New Grub Street Part 38

'Before long,' replied Dora, with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt, 'he's going to take us to call on Mrs Boston Wright. I hardly thought he was serious at first, but he says he really means it.'

Marian grew more and more silent. At home she had felt that it would not be difficult to explain her troubles to these sympathetic girls, but now the time had come for speaking, she was oppressed by shame and anxiety.

True, there was no absolute necessity for making the confession this evening, and if she chose to resist her father's prejudice, things might even go on in a seemingly natural way. But the loneliness of her life had developed in her a sensitiveness which could not endure situations such as the present; difficulties which are of small account to people who take their part in active social life, hara.s.sed her to the destruction of all peace. Dora was not long in noticing the dejected mood which had come upon her friend.

'What's troubling you, Marian?'

'Something I can hardly bear to speak of. Perhaps it will be the end of your friends.h.i.+p for me, and I should find it very hard to go back to my old solitude.'

The girls gazed at her, in doubt at first whether she spoke seriously.

'What can you mean?' Dora exclaimed. 'What crime have you been committing?'

Maud, who leaned with her elbows on the table, searched Marian's face curiously, but said nothing.

'Has Mr Milvain shown you the new number of The Current?' Marian went on to ask.

They replied with a negative, and Maud added:

'He has nothing in it this month, except a review.'

'A review?' repeated Marian in a low voice.

'Yes; of somebody's novel.'

'Markland's,' supplied Dora.

Marian drew a breath, but remained for a moment with her eyes cast down.

'Do go on, dear,' urged Dora. 'Whatever are you going to tell us?'

'There's a notice of father's book,' continued the other, 'a very ill-natured one; it's written by the editor, Mr Fadge. Father and he have been very unfriendly for a long time. Perhaps Mr Milvain has told you something about it?'

Dora replied that he had.

'I don't know how it is in other professions,' Marian resumed, 'but I hope there is less envy, hatred and malice than in this of ours. The name of literature is often made hateful to me by the things I hear and read. My father has never been very fortunate, and many things have happened to make him bitter against the men who succeed; he has often quarrelled with people who were at first his friends, but never so seriously with anyone as with Mr Fadge. His feeling of enmity goes so far that it includes even those who are in any way a.s.sociated with Mr Fadge. I am sorry to say'--she looked with painful anxiety from one to the other of her hearers--'this has turned him against your brother, and--'

Her voice was checked by agitation.

'We were afraid of this,' said Dora, in a tone of sympathy.

'Jasper feared it might be the case,' added Maud, more coldly, though with friendliness.

'Why I speak of it at all,' Marian hastened to say, 'is because I am so afraid it should make a difference between yourselves and me.'

'Oh! don't think that!' Dora exclaimed.

'I am so ashamed,' Marian went on in an uncertain tone, 'but I think it will be better if I don't ask you to come and see me. It sounds ridiculous; it is ridiculous and shameful. I couldn't complain if you refused to have anything more to do with me.'

'Don't let it trouble you,' urged Maud, with perhaps a trifle more of magnanimity in her voice than was needful. We quite understand. Indeed, it shan't make any difference to us.'

But Marian had averted her face, and could not meet these a.s.surances with any show of pleasure. Now that the step was taken she felt that her behaviour had been very weak. Unreasonable harshness such as her father's ought to have been met more steadily; she had no right to make it an excuse for such incivility to her friends. Yet only in some such way as this could she make known to Jasper Milvain how her father regarded him, which she felt it necessary to do. Now his sisters would tell him, and henceforth there would be a clear understanding on both sides. That state of things was painful to her, but it was better than ambiguous relations.

'Jasper is very sorry about it,' said Dora, glancing rapidly at Marian.

'But his connection with Mr Fadge came about in such a natural way,'

added the eldest sister. 'And it was impossible for him to refuse opportunities.'

'Impossible; I know,' Marian replied earnestly. 'Don't think that I wish to justify my father. But I can understand him, and it must be very difficult for you to do so. You can't know, as I do, how intensely he has suffered in these wretched, ign.o.ble quarrels. If only you will let me come here still, in the same way, and still be as friendly to me. My home has never been a place to which I could have invited friends with any comfort, even if I had had any to invite. There were always reasons--but I can't speak of them.'

'My dear Marian,' appealed Dora, 'don't distress yourself so! Do believe that nothing whatever has happened to change our feeling to you. Has there, Maud?'

'Nothing whatever. We are not unreasonable girls, Marian.'

'I am more grateful to you than I can say.'

It had seemed as if Marian must give way to the emotions which all but choked her voice; she overcame them, however, and presently was able to talk in pretty much her usual way, though when she smiled it was but faintly. Maud tried to lead her thoughts in another direction by speaking of work in which she and Dora were engaged. Already the sisters were doing a new piece of compilation for Messrs Jolly and Monk; it was more exacting than their initial task for the book market, and would take a much longer time.

A couple of hours went by, and Marian had just spoken of taking her leave, when a man's step was heard rapidly ascending the nearest flight of stairs.

'Here's Jasper,' remarked Dora, and in a moment there sounded a short, sharp summons at the door.

Jasper it was; he came in with radiant face, his eyes blinking before the lamplight.

'Well, girls! Ha! how do you do, Miss Yule? I had just the vaguest sort of expectation that you might be here. It seemed a likely night; I don't know why. I say, Dora, we really must get two or three decent easy-chairs for your room. I've seen some outside a second-hand furniture shop in Hampstead Road, about six s.h.i.+llings apiece. There's no sitting on chairs such as these.'

That on which he tried to dispose himself, when he had flung aside his trappings, creaked and s.h.i.+vered ominously.

'You hear? I shall come plump on to the floor, if I don't mind. My word, what a day I have had! I've just been trying what I really could do in one day if I worked my hardest. Now just listen; it deserves to be chronicled for the encouragement of aspiring youth. I got up at 7.30, and whilst I breakfasted I read through a volume I had to review. By 10.30 the review was written--three-quarters of a column of the Evening Budget.'

'Who is the unfortunate author?' interrupted Maud, caustically.

'Not unfortunate at all. I had to crack him up; otherwise I couldn't have done the job so quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to write laudation; only an inexperienced grumbler would declare it was easier to find fault. The book was Billington's "Vagaries"; pompous idiocy, of course, but he lives in a big house and gives dinners. Well, from 10.30 to 11, I smoked a cigar and reflected, feeling that the day wasn't badly begun. At eleven I was ready to write my Sat.u.r.day causerie for the Will o' the Wisp; it took me till close upon one o'clock, which was rather too long. I can't afford more than an hour and a half for that job. At one, I rushed out to a dirty little eating-house in Hampstead Road. Was back again by a quarter to two, having in the meantime sketched a paper for The West End. Pipe in mouth, I sat down to leisurely artistic work; by five, half the paper was done; the other half remains for to-morrow. From five to half-past I read four newspapers and two magazines, and from half-past to a quarter to six I jotted down several ideas that had come to me whilst reading. At six I was again in the dirty eating-house, satisfying a ferocious hunger. Home once more at 6.45, and for two hours wrote steadily at a long affair I have in hand for The Current. Then I came here, thinking hard all the way. What say you to this? Have I earned a night's repose?'

'And what's the value of it all?' asked Maud.

'Probably from ten to twelve guineas, if I calculated.'

'I meant, what was the literary value of it?' said his sister, with a smile.

'Equal to that of the contents of a mouldy nut.'

'Pretty much what I thought.'

'Oh, but it answers the purpose,' urged Dora, 'and it does no one any harm.'

'Honest journey-work!' cried Jasper. 'There are few men in London capable of such a feat. Many a fellow could write more in quant.i.ty, but they couldn't command my market. It's rubbish, but rubbish of a very special kind, of fine quality.'

Marian had not yet spoken, save a word or two in reply to Jasper's greeting; now and then she just glanced at him, but for the most part her eyes were cast down. Now Jasper addressed her.