New Grub Street · Chapter 24 (2/2)

“You mean that I speak as if no such thing as love existed. But you asked me what I understood by success. I am speaking of worldly things. Now suppose I had said to you: My one aim and desire in life is to win your love. Could you have believed me? Such phrases are always untrue; I don’t know how it can give anyone pleasure to hear them. But if I say to you: All the satisfactions I have described would be immensely heightened if they were shared with a woman who loved me⁠—there is the simple truth.”

Marian’s heart sank. She did not want truth such as this; she would have preferred that he should utter the poor, common falsehoods. Hungry for passionate love, she heard with a sense of desolation all this calm reasoning. That Jasper was of cold temperament she had often feared; yet there was always the consoling thought that she did not see with perfect clearness into his nature. Now and then had come a flash, a hint of possibilities. She had looked forward with trembling eagerness to some sudden revelation; but it seemed as if he knew no word of the language which would have called such joyous response from her expectant soul.

“We have talked for a long time,” she said, turning her head as if his last words were of no significance. “As Dora is not coming, I think I will go now.”

She rose, and went towards the chair on which lay her out-of-door things. At once Jasper stepped to her side.

“You will go without giving me any answer?”

“Answer? To what?”

“Will you be my wife?”

“It is too soon to ask me that.”

“Too soon? Haven’t you known for months that I thought of you with far more than friendliness?”

“How was it possible I should know that? You have explained to me why you would not let your real feelings be understood.”

The reproach was merited, and not easy to be outfaced. He turned away for an instant, then with a sudden movement caught both her hands.

“Whatever I have done or said or thought in the past, that is of no account now. I love you, Marian. I want you to be my wife. I have never seen any other girl who impressed me as you did from the first. If I had been weak enough to try to win anyone but you, I should have known that I had turned aside from the path of my true happiness. Let us forget for a moment all our circumstances. I hold your hands, and look into your face, and say that I love you. Whatever answer you give, I love you!”

Till now her heart had only fluttered a little; it was a great part of her distress that the love she had so long nurtured seemed shrinking together into some far corner of her being whilst she listened to the discourses which prefaced Jasper’s declaration. She was nervous, painfully self-conscious, touched with maidenly shame, but could not abandon herself to that delicious emotion which ought to have been the fulfilment of all her secret imaginings. Now at length there began a throbbing in her bosom. Keeping her face averted, her eyes cast down, she waited for a repetition of the note that was in that last “I love you.” She felt a change in the hands that held hers⁠—a warmth, a moist softness; it caused a shock through her veins.

He was trying to draw her nearer, but she kept at full arm’s length and looked irresponsive.

“Marian?”

She wished to answer, but a spirit of perversity held her tongue.

“Marian, don’t you love me? Or have I offended you by my way of speaking?”

Persisting, she at length withdrew her hands. Jasper’s face expressed something like dismay.

“You have not offended me,” she said. “But I am not sure that you don’t deceive yourself in thinking, for the moment, that I am necessary to your happiness.”

The emotional current which had passed from her flesh to his whilst their hands were linked, made him incapable of standing aloof from her. He saw that her face and neck were warmer hued, and her beauty became more desirable to him than ever yet.

“You are more to me than anything else in the compass of life!” he exclaimed, again pressing forward. “I think of nothing but you⁠—you yourself⁠—my beautiful, gentle, thoughtful Marian!”

His arm captured her, and she did not resist. A sob, then a strange little laugh, betrayed the passion that was at length unfolded in her.

“You do love me, Marian?”

“I love you.”

And there followed the antiphony of ardour that finds its first utterance⁠—a subdued music, often interrupted, ever returning upon the same rich note.

Marian closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the luxury of the dream. It was her first complete escape from the world of intellectual routine, her first taste of life. All the pedantry of her daily toil slipped away like a cumbrous garment; she was clad only in her womanhood. Once or twice a shudder of strange self-consciousness went through her, and she felt guilty, immodest; but upon that sensation followed a surge of passionate joy, obliterating memory and forethought.

“How shall I see you?” Jasper asked at length. “Where can we meet?”

It was a difficulty. The season no longer allowed lingerings under the open sky, but Marian could not go to his lodgings, and it seemed impossible for him to visit her at her home.

“Will your father persist in unfriendliness to me?”

She was only just beginning to reflect on all that was involved in this new relation.

“I have no hope that he will change,” she said sadly.

“He will refuse to countenance your marriage?”

“I shall disappoint him and grieve him bitterly. He has asked me to use my money in starting a new review.”

“Which he is to edit?”

“Yes. Do you think there would be any hope of its success?”

Jasper shook his head.

“Your father is not the man for that, Marian. I don’t say it disrespectfully; I mean that he doesn’t seem to me to have that kind of aptitude. It would be a disastrous speculation.”

“I felt that. Of course I can’t think of it now.”

She smiled, raising her face to his.

“Don’t trouble,” said Jasper. “Wait a little, till I have made myself independent of Fadge and a few other men, and your father shall see how heartily I wish to be of use to him. He will miss your help, I’m afraid?”

“Yes. I shall feel it a cruelty when I have to leave him. He has only just told me that his sight is beginning to fail. Oh, why didn’t his brother leave him a little money? It was such unkindness! Surely he had a much better right than Amy, or than myself either. But literature has been a curse to father all his life. My uncle hated it, and I suppose that was why he left father nothing.”

“But how am I to see you often? That’s the first question. I know what I shall do. I must take new lodgings, for the girls and myself, all in the same house. We must have two sitting-rooms; then you will come to my room without any difficulty. These astonishing proprieties are so easily satisfied after all.”

“You will really do that?”

“Yes. I shall go and look for rooms tomorrow. Then when you come you can always ask for Maud or Dora, you know. They will be very glad of a change to more respectable quarters.”

“I won’t stay to see them now, Jasper,” said Marian, her thoughts turning to the girls.

“Very well. You are safe for another hour, but to make certain you shall go at a quarter to five. Your mother won’t be against us?”

“Poor mother⁠—no. But she won’t dare to justify me before father.”

“I feel as if I should play a mean part in leaving it to you to tell your father. Marian, I will brave it out and go and see him.”

“Oh, it would be better not to.”

“Then I will write to him⁠—such a letter as he can’t possibly take in ill part.”

Marian pondered this proposal.

“You shall do that, Jasper, if you are willing. But not yet; presently.”

“You don’t wish him to know at once?”

“We had better wait a little. You know,” she added laughing, “that my legacy is only in name mine as yet. The will hasn’t been proved. And then the money will have to be realised.”

She informed him of the details; Jasper listened with his eyes on the ground.

They were now sitting on chairs drawn close to each other. It was with a sense of relief that Jasper had passed from dithyrambs to conversation on practical points; Marian’s excited sensitiveness could not but observe this, and she kept watching the motions of his countenance. At length he even let go her hand.

“You would prefer,” he said reflectively, “that nothing should be said to your father until that business is finished?”

“If you consent to it.”

“Oh, I have no doubt it’s as well.”

Her little phrase of self-subjection, and its tremulous tone, called for another answer than this. Jasper fell again into thought, and clearly it was thought of practical things.

“I think I must go now, Jasper,” she said.

“Must you? Well, if you had rather.”

He rose, though she was still seated. Marian moved a few steps away, but turned and approached him again.

“Do you really love me?” she asked, taking one of his hands and folding it between her own.

“I do indeed love you, Marian. Are you still doubtful?”

“You’re not sorry that I must go?”

“But I am, dearest. I wish we could sit here undisturbed all through the evening.”

Her touch had the same effect as before. His blood warmed again, and he pressed her to his side, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead.

“Are you sorry I wear my hair short?” she asked, longing for more praise than he had bestowed on her.

“Sorry? It is perfect. Everything else seems vulgar compared with this way of yours. How strange you would look with plaits and that kind of thing!”

“I am so glad it pleases you.”

“There is nothing in you that doesn’t please me, my thoughtful girl.”

“You called me that before. Do I seem so very thoughtful?”

“So grave, and sweetly reserved, and with eyes so full of meaning.”

She quivered with delight, her face hidden against his breast.

“I seem to be newborn, Jasper. Everything in the world is new to me, and I am strange to myself. I have never known an hour of happiness till now, and I can’t believe yet that it has come to me.”

She at length attired herself, and they left the house together, of course not unobserved by the landlady. Jasper walked about half the way to St. Paul’s Crescent. It was arranged that he should address a letter for her to the care of his sisters; but in a day or two the change of lodgings would be effected.

When they had parted, Marian looked back. But Jasper was walking quickly away, his head bent, in profound meditation.