Part 84 (2/2)

'So it is, but it comes out with delicious naivete in the working cla.s.ses. Now, educated people like to read of scenes that are familiar to them, though I grant you that the picture must be idealised if you're to appeal to more than one in a thousand. The working cla.s.ses detest anything that tries to represent their daily life. It isn't because that life is too painful; no, no; it's downright sn.o.bbishness. d.i.c.kens goes down only with the best of them, and then solely because of his strength in farce and his melodrama.'

Presently the three went out together, and had dinner at an a la mode beef shop. Mr Sykes ate little, but took copious libations of porter at twopence a pint. When the meal was over he grew taciturn.

'Can you walk westwards?' Biffen asked.

'I'm afraid not, afraid not. In fact I have an appointment at two--at Aldgate station.'

They parted from him.

'Now he'll go and soak till he's unconscious,' said Biffen. 'Poor fellow! Pity he ever earns anything at all. The workhouse would be better, I should think.'

'No, no! Let a man drink himself to death rather. I have a horror of the workhouse. Remember the clock at Marylebone I used to tell you about.'

'Unphilosophic. I don't think I should be unhappy in the workhouse.

I should have a certain satisfaction in the thought that I had forced society to support me. And then the absolute freedom from care! Why, it's very much the same as being a man of independent fortune.'

It was about a week after this, midway in November, that there at length came to Manville Street a letter addressed in Amy's hand. It arrived at three one afternoon; Reardon heard the postman, but he had ceased to rush out on every such occasion, and to-day he was feeling ill. Lying upon the bed, he had just raised his head wearily when he became aware that someone was mounting to his room. He sprang up, his face and neck flus.h.i.+ng.

This time Amy began 'Dear Edwin'; the sight of those words made his brain swim.

'You must, of course, have heard [she wrote] that my uncle John has left me ten thousand pounds. It has not yet come into my possession, and I had decided that I would not write to you till that happened, but perhaps you may altogether misunderstand my silence.

'If this money had come to me when you were struggling so hard to earn a living for us, we should never have spoken the words and thought the thoughts which now make it so difficult for me to write to you. What I wish to say is that, although the property is legally my own, I quite recognise that you have a right to share in it. Since we have lived apart you have sent me far more than you could really afford, believing it your duty to do so; now that things are so different I wish you, as well as myself, to benefit by the change.

'I said at our last meeting that I should be quite prepared to return to you if you took that position at Croydon. There is now no need for you to pursue a kind of work for which you are quite unfitted, and I repeat that I am willing to live with you as before. If you will tell me where you would like to make a new home I shall gladly agree. I do not think you would care to leave London permanently, and certainly I should not.

'Please to let me hear from you as soon as possible. In writing like this I feel that I have done what you expressed a wish that I should do. I have asked you to put an end to our separation, and I trust that I have not asked in vain.

'Yours always,

'AMY REARDON.'

The letter fell from his hand. It was such a letter as he might have expected, but the beginning misled him, and as his agitation throbbed itself away he suffered an encroachment of despair which made him for a time unable to move or even think.

His reply, written by the dreary twilight which represented sunset, ran thus.

'Dear Amy,--I thank you for your letter, and I appreciate your motive in writing it. But if you feel that you have ”done what I expressed a wish that you should do,” you must have strangely misunderstood me.

'The only one thing that I wished was, that by some miracle your love for me might be revived. Can I persuade myself that this is the letter of a wife who desires to return to me because in her heart she loves me?

If that is the truth you have been most unfortunate in trying to express yourself.

'You have written because it seemed your duty to do so. But, indeed, a sense of duty such as this is a mistaken one. You have no love for me, and where there is no love there is no mutual obligation in marriage.

Perhaps you think that regard for social conventions will necessitate your living with me again. But have more courage; refuse to act falsehoods; tell society it is base and brutal, and that you prefer to live an honest life.

'I cannot share your wealth, dear. But as you have no longer need of my help--as we are now quite independent of each other--I shall cease to send the money which hitherto I have considered yours. In this way I shall have enough, and more than enough, for my necessities, so that you will never have to trouble yourself with the thought that I am suffering privations. At Christmas I go to Croydon, and I will then write to you again.

'For we may at all events be friendly. My mind is relieved from ceaseless anxiety on your account. I know now that you are safe from that accursed poverty which is to blame for all our sufferings. You I do not blame, though I have sometimes done so. My own experience teaches me how kindness can be embittered by misfortune. Some great and n.o.ble sorrow may have the effect of drawing hearts together, but to struggle against dest.i.tution, to be crushed by care about s.h.i.+llings and sixpences--that must always degrade.

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