New Grub Street Part 52

'He talked of earning fifty pounds a year by writing.'

'Even then it could only make about a hundred a year. My dear child, it's one of two things: either he is out of his mind, or he has purposely cast you off.'

Amy laughed, thinking of her husband in the light of the latter alternative.

'There's no need to seek so far for explanations,' she said. 'He has failed, that's all; just like a man might fail in any other business. He can't write like he used to. It may be all the result of ill-health; I don't know. His last book, you see, is positively refused. He has made up his mind that there's nothing but poverty before him, and he can't understand why I should object to live like the wife of a working-man.'

'Well, I only know that he has placed you in an exceedingly difficult position. If he had gone away to Worthing for the summer we might have made it seem natural; people are always ready to allow literary men to do rather odd things--up to a certain point. We should have behaved as if there were nothing that called for explanation. But what are we to do now?'

Like her mult.i.tudinous kind, Mrs Yule lived only in the opinions of other people. What others would say was her ceaseless preoccupation.

She had never conceived of life as something proper to the individual; independence in the directing of one's course seemed to her only possible in the case of very eccentric persons, or of such as were altogether out of society. Amy had advanced, intellectually, far beyond this standpoint, but lack of courage disabled her from acting upon her convictions.

'People must know the truth, I suppose,' she answered dispiritedly.

Now, confession of the truth was the last thing that would occur to Mrs Yule when social relations were concerned. Her whole existence was based on bold denial of actualities. And, as is natural in such persons, she had the ostrich instinct strongly developed; though very acute in the discovery of her friends' shams and lies, she deceived herself ludicrously in the matter of concealing her own embarra.s.sments.

'But the fact is, my dear,' she answered, 'we don't know the truth ourselves. You had better let yourself be directed by me. It will be better, at first, if you see as few people as possible. I suppose you must say something or other to two or three of your own friends; if you take my advice you'll be rather mysterious. Let them think what they like; anything is better than to say plainly. "My husband can't support me, and he has gone to work as a clerk for weekly wages." Be mysterious, darling; depend upon it, that's the safest.'

The conversation was pursued, with brief intervals, all through the day. In the afternoon two ladies paid a call, but Amy kept out of sight. Between six and seven John Yule returned from his gentlemanly occupations. As he was generally in a touchy temper before dinner had soothed him, nothing was said to him of the latest development of his sister's affairs until late in the evening; he was allowed to suppose that Reardon's departure for the seaside had taken place a day sooner than had been arranged.

Behind the dining-room was a comfortable little chamber set apart as John's sanctum; here he smoked and entertained his male friends, and contemplated the portraits of those female ones who would not have been altogether at their ease in Mrs Yule's drawing-room. Not long after dinner his mother and sister came to talk with him in this retreat.

With some nervousness Mrs Yule made known to him what had taken place.

Amy, the while, stood by the table, and glanced over a magazine that she had picked up.

'Well, I see nothing to be surprised at,' was John's first remark. 'It was pretty certain he'd come to this. But what I want to know is, how long are we to be at the expense of supporting Amy and her youngster?'

This was practical, and just what Mrs Yule had expected from her son.

'We can't consider such things as that,' she replied. 'You don't wish, I suppose, that Amy should go and live in a back street at Islington, and be hungry every other day, and soon have no decent clothes?'

'I don't think Jack would be greatly distressed,' Amy put in quietly.

'This is a woman's way of talking,' replied John. 'I want to know what is to be the end of it all? I've no doubt it's uncommonly pleasant for Reardon to s.h.i.+ft his responsibilities on to our shoulders. At this rate I think I shall get married, and live beyond my means until I can hold out no longer, and then hand my wife over to her relatives, with my compliments. It's about the coolest business that ever came under my notice.'

'But what is to be done?' asked Mrs Yule. 'It's no use talking sarcastically, John, or making yourself disagreeable.'

'We are not called upon to find a way out of the difficulty. The fact of the matter is, Reardon must get a decent berth. Somebody or other must pitch him into the kind of place that suits men who can do nothing in particular. Carter ought to be able to help, I should think.'

'You know very well,' said Amy, 'that places of that kind are not to be had for the asking. It may be years before any such opportunity offers.'

'Confound the fellow! Why the deuce doesn't he go on with his novel-writing? There's plenty of money to be made out of novels.'

'But he can't write, Jack. He has lost his talent.'

'That's all bosh, Amy. If a fellow has once got into the swing of it he can keep it up if he likes. He might write his two novels a year easily enough, just like twenty other men and women. Look here, I could do it myself if I weren't too lazy. And that's what's the matter with Reardon.

He doesn't care to work.'

'I have thought that myself;' observed Mrs Yule. 'It really is too ridiculous to say that he couldn't write some kind of novels if he chose. Look at Miss Blunt's last book; why, anybody could have written that. I'm sure there isn't a thing in it I couldn't have imagined myself.'

'Well, all I want to know is, what's Amy going to do if things don't alter?'

'She shall never want a home as long as I have one to share with her.'

John's natural procedure, when beset by difficulties, was to find fault with everyone all round, himself maintaining a position of irresponsibility.

'It's all very well, mother, but when a girl gets married she takes her husband, I have always understood, for better or worse, just as a man takes his wife. To tell the truth, it seems to me Amy has put herself in the wrong. It's deuced unpleasant to go and live in back streets, and to go without dinner now and then, but girls mustn't marry if they're afraid to face these things.'

'Don't talk so monstrously, John!' exclaimed his mother. 'How could Amy possibly foresee such things? The case is quite an extraordinary one.'

'Not so uncommon, I a.s.sure you. Some one was telling me the other day of a married lady--well educated and blameless--who goes to work at a shop somewhere or other because her husband can't support her.'

'And you wish to see Amy working in a shop?'

'No, I can't say I do. I'm only telling you that her bad luck isn't unexampled. It's very fortunate for her that she has good-natured relatives.'

Amy had taken a seat apart. She sat with her head leaning on her hand.

'Why don't you go and see Reardon?' John asked of his mother.

'What would be the use? Perhaps he would tell me to mind my own business.'

'By jingo! precisely what you would be doing. I think you ought to see him and give him to understand that he's behaving in a confoundedly ungentlemanly way. Evidently he's the kind of fellow that wants stirring up. I've half a mind to go and see him myself. Where is this slum that he's gone to live in?'

'We don't know his address yet.'

'So long as it's not the kind of place where one would be afraid of catching a fever, I think it wouldn't be amiss for me to look him up.'

'You'll do no good by that,' said Amy, indifferently.

'Confound it! It's just because n.o.body does anything that things have come to this pa.s.s!'

The conversation was, of course, profitless. John could only return again and again to his a.s.sertion that Reardon must get 'a decent berth.'

At length Amy left the room in weariness and disgust.

'I suppose they have quarrelled terrifically,' said her brother, as soon as she was gone.

'I am afraid so.'

'Well, you must do as you please. But it's confounded hard lines that you should have to keep her and the kid. You know I can't afford to contribute.'

'My dear, I haven't asked you to.'

'No, but you'll have the devil's own job to make ends meet; I know that well enough.'

'I shall manage somehow.'

'All right; you're a plucky woman, but it's too bad. Reardon's a humbug, that's my opinion. I shall have a talk with Carter about him. I suppose he has transferred all their furniture to the slum?'