New Grub Street - 15

‘And—Milvain?’

‘I suppose so,’ he replied indifferently. ‘But not unless he asks for it. Poor old Biffen, of course; though it’ll make him despise me. Then one for ourselves. That leaves two—to light the fire with. We have been rather short of fire-paper since we couldn’t afford our daily newspaper.’

‘Will you let me give one to Mrs Carter?’

‘As you please.’

He took one set and added it to the row of his productions which stood on a topmost shelf Amy laid her hand upon his shoulder and contemplated the effect of this addition.

‘The works of Edwin Reardon,’ she said, with a smile.

‘The work, at all events—rather a different thing, unfortunately. Amy, if only I were back at the time when I wrote “On Neutral Ground,” and yet had you with me! How full my mind was in those days! Then I had only to look, and I saw something; now I strain my eyes, but can make out nothing more than nebulous grotesques. I used to sit down knowing so well what I had to say; now I strive to invent, and never come at anything. Suppose you pick up a needle with warm, supple fingers; try to do it when your hand is stiff and numb with cold; there’s the difference between my manner of work in those days and what it is now.’

‘But you are going to get back your health. You will write better than ever.’

‘We shall see. Of course there was a great deal of miserable struggle even then, but I remember it as insignificant compared with the hours of contented work. I seldom did anything in the mornings except think and prepare; towards evening I felt myself getting ready, and at last I sat down with the first lines buzzing in my head. And I used to read a great deal at the same time. Whilst I was writing “On Neutral Ground” I went solidly through the “Divina Commedia,” a canto each day. Very often I wrote till after midnight, but occasionally I got my quantum finished much earlier, and then I used to treat myself to a ramble about the streets. I can recall exactly the places where some of my best ideas came to me. You remember the scene in Prendergast’s lodgings? That flashed on me late one night as I was turning out of Leicester Square into the slum that leads to Clare Market; ah, how well I remember! And I went home to my garret in a state of delightful fever, and scribbled notes furiously before going to bed.’

‘Don’t trouble; it’ll all come back to you.’

‘But in those days I hadn’t to think of money. I could look forward and see provision for my needs. I never asked myself what I should get for the book; I assure you, that never came into my head—never. The work was done for its own sake. No hurry to finish it; if I felt that I wasn’t up to the mark, I just waited till the better mood returned. “On Neutral Ground” took me seven months; now I have to write three volumes in nine weeks, with the lash stinging on my back if I miss a day.’

He brooded for a little.

‘I suppose there must be some rich man somewhere who has read one or two of my books with a certain interest. If only I could encounter him and tell him plainly what a cursed state I am in, perhaps he would help me to some means of earning a couple of pounds a week. One has heard of such things.’

‘In the old days.’

‘Yes. I doubt if it ever happens now. Coleridge wouldn’t so easily meet with his Gillman nowadays. Well, I am not a Coleridge, and I don’t ask to be lodged under any man’s roof; but if I could earn money enough to leave me good long evenings unspoilt by fear of the workhouse—’

Amy turned away, and presently went to look after her little boy.

A few days after this they had a visit from Milvain. He came about ten o’clock in the evening.

‘I’m not going to stay,’ he announced. ‘But where’s my copy of “Margaret Home”? I am to have one, I suppose?’

‘I have no particular desire that you should read it,’ returned Reardon.

‘But I HAVE read it, my dear fellow. Got it from the library on the day of publication; I had a suspicion that you wouldn’t send me a copy. But I must possess your opera omnia.’

‘Here it is. Hide it away somewhere.—You may as well sit down for a few minutes.’

‘I confess I should like to talk about the book, if you don’t mind. It isn’t so utterly and damnably bad as you make out, you know. The misfortune was that you had to make three volumes of it. If I had leave to cut it down to one, it would do you credit.

The motive is good enough.’

‘Yes. Just good enough to show how badly it’s managed.’

Milvain began to expatiate on that well-worn topic, the evils of the three-volume system.

‘A triple-headed monster, sucking the blood of English novelists. One might design an allegorical cartoon for a comic literary paper. By-the-bye, why doesn’t such a thing exist?—a weekly paper treating of things and people literary in a facetious spirit. It would be caviare to the general, but might be supported, I should think. The editor would probably be assassinated, though.’

‘For anyone in my position,’ said Reardon, ‘how is it possible to abandon the three volumes? It is a question of payment. An author of moderate repute may live on a yearly three-volume novel—I mean the man who is obliged to sell his book out and out, and who gets from one to two hundred pounds for it. But he would have to produce four one-volume novels to obtain the same income; and I doubt whether he could get so many published within the twelve months. And here comes in the benefit of the libraries; from the commercial point of view the libraries are indispensable. Do you suppose the public would support the present number of novelists if each book had to be purchased? A sudden change to that system would throw three-fourths of the novelists out of work.’

‘But there’s no reason why the libraries shouldn’t circulate novels in one volume.’

‘Profits would be less, I suppose. People would take the minimum subscription.’

‘Well, to go to the concrete, what about your own one-volume?’

‘All but done.’

‘And you’ll offer it to Jedwood? Go and see him personally. He’s a very decent fellow, I believe.’

Milvain stayed only half an hour. The days when he was wont to sit and talk at large through a whole evening were no more; partly because of his diminished leisure, but also for a less simple reason—the growth of something like estrangement between him and Reardon.

‘You didn’t mention your plans,’ said Amy, when the visitor had been gone some time.

‘No.’

Reardon was content with the negative, and his wife made no further remark.

The result of advertising the flat was that two or three persons called to make inspection. One of them, a man of military appearance, showed himself anxious to come to terms; he was willing to take the tenement from next quarter-day (June), but wished, if possible, to enter upon possession sooner than that.

‘Nothing could be better,’ said Amy in colloquy with her husband. ‘If he will pay for the extra time, we shall be only too glad.’

Reardon mused and looked gloomy. He could not bring himself to regard the experiment before him with hopefulness, and his heart sank at the thought of parting from Amy.

‘You are very anxious to get rid of me,’ he answered, trying to smile.

‘Yes, I am,’ she exclaimed; ‘but simply for your own good, as you know very well.’

‘Suppose I can’t sell this book?’

‘You will have a few pounds. Send your “Pliny” article to The Wayside. If you come to an end of all your money, mother shall lend you some.’

‘I am not very likely to do much work in that case.’

‘Oh, but you will sell the book. You’ll get twenty pounds for it, and that alone would keep you for three months. Think—three months of the best part of the year at the seaside! Oh, you will do wonders!’

The furniture was to be housed at Mrs Yule’s. Neither of them durst speak of selling it; that would have sounded too ominous. As for the locality of Reardon’s retreat, Amy herself had suggested Worthing, which she knew from a visit a few years ago; the advantages were its proximity to London, and the likelihood that very cheap lodgings could be found either in the town or near it. One room would suffice for the hapless author, and his expenses, beyond a trifling rent, would be confined to mere food.

Oh yes, he might manage on considerably less than a pound a week.

Amy was in much better spirits than for a long time; she appeared to have convinced herself that there was no doubt of the issue of this perilous scheme; that her husband would write a notable book, receive a satisfactory price for it, and so re-establish their home. Yet her moods varied greatly. After all, there was delay in the letting of the flat, and this caused her annoyance. It was whilst the negotiations were still pending that she made her call upon Maud and Dora Milvain; Reardon did not know of her intention to visit them until it had been carried out. She mentioned what she had done in almost a casual manner.

‘I had to get it over,’ she said, when Reardon exhibited surprise, ‘and I don’t think I made a very favourable impression.’

‘You told them, I suppose, what we are going to do?’

‘No; I didn’t say a word of it.’

‘But why not? It can’t be kept a secret. Milvain will have heard of it already, I should think, from your mother.’

‘From mother? But it’s the rarest thing for him to go there. Do you imagine he is a constant visitor? I thought it better to say nothing until the thing is actually done. Who knows what may happen?’

She was in a strange, nervous state, and Reardon regarded her uneasily. He talked very little in these days, and passed hours in dark reverie. His book was finished, and he awaited the publisher’s decision.






PART THREE






CHAPTER XVI. REJECTION

One of Reardon’s minor worries at this time was the fear that by chance he might come upon a review of ‘Margaret Home.’ Since the publication of his first book he had avoided as far as possible all knowledge of what the critics had to say about him; his nervous temperament could not bear the agitation of reading these remarks, which, however inept, define an author and his work to so many people incapable of judging for themselves. No man or woman could tell him anything in the way of praise or blame which he did not already know quite well; commendation was pleasant, but it so often aimed amiss, and censure was for the most part so unintelligent. In the case of this latest novel he dreaded the sight of a review as he would have done a gash from a rusty knife. The judgments could not but be damnatory, and their expression in journalistic phrase would disturb his mind with evil rancour. No one would have insight enough to appreciate the nature and cause of his book’s demerits; every comment would be wide of the mark; sneer, ridicule, trite objection, would but madden him with a sense of injustice.

His position was illogical—one result of the moral weakness which was allied with his aesthetic sensibility. Putting aside the worthlessness of current reviewing, the critic of an isolated book has of course nothing to do with its author’s state of mind and body any more than with the condition of his purse. Reardon would have granted this, but he could not command his emotions. He was in passionate revolt against the base necessities which compelled him to put forth work in no way representing his healthy powers, his artistic criterion. Not he had written this book, but his accursed poverty. To assail him as the author was, in his feeling, to be guilty of brutal insult. When by ill-hap a notice in one of the daily papers came under his eyes, it made his blood boil with a fierceness of hatred only possible to him in a profoundly morbid condition; he could not steady his hand for half an hour after. Yet this particular critic only said what was quite true—that the novel contained not a single striking scene and not one living character; Reardon had expressed himself about it in almost identical terms. But he saw himself in the position of one sickly and all but destitute man against a relentless world, and every blow directed against him appeared dastardly. He could have cried ‘Coward!’ to the writer who wounded him.

The would-be sensational story which was now in Mr Jedwood’s hands had perhaps more merit than ‘Margaret Home’; its brevity, and the fact that nothing more was aimed at than a concatenation of brisk events, made it not unreadable. But Reardon thought of it with humiliation. If it were published as his next work it would afford final proof to such sympathetic readers as he might still retain that he had hopelessly written himself out, and was now endeavouring to adapt himself to an inferior public. In spite of his dire necessities he now and then hoped that Jedwood might refuse the thing.

At moments he looked with sanguine eagerness to the three or four months he was about to spend in retirement, but such impulses were the mere outcome of his nervous disease. He had no faith in himself under present conditions; the permanence of his sufferings would mean the sure destruction of powers he still possessed, though they were not at his command. Yet he believed that his mind was made up as to the advisability of trying this last resource; he was impatient for the day of departure, and in the interval merely killed time as best he might. He could not read, and did not attempt to gather ideas for his next book; the delusion that his mind was resting made an excuse to him for the barrenness of day after day. His ‘Pliny’ article had been despatched to The Wayside, and would possibly be accepted. But he did not trouble himself about this or other details; it was as though his mind could do nothing more than grasp the bald fact of impending destitution; with the steps towards that final stage he seemed to have little concern.

One evening he set forth to make a call upon Harold Biffen, whom he had not seen since the realist called to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of ‘Margaret Home’ left at his lodgings when he was out. Biffen resided in Clipstone Street, a thoroughfare discoverable in the dim district which lies between Portland Place and Tottenham Court Road. On knocking at the door of the lodging-house, Reardon learnt that his friend was at home. He ascended to the third storey and tapped at a door which allowed rays of lamplight to issue from great gaps above and below. A sound of voices came from within, and on entering he perceived that Biffen was engaged with a pupil.

‘They didn’t tell me you had a visitor,’ he said. ‘I’ll call again later.’

‘No need to go away,’ replied Biffen, coming forward to shake hands. ‘Take a book for a few minutes. Mr Baker won’t mind.’

It was a very small room, with a ceiling so low that the tall lodger could only just stand upright with safety; perhaps three inches intervened between his head and the plaster, which was cracked, grimy, cobwebby. A small scrap of weedy carpet lay in front of the fireplace; elsewhere the chinky boards were unconcealed. The furniture consisted of a round table, which kept such imperfect balance on its central support that the lamp entrusted to it looked in a dangerous position, of three small cane-bottomed chairs, a small wash-hand-stand with sundry rude appurtenances, and a chair-bedstead which the tenant opened at the hour of repose and spread with certain primitive trappings at present kept in a cupboard. There was no bookcase, but a few hundred battered volumes were arranged some on the floor and some on a rough chest. The weather was too characteristic of an English spring to make an empty grate agreeable to the eye, but Biffen held it an axiom that fires were unseasonable after the first of May.

The individual referred to as Mr Baker, who sat at the table in the attitude of a student, was a robust, hard-featured, black-haired young man of two-or three-and-twenty; judging from his weather-beaten cheeks and huge hands, as well as from the garb he wore, one would have presumed that study was not his normal occupation. There was something of the riverside about him; he might be a dockman, or even a bargeman. He looked intelligent, however, and bore himself with much modesty.

‘Now do endeavour to write in shorter sentences,’ said Biffen, who sat down by him and resumed the lesson, Reardon having taken up a volume. ‘This isn’t bad—it isn’t bad at all, I assure you; but you have put all you had to say into three appalling periods, whereas you ought to have made about a dozen.’

‘There it is, sir; there it is!’ exclaimed the man, smoothing his wiry hair. ‘I can’t break it up. The thoughts come in a lump, if I may say so. To break it up—there’s the art of compersition.’

Reardon could not refrain from a glance at the speaker, and Biffen, whose manner was very grave and kindly, turned to his friend with an explanation of the difficulties with which the student was struggling.

‘Mr Baker is preparing for the examination of the outdoor Customs Department. One of the subjects is English composition, and really, you know, that isn’t quite such a simple matter as some people think.’

Baker beamed upon the visitor with a homely, good-natured smile.

‘I can make headway with the other things, sir,’ he said, striking the table lightly with his clenched fist. ‘There’s handwriting, there’s orthography, there’s arithmetic; I’m not afraid of one of ‘em, as Mr Biffen’ll tell you, sir. But when it comes to compersition, that brings out the sweat on my forehead, I do assure you.

‘You’re not the only man in that case, Mr Baker,’ replied Reardon.

‘It’s thought a tough job in general, is it, sir?’

‘It is indeed.’

‘Two hundred marks for compersition,’ continued the man. ‘Now how many would they have given me for this bit of a try, Mr Biffen?’

‘Well, well; I can’t exactly say. But you improve; you improve, decidedly. Peg away for another week or two.’

‘Oh, don’t fear me, sir! I’m not easily beaten when I’ve set my mind on a thing, and I’ll break up the compersition yet, see if I don’t!’

Again his fist descended upon the table in a way that reminded one of the steam-hammer cracking a nut.

The lesson proceeded for about ten minutes, Reardon, under pretence of reading, following it with as much amusement as anything could excite in him nowadays. At length Mr Baker stood up, collected his papers and books, and seemed about to depart; but, after certain uneasy movements and glances, he said to Biffen in a subdued voice:

‘Perhaps I might speak to you outside the door a minute, sir?’

He and the teacher went out, the door closed, and Reardon heard sounds of muffled conversation. In a minute or two a heavy footstep descended the stairs, and Biffen re-entered the room.

‘Now that’s a good, honest fellow,’ he said, in an amused tone. ‘It’s my pay-night, but he didn’t like to fork out money before you. A very unusual delicacy in a man of that standing. He pays me sixpence for an hour’s lesson; that brings me two shillings a week. I sometimes feel a little ashamed to take his money, but then the fact is he’s a good deal better off than I am.’

‘Will he get a place in the Customs, do you think?’

‘Oh, I’ve no doubt of it. If it seemed unlikely, I should have told him so before this. To be sure, that’s a point I have often to consider, and once or twice my delicacy has asserted itself at the expense of my pocket. There was a poor consumptive lad came to me not long ago and wanted Latin lessons; talked about going in for the London Matric., on his way to the pulpit. I couldn’t stand it. After a lesson or two I told him his cough was too bad, and he had no right to study until he got into better health; that was better, I think, than saying plainly he had no chance on earth. But the food I bought with his money was choking me. Oh yes, Baker will make his way right enough. A good, modest fellow.

You noticed how respectfully he spoke to me? It doesn’t make any difference to him that I live in a garret like this; I’m a man of education, and he can separate this fact from my surroundings.’

‘Biffen, why don’t you get some decent position? Surely you might.’

‘What position? No school would take me; I have neither credentials nor conventional clothing. For the same reason I couldn’t get a private tutorship in a rich family. No, no; it’s all right. I keep myself alive, and I get on with my work.—By-the-bye, I’ve decided to write a book called “Mr Bailey, Grocer.”’

‘What’s the idea?’

‘An objectionable word, that. Better say: “What’s the reality?” Well, Mr Bailey is a grocer in a little street by here. I have dealt with him for a long time, and as he’s a talkative fellow I’ve come to know a good deal about him and his history. He’s fond of talking about the struggle he had in his first year of business. He had no money of his own, but he married a woman who had saved forty-five pounds out of a cat’s-meat business. You should see that woman! A big, coarse, squinting creature; at the time of the marriage she was a widow and forty-two years old. Now I’m going to tell the true story of Mr Bailey’s marriage and of his progress as a grocer. It’ll be a great book—a great book!’

He walked up and down the room, fervid with his conception.

‘There’ll be nothing bestial in it, you know. The decently ignoble—as I’ve so often said. The thing’ll take me a year at least. I shall do it slowly, lovingly. One volume, of course; the length of the ordinary French novel. There’s something fine in the title, don’t you think? “Mr Bailey, Grocer”!’

‘I envy you, old fellow,’ said Reardon, sighing. ‘You have the right fire in you; you have zeal and energy. Well, what do you think I have decided to do?’

‘I should like to hear.’

Reardon gave an account of his project. The other listened gravely, seated across a chair with his arms on the back.

‘Your wife is in agreement with this?’

‘Oh yes.’ He could not bring himself to say that Amy had suggested it. ‘She has great hopes that the change will be just what I need.’

‘I should say so too—if you were going to rest. But if you have to set to work at once it seems to me very doubtful.’

‘Never mind. For Heaven’s sake don’t discourage me! If this fails I think—upon my soul, I think I shall kill myself.’

‘Pooh!’ exclaimed Biffen, gently. ‘With a wife like yours?’

‘Just because of that.’

‘No, no; there’ll be some way out of it. By-the-bye, I passed Mrs Reardon this morning, but she didn’t see me. It was in Tottenham Court Road, and Milvain was with her. I felt myself too seedy in appearance to stop and speak.’

‘In Tottenham Court Road?’

That was not the detail of the story which chiefly held Reardon’s attention, yet he did not purposely make a misleading remark. His mind involuntarily played this trick.

‘I only saw them just as they were passing,’ pursued Biffen. ‘Oh, I knew I had something to tell you! Have you heard that Whelpdale is going to be married?’

Reardon shook his head in a preoccupied way.

‘I had a note from him this morning, telling me. He asked me to look him up to-night, and he’d let me know all about it. Let’s go together, shall we?’

‘I don’t feel much in the humour for Whelpdale. I’ll walk with you, and go on home.’

‘No, no; come and see him. It’ll do you good to talk a little.—But I must positively eat a mouthful before we go. I’m afraid you won’t care to join?’

He opened his cupboard, and brought out a loaf of bread and a saucer of dripping, with salt and pepper.

‘Better dripping this than I’ve had for a long time. I get it at Mr Bailey’s—that isn’t his real name, of course. He assures me it comes from a large hotel where his wife’s sister is a kitchen-maid, and that it’s perfectly pure; they very often mix flour with it, you know, and perhaps more obnoxious things that an economical man doesn’t care to reflect upon. Now, with a little pepper and salt, this bread and dripping is as appetising food as I know. I often make a dinner of it.’

‘I have done the same myself before now. Do you ever buy pease-pudding?’

‘I should think so! I get magnificent pennyworths at a shop in Cleveland Street, of a very rich quality indeed. Excellent faggots they have there, too. I’ll give you a supper of them some night before you go.’

Biffen rose to enthusiasm in the contemplation of these dainties.

He ate his bread and dripping with knife and fork; this always made the fare seem more substantial.

‘Is it very cold out?’ he asked, rising from the table. ‘Need I put my overcoat on?’

This overcoat, purchased second-hand three years ago, hung on a door-nail. Comparative ease of circumstances had restored to the realist his ordinary indoor garment—a morning coat of the cloth called diagonal, rather large for him, but in better preservation than the other articles of his attire.

Reardon judging the overcoat necessary, his friend carefully brushed it and drew it on with a caution which probably had reference to starting seams. Then he put into the pocket his pipe, his pouch, his tobacco-stopper, and his matches, murmuring to himself a Greek iambic line which had come into his head a propos of nothing obvious.

‘Go out,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll extinguish the lamp. Mind the second step down, as usual.’

They issued into Clipstone Street, turned northward, crossed Euston Road, and came into Albany Street, where, in a house of decent exterior, Mr Whelpdale had his present abode. A girl who opened the door requested them to walk up to the topmost storey.

A cheery voice called to them from within the room at which they knocked. This lodging spoke more distinctly of civilisation than that inhabited by Biffen; it contained the minimum supply of furniture needed to give it somewhat the appearance of a study, but the articles were in good condition. One end of the room was concealed by a chintz curtain; scrutiny would have discovered behind the draping the essential equipments of a bedchamber.

Mr Whelpdale sat by the fire, smoking a cigar. He was a plain-featured but graceful and refined-looking man of thirty, with wavy chestnut hair and a trimmed beard which became him well. At present he wore a dressing-gown and was without collar.

‘Welcome, gents both!’ he cried facetiously. ‘Ages since I saw you, Reardon. I’ve been reading your new book. Uncommonly good things in it here and there—uncommonly good.’

Whelpdale had the weakness of being unable to tell a disagreeable truth, and a tendency to flattery which had always made Reardon rather uncomfortable in his society. Though there was no need whatever of his mentioning ‘Margaret Home,’ he preferred to frame smooth fictions rather than keep a silence which might be construed as unfavourable criticism.

‘In the last volume,’ he went on, ‘I think there are one or two things as good as you ever did; I do indeed.’

Reardon made no acknowledgment of these remarks. They irritated him, for he knew their insincerity. Biffen, understanding his friend’s silence, struck in on another subject.

‘Who is this lady of whom you write to me?’

‘Ah, quite a story! I’m going to be married, Reardon. A serious marriage. Light your pipes, and I’ll tell you all about it. Startled you, I suppose, Biffen? Unlikely news, eh? Some people would call it a rash step, I dare say. We shall just take another room in this house, that’s all. I think I can count upon an income of a couple of guineas a week, and I have plans without end that are pretty sure to bring in coin.’

Reardon did not care to smoke, but Biffen lit his pipe and waited with grave interest for the romantic narrative. Whenever he heard of a poor man’s persuading a woman to share his poverty he was eager of details; perchance he himself might yet have that heavenly good fortune.

‘Well,’ began Whelpdale, crossing his legs and watching a wreath he had just puffed from the cigar, ‘you know all about my literary advisership. The business goes on reasonably well. I’m going to extend it in ways I’ll explain to you presently. About six weeks ago I received a letter from a lady who referred to my advertisements, and said she had the manuscript of a novel which she would like to offer for my opinion. Two publishers had refused it, but one with complimentary phrases, and she hoped it mightn’t be impossible to put the thing into acceptable shape. Of course I wrote optimistically, and the manuscript was sent to me.