The Nether World

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'I'm worse than a beggar,' replied Sidney. 'Housebreaking's more in
my line,'

And he attempted to force an entrance. Bessie struggled, but had to
give in, overcome with laughter. Samuel was enjoying a pipe in the
front kitchen; in spite of the dignity of keeping a servant (to whom
the back kitchen was sacred), Mr. and Mrs. Byass frequently spent
their evenings below stairs in the same manner as of old.

The talk began with Sidney's immediate difficulties.

'Now if it had only happened half a year ago,' said Bessie, 'I
should have got you into our first-floor rooms.'

'Shouldn't wonder if we have him there yet, some day,' remarked Sam,
winking at his wife.

'Not him,' was Bessie's rejoinder, with a meaning smile. 'He's a
cool hand, is Mr. Kirkwood. He knows how to wait. When _something_
happens, we shall have him taking a house out at Highbury, you see
if he don't.'

Sidney turned upon her with anything but a jesting look.

'What do you mean by that, Mrs. Byass?' he asked, sharply. 'When
_what_ happens? What are you hinting at?'

'Bless us and save us!' cried Bessie. 'Here, Sam, he's going to
swallow me. What harm have I done?'

'Please tell me what you meant?' Sidney urged, his face expressing
strong annoyance. 'Why do you call me a "cool hand," and say that "I
know how to wait"? What did you mean? I'm serious; I want you to
explain.'

Whilst he was speaking there came a knock at the kitchen door.
Bessie cried, 'Come in,' and Jane showed herself; she glanced in a
startled way at Sidney, murmured a 'good-evening' to him, and made a
request of Bessie for some trifle she needed. Sidney, after just
looking round, kept his seat and paid no further attention to Jane,
who speedily retired.

Silence followed, and in the midst of it Kirkwood pushed his chair
impatiently.

'Bess,' cried Samuel, with an affected jocoseness, 'you're called
upon to apologise. Don't make a fool of yourself again.'

'I don't see why he need be so snappish with me,' replied his wife.
'I beg his pardon, if he wants me.'

But Sidney was laughing now, though not in a very natural way. He
put an end to the incident, and led off into talk of quite a
different kind. When supper-time was at hand he declared that it was
impossible for him to stay. The hour had been anything but a lively
one, and when he was gone his friends discussed at length this novel
display of ill-humour on Sidney's part.

He went home muttering to himself, and passed as bad a night as he
had ever known. Two days later his removal to new lodgings was
effected; notwithstanding his desire to get into a cleaner region,
he had taken a room at the top of a house in Red Lion Street, in the
densest part of Clerkenwell, where his neighbours under the same
roof were craftsmen, carrying on their business at home.

'It'll do well enough just for a time,' he said to himself. 'Who can
say when I shall be really settled again, or whether I ever shall?'

Midway in an attempt to put his things in order, to nail his
pictures on the walls and ring forth his books again, he was seized
with such utter discouragement that he let a volume drop from his
hand and threw himself into a seat. A moan escaped his lips--'That
cursed money!'

Ever since the disclosure made to him by Michael Snowdon at Danbury
he had been sensible of a grave uneasiness respecting his relations
with Jane. At the moment he might imagine himself to share the old
man's enthusiasm, or dream, or craze--whichever name were the most
appropriate--but not an hour had passed before he began to lament
that such a romance as this should envelop the life which had so
linked itself with his own. Immediately there arose in him a
struggle between the idealist tendency, of which he had his share,
and stubborn everyday sense, supported by his knowledge of the world
and of his own being--a struggle to continue for months, thwarting
the natural current of his life, racking his intellect, embittering
his heart's truest emotions. Conscious of mystery in Snowdon's
affairs, he had never dreamed of such a solution as this; the
probability was--so he had thought--that Michael received an
annuity under the will of his son who died in Australia. No word of
the old man's had ever hinted at wealth in his possession; the
complaints he frequently made of the ill use to which wealthy people
put their means seemed to imply a regret that he, with his purer
purposes, had no power of doing anything. There was no explaining
the manner of Jane's bringing-up if it were not necessary that she
should be able to support herself; the idea on which Michael acted
was not such as would suggest itself, even to Sidney's mind.
Deliberately to withhold education from a girl who was to inherit
any property worth speaking of would be acting with such boldness of
originality that Sidney could not seriously have attributed it to
his friend. In fact, he did not know Michael until the revelation
was made; the depths of the man's character escaped him.

The struggle went all against idealism. It was a noble vision, that
of Michael's, but too certainly Jane Snowdon was not the person to
make it a reality; the fearful danger was, that all the
possibilities of her life might be sacrificed to a vain
conscientiousness. Her character was full of purity and sweetness
and self-forgetful warmth, but it had not the strength necessary for
the carrying out of a purpose beset with difficulties and perils.
Michael, it was true, appeared to be aware of this; it did not,
however, gravely disturb him, and for the simple reason that not to
Jane alone did he look for the completion of his design; destiny had
brought him aid such as he could never have anticipated; Jane's
helpmate was at hand, in whom his trust was unbounded.

What was in his way, that Sidney should not accept the
responsibility? Conscience from the first whispered against his
doing so, and the whisper was grown to so loud a voice that not an
adverse argument could get effective hearing. Temptations lurked for
him and sprang out in moments of his weakness, but as temptations
they were at once recognised. 'He had gone too far to retire; he
would be guilty of sheer treachery to Jane; he would break the old
man's heart.' All which meant merely that he loved the girl, and
that it would be like death to part from her. But why part? What had
conscience got hold of, that it made all this clamour? Oh, it was
simple enough; Sidney not only had no faith in the practicability of
such a life's work as Michael visioned, but he had the profoundest
distrust of his own moral strength if he should allow himself to be
committed to lifelong renunciation. 'I am no hero,' he said, 'no
enthusiast. The time when my whole being could be stirred by social
questions has gone by. I am a man in love, and in proportion as my
love has strengthened, so has my old artist-self revived in me,
until now I can imagine no bliss so perfect as to marry Jane Snowdon
and go off to live with her amid fields and trees, where no echo of
the suffering world should ever reach us.' To confess this was to
make it terribly certain that sooner or later the burden of
conscientiousness would become intolerable. Not from Jane would
support come in that event; she, poor child I would fall into
miserable perplexity, in conflict between love and duty, and her
life would be rained.

Of course a man might have said, 'What matter how things arrange
themselves when Michael is past knowledge of them? I will marry the
woman I honestly desire, and together we will carry out this
humanitarian project so long as it be possible. When it ceases to be
so, well--.' But Sidney could not take that view. It shamed him
beyond endurance to think that he must ever avoid Jane's look,
because he had proved himself dishonest, and, what were worse, had
tempted her to become so.

The conflict between desire and scruple made every day a weariness.
Instead of looking forward eagerly to the evening in the week which
he spent with Michael and Jane, he dreaded its approach. Scarcely
had he met Jane's look since this trouble began; he knew that her
voice when she spoke to him expressed consciousness of something new
in their relations, and even whilst continuing to act his part he
suffered ceaselessly. Had Michael ever repeated to his granddaughter
the confession which Sidney would now have given anything to recall?
It was more than possible. Of Jane's feeling Sidney could not
entertain a serious doubt, and he knew that for a long time he had
done his best to encourage it. It was unpardonable to draw aloof
from her just because these circumstances had declared themselves,
circumstances which brought perplexity into her life and doubtless
made her long for another kind of support than Michael could afford
her. The old man himself appeared to be waiting anxiously; he had
fallen back into his habit of long silences, and often regarded
Sidney in a way which the latter only too well understood.

He tried to help himself through the time of indecision by saying
that there was no hurry. Jane was very young, and with the new order
of things her life had in truth only just begun. She must have a
space to look about her; all the better if she could form various
acquaintances. On that account he urged so strongly that she should
be brought into relation with Miss Lant, and, if possible, with
certain of Miss Lant's friends. All very well, had not the reasoning
been utterly insincere. It might have applied to another person; in
Jane's case it was mere sophistry. Her nature was home-keeping; to
force her into alliance with conscious philanthropists was to set
her in the falsest position conceivable; striving to mould herself
to the desires of those she loved, she would suffer patiently and in
secret mourn for the time when she had been obscure and happy. These
things Sidney knew with a certainty only less than that wherewith he
judged his own sensations; between Jane and himself the sympathy was
perfect. And in despite of scruple he would before long have obeyed
the natural impulse of his heart, had it not been that still graver
complications declared themselves, and by exasperating his
over-sensitive pride made him reckless of the pain he gave to others
so long as his own self-torture was made sufficiently acute.

With Joseph Snowdon he was doing his best to be on genial terms, but
the task was a hard one. The more he saw of Joseph, the less he
liked him. Of late the filter manufacturer had begun to strike notes
in his conversation which jarred on Sidney's sensibilities, and made
him disagreeably suspicious that something more was meant than
Joseph cared to put into plain speech. Since his establishment in
business Joseph had become remarkably attentive to his father; he
appeared to enter with much zeal into all that concerned Jane; he
conversed privately with the old man for a couple of hours at a
time, and these dialogues, for some reason or other, he made a point
of reporting to Sidney. According to these reports--and Sidney did
not wholly discredit them--Michael was coming to have a far better
opinion of his son than formerly, was even disposed to speak with
him gravely of his dearest interests.

'We talked no end about you, Sidney, last night,' said Joseph on one
occasion, with the smile, whereby he meant to express the last
degree of friendly intelligence.

And Sidney, though anxiously desiring to know the gist of the
conversation, in this instance was not gratified. He could not bring
himself to put questions, and went away in a mood of vague annoyance
which Joseph had the especial power of exciting.

With the Byasses, Joseph was forming an intimacy; of this too Sidney
became aware, and it irritated him. The exact source of this
irritation he did not at first recognise, but it was disclosed at
length unmistakably enough, and that on the occasion of the visit
recently described. Bessie's pleasantry, which roused him in so
unwonted a manner, could bear, of course, but one meaning; as soon
as he heard it, Sidney saw as in a flash that one remaining aspect
of his position which had not as yet attracted his concern. The
Byasses had learnt, or had been put in the way of surmising, that
Michael Snowdon was wealthy; instantly they passed to the reflection
that in marrying Jane their old acquaintance would be doing an
excellent stroke of business. They were coarse-minded, and Bessie
could even venture to jest with him on this detestable view of his
projects. But was it not very likely that they derived their
information from Joseph Snowdon? And if so, was it not all but
certain that Joseph had suggested to them this way of regarding
Sidney himself?

So when Jane's face appeared at the door he held himself in stubborn
disregard of her. A thing impossible to him, he would have said a
few minutes ago. He revenged himself upon Jane. Good; in this way he
was likely to make noble advances.

The next evening he was due at the Snowdons', and for the very first
time he voluntarily kept away. He posted a note to say that the
business of his removal had made him irregular; he would come next
week, when things were settled once more.

Thus it came to pass that he sat wretchedly in his unfamiliar room
and groaned about 'that accursed money.' His only relief was in
bursts of anger. Why had he not the courage to go to Michael and say
plainly what he thought? 'You have formed a wild scheme, the project
of a fanatic. Its realisation would be a miracle, and in your heart
you must know that Jane's character contains no miraculous
possibilities. You are playing with people's lives, as fanatics
always do. For Heaven's sake, bestow your money on the practical
folks who make a solid business of relieving distress! Jane, I know,
will bless you for making her as poor as ever. Things are going on
about you which you do not suspect. Your son is plotting, plotting;
I can see it. This money will be the cause of endless suffering to
those you really love, and will never be of as much benefit to the
unknown as if practical people dealt with it. Jane is a simple girl,
of infinite goodness; what possesses you that you want to make her
an impossible sort of social saint?' Too hard to speak thus frankly.
Michael had no longer the mental pliancy of even six months ago; his
_idea_ was everything to him; as he became weaker, it would gain the
dire force of an hallucination. And in the meantime he, Sidney, must
submit to be slandered by that fellow who had his own ends to gain.

To marry Jane, and, at the old man's death, resign every farthing of
the money to her trustees, for charitable uses?--But the old pang
of conscience; the life-long wound to Jane's tender heart.

A day of headache and incapacity, during which it was all he could
do to attend to his mechanical work, and again the miserable
loneliness of his attic. It rained, it rained. He had half a mind to
seek refuge at some theatre, but the energy to walk so far was
lacking. And whilst he stood stupidly abstracted there came a knock
at his door.

'I thought I'd just see if you'd got straight,' said Joseph Snowdon,
entering with his genial smile.

Sidney made no reply, but turned as if to stir the fire. Hands in
pockets, Joseph sauntered to a seat.

'Think you'll be comfortable here?' he went on. 'Well, well; of
course it's only temporary.'

'I don't know about that,' returned Sidney. 'I may stay here as long
as I was at the last place--eight years.'

Joseph laughed, with exceeding good-nature.

'Oh yes; I shouldn't wonder,' he said, entering into the joke.
'Still'--becoming serious--'I wish you'd found a pleasanter
place. With the winter coming on, you see--'

Sidney broke in with splenetic perversity.

'I don't know that I shall pass the winter here. My arrangements are
all temporary--all of them.'

After glancing at him the other crossed his legs and seemed to
dispose himself for a stay of some duration.

'You didn't turn up the other night--in Hanover Street.'

'No.'

'I was there. We talked about you. My father has a notion you
haven't been quite well lately. I dare say you're worrying a little,
eh?'

Sidney remained standing by the fireplace, turned so that his face
was in shadow.

'Worry? Oh, I don't know,' he replied, idly.

'Well, _I'm_ worried a good deal, Sidney, and that's the fact.'

'What about?'

'All sorts of things. I've meant to have a long talk with you; but
then I don't quite know how to begin. Well, see, it's chiefly about
Jane.'

Sidney neither moved nor spoke.

'After all, Sidney,' resumed the other, softening his voice, 'I _am_
her father, you see. A precious bad one I've been, that there's no
denying, and dash it if I don't sometimes feel ashamed of myself. I
do when she speaks to me in that pleasant way she has--you know
what I mean. For all that, I am her father, and I think it's only
right I should do my best to make her happy. You agree with that, I
know.'

'Certainly I do.'

'You won't take it ill if I ask whether--in fact, whether you've
ever asked her--you know what I mean.'

'I have not,' Sidney replied, in a clear, unmoved tone, changing his
position at the same time so as to look his interlocutor in the
face.

Joseph seemed relieved.

'Still,' he continued, 'you've given her to understand--eh? I
suppose there's no secret about that?'

'I've often spoken to her very intimately, but I have used no words
such as you are thinking of. It's quite true that my way of behaving
has meant more than ordinary friendship.'

'Yes, yes; you're not offended at me bringing this subject up, old
man? You see, I'm her father, after all, and I think we ought to
understand each other.'

'You are quite right.'

'Well, now, see.' He fidgeted a little. 'Has my father ever told you
that his friend the lawyer, Percival, altogether went against that
way of bringing up Jane?'

'Yes, I know that.'

'You do?' Joseph paused before proceeding. 'To tell you the truth, I
don't much care about Percival. I had a talk with him, you know,
when my business was being settled. No, I don't quite take to him,
so to say. Now, you won't be offended? The fact of the matter is, he
asked some rather queer questions about you--or, at all events, if
they weren't exactly questions, they--they came to the same
thing.'

Sidney was beginning to glare under his brows. Commonsense told him
how very unlikely it was that a respectable solicitor should
compromise himself in talk with a stranger, and that such a man as
J. J. Snowdon; yet, whether the story were true or not, it meant
that Joseph was plotting in some vile way, and thus confirmed his
suspicions. He inquired, briefly and indifferently, what Mr.
Percival's insinuations had been.

'Well, I told you I don't much care for the fellow. He didn't say as
much, mind, but he seemed to be hinting-like that, as Jane's father,
I should do well to--to keep an eye on you--ha, ha! It came to
that, I thought--though, of course, I may have been mistaken. It
shows how little he knows about you and father. I fancy he'd got it
into his head that it was _you_ set father on those plans about
Jane--though _why_ I'd like to know.'

He paused. Sidney kept his eyes down, and said nothing.

'Well, there's quite enough of that; too much. Still I thought I'd
tell you, you see. It's well to know when we've got enemies behind
our backs. But see, Sidney; to speak seriously, between ourselves.'
He leaned forward in the confidential attitude. 'You say you've gone
just a bit further than friendship with our Janey. Well, I don't
know a better man, and that's the truth--but don't you think we
might put this off for a year or two? Look now, here's this lady,
Miss Lant, taking up the girl, and it's an advantage to her; you
won't deny that. I sympathise with my good old dad; I do, honestly;
but I can't help thinking that Janey, in her position, ought to see
a little of the world. There's no secrets between _us_; you know
what she'll have as well as I do. I should be a brute if I grudged
it her, after all she's suffered from my neglect. But don't you
think we might leave her free for a year or two?'

'Yes, I agree with you.'

'You do? I thought you and I could understand each other, if we only
got really talking. Look here, Sidney; I don't mind just whispering
to you. For anything I know, Percival is saying disagreeable things
to the old man; but don't you worry about that. It don't matter a
scrap, you see, so long as you and I keep friendly, eh? I'm talking
very open to you, but it's all for Janey's sake. If you went and
told father I'd been saying anything against Percival--well, it
would make things nasty for me. I've put myself in your hands, but I
know the kind of man you are. It's only right you should hear of
what's said. Don't worry; we'll just wait a little, that's all. I
mean it all for the little girl's sake. It wouldn't be nice if you
married her and then she was told--eh?'

Sidney looked at the speaker steadily, then stirred the fire and
moved about for a few moments. As he kept absolute silence, Joseph,
after throwing out a few vague assurances of goodwill and trust,
rose to take his leave. Kirkwood shook hands with him, but spoke not
a word. Late the same night Sidney penned a letter to Michael
Snowdon. In the morning he read it over, and instead of putting it
into an envelope, locked it away in one of his drawers.

When the evening for his visit to Hanover Street again came round he
again absented himself, this time just calling to leave word with
the servant that business kept him away. The business was that of
walking aimlessly about Clerkenwell, in mud and fog. About ten
o'clock he came to Farringdon Road Buildings, and with a glance up
towards the Hewetts' window he was passing by when a hand clutched
at him. Turning, he saw the face of John Hewett, painfully
disturbed, strained in some wild emotion.

'Sidney! Come this way; I want to speak to you.'

'Why, what's wrong?'

'Come over here. Sidney--I've found my girl--I've found Clara!'

CHAPTER XXVII

CLARA'S RETURN

Mrs. Eagles, a middle-aged woman of something more than average
girth, always took her time in ascending to that fifth storey where
she and her husband shared a tenement with the Hewett family. This
afternoon her pause on each landing was longer than usual, for a
yellow fog, which mocked the pale glimmer of gas-jets on the
staircase, made her gasp asthmatically. She carried, too, a heavy
market-bag, having done her Saturday purchasing earlier than of wont
on account of the intolerable weather. She reached the door at
length, and being too much exhausted to search her pocket for the
latchkey, knocked for admission. Amy Hewett opened to her, and she
sank on a chair in the first room, where the other two Hewett
children were bending over 'home-lessons' with a studiousness not
altogether natural. Mrs. Eagles had a shrewd eye; having glanced at
Annie and Tom with a discreet smile, she turned her look towards the
elder girl, who was standing full in the lamplight.

'Come here, Amy,' she said after a moment's scrutiny. 'So you _will_
keep doin' that foolish thing! Very well, then, I shall have to
speak to your father about it; I'm not goin' to see you make
yourself ill and do nothing to prevent you.'

Amy, now a girl of eleven, affected much indignation.

'Why, I haven't touched a drop, Mrs. Eagles!'

'Now, now, now, now, now! Why, your lips are shrivelled up like a
bit of o' dried orange-peel! You're a silly girl, that's what you
are!'

Of late Amy Hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity;
whenever she could obtain vinegar, she drank it as a toper does
spirits. Inadequate nourishment, and especially an unsatisfied
palate, frequently have this result in female children among the
poor; it is an anticipation of what will befall them as soon as they
find their way to the publichouse.

Having administered a scolding, Mrs. Eagles went into the room which
she and her husband occupied. It was so encumbered with furniture
that not more than eight or ten square feet of floor can have been
available for movement. On the bed sat Mr. Eagles, a spare,
large-headed, ugly, but very thoughtful-looking man; he and Sidney
Kirkwood had been acquaintances and fellow-workmen for some years,
but no close intimacy had arisen between them, owing to the
difference of their tastes and views. Eagles was absorbed in the
study of a certain branch of political statistics; the enthusiasm of
his life was Financial Reform. Every budget presented to Parliament
he criticised with extraordinary thoroughness, and, in fact, with an
acumen which would have made him no inefficient auxiliary of the
Chancellor himself. Of course he took the view that the nation's
resources were iniquitously wasted, and of course had little
difficulty in illustrating a truth so obvious; what distinguished
him from the ordinary malcontent of Clerkenwell Green was his
logical faculty and the surprising extent of the information with
which he had furnished himself. Long before there existed a
'Financial Reform Almanack,' Eagles practically represented that
work in his own person. Disinterested, ardent, with thoughts for but
one subject in the scope of human inquiry, he lived contentedly on
his two pounds a week, and was for ever engaged in the theoretic
manipulation of millions. Utopian budgets multiplied themselves in
his brain and his note-books. He devised imposts such as Minister
never dreamt of, yet which, he declared, could not fail of vast
success. 'You just look at these figures!' he would exclaim to
Sidney, in his low, intense voice. 'There it is in black and white!'
But Sidney's faculties were quite unequal to calculations of this
kind, and Eagles could never summon resolve to explain his schemes
before an audience. Indefatigably he worked on, and the work had to
be its own reward.

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