New Grub Street

‘Your anger goes beyond all bounds. At the very worst, mother behaved imprudently, and with a very good motive. It is cruel that you should make her suffer as she is doing.’

Marian was being strengthened to resist. Her blood grew hot; the sensation which once before had brought her to the verge of conflict with her father possessed her heart and brain.

‘You are not a suitable judge of my behaviour,’ replied Yule, severely.

‘I am driven to speak. We can’t go on living in this way, father. For months our home has been almost ceaselessly wretched, because of the ill-temper you are always in. Mother and I must defend ourselves; we can’t bear it any longer. You must surely feel how ridiculous it is to make such a thing as happened this morning the excuse for violent anger. How can I help judging your behaviour? When mother is brought to the point of saying that she would rather leave home and everything than endure her misery any longer, I should be wrong if I didn’t speak to you. Why are you so unkind? What serious cause has mother ever given you?’

‘I refuse to argue such questions with you.’

‘Then you are very unjust. I am not a child, and there’s nothing wrong in my asking you why home is made a place of misery, instead of being what home ought to be.’

‘You prove that you are a child, in asking for explanations which ought to be clear enough to you.’

‘You mean that mother is to blame for everything?’

‘The subject is no fit one to be discussed between a father and his daughter. If you cannot see the impropriety of it, be so good as to go away and reflect, and leave me to my occupations.’

Marian came to a pause. But she knew that his rebuke was mere unworthy evasion; she saw that her father could not meet her look, and this perception of shame in him impelled her to finish what she had begun.

‘I will say nothing of mother, then, but speak only for myself. I suffer too much from your unkindness; you ask too much endurance.’

‘You mean that I exact too much work from you?’ asked her father, with a look which might have been directed to a recalcitrant clerk.

‘No. But that you make the conditions of my work too hard. I live in constant fear of your anger.’

‘Indeed? When did I last ill-use you, or threaten you?’

‘I often think that threats, or even ill-usage, would be easier to bear than an unchanging gloom which always seems on the point of breaking into violence.’

‘I am obliged to you for your criticism of my disposition and manner, but unhappily I am too old to reform. Life has made me what I am, and I should have thought that your knowledge of what my life has been would have gone far to excuse a lack of cheerfulness in me.’

The irony of this laborious period was full of self-pity. His voice quavered at the close, and a tremor was noticeable in his stiff frame.

‘It isn’t lack of cheerfulness that I mean, father. That could never have brought me to speak like this.’

‘If you wish me to admit that I am bad-tempered, surly, irritable—I make no difficulty about that. The charge is true enough. I can only ask you again: What are the circumstances that have ruined my temper? When you present yourself here with a general accusation of my behaviour, I am at a loss to understand what you ask of me, what you wish me to say or do. I must beg you to speak plainly. Are you suggesting that I should make provision for the support of you and your mother away from my intolerable proximity? My income is not large, as I think you are aware, but of course, if a demand of this kind is seriously made, I must do my best to comply with it.’

‘It hurts me very much that you can understand me no better than this.’

‘I am sorry. I think we used to understand each other, but that was before you were subjected to the influence of strangers.’

In his perverse frame of mind he was ready to give utterance to any thought which confused the point at issue. This last allusion was suggested to him by a sudden pang of regret for the pain he was causing Marian; he defended himself against self-reproach by hinting at the true reason of much of his harshness.

‘I am subjected to no influence that is hostile to you,’ Marian replied.

‘You may think that. But in such a matter it is very easy for you to deceive yourself.’

‘Of course I know what you refer to, and I can assure you that I don’t deceive myself.’

Yule flashed a searching glance at her.

‘Can you deny that you are on terms of friendship with a—a person who would at any moment rejoice to injure me?’

‘I am friendly with no such person. Will you say whom you are thinking of?’

‘It would be useless. I have no wish to discuss a subject on which we should only disagree unprofitably.’

Marian kept silence for a moment, then said in a low, unsteady voice:

‘It is perhaps because we never speak of that subject that we are so far from understanding each other. If you think that Mr Milvain is your enemy, that he would rejoice to injure you, you are grievously mistaken.’

‘When I see a man in close alliance with my worst enemy, and looking to that enemy for favour, I am justified in thinking that he would injure me if the right kind of opportunity offered. One need not be very deeply read in human nature to have assurance of that.’

‘But I know Mr Milvain!’

‘You know him?’

‘Far better than you can, I am sure. You draw conclusions from general principles; but I know that they don’t apply in this case.’

‘I have no doubt you sincerely think so. I repeat that nothing can be gained by such a discussion as this.’

‘One thing I must tell you. There was no truth in your suspicion that Mr Milvain wrote that review in The Current. He assured me himself that he was not the writer, that he had nothing to do with it.’

Yule looked askance at her, and his face displayed solicitude, which soon passed, however, into a smile of sarcasm.

‘The gentleman’s word no doubt has weight with you.’

‘Father, what do you mean?’ broke from Marian, whose eyes of a sudden flashed stormily. ‘Would Mr Milvain tell me a lie?’

‘I shouldn’t like to say that it is impossible,’ replied her father in the same tone as before.

‘But—what right have you to insult him so grossly?’

‘I have every right, my dear child, to express an opinion about him or any other man, provided I do it honestly. I beg you not to strike attitudes and address me in the language of the stage. You insist on my speaking plainly, and I have spoken plainly. I warned you that we were not likely to agree on this topic.’

‘Literary quarrels have made you incapable of judging honestly in things such as this. I wish I could have done for ever with the hateful profession that so poisons men’s minds.’

‘Believe me, my girl,’ said her father, incisively, ‘the simpler thing would be to hold aloof from such people as use the profession in a spirit of unalloyed selfishness, who seek only material advancement, and who, whatever connection they form, have nothing but self-interest in view.’

And he glared at her with much meaning. Marian—both had remained standing all through the dialogue—cast down her eyes and became lost in brooding.

‘I speak with profound conviction,’ pursued her father, ‘and, however little you credit me with such a motive, out of desire to guard you against the dangers to which your inexperience is exposed. It is perhaps as well that you have afforded me this—’

There sounded at the house-door that duplicated double-knock which generally announces the bearer of a telegram. Yule interrupted himself, and stood in an attitude of waiting. The servant was heard to go along the passage, to open the door, and then return towards the study. Yes, it was a telegram. Such despatches rarely came to this house; Yule tore the envelope, read its contents, and stood with gaze fixed upon the slip of paper until the servant inquired if there was any reply for the boy to take with him.

‘No reply.’

He slowly crumpled the envelope, and stepped aside to throw it into the paper-basket. The telegram he laid on his desk. Marian stood all the time with bent head; he now looked at her with an expression of meditative displeasure.

‘I don’t know that there’s much good in resuming our conversation,’ he said, in quite a changed tone, as if something of more importance had taken possession of his thoughts and had made him almost indifferent to the past dispute. ‘But of course I am quite willing to hear anything you would still like to say.

Marian had lost her vehemence. She was absent and melancholy.

‘I can only ask you,’ she replied, ‘to try and make life less of a burden to us.’

‘I shall have to leave town to-morrow for a few days; no doubt it will be some satisfaction to you to hear that.’

Marian’s eyes turned involuntarily towards the telegram.

‘As for your occupation in my absence,’ he went on, in a hard tone which yet had something tremulous, emotional, making it quite different from the voice he had hitherto used, ‘that will be entirely a matter for your own judgment. I have felt for some time that you assisted me with less good-will than formerly, and now that you have frankly admitted it, I shall of course have very little satisfaction in requesting your aid. I must leave it to you; consult your own inclination.’

It was resentful, but not savage; between the beginning and the end of his speech he softened to a sort of self-satisfied pathos.

‘I can’t pretend,’ replied Marian, ‘that I have as much pleasure in the work as I should have if your mood were gentler.’

‘I am sorry. I might perhaps have made greater efforts to appear at ease when I was suffering.’

‘Do you mean physical suffering?’

‘Physical and mental. But that can’t concern you. During my absence I will think of your reproof. I know that it is deserved, in some degree. If it is possible, you shall have less to complain of in future.’

He looked about the room, and at length seated himself; his eyes were fixed in a direction away from Marian.

‘I suppose you had dinner somewhere?’ Marian asked, after catching a glimpse of his worn, colourless face.

‘Oh, I had a mouthful of something. It doesn’t matter.’

It seemed as if he found some special pleasure in assuming this tone of martyrdom just now. At the same time he was becoming more absorbed in thought.

‘Shall I have something brought up for you, father?’

‘Something—? Oh no, no; on no account.’

He rose again impatiently, then approached his desk, and laid a hand on the telegram. Marian observed this movement, and examined his face; it was set in an expression of eagerness.

‘You have nothing more to say, then?’ He turned sharply upon her.

‘I feel that I haven’t made you understand me, but I can say nothing more.’

‘I understand you very well—too well. That you should misunderstand and mistrust me, I suppose, is natural. You are young, and I am old. You are still full of hope, and I have been so often deceived and defeated that I dare not let a ray of hope enter my mind. Judge me; judge me as hardly as you like. My life has been one long, bitter struggle, and if now—. I say,’ he began a new sentence, ‘that only the hard side of life has been shown to me; small wonder if I have become hard myself. Desert me; go your own Way, as the young always do. But bear in mind my warning. Remember the caution I have given you.’

He spoke in a strangely sudden agitation. The arm with which he leaned upon the table trembled violently. After a moment’s pause he added, in a thick voice:

‘Leave me. I will speak to you again in the morning.’

Impressed in a way she did not understand, Marian at once obeyed, and rejoined her mother in the parlour. Mrs Yule gazed anxiously at her as she entered.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Marian, with difficulty bringing herself to speak. ‘I think it will be better.’

‘Was that a telegram that came?’ her mother inquired after a silence.

‘Yes. I don’t know where it was from. But father said he would have to leave town for a few days.’

They exchanged looks.

‘Perhaps your uncle is very ill,’ said the mother in a low voice.

‘Perhaps so.’

The evening passed drearily. Fatigued with her emotions, Marian went early to bed; she even slept later than usual in the morning, and on descending she found her father already at the breakfast-table. No greeting passed, and there was no conversation during the meal. Marian noticed that her mother kept glancing at her in a peculiarly grave way; but she felt ill and dejected, and could fix her thoughts on no subject. As he left the table Yule said to her:

‘I want to speak to you for a moment. I shall be in the study.’

She joined him there very soon. He looked coldly at her, and said in a distant tone:

‘The telegram last night was to tell me that your uncle is dead.’

‘Dead!’

‘He died of apoplexy, at a meeting in Wattleborough. I shall go down this morning, and of course remain till after the funeral. I see no necessity for your going, unless, of course, it is your desire to do so.’

‘No; I should do as you wish.’

‘I think you had better not go to the Museum whilst I am away. You will occupy yourself as you think fit.’

‘I shall go on with the Harrington notes.’

‘As you please. I don’t know what mourning it would be decent for you to wear; you must consult with your mother about that. That is all I wished to say.’

His tone was dismissal. Marian had a struggle with herself but she could find nothing to reply to his cold phrases. And an hour or two afterwards Yule left the house without leave-taking.

Soon after his departure there was a visitor’s rat-tat at the door; it heralded Mrs Goby. In the interview which then took place Marian assisted her mother to bear the vigorous onslaughts of the haberdasher’s wife. For more than two hours Mrs Goby related her grievances, against the fugitive servant, against Mrs Yule, against Mr Yule; meeting with no irritating opposition, she was able in this space of time to cool down to the temperature of normal intercourse, and when she went forth from the house again it was in a mood of dignified displeasure which she felt to be some recompense for the injuries of yesterday.

A result of this annoyance was to postpone conversation between mother and daughter on the subject of John Yule’s death until a late hour of the afternoon. Marian was at work in the study, or endeavouring to work, for her thoughts would not fix themselves on the matter in hand for many minutes together, and Mrs Yule came in with more than her customary diffidence.

‘Have you nearly done for to-day, dear?’

‘Enough for the present, I think.’

She laid down her pen, and leant back in the chair.

‘Marian, do you think your father will be rich?’

‘I have no idea, mother. I suppose we shall know very soon.’

Her tone was dreamy. She seemed to herself to be speaking of something which scarcely at all concerned her, of vague possibilities which did not affect her habits of thought.

‘If that happens,’ continued Mrs Yule, in a low tone of distress, ‘I don’t know what I shall do.’

Marian looked at her questioningly.

‘I can’t wish that it mayn’t happen,’ her mother went on; ‘I can’t, for his sake and for yours; but I don’t know what I shall do. He’d think me more in his way than ever. He’d wish to have a large house, and live in quite a different way; and how could I manage then? I couldn’t show myself; he’d be too much ashamed of me. I shouldn’t be in my place; even you’d feel ashamed of me.’

‘You mustn’t say that, mother. I have never given you cause to think that.’

‘No, my dear, you haven’t; but it would be only natural. I couldn’t live the kind of life that you’re fit for. I shall be nothing but a hindrance and a shame to both of you.’

‘To me you would never be either hindrance or shame; be quite sure of that. And as for father, I am all but certain that, if he became rich, he would be a very much kinder man, a better man in every way. It is poverty that has made him worse than he naturally is; it has that effect on almost everybody. Money does harm, too, sometimes; but never, I think, to people who have a good heart and a strong mind. Father is naturally a warm-hearted man; riches would bring out all the best in him. He would be generous again, which he has almost forgotten how to be among all his disappointments and battlings. Don’t be afraid of that change, but hope for it.’

Mrs Yule gave a troublous sigh, and for a few minutes pondered anxiously.

‘I wasn’t thinking so much about myself’ she said at length. ‘It’s the hindrance I should be to father. Just because of me, he mightn’t be able to use his money as he’d wish. He’d always be feeling that if it wasn’t for me things would be so much better for him and for you as well.’

‘You must remember,’ Marian replied, ‘that at father’s age people don’t care to make such great changes. His home life, I feel sure, wouldn’t be so very different from what it is now; he would prefer to use his money in starting a paper or magazine. I know that would be his first thought. If more acquaintances came to his house, what would that matter? It isn’t as if he wished for fashionable society. They would be literary people, and why ever shouldn’t you meet with them?’

‘I’ve always been the reason why he couldn’t have many friends.’

‘That’s a great mistake. If father ever said that, in his bad temper, he knew it wasn’t the truth. The chief reason has always been his poverty. It costs money to entertain friends; time as well. Don’t think in this anxious way, mother. If we are to be rich, it will be better for all of us.’

Marian had every reason for seeking to persuade herself that this was true. In her own heart there was a fear of how wealth might affect her father, but she could not bring herself to face the darker prospect. For her so much depended on that hope of a revival of generous feeling under sunny influences.

It was only after this conversation that she began to reflect on all the possible consequences of her uncle’s death. As yet she had been too much disturbed to grasp as a reality the event to which she had often looked forward, though as to something still remote, and of quite uncertain results. Perhaps at this moment, though she could not know it, the course of her life had undergone the most important change. Perhaps there was no more need for her to labour upon this ‘article’ she was manufacturing.

She did not think it probable that she herself would benefit directly by John Yule’s will. There was no certainty that even her father would, for he and his brother had never been on cordial terms. But on the whole it seemed likely that he would inherit money enough to free him from the toil of writing for periodicals. He himself anticipated that. What else could be the meaning of those words in which (and it was before the arrival of the news) he had warned her against ‘people who made connections only with self-interest in view?’ This threw a sudden light upon her father’s attitude towards Jasper Milvain. Evidently he thought that Jasper regarded her as a possible heiress, sooner or later. That suspicion was rankling in his mind; doubtless it intensified the prejudice which originated in literary animosity.

Was there any truth in his suspicion? She did not shrink from admitting that there might be. Jasper had from the first been so frank with her, had so often repeated that money was at present his chief need. If her father inherited substantial property, would it induce Jasper to declare himself more than her friend? She could view the possibility of that, and yet not for a moment be shaken in her love. It was plain that Jasper could not think of marrying until his position and prospects were greatly improved; practically, his sisters depended upon him. What folly it would be to draw back if circumstances led him to avow what hitherto he had so slightly disguised! She had the conviction that he valued her for her own sake; if the obstacle between them could only be removed, what matter how?

Would he be willing to abandon Clement Fadge, and come over to her father’s side? If Yule were able to found a magazine?

Had she read or heard of a girl who went so far in concessions, Marian would have turned away, her delicacy offended. In her own case she could indulge to the utmost that practicality which colours a woman’s thought even in mid passion. The cold exhibition of ignoble scheming will repel many a woman who, for her own heart’s desire, is capable of that same compromise with her strict sense of honour.

Marian wrote to Dora Milvain, telling her what had happened. But she refrained from visiting her friends.

Each night found her more restless, each morning less able to employ herself. She shut herself in the study merely to be alone with her thoughts, to be able to walk backwards and forwards, or sit for hours in feverish reverie. From her father came no news. Her mother was suffering dreadfully from suspense, and often had eyes red with weeping. Absorbed in her own hopes and fears, whilst every hour harassed her more intolerably, Marian was unable to play the part of an encourager; she had never known such exclusiveness of self-occupation.

Yule’s return was unannounced. Early in the afternoon, when he had been absent five days, he entered the house, deposited his travelling-bag in the passage, and went upstairs. Marian had come out of the study just in time to see him up on the first landing; at the same moment Mrs Yule ascended from the kitchen.

‘Wasn’t that father?’

‘Yes, he has gone up.’

‘Did he say anything?’

Marian shook her head. They looked at the travelling-bag, then went into the parlour and waited in silence for more than a quarter of an hour. Yule’s foot was heard on the stairs; he came down slowly, paused in the passage, entered the parlour with his usual grave, cold countenance.