New Grub Street, George Gissing [10 best books of all time TXT] 📗

a few hundreds per annum in the meantime. Now all this I have frankly and fully explained to Marian. I dare say she suspects what I should do if she came into possession of money; there’s no harm in that. But she knows perfectly well that, as things are, we remain intellectual friends.”

“Then listen to me, Jasper. If we hear that Marian gets nothing from her uncle, you had better behave honestly, and let her see that you haven’t as much interest in her as before.”

“That would be brutality.”

“It would be honest.”

“Well, no, it wouldn’t. Strictly speaking, my interest in Marian wouldn’t suffer at all. I should know that we could be nothing but friends, that’s all. Hitherto I haven’t known what might come to pass; I don’t know yet. So far from following your advice, I shall let Marian understand that, if anything, I am more her friend than ever, seeing that henceforth there can be no ambiguities.”

“I can only tell you that Maud would agree with me in what I have been saying.”

“Then both of you have distorted views.”

“I think not. It’s you who are unprincipled.”

“My dear girl, haven’t I been showing you that no man could be more aboveboard, more straightforward?”

“You have been talking nonsense, Jasper.”

“Nonsense? Oh, this female lack of logic! Then my argument has been utterly thrown away. Now that’s one of the things I like in Miss Rupert; she can follow an argument and see consequences. And for that matter so can Marian. I only wish it were possible to refer this question to her.”

There was a tap at the door. Dora called “Come in!” and Marian herself appeared.

“What an odd thing!” exclaimed Jasper, lowering his voice. “I was that moment saying I wished it were possible to refer a question to you.”

Dora reddened, and stood in an embarrassed attitude.

“It was the old dispute whether women in general are capable of logic. But pardon me, Miss Yule; I forget that you have been occupied with sad things since I last saw you.”

Dora led her to a chair, asking if her father had returned.

“Yes, he came back yesterday.”

Jasper and his sister could not think it likely that Marian had suffered much from grief at her uncle’s death; practically John Yule was a stranger to her. Yet her face bore the signs of acute mental trouble, and it seemed as if some agitation made it difficult for her to speak. The awkward silence that fell upon the three was broken by Jasper, who expressed a regret that he was obliged to take his leave.

“Maud is becoming a young lady of society,” he said⁠—just for the sake of saying something⁠—as he moved towards the door. “If she comes back whilst you are here, Miss Yule, warn her that that is the path of destruction for literary people.”

“You should bear that in mind yourself,” remarked Dora, with a significant look.

“Oh, I am cool-headed enough to make society serve my own ends.”

Marian turned her head with a sudden movement which was checked before she had quite looked round to him. The phrase he uttered last appeared to have affected her in some way; her eyes fell, and an expression of pain was on her brows for a moment.

“I can only stay a few minutes,” she said, bending with a faint smile towards Dora, as soon as they were alone. “I have come on my way from the Museum.”

“Where you have tired yourself to death as usual, I can see.”

“No; I have done scarcely anything. I only pretended to read; my mind is too much troubled. Have you heard anything about my uncle’s will?”

“Nothing whatever.”

“I thought it might have been spoken of in Wattleborough, and some friend might have written to you. But I suppose there has hardly been time for that. I shall surprise you very much. Father receives nothing, but I have a legacy of five thousand pounds.”

Dora kept her eyes down.

“Then⁠—what do you think?” continued Marian. “My cousin Amy has ten thousand pounds.”

“Good gracious! What a difference that will make!”

“Yes, indeed. And her brother John has six thousand. But nothing to their mother. There are a good many other legacies, but most of the property goes to the Wattleborough park⁠—‘Yule Park’ it will be called⁠—and to the volunteers, and things of that kind. They say he wasn’t as rich as people thought.”

“Do you know what Miss Harrow gets?”

“She has the house for her life, and fifteen hundred pounds.”

“And your father nothing whatever?”

“Nothing. Not a penny. Oh I am so grieved! I think it so unkind, so wrong. Amy and her brother to have sixteen thousand pounds and father nothing! I can’t understand it. There was no unkind feeling between him and father. He knew what a hard life father has had. Doesn’t it seem heartless?”

“What does your father say?”

“I think he feels the unkindness more than he does the disappointment; of course he must have expected something. He came into the room where mother and I were, and sat down, and began to tell us about the will just as if he were speaking to strangers about something he had read in the newspaper⁠—that’s the only way I can describe it. Then he got up and went away into the study. I waited a little, and then went to him there; he was sitting at work, as if he hadn’t been away from home at all. I tried to tell him how sorry I was, but I couldn’t say anything. I began to cry foolishly. He spoke kindly to me, far more kindly than he has done for a long time; but he wouldn’t talk about the will, and I had to go away and leave him. Poor mother! for all she was afraid that we were going to be rich, is brokenhearted at his disappointment.”

“Your mother was afraid?” said Dora.

“Because she thought herself unfitted for life in a large house, and feared we should think her in our way.” She smiled sadly. “Poor mother! she is