New Grub Street - George Gissing (e book reader free TXT) 📗

unfolded it, and read. As soon as she had reached the end she looked wildly at her mother, seemed to endeavour vainly to speak, then fell to the floor in unconsciousness. The mother was only just able to break the violence of her fall. Having snatched a pillow and placed it beneath Marian’s head, she rushed to the door and called loudly for her husband, who in a moment appeared.

“What is it?” she cried to him. “Look, she has fallen down in a faint. Why are you treating her like this?”

“Attend to her,” Yule replied roughly. “I suppose you know better than I do what to do when a person faints.”

The swoon lasted for several minutes.

“What’s in the letter?” asked Mrs. Yule whilst chafing the lifeless hands.

“Her money’s lost. The people who were to pay it have just failed.”

“She won’t get anything?”

“Most likely nothing at all.”

The letter was a private communication from one of John Yule’s executors. It seemed likely that the demand upon Turberville & Co. for an account of the deceased partner’s share in their business had helped to bring about a crisis in affairs that were already unstable. Something might be recovered in the legal proceedings that would result, but there were circumstances which made the outlook very doubtful.

As Marian came to herself her father left the room. An hour afterwards Mrs. Yule summoned him again to the girl’s chamber; he went, and found Marian lying on the bed, looking like one who had been long ill.

“I wish to ask you a few questions,” she said, without raising herself. “Must my legacy necessarily be paid out of that investment?”

“It must. Those are the terms of the will.”

“If nothing can be recovered from those people, I have no remedy?”

“None whatever that I can see.”

“But when a firm is bankrupt they generally pay some portion of their debts?”

“Sometimes. I know nothing of the case.”

“This of course happens to me,” Marian said, with intense bitterness. “None of the other legatees will suffer, I suppose?”

“Someone must, but to a very small extent.”

“Of course. When shall I have direct information?”

“You can write to Mr. Holden; you have his address.”

“Thank you. That’s all.”

He was dismissed, and went quietly away.

XXX Waiting on Destiny

Throughout the day Marian kept her room. Her intention to leave the house was, of course, abandoned; she was the prisoner of fate. Mrs. Yule would have tended her with unremitting devotion, but the girl desired to be alone. At times she lay in silent anguish; frequently her tears broke forth, and she sobbed until weariness overcame her. In the afternoon she wrote a letter to Mr. Holden, begging that she might be kept constantly acquainted with the progress of things.

At five her mother brought tea.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you went to bed now, Marian?” she suggested.

“To bed? But I am going out in an hour or two.”

“Oh, you can’t, dear! It’s so bitterly cold. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

“I have to go out, mother, so we won’t speak of it.”

It was not safe to reply. Mrs. Yule sat down, and watched the girl raise the cup to her mouth with trembling hand.

“This won’t make any difference to you⁠—in the end, my darling,” the mother ventured to say at length, alluding for the first time to the effect of the catastrophe on Marian’s immediate prospects.

“Of course not,” was the reply, in a tone of self-persuasion.

“Mr. Milvain is sure to have plenty of money before long.”

“Yes.”

“You feel much better now, don’t you?”

“Much. I am quite well again.”

At seven, Marian went out. Finding herself weaker than she had thought, she stopped an empty cab that presently passed her, and so drove to the Milvains’ lodgings. In her agitation she inquired for Mr. Milvain, instead of for Dora, as was her habit; it mattered very little, for the landlady and her servants were of course under no misconception regarding this young lady’s visits.

Jasper was at home, and working. He had but to look at Marian to see that something wretched had been going on at her home; naturally he supposed it the result of his letter to Mr. Yule.

“Your father has been behaving brutally,” he said, holding her hands and gazing anxiously at her.

“There is something far worse than that, Jasper.”

“Worse?”

She threw off her outdoor things, then took the fatal letter from her pocket and handed it to him. Jasper gave a whistle of consternation, and looked vacantly from the paper to Marian’s countenance.

“How the deuce comes this about?” he exclaimed. “Why, wasn’t your uncle aware of the state of things?”

“Perhaps he was. He may have known that the legacy was a mere form.”

“You are the only one affected?”

“So father says. It’s sure to be the case.”

“This has upset you horribly, I can see. Sit down, Marian. When did the letter come?”

“This morning.”

“And you have been fretting over it all day. But come, we must keep up our courage; you may get something substantial out of the scoundrels still.”

Even whilst he spoke his eyes wandered absently. On the last word his voice failed, and he fell into abstraction. Marian’s look was fixed upon him, and he became conscious of it. He tried to smile.

“What were you writing?” she asked, making involuntary diversion from the calamitous theme.

“Rubbish for the Will-o’-the-Wisp. Listen to this paragraph about English concert audiences.”

It was as necessary to him as to her to have a respite before the graver discussion began. He seized gladly the opportunity she offered, and read several pages of manuscript, slipping from one topic to another. To hear him one would have supposed that he was in his ordinary mood; he laughed at his own jokes and points.

“They’ll have to pay me more,” was the remark with which he closed. “I only wanted to make myself indispensable to them, and at the end of this year I shall feel pretty sure of that. They’ll have to give me two guineas a column; by Jove! they will.”

“And you may hope for much more than that, mayn’t you, before long?”

“Oh, I