New Grub Street · Chapter 9 (2/2)

“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 potboiler?”

“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 tomorrow 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 anticipation 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 class. 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. She spent as little as she could; not a luxury came into their home; articles of clothing all but indispensable were left unpurchased. But to what purpose was all this? Impossible, now, that the book should be finished and sold before the money had all run out.

At the end of November, Reardon said to his wife one morning:

“Tomorrow I finish the second volume.”

“And in a week,” she replied, “we shan’t have a shilling left.”

He had refrained from making inquiries, and Amy had forborne to tell him the state of things, lest it should bring him to a dead stop in his writing. But now they must needs discuss their position.

“In three weeks I can get to the end,” said Reardon, with unnatural calmness. “Then I will go personally to the publishers, and beg them to advance me something on the manuscript before they have read it.”

“Couldn’t you do that with the first two volumes?”

“No, I can’t; indeed I can’t. The other thing will be bad enough; but to beg on an incomplete book, and such a book⁠—I can’t!”

There were drops on his forehead.

“They would help you if they knew,” said Amy in a low voice.

“Perhaps; I can’t say. They can’t help every poor devil. No; I will sell some books. I can pick out fifty or sixty that I shan’t much miss.”

Amy knew what a wrench this would be. The imminence of distress seemed to have softened her.

“Edwin, let me take those two volumes to the publishers, and ask⁠—”

“Heavens! no. That’s impossible. Ten to one you will be told that my work is of such doubtful value that they can’t offer even a guinea till the whole book has been considered. I can’t allow you to go, dearest. This morning I’ll choose some books that I can spare, and after dinner I’ll ask a man to come and look at them. Don’t worry yourself; I can finish in three weeks, I’m sure I can. If I can get you three or four pounds you could make it do, couldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

She averted her face as she spoke.

“You shall have that.” He still spoke very quietly. “If the books won’t bring enough, there’s my watch⁠—oh, lots of things.”

He turned abruptly away, and Amy went on with her household work.