New Grub Street Part 26

'Which will bring him five or six hundred pounds before the book ceases to be talked of.'

'Never mind. I'm sick of the word "pounds."'

'So am I.'

She sighed, commenting thus on her acquiescence.

'But look, Amy. If I try to be cheerful in spite of natural dumps, wouldn't it be fair for you to put aside thoughts of money?'

'Yes. Read some Homer, dear. Let us have Odysseus down in Hades, and Ajax stalking past him. Oh, I like that!'

So he read, rather coldly at first, but soon warming. Amy sat with folded arms, a smile on her lips, her brows knitted to the epic humour.

In a few minutes it was as if no difficulties threatened their life.

Every now and then Reardon looked up from his translating with a delighted laugh, in which Amy joined.

When he had returned the book to the shelf he stepped behind his wife's chair, leaned upon it, and put his cheek against hers.

'Amy!'

'Yes, dear?'

'Do you still love me a little?'

'Much more than a little.'

'Though I am sunk to writing a wretched pot-boiler?'

'Is it so bad as all that?'

'Confoundedly bad. I shall be ashamed to see it in print; the proofs will be a martyrdom.'

'Oh, but why? why?'

'It's the best I can do, dearest. So you don't love me enough to hear that calmly.'

'If I didn't love you, I might be calmer about it, Edwin. It's dreadful to me to think of what they will say in the reviews.'

'Curse the reviews!'

His mood had changed on the instant. He stood up with darkened face, trembling angrily.

'I want you to promise me something, Amy. You won't read a single one of the notices unless it is forced upon your attention. Now, promise me that. Neglect them absolutely, as I do. They're not worth a glance of your eyes. And I shan't be able to bear it if I know you read all the contempt that will be poured on me.'

'I'm sure I shall be glad enough to avoid it; but other people, our friends, read it. That's the worst.'

'You know that their praise would be valueless, so have strength to disregard the blame. Let our friends read and talk as much as they like.

Can't you console yourself with the thought that I am not contemptible, though I may have been forced to do poor work?'

'People don't look at it in that way.'

'But, darling,' he took her hands strongly in his own, 'I want you to disregard other people. You and I are surely everything to each other?

Are you ashamed of me, of me myself?'

'No, not ashamed of you. But I am sensitive to people's talk and opinions.'

'But that means they make you feel ashamed of me. What else?'

There was silence.

'Edwin, if you find you are unable to do good work, you mustn't do bad.

We must think of some other way of making a living.'

'Have you forgotten that you urged me to write a trashy sensational story?'

She coloured and looked annoyed.

'You misunderstood me. A sensational story needn't be trash. And then, you know, if you had tried something entirely unlike your usual work, that would have been excuse enough if people had called it a failure.'

'People! People!'

'We can't live in solitude, Edwin, though really we are not far from it.' He did not dare to make any reply to this. Amy was so exasperatingly womanlike in avoiding the important issue to which he tried to confine her; another moment, and his tone would be that of irritation. So he turned away and sat down to his desk, as if he had some thought of resuming work.

'Will you come and have some supper?' Amy asked, rising.

'I have been forgetting that to-morrow morning's chapter has still to be thought out.'

'Edwin, I can't think this book will really be so poor. You couldn't possibly give all this toil for no result.'

'No; not if I were in sound health. But I am far from it.'

'Come and have supper with me, dear, and think afterwards.'

He turned and smiled at her.

'I hope I shall never be able to resist an invitation from you, sweet.'

The result of all this was, of course, that he sat down in anything but the right mood to his work next morning. Amy's antic.i.p.ation of criticism had made it harder than ever for him to labour at what he knew to be bad. And, as ill-luck would have it, in a day or two he caught his first winter's cold. For several years a succession of influenzas, sore-throats, lumbagoes, had tormented him from October to May; in planning his present work, and telling himself that it must be finished before Christmas, he had not lost sight of these possible interruptions.

But he said to himself: 'Other men have worked hard in seasons of illness; I must do the same.' All very well, but Reardon did not belong to the heroic cla.s.s. A feverish cold now put his powers and resolution to the test. Through one hideous day he nailed himself to the desk--and wrote a quarter of a page. The next day Amy would not let him rise from bed; he was wretchedly ill. In the night he had talked about his work deliriously, causing her no slight alarm.

'If this goes on,' she said to him in the morning, 'you'll have brain fever. You must rest for two or three days.'

'Teach me how to. I wish I could.'

Rest had indeed become out of the question. For two days he could not write, but the result upon his mind was far worse than if he had been at the desk. He looked a haggard creature when he again sat down with the accustomed blank slip before him.

The second volume ought to have been much easier work than the first; it proved far harder. Messieurs and mesdames the critics are wont to point out the weakness of second volumes; they are generally right, simply because a story which would have made a tolerable book (the common run of stories) refuses to fill three books. Reardon's story was in itself weak, and this second volume had to consist almost entirely of laborious padding. If he wrote three slips a day he did well.

And the money was melting, melting, despite Amy's efforts at economy.