep-rooted and wrinkling antipathies might affect her intercourse even with the two girls. But she was of independent ears. She must be allowed the choice of her own friends. The pleasure she had in seeing Jasper under this roof, and hearing him talk with such intimate friendliness, strengthened her to resist timid thoughts. When will your sisters arrive? She asked. I think in a very few days. When I have fixed upon lodgings for them, I must go back to Finden. Then they will return with me, as soon as we can get the house emptied. It's rather miserable selling things one has lived among from childhood. A friend in Wattleborough will house for us what we really can't bear to part with. It must be very sad, Marian murmured. You know, said the other suddenly, that it's my fault the girls are left in such a hard position. Marian looked at him with startled eyes. His tone was quite unfamiliar to her. Mother had an annuity, he continued, and ended with her life. But if it hadn't been for me, she could have saved a good deal out of it. Until the last year or two, I have earned nothing, and I have spent more than was strictly necessary. Well, I didn't live like that in mere recklessness. I knew I was preparing myself for enumerative work. But it seems too bad now, I'm sorry for it. I wish I had found some way of supporting myself. The end of mother's life was made far more unhappy than it need have been. I should like you to understand all this. The listener kept her eyes on the ground. Perhaps the girls have hinted at it to you, Jasper added. No. Selfishness, that's one of my faults. It isn't a brutal kind of selfishness. The thought of it often enough troubles me. If I were rich, I should be a generous and good man, I know I should. So would many another poor fellow whose worst features come out under a hardship. This isn't a heroic type, of course not. I am a civilized man, that's all. Man could say nothing. You wonder why I am so impertinent as to talk about myself like this. I have gone through a good deal of mental pain these last few weeks, and somehow I can't help showing you something of my real thoughts. Just because you are one of the few people I regard with sincere respect. I don't know you very well, but quite well enough to respect you. My sisters think of you in the same way. I shall do many a base thing in life, just to get money and reputation. I tell you this, that you mayn't be surprised if anything of that kind comes to your ears. I can't afford to live as I should like to." She looked up at him with a smile. People who are going to live unworthily don't declare it in this way. I oughtn't to. A few minutes ago I had no intention of saying such things. It means I am rather overstrung, I suppose. But it's all true, unfortunately. He rose, and began to run his eye along the shelves nearest to him. Well now I will go, Miss Yule. Marion stood up as he approached. It's all very well, he said, smiling, for me to encourage my sisters, and the hope that they may earn a living. But suppose I can't even do it myself. It's by no means certain that I shall make ends meet this year. You have every reason to hope, I think. I like to hear people say that, but it'll mean savage work. When we were all at Finden last year, I told the girls that it would be another twelve months before I could support myself. Now I am forced to do it. And I don't like work. My nature is lazy. I shall never write for writing's sake, only to make money. All my plans and efforts will have money in view. All. I shan't allow anything to come in way of my material advancement." I wish you every success, said Marion, without looking at him, and without a smile. Thank you, but that sounds too much like goodbye. I trust we are to be friends for all that. Indeed, I hope we may be. They shook hands, and he went towards the door. But before opening it, he asked, Did you read that thing of mine in the current? Yes, I did. It wasn't bad, I think. It seemed to me very clever. Clever, yes, that's the word, it had a success, too. I have as good a thing half done for the April number, but I've felt too heavy-hearted to go on with it. The girls shall let you know when they are in town. Marion followed him into the passage, and watched him as he opened the front door. When it had closed, she went back into the study for a few minutes before rejoining her mother. CHAPTER VIII After all, there came a day when Edwin Reardon found himself regularly at work once more, ticking off his stipulated quantum of manuscript each four and twenty hours. He wrote to very small hand sixty written slips of the kind of paper he habitually used would represent, thanks to the astonishing system which prevails in such matters, large type, wide spacing, frequency of blank pages, a passable three hundred page volume. On average, he could write four such slips a day, so here we have fifteen days for the volume, and forty-five for the completed book. Fifty-five days, and eternity in the looking forward. Yet the calculation gave him a faint-hearted encouragement. At that rate, he might have his book sold by Christmas. It would certainly not bring him a hundred pounds, seventy-five, perhaps. But even that small sum would enable him to pay the quarter's rent, and then give him a short time, if only two or three weeks, of mental rest. If such rest could not be obtained, all was at an end with him. He must either find some new means of supporting himself and his family, or have done with life and its responsibilities altogether. The latter alternative was often enough before him. He seldom slept for more than two or three consecutive hours in the night, and the time of wakefulness was often terrible. The various sounds which marked the stages from midnight to dawn had grown miserably familiar to him. Worst torture to his mind was the chiming and striking of clocks. Two of these were, in general, audible—that of Merlebone-Paris Church, and that of the adjoining workhouse. The latter always sounded several minutes after its ecclesiastical neighbor, and with a difference of note which seemed to reared in very appropriate—a thin, quarrelous voice reminding one of the community it represented. After lying awake for a while he would hear the quarter sounding, if they ceased before the fourth he was glad, for he feared to know what time it was. After the hour was complete he waited anxiously for its number. Two, three, even four were grateful. There was still a long time before he need rise and face the dreaded task, the horrible four blank slips of paper that had to be filled ere he might sleep again. But such restfulness was only for a moment. No sooner had the workhouse bell become silent than he began to toil in his weary imagination. Or else, incapable of that, to vision fearful hazards of the future. The soft breathing of Amy at his side, the contact of her warm limbs, often filled him with intolerable dread. Even now he did not believe that Amy loved him with the old love, and the suspicion was like a cold weight at his heart that to retain even her wifely sympathy, her wedded tenderness, he must achieve the impossible. The impossible, for he could no longer deceive himself with a hope of genuine success. If he earned a bare living, that would be the utmost. And with bare livelihood Amy would not, could not be content. If he were to die a natural death, it would be well for all. His wife and the child would be looked after. They could live with Mrs. Edmund Yule, and certainly it would not be long before Amy married again, this time a man of whose competency to maintain her there would be no doubt. His own behaviour had been cowardly selfishness. Oh yes, she had loved him, had been eager to believe in him. But there was always that voice of warning in his mind. Before saw, he knew. And if he killed himself? Not here, no lurid horrors for that poor girl and her relatives, but somewhere at a distance, under circumstances which would render the recovery of his body difficult, yet would leave no doubt of his death. Would that again be cowardly? The opposite, when once it was certain that to live meant poverty and wretchedness. Amy's grief, however sincere, would be but a short trial compared with what else might lie before her. The burden of supporting her and Willie would be a very slight one if she went to live in her mother's house. He considered the whole matter night after night. Until per chance it happened that sleep had pity upon him for an hour before the time of rising. Autumn was passing into winter. Dark days, which were always an oppression to his mind, began to be frequent, and would soon succeed each other remorselessly. Well, if only each of them represented four written slips. Milvane's advice to him had, of course, proved useless. The sensational title suggested nothing, or only ragged shapes of incomplete humanity that fluttered mockingly when he strove to fix them. But he had decided upon a story of the kind natural to him, a thin story, and one which it would be difficult to spin into three volumes, his own at all events. The title was always a matter for headracking when the book was finished. He had never yet chosen it before beginning. For a week he got on at the desired rate. Then came once more the crisis he had anticipated. A familiar symptom of the malady which falls upon outweary imagination. There were floating in his mind five or six possible subjects for a book, all dating back to the time when he first began novel writing, when ideas came freshly to him. If he grasped desperately at one of these, and did his best to develop it for a day or two he could almost content himself. Characters, situations, lines of motive were laboriously schemed, and he felt ready to begin writing. But scarcely had he done a chapter or two when all the structure fell into flatness. He had made a mistake. Not this story, but that other one was what he should have taken. The other one in question, left out of mind for a time, had come back with a face of new possibility. It invited him, tempted him to throw aside what he had already written. Good! Now he was in a more hopeful train. But a few days, and the experience repeated itself. No, not this story, but that third one, of which he had not thought for a long time. How could he have rejected so hopeful a subject? Four months he had been living in this way. Endless circling, perpetual beginning, followed by frustration. A sign of exhaustion, it of course made exhaustion more complete. Sometimes he was on the borderland of imbecility, his mind looking into a cloudy chaos, a shapeless whirl of nothings. He talked aloud to himself, not knowing that he did so. Little phrases which indicated delorously the subject of his preoccupation often escaped him in the street. What could I make of that now? Well, suppose I made him? But no, that wouldn't do. And so on. It had happened that he caught the eye of someone passing fixed and surprised upon him, so young a man to be talking to himself in evident distress. The expected crisis came, even now that he was savagely determined to go on at any cost, to write, let the result be what it would. His will prevailed, a day or two of anguish such as there is no describing to the inexperienced, and again he was dismissing slip after slip, a sigh of thankfulness at the completion of each one. It was a fraction of the whole, a fraction, a fraction. The ordering of his day was thus, at nine after breakfast he sat down to his desk and worked till one. Then came dinner followed by a walk. As a rule he could not allow Amy to walk with him, for he had to think over the remainder of the day's toil, and companionship would have been fatal. At about half-past three he again seated himself and wrote until half-past six, when he had a meal. Then once more to work from half-past seven to ten. Numberless were the experiments he had tried for the day's division. The slightest interruption of the order for the time being put him out of gear. Amy durst not open his door to ask however necessary a question. Sometimes the three hours labor of a morning resulted in half a dozen lines, corrected into illegibility. His brain would not work. He could not recall the simplest sentiments. Intellurable faults of composition drove him mad. He would write a sentence beginning thus. She took a book with a look of—or thus—a revision of this decision would have made him an object of derision. Or if the period were otherwise inoffensive it ran off an arrhythmic gallop which was torment to the ear. All this, in spite of the fact that his former books had been noticeably good in style. He had an appreciation of shapely prose which made him scorn himself for the kind of stuff he was now turning out. I can't help it. It must go. The time is passing. Things were better as a rule in the evening. Occasionally he wrote a page with fluency which recalled his fortunate years. And then his heart gladdened, his hand trembled with joy. Description of locality, deliberate analysis of character or motive, demanded far too great an effort for his present condition. He kept as much as possible to dialogue. The space is filled so much more quickly, and at a pinch one can make people talk about the paltriest incidents of life. There came an evening when he opened the door and called to Amy. What is it? She answered from the bedroom. I'm busy with Willie. Come as soon as you are free. In ten minutes she appeared. There was apprehension on her face. She feared he was going to lament his inability to work. Instead of that, he told her joyfully that the first volume was finished. Thank goodness, she exclaimed. Are you going to do any more tonight? I think not if you will come and sit with me. Willie doesn't seem very well. He can't get to sleep. You would like to stay with him? A little while. I'll come presently. She closed the door, reared and brought a high-backed chair to the fireside, and allowed himself to forget the two volumes that had still to be struggled through, and a grateful sense of the portion that was achieved. In a few minutes it occurred to him that it would be delightful to read a scrap of the odyssey. He went to the shelves on which were his classical books, took the desired volume, and opened it, where Odessius speaks to Nausicaa. For never yet did I behold one of mortals like to thee, neither man nor woman, I am odd as I look upon thee. And I lost once, hardened by the altar of Apollo, I saw a young palm tree shooting up with even such a grace. Yes, yes, that was not written at so many pages a day, with a workhouse clock clanging its admonition at the poet's ear. How it freshened the soul, how the eyes grew dim with a rare joy in the sounding of those nobly sweet hexameters. Amy came into the room again. Listen, said Reardon, looking up at her with a bright smile. Do you remember the first time that I read this to you? And he turned to the speech into free prose. Amy laughed. I remember it well enough. We were alone in the drawing-room. I had told the others that they must make shift with the dining-room for that evening. And you pulled the book out of your pocket unexpectedly. I laughed at your habit of always carrying little books about. The cheerful news had brightened her. If she had been summoned to hear lamentations, her voice would not have rippled thus soothingly. Reardon thought of this, and it made him silent for a minute. The habit was ominous, he said, looking at her with a smile. A practical literary man doesn't do such things. Milvane, for instance, no. With curious frequency she mentioned the name of Milvane. Her unconsciousness in doing so prevented Reardon from thinking about the fact. Still, he had noted it. Did you understand the phrase, slidingly, he asked? Slidingly? Yes, a little, of course. It always has that sense on your lips, I think. In the light of this answer he mused upon her readily offered instance. True, he had occasionally spoken of Jasper with something less than respect. But Amy was not in the habit of doing so. I hadn't any meaning just then, he said. I meant quite simply that my bookish habits didn't promise much for my success as a novelist. I see, but you didn't think of it in that way at the time. He sighed. No, at least—no. At least what? Well, no, on the whole I had good hope. Amy twisted her fingers together impatiently. Edwin, let me tell you something. You were getting too fond of speaking in a discouraging way. Now why should you do so? I don't like it. It has one disagreeable effect on me, and that is, when people ask me about you, how you were getting on, I don't quite know how to answer. They can't help seeing that I am uneasy. I speak so differently from what I used to. Do you really? Indeed I can't help it. As I say, it's very much your own fault. Well, but granted that I am not of a very sanguine nature, and that I easily fall into gloomy ways of talk. What is Amy here for? Yes, yes, but—but— I am not here only to try and keep you in good spirits, am I? She asked it prettily, with a smile like that of maidenhood. Heaven forbid I oughtn't to have put it in the absolute way. I was half-joking, you know, but unfortunately it's true that I can't be as light-spirited as I could wish. Does that make you impatient with me? A little, I can't help the feeling, and I ought to try to overcome it, but you must try on your side as well. Why should you have said that thing just now? You're quite right, it was needless. A few weeks ago I didn't expect you to be cheerful. Things began to look about as bad as they could. But now that you've got a volume finished, there's hope once more. Hope of what quality, reared in durst not say what rose in his thoughts. A very small, poor hope, hope of money enough to struggle through another half-year, if indeed enough for that. He had learnt that Amy was not to be told the whole truth about anything as he himself sought. It was a pity. To the ideal wife a man speaks out all that is in him. She had rather infinitely share his full conviction, than be treated as one from whom facts must be disguised. She says, let us face the worst, and talk of it together, you and I. No, Amy was not the ideal wife from that point of view. But the moment after this half-reproach had traversed his consciousness, he condemned himself, and looked with a joy of love into her clear eyes. Yes, there's hope once more, my dearest. No more gloomy talk to-night. I have read you something. Now you shall read something to me. It is a long time since I delighted myself with listening to you. What shall it be? I feel rather too tired to-night. Do you? I have had to look after Willie so much, but read me some more Homer. I shall be very glad to listen. Reared and reached for the book again, but not readily. His face showed disappointment. Their evenings together had never been the same since the birth of the child. Willie was always an excuse, valid enough for Amy's feeling tired. The little boy had come between him and the mother, as must always be the case in poor homes. Most of all, where the poverty is relative, Reared and could not pass the subject without a remark, but he tried to speak humorously. There ought to be a huge public creche in London. It's monstrous that an educated mother should have to be nurse-made. But you know very well, I think nothing of that. A creche indeed. No child of mine should go to any such place. There it was. She grudged no trouble on behalf of the child. That was love, whereas. But then maternal love was a mere matter, of course. As soon as you get two or three hundred pounds for a book, she added, laughing, there will be no need for me to give so much time. Two or three hundred pounds? He repeated it with a shake of the head. Ah, if that were possible. But that's really a paltry sum. What would fifty novelists you could name say if they were offered three hundred pounds for a book? How much do you suppose even Markland got for his last? Didn't sell it at all, ten to one, gets a royalty. Which will bring him five or six hundred pounds before the book ceases to be talked of. Never mind, I am sick of the word pounds. So am I. She sighed, commenting thus on her acquiescence. But look, Amy, if I tried to be cheerful in spite of natural dumps, wouldn't it be fair for you to put aside thoughts of money? Yes, read some Homer, dear. Let us have Odessius down in Hades, and Ajax stalking past him. Oh, I like that. So he read, rather coldly at first, but soon warming. Amy sat with folded arms, a smile on her lips, her brows knitted to the epic humor. In a few minutes it was as if no difficulties threatened their life. Every now and then, Reardon looked up from his translating with a delighted laugh, in which Amy joined. When he had returned the book to the shelf, he stepped behind his wife's chair, leaned upon it, and put his cheek against hers. Amy. Yes, dear, do you still love me a little? Much more than a little. Though I am sunk to writing a wretched pot-boiler, is it so bad as all that? Confoundedly bad. I shall be ashamed to see it in print. The proofs will be a martyrdom. Oh, but why? Why? It's the best I can do, dearest, so you don't love me enough to hear that calmly. If I didn't love you, I might be calmer about it, Edwin. It's dreadful to me to think of what they will say in the reviews. Cursed the reviews. His mood had changed on the instant. He stood up with darkened face, trembling angrily. I want you to promise me something, Amy. You won't read a single one of the notices unless it is forced upon your attention. Now promise me that. Neglect them absolutely as I do. They're not worth a glance of your eyes, and I shan't be able to bear it if I know you read all the contempt that will be poured on me. I'm sure I shall be glad enough to avoid it, but other people are friends read it. That's the worst. You know that their praise would be valueless, so have strength to disregard the blame. Let our friends read and talk as much as they like. Don't you console yourself with the thought that I am not contemptible, though I may have been forced to do poor work? People don't look at it in that way. But darling, he took her hand strongly in his own. I want you to disregard other people. You and I are surely everything to each other. Are you ashamed of me, of me myself? No, not ashamed of you, but I am sensitive to people's talk and opinions. But that means they make you feel ashamed of me. What else? There was silence. Even if you find you are unable to do good work, you mustn't do bad. We must think of some other way of making a living. Have you forgotten that you urged me to write a trashy, sensational story? She colored and looked annoyed. You misunderstood me. A sensational story needn't be trash, and then you know, if you had tried something entirely unlike your usual work, that would have been excuse enough if people had called it a failure. People, people! We can't live in solitude, Edwin, though really we are not far from it. He did not dare to make any reply to this. Amy was so exasperatingly womanlike in avoiding the important issue to which he tried to confine her. Another moment, and his tone would be that of irritation. So he turned away and sat down to his desk, as if he had some thought of resuming work. Will you come and have some supper? Amy asked, rising. I have been forgetting that tomorrow morning's chapter has still to be thought out. Edwin, I can't think this book will really be so poor. You couldn't possibly give all this toil for no result. No, not if I were in sound health, but I am far from it. Come and have supper with me, dear, and think afterwards. He turned and smiled at her. I hope I shall never be able to resist an invitation from you, sweet. The result of all this was, of course, that he sat down in anything but the right mood to his work next morning. Amy's anticipation of criticism had made it harder than ever for him to labor at what he knew to be bad. And as ill luck would have it, and a dare to, he caught his first winter's cold. For several years a succession of influences, sore throats, lumbagos, had tormented him from October to May, and planning his present work, and telling himself that it must be finished before Christmas, he had not lost sight of these possible interruptions. But he said to himself, Other men have worked hard in seasons of illness, I must do the same. All very well, but Reardon did not belong to their heroic class. A feverish cold now put his powers and resolution to the test. Through one hideous day he nailed himself to the desk, and wrote a quarter of a page. The next day Amy would not let him rise from bed, he was wretchedly ill. In the night he had talked about his work deliriously, causing her no slight alarm. If this goes on, she said to him in the morning, You'll have brain fever, you must rest for two or three days. Teach me how to, I wish I could. Rest had indeed become out of the question. For two days he could not write, but the result upon his mind was far worse than if he had been at his desk. He looked a haggard creature when he again sat down with the accustomed blank slip before him. The second volume ought to have been much easier work than the first. It proved far harder. Mezuse and Madame, the critics, are once to point out the weakness of second volumes. They are generally right, simply because a story which would have made a tolerable book, the common run of stories, refuses to fill three books. Reardon's story was in itself weak, and the second volume had to consist almost entirely of laborious padding. If he wrote three slips a day he did well. Both the money was melting, melting, despite Amy's efforts at economy. She spent as little as she could. Not a luxury came into their home. Articles of clothing all but indispensable were left unpurchased. But to what purpose was all this? Impossible now that the book should be finished and sold before the money had all run out. At the end of November, Reardon said to his wife one morning, Tomorrow I finish the second volume. And in a week, she replied, we shan't have a shilling left. He had refrained from making inquiries, and Amy had foreborn to tell him the state of things, lest it should bring him to a dead stop in his writing. But now they must needs discuss their position. In three weeks I can get to the end, said Reardon, with unnatural calmness. Then I will go personally to the publishers, and beg them to advance me something on the manuscript before they have read it. Couldn't you do that with the first two volumes? No, I can't, indeed I can't. The other thing will be bad enough. But to beg on an incomplete book, and such a book, I can't. There were drops on his forehead. They would help you if they knew, said Amy, in a low voice. Perhaps I can't say. They can't help every poor devil. No, I will sell some books. I can pick out fifty or sixty that I shan't much miss. Amy knew what a wrench this would be. The imminence of distress seemed to have softened her. Edwin, let me take those two volumes to the publishers, and ask. Heavens, no! That's impossible. Ten to one you will be told that my work is of such doubtful value that they can't offer even a guinea till the whole book has been considered. I can't allow you to go, dearest. This morning I'll choose some books that I can spare. And after dinner I'll ask a man to come and look at them. Don't worry yourself. I can finish in three weeks, I'm sure I can. If I can get you three or four pounds, you could make it do, couldn't you? Yes. She averted her face as she spoke. You shall have that. He still spoke very quietly. If the books won't bring enough, there's my watch. Oh, lots of things. He turned abruptly away, and Amy went on with her household work. End of chapter nine. CHAPTER TEN IF NEW GRUB 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 Bridget Gage. New Grub Street by George Kissing. CHAPTER TEN THE FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY. It was natural that Amy should hint dissatisfaction with the loneliness in which her days were mostly spent. She had never lived in a large circle of acquaintances. The narrowness of her mother's means restricted the family to intercourse with a few old friends, and such new ones as were content with teacup entertainment. But her tastes were social, and the maturing process which followed upon her marriage made her more conscious of this than she had been before. Already she had allowed her husband to understand that one of her strongest motives in marrying him was the belief that he would achieve distinction. At the time she doubtless thought of his coming fame only, or principally, as it considered their relations to each other. Her pride in him was to be one phase of her love. Now she was well aware that no degree of distinction in her husband would be of much value to her, unless she had the pleasure of witnessing its effect upon others. She must shine with reflected light before an admiring assembly. The more conscious she became of this requirement of her nature, the more clearly did she perceive that her hopes had been founded on an error. Reardon would never be a great man. He would never even occupy a prominent place in the estimation of the public. The two things Amy knew might be as different as light and darkness, but in the grief of her disappointment she would rather have had him flare into a worthless popularity than flicker down into total extinction, which it almost seemed was to be his fate. She knew so well how people were talking of him and her. Even her unliterary acquaintances understood that Reardon's last novel had been anything but successful, and they must, of course, ask each other how the Reardons were going to live if the business of novel writing proved unrenumerative. Her pride took offence at the mere thought of such conversations. Presently she would become an object of pity. There would be talk of poor Mrs. Reardon. It was intolerable. So during the last half-year she had withheld as much as possible from the intercourse which might have been one of her chief pleasures, and to disguise the true cause she made pretenses, which were a satire upon her state of mind, alleging that she had devoted herself to a serious course of studies, that the care of house and child occupied all the time she could spare from her intellectual pursuits. The worst of it was she had little faith in the efficiency of these fictions, and uttering them she felt an unpleasant warmth upon her cheeks, and it was not difficult to detect a look of doubt in the eyes of the listener. She grew angry with herself for being dishonest, and with her husband for making such dishonesty needful. The female friend with whom she had most trouble was Mrs. Carter. You remember that on the occasion of Reardon's first meeting with his future wife, at the Grossvenner Gallery, there were present his friend Carter and a young lady who was shortly to bear the name of that spirited young man. The Carter's had now been married about a year. They lived in Bayswater, and saw much of a certain world which imitates on a lower plain the amusements and effectations of society proper. Mr. Carter was still secretary to the hospital where Reardon had once earned his twenty shillings a week, but by voyaging in the seas of charitable enterprise he had come upon supplementary sources of income. For instance he held the post of secretary to the Barclay Trust, a charity whose moderate funds were largely devoted to the support of gentlemen engaged in administering it. This young man, with his air of pleasing vivacity, had early ingratiated himself with the kind of people who were likely to be of use to him. He had his reward in the shape of offices which are only procured through private influence. His wife was a good-natured, lively, and rather clever girl. She had a genuine regard for Amy and much respect for Reardon. Her ambition was to form a circle of distinctly intellectual acquaintances, and she was constantly inviting the Reardons to her house. A real-life novelist is not easily drawn into the world where Mrs. Carter had her being, and it annoyed her that all attempts to secure Amy and her husband for five o'clock teas and small parties had, of late, failed. On the afternoon when Reardon had visited a second-hand bookseller with a view of raising money, he was again shot up in his study, delorously at work. Amy was disturbed by the sound of a visitor's rat-tat. The little servant went to the door and returned followed by Mrs. Carter. Under the best of circumstances it was awkward to receive any but intimate friends during the hours when Reardon sat at his desk. The little dining-room, with its screen to conceal the kitchen range, offered nothing more than homely comfort, and then the servant had to be disposed of by sending her into the bedroom to take care of Willie. Privacy, in the strict sense, was impossible, for the servant might listen at the door. One room led out of the other, to all the conversation that went on, yet Amy could not request her visitors to speak in a low tone. For the first year these difficulties had not been felt. Reardon made a point of leaving the front room at his wife's disposal from three to six. It was only when dread of the future began to press upon him that he sat in the study all day long. You see how complicated were the miseries of the situation. One torment involved another, and in every quarter subjects of discontent were multiplied. Mrs. Carter would have taken it ill had she known that Amy did not regard her as strictly and intimate. They addressed each other by their Christian names, and conversed without ceremony. But Amy was always dissatisfied when the well-dressed young woman burst with laughter and animated talk into this abode of concealed poverty. Edith was not the kind of person with whom one can quill. She had a kind heart, and was never disagreeably pretentious. Had circumstances allowed it, Amy would have given Frank welcome to such friendship. She would have been glad to accept as many invitations as Edith chose to offer. But at present it did her harm to come in contact with Mrs. Carter. She made her envious, colds to her husband, resentful against fate. Why can't she leave me alone? Was the thought that rose in her mind as Edith entered. I shall let her see that I don't want her here. Your husband at work, Edith asked, with a glance in the direction of the study, as soon as they had exchanged kisses and greetings. Yes, he is busy. And you were sitting alone as usual. I feared you might be out, and afternoon of sunshine isn't to be neglected at this time of year. Is there sunshine? Amy inquired coldly. Why, look, do you mean to say you haven't noticed it? What a comical person you are sometimes. I suppose you have been overhead in ears and books all day. How was Willie? Very well, thank you. Maint I see him? If you like. Amy stepped to the bedroom door, and bade the servant bring Willie for exhibition. Edith, who is yet had no child of her own, always showed the most flattering admiration of this infant. It was so manifestly sincere that the mother could not but be moved to a grateful friendliness whenever she listened to its expression. Even this afternoon the usual effect followed when Edith had made a pretty and tender fool of herself for several minutes. Amy bade the servant make tea. At this moment the door from the passage opened, and Reardon looked in. Well, if this isn't marvelous, cried Edith, I should as soon have expected the heavens to fall. As what? Asked Reardon with a pale smile. As you to show yourself when I am here. I should like to say that I came on purpose to see you, Mrs. Carter, but it wouldn't be true. I'm going out for an hour, so that you can take possession of the other room if you like, Amy. Going out? said Amy with the look of surprise. Nothing, nothing, I mustn't stay. He just inquired of Mrs. Carter how her husband was, and withdrew. The door of the flat was heard to close after him. Let us go into the study, then, said Amy, again and rather a cold voice. On Reardon's desk were lying slips of blank paper. Edith, approaching on Tiptoe, which was partly make-believe, partly genuine awe, looked at the literary apparatus, then turned with a laugh to her friend. How delightful it must be to sit down and write about people one has invented. Ever since I've known you and Mr. Reardon I have been tempted to try if I couldn't write a story. Have you? And I'm sure I don't know how you can resist the temptation. I feel sure you could write books almost as clever as your husbands. I have no intention of trying. You don't seem very well today, Amy. Oh, I think I am as well as usual. She guessed that her husband was once more brought to a standstill, and this darkened her humor again. One of my reasons for coming, said Edith, was to beg and entreat and implore you and Mr. Reardon to dine with us next Wednesday. Now, don't put on such a severe face. Are you engaged that evening? Yes, in the ordinary way. Edwin can't possibly leave his work. But for one poor evening, it's such ages since we saw you. I'm very sorry. I don't think we shall ever be able to accept invitations in the future. Amy spoke thus at the prompting of a sudden impulse. A minute ago no such definite declaration was in her mind. However, exclaimed Edith, but why, whatever do you mean? We find that social engagements consume too much time, Amy replied. Her explanation just as much of an impromptu as the announcement had been. You see, one must either belong to society or not. Married people can't accept an occasional invitation from friends, and never do their social duty in return. We have decided to withdraw altogether, at all events for the present. I shall see no one except my relatives. Edith listened with a face of astonishment. You won't even see me, she exclaimed. Indeed, I have no wish to lose your friendship, yet I am ashamed to ask you to come here when I can never return your visits. Oh, please don't put it in that way, but it seems so very strange. Edith cannot help conjecturing the true significance of this resolve. But as is commonly the case with people in easy circumstances, she found it hard to believe that her friends were so straightened as to have a difficulty in supporting the ordinary obligations of a civilized state. I know how precious your husband's time is, she added, as of to remove the effect of her last remark. Surely, there's no harm in my saying. We know each other well enough. You wouldn't think it necessary to devote an evening to entertaining us, just because you had given us the pleasure of your company. I put it very stupidly, but I'm sure you understand me, Amy. Don't refuse just to come to our house now and then. But I'm afraid we shall have to be consistent, Edith. But do you think this is a wise thing to do? Wise? You know what you once told me, about how necessary it was for a novelist to study all sorts of people. How can Mr. Reardon do this if he shuts himself up in the house? I should have thought he would find it necessary to make new acquaintances. As I said, returned Amy, it won't be always like this. For the present Edwin has quite enough material. She spoke distantly. It irritated her to have to invent excuses for the sacrifice she had just imposed on herself. Edith sipped the tea which had been offered her, and for a minute kept silence. When will Mr. Reardon's next book be published, she asked at length. I'm sure I don't know, not before the spring. I shall look so anxiously for it. Whenever I meet new people I always turn the conversation to novels, just for the sake of asking them if they know your husband's books. She laughed merrily. Which is seldom the case, I should think, said Amy, with a smile of indifference. Well, my dear, you don't expect ordinary novel readers to know about Mr. Reardon. I wish my acquaintances were a better kind of people. Then, of course, I should hear of his books more often. But one has to make the best of such society as offers. If you and your husband forsake me, I shall feel a sad loss. I shall indeed. Amy gave a quick glance at the speaker's face. Oh, we must be friends just the same, she said, more naturally than she had spoken hitherto. But don't ask us to come and dine just now. All through this winter we shall be very busy, both of us. Indeed, we have decided not to accept any invitations at all. Then so long as you let me come here now and then, I must give in. I promise not to trouble you with any more complaining. But how you can live such a life I don't know. I consider myself more of a reader than women generally are, and I should be mortally offended if any one called me frivolous. But I must have a good deal of society. Really and truly I can't live without it." No, said Amy, with a smile which meant more than Edith could interpret. It seemed slightly condescending. There's no knowing, perhaps, if I had married a literary man. She paused, smiling and musing. But then I haven't, you see. She laughed. Elber is anything but a bookworm, as you know. You wouldn't wish him to be. Oh, no, not a bookworm. To be sure, we suit each other very well indeed. He likes society just as much as I do. It would be the death of him if he didn't spend three quarters of every day with lively people. That's a rather large portion. But then you count yourself among the lively ones. They exchanged looks and laughed together. Of course you think me rather silly, to want to talk so much with silly people, Edith went on. But then there's generally some amusement to be got, you know. I don't take life quite so seriously as you do. People are people after all. It's good fun to see how they live and hear how they talk. Amy felt that she was playing a sorry part. She thought of sour grapes, and of the fox who had lost his tail. Worst of all, perhaps Edith suspected the truth. She began to make inquiries about common acquaintances, and fell into an easier current of gossip. A quarter of an hour after the visitor's departure, Reardon came back. Amy had guessed to write. The necessity of selling his books weighed upon him, so that for the present he could do nothing. The evening was spent gloomily, with very little conversation. Next day came the bookseller to make his inspection. Reardon had chosen out and ranged upon a table, nearly a hundred volumes. With a few exceptions they had been purchased secondhand. The tradesmen examined them rapidly. What do you ask, he inquired, putting his head aside. I prefer that you should make an offer, Reardon replied, with the helplessness of one who lives remote from traffic. I can't say more than two pounds ten. That is at the rate of six pence of volume. To me that's about the average value of books like these. Perhaps the offer was a fair one, perhaps it was not. Reardon had neither time nor spirit to test the possibilities of the market. He was ashamed to betray his need by higgling. I'll take it, he said, in a matter-of-fact voice. A messenger was sent for the books that afternoon. He stowed them skillfully in two bags, and carried them downstairs to a cart that was waiting. Reardon looked at the gaps left on his shelves. Many of those vanished volumes were dear old friends to him. He could have told you where he had picked them up and when. To open them recalled a past moment of intellectual growth, a mood of hope or despondency, a stage of struggle. In most of them his name was written, and there were often penciled notes in the margin. Of course he had chosen from among the most valuable he possessed such a multitude must else have been sold to make the sum of two pounds ten. Books are cheap, you know. At need one can buy Homer for four pence, a Sophocles for six pence. It was not rubbish that he had accumulated at so small expenditure, but the library of a poor student, battered bindings, stained pages, supplanted editions. He loved his books, but there was something he loved more, and when Amy glanced at him with eyes of sympathy he broke into a cheerful laugh. I'm only sorry they have gone for so little. Tell me when the money is nearly at an end again, and you shall have more. It's all right, the novel will be done soon. And that night he worked until twelve o'clock, doggedly, fiercely. The next day was Sunday. As a rule he made it a day of rest, and almost per force, for the depressing influence of Sunday in London made work too difficult. Then it was the day on which he either went to see his own particular friends or was visited by them. Do you expect any one this evening, Amy inquired? Biffin will look in, I daresay, perhaps Milvane. I think I shall take Willie to mother's. I shall be back before eight. Amy, don't say anything about the books. No, no. I suppose they always ask you when we think of removing over the way. He pointed in a direction that suggested Marilbone Workhouse. Amy tried to laugh, but a woman with a child in her arms has no keen relish for such jokes. I don't talk to them about our affairs, she said. That's best. She left home about three o'clock, the servant going with her to carry the child. At five a familiar knock sounded through the flat. It was a heavy rap followed by half a dozen light ones, like a reverberating echo. The last stroke scarcely audible. Reared and lay down his book, but kept his pipe in his mouth, and went to the door. A tall thin man stood there, with a slouch hat and long gray overcoat. He shook hands silently, hung his hat in the passage, and came forward into the study. His name was Harold Biffin, and, to judge from his appearance, he did not belong to the race of common mortals. His excess of meagerness would all but have qualified him to enter an exhibition in the capacity of living skeleton, and the garments which hung upon this framework would perhaps have sold for three and six pence at an old clothes-dealers. But the man was superior to these accidents of flesh and raiment. He had a fine face, large, gentle eyes, nose slightly aquiline, small and delicate mouth. Thick black hair fell to his coat collar, he wore a heavy mustache, and a full beard. In his gate there was a singular dignity. Only a man of cultivated mind and graceful character could move and stand as he did. His first act on entering the room was to take from his pocket a pipe, a pouch, a little tobacco stopper, and a box of matches. All of which he arranged carefully on a corner of the central table. Then he drew forward a chair and seated himself. "'Take your topcoat off,' said Reardon. "'Thanks, not this evening.' "'Why the deuce not?' "'Not this evening, thanks.' The reason, as soon as Reardon sought for it, was obvious. Biffin had no ordinary coat beneath the other. To have referred to this fact would have been indelicate. The novelist, of course, understood it, and smiled, but with no mirth. "'Let me have your Sophocles,' were the visitor's next words. Reardon offered him a volume of the Oxford pocket classics. "'I prefer the Wonder, please.' "'It's gone, my boy.' "'Gone?' "'Wanted a little cash. Biffin uttered a sound in which remonstrance and sympathy were blended. "'I'm sorry to hear that. Very sorry. Well, this must do. Now I want to know how you scan this course in the Oedipus Rex.' Reardon took the volume, considered, and began to read aloud with metric emphasis. "'Coreumbics, eh?' cried the other. "'Possible, of course, but treat them as Ionix, a minor, with an anacrusis, and see if they don't go better.' He involved himself in terms of pedantry, and with such delight that his eyes gleamed. Having delivered a technical lecture, he began to read in illustration, producing quite a different effect from that of the rhythm as given by his friend. And the reading was by no means that of a pendant, rather of a poet. For half an hour the two men talked Greek meters, as if they lived in a world where the only hunger known could be satisfied by grand or sweet cadences. They had first met in an amusing way. Not long after the publication of his book, On Neutral Ground, Reardon was spending a week at Hastings. A rainy day drove him to the circulating library, and as he was looking along the shelves for something readable, a voice near at hand asked the attendant if he had anything by Edwin Reardon. The novelist turned in astonishment that any casual mortal should inquire for his books seemed incredible. Of course there was nothing by that author in the library, and he who asked the question walked out again. On the morrow Reardon encountered the same man at a lonely part of the shore. He looked at him, and spoke a word or two of common civility. They got into conversation, with the result that Edwin told the story of yesterday. The stranger introduced himself as Harold Biffin, an author in a small way, and a teacher whenever he could get pupils. An abusive review had interested him in Reardon's novels, but as yet he knew nothing of them but the names. Their tastes were found to be in many respects sympathetic, and after returning to London they saw each other frequently. Biffin was always in dire poverty, and lived in the oddest places. He had seen harder trials than even Reardon himself. The teaching by which he partly lived was of a kind quite unknown to the respectable tutorial world. In these days of examinations, numbers of men in a poor position, clerks chiefly, conceive a hope that by passing this, that, or the other formal test, they may open for themselves a new career. Not a few such persons nourish preposterous ambitions. There are warehouse clerks privately preparing, without any means or prospect of them, or a call to the bar, draper's assistants, who go in for the preliminary examination of the College of Surgeons, and untaught men innumerable who desire to procure enough show of education to be eligible for accuracy. Candidates of this stamp frequently advertise in the newspapers for cheap tuition, or answer advertisements which are intended to appeal to them. They pay from six pence to half a crown an hour, rarely as much as the latter some. Finally it happened that Harold Biffin had three or four such peoples in hand, and extraordinary stories he could draw from his large experience in the sphere. Then as to his authorship, but shortly after the discussion of Greek meters, he fell upon the subject of his literary projects, and by no means for the first time, developed the theory on which he worked. I have thought of a new way of putting it. What I really aim at is an absolute realism in the spirit of the ignobley decent. The field, as I understand it, is a new one. I don't know any writer who has treated ordinary vulgar life with fidelity and seriousness. Zola writes deliberate tragedies. His vilest figures become heroic from the place they fill in a strongly imagined drama. I want to deal with the essentially unheroic, with a day-to-day life of that vast majority of people who are at the mercy of paltry circumstance. Dickens understood the possibility of such work, but his tendency to melodrama on the one hand, and his humor on the other, prevented him from thinking of it. An instance now, as I came along by Regent's Park half an hour ago, a man and a girl were walking close in front of me, love-making. I passed them slowly, and heard a good deal of their talk. It was part of the situation that they should pay no heed to a stranger's proximity. Now, such a love-scene as that has absolutely never been written down. It was entirely decent, yet vulgar to the inth power. Things would have made it ludicrous, a gross injustice. Other men who deal with low-class life would perhaps have preferred idealizing it, an absurdity. For my own part, I am going to reproduce it verbatim, without one single impertinent suggestion of any point of view, save that of honest reporting. The result will be something unutterably tedious. Precisely, that is the stamp of the ignobley decent life. If it were anything but tedious, it would be untrue. I speak, of course, of its effect upon the ordinary reader. I couldn't do it, said Reardon. Certainly you couldn't. You, well, you were a psychological realist in a sphere of culture. You were impatient of vulgar circumstances. And a great measure because my life has been murdered by them. And for that very same reason I delight in them, cried Biffin. You are repelled by what has injured you. I am attracted by it. This divergence is very interesting. And for that we should have resembled each other so closely. You know that by temper we are rabid idealists, both of us. I suppose so. But let me go on. I want, among other things, to insist upon the fateful power of trivial incidents. No one has yet dared to do this seriously. It has often been done in farce. And that's why farcical writing so often makes one melancholy. You know my stock instances of the kind of thing I mean. There was poor Alan who lost the most valuable opportunity of his life because he had a clean shirt to put on. And Williamson, who would probably have married that rich girl but for the grain of dust that got into his eye, and made him unable to say or do anything at the critical moment. Reardon burst into a roar of laughter. There you are, cried Biffin, with friendly annoyance. You take the conventional view. If you wrote of these things you would represent them as laughable. They are laughable, asserted the other, however serious to the person's concern. The mere fact of grave issues in life, depending on such paltry things, is monstrously ludicrous. Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humor is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter. That's all very well, but it isn't an original view. I am not lacking in sense of humor, but I prefer to treat these aspects of life from an impartial standpoint. The man who laughs takes the side of a cruel omnipotence, if one can imagine such a thing. I want to take no side at all, simply to say, Look, this is the kind of thing that happens. I admire your honesty, Biffin, said Reardon, sighing. You will never sell work of this kind, yet you have the courage to go on with it because you believe in it. I don't know. I may perhaps sell it some day. In the meantime, said Reardon, laying down his pipe, suppose we eat a morsel of something. We're hungry. In the early days of his marriage, Reardon was wont to offer his friends who looked in on Sunday evening a substantial supper. By degrees the meal had grown simpler, until now, in the depth of his poverty, he made no pretense of hospitable entertainment. It was only because he knew that Biffin as often as not had nothing whatever to eat that he did not hesitate to offer him a slice of bread and butter and a cup of tea. They went into the back room, and over the Spartan fire continued to discuss aspects of fiction. I shall never, said Biffin, ray anything like a dramatic scene. Such things do happen in life, but so very rarely that they are nothing to my purpose. Even when they happen by the by, it is in a shape that would be useless to the ordinary novelist. He would have to cut away this circumstance and add that. Why? I should like to know. Such conventionalism results from stage necessities. Biffin hasn't yet outgrown the influence of the stage on which it originated. Whatever a man writes for effect is wrong and bad. Only in your view, there may surely exist such a thing as the art of fiction. It has worked out. We must have a rest from it. You now, the best things you have done are altogether in conflict with novelistic conventionalities. It was because that Blackard review of Unneutral Ground clumsily hinted this that I first thought of you with interest. No, no. Let us copy life. When the man and woman are to meet for a great scene of passion, let it all be frustrated by one or other of them having a bad cold in the head, and so on. Let the pretty girl get a disfiguring pimple on her nose just before the ball at which she is going to shine. Show the numberless repulsive features of common decent life. Seriously, coldly, not a hint of facetiousness, or the thing becomes different. About eight o'clock, Reardon heard his wife's knock at the door. In opening, he saw not only Amy and the servant, the latter holding Willie in her arms, but with them, Jasper Milvane. I have been at Mrs. Ewell's, Jasper explained, as he came in. Have you anyone here? Biffen. Ah, then we'll discuss realism. That's over for the evening, Greek meters also. Thank heaven. The three men seated themselves with joking and laughter, and the smoke of their pipes gathered thickly in the little room. It was half an hour before Amy joined them. Overcoat was no disturbance to her, and she enjoyed the kind of talk that was held on these occasions. But it annoyed her that she could no longer play the hostess at a merry supper-table. Why ever are you sitting in your overcoat, Mr. Biffen? Were her first words when she entered? Please excuse me, Mrs. Reardon. It happens to be more convenient this evening. She was puzzled, but a glance from her husband warned her not to pursue the subject. Biffen always behaved to Amy with a sincerity of respect which had made him a favourite with her. To him, poor fellow, Reardon seemed supremely blessed. That a struggling man of letters should have been able to marry, and such a wife, was miraculous in Biffen's eyes. A woman's love was to him the unattainable ideal. Already thirty-five years old he had no prospect of ever being rich enough to assure himself a daily dinner. Marriage was wildly out of the question. Sitting here he found it very difficult not to gaze at Amy with uncivil persistency. All of them in his life had he conversed with educated women, and the sound of this clear voice was always more delightful to him than any music. Amy took a place nearer to him, and talked in her most charming way of such things as she knew interested him. Biffen's deferential attitude as he listened and replied, was strong in contrast with the caravansese which marked Jasper Milvane. The realist would never smoke in Amy's presence, but Jasper puffed jovial clouds even whilst she was conversing with him. Phil came to see me last night, remarked Milvane presently. His novels refused on all hands. He talks of earning a living as a commission agent for some sewing machine people. I can't understand how his books should be positively refused, said Reardon. The last wasn't altogether a failure. Very nearly, and this one consists of nothing but a series of conversations between two people. It is really a dialogue, not a novel at all. He read me some twenty pages, and I no longer wondered that he couldn't sell it. Oh, but it has considerable merit, put in Biffen. The talk is remarkably true. But what's the good of talk that leads to nothing, protested Jasper? It's a bit of real life. Yes, but it has no market value. You may write what you like, so long as people are willing to read you. Welpdale's a clever fellow, but he can't hit a practical line. Like some other people I've heard of, said Reardon laughing. But the odd thing is, that he always strikes one as practical-minded. Don't you feel that, Mrs. Reardon? He and Amy talked for a few minutes, and Reardon, seemingly lost in meditation, now and then observed them from the corner of his eye. At eleven o'clock husband and wife were alone again. You don't mean to say, exclaimed Amy, that Biffen had sold his coat. Or pond it. But why not the overcoat? Partly I should think, because it's the warmer of the two. Partly perhaps, because the other would fetch more. That poor man will die of starvation some day, Edwin. I think it not impossible. I hope you gave him something to eat. Oh yes, but I could see he didn't like to take as much as he wanted. I don't think of him with so much pity, as I used. That's a result of suffering oneself. Amy set her lips inside. End of CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. OF NEW GRAB 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 Chessie. New Grub Street by George Gissing, CHAPTER XI. RESPIDE. The last volume was written in fourteen days. In this achievement Reardon rose almost to a heroic pitch, for he had much to contend with beyond the mere labour of composition. Only had he begun, when a sharp attack of lambego fell upon him. For two or three days it was torture to support himself at the desk, and he moved about like a cripple. Upon this ensued headaches, sore throat, general enfeeblement. And before the end of the fortnight, it was necessary to think of raising another small sum of money. He took his watch to the pawnbrokers. You can imagine that it would not stand as security for much, and sold a few more books. All this notwithstanding, here was the novel at length finished. When he had written The End, he lay back, closed his eyes, and let time pass in blankness for a quarter of an hour. It remained to determine the title, but his brain refused another effort. For a few minutes feeble search he simply took the name of the chief female character, Margaret Holm. That must do for the book. Already with the panning of the last word, all its scenes, personages, dialogues had slipped away into oblivion. He knew and cared nothing more about them. Amy, you will have to correct the proofs for me. Never, as long as I live, will I look upon a page of this accursed novel. It has all but killed me. The point is, replied Amy, that here we have it complete. Pack it up and take it to the publishers tomorrow morning. I will. And you will ask them to advance you a few pounds? I must. But that undertaking was almost as hard to face as a rewriting of the last volume would have been. Reardon had such superfluity of sensitiveness that, for his own part, he would far rather have gone hungry than ask for money not legally his due. Today there was no choice. In the ordinary course of business it would be certainly a month before you heard the publisher's terms, and perhaps the Christmas season might cause yet more delay. Without borrowing he could not provide for the expenses of more than another week or two. His parcel under his arm he entered the ground floor office and desired to see that member of the firm with whom he had previously had personal relations. This gentleman was not in town. He would be away for a few days. Then left a manuscript and came out into the street again. He crossed and looked up at the publisher's windows from the opposite pavement. Do they suspect in what ratchet circumstances I am? Would it surprise them to know all that depends upon that budget of poetry scribbling? I suppose not. It must be a daily experience with them. Well, I must write a begging letter. It was raining and windy. He went slowly homewards and was on the point of entering the public door of the flats when his uneasiness became so great that he turned and walked past. If he went in he must at once write his appeal for money and he felt that he could not. The degradation seemed too great. Was there no way of getting over the next few weeks? First of course would be due at Christmas, but that payment might be postponed. It was only a question of buying food and fuel. Amy had offered to ask her mother for a few pounds. It would be cowardly to put this task upon her now that he had promised to meet the difficulty himself. What man in all London could and would lend him money? He reviewed the list of his acquaintances, but there was only one to whom he could appeal with the slightest hope. That was Carter. Half an hour later he entered that same hospital door through which, some years ago, he had passed as a half-starved applicant for work. The matron met him. Is Mr. Carter here? No, sir, but we expect him any minute. Will you wait? He entered the familiar office and sat down. At the table where he had been warned to work, a young clerk was writing. If only all the events of the last few years could be undone, and he, with no soul dependent upon him, be once more earning his pound a week in this room. What a happy man he was in those days. Nearly half an hour passed. It is the common experience of beggars to have to wait. Then Carter came in with quick step. He wore heavy altstra of the latest fashion, new gloves, a resplendent silk hat. His cheeks were rosy from the east wind. Ha! Reardon! How do? How do? Delighted to see you. Are you very busy? Well, no, not particularly. A few checks to sign, and with just getting out our Christmas appears. You remember? He laughed gaily. There was a remarkable freedom from snobbishness in this young man. The fact of Reardon's intellectual superiority had long ago counteracted Carter's social prejudices. I should like to have a word with you. Right you are! They went into a small inner room. Reardon's pulse beat at fever rate. His tongue was cleaving to his pellet. What is it, old man? Asked the secretary, seating himself and flinging one of his legs over the other. You look rather seedy, do you know? Why did you, stoned you and your wife, look us up now and then? I've had a hard pull to finish my novel. Finished, is it? I'm glad to hear that. When will it be out? I'll send scores of people to moody's after it. Thanks, but I don't think much of it to tell you the truth. Oh, we know what that means. Reardon was talking like an automaton. It seemed to him that he turned screws and pressed levers for the utterance of his next words. I may as well say at once what I have come for. Could you lend me ten pounds for a month? In fact, until I get the money for my book? The secretary's countenance fell, though not to that expression of utter coldness which would have come naturally under the circumstances to a great many vivacious man. He seemed genuinely embarrassed. By Jove, I confound it. To tell you the truth, I haven't ten pounds to lend. In my word, I haven't, Reardon. These infernal housekeeping expenses. I don't mind telling you, old man, that Edith and I have been pushing the pace rather. He laughed and thrust his hands down into his trousers' pockets. We pay such a darned rent, you know, one hundred and twenty-five. We've only just been saying we should have to draw it mild for the rest of the winter. But I'm infernally sorry upon my word I am. And I am sorry to have annoyed you by the unseasonable request. Devilish seasonable, Reardon, I assure you, cried the secretary and roared at his choke. It put him into a better temper than ever, and he set a length. I suppose a fiver wouldn't be much use? For a month, you say. I might manage a fiver, I think. It would be very useful, but on no account if, no, no, I could manage a fiver for a month, shall I give you a check? I'm ashamed, not a bit of it, I'll go and write a check. Reardon's face was burning. Of the conversation that followed when Carter again presented himself, he never recalled a word. The bit of paper was crushed together in his hand. Out in the street again he all but threw it away, dreaming for the moment that it was a bus ticket or a patent medicine bill. He reached home much after the dinner hour. Amy was surprised at his long absence. Got anything? She asked. Yes. It was half his intention to deceive her, to say that the publishers had advanced him five pounds. But that would be his first word of untruth to Amy, and why should he be guilty of it? He told her all that had happened. The result of this frankness was something that he had not anticipated. Amy exhibited profound vexation. Oh, you shouldn't have done that, she exclaimed. Why didn't you come home and tell me? I would have gone to mother at once. But does it matter? Of course it does, she replied sharply. Mr. Carter will tell his wife and how pleasant that is. I never thought of that, and perhaps it wouldn't have seemed to me so annoying as it does to you. Very lightly not. She turned abruptly away and stood at a distance in gloomy muteness. Well, she said at length, there's no helping it now. Come and have your dinner. You have taken away my appetite. Nonsense! I suppose you're dying of hunger. They had a very uncomfortable meal, exchanging few words. On Amy's face was a look more resembling bare-temper than anything Reardon had ever seen there. After dinner he went and sat alone in the study. Amy did not come near him. He grew stubbornly angry. Remembering the pain he had gone through, he felt that Amy's behaviour to him was cruel. She must come and speak when she would. At six o'clock she showed her face in the doorway and asked if he would come to tea. Thank you, he replied. I had rather stay here. As you please. And he sat alone until about nine. It was only then he recollected that he must send a note to the publishers, calling their attention to the parcel he had left. He wrote it and closed with a request that they would let him here as soon as they conveniently could. As he was putting on his hat and coat to go out and post a letter, Amy opened the dining room door. You're going out? Yes. Shall you be long? I think not. He was away only a few minutes. Upon returning he went first of all into the study, but the thought of Amy alone in the other room would not let him rest. He looked in and saw that she was sitting without a fire. You can't stay here in the cold, Amy. I'm afraid I must get used to it, she replied, affecting to be closely engaged upon some sowing. His strength of character, which it had always delighted him to read in her features, was become an ominous hardness. He felt his heart sink as he looked at her. Is poverty going to have the usual result in our case? He asked, drawing nearer. I never pretended that I could be indifferent to it. Still, don't you care to try and resist it? He gave no answer. As usual in conversation with an aggrieved woman, it was necessary to go back from the general to the particular. I am afraid, he said, that the carters already knew pretty well how things were going with us. That's a very different thing, but when it comes to asking them for money, I am very sorry, I would rather have done anything if I had known how it would annoy you. If we have to wait a month, five pounds will be very little use to us. She detailed all manner of expenses that had to be met. Outlay there was no possibility of avoiding so long as their life was maintained on its present basis. However, you needn't trouble any more about it, I'll see to it. Now you are free from your book, try to rest. Come and sit by the fire, there's small chance of rest for me if we are thinking unkindly of each other. A dothful Christmas. Week after week went by and really knew that Amy must have exhausted the money he had given her. But she made no more demands upon him and necessaries were paid for in the usual way. He suffered from a sense of humiliation. Sometimes he found it difficult to look in his wife's face. When the publisher's letter came, it contained an offer of 75 pounds for the copyright of Margaret Home, 25 more to be paid if the sale in free volume form should reach a certain number of copies. Here was failure put into unmistakable figures. Reardon said to himself that it was all over with his profession of authorship. The book could not possibly succeed even to the point of completing his hundred pounds. It would meet with universal contempt and, indeed, deserved nothing better. Shall you accept this? asked Amy after dreary silence. No one else would offer terms as good. Will they pay you at once? I must ask them to. Well, it was 75 pounds in hand. The check came as soon as it was requested and Reardon's face brightened for the moment. Blessed money, root of all good, until the world and went some sane economy. How much do you owe your mother? He inquired without looking at Amy. Six pounds, she answered coldly, and five to carter and rent twelve pounds ten. We shall have a matter of fifty pounds to go on with. End of chapter eleven.