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

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,