New Grub Street (69 page)

Jasper had to look in this morning for a hurried consultation of
certain encyclopaedic volumes, and it chanced that Marian was
standing before the shelves to which his business led him. He saw
her from a little distance, and paused; it seemed as if he would
turn back; for a moment he wore a look of doubt and worry. But
after all he proceeded. At the sound of his 'Good-morning,' Marian
started—she was standing with an open book in hand—and looked up
with a gleam of joy on her face.

'I wanted to see you to-day,' she said, subduing her voice to
the tone of ordinary conversation. 'I should have come this
evening.'

'You wouldn't have found me at home. From five to seven I shall
be frantically busy, and then I have to rush off to dine with some
people.'

'I couldn't see you before five?'

'Is it something important?'

'Yes, it is.'

'I tell you what. If you could meet me at Gloucester Gate at
four, then I shall be glad of half an hour in the park. But I
mustn't talk now; I'm driven to my wits' end. Gloucester Gate, at
four sharp. I don't think it'll rain.'

He dragged out a tome of the 'Britannica.' Marian nodded, and
returned to her seat.

At the appointed hour she was waiting near the entrance of
Regent's Park which Jasper had mentioned. Not long ago there had
fallen a light shower, but the sky was clear again. At five minutes
past four she still waited, and had begun to fear that the passing
rain might have led Jasper to think she would not come. Another
five minutes, and from a hansom that rattled hither at full speed,
the familiar figure alighted.

'Do forgive me!' he exclaimed. 'I couldn't possibly get here
before. Let us go to the right.'

They betook themselves to that tree-shadowed strip of the park
which skirts the canal.

'I'm so afraid that you haven't really time,' said Marian, who
was chilled and confused by this show of hurry. She regretted
having made the appointment; it would have been much better to
postpone what she had to say until Jasper was at leisure. Yet
nowadays the hours of leisure seemed to come so rarely.

'If I get home at five, it'll be all right,' he replied. 'What
have you to tell me, Marian?'

'We have heard about the money, at last.'

'Oh?' He avoided looking at her. 'And what's the upshot?'

'I shall have nearly fifteen hundred pounds.'

'So much as that? Well, that's better than nothing, isn't
it?'

'Very much better.'

They walked on in silence. Marian stole a glance at her
companion.

'I should have thought it a great deal,' she said presently,
'before I had begun to think of thousands.'

'Fifteen hundred. Well, it means fifty pounds a year, I
suppose.'

He chewed the end of his moustache.

'Let us sit down on this bench. Fifteen hundred—h'm! And nothing
more is to be hoped for?'

'Nothing. I should have thought men would wish to pay their
debts, even after they had been bankrupt; but they tell us we can't
expect anything more from these people.'

'You are thinking of Walter Scott, and that kind of
thing'—Jasper laughed. 'Oh, that's quite unbusinesslike; it would
be setting a pernicious example nowadays. Well, and what's to be
done?'

Marian had no answer for such a question. The tone of it was a
new stab to her heart, which had suffered so many during the past
half-year.

'Now, I'll ask you frankly,' Jasper went on, 'and I know you
will reply in the same spirit: would it be wise for us to marry on
this money?'

'On this money?'

She looked into his face with painful earnestness.

'You mean,' he said, 'that it can't be spared for that
purpose?'

What she really meant was uncertain even to herself. She had
wished to hear how Jasper would receive the news, and thereby to
direct her own course. Had he welcomed it as offering a possibility
of their marriage, that would have gladdened her, though it would
then have been necessary to show him all the difficulties by which
she was beset; for some time they had not spoken of her father's
position, and Jasper seemed willing to forget all about that
complication of their troubles. But marriage did not occur to him,
and he was evidently quite prepared to hear that she could no
longer regard this money as her own to be freely disposed of. This
was on one side a relief but on the other it confirmed her fears.
She would rather have heard him plead with her to neglect her
parents for the sake of being his wife. Love excuses everything,
and his selfishness would have been easily lost sight of in the
assurance that he still desired her.

'You say,' she replied, with bent head, 'that it would bring us
fifty pounds a year. If another fifty were added to that, my father
and mother would be supported in case the worst comes. I might earn
fifty pounds.'

'You wish me to understand, Marian, that I mustn't expect that
you will bring me anything when we are married.'

His tone was that of acquiescence; not by any means of
displeasure. He spoke as if desirous of saying for her something
she found a difficulty in saying for herself.

'Jasper, it is so hard for me! So hard for me! How could I help
remembering what you told me when I promised to be your wife?'

'I spoke the truth rather brutally,' he replied, in a kind
voice. 'Let all that be unsaid, forgotten. We are in quite a
different position now. Be open with me, Marian; surely you can
trust my common sense and good feeling. Put aside all thought of
things I have said, and don't be restrained by any fear lest you
should seem to me unwomanly—you can't be that. What is your own
wish? What do you really wish to do, now that there is no
uncertainty calling for postponements?'

Marian raised her eyes, and was about to speak as she regarded
him; but with the first accent her look fell.

'I wish to be your wife.'

He waited, thinking and struggling with himself.

'Yet you feel that it would be heartless to take and use this
money for our own purposes?'

'What is to become of my parents, Jasper?'

'But then you admit that the fifteen hundred pounds won't
support them. You talk of earning fifty pounds a year for
them.'

'Need I cease to write, dear, if we were married? Wouldn't you
let me help them?'

'But, my dear girl, you are taking for granted that we shall
have enough for ourselves.'

'I didn't mean at once,' she explained hurriedly. 'In a short
time—in a year. You are getting on so well. You will soon have a
sufficient income, I am sure.'

Jasper rose.

'Let us walk as far as the next seat. Don't speak. I have
something to think about.'

Moving on beside him, she slipped her hand softly within his
arm; but Jasper did not put the arm into position to support hers,
and her hand fell again, dropped suddenly. They reached another
bench, and again became seated.

'It comes to this, Marian,' he said, with portentous gravity.
'Support you, I could—I have little doubt of that. Maud is provided
for, and Dora can make a living for herself. I could support you
and leave you free to give your parents whatever you can earn by
your own work. But—'

He paused significantly. It was his wish that Marian should
supply the consequence, but she did not speak.

'Very well,' he exclaimed. 'Then when are we to be married?'

The tone of resignation was too marked. Jasper was not good as a
comedian; he lacked subtlety.

'We must wait,' fell from Marian's lips, in the whisper of
despair.

'Wait? But how long?' he inquired, dispassionately.

'Do you wish to be freed from your engagement, Jasper?'

He was not strong enough to reply with a plain 'Yes,' and so
have done with his perplexities. He feared the girl's face, and he
feared his own subsequent emotions.

'Don't talk in that way, Marian. The question is simply this:
Are we to wait a year, or are we to wait five years? In a year's
time, I shall probably be able to have a small house somewhere out
in the suburbs. If we are married then, I shall be happy enough
with so good a wife, but my career will take a different shape. I
shall just throw overboard certain of my ambitions, and work
steadily on at earning a livelihood. If we wait five years, I may
perhaps have obtained an editorship, and in that case I should of
course have all sorts of better things to offer you.'

'But, dear, why shouldn't you get an editorship all the same if
you are married?'

'I have explained to you several times that success of that kind
is not compatible with a small house in the suburbs and all the
ties of a narrow income. As a bachelor, I can go about freely, make
acquaintances, dine at people's houses, perhaps entertain a useful
friend now and then—and so on. It is not merit that succeeds in my
line; it is merit plus opportunity. Marrying now, I cut myself off
from opportunity, that's all.'

She kept silence.

'Decide my fate for me, Marian,' he pursued, magnanimously. 'Let
us make up our minds and do what we decide to do. Indeed, it
doesn't concern me so much as yourself. Are you content to lead a
simple, unambitious life? Or should you prefer your husband to be a
man of some distinction?'

'I know so well what your own wish is. But to wait for years—you
will cease to love me, and will only think of me as a hindrance in
your way.'

'Well now, when I said five years, of course I took a round
number. Three—two might make all the difference to me.'

'Let it be just as you wish. I can bear anything rather than
lose your love.'

'You feel, then, that it will decidedly be wise not to marry
whilst we are still so poor?'

'Yes; whatever you are convinced of is right.'

He again rose, and looked at his watch.

'Jasper, you don't think that I have behaved selfishly in
wishing to let my father have the money?'

'I should have been greatly surprised if you hadn't wished it. I
certainly can't imagine you saying: "Oh, let them do as best they
can!" That would have been selfish with a vengeance.'

'Now you are speaking kindly! Must you go, Jasper?'

'I must indeed. Two hours' work I am bound to get before seven
o'clock.'

'And I have been making it harder for you, by disturbing your
mind.'

'No, no; it's all right now. I shall go at it with all the more
energy, now we have come to a decision.'

'Dora has asked me to go to Kew on Sunday. Shall you be able to
come, dear?'

'By Jove, no! I have three engagements on Sunday afternoon. I'll
try and keep the Sunday after; I will indeed.'

'What are the engagements?' she asked timidly.

As they walked back towards Gloucester Gate, he answered her
question, showing how unpardonable it would be to neglect the
people concerned. Then they parted, Jasper going off at a smart
pace homewards.

Marian turned down Park Street, and proceeded for some distance
along Camden Road. The house in which she and her parents now lived
was not quite so far away as St Paul's Crescent; they rented four
rooms, one of which had to serve both as Alfred Yule's sitting-room
and for the gatherings of the family at meals. Mrs Yule generally
sat in the kitchen, and Marian used her bedroom as a study. About
half the collection of books had been sold; those that remained
were still a respectable library, almost covering the walls of the
room where their disconsolate possessor passed his mournful
days.

He could read for a few hours a day, but only large type, and
fear of consequences kept him well within the limit of such
indulgence laid down by his advisers. Though he inwardly spoke as
if his case were hopeless, Yule was very far from having resigned
himself to this conviction; indeed, the prospect of spending his
latter years in darkness and idleness was too dreadful to him to be
accepted so long as a glimmer of hope remained. He saw no reason
why the customary operation should not restore him to his old
pursuits, and he would have borne it ill if his wife or daughter
had ever ceased to oppose the despair which it pleased him to
affect.

On the whole, he was noticeably patient. At the time of their
removal to these lodgings, seeing that Marian prepared herself to
share the change as a matter of course, he let her do as she would
without comment; nor had he since spoken to her on the subject
which had proved so dangerous. Confidence between them there was
none; Yule addressed his daughter in a grave, cold, civil tone, and
Marian replied gently, but without tenderness. For Mrs Yule the
disaster to the family was distinctly a gain; she could not but
mourn her husband's affliction, yet he no longer visited her with
the fury or contemptuous impatience of former days. Doubtless the
fact of needing so much tendance had its softening influence on the
man; he could not turn brutally upon his wife when every hour of
the day afforded him some proof of her absolute devotion. Of course
his open-air exercise was still unhindered, and in this season of
the returning sun he walked a great deal, decidedly to the
advantage of his general health—which again must have been a source
of benefit to his temper. Of evenings, Marian sometimes read to
him. He never requested this, but he did not reject the
kindness.

This afternoon Marian found her father examining a volume of
prints which had been lent him by Mr Quarmby. The table was laid
for dinner (owing to Marian's frequent absence at the Museum, no
change had been made in the order of meals), and Yule sat by the
window, his book propped on a second chair. A whiteness in his eyes
showed how the disease was progressing, but his face had a more
wholesome colour than a year ago.

'Mr Hinks and Mr Gorbutt inquired very kindly after you to-day,'
said the girl, as she seated herself.

'Oh, is Hinks out again?'