New Grub Street (61 page)

'Perhaps he was. He may have known that the legacy was a mere
form.'

'You are the only one affected?'

'So father says. It's sure to be the case.'

'This has upset you horribly, I can see. Sit down, Marian. When
did the letter come?'

'This morning.'

'And you have been fretting over it all day. But come, we must
keep up our courage; you may get something substantial out of the
scoundrels still.'

Even whilst he spoke his eyes wandered absently. On the last
word his voice failed, and he fell into abstraction. Marian's look
was fixed upon him, and he became conscious of it. He tried to
smile.

'What were you writing?' she asked, making involuntary diversion
from the calamitous theme.

'Rubbish for the Will-o'-the-Wisp. Listen to this paragraph
about English concert audiences.'

It was as necessary to him as to her to have a respite before
the graver discussion began. He seized gladly the opportunity she
offered, and read several pages of manuscript, slipping from one
topic to another. To hear him one would have supposed that he was
in his ordinary mood; he laughed at his own jokes and points.

'They'll have to pay me more,' was the remark with which he
closed. 'I only wanted to make myself indispensable to them, and at
the end of this year I shall feel pretty sure of that. They'll have
to give me two guineas a column; by Jove! they will.'

'And you may hope for much more than that, mayn't you, before
long?'

'Oh, I shall transfer myself to a better paper presently. It
seems to me I must be stirring to some purpose.'

He gave her a significant look.

'What shall we do, Jasper?'

'Work and wait, I suppose.'

'There's something I must tell you. Father said I had better
sign that Harrington article myself. If I do that, I shall have a
right to the money, I think. It will at least be eight guineas. And
why shouldn't I go on writing for myself—for us? You can help me to
think of subjects.'

'First of all, what about my letter to your father? We are
forgetting all about it.'

'He refused to answer.'

Marian avoided closer description of what had happened. It was
partly that she felt ashamed of her father's unreasoning wrath, and
feared lest Jasper's pride might receive an injury from which she
in turn would suffer; partly that she was unwilling to pain her
lover by making display of all she had undergone.

'Oh, he refused to reply! Surely that is extreme behaviour.'

What she dreaded seemed to be coming to pass. Jasper stood
rather stiffly, and threw his head back.

'You know the reason, dear. That prejudice has entered into his
very life. It is not you he dislikes; that is impossible. He thinks
of you only as he would of anyone connected with Mr Fadge.'

'Well, well; it isn't a matter of much moment. But what I have
in mind is this. Will it be possible for you, whilst living at
home, to take a position of independence, and say that you are
going to work for your own profit?'

'At least I might claim half the money I can earn. And I was
thinking more of—'

'Of what?'

'When I am your wife, I may be able to help. I could earn thirty
or forty pounds a year, I think. That would pay the rent of a small
house.'

She spoke with shaken voice, her eyes fixed upon his face.

'But, my dear Marian, we surely oughtn't to think of marrying so
long as expenses are so nicely fitted as all that?'

'No. I only meant—'

She faltered, and her tongue became silent as her heart
sank.

'It simply means,' pursued Jasper, seating himself and crossing
his legs, 'that I must move heaven and earth to improve my
position. You know that my faith in myself is not small; there's no
knowing what I might do if I used every effort. But, upon my word,
I don't see much hope of our being able to marry for a year or two
under the most favourable circumstances.'

'No; I quite understand that.'

'Can you promise to keep a little love for me all that time?' he
asked with a constrained smile.

'You know me too well to fear.'

'I thought you seemed a little doubtful.'

His tone was not altogether that which makes banter pleasant
between lovers. Marian looked at him fearfully. Was it possible for
him in truth so to misunderstand her? He had never satisfied her
heart's desire of infinite love; she never spoke with him but she
was oppressed with the suspicion that his love was not as great as
hers, and, worse still, that he did not wholly comprehend the
self-surrender which she strove to make plain in every word.

'You don't say that seriously, Jasper?'

'But answer seriously.'

'How can you doubt that I would wait faithfully for you for
years if it were necessary?'

'It mustn't be years, that's very certain. I think it
preposterous for a man to hold a woman bound in that hopeless
way.'

'But what question is there of holding me bound? Is love
dependent on fixed engagements? Do you feel that, if we agreed to
part, your love would be at once a thing of the past?'

'Why no, of course not.'

'Oh, but how coldly you speak, Jasper!'

She could not breathe a word which might be interpreted as fear
lest the change of her circumstances should make a change in his
feeling. Yet that was in her mind. The existence of such a fear
meant, of course, that she did not entirely trust him, and viewed
his character as something less than noble. Very seldom indeed is a
woman free from such doubts, however absolute her love; and perhaps
it is just as rare for a man to credit in his heart all the praises
he speaks of his beloved. Passion is compatible with a great many
of these imperfections of intellectual esteem. To see more clearly
into Jasper's personality was, for Marian, to suffer the more
intolerable dread lest she should lose him.

She went to his side. Her heart ached because, in her great
misery, he had not fondled her, and intoxicated her senses with
loving words.

'How can I make you feel how much I love you?' she murmured.

'You mustn't be so literal, dearest. Women are so desperately
matter-of-fact; it comes out even in their love-talk.'

Marian was not without perception of the irony of such an
opinion on Jasper's lips.

'I am content for you to think so,' she said. 'There is only one
fact in my life of any importance, and I can never lose sight of
it.'

'Well now, we are quite sure of each other. Tell me plainly, do
you think me capable of forsaking you because you have perhaps lost
your money?'

The question made her wince. If delicacy had held her tongue, it
had no control of HIS.

'How can I answer that better,' she said, 'than by saying I love
you?'

It was no answer, and Jasper, though obtuse compared with her,
understood that it was none. But the emotion which had prompted his
words was genuine enough. Her touch, the perfume of her passion,
had their exalting effect upon him. He felt in all sincerity that
to forsake her would be a baseness, revenged by the loss of such a
wife.

'There's an uphill fight before me, that's all,' he said,
'instead of the pretty smooth course I have been looking forward
to. But I don't fear it, Marian. I'm not the fellow to be
beaten.

You shall be my wife, and you shall have as many luxuries as if
you had brought me a fortune.'

'Luxuries! Oh, how childish you seem to think me!'

'Not a bit of it. Luxuries are a most important part of life. I
had rather not live at all than never possess them. Let me give you
a useful hint; if ever I seem to you to flag, just remind me of the
difference between these lodgings and a richly furnished house.
Just hint to me that So-and-so, the journalist, goes about in his
carriage, and can give his wife a box at the theatre. Just ask me,
casually, how I should like to run over to the Riviera when London
fogs are thickest. You understand? That's the way to keep me at it
like a steam-engine.'

'You are right. All those things enable one to live a better and
fuller life. Oh, how cruel that I—that we are robbed in this way!
You can have no idea how terrible a blow it was to me when I read
that letter this morning.'

She was on the point of confessing that she had swooned, but
something restrained her.

'Your father can hardly be sorry,' said Jasper.

'I think he speaks more harshly than he feels. The worst was,
that until he got your letter he had kept hoping that I would let
him have the money for a new review.'

'Well, for the present I prefer to believe that the money isn't
all lost. If the blackguards pay ten shillings in the pound you
will get two thousand five hundred out of them, and that's
something. But how do you stand? Will your position be that of an
ordinary creditor?'

'I am so ignorant. I know nothing of such things.'

'But of course your interests will be properly looked after. Put
yourself in communication with this Mr Holden. I'll have a look
into the law on the subject. Let us hope as long as we can. By
Jove! There's no other way of facing it.'

'No, indeed.'

'Mrs Reardon and the rest of them are safe enough, I
suppose?'

'Oh, no doubt.'

'Confound them!—It grows upon one. One doesn't take in the whole
of such a misfortune at once. We must hold on to the last rag of
hope, and in the meantime I'll half work myself to death. Are you
going to see the girls?'

'Not to-night. You must tell them.'

'Dora will cry her eyes out. Upon my word, Maud'll have to draw
in her horns. I must frighten her into economy and hard work.'

He again lost himself in anxious reverie.

'Marian, couldn't you try your hand at fiction?'

She started, remembering that her father had put the same
question so recently.

'I'm afraid I could do nothing worth doing.'

'That isn't exactly the question. Could you do anything that
would sell? With very moderate success in fiction you might make
three times as much as you ever will by magazine pot-boilers. A
girl like you. Oh, you might manage, I should think.'

'A girl like me?'

'Well, I mean that love-scenes, and that kind of thing, would be
very much in your line.'Marian was not given to blushing; very few
girls are, even on strong provocation. For the first time Jasper
saw her cheeks colour deeply, and it was with anything but
pleasure. His words were coarsely inconsiderate, and wounded
her.

'I think that is not my work,' she said coldly, looking
away.

'But surely there's no harm in my saying—' he paused in
astonishment. 'I meant nothing that could offend you.'

'I know you didn't, Jasper. But you make me think that—'

'Don't be so literal again, my dear girl. Come here and forgive
me.'

She did not approach, but only because the painful thought he
had excited kept her to that spot.

'Come, Marian! Then I must come to you.'

He did so and held her in his arms.

'Try your hand at a novel, dear, if you can possibly make time.
Put me in it, if you like, and make me an insensible masculine. The
experiment is worth a try I'm certain. At all events do a few
chapters, and let me see them. A chapter needn't take you more than
a couple of hours I should think.'

Marian refrained from giving any promise. She seemed
irresponsive to his caresses. That thought which at times gives
trouble to all women of strong emotions was working in her: had she
been too demonstrative, and made her love too cheap? Now that
Jasper's love might be endangered, it behoved her to use any arts
which nature prompted. And so, for once, he was not wholly
satisfied with her, and at their parting he wondered what subtle
change had affected her manner to him.

'Why didn't Marian come to speak a word?' said Dora, when her
brother entered the girls' sitting-room about ten o'clock.

'You knew she was with me, then?'

'We heard her voice as she was going away.'

'She brought me some enspiriting news, and thought it better I
should have the reporting of it to you.'

With brevity he made known what had befallen.

'Cheerful, isn't it? The kind of thing that strengthens one's
trust in Providence.'

The girls were appalled. Maud, who was reading by the fireside,
let her book fall to her lap, and knit her brows darkly.

'Then your marriage must be put off, of course?' said Dora.

'Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that were found necessary,'
replied her brother caustically. He was able now to give vent to
the feeling which in Marian's presence was suppressed, partly out
of consideration for her, and partly owing to her influence.

'And shall we have to go back to our old lodgings again?'
inquired Maud.

Jasper gave no answer, but kicked a footstool savagely out of
his way and paced the room.

'Oh, do you think we need?' said Dora, with unusual protest
against economy.

'Remember that it's a matter for your own consideration,' Jasper
replied at length. 'You are living on your own resources, you
know.'

Maud glanced at her sister, but Dora was preoccupied.

'Why do you prefer to stay here?' Jasper asked abruptly of the
younger girl.

'It is so very much nicer,' she replied with some
embarrassment.

He bit the ends of his moustache, and his eyes glared at the
impalpable thwarting force that to imagination seemed to fill the
air about him.

'A lesson against being over-hasty,' he muttered, again kicking
the footstool.

'Did you make that considerate remark to Marian?' asked
Maud.

'There would have been no harm if I had done. She knows that I
shouldn't have been such an ass as to talk of marriage without the
prospect of something to live upon.'

'I suppose she's wretched?' said Dora.