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

as my wife. Please to decide what you will do.”

“I will let you know by letter in a few days.”

It seemed impossible to her to say she would return, yet a refusal to do so involved nothing less than separation for the rest of their lives. Postponement of decision was her only resource.

“I must know at once,” said Reardon.

“I can’t answer at once.”

“If you don’t, I shall understand you to mean that you refuse to come to me. You know the circumstances; there is no reason why you should consult with anyone else. You can answer me immediately if you will.”

“I don’t wish to answer you immediately,” Amy replied, paling slightly.

“Then that decides it. When I leave you we are strangers to each other.”

Amy made a rapid study of his countenance. She had never entertained for a moment the supposition that his wits were unsettled, but none the less the constant recurrence of that idea in her mother’s talk had subtly influenced her against her husband. It had confirmed her in thinking that his behaviour was inexcusable. And now it seemed to her that anyone might be justified in holding him demented, so reckless was his utterance.

It was difficult to know him as the man who had loved her so devotedly, who was incapable of an unkind word or look.

“If that is what you prefer,” she said, “there must be a formal separation. I can’t trust my future to your caprice.”

“You mean it must be put into the hands of a lawyer?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That will be the best, no doubt.”

“Very well; I will speak with my friends about it.”

“Your friends!” he exclaimed bitterly. “But for those friends of yours, this would never have happened. I wish you had been alone in the world and penniless.”

“A kind wish, all things considered.”

“Yes, it is a kind wish. Then your marriage with me would have been binding; you would have known that my lot was yours, and the knowledge would have helped your weakness. I begin to see how much right there is on the side of those people who would keep women in subjection. You have been allowed to act with independence, and the result is that you have ruined my life and debased your own. If I had been strong enough to treat you as a child, and bid you follow me wherever my own fortunes led, it would have been as much better for you as for me. I was weak, and I suffer as all weak people do.”

“You think it was my duty to share such a home as you have at present?”

“You know it was. And if the choice had lain between that and earning your own livelihood you would have thought that even such a poor home might be made tolerable. There were possibilities in you of better things than will ever come out now.”

There followed a silence. Amy sat with her eyes gloomily fixed on the carpet; Reardon looked about the room, but saw nothing. He had thrown his hat into a chair, and his fingers worked nervously together behind his back.

“Will you tell me,” he said at length, “how your position is regarded by these friends of yours? I don’t mean your mother and brother, but the people who come to this house.”

“I have not asked such people for their opinion.”

“Still, I suppose some sort of explanation has been necessary in your intercourse with them. How have you represented your relations with me?”

“I can’t see that that concerns you.”

“In a manner it does. Certainly it matters very little to me how I am thought of by people of this kind, but one doesn’t like to be reviled without cause. Have you allowed it to be supposed that I have made life with me intolerable for you?”

“No, I have not. You insult me by asking the question, but as you don’t seem to understand feelings of that kind I may as well answer you simply.”

“Then have you told them the truth? That I became so poor you couldn’t live with me?”

“I have never said that in so many words, but no doubt it is understood. It must be known also that you refused to take the step which might have helped you out of your difficulties.”

“What step?”

She reminded him of his intention to spend half a year in working at the seaside.

“I had utterly forgotten it,” he returned with a mocking laugh. “That shows how ridiculous such a thing would have been.”

“You are doing no literary work at all?” Amy asked.

“Do you imagine that I have the peace of mind necessary for anything of that sort?”

This was in a changed voice. It reminded her so strongly of her husband before his disasters that she could not frame a reply.

“Do you think I am able to occupy myself with the affairs of imaginary people?”

“I didn’t necessarily mean fiction.”

“That I can forget myself, then, in the study of literature?⁠—I wonder whether you really think of me like that. How, in Heaven’s name, do you suppose I spend my leisure time?”

She made no answer.

“Do you think I take this calamity as light-heartedly as you do, Amy?”

“I am far from taking it light-heartedly.”

“Yet you are in good health. I see no sign that you have suffered.”

She kept silence. Her suffering had been slight enough, and chiefly due to considerations of social propriety; but she would not avow this, and did not like to make admission of it to herself. Before her friends she frequently affected to conceal a profound sorrow; but so long as her child was left to her she was in no danger of falling a victim to sentimental troubles.

“And certainly I can’t believe it,” he continued, “now you declare your wish to be formally separated from me.”

“I have declared no such wish.”

“Indeed you have. If you can hesitate a moment about returning to me when difficulties are at an end, that tells me you would prefer final separation.”

“I hesitate for this reason,” Amy said after reflecting. “You