When her husband had set forth, Amy seated herself in the study and took
up a new library volume as if to read. But she had no real intention of
doing so; it was always disagreeable to her to sit in the manner of one
totally unoccupied, with hands on lap, and even when she consciously
gave herself up to musing an open book was generally before her. She did
not, in truth, read much nowadays; since the birth of her child she had
seemed to care less than before for disinterested study. If a new
novel that had succeeded came into her hands she perused it in a very
practical spirit, commenting to Reardon on the features of the work
which had made it popular; formerly, she would have thought much more of
its purely literary merits, for which her eye was very keen. How often
she had given her husband a thrill of exquisite pleasure by pointing
to some merit or defect of which the common reader would be totally
insensible! Now she spoke less frequently on such subjects. Her
interests were becoming more personal; she liked to hear details of the
success of popular authors--about their wives or husbands, as the case
might be, their arrangements with publishers, their methods of work.
The gossip columns of literary papers--and of some that were not
literary--had an attraction for her. She talked of questions such
as international copyright, was anxious to get an insight into the
practical conduct of journals and magazines, liked to know who ‘read’
for the publishing-houses. To an impartial observer it might have
appeared that her intellect was growing more active and mature.
More than half an hour passed. It was not a pleasant train of thought
that now occupied her. Her lips were drawn together, her brows were
slightly wrinkled; the self-control which at other times was agreeably
expressed upon her features had become rather too cold and decided. At
one moment it seemed to her that she heard a sound in the bedroom--the
doors were purposely left ajar--and her head turned quickly to listen,
the look in her eyes instantaneously softening; but all remained quiet.
The street would have been silent but for a cab that now and then
passed--the swing of a hansom or the roll of a four-wheeler--and within
the buildings nothing whatever was audible.
Yes, a footstep, briskly mounting the stone stairs. Not like that of the
postman. A visitor, perhaps, to the other flat on the topmost landing.
But the final pause was in this direction, and then came a sharp rat-tat
at the door. Amy rose immediately and went to open.
Jasper Milvain raised his urban silk hat, then held out his hand with
the greeting of frank friendship. His inquiries were in so loud a voice
that Amy checked him with a forbidding gesture.
‘You’ll wake Willie!’
‘By Jove! I always forget,’ he exclaimed in subdued tones. ‘Does the
infant flourish?’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘Reardon out? I got back on Saturday evening, but couldn’t come round
before this.’ It was Monday. ‘How close it is in here! I suppose the
roof gets so heated during the day. Glorious weather in the country! And
I’ve no end of things to tell you. He won’t be long, I suppose?’
‘I think not.’
He left his hat and stick in the passage, came into the study, and
glanced about as if he expected to see some change since he was last
here, three weeks ago.
‘So you have been enjoying yourself?’ said Amy as, after listening for a
moment at the door, she took a seat.
‘Oh, a little freshening of the faculties. But whose acquaintance do you
think I have made?’
‘Down there?’
‘Yes. Your uncle Alfred and his daughter were staying at John Yule’s,
and I saw something of them. I was invited to the house.’
‘Did you speak of us?’
‘To Miss Yule only. I happened to meet her on a walk, and in a
blundering way I mentioned Reardon’s name. But of course it didn’t
matter in the least. She inquired about you with a good deal of
interest--asked if you were as beautiful as you promised to be years
ago.’
Amy laughed.
‘Doesn’t that proceed from your fertile invention, Mr Milvain?’
‘Not a bit of it! By-the-bye, what would be your natural question
concerning her? Do you think she gave promise of good looks?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say that she did. She had a good face, but--rather
plain.’
‘I see.’ Jasper threw back his head and seemed to contemplate an object
in memory. ‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if most people called her a trifle
plain even now; and yet--no, that’s hardly possible, after all. She has
no colour. Wears her hair short.’
‘Short?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean the smooth, boyish hair with a parting--not the
kind of hair that would be lank if it grew long. Curly all over. Looks
uncommonly well, I assure you. She has a capital head. Odd girl; very
odd girl! Quiet, thoughtful--not very happy, I’m afraid. Seems to think
with dread of a return to books.’
‘Indeed! But I had understood that she was a reader.’
‘Reading enough for six people, probably. Perhaps her health is not
very robust. Oh, I knew her by sight quite well--had seen her at the
Reading-room. She’s the kind of girl that gets into one’s head, you
know--suggestive; much more in her than comes out until one knows her
very well.’
‘Well, I should hope so,’ remarked Amy, with a peculiar smile.
‘But that’s by no means a matter of course. They didn’t invite me to
come and see them in London.’
‘I suppose Marian mentioned your acquaintance with this branch of the
family?’
‘I think not. At all events, she promised me she wouldn’t.’
Amy looked at him inquiringly, in a puzzled way.
‘She promised you?’
‘Voluntarily. We got rather sympathetic. Your uncle--Alfred, I mean--is
a remarkable man; but I think he regarded me as a youth of no particular
importance. Well, how do things go?’
Amy shook her head.
‘No progress?’
‘None whatever. He can’t work; I begin to be afraid that he is really
ill. He must go away before the fine weather is over. Do persuade him
to-night! I wish you could have had a holiday with him.’
‘Out of the question now, I’m sorry to say. I must work savagely. But
can’t you all manage a fortnight somewhere--Hastings, Eastbourne?’
‘It would be simply rash. One goes on saying, “What does a pound or two
matter?”--but it begins at length to matter a great deal.’
‘I know, confound it all! Think how it would amuse some rich grocer’s
son who pitches his half-sovereign to the waiter when he has dined
himself into good humour! But I tell you what it is: you must really try
to influence him towards practicality. Don’t you think--?’
He paused, and Amy sat looking at her hands.
‘I have made an attempt,’ she said at length, in a distant undertone.
‘You really have?’
Jasper leaned forward, his clasped hands hanging between his knees. He
was scrutinising her face, and Amy, conscious of the too fixed regard,
at length moved her head uneasily.
‘It seems very clear to me,’ she said, ‘that a long book is out of the
question for him at present. He writes so slowly, and is so fastidious.
It would be a fatal thing to hurry through something weaker even than
the last.’
‘You think “The Optimist” weak?’ Jasper asked, half absently.
‘I don’t think it worthy of Edwin; I don’t see how anyone can.
‘I have wondered what your opinion was. Yes, he ought to try a new tack,
I think.’
Just then there came the sound of a latch-key opening the outer door.
Jasper lay back in his chair and waited with a smile for his expected
friend’s appearance; Amy made no movement.
‘Oh, there you are!’ said Reardon, presenting himself with the dazzled
eyes of one who has been in darkness; he spoke in a voice of genial
welcome, though it still had the note of depression. ‘When did you get
back?’
Milvain began to recount what he had told in the first part of his
conversation with Amy. As he did so, the latter withdrew, and was absent
for five minutes; on reappearing she said:
‘You’ll have some supper with us, Mr Milvain?’
‘I think I will, please.’
Shortly after, all repaired to the eating-room, where conversation
had to be carried on in a low tone because of the proximity of the
bedchamber in which lay the sleeping child. Jasper began to tell of
certain things that had happened to him since his arrival in town.
‘It was a curious coincidence--but, by-the-bye, have you heard of what
The Study has been doing?’
‘I should rather think so,’ replied Reardon, his face lighting up. ‘With
no small satisfaction.’
‘Delicious, isn’t it?’ exclaimed his wife. ‘I thought it too good to be
true when Edwin heard of it from Mr Biffen.’
All three laughed in subdued chorus. For the moment, Reardon became a
new man in his exultation over the contradictory reviewers.
‘Oh, Biffen told you, did he? Well,’ continued Jasper, ‘it was an odd
thing, but when I reached my lodgings on Saturday evening there lay
a note from Horace Barlow, inviting me to go and see him on Sunday
afternoon out at Wimbledon, the special reason being that the editor of
The Study would be there, and Barlow thought I might like to meet him.
Now this letter gave me a fit of laughter; not only because of those
precious reviews, but because Alfred Yule had been telling me all about
this same editor, who rejoices in the name of Fadge. Your uncle, Mrs
Reardon, declares that Fadge is the most malicious man in the literary
profession; though that’s saying such a very great deal--well, never
mind! Of course I was delighted to go and meet Fadge. At Barlow’s I
found the queerest collection of people, most of them women of the
inkiest description. The great Fadge himself surprised me; I expected
to see a gaunt, bilious man, and he was the rosiest and dumpiest little
dandy you can imagine; a fellow of forty-five, I dare say, with thin
yellow hair and blue eyes and a manner of extreme innocence. Fadge
flattered me with confidential chat, and I discovered at length why
Barlow had asked me to meet him; it’s Fadge that is going to edit
Culpepper’s new monthly--you’ve heard about it?--and he had actually
thought it worth while to enlist me among contributors! Now, how’s that
for a piece of news?’
The speaker looked from Reardon to Amy with a smile of vast
significance.
‘I rejoice to hear it!’ said Reardon, fervently.
‘You see! you see!’ cried Jasper, forgetting all about the infant in the
next room, ‘all things come to the man who knows how to wait. But I’m
hanged if I expected a thing of this kind to come so soon! Why, I’m a
man of distinction! My doings have been noted; the admirable qualities
of my style have drawn attention; I’m looked upon as one of the coming
men! Thanks, I confess, in some measure, to old Barlow; he seems to have
amused himself with cracking me up to all and sundry. That last thing
of mine in The West End has done me a vast amount of good, it seems. And
Alfred Yule himself had noticed that paper in The Wayside. That’s how
things work, you know; reputation comes with a burst, just when you’re
not looking for anything of the kind.’
‘What’s the new magazine to be called?’ asked Amy.
‘Why, they propose The Current. Not bad, in a way; though you imagine
a fellow saying “Have you seen the current Current?” At all events, the
tone is to be up to date, and the articles are to be short; no padding,
merum sal from cover to cover. What do you think I have undertaken to
do, for a start? A paper consisting of sketches of typical readers of
each of the principal daily and weekly papers. A deuced good idea, you
know--my own, of course--but deucedly hard to carry out. I shall rise
to the occasion, see if I don’t. I’ll rival Fadge himself in
maliciousness--though I must confess I discovered no particular malice
in the fellow’s way of talking. The article shall make a sensation. I’ll
spend a whole month on it, and make it a perfect piece of satire.’
‘Now that’s the kind of thing that inspires me with awe and envy,’
said Reardon. ‘I could no more write such a paper than an article on
Fluxions.’
‘’Tis my vocation, Hal! You might think I hadn’t experience enough,
to begin with. But my intuition is so strong that I can make a little
experience go an immense way. Most people would imagine I had been
wasting my time these last few years, just sauntering about, reading
nothing but periodicals, making acquaintance with loafers of every
description. The truth is, I have been collecting ideas, and ideas
that are convertible into coin of the realm, my boy; I have the special
faculty of an extempore writer. Never in my life shall I do anything of
solid literary value; I shall always despise the people I write for. But
my path will be that of success. I have always said it, and now I’m sure
of it.’
‘Does Fadge retire from The Study, then?’ inquired Reardon, when he had
received this tirade with a friendly laugh.
‘Yes, he does. Was going to, it seems, in any case. Of course I heard
nothing about the two reviews, and I was almost afraid to smile whilst
Fadge was talking with me, lest I should betray my thought. Did you know
anything about the fellow before?’
‘Not I. Didn’t know who edited The Study.’
‘Nor I either. Remarkable what a number of illustrious obscure are going
about. But I have still something else to tell you. I’m going to set my
sisters afloat in literature.’
‘How!’
‘Well, I don’t see why they shouldn’t try their hands at a little
writing, instead of giving lessons, which doesn’t suit them a bit. Last
night, when I got back from Wimbledon, I went to look up Davies. Perhaps
you don’t remember my mentioning him; a fellow who was at Jolly and
Monk’s, the publishers, up to a year ago. He edits a trade journal now,
and I see very little of him. However, I found him at home, and had
a long practical talk with him. I wanted to find out the state of the
market as to such wares as Jolly and Monk dispose of. He gave me some
very useful hints, and the result was that I went off this morning and
saw Monk himself--no Jolly exists at present. “Mr Monk,” I began, in my
blandest tone--you know it--“I am requested to call upon you by a lady
who thinks of preparing a little volume to be called ‘A Child’s History
of the English Parliament.’ Her idea is, that”--and so on. Well, I
got on admirably with Monk, especially when he learnt that I was to be
connected with Culpepper’s new venture; he smiled upon the project, and
said he should be very glad to see a specimen chapter; if that pleased
him, we could then discuss terms.’
‘But has one of your sisters really begun such a book?’ inquired Amy.
‘Neither of them knows anything of the matter, but they are certainly
capable of doing the kind of thing I have in mind, which will consist
largely of anecdotes of prominent statesmen. I myself shall write the
specimen chapter, and send it to the girls to show them what I propose.
I shouldn’t wonder if they make some fifty pounds out of it. The few
books that will be necessary they can either get at a Wattleborough
library, or I can send them.’
‘Your energy is remarkable, all of a sudden,’ said Reardon.
‘Yes. The hour has come, I find. “There is a tide”--to quote something
that has the charm of freshness.’
The supper--which consisted of bread and butter, cheese, sardines,
cocoa--was now over, and Jasper, still enlarging on his recent
experiences and future prospects, led the way back to the sitting-room.
Not very long after this, Amy left the two friends to their pipes; she
was anxious that her husband should discuss his affairs privately with
Milvain, and give ear to the practical advice which she knew would be
tendered him.
‘I hear that you are still stuck fast,’ began Jasper, when they had
smoked awhile in silence.
‘Yes.’
‘Getting rather serious, I should fear, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ repeated Reardon, in a low voice.
‘Come, come, old man, you can’t go on in this way. Would it, or wouldn’t
it, be any use if you took a seaside holiday?’
‘Not the least. I am incapable of holiday, if the opportunity were
offered. Do something I must, or I shall fret myself into imbecility.’
‘Very well. What is it to be?’
‘I shall try to manufacture two volumes. They needn’t run to more than
about two hundred and seventy pages, and those well spaced out.’
‘This is refreshing. This is practical. But look now: let it be
something rather sensational. Couldn’t we invent a good title--something
to catch eye and ear? The title would suggest the story, you know.’
Reardon laughed contemptuously, but the scorn was directed rather
against himself than Milvain.
‘Let’s try,’ he muttered.
Both appeared to exercise their minds on the problem for a few minutes.
Then Jasper slapped his knee.
‘How would this do: “The Weird Sisters”? Devilish good, eh? Suggests all
sorts of things, both to the vulgar and the educated. Nothing brutally
clap-trap about it, you know.’
‘But--what does it suggest to you?’
‘Oh, witch-like, mysterious girls or women. Think it over.’
There was another long silence. Reardon’s face was that of a man in
blank misery.
‘I have been trying,’ he said at length, after an attempt to speak which
was checked by a huskiness in his throat, ‘to explain to myself how this
state of things has come about. I almost think I can do so.’
‘How?’
‘That half-year abroad, and the extraordinary shock of happiness which
followed at once upon it, have disturbed the balance of my nature.
It was adjusted to circumstances of hardship, privation, struggle.
A temperament like mine can’t pass through such a violent change of
conditions without being greatly affected; I have never since been the
man I was before I left England. The stage I had then reached was the
result of a slow and elaborate building up; I could look back and see
the processes by which I had grown from the boy who was a mere bookworm
to the man who had all but succeeded as a novelist. It was a perfectly
natural, sober development. But in the last two years and a half I can
distinguish no order. In living through it, I have imagined from time
to time that my powers were coming to their ripest; but that was mere
delusion. Intellectually, I have fallen back. The probability is that
this wouldn’t matter, if only I could live on in peace of mind; I should
recover my equilibrium, and perhaps once more understand myself. But the
due course of things is troubled by my poverty.’
He spoke in a slow, meditative way, in a monotonous voice, and without
raising his eyes from the ground.
‘I can understand,’ put in Jasper, ‘that there may be philosophical
truth in all this. All the same, it’s a great pity that you should
occupy your mind with such thoughts.’
‘A pity--no! I must remain a reasoning creature. Disaster may end by
driving me out of my wits, but till then I won’t abandon my heritage of
thought.’
‘Let us have it out, then. You think it was a mistake to spend those
months abroad?’
‘A mistake from the practical point of view. That vast broadening of my
horizon lost me the command of my literary resources. I lived in
Italy and Greece as a student, concerned especially with the old
civilisations; I read little but Greek and Latin. That brought me out of
the track I had laboriously made for myself I often thought with disgust
of the kind of work I had been doing; my novels seemed vapid stuff, so
wretchedly and shallowly modern. If I had had the means, I should have
devoted myself to the life of a scholar. That, I quite believe, is my
natural life; it’s only the influence of recent circumstances that has
made me a writer of novels. A man who can’t journalise, yet must earn
his bread by literature, nowadays inevitably turns to fiction, as the
Elizabethan men turned to the drama. Well, but I should have got back, I
think, into the old line of work. It was my marriage that completed what
the time abroad had begun.’
He looked up suddenly, and added:
‘I am speaking as if to myself. You, of course, don’t misunderstand me,
and think I am accusing my wife.’
‘No, I don’t take you to mean that, by any means.’
‘No, no; of course not. All that’s wrong is my accursed want of money.
But that threatens to be such a fearful wrong, that I begin to wish I
had died before my marriage-day. Then Amy would have been saved. The
Philistines are right: a man has no business to marry unless he has a
secured income equal to all natural demands. I behaved with the grossest
selfishness. I might have known that such happiness was never meant for
me.’
‘Do you mean by all this that you seriously doubt whether you will ever
be able to write again?’
‘In awful seriousness, I doubt it,’ replied Reardon, with haggard face.
‘It strikes me as extraordinary. In your position I should work as I
never had done before.’
‘Because you are the kind of man who is roused by necessity. I am
overcome by it. My nature is feeble and luxurious. I never in my life
encountered and overcame a practical difficulty.’
‘Yes; when you got the work at the hospital.’
‘All I did was to write a letter, and chance made it effective.’
‘My view of the case, Reardon, is that you are simply ill.’
‘Certainly I am; but the ailment is desperately complicated. Tell me: do
you think I might possibly get any kind of stated work to do? Should I
be fit for any place in a newspaper office, for instance?’
‘I fear not. You are the last man to have anything to do with
journalism.’
‘If I appealed to my publishers, could they help me?’
‘I don’t see how. They would simply say: Write a book and we’ll buy it.’
‘Yes, there’s no help but that.’
‘If only you were able to write short stories, Fadge might be useful.’
‘But what’s the use? I suppose I might get ten guineas, at most, for
such a story. I need a couple of hundred pounds at least. Even if
I could finish a three-volume book, I doubt if they would give me a
hundred again, after the failure of “The Optimist”; no, they wouldn’t.’
‘But to sit and look forward in this way is absolutely fatal, my
dear fellow. Get to work at your two-volume story. Call it “The Weird
Sisters,” or anything better that you can devise; but get it done, so
many pages a day. If I go ahead as I begin to think I shall, I shall
soon be able to assure you good notices in a lot of papers. Your
misfortune has been that you had no influential friends. By-the-bye, how
has The Study been in the habit of treating you?’
‘Scrubbily.’
‘I’ll make an opportunity of talking about your books to Fadge. I think
Fadge and I shall get on pretty well together. Alfred Yule hates the man
fiercely, for some reason or other. By the way, I may as well tell you
that I broke short off with the Yules on purpose.’
‘Oh?’
‘I had begun to think far too much about the girl. Wouldn’t do, you
know. I must marry someone with money, and a good deal of it.
That’s a settled point with me.’
‘Then you are not at all likely to meet them in London?’
‘Not at all. And if I get allied with Fadge, no doubt Yule will involve
me in his savage feeling. You see how wisely I acted. I have a scent for
the prudent course.’
They talked for a long time, but again chiefly of Milvain’s affairs.
Reardon, indeed, cared little to say anything more about his own. Talk
was mere vanity and vexation of spirit, for the spring of his volition
seemed to be broken, and, whatever resolve he might utter, he knew that
everything depended on influences he could not even foresee.