New Grub Street (59 page)

'My mother's death led to my sisters' coming to live in London.
Already there had been friendly correspondence between Miss Yule
and the two girls, and now that the opportunity offered they began
to see each other frequently. As I was often at my sisters'
lodgings it came about that I met Miss Yule there from time to
time. In this way was confirmed my attachment to your daughter. The
better I knew her, the more worthy I found her of reverence and
love.

'Would it not have been natural for me to seek a renewal of the
acquaintance with yourself which had been begun in the country?
Gladly I should have done so. Before my sisters' coming to London I
did call one day at your house with the desire of seeing you, but
unfortunately you were not at home. Very soon after that I learnt
to my extreme regret that my connection with The Current and its
editor would make any repetition of my visit very distasteful to
you. I was conscious of nothing in my literary life that could
justly offend you—and at this day I can say the same—but I shrank
from the appearance of importunity, and for some months I was
deeply distressed by the fear that what I most desired in life had
become unattainable. My means were very slight; I had no choice but
to take such work as offered, and mere chance had put me into a
position which threatened ruin to the hope that you would some day
regard me as a not unworthy suitor for your daughter's hand.

'Circumstances have led me to a step which at that time seemed
impossible. Having discovered that Miss Yule returned the feeling I
entertained for her, I have asked her to be my wife, and she has
consented. It is now my hope that you will permit me to call upon
you. Miss Yule is aware that I am writing this letter; will you not
let her plead for me, seeing that only by an unhappy chance have I
been kept aloof from you? Marian and I are equally desirous that
you should approve our union; without that approval, indeed,
something will be lacking to the happiness for which we hope.

'Believe me to be sincerely yours,

Half an hour after reading this Yule was roused from a fit of
the gloomiest brooding by Marian's entrance. She came towards him
timidly, with pale countenance. He had glanced round to see who it
was, but at once turned his head again.

'Will you forgive me for keeping this secret from you,
father?'

'Forgive you?' he replied in a hard, deliberate voice. 'I assure
you it is a matter of perfect indifference to me. You are long
since of age, and I have no power whatever to prevent your falling
a victim to any schemer who takes your fancy. It would be folly in
me to discuss the question. I recognise your right to have as many
secrets as may seem good to you. To talk of forgiveness is the
merest affectation.'

'No, I spoke sincerely. If it had seemed possible I should
gladly have let you know about this from the first. That would have
been natural and right. But you know what prevented me.'

'I do. I will try to hope that even a sense of shame had
something to do with it.'

'That had nothing to do with it,' said Marian, coldly. 'I have
never had reason to feel ashamed.'

'Be it so. I trust you may never have reason to feel repentance.
May I ask when you propose to be married?'

'I don't know when it will take place.'

'As soon, I suppose, as your uncle's executors have discharged a
piece of business which is distinctly germane to the matter?'

'Perhaps.'

'Does your mother know?'

'I have just told her.'

'Very well, then it seems to me that there's nothing more to be
said.'

'Do you refuse to see Mr Milvain?'

'Most decidedly I do. You will have the goodness to inform him
that that is my reply to his letter.'

'I don't think that is the behaviour of a gentleman,' said
Marian, her eyes beginning to gleam with resentment.

'I am obliged to you for your instruction.'

'Will you tell me, father, in plain words, why you dislike Mr
Milvain?'

'I am not inclined to repeat what I have already fruitlessly
told you. For the sake of a clear understanding, however, I will
let you know the practical result of my dislike. From the day of
your marriage with that man you are nothing to me. I shall
distinctly forbid you to enter my house. You make your choice, and
go your own way. I shall hope never to see your face again.'

Their eyes met, and the look of each seemed to fascinate the
other.

'If you have made up your mind to that,' said Marian in a
shaking voice, 'I can remain here no longer. Such words are
senselessly cruel. To-morrow I shall leave the house.'

'I repeat that you are of age, and perfectly independent. It can
be nothing to me how soon you go. You have given proof that I am of
less than no account to you, and doubtless the sooner we cease to
afflict each other the better.'

It seemed as if the effect of these conflicts with her father
were to develop in Marian a vehemence of temper which at length
matched that of which Yule was the victim. Her face, outlined to
express a gentle gravity, was now haughtily passionate; nostrils
and lips thrilled with wrath, and her eyes were magnificent in
their dark fieriness.

'You shall not need to tell me that again,' she answered, and
immediately left him.

She went into the sitting-room, where Mrs Yule was awaiting the
result of the interview.

'Mother,' she said, with stern gentleness, 'this house can no
longer be a home for me. I shall go away to-morrow, and live in
lodgings until the time of my marriage.'

Mrs Yule uttered a cry of pain, and started up.

'Oh, don't do that, Marian! What has he said to you? Come and
talk to me, darling—tell me what he's said—don't look like
that!'

She clung to the girl despairingly, terrified by a
transformation she would have thought impossible.

'He says that if I marry Mr Milvain he hopes never to see my
face again. I can't stay here. You shall come and see me, and we
will be the same to each other as always. But father has treated me
too unjustly. I can't live near him after this.'

'He doesn't mean it,' sobbed her mother. 'He says what he's
sorry for as soon as the words are spoken. He loves you too much,
my darling, to drive you away like that. It's his disappointment,
Marian; that's all it is. He counted on it so much. I've heard him
talk of it in his sleep; he made so sure that he was going to have
that new magazine, and the disappointment makes him that he doesn't
know what he's saying. Only wait and see; he'll tell you he didn't
mean it, I know he will. Only leave him alone till he's had time to
get over it. Do forgive him this once.'

'It's like a madman to talk in that way,' said the girl,
releasing herself. 'Whatever his disappointment, I can't endure it.
I have worked hard for him, very hard, ever since I was old enough,
and he owes me some kindness, some respect. It would be different
if he had the least reason for his hatred of Jasper. It is nothing
but insensate prejudice, the result of his quarrels with other
people. What right has he to insult me by representing my future
husband as a scheming hypocrite?'

'My love, he has had so much to bear—it's made him so
quick-tempered.'

'Then I am quick-tempered too, and the sooner we are apart the
better, as he said himself.'

'Oh, but you have always been such a patient girl.'

'My patience is at an end when I am treated as if I had neither
rights nor feelings. However wrong the choice I had made, this was
not the way to behave to me. His disappointment? Is there a natural
law, then, that a daughter must be sacrificed to her father? My
husband will have as much need of that money as my father has, and
he will be able to make far better use of it. It was wrong even to
ask me to give my money away like that. I have a right to
happiness, as well as other women.'

She was shaken with hysterical passion, the natural consequence
of this outbreak in a nature such as hers. Her mother, in the
meantime, grew stronger by force of profound love that at length
had found its opportunity of expression. Presently she persuaded
Marian to come upstairs with her, and before long the overburdened
breast was relieved by a flow of tears. But Marian's purpose
remained unshaken.

'It is impossible for us to see each other day after day,' she
said when calmer. 'He can't control his anger against me, and I
suffer too much when I am made to feel like this. I shall take a
lodging not far off where you can see me often.'

'But you have no money, Marian,' replied Mrs Yule,
miserably.

'No money? As if I couldn't borrow a few pounds until all my own
comes to me! Dora Milvain can lend me all I shall want; it won't
make the least difference to her. I must have my money very soon
now.'

At about half-past eleven Mrs Yule went downstairs, and entered
the study.

'If you are coming to speak about Marian,' said her husband,
turning upon her with savage eyes, 'you can save your breath. I
won't hear her name mentioned.'

She faltered, but overcame her weakness.

'You are driving her away from us, Alfred. It isn't right! Oh,
it isn't right!'

'If she didn't go I should, so understand that! And if I go, you
have seen the last of me. Make your choice, make your choice!'

He had yielded himself to that perverse frenzy which impels a
man to acts and utterances most wildly at conflict with reason. His
sense of the monstrous irrationality to which he was committed
completed what was begun in him by the bitterness of a great
frustration.

'If I wasn't a poor, helpless woman,' replied his wife, sinking
upon a chair and crying without raising her hands to her face, 'I'd
go and live with her till she was married, and then make a home for
myself. But I haven't a penny, and I'm too old to earn my own
living; I should only be a burden to her.'

'That shall be no hindrance,' cried Yule. 'Go, by all means; you
shall have a sufficient allowance as long as I can continue to
work, and when I'm past that, your lot will be no harder than mine.
Your daughter had the chance of making provision for my old age, at
no expense to herself. But that was asking too much of her. Go, by
all means, and leave me to make what I can of the rest of my life;
perhaps I may save a few years still from the curse brought upon me
by my own folly.'

It was idle to address him. Mrs Yule went into the sitting-room,
and there sat weeping for an hour. Then she extinguished the
lights, and crept upstairs in silence.

Yule passed the night in the study. Towards morning he slept for
an hour or two, just long enough to let the fire go out and to get
thoroughly chilled. When he opened his eyes a muddy twilight had
begun to show at the window; the sounds of a clapping door within
the house, which had probably awakened him, made him aware that the
servant was already up.

He drew up the blind. There seemed to be a frost, for the
moisture of last night had all disappeared, and the yard upon which
the window looked was unusually clean. With a glance at the black
grate he extinguished his lamp, and went out into the passage. A
few minutes' groping for his overcoat and hat, and he left the
house.

His purpose was to warm himself with a vigorous walk, and at the
same time to shake off if possible, the nightmare of his rage and
hopelessness. He had no distinct feeling with regard to his
behaviour of the past evening; he neither justified nor condemned
himself; he did not ask himself whether Marian would to-day leave
her home, or if her mother would take him at his word and also
depart. These seemed to be details which his brain was too weary to
consider. But he wished to be away from the wretchedness of his
house, and to let things go as they would whilst he was absent. As
he closed the front door he felt as if he were escaping from an
atmosphere that threatened to stifle him.

His steps directing themselves more by habit than with any
deliberate choice, he walked towards Camden Road. When he had
reached Camden Town railway-station he was attracted by a
coffee-stall; a draught of the steaming liquid, no matter its
quality, would help his blood to circulate. He laid down his penny,
and first warmed his hands by holding them round the cup. Whilst
standing thus he noticed that the objects at which he looked had a
blurred appearance; his eyesight seemed to have become worse this
morning. Only a result of his insufficient sleep perhaps. He took
up a scrap of newspaper that lay on the stall; he could read it,
but one of his eyes was certainly weaker than the other; trying to
see with that one alone, he found that everything became misty.

He laughed, as if the threat of new calamity were an amusement
in his present state of mind. And at the same moment his look
encountered that of a man who had drawn near to him, a
shabbily-dressed man of middle age, whose face did not correspond
with his attire.

'Will you give me a cup of coffee?' asked the stranger, in a low
voice and with shamefaced manner. 'It would be a great
kindness.'

The accent was that of good breeding. Yule hesitated in surprise
for a moment, then said:

'Have one by all means. Would you care for anything to eat?'

'I am much obliged to you. I think I should be none the worse
for one of those solid slices of bread and butter.'

The stall-keeper was just extinguishing his lights; the frosty
sky showed a pale gleam of sunrise.

'Hard times, I'm afraid,' remarked Yule, as his beneficiary
began to eat the luncheon with much appearance of grateful
appetite.

'Very hard times.' He had a small, thin, colourless countenance,
with large, pathetic eyes; a slight moustache and curly beard. His
clothes were such as would be worn by some very poor clerk. 'I came
here an hour ago,' he continued, 'with the hope of meeting an
acquaintance who generally goes from this station at a certain
time. I have missed him, and in doing so I missed what I had
thought my one chance of a breakfast. When one has neither dined
nor supped on the previous day, breakfast becomes a meal of some
importance.'