New Grub Street (38 page)

But before he could sleep he must eat. Though it was cold, he
could not exert himself to light a fire; there was some food still
in the cupboard, and he consumed it in the fashion of a tired
labourer, with the plate on his lap, using his fingers and a knife.
What had he to do with delicacies?

He felt utterly alone in the world. Unless it were Biffen, what
mortal would give him kindly welcome under any roof? These stripped
rooms were symbolical of his life; losing money, he had lost
everything. 'Be thankful that you exist, that these morsels of food
are still granted you. Man has a right to nothing in this world
that he cannot pay for. Did you imagine that love was an exception?
Foolish idealist! Love is one of the first things to be frightened
away by poverty. Go and live upon your twelve-and-sixpence a week,
and on your memories of the past.'

In this room he had sat with Amy on their return from the
wedding holiday. 'Shall you always love me as you do now?'—'For
ever! for ever!'—'Even if I disappointed you? If I failed?'—'How
could that affect my love?' The voices seemed to be lingering
still, in a sad, faint echo, so short a time it was since those
words were uttered.

His own fault. A man has no business to fail; least of all can
he expect others to have time to look back upon him or pity him if
he sink under the stress of conflict. Those behind will trample
over his body; they can't help it; they themselves are borne
onwards by resistless pressure.

He slept for a few hours, then lay watching the light of dawn as
it revealed his desolation.

The morning's post brought him a large heavy envelope, the
aspect of which for a moment puzzled him. But he recognised the
handwriting, and understood. The editor of The Wayside, in a
pleasantly-written note, begged to return the paper on Pliny's
Letters which had recently been submitted to him; he was sorry it
did not strike him as quite so interesting as the other
contributions from Reardon's pen.

This was a trifle. For the first time he received a rejected
piece of writing without distress; he even laughed at the artistic
completeness of the situation. The money would have been welcome,
but on that very account he might have known it would not come.

The cart that was to transfer his property to the room in
Islington arrived about mid-day. By that time he had dismissed the
last details of business in relation to the flat, and was free to
go back to the obscure world whence he had risen. He felt that for
two years and a half he had been a pretender. It was not natural to
him to live in the manner of people who enjoy an assured income; he
belonged to the class of casual wage-earners. Back to
obscurity!

Carrying a bag which contained a few things best kept in his own
care, he went by train to King's Cross, and thence walked up
Pentonville Hill to Upper Street and his own little by-way.
Manville Street was not unreasonably squalid; the house in which he
had found a home was not alarming in its appearance, and the woman
who kept it had an honest face. Amy would have shrunk in
apprehension, but to one who had experience of London garrets this
was a rather favourable specimen of its kind. The door closed more
satisfactorily than poor Biffen's, for instance, and there were not
many of those knot-holes in the floor which gave admission to
piercing little draughts; not a pane of the window was cracked, not
one. A man might live here comfortably—could memory be
destroyed.

'There's a letter come for you,' said the landlady as she
admitted him. 'You'll find it on your mantel.'

He ascended hastily. The letter must be from Amy, as no one else
knew his address. Yes, and its contents were these:

'As you have really sold the furniture, I shall accept half this
money that you send. I must buy clothing for myself and Willie. But
the other ten pounds I shall return to you as soon as possible. As
for your offer of half what you are to receive from Mr Carter, that
seems to me ridiculous; in any case, I cannot take it. If you
seriously abandon all further hope from literature, I think it is
your duty to make every effort to obtain a position suitable to a
man of your education.—AMY REARDON.'

Doubtless Amy thought it was her duty to write in this way. Not
a word of sympathy; he must understand that no one was to blame but
himself; and that her hardships were equal to his own.

In the bag he had brought with him there were writing materials.
Standing at the mantelpiece, he forthwith penned a reply to this
letter:

'The money is for your support, as far as it will go. If it
comes back to me I shall send it again. If you refuse to make use
of it, you will have the kindness to put it aside and consider it
as belonging to Willie. The other money of which I spoke will be
sent to you once a month. As our concerns are no longer between us
alone, I must protect myself against anyone who would be likely to
accuse me of not giving you what I could afford. For your advice I
thank you, but remember that in withdrawing from me your affection
you have lost all right to offer me counsel.'

He went out and posted this at once.

By three o'clock the furniture of his room was arranged. He had
not kept a carpet; that was luxury, and beyond his due. His score
of volumes must rank upon the mantelpiece; his clothing must be
kept in the trunk. Cups, plates, knives, forks, and spoons would
lie in the little open cupboard, the lowest section of which was
for his supply of coals. When everything was in order he drew water
from a tap on the landing and washed himself; then, with his bag,
went out to make purchases. A loaf of bread, butter, sugar,
condensed milk; a remnant of tea he had brought with him. On
returning, he lit as small a fire as possible, put on his kettle,
and sat down to meditate.

How familiar it all was to him! And not unpleasant, for it
brought back the days when he had worked to such good purpose. It
was like a restoration of youth.

Of Amy he would not think. Knowing his bitter misery, she could
write to him in cold, hard words, without a touch even of womanly
feeling. If ever they were to meet again, the advance must be from
her side. He had no more tenderness for her until she strove to
revive it.

Next morning he called at the hospital to see Carter. The
secretary's peculiar look and smile seemed to betray a knowledge of
what had been going on since Sunday, and his first words confirmed
this impression of Reardon's.

'You have removed, I hear?'

'Yes; I had better give you my new address.'

Reardon's tone was meant to signify that further remark on the
subject would be unwelcome. Musingly, Carter made a note of the
address.

'You still wish to go on with this affair?'

'Certainly.'

'Come and have some lunch with me, then, and afterwards we'll go
to the City Road and talk things over on the spot.'

The vivacious young man was not quite so genial as of wont, but
he evidently strove to show that the renewal of their relations as
employer and clerk would make no difference in the friendly
intercourse which had since been established; the invitation to
lunch evidently had this purpose.

'I suppose,' said Carter, when they were seated in a restaurant,
'you wouldn't object to anything better, if a chance turned
up?'

'I should take it, to be sure.'

'But you don't want a job that would occupy all your time?
You're going on with writing, of course?'

'Not for the present, I think.'

'Then you would like me to keep a look-out? I haven't anything
in view—nothing whatever. But one hears of things sometimes.'

'I should be obliged to you if you could help me to anything
satisfactory.'

Having brought himself to this admission, Reardon felt more at
ease. To what purpose should he keep up transparent pretences? It
was manifestly his duty to earn as much money as he could, in
whatever way. Let the man of letters be forgotten; he was seeking
for remunerative employment, just as if he had never written a
line.

Amy did not return the ten pounds, and did not write again. So,
presumably, she would accept the moiety of his earnings; he was
glad of it. After paying half-a-crown for rent, there would be left
ten shillings. Something like three pounds that still remained to
him he would not reckon; this must be for casualties.

Half-a-sovereign was enough for his needs; in the old times he
had counted it a competency which put his mind quite at rest.

The day came, and he entered upon his duties in City Road. It
needed but an hour or two, and all the intervening time was
cancelled; he was back once more in the days of no reputation, a
harmless clerk, a decent wage-earner.

It was more than a fortnight after Reardon's removal to
Islington when Jasper Milvain heard for the first time of what had
happened. He was coming down from the office of the
Will-o'-the-Wisp one afternoon, after a talk with the editor
concerning a paragraph in his last week's causerie which had been
complained of as libellous, and which would probably lead to the
'case' so much desired by everyone connected with the paper, when
someone descending from a higher storey of the building overtook
him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw
Whelpdale.

'What brings you on these premises?' he asked, as they shook
hands.

'A man I know has just been made sub-editor of Chat, upstairs.
He has half promised to let me do a column of answers to
correspondents.'

'Cosmetics? Fashions? Cookery?'

'I'm not so versatile as all that, unfortunately. No, the
general information column. "Will you be so good as to inform me,
through the medium of your invaluable paper, what was the exact
area devastated by the Great Fire of London?"—that kind of thing,
you know. Hopburn—that's the fellow's name—tells me that his
predecessor always called the paper Chat-moss, because of the
frightful difficulty he had in filling it up each week. By-the-bye,
what a capital column that is of yours in Will-o'-the-Wisp. I know
nothing like it in English journalism; upon my word I don't!'

'Glad you like it. Some people are less fervent in their
admiration.'

Jasper recounted the affair which had just been under discussion
in the office.

'It may cost a couple of thousands, but the advertisement is
worth that, Patwin thinks. Barlow is delighted; he wouldn't mind
paying double the money to make those people a laughing-stock for a
week or two.'

They issued into the street, and walked on together; Milvain,
with his keen eye and critical smile, unmistakably the modern young
man who cultivates the art of success; his companion of a less
pronounced type, but distinguished by a certain subtlety of
countenance, a blending of the sentimental and the shrewd.

'Of course you know all about the Reardons?' said Whelpdale.

'Haven't seen or heard of them lately. What is it?'

'Then you don't know that they have parted?'

'Parted?'

'I only heard about it last night; Biffen told me. Reardon is
doing clerk's work at a hospital somewhere in the East-end, and his
wife has gone to live at her mother's house.'

'Ho, ho!' exclaimed Jasper, thoughtfully. 'Then the crash has
come. Of course I knew it must be impending. I'm sorry for
Reardon.'

'I'm sorry for his wife.'

'Trust you for thinking of women first, Whelpdale.'

'It's in an honourable way, my dear fellow. I'm a slave to
women, true, but all in an honourable way. After that last
adventure of mine most men would be savage and cynical, wouldn't
they, now? I'm nothing of the kind. I think no worse of women—not a
bit. I reverence them as much as ever. There must be a good deal of
magnanimity in me, don't you think?'

Jasper laughed unrestrainedly.

'But it's the simple truth,' pursued the other. 'You should have
seen the letter I wrote to that girl at Birmingham—all charity and
forgiveness. I meant it, every word of it. I shouldn't talk to
everyone like this, you know; but it's as well to show a friend
one's best qualities now and then.'

'Is Reardon still living at the old place?'

'No, no. They sold up everything and let the flat. He's in
lodgings somewhere or other. I'm not quite intimate enough with him
to go and see him under the circumstances. But I'm surprised you
know nothing about it.'

'I haven't seen much of them this year. Reardon—well, I'm afraid
he hasn't very much of the virtue you claim for yourself. It rather
annoys him to see me going ahead.'

'Really? His character never struck me in that way.'

'You haven't come enough in contact with him. At all events, I
can't explain his change of manner in any other way. But I'm sorry
for him; I am, indeed. At a hospital? I suppose Carter has given
him the old job again?'

'Don't know. Biffen doesn't talk very freely about it; there's a
good deal of delicacy in Biffen, you know. A thoroughly
good-hearted fellow. And so is Reardon, I believe, though no doubt
he has his weaknesses.'

'Oh, an excellent fellow! But weakness isn't the word. Why, I
foresaw all this from the very beginning. The first hour's talk I
ever had with him was enough to convince me that he'd never hold
his own. But he really believed that the future was clear before
him; he imagined he'd go on getting more and more for his books. An
extraordinary thing that that girl had such faith in him!'

They parted soon after this, and Milvain went homeward, musing
upon what he had heard. It was his purpose to spend the whole
evening on some work which pressed for completion, but he found an
unusual difficulty in settling to it. About eight o'clock he gave
up the effort, arrayed himself in the costume of black and white,
and journeyed to Westbourne Park, where his destination was the
house of Mrs Edmund Yule. Of the servant who opened to him he
inquired if Mrs Yule was at home, and received an answer in the
affirmative.