New Grub Street Part 84

The hours of postal delivery found him waiting in an anguish of suspense. At eight o'clock each morning he stood by his window, listening for the postman's knock in the street. As it approached he went out to the head of the stairs, and if the knock sounded at the door of his house, he leaned over the banisters, trembling in expectation.

But the letter was never for him. When his agitation had subsided he felt glad of the disappointment, and laughed and sang.

One day Carter appeared at the City Road establishment, and made an opportunity of speaking to his clerk in private.

'I suppose,' he said with a smile, 'they'll have to look out for someone else at Croydon?'

'By no means! The thing is settled. I go at Christmas.'

'You really mean that?'

'Undoubtedly.'

Seeing that Reardon was not disposed even to allude to private circ.u.mstances, the secretary said no more, and went away convinced that misfortunes had turned the poor fellow's brain.

Wandering in the city, about this time, Reardon encountered his friend the realist.

'Would you like to meet Sykes?' asked Biffen. 'I am just going to see him.'

'Where does he live?'

'In some indiscoverable hole. To save fuel, he spends his mornings at some reading-rooms; the admission is only a penny, and there he can see all the papers and do his writing and enjoy a grateful temperature.'

They repaired to the haunt in question. A flight of stairs brought them to a small room in which were exposed the daily newspapers; another ascent, and they were in a room devoted to magazines, chess, and refreshments; yet another, and they reached the department of weekly publications; lastly, at the top of the house, they found a lavatory, and a chamber for the use of those who desired to write. The walls of this last retreat were of blue plaster and sloped inwards from the floor; along them stood school desks with benches, and in one place was suspended a ragged and dirty card announcing that paper and envelopes could be purchased downstairs. An enormous basket full of waste-paper, and a small stove, occupied two corners; ink blotches, satirical designs, and much scribbling in pen and pencil served for mural adornment. From the adjacent lavatory came sounds of splas.h.i.+ng and spluttering, and the busy street far below sent up its confused noises.

Two persons only sat at the desks. One was a hunger-bitten, out-of-work clerk, evidently engaged in replying to advertis.e.m.e.nts; in front of him lay two or three finished letters, and on the ground at his feet were several crumpled sheets of note-paper, representing abortive essays in composition. The other man, also occupied with the pen, looked about forty years old, and was clad in a very rusty suit of tweeds; on the bench beside him lay a grey overcoat and a silk hat which had for some time been moulting. His face declared the habit to which he was a victim, but it had nothing repulsive in its lineaments and expression; on the contrary, it was pleasing, amiable, and rather quaint. At this moment no one would have doubted his sobriety. With coat-sleeve turned back, so as to give free play to his right hand and wrist, revealing meanwhile a flannel s.h.i.+rt of singular colour, and with his collar unb.u.t.toned (he wore no tie) to leave his throat at ease as he bent myopically over the paper, he was writing at express speed, evidently in the full rush of the ardour of composition. The veins of his forehead were dilated, and his chin pushed forward in a way that made one think of a racing horse.

'Are you too busy to talk?' asked Biffen, going to his side.

'I am! Upon my soul I am!' exclaimed the other looking up in alarm. 'For the love of Heaven don't put me out! A quarter of an hour!'

'All right. I'll come up again.'

The friends went downstairs and turned over the papers.

'Now let's try him again,' said Biffen, when considerably more than the requested time had elapsed. They went up, and found Mr Sykes in an att.i.tude of melancholy meditation. He had turned back his coat sleeve, had b.u.t.toned his collar, and was eyeing the slips of completed ma.n.u.script. Biffen presented his companion, and Mr Sykes greeted the novelist with much geniality.

'What do you think this is?' he exclaimed, pointing to his work. 'The first instalment of my autobiography for the "Shrops.h.i.+re Weekly Herald."

Anonymous, of course, but strictly veracious, with the omission of sundry little personal failings which are nothing to the point. I call it "Through the Wilds of Literary London." An old friend of mine edits the "Herald," and I'm indebted to him for the suggestion.'

His voice was a trifle husky, but he spoke like a man of education.

'Most people will take it for fiction. I wish I had inventive power enough to write fiction anything like it. I have published novels, Mr Reardon, but my experience in that branch of literature was peculiar--as I may say it has been in most others to which I have applied myself. My first stories were written for "The Young Lady's Favourite," and most remarkable productions they were, I promise you. That was fifteen years ago, in the days of my versatility. I could throw off my supplemental novelette of fifteen thousand words without turning a hair, and immediately after it fall to, fresh as a daisy, on the "Ill.u.s.trated History of the United States," which I was then doing for Edward Coghlan. But presently I thought myself too good for the "Favourite"; in an evil day I began to write three-volume novels, aiming at reputation.

It wouldn't do. I persevered for five years, and made about five failures. Then I went back to Bowring. "Take me on again, old man, will you?" Bowring was a man of few words; he said, "Blaze away, my boy." And I tried to. But it was no use; I had got out of the style; my writing was too literary by a long chalk. For a whole year I deliberately strove to write badly, but Bowring was so pained with the feebleness of my efforts that at last he sternly bade me avoid his sight. "What the devil," he roared one day, "do you mean by sending me stories about men and women? You ought to know better than that, a fellow of your experience!" So I had to give it up, and there was an end of my career as a writer of fiction.'

He shook his head sadly.

'Biffen,' he continued, 'when I first made his acquaintance, had an idea of writing for the working cla.s.ses; and what do you think he was going to offer them? Stories about the working cla.s.ses! Nay, never hang your head for it, old boy; it was excusable in the days of your youth. Why, Mr Reardon, as no doubt you know well enough, nothing can induce working men or women to read stories that treat of their own world. They are the most consumed idealists in creation, especially the women. Again and again work-girls have said to me: "Oh, I don't like that book; it's nothing but real life."'

'It's the fault of women in general,' remarked Reardon.

'So it is, but it comes out with delicious naivete in the working cla.s.ses. Now, educated people like to read of scenes that are familiar to them, though I grant you that the picture must be idealised if you're to appeal to more than one in a thousand. The working cla.s.ses detest anything that tries to represent their daily life. It isn't because that life is too painful; no, no; it's downright sn.o.bbishness. d.i.c.kens goes down only with the best of them, and then solely because of his strength in farce and his melodrama.'

Presently the three went out together, and had dinner at an a la mode beef shop. Mr Sykes ate little, but took copious libations of porter at twopence a pint. When the meal was over he grew taciturn.

'Can you walk westwards?' Biffen asked.

'I'm afraid not, afraid not. In fact I have an appointment at two--at Aldgate station.'

They parted from him.

'Now he'll go and soak till he's unconscious,' said Biffen. 'Poor fellow! Pity he ever earns anything at all. The workhouse would be better, I should think.'

'No, no! Let a man drink himself to death rather. I have a horror of the workhouse. Remember the clock at Marylebone I used to tell you about.'

'Unphilosophic. I don't think I should be unhappy in the workhouse.

I should have a certain satisfaction in the thought that I had forced society to support me. And then the absolute freedom from care! Why, it's very much the same as being a man of independent fortune.'

It was about a week after this, midway in November, that there at length came to Manville Street a letter addressed in Amy's hand. It arrived at three one afternoon; Reardon heard the postman, but he had ceased to rush out on every such occasion, and to-day he was feeling ill. Lying upon the bed, he had just raised his head wearily when he became aware that someone was mounting to his room. He sprang up, his face and neck flus.h.i.+ng.

This time Amy began 'Dear Edwin'; the sight of those words made his brain swim.

'You must, of course, have heard [she wrote] that my uncle John has left me ten thousand pounds. It has not yet come into my possession, and I had decided that I would not write to you till that happened, but perhaps you may altogether misunderstand my silence.

'If this money had come to me when you were struggling so hard to earn a living for us, we should never have spoken the words and thought the thoughts which now make it so difficult for me to write to you. What I wish to say is that, although the property is legally my own, I quite recognise that you have a right to share in it. Since we have lived apart you have sent me far more than you could really afford, believing it your duty to do so; now that things are so different I wish you, as well as myself, to benefit by the change.

'I said at our last meeting that I should be quite prepared to return to you if you took that position at Croydon. There is now no need for you to pursue a kind of work for which you are quite unfitted, and I repeat that I am willing to live with you as before. If you will tell me where you would like to make a new home I shall gladly agree. I do not think you would care to leave London permanently, and certainly I should not.

'Please to let me hear from you as soon as possible. In writing like this I feel that I have done what you expressed a wish that I should do. I have asked you to put an end to our separation, and I trust that I have not asked in vain.

'Yours always,

'AMY REARDON.'

The letter fell from his hand. It was such a letter as he might have expected, but the beginning misled him, and as his agitation throbbed itself away he suffered an encroachment of despair which made him for a time unable to move or even think.

His reply, written by the dreary twilight which represented sunset, ran thus.

'Dear Amy,--I thank you for your letter, and I appreciate your motive in writing it. But if you feel that you have "done what I expressed a wish that you should do," you must have strangely misunderstood me.

'The only one thing that I wished was, that by some miracle your love for me might be revived. Can I persuade myself that this is the letter of a wife who desires to return to me because in her heart she loves me?

If that is the truth you have been most unfortunate in trying to express yourself.

'You have written because it seemed your duty to do so. But, indeed, a sense of duty such as this is a mistaken one. You have no love for me, and where there is no love there is no mutual obligation in marriage.

Perhaps you think that regard for social conventions will necessitate your living with me again. But have more courage; refuse to act falsehoods; tell society it is base and brutal, and that you prefer to live an honest life.

'I cannot share your wealth, dear. But as you have no longer need of my help--as we are now quite independent of each other--I shall cease to send the money which hitherto I have considered yours. In this way I shall have enough, and more than enough, for my necessities, so that you will never have to trouble yourself with the thought that I am suffering privations. At Christmas I go to Croydon, and I will then write to you again.

'For we may at all events be friendly. My mind is relieved from ceaseless anxiety on your account. I know now that you are safe from that accursed poverty which is to blame for all our sufferings. You I do not blame, though I have sometimes done so. My own experience teaches me how kindness can be embittered by misfortune. Some great and n.o.ble sorrow may have the effect of drawing hearts together, but to struggle against dest.i.tution, to be crushed by care about s.h.i.+llings and sixpences--that must always degrade.