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

“It’s in an honourable way, my dear fellow. I’m a slave to women, true, but all in an honourable way. After that last adventure of mine most men would be savage and cynical, wouldn’t they, now? I’m nothing of the kind. I think no worse of women⁠—not a bit. I reverence them as much as ever. There must be a good deal of magnanimity in me, don’t you think?”

Jasper laughed unrestrainedly.

“But it’s the simple truth,” pursued the other. “You should have seen the letter I wrote to that girl at Birmingham⁠—all charity and forgiveness. I meant it, every word of it. I shouldn’t talk to everyone like this, you know; but it’s as well to show a friend one’s best qualities now and then.”

“Is Reardon still living at the old place?”

“No, no. They sold up everything and let the flat. He’s in lodgings somewhere or other. I’m not quite intimate enough with him to go and see him under the circumstances. But I’m surprised you know nothing about it.”

“I haven’t seen much of them this year. Reardon⁠—well, I’m afraid he hasn’t very much of the virtue you claim for yourself. It rather annoys him to see me going ahead.”

“Really? His character never struck me in that way.”

“You haven’t come enough in contact with him. At all events, I can’t explain his change of manner in any other way. But I’m sorry for him; I am, indeed. At a hospital? I suppose Carter has given him the old job again?”

“Don’t know. Biffen doesn’t talk very freely about it; there’s a good deal of delicacy in Biffen, you know. A thoroughly good-hearted fellow. And so is Reardon, I believe, though no doubt he has his weaknesses.”

“Oh, an excellent fellow! But weakness isn’t the word. Why, I foresaw all this from the very beginning. The first hour’s talk I ever had with him was enough to convince me that he’d never hold his own. But he really believed that the future was clear before him; he imagined he’d go on getting more and more for his books. An extraordinary thing that that girl had such faith in him!”

They parted soon after this, and Milvain went homeward, musing upon what he had heard. It was his purpose to spend the whole evening on some work which pressed for completion, but he found an unusual difficulty in settling to it. About eight o’clock he gave up the effort, arrayed himself in the costume of black and white, and journeyed to Westbourne Park, where his destination was the house of Mrs. Edmund Yule. Of the servant who opened to him he inquired if Mrs. Yule was at home, and received an answer in the affirmative.

“Any company with her?”

“A lady⁠—Mrs. Carter.”

“Then please to give my name, and ask if Mrs. Yule can see me.”

He was speedily conducted to the drawing-room, where he found the lady of the house, her son, and Mrs. Carter. For Mrs. Reardon his eye sought in vain.

“I’m so glad you have come,” said Mrs. Yule, in a confidential tone. “I have been wishing to see you. Of course, you know of our sad trouble?”

“I have heard of it only today.”

“From Mr. Reardon himself?”

“No; I haven’t seen him.”

“I do wish you had! We should have been so anxious to know how he impressed you.”

“How he impressed me?”

“My mother has got hold of the notion,” put in John Yule, “that he’s not exactly compos mentis. I’ll admit that he went on in a queer sort of way the last time I saw him.”

“And my husband thinks he is rather strange,” remarked Mrs. Carter.

“He has gone back to the hospital, I understand⁠—”

“To a new branch that has just been opened in the City Road,” replied Mrs. Yule. “And he’s living in a dreadful place⁠—one of the most shocking alleys in the worst part of Islington. I should have gone to see him, but I really feel afraid; they give me such an account of the place. And everyone agrees that he has such a very wild look, and speaks so strangely.”

“Between ourselves,” said John, “there’s no use in exaggerating. He’s living in a vile hole, that’s true, and Carter says he looks miserably ill, but of course he may be as sane as we are.”

Jasper listened to all this with no small astonishment.

“And Mrs. Reardon?” he asked.

“I’m sorry to say she is far from well,” replied Mrs. Yule. “Today she has been obliged to keep her room. You can imagine what a shock it has been to her. It came with such extraordinary suddenness. Without a word of warning, her husband announced that he had taken a clerkship and was going to remove immediately to the East-end. Fancy! And this when he had already arranged, as you know, to go to the South Coast and write his next book under the influences of the sea air. He was anything but well; we all knew that, and we had all joined in advising him to spend the summer at the seaside. It seemed better that he should go alone; Mrs. Reardon would, of course, have gone down for a few days now and then. And at a moment’s notice everything is changed, and in such a dreadful way! I cannot believe that this is the behaviour of a sane man!”

Jasper understood that an explanation of the matter might have been given in much more homely terms; it was natural that Mrs. Yule should leave out of sight the sufficient, but ignoble, cause of her son-in-law’s behaviour.

“You see in what a painful position we are placed,” continued the euphemistic lady. “It is so terrible even to hint that Mr. Reardon is not responsible for his actions, yet how are we to explain to our friends this extraordinary state of things?”

“My husband is afraid Mr. Reardon may fall seriously ill,” said Mrs. Carter. “And how dreadful! In such a place as that!”

“It would be so kind of you to go and see him, Mr. Milvain,” urged Mrs. Yule. “We should be so glad to hear what you think.”

“Certainly, I will go,” replied Jasper. “Will you give