The Nether World

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Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on
previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was
ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This
silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she
exclaimed with querulous energy:

'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I
will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all
night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll
do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't
know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like
mother.'

'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot,
(It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed
their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane
the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way
to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all
Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd
been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I
can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say
anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!'

She stepped to the door.

'Miss Snowdon!'

Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a
laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words,
too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the
heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check
them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength
in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but
there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all
the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of
renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of
thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as
she looks in now and then.'

Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a
reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was
Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a
visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and
talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or
could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second
floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not
_his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor.
She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other
door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!'

The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small
and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and
a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of
eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she
had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with
her for a few minutes, very kindly.

'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to
her.

Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and
had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice
told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the
ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the
progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely
careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth
expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace.
One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have
seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but
restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed
his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying
apprehension.

'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said.

The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of
fatherly geniality.

'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again
before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a
couple of hours, and indeed we mustn't linger that number of
minutes. You look well, I think?'

He stood and examined her intently, then cried:

'Come, my dear sir, come! we shall be late.'

Snowdon was already prepared for walking. He spoke a few words to
Jane, then followed Mr. Percival downstairs.

Flurried by the encounter, Jane stood looking about her. Then came a
rush of disappointment as she reflected that the visitor of
Wednesday evenings would call in vain. Hearing that her grandfather
was absent, doubtless he would take his leave at once. Or, would he--

In a minute or two she ran downstairs to exchange a word with Mrs.
Byass. On entering the kitchen she was surprised to see Bessie
sitting idly by the fire. At this hour it was usual for Mr. Byass to
have returned, and there was generally an uproar of laughing talk.
This evening, dead silence, and a noticeable something in the air
which told of trouble. The baby--of course a new baby--lay in a
bassinette near its mother, seemingly asleep; the other child was
sitting in a high chair by the table, clattering 'bricks.'

Bessie did not even look round.

'Is Mr. Byass late?' inquired Jane, in an apprehensive voice.

'He's somewhere in the house, I believe,' was the answer, in
monotone.

'Oh dear!' Jane recognised a situation which had already come under
her notice once or twice during the last six months She drew near,
and asked in a low voice:

'What's happened, Mrs. Byass?'

'He's a beast! If he doesn't mind I shall go and leave him. I mean
it!'

Bessie was in a genuine fit of sullenness. One of her hands was
clenched below her chin; her pretty lips were not pretty at all; her
brow was rumpled. Jane began to seek for the cause of dissension, to
put affectionate questions, to use her voice soothingly.

'He's a beast!' was Bessie's reiterated observation; but by degrees
she added phrases more explanatory. 'How can I help it if he cuts
himself when he's shaving?--Serve him right!--What for? Why, for
saying that babies was nothing but a nuisance, and that _my_ baby
was the ugliest and noisiest ever born!'

'Did she cry in the night?' inquired Jane, with sympathy.

'Of course she did! Hasn't she a right to?'

'And then Mr. Byass cut himself with his razor?'

'Yes. And he said it was because he was woke so often, and it made
him nervous, and his hand shook. And then I told him he'd better cut
himself on the other side, and it wouldn't matter. And then he
complained because he had to wait for breakfast. And he said there'd
been no comfort in the house since we'd had children. And I cared
nothing about him, he said, and only about the baby and Ernest. And
he went on like a beast, as he is! I hate him!'

'Oh no, not a bit of it!' said Jane, seeing the opportunity for a
transition to jest.

'I do! And you may go upstairs and tell him so.'

'All right; I will.'

Jane ran upstairs and knocked at the door of the parlour. A gruff
voice bade her enter, but the room was nearly in darkness.

'Will you have a light, Mr. Byass?'

'No--thank you.'

'Mr. Byass, Mrs. Byass says I'm to say she hates you.'

'All right. Tell her I've known it a long time. She needn't trouble
about me; I'm going out to enjoy myself.'

Jane ran back to the kitchen.

'Mr. Byass says he's known it a long time,' she reported, with much
gravity. 'And he's going out to enjoy himself.'

Bessie remained mute.

'What message shall I take back, Mrs. Byass?'

'Tell him if he dares to leave the house, I'll go to mother's the
first thing to-morrow, and let them know how he's treating me.'

'Tell her,' was Mr. Byass's reply, 'that I don't see what it matters
to her whether I'm at home or away. And tell her she's a cruel wife
to me.'

Something like the sound of a snivel came out of the darkness as he
concluded. Jane, in reporting his speech, added that she thought he
was shedding tears. Thereupon Bessie gave a sob, quite in earnest.

'So am I,' she said chokingly. 'Go and tell him, Jane.'

'Mr. Byass, Mrs. Byass is crying,' whispered Jane at the
parlour-door. 'Don't you think you'd better, go downstairs?'

Hearing a movement, she ran to be out of the way. Samuel left the
dark room, and with slow step descended to the kitchen. Then Jane
knew that it was all right, and tripped up to her room humming a
song of contentment.

Had she, then, wholly outgrown the bitter experiences of her
childhood? Had the cruelty which tortured her during the years when
the soul is being fashioned left upon her no brand of slavish vice,
nor the baseness of those early associations affected her with any
irremovable taint? As far as human observation could probe her, Jane
Snowdon had no spot of uncleanness in her being; she had been
rescued while it was yet time, and the subsequent period of
fostering had enabled features of her character, which no one could
have discerned in the helpless child, to expand with singular
richness. Two effects of the time of her bondage were, however,
clearly to be distinguished. Though nature had endowed her with a
good intelligence, she could only with extreme labour acquire that
elementary book-knowledge which vulgar children get easily enough;
it seemed as if the bodily overstrain at a critical period of life
had affected her memory, and her power of mental application
generally. In spite of ceaseless endeavour, she could not yet spell
words of the least difficulty; she could not do the easiest sums
with accuracy; geographical names were her despair. The second point
in which she had suffered harm was of more serious nature. She was
subject to fits of hysteria, preceded and followed by the most
painful collapse of that buoyant courage which was her supreme charm
and the source of her influence. Without warning, an inexplicable
terror would fall upon her; like the weakest child, she craved
protection from a dread inspired solely by her imagination, and
solace for an anguish of wretchedness to which she could give no
form in words. Happily this illness afflicted her only at long
intervals, and her steadily improving health gave warrant for hoping
that in time it would altogether pass away.

Whenever an opportunity had offered for struggling successfully with
some form of evil--were it poor Pennyloaf's dangerous despair, or
the very human difficulties between Bessie and her husband--Jane
lived at her highest reach of spiritual joy. For all that there was
a disappointment on her mind, she felt this joy to-night, and went
about her pursuits in happy self-absorption. So it befell that she
did not hear a knock at the house-door. Mrs. Byass answered it, and
not knowing that Mr. Snowdon was from home, bade his usual visitor
go upstairs. The visitor did so, and announced his presence at the
door of the room.

'Oh, Mr. Kirkwood,' said Jane, 'I'm so sorry, but grandfather had to
go out with a gentleman.'

And she waited, looking at him, a gentle warmth on her face.

CHAPTER XVI

DIALOGUE AND COMMENT

'Will it be late before he comes back?' asked Sidney, his smile of
greeting shadowed with disappointment.

'Not later than half-past ten, he said.'

Sidney turned his face to the stairs. The homeward prospect was
dreary after that glimpse of the familiar mom through the doorway.
The breach of habit discomposed him, and something more positive
strengthened his reluctance to be gone. It was not his custom to
hang in hesitancy and court chance by indirectness of speech;
recognising and admitting his motives, he said simply:

'I should like to stay a little, if you will let me--if I shan't
be in your way?'

'Oh no! Please come in. I'm only sewing.'

There were two round-backed wooden chairs in the room; one stood on
each side of the fireplace, and between them, beside the table, Jane
always had her place on a small chair of the ordinary comfortless
kind. She seated herself as usual, and Sidney took his familiar
position, with the vacant chair opposite. Snowdon and he were
accustomed to smoke their pipes whilst conversing, but this evening
Sidney dispensed with tobacco.

It was very quiet here. On the floor below dwelt at present two
sisters who kept themselves alive (it is quite inaccurate to use any
other phrase in such instances) by doing all manner of skilful
needlework; they were middle-aged women, gentle-natured, and so
thoroughly subdued to the hopelessness of their lot that scarcely
ever could even their footfall be heard as they went up and down
stairs; their voices were always sunk to a soft murmur. Just now no
infant wailing came from the Byasses' regions. Kirkwood enjoyed a
sense of restfulness, intenser, perhaps, for the momentary
disappointment he had encountered. He had no desire to talk; enough
for a few minutes to sit and watch Jane's hand as it moved backwards
and forwards with the needle.

'I went to see Pennyloaf as I came back from work,' Jane said at
length, just looking up.

'Did you? Do things seem to be any better?'

'Not much, I'm afraid. Mr. Kirkwood, don't you think you might do
something? If you tried again with her husband?'

'The fact is,' replied Sidney, 'I'm so afraid of doing more harm
than good.'

'You think--But then perhaps that's just what _I'm_ doing?'

Jane let her hand fall on the sewing and regarded him anxiously.

'No, no! I'm quite sure _you_ can't do harm. Pennyloaf can get
nothing but good from having you as a friend. She likes you; she
misses you when you happen not to have seen her for a few days. I'm
sorry to say it's quite a different thing with Bob and me. We're
friendly enough--as friendly as ever--but I haven't a scrap of
influence with him like you have with his wife. It was all very well
to get hold of him once, and try to make him understand, in a
half-joking way, that he wasn't behaving as well as he might. He
didn't take it amiss--just that once. But you can't think how
difficult it is for one man to begin preaching to another. The
natural thought is: Mind your own business. If I was the parson of
the parish--'

He paused, and in the same instant their eyes met. The suggestion
was irresistible; Jane began to laugh merrily.

What sweet laughter it was? How unlike the shrill discord whereby
the ordinary workgirl expresses her foolish mirth! For years Sidney
Kirkwood had been unused to utter any sound of merriment; even his
smiling was done sadly. But of late he had grown conscious of the
element of joy m Jane's character, had accustomed himself to look
for its manifestations--to observe the brightening of her eyes
which foretold a smile, the moving of her lips which suggested
inward laughter--and he knew that herein, as in many another
matter, a profound sympathy was transforming him. Sorrow such as he
had suffered will leave its mark upon the countenance long after
time has done its kindly healing, and in Sidney's case there was
more than the mere personal affliction tending to confirm his life
in sadness. With the ripening of his intellect, he saw only more and
more reason to condemn and execrate those social disorders of which
his own wretched experience was but an illustration. From the first,
his friendship with Snowdon had exercised upon him a subduing
influence; the old man was stern enough in his criticism of society,
but he did not belong to the same school as John Hewett, and the
sober authority of his character made appeal to much in Sidney that
had found no satisfaction amid the uproar of Clerkenwell Green. For
all that, Kirkwood could not become other than himself; his
vehemence was moderated, but he never affected to be at one with
Snowdon in that grave enthusiasm of far-off hope which at times made
the old man's speech that of an exhorting prophet. Their natural
parts were reversed; the young eyes declared that they could see
nothing but an horizon of blackest cloud, whilst those enfeebled by
years bore ceaseless witness to the raying forth of dawn.

And so it was with a sensation of surprise that Sidney first became
aware of light-heartedness in the young girl who was a silent hearer
of so many lugubrious discussions. Ridiculous as it may sound--as
Sidney felt it to be--he almost resented this evidence of
happiness; to him, only just recovering from a shock which would
leave its mark upon his life to the end, his youth wronged by bitter
necessities, forced into brooding over problems of ill when nature
would have bidden him enjoy, it seemed for the moment a sign of
shallowness that Jane could look and speak cheerfully. This extreme
of morbid feeling proved its own cure; even in reflecting upon it,
Sidney was constrained to laugh contemptuously at himself. And
therewith opened for him a new world of thought. He began to study
the girl. Of course he had already occupied himself much with the
peculiarities of her position, but of Jane herself he knew very
little; she was still, in his imagination, the fearful and miserable
child over whose shoulders he had thrown his coat one bitter night;
his impulse towards her was one of compassion merely, justified now
by what he heard of her mental slowness, her bodily sufferings. It
would take very long to analyse the process whereby this mode of
feeling was changed, until it became the sense of ever-deepening
sympathy which so possessed him this evening. Little by little
Jane's happiness justified itself to him, and in so doing began
subtly to modify his own temper. With wonder he recognised that the
poor little serf of former days had been meant by nature for one of
the most joyous among children. What must that heart have suffered,
so scorned and trampled upon! But now that the days of misery were
over, behold nature having its way after all. If the thousands are
never rescued from oppression, if they perish abortive in their
wretchedness, is that a reason for refusing to rejoice with the one
whom fate has blest? Sidney knew too much of Jane by this time to
judge her shallow-hearted. This instinct of gladness had a very
different significance from the animal vitality which prompted the
constant laughter of Bessie Byass; it was but one manifestation of a
moral force which made itself nobly felt in many another way. In
himself Sidney was experiencing its pure effects, and it was owing
to his conviction of Jane's power for good that he had made her
acquainted with Bob Hewett's wife. Snowdon warmly approved of this;
the suggestion led him to speak expressly of Jane, a thing he very
seldom did, and to utter a strong wish that she should begin to
concern herself with the sorrows she might in some measure relieve.

Sidney joined in the laughter he had excited by picturing himself
the parson of the parish. But the topic under discussion was a
serious one, and Jane speedily recovered her gravity.

'Yes, I see how hard it is,' she said. 'But it's a cruel thing for
him to neglect poor Pennyloaf as he does. She never gave him any
cause.'

'Not knowingly, I quite believe,' replied Kirkwood. 'But what a
miserable home it is!'

'Yes.' Jane shook her head. 'She doesn't seem to know how to keep
things in order. She doesn't seem even to understand me when I try
to show her how it might be different.'

'There's the root of the trouble, Jane. What chance had Pennyloaf of
ever learning how to keep a decent home, and bring up her children
properly? How was _she_ brought up? The wonder is that there's so
much downright good in her; I feel the same wonder about people
every day. Suppose Pennyloaf behaved as badly as her mother does,
who on earth would have the right to blame her? But we can't expect
miracles; so long as she lives decently, it's the most that can be
looked for. And there you are; that isn't enough to keep a fellow
like Bob Hewett in order. I doubt whether any wife would manage it,
but as for poor Pennyloaf--'

'I shall speak to him myself,' said Jane quietly.

'Do! There's much more hope in that than in anything I could say.
Bob isn't a bad fellow; the worst thing I know of him is his
conceit. He's good-looking, and he's clever in all sorts of ways,
and unfortunately he can't think of anything but his own merits. Of
course he'd no business to marry at all whilst he was nothing but a
boy.'

Jane plied her needle, musing.

'Do you know whether he ever goes to see his father?' Sidney
inquired presently.

'No, I don't,' Jane answered, looking at him, but immediately
dropping her eyes.

'If he doesn't I should think worse of him. Nobody ever had a kinder
father, and there's many a reason why he should be careful to pay
the debt he owes.'

Jane waited a moment, then again raised her eyes to him. It seemed
as though she would ask a question, and Sidney's grave attentiveness
indicated a surmise of what she was about to say. But her thought
remained unuttered, and there was a prolongation of silence.

Of course they were both thinking of Clara. That name had never been
spoken by either of them in the other's presence, but as often as
conversation turned upon the Hewetts, it was impossible for them not
to supplement their spoken words by a silent colloquy of which Clara
was the subject. From her grandfather Jane knew that, to this day,
nothing had been heard of Hewett's daughter; what people said at the
time of the girl's disappearance she had learned fully enough from
Clem Peckover, who even yet found it pleasant to revive the scandal,
and by contemptuous comments revenge herself for Clara's haughty
usage in old days. Time had not impaired Jane's vivid recollection
of that Bank-holiday morning when she herself was the first to make
it known that Clara had gone away. Many a time since then she had
visited the street whither Snowdon led her--had turned aside from
her wonted paths in the thought that it was not impossible she might
meet Clara, though whether with more hope or fear of such a meeting
she could not have said. When two years had gone by, her grandfather
one day led the talk to that subject; he was then beginning to
change in certain respects the tone he had hitherto used with her,
and to address her as one who had outgrown childhood. He explained
to her how it came about that Sidney could no longer be even on
terms of acquaintance with John Hewett. The conversation originated
in Jane's bringing the news that Hewett and his family had at length
left Mrs. Peckover's house. For two years things had gone miserably
with them, their only piece of good fortune being the death of the
youngest child. John was confirmed in a habit of drinking. Not that
he had become a brutal sot; sometimes for as much as a month he
would keep sober, and even when he gave way to temptation he never
behaved with violence to his wife and children. Still, the character
of his life had once more suffered a degradation, and he possessed
no friends who could be of the least use to him. Snowdon, for some
reason of his own, maintained a slight intercourse with the
Peckovers, and through them he endeavoured to establish an intimacy
with Hewett; but the project utterly failed. Probably on Kirkwood's
account, John met the old man's advances with something more than
coldness. Sternly he had forbidden his wife and the little ones to
exchange a word of any kind with Sidney, or with any friend of his.
He appeared to nourish incessantly the bitter resentment to which he
gave expression when Sidney and he last met.

There was no topic on which Sidney was more desirous of speaking
with Jane than this which now occupied both their minds. How far she
understood Clara's story, and his part in it, he had no knowledge;
for between Snowdon and himself there had long been absolute silence
on that matter. It was not improbable that Jane had been instructed
in the truth; he hoped she had not been left to gather what she
could from Clem Peckover's gossip. Yet the difficulty with which be
found himself beset, now that an obvious opportunity offered for
frank speech, was so great that, after a few struggles, he fell back
on the reflection with which he was wont to soothe himself: Jane was
still so young, and the progress of time, by confirming her
knowledge of him, would make it all the simpler to explain the
miserable past. Had he, in fact, any right to relate this story, to
seek her sympathy in that direct way? It was one aspect of a very
grave question which occupied more and more of Sidney's thought.

With an effort, he turned the dialogue into quite a new direction,
and Jane, though a little absent for some minutes, seemed at length
to forget the abruptness of the change. Sidney had of late been
resuming his old interest in pencil. work; two or three of his
drawings hung on these walls, and he spoke of making new sketches
when he next went into the country. Years ago, one of his favourite
excursions--of the longer ones which he now and then allowed
himself--was to Danbury Hill, some five miles to the east of
Chelmsford, one of the few pieces of rising ground in Essex, famous
for its view over Maldon and the estuary of the Blackwater. Thither
Snowdon and Jane accompanied him during the last summer but one, and
the former found so much pleasure in the place that he took lodgings
with certain old friends of Sidney's, and gave his granddaughter a
week of healthful holiday. In the summer that followed, the lodgings
were again taken for a week, and this year the same expedition was
in view. Sidney had as good as promised that he would join his
friends for the whole time of their absence, and now he talked with
Jane of memories and anticipations. Neither was sensible how the
quarters and the half-hours went by in such chatting. Sidney
abandoned himself to the enjoyment of peace such as he had never
known save m this room, to a delicious restfulness such as was
always inspired in him by the girl's gentle voice, by her laughter,
by her occasional quiet movements. The same influence was affecting
his whole life. To Jane he owed the gradual transition from
tumultuous politics and social bitterness to the mood which could
find pleasure as of old in nature and art. This was his truer self,
emancipated from the distorting effect of the evil amid which he
perforce lived. He was recovering somewhat of his spontaneous
boyhood; at the same time, reaching after a new ideal of existence
which only ripened manhood could appreciate.

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