NEW GRUB STREET
By George Gissing
1891
Part One
Chapter I. A Man of his Day
Chapter II. The House of Yule
Chapter III. Holiday
Chapter IV. An Author and his Wife
Chapter V. The Way Hither
Chapter VI. The Practical Friend
Chapter VII. Marian’s Home
Part Two
Chapter VIII. To the Winning Side
Chapter IX. Invita Minerva
Chapter X. The Friends of the Family
Chapter XI. Respite
Chapter XII. Work Without Hope
Chapter XIII. A Warning
Chapter XIV. Recruits
Chapter XV. The Last Resource
Part Three
Chapter XVI. Rejection
Chapter XVII. The Parting
Chapter XVIII. The Old Home
Chapter XIX. The Past Revived
Chapter XX. The End of Waiting
Chapter XXI. Mr Yule leaves Town
Chapter XXII. The Legatees
Part Four
Chapter XXIII. A Proposed Investment
Chapter XXIV. Jasper’s Magnanimity
Chapter XXV. A Fruitless Meeting
Chapter XXVI. Married Woman’s Property
Chapter XXVII. The Lonely Man
Chapter XXVIII. Interim
Chapter XXIX. Catastrophe
Part Five
Chapter XXX. Waiting on Destiny
Chapter XXXI. A Rescue and a Summons
Chapter XXXII. Reardon becomes Practical
Chapter XXXIII. The Sunny Way
Chapter XXXIV. A Check
Chapter XXXV. Fever and Rest
Chapter XXXVI. Jasper’s Delicate Case
Chapter XXXVII. Rewards
NEW GRUB STREET
PART I.
CHAPTER I. A MAN OF HIS DAY
As the Milvains sat down to breakfast the clock of Wattleborough parish
church struck eight; it was two miles away, but the strokes were borne
very distinctly on the west wind this autumn morning. Jasper, listening
before he cracked an egg, remarked with cheerfulness:
‘There’s a man being hanged in London at this moment.’
‘Surely it isn’t necessary to let us know that,’ said his sister Maud,
coldly.
‘And in such a tone, too!’ protested his sister Dora.
‘Who is it?’ inquired Mrs Milvain, looking at her son with pained
forehead.
‘I don’t know. It happened to catch my eye in the paper yesterday that
someone was to be hanged at Newgate this morning. There’s a certain
satisfaction in reflecting that it is not oneself.’
‘That’s your selfish way of looking at things,’ said Maud.
‘Well,’ returned Jasper, ‘seeing that the fact came into my head, what
better use could I make of it? I could curse the brutality of an age
that sanctioned such things; or I could grow doleful over the misery of
the poor fellow. But those emotions would be as little profitable to
others as to myself. It just happened that I saw the thing in a light of
consolation. Things are bad with me, but not so bad as THAT. I might be
going out between Jack Ketch and the Chaplain to be hanged; instead of
that, I am eating a really fresh egg, and very excellent buttered toast,
with coffee as good as can be reasonably expected in this part of the
world.--(Do try boiling the milk, mother.)--The tone in which I spoke
was spontaneous; being so, it needs no justification.’
He was a young man of five-and-twenty, well built, though a trifle
meagre, and of pale complexion. He had hair that was very nearly black,
and a clean-shaven face, best described, perhaps, as of bureaucratic
type. The clothes he wore were of expensive material, but had seen a
good deal of service. His stand-up collar curled over at the corners,
and his necktie was lilac-sprigged.
Of the two sisters, Dora, aged twenty, was the more like him in visage,
but she spoke with a gentleness which seemed to indicate a different
character. Maud, who was twenty-two, had bold, handsome features, and
very beautiful hair of russet tinge; hers was not a face that readily
smiled. Their mother had the look and manners of an invalid, though she
sat at table in the ordinary way. All were dressed as ladies, though
very simply. The room, which looked upon a small patch of garden, was
furnished with old-fashioned comfort, only one or two objects suggesting
the decorative spirit of 1882.
‘A man who comes to be hanged,’ pursued Jasper, impartially, ‘has
the satisfaction of knowing that he has brought society to its last
resource. He is a man of such fatal importance that nothing will serve
against him but the supreme effort of law. In a way, you know, that is
success.’
‘In a way,’ repeated Maud, scornfully.
‘Suppose we talk of something else,’ suggested Dora, who seemed to fear
a conflict between her sister and Jasper.
Almost at the same moment a diversion was afforded by the arrival of the
post. There was a letter for Mrs Milvain, a letter and newspaper for
her son. Whilst the girls and their mother talked of unimportant news
communicated by the one correspondent, Jasper read the missive addressed
to himself.
‘This is from Reardon,’ he remarked to the younger girl. ‘Things are
going badly with him. He is just the kind of fellow to end by poisoning
or shooting himself.’
‘But why?’
‘Can’t get anything done; and begins to be sore troubled on his wife’s
account.’
‘Is he ill?’
‘Overworked, I suppose. But it’s just what I foresaw. He isn’t the
kind of man to keep up literary production as a paying business. In
favourable circumstances he might write a fairly good book once every
two or three years. The failure of his last depressed him, and now he
is struggling hopelessly to get another done before the winter season.
Those people will come to grief.’
‘The enjoyment with which he anticipates it!’ murmured Maud, looking at
her mother.
‘Not at all,’ said Jasper. ‘It’s true I envied the fellow, because he
persuaded a handsome girl to believe in him and share his risks, but I
shall be very sorry if he goes to the--to the dogs. He’s my one serious
friend. But it irritates me to see a man making such large demands upon
fortune. One must be more modest--as I am. Because one book had a sort
of success he imagined his struggles were over. He got a hundred
pounds for “On Neutral Ground,” and at once counted on a continuance
of payments in geometrical proportion. I hinted to him that he couldn’t
keep it up, and he smiled with tolerance, no doubt thinking “He judges
me by himself.” But I didn’t do anything of the kind.--(Toast, please,
Dora.)--I’m a stronger man than Reardon; I can keep my eyes open, and
wait.’
‘Is his wife the kind of person to grumble?’ asked Mrs Milvain.
‘Well, yes, I suspect that she is. The girl wasn’t content to go into
modest rooms--they must furnish a flat. I rather wonder he didn’t start
a carriage for her. Well, his next book brought only another hundred,
and now, even if he finishes this one, it’s very doubtful if he’ll get
as much. “The Optimist” was practically a failure.’
‘Mr Yule may leave them some money,’ said Dora.
‘Yes. But he may live another ten years, and he would see them both in
Marylebone Workhouse before he advanced sixpence, or I’m much mistaken
in him. Her mother has only just enough to live upon; can’t possibly
help them. Her brother wouldn’t give or lend twopence halfpenny.’
‘Has Mr Reardon no relatives!’
‘I never heard him make mention of a single one. No, he has done the
fatal thing. A man in his position, if he marry at all, must take
either a work-girl or an heiress, and in many ways the work-girl is
preferable.’
‘How can you say that?’ asked Dora. ‘You never cease talking about the
advantages of money.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean that for ME the work-girl would be preferable; by
no means; but for a man like Reardon. He is absurd enough to be
conscientious, likes to be called an “artist,” and so on. He might
possibly earn a hundred and fifty a year if his mind were at rest, and
that would be enough if he had married a decent little dressmaker. He
wouldn’t desire superfluities, and the quality of his work would be its
own reward. As it is, he’s ruined.’
‘And I repeat,’ said Maud, ‘that you enjoy the prospect.’
‘Nothing of the kind. If I seem to speak exultantly it’s only because
my intellect enjoys the clear perception of a fact.--A little marmalade,
Dora; the home-made, please.’
‘But this is very sad, Jasper,’ said Mrs Milvain, in her half-absent
way. ‘I suppose they can’t even go for a holiday?’
‘Quite out of the question.’
‘Not even if you invited them to come here for a week?’
‘Now, mother,’ urged Maud, ‘THAT’S impossible, you know very well.’
‘I thought we might make an effort, dear. A holiday might mean
everything to him.’
‘No, no,’ fell from Jasper, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think you’d get
along very well with Mrs Reardon; and then, if her uncle is coming to Mr
Yule’s, you know, that would be awkward.’
‘I suppose it would; though those people would only stay a day or two,
Miss Harrow said.’
‘Why can’t Mr Yule make them friends, those two lots of people?’ asked
Dora. ‘You say he’s on good terms with both.’
‘I suppose he thinks it’s no business of his.’
Jasper mused over the letter from his friend.
‘Ten years hence,’ he said, ‘if Reardon is still alive, I shall be
lending him five-pound notes.’
A smile of irony rose to Maud’s lips. Dora laughed.
‘To be sure! To be sure!’ exclaimed their brother. ‘You have no faith.
But just understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man
like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man
of 1882. He won’t make concessions, or rather, he can’t make them;
he can’t supply the market. I--well, you may say that at present I
do nothing; but that’s a great mistake, I am learning my business.
Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may
succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your
skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets; when one
kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new
and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income.
Whatever he has to sell he’ll get payment for it from all sorts of
various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a
middleman who will make six distinct profits. Now, look you: if I had
been in Reardon’s place, I’d have made four hundred at least out of
“The Optimist”; I should have gone shrewdly to work with magazines and
newspapers and foreign publishers, and--all sorts of people. Reardon
can’t do that kind of thing, he’s behind his age; he sells a manuscript
as if he lived in Sam Johnson’s Grub Street. But our Grub Street of
to-day is quite a different place: it is supplied with telegraphic
communication, it knows what literary fare is in demand in every part of
the world, its inhabitants are men of business, however seedy.’
‘It sounds ignoble,’ said Maud.
‘I have nothing to do with that, my dear girl. Now, as I tell you, I am
slowly, but surely, learning the business. My line won’t be novels;
I have failed in that direction, I’m not cut out for the work. It’s a
pity, of course; there’s a great deal of money in it. But I have plenty
of scope. In ten years, I repeat, I shall be making my thousand a year.’
‘I don’t remember that you stated the exact sum before,’ Maud observed.
‘Let it pass. And to those who have shall be given. When I have a decent
income of my own, I shall marry a woman with an income somewhat larger,
so that casualties may be provided for.’
Dora exclaimed, laughing:
‘It would amuse me very much if the Reardons got a lot of money at Mr
Yule’s death--and that can’t be ten years off, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t see that there’s any chance of their getting much,’ replied
Jasper, meditatively. ‘Mrs Reardon is only his niece. The man’s brother
and sister will have the first helping, I suppose. And then, if it comes
to the second generation, the literary Yule has a daughter, and by her
being invited here I should think she’s the favourite niece. No, no;
depend upon it they won’t get anything at all.’
Having finished his breakfast, he leaned back and began to unfold the
London paper that had come by post.
‘Had Mr Reardon any hopes of that kind at the time of his marriage, do
you think?’ inquired Mrs Milvain.
‘Reardon? Good heavens, no! Would he were capable of such forethought!’
In a few minutes Jasper was left alone in the room. When the servant
came to clear the table he strolled slowly away, humming a tune.
The house was pleasantly situated by the roadside in a little village
named Finden. Opposite stood the church, a plain, low, square-towered
building. As it was cattle-market to-day in the town of Wattleborough,
droves of beasts and sheep occasionally went by, or the rattle of a
grazier’s cart sounded for a moment. On ordinary days the road saw few
vehicles, and pedestrians were rare.
Mrs Milvain and her daughters had lived here for the last seven years,
since the death of the father, who was a veterinary surgeon. The widow
enjoyed an annuity of two hundred and forty pounds, terminable with her
life; the children had nothing of their own. Maud acted irregularly as
a teacher of music; Dora had an engagement as visiting governess in a
Wattleborough family. Twice a year, as a rule, Jasper came down from
London to spend a fortnight with them; to-day marked the middle of his
autumn visit, and the strained relations between him and his sisters
which invariably made the second week rather trying for all in the house
had already become noticeable.
In the course of the morning Jasper had half an hour’s private talk
with his mother, after which he set off to roam in the sunshine. Shortly
after he had left the house, Maud, her domestic duties dismissed for the
time, came into the parlour where Mrs Milvain was reclining on the sofa.
‘Jasper wants more money,’ said the mother, when Maud had sat in
meditation for a few minutes.
‘Of course. I knew that. I hope you told him he couldn’t have it.’
‘I really didn’t know what to say,’ returned Mrs Milvain, in a feeble
tone of worry.
‘Then you must leave the matter to me, that’s all. There’s no money for
him, and there’s an end of it.’
Maud set her features in sullen determination. There was a brief
silence.
‘What’s he to do, Maud?’
‘To do? How do other people do? What do Dora and I do?’
‘You don’t earn enough for your support, my dear.’
‘Oh, well!’ broke from the girl. ‘Of course, if you grudge us our food
and lodging--’
‘Don’t be so quick-tempered. You know very well I am far from grudging
you anything, dear. But I only meant to say that Jasper does earn
something, you know.’
‘It’s a disgraceful thing that he doesn’t earn as much as he needs. We
are sacrificed to him, as we always have been. Why should we be pinching
and stinting to keep him in idleness?’
‘But you really can’t call it idleness, Maud. He is studying his
profession.’
‘Pray call it trade; he prefers it. How do I know that he’s studying
anything? What does he mean by “studying”? And to hear him speak
scornfully of his friend Mr Reardon, who seems to work hard all through
the year! It’s disgusting, mother. At this rate he will never earn his
own living. Who hasn’t seen or heard of such men? If we had another
hundred a year, I would say nothing. But we can’t live on what he leaves
us, and I’m not going to let you try. I shall tell Jasper plainly that
he’s got to work for his own support.’
Another silence, and a longer one. Mrs Milvain furtively wiped a tear
from her cheek.
‘It seems very cruel to refuse,’ she said at length, ‘when another year
may give him the opportunity he’s waiting for.’
‘Opportunity? What does he mean by his opportunity?’
‘He says that it always comes, if a man knows how to wait.’
‘And the people who support him may starve meanwhile! Now just think
a bit, mother. Suppose anything were to happen to you, what becomes of
Dora and me? And what becomes of Jasper, too? It’s the truest kindness
to him to compel him to earn a living. He gets more and more incapable
of it.’
‘You can’t say that, Maud. He earns a little more each year. But for
that, I should have my doubts. He has made thirty pounds already this
year, and he only made about twenty-five the whole of last. We must
be fair to him, you know. I can’t help feeling that he knows what he’s
about. And if he does succeed, he’ll pay us all back.’
Maud began to gnaw her fingers, a disagreeable habit she had in privacy.
‘Then why doesn’t he live more economically?’
‘I really don’t see how he can live on less than a hundred and fifty a
year. London, you know--’
‘The cheapest place in the world.’
‘Nonsense, Maud!’
‘But I know what I’m saying. I’ve read quite enough about such things.
He might live very well indeed on thirty shillings a week, even buying
his clothes out of it.’
‘But he has told us so often that it’s no use to him to live like that.
He is obliged to go to places where he must spend a little, or he makes
no progress.’
‘Well, all I can say is,’ exclaimed the girl impatiently, ‘it’s very
lucky for him that he’s got a mother who willingly sacrifices her
daughters to him.’
‘That’s how you always break out. You don’t care what unkindness you
say!’
‘It’s a simple truth.’
‘Dora never speaks like that.’
‘Because she’s afraid to be honest.’
‘No, because she has too much love for her mother. I can’t bear to talk
to you, Maud. The older I get, and the weaker I get, the more unfeeling
you are to me.’
Scenes of this kind were no uncommon thing. The clash of tempers lasted
for several minutes, then Maud flung out of the room. An hour later, at
dinner-time, she was rather more caustic in her remarks than usual, but
this was the only sign that remained of the stormy mood.
Jasper renewed the breakfast-table conversation.
‘Look here,’ he began, ‘why don’t you girls write something? I’m
convinced you could make money if you tried. There’s a tremendous sale
for religious stories; why not patch one together? I am quite serious.’
‘Why don’t you do it yourself,’ retorted Maud.
‘I can’t manage stories, as I have told you; but I think you could. In
your place, I’d make a speciality of Sunday-school prize-books; you
know the kind of thing I mean. They sell like hot cakes. And there’s so
deuced little enterprise in the business. If you’d give your mind to it,
you might make hundreds a year.’
‘Better say “abandon your mind to it.”’
‘Why, there you are! You’re a sharp enough girl. You can quote as well
as anyone I know.’
‘And please, why am I to take up an inferior kind of work?’
‘Inferior? Oh, if you can be a George Eliot, begin at the earliest
opportunity. I merely suggested what seemed practicable.
But I don’t think you have genius, Maud. People have got that ancient
prejudice so firmly rooted in their heads--that one mustn’t write save
at the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, writing is a business.
Get together half-a-dozen fair specimens of the Sunday-school prize;
study them; discover the essential points of such composition; hit upon
new attractions; then go to work methodically, so many pages a day.
There’s no question of the divine afflatus; that belongs to another
sphere of life. We talk of literature as a trade, not of Homer, Dante,
and Shakespeare. If I could only get that into poor Reardon’s head. He
thinks me a gross beast, often enough. What the devil--I mean what on
earth is there in typography to make everything it deals with sacred?
I don’t advocate the propagation of vicious literature; I speak only of
good, coarse, marketable stuff for the world’s vulgar. You just give it
a thought, Maud; talk it over with Dora.’
He resumed presently:
‘I maintain that we people of brains are justified in supplying the mob
with the food it likes. We are not geniuses, and if we sit down in a
spirit of long-eared gravity we shall produce only commonplace stuff.
Let us use our wits to earn money, and make the best we can of our
lives. If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the
trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies. But it needs skill, mind
you: and to deny it is a gross error of the literary pedants. To
please the vulgar you must, one way or another, incarnate the genius
of vulgarity. For my own part, I shan’t be able to address the bulkiest
multitude; my talent doesn’t lend itself to that form. I shall write for
the upper middle-class of intellect, the people who like to feel
that what they are reading has some special cleverness, but who can’t
distinguish between stones and paste. That’s why I’m so slow in warming
to the work. Every month I feel surer of myself, however.
That last thing of mine in The West End distinctly hit the mark; it
wasn’t too flashy, it wasn’t too solid. I heard fellows speak of it in
the train.’
Mrs Milvain kept glancing at Maud, with eyes which desired her attention
to these utterances. None the less, half an hour after dinner, Jasper
found himself encountered by his sister in the garden, on her face a
look which warned him of what was coming.
‘I want you to tell me something, Jasper. How much longer shall you look
to mother for support? I mean it literally; let me have an idea of how
much longer it will be.’
He looked away and reflected.
‘To leave a margin,’ was his reply, ‘let us say twelve months.’
‘Better say your favourite “ten years” at once.’
‘No. I speak by the card. In twelve months’ time, if not before, I shall
begin to pay my debts. My dear girl, I have the honour to be a tolerably
long-headed individual. I know what I’m about.’
‘And let us suppose mother were to die within half a year?’
‘I should make shift to do very well.’
‘You? And please--what of Dora and me?’
‘You would write Sunday-school prizes.’
Maud turned away and left him.
He knocked the dust out of the pipe he had been smoking, and again set
off for a stroll along the lanes. On his countenance was just a trace
of solicitude, but for the most part he wore a thoughtful smile. Now
and then he stroked his smoothly-shaven jaws with thumb and fingers.
Occasionally he became observant of wayside details--of the colour of a
maple leaf, the shape of a tall thistle, the consistency of a fungus. At
the few people who passed he looked keenly, surveying them from head to
foot.
On turning, at the limit of his walk, he found himself almost face to
face with two persons, who were coming along in silent companionship;
their appearance interested him. The one was a man of fifty, grizzled,
hard featured, slightly bowed in the shoulders; he wore a grey felt hat
with a broad brim and a decent suit of broadcloth. With him was a girl
of perhaps two-and-twenty, in a slate-coloured dress with very little
ornament, and a yellow straw hat of the shape originally appropriated to
males; her dark hair was cut short, and lay in innumerable crisp curls.
Father and daughter, obviously. The girl, to a casual eye, was neither
pretty nor beautiful, but she had a grave and impressive face, with a
complexion of ivory tone; her walk was gracefully modest, and she seemed
to be enjoying the country air.
Jasper mused concerning them. When he had walked a few yards, he looked
back; at the same moment the unknown man also turned his head.
‘Where the deuce have I seen them--him and the girl too?’ Milvain asked
himself.
And before he reached home the recollection he sought flashed upon his
mind.
‘The Museum Reading-room, of course!’