New Grub Street

by George Gissing

  'Miss Radway was going as well.'

  'Who's Miss Radway?'

  'Don't you know her? She's staying with the Lanes. Maud says she writes for The West End.'

  'And will that fellow Lane be with them?'

  'I think not.'

  Jasper mused, contemplating the bowl of his pipe.

  'I suppose she was in rare excitement?'

  'Pretty well. She has wanted to go to the Gaiety for a long time. There's no harm, is there?'

  Dora asked the question with that absent air which girls are wont to assume when they touch on doubtful subjects.

  'Harm, no. Idiocy and lively music, that's all. It's too late, or I'd have taken you, for the joke of the thing. Confound it! she ought to have better dresses.'

  'Oh, she looked very nice, in that best.'

  'Pooh! But I don't care for her to be running about with the Lanes. Lane is too big a blackguard; it reflects upon his wife to a certain extent.'

  They gossiped for half an hour, then a tap at the door interrupted them; it was the landlady.

  'Mr Whelpdale has called to see you, sir. I mentioned as Miss Milvain was here, so he said he wouldn't come up unless you sent to ask him.'

  Jasper smiled at Dora, and said in a low voice.

  'What do you say? Shall he come up? He can behave himself.'

  'Just as you please, Jasper.'

  'Ask him to come up, Mrs Thompson, please.'

  Mr Whelpdale presented himself. He entered with much more ceremony than when Milvain was alone; on his visage was a grave respectfulness, his step was light, his whole bearing expressed diffidence and pleasurable anticipation.

  'My younger sister, Whelpdale,' said Jasper, with subdued amusement.

  The dealer in literary advice made a bow which did him no discredit, and began to speak in a low, reverential tone not at all disagreeable to the ear. His breeding, in truth, had been that of a gentleman, and it was only of late years that he had fallen into the hungry region of New Grub Street.

  'How's the "Manual" going off?' Milvain inquired.

  'Excellently! We have sold nearly six hundred.'

  'My sister is one of your readers. I believe she has studied the book with much conscientiousness.'

  'Really? You have really read it, Miss Milvain?'

  Dora assured him that she had, and his delight knew no bounds.

  'It isn't all rubbish, by any means,' said Jasper, graciously. 'In the chapter on writing for magazines, there are one or two very good hints. What a pity you can't apply your own advice, Whelpdale!'

  'Now that's horribly unkind of you!' protested the other. 'You might have spared me this evening. But unfortunately it's quite true, Miss Milvain. I point the way, but I haven't been able to travel it myself. You mustn't think I have never succeeded in getting things published; but I can't keep it up as a profession.

  Your brother is the successful man. A marvellous facility! I envy him. Few men at present writing have such talent.'

  'Please don't make him more conceited than he naturally is,' interposed Dora.

  'What news of Biffen?' asked Jasper, presently.

  'He says he shall finish "Mr Bailey, Grocer," in about a month. He read me one of the later chapters the other night. It's really very fine; most remarkable writing, it seems to me. It will be scandalous if he can't get it published; it will, indeed.'

  'I do hope he may!' said Dora, laughing. 'I have heard so much of "Mr Bailey," that it will be a great disappointment if I am never to read it.'

  'I'm afraid it would give you very little pleasure,' Whelpdale replied, hesitatingly. 'The matter is so very gross.'

  'And the hero grocer!' shouted Jasper, mirthfully. 'Oh, but it's quite decent; only rather depressing. The decently ignoble—or, the ignobly decent? Which is Biffen's formula? I saw him a week ago, and he looked hungrier than ever.'

  'Ah, but poor Reardon! I passed him at King's Cross not long ago.

  He didn't see me—walks with his eyes on the ground always—and I hadn't the courage to stop him. He's the ghost of his old self He can't live long.'

  Dora and her brother exchanged a glance. It was a long time since Jasper had spoken to his sisters about the Reardons; nowadays he seldom heard either of husband or wife.

  The conversation that went on was so agreeable to Whelpdale, that he lost consciousness of time. It was past eleven o'clock when Jasper felt obliged to remind him.

  'Dora, I think I must be taking you home.'

  The visitor at once made ready for departure, and his leave-taking was as respectful as his entrance had been. Though he might not say what he thought, there was very legible upon his countenance a hope that he would again be privileged to meet Miss Dora Milvain.

  'Not a bad fellow, in his way,' said Jasper, when Dora and he were alone again.

  'Not at all.'

  She had heard the story of Whelpdale's hapless wooing half a year ago, and her recollection of it explained the smile with which she spoke.

  'Never get on, I'm afraid,' Jasper pursued. 'He has his allowance of twenty pounds a year, and makes perhaps fifty or sixty more. If I were in his position, I should go in for some kind of regular business; he has people who could help him. Good-natured fellow; but what's the use of that if you've no money?'

  They set out together, and walked to the girls' lodgings. Dora was about to use her latch-key, but Jasper checked her. 'No. There's a light in the kitchen still; better knock, as we're so late.'

  'But why?'

  'Never mind; do as I tell you.'

  The landlady admitted them, and Jasper spoke a word or two with her, explaining that he would wait until his elder sister's return; the darkness of the second-floor windows had shown that Maud was not yet back.

  'What strange fancies you have!' remarked Dora, when they were upstairs.

  'So have people in general, unfortunately.'

  A letter lay on the table. It was addressed to Maud, and Dora recognised the handwriting as that of a Wattleborough friend.

  'There must be some news here,' she said. 'Mrs Haynes wouldn't write unless she had something special to say.

  Just upon midnight, a cab drew up before the house. Dora ran down to open the door to her sister, who came in with very bright eyes and more colour than usual on her cheeks.

  'How late for you to be here!' she exclaimed, on entering the sitting-room and seeing Jasper.

  'I shouldn't have felt comfortable till I knew that you were back all right.'

  'What fear was there?'

  She threw off her wraps, laughing.

  'Well, have you enjoyed yourself?'

  'Oh yes!' she replied, carelessly. 'This letter for me? What has Mrs Haynes got to say, I wonder?'

  She opened the envelope, and began to glance hurriedly over the sheet of paper. Then her face changed.

  'What do you think? Mr Yule is dead!'

  Dora uttered an exclamation; Jasper displayed the keenest interest.

  'He died yesterday—no, it would be the day before yesterday. He had a fit of some kind at a public meeting, was taken to the hospital because it was nearest, and died in a few hours. So that has come, at last! Now what'll be the result of it, I wonder?'

  'When shall you be seeing Marian?' asked her brother.

  'She might come to-morrow evening.'

  'But won't she go to the funeral?' suggested Dora.

  'Perhaps; there's no saying. I suppose her father will, at all events. The day before yesterday? Then the funeral will be on Saturday, I should think.'

  'Ought I to write to Marian?' asked Dora.

  'No; I wouldn't,' was Jasper's reply. 'Better wait till she lets you hear. That's sure to be soon. She may have gone to Wattleborough this afternoon, or be going to-morrow morning.'

  The letter from Mrs Haynes was passed from hand to hand. 'Everybody feels sure,' it said, 'that a great deal of his money will be left for public purposes. The ground for the park being already purchased, he is sure to have made provision for carry
ing out his plans connected with it. But I hope your friends in London may benefit.'

  It was some time before Jasper could put an end to the speculative conversation and betake himself homewards. And even on getting back to his lodgings he was little disposed to go to bed. This event of John Yule's death had been constantly in his mind, but there was always a fear that it might not happen for long enough; the sudden announcement excited him almost as much as if he were a relative of the deceased.

  'Confound his public purposes!' was the thought upon which he at length slept.

  CHAPTER XXI. MR YULE LEAVES TOWN

  Since the domestic incidents connected with that unpleasant review in The Current, the relations between Alfred Yule and his daughter had suffered a permanent change, though not in a degree noticeable by any one but the two concerned. To all appearances, they worked together and conversed very much as they had been wont to do; but Marian was made to feel in many subtle ways that her father no longer had complete confidence in her, no longer took the same pleasure as formerly in the skill and conscientiousness of her work, and Yule on his side perceived too clearly that the girl was preoccupied with something other than her old wish to aid and satisfy him, that she had a new life of her own alien to, and in some respects irreconcilable with, the existence in which he desired to confirm her. There was no renewal of open disagreement, but their conversations frequently ended by tacit mutual consent, at a point which threatened divergence; and in Yule's case every such warning was a cause of intense irritation. He feared to provoke Marian, and this fear was again a torture to his pride.

  Beyond the fact that his daughter was in constant communication with the Miss Milvains, he knew, and could discover, nothing of the terms on which she stood with the girls' brother, and this ignorance was harder to bear than full assurance of a disagreeable fact would have been. That a man like Jasper Milvain, whose name was every now and then forced upon his notice as a rising periodicalist and a faithful henchman of the unspeakable Fadge—that a young fellow of such excellent prospects should seriously attach himself to a girl like Marian seemed to him highly improbable, save, indeed, for the one consideration, that Milvain, who assuredly had a very keen eye to chances, might regard the girl as a niece of old John Yule, and therefore worth holding in view until it was decided whether or not she would benefit by her uncle's decease. Fixed in his antipathy to the young man, he would not allow himself to admit any but a base motive on Milvain's side, if, indeed, Marian and Jasper were more to each other than slight acquaintances; and he persuaded himself that anxiety for the girl's welfare was at least as strong a motive with him as mere prejudice against the ally of Fadge, and, it might be, the reviewer of 'English Prose.' Milvain was quite capable of playing fast and loose with a girl, and Marian, owing to the peculiar circumstances of her position, would easily be misled by the pretence of a clever speculator.

  That she had never spoken again about the review in The Current might receive several explanations. Perhaps she had not been able to convince herself either for or against Milvain's authorship; perhaps she had reason to suspect that the young man was the author; perhaps she merely shrank from reviving a discussion in which she might betray what she desired to keep secret. This last was the truth. Finding that her father did not recur to the subject, Marian concluded that he had found himself to be misinformed. But Yule, though he heard the original rumour denied by people whom in other matters he would have trusted, would not lay aside the doubt that flattered his prejudices. If Milvain were not the writer of the review, he very well might have been; and what certainty could be arrived at in matters of literary gossip?

  There was an element of jealousy in the father's feeling. If he did not love Marian with all the warmth of which a parent is capable, at least he had more affection for her than for any other person, and of this he became strongly aware now that the girl seemed to be turning from him. If he lost Marian, he would indeed be a lonely man, for he considered his wife of no account.

  Intellectually again, he demanded an entire allegiance from his daughter; he could not bear to think that her zeal on his behalf was diminishing, that perhaps she was beginning to regard his work as futile and antiquated in comparison with that of the new generation. Yet this must needs be the result of frequent intercourse with such a man as Milvain. It seemed to him that he remarked it in her speech and manner, and at times he with difficulty restrained himself from a reproach or a sarcasm which would have led to trouble.

  Had he been in the habit of dealing harshly with Marian, as with her mother, of course his position would have been simpler. But he had always respected her, and he feared to lose that measure of respect with which she repaid him. Already he had suffered in her esteem, perhaps more than he liked to think, and the increasing embitterment of his temper kept him always in danger of the conflict he dreaded. Marian was not like her mother; she could not submit to tyrannous usage. Warned of that, he did his utmost to avoid an outbreak of discord, constantly hoping that he might come to understand his daughter's position, and perhaps discover that his greatest fear was unfounded.

  Twice in the course of the summer he inquired of his wife whether she knew anything about the Milvains. But Mrs Yule was not in Marian's confidence.

  'I only know that she goes to see the young ladies, and that they do writing of some kind.'

  'She never even mentions their brother to you?'

  'Never. I haven't heard his name from her since she told me the Miss Milvains weren't coming here again.'

  He was not sorry that Marian had taken the decision to keep her friends away from St Paul's Crescent, for it saved him a recurring annoyance; but, on the other hand, if they had continued to come, he would not have been thus completely in the dark as to her intercourse with Jasper; scraps of information must now and then have been gathered by his wife from the girls' talk.

  Throughout the month of July he suffered much from his wonted bilious attacks, and Mrs Yule had to endure a double share of his ill-temper, that which was naturally directed against her, and that of which Marian was the cause. In August things were slightly better; but with the return to labour came a renewal of Yule's sullenness and savageness. Sundry pieces of ill-luck of a professional kind—warnings, as he too well understood, that it was growing more and more difficult for him to hold his own against the new writers—exasperated his quarrel with destiny. The gloom of a cold and stormy September was doubly wretched in that house on the far borders of Camden Town, but in October the sun reappeared and it seemed to mollify the literary man's mood. Just when Mrs Yule and Marian began to hope that this long distemper must surely come to an end, there befell an incident which, at the best of times, would have occasioned misery, and which in the present juncture proved disastrous.

  It was one morning about eleven. Yule was in his study; Marian was at the Museum; Mrs Yule had gone shopping. There came a sharp knock at the front door, and the servant, on opening, was confronted with a decently-dressed woman, who asked in a peremptory voice if Mrs Yule was at home.

  'No? Then is Mr Yule?'

  'Yes, mum, but I'm afraid he's busy.'

  'I don't care, I must see him. Say that Mrs Goby wants to see him at once.'

  The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the door of the study.

  'Mrs Goby? Who is Mrs Goby?' exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the disturbance.

  There sounded an answer out of the passage, for the visitor had followed close.

  'I am Mrs Goby, of the 'Olloway Road, wife of Mr C. O. Goby, 'aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr Yule, if you please, seeing that Mrs Yule isn't in.'

  Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant had reluctantly given place.

  'What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs Yule, come again when she is at home.'

  'No, Mr Yule, I will not come again!' cried the woman, red in the face. 'I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at a
ll events; but I see you're pretty much like your relations in the way of behaving to people, though you do wear better clothes, and—I s'pose—call yourself a gentleman. I won't come again, and you shall just hear what I've got to say.

  She closed the door violently, and stood in an attitude of robust defiance.

  'What's all this about?' asked the enraged author, overcoming an impulse to take Mrs Goby by the shoulders and throw her out—though he might have found some difficulty in achieving this feat. 'Who are you? And why do you come here with your brawling?'

  'I'm the respectable wife of a respectable man—that's who I am, Mr Yule, if you want to know. And I always thought Mrs Yule was the same, from the dealings we've had with her at the shop, though not knowing any more of her, it's true, except that she lived in St Paul's Crezzent. And so she may be respectable, though I can't say as her husband behaves himself very much like what he pretends to be. But I can't say as much for her relations in Perker Street, 'Olloway, which I s'pose they're your relations as well, at least by marriage. And if they think they're going to insult me, and use their blackguard tongues—'

  'What are you talking about?' shouted Yule, who was driven to frenzy by the mention of his wife's humble family. 'What have I to do with these people?'

  'What have you to do with them? I s'pose they're your relations, ain't they? And I s'pose the girl Annie Rudd is your niece, ain't she? At least, she's your wife's niece, and that comes to the same thing, I've always understood, though I dare say a gentleman as has so many books about him can correct me if I've made a mistake.'

  She looked scornfully, though also with some surprise, round the volumed walls.

  'And what of this girl? Will you have the goodness to say what your business is?'

  'Yes, I will have the goodness! I s'pose you know very well that I took your niece Annie Rudd as a domestic servant'—she repeated this precise definition—'as a domestic servant, because Mrs Yule 'appened to 'arst me if I knew of a place for a girl of that kind, as hadn't been out before, but could be trusted to do her best to give satisfaction to a good mistress? I s'pose you know that?'