第54章 RESPITE(1)

The last volume was written in fourteen days. In this achievement Reardon rose almost to heroic pitch, for he had much to contend with beyond the mere labour of composition. Scarcely had he begun when a sharp attack of lumbago fell upon him; for two or three days it was torture to support himself at the desk, and he moved about like a cripple. Upon this ensued headaches, sore-throat, general enfeeblement. And before the end of the fortnight it was necessary to think of raising another small sum of money; he took his watch to the pawnbroker's (you can imagine that it would not stand as security for much), and sold a few more books. All this notwithstanding, here was the novel at length finished. When he had written 'The End' he lay back, closed his eyes, and let time pass in blankness for a quarter of an hour.

It remained to determine the title. But his brain refused another effort; after a few minutes' feeble search he simply took the name of the chief female character, Margaret Home. That must do for the book. Already, with the penning of the last word, all its scenes, personages, dialogues had slipped away into oblivion; he knew and cared nothing more about them.

'Amy, you will have to correct the proofs for me. Never as long as I live will I look upon a page of this accursed novel. It has all but killed me.'

'The point is,' replied Amy, 'that here we have it complete. Pack it up and take it to the publishers' to-morrow morning.'

'I will.'

'And--you will ask them to advance you a few pounds?'

'I must.'

But that undertaking was almost as hard to face as a rewriting of the last volume would have been. Reardon had such superfluity of sensitiveness that, for his own part, he would far rather have gone hungry than ask for money not legally his due. To-day there was no choice. In the ordinary course of business it would be certainly a month before he heard the publishers' terms, and perhaps the Christmas season might cause yet more delay. Without borrowing, he could not provide for the expenses of more than another week or two.

His parcel under his arm, he entered the ground-floor office, and desired to see that member of the firm with whom he had previously had personal relations. This gentleman was not in town; he would be away for a few days. Reardon left the manuscript, and came out into the street again.

He crossed, and looked up at the publishers' windows from the opposite pavement. 'Do they suspect in what wretched circumstances I am? Would it surprise them to know all that depends upon that budget of paltry scribbling? I suppose not; it must be a daily experience with them. Well, I must write a begging letter.'

It was raining and windy. He went slowly homewards, and was on the point of entering the public door of the flats when his uneasiness became so great that he turned and walked past. If he went in, he must at once write his appeal for money, and he felt that he could not. The degradation seemed too great.

Was there no way of getting over the next few weeks? Rent, of course, would be due at Christmas, but that payment might be postponed; it was only a question of buying food and fuel. Amy had offered to ask her mother for a few pounds; it would be cowardly to put this task upon her now that he had promised to meet the difficulty himself. What man in all London could and would lend him money? He reviewed the list of his acquaintances, but there was only one to whom he could appeal with the slightest hope--that was Carter.

Half an hour later he entered that same hospital door through which, some years ago, he had passed as a half-starved applicant for work. The matron met him.

'Is Mr Carter here?'

'No, sir. But we expect him any minute. Will you wait?'

He entered the familiar office, and sat down. At the table where he had been wont to work, a young clerk was writing. If only all the events of the last few years could be undone, and he, with no soul dependent upon him, be once more earning his pound a week in this room! What a happy man he was in those days!

Nearly half an hour passed. It is the common experience of beggars to have to wait. Then Carter came in with quick step; he wore a heavy ulster of the latest fashion, new gloves, a resplendent silk hat; his cheeks were rosy from the east wind.

'Ha, Reardon! How do? how do? Delighted to see you!'

'Are you very busy?'

'Well, no, not particularly. A few cheques to sign, and we're just getting out our Christmas appeals. You remember?'

He laughed gaily. There was a remarkable freedom from snobbishness in this young man; the fact of Reardon's intellectual superiority had long ago counteracted Carter's social prejudices.

'I should like to have a word with you.'

'Right you are!'

They went into a small inner room. Reardon's pulse beat at fever-rate; his tongue was cleaving to his palate.

'What is it, old man?' asked the secretary, seating himself and flinging one of his legs over the other. 'You look rather seedy, do you know. Why the deuce don't you and your wife look us up now and then?'

'I've had a hard pull to finish my novel.'

'Finished, is it? I'm glad to hear that. When'll it be out? I'll send scores of people to Mudie's after it.

'Thanks; but I don't think much of it, to tell you the truth.'

'Oh, we know what that means.'

Reardon was talking like an automaton. It seemed to him that he turned screws and pressed levers for the utterance of his next words.

'I may as well say at once what I have come for. Could you lend me ten pounds for a month--in fact, until I get the money for my book?'

The secretary's countenance fell, though not to that expression of utter coldness which would have come naturally under the circumstances to a great many vivacious men. He seemed genuinely embarrassed.