Throughout the month of July he suffered much from his wonted bilious attacks, and Mrs Yule had to endure a double share of his ill-temper, that which was naturally directed against her, and that of which Marian was the cause. In August things were slightly better; but with the return to labour came a renewal of Yule's sullenness and savageness. Sundry pieces of ill-luck of a professional kind--warnings, as he too well understood, that it was growing more and more difficult for him to hold his own against the new writers--exasperated his quarrel with destiny.
The gloom of a cold and stormy September was doubly wretched in that house on the far borders of Camden Town, but in October the sun reappeared and it seemed to mollify the literary man's mood.
Just when Mrs Yule and Marian began to hope that this long distemper must surely come to an end, there befell an incident which, at the best of times, would have occasioned misery, and which in the present juncture proved disastrous.
It was one morning about eleven. Yule was in his study; Marian was at the Museum; Mrs Yule had gone shopping. There came a sharp knock at the front door, and the servant, on opening, was confronted with a decently-dressed woman, who asked in a peremptory voice if Mrs Yule was at home.
'No? Then is Mr Yule?'
'Yes, mum, but I'm afraid he's busy.'
'I don't care, I must see him. Say that Mrs Goby wants to see him at once.'
The servant, not without apprehensions, delivered this message at the door of the study.
'Mrs Goby? Who is Mrs Goby?' exclaimed the man of letters, irate at the disturbance.
There sounded an answer out of the passage, for the visitor had followed close.
'I am Mrs Goby, of the 'Olloway Road, wife of Mr C. 0. Goby, 'aberdasher. I just want to speak to you, Mr Yule, if you please, seeing that Mrs Yule isn't in.'
Yule started up in fury, and stared at the woman, to whom the servant had reluctantly given place.
'What business can you have with me? If you wish to see Mrs Yule, come again when she is at home.'
'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 Ito 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 Iwas 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 Idon'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 o{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.