New Grub Street. George Gissing
of the day; seeing him in the title-lists of a periodical, most people knew what to expect, but not a few forbore the cutting open of the pages he occupied. He was learned, copious, occasionally mordant in style; but grace had been denied to him. He had of late begun to perceive the fact that those passages of Marian’s writing which were printed just as they came from her pen had merit of a kind quite distinct from anything of which he himself was capable, and it began to be a question with him whether it would not be advantageous to let the girl sign these compositions. A matter of business, to be sure—at all events in the first instance.
For a long time Marian had scarcely looked up from the desk, but at this moment she found it necessary to refer to the invaluable Larousse. As so often happened, the particular volume of which she had need was not upon the shelf she turned away, and looked about her with a gaze of weary disappointment. At a little distance were standing two young men, engaged, as their faces showed, in facetious colloquy; as soon as she observed them, Marian’s eyes fell, but the next moment she looked again in that direction. Her face had wholly changed; she wore a look of timid expectancy.
The men were moving towards her, still talking and laughing. She turned to the shelves, and affected to search for a book. The voices drew near, and one of them was well known to her; now she could hear every word; now the speakers were gone by. Was it possible that Mr Milvain had not recognised her? She followed him with her eyes, and saw him take a seat not far off he must have passed without even being aware of her.
She went back to her place and for some minutes sat trifling with a pen. When she made a show of resuming work, it was evident that she could no longer apply herself as before. Every now and then she glanced at people who were passing; there were intervals when she wholly lost herself in reverie. She was tired, and had even a slight headache. When the hand of the clock pointed to half-past three, she closed the volume from which she had been copying extracts, and began to collect her papers.
A voice spoke close behind her.
‘Where’s your father, Miss Yule?’
The speaker was a man of sixty, short, stout, tonsured by the hand of time. He had a broad, flabby face, the colour of an ancient turnip, save where one of the cheeks was marked with a mulberry stain; his eyes, grey-orbed in a yellow setting, glared with good-humoured inquisitiveness, and his mouth was that of the confirmed gossip. For eyebrows he had two little patches of reddish stubble; for moustache, what looked like a bit of discoloured tow, and scraps of similar material hanging beneath his creasy chin represented a beard. His garb must have seen a great deal of Museum service; it consisted of a jacket, something between brown and blue, hanging in capacious shapelessness, a waistcoat half open for lack of buttons and with one of the pockets coming unsewn, a pair of bronze-hued trousers which had all run to knee. Necktie he had none, and his linen made distinct appeal to the laundress.
Marian shook hands with him.
‘He went away at half-past two,’ was her reply to his question.
‘How annoying! I wanted particularly to see him. I have been running about all day, and couldn’t get here before. Something important—most important. At all events, I can tell you. But I entreat that you won’t breathe a word save to your father.’
Mr Quarmby—that was his name—had taken a vacant chair and drawn it close to Marian’s. He was in a state of joyous excitement, and talked in thick, rather pompous tones, with a pant at the end of a sentence. To emphasise the extremely confidential nature of his remarks, he brought his head almost in contact with the girl’s, and one of her thin, delicate hands was covered with his red, podgy fingers.
‘I’ve had a talk with Nathaniel Walker,’ he continued; ‘a long talk—a talk of vast importance. You know Walker? No, no; how should you? He’s a man of business; close friend of Rackett’s—Rackett, you know, the owner of The Study.’
Upon this he made a grave pause, and glared more excitedly than ever.
‘I have heard of Mr Rackett,’ said Marian.
‘Of course, of course. And you must also have heard that Fadge leaves The Study at the end of this year, eh?’
‘Father told me it was probable.’
‘Rackett and he have done nothing but quarrel for months; the paper is falling off seriously. Well, now, when I came across Nat Walker this afternoon, the first thing he said to me was, “You know Alfred Yule pretty well, I think?” “Pretty well,” I answered; “why?” “I’ll tell you,” he said, “but it’s between you and me, you understand. Rackett is thinking about him in connection with The Study.” “I’m delighted to hear it.” “To tell you the truth,” went on Nat, “I shouldn’t wonder if Yule gets the editorship; but you understand that it would be altogether premature to talk about it.” Now what do you think of this, eh?’
‘It’s very good news,’ answered Marian.
‘I should think so! Ho, ho!’
Mr Quarmby laughed in a peculiar way, which was the result of long years of mirth-subdual in the Reading-room.
‘But not a breath to anyone but your father. He’ll be here to-morrow? Break it gently to him, you know; he’s an excitable man; can’t take things quietly, like I do. Ho, ho!’
His suppressed laugh ended in a fit of coughing—the Reading-room cough. When he had recovered from it, he pressed Marian’s hand with paternal fervour, and waddled off to chatter with someone else.
Marian replaced several books on the reference-shelves, returned others to the central desk, and was just leaving the room, when again a voice made demand upon her attention.
‘Miss Yule! One moment, if you please!’
It was a tall, meagre, dry-featured man, dressed with the painful neatness of self-respecting poverty: the edges of his coat-sleeves were carefully darned; his black necktie and a skull-cap which covered his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and timidly with blue, rheumy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand.
‘I have been looking for your father,’ he said, as Marian turned. ‘Isn’t he here?’
‘He has gone, Mr Hinks.’
‘Ah, then would you do me the kindness to take a book for him? In fact, it’s my little “Essay on the Historical Drama,” just out.’
He spoke with nervous hesitation, and in a tone which seemed to make apology for his existence.
‘Oh, father will be very glad to have it.’
‘If you will kindly wait one minute, Miss Yule. It’s at my place over there.’
He went off with long strides, and speedily came back panting, in his hand a thin new volume.
‘My kind regards to him, Miss Yule. You are quite well, I hope? I won’t detain you.’
And he backed into a man who was coming inobservantly this way.
Marian went to the ladies’ cloak-room, put on her hat and jacket, and left the Museum. Some one passed out through the swing-door a moment before her, and as soon as she had issued beneath the portico, she saw that it was Jasper Milvain; she must have followed him through the hall, but her eyes had been cast down. The young man was now alone; as he descended the steps he looked to left and right, but not behind him. Marian followed at a distance of two or three yards. Nearing the gateway, she quickened her pace a little, so as to pass out into the street almost at the same moment as Milvain. But he did not turn his head.
He took to the right. Marian had fallen back again, but she still followed at a very little distance. His walk was slow, and she might easily have passed him in quite a natural way; in that case he could not help seeing her. But there was an uneasy suspicion in her mind that he really must have noticed her in the Reading-room. This was the first time she had seen him since their parting at Finden. Had he any reason for avoiding her? Did he take it ill that her father had shown no desire to keep up his acquaintance?
She allowed the interval between them to become greater. In a minute or two Milvain turned