New Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕

“I advise you to go north,” went on Carter cheerily. “You want a tonic, you know. Get up into Scotland and do some boating and fishing⁠—that kind of thing. You’d come back a new man. Edith and I had a turn up there last year, you know; it did me heaps of good.”

“Oh, I don’t think I should go so far as that.”

“But that’s just what you want⁠—a regular change, something bracing. You don’t look at all well, that’s the fact. A winter in London tries any man⁠—it does me, I know. I’ve been seedy myself these last few weeks. Edith wants me to take her over to Paris at the end of this month, and I think it isn’t a bad idea; but I’m so confoundedly busy. In the autumn we shall go to Norway, I think; it seems to be the right thing to do nowadays. Why shouldn’t you have a run over to Norway? They say it can be done very cheaply; the steamers take you for next to nothing.”

He talked on with the joyous satisfaction of a man whose income is assured, and whose future teems with a succession of lively holidays. Reardon could make no answer to such suggestions; he sat with a fixed smile on his face.

“Have you heard,” said Carter, presently, “that we’re opening a branch of the hospital in the City Road?”

“No; I hadn’t heard of it.”

“It’ll only be for outpatients. Open three mornings and three evenings alternately.”

“Who’ll represent you there?”

“I shall look in now and then, of course; there’ll be a clerk, like at the old place.”

He talked of the matter in detail⁠—of the doctors who would attend, and of certain new arrangements to be tried.

“Have you engaged the clerk?” Reardon asked.

“Not yet. I think I know a man who’ll suit me, though.”

“You wouldn’t be disposed to give me the chance?”

Reardon spoke huskily, and ended with a broken laugh.

“You’re rather above my figure nowadays, old man!” exclaimed Carter, joining in what he considered the jest.

“Shall you pay a pound a week?”

“Twenty-five shillings. It’ll have to be a man who can be trusted to take money from the paying patients.”

“Well, I am serious. Will you give me the place?”

Carter gazed at him, and checked another laugh.

“What the deuce do you mean?”

“The fact is,” Reardon replied, “I want variety of occupation. I can’t stick at writing for more than a month or two at a time. It’s because I have tried to do so that⁠—well, practically, I have broken down. If you will give me this clerkship, it will relieve me from the necessity of perpetually writing novels; I shall be better for it in every way. You know that I’m equal to the job; you can trust me; and I dare say I shall be more useful than most clerks you could get.”

It was done, most happily done, on the first impulse. A minute more of pause, and he could not have faced the humiliation. His face burned, his tongue was parched.

“I’m floored!” cried Carter. “I shouldn’t have thought⁠—but of course, if you really want it. I can hardly believe yet that you’re serious, Reardon.”

“Why not? Will you promise me the work?”

“Well, yes.”

“When shall I have to begin?”

“The place’ll be opened tomorrow week. But how about your holiday?”

“Oh, let that stand over. It’ll be holiday enough to occupy myself in a new way. An old way, too; I shall enjoy it.”

He laughed merrily, relieved beyond measure at having come to what seemed an end of his difficulties. For half an hour they continued to talk over the affair.

“Well, it’s a comical idea,” said Carter, as he took his leave, “but you know your own business best.”

When Amy returned, Reardon allowed her to put the child to bed before he sought any conversation. She came at length and sat down in the study.

“Mother advises us not to sell the furniture,” were her first words.

“I’m glad of that, as I had quite made up my mind not to.” There was a change in his way of speaking which she at once noticed.

“Have you thought of something?”

“Yes. Carter has been here, and he happened to mention that they’re opening an outpatient department of the hospital, in the City Road. He’ll want someone to help him there. I asked for the post, and he promised it me.”

The last words were hurried, though he had resolved to speak with deliberation. No more feebleness; he had taken a decision, and would act upon it as became a responsible man.

“The post?” said Amy. “What post?”

“In plain English, the clerkship. It’ll be the same work as I used to have⁠—registering patients, receiving their ‘letters,’ and so on. The pay is to be five-and-twenty shillings a week.”

Amy sat upright and looked steadily at him.

“Is this a joke?”

“Far from it, dear. It’s a blessed deliverance.”

“You have asked Mr. Carter to take you back as a clerk?”

“I have.”

“And you propose that we shall live on twenty-five shillings a week?”

“Oh no! I shall be engaged only three mornings in the week and three evenings. In my free time I shall do literary work, and no doubt I can earn fifty pounds a year by it⁠—if I have your sympathy to help me. Tomorrow I shall go and look for rooms some distance from here; in Islington, I think. We have been living far beyond our means; that must come to an end. We’ll have no more keeping up of sham appearances. If I can make my way in literature, well and good; in that case our position and prospects will of course change. But for the present we are poor people, and must live in a poor way. If our friends like to come and see us, they must put aside all snobbishness, and take us as we are. If they prefer not to come, there’ll be an excuse in our remoteness.”

Amy was stroking the back of her hand. After a long silence, she said in a very quiet, but