Before her marriage Mrs Edmund Yule was one of seven motherless sisters
who constituted the family of a dentist slenderly provided in the matter
of income. The pinching and paring which was a chief employment of her
energies in those early days had disagreeable effects upon a character
disposed rather to generosity than the reverse; during her husband’s
lifetime she had enjoyed rather too eagerly all the good things which he
put at her command, sometimes forgetting that a wife has duties as
well as claims, and in her widowhood she indulged a pretentiousness
and querulousness which were the natural, but not amiable, results of
suddenly restricted circumstances.
Like the majority of London people, she occupied a house of which the
rent absurdly exceeded the due proportion of her income, a pleasant
foible turned to such good account by London landlords. Whereas she
might have lived with a good deal of modest comfort, her existence was a
perpetual effort to conceal the squalid background of what was meant for
the eyes of her friends and neighbours. She kept only two servants, who
were so ill paid and so relentlessly overworked that it was seldom they
remained with her for more than three months. In dealings with other
people whom she perforce employed, she was often guilty of incredible
meanness; as, for instance, when she obliged her half-starved dressmaker
to purchase material for her, and then postponed payment alike for
that and for the work itself to the last possible moment. This was not
heartlessness in the strict sense of the word; the woman not only knew
that her behaviour was shameful, she was in truth ashamed of it and
sorry for her victims. But life was a battle. She must either crush or
be crushed. With sufficient means, she would have defrauded no one, and
would have behaved generously to many; with barely enough for her needs,
she set her face and defied her feelings, inasmuch as she believed there
was no choice.
She would shed tears over a pitiful story of want, and without shadow of
hypocrisy. It was hard, it was cruel; such things oughtn’t to be allowed
in a world where there were so many rich people. The next day she would
argue with her charwoman about halfpence, and end by paying the poor
creature what she knew was inadequate and unjust. For the simplest
reason: she hadn’t more to give, without submitting to privations which
she considered intolerable.
But whilst she could be a positive hyena to strangers, to those who were
akin to her, and those of whom she was fond, her affectionate kindness
was remarkable. One observes this peculiarity often enough; it reminds
one how savage the social conflict is, in which those little groups of
people stand serried against their common enemies; relentless to all
others, among themselves only the more tender and zealous because of
the ever-impending danger. No mother was ever more devoted. Her son, a
gentleman of quite noteworthy selfishness, had board and lodging beneath
her roof on nominal terms, and under no stress of pecuniary trouble had
Mrs Yule called upon him to make the slightest sacrifice on her behalf.
Her daughter she loved with profound tenderness, and had no will that
was opposed to Amy’s. And it was characteristic of her that her children
were never allowed to understand of what baseness she often became
guilty in the determination to support appearances. John Yule naturally
suspected what went on behind the scenes; on one occasion--since Amy’s
marriage--he had involuntarily overheard a dialogue between his mother
and a servant on the point of departing which made even him feel
ashamed. But from Amy every paltriness and meanness had always been
concealed with the utmost care; Mrs Yule did not scruple to lie
heroically when in danger of being detected by her daughter.
Yet this energetic lady had no social ambitions that pointed above her
own stratum. She did not aim at intimacy with her superiors; merely at
superiority among her intimates. Her circle was not large, but in that
circle she must be regarded with the respect due to a woman of refined
tastes and personal distinction. Her little dinners might be of rare
occurrence, but to be invited must be felt a privilege. ‘Mrs Edmund
Yule’ must sound well on people’s lips; never be the occasion of those
peculiar smiles which she herself was rather fond of indulging at the
mention of other people’s names.
The question of Amy’s marriage had been her constant thought from the
time when the little girl shot into a woman grown. For Amy no common
match, no acceptance of a husband merely for money or position. Few men
who walked the earth were mates for Amy. But years went on, and the man
of undeniable distinction did not yet present himself. Suitors offered,
but Amy smiled coldly at their addresses, in private not seldom
scornfully, and her mother, though growing anxious, approved. Then of a
sudden appeared Edwin Reardon.
A literary man? Well, it was one mode of distinction. Happily, a
novelist; novelists now and then had considerable social success.
Mr Reardon, it was true, did not impress one as a man likely to push
forward where the battle called for rude vigour, but Amy soon assured
herself that he would have a reputation far other than that of the
average successful storyteller. The best people would regard him; he
would be welcomed in the penetralia of culture; superior persons would
say: ‘Oh, I don’t read novels as a rule, but of course Mr Reardon’s--’
If that really were to be the case, all was well; for Mrs Yule could
appreciate social and intellectual differences.
Alas! alas! What was the end of those shining anticipations?
First of all, Mrs Yule began to make less frequent mention of ‘my
son-in-law, Mr Edwin Reardon.’ Next, she never uttered his name save
when inquiries necessitated it. Then, the most intimate of her intimates
received little hints which were not quite easy to interpret.
‘Mr Reardon is growing so very eccentric--has an odd distaste for
society--occupies himself with all sorts of out-of-the-way interests.
No, I’m afraid we shan’t have another of his novels for some time.
I think he writes anonymously a good deal. And really, such curious
eccentricities!’ Many were the tears she wept after her depressing
colloquies with Amy; and, as was to be expected, she thought severely
of the cause of these sorrows. On the last occasion when he came to
her house she received him with such extreme civility that Reardon
thenceforth disliked her, whereas before he had only thought her a
good-natured and silly woman.
Alas for Amy’s marriage with a man of distinction! From step to step of
descent, till here was downright catastrophe. Bitter enough in itself,
but most lamentable with reference to the friends of the family. How was
it to be explained, this return of Amy to her home for several months,
whilst her husband was no further away than Worthing? The bald, horrible
truth--impossible! Yet Mr Milvain knew it, and the Carters must guess
it. What colour could be thrown upon such vulgar distress?
The worst was not yet. It declared itself. this May morning, when, quite
unexpectedly, a cab drove up to the house, bringing Amy and her child,
and her trunks, and her band-boxes, and her what-nots.
From the dining-room window Mrs Yule was aware of this arrival, and in a
few moments she learnt the unspeakable cause.
She burst into tears, genuine as ever woman shed.
‘There’s no use in that, mother,’ said Amy, whose temper was in a
dangerous state. ‘Nothing worse can happen, that’s one consolation.’
‘Oh, it’s disgraceful! disgraceful!’ sobbed Mrs Yule. ‘What we are to
say I can NOT think.’
‘I shall say nothing whatever. People can scarcely have the impertinence
to ask us questions when we have shown that they are unwelcome.’
‘But there are some people I can’t help giving some explanation to. My
dear child, he is not in his right mind. I’m convinced of it, there! He
is not in his right mind.’
‘That’s nonsense, mother. He is as sane as I am.’
‘But you have often said what strange things he says and does; you know
you have, Amy. That talking in his sleep; I’ve thought a great deal of
it since you told me about that. And--and so many other things. My love,
I shall give it to be understood that he has become so very odd in his
ways that--’
‘I can’t have that,’ replied Amy with decision. ‘Don’t you see that in
that case I should be behaving very badly?’
‘I can’t see that at all. There are many reasons, as you know very well,
why one shouldn’t live with a husband who is at all suspected of mental
derangement. You have done your utmost for him. And this would be some
sort of explanation, you know. I am so convinced that there is truth in
it, too.’
‘Of course I can’t prevent you from saying what you like, but I think it
would be very wrong to start a rumour of this kind.’
There was less resolve in this utterance. Amy mused, and looked
wretched.
‘Come up to the drawing-room, dear,’ said her mother, for they had held
their conversation in the room nearest to the house-door. ‘What a state
your mind must be in! Oh dear! Oh dear!’
She was a slender, well-proportioned woman, still pretty in face, and
dressed in a way that emphasised her abiding charms. Her voice had
something of plaintiveness, and altogether she was of frailer type than
her daughter.
‘Is my room ready?’ Amy inquired on the stairs.
‘I’m sorry to say it isn’t, dear, as I didn’t expect you till tomorrow.
But it shall be seen to immediately.’
This addition to the household was destined to cause grave difficulties
with the domestic slaves. But Mrs Yule would prove equal to the
occasion. On Amy’s behalf she would have worked her servants till they
perished of exhaustion before her eyes.
‘Use my room for the present,’ she added. ‘I think the girl has finished
up there. But wait here; I’ll just go and see to things.’
‘Things’ were not quite satisfactory, as it proved. You should have
heard the change that came in that sweetly plaintive voice when it
addressed the luckless housemaid. It was not brutal; not at all. But
so sharp, hard, unrelenting--the voice of the goddess Poverty herself
perhaps sounds like that.
Mad? Was he to be spoken of in a low voice, and with finger pointing to
the forehead? There was something ridiculous, as well as repugnant, in
such a thought; but it kept possession of Amy’s mind. She was brooding
upon it when her mother came into the drawing-room.
‘And he positively refused to carry out the former plan?’
‘Refused. Said it was useless.’
‘How could it be useless? There’s something so unaccountable in his
behaviour.’
‘I don’t think it unaccountable,’ replied Amy. ‘It’s weak and selfish,
that’s all. He takes the first miserable employment that offers rather
than face the hard work of writing another book.’
She was quite aware that this did not truly represent her husband’s
position. But an uneasiness of conscience impelled her to harsh speech.
‘But just fancy!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘What can he mean by asking you
to go and live with him on twenty-five shillings a week? Upon my word.
if his mind isn’t disordered he must have made a deliberate plan to get
rid of you.’
Amy shook her head.
‘You mean,’ asked Mrs Yule, ‘that he really thinks it possible for all
of you to be supported on those wages?’
The last word was chosen to express the utmost scorn.
‘He talked of earning fifty pounds a year by writing.’
‘Even then it could only make about a hundred a year. My dear child,
it’s one of two things: either he is out of his mind, or he has
purposely cast you off.’
Amy laughed, thinking of her husband in the light of the latter
alternative.
‘There’s no need to seek so far for explanations,’ she said. ‘He has
failed, that’s all; just like a man might fail in any other business. He
can’t write like he used to. It may be all the result of ill-health; I
don’t know. His last book, you see, is positively refused. He has made
up his mind that there’s nothing but poverty before him, and he can’t
understand why I should object to live like the wife of a working-man.’
‘Well, I only know that he has placed you in an exceedingly difficult
position. If he had gone away to Worthing for the summer we might have
made it seem natural; people are always ready to allow literary men to
do rather odd things--up to a certain point. We should have behaved as
if there were nothing that called for explanation. But what are we to do
now?’
Like her multitudinous kind, Mrs Yule lived only in the opinions of
other people. What others would say was her ceaseless preoccupation.
She had never conceived of life as something proper to the individual;
independence in the directing of one’s course seemed to her only
possible in the case of very eccentric persons, or of such as were
altogether out of society. Amy had advanced, intellectually, far beyond
this standpoint, but lack of courage disabled her from acting upon her
convictions.
‘People must know the truth, I suppose,’ she answered dispiritedly.
Now, confession of the truth was the last thing that would occur to Mrs
Yule when social relations were concerned. Her whole existence was based
on bold denial of actualities. And, as is natural in such persons, she
had the ostrich instinct strongly developed; though very acute in
the discovery of her friends’ shams and lies, she deceived herself
ludicrously in the matter of concealing her own embarrassments.
‘But the fact is, my dear,’ she answered, ‘we don’t know the truth
ourselves. You had better let yourself be directed by me. It will be
better, at first, if you see as few people as possible. I suppose you
must say something or other to two or three of your own friends; if you
take my advice you’ll be rather mysterious. Let them think what they
like; anything is better than to say plainly. “My husband can’t support
me, and he has gone to work as a clerk for weekly wages.” Be mysterious,
darling; depend upon it, that’s the safest.’
The conversation was pursued, with brief intervals, all through the
day. In the afternoon two ladies paid a call, but Amy kept out of
sight. Between six and seven John Yule returned from his gentlemanly
occupations. As he was generally in a touchy temper before dinner had
soothed him, nothing was said to him of the latest development of his
sister’s affairs until late in the evening; he was allowed to suppose
that Reardon’s departure for the seaside had taken place a day sooner
than had been arranged.
Behind the dining-room was a comfortable little chamber set apart as
John’s sanctum; here he smoked and entertained his male friends, and
contemplated the portraits of those female ones who would not have been
altogether at their ease in Mrs Yule’s drawing-room. Not long after
dinner his mother and sister came to talk with him in this retreat.
With some nervousness Mrs Yule made known to him what had taken place.
Amy, the while, stood by the table, and glanced over a magazine that she
had picked up.
‘Well, I see nothing to be surprised at,’ was John’s first remark. ‘It
was pretty certain he’d come to this. But what I want to know is, how
long are we to be at the expense of supporting Amy and her youngster?’
This was practical, and just what Mrs Yule had expected from her son.
‘We can’t consider such things as that,’ she replied. ‘You don’t wish, I
suppose, that Amy should go and live in a back street at Islington, and
be hungry every other day, and soon have no decent clothes?’
‘I don’t think Jack would be greatly distressed,’ Amy put in quietly.
‘This is a woman’s way of talking,’ replied John. ‘I want to know what
is to be the end of it all? I’ve no doubt it’s uncommonly pleasant for
Reardon to shift his responsibilities on to our shoulders. At this rate
I think I shall get married, and live beyond my means until I can hold
out no longer, and then hand my wife over to her relatives, with my
compliments. It’s about the coolest business that ever came under my
notice.’
‘But what is to be done?’ asked Mrs Yule. ‘It’s no use talking
sarcastically, John, or making yourself disagreeable.’
‘We are not called upon to find a way out of the difficulty. The fact of
the matter is, Reardon must get a decent berth. Somebody or other must
pitch him into the kind of place that suits men who can do nothing in
particular. Carter ought to be able to help, I should think.’
‘You know very well,’ said Amy, ‘that places of that kind are not to be
had for the asking. It may be years before any such opportunity offers.’
‘Confound the fellow! Why the deuce doesn’t he go on with his
novel-writing? There’s plenty of money to be made out of novels.’
‘But he can’t write, Jack. He has lost his talent.’
‘That’s all bosh, Amy. If a fellow has once got into the swing of it he
can keep it up if he likes. He might write his two novels a year easily
enough, just like twenty other men and women. Look here, I could do it
myself if I weren’t too lazy. And that’s what’s the matter with Reardon.
He doesn’t care to work.’
‘I have thought that myself;’ observed Mrs Yule. ‘It really is too
ridiculous to say that he couldn’t write some kind of novels if he
chose. Look at Miss Blunt’s last book; why, anybody could have written
that. I’m sure there isn’t a thing in it I couldn’t have imagined
myself.’
‘Well, all I want to know is, what’s Amy going to do if things don’t
alter?’
‘She shall never want a home as long as I have one to share with her.’
John’s natural procedure, when beset by difficulties, was to find
fault with everyone all round, himself maintaining a position of
irresponsibility.
‘It’s all very well, mother, but when a girl gets married she takes her
husband, I have always understood, for better or worse, just as a man
takes his wife. To tell the truth, it seems to me Amy has put herself in
the wrong. It’s deuced unpleasant to go and live in back streets, and
to go without dinner now and then, but girls mustn’t marry if they’re
afraid to face these things.’
‘Don’t talk so monstrously, John!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘How could Amy
possibly foresee such things? The case is quite an extraordinary one.’
‘Not so uncommon, I assure you. Some one was telling me the other day of
a married lady--well educated and blameless--who goes to work at a shop
somewhere or other because her husband can’t support her.’
‘And you wish to see Amy working in a shop?’
‘No, I can’t say I do. I’m only telling you that her bad luck isn’t
unexampled. It’s very fortunate for her that she has good-natured
relatives.’
Amy had taken a seat apart. She sat with her head leaning on her hand.
‘Why don’t you go and see Reardon?’ John asked of his mother.
‘What would be the use? Perhaps he would tell me to mind my own
business.’
‘By jingo! precisely what you would be doing. I think you ought to see
him and give him to understand that he’s behaving in a confoundedly
ungentlemanly way. Evidently he’s the kind of fellow that wants stirring
up. I’ve half a mind to go and see him myself. Where is this slum that
he’s gone to live in?’
‘We don’t know his address yet.’
‘So long as it’s not the kind of place where one would be afraid of
catching a fever, I think it wouldn’t be amiss for me to look him up.’
‘You’ll do no good by that,’ said Amy, indifferently.
‘Confound it! It’s just because nobody does anything that things have
come to this pass!’
The conversation was, of course, profitless. John could only return
again and again to his assertion that Reardon must get ‘a decent berth.’
At length Amy left the room in weariness and disgust.
‘I suppose they have quarrelled terrifically,’ said her brother, as soon
as she was gone.
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Well, you must do as you please. But it’s confounded hard lines that
you should have to keep her and the kid. You know I can’t afford to
contribute.’
‘My dear, I haven’t asked you to.’
‘No, but you’ll have the devil’s own job to make ends meet; I know that
well enough.’
‘I shall manage somehow.’
‘All right; you’re a plucky woman, but it’s too bad. Reardon’s a humbug,
that’s my opinion. I shall have a talk with Carter about him. I suppose
he has transferred all their furniture to the slum?’
‘He can’t have removed yet. It was only this morning that he went to
search for lodgings.’
‘Oh, then I tell you what it is: I shall look in there the first thing
to-morrow morning, and just talk to him in a fatherly way. You needn’t
say anything to Amy. But I see he’s just the kind of fellow that,
if everyone leaves him alone, he’ll be content with Carter’s
five-and-twenty shillings for the rest of his life, and never trouble
his head about how Amy is living.’
To this proposal Mrs Yule readily assented. On going upstairs she found
that Amy had all but fallen asleep upon a settee in the drawing-room.
‘You are quite worn out with your troubles,’ she said. ‘Go to bed, and
have a good long sleep.’
‘Yes, I will.’
The neat, fresh bedchamber seemed to Amy a delightful haven of rest. She
turned the key in the door with an enjoyment of the privacy thus secured
such as she had never known in her life; for in maidenhood safe solitude
was a matter of course to her, and since marriage she had not passed a
night alone. Willie was fast asleep in a little bed shadowed by her own.
In an impulse of maternal love and gladness she bent over the child and
covered his face with kisses too gentle to awaken him.
How clean and sweet everything was! It is often said, by people who are
exquisitely ignorant of the matter, that cleanliness is a luxury within
reach even of the poorest. Very far from that; only with the utmost
difficulty, with wearisome exertion, with harassing sacrifice, can
people who are pinched for money preserve a moderate purity in their
persons and their surroundings. By painful degrees Amy had accustomed
herself to compromises in this particular which in the early days of her
married life would have seemed intensely disagreeable, if not revolting.
A housewife who lives in the country, and has but a patch of back
garden, or even a good-sized kitchen, can, if she thinks fit, take her
place at the wash-tub and relieve her mind on laundry matters; but to
the inhabitant of a miniature flat in the heart of London anything of
that kind is out of the question.
When Amy began to cut down her laundress’s bill, she did it with a
sense of degradation. One grows accustomed, however, to such unpleasant
necessities, and already she had learnt what was the minimum of
expenditure for one who is troubled with a lady’s instincts.
No, no; cleanliness is a costly thing, and a troublesome thing when
appliances and means have to be improvised. It was, in part, the
understanding she had gained of this side of the life of poverty that
made Amy shrink in dread from the still narrower lodgings to which
Reardon invited her. She knew how subtly one’s self-respect can be
undermined by sordid conditions. The difference between the life of
well-to-do educated people and that of the uneducated poor is not
greater in visible details than in the minutiae of privacy, and Amy
must have submitted to an extraordinary change before it would have been
possible for her to live at ease in the circumstances which satisfy a
decent working-class woman. She was prepared for final parting from her
husband rather than try to effect that change in herself.
She undressed at leisure, and stretched her limbs in the cold, soft,
fragrant bed. A sigh of profound relief escaped her. How good it was to
be alone!
And in a quarter of an hour she was sleeping as peacefully as the child
who shared her room.
At breakfast in the morning she showed a bright, almost a happy face. It
was long, long since she had enjoyed such a night’s rest, so undisturbed
with unwelcome thoughts on the threshold of sleep and on awaking. Her
life was perhaps wrecked, but the thought of that did not press upon
her; for the present she must enjoy her freedom. It was like a recovery
of girlhood. There are few married women who would not, sooner or later,
accept with joy the offer of some months of a maidenly liberty. Amy
would not allow herself to think that her wedded life was at an end.
With a woman’s strange faculty of closing her eyes against facts that
do not immediately concern her, she tasted the relief of the present and
let the future lie unregarded. Reardon would get out of his difficulties
sooner or later; somebody or other would help him; that was the dim
background of her agreeable sensations.
He suffered, no doubt. But then it was just as well that he should.
Suffering would perhaps impel him to effort. When he communicated to her
his new address--he could scarcely neglect to do that--she would send a
not unfriendly letter, and hint to him that now was his opportunity for
writing a book, as good a book as those which formerly issued from his
garret-solitude. If he found that literature was in truth a thing of the
past with him, then he must exert himself to obtain a position worthy of
an educated man. Yes, in this way she would write to him, without a word
that could hurt or offend.
She ate an excellent breakfast, and made known her enjoyment of it.
‘I am so glad!’ replied her mother. ‘You have been getting quite thin
and pale.’
‘Quite consumptive,’ remarked John, looking up from his newspaper.
‘Shall I make arrangements for a daily landau at the livery stables
round here?’
‘You can if you like,’ replied his sister; ‘it would do both mother and
me good, and I have no doubt you could afford it quite well.’
‘Oh, indeed! You’re a remarkable young woman, let me tell you.
By-the-bye, I suppose your husband is breakfasting on bread and water?’
‘I hope not, and I don’t think it very likely.’
‘Jack, Jack!’ interposed Mrs Yule, softly.
Her son resumed his paper, and at the end of the meal rose with an
unwonted briskness to make his preparations for departure.