Civil Service exam., so I declared that I would go and do the same thing.’
‘Did you succeed?’
‘Not I! I never worked properly for that kind of thing. I read voraciously, and got to know London. I might have gone to the dogs, you know; but by when I had been in London a year a pretty clear purpose began to form in me. Strange to think that you were growing up there all the time. I may have passed you in the street now and then.’
Marian laughed.
‘And I did at length see you at the British Museum, you know.’
They turned a corner of the road, and came full upon Marian’s father, who was walking in this direction with eyes fixed upon the ground.
‘So here you are!’ he exclaimed, looking at the girl, and for the moment paying no attention to Jasper. ‘I wondered whether I should meet you.’ Then, more dryly, ‘How do you do, Mr Milvain?’
In a tone of easy indifference Jasper explained how he came to be accompanying Miss Yule.
‘Shall I walk on with you, father?’ Marian asked, scrutinising his rugged features.
‘Just as you please; I don’t know that I should have gone much further. But we might take another way back.’
Jasper readily adapted himself to the wish he discerned in Mr Yule; at once he offered leave-taking in the most natural way. Nothing was said on either side about another meeting.
The young man proceeded homewards, but, on arriving, did not at once enter the house. Behind the garden was a field used for the grazing of horses; he entered it by the unfastened gate, and strolled idly hither and thither, now and then standing to observe a poor worn-out beast, all skin and bone, which had presumably been sent here in the hope that a little more labour might still be exacted from it if it were suffered to repose for a few weeks. There were sores upon its back and legs; it stood in a fixed attitude of despondency, just flicking away troublesome flies with its grizzled tail.
It was tea-time when he went in. Maud was not at home, and Mrs Milvain, tormented by a familiar headache, kept her room; so Jasper and Dora sat down together. Each had an open book on the table; throughout the meal they exchanged only a few words.
‘Going to play a little?’ Jasper suggested when they had gone into the sitting-room.
‘If you like.’
She sat down at the piano, whilst her brother lay on the sofa, his hands clasped beneath his head. Dora did not play badly, but an absentmindedness which was commonly observable in her had its effect upon the music. She at length broke off idly in the middle of a passage, and began to linger on careless chords. Then, without turning her head, she asked:
‘Were you serious in what you said about writing storybooks?’
‘Quite. I see no reason why you shouldn’t do something in that way. But I tell you what; when I get back, I’ll inquire into the state of the market. I know a man who was once engaged at Jolly & Monk’s—the chief publishers of that kind of thing, you know; I must look him up—what a mistake it is to neglect any acquaintance!—and get some information out of him. But it’s obvious what an immense field there is for anyone who can just hit the taste of the’ new generation of Board school children. Mustn’t be too goody-goody; that kind of thing is falling out of date. But you’d have to cultivate a particular kind of vulgarity.
There’s an idea, by-the-bye. I’ll write a paper on the characteristics of that new generation; it may bring me a few guineas, and it would be a help to you.’
‘But what do you know about the subject?’ asked Dora doubtfully.
‘What a comical question! It is my business to know something about every subject—or to know where to get the knowledge.’
‘Well,’ said Dora, after a pause, ‘there’s no doubt Maud and I ought to think very seriously about the future. You are aware, Jasper, that mother has not been able to save a penny of her income.’
‘I don’t see how she could have done. Of course I know what you’re thinking; but for me, it would have been possible. I don’t mind confessing to you that the thought troubles me a little now and then; I shouldn’t like to see you two going off governessing in strangers’ houses. All I can say is, that I am very honestly working for the end which I am convinced will be most profitable.
I shall not desert you; you needn’t fear that. But just put your heads together, and cultivate your writing faculty. Suppose you could both together earn about a hundred a year in Grub Street, it would be better than governessing; wouldn’t it?’
‘You say you don’t know what Miss Yule writes?’
‘Well, I know a little more about her than I did yesterday. I’ve had an hour’s talk with her this afternoon.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Met her down in the Leggatt fields. I find she doesn’t write independently; just helps her father. What the help amounts to I can’t say. There’s something very attractive about her. She quoted a line or two of Tennyson; the first time I ever heard a woman speak blank verse with any kind of decency.’
‘She was walking alone?’
‘Yes. On the way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I thought. I don’t think she’s the kind of girl to make a paying business of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it’s pretty clear to me that the valley of the shadow of books by no means agrees with her disposition. Possibly old Yule is something of a tyrant.’
‘He doesn’t impress me very favourably. Do you think you will keep up their acquaintance in London?’
‘Can’t say. I wonder what sort of a woman that mother really is? Can’t be so very gross, I should think.’
‘Miss Harrow knows nothing about her, except that she was a quite uneducated girl.’
‘But, dash it! by this time she must have got decent manners. Of course there may be other objections. Mrs Reardon knows nothing against her.’
Midway in the following morning, as Jasper sat with a book in the garden, he was surprised to see Alfred Yule enter by the gate.
‘I thought,’ began the visitor, who seemed in high spirits, ‘that you might like to see something I received this morning.’
He unfolded a London evening paper, and indicated a long letter from a casual correspondent. It was written by the authoress of ‘On the Boards,’ and drew attention, with much expenditure of witticism, to the conflicting notices of that book which had appeared in The Study. Jasper read the thing with laughing appreciation.
‘Just what one expected!’
‘And I have private letters on the subject,’ added Mr Yule.
‘There has been something like a personal conflict between Fadge and the man who looks after the minor notices. Fadge, more so, charged the other man with a design to damage him and the paper. There’s talk of legal proceedings. An immense joke!’
He laughed in his peculiar croaking way.
‘Do you feel disposed for a turn along the lanes, Mr Milvain?’
‘By all means.—There’s
