New Grub Street Part 53

'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 a.s.sented. 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 pa.s.sed 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 hara.s.sing 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 circ.u.mstances which satisfy a decent working-cla.s.s 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.

CHAPTER XIX. THE PAST REVIVED

Nor would it be true to represent Edwin Reardon as rising to the new day wholly disconsolate. He too had slept unusually well, and with returning consciousness the sense of a burden removed was more instant than that of his loss and all the dreary circ.u.mstances attaching to it. He had no longer to fear the effects upon Amy of such a grievous change as from their homelike flat to the couple of rooms he had taken in Islington; for the moment, this relief helped him to bear the pain of all that had happened and the uneasiness which troubled him when he reflected that his wife was henceforth a charge to her mother.

Of course for the moment only. He had no sooner begun to move about, to prepare his breakfast (amid the relics of last evening's meal), to think of all the detestable work he had to do before to-morrow night, than his heart sank again. His position was well-nigh as dolorous as that of any man who awoke that morning to the brutal realities of life. If only for the shame of it! How must they be speaking of him, Amy's relatives, and her friends? A novelist who couldn't write novels; a husband who couldn't support his wife and child; a literate who made eager application for illiterate work at paltry wages--how interesting it would all sound in humorous gossip! And what hope had he that things would ever be better with him?

Had he done well? Had he done wisely? Would it not have been better to have made that one last effort? There came before him a vision of quiet nooks beneath the Suss.e.x cliffs, of the long lines of green breakers bursting into foam; he heard the wave-music, and tasted the briny freshness of the sea-breeze. Inspiration, after all, would perchance have come to him.

If Amy's love had but been of more enduring quality; if she had strengthened him for this last endeavour with the brave tenderness of an ideal wife! But he had seen such hateful things in her eyes. Her love was dead, and she regarded him as the man who had spoilt her hopes of happiness. It was only for her own sake that she urged him to strive on; let his be the toil, that hers might be the advantage if he succeeded.

'She would be glad if I were dead. She would be glad.'

He had the conviction of it. Oh yes, she would shed tears; they come so easily to women. But to have him dead and out of her way; to be saved from her anomalous position; to see once more a chance in life; she would welcome it.

But there was no time for brooding. To-day he had to sell all the things that were superfluous, and to make arrangements for the removal of his effects to-morrow. By Wednesday night, in accordance with his agreement, the flat must be free for the new occupier.

He had taken only two rooms, and fortunately as things were. Three would have cost more than he was likely to be able to afford for a long time.

The rent of the two was to be six-and-sixpence; and how, if Amy had consented to come, could he have met the expenses of their living out of his weekly twenty-five shillings? How could he have pretended to do literary work in such cramped quarters, he who had never been able to write a line save in strict seclusion? In his despair he had faced the impossible. Amy had shown more wisdom, though in a spirit of unkindness.

Towards ten o'clock he was leaving the flat to go and find people who would purchase his books and old clothing and other superfluities; but before he could close the door behind him, an approaching step on the stairs caught his attention. He saw the shining silk hat of a well-equipped gentleman. It was John Yule.

'Ha! Good-morning!' John exclaimed, looking up. 'A minute or two and I should have been too late, I see.'

He spoke in quite a friendly way, and, on reaching the landing, shook hands.

'Are you obliged to go at once? Or could I have a word with you?'

'Come in.'

They entered the study, which was in some disorder; Reardon made no reference to circ.u.mstances, but offered a chair, and seated himself.

'Have a cigarette?' said Yule, holding out a box of them.

'No, thank you; I don't smoke so early.'

'Then I'll light one myself; it always makes talk easier to me. You're on the point of moving, I suppose?'

'Yes, I am.'

Reardon tried to speak in quite a simple way, with no admission of embarra.s.sment. He was not successful, and to his visitor the tone seemed rather offensive.

'I suppose you'll let Amy know your new address?'

'Certainly. Why should I conceal it?'

'No, no; I didn't mean to suggest that. But you might be taking it for granted that--that the rupture was final, I thought.'

There had never been any intimacy between these two men. Reardon regarded his wife's brother as rather sn.o.bbish and disagreeably selfish; John Yule looked upon the novelist as a prig, and now of late as a shuffling, untrustworthy fellow. It appeared to John that his brother-in-law was a.s.suming a manner wholly unjustifiable, and he had a difficulty in behaving to him with courtesy. Reardon, on the other hand, felt injured by the turn his visitor's remarks were taking, and began to resent the visit altogether.