New Grub Street (27 page)

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 shillings
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 shivered 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 Saturday 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
quantity, 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.

'A year ago, Miss Yule, I shouldn't have believed myself capable
of such activity. In fact I wasn't capable of it then.'

'You think such work won't be too great a strain upon you?' she
asked.

'Oh, this isn't a specimen day, you know. To-morrow I shall very
likely do nothing but finish my West End article, in an easy two or
three hours. There's no knowing; I might perhaps keep up the high
pressure if I tried. But then I couldn't dispose of all the work.
Little by little—or perhaps rather quicker than that—I shall extend
my scope. For instance, I should like to do two or three leaders a
week for one of the big dailies. I can't attain unto that just
yet.'

'Not political leaders?'

'By no means. That's not my line. The kind of thing in which one
makes a column out of what would fill six lines of respectable
prose. You call a cigar a "convoluted weed," and so on, you know;
that passes for facetiousness. I've never really tried my hand at
that style yet; I shouldn't wonder if I managed it brilliantly.
Some day I'll write a few exercises; just take two lines of some
good prose writer, and expand them into twenty, in half-a-dozen
different ways. Excellent mental gymnastics!'

Marian listened to his flow of talk for a few minutes longer,
then took the opportunity of a brief silence to rise and put on her
hat. Jasper observed her, but without rising; he looked at his
sisters in a hesitating way. At length he stood up, and declared
that he too must be off. This coincidence had happened once before
when he met Marian here in the evening.

'At all events, you won't do any more work to-night,' said
Dora.

'No; I shall read a page of something or other over a glass of
whisky, and seek the sleep of a man who has done his duty.'

'Why the whisky?' asked Maud.

'Do you grudge me such poor solace?'

'I don't see the need of it.'

'Nonsense, Maud!' exclaimed her sister. 'He needs a little
stimulant when he works so hard.'

Each of the girls gave Marian's hand a significant pressure as
she took leave of them, and begged her to come again as soon as she
had a free evening. There was gratitude in her eyes.

The evening was clear, and not very cold.

'It's rather late for you to go home,' said Jasper, as they left
the house. 'May I walk part of the way with you?'

Marian replied with a low 'Thank you.'

'I think you get on pretty well with the girls, don't you?'

'I hope they are as glad of my friendship as I am of
theirs.'

'Pity to see them in a place like that, isn't it? They ought to
have a good house, with plenty of servants. It's bad enough for a
civilised man to have to rough it, but I hate to see women living
in a sordid way. Don't you think they could both play their part in
a drawing-room, with a little experience?'

'Surely there's no doubt of it.'

'Maud would look really superb if she were handsomely dressed.
She hasn't a common face, by any means. And Dora is pretty, I
think. Well, they shall go and see some people before long. The
difficulty is, one doesn't like it to be known that they live in
such a crib; but I daren't advise them to go in for expense. One
can't be sure that it would repay them, though—Now, in my own case,
if I could get hold of a few thousand pounds I should know how to
use it with the certainty of return; it would save me, probably, a
clear ten years of life; I mean, I should go at a jump to what I
shall be ten years hence without the help of money. But they have
such a miserable little bit of capital, and everything is still so
uncertain. One daren't speculate under the circumstances.'

Marian made no reply.

'You think I talk of nothing but money?' Jasper said suddenly,
looking down into her face.

'I know too well what it means to be without money.'

'Yes, but—you do just a little despise me?'

'Indeed, I don't, Mr Milvain.'

'If that is sincere, I'm very glad. I take it in a friendly
sense. I am rather despicable, you know; it's part of my business
to be so. But a friend needn't regard that. There is the man apart
from his necessities.'

The silence was then unbroken till they came to the lower end of
Park Street, the junction of roads which lead to Hampstead, to
Highgate, and to Holloway.

'Shall you take an omnibus?' Jasper asked.

She hesitated.

'Or will you give me the pleasure of walking on with you? You
are tired, perhaps?'

'Not the least.'

For the rest of her answer she moved forward, and they crossed
into the obscurity of Camden Road.

'Shall I be doing wrong, Mr Milvain,' Marian began in a very low
voice, 'if I ask you about the authorship of something in this
month's Current?'

'I'm afraid I know what you refer to. There's no reason why I
shouldn't answer a question of the kind.'

'It was Mr Fadge himself who reviewed my father's book?'

'It was—confound him! I don't know another man who could have
done the thing so vilely well.'

'I suppose he was only replying to my father's attack upon him
and his friends.'

'Your father's attack is honest and straightforward and
justifiable and well put. I read that chapter of his book with huge
satisfaction. But has anyone suggested that another than Fadge was
capable of that masterpiece?'

'Yes. I am told that Mr Jedwood, the publisher, has somehow made
a mistake.'

'Jedwood? And what mistake?'

'Father heard that you were the writer.'

'I?' Jasper stopped short. They were in the rays of a
street-lamp, and could see each other's faces. 'And he believes
that?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'And you believe—believed it?'

'Not for a moment.'

'I shall write a note to Mr Yule.'

Marian was silent a while, then said:

'Wouldn't it be better if you found a way of letting Mr Jedwood
know the truth?'

'Perhaps you are right.'

Jasper was very grateful for the suggestion. In that moment he
had reflected how rash it would be to write to Alfred Yule on such
a subject, with whatever prudence in expressing himself. Such a
letter, coming under the notice of the great Fadge, might do its
writer serious harm.

'Yes, you are right,' he repeated. 'I'll stop that rumour at its
source. I can't guess how it started; for aught I know, some enemy
hath done this, though I don't quite discern the motive. Thank you
very much for telling me, and still more for refusing to believe
that I could treat Mr Yule in that way, even as a matter of
business. When I said that I was despicable, I didn't mean that I
could sink quite to such a point as that. If only because it was
your father—'

He checked himself and they walked on for several yards without
speaking.

'In that case,' Jasper resumed at length, 'your father doesn't
think of me in a very friendly way?'

'He scarcely could—'

'No, no. And I quite understand that the mere fact of my working
for Fadge would prejudice him against me. But that's no reason, I
hope, why you and I shouldn't be friends?'

'I hope not.'

'I don't know that my friendship is worth much,' Jasper
continued, talking into the upper air, a habit of his when he
discussed his own character. 'I shall go on as I have begun, and
fight for some of the good things of life. But your friendship is
valuable. If I am sure of it, I shall be at all events within sight
of the better ideals.'

Marian walked on with her eyes upon the ground. To her surprise
she discovered presently that they had all but reached St Paul's
Crescent.

'Thank you for having come so far,' she said, pausing.

'Ah, you are nearly home. Why, it seems only a few minutes since
we left the girls. Now I'll run back to the whisky of which Maud
disapproves.'

'May it do you good!' said Marian with a laugh.

A speech of this kind seemed unusual upon her lips. Jasper
smiled as he held her hand and regarded her.

'Then you can speak in a joking way?'

'Do I seem so very dull?'

'Dull, by no means. But sage and sober and reticent—and exactly
what I like in my friend, because it contrasts with my own habits.
All the better that merriment lies below it. Goodnight, Miss
Yule.'

He strode off and in a minute or two turned his head to look at
the slight figure passing into darkness.

Marian's hand trembled as she tried to insert her latch-key.
When she had closed the door very quietly behind her she went to
the sitting-room; Mrs Yule was just laying aside the sewing on
which she had occupied herself throughout the lonely evening.

'I'm rather late,' said the girl, in a voice of subdued
joyousness.

'Yes; I was getting a little uneasy, dear.'

'Oh, there's no danger.'

'You have been enjoying yourself, I can see.'

'I have had a pleasant evening.'

In the retrospect it seemed the pleasantest she had yet spent
with her friends, though she had set out in such a different mood.
Her mind was relieved of two anxieties; she felt sure that the
girls had not taken ill what she told them, and there was no longer
the least doubt concerning the authorship of that review in The
Current.

She could confess to herself now that the assurance from
Jasper's lips was not superfluous. He might have weighed profit
against other considerations, and have written in that way of her
father; she had not felt that absolute confidence which defies
every argument from human frailty. And now she asked herself if
faith of that unassailable kind is ever possible; is it not only
the poet's dream, the far ideal?

Marian often went thus far in her speculation. Her candour was
allied with clear insight into the possibilities of falsehood; she
was not readily the victim of illusion; thinking much, and speaking
little, she had not come to her twenty-third year without
perceiving what a distance lay between a girl's dream of life as it
might be and life as it is. Had she invariably disclosed her
thoughts, she would have earned the repute of a very sceptical and
slightly cynical person.

But with what rapturous tumult of the heart she could abandon
herself to a belief in human virtues when their suggestion seemed
to promise her a future of happiness!

Alone in her room she sat down only to think of Jasper Milvain,
and extract from the memory of his words, his looks, new sustenance
for her hungry heart. Jasper was the first man who had ever evinced
a man's interest in her. Until she met him she had not known a look
of compliment or a word addressed to her emotions. He was as far as
possible from representing the lover of her imagination, but from
the day of that long talk in the fields near Wattleborough the
thought of him had supplanted dreams. On that day she said to
herself: I could love him if he cared to seek my love. Premature,
perhaps; why, yes, but one who is starving is not wont to feel
reluctance at the suggestion of food. The first man who had
approached her with display of feeling and energy and youthful
self-confidence; handsome too, it seemed to her. Her womanhood went
eagerly to meet him.