New Grub Street (8 page)

She squared her shoulders, and gave her head just a little
shake, as if a fly had troubled her.

'You bear everything very well and kindly,' said Reardon. 'My
behaviour is contemptible; I know that. Good heavens! if I only had
some business to go to, something I could work at in any state of
mind, and make money out of! Given this chance, I would work myself
to death rather than you should lack anything you desire. But I am
at the mercy of my brain; it is dry and powerless. How I envy those
clerks who go by to their offices in the morning! There's the day's
work cut out for them; no question of mood and feeling; they have
just to work at something, and when the evening comes, they have
earned their wages, they are free to rest and enjoy themselves.
What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of
support! When the most trivial accident may at any time prove fatal
to one's power of work for weeks or months. No, that is the
unpardonable sin! To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served
for attempting such a brutal folly.'

He turned away in a passion of misery.

'How very silly it is to talk like this!' came in Amy's voice,
clearly critical. 'Art must be practised as a trade, at all events
in our time. This is the age of trade. Of course if one refuses to
be of one's time, and yet hasn't the means to live independently,
what can result but breakdown and wretchedness? The fact of the
matter is, you could do fairly good work, and work which would
sell, if only you would bring yourself to look at things in a more
practical way. It's what Mr Milvain is always saying, you
know.'

'Milvain's temperament is very different from mine. He is
naturally light-hearted and hopeful; I am naturally the
opposite.

What you and he say is true enough; the misfortune is that I
can't act upon it. I am no uncompromising artistic pedant; I am
quite willing to try and do the kind of work that will sell; under
the circumstances it would be a kind of insanity if I refused. But
power doesn't answer to the will. My efforts are utterly vain; I
suppose the prospect of pennilessness is itself a hindrance; the
fear haunts me. With such terrible real things pressing upon me, my
imagination can shape nothing substantial. When I have laboured out
a story, I suddenly see it in a light of such contemptible
triviality that to work at it is an impossible thing.'

'You are ill, that's the fact of the matter. You ought to have
had a holiday. I think even now you had better go away for a week
or two. Do, Edwin!'

'Impossible! It would be the merest pretence of holiday. To go
away and leave you here—no!'

'Shall I ask mother or Jack to lend us some money?'

'That would be intolerable.'

'But this state of things is intolerable!'

Reardon walked the length of the room and back again.

'Your mother has no money to lend, dear, and your brother would
do it so unwillingly that we can't lay ourselves under such an
obligation.'

'Yet it will come to that, you know,' remarked Amy, calmly.

'No, it shall not come to that. I must and will get something
done long before Christmas. If only you—'

He came and took one of her hands.

'If only you will give me more sympathy, dearest. You see,
that's one side of my weakness. I am utterly dependent upon you.
Your kindness is the breath of life to me. Don't refuse it!'

'But I have done nothing of the kind.'

'You begin to speak very coldly. And I understand your feeling
of disappointment. The mere fact of your urging me to do anything
that will sell is a proof of bitter disappointment. You would have
looked with scorn at anyone who talked to me like that two years
ago. You were proud of me because my work wasn't altogether common,
and because I had never written a line that was meant to attract
the vulgar. All that's over now. If you knew how dreadful it is to
see that you have lost your hopes of me!'

'Well, but I haven't—altogether,' Amy replied, meditatively. 'I
know very well that, if you had a lot of money, you would do better
things than ever.'

'Thank you a thousand times for saying that, my dearest.'

'But, you see, we haven't money, and there's little chance of
our getting any. That scrubby old uncle won't leave anything to us;
I feel too sure of it. I often feel disposed to go and beg him on
my knees to think of us in his will.' She laughed. 'I suppose it's
impossible, and would be useless; but I should be capable of it if
I knew it would bring money.'

Reardon said nothing.

'I didn't think so much of money when we were married,' Amy
continued. 'I had never seriously felt the want of it, you know. I
did think—there's no harm in confessing it—that you were sure to be
rich some day; but I should have married you all the same if I had
known that you would win only reputation.'

'You are sure of that?'

'Well, I think so. But I know the value of money better now. I
know it is the most powerful thing in the world. If I had to choose
between a glorious reputation with poverty and a contemptible
popularity with wealth, I should choose the latter.'

'No!'

'I should.'

'Perhaps you are right.'

He turned away with a sigh.

'Yes, you are right. What is reputation? If it is deserved, it
originates with a few score of people among the many millions who
would never have recognised the merit they at last applaud. That's
the lot of a great genius. As for a mediocrity like me—what
ludicrous absurdity to fret myself in the hope that half-a-dozen
folks will say I am "above the average!" After all, is there
sillier vanity than this? A year after I have published my last
book, I shall be practically forgotten; ten years later, I shall be
as absolutely forgotten as one of those novelists of the early part
of this century, whose names one doesn't even recognise. What
fatuous posing!'

Amy looked askance at him, but replied nothing.

'And yet,' he continued, 'of course it isn't only for the sake
of reputation that one tries to do uncommon work. There's the
shrinking from conscious insincerity of workmanship—which most of
the writers nowadays seem never to feel. "It's good enough for the
market"; that satisfies them. And perhaps they are justified.

I can't pretend that I rule my life by absolute ideals; I admit
that everything is relative. There is no such thing as goodness or
badness, in the absolute sense, of course. Perhaps I am absurdly
inconsistent when—though knowing my work can't be first rate—I
strive to make it as good as possible. I don't say this in irony,
Amy; I really mean it. It may very well be that I am just as
foolish as the people I ridicule for moral and religious
superstition. This habit of mine is superstitious. How well I can
imagine the answer of some popular novelist if he heard me speak
scornfully of his books. "My dear fellow," he might say, "do you
suppose I am not aware that my books are rubbish? I know it just as
well as you do. But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have a
luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful to
me for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret, and,
what's worse, make your wife and children share it with you, that's
your concern." The man would be abundantly right.'

'But,' said Amy, 'why should you assume that his books are
rubbish? Good work succeeds—now and then.'

'I speak of the common kind of success, which is never due to
literary merit. And if I speak bitterly, well, I am suffering from
my powerlessness. I am a failure, my poor girl, and it isn't easy
for me to look with charity on the success of men who deserved it
far less than I did, when I was still able to work.'

'Of course, Edwin, if you make up your mind that you are a
failure, you will end by being so. But I'm convinced there's no
reason that you should fail to make a living with your pen. Now let
me advise you; put aside all your strict ideas about what is worthy
and what is unworthy, and just act upon my advice. It's impossible
for you to write a three-volume novel; very well, then do a short
story of a kind that's likely to be popular. You know Mr Milvain is
always saying that the long novel has had its day, and that in
future people will write shilling books. Why not try?

Give yourself a week to invent a sensational plot, and then a
fortnight for the writing. Have it ready for the new season at the
end of October. If you like, don't put your name to it; your name
certainly would have no weight with this sort of public. Just make
it a matter of business, as Mr Milvain says, and see if you can't
earn some money.'

He stood and regarded her. His expression was one of pained
perplexity.

'You mustn't forget, Amy, that it needs a particular kind of
faculty to write stories of this sort. The invention of a plot is
just the thing I find most difficult.'

'But the plot may be as silly as you like, providing it holds
the attention of vulgar readers. Think of "The Hollow Statue", what
could be more idiotic? Yet it sells by thousands.'

'I don't think I can bring myself to that,' Reardon said, in a
low voice.

'Very well, then will you tell me what you propose to do?'

'I might perhaps manage a novel in two volumes, instead of
three.'

He seated himself at the writing-table, and stared at the blank
sheets of paper in an anguish of hopelessness.

'It will take you till Christmas,' said Amy, 'and then you will
get perhaps fifty pounds for it.'

'I must do my best. I'll go out and try to get some ideas.
I—'

He broke off and looked steadily at his wife.

'What is it?' she asked.

'Suppose I were to propose to you to leave this flat and take
cheaper rooms?'

He uttered it in a shamefaced way, his eyes falling. Amy kept
silence.

'We might sublet it,' he continued, in the same tone, 'for the
last year of the lease.'

'And where do you propose to live?' Amy inquired, coldly.

'There's no need to be in such a dear neighbourhood. We could go
to one of the outer districts. One might find three unfurnished
rooms for about eight-and-sixpence a week—less than half our rent
here.'

'You must do as seems good to you.'

'For Heaven's sake, Amy, don't speak to me in that way! I can't
stand that! Surely you can see that I am driven to think of every
possible resource. To speak like that is to abandon me. Say you
can't or won't do it, but don't treat me as if you had no share in
my miseries!'

She was touched for the moment.

'I didn't mean to speak unkindly, dear. But think what it means,
to give up our home and position. That is open confession of
failure. It would be horrible.'

'I won't think of it. I have three months before Christmas, and
I will finish a book!'

'I really can't see why you shouldn't. Just do a certain number
of pages every day. Good or bad, never mind; let the pages be
finished. Now you have got two chapters—'

'No; that won't do. I must think of a better subject.'

Amy made a gesture of impatience.

'There you are! What does the subject matter? Get this book
finished and sold, and then do something better next time.'

'Give me to-night, just to think. Perhaps one of the old stories
I have thrown aside will come back in a clearer light. I'll go out
for an hour; you don't mind being left alone?'

'You mustn't think of such trifles as that.'

'But nothing that concerns you in the slightest way is a trifle
to me—nothing! I can't bear that you should forget that. Have
patience with me, darling, a little longer.'

He knelt by her, and looked up into her face.

'Say only one or two kind words—like you used to!'

She passed her hand lightly over his hair, and murmured
something with a faint smile.

Then Reardon took his hat and stick and descended the eight
flights of stone steps, and walked in the darkness round the outer
circle of Regent's Park, racking his fagged brain in a hopeless
search for characters, situations, motives.

Even in mid-rapture of his marriage month he had foreseen this
possibility; but fate had hitherto rescued him in sudden ways when
he was on the brink of self-abandonment, and it was hard to imagine
that this culmination of triumphant joy could be a preface to base
miseries.

He was the son of a man who had followed many different
pursuits, and in none had done much more than earn a livelihood. At
the age of forty—when Edwin, his only child, was ten years old—Mr
Reardon established himself in the town of Hereford as a
photographer, and there he abode until his death, nine years after,
occasionally risking some speculation not inconsistent with the
photographic business, but always with the result of losing the
little capital he ventured. Mrs Reardon died when Edwin had reached
his fifteenth year. In breeding and education she was superior to
her husband, to whom, moreover, she had brought something between
four and five hundred pounds; her temper was passionate in both
senses of the word, and the marriage could hardly be called a happy
one, though it was never disturbed by serious discord. The
photographer was a man of whims and idealisms; his wife had a
strong vein of worldly ambition. They made few friends, and it was
Mrs Reardon's frequently expressed desire to go and live in London,
where fortune, she thought, might be kinder to them. Reardon had
all but made up his mind to try this venture when he suddenly
became a widower; after that he never summoned energy to embark on
new enterprises.

The boy was educated at an excellent local school; at eighteen
he had a far better acquaintance with the ancient classics than
most lads who have been expressly prepared for a university, and,
thanks to an anglicised Swiss who acted as an assistant in Mr
Reardon's business, he not only read French, but could talk it with
a certain haphazard fluency. These attainments, however, were not
of much practical use; the best that could be done for Edwin was to
place him in the office of an estate agent. His health was
indifferent, and it seemed likely that open-air exercise, of which
he would have a good deal under the particular circumstances of the
case, might counteract the effects of study too closely
pursued.