New Grub Street · Chapter 21 (1/3)

XXI

Mr. Yule Leaves Town

Since the domestic incidents connected with that unpleasant review in The Current, the relations between Alfred Yule and his daughter had suffered a permanent change, though not in a degree noticeable by anyone but the two concerned. To all appearances, they worked together and conversed very much as they had been wont to do; but Marian was made to feel in many subtle ways that her father no longer had complete confidence in her, no longer took the same pleasure as formerly in the skill and conscientiousness of her work, and Yule on his side perceived too clearly that the girl was preoccupied with something other than her old wish to aid and satisfy him, that she had a new life of her own alien to, and in some respects irreconcilable with, the existence in which he desired to confirm her. There was no renewal of open disagreement, but their conversations frequently ended by tacit mutual consent, at a point which threatened divergence; and in Yule’s case every such warning was a cause of intense irritation. He feared to provoke Marian, and this fear was again a torture to his pride.

Beyond the fact that his daughter was in constant communication with the Miss Milvains, he knew, and could discover, nothing of the terms on which she stood with the girls’ brother, and this ignorance was harder to bear than full assurance of a disagreeable fact would have been. That a man like Jasper Milvain, whose name was every now and then forced upon his notice as a rising periodicalist and a faithful henchman of the unspeakable Fadge⁠—that a young fellow of such excellent prospects should seriously attach himself to a girl like Marian seemed to him highly improbable, save, indeed, for the one consideration, that Milvain, who assuredly had a very keen eye to chances, might regard the girl as a niece of old John Yule, and therefore worth holding in view until it was decided whether or not she would benefit by her uncle’s decease. Fixed in his antipathy to the young man, he would not allow himself to admit any but a base motive on Milvain’s side, if, indeed, Marian and Jasper were more to each other than slight acquaintances; and he persuaded himself that anxiety for the girl’s welfare was at least as strong a motive with him as mere prejudice against the ally of Fadge, and, it might be, the reviewer of English Prose. Milvain was quite capable of playing fast and loose with a girl, and Marian, owing to the peculiar circumstances of her position, would easily be misled by the pretence of a clever speculator.

That she had never spoken again about the review in The Current might receive several explanations. Perhaps she had not been able to convince herself either for or against Milvain’s authorship; perhaps she had reason to suspect that the young man was the author; perhaps she merely shrank from reviving a discussion in which she might betray what she desired to keep secret. This last was the truth. Finding that her father did not recur to the subject, Marian concluded that he had found himself to be misinformed. But Yule, though he heard the original rumour denied by people whom in other matters he would have trusted, would not lay aside the doubt that flattered his prejudices. If Milvain were not the writer of the review, he very well might have been; and what certainty could be arrived at in matters of literary gossip?

There was an element of jealousy in the father’s feeling. If he did not love Marian with all the warmth of which a parent is capable, at least he had more affection for her than for any other person, and of this he became strongly aware now that the girl seemed to be turning from him. If he lost Marian, he would indeed be a lonely man, for he considered his wife of no account.

Intellectually again, he demanded an entire allegiance from his daughter; he could not bear to think that her zeal on his behalf was diminishing, that perhaps she was beginning to regard his work as futile and antiquated in comparison with that of the new generation. Yet this must needs be the result of frequent intercourse with such a man as Milvain. It seemed to him that he remarked it in her speech and manner, and at times he with difficulty restrained himself from a reproach or a sarcasm which would have led to trouble.

Had he been in the habit of dealing harshly with Marian, as with her mother, of course his position would have been simpler. But he had always respected her, and he feared to lose that measure of respect with which she repaid him. Already he had suffered in her esteem, perhaps more than he liked to think, and the increasing embitterment of his temper kept him always in danger of the conflict he dreaded. Marian was not like her mother; she could not submit to tyrannous usage. Warned of that, he did his utmost to avoid an outbreak of discord, constantly hoping that he might come to understand his daughter’s position, and perhaps discover that his greatest fear was unfounded.

Twice in the course of the summer he inquired of his wife whether she knew anything about the Milvains. But Mrs. Yule was not in Marian’s confidence.

“I only know that she goes to see the young ladies, and that they do writing of some kind.”

“She never even mentions their brother to you?”

“Never. I haven’t heard his name from her since she told me the Miss Milvains weren’t coming here again.”

He was not sorry that Marian had taken the decision to keep her friends away from St. Paul’s Crescent, for it saved him a recurring annoyance; but, on the other hand, if they had continued to come, he would not have been thus completely in the dark as to her intercourse with Jasper; scraps of information must now and then have been gathered by his wife from the girls’ talk.

Throughout the month of July he suffered much from his wonted bilious attacks, and Mrs. Yule had to endure a double share of his ill-temper, that which was naturally directed against her, and that of which Marian was the cause. In August things were slightly better; but with the return to labour came a renewal of Yule’s sullenness and savageness. Sundry pieces of ill-luck of a professional kind⁠—warnings, as he too well understood, that it was growing more and more difficult for him to hold his own against the new writers⁠—exasperated his quarrel with destiny. The gloom of a cold and stormy September was doubly wretched in that house on the far borders of Camden Town, but in October the sun reappeared and it seemed to mollify the literary man’s mood. Just when Mrs. Yule and Marian began to hope that this long distemper must surely come to an end, there befell an incident which, at the best of times, would have occasioned misery, and which in the present juncture proved disastrous.

It was one morning about eleven. Yule was in his study; Marian was at the Museum; Mrs. Yule had gone shopping. There came a sharp knock at the front door, and the servant, on opening, was confronted with a decently-dressed woman, who asked in a peremptory voice if Mrs. Yule was at home.

“No? Then is Mr. Yule?”

“Yes, mum, but I’m afraid he’s busy.”

“I don’t care, I must see him. Say that Mrs. Goby wants to see him at once.”

The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the door of the study.

“Mrs. Goby? Who is Mrs. Goby?” exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the disturbance.

There sounded an answer out of the passage, for the visitor had followed close.

“I am Mrs. Goby, of the ’Olloway Road, wife of Mr. C. O. Goby, ’aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr. Yule, if you please, seeing that Mrs. Yule isn’t in.”

Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant had reluctantly given place.

“What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs. Yule, come again when she is at home.”

“No, Mr. Yule, I will not come again!” cried the woman, red in the face. “I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at all events; but I see you’re pretty much like your relations in the way of behaving to people, though you do wear better clothes, and⁠—I s’pose⁠—call yourself a gentleman. I won’t come again, and you shall just hear what I’ve got to say.”

She closed the door violently, and stood in an attitude of robust defiance.

“What’s all this about?” asked the enraged author, overcoming an impulse to take Mrs. Goby by the shoulders and throw her out⁠—though he might have found some difficulty in achieving this feat. “Who are you? And why do you come here with your brawling?”

“I’m the respectable wife of a respectable man⁠—that’s who I am, Mr. Yule, if you want to know. And I always thought Mrs. Yule was the same, from the dealings we’ve had with her at the shop, though not knowing any more of her, it’s true, except that she lived in St. Paul’s Crezzent. And so she may be respectable, though I can’t say as her husband behaves himself very much like what he pretends to be. But I can’t say as much for her relations in Perker Street, ’Olloway, which I s’pose they’re your relations as well, at least by marriage. And if they think they’re going to insult me, and use their blackguard tongues⁠—”

“What are you talking about?” shouted Yule, who was driven to frenzy by the mention of his wife’s humble family. “What have I to do with these people?”

“What have you to do with them? I s’pose they’re your relations, ain’t they? And I s’pose the girl Annie Rudd is your niece, ain’t she? At least, she’s your wife’s niece, and that comes to the same thing, I’ve always understood, though I dare say a gentleman as has so many books about him can correct me if I’ve made a mistake.”

She looked scornfully, though also with some surprise, round the volumed walls.

“And what of this girl? Will you have the goodness to say what your business is?”

“Yes, I will have the goodness! I s’pose you know very well that I took your niece Annie Rudd as a domestic servant”⁠—she repeated this precise definition⁠—“as a domestic servant, because Mrs. Yule ’appened to ’arst me if I knew of a place for a girl of that kind, as hadn’t been out before, but could be trusted to do her best to give satisfaction to a good mistress? I s’pose you know that?”

“I know nothing of the kind. What have I to do with servants?”

“Well, whether you’ve much to do with them or little, that’s how it was. And nicely she’s paid me out, has your niece, Miss Rudd. Of all the trouble I ever had with a girl! And now when she’s run away back ’ome, and when I take the trouble to go arfter her, I’m to be insulted and abused as never was! Oh, they’re a nice respectable family, those Rudds! Mrs. Rudd⁠—that’s Mrs. Yule’s sister⁠—what a nice, polite-spoken lady she is, to be sure? If I was to repeat the language⁠—but there, I wouldn’t lower myself. And I’ve been a brute of a mistress; I ill-use my servants, and I don’t give ’em enough to eat, and I pay ’em worse than any woman in London! That’s what I’ve learnt about myself by going to Perker Street, ’Olloway. And when I come here to ask Mrs. Yule what she means by recommending such a creature, from such a ’ome, I get insulted by her gentleman husband.”

Yule was livid with rage, but the extremity of his scorn withheld him from utterance of what he felt.

“As I said, all this has nothing to do with me. I will let Mrs. Yule know that you have called. I have no more time to spare.”

Mrs. Goby repeated at still greater length the details of her grievance, but long before she had finished Yule was sitting again at his desk in ostentatious disregard of her. Finally, the exasperated woman flung open the door, railed in a loud voice along the passage, and left the house with an alarming crash.

It was not long before Mrs. Yule returned. Before taking off her things, she went down into the kitchen with certain purchases, and there she learnt from the servant what had happened during her absence. Fear and trembling possessed her⁠—the sick, faint dread always excited by her husband’s wrath⁠—but she felt obliged to go at once to the study. The scene that took place there was one of ignoble violence on Yule’s part, and, on that of his wife, of terrified self-accusation, changing at length to dolorous resentment of the harshness with which she was treated. When it was over, Yule took his hat and went out.

He did not return for the midday meal, and when Marian, late in the afternoon, came back from the Museum, he was still absent.

Not finding her mother in the parlour, Marian called at the head of the kitchen stairs. The servant answered, saying that Mrs. Yule was up in her bedroom, and that she didn’t seem well. Marian at once went up and knocked at the bedroom door. In a moment or two her mother came out, showing a face of tearful misery.

“What is it, mother? What’s the matter?”

They went into Marian’s room, where Mrs. Yule gave free utterance to her lamentations.

“I can’t put up with it, Marian! Your father is too hard with me. I was wrong, I dare say, and I might have known what would have come of it, but he couldn’t speak to me worse if I did him all the harm I could on purpose. It’s all about Annie, because I found a place for her at Mrs. Goby’s in the ’Olloway Road; and now Mrs. Goby’s been here and seen your father, and told him she’s been insulted by the Rudds, because Annie went off home, and she went after her to make inquiries. And your father’s in such a passion about it as never was. That woman Mrs. Goby rushed into the study when he was working; it was this morning, when I happened to be out. And she throws all the blame on me for recommending her such a girl. And I did it for the best, that I did! Annie promised me faithfully she’d behave well, and never give me trouble, and she seemed thankful to me, because she wasn’t happy at home. And now to think of her causing all this disturbance! I oughtn’t to have done such a thing without speaking about it to your father; but you know how afraid I am to say a word to him about those people. And my sister’s told me so often I ought to be ashamed of myself never helping her and her children; she thinks I could do such a lot if I only liked. And now that I did try to do something, see what comes of it!”

Marian listened with a confusion of wretched feelings. But her sympathies were strongly with her mother; as well as she could understand the broken story, her father seemed to have no just cause for his pitiless rage, though such an occasion would be likely enough to bring out his worst faults.

“Is he in the study?” she asked.

“No, he went out at twelve o’clock, and he’s never been back since. I feel as if I must do something; I can’t bear with it, Marian. He tells me I’m the curse of his life⁠—yes, he said that. I oughtn’t to tell you, I know I oughtn’t; but it’s more than I can bear. I’ve always tried to do my best, but it gets harder and harder for me. But for me he’d never be in these bad tempers; it’s because he can’t look at me without getting angry. He says I’ve kept him back all through his life; but for me he might have been far better off than he is. It may be true; I’ve often enough thought it. But I can’t bear to have it told me like that, and to see it in his face every time he looks at me. I shall have to do something. He’d be glad if only I was out of his way.”

“Father has no right to make you so unhappy,” said Marian. “I can’t see that you did anything blameworthy; it seems to me that it was your duty to try and help Annie, and if it turned out unfortunately, that can’t be helped. You oughtn’t to think so much of what father says in his anger; I believe he hardly knows what he does say. Don’t take it so much to heart, mother.”

“I’ve tried my best, Marian,” sobbed the poor woman, who felt that even her child’s sympathy could not be perfect, owing to the distance put between them by Marian’s education and refined sensibilities. “I’ve always thought it wasn’t right to talk to you about such things, but he’s been too hard with me today.”