New Grub Street (23 page)

'It would be very useful. But on no account if——'

'No, no; I could manage a fiver, for a month. Shall I give you a
cheque?'

'I'm ashamed——'

'Not a bit of it! I'll go and write the cheque.'

Reardon's face was burning. Of the conversation that followed
when Carter again presented himself he never recalled a word. The
bit of paper was crushed together in his hand. Out in the street
again, he all but threw it away, dreaming for the moment that it
was a 'bus ticket or a patent medicine bill.

He reached home much after the dinner-hour. Amy was surprised at
his long absence.

'Got anything?' she asked.

'Yes.'

It was half his intention to deceive her, to say that the
publishers had advanced him five pounds. But that would be his
first word of untruth to Amy, and why should he be guilty of it? He
told her all that had happened. The result of this frankness was
something that he had not anticipated; Amy exhibited profound
vexation.

'Oh, you SHOULDN'T have done that!' she exclaimed. 'Why didn't
you come home and tell me? I would have gone to mother at
once.'

'But does it matter?'

'Of course it does,' she replied sharply. 'Mr Carter will tell
his wife, and how pleasant that is?'

'I never thought of that. And perhaps it wouldn't have seemed to
me so annoying as it does to you.'

'Very likely not.'

She turned abruptly away, and stood at a distance in gloomy
muteness.

'Well,' she said at length, 'there's no helping it now. Come and
have your dinner.'

'You have taken away my appetite.'

'Nonsense! I suppose you're dying of hunger.'

They had a very uncomfortable meal, exchanging few words. On
Amy's face was a look more resembling bad temper than anything
Reardon had ever seen there. After dinner he went and sat alone in
the study. Amy did not come near him. He grew stubbornly angry;
remembering the pain he had gone through, he felt that Amy's
behaviour to him was cruel. She must come and speak when she
would.

At six o'clock she showed her face in the doorway and asked if
he would come to tea.

'Thank you,' he replied, 'I had rather stay here.'

'As you please.'

And he sat alone until about nine. It was only then he
recollected that he must send a note to the publishers, calling
their attention to the parcel he had left. He wrote it, and closed
with a request that they would let him hear as soon as they
conveniently could. As he was putting on his hat and coat to go out
and post the letter Amy opened the dining-room door.

'You're going out?'

'Yes.'

'Shall you be long?'

'I think not.'

He was away only a few minutes. On returning he went first of
all into the study, but the thought of Amy alone in the other room
would not let him rest. He looked in and saw that she was sitting
without a fire.

'You can't stay here in the cold, Amy.'

'I'm afraid I must get used to it,' she replied, affecting to be
closely engaged upon some sewing.

That strength of character which it had always delighted him to
read in her features was become an ominous hardness. He felt his
heart sink as he looked at her.

'Is poverty going to have the usual result in our case?' he
asked, drawing nearer.

'I never pretended that I could be indifferent to it.'

'Still, don't you care to try and resist it?'

She gave no answer. As usual in conversation with an aggrieved
woman it was necessary to go back from the general to the
particular.

'I'm afraid,' he said, 'that the Carters already knew pretty
well how things were going with us.'

'That's a very different thing. But when it comes to asking them
for money—'

'I'm very sorry. I would rather have done anything if I had
known how it would annoy you.'

'If we have to wait a month, five pounds will be very little use
to us.'

She detailed all manner of expenses that had to be met—outlay
there was no possibility of avoiding so long as their life was
maintained on its present basis.

'However, you needn't trouble any more about it. I'll see to it.
Now you are free from your book try to rest.'

'Come and sit by the fire. There's small chance of rest for me
if we are thinking unkindly of each other.'

A doleful Christmas. Week after week went by and Reardon knew
that Amy must have exhausted the money he had given her. But she
made no more demands upon him, and necessaries were paid for in the
usual way. He suffered from a sense of humiliation; sometimes he
found it difficult to look in his wife's face.

When the publishers' letter came it contained an offer of
seventy-five pounds for the copyright of 'Margaret Home,'
twenty-five more to be paid if the sale in three-volume form should
reach a certain number of copies.

Here was failure put into unmistakable figures. Reardon said to
himself that it was all over with his profession of authorship. The
book could not possibly succeed even to the point of completing his
hundred pounds; it would meet with universal contempt, and indeed
deserved nothing better.

'Shall you accept this?' asked Amy, after dreary silence.

'No one else would offer terms as good.'

'Will they pay you at once?'

'I must ask them to.'

Well, it was seventy-five pounds in hand. The cheque came as
soon as it was requested, and Reardon's face brightened for the
moment. Blessed money! root of all good, until the world invent
some saner economy.

'How much do you owe your mother?' he inquired, without looking
at Amy.

'Six pounds,' she answered coldly.

'And five to Carter; and rent, twelve pounds ten. We shall have
a matter of fifty pounds to go on with.'

The prudent course was so obvious that he marvelled at Amy's
failing to suggest it. For people in their circumstances to be
paying a rent of fifty pounds when a home could be found for half
the money was recklessness; there would be no difficulty in letting
the flat for this last year of their lease, and the cost of removal
would be trifling. The mental relief of such a change might enable
him to front with courage a problem in any case very difficult,
and, as things were, desperate. Three months ago, in a moment of
profoundest misery, he had proposed this step; courage failed him
to speak of it again, Amy's look and voice were too vivid in his
memory. Was she not capable of such a sacrifice for his sake? Did
she prefer to let him bear all the responsibility of whatever might
result from a futile struggle to keep up appearances?

Between him and her there was no longer perfect confidence. Her
silence meant reproach, and—whatever might have been the case
before—there was no doubt that she now discussed him with her
mother, possibly with other people. It was not likely that she
concealed his own opinion of the book he had just finished; all
their acquaintances would be prepared to greet its publication with
private scoffing or with mournful shaking of the head. His feeling
towards Amy entered upon a new phase. The stability of his love was
a source of pain; condemning himself, he felt at the same time that
he was wronged. A coldness which was far from representing the
truth began to affect his manner and speech, and Amy did not seem
to notice it, at all events she made no kind of protest. They no
longer talked of the old subjects, but of those mean concerns of
material life which formerly they had agreed to dismiss as quickly
as possible. Their relations to each other—not long ago an
inexhaustible topic—would not bear spoken comment; both were too
conscious of the danger-signal when they looked that way.

In the time of waiting for the publishers' offer, and now again
when he was asking himself how he should use the respite granted
him, Reardon spent his days at the British Museum. He could not
read to much purpose, but it was better to sit here among strangers
than seem to be idling under Amy's glance. Sick of imaginative
writing, he turned to the studies which had always been most
congenial, and tried to shape out a paper or two like those he had
formerly disposed of to editors. Among his unused material lay a
mass of notes he had made in a reading of Diogenes Laertius, and it
seemed to him now that he might make something salable out of these
anecdotes of the philosophers. In a happier mood he could have
written delightfully on such a subject—not learnedly, but in the
strain of a modern man whose humour and sensibility find free play
among the classic ghosts; even now he was able to recover something
of the light touch which had given value to his published
essays.

Meanwhile the first number of The Current had appeared, and
Jasper Milvain had made a palpable hit. Amy spoke very often of the
article called 'Typical Readers,' and her interest in its author
was freely manifested. Whenever a mention of Jasper came under her
notice she read it Out to her husband. Reardon smiled and appeared
glad, but he did not care to discuss Milvain with the same
frankness as formerly.

One evening at the end of January he told Amy what he had been
writing at the Museum, and asked her if she would care to hear it
read.

'I began to wonder what you were doing,' she replied.

'Then why didn't you ask me?'

'I was rather afraid to.'

'Why afraid?'

'It would have seemed like reminding you that—you know what I
mean.'

'That a month or two more will see us at the same crisis again.
Still, I had rather you had shown an interest in my doings.'

After a pause Amy asked:

'Do you think you can get a paper of this kind accepted?'

'It isn't impossible. I think it's rather well done. Let me read
you a page—'

'Where will you send it?' she interrupted.

'To The Wayside.'

'Why not try The Current? Ask Milvain to introduce you to Mr
Fadge. They pay much better, you know.'

'But this isn't so well suited for Fadge. And I much prefer to
be independent, as long as it's possible.'

'That's one of your faults, Edwin,' remarked his wife, mildly.
'It's only the strongest men that can make their way independently.
You ought to use every means that offers.'

'Seeing that I am so weak?'

'I didn't think it would offend you. I only meant—-'

'No, no; you are quite right. Certainly, I am one of the men who
need all the help they can get. But I assure you, this thing won't
do for The Current.'

'What a pity you will go hack to those musty old times! Now
think of that article of Milvain's. If only you could do something
of that kind! What do people care about Diogenes and his tub and
his lantern?'

'My dear girl, Diogenes Laertius had neither tub nor lantern,
that I know of. You are making a mistake; but it doesn't
matter.'

'No, I don't think it does.' The caustic note was not very
pleasant on Amy's lips. 'Whoever he was, the mass of readers will
be frightened by his name.'

'Well, we have to recognise that the mass of readers will never
care for anything I do.'

'You will never convince me that you couldn't write in a popular
way if you tried. I'm sure you are quite as clever as Milvain—'

Reardon made an impatient gesture.

'Do leave Milvain aside for a little! He and I are as unlike as
two men could be. What's the use of constantly comparing us?'

Amy looked at him. He had never spoken to her so brusquely.

'How can you say that I am constantly comparing you?'

'If not in spoken words, then in your thoughts.'

'That's not a very nice thing to say, Edwin.'

'You make it so unmistakable, Amy. What I mean is, that you are
always regretting the difference between him and me. You lament
that I can't write in that attractive way. Well, I lament it
myself—for your sake. I wish I had Milvain's peculiar talent, so
that I could get reputation and money. But I haven't, and there's
an end of it. It irritates a man to be perpetually told of his
disadvantages.'

'I will never mention Milvain's name again,' said Amy
coldly.

'Now that's ridiculous, and you know it.'

'I feel the same about your irritation. I can't see that I have
given any cause for it.'

'Then we'll talk no more of the matter.'

Reardon threw his manuscript aside and opened a book. Amy never
asked him to resume his intention of reading what he had
written.

However, the paper was accepted. It came out in The Wayside for
March, and Reardon received seven pounds ten for it. By that time
he had written another thing of the same gossipy kind, suggested by
Pliny's Letters. The pleasant occupation did him good, but there
was no possibility of pursuing this course. 'Margaret Home' would
be published in April; he might get the five-and-twenty pounds
contingent upon a certain sale, yet that could in no case be paid
until the middle of the year, and long before then he would be
penniless. His respite drew to an end.

But now he took counsel of no one; as far as it was possible he
lived in solitude, never seeing those of his acquaintances who were
outside the literary world, and seldom even his colleagues. Milvain
was so busy that he had only been able to look in twice or thrice
since Christmas, and Reardon nowadays never went to Jasper's
lodgings.

He had the conviction that all was over with the happiness of
his married life, though how the events which were to express this
ruin would shape themselves he could not foresee. Amy was revealing
that aspect of her character to which he had been blind, though a
practical man would have perceived it from the first; so far from
helping him to support poverty, she perhaps would even refuse to
share it with him. He knew that she was slowly drawing apart;
already there was a divorce between their minds, and he tortured
himself in uncertainty as to how far he retained her affections. A
word of tenderness, a caress, no longer met with response from her;
her softest mood was that of mere comradeship. All the warmth of
her nature was expended upon the child; Reardon learnt how easy it
is for a mother to forget that both parents have a share in her
offspring.