Things were bad in Fleet Street. Everyone said so, and therefore it
followed that the statement was true. Certainly Jimmy found no reason to
doubt it. His manuscripts came back with horrible regularity, not so
much because they were unsuitable but because there was so little space
and so many eager to fill it. Had he been more experienced he would have
known that things are always bad to the majority, whilst the successful
minority has no time to waste in telling others how it is getting on;
but he was raw to the game, and not over-sanguine by nature, so instead
of being elated by such little luck as he did get he was terribly
discouraged when he counted up the total results of a month's hard work.
He had just managed to scrape together the rent of the flat and the
instalment on the hire-purchase furniture, but that had been all. There
was nothing due to him from any of the papers; he was practically
penniless, as well as a little in debt to such of the local tradesmen as
would allow any credit. His own boots were growing uncomfortably thin,
whilst, as for Lalage, he had not been able to buy her a single thing.
Not that she asked him for anything, rather otherwise.
"I can manage," she said with a brave attempt at cheerfulness. "These
shoes will do me for some little time yet, as I hardly ever go out, and
I know you'll get me lots of nice clothes when we grow rich."
But though she tried to encourage him she was not very successful. It is
no easy task to put a new heart into someone else when there is a deadly
fear gripping at your own, and as day after day went by and she saw him
growing thinner, shabbier, more weary and despondent, her own hopes for
the future dwindled down to the vanishing point. Hitherto he had kept
away from his own people, none of whom had seen him since his return
from Northampton; but they were always there in the background, and she
knew that he had only to abandon her and come into line with their ideas
to get his immediate needs supplied and some provision made for his
future in the shape of a steady, respectable occupation. She believed in
his ability as a writer far more than he did himself, but success meant
months, even years, of waiting, and she saw that he had not the strength
to wait. Already his nerve was going and he was trying to steady himself
with whisky. Towards herself he was very loving and gentle, at least
most of the time; but he was quickly becoming too worried to work in
the flat. The sharp knock at the door which heralded the daily visit of
one or other of their small creditors would put him off work for the
rest of the day, and before long he took to spending the day at the
club, sometimes writing, more often mooning about in the vague hope of
meeting someone who could help him into a regular berth on one of the
papers.
For Lalage these days passed with unutterable slowness. There was, of
necessity, very little to do in the way of cooking, and she had not the
heart to go out. It is miserable work looking into the shop windows
whilst your own pockets are empty, and, moreover, she had long since
divined the terrible jealousy of the past which was always at the back
of Jimmy's mind, and she knew that he hated her to be out by herself,
although, on the other hand, he seemed afraid to be seen out with her.
It was the dread of meeting some of his own people, she understood that
perfectly well, and the knowledge increased her fears for the future. In
the end she was going to lose everything, not only Jimmy but her little
home as well; and all because she had been insane enough to forget that
love was not for such as herself, because she had been wilfully blind to
the fact that Jimmy came from the Griersons, and must ultimately go
back to the Griersons and their kind.
Now and then there was a red-letter day, when Dodgson of the _Record_
wired for a special article, which probably meant two guineas on the
morrow. On those occasions Lalage always went down to the office with
Jimmy to hand in the copy because, as Jimmy declared, she was lucky to
him, and, being elated by the commission, he was able to put on one side
the fear of meeting anyone who knew him. But the next returned
manuscript brought back his depression and sent him down to the club
again to waste his time and drink whisky.
Lalage did not blame him for leaving her the task of meeting the little
tradesmen, who grew foul-mouthed and truculent over an account of two or
three shillings, as is their wont in that part of London. Rather, she
sorrowed over the far smaller share of worry which did fall to him, and
tried to take it all on to her own shoulders. He would leave her, she
fully believed that, and, had she been as her kind is supposed to be, as
perhaps it is, she would have hastened his going in order to be free
again; but because she loved him she was ready to sacrifice anything to
keep him as long as possible. For Jimmy's own sake, too, she dreaded his
going back to his people, knowing, as she did, that he could never
forget her, and that he would inevitably seek oblivion and find death in
the bottle. She had divined his tendency that way from the very first,
and the fear of it had never been out of her mind since.
Jimmy was still keeping up the nominal address at the house just off
Baker Street, and so far Mrs. Fagin, the landlady, had treated him with
fawning politeness when he paid his weekly rent, but from the very first
he had distrusted her, and he always had the feeling that she would sell
his secret if she discovered the market. Once Mrs. Marlow had called and
had been told by the maid that Mr. Grierson was out for the day and his
room was locked, but there was ever the chance that she might call again
and disclose her identity to Mrs. Fagin. The whole thing was a nightmare
to Jimmy, who sometimes found himself blaming Lalage in his heart for
having suggested the arrangement. He was a supremely miserable man, at
least when he was alone, fearful of his own people, terribly worried
about money matters, jealous almost to the point of madness, and haunted
by the dread of losing Lalage in the end. If only they could have faced
the world openly half the battle would have been over, and they could,
he told himself, have got through the rest somehow together. And yet
since that one day of madness when he had made her promise to be his
wife he had never referred to the subject again. He wanted her for his
own, and yet he shrank from the sacrifice of marriage. He tried to quiet
his conscience by telling himself it was wiser to wait, that it really
made little difference after all; whilst Lalage said nothing, being
already broken-hearted and bankrupt of hope.