New Grub Street (54 page)

'Often enough. I have done it. I have deliberately spent a
certain proportion of the money that ought to have gone for food in
the cheapest kind of strong liquor.'

'Ha! that's interesting. But it never got the force of a habit
you had to break?'

'No. Partly, I dare say, because I had the warning of poor Sykes
before my eyes.'

'You never see that poor fellow?'

'Never. He must be dead, I think. He would die either in the
hospital or the workhouse.'

'Well,' said Reardon, musing cheerfully, 'I shall never become a
drunkard; I haven't that diathesis, to use your expression. Doesn't
it strike you that you and I are very respectable persons? We
really have no vices. Put us on a social pedestal, and we should be
shining lights of morality. I sometimes wonder at our
inoffensiveness. Why don't we run amuck against law and order? Why,
at the least, don't we become savage revolutionists, and harangue
in Regent's Park of a Sunday?'

'Because we are passive beings, and were meant to enjoy life
very quietly. As we can't enjoy, we just suffer quietly, that's
all. By-the-bye, I want to talk about a difficulty in one of the
Fragments of Euripides. Did you ever go through the Fragments?'

This made a diversion for half an hour. Then Reardon returned to
his former line of thought.

'As I was entering patients yesterday, there came up to the
table a tall, good-looking, very quiet girl, poorly dressed, but as
neat as could be. She gave me her name, then I asked "Occupation?"
She said at once, "I'm unfortunate, sir." I couldn't help looking
up at her in surprise; I had taken it for granted she was a
dressmaker or something of the kind. And, do you know, I never felt
so strong an impulse to shake hands, to show sympathy, and even
respect, in some way. I should have liked to say, "Why, I am
unfortunate, too!" such a good, patient face she had.'

'I distrust such appearances,' said Biffen in his quality of
realist.

'Well, so do I, as a rule. But in this case they were
convincing. And there was no need whatever for her to make such a
declaration; she might just as well have said anything else; it's
the merest form. I shall always hear her voice saying, "I'm
unfortunate, sir." She made me feel what a mistake it was for me to
marry such a girl as Amy. I ought to have looked about for some
simple, kind-hearted work-girl; that was the kind of wife indicated
for me by circumstances. If I had earned a hundred a year she would
have thought we were well-to-do. I should have been an authority to
her on everything under the sun—and above it. No ambition would
have unsettled her. We should have lived in a couple of poor rooms
somewhere, and—we should have loved each other.'

'What a shameless idealist you are!' said Biffen, shaking his
head. 'Let me sketch the true issue of such a marriage. To begin
with, the girl would have married you in firm persuasion that you
were a "gentleman" in temporary difficulties, and that before long
you would have plenty of money to dispose of. Disappointed in this
hope, she would have grown sharp-tempered, querulous, selfish. All
your endeavours to make her understand you would only have resulted
in widening the impassable gulf. She would have misconstrued your
every sentence, found food for suspicion in every harmless joke,
tormented you with the vulgarest forms of jealousy. The effect upon
your nature would have been degrading. In the end, you must have
abandoned every effort to raise her to your own level, and either
have sunk to hers or made a rupture. Who doesn't know the story of
such attempts? I myself ten years ago, was on the point of
committing such a folly, but, Heaven be praised! an accident saved
me.'

'You never told me that story.'

'And don't care to now. I prefer to forget it.'

'Well, you can judge for yourself but not for me. Of course I
might have chosen the wrong girl, but I am supposing that I had
been fortunate. In any case there would have been a much better
chance than in the marriage that I made.'

'Your marriage was sensible enough, and a few years hence you
will be a happy man again.'

'You seriously think Amy will come back to me?'

'Of course I do.'

'Upon my word, I don't know that I desire it.'

'Because you are in a strangely unhealthy state.'

'I rather think I regard the matter more sanely than ever yet. I
am quite free from sexual bias. I can see that Amy was not my fit
intellectual companion, and all emotion at the thought of her has
gone from me. The word "love" is a weariness to me. If only our
idiotic laws permitted us to break the legal bond, how glad both of
us would be!'

'You are depressed and anaemic. Get yourself in flesh, and view
things like a man of this world.'

'But don't you think it the best thing that can happen to a man
if he outgrows passion?'

'In certain circumstances, no doubt.'

'In all and any. The best moments of life are those when we
contemplate beauty in the purely artistic spirit—objectively. I
have had such moments in Greece and Italy; times when I was a free
spirit, utterly remote from the temptations and harassings of
sexual emotion. What we call love is mere turmoil. Who wouldn't
release himself from it for ever, if the possibility offered?'

'Oh, there's a good deal to be said for that, of course.'

Reardon's face was illumined with the glow of an exquisite
memory.

'Haven't I told you,' he said, 'of that marvellous sunset at
Athens? I was on the Pnyx; had been rambling about there the whole
afternoon. For I dare say a couple of hours I had noticed a growing
rift of light in the clouds to the west; it looked as if the dull
day might have a rich ending. That rift grew broader and
brighter—the only bit of light in the sky. On Parnes there were
white strips of ragged mist, hanging very low; the same on
Hymettus, and even the peak of Lycabettus was just hidden. Of a
sudden, the sun's rays broke out. They showed themselves first in a
strangely beautiful way, striking from behind the seaward hills
through the pass that leads to Eleusis, and so gleaming on the
nearer slopes of Aigaleos, making the clefts black and the rounded
parts of the mountain wonderfully brilliant with golden colour. All
the rest of the landscape, remember, was untouched with a ray of
light. This lasted only a minute or two, then the sun itself sank
into the open patch of sky and shot glory in every direction;
broadening beams smote upwards over the dark clouds, and made them
a lurid yellow. To the left of the sun, the gulf of Aegina was all
golden mist, the islands floating in it vaguely. To the right, over
black Salamis, lay delicate strips of pale blue—indescribably pale
and delicate.'

'You remember it very clearly.'

'As if I saw it now! But wait. I turned eastward, and there to
my astonishment was a magnificent rainbow, a perfect semicircle,
stretching from the foot of Parnes to that of Hymettus, framing
Athens and its hills, which grew brighter and brighter—the
brightness for which there is no name among colours. Hymettus was
of a soft misty warmth, a something tending to purple, its ridges
marked by exquisitely soft and indefinite shadows, the rainbow
coming right down in front. The Acropolis simply glowed and blazed.
As the sun descended all these colours grew richer and warmer; for
a moment the landscape was nearly crimson. Then suddenly the sun
passed into the lower stratum of cloud, and the splendour died
almost at once, except that there remained the northern half of the
rainbow, which had become double. In the west, the clouds were
still glorious for a time; there were two shaped like great
expanded wings, edged with refulgence.'

'Stop!' cried Biffen, 'or I shall clutch you by the throat. I
warned you before that I can't stand those reminiscences.'

'Live in hope. Scrape together twenty pounds, and go there, if
you die of hunger afterwards.'

'I shall never have twenty shillings,' was the despondent
answer.

'I feel sure you will sell "Mr Bailey."'

'It's kind of you to encourage me; but if "Mr Bailey" is ever
sold I don't mind undertaking to eat my duplicate of the
proofs.'

'But now, you remember what led me to that. What does a man care
for any woman on earth when he is absorbed in contemplation of that
kind?'

'But it is only one of life's satisfactions.'

'I am only maintaining that it is the best, and infinitely
preferable to sexual emotion. It leaves, no doubt, no bitterness of
any kind. Poverty can't rob me of those memories. I have lived in
an ideal world that was not deceitful, a world which seems to me,
when I recall it, beyond the human sphere, bathed in diviner
light.'

It was four or five days after this that Reardon, on going to
his work in City Road, found a note from Carter. It requested him
to call at the main hospital at half-past eleven the next morning.
He supposed the appointment had something to do with his business
at Croydon, whither he had been in the mean time. Some unfavourable
news, perhaps; any misfortune was likely.

He answered the summons punctually, and on entering the general
office was requested by the clerk to wait in Mr Carter's private
room; the secretary had not yet arrived. His waiting lasted some
ten minutes, then the door opened and admitted, not Carter, but Mrs
Edmund Yule.

Reardon stood up in perturbation. He was anything but prepared,
or disposed, for an interview with this lady. She came towards him
with hand extended and a countenance of suave friendliness.

'I doubted whether you would see me if I let you know,' she
said. 'Forgive me this little bit of scheming, will you? I have
something so very important to speak to you about.'

He said nothing, but kept a demeanour of courtesy.

'I think you haven't heard from Amy?' Mrs Yule asked.

'Not since I saw her.'

'And you don't know what has come to pass?'

'I have heard of nothing.'

'I am come to see you quite on my own responsibility, quite. I
took Mr Carter into my confidence, but begged him not to let Mrs
Carter know, lest she should tell Amy; I think he will keep his
promise. It seemed to me that it was really my duty to do whatever
I could in these sad, sad circumstances.'

Reardon listened respectfully, but without sign of feeling.

'I had better tell you at once that Amy's uncle at Wattleborough
is dead, and that in his will he has bequeathed her ten thousand
pounds.'

Mrs Yule watched the effect of this. For a moment none was
visible, but she saw at length that Reardon's lips trembled and his
eyebrows twitched.

'I am glad to hear of her good fortune,' he said distantly and
in even tones.

'You will feel, I am sure,' continued his mother-in-law, 'that
this must put an end to your most unhappy differences.'

'How can it have that result?'

'It puts you both in a very different position, does it not? But
for your distressing circumstances, I am sure there would never
have been such unpleasantness—never. Neither you nor Amy is the
kind of person to take a pleasure in disagreement. Let me beg you
to go and see her again. Everything is so different now. Amy has
not the faintest idea that I have come to see you, and she mustn't
on any account be told, for her worst fault is that sensitive pride
of hers. And I'm sure you won't be offended, Edwin, if I say that
you have very much the same failing. Between two such sensitive
people differences might last a lifetime, unless one could be
persuaded to take the first step. Do be generous! A woman is
privileged to be a little obstinate, it is always said. Overlook
the fault, and persuade her to let bygones be bygones.'

There was an involuntary affectedness in Mrs Yule's speech which
repelled Reardon. He could not even put faith in her assurance that
Amy knew nothing of this intercession. In any case it was extremely
distasteful to him to discuss such matters with Mrs Yule.

'Under no circumstances could I do more than I already have
done,' he replied. 'And after what you have told me, it is
impossible for me to go and see her unless she expressly invites
me.'

'Oh, if only you would overcome this sensitiveness!'

'It is not in my power to do so. My poverty, as you justly say,
was the cause of our parting; but if Amy is no longer poor, that is
very far from a reason why I should go to her as a suppliant for
forgiveness.'

'But do consider the facts of the case, independently of
feeling.

I really think I don't go too far in saying that at least
some—some provocation was given by you first of all. I am so very,
very far from wishing to say anything disagreeable—I am sure you
feel that—but wasn't there some little ground for complaint on
Amy's part? Wasn't there, now?'

Reardon was tortured with nervousness. He wished to be alone, to
think over what had happened, and Mrs Yule's urgent voice rasped
upon his ears. Its very smoothness made it worse.

'There may have been ground for grief and concern,' he answered,
'but for complaint, no, I think not.'

'But I understand'—the voice sounded rather irritable now—'that
you positively reproached and upbraided her because she was
reluctant to go and live in some very shocking place.'

'I may have lost my temper after Amy had shown—But I can't
review our troubles in this way.'

'Am I to plead in vain?'

'I regret very much that I can't possibly do as you wish. It is
all between Amy and myself. Interference by other people cannot do
any good.'

'I am sorry you should use such a word as "interference,"'
replied Mrs Yule, bridling a little. 'Very sorry, indeed. I confess
it didn't occur to me that my good-will to you could be seen in
that light.'

'Believe me that I didn't use the word offensively.'

'Then you refuse to take any step towards a restoration of good
feeling?'