New Grub Street Part 97

'I find it difficult to think,' he said, 'that you will always struggle on in such an existence as this. To every man of mettle there does come an opportunity, and it surely is time for yours to present itself. I have a superst.i.tious faith in "Mr Bailey." If he leads you to triumph, don't altogether forget me.'

'Don't talk nonsense.'

'What ages it seems since that day when I saw you in the library at Hastings, and heard you ask in vain for my book! And how grateful I was to you! I wonder whether any mortal ever asks for my books nowadays?

Some day, when I am well established at Croydon, you shall go to Mudie's, and make inquiry if my novels ever by any chance leave the shelves, and then you shall give me a true and faithful report of the answer you get. "He is quite forgotten," the attendant will say; be sure of it.'

'I think not.'

'To have had even a small reputation, and to have outlived it, is a sort of antic.i.p.ation of death. The man Edwin Reardon, whose name was sometimes spoken in a tone of interest, is really and actually dead. And what remains of me is resigned to that. I have an odd fancy that it will make death itself easier; it is as if only half of me had now to die.'

Biffen tried to give a lighter turn to the gloomy subject.

'Thinking of my fiery adventure,' he said, in his tone of dry deliberation, 'I find it vastly amusing to picture you as a witness at the inquest if I had been choked and consumed. No doubt it would have been made known that I rushed upstairs to save some particular piece of property--several people heard me say so--and you alone would be able to conjecture what this was. Imagine the gaping wonderment of the coroner's jury! The Daily Telegraph would have made a leader out of me. "This poor man was so strangely deluded as to the value of a novel in ma.n.u.script, which it appears he had just completed, that he positively sacrificed his life in the endeavour to rescue it from the flames." And the Sat.u.r.day would have had a column of sneering jocosity on the irrepressibly sanguine temperament of authors. At all events, I should have had my day of fame.'

'But what an ign.o.ble death it would have been!' he pursued. 'Peris.h.i.+ng in the garret of a lodging-house which caught fire by the overturning of a drunkard's lamp! One would like to end otherwise.'

'Where would you wish to die?' asked Reardon, musingly.

'At home,' replied the other, with pathetic emphasis. 'I have never had a home since I was a boy, and am never likely to have one. But to die at home is an unreasoning hope I still cherish.'

'If you had never come to London, what would you have now been?'

'Almost certainly a schoolmaster in some small town. And one might be worse off than that, you know.'

'Yes, one might live peaceably enough in such a position. And I--I should be in an estate-agent's office, earning a sufficient salary, and most likely married to some unambitious country girl.

I should have lived an intelligible life, instead of only trying to live, aiming at modes of life beyond my reach. My mistake was that of numberless men nowadays. Because I was conscious of brains, I thought that the only place for me was London. It's easy enough to understand this common delusion. We form our ideas of London from old literature; we think of London as if it were still the one centre of intellectual life; we think and talk like Chatterton. But the truth is that intellectual men in our day do their best to keep away from London--when once they know the place. There are libraries everywhere; papers and magazines reach the north of Scotland as soon as they reach Brompton; it's only on rare occasions, for special kinds of work, that one is bound to live in London. And as for recreation, why, now that no English theatre exists, what is there in London that you can't enjoy in almost any part of England? At all events, a yearly visit of a week would be quite sufficient for all the special features of the town. London is only a huge shop, with an hotel on the upper storeys. To be sure, if you make it your artistic subject, that's a different thing. But neither you nor I would do that by deliberate choice.'

'I think not.'

'It's a huge misfortune, this will-o'-the-wisp attraction exercised by London on young men of brains. They come here to be degraded, or to perish, when their true sphere is a life of peaceful remoteness. The type of man capable of success in London is more or less callous and cynical. If I had the training of boys, I would teach them to think of London as the last place where life can be lived worthily.'

'And the place where you are most likely to die in squalid wretchedness.'

'The one happy result of my experiences,' said Reardon, is that they have cured me of ambition. What a miserable fellow I should be if I were still possessed with the desire to make a name! I can't even recall very clearly that state of mind. My strongest desire now is for peaceful obscurity. I am tired out; I want to rest for the remainder of my life.'

'You won't have much rest at Croydon.'

'Oh, it isn't impossible. My time will be wholly occupied in a round of all but mechanical duties, and I think that will be the best medicine for my mind. I shall read very little, and that only in the cla.s.sics.

I don't say that I shall always be content in such a position; in a few years perhaps something pleasanter will offer. But in the meantime it will do very well. Then there is our expedition to Greece to look forward to. I am quite in earnest about that. The year after next, if we are both alive, a.s.suredly we go.'

'The year after next.' Biffen smiled dubiously.

'I have demonstrated to you mathematically that it is possible.'

'You have; but so are a great many other things that one does not dare to hope for.'

Someone knocked at the door, opened it, and said:

'Here's a telegram for you, Mr Reardon.'

The friends looked at each other, as if some fear had entered the minds of both. Reardon opened the despatch. It was from his wife, and ran thus:

'Willie is ill of diphtheria. Please come to us at once. I am staying with Mrs Carter, at her mother's, at Brighton.'

The full address was given.

'You hadn't heard of her going there?' said Biffen, when he had read the lines.

'No. I haven't seen Carter for several days, or perhaps he would have told me. Brighton, at this time of year? But I believe there's a fas.h.i.+onable "season" about now, isn't there? I suppose that would account for it.'

He spoke in a slighting tone, but showed increasing agitation.

'Of course you will go?'

'I must. Though I'm in no condition for making a journey.'

His friend examined him anxiously.

'Are you feverish at all this evening?'

Reardon held out a hand that the other might feel his pulse. The beat was rapid to begin with, and had been heightened since the arrival of the telegram.

'But go I must. The poor little fellow has no great place in my heart, but, when Amy sends for me, I must go. Perhaps things are at the worst.'

'When is there a train? Have you a time table?'

Biffen was despatched to the nearest shop to purchase one, and in the meanwhile Reardon packed a few necessaries in a small travelling-bag, ancient and worn, but the object of his affection because it had accompanied him on his wanderings in the South. When Harold returned, his appearance excited Reardon's astonishment--he was white from head to foot.

'Snow?'

'It must have been falling heavily for an hour or more.'

'Can't be helped; I must go.'

The nearest station for departure was London Bridge, and the next train left at 7.20. By Reardon's watch it was now about five minutes to seven.

'I don't know whether it's possible,' he said, in confused hurry, 'but I must try. There isn't another train till ten past nine. Come with me to the station, Biffen.'

Both were ready. They rushed from the house, and sped through the soft, steady fall of snowflakes into Upper Street. Here they were several minutes before they found a disengaged cab. Questioning the driver, they learnt what they would have known very well already but for their excitement: impossible to get to London Bridge Station in a quarter of an hour.

'Better to go on, all the same,' was Reardon's opinion. 'If the snow gets deep I shall perhaps not be able to have a cab at all. But you had better not come; I forgot that you are as much out of sorts as I am.'

'How can you wait a couple of hours alone? In with you!'

'Diphtheria is pretty sure to be fatal to a child of that age, isn't it?' Reardon asked when they were speeding along City Road.

'I'm afraid there's much danger.'