New Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕

“No, Mr. Yule, I will not come again!” cried the woman, red in the face. “I thought I might have had respectable treatment here, at all events; but I see you’re pretty much like your relations in the way of behaving to people, though you do wear better clothes, and⁠—I s’pose⁠—call yourself a gentleman. I won’t come again, and you shall just hear what I’ve got to say.”

She closed the door violently, and stood in an attitude of robust defiance.

“What’s all this about?” asked the enraged author, overcoming an impulse to take Mrs. Goby by the shoulders and throw her out⁠—though he might have found some difficulty in achieving this feat. “Who are you? And why do you come here with your brawling?”

“I’m the respectable wife of a respectable man⁠—that’s who I am, Mr. Yule, if you want to know. And I always thought Mrs. Yule was the same, from the dealings we’ve had with her at the shop, though not knowing any more of her, it’s true, except that she lived in St. Paul’s Crezzent. And so she may be respectable, though I can’t say as her husband behaves himself very much like what he pretends to be. But I can’t say as much for her relations in Perker Street, ’Olloway, which I s’pose they’re your relations as well, at least by marriage. And if they think they’re going to insult me, and use their blackguard tongues⁠—”

“What are you talking about?” shouted Yule, who was driven to frenzy by the mention of his wife’s humble family. “What have I to do with these people?”

“What have you to do with them? I s’pose they’re your relations, ain’t they? And I s’pose the girl Annie Rudd is your niece, ain’t she? At least, she’s your wife’s niece, and that comes to the same thing, I’ve always understood, though I dare say a gentleman as has so many books about him can correct me if I’ve made a mistake.”

She looked scornfully, though also with some surprise, round the volumed walls.

“And what of this girl? Will you have the goodness to say what your business is?”

“Yes, I will have the goodness! I s’pose you know very well that I took your niece Annie Rudd as a domestic servant”⁠—she repeated this precise definition⁠—“as a domestic servant, because Mrs. Yule ’appened to ’arst me if I knew of a place for a girl of that kind, as hadn’t been out before, but could be trusted to do her best to give satisfaction to a good mistress? I s’pose you know that?”

“I know nothing of the kind. What have I to do with servants?”

“Well, whether you’ve much to do with them or little, that’s how it was. And nicely she’s paid me out, has your niece, Miss Rudd. Of all the trouble I ever had with a girl! And now when she’s run away back ’ome, and when I take the trouble to go arfter her, I’m to be insulted and abused as never was! Oh, they’re a nice respectable family, those Rudds! Mrs. Rudd⁠—that’s Mrs. Yule’s sister⁠—what a nice, polite-spoken lady she is, to be sure? If I was to repeat the language⁠—but there, I wouldn’t lower myself. And I’ve been a brute of a mistress; I ill-use my servants, and I don’t give ’em enough to eat, and I pay ’em worse than any woman in London! That’s what I’ve learnt about myself by going to Perker Street, ’Olloway. And when I come here to ask Mrs. Yule what she means by recommending such a creature, from such a ’ome, I get insulted by her gentleman husband.”

Yule was livid with rage, but the extremity of his scorn withheld him from utterance of what he felt.

“As I said, all this has nothing to do with me. I will let Mrs. Yule know that you have called. I have no more time to spare.”

Mrs. Goby repeated at still greater length the details of her grievance, but long before she had finished Yule was sitting again at his desk in ostentatious disregard of her. Finally, the exasperated woman flung open the door, railed in a loud voice along the passage, and left the house with an alarming crash.

It was not long before Mrs. Yule returned. Before taking off her things, she went down into the kitchen with certain purchases, and there she learnt from the servant what had happened during her absence. Fear and trembling possessed her⁠—the sick, faint dread always excited by her husband’s wrath⁠—but she felt obliged to go at once to the study. The scene that took place there was one of ignoble violence on Yule’s part, and, on that of his wife, of terrified self-accusation, changing at length to dolorous resentment of the harshness with which she was treated. When it was over, Yule took his hat and went out.

He did not return for the midday meal, and when Marian, late in the afternoon, came back from the Museum, he was still absent.

Not finding her mother in the parlour, Marian called at the head of the kitchen stairs. The servant answered, saying that Mrs. Yule was up in her bedroom, and that she didn’t seem well. Marian at once went up and knocked at the bedroom door. In a moment or two her mother came out, showing a face of tearful misery.

“What is it, mother? What’s the matter?”

They went into Marian’s room, where Mrs. Yule gave free utterance to her lamentations.

“I can’t put up with it, Marian! Your father is too hard with me. I was wrong, I dare say, and I might have known what would have come of it, but he couldn’t speak to me worse if I did him all the harm I could on purpose. It’s all about Annie, because I found a place for her at Mrs. Goby’s in the ’Olloway Road; and now Mrs. Goby’s been here and seen your father, and told him she’s been insulted by the Rudds, because Annie went off home, and she went after her to make inquiries. And your father’s in