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

which was for his supply of coals. When everything was in order he drew water from a tap on the landing and washed himself; then, with his bag, went out to make purchases. A loaf of bread, butter, sugar, condensed milk; a remnant of tea he had brought with him. On returning, he lit as small a fire as possible, put on his kettle, and sat down to meditate.

How familiar it all was to him! And not unpleasant, for it brought back the days when he had worked to such good purpose. It was like a restoration of youth.

Of Amy he would not think. Knowing his bitter misery, she could write to him in cold, hard words, without a touch even of womanly feeling. If ever they were to meet again, the advance must be from her side. He had no more tenderness for her until she strove to revive it.

Next morning he called at the hospital to see Carter. The secretary’s peculiar look and smile seemed to betray a knowledge of what had been going on since Sunday, and his first words confirmed this impression of Reardon’s.

“You have removed, I hear?”

“Yes; I had better give you my new address.”

Reardon’s tone was meant to signify that further remark on the subject would be unwelcome. Musingly, Carter made a note of the address.

“You still wish to go on with this affair?”

“Certainly.”

“Come and have some lunch with me, then, and afterwards we’ll go to the City Road and talk things over on the spot.”

The vivacious young man was not quite so genial as of wont, but he evidently strove to show that the renewal of their relations as employer and clerk would make no difference in the friendly intercourse which had since been established; the invitation to lunch evidently had this purpose.

“I suppose,” said Carter, when they were seated in a restaurant, “you wouldn’t object to anything better, if a chance turned up?”

“I should take it, to be sure.”

“But you don’t want a job that would occupy all your time? You’re going on with writing, of course?”

“Not for the present, I think.”

“Then you would like me to keep a lookout? I haven’t anything in view⁠—nothing whatever. But one hears of things sometimes.”

“I should be obliged to you if you could help me to anything satisfactory.”

Having brought himself to this admission, Reardon felt more at ease. To what purpose should he keep up transparent pretences? It was manifestly his duty to earn as much money as he could, in whatever way. Let the man of letters be forgotten; he was seeking for remunerative employment, just as if he had never written a line.

Amy did not return the ten pounds, and did not write again. So, presumably, she would accept the moiety of his earnings; he was glad of it. After paying half-a-crown for rent, there would be left ten shillings. Something like three pounds that still remained to him he would not reckon; this must be for casualties.

Half-a-sovereign was enough for his needs; in the old times he had counted it a competency which put his mind quite at rest.

The day came, and he entered upon his duties in City Road. It needed but an hour or two, and all the intervening time was cancelled; he was back once more in the days of no reputation, a harmless clerk, a decent wage-earner.

XX The End of Waiting

It was more than a fortnight after Reardon’s removal to Islington when Jasper Milvain heard for the first time of what had happened. He was coming down from the office of the Will-o’-the-Wisp one afternoon, after a talk with the editor concerning a paragraph in his last week’s causerie which had been complained of as libellous, and which would probably lead to the “case” so much desired by everyone connected with the paper, when someone descending from a higher storey of the building overtook him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Whelpdale.

“What brings you on these premises?” he asked, as they shook hands.

“A man I know has just been made subeditor of Chat, upstairs. He has half promised to let me do a column of answers to correspondents.”

“Cosmetics? Fashions? Cookery?”

“I’m not so versatile as all that, unfortunately. No, the general information column. ‘Will you be so good as to inform me, through the medium of your invaluable paper, what was the exact area devastated by the Great Fire of London?’⁠—that kind of thing, you know. Hopburn⁠—that’s the fellow’s name⁠—tells me that his predecessor always called the paper Chat-Moss, because of the frightful difficulty he had in filling it up each week. By the by, what a capital column that is of yours in Will-o’-the-Wisp. I know nothing like it in English journalism; upon my word I don’t!”

“Glad you like it. Some people are less fervent in their admiration.”

Jasper recounted the affair which had just been under discussion in the office.

“It may cost a couple of thousands, but the advertisement is worth that, Patwin thinks. Barlow is delighted; he wouldn’t mind paying double the money to make those people a laughingstock for a week or two.”

They issued into the street, and walked on together; Milvain, with his keen eye and critical smile, unmistakably the modern young man who cultivates the art of success; his companion of a less pronounced type, but distinguished by a certain subtlety of countenance, a blending of the sentimental and the shrewd.

“Of course you know all about the Reardons?” said Whelpdale.

“Haven’t seen or heard of them lately. What is it?”

“Then you don’t know that they have parted?”

“Parted?”

“I only heard about it last night; Biffen told me. Reardon is doing clerk’s work at a hospital somewhere in the East-end, and his wife has gone to live at her mother’s house.”

“Ho, ho!” exclaimed Jasper, thoughtfully. “Then the crash has come. Of course I knew it must be impending. I’m sorry for Reardon.”

“I’m sorry for his wife.”

“Trust you for thinking of women first,