New Grub Street (42 page)

'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.'

'It was very unfortunate that the woman came and troubled you
about such things. But I can't see that mother was to blame; I
don't think you ought to be so angry with her.'

It cost Marian a terrible effort to address her father in these
terms. When he turned fiercely upon her, she shrank back and felt
as if strength must fail her even to stand.

'You can't see that she was to blame? Isn't it entirely against
my wish that she keeps up any intercourse with those low people? Am
I to be exposed to insulting disturbance in my very study, because
she chooses to introduce girls of bad character as servants to
vulgar women?'

'I don't think Annie Rudd can be called a girl of bad character,
and it was very natural that mother should try to do something for
her. You have never actually forbidden her to see her
relatives.'

'A thousand times I have given her to understand that I utterly
disapproved of such association. She knew perfectly well that this
girl was as likely as not to discredit her. If she had consulted
me, I should at once have forbidden anything of the kind; she was
aware of that. She kept it secret from me, knowing that it would
excite my displeasure. I will not be drawn into such squalid
affairs; I won't have my name spoken in such connection. Your
mother has only herself to blame if I am angry with her.'

'Your anger goes beyond all bounds. At the very worst, mother
behaved imprudently, and with a very good motive. It is cruel that
you should make her suffer as she is doing.'

Marian was being strengthened to resist. Her blood grew hot; the
sensation which once before had brought her to the verge of
conflict with her father possessed her heart and brain.

'You are not a suitable judge of my behaviour,' replied Yule,
severely.

'I am driven to speak. We can't go on living in this way,
father. For months our home has been almost ceaselessly wretched,
because of the ill-temper you are always in. Mother and I must
defend ourselves; we can't bear it any longer. You must surely feel
how ridiculous it is to make such a thing as happened this morning
the excuse for violent anger. How can I help judging your
behaviour? When mother is brought to the point of saying that she
would rather leave home and everything than endure her misery any
longer, I should be wrong if I didn't speak to you. Why are you so
unkind? What serious cause has mother ever given you?'

'I refuse to argue such questions with you.'

'Then you are very unjust. I am not a child, and there's nothing
wrong in my asking you why home is made a place of misery, instead
of being what home ought to be.'

'You prove that you are a child, in asking for explanations
which ought to be clear enough to you.'

'You mean that mother is to blame for everything?'

'The subject is no fit one to be discussed between a father and
his daughter. If you cannot see the impropriety of it, be so good
as to go away and reflect, and leave me to my occupations.'

Marian came to a pause. But she knew that his rebuke was mere
unworthy evasion; she saw that her father could not meet her look,
and this perception of shame in him impelled her to finish what she
had begun.

'I will say nothing of mother, then, but speak only for myself.
I suffer too much from your unkindness; you ask too much
endurance.'

'You mean that I exact too much work from you?' asked her
father, with a look which might have been directed to a
recalcitrant clerk.

'No. But that you make the conditions of my work too hard. I
live in constant fear of your anger.'

'Indeed? When did I last ill-use you, or threaten you?'

'I often think that threats, or even ill-usage, would be easier
to bear than an unchanging gloom which always seems on the point of
breaking into violence.'

'I am obliged to you for your criticism of my disposition and
manner, but unhappily I am too old to reform. Life has made me what
I am, and I should have thought that your knowledge of what my life
has been would have gone far to excuse a lack of cheerfulness in
me.'

The irony of this laborious period was full of self-pity. His
voice quavered at the close, and a tremor was noticeable in his
stiff frame.

'It isn't lack of cheerfulness that I mean, father. That could
never have brought me to speak like this.'

'If you wish me to admit that I am bad-tempered, surly,
irritable—I make no difficulty about that. The charge is true
enough. I can only ask you again: What are the circumstances that
have ruined my temper? When you present yourself here with a
general accusation of my behaviour, I am at a loss to understand
what you ask of me, what you wish me to say or do. I must beg you
to speak plainly. Are you suggesting that I should make provision
for the support of you and your mother away from my intolerable
proximity? My income is not large, as I think you are aware, but of
course, if a demand of this kind is seriously made, I must do my
best to comply with it.'

'It hurts me very much that you can understand me no better than
this.'

'I am sorry. I think we used to understand each other, but that
was before you were subjected to the influence of strangers.'

In his perverse frame of mind he was ready to give utterance to
any thought which confused the point at issue. This last allusion
was suggested to him by a sudden pang of regret for the pain he was
causing Marian; he defended himself against self-reproach by
hinting at the true reason of much of his harshness.

'I am subjected to no influence that is hostile to you,' Marian
replied.

'You may think that. But in such a matter it is very easy for
you to deceive yourself.'

'Of course I know what you refer to, and I can assure you that I
don't deceive myself.'

Yule flashed a searching glance at her.

'Can you deny that you are on terms of friendship with a—a
person who would at any moment rejoice to injure me?'

'I am friendly with no such person. Will you say whom you are
thinking of?'

'It would be useless. I have no wish to discuss a subject on
which we should only disagree unprofitably.'

Marian kept silence for a moment, then said in a low, unsteady
voice:

'It is perhaps because we never speak of that subject that we
are so far from understanding each other. If you think that Mr
Milvain is your enemy, that he would rejoice to injure you, you are
grievously mistaken.'

'When I see a man in close alliance with my worst enemy, and
looking to that enemy for favour, I am justified in thinking that
he would injure me if the right kind of opportunity offered. One
need not be very deeply read in human nature to have assurance of
that.'

'But I know Mr Milvain!'

'You know him?'

'Far better than you can, I am sure. You draw conclusions from
general principles; but I know that they don't apply in this
case.'

'I have no doubt you sincerely think so. I repeat that nothing
can be gained by such a discussion as this.'

'One thing I must tell you. There was no truth in your suspicion
that Mr Milvain wrote that review in The Current. He assured me
himself that he was not the writer, that he had nothing to do with
it.'

Yule looked askance at her, and his face displayed solicitude,
which soon passed, however, into a smile of sarcasm.

'The gentleman's word no doubt has weight with you.'

'Father, what do you mean?' broke from Marian, whose eyes of a
sudden flashed stormily. 'Would Mr Milvain tell me a lie?'

'I shouldn't like to say that it is impossible,' replied her
father in the same tone as before.

'But—what right have you to insult him so grossly?'

'I have every right, my dear child, to express an opinion about
him or any other man, provided I do it honestly. I beg you not to
strike attitudes and address me in the language of the stage. You
insist on my speaking plainly, and I have spoken plainly. I warned
you that we were not likely to agree on this topic.'

'Literary quarrels have made you incapable of judging honestly
in things such as this. I wish I could have done for ever with the
hateful profession that so poisons men's minds.'

'Believe me, my girl,' said her father, incisively, 'the simpler
thing would be to hold aloof from such people as use the profession
in a spirit of unalloyed selfishness, who seek only material
advancement, and who, whatever connection they form, have nothing
but self-interest in view.'

And he glared at her with much meaning. Marian—both had remained
standing all through the dialogue—cast down her eyes and became
lost in brooding.

'I speak with profound conviction,' pursued her father, 'and,
however little you credit me with such a motive, out of desire to
guard you against the dangers to which your inexperience is
exposed. It is perhaps as well that you have afforded me this—'

There sounded at the house-door that duplicated double-knock
which generally announces the bearer of a telegram. Yule
interrupted himself, and stood in an attitude of waiting. The
servant was heard to go along the passage, to open the door, and
then return towards the study. Yes, it was a telegram. Such
despatches rarely came to this house; Yule tore the envelope, read
its contents, and stood with gaze fixed upon the slip of paper
until the servant inquired if there was any reply for the boy to
take with him.

'No reply.'

He slowly crumpled the envelope, and stepped aside to throw it
into the paper-basket. The telegram he laid on his desk. Marian
stood all the time with bent head; he now looked at her with an
expression of meditative displeasure.

'I don't know that there's much good in resuming our
conversation,' he said, in quite a changed tone, as if something of
more importance had taken possession of his thoughts and had made
him almost indifferent to the past dispute. 'But of course I am
quite willing to hear anything you would still like to say.

Marian had lost her vehemence. She was absent and
melancholy.

'I can only ask you,' she replied, 'to try and make life less of
a burden to us.'

'I shall have to leave town to-morrow for a few days; no doubt
it will be some satisfaction to you to hear that.'

Marian's eyes turned involuntarily towards the telegram.

'As for your occupation in my absence,' he went on, in a hard
tone which yet had something tremulous, emotional, making it quite
different from the voice he had hitherto used, 'that will be
entirely a matter for your own judgment. I have felt for some time
that you assisted me with less good-will than formerly, and now
that you have frankly admitted it, I shall of course have very
little satisfaction in requesting your aid. I must leave it to you;
consult your own inclination.'

It was resentful, but not savage; between the beginning and the
end of his speech he softened to a sort of self-satisfied
pathos.

'I can't pretend,' replied Marian, 'that I have as much pleasure
in the work as I should have if your mood were gentler.'

'I am sorry. I might perhaps have made greater efforts to appear
at ease when I was suffering.'

'Do you mean physical suffering?'

'Physical and mental. But that can't concern you. During my
absence I will think of your reproof. I know that it is deserved,
in some degree. If it is possible, you shall have less to complain
of in future.'

He looked about the room, and at length seated himself; his eyes
were fixed in a direction away from Marian.

'I suppose you had dinner somewhere?' Marian asked, after
catching a glimpse of his worn, colourless face.

'Oh, I had a mouthful of something. It doesn't matter.'

It seemed as if he found some special pleasure in assuming this
tone of martyrdom just now. At the same time he was becoming more
absorbed in thought.

'Shall I have something brought up for you, father?'

'Something—? Oh no, no; on no account.'

He rose again impatiently, then approached his desk, and laid a
hand on the telegram. Marian observed this movement, and examined
his face; it was set in an expression of eagerness.

'You have nothing more to say, then?' He turned sharply upon
her.

'I feel that I haven't made you understand me, but I can say
nothing more.'

'I understand you very well—too well. That you should
misunderstand and mistrust me, I suppose, is natural. You are
young, and I am old. You are still full of hope, and I have been so
often deceived and defeated that I dare not let a ray of hope enter
my mind. Judge me; judge me as hardly as you like. My life has been
one long, bitter struggle, and if now—. I say,' he began a new
sentence, 'that only the hard side of life has been shown to me;
small wonder if I have become hard myself. Desert me; go your own
Way, as the young always do. But bear in mind my warning. Remember
the caution I have given you.'

He spoke in a strangely sudden agitation. The arm with which he
leaned upon the table trembled violently. After a moment's pause he
added, in a thick voice:

'Leave me. I will speak to you again in the morning.'

Impressed in a way she did not understand, Marian at once
obeyed, and rejoined her mother in the parlour. Mrs Yule gazed
anxiously at her as she entered.

'Don't be afraid,' said Marian, with difficulty bringing herself
to speak. 'I think it will be better.'