New Grub Street (71 page)

'So do I,' Dora replied.

'I'm very glad to hear that. I confess it seemed to me that you
were rather too cordial with Whelpdale yesterday.'

'One must behave civilly. Mr Whelpdale quite understands
me.'

'You are sure of that? He didn't seem quite so gloomy as he
ought to have been.'

'The success of Chit-Chat keeps him in good spirits.'

It was perhaps a week after this that Mrs Dolomore came quite
unexpectedly to the house by Regent's Park, as early as eleven
o'clock in the morning. She had a long talk in private with Dora.
Jasper was not at home; when he returned towards evening, Dora came
to his room with a countenance which disconcerted him.

'Is it true,' she asked abruptly, standing before him with her
hands strained together, 'that you have been representing yourself
as no longer engaged to Marian?'

'Who has told you so?'

'That doesn't matter. I have heard it, and I want to know from
you that it is false.'

Jasper thrust his hands into his pockets and walked apart.

'I can take no notice,' he said with indifference, 'of anonymous
gossip.'

'Well, then, I will tell you how I have heard. Maud came this
morning, and told me that Mrs Betterton had been asking her about
it. Mrs Betterton had heard from Mrs Lane.'

'From Mrs Lane? And from whom did she hear, pray?'

'That I don't know. Is it true or not?'

'I have never told anyone that my engagement was at an end,'
replied Jasper, deliberately.

The girl met his eyes.

'Then I was right,' she said. 'Of course I told Maud that it was
impossible to believe this for a moment. But how has it come to be
said?'

'You might as well ask me how any lie gets into circulation
among people of that sort. I have told you the truth, and there's
an end of it.'

Dora lingered for a while, but left the room without saying
anything more.

She sat up late, mostly engaged in thinking, though at times an
open book was in her hand. It was nearly half-past twelve when a
very light rap at the door caused her to start. She called, and
Jasper came in.

'Why are you still up?' he asked, avoiding her look as he moved
forward and took a leaning attitude behind an easy-chair.

'Oh, I don't know. Do you want anything?'

There was a pause; then Jasper said in an unsteady voice:

'I am not given to lying, Dora, and I feel confoundedly
uncomfortable about what I said to you early this evening. I didn't
lie in the ordinary sense; it's true enough that I have never told
anyone that my engagement was at an end. But I have acted as if it
were, and it's better I should tell you.'

His sister gazed at him with indignation.

'You have acted as if you were free?'

'Yes. I have proposed to Miss Rupert. How Mrs Lane and that lot
have come to know anything about this I don't understand. I am not
aware of any connecting link between them and the Ruperts, or the
Barlows either. Perhaps there are none; most likely the rumour has
no foundation in their knowledge. Still, it is better that I should
have told you. Miss Rupert has never heard that I was engaged, nor
have her friends the Barlows—at least I don't see how they could
have done. She may have told Mrs Barlow of my proposal—probably
would; and this may somehow have got round to those other people.
But Maud didn't make any mention of Miss Rupert, did she?'

Dora replied with a cold negative.

'Well, there's the state of things. It isn't pleasant, but
that's what I have done.'

'Do you mean that Miss Rupert has accepted you?'

'No. I wrote to her. She answered that she was going to Germany
for a few weeks, and that I should have her reply whilst she was
away. I am waiting.'

'But what name is to be given to behaviour such as this?'

'Listen: didn't you know perfectly well that this must be the
end of it?'

'Do you suppose I thought you utterly shameless and cruel beyond
words?'

'I suppose I am both. It was a moment of desperate temptation,
though. I had dined at the Ruperts'—you remember—and it seemed to
me there was no mistaking the girl's manner.'

'Don't call her a girl!' broke in Dora, scornfully. 'You say she
is several years older than yourself.'

'Well, at all events, she's intellectual, and very rich. I
yielded to the temptation.'

'And deserted Marian just when she has most need of help and
consolation? It's frightful!'

Jasper moved to another chair and sat down. He was much
perturbed.

'Look here, Dora, I regret it; I do, indeed. And, what's more,
if that woman refuses me—as it's more than likely she will—I will
go to Marian and ask her to marry me at once. I promise that.'

His sister made a movement of contemptuous impatience.

'And if the woman doesn't refuse you?'

'Then I can't help it. But there's one thing more I will say.
Whether I marry Marian or Miss Rupert, I sacrifice my strongest
feelings—in the one case to a sense of duty, in the other to
worldly advantage. I was an idiot to write that letter, for I knew
at the time that there was a woman who is far more to me than Miss
Rupert and all her money—a woman I might, perhaps, marry. Don't ask
any questions; I shall not answer them. As I have said so much, I
wished you to understand my position fully. You know the promise I
have made. Don't say anything to Marian; if I am left free I shall
marry her as soon as possible.'

And so he left the room.

For a fortnight and more he remained in uncertainty. His life
was very uncomfortable, for Dora would only speak to him when
necessity compelled her; and there were two meetings with Marian,
at which he had to act his part as well as he could. At length came
the expected letter. Very nicely expressed, very friendly, very
complimentary, but—a refusal.

He handed it to Dora across the breakfast-table, saying with a
pinched smile:

'Now you can look cheerful again. I am doomed.'

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.