New Grub Street Part 33

'I was rather afraid to.'

'Why afraid?'

'It would have seemed like reminding you that--you know what I mean.'

'That a month or two more will see us at the same crisis again. Still, I had rather you had shown an interest in my doings.'

After a pause Amy asked:

'Do you think you can get a paper of this kind accepted?'

'It isn't impossible. I think it's rather well done. Let me read you a page--'

'Where will you send it?' she interrupted.

'To The Wayside.'

'Why not try The Current? Ask Milvain to introduce you to Mr Fadge. They pay much better, you know.'

'But this isn't so well suited for Fadge. And I much prefer to be independent, as long as it's possible.'

'That's one of your faults, Edwin,' remarked his wife, mildly. 'It's only the strongest men that can make their way independently. You ought to use every means that offers.'

'Seeing that I am so weak?'

'I didn't think it would offend you. I only meant---'

'No, no; you are quite right. Certainly, I am one of the men who need all the help they can get. But I a.s.sure you, this thing won't do for The Current.'

'What a pity you will go hack to those musty old times! Now think of that article of Milvain's. If only you could do something of that kind!

What do people care about Diogenes and his tub and his lantern?'

'My dear girl, Diogenes Laertius had neither tub nor lantern, that I know of. You are making a mistake; but it doesn't matter.'

'No, I don't think it does.' The caustic note was not very pleasant on Amy's lips. 'Whoever he was, the ma.s.s of readers will be frightened by his name.'

'Well, we have to recognise that the ma.s.s of readers will never care for anything I do.'

'You will never convince me that you couldn't write in a popular way if you tried. I'm sure you are quite as clever as Milvain--'

Reardon made an impatient gesture.

'Do leave Milvain aside for a little! He and I are as unlike as two men could be. What's the use of constantly comparing us?'

Amy looked at him. He had never spoken to her so brusquely.

'How can you say that I am constantly comparing you?'

'If not in spoken words, then in your thoughts.'

'That's not a very nice thing to say, Edwin.'

'You make it so unmistakable, Amy. What I mean is, that you are always regretting the difference between him and me. You lament that I can't write in that attractive way. Well, I lament it myself--for your sake. I wish I had Milvain's peculiar talent, so that I could get reputation and money. But I haven't, and there's an end of it. It irritates a man to be perpetually told of his disadvantages.'

'I will never mention Milvain's name again,' said Amy coldly.

'Now that's ridiculous, and you know it.'

'I feel the same about your irritation. I can't see that I have given any cause for it.'

'Then we'll talk no more of the matter.'

Reardon threw his ma.n.u.script aside and opened a book. Amy never asked him to resume his intention of reading what he had written.

However, the paper was accepted. It came out in The Wayside for March, and Reardon received seven pounds ten for it. By that time he had written another thing of the same gossipy kind, suggested by Pliny's Letters. The pleasant occupation did him good, but there was no possibility of pursuing this course. 'Margaret Home' would be published in April; he might get the five-and-twenty pounds contingent upon a certain sale, yet that could in no case be paid until the middle of the year, and long before then he would be penniless. His respite drew to an end.

But now he took counsel of no one; as far as it was possible he lived in solitude, never seeing those of his acquaintances who were outside the literary world, and seldom even his colleagues. Milvain was so busy that he had only been able to look in twice or thrice since Christmas, and Reardon nowadays never went to Jasper's lodgings.

He had the conviction that all was over with the happiness of his married life, though how the events which were to express this ruin would shape themselves he could not foresee. Amy was revealing that aspect of her character to which he had been blind, though a practical man would have perceived it from the first; so far from helping him to support poverty, she perhaps would even refuse to share it with him.

He knew that she was slowly drawing apart; already there was a divorce between their minds, and he tortured himself in uncertainty as to how far he retained her affections. A word of tenderness, a caress, no longer met with response from her; her softest mood was that of mere comrades.h.i.+p. All the warmth of her nature was expended upon the child; Reardon learnt how easy it is for a mother to forget that both parents have a share in her offspring.

He was beginning to dislike the child. But for Willie's existence Amy would still love him with undivided heart; not, perhaps, so pa.s.sionately as once, but still with lover's love. And Amy understood--or, at all events, remarked--this change in him. She was aware that he seldom asked a question about Willie, and that he listened with indifference when she spoke of the little fellow's progress. In part offended, she was also in part pleased.

But for the child, mere poverty, he said to himself, should never have sundered them. In the strength of his pa.s.sion he could have overcome all her disappointments; and, indeed, but for that new care, he would most likely never have fallen to this extremity of helplessness. It is natural in a weak and sensitive man to dream of possibilities disturbed by the force of circ.u.mstance. For one hour which he gave to conflict with his present difficulties, Reardon spent many in contemplation of the happiness that might have been.

Even yet, it needed but a little money to redeem all. Amy had no extravagant aspirations; a home of simple refinement and freedom from anxiety would restore her to her n.o.bler self. How could he find fault with her? She knew nothing of such sordid life as he had gone through, and to lack money for necessities seemed to her degrading beyond endurance. Why, even the ordinary artisan's wife does not suffer such privations as hers at the end of the past year. For lack of that little money his life must be ruined. Of late he had often thought about the rich uncle, John Yule, who might perhaps leave something to Amy; but the hope was so uncertain. And supposing such a thing were to happen; would it be perfectly easy to live upon his wife's bounty--perhaps exhausting a small capital, so that, some years hence, their position would be no better than before? Not long ago, he could have taken anything from Amy's hand; would it be so simple since the change that had come between them?

Having written his second magazine-article (it was rejected by two editors, and he had no choice but to hold it over until sufficient time had elapsed to allow of his again trying The Wayside), he saw that he must perforce plan another novel. But this time he was resolute not to undertake three volumes. The advertis.e.m.e.nts informed him that numbers of authors were abandoning that procrustean system; hopeless as he was, he might as well try his chance with a book which could be written in a few weeks. And why not a glaringly artificial story with a sensational t.i.tle? It could not be worse than what he had last written.

So, without a word to Amy, he put aside his purely intellectual work and began once more the search for a 'plot.' This was towards the end of February. The proofs of 'Margaret Home' were coming in day by day; Amy had offered to correct them, but after all he preferred to keep his shame to himself as long as possible, and with a hurried reading he dismissed sheet after sheet. His imagination did not work the more happily for this repugnant task; still, he hit at length upon a conception which seemed absurd enough for the purpose before him.

Whether he could persevere with it even to the extent of one volume was very doubtful. But it should not be said of him that he abandoned his wife and child to penury without one effort of the kind that Milvain and Amy herself had recommended.

Writing a page or two of ma.n.u.script daily, and with several holocausts to r.e.t.a.r.d him, he had done nearly a quarter of the story when there came a note from Jasper telling of Mrs Milvain's death. He handed it across the breakfast-table to Amy, and watched her as she read it.

'I suppose it doesn't alter his position,' Amy remarked, without much interest.

'I suppose not appreciably. He told me once his mother had a sufficient income; but whatever she leaves will go to his sisters, I should think.

He has never said much to me.'

Nearly three weeks pa.s.sed before they heard anything more from Jasper himself; then he wrote, again from the country, saying that he purposed bringing his sisters to live in London. Another week, and one evening he appeared at the door.

A want of heartiness in Reardon's reception of him might have been explained as gravity natural under the circ.u.mstances. But Jasper had before this become conscious that he was not welcomed here quite so cheerily as in the old days. He remarked it distinctly on that evening when he accompanied Amy home from Mrs Yule's; since then he had allowed his pressing occupations to be an excuse for the paucity of his visits.

It seemed to him perfectly intelligible that Reardon, sinking into literary insignificance, should grow cool to a man entering upon a successful career; the vein of cynicism in Jasper enabled him to pardon a weakness of this kind, which in some measure flattered him. But he both liked and respected Reardon, and at present he was in the mood to give expression to his warmer feelings.

'Your book is announced, I see,' he said with an accent of pleasure, as soon as he had seated himself.

'I didn't know it.'