Jasper’s favourite walk led him to a spot distant perhaps a mile and a
half from home. From a tract of common he turned into a short lane which
crossed the Great Western railway, and thence by a stile into certain
meadows forming a compact little valley. One recommendation of this
retreat was that it lay sheltered from all winds; to Jasper a wind was
objectionable. Along the bottom ran a clear, shallow stream, overhung
with elder and hawthorn bushes; and close by the wooden bridge which
spanned it was a great ash tree, making shadow for cows and sheep when
the sun lay hot upon the open field. It was rare for anyone to come
along this path, save farm labourers morning and evening.
But to-day--the afternoon that followed his visit to John Yule’s
house--he saw from a distance that his lounging-place on the wooden
bridge was occupied. Someone else had discovered the pleasure there was
in watching the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it flowed over the
clean sand and stones. A girl in a yellow-straw hat; yes, and precisely
the person he had hoped, at the first glance, that it might be. He
made no haste as he drew nearer on the descending path. At length his
footstep was heard; Marian Yule turned her head and clearly recognised
him.
She assumed an upright position, letting one of her hands rest upon
the rail. After the exchange of ordinary greetings, Jasper leaned back
against the same support and showed himself disposed for talk.
‘When I was here late in the spring,’ he said, ‘this ash was only just
budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.’
‘An ash, is it?’ murmured Marian. ‘I didn’t know. I think an oak is the
only tree I can distinguish. Yet,’ she added quickly, ‘I knew that the
ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my memory.’
‘Which are those?’
‘Delaying, as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green,
somewhere in the “Idylls.”’
‘I don’t remember; so I won’t pretend to--though I should do so as a
rule.’
She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did not.
‘You have had little experience of the country?’ Jasper continued.
‘Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?’
‘In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people have
always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I have really
no friends here; either they have lost interest in me, or I in them.
What do you think of the girls, my sisters?’
The question, though put with perfect simplicity, was embarrassing.
‘They are tolerably intellectual,’ Jasper went on, when he saw that it
would be difficult for her to answer. ‘I want to persuade them to try
their hands at literary work of some kind or other. They give lessons,
and both hate it.’
‘Would literary work be less--burdensome?’ said Marian, without looking
at him.
‘Rather more so, you think?’
She hesitated.
‘It depends, of course, on--on several things.’
‘To be sure,’ Jasper agreed. ‘I don’t think they have any marked faculty
for such work; but as they certainly haven’t for teaching, that doesn’t
matter. It’s a question of learning a business. I am going through my
apprenticeship, and find it a long affair. Money would shorten it, and,
unfortunately, I have none.’
‘Yes,’ said Marian, turning her eyes upon the stream, ‘money is a help
in everything.’
‘Without it, one spends the best part of one’s life in toiling for that
first foothold which money could at once purchase. To have money is
becoming of more and more importance in a literary career; principally
because to have money is to have friends. Year by year, such influence
grows of more account. A lucky man will still occasionally succeed by
dint of his own honest perseverance, but the chances are dead against
anyone who can’t make private interest with influential people; his work
is simply overwhelmed by that of the men who have better opportunities.’
‘Don’t you think that, even to-day, really good work will sooner or
later be recognised?’
‘Later, rather than sooner; and very likely the man can’t wait; he
starves in the meantime. You understand that I am not speaking of
genius; I mean marketable literary work. The quantity turned out is
so great that there’s no hope for the special attention of the public
unless one can afford to advertise hugely. Take the instance of a
successful all-round man of letters; take Ralph Warbury, whose name
you’ll see in the first magazine you happen to open. But perhaps he is a
friend of yours?’
‘Oh no!’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there
any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling
writers one could name? Of course not. He’s a clever, prolific man; so
are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into
the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six
times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing
will become the rule. Men won’t succeed in literature that they may
get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in
literature.’
‘Yes, I know it is true,’ said Marian, in a low voice.
‘There’s a friend of mine who writes novels,’ Jasper pursued. ‘His
books are not works of genius, but they are glaringly distinct from the
ordinary circulating novel. Well, after one or two attempts, he made
half a success; that is to say, the publishers brought out a second
edition of the book in a few months. There was his opportunity. But he
couldn’t use it; he had no friends, because he had no money. A book of
half that merit, if written by a man in the position of Warbury when
he started, would have established the reputation of a lifetime. His
influential friends would have referred to it in leaders, in magazine
articles, in speeches, in sermons. It would have run through numerous
editions, and the author would have had nothing to do but to write
another book and demand his price. But the novel I’m speaking of was
practically forgotten a year after its appearance; it was whelmed
beneath the flood of next season’s literature.’
Marian urged a hesitating objection.
‘But, under the circumstances, wasn’t it in the author’s power to make
friends? Was money really indispensable?’
‘Why, yes--because he chose to marry. As a bachelor he might possibly
have got into the right circles, though his character would in any case
have made it difficult for him to curry favour.
But as a married man, without means, the situation was hopeless. Once
married you must live up to the standard of the society you frequent;
you can’t be entertained without entertaining in return. Now if his wife
had brought him only a couple of thousand pounds all might have been
well. I should have advised him, in sober seriousness, to live for two
years at the rate of a thousand a year. At the end of that time he would
have been earning enough to continue at pretty much the same rate of
expenditure.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Well, I ought rather to say that the average man of letters would be
able to do that. As for Reardon--’
He stopped. The name had escaped him unawares.
‘Reardon?’ said Marian, looking up. ‘You are speaking of him?’
‘I have betrayed myself Miss Yule.’
‘But what does it matter? You have only spoken in his favour.’
‘I feared the name might affect you disagreeably.’
Marian delayed her reply.
‘It is true,’ she said, ‘we are not on friendly terms with my cousin’s
family. I have never met Mr Reardon. But I shouldn’t like you to think
that the mention of his name is disagreeable to me.’
‘It made me slightly uncomfortable yesterday--the fact that I am well
acquainted with Mrs Edmund Yule, and that Reardon is my friend. Yet
I didn’t see why that should prevent my making your father’s
acquaintance.’
‘Surely not. I shall say nothing about it; I mean, as you uttered the
name unintentionally.’
There was a pause in the dialogue. They had been speaking almost
confidentially, and Marian seemed to become suddenly aware of an oddness
in the situation. She turned towards the uphill path, as if thinking of
resuming her walk.
‘You are tired of standing still,’ said Jasper. ‘May I walk back a part
of the way with you?’
‘Thank you; I shall be glad.’
They went on for a few minutes in silence.
‘Have you published anything with your signature, Miss Yule?’ Jasper at
length inquired.
‘Nothing. I only help father a little.’
The silence that again followed was broken this time by Marian.
‘When you chanced to mention Mr Reardon’s name,’ she said, with a
diffident smile in which lay that suggestion of humour so delightful
upon a woman’s face, ‘you were going to say something more about him?’
‘Only that--’ he broke off and laughed. ‘Now, how boyish it was, wasn’t
it? I remember doing just the same thing once when I came home
from school and had an exciting story to tell, with preservation of
anonymities. Of course I blurted out a name in the first minute or two,
to my father’s great amusement. He told me that I hadn’t the diplomatic
character. I have been trying to acquire it ever since.
‘But why?’
‘It’s one of the essentials of success in any kind of public life. And
I mean to succeed, you know. I feel that I am one of the men who do
succeed. But I beg your pardon; you asked me a question. Really, I was
only going to say of Reardon what I had said before: that he hasn’t the
tact requisite for acquiring popularity.’
‘Then I may hope that it isn’t his marriage with my cousin which has
proved a fatal misfortune?’
‘In no case,’ replied Milvain, averting his look, ‘would he have used
his advantages.’
‘And now? Do you think he has but poor prospects?’
‘I wish I could see any chance of his being estimated at his right
value. It’s very hard to say what is before him.’
‘I knew my cousin Amy when we were children,’ said Marian, presently.
‘She gave promise of beauty.’
‘Yes, she is beautiful.’
‘And--the kind of woman to be of help to such a husband?’
‘I hardly know how to answer, Miss Yule,’ said Jasper, looking frankly
at her. ‘Perhaps I had better say that it’s unfortunate they are poor.’
Marian cast down her eyes.
‘To whom isn’t it a misfortune?’ pursued her companion. ‘Poverty is the
root of all social ills; its existence accounts even for the ills that
arise from wealth. The poor man is a man labouring in fetters. I declare
there is no word in our language which sounds so hideous to me as
“Poverty.”’
Shortly after this they came to the bridge over the railway line. Jasper
looked at his watch.
‘Will you indulge me in a piece of childishness?’ he said. ‘In less than
five minutes a London express goes by; I have often watched it here, and
it amuses me. Would it weary you to wait?’
‘I should like to,’ she replied with a laugh.
The line ran along a deep cutting, from either side of which grew hazel
bushes and a few larger trees. Leaning upon the parapet of the bridge,
Jasper kept his eye in the westward direction, where the gleaming rails
were visible for more than a mile. Suddenly he raised his finger.
‘You hear?’
Marian had just caught the far-off sound of the train. She looked
eagerly, and in a few moments saw it approaching. The front of the
engine blackened nearer and nearer, coming on with dread force and
speed. A blinding rush, and there burst against the bridge a great
volley of sunlit steam. Milvain and his companion ran to the opposite
parapet, but already the whole train had emerged, and in a few seconds
it had disappeared round a sharp curve. The leafy branches that grew out
over the line swayed violently backwards and forwards in the perturbed
air.
‘If I were ten years younger,’ said Jasper, laughing, ‘I should say that
was jolly! It enspirits me. It makes me feel eager to go back and plunge
into the fight again.’
‘Upon me it has just the opposite effect,’ fell from Marian, in very low
tones.
‘Oh, don’t say that! Well, it only means that you haven’t had enough
holiday yet. I have been in the country more than a week; a few days
more and I must be off. How long do you think of staying?’
‘Not much more than a week, I think.’
‘By-the-bye, you are coming to have tea with us to-morrow,’ Jasper
remarked a propos of nothing. Then he returned to another subject that
was in his thoughts.
‘It was by a train like that that I first went up to London. Not really
the first time; I mean when I went to live there, seven years ago.
What spirits I was in! A boy of eighteen going to live independently in
London; think of it!’
‘You went straight from school?’
‘I was for two years at Redmayne College after leaving Wattleborough
Grammar School. Then my father died, and I spent nearly half a year at
home. I was meant to be a teacher, but the prospect of entering a school
by no means appealed to me. A friend of mine was studying in London for
some Civil Service exam., so I declared that I would go and do the same
thing.’
‘Did you succeed?’
‘Not I! I never worked properly for that kind of thing. I read
voraciously, and got to know London. I might have gone to the dogs, you
know; but by when I had been in London a year a pretty clear purpose
began to form in me. Strange to think that you were growing up there all
the time. I may have passed you in the street now and then.’
Marian laughed.
‘And I did at length see you at the British Museum, you know.’
They turned a corner of the road, and came full upon Marian’s father,
who was walking in this direction with eyes fixed upon the ground.
‘So here you are!’ he exclaimed, looking at the girl, and for the moment
paying no attention to Jasper. ‘I wondered whether I should meet you.’
Then, more dryly, ‘How do you do, Mr Milvain?’
In a tone of easy indifference Jasper explained how he came to be
accompanying Miss Yule.
‘Shall I walk on with you, father?’ Marian asked, scrutinising his
rugged features.
‘Just as you please; I don’t know that I should have gone much further.
But we might take another way back.’
Jasper readily adapted himself to the wish he discerned in Mr Yule; at
once he offered leave-taking in the most natural way. Nothing was said
on either side about another meeting.
The young man proceeded homewards, but, on arriving, did not at once
enter the house. Behind the garden was a field used for the grazing of
horses; he entered it by the unfastened gate, and strolled idly hither
and thither, now and then standing to observe a poor worn-out beast, all
skin and bone, which had presumably been sent here in the hope that a
little more labour might still be exacted from it if it were suffered
to repose for a few weeks. There were sores upon its back and legs; it
stood in a fixed attitude of despondency, just flicking away troublesome
flies with its grizzled tail.
It was tea-time when he went in. Maud was not at home, and Mrs Milvain,
tormented by a familiar headache, kept her room; so Jasper and Dora sat
down together. Each had an open book on the table; throughout the meal
they exchanged only a few words.
‘Going to play a little?’ Jasper suggested when they had gone into the
sitting-room.
‘If you like.’
She sat down at the piano, whilst her brother lay on the sofa, his
hands clasped beneath his head. Dora did not play badly, but an
absentmindedness which was commonly observable in her had its effect
upon the music. She at length broke off idly in the middle of a passage,
and began to linger on careless chords. Then, without turning her head,
she asked:
‘Were you serious in what you said about writing storybooks?’
‘Quite. I see no reason why you shouldn’t do something in that way. But
I tell you what; when I get back, I’ll inquire into the state of the
market. I know a man who was once engaged at Jolly & Monk’s--the chief
publishers of that kind of thing, you know; I must look him up--what a
mistake it is to neglect any acquaintance!--and get some information out
of him. But it’s obvious what an immense field there is for anyone who
can just hit the taste of the new generation of Board school children.
Mustn’t be too goody-goody; that kind of thing is falling out of date.
But you’d have to cultivate a particular kind of vulgarity.
There’s an idea, by-the-bye. I’ll write a paper on the characteristics
of that new generation; it may bring me a few guineas, and it would be a
help to you.’
‘But what do you know about the subject?’ asked Dora doubtfully.
‘What a comical question! It is my business to know something about
every subject--or to know where to get the knowledge.’
‘Well,’ said Dora, after a pause, ‘there’s no doubt Maud and I ought
to think very seriously about the future. You are aware, Jasper, that
mother has not been able to save a penny of her income.’
‘I don’t see how she could have done. Of course I know what you’re
thinking; but for me, it would have been possible. I don’t mind
confessing to you that the thought troubles me a little now and then;
I shouldn’t like to see you two going off governessing in strangers’
houses. All I can say is, that I am very honestly working for the end
which I am convinced will be most profitable.
I shall not desert you; you needn’t fear that. But just put your heads
together, and cultivate your writing faculty. Suppose you could both
together earn about a hundred a year in Grub Street, it would be better
than governessing; wouldn’t it?’
‘You say you don’t know what Miss Yule writes?’
‘Well, I know a little more about her than I did yesterday. I’ve had an
hour’s talk with her this afternoon.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Met her down in the Leggatt fields. I find she doesn’t write
independently; just helps her father. What the help amounts to I can’t
say. There’s something very attractive about her. She quoted a line or
two of Tennyson; the first time I ever heard a woman speak blank verse
with any kind of decency.’
‘She was walking alone?’
‘Yes. On the way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I
thought. I don’t think she’s the kind of girl to make a paying business
of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it’s pretty clear to
me that the valley of the shadow of books by no means agrees with her
disposition. Possibly old Yule is something of a tyrant.’
‘He doesn’t impress me very favourably. Do you think you will keep up
their acquaintance in London?’
‘Can’t say. I wonder what sort of a woman that mother really is? Can’t
be so very gross, I should think.’
‘Miss Harrow knows nothing about her, except that she was a quite
uneducated girl.’
‘But, dash it! by this time she must have got decent manners. Of course
there may be other objections. Mrs Reardon knows nothing against her.’
Midway in the following morning, as Jasper sat with a book in the
garden, he was surprised to see Alfred Yule enter by the gate.
‘I thought,’ began the visitor, who seemed in high spirits, ‘that you
might like to see something I received this morning.’
He unfolded a London evening paper, and indicated a long letter from
a casual correspondent. It was written by the authoress of ‘On the
Boards,’ and drew attention, with much expenditure of witticism, to the
conflicting notices of that book which had appeared in The Study. Jasper
read the thing with laughing appreciation.
‘Just what one expected!’
‘And I have private letters on the subject,’ added Mr Yule.
‘There has been something like a personal conflict between Fadge and the
man who looks after the minor notices. Fadge, more so, charged the other
man with a design to damage him and the paper. There’s talk of legal
proceedings. An immense joke!’
He laughed in his peculiar croaking way.
‘Do you feel disposed for a turn along the lanes, Mr Milvain?’
‘By all means.--There’s my mother at the window; will you come in for a
moment?’
With a step of quite unusual sprightliness Mr Yule entered the house.
He could talk of but one subject, and Mrs Milvain had to listen to a
laboured account of the blunder just committed by The Study. It was
Alfred’s Yule’s characteristic that he could do nothing lighthandedly.
He seemed always to converse with effort; he took a seat with stiff
ungainliness; he walked with a stumbling or sprawling gait.
When he and Jasper set out for their ramble, his loquacity was in strong
contrast with the taciturn mood he had exhibited yesterday and the day
before. He fell upon the general aspects of contemporary literature.
‘... The evil of the time is the multiplication of ephemerides. Hence a
demand for essays, descriptive articles, fragments of criticism, out of
all proportion to the supply of even tolerable work. The men who have
an aptitude for turning out this kind of thing in vast quantities are
enlisted by every new periodical, with the result that their productions
are ultimately watered down into worthlessness.... Well now, there’s
Fadge. Years ago some of Fadge’s work was not without a certain--a
certain conditional promise of--of comparative merit; but now his
writing, in my opinion, is altogether beneath consideration; how Rackett
could be so benighted as to give him The Study--especially after a man
like Henry Hawkridge--passes my comprehension. Did you read a paper of
his, a few months back, in The Wayside, a preposterous rehabilitation of
Elkanah Settle? Ha! Ha! That’s what such men are driven to. Elkanah
Settle! And he hadn’t even a competent acquaintance with his paltry
subject. Will you credit that he twice or thrice referred to Settle’s
reply to “Absalom and Achitophel” by the title of “Absalom Transposed,”
when every schoolgirl knows that the thing was called “Achitophel
Transposed”! This was monstrous enough, but there was something still
more contemptible. He positively, I assure you, attributed the play of
“Epsom Wells” to Crowne! I should have presumed that every student of
even the most trivial primer of literature was aware that “Epsom Wells”
was written by Shadwell.... Now, if one were to take Shadwell for the
subject of a paper, one might very well show how unjustly his name has
fallen into contempt. It has often occurred to me to do this. “But
Shadwell never deviates into sense.” The sneer, in my opinion, is
entirely unmerited. For my own part, I put Shadwell very high among the
dramatists of his time, and I think I could show that his absolute worth
is by no means inconsiderable. Shadwell has distinct vigour of dramatic
conception; his dialogue....’
And as he talked the man kept describing imaginary geometrical figures
with the end of his walking-stick; he very seldom raised his eyes
from the ground, and the stoop in his shoulders grew more and more
pronounced, until at a little distance one might have taken him for a
hunchback. At one point Jasper made a pause to speak of the pleasant
wooded prospect that lay before them; his companion regarded it
absently, and in a moment or two asked:
‘Did you ever come across Cottle’s poem on the Malvern Hills? No?
It contains a couple of the richest lines ever put into print:
It needs the evidence of close deduction
To know that I shall ever reach the top.
Perfectly serious poetry, mind you!’
He barked in laughter. Impossible to interest him in anything apart from
literature; yet one saw him to be a man of solid understanding, and
not without perception of humour. He had read vastly; his memory was a
literary cyclopaedia. His failings, obvious enough, were the results
of a strong and somewhat pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict
with unpropitious circumstances.
Towards the young man his demeanour varied between a shy cordiality and
a dignified reserve which was in danger of seeming pretentious. On the
homeward part of the walk he made a few discreet inquiries regarding
Milvain’s literary achievements and prospects, and the frank
self-confidence of the replies appeared to interest him. But he
expressed no desire to number Jasper among his acquaintances in town,
and of his own professional or private concerns he said not a word.
‘Whether he could be any use to me or not, I don’t exactly know,’ Jasper
remarked to his mother and sisters at dinner. ‘I suspect it’s as much as
he can do to keep a footing among the younger tradesmen. But I think he
might have said he was willing to help me if he could.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Maud, ‘your large way of talking made him think any
such offer superfluous.’
‘You have still to learn,’ said Jasper, ‘that modesty helps a man in no
department of modern life. People take you at your own valuation. It’s
the men who declare boldly that they need no help to whom practical
help comes from all sides. As likely as not Yule will mention my name
to someone. “A young fellow who seems to see his way pretty clear before
him.” The other man will repeat it to somebody else, “A young fellow
whose way is clear before him,” and so I come to the ears of a man who
thinks “Just the fellow I want; I must look him up and ask him if he’ll
do such-and-such a thing.” But I should like to see these Yules at home;
I must fish for an invitation.’
In the afternoon, Miss Harrow and Marian came at the expected hour.
Jasper purposely kept out of the way until he was summoned to the
tea-table.
The Milvain girls were so far from effusive, even towards old
acquaintances, that even the people who knew them best spoke of them
as rather cold and perhaps a trifle condescending; there were people
in Wattleborough who declared their airs of superiority ridiculous and
insufferable. The truth was that nature had endowed them with a larger
share of brains than was common in their circle, and had added that
touch of pride which harmonised so ill with the restrictions of
poverty. Their life had a tone of melancholy, the painful reserve which
characterises a certain clearly defined class in the present day. Had
they been born twenty years earlier, the children of that veterinary
surgeon would have grown up to a very different, and in all probability
a much happier, existence, for their education would have been
limited to the strictly needful, and--certainly in the case of the
girls--nothing would have encouraged them to look beyond the simple life
possible to a poor man’s offspring. But whilst Maud and Dora were still
with their homely schoolmistress, Wattleborough saw fit to establish
a Girls’ High School, and the moderateness of the fees enabled these
sisters to receive an intellectual training wholly incompatible with the
material conditions of their life. To the relatively poor (who are so
much worse off than the poor absolutely) education is in most cases
a mocking cruelty. The burden of their brother’s support made it very
difficult for Maud and Dora even to dress as became their intellectual
station; amusements, holidays, the purchase of such simple luxuries as
were all but indispensable to them, could not be thought of. It resulted
that they held apart from the society which would have welcomed them,
for they could not bear to receive without offering in turn. The
necessity of giving lessons galled them; they felt--and with every
reason--that it made their position ambiguous. So that, though they
could not help knowing many people, they had no intimates; they
encouraged no one to visit them, and visited other houses as little as
might be.
In Marian Yule they divined a sympathetic nature. She was unlike any
girl with whom they had hitherto associated, and it was the impulse of
both to receive her with unusual friendliness. The habit of reticence
could not be at once overcome, and Marian’s own timidity was an obstacle
in the way of free intercourse, but Jasper’s conversation at tea helped
to smooth the course of things.
‘I wish you lived anywhere near us,’ Dora said to their visitor, as the
three girls walked in the garden afterwards, and Maud echoed the wish.
‘It would be very nice,’ was Marian’s reply. ‘I have no friends of my
own age in London.’
‘None?’
‘Not one!’
She was about to add something, but in the end kept silence.
‘You seem to get along with Miss Yule pretty well, after all,’ said
Jasper, when the family were alone again.
‘Did you anticipate anything else?’ Maud asked.
‘It seemed doubtful, up at Yule’s house. Well, get her to come here
again before I go. But it’s a pity she doesn’t play the piano,’ he
added, musingly.
For two days nothing was seen of the Yules. Jasper went each afternoon
to the stream in the valley, but did not again meet Marian. In the
meanwhile he was growing restless. A fortnight always exhausted his
capacity for enjoying the companionship of his mother and sisters, and
this time he seemed anxious to get to the end of his holiday. For all
that, there was no continuance of the domestic bickering which had
begun. Whatever the reason, Maud behaved with unusual mildness to her
brother, and Jasper in turn was gently disposed to both the girls.
On the morning of the third day--it was Saturday--he kept silence
through breakfast, and just as all were about to rise from the table, he
made a sudden announcement:
‘I shall go to London this afternoon.’
‘This afternoon?’ all exclaimed. ‘But Monday is your day.’
‘No, I shall go this afternoon, by the 2.45.’
And he left the room. Mrs Milvain and the girls exchanged looks.
‘I suppose he thinks the Sunday will be too wearisome,’ said the mother.
‘Perhaps so,’ Maud agreed, carelessly.
Half an hour later, just as Dora was ready to leave the house for her
engagements in Wattleborough, her brother came into the hall and took
his hat, saying:
‘I’ll walk a little way with you, if you don’t mind.’
When they were in the road, he asked her in an offhand manner:
‘Do you think I ought to say good-bye to the Yules? Or won’t it
signify?’
‘I should have thought you would wish to.’
‘I don’t care about it. And, you see, there’s been no hint of a wish on
their part that I should see them in London. No, I’ll just leave you to
say good-bye for me.’
‘But they expect to see us to-day or to-morrow. You told them you were
not going till Monday, and you don’t know but Mr Yule might mean to say
something yet.’
‘Well, I had rather he didn’t,’ replied Jasper, with a laugh.
‘Oh, indeed?’
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ he laughed again. ‘I’m afraid of that girl.
No, it won’t do! You understand that I’m a practical man, and I shall
keep clear of dangers. These days of holiday idleness put all sorts of
nonsense into one’s head.’
Dora kept her eyes down, and smiled ambiguously.
‘You must act as you think fit,’ she remarked at length.
‘Exactly. Now I’ll turn back. You’ll be with us at dinner?’
They parted. But Jasper did not keep to the straight way home. First of
all, he loitered to watch a reaping-machine at work; then he turned into
a lane which led up the hill on which was John Yule’s house. Even if he
had purposed making a farewell call, it was still far too early; all he
wanted to do was to pass an hour of the morning, which threatened to lie
heavy on his hands. So he rambled on, and went past the house, and took
the field-path which would lead him circuitously home again.
His mother desired to speak to him. She was in the dining-room; in the
parlour Maud was practising music.
‘I think I ought to tell you of something I did yesterday, Jasper,’ Mrs
Milvain began. ‘You see, my dear, we have been rather straitened lately,
and my health, you know, grows so uncertain, and, all things considered,
I have been feeling very anxious about the girls. So I wrote to your
uncle William, and told him that I must positively have that money. I
must think of my own children before his.’
The matter referred to was this. The deceased Mr Milvain had a brother
who was a struggling shopkeeper in a Midland town. Some ten years ago,
William Milvain, on the point of bankruptcy, had borrowed a hundred
and seventy pounds from his brother in Wattleborough, and this debt was
still unpaid; for on the death of Jasper’s father repayment of the loan
was impossible for William, and since then it had seemed hopeless that
the sum would ever be recovered. The poor shopkeeper had a large family,
and Mrs Milvain, notwithstanding her own position, had never felt able
to press him; her relative, however, often spoke of the business, and
declared his intention of paying whenever he could.
‘You can’t recover by law now, you know,’ said Jasper.
‘But we have a right to the money, law or no law. He must pay it.’
‘He will simply refuse--and be justified. Poverty doesn’t allow of
honourable feeling, any more than of compassion. I’m sorry you wrote
like that. You won’t get anything, and you might as well have enjoyed
the reputation of forbearance.’
Mrs Milvain was not able to appreciate this characteristic remark.
Anxiety weighed upon her, and she became irritable.
‘I am obliged to say, Jasper, that you seem rather thoughtless. If
it were only myself. I would make any sacrifice for you; but you must
remember--’
‘Now listen, mother,’ he interrupted, laying a hand on her shoulder;
‘I have been thinking about all this, and the fact of the matter is,
I shall do my best to ask you for no more money. It may or may not be
practicable, but I’ll have a try. So don’t worry. If uncle writes that
he can’t pay, just explain why you wrote, and keep him gently in mind of
the thing, that’s all. One doesn’t like to do brutal things if one can
avoid them, you know.’
The young man went to the parlour and listened to Maud’s music for
awhile. But restlessness again drove him forth. Towards eleven o’clock
he was again ascending in the direction of John Yule’s house. Again
he had no intention of calling, but when he reached the iron gates he
lingered.
‘I will, by Jove!’ he said within himself at last. ‘Just to prove I
have complete command of myself. It’s to be a display of strength, not
weakness.’
At the house door he inquired for Mr Alfred Yule. That gentleman had
gone in the carriage to Wattleborough, half an hour ago, with his
brother.
‘Miss Yule?’
Yes, she was within. Jasper entered the sitting-room, waited a few
moments, and Marian appeared. She wore a dress in which Milvain had
not yet seen her, and it had the effect of making him regard her
attentively. The smile with which she had come towards him passed from
her face, which was perchance a little warmer of hue than commonly.
‘I’m sorry your father is away, Miss Yule,’ Jasper began, in an animated
voice. ‘I wanted to say good-bye to him. I return to London in a few
hours.’
‘You are going sooner than you intended?’
‘Yes, I feel I mustn’t waste any more time. I think the country air is
doing you good; you certainly look better than when I passed you that
first day.’
‘I feel better, much.’
‘My sisters are anxious to see you again. I shouldn’t wonder if they
come up this afternoon.’
Marian had seated herself on the sofa, and her hands were linked upon
her lap in the same way as when Jasper spoke with her here before, the
palms downward. The beautiful outline of her bent head was relieved
against a broad strip of sunlight on the wall behind her.
‘They deplore,’ he continued in a moment, ‘that they should come to know
you only to lose you again so soon.
‘I have quite as much reason to be sorry,’ she answered, looking at him
with the slightest possible smile. ‘But perhaps they will let me write
to them, and hear from them now and then.’
‘They would think it an honour. Country girls are not often invited to
correspond with literary ladies in London.’
He said it with as much jocoseness as civility allowed, then at once
rose.
‘Father will be very sorry,’ Marian began, with one quick glance towards
the window and then another towards the door. ‘Perhaps he might possibly
be able to see you before you go?’
Jasper stood in hesitation. There was a look on the girl’s face which,
under other circumstances, would have suggested a ready answer.
‘I mean,’ she added, hastily, ‘he might just call, or even see you at
the station?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t like to give Mr Yule any trouble. It’s my own fault,
for deciding to go to-day. I shall leave by the 2.45.’
He offered his hand.
‘I shall look for your name in the magazines, Miss Yule.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you will ever find it there.’
He laughed incredulously, shook hands with her a second time, and strode
out of the room, head erect--feeling proud of himself.
When Dora came home at dinner-time, he informed her of what he had done.
‘A very interesting girl,’ he added impartially. ‘I advise you to make
a friend of her. Who knows but you may live in London some day, and then
she might be valuable--morally, I mean. For myself, I shall do my best
not to see her again for a long time; she’s dangerous.’
Jasper was unaccompanied when he went to the station. Whilst waiting on
the platform, he suffered from apprehension lest Alfred Yule’s seamed
visage should present itself; but no acquaintance approached him. Safe
in the corner of his third-class carriage, he smiled at the last glimpse
of the familiar fields, and began to think of something he had decided
to write for The West End.