New Grub Street Part 36

'I know it, mother. Let us go on as we did before.'

The day after this, when Yule came home about the hour of dinner, he called Marian's name from within the study. Marian had not left the house to-day; her work had been set, in the shape of a long task of copying from disorderly ma.n.u.script. She left the sitting-room in obedience to her father's summons.

'Here's something that will afford you amus.e.m.e.nt,' he said, holding to her the new number of The Current, and indicating the notice of his book.

She read a few lines, then threw the thing on to the table.

'That kind of writing sickens me,' she exclaimed, with anger in her eyes. 'Only base and heartless people can write in that way. You surely won't let it trouble you?'

'Oh, not for a moment,' her father answered, with exaggerated show of calm. 'But I am surprised that you don't see the literary merit of the work. I thought it would distinctly appeal to you.'

There was a strangeness in his voice, as well as in the words, which caused her to look at him inquiringly. She knew him well enough to understand that such a notice would irritate him profoundly; but why should he go out of his way to show it her, and with this peculiar acerbity of manner?

'Why do you say that, father?'

'It doesn't occur to you who may probably have written it?'

She could not miss his meaning; astonishment held her mute for a moment, then she said:

'Surely Mr Fadge wrote it himself?'

'I am told not. I am informed on very good authority that one of his young gentlemen has the credit of it.'

'You refer, of course, to Mr Milvain,' she replied quietly. 'But I think that can't be true.'

He looked keenly at her. He had expected a more decided protest.

'I see no reason for disbelieving it.'

'I see every reason, until I have your evidence.'

This was not at all Marian's natural tone in argument with him. She was wont to be submissive.

'I was told,' he continued, hardening face and voice, 'by someone who had it from Jedwood.'

Yule was conscious of untruth in this statement, but his mood would not allow him to speak ingenuously, and he wished to note the effect upon Marian of what he said. There were two beliefs in him: on the one hand, he recognised Fadge in every line of the writing; on the other, he had a perverse satisfaction in convincing himself that it was Milvain who had caught so successfully the master's manner. He was not the kind of man who can resist an opportunity of justifying, to himself and others, a course into which he has been led by mingled feelings, all more or less unjustifiable.

'How should Jedwood know?' asked Marian.

Yule shrugged his shoulders.

'As if these things didn't get about among editors and publishers!'

'In this case, there's a mistake.'

'And why, pray?' His voice trembled with choler. 'Why need there be a mistake?'

'Because Mr Milvain is quite incapable of reviewing your book in such a spirit.'

'There is your mistake, my girl. Milvain will do anything that's asked of him, provided he's well enough paid.'

Marian reflected. When she raised her eyes again they were perfectly calm.

'What has led you to think that?'

'Don't I know the type of man? Noscitur ex sociis--have you Latin enough for that?'

'You'll find that you are misinformed,' Marian replied, and therewith went from the room.

She could not trust herself to converse longer. A resentment such as her father had never yet excited in her--such, indeed, as she had seldom, if ever, conceived--threatened to force utterance for itself in words which would change the current of her whole life. She saw her father in his worst aspect, and her heart was shaken by an unnatural revolt from him.

Let his a.s.surance of what he reported be ever so firm, what right had he to make this use of it? His behaviour was spiteful. Suppose he entertained suspicions which seemed to make it his duty to warn her against Milvain, this was not the way to go about it. A father actuated by simple motives of affection would never speak and look thus.

It was the hateful spirit of literary rancour that ruled him; the spirit that made people eager to believe all evil, that blinded and maddened.

Never had she felt so strongly the unworthiness of the existence to which she was condemned. That contemptible review, and now her father's ign.o.ble pa.s.sion--such things were enough to make all literature appear a morbid excrescence upon human life.

Forgetful of the time, she sat in her bedroom until a knock at the door, and her mother's voice, admonished her that dinner was waiting. An impulse all but caused her to say that she would rather not go down for the meal, that she wished to be left alone. But this would be weak peevishness. She just looked at the gla.s.s to see that her face bore no unwonted signs, and descended to take her place as usual.

Throughout the dinner there pa.s.sed no word of conversation. Yule was at his blackest; he gobbled a few mouthfuls, then occupied himself with the evening paper. On rising, he said to Marian:

'Have you copied the whole of that?'

The tone would have been uncivil if addressed to an impertinent servant.

'Not much more than half,' was the cold reply.

'Can you finish it to-night?'

'I'm afraid not. I am going out.'

'Then I must do it myself'

And he went to the study.

Mrs Yule was in an anguish of nervousness.

'What is it, dear?' she asked of Marian, in a pleading whisper. 'Oh, don't quarrel with your father! Don't!'

'I can't be a slave, mother, and I can't be treated unjustly.'

'What is it? Let me go and speak to him.'

'It's no use. We CAN'T live in terror.'

For Mrs Yule this was unimaginable disaster. She had never dreamt that Marian, the still, gentle Marian, could be driven to revolt. And it had come with the suddenness of a thunderclap. She wished to ask what had taken place between father and daughter in the brief interview before dinner; but Marian gave her no chance, quitting the room upon those last trembling words.

The girl had resolved to visit her friends, the sisters, and tell them that in future they must never come to see her at home. But it was no easy thing for her to stifle her conscience, and leave her father to toil over that copying which had need of being finished. Not her will, but her exasperated feeling, had replied to him that she would not do the work; already it astonished her that she had really spoken such words. And as the throbbing of her pulses subsided, she saw more clearly into the motives of this wretched tumult which possessed her. Her mind was hara.s.sed with a fear lest in defending Milvain she had spoken foolishly. Had he not himself said to her that he might be guilty of base things, just to make his way? Perhaps it was the intolerable pain of imagining that he had already made good his words, which robbed her of self-control and made her meet her father's rudeness with defiance.

Impossible to carry out her purpose; she could not deliberately leave the house and spend some hours away with the thought of such wrath and misery left behind her. Gradually she was returning to her natural self; fear and penitence were chill at her heart.