Three weeks after her return from the country--which took place a week
later than that of Jasper Milvain--Marian Yule was working one afternoon
at her usual place in the Museum Reading-room. It was three o’clock, and
with the interval of half an hour at midday, when she went away for a
cup of tea and a sandwich, she had been closely occupied since half-past
nine. Her task at present was to collect materials for a paper on
‘French Authoresses of the Seventeenth Century,’ the kind of thing
which her father supplied on stipulated terms for anonymous publication.
Marian was by this time almost able to complete such a piece of
manufacture herself and her father’s share in it was limited to a few
hints and corrections. The greater part of the work by which Yule earned
his moderate income was anonymous: volumes and articles which bore his
signature dealt with much the same subjects as his unsigned matter, but
the writing was laboured with a conscientiousness unusual in men of his
position. The result, unhappily, was not correspondent with the efforts.
Alfred Yule had made a recognisable name among the critical writers of
the day; seeing him in the title-lists of a periodical, most people knew
what to expect, but not a few forbore the cutting open of the pages he
occupied. He was learned, copious, occasionally mordant in style; but
grace had been denied to him. He had of late begun to perceive the fact
that those passages of Marian’s writing which were printed just as they
came from her pen had merit of a kind quite distinct from anything of
which he himself was capable, and it began to be a question with
him whether it would not be advantageous to let the girl sign these
compositions. A matter of business, to be sure--at all events in the
first instance.
For a long time Marian had scarcely looked up from the desk, but at this
moment she found it necessary to refer to the invaluable Larousse. As so
often happened, the particular volume of which she had need was not upon
the shelf; she turned away, and looked about her with a gaze of weary
disappointment. At a little distance were standing two young men,
engaged, as their faces showed, in facetious colloquy; as soon as she
observed them, Marian’s eyes fell, but the next moment she looked again
in that direction. Her face had wholly changed; she wore a look of timid
expectancy.
The men were moving towards her, still talking and laughing. She turned
to the shelves, and affected to search for a book. The voices drew near,
and one of them was well known to her; now she could hear every word;
now the speakers were gone by. Was it possible that Mr Milvain had not
recognised her? She followed him with her eyes, and saw him take a seat
not far off; he must have passed without even being aware of her.
She went back to her place and for some minutes sat trifling with a pen.
When she made a show of resuming work, it was evident that she could no
longer apply herself as before. Every now and then she glanced at people
who were passing; there were intervals when she wholly lost herself in
reverie. She was tired, and had even a slight headache. When the hand of
the clock pointed to half-past three, she closed the volume from which
she had been copying extracts, and began to collect her papers.
A voice spoke close behind her.
‘Where’s your father, Miss Yule?’
The speaker was a man of sixty, short, stout, tonsured by the hand of
time. He had a broad, flabby face, the colour of an ancient turnip,
save where one of the cheeks was marked with a mulberry stain; his
eyes, grey-orbed in a yellow setting, glared with good-humoured
inquisitiveness, and his mouth was that of the confirmed gossip. For
eyebrows he had two little patches of reddish stubble; for moustache,
what looked like a bit of discoloured tow, and scraps of similar
material hanging beneath his creasy chin represented a beard. His garb
must have seen a great deal of Museum service; it consisted of a jacket,
something between brown and blue, hanging in capacious shapelessness,
a waistcoat half open for lack of buttons and with one of the pockets
coming unsewn, a pair of bronze-hued trousers which had all run to
knee. Necktie he had none, and his linen made distinct appeal to the
laundress.
Marian shook hands with him.
‘He went away at half-past two,’ was her reply to his question.
‘How annoying! I wanted particularly to see him. I have been running
about all day, and couldn’t get here before. Something important--most
important. At all events, I can tell you. But I entreat that you won’t
breathe a word save to your father.’
Mr Quarmby--that was his name--had taken a vacant chair and drawn it
close to Marian’s. He was in a state of joyous excitement, and talked
in thick, rather pompous tones, with a pant at the end of a sentence. To
emphasise the extremely confidential nature of his remarks, he brought
his head almost in contact with the girl’s, and one of her thin,
delicate hands was covered with his red, podgy fingers.
‘I’ve had a talk with Nathaniel Walker,’ he continued; ‘a long talk--a
talk of vast importance. You know Walker? No, no; how should you? He’s a
man of business; close friend of Rackett’s--Rackett, you know, the owner
of The Study.’
Upon this he made a grave pause, and glared more excitedly than ever.
‘I have heard of Mr Rackett,’ said Marian.
‘Of course, of course. And you must also have heard that Fadge leaves
The Study at the end of this year, eh?’
‘Father told me it was probable.’
‘Rackett and he have done nothing but quarrel for months; the paper is
falling off seriously. Well, now, when I came across Nat Walker this
afternoon, the first thing he said to me was, “You know Alfred Yule
pretty well, I think?” “Pretty well,” I answered; “why?” “I’ll tell
you,” he said, “but it’s between you and me, you understand. Rackett is
thinking about him in connection with The Study.” “I’m delighted to hear
it.” “To tell you the truth,” went on Nat, “I shouldn’t wonder if Yule
gets the editorship; but you understand that it would be altogether
premature to talk about it.” Now what do you think of this, eh?’
‘It’s very good news,’ answered Marian.
‘I should think so! Ho, ho!’
Mr Quarmby laughed in a peculiar way, which was the result of long years
of mirth-subdual in the Reading-room.
‘But not a breath to anyone but your father. He’ll be here to-morrow?
Break it gently to him, you know; he’s an excitable man; can’t take
things quietly, like I do. Ho, ho!’
His suppressed laugh ended in a fit of coughing--the Reading-room cough.
When he had recovered from it, he pressed Marian’s hand with paternal
fervour, and waddled off to chatter with someone else.
Marian replaced several books on the reference-shelves, returned others
to the central desk, and was just leaving the room, when again a voice
made demand upon her attention.
‘Miss Yule! One moment, if you please!’
It was a tall, meagre, dry-featured man, dressed with the painful
neatness of self-respecting poverty: the edges of his coat-sleeves were
carefully darned; his black necktie and a skull-cap which covered
his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and
timidly with blue, rheumy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and
neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand.
‘I have been looking for your father,’ he said, as Marian turned. ‘Isn’t
he here?’
‘He has gone, Mr Hinks.’
‘Ah, then would you do me the kindness to take a book for him? In fact,
it’s my little “Essay on the Historical Drama,” just out.’
He spoke with nervous hesitation, and in a tone which seemed to make
apology for his existence.
‘Oh, father will be very glad to have it.’
‘If you will kindly wait one minute, Miss Yule. It’s at my place over
there.’
He went off with long strides, and speedily came back panting, in his
hand a thin new volume.
‘My kind regards to him, Miss Yule. You are quite well, I hope? I won’t
detain you.’
And he backed into a man who was coming inobservantly this way.
Marian went to the ladies’ cloak-room, put on her hat and jacket, and
left the Museum. Some one passed out through the swing-door a moment
before her, and as soon as she had issued beneath the portico, she saw
that it was Jasper Milvain; she must have followed him through the hall,
but her eyes had been cast down. The young man was now alone; as he
descended the steps he looked to left and right, but not behind him.
Marian followed at a distance of two or three yards. Nearing the
gateway, she quickened her pace a little, so as to pass out into the
street almost at the same moment as Milvain. But he did not turn his
head.
He took to the right. Marian had fallen back again, but she still
followed at a very little distance. His walk was slow, and she might
easily have passed him in quite a natural way; in that case he could not
help seeing her. But there was an uneasy suspicion in her mind that he
really must have noticed her in the Reading-room. This was the first
time she had seen him since their parting at Finden. Had he any reason
for avoiding her? Did he take it ill that her father had shown no desire
to keep up his acquaintance?
She allowed the interval between them to become greater. In a minute or
two Milvain turned up Charlotte Street, and so she lost sight of him.
In Tottenham Court Road she waited for an omnibus that would take her
to the remoter part of Camden Town; obtaining a corner seat, she drew as
far back as possible, and paid no attention to her fellow-passengers.
At a point in Camden Road she at length alighted, and after ten
minutes’ walk reached her destination in a quiet by-way called St Paul’s
Crescent, consisting of small, decent houses. That at which she paused
had an exterior promising comfort within; the windows were clean and
neatly curtained, and the polishable appurtenances of the door gleamed
to perfection. She admitted herself with a latch-key, and went straight
upstairs without encountering anyone.
Descending again in a few moments, she entered the front room on the
ground-floor. This served both as parlour and dining-room; it was
comfortably furnished, without much attempt at adornment. On the walls
were a few autotypes and old engravings. A recess between fireplace and
window was fitted with shelves, which supported hundreds of volumes,
the overflow of Yule’s library. The table was laid for a meal. It best
suited the convenience of the family to dine at five o’clock; a long
evening, so necessary to most literary people, was thus assured.
Marian, as always when she had spent a day at the Museum, was faint with
weariness and hunger; she cut a small piece of bread from a loaf on the
table, and sat down in an easy chair.
Presently appeared a short, slight woman of middle age, plainly dressed
in serviceable grey. Her face could never have been very comely, and it
expressed but moderate intelligence; its lines, however, were those of
gentleness and good feeling. She had the look of one who is making
a painful effort to understand something; this was fixed upon her
features, and probably resulted from the peculiar conditions of her
life.
‘Rather early, aren’t you, Marian?’ she said, as she closed the door and
came forward to take a seat.
‘Yes; I have a little headache.’
‘Oh, dear! Is that beginning again?’
Mrs Yule’s speech was seldom ungrammatical, and her intonation was not
flagrantly vulgar, but the accent of the London poor, which brands as
with hereditary baseness, still clung to her words, rendering futile
such propriety of phrase as she owed to years of association with
educated people. In the same degree did her bearing fall short of that
which distinguishes a lady. The London work-girl is rarely capable of
raising herself, or being raised, to a place in life above that to which
she was born; she cannot learn how to stand and sit and move like a
woman bred to refinement, any more than she can fashion her tongue
to graceful speech. Mrs Yule’s behaviour to Marian was marked with a
singular diffidence; she looked and spoke affectionately, but not with a
mother’s freedom; one might have taken her for a trusted servant waiting
upon her mistress. Whenever opportunity offered, she watched the girl
in a curiously furtive way, that puzzled look on her face becoming very
noticeable. Her consciousness was never able to accept as a familiar and
unimportant fact the vast difference between herself and her daughter.
Marian’s superiority in native powers, in delicacy of feeling, in the
results of education, could never be lost sight of. Under ordinary
circumstances she addressed the girl as if tentatively; however sure of
anything from her own point of view, she knew that Marian, as often
as not, had quite a different criterion. She understood that the
girl frequently expressed an opinion by mere reticence, and hence the
carefulness with which, when conversing, she tried to discover the real
effect of her words in Marian’s features.
‘Hungry, too,’ she said, seeing the crust Marian was nibbling. ‘You
really must have more lunch, dear. It isn’t right to go so long; you’ll
make yourself ill.’
‘Have you been out?’ Marian asked.
‘Yes; I went to Holloway.’
Mrs Yule sighed and looked very unhappy. By ‘going to Holloway’ was
always meant a visit to her own relatives--a married sister with three
children, and a brother who inhabited the same house. To her husband
she scarcely ever ventured to speak of these persons; Yule had
no intercourse with them. But Marian was always willing to listen
sympathetically, and her mother often exhibited a touching gratitude for
this condescension--as she deemed it.
‘Are things no better?’ the girl inquired.
‘Worse, as far as I can see. John has begun his drinking again, and him
and Tom quarrel every night; there’s no peace in the ‘ouse.’
If ever Mrs Yule lapsed into gross errors of pronunciation or phrase, it
was when she spoke of her kinsfolk. The subject seemed to throw her back
into a former condition.
‘He ought to go and live by himself’ said Marian, referring to her
mother’s brother, the thirsty John.
‘So he ought, to be sure. I’m always telling them so. But there!
you don’t seem to be able to persuade them, they’re that silly and
obstinate. And Susan, she only gets angry with me, and tells me not to
talk in a stuck-up way. I’m sure I never say a word that could offend
her; I’m too careful for that. And there’s Annie; no doing anything with
her! She’s about the streets at all hours, and what’ll be the end of
it no one can say. They’re getting that ragged, all of them. It isn’t
Susan’s fault; indeed it isn’t. She does all that woman can. But Tom
hasn’t brought home ten shillings the last month, and it seems to me as
if he was getting careless. I gave her half-a-crown; it was all I could
do. And the worst of it is, they think I could do so much more if I
liked. They’re always hinting that we are rich people, and it’s no good
my trying to persuade them. They think I’m telling falsehoods, and it’s
very hard to be looked at in that way; it is, indeed, Marian.’
‘You can’t help it, mother. I suppose their suffering makes them unkind
and unjust.’
‘That’s just what it does, my dear; you never said anything truer.
Poverty will make the best people bad, if it gets hard enough. Why
there’s so much of it in the world, I’m sure I can’t see.’
‘I suppose father will be back soon?’
‘He said dinner-time.’
‘Mr Quarmby has been telling me something which is wonderfully good news
if it’s really true; but I can’t help feeling doubtful.
He says that father may perhaps be made editor of The Study at the end
of this year.’
Mrs Yule, of course, understood, in outline, these affairs of the
literary world; she thought of them only from the pecuniary point of
view, but that made no essential distinction between her and the mass of
literary people.
‘My word!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a thing that would be for us!’
Marian had begun to explain her reluctance to base any hopes on Mr
Quarmby’s prediction, when the sound of a postman’s knock at the
house-door caused her mother to disappear for a moment.
‘It’s for you,’ said Mrs Yule, returning. ‘From the country.’
Marian took the letter and examined its address with interest.
‘It must be one of the Miss Milvains. Yes; Dora Milvain.’
After Jasper’s departure from Finden his sisters had seen Marian several
times, and the mutual liking between her and them had been confirmed by
opportunity of conversation. The promise of correspondence had hitherto
waited for fulfilment. It seemed natural to Marian that the younger
of the two girls should write; Maud was attractive and agreeable, and
probably clever, but Dora had more spontaneity in friendship.
‘It will amuse you to hear,’ wrote Dora, ‘that the literary project our
brother mentioned in a letter whilst you were still here is really to
come to something. He has sent us a specimen chapter, written by himself
of the “Child’s History of Parliament,” and Maud thinks she could carry
it on in that style, if there’s no hurry. She and I have both set to
work on English histories, and we shall be authorities before long.
Jolly and Monk offer thirty pounds for the little book, if it suits them
when finished, with certain possible profits in the future. Trust Jasper
for making a bargain! So perhaps our literary career will be something
more than a joke, after all. I hope it may; anything rather than a life
of teaching. We shall be so glad to hear from you, if you still care to
trouble about country girls.’
And so on. Marian read with a pleased smile, then acquainted her mother
with the contents.
‘I am very glad,’ said Mrs Yule; ‘it’s so seldom you get a letter.’
‘Yes.’
Marian seemed desirous of saying something more, and her mother had a
thoughtful look, suggestive of sympathetic curiosity.
‘Is their brother likely to call here?’ Mrs Yule asked, with misgiving.
‘No one has invited him to,’ was the girl’s quiet reply.
‘He wouldn’t come without that?’
‘It’s not likely that he even knows the address.’
‘Your father won’t be seeing him, I suppose?’
‘By chance, perhaps. I don’t know.’
It was very rare indeed for these two to touch upon any subject save
those of everyday interest. In spite of the affection between them,
their exchange of confidence did not go very far; Mrs Yule, who had
never exercised maternal authority since Marian’s earliest childhood,
claimed no maternal privileges, and Marian’s natural reserve had been
strengthened by her mother’s respectful aloofness. The English fault of
domestic reticence could scarcely go further than it did in their case;
its exaggeration is, of course, one of the characteristics of those
unhappy families severed by differences of education between the old and
young.
‘I think,’ said Marian, in a forced tone, ‘that father hasn’t much
liking for Mr Milvain.’
She wished to know if her mother had heard any private remarks on this
subject, but she could not bring herself to ask directly.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ replied Mrs Yule, smoothing her dress. ‘He
hasn’t said anything to me, Marian.’
An awkward silence. The mother had fixed her eyes on the mantelpiece,
and was thinking hard.
‘Otherwise,’ said Marian, ‘he would have said something, I should think,
about meeting in London.’
‘But is there anything in--this gentleman that he wouldn’t like?’
‘I don’t know of anything.’
Impossible to pursue the dialogue; Marian moved uneasily, then rose,
said something about putting the letter away, and left the room.
Shortly after, Alfred Yule entered the house. It was no uncommon thing
for him to come home in a mood of silent moroseness, and this evening
the first glimpse of his face was sufficient warning. He entered the
dining-room and stood on the hearthrug reading an evening paper. His
wife made a pretence of straightening things upon the table.
‘Well?’ he exclaimed irritably. ‘It’s after five; why isn’t dinner
served?’
‘It’s just coming, Alfred.’
Even the average man of a certain age is an alarming creature when
dinner delays itself; the literary man in such a moment goes beyond all
parallel. If there be added the fact that he has just returned from a
very unsatisfactory interview with a publisher, wife and daughter may
indeed regard the situation as appalling. Marian came in, and at once
observed her mother’s frightened face.
‘Father,’ she said, hoping to make a diversion, ‘Mr Hinks has sent you
his new book, and wishes--’
‘Then take Mr Hinks’s new book back to him, and tell him that I have
quite enough to do without reading tedious trash. He needn’t expect
that I’m going to write a notice of it. The simpleton pesters me beyond
endurance. I wish to know, if you please,’ he added with savage calm,
‘when dinner will be ready. If there’s time to write a few letters, just
tell me at once, that I mayn’t waste half an hour.’
Marian resented this unreasonable anger, but she durst not reply.
At that moment the servant appeared with a smoking joint, and Mrs
Yule followed carrying dishes of vegetables. The man of letters seated
himself and carved angrily. He began his meal by drinking half a glass
of ale; then he ate a few mouthfuls in a quick, hungry way, his head
bent closely over the plate. It happened commonly enough that dinner
passed without a word of conversation, and that seemed likely to be the
case this evening.
To his wife Yule seldom addressed anything but a curt inquiry or caustic
comment; if he spoke humanly at table it was to Marian.
Ten minutes passed; then Marian resolved to try any means of clearing
the atmosphere.
‘Mr Quarmby gave me a message for you,’ she said. ‘A friend of his,
Nathaniel Walker, has told him that Mr Rackett will very likely offer
you the editorship of The Study.’
Yule stopped in the act of mastication. He fixed his eyes intently on
the sirloin for half a minute; then, by way of the beer-jug and the
salt-cellar, turned them upon Marian’s face.
‘Walker told him that? Pooh!’
‘It was a great secret. I wasn’t to breathe a word to any one but you.’
‘Walker’s a fool and Quarmby’s an ass,’ remarked her father.
But there was a tremulousness in his bushy eyebrows; his forehead half
unwreathed itself; he continued to eat more slowly, and as if with
appreciation of the viands.
‘What did he say? Repeat it to me in his words.’
Marian did so, as nearly as possible. He listened with a scoffing
expression, but still his features relaxed.
‘I don’t credit Rackett with enough good sense for such a proposal,’ he
said deliberately. ‘And I’m not very sure that I should accept it if it
were made. That fellow Fadge has all but ruined the paper. It will
amuse me to see how long it takes him to make Culpepper’s new magazine a
distinct failure.’
A silence of five minutes ensued; then Yule said of a sudden.
‘Where is Hinks’s book?’
Marian reached it from a side table; under this roof, literature was
regarded almost as a necessary part of table garnishing.
‘I thought it would be bigger than this,’ Yule muttered, as he opened
the volume in a way peculiar to bookish men.
A page was turned down, as if to draw attention to some passage. Yule
put on his eyeglasses, and soon made a discovery which had the effect of
completing the transformation of his visage. His eyes glinted, his chin
worked in pleasurable emotion. In a moment he handed the book to Marian,
indicating the small type of a foot-note; it embodied an effusive
eulogy--introduced a propos of some literary discussion--of ‘Mr Alfred
Yule’s critical acumen, scholarly research, lucid style,’ and sundry
other distinguished merits.
‘That is kind of him,’ said Marian.
‘Good old Hinks! I suppose I must try to get him half-a-dozen readers.’
‘May I see?’ asked Mrs Yule, under her breath, bending to Marian.
Her daughter passed on the volume, and Mrs Yule read the footnote with
that look of slow apprehension which is so pathetic when it signifies
the heart’s good-will thwarted by the mind’s defect.
‘That’ll be good for you, Alfred, won’t it?’ she said, glancing at her
husband.
‘Certainly,’ he replied, with a smile of contemptuous irony. ‘If Hinks
goes on, he’ll establish my reputation.’
And he took a draught of ale, like one who is reinvigorated for the
battle of life. Marian, regarding him askance, mused on what seemed to
her a strange anomaly in his character; it had often surprised her that
a man of his temperament and powers should be so dependent upon the
praise and blame of people whom he justly deemed his inferiors.
Yule was glancing over the pages of the work.
‘A pity the man can’t write English.’ What a vocabulary!
Obstruent--reliable--particularization--fabulosity--different to--averse
to--did one ever come across such a mixture of antique pedantry and
modern vulgarism! Surely he has his name from the German hinken--eh,
Marian?’
With a laugh he tossed the book away again. His mood was wholly changed.
He gave various evidences of enjoying the meal, and began to talk freely
with his daughter.
‘Finished the authoresses?’
‘Not quite.’
‘No hurry. When you have time I want you to read Ditchley’s new book,
and jot down a selection of his worst sentences. I’ll use them for an
article on contemporary style; it occurred to me this afternoon.’
He smiled grimly. Mrs Yule’s face exhibited much contentment, which
became radiant joy when her husband remarked casually that the custard
was very well made to-day. Dinner over, he rose without ceremony and
went off to his study.
The man had suffered much and toiled stupendously. It was not
inexplicable that dyspepsia, and many another ill that literary flesh is
heir to, racked him sore.
Go back to the days when he was an assistant at a bookseller’s in
Holborn. Already ambition devoured him, and the genuine love of
knowledge goaded his brain. He allowed himself but three or four hours
of sleep; he wrought doggedly at languages, ancient and modern; he tried
his hand at metrical translations; he planned tragedies. Practically he
was living in a past age; his literary ideals were formed on the study
of Boswell.
The head assistant in the shop went away to pursue a business which
had come into his hands on the death of a relative; it was a small
publishing concern, housed in an alley off the Strand, and Mr Polo (a
singular name, to become well known in the course of time) had his
ideas about its possible extension. Among other instances of activity he
started a penny weekly paper, called All Sorts, and in the pages of
this periodical Alfred Yule first appeared as an author. Before long he
became sub-editor of All Sorts, then actual director of the paper. He
said good-bye to the bookseller, and his literary career fairly began.
Mr Polo used to say that he never knew a man who could work so many
consecutive hours as Alfred Yule. A faithful account of all that
the young man learnt and wrote from 1855 to 1860--that is, from his
twenty-fifth to his thirtieth year--would have the look of burlesque
exaggeration. He had set it before him to become a celebrated man, and
he was not unaware that the attainment of that end would cost him
quite exceptional labour, seeing that nature had not favoured him with
brilliant parts. No matter; his name should be spoken among men unless
he killed himself in the struggle for success.
In the meantime he married. Living in a garret, and supplying himself
with the materials of his scanty meals, he was in the habit of making
purchases at a little chandler’s shop, where he was waited upon by
a young girl of no beauty, but, as it seemed to him, of amiable
disposition. One holiday he met this girl as she was walking with a
younger sister in the streets; he made her nearer acquaintance, and
before long she consented to be his wife and share his garret. His
brothers, John and Edmund, cried out that he had made an unpardonable
fool of himself in marrying so much beneath him; that he might well have
waited until his income improved. This was all very well, but they might
just as reasonably have bidden him reject plain food because a few years
hence he would be able to purchase luxuries; he could not do without
nourishment of some sort, and the time had come when he could not do
without a wife. Many a man with brains but no money has been compelled
to the same step. Educated girls have a pronounced distaste for
London garrets; not one in fifty thousand would share poverty with
the brightest genius ever born. Seeing that marriage is so often
indispensable to that very success which would enable a man of parts to
mate equally, there is nothing for it but to look below one’s own level,
and be grateful to the untaught woman who has pity on one’s loneliness.
Unfortunately, Alfred Yule was not so grateful as he might have been.
His marriage proved far from unsuccessful; he might have found himself
united to a vulgar shrew, whereas the girl had the great virtues of
humility and kindliness. She endeavoured to learn of him, but her
dulness and his impatience made this attempt a failure; her human
qualities had to suffice. And they did, until Yule began to lift his
head above the literary mob. Previously, he often lost his temper with
her, but never expressed or felt repentance of his marriage; now he
began to see only the disadvantages of his position, and, forgetting the
facts of the case, to imagine that he might well have waited for a wife
who could share his intellectual existence. Mrs Yule had to pass through
a few years of much bitterness. Already a martyr to dyspepsia, and often
suffering from bilious headaches of extreme violence, her husband now
and then lost all control of his temper, all sense of kind feeling,
even of decency, and reproached the poor woman with her ignorance, her
stupidity, her low origin. Naturally enough she defended herself with
such weapons as a sense of cruel injustice supplied. More than once
the two all but parted. It did not come to an actual rupture, chiefly
because Yule could not do without his wife; her tendance had become
indispensable. And then there was the child to consider.
From the first it was Yule’s dread lest Marian should be infected with
her mother’s faults of speech and behaviour. He would scarcely permit
his wife to talk to the child. At the earliest possible moment Marian
was sent to a day-school, and in her tenth year she went as weekly
boarder to an establishment at Fulham; any sacrifice of money to insure
her growing up with the tongue and manners of a lady. It can scarcely
have been a light trial to the mother to know that contact with her was
regarded as her child’s greatest danger; but in her humility and her
love for Marian she offered no resistance. And so it came to pass
that one day the little girl, hearing her mother make some flagrant
grammatical error, turned to the other parent and asked gravely: ‘Why
doesn’t mother speak as properly as we do?’ Well, that is one of the
results of such marriages, one of the myriad miseries that result from
poverty.
The end was gained at all hazards. Marian grew up everything that her
father desired. Not only had she the bearing of refinement, but it early
became obvious that nature had well endowed her with brains. From the
nursery her talk was of books, and at the age of twelve she was already
able to give her father some assistance as an amanuensis.
At that time Edmund Yule was still living; he had overcome his
prejudices, and there was intercourse between his household and that of
the literary man. Intimacy it could not be called, for Mrs Edmund (who
was the daughter of a law-stationer) had much difficulty in behaving to
Mrs Alfred with show of suavity. Still, the cousins Amy and Marian from
time to time saw each other, and were not unsuitable companions. It was
the death of Amy’s father that brought these relations to an end; left
to the control of her own affairs Mrs Edmund was not long in giving
offence to Mrs Alfred, and so to Alfred himself. The man of letters
might be inconsiderate enough in his behaviour to his wife, but as
soon as anyone else treated her with disrespect that was quite another
matter. Purely on this account he quarrelled violently with his
brother’s widow, and from that day the two families kept apart.
The chapter of quarrels was one of no small importance in Alfred’s life;
his difficult temper, and an ever-increasing sense of neglected merit,
frequently put him at war with publishers, editors, fellow-authors, and
he had an unhappy trick of exciting the hostility of men who were most
likely to be useful to him. With Mr Polo, for instance, who held him
in esteem, and whose commercial success made him a valuable connection,
Alfred ultimately broke on a trifling matter of personal dignity. Later
came the great quarrel with Clement Fadge, an affair of considerable
advantage in the way of advertisement to both the men concerned. It
happened in the year 1873. At that time Yule was editor of a weekly
paper called The Balance, a literary organ which aimed high, and failed
to hit the circulation essential to its existence. Fadge, a younger man,
did reviewing for The Balance; he was in needy circumstances, and had
wrought himself into Yule’s good opinion by judicious flattery. But with
a clear eye for the main chance Mr Fadge soon perceived that Yule
could only be of temporary use to him, and that the editor of a
well-established weekly which lost no opportunity of throwing scorn
upon Yule and all his works would be a much more profitable conquest.
He succeeded in transferring his services to the more flourishing
paper, and struck out a special line of work by the free exercise of
a malicious flippancy which was then without rival in the periodical
press. When he had thoroughly got his hand in, it fell to Mr Fadge,
in the mere way of business, to review a volume of his old editor’s,
a rather pretentious and longwinded but far from worthless essay ‘On
Imagination as a National Characteristic.’ The notice was a masterpiece;
its exquisite virulence set the literary circles chuckling. Concerning
the authorship there was no mystery, and Alfred Yule had the
indiscretion to make a violent reply, a savage assault upon Fadge, in
the columns of The Balance. Fadge desired nothing better; the uproar
which arose--chaff, fury, grave comments, sneering spite--could only
result in drawing universal attention to his anonymous cleverness, and
throwing ridicule upon the heavy, conscientious man. Well, you
probably remember all about it. It ended in the disappearance of Yule’s
struggling paper, and the establishment on a firm basis of Fadge’s
reputation.
It would be difficult to mention any department of literary endeavour in
which Yule did not, at one time or another, try his fortune. Turn to
his name in the Museum Catalogue; the list of works appended to it
will amuse you. In his thirtieth year he published a novel; it failed
completely, and the same result awaited a similar experiment five years
later. He wrote a drama of modern life, and for some years strove to
get it acted, but in vain; finally it appeared ‘for the closet’--giving
Clement Fadge such an opportunity as he seldom enjoyed. The one
noteworthy thing about these productions, and about others of equally
mistaken direction, was the sincerity of their workmanship. Had Yule
been content to manufacture a novel or a play with due disregard for
literary honour, he might perchance have made a mercantile success; but
the poor fellow had not pliancy enough for this. He took his efforts
au grand serieux; thought he was producing works of art; pursued his
ambition in a spirit of fierce conscientiousness. In spite of all, he
remained only a journeyman. The kind of work he did best was poorly
paid, and could bring no fame. At the age of fifty he was still living
in a poor house in an obscure quarter. He earned enough for his actual
needs, and was under no pressing fear for the morrow, so long as his
faculties remained unimpaired; but there was no disguising from himself
that his life had been a failure. And the thought tormented him.
Now there had come unexpectedly a gleam of hope. If indeed, the man
Rackett thought of offering him the editorship of The Study he might
even yet taste the triumphs for which he had so vehemently longed. The
Study was a weekly paper of fair repute. Fadge had harmed it, no doubt
of that, by giving it a tone which did not suit the majority of its
readers--serious people, who thought that the criticism of contemporary
writing offered an opportunity for something better than a display of
malevolent wit. But a return to the old earnestness would doubtless set
all right again. And the joy of sitting in that dictatorial chair! The
delight of having his own organ once more, of making himself a power in
the world of letters, of emphasising to a large audience his developed
methods of criticism!
An embittered man is a man beset by evil temptations. The Study
contained each week certain columns of flying gossip, and when he
thought of this, Yule also thought of Clement Fadge, and sundry other
of his worst enemies. How the gossip column can be used for hostile
purposes, yet without the least overt offence, he had learnt only too
well. Sometimes the mere omission of a man’s name from a list of authors
can mortify and injure. In our day the manipulation of such paragraphs
has become a fine art; but you recall numerous illustrations. Alfred
knew well enough how incessantly the tempter would be at his ear;
he said to himself that in certain instances yielding would be no
dishonour. He himself had many a time been mercilessly treated; in the
very interest of the public it was good that certain men should suffer a
snubbing, and his fingers itched to have hold of the editorial pen. Ha,
ha! Like the war-horse he snuffed the battle afar off.
No work this evening, though there were tasks which pressed for
completion. His study--the only room on the ground level except the
dining-room--was small, and even a good deal of the floor was encumbered
with books, but he found space for walking nervously hither and thither.
He was doing this when, about half-past nine, his wife appeared at the
door, bringing him a cup of coffee and some biscuits, his wonted supper.
Marian generally waited upon him at this time, and he asked why she had
not come.
‘She has one of her headaches again, I’m sorry to say,’ Mrs Yule
replied. ‘I persuaded her to go to bed early.’
Having placed the tray upon the table--books had to be pushed aside--she
did not seem disposed to withdraw.
‘Are you busy, Alfred?’
‘Why?’
‘I thought I should like just to speak of something.’
She was using the opportunity of his good humour. Yule spoke to her with
the usual carelessness, but not forbiddingly.
‘What is it? Those Holloway people, I’ll warrant.’
‘No, no! It’s about Marian. She had a letter from one of those young
ladies this afternoon.’
‘What young ladies?’ asked Yule, with impatience of this circuitous
approach.
‘The Miss Milvains.’
‘Well, there’s no harm that I know of. They’re decent people.’
‘Yes; so you told me. But she began to speak about their brother, and--’
‘What about him? Do say what you want to say, and have done with it!’
‘I can’t help thinking, Alfred, that she’s disappointed you didn’t ask
him to come here.’
Yule stared at her in slight surprise. He was still not angry, and
seemed quite willing to consider this matter suggested to him so
timorously.
‘Oh, you think so? Well, I don’t know. Why should I have asked him?
It was only because Miss Harrow seemed to wish it that I saw him down
there. I have no particular interest in him. And as for--’
He broke off and seated himself. Mrs Yule stood at a distance.
‘We must remember her age,’ she said.
‘Why yes, of course.’
He mused, and began to nibble a biscuit.
‘And you know, Alfred, she never does meet any young men. I’ve often
thought it wasn’t right to her.’
‘H’m! But this lad Milvain is a very doubtful sort of customer. To begin
with, he has nothing, and they tell me his mother for the most part
supports him. I don’t quite approve of that. She isn’t well off, and he
ought to have been making a living by now.
He has a kind of cleverness, may do something; but there’s no being sure
of that.’
These thoughts were not coming into his mind for the first time. On the
occasion when he met Milvain and Marian together in the country road he
had necessarily reflected upon the possibilities of such intercourse,
and with the issue that he did not care to give any particular
encouragement to its continuance. He of course heard of Milvain’s
leave-taking call, and he purposely refrained from seeing the young man
after that. The matter took no very clear shape in his meditations; he
saw no likelihood that either of the young people would think much of
the other after their parting, and time enough to trouble one’s head
with such subjects when they could no longer be postponed. It would
not have been pleasant to him to foresee a life of spinsterhood for his
daughter; but she was young, and--she was a valuable assistant.
How far did that latter consideration weigh with him? He put the
question pretty distinctly to himself now that his wife had broached
the matter thus unexpectedly. Was he prepared to behave with deliberate
selfishness? Never yet had any conflict been manifested between his
interests and Marian’s; practically he was in the habit of counting upon
her aid for an indefinite period.
If indeed he became editor of The Study, why, in that case her
assistance would be less needful. And indeed it seemed probable that
young Milvain had a future before him.
‘But, in any case,’ he said aloud, partly continuing his thoughts,
partly replying to a look of disappointment on his wife’s face, ‘how do
you know that he has any wish to come and see Marian?’
‘I don’t know anything about it, of course.’
‘And you may have made a mistake about her. What made you think she--had
him in mind?’
‘Well, it was her way of speaking, you know. And then, she asked if you
had got a dislike to him.’
‘She did? H’m! Well, I don’t think Milvain is any good to Marian. He’s
just the kind of man to make himself agreeable to a girl for the fun of
the thing.’
Mrs Yule looked alarmed.
‘Oh, if you really think that, don’t let him come. I wouldn’t for
anything.’
‘I don’t say it for certain.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘I have had
no opportunity of observing him with much attention. But he’s not the
kind of man I care for.’
‘Then no doubt it’s better as it is.’
‘Yes. I don’t see that anything could be done now. We shall see whether
he gets on. I advise you not to mention him to her.’
‘Oh no, I won’t.’
She moved as if to go away, but her heart had been made uneasy by that
short conversation which followed on Marian’s reading the letter, and
there were still things she wished to put into words.
‘If those young ladies go on writing to her, I dare say they’ll often
speak about their brother.’
‘Yes, it’s rather unfortunate.’
‘And you know, Alfred, he may have asked them to do it.’
‘I suppose there’s one subject on which all women can be subtle,’
muttered Yule, smiling. The remark was not a kind one, but he did not
make it worse by his tone.
The listener failed to understand him, and looked with her familiar
expression of mental effort.
‘We can’t help that,’ he added, with reference to her suggestion. ‘If
he has any serious thoughts, well, let him go on and wait for
opportunities.’
‘It’s a great pity, isn’t it, that she can’t see more people--of the
right kind?’
‘No use talking about it. Things are as they are. I can’t see that her
life is unhappy.’
‘It isn’t very happy.’
‘You think not?’
‘I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘If I get The Study things may be different. Though--But it’s no use
talking about what can’t be helped. Now don’t you go encouraging her
to think herself lonely, and so on. It’s best for her to keep close to
work, I’m sure of that.’
‘Perhaps it is.’
‘I’ll think it over.’
Mrs Yule silently left the room, and went back to her sewing.
She had understood that ‘Though--’ and the ‘what can’t be helped.’ Such
allusions reminded her of a time unhappier than the present, when she
had been wont to hear plainer language. She knew too well that, had she
been a woman of education, her daughter would not now be suffering from
loneliness.
It was her own choice that she did not go with her husband and Marian to
John Yule’s. She made an excuse that the house could not be left to
one servant; but in any case she would have remained at home, for her
presence must needs be an embarrassment both to father and daughter.
Alfred was always ashamed of her before strangers; he could not conceal
his feeling, either from her or from other people who had reason for
observing him. Marian was not perhaps ashamed, but such companionship
put restraint upon her freedom. And would it not always be the same?
Supposing Mr Milvain were to come to this house, would it not repel him
when he found what sort of person Marian’s mother was?
She shed a few tears over her needlework.
At midnight the study door opened. Yule came to the dining-room to see
that all was right, and it surprised him to find his wife still sitting
there.
‘Why are you so late?’
‘I’ve forgot the time.’
‘Forgotten, forgotten. Don’t go back to that kind of language again.
Come, put the light out.’
PART TWO