The Nether World

G >> George Gissing >> The Nether World

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36

'Why Wasn't you at work? Where's your week's money?'

'I haven't got any.'

'You haven't got any? Why not?'

For a while she was stubbornly silent, but Hewett constrained her to
confession at length. On his way home to-day he had been informed by
an acquaintance that Amy was wandering about the streets at an hour
when she ought to have been at her employment. Unable to put off the
evil moment any longer, the girl admitted that four days ago she was
dismissed for bad behaviour, and that since then she had pretended
to go to work as usual. The trifling sum paid to her on dismissal
she had spent.

John turned to his youngest daughter and asked in a hollow voice:

'Where's Clara?'

'She's got one of her headaches, father,' replied the girl,
trembling.

He turned and went from the room.

It was long since he had lost his place of porter at the
filter-works. Before leaving England, Joseph Snowdon managed to
dispose of his interest in the firm of Lake, Snowdon, & Co., and at
the same time Hewett was informed that his wages would be reduced by
five shillings a week--the sum which had been supplied by Michael
Snowdon's benevolence. It was a serious loss. Clara's marriage
removed one grave anxiety, but the three children had still to be
brought up, and with every year John's chance of steady employment
would grow less. Sidney Kirkwood declared himself able and willing
to help substantially, but he might before long have children of his
own to think of, and in any case it was Shameful to burden him in
this way.

Shameful or not, it very soon came to pass that Sidney had the whole
family on his hands. A bad attack of rheumatism in the succeeding
winter made John incapable of earning any. thing at all; for two
months he was a cripple. Till then Sidney and his wife had occupied
lodgings in Holloway; when it became evident that Hewett must not
hope to be able to support his children, and when Sidney had for
many weeks p aid the rent (as well as supplying the money to live
upon) in Farringdon Road Buildings, the house at Crouch End was
taken, and there all went to live together. Clara's health was very
uncertain, and though at first she spoke frequently of finding work
to do at home, the birth of a child put an end to such projects. Amy
Hewett was shortly at the point when the education of a board-school
child is said to be 'finished;' by good luck, employment was found
for her in Kentish Town, with three shillings a week from the first.
John could not resign himself to being a mere burden on the home.
Enforced idleness so fretted him that at times he seemed all but out
of his wits. In despair he caught at the strangest kinds of casual
occupation; when earning nothing, he would barely eat enough to keep
himself alive, and if he succeeded in bringing home a shilling or
two, he turned the money about in his hands with a sort of angry joy
that it would have made your heart ache to witness. Just at present
he had a job of cleaning and whitewashing some cellars in Stoke
Newington.

He was absent from the kitchen for five minutes, during which time
the three sat round the table. Amy pretended to eat unconcernedly;
Tom made grimaces at her. As for Annie, she cried. Their father
entered the room again.

'Why didn't you tell us about this at once?' he asked, in a shaking
voice, looking at his daughter with eyes of blank misery.

'I don't know.'

'You're a bad, selfish girl!' he broke out, again overcome with
anger. 'Haven't you got neither sense nor feelin' nor honesty? Just
when you ought to have begun to earn a bit higher wages--when you
ought to have been glad to work your hardest, to show you wasn't
unthankful to them as has done so much for you! Who earned money to
keep you when you was goin' to school? Who fed and clothed you, and
saw as you didn't want for nothing? Who is it as you owe everything
to?--just tell me that.'

Amy affected to pay no attention. She kept swallowing morsels, with
ugly movements of her lips and jaws.

'How often have I to tell you all that if it wasn't for Sidney
Kirkwood you'd have been workhouse children? As sure as you're
livin', you'd all of you have gone to the workhouse! And you go on
just as if you didn't owe thanks to nobody. I tell you it'll be
years and years before one of you'll have a penny you can call your
own. If it was Annie or Tom behaved so careless, there'd be less
wonder; but for a girl of your age--I'm ashamed as you belong to
me! You can't even keep your tongue from bein' impudent to Clara,
her as you ain't worthy to be a servant to!'

'Clara's a sneak,' observed Tom, with much coolness. 'She's always
telling lies about us.'

'I'll half-knock your young head off your shoulders,' cried his
father, furiously, 'if you talk to me like that! Not one of you's
fit to live in the same house with her.'

'Father, I haven't done nothing,' whimpered Annie, hurt by being
thus included in his reprobation.

'No more you have--not just now, but you're often enough more
trouble to your sister than you need be. But it's you I'm talkin'
to, Amy. You dare to leave this house again till there's another
place found for you! If you'd any self-respect, you couldn't bear to
look Sidney in the face. Suppose you hadn't such a brother to work
for you, what would you do, eh? Who'd buy your food? Who'd pay the
rent of the house you live in?'

A noteworthy difference between children of this standing and such
as pass their years of play-time in homes unshadowed by poverty. For
these, life had no illusions. Of every mouthful that they ate, the
price was known to them. The roof over their heads was there by no
grace of Providence, but solely because such-and-such a sum was paid
weekly in hard cash, when the collector came; let the payment fail,
and they knew perfectly well what the result would be. The children
of the upper world could not even by chance give a thought to the
sources whence their needs are supplied; speech on such a subject in
their presence would be held indecent. In John Hewett's position,
the indecency, the crime, would have been to keep silence and
pretend that the needs of existence are ministered to as a matter of
course.

His tone and language were pitifully those of feeble age. The
emotion proved too great a strain upon his body, and he had at
length to sit down in a tremulous state, miserable with the
consciousness of failing authority. He would have made but a poor
figure now upon Clerkenwell Green. Even as his frame was shrunken,
so had the circle of his interests contracted; he could no longer
speak or think on the subjects which had fired him through the
better part of his life; if he was driven to try and utter himself
on the broad questions of social wrong, of the people's cause, a
senile stammering of incoherencies was the only result. The fight
had. ever gone against John Hewett; he was one of those who are born
to be defeated. His failing energies spent themselves in conflict
with his own children; the concerns of a miserable home were all his
mind could now cope with.

'Come and sit down to your dinner, father,' Annie said, when he
became silent.

'Dinner? I want no dinner. I've no stomach for food when it's
stolen. What's Sidney goin' to have when he comes home?'

'He said he'd do with bread and cheese to-day. See, we've cut some
meat for you?'

'You keep that for Sidney, then, and don't one of you dare to say
anything about it. Cut me a bit of bread, Annie.'

She did so. He ate it, standing by the fireplace, drank a glass of
water, and went into the sitting-room. There he sat unoccupied for
nearly an hour, his head at times dropping forward as if he were
nearly asleep; but it was only in abstraction. The morning's work
had wearied him excessively, as such effort always did, but the
mental misery he was suffering made him unconscious of bodily
fatigue.

The clinking and grinding of the gate drew his attention; he stood
up and saw his son-in-law, returned from Clerkenwell. When he had
heard the house-door grind and shake and close, he called 'Sidney!'

Sidney looked into the parlour, with a smile.

'Come in here a minute; I want to speak to you.'

It was a face that told of many troubles. Sidney might resolutely
keep a bright countenance, but there was no hiding the sallowness of
his cheeks and the lines drawn by ever-wakeful anxiety. The effect
of a struggle with mean necessities is seldom anything but
degradation, in look and in character; but Sidney's temper, and the
conditions of his life, preserved him against that danger. His
features, worn into thinness, seem to present more distinctly than
ever their points of refinement. You saw that he was habitually a
grave and silent man; all the more attractive his aspect when, as
now, he seemed to rest from thought and give expression to his
natural kindliness. In the matter of attire he was no longer as
careful as he used to be; the clothes he wore had done more than
just service, and hung about him unregarded.

'Clara upstairs?' he asked, when he had noticed Hewett's look.

'Yes; she's lying down. May's been troublesome all the morning. But
it was something else I meant.'

And John began to speak of Amy's ill-doing. He had always in some
degree a sense of shame when he spoke privately with Sidney, always
felt painfully the injustice involved in their relations. At present
he could not look Kirkwood in the face, and his tone was that of a
man who abases himself to make confession of guilt.

Sidney was gravely concerned. It was his habit to deal with the
children's faults good-naturedly, to urge John not to take a sombre
view of their thoughtlessness; but the present instance could not be
made light of. Secretly he had always expected that the girl would
be a source of more serious trouble the older she grew. He sat in
silence, leaning forward, his eyes bent down.

'It's no good whatever _I_ say,' lamented Hewett. 'They don't heed
me. Why must I have children like these? Haven't I always done my
best to teach them to be honest and good-hearted? If I'd spent my
life in the worst ways a man can, they couldn't have turned out more
worthless. Haven't I wished always what was right and good and true?
Haven't I always spoke up for justice in the world? Haven't I done
what I could, Sidney, to be helpful to them as fell into misfortune?
And now in my old age I'm only a burden, and the children as come
after me are nothing but a misery to all as have to do with them. If
it wasn't for Clara I feel I couldn't live my time out. She's the
one that pays me back for the love I've given her. All the others--
I can't feel as they're children of mine at all.'

It was a strange and touching thing that he seemed nowadays utterly
to have forgotten Clara's past. Invariably he spoke of her as if she
had at all times been his stay and comfort. The name of his son who
was dead never passed his lips, but of Clara he could not speak too
long or too tenderly.

'I can't think what to do,' Sidney said. 'If I talk to her in a
fault-finding way, she'll only dislike me the more; she feels I've
no business to interfere.'

'You're too soft with them. You spoil them. Why, there's one of them
broken a pane in the kitchen to-day, end they know you'll take it
quiet, like you do everything else.'

Sidney wrinkled his brow. These petty expenses, ever repeated, were
just what made the difficulty in his budget; he winced whenever such
demands encroached upon the poor weekly income of which every penny
was too little for the serious needs of the family. Feeling that if
he sat and thought much longer a dark mood would seize upon him, he
rose hastily.

'I shall try kindness with her. Don't say anything more in her
hearing.'

He went to the kitchen-door, and cried cheerfully, 'My dinner ready,
girls?'

Annie's voice replied with a timorous affirmative.

'All right; I'll be down in a minute.'

Treading as gently as possible, he ascended the stairs and entered
his bedroom. The blind was drawn down, but sunlight shone through it
and made a softened glow in the chamber. In a little cot was sitting
his child, May, rather more than a year old; she had toys about her,
and was for the moment contented. Clara lay on the bed, her face
turned so that Sidney could not see it. He spoke to her, and she
just moved her arm, but gave no reply.

'Do you wish to be left alone?' he asked, in a subdued and troubled
voice.

'Yes.'

'Shall I take May downstairs?'

'If you like. Don't speak to me now.'

He remained standing by the bed for a minute, then turned his eyes
on the child, who smiled at him. He could not smile in return, but
went quietly away.

'It's one of her bad days,' whispered Hewett, who met him at the
foot of the stairs. 'She can't help it, poor girl!'

'No, no.'

Sidney ate what was put before him without giving a thought to it.
When his eyes wandered round the kitchen the disorder and dirt
worried him, but on that subject he could not speak. His hunger
appeased, he looked steadily at Amy, and said in a kindly tone:

'Father tells me you've had a stroke of bad luck, Amy. We must have
a try at another place, mustn't we? Hollo, there's a window broken!
Has Tom been playing at cricket in the room, eh?'

The girls kept silence.

'Come and let's make out the list for our shopping this afternoon,'
he continued. 'I'm afraid there'll have to be something the less for
that window, girls; what do _you_ say?'

'We'll do without a pudding to-morrow, Sidney,' suggested Annie.

'Oh come, now! I'm fond of pudding.'

Thus it was always; if he could not direct by kindness, he would
never try to rule by harsh words. Six years ago it was not so easy
for him to be gentle under provocation, and he would then have made
a better disciplinarian in such a home as this. On Amy and Tom all
his rare goodness was thrown away. Never mind; shall one go over to
the side of evil because one despairs of vanquishing it?

The budget, the budget! Always so many things perforce cut out;
always such cruel pressure of things that _could_ not be cut out. In
the early days of his marriage he had accustomed himself to a
liberality of expenditure out of proportion to his income; the
little store of savings allowed him to indulge his kindness to Clara
and her relatives, and he kept putting off to the future that strict
revision of outlay which his position of course demanded. The day
when he had no longer a choice came all too soon; with alarm he
discovered that his savings had melted away; the few sovereigns
remaining must be sternly guarded for the hour of stern necessity.
How it ground on his sensibilities when he was compelled to refuse
some request from Clara or the girls! His generous nature suffered
pangs of self-contempt as often as there was talk of economy.
To-day, for instance, whilst he was worrying in thought over Amy's
behaviour, and at the same time trying to cut down the Saturday's
purchases in order to pay for the broken window, up comes Tom with
the announcement that he lost his hat this morning, and had to
return bareheaded. Another unforeseen expense! And Sidney was angry
with himself for his impulse of anger against the boy.

Clara never went out to make purchases, seldom indeed left the house
for any reason, unless Sidney persuaded her to walk a short distance
with him after sundown, when she veiled herself closely. Neither Amy
nor Anne could be trusted to do all the shopping, so that Sidney
generally accompanied one or other of them for that purpose on
Saturday afternoon. To-day he asked Amy to go with him, wishing, if
possible, to influence her for good by kind, brotherly talk. Whilst
she was getting ready he took John aside into the parlour, to impart
a strange piece of news he had brought from Clerkenwell.

'Mrs. Peckover has had a narrow escape of being poisoned. She was
found by one of her lodgers all but dead, and last night the police
arrested her daughter on the charge.'

'Mrs. Snowdon?'

'Yes. The mother has accused her. There's a man concerned in the
affair. One of the men showed me a report in to-day's paper; I
didn't buy one, because we shall have it in the Sunday paper
to-morrow. Nice business, oh?'

'That's for the old woman's money, I'll wager!' exclaimed Hewett, in
an awed voice. 'I can believe it of Clem; if ever there was a
downright bad 'un! Was she living in the Close?'

'Mrs. Snowdon wasn't. Somewhere in Hoxton. No doubt it was for the
money--if the charge is true. We won't speak of it before the
children.'

'Think of that, now! Many's the time I've looked at Clem Peckover
and said to myself, "You'll come to no good end, my lady!" She was a
fierce an' bad 'un.'

Sidney nodded, and went off for his walk with Amy. . . .

It was a difficult thing to keep any room in the house orderly, and
Sidney, as part of his struggle against the downward tendency in all
about him, against the forces of chaos, often did the work of
housemaid in the parlour; a little laxity in the rules which made
this a sacred corner, and there would have been no spot where he
could rest. With some suceess, too, he had resisted the habit
prevalent in working-class homes of prolonging Saturday evening's
occupations until the early hours of Sunday morning. At a little
after ten o'clock tonight John Hewett and the children were in bed;
he too, weary in mind and body, would gladly have gone upstairs, but
he lingered from one five minutes to the next, his heart sinking at
the certainty that he would find Clara in sleepless misery which he
had no power to allay.

Round the walls of the parlour were hung his own drawings, which
used to conceal the bareness of his lodging in Tysoe Street. It was
three years since he had touched a pencil; the last time having been
when he made holiday with Michael Snowdon and Jane at the farm-house
by Danbury Hill. The impulse would never come again. It was
associated with happiness, with hope; and What had his life to do
with one or the other? Could he have effected the change without the
necessity of explaining it, he would gladly have put those drawings
out of sight. Whenever, as now, he consciously regarded them, they
plucked painfully at his heart-strings, and threatened to make him a
coward.

None of that! He had his work to do, happiness or no happiness, and
by all the virtue of manhood he would not fail in it--as far as
success or failure was a question of his own resolve.

The few books he owned were placed on hanging shelves; among them
those which he had purchased for Clara since their marriage. But
reading was as much a thing of the past as drawing. Never a moment
when his mind was sufficiently at ease to refresh itself with other
men's thoughts or fancies. As with John Hewett, so with himself; the
circle of his interests had shrivelled, until it included nothing
but the cares of his family, the cost of house and food and firing.
As a younger man, he had believed that he knew what was meant by the
struggle for existence in the nether world; it seemed to him now as
if such knowledge had been only theoretical. Oh, it was easy to
preach a high ideal of existence for the poor, as long as one had a
considerable margin over the week's expenses; easy to rebuke the men
and women who tried to forget themselves in beer-shops and
gin-houses, as long as one could take up some rational amusement
with a quiet heart. Now, on his return home from labour, it was all
he could do not to sink in exhaustion and defeat of spirit.
Shillings and pence; shillings and pence--never a question of
pounds, unfortunately; and always too few of them. He understood how
men have gone mad under pressure of household cares; he realised the
horrible temptation which has made men turn dastardly from the path
leading homeward and leave those there to shift for themselves.

When on the point of lowering the lamp he heard someone coming
downstairs. The door opened, and, to his surprise, Clara came in.
Familiarity could not make him insensible to that disfigurement of
her once beautiful face; his eyes always fell before her at the
first moment of meeting.

'What are you doing?' she asked. 'Why don't you come up?'

'I was that minute coming.'

His hand went again to the lamp, but she checked him. In a low,
wailing, heart-breaking voice, and with a passionate gesture, she
exclaimed, 'Oh, I feel as if I should go mad I can't bear it much
longer!'

Sidney was silent at first, then said quietly, 'Let's sit here for a
little. No wonder you feel low-spirited, lying in that room all day.
I'd gladly have come and sat with you, but my company only seems to
irritate you.'

'What good can you do me? You only think I'm making you miserable
without a cause. You won't say it, but that's what you always think;
and when I feel that, I can't bear to have you near. If only I could
die and come to the end of it! How can you tell what I suffer? Oh
yes, you speak so calmly--as good as telling me I am unreasonable
because I can't do the same. I hate to hear your voice when it's
like that! I'd rather you raged at me or struck me!'

The beauty of her form had lost nothing since the evening when he
visited her in Farringdon Road Buildings; now, as then, all her
movements were full of grace and natural dignity. Whenever strong
feeling was active in her, she could not but manifest it in motion
unlike that of ordinary women. Her hair hung in disorder, though net
at its full length, massing itself upon her shoulders, shadowing her
forehead. Half-consumed by the fire that only death would
extinguish, she looked the taller for her slenderness. Ah, had the
face been untouched!

'You are unjust to me,' Sidney replied, with emotion, but not
resentfully. 'I can enter into all your sufferings. If I speak
calmly, it's because I _must_, because I daren't give way. One of us
must try and be strong, Clara, or else--'

He turned away.

'Let us leave this house,' she continued, hardly noticing what he
said, 'Let us live in some other place. Never any change--always,
always the same walls to look at day and night--it's driving me
mad!'

'Clara, we can't move. I daren't spend even the little money it
would cost. Do you know what Amy has been doing?'

'Yes; father told me.'

'How can we go to the least needless expense, when every day makes
living harder for us?'

'What have we to do with them? How can you be expected to keep a
whole family? It isn't fair to you or to me. You sacrifice me to
them. It's nothing to you what I endure, so long as they are kept in
comfort!'

He stepped nearer to her.

'What do you really mean by that? Is it seriously your wish that I
should tell them--your father and your sisters and our brother--
to leave the house and support themselves as best they can? Pray,
what would become of them? Kept in comfort, are they? How much
_comfort_ does your poor father enjoy? Do you wish me to tell him to
go out into the street, as I can help him no more?'

She moaned and made a wild gesture.

'You know all this to be impossible; you don't wish it; you couldn't
bear it. Then why will you drive me almost to despair by complaining
so of what can't be helped? Surely you foresaw it all. You knew that
I was only a working man. It isn't as if there had been any hope of
my making a larger income, and you were disappointed.'

'Does it make it easier to bear because there is no hope of relief?'
she cried,

'For me, yes. If there _were_ hope, I might fret under the misery.'

'Oh, I had hope once! It might have been so different with me. The
thought burns and burns and burns, till I am frantic. You don't help
me to bear it. You leave me alone when I most need help. How can
_you_ know what it means to me to look back and think of what might
have been? You say to yourself I am selfish, that I ought to be
thankful some. one took pity on me, poor, wretched creature that I
am. It would have been kinder never to have come near me. I should
have killed myself long ago, and there an end. You thought it was a
great thing to take me, when you might have had a wife who would--'

'Clara! Clara! When you speak like that, I could almost believe you
are really mad. For Heaven's sake, think what you are saying!
Suppose I were to reproach you with having consented to marry me? I
would rather die than let such a word pass my lips--but suppose
you heard me speaking to you like this?'

She drew a deep sigh, and let her hands fall. Sidney continued in
quite another voice:

'It's one of the hardest things I have to bear, that I can't make
your life pleasanter. Of course you need change; I know it only too
well. You and I ought to have our holiday at this time of the year,
like other people. I fancy I should like to go into the country
myself; Clerkenwell isn't such a beautiful place that one can be
content to go there day after day, year after year, without variety.
But we have no money. Suffer as we may, there's no help for it--
because we have no money. Lives may be wasted--worse, far worse
than wasted--just because there is no money. At this moment a
whole world of men and women is in pain and sorrow--because they
have no money. How often have we said that? The world is made so;
everything has to be bought with money.'

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36