New Grub Street Part 60

Throughout the month of July he suffered much from his wonted bilious attacks, and Mrs Yule had to endure a double share of his ill-temper, that which was naturally directed against her, and that of which Marian was the cause. In August things were slightly better; but with the return to labour came a renewal of Yule's sullenness and savageness.

Sundry pieces of ill-luck of a professional kind--warnings, as he too well understood, that it was growing more and more difficult for him to hold his own against the new writers--exasperated his quarrel with destiny. The gloom of a cold and stormy September was doubly wretched in that house on the far borders of Camden Town, but in October the sun reappeared and it seemed to mollify the literary man's mood. Just when Mrs Yule and Marian began to hope that this long distemper must surely come to an end, there befell an incident which, at the best of times, would have occasioned misery, and which in the present juncture proved disastrous.

It was one morning about eleven. Yule was in his study; Marian was at the Museum; Mrs Yule had gone shopping. There came a sharp knock at the front door, and the servant, on opening, was confronted with a decently-dressed woman, who asked in a peremptory voice if Mrs Yule was at home.

'No? Then is Mr Yule?'

'Yes, mum, but I'm afraid he's busy.'

'I don't care, I must see him. Say that Mrs Goby wants to see him at once.'

The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the door of the study.

'Mrs Goby? Who is Mrs Goby?' exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the disturbance.

There sounded an answer out of the pa.s.sage, for the visitor had followed close.

'I am Mrs Goby, of the 'Olloway Road, wife of Mr C. O. Goby, 'aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr Yule, if you please, seeing that Mrs Yule isn't in.'

Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant had reluctantly given place.

'What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs Yule, come again when she is at home.'

'No, Mr Yule, I will not come again!' cried the woman, red in the face.

'I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at all events; but I see you're pretty much like your relations in the way of behaving to people, though you do wear better clothes, and--I s'pose--call yourself a gentleman. I won't come again, and you shall just hear what I've got to say.

She closed the door violently, and stood in an att.i.tude of robust defiance.

'What's all this about?' asked the enraged author, overcoming an impulse to take Mrs Goby by the shoulders and throw her out--though he might have found some difficulty in achieving this feat. 'Who are you? And why do you come here with your brawling?'

'I'm the respectable wife of a respectable man--that's who I am, Mr Yule, if you want to know. And I always thought Mrs Yule was the same, from the dealings we've had with her at the shop, though not knowing any more of her, it's true, except that she lived in St Paul's Crezzent.

And so she may be respectable, though I can't say as her husband behaves himself very much like what he pretends to be. But I can't say as much for her relations in Perker Street, 'Olloway, which I s'pose they're your relations as well, at least by marriage. And if they think they're going to insult me, and use their blackguard tongues--'

'What are you talking about?' shouted Yule, who was driven to frenzy by the mention of his wife's humble family. 'What have I to do with these people?'

'What have you to do with them? I s'pose they're your relations, ain't they? And I s'pose the girl Annie Rudd is your niece, ain't she? At least, she's your wife's niece, and that comes to the same thing, I've always understood, though I dare say a gentleman as has so many books about him can correct me if I've made a mistake.'

She looked scornfully, though also with some surprise, round the volumed walls.

'And what of this girl? Will you have the goodness to say what your business is?'

'Yes, I will have the goodness! I s'pose you know very well that I took your niece Annie Rudd as a domestic servant'--she repeated this precise definition--'as a domestic servant, because Mrs Yule 'appened to 'arst me if I knew of a place for a girl of that kind, as hadn't been out before, but could be trusted to do her best to give satisfaction to a good mistress? I s'pose you know that?'

'I know nothing of the kind. What have I to do with servants?'

'Well, whether you've much to do with them or little, that's how it was. And nicely she's paid me out, has your niece, Miss Rudd. Of all the trouble I ever had with a girl! And now when she's run away back 'ome, and when I take the trouble to go arfter her, I'm to be insulted and abused as never was! Oh, they're a nice respectable family, those Rudds!

Mrs Rudd--that's Mrs Yule's sister--what a nice, polite-spoken lady she is, to be sure? If I was to repeat the language--but there, I wouldn't lower myself. And I've been a brute of a mistress; I ill-use my servants, and I don't give 'em enough to eat, and I pay 'em worse than any woman in London! That's what I've learnt about myself by going to Perker Street, 'Olloway. And when I come here to ask Mrs Yule what she means by recommending such a creature, from such a 'ome, I get insulted by her gentleman husband.'

Yule was livid with rage, but the extremity of his scorn withheld him from utterance of what he felt.

'As I said, all this has nothing to do with me. I will let Mrs Yule know that you have called. I have no more time to spare.'

Mrs Goby repeated at still greater length the details of her grievance, but long before she had finished Yule was sitting again at his desk in ostentatious disregard of her. Finally, the exasperated woman flung open the door, railed in a loud voice along the pa.s.sage, and left the house with an alarming crash.

It was not long before Mrs Yule returned. Before taking off her things, she went down into the kitchen with certain purchases, and there she learnt from the servant what had happened during her absence. Fear and trembling possessed her--the sick, faint dread always excited by her husband's wrath--but she felt obliged to go at once to the study. The scene that took place there was one of ign.o.ble violence on Yule's part, and, on that of his wife, of terrified self-accusation, changing at length to dolorous resentment of the harshness with which she was treated. When it was over, Yule took his hat and went out.

He did not return for the mid-day meal, and when Marian, late in the afternoon, came back from the Museum, he was still absent.

Not finding her mother in the parlour, Marian called at the head of the kitchen stairs. The servant answered, saying that Mrs Yule was up in her bedroom, and that she didn't seem well. Marian at once went up and knocked at the bedroom door. In a moment or two her mother came out, showing a face of tearful misery.

'What is it, mother? What's the matter?'

They went into Marian's room, where Mrs Yule gave free utterance to her lamentations.

'I can't put up with it, Marian! Your father is too hard with me.

I was wrong, I dare say, and I might have known what would have come of it, but he couldn't speak to me worse if I did him all the harm I could on purpose. It's all about Annie, because I found a place for her at Mrs Goby's in the 'Olloway Road; and now Mrs Goby's been here and seen your father, and told him she's been insulted by the Rudds, because Annie went off home, and she went after her to make inquiries. And your father's in such a pa.s.sion about it as never was. That woman Mrs Goby rushed into the study when he was working; it was this morning, when I happened to be out. And she throws all the blame on me for recommending her such a girl. And I did it for the best, that I did! Annie promised me faithfully she'd behave well, and never give me trouble, and she seemed thankful to me, because she wasn't happy at home. And now to think of her causing all this disturbance! I oughtn't to have done such a thing without speaking about it to your father; but you know how afraid I am to say a word to him about those people. And my sister's told me so often I ought to be ashamed of myself never helping her and her children; she thinks I could do such a lot if I only liked. And now that I did try to do something, see what comes of it!'

Marian listened with a confusion of wretched feelings. But her sympathies were strongly with her mother; as well as she could understand the broken story, her father seemed to have no just cause for his pitiless rage, though such an occasion would be likely enough to bring out his worst faults.

'Is he in the study?' she asked.

'No, he went out at twelve o'clock, and he's never been back since. I feel as if I must do something; I can't bear with it, Marian. He tells me I'm the curse of his life--yes, he said that. I oughtn't to tell you, I know I oughtn't; but it's more than I can bear. I've always tried to do my best, but it gets harder and harder for me. But for me he'd never be in these bad tempers; it's because he can't look at me without getting angry. He says I've kept him back all through his life; but for me he might have been far better off than he is. It may be true; I've often enough thought it. But I can't bear to have it told me like that, and to see it in his face every time he looks at me. I shall have to do something. He'd be glad if only I was out of his way.'

'Father has no right to make you so unhappy,' said Marian. 'I can't see that you did anything blameworthy; it seems to me that it was your duty to try and help Annie, and if it turned out unfortunately, that can't be helped. You oughtn't to think so much of what father says in his anger; I believe he hardly knows what he does say. Don't take it so much to heart, mother.'

'I've tried my best, Marian,' sobbed the poor woman, who felt that even her child's sympathy could not be perfect, owing to the distance put between them by Marian's education and refined sensibilities. 'I've always thought it wasn't right to talk to you about such things, but he's been too hard with me to-day.'

'I think it was better you should tell me. It can't go on like this; I feel that just as you do. I must tell father that he is making our lives a burden to us.'

'Oh, you mustn't speak to him like that, Marian! I wouldn't for anything make unkindness between you and your father; that would be the worst thing I'd done yet. I'd rather go away and work for my own living than make trouble between you and him.'

'It isn't you who make trouble; it's father. I ought to have spoken to him before this; I had no right to stand by and see how much you suffered from his ill-temper.'

The longer they talked, the firmer grew Marian's resolve to front her father's tyrannous ill-humour, and in one way or another to change the intolerable state of things. She had been weak to hold her peace so long; at her age it was a simple duty to interfere when her mother was treated with such flagrant injustice. Her father's behaviour was unworthy of a thinking man, and he must be made to feel that.

Yule did not return. Dinner was delayed for half an hour, then Marian declared that they would wait no longer. They two made a sorry meal, and afterwards went together into the sitting-room. At eight o'clock they heard the front door open, and Yule's footstep in the pa.s.sage. Marian rose.

'Don't speak till to-morrow!' whispered her mother, catching at the girl's arm. 'Let it be till to-morrow, Marian!'

'I must speak! We can't live in this terror.'

She reached the study just as her father was closing the door behind him. Yule, seeing her enter, glared with bloodshot eyes; shame and sullen anger were blended on his countenance.

'Will you tell me what is wrong, father?' Marian asked, in a voice which betrayed her nervous suffering, yet indicated the resolve with which she had come.

'I am not at all disposed to talk of the matter,' he replied, with the awkward rotundity of phrase which distinguished him in his worst humour.

'For information you had better go to Mrs Goby--or a person of some such name--in Holloway Road. I have nothing more to do with it.'