The Nether World

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'If only he doesn't hear about the old man or the girl from
somebody!' said Mrs. Peckover. 'I've been afraid of it ever since he
come into the 'ouse. There's so many people might tell him. You'll
have to come round him sharp, Clem.'

The mother was dressed as her kind are wont to be on Sunday
morning--that is to say, not dressed at all, but hung about with coarse
garments, her hair in unbeautiful disarray. Clem, on the other hand,
seemed to have devoted much attention to her morning toilet; she
wore a dark dress trimmed with velveteen, and a metal ornament of
primitive taste gleamed amid her hair.

'There ain't no mistake?' she asked, after a pause. 'You're jolly
sure of that?'

'Mistake? What a blessed fool you must be! Didn't they advertise in
the papers for him? Didn't the lawyers themselves say as it was
something to his advantage? Don't you say yourself as Jane says her
grandfather's often spoke about him and wished he could find him?
How can it be a mistake? If it was only Bill's letter we had to go
on, you might talk; but--there, don't be a ijiot!'

'If it turned out as he hadn't nothing,' remarked Clem resolutely,
'I'd leave him, if I was married fifty times.'

Her mother uttered a contemptuous sound. At the same time she moved
her head as if listening; some one was, in fact, descending the
stairs.

'Here he comes,' she whispered. 'Get the eggs ready, an' I'll make
the corffee.'

A tap at the door, then entered a tallish man of perhaps forty,
though he might be a year or two younger. His face was clean-shaven,
harsh-featured, unwholesome of complexion; its chief peculiarity was
the protuberance of the bone in front of each temple, which gave him
a curiously animal aspect. His lower lip hung and jutted forward;
when he smiled, as now in advancing to the fire, it slightly
overlapped the one above. His hair was very sparse; he looked,
indeed, like one who has received the tonsure. The movement of his
limbs betokened excessive indolence; he dragged his feet rather than
walked. His attire was equally suggestive; not only had it fallen
into the last degree of shabbiness (having originally been such as
is worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with
dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of
buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open,
exposed a red shirt.

'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,'
was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden
arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't
natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?'

'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so
forward, Mr. Snowdon.'

'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept
you from church.'

He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed
appreciatively.

'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover.

'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure
you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say,
you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I
shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand
a year when it does come.'

'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid
calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you
behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't
one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all
straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once
more.'

Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat
pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling
placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he
plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it.
When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was
ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself
with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as
nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with
appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of
English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new
bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive
substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar
and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste.

'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs.
Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the
viands.

'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr.
Snowdon.

As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly
in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing
upon a question which be found it very difficult to answer in any
satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked
himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in
this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just
because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to
find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to
find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten
years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty
of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl
had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer
lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other
hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception,
seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for
Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything
turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs.
Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk
she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room,
undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder
when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers
doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off!
As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my
old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very
puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the
child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to
believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But
that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too
much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a
mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of
that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me,
without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or
a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have
taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was
nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the
chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through.
Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only
been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter,
and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three
years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man
must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the
matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy
to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the
finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a
mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a
bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real
liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a
Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide
for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded
into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a
little quiet talk with Clem.'

The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having
made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender
again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left
it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it
came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all
sorts of alien scraps. When be had lit his pipe, he poised the chair
on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and
continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up
from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his
pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the
grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and
look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean
some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner.

'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they
had been alone together for a few minutes.

'What's that to you? Guess.'

'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went
away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.'

'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late
to give me a birthday present, ain't it?'

'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I
say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting
to marry you, eh?'

'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders
scornfully.

Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire.

'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping
company with now?'

'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's
took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.'

This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his
chair, and almost pitched backwards.

'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and
then, just to make a fool of him, eh?'

'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that
was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it
no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just
because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give
her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him
afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him
an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at
it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke
Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day
they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street.
Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died
o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.'

The hearer became uproarious in merriment.

'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a
girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my
daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was
sort of sisters, wasn't you?'

He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There
never was no fun in her.'

'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the
old man?'

'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her
big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.'

'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me
much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort
of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry
again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of
the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.'

'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?'

'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that
look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.'

'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!'

'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?'

Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and
aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an
outburst of laughter from both.

'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?'

'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly,
going away to the far end of the room.

'Have I offended you, Clem?'

'Offended, indeed As if I cared what you say!'

'Do you care what I think?'

'Not I!'

'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to
tell you.'

'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?'

'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the
trouble of fetching you!'

The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal
was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and
had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover.

CHAPTER XV

SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES

Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty,
have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as
'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of
which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a
timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a
saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and
girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of
by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.'

Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child
who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the
question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of
uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the
atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty
cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the
various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to
hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she
who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for
her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look
beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers,
they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them
to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if
employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves
wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not
trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the
whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general
tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar
with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term
other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then
enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a
child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already
perfectly familiar.

One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of
the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the
sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall
directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all
circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with
uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three,
called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand.
All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of
rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to
the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one
of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of
the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round
and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--
unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness.
She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a
smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was
closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very
graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything
but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of
ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far
more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for
a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed
beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves
for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she
remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose
to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy
reflection.

By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work,
whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil
always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's
appeal to her neighbour for sympathy.

'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions,
bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what
blisters I had when I began.'

'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh,
when'll it be five o'clock?'

'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.'

Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest
for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring
your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a
forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was
customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several
contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one
teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former
silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands,
was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a
wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because
of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which
made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her
custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a
doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the
odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her
present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--
for it was early in the week, and the girls still had. coppers in
their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth
of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of
that rewarded her for her trouble.

The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea
from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced
some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when
there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different
appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old
acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have
been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as
at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was
Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in
seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had
never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by
Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss
Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was
reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her
pleasant smile and amiable voice.

'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone
inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise
you.'

'What is it, I wonder?'

'You must swear you won't tell nobody.'

Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and
whispered:

'I'm goin' to be married!'

'Are you really?'

'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if
you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.'

Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed
consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation
conceivable.

'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've
swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work
after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll
promise to, won't you?'

Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the
room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had
perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost
of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour
was the former placidity restored to her.

When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the
wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct
way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home
in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning
aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable
quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid
children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only
just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed,
doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of
diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the
lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes
Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have
seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles,
but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare
nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the
feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her
familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary
to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the
head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a
weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with
the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen
of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled
behind her on the landing.

'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane.

'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to
consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this
position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which
for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet.
Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of
her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same
rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor
prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares,
Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico,
and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was
dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks
by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a
little while ago washed herself with much care.

'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak
a word. How have you been getting on?'

'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving
backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a
room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to
time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his
wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their
honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a
change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the
restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from
place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child
lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to
know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the
milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with
it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use
talkin'.'

'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at
the strange costume.

Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way.

'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He
promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--
it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.'

'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?'

'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did
what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the
room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an'
the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty
yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He
was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes.
But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a
lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he
came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An'
I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the
least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good;
he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round
with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come
into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I
mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know
he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't
go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could
go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would
drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!'

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