New Grub Street Part 61

'It was very unfortunate that the woman came and troubled you about such things. But I can't see that mother was to blame; I don't think you ought to be so angry with her.'

It cost Marian a terrible effort to address her father in these terms.

When he turned fiercely upon her, she shrank back and felt as if strength must fail her even to stand.

'You can't see that she was to blame? Isn't it entirely against my wish that she keeps up any intercourse with those low people? Am I to be exposed to insulting disturbance in my very study, because she chooses to introduce girls of bad character as servants to vulgar women?'

'I don't think Annie Rudd can be called a girl of bad character, and it was very natural that mother should try to do something for her. You have never actually forbidden her to see her relatives.'

'A thousand times I have given her to understand that I utterly disapproved of such a.s.sociation. She knew perfectly well that this girl was as likely as not to discredit her. If she had consulted me, I should at once have forbidden anything of the kind; she was aware of that. She kept it secret from me, knowing that it would excite my displeasure. I will not be drawn into such squalid affairs; I won't have my name spoken in such connection. Your mother has only herself to blame if I am angry with her.'

'Your anger goes beyond all bounds. At the very worst, mother behaved imprudently, and with a very good motive. It is cruel that you should make her suffer as she is doing.'

Marian was being strengthened to resist. Her blood grew hot; the sensation which once before had brought her to the verge of conflict with her father possessed her heart and brain.

'You are not a suitable judge of my behaviour,' replied Yule, severely.

'I am driven to speak. We can't go on living in this way, father. For months our home has been almost ceaselessly wretched, because of the ill-temper you are always in. Mother and I must defend ourselves; we can't bear it any longer. You must surely feel how ridiculous it is to make such a thing as happened this morning the excuse for violent anger.

How can I help judging your behaviour? When mother is brought to the point of saying that she would rather leave home and everything than endure her misery any longer, I should be wrong if I didn't speak to you. Why are you so unkind? What serious cause has mother ever given you?'

'I refuse to argue such questions with you.'

'Then you are very unjust. I am not a child, and there's nothing wrong in my asking you why home is made a place of misery, instead of being what home ought to be.'

'You prove that you are a child, in asking for explanations which ought to be clear enough to you.'

'You mean that mother is to blame for everything?'

'The subject is no fit one to be discussed between a father and his daughter. If you cannot see the impropriety of it, be so good as to go away and reflect, and leave me to my occupations.'

Marian came to a pause. But she knew that his rebuke was mere unworthy evasion; she saw that her father could not meet her look, and this perception of shame in him impelled her to finish what she had begun.

'I will say nothing of mother, then, but speak only for myself. I suffer too much from your unkindness; you ask too much endurance.'

'You mean that I exact too much work from you?' asked her father, with a look which might have been directed to a recalcitrant clerk.

'No. But that you make the conditions of my work too hard. I live in constant fear of your anger.'

'Indeed? When did I last ill-use you, or threaten you?'

'I often think that threats, or even ill-usage, would be easier to bear than an unchanging gloom which always seems on the point of breaking into violence.'

'I am obliged to you for your criticism of my disposition and manner, but unhappily I am too old to reform. Life has made me what I am, and I should have thought that your knowledge of what my life has been would have gone far to excuse a lack of cheerfulness in me.'

The irony of this laborious period was full of self-pity. His voice quavered at the close, and a tremor was noticeable in his stiff frame.

'It isn't lack of cheerfulness that I mean, father. That could never have brought me to speak like this.'

'If you wish me to admit that I am bad-tempered, surly, irritable--I make no difficulty about that. The charge is true enough. I can only ask you again: What are the circ.u.mstances that have ruined my temper? When you present yourself here with a general accusation of my behaviour, I am at a loss to understand what you ask of me, what you wish me to say or do. I must beg you to speak plainly. Are you suggesting that I should make provision for the support of you and your mother away from my intolerable proximity? My income is not large, as I think you are aware, but of course, if a demand of this kind is seriously made, I must do my best to comply with it.'

'It hurts me very much that you can understand me no better than this.'

'I am sorry. I think we used to understand each other, but that was before you were subjected to the influence of strangers.'

In his perverse frame of mind he was ready to give utterance to any thought which confused the point at issue. This last allusion was suggested to him by a sudden pang of regret for the pain he was causing Marian; he defended himself against self-reproach by hinting at the true reason of much of his harshness.

'I am subjected to no influence that is hostile to you,' Marian replied.

'You may think that. But in such a matter it is very easy for you to deceive yourself.'

'Of course I know what you refer to, and I can a.s.sure you that I don't deceive myself.'

Yule flashed a searching glance at her.

'Can you deny that you are on terms of friendship with a--a person who would at any moment rejoice to injure me?'

'I am friendly with no such person. Will you say whom you are thinking of?'

'It would be useless. I have no wish to discuss a subject on which we should only disagree unprofitably.'

Marian kept silence for a moment, then said in a low, unsteady voice:

'It is perhaps because we never speak of that subject that we are so far from understanding each other. If you think that Mr Milvain is your enemy, that he would rejoice to injure you, you are grievously mistaken.'

'When I see a man in close alliance with my worst enemy, and looking to that enemy for favour, I am justified in thinking that he would injure me if the right kind of opportunity offered. One need not be very deeply read in human nature to have a.s.surance of that.'

'But I know Mr Milvain!'

'You know him?'

'Far better than you can, I am sure. You draw conclusions from general principles; but I know that they don't apply in this case.'

'I have no doubt you sincerely think so. I repeat that nothing can be gained by such a discussion as this.'

'One thing I must tell you. There was no truth in your suspicion that Mr Milvain wrote that review in The Current. He a.s.sured me himself that he was not the writer, that he had nothing to do with it.'

Yule looked askance at her, and his face displayed solicitude, which soon pa.s.sed, however, into a smile of sarcasm.

'The gentleman's word no doubt has weight with you.'

'Father, what do you mean?' broke from Marian, whose eyes of a sudden flashed stormily. 'Would Mr Milvain tell me a lie?'

'I shouldn't like to say that it is impossible,' replied her father in the same tone as before.

'But--what right have you to insult him so grossly?'

'I have every right, my dear child, to express an opinion about him or any other man, provided I do it honestly. I beg you not to strike att.i.tudes and address me in the language of the stage. You insist on my speaking plainly, and I have spoken plainly. I warned you that we were not likely to agree on this topic.'

'Literary quarrels have made you incapable of judging honestly in things such as this. I wish I could have done for ever with the hateful profession that so poisons men's minds.'