CHAPTER XVIII. THE OLD HOME
Before her marriage Mrs Edmund Yule was one of seven motherless
sisters who constituted the family of a dentist slenderly
provided in the matter of income. The pinching and paring which
was a chief employment of her energies in those early days had
disagreeable effects upon a character disposed rather to
generosity than the reverse; during her husband’s lifetime she
had enjoyed rather too eagerly all the good things which he put
at her command, sometimes forgetting that a wife has duties as
well as claims, and in her widowhood she indulged a
pretentiousness and querulousness which were the natural, but not
amiable, results of suddenly restricted circumstances.
Like the majority of London people, she occupied a house of which
the rent absurdly exceeded the due proportion of her income, a
pleasant foible turned to such good account by London landlords.
Whereas she might have lived with a good deal of modest comfort,
her existence was a perpetual effort to conceal the squalid
background of what was meant for the eyes of her friends and
neighbours. She kept only two servants, who were so ill paid and
so relentlessly overworked that it was seldom they remained with
her for more than three months. In dealings with other people
whom she perforce employed, she was often guilty of incredible
meanness; as, for instance, when she obliged her half-starved
dressmaker to purchase material for her, and then postponed
payment alike for that and for the work itself to the last
possible moment. This was not heartlessness in the strict sense
of the word; the woman not only knew that her behaviour was
shameful, she was in truth ashamed of it and sorry for her
victims. But life was a battle. She must either crush or be
crushed. With sufficient means, she would have defrauded no one,
and would have behaved generously to many; with barely enough for
her needs, she set her face and defied her feelings, inasmuch as
she believed there was no choice.
She would shed tears over a pitiful story of want, and without
shadow of hypocrisy. It was hard, it was cruel; such things
oughtn’t to be allowed in a world where there were so many rich
people. The next day she would argue with her charwoman about
halfpence, and end by paying the poor creature what she knew was
inadequate and unjust. For the simplest reason: she hadn’t more
to give, without submitting to privations which she considered
intolerable.
But whilst she could be a positive hyena to strangers, to those
who were akin to her, and those of whom she was fond, her
affectionate kindness was remarkable. One observes this
peculiarity often enough; it reminds one how savage the social
conflict is, in which those little groups of people stand serried
against their common enemies; relentless to all others, among
themselves only the more tender and zealous because of the
ever-impending danger. No mother was ever more devoted. Her son,
a gentleman of quite noteworthy selfishness, had board and
lodging beneath her roof on nominal terms, and under no stress of
pecuniary trouble had Mrs Yule called upon him to make the
slightest sacrifice on her behalf. Her daughter she loved with
profound tenderness, and had no will that was opposed to Amy’s.
And it was characteristic of her that her children were never
allowed to understand of what baseness she often became guilty in
the determination to support appearances. John Yule naturally
suspected what went on behind the scenes; on one occasion—since
Amy’s marriage—he had involuntarily overheard a dialogue between
his mother and a servant on the point of departing which made
even him feel ashamed. But from Amy every paltriness and meanness
had always been concealed with the utmost care; Mrs Yule did not
scruple to lie heroically when in danger of being detected by her
daughter.
Yet this energetic lady had no social ambitions that pointed
above her own stratum. She did not aim at intimacy with her
superiors; merely at superiority among her intimates. Her circle
was not large, but in that circle she must be regarded with the
respect due to a woman of refined tastes and personal
distinction. Her little dinners might be of rare occurrence, but
to be invited must be felt a privilege. ‘Mrs Edmund Yule’ must
sound well on people’s lips; never be the occasion of those
peculiar smiles which she herself was rather fond of indulging at
the mention of other people’s names.
The question of Amy’s marriage had been her constant thought from
the time when the little girl shot into a woman grown. For Amy no
common match, no acceptance of a husband merely for money or
position. Few men who walked the earth were mates for Amy. But
years went on, and the man of undeniable distinction did not yet
present himself. Suitors offered, but Amy smiled coldly at their
addresses, in private not seldom scornfully, and her mother,
though growing anxious, approved. Then of a sudden appeared Edwin
Reardon.
A literary man? Well, it was one mode of distinction. Happily, a
novelist; novelists now and then had considerable social success.
Mr Reardon, it was true, did not impress one as a man likely to
push forward where the battle called for rude vigour, but Amy
soon assured herself that he would have a reputation far other
than that of the average successful storyteller. The best people
would regard him; he would be welcomed in the penetralia of
culture; superior persons would say: ‘Oh, I don’t read novels as
a rule, but of course Mr Reardon’s—’ If that really were to be
the case, all was well; for Mrs Yule could appreciate social and
intellectual differences.
Alas! alas! What was the end of those shining anticipations?
First of all, Mrs Yule began to make less frequent mention of ‘my
son-in-law, Mr Edwin Reardon.’ Next, she never uttered his name
save when inquiries necessitated it. Then, the most intimate of
her intimates received little hints which were not quite easy to
interpret. ‘Mr Reardon is growing so very eccentric—has an odd
distaste for society—occupies himself with all sorts of out-of-
the-way interests. No, I’m afraid we shan’t have another of his
novels for some time. I think he writes anonymously a good deal.
And really, such curious eccentricities!’ Many were the tears she
wept after her depressing colloquies with Amy; and, as was to be
expected, she thought severely of the cause of these sorrows. On
the last occasion when he came to her house she received him with
such extreme civility that Reardon thenceforth disliked her,
whereas before he had only thought her a good-natured and silly
woman.
Alas for Amy’s marriage with a man of distinction! From step to
step of descent, till here was downright catastrophe. Bitter
enough in itself, but most lamentable with reference to the
friends of the family. How was it to be explained, this return of
Amy to her home for several months, whilst her husband was no
further away than Worthing? The bald, horrible truth—impossible!
Yet Mr Milvain knew it, and the Carters must guess it. What
colour could be thrown upon such vulgar distress?
The worst was not yet. It declared itself this May morning, when,
quite unexpectedly, a cab drove up to the house, bringing Amy and
her child, and her trunks, and her band-boxes, and her what-nots.
From the dining-room window Mrs Yule was aware of this arrival,
and in a few moments she learnt the unspeakable cause.
She burst into tears, genuine as ever woman shed.
‘There’s no use in that, mother,’ said Amy, whose temper was in a
dangerous state. ‘Nothing worse can happen, that’s one
consolation.’
‘Oh, it’s disgraceful! disgraceful!’ sobbed Mrs Yule. ‘What we
are to say I can NOT think.’
‘I shall say nothing whatever. People can scarcely have the
impertinence to ask us questions when we have shown that they are
unwelcome.’
‘But there are some people I can’t help giving some explanation
to. My dear child, he is not in his right mind. I’m convinced of
it, there! He is not in his right mind.’
‘That’s nonsense, mother. He is as sane as I am.’
‘But you have often said what strange things he says and does;
you know you have, Amy. That talking in his sleep; I’ve thought a
great deal of it since you told me about that. And—and so many
other things. My love, I shall give it to be understood that he
has become so very odd in his ways that—’
‘I can’t have that,’ replied Amy with decision. ‘Don’t you see
that in that case I should be behaving very badly?’
‘I can’t see that at all. There are many reasons, as you know
very well, why one shouldn’t live with a husband who is at all
suspected of mental derangement. You have done your utmost for
him. And this would be some sort of explanation, you know. I am
so convinced that there is truth in it, too.’
‘Of course I can’t prevent you from saying what you like, but I
think it would be very wrong to start a rumour of this kind.’
There was less resolve in this utterance. Amy mused, and looked
wretched.
‘Come up to the drawing-room, dear,’ said her mother, for they
had held their conversation in the room nearest to the
house-door. ‘What a state your mind must be in! Oh dear! Oh
dear!’
She was a slender, well-proportioned woman, still pretty in face,
and dressed in a way that emphasised her abiding charms. Her
voice had something of plaintiveness, and altogether she was of
frailer type than her daughter.
‘Is my room ready?’ Amy inquired on the stairs.
‘I’m sorry to say it isn’t, dear, as I didn’t expect you till
tomorrow. But it shall be seen to immediately.’
This addition to the household was destined to cause grave
difficulties with the domestic slaves. But Mrs Yule would prove
equal to the occasion. On Amy’s behalf she would have worked her
servants till they perished of exhaustion before her eyes.
‘Use my room for the present,’ she added. ‘I think the girl has
finished up there. But wait here; I’ll just go and see to
things.’
‘Things’ were not quite satisfactory, as it proved. You should
have heard the change that came in that sweetly plaintive voice
when it addressed the luckless housemaid. It was not brutal; not
at all. But so sharp, hard, unrelenting—the voice of the goddess
Poverty herself perhaps sounds like that.
Mad? Was he to be spoken of in a low voice, and with finger
pointing to the forehead? There was something ridiculous, as well
as repugnant, in such a thought; but it kept possession of Amy’s
mind. She was brooding upon it when her mother came into the
drawing-room.
‘And he positively refused to carry out the former plan?’
‘Refused. Said it was useless.’
‘How could it be useless? There’s something so unaccountable in
his behaviour.’
‘I don’t think it unaccountable,’ replied Amy. ‘It’s weak and
selfish, that’s all. He takes the first miserable employment that
offers rather than face the hard work of writing another book.’
She was quite aware that this did not truly represent her
husband’s position. But an uneasiness of conscience impelled her
to harsh speech.
‘But just fancy!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘What can he mean by
asking you to go and live with him on twenty-five shillings a
week? Upon my word. if his mind isn’t disordered he must have
made a deliberate plan to get rid of you.’
Amy shook her head.
‘You mean,’ asked Mrs Yule, ‘that he really thinks it possible
for all of you to be supported on those wages?’
The last word was chosen to express the utmost scorn.
‘He talked of earning fifty pounds a year by writing.’
‘Even then it could only make about a hundred a year. My dear
child, it’s one of two things: either he is out of his mind, or
he has purposely cast you off.’
Amy laughed, thinking of her husband in the light of the latter
alternative.
‘There’s no need to seek so far for explanations,’ she said. ‘He
has failed, that’s all; just like a man might fail in any other
business. He can’t write like he used to. It may be all the
result of ill-health; I don’t know. His last book, you see, is
positively refused. He has made up his mind that there’s nothing
but poverty before him, and he can’t understand why I should
object to live like the wife of a working-man.’
‘Well, I only know that he has placed you in an exceedingly
difficult position. If he had gone away to Worthing for the
summer we might have made it seem natural; people are always
ready to allow literary men to do rather odd things—up to a
certain point. We should have behaved as if there were nothing
that called for explanation. But what are we to do now?’
Like her multitudinous kind, Mrs Yule lived only in the opinions
of other people. What others would say was her ceaseless
preoccupation. She had never conceived of life as something
proper to the individual; independence in the directing of one’s
course seemed to her only possible in the case of very eccentric
persons, or of such as were altogether out of society. Amy had
advanced, intellectually, far beyond this standpoint, but lack of
courage disabled her from acting upon her convictions.
‘People must know the truth, I suppose,’ she answered
dispiritedly.
Now, confession of the truth was the last thing that would occur
to Mrs Yule when social relations were concerned. Her whole
existence was based on bold denial of actualities. And, as is
natural in such persons, she had the ostrich instinct strongly
developed; though very acute in the discovery of her friends’
shams and lies, she deceived herself ludicrously in the matter of
concealing her own embarrassments.
‘But the fact is, my dear,’ she answered, ‘we don’t know the
truth ourselves. You had better let yourself be directed by me.
It will be better, at first, if you see as few people as
possible. I suppose you must say something or other to two or
three of your own friends; if you take my advice you’ll be rather
mysterious. Let them think what they like; anything is better
than to say plainly. “My husband can’t support me, and he has
gone to work as a clerk for weekly wages.” Be mysterious,
darling; depend upon it, that’s the safest.’
The conversation was pursued, with brief intervals, all through
the day. In the afternoon two ladies paid a call, but Amy kept
out of sight. Between six and seven John Yule returned from his
gentlemanly occupations. As he was generally in a touchy temper
before dinner had soothed him, nothing was said to him of the
latest development of his sister’s affairs until late in the
evening; he was allowed to suppose that Reardon’s departure for
the seaside had taken place a day sooner than had been arranged.
Behind the dining-room was a comfortable little chamber set apart
as John’s sanctum; here he smoked and entertained his male
friends, and contemplated the portraits of those female ones who
would not have been altogether at their ease in Mrs Yule’s
drawing-room. Not long after dinner his mother and sister came to
talk with him in this retreat.
With some nervousness Mrs Yule made known to him what had taken
place. Amy, the while, stood by the table, and glanced over a
magazine that she had picked up.
‘Well, I see nothing to be surprised at,’ was John’s first
remark. ‘It was pretty certain he’d come to this. But what I want
to know is, how long are we to be at the expense of supporting
Amy and her youngster?’
This was practical, and just what Mrs Yule had expected from her
son.
‘We can’t consider such things as that,’ she replied. ‘You don’t
wish, I suppose, that Amy should go and live in a back street at
Islington, and be hungry every other day, and soon have no decent
clothes?’
‘I don’t think Jack would be greatly distressed,’ Amy put in
quietly.
‘This is a woman’s way of talking,’ replied John. ‘I want to know
what is to be the end of it all? I’ve no doubt it’s uncommonly
pleasant for Reardon to shift his responsibilities on to our
shoulders. At this rate I think I shall get married, and live
beyond my means until I can hold out no longer, and then hand my
wife over to her relatives, with my compliments. It’s about the
coolest business that ever came under my notice.’
‘But what is to be done?’ asked Mrs Yule. ‘It’s no use talking
sarcastically, John, or making yourself disagreeable.’
‘We are not called upon to find a way out of the difficulty. The
fact of the matter is, Reardon must get a decent berth. Somebody
or other must pitch him into the kind of place that suits men who
can do nothing in particular. Carter ought to be able to help, I
should think.’
‘You know very well,’ said Amy, ‘that places of that kind are not
to be had for the asking. It may be years before any such
opportunity offers.’
‘Confound the fellow! Why the deuce doesn’t he go on with his
novel-writing? There’s plenty of money to be made out of novels.’
‘But he can’t write, Jack. He has lost his talent.’
‘That’s all bosh, Amy. If a fellow has once got into the swing of
it he can keep it up if he likes. He might write his two novels a
year easily enough, just like twenty other men and women. Look
here, I could do it myself if I weren’t too lazy. And that’s
what’s the matter with Reardon. He doesn’t care to work.’
‘I have thought that myself;’ observed Mrs Yule. ‘It really is
too ridiculous to say that he couldn’t write some kind of novels
if he chose. Look at Miss Blunt’s last book; why, anybody could
have written that. I’m sure there isn’t a thing in it I couldn’t
have imagined myself.’
‘Well, all I want to know is, what’s Amy going to do if things
don’t alter?’
‘She shall never want a home as long as I have one to share with
her.’
John’s natural procedure, when beset by difficulties, was to find
fault with everyone all round, himself maintaining a position of
irresponsibility.
‘It’s all very well, mother, but when a girl gets married she
takes her husband, I have always understood, for better or worse,
just as a man takes his wife. To tell the truth, it seems to me
Amy has put herself in the wrong. It’s deuced unpleasant to go
and live in back streets, and to go without dinner now and then,
but girls mustn’t marry if they’re afraid to face these things.’
‘Don’t talk so monstrously, John!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘How
could Amy possibly foresee such things? The case is quite an
extraordinary one.’
‘Not so uncommon, I assure you. Some one was telling me the other
day of a married lady—well educated and blameless—who goes to
work at a shop somewhere or other because her husband can’t
support her.’
‘And you wish to see Amy working in a shop?’
‘No, I can’t say I do. I’m only telling you that her bad luck
isn’t unexampled. It’s very fortunate for her that she has
good-natured relatives.’
Amy had taken a seat apart. She sat with her head leaning on her
hand.
‘Why don’t you go and see Reardon?’ John asked of his mother.
‘What would be the use? Perhaps he would tell me to mind my own
business.’
‘By jingo! precisely what you would be doing. I think you ought
to see him and give him to understand that he’s behaving in a
confoundedly ungentlemanly way. Evidently he’s the kind of fellow
that wants stirring up. I’ve half a mind to go and see him
myself. Where is this slum that he’s gone to live in?’
‘We don’t know his address yet.’
‘So long as it’s not the kind of place where one would be afraid
of catching a fever, I think it wouldn’t be amiss for me to look
him up.’
‘You’ll do no good by that,’ said Amy, indifferently.
‘Confound it! It’s just because nobody does anything that things
have come to this pass!’
The conversation was, of course, profitless. John could only
return again and again to his assertion that Reardon must get ‘a
decent berth.’ At length Amy left the room in weariness and
disgust.
‘I suppose they have quarrelled terrifically,’ said her brother,
as soon as she was gone.
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Well, you must do as you please. But it’s confounded hard lines
that you should have to keep her and the kid. You know I can’t
afford to contribute.’
‘My dear, I haven’t asked you to.’
‘No, but you’ll have the devil’s own job to make ends meet; I
know that well enough.’
‘I shall manage somehow.’
‘All right; you’re a plucky woman, but it’s too bad. Reardon’s a
humbug, that’s my opinion. I shall have a talk with Carter about
him. I suppose he has transferred all their furniture to the
slum?’
‘He can’t have removed yet. It was only this morning that he went
to search for lodgings.’
‘Oh, then I tell you what it is: I shall look in there the first
thing to-morrow morning, and just talk to him in a fatherly way.
You needn’t say anything to Amy. But I see he’s just the kind of
fellow that, if everyone leaves him alone, he’ll be content with
Carter’s five-and-twenty shillings for the rest of his life, and
never trouble his head about how Amy is living.’
To this proposal Mrs Yule readily assented. On going upstairs she
found that Amy had all but fallen asleep upon a settee in the
drawing-room.
‘You are quite worn out with your troubles,’ she said. ‘Go to
bed, and have a good long sleep.’
‘Yes, I will.’
The neat, fresh bedchamber seemed to Amy a delightful haven of
rest. She turned the key in the door with an enjoyment of the
privacy thus secured such as she had never known in her life; for
in maidenhood safe solitude was a matter of course to her, and
since marriage she had not passed a night alone. Willie was fast
asleep in a little bed shadowed by her own. In an impulse of
maternal love and gladness she bent over the child and covered
his face with kisses too gentle to awaken him.
How clean and sweet everything was! It is often said, by people
who are exquisitely ignorant of the matter, that cleanliness is a
luxury within reach even of the poorest. Very far from that; only
with the utmost difficulty, with wearisome exertion, with
harassing sacrifice, can people who are pinched for money
preserve a moderate purity in their persons and their
surroundings. By painful degrees Amy had accustomed herself to
compromises in this particular which in the early days of her
married life would have seemed intensely disagreeable, if not
revolting. A housewife who lives in the country, and has but a
patch of back garden, or even a good-sized kitchen, can, if she
thinks fit, take her place at the wash-tub and relieve her mind
on laundry matters; but to the inhabitant of a miniature flat in
the heart of London anything of that kind is out of the question.
When Amy began to cut down her laundress’s bill, she did it with
a sense of degradation. One grows accustomed, however, to such
unpleasant necessities, and already she had learnt what was the
minimum of expenditure for one who is troubled with a lady’s
instincts.
No, no; cleanliness is a costly thing, and a troublesome thing
when appliances and means have to be improvised. It was, in part,
the understanding she had gained of this side of the life of
poverty that made Amy shrink in dread from the still narrower
lodgings to which Reardon invited her. She knew how subtly one’s
self-respect can be undermined by sordid conditions. The
difference between the life of well-to-do educated people and
that of the uneducated poor is not greater in visible details
than in the minutiae of privacy, and Amy must have submitted to
an extraordinary change before it would have been possible for
her to live at ease in the circumstances which satisfy a decent
working-class woman. She was prepared for final parting from her
husband rather than try to effect that change in herself.
She undressed at leisure, and stretched her limbs in the cold,
soft, fragrant bed. A sigh of profound relief escaped her. How
good it was to be alone!
And in a quarter of an hour she was sleeping as peacefully as the
child who shared her room.
At breakfast in the morning she showed a bright, almost a happy
face. It was long, long since she had enjoyed such a night’s
rest, so undisturbed with unwelcome thoughts on the threshold of
sleep and on awaking. Her life was perhaps wrecked, but the
thought of that did not press upon her; for the present she must
enjoy her freedom. It was like a recovery of girlhood. There are
few married women who would not, sooner or later, accept with joy
the offer of some months of a maidenly liberty. Amy would not
allow herself to think that her wedded life was at an end. With a
woman’s strange faculty of closing her eyes against facts that do
not immediately concern her, she tasted the relief of the present
and let the future lie unregarded. Reardon would get out of his
difficulties sooner or later; somebody or other would help him;
that was the dim background of her agreeable sensations.
He suffered, no doubt. But then it was just as well that he
should. Suffering would perhaps impel him to effort. When he
communicated to her his new address—he could scarcely neglect to
do that—she would send a not unfriendly letter, and hint to him
that now was his opportunity for writing a book, as good a book
as those which formerly issued from his garret-solitude. If he
found that literature was in truth a thing of the past with him,
then he must exert himself to obtain a position worthy of an
educated man. Yes, in this way she would write to him, without a
word that could hurt or offend.
She ate an excellent breakfast, and made known her enjoyment of
it.
‘I am so glad!’ replied her mother. ‘You have been getting quite
thin and pale.’
‘Quite consumptive,’ remarked John, looking up from his
newspaper. ‘Shall I make arrangements for a daily landau at the
livery stables round here?’
‘You can if you like,’ replied his sister; ‘it would do both
mother and me good, and I have no doubt you could afford it quite
well.’
‘Oh, indeed! You’re a remarkable young woman, let me tell you.
By-the-bye, I suppose your husband is breakfasting on bread and
water?’
‘I hope not, and I don’t think it very likely.’
‘Jack, Jack!’ interposed Mrs Yule, softly.
Her son resumed his paper, and at the end of the meal rose with
an unwonted briskness to make his preparations for departure.
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