Milvain’s skilful efforts notwithstanding, ‘Mr Bailey, Grocer,’ had no
success. By two publishers the book had been declined; the firm which
brought it out offered the author half profits and fifteen pounds on
account, greatly to Harold Biffen’s satisfaction. But reviewers in
general were either angry or coldly contemptuous. ‘Let Mr Biffen bear in
mind,’ said one of these sages, ‘that a novelist’s first duty is to tell
a story.’ ‘Mr Biffen,’ wrote another, ‘seems not to understand that
a work of art must before everything else afford amusement.’ ‘A
pretentious book of the genre _ennuyant_,’ was the brief comment of a
Society journal. A weekly of high standing began its short notice in a
rage: ‘Here is another of those intolerable productions for which we
are indebted to the spirit of grovelling realism. This author, let it be
said, is never offensive, but then one must go on to describe his work
by a succession of negatives; it is never interesting, never profitable,
never--’ and the rest. The eulogy in The West End had a few timid
echoes. That in The Current would have secured more imitators, but
unfortunately it appeared when most of the reviewing had already
been done. And, as Jasper truly said, only a concurrence of powerful
testimonials could have compelled any number of people to affect an
interest in this book. ‘The first duty of a novelist is to tell a
story:’ the perpetual repetition of this phrase is a warning to all
men who propose drawing from the life. Biffen only offered a slice of
biography, and it was found to lack flavour.
He wrote to Mrs Reardon: ‘I cannot thank you enough for this very kind
letter about my book; I value it more than I should the praises of all
the reviewers in existence. You have understood my aim. Few people
will do that, and very few indeed could express it with such clear
conciseness.’
If Amy had but contented herself with a civil acknowledgment of the
volumes he sent her! She thought it a kindness to write to him so
appreciatively, to exaggerate her approval. The poor fellow was so
lonely. Yes, but his loneliness only became intolerable when a beautiful
woman had smiled upon him, and so forced him to dream perpetually of
that supreme joy of life which to him was forbidden.
It was a fatal day, that on which Amy put herself under his guidance
to visit Reardon’s poor room at Islington. In the old times, Harold had
been wont to regard his friend’s wife as the perfect woman; seldom in
his life had he enjoyed female society, and when he first met Amy it
was years since he had spoken with any woman above the rank of a
lodging-house keeper or a needle-plier. Her beauty seemed to him of a
very high order, and her mental endowments filled him with an exquisite
delight, not to be appreciated by men who have never been in his
position. When the rupture came between Amy and her husband, Harold
could not believe that she was in any way to blame; held to Reardon by
strong friendship, he yet accused him of injustice to Amy. And what
he saw of her at Brighton confirmed him in this judgment. When he
accompanied her to Manville Street, he allowed her, of course, to remain
alone in the room where Reardon had lived; but Amy presently summoned
him, and asked him questions. Every tear she shed watered a growth of
passionate tenderness in the solitary man’s heart. Parting from her at
length, he went to hide his face in darkness and think of her--think of
her.
A fatal day. There was an end of all his peace, all his capacity
for labour, his patient endurance of penury. Once, when he was about
three-and-twenty, he had been in love with a girl of gentle nature and
fair intelligence; on account of his poverty, he could not even hope
that his love might be returned, and he went away to bear the misery as
best he might. Since then the life he had led precluded the forming of
such attachments; it would never have been possible for him to support
a wife of however humble origin. At intervals he felt the full weight
of his loneliness, but there were happily long periods during which his
Greek studies and his efforts in realistic fiction made him indifferent
to the curse laid upon him. But after that hour of intimate speech with
Amy, he never again knew rest of mind or heart.
Accepting what Reardon had bequeathed to him, he removed the books and
furniture to a room in that part of the town which he had found most
convenient for his singular tutorial pursuits. The winter did not pass
without days of all but starvation, but in March he received his fifteen
pounds for ‘Mr Bailey,’ and this was a fortune, putting him beyond the
reach of hunger for full six months. Not long after that he yielded to
a temptation that haunted him day and night, and went to call upon Amy,
who was still living with her mother at Westbourne Park. When he
entered the drawing-room Amy was sitting there alone; she rose with an
exclamation of frank pleasure.
‘I have often thought of you lately, Mr Biffen. How kind to come and see
me!’
He could scarcely speak; her beauty, as she stood before him in the
graceful black dress, was anguish to his excited nerves, and her voice
was so cruel in its conventional warmth. When he looked at her eyes,
he remembered how their brightness had been dimmed with tears, and the
sorrow he had shared with her seemed to make him more than an ordinary
friend. When he told her of his success with the publishers, she was
delighted.
‘Oh, when is it to come out? I shall watch the advertisements so
anxiously.’
‘Will you allow me to send you a copy, Mrs Reardon?’
‘Can you really spare one?’
Of the half-dozen he would receive, he scarcely knew how to dispose of
three. And Amy expressed her gratitude in the most charming way. She had
gained much in point of manner during the past twelve months; her ten
thousand pounds inspired her with the confidence necessary to a perfect
demeanour. That slight hardness which was wont to be perceptible in
her tone had altogether passed away; she seemed to be cultivating
flexibility of voice.
Mrs Yule came in, and was all graciousness. Then two callers presented
themselves. Biffen’s pleasure was at an end as soon as he had to adapt
himself to polite dialogue; he escaped as speedily as possible.
He was not the kind of man that deceives himself as to his own aspect
in the eyes of others. Be as kind as she might, Amy could not set him
strutting Malvolio-wise; she viewed him as a poor devil who often had
to pawn his coat--a man of parts who would never get on in the world--a
friend to be thought of kindly because her dead husband had valued
him. Nothing more than that; he understood perfectly the limits of her
feeling. But this could not put restraint upon the emotion with which
he received any most trifling utterance of kindness from her. He did not
think of what was, but of what, under changed circumstances, might be.
To encourage such fantasy was the idlest self-torment, but he had gone
too far in this form of indulgence. He became the slave of his inflamed
imagination.
In that letter with which he replied to her praises of his book,
perchance he had allowed himself to speak too much as he thought.
He wrote in reckless delight, and did not wait for the prudence of a
later hour. When it was past recall, he would gladly have softened
many of the expressions the letter contained. ‘I value it more than the
praises of all the reviewers in existence’--would Amy be offended at
that? ‘Yours in gratitude and reverence,’ he had signed himself--the
kind of phrase that comes naturally to a passionate man, when he would
fain say more than he dares. To what purpose this half-revelation?
Unless, indeed, he wished to learn once and for ever, by the gentlest
of repulses, that his homage was only welcome so long as it kept well
within conventional terms.
He passed a month of distracted idleness, until there came a day
when the need to see Amy was so imperative that it mastered every
consideration. He donned his best clothes, and about four o’clock
presented himself at Mrs Yule’s house. By ill luck there happened to be
at least half a dozen callers in the drawing-room; the strappado would
have been preferable, in his eyes, to such an ordeal as this. Moreover,
he was convinced that both Amy and her mother received him with far less
cordiality than on the last occasion. He had expected it, but he bit
his lips till the blood came. What business had he among people of this
kind? No doubt the visitors wondered at his comparative shabbiness, and
asked themselves how he ventured to make a call without the regulation
chimney-pot hat. It was a wretched and foolish mistake.
Ten minutes saw him in the street again, vowing that he would never
approach Amy more. Not that he found fault with her; the blame was
entirely his own.
He lived on the third floor of a house in Goodge Street, above a baker’s
shop. The bequest of Reardon’s furniture was a great advantage to him,
as he had only to pay rent for a bare room; the books, too, came as a
godsend, since the destruction of his own. He had now only one pupil,
and was not exerting himself to find others; his old energy had forsaken
him.
For the failure of his book he cared nothing. It was no more than he
anticipated. The work was done--the best he was capable of--and this
satisfied him.
It was doubtful whether he loved Amy, in the true sense of exclusive
desire. She represented for him all that is lovely in womanhood; to his
starved soul and senses she was woman, the complement of his frustrate
being. Circumstance had made her the means of exciting in him that
natural force which had hitherto either been dormant or had yielded to
the resolute will.
Companionless, inert, he suffered the tortures which are so ludicrous
and contemptible to the happily married. Life was barren to him, and
would soon grow hateful; only in sleep could he cast off the unchanging
thoughts and desires which made all else meaningless. And rightly
meaningless: he revolted against the unnatural constraints forbidding
him to complete his manhood.
By what fatality was he alone of men withheld from the winning of a
woman’s love?
He could not bear to walk the streets where the faces of beautiful women
would encounter him. When he must needs leave the house, he went about
in the poor, narrow ways, where only spectacles of coarseness, and
want, and toil would be presented to him. Yet even here he was too often
reminded that the poverty-stricken of the class to which poverty is
natural were not condemned to endure in solitude. Only he who belonged
to no class, who was rejected alike by his fellows in privation and by
his equals in intellect, must die without having known the touch of a
loving woman’s hand.
The summer went by, and he was unconscious of its warmth and light. How
his days passed he could not have said.
One evening in early autumn, as he stood before the book-stall at the
end of Goodge Street, a familiar voice accosted him. It was Whelpdale’s.
A month or two ago he had stubbornly refused an invitation to dine
with Whelpdale and other acquaintances--you remember what the occasion
was--and since then the prosperous young man had not crossed his path.
‘I’ve something to tell you,’ said the assailer, taking hold of his
arm. ‘I’m in a tremendous state of mind, and want someone to share my
delight. You can walk a short way, I hope? Not too busy with some new
book?’
Biffen gave no answer, but went whither he was led.
‘You are writing a new book, I suppose? Don’t be discouraged, old
fellow. “Mr Bailey” will have his day yet; I know men who consider it an
undoubted work of genius. What’s the next to deal with?’
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ replied Harold, merely to avoid argument. He
spoke so seldom that the sound of his own voice was strange to him.
‘Thinking over it, I suppose, in your usual solid way. Don’t be hurried.
But I must tell you of this affair of mine. You know Dora Milvain? I
have asked her to marry me, and, by the Powers! she has given me an
encouraging answer. Not an actual yes, but encouraging! She’s away in
the Channel Islands, and I wrote--’
He talked on for a quarter of an hour. Then, with a sudden movement, the
listener freed himself.
‘I can’t go any farther,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Good-bye!’
Whelpdale was disconcerted.
‘I have been boring you. That’s a confounded fault of mine; I know it.’
Biffen had waved his hand, and was gone.
A week or two more would see him at the end of his money. He had no
lessons now, and could not write; from his novel nothing was to be
expected. He might apply again to his brother, but such dependence was
unjust and unworthy. And why should he struggle to preserve a life which
had no prospect but of misery?
It was in the hours following his encounter with Whelpdale that he first
knew the actual desire of death, the simple longing for extinction. One
must go far in suffering before the innate will-to-live is thus truly
overcome; weariness of bodily anguish may induce this perversion of
the instincts; less often, that despair of suppressed emotion which
had fallen upon Harold. Through the night he kept his thoughts fixed on
death in its aspect of repose, of eternal oblivion. And herein he had
found solace.
The next night it was the same. Moving about among common needs and
occupations, he knew not a moment’s cessation of heart-ache, but when
he lay down in the darkness a hopeful summons whispered to him. Night,
which had been the worst season of his pain, had now grown friendly; it
came as an anticipation of the sleep that is everlasting.
A few more days, and he was possessed by a calm of spirit such as he had
never known. His resolve was taken, not in a moment of supreme conflict,
but as the result of a subtle process by which his imagination had
become in love with death. Turning from contemplation of life’s one
rapture, he looked with the same intensity of desire to a state that had
neither fear nor hope.
One afternoon he went to the Museum Reading-room, and was busy for a few
minutes in consultation of a volume which he took from the shelves
of medical literature. On his way homeward he entered two or three
chemists’ shops. Something of which he had need could be procured only
in very small quantities; but repetition of his demand in different
places supplied him sufficiently. When he reached his room, he emptied
the contents of sundry little bottles into one larger, and put this in
his pocket. Then he wrote rather a long letter, addressed to his brother
at Liverpool.
It had been a beautiful day, and there wanted still a couple of hours
before the warm, golden sunlight would disappear. Harold stood and
looked round his room. As always, it presented a neat, orderly aspect,
but his eye caught sight of a volume which stood upside down, and this
fault--particularly hateful to a bookish man--he rectified. He put
his blotting-pad square on the table, closed the lid of the inkstand,
arranged his pens. Then he took his hat and stick, locked the door
behind him, and went downstairs. At the foot he spoke to his landlady,
and told her that he should not return that night. As soon as possible
after leaving the house he posted his letter.
His direction was westward; walking at a steady, purposeful pace, with
cheery countenance and eyes that gave sign of pleasure as often as they
turned to the sun-smitten clouds, he struck across Kensington Gardens,
and then on towards Fulham, where he crossed the Thames to Putney. The
sun was just setting; he paused a few moments on the bridge, watching
the river with a quiet smile, and enjoying the splendour of the sky.
Up Putney Hill he walked slowly; when he reached the top it was growing
dark, but an unwonted effect in the atmosphere caused him to turn and
look to the east. An exclamation escaped his lips, for there before him
was the new-risen moon, a perfect globe, vast and red. He gazed at it
for a long time.
When the daylight had entirely passed, he went forward on to the heath,
and rambled, as if idly, to a secluded part, where trees and bushes made
a deep shadow under the full moon. It was still quite warm, and scarcely
a breath of air moved among the reddening leaves.
Sure at length that he was remote from all observation, he pressed into
a little copse, and there reclined on the grass, leaning against the
stem of a tree. The moon was now hidden from him, but by looking upward
he could see its light upon a long, faint cloud, and the blue of the
placid sky. His mood was one of ineffable peace. Only thoughts of
beautiful things came into his mind; he had reverted to an earlier
period of life, when as yet no mission of literary realism had been
imposed upon him, and when his passions were still soothed by natural
hope. The memory of his friend Reardon was strongly present with him,
but of Amy he thought only as of that star which had just come into his
vision above the edge of dark foliage--beautiful, but infinitely remote.
Recalling Reardon’s voice, it brought to him those last words whispered
by his dying companion. He remembered them now:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.