New Grub Street - 36

The next morning it was he who had to wait at the rendezvous; he was pacing the pathway at least ten minutes before the appointed time. When Marian joined him, she was panting from a hurried walk, and this affected Jasper disagreeably; he thought of Amy Reardon’s air of repose, and how impossible it would be for that refined person to fall into such disorder. He observed, too, with more disgust than usual, the signs in Marian’s attire of encroaching poverty—her unsatisfactory gloves, her mantle out of fashion. Yet for such feelings he reproached himself, and the reproach made him angry.

They walked together in the same direction as when they met here before. Marian could not mistake the air of restless trouble on her companion’s smooth countenance. She had divined that there was some grave reason for this summons, and the panting with which she had approached was half caused by the anxious beats of her heart. Jasper’s long silence again was ominous. He began abruptly:

‘You’ve heard that Harold Biffen has committed suicide?’

‘No!’ she replied, looking shocked.

‘Poisoned himself. You’ll find something about it in today’s Telegraph.’

He gave her such details as he had obtained, then added:

‘There are two of my companions fallen in the battle. I ought to think myself a lucky fellow, Marian. What?’

‘You are better fitted to fight your way, Jasper.’

‘More of a brute, you mean.’

‘You know very well I don’t. You have more energy and more intellect.’

‘Well, it remains to be seen how I shall come out when I am weighted with graver cares than I have yet known.’

She looked at him inquiringly, but said nothing.

‘I have made up my mind about our affairs,’ he went on presently. ‘Marian, if ever we are to be married, it must be now.’

The words were so unexpected that they brought a flush to her cheeks and neck.

‘Now?’

‘Yes. Will you marry me, and let us take our chance?’

Her heart throbbed violently.

‘You don’t mean at once, Jasper? You would wait until I know what father’s fate is to be?’

‘Well, now, there’s the point. You feel yourself indispensable to your father at present?’

‘Not indispensable, but—wouldn’t it seem very unkind? I should be so afraid of the effect upon his health, Jasper. So much depends, we are told, upon his general state of mind and body. It would be dreadful if I were the cause of—’

She paused, and looked up at him touchingly.

‘I understand that. But let us face our position. Suppose the operation is successful; your father will certainly not be able to use his eyes much for a long time, if ever; and perhaps he would miss you as much then as now. Suppose he does not regain his sight; could you then leave him?’

‘Dear, I can’t feel it would be my duty to renounce you because my father had become blind. And if he can see pretty well, I don’t think I need remain with him.’

‘Has one thing occurred to you? Will he consent to receive an allowance from a person whose name is Mrs Milvain?’

‘I can’t be sure,’ she replied, much troubled.

‘And if he obstinately refuses—what then? What is before him?’

Marian’s head sank, and she stood still.

‘Why have you changed your mind so, Jasper?’ she inquired at length.

‘Because I have decided that the indefinitely long engagement would be unjust to you—and to myself. Such engagements are always dangerous; sometimes they deprave the character of the man or woman.’

She listened anxiously and reflected.

‘Everything,’ he went on, ‘would be simple enough but for your domestic difficulties. As I have said, there is the very serious doubt whether your father would accept money from you when you are my wife. Then again, shall we be able to afford such an allowance?’

‘I thought you felt sure of that?’

‘I’m not very sure of anything, to tell the truth. I am harassed.

I can’t get on with my work.’

‘I am very, very sorry.’

‘It isn’t your fault, Marian, and—Well, then, there’s only one thing to do. Let us wait, at all events, till your father has undergone the operation. Whichever the result, you say your own position will be the same.’

‘Except, Jasper, that if father is helpless, I must find means of assuring his support.’

‘In other words, if you can’t do that as my wife, you must remain Marian Yule.’

After a silence, Marian regarded him steadily.

‘You see only the difficulties in our way,’ she said, in a colder voice. ‘They are many, I know. Do you think them insurmountable?’

‘Upon my word, they almost seem so,’ Jasper exclaimed, distractedly.

‘They were not so great when we spoke of marriage a few years hence.’

‘A few years!’ he echoed, in a cheerless voice. ‘That is just what I have decided is impossible. Marian, you shall have the plain truth. I can trust your faith, but I can’t trust my own. I will marry you now, but—years hence—how can I tell what may happen? I don’t trust myself.’

‘You say you “will” marry me now; that sounds as if you had made up your mind to a sacrifice.’

‘I didn’t mean that. To face difficulties, yes.’

Whilst they spoke, the sky had grown dark with a heavy cloud, and now spots of rain began to fall. Jasper looked about him in annoyance as he felt the moisture, but Marian did not seem aware of it.

‘But shall you face them willingly?’

‘I am not a man to repine and grumble. Put up your umbrella, Marian.’

‘What do I care for a drop of rain,’ she exclaimed with passionate sadness, ‘when all my life is at stake! How am I to understand you? Every word you speak seems intended to dishearten me. Do you no longer love me? Why need you conceal it, if that is the truth? Is that what you mean by saying you distrust yourself?

If you do so, there must be reason for it in the present. Could I distrust myself? Can I force myself in any manner to believe that I shall ever cease to love you?’

Jasper opened his umbrella.

‘We must see each other again, Marian. We can’t stand and talk in the rain—confound it! Cursed climate, where you can never be sure of a clear sky for five minutes!’

‘I can’t go till you have spoken more plainly, Jasper! How am I to live an hour in such uncertainty as this? Do you love me or not? Do you wish me to be your wife, or are you sacrificing yourself?’

‘I do wish it!’ Her emotion had an effect upon him, and his voice trembled. ‘But I can’t answer for myself—no, not for a year. And how are we to marry now, in face of all these—’

‘What can I do? What can I do?’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, if I were but heartless to everyone but to you! If I could give you my money, and leave my father and mother to their fate! Perhaps some could do that. There is no natural law that a child should surrender everything for her parents. You know so much more of the world than I do; can’t you advise me? Is there no way of providing for my father?’

‘Good God! This is frightful, Marian. I can’t stand it. Live as you are doing. Let us wait and see.’

‘At the cost of losing you?’

‘I will be faithful to you!’

‘And your voice says you promise it out of pity.’

He had made a pretence of holding his umbrella over her, but Marian turned away and walked to a little distance, and stood beneath the shelter of a great tree, her face averted from him. Moving to follow, he saw that her frame was shaken by soundless sobbing. When his footsteps came close to her, she again looked at him.

‘I know now,’ she said, ‘how foolish it is when they talk of love being unselfish. In what can there be more selfishness? I feel as if I could hold you to your promise at any cost, though you have made me understand that you regard our engagement as your great misfortune. I have felt it for weeks—oh, for months! But I couldn’t say a word that would seem to invite such misery as this. You don’t love me, Jasper, and that’s an end of everything.

I should be shamed if I married you.’

‘Whether I love you or not, I feel as if no sacrifice would be too great that would bring you the happiness you deserve.’

‘Deserve!’ she repeated bitterly. ‘Why do I deserve it? Because I long for it with all my heart and soul? There’s no such thing as deserving. Happiness or misery come to us by fate.’

‘Is it in my power to make you happy?’

‘No; because it isn’t in your power to call dead love to life again. I think perhaps you never loved me. Jasper, I could give my right hand if you had said you loved me before—I can’t put it into words; it sounds too base, and I don’t wish to imply that you behaved basely. But if you had said you loved me before that, I should have it always to remember.’

‘You will do me no wrong if you charge me with baseness,’ he replied gloomily. ‘If I believe anything, I believe that I did love you. But I knew myself and I should never have betrayed what I felt, if for once in my life I could have been honourable.’

The rain pattered on the leaves and the grass, and still the sky darkened.

‘This is wretchedness to both of us,’ Jasper added. ‘Let us part now, Marian. Let me see you again.’

‘I can’t see you again. What can you say to me more than you have said now? I should feel like a beggar coming to you. I must try and keep some little self-respect, if I am to live at all.’

‘Then let me help you to think of me with indifference. Remember me as a man who disregarded priceless love such as yours to go and make himself a proud position among fools and knaves—indeed that’s what it comes to. It is you who reject me, and rightly. One who is so much at the mercy of a vulgar ambition as I am, is no fit husband for you. Soon enough you would thoroughly despise me, and though I should know it was merited, my perverse pride would revolt against it. Many a time I have tried to regard life practically as I am able to do theoretically, but it always ends in hypocrisy. It is men of my kind who succeed; the conscientious, and those who really have a high ideal, either perish or struggle on in neglect.’

Marian had overcome her excess of emotion.

‘There is no need to disparage yourself’ she said. ‘What can be simpler than the truth? You loved me, or thought you did, and now you love me no longer. It is a thing that happens every day, either in man or woman, and all that honour demands is the courage to confess the truth. Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew that I was burdensome to you?’

‘Marian, will you do this?—will you let our engagement last for another six months, but without our meeting during that time?’

‘But to what purpose?’

‘Then we would see each other again, and both would be able to speak calmly, and we should both know with certainty what course we ought to pursue.’

‘That seems to me childish. It is easy for you to contemplate months of postponement. There must be an end now; I can bear it no longer.’

The rain fell unceasingly, and with it began to mingle an autumnal mist. Jasper delayed a moment, then asked calmly:

‘Are you going to the Museum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go home again for this morning, Marian. You can’t work—’

‘I must; and I have no time to lose. Good-bye!’

She gave him her hand. They looked at each other for an instant, then Marian left the shelter of the tree, opened her umbrella, and walked quickly away. Jasper did not watch her; he had the face of a man who is suffering a severe humiliation.

A few hours later he told Dora what had come to pass, and without extenuation of his own conduct. His sister said very little, for she recognised genuine suffering in his tones and aspect. But when it was over, she sat down and wrote to Marian.

‘I feel far more disposed to congratulate you than to regret what has happened. Now that there is no necessity for silence, I will tell you something which will help you to see Jasper in his true light. A few weeks ago he actually proposed to a woman for whom he does not pretend to have the slightest affection, but who is very rich, and who seemed likely to be foolish enough to marry him. Yesterday morning he received her final answer—a refusal. I am not sure that I was right in keeping this a secret from you, but I might have done harm by interfering. You will understand (though surely you need no fresh proof) how utterly unworthy he is of you. You cannot, I am sure you cannot, regard it as a misfortune that all is over between you. Dearest Marian, do not cease to think of me as your friend because my brother has disgraced himself. If you can’t see me, at least let us write to each other. You are the only friend I have of my own sex, and I could not bear to lose you.’

And much more of the same tenor.

Several days passed before there came a reply. It was written with undisturbed kindness of feeling, but in few words.

‘For the present we cannot see each other, but I am very far from wishing that our friendship should come to an end. I must only ask that you will write to me without the least reference to these troubles; tell me always about yourself, and be sure that you cannot tell me too much. I hope you may soon be able to send me the news which was foreshadowed in our last talk—though “foreshadowed” is a wrong word to use of coming happiness, isn’t it? That paper I sent to Mr Trenchard is accepted, and I shall be glad to have your criticism when it comes out; don’t spare my style, which needs a great deal of chastening. I have been thinking: couldn’t you use your holiday in Sark for a story? To judge from your letters, you could make an excellent background of word-painting.’

Dora sighed, and shook her little head, and thought of her brother with unspeakable disdain.






CHAPTER XXXVII. REWARDS

When the fitting moment arrived, Alfred Yule underwent an operation for cataract, and it was believed at first that the result would be favourable. This hope had but short duration; though the utmost prudence was exercised, evil symptoms declared themselves, and in a few months’ time all prospect of restoring his vision was at an end. Anxiety, and then the fatal assurance, undermined his health; with blindness, there fell upon him the debility of premature old age.

The position of the family was desperate. Marian had suffered much all the winter from attacks of nervous disorder, and by no effort of will could she produce enough literary work to supplement adequately the income derived from her fifteen hundred pounds. In the summer of 1885 things were at the worst; Marian saw no alternative but to draw upon her capital, and so relieve the present at the expense of the future. She had a mournful warning before her eyes in the case of poor Hinks and his wife, who were now kept from the workhouse only by charity. But at this juncture the rescuer appeared. Mr Quarmby and certain of his friends were already making a subscription for the Yules’ benefit, when one of their number—Mr Jedwood, the publisher—came forward with a proposal which relieved the minds of all concerned. Mr Jedwood had a brother who was the director of a public library in a provincial town, and by this means he was enabled to offer Marian Yule a place as assistant in that institution; she would receive seventy-five pounds a year, and thus, adding her own income, would be able to put her parents beyond the reach of want. The family at once removed from London, and the name of Yule was no longer met with in periodical literature.

By an interesting coincidence, it was on the day of this departure that there appeared a number of The West End in which the place of honour, that of the week’s Celebrity, was occupied by Clement Fadge. A coloured portrait of this illustrious man challenged the admiration of all who had literary tastes, and two columns of panegyric recorded his career for the encouragement of aspiring youth. This article, of course unsigned, came from the pen of Jasper Milvain.

It was only by indirect channels that Jasper learnt how Marian and her parents had been provided for. Dora’s correspondence with her friend soon languished; in the nature of things this could not but happen; and about the time when Alfred Yule became totally blind the girls ceased to hear anything of each other. An event which came to pass in the spring sorely tempted Dora to write, but out of good feeling she refrained.

For it was then that she at length decided to change her name for that of Whelpdale. Jasper could not quite reconcile himself to this condescension; in various discourses he pointed out to his sister how much higher she might look if she would only have a little patience.

‘Whelpdale will never be a man of any note. A good fellow, I admit, but borne in all senses. Let me impress upon you, my dear girl, that I have a future before me, and that there is no reason—with your charm of person and mind—why you should not marry brilliantly. Whelpdale can give you a decent home, I admit, but as regards society he will be a drag upon you.’

‘It happens, Jasper, that I have promised to marry him,’ replied Dora, in a significant tone.

‘Well, I regret it, but—you are of course your own mistress. I shall make no unpleasantness. I don’t dislike Whelpdale, and I shall remain on friendly terms with him.’

‘That is very kind of you,’ said his sister suavely.

Whelpdale was frantic with exultation. When the day of the wedding had been settled, he rushed into Jasper’s study and fairly shed tears before he could command his voice.

‘There is no mortal on the surface of the globe one-tenth so happy as I am!’ he gasped. ‘I can’t believe it! Why in the name of sense and justice have I been suffered to attain this blessedness? Think of the days when I all but starved in my Albany Street garret, scarcely better off than poor, dear old Biffen! Why should I have come to this, and Biffen have poisoned himself in despair? He was a thousand times a better and cleverer fellow than I. And poor old Reardon, dead in misery! Could I for a moment compare with him?’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Jasper, calmly, ‘compose yourself and be logical. In the first place, success has nothing whatever to do with moral deserts; and then, both Reardon and Biffen were hopelessly unpractical. In such an admirable social order as ours, they were bound to go to the dogs. Let us be sorry for them, but let us recognise causas rerum, as Biffen would have said. You have exercised ingenuity and perseverance; you have your reward.’

‘And when I think that I might have married fatally on thirteen or fourteen different occasions. By-the-by, I implore you never to tell Dora those stories about me. I should lose all her respect. Do you remember the girl from Birmingham?’ He laughed wildly. ‘Heaven be praised that she threw me over! Eternal gratitude to all and sundry of the girls who have plunged me into wretchedness!’

‘I admit that you have run the gauntlet, and that you have had marvellous escapes. But be good enough to leave me alone for the present. I must finish this review by midday.’

‘Only one word. I don’t know how to thank Dora, how to express my infinite sense of her goodness. Will you try to do so for me? You can speak to her with calmness. Will you tell her what I have said to you?’

‘Oh, certainly.—I should recommend a cooling draught of some kind. Look in at a chemist’s as you walk on.’

The heavens did not fall before the marriage-day, and the wedded pair betook themselves for a few weeks to the Continent. They had been back again and established in their house at Earl’s Court for a month, when one morning about twelve o’clock Jasper dropped in, as though casually. Dora was writing; she had no thought of entirely abandoning literature, and had in hand at present a very pretty tale which would probably appear in The English Girl. Her boudoir, in which she sat, could not well have been daintier and more appropriate to the charming characteristics of its mistress.

Mrs Whelpdale affected no literary slovenliness; she was dressed in light colours, and looked so lovely that even Jasper paused on the threshold with a smile of admiration.

‘Upon my word,’ he exclaimed, ‘I am proud of my sisters! What did you think of Maud last night? Wasn’t she superb?’

‘She certainly did look very well. But I doubt if she’s very happy.’

‘That is her own look out; I told her plainly enough my opinion of Dolomore. But she was in such a tremendous hurry.’

‘You are detestable, Jasper! Is it inconceivable to you that a man or woman should be disinterested when they marry?’

‘By no means.’

‘Maud didn’t marry for money any more than I did.’

‘You remember the Northern Farmer: “Doan’t thou marry for money, but go where money is.” An admirable piece of advice. Well, Maud made a mistake, let us say. Dolomore is a clown, and now she knows it. Why, if she had waited, she might have married one of the leading men of the day. She is fit to be a duchess, as far as appearance goes; but I was never snobbish. I care very little about titles; what I look to is intellectual distinction.’

‘Combined with financial success.’

‘Why, that is what distinction means.’ He looked round the room with a smile. ‘You are not uncomfortable here, old girl. I wish mother could have lived till now.’

‘I wish it very, very often,’ Dora replied in a moved voice.

‘We haven’t done badly, drawbacks considered. Now, you may speak of money as scornfully as you like; but suppose you had married a man who could only keep you in lodgings! How would life look to you?’

‘Who ever disputed the value of money? But there are things one mustn’t sacrifice to gain it.’

‘I suppose so. Well, I have some news for you, Dora. I am thinking of following your example.’

Dora’s face changed to grave anticipation.

‘And who is it?’

‘Amy Reardon.’

His sister turned away, with a look of intense annoyance.

‘You see, I am disinterested myself,’ he went on. ‘I might find a wife who had wealth and social standing. But I choose Amy deliberately.’

‘An abominable choice!’

‘No; an excellent choice. I have never yet met a woman so well fitted to aid me in my career. She has a trifling sum of money, which will be useful for the next year or two—’

‘What has she done with the rest of it, then?’

‘Oh, the ten thousand is intact, but it can’t be seriously spoken of. It will keep up appearances till I get my editorship and so on. We shall be married early in August, I think. I want to ask you if you will go and see her.’

‘On no account! I couldn’t be civil to her.’

Jasper’s brows blackened.

‘This is idiotic prejudice, Dora. I think I have some claim upon you; I have shown some kindness—’

‘You have, and I am not ungrateful. But I dislike Mrs Reardon, and I couldn’t bring myself to be friendly with her.’

‘You don’t know her.’

‘Too well. You yourself have taught me to know her. Don’t compel me to say what I think of her.’

‘She is beautiful, and high-minded, and warm-hearted. I don’t know a womanly quality that she doesn’t possess. You will offend me most seriously if you speak a word against her.’

‘Then I will be silent. But you must never ask me to meet her.’

‘Never?’

‘Never!’

‘Then we shall quarrel. I haven’t deserved this, Dora. If you refuse to meet my wife on terms of decent friendliness, there’s no more intercourse between your house and mine. You have to choose. Persist in this fatuous obstinacy, and I have done with you!’

‘So be it!’

‘That is your final answer?’

Dora, who was now as angry as he, gave a short affirmative, and Jasper at once left her.

But it was very unlikely that things should rest at this pass. The brother and sister were bound by a strong mutual affection, and Whelpdale was not long in effecting a compromise.

‘My dear wife,’ he exclaimed, in despair at the threatened calamity, ‘you are right, a thousand times, but it’s impossible for you to be on ill terms with Jasper. There’s no need for you to see much of Mrs Reardon—’

‘I hate her! She killed her husband; I am sure of it.’

‘My darling!’

‘I mean by her base conduct. She is a cold, cruel, unprincipled creature! Jasper makes himself more than ever contemptible by marrying her.’

All the same, in less than three weeks Mrs Whelpdale had called upon Amy, and the call was returned. The two women were perfectly conscious of reciprocal dislike, but they smothered the feeling beneath conventional suavities. Jasper was not backward in making known his gratitude for Dora’s concession, and indeed it became clear to all his intimates that this marriage would be by no means one of mere interest; the man was in love at last, if he had never been before.

Let lapse the ensuing twelve months, and come to an evening at the end of July, 1886. Mr and Mrs Milvain are entertaining a small and select party of friends at dinner. Their house in Bayswater is neither large nor internally magnificent, but it will do very well for the temporary sojourn of a young man of letters who has much greater things in confident expectation, who is a good deal talked of, who can gather clever and worthy people at his table, and whose matchless wife would attract men of taste to a very much poorer abode.

Jasper had changed considerably in appearance since that last holiday that he spent in his mother’s house at Finden. At present he would have been taken for five-and-thirty, though only in his twenty-ninth year; his hair was noticeably thinning; his moustache had grown heavier; a wrinkle or two showed beneath his eyes; his voice was softer, yet firmer. It goes without saying that his evening uniform lacked no point of perfection, and somehow it suggested a more elaborate care than that of other men in the room. He laughed frequently, and with a throwing back of the head which seemed to express a spirit of triumph.

Amy looked her years to the full, but her type of beauty, as you know, was independent of youthfulness. That suspicion of masculinity observable in her when she became Reardon’s wife impressed one now only as the consummate grace of a perfectly-built woman. You saw that at forty, at fifty, she would be one of the stateliest of dames. When she bent her head towards the person with whom she spoke, it was an act of queenly favour. Her words were uttered with just enough deliberation to give them the value of an opinion; she smiled with a delicious shade of irony; her glance intimated that nothing could be too subtle for her understanding.

The guests numbered six, and no one of them was insignificant. Two of the men were about Jasper’s age, and they had already made their mark in literature; the third was a novelist of circulating fame, spirally crescent. The three of the stronger sex were excellent modern types, with sweet lips attuned to epigram, and good broad brows.

The novelist at one point put an interesting question to Amy.

‘Is it true that Fadge is leaving The Current?’

‘It is rumoured, I believe.’

‘Going to one of the quarterlies, they say,’ remarked a lady. ‘He is getting terribly autocratic. Have you heard the delightful story of his telling Mr Rowland to persevere, as his last work was one of considerable promise?’

Mr Rowland was a man who had made a merited reputation when Fadge was still on the lower rungs of journalism. Amy smiled and told another anecdote of the great editor. Whilst speaking, she caught her husband’s eye, and perhaps this was the reason why her story, at the close, seemed rather amiably pointless—not a common fault when she narrated.

When the ladies had withdrawn, one of the younger men, in a conversation about a certain magazine, remarked:

‘Thomas always maintains that it was killed by that solemn old stager, Alfred Yule. By the way, he is dead himself, I hear.’

Jasper bent forward.

‘Alfred Yule is dead?’

‘So Jedwood told me this morning. He died in the country somewhere, blind and fallen on evil days, poor old fellow.’

All the guests were ignorant of any tie of kindred between their host and the man spoken of.

‘I believe,’ said the novelist, ‘that he had a clever daughter who used to do all the work he signed. That used to be a current bit of scandal in Fadge’s circle.’

‘Oh, there was much exaggeration in that,’ remarked Jasper, blandly. ‘His daughter assisted him, doubtless, but in quite a legitimate way. One used to see her at the Museum.’

The subject was dropped.

An hour and a half later, when the last stranger had taken his leave, Jasper examined two or three letters which had arrived since dinner-time and were lying on the hall table. With one of them open in his hand, he suddenly sprang up the stairs and leaped, rather than stepped, into the drawing-room. Amy was reading an evening paper.

‘Look at this!’ he cried, holding the letter to her.