The Nether World

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Clara made no reply. On the way home she was mute. Scawthorne took
leave of her in Upper Street, and promised to look in again before
long. . . .

Under the heat of these summer days, in the reeking atmosphere of
the bar, Clara panted fever-stricken. The weeks went on; what
strength supported her from the Monday morning to the Saturday
midnight she could not tell. Acting and refraining, speaking and
holding silence, these things were no longer the consequences of her
own volition. She wished to break free from her slavery, but had not
the force to do so; something held her voice as often as she was
about to tell Mrs. Tubbs that this week would be the last. Her body
wasted so that all the garments she wore were loose upon her. The
only mental process of which she was capable was reviewing the
misery of days just past and anticipating that of the days to come.
Her only feelings were infinite self-pity and a dull smouldering
hatred of all others in the world. A doctor would have bidden her
take to bed, as one in danger of grave illness. She bore through it
without change in her habits, and in time the strange lethargy
passed.

Scawthorne came to the bar frequently. He remarked often on her look
of suffering, and urged a holiday. At length, near the end of July,
he invited her to go up the river with him on the coming
Bank-holiday. Clara consented, though aware that her presence would
be more than ever necessary at the bar on the day of much drinking.
Later in the evening she addressed her demand to Mrs. Tubbs. It was
refused.

Without a word of anger, Clara went upstairs, prepared herself for
walking, and set forth among the by-ways of Islington. In half an
hour she had found a cheap bedroom, for which she paid a week's rent
in advance. She purchased a few articles of food and carried them to
her lodging, then lay down in the darkness.

CHAPTER X

THE LAST COMBAT

During these summer months Sidney Kirkwood's visits to the house in
Clerkenwell Close were comparatively rare. It was not his own wish
to relax in any degree the close friendship so long subsisting
between the Hewetts and himself, but from the day of Clara's
engagement with Mrs. Tubbs John Hewett began to alter in his
treatment of him. At first there was nothing more than found its
natural explanation in regret of what had happened, a tendency to
muteness, to troubled brooding; but before long John made it
unmistakable that the young man's presence was irksome to him. If,
on coming home, he found Sidney with Mrs. Hewett and the children, a
cold nod was the only greeting he offered; then followed signs of
ill-humour, such as Sidney could not in the end fail to interpret as
unfavourable to himself. He never heard Clara's name on her father's
lips, and himself never uttered it when John was in hearing.

'She told him what passed between us that night,' Sidney argued
inwardly. But it was not so. Hewett had merely abandoned himself to
an unreasonable resentment. Notwithstanding his concessions, he
blamed Sidney for the girl's leaving home, and, as his mood grew
more irritable, the more hopeless it seemed that Clara would return,
he nursed the suspicion of treacherous behaviour on Sidney's part.
He would not take into account any such thing as pride which could
forbid the young man to urge a rejected suit. Sidney had grown tired
of Clara, that was the truth, and gladly caught at any means of
excusing himself. He had made new friends. Mrs. Peckover reported
that he was a constant visitor at the old man Snowdon's lodgings;
she expressed her belief that Snowdon had come back from Australia
with a little store of money, and if Kirkwood had knowledge of that,
would it not explain his interest in Jane Snowdon?

'For shame to listen to such things!' cried Mrs. Hewett angrily,
when her husband once repeated the landlady's words, 'I'd be ashamed
of myself, John! If you don't know him no better than that, you
ought to by this time.'

And John did, in fact, take to himself no little shame, but his
unsatisfied affection turned all the old feelings to bitterness. In
spite of himself, he blundered along the path of perversity. Sidney,
too, had his promptings of obstinate humour. When he distinctly
recognised Hewett's feeling it galled him; he was being treated with
gross injustice, and temper suggested reprisals which could answer
no purpose but to torment him with self-condemnation. However, he
must needs consult his own dignity; he could not keep defending
himself against ignoble charges. For the present, there was no
choice but to accept John's hints, and hold apart as much as was
possible without absolute breach of friendly relations. Nor could he
bring himself to approach Clara. It was often in his mind to write
to her; had he obeyed the voice of his desire he would have penned
such letters as only the self-abasement of a passionate lover can
dictate. But herein, too, the strain of sternness that marked his
character made its influence felt. He said to himself that the only
hope of Clara's respecting him lay in his preservation of the
attitude he had adopted, and as the months went on he found a bitter
satisfaction in adhering so firmly to his purpose. The self-flattery
with which no man can dispense whispered assurance that Clara only
thought the more of him the longer he held aloof. When the end of
July came, he definitely prescribed to his patience a trial of yet
one more month. Then he would write Clara a long letter, telling her
what it had cost him to keep silence, and declaring the constancy he
devoted to her.

This resolve he registered whilst at work one morning. The
triumphant sunshine, refusing to be excluded even from London
workshops, gleamed upon his tools and on the scraps of jewellery
before him; he looked up to the blue sky, and thought with heavy
heart of many a lane in Surrey and in Essex where he might be
wandering but for this ceaseless necessity of earning the week's
wage. A fly buzzed loudly against the grimy window, and by one of
those associations which time and change cannot affect, he mused
himself back into boyhood. The glimpse before him of St. John's Arch
aided the revival of old impressions; his hand ceased from its
mechanical activity, and he was absorbed in a waking dream, when a
voice called to him and said that he was wanted. He went down to the
entrance, and there found Mrs. Hewett. Her coming at all was enough
to signal some disaster, and the trouble on her face caused Sidney
to regard her with silent interrogation.

'I couldn't help comin' to you,' she began, gazing at him fixedly.
'I know you can't do anything, but I had to speak to somebody, an' I
know nobody better than you. It's about Clara.'

'What about her?'

'She's left Mrs. Tubbs. They had words about Bank-holiday last
night, an' Clara went off at once. Mrs. Tubbs thought she'd come
'ome, but this mornin' her box was sent for, an' it was to be took
to a house in Islington. An' then Mrs. Tubbs came an' told me. An'
there's worse than that, Sidney. She's been goin' about to the
theatre an' such places with a man as she got to know at the bar,
an' Mrs. Tubbs says she believes it's him has tempted her away.'

She spoke the last sentences in a low voice, painfully watching
their effect.

'And why hasn't Mrs. Tubbs spoken about this before?' Sidney asked,
also in a subdued voice, but without other show of agitation.

'That's just what, I said to her myself. The girl was in her charge,
an' it was her duty to let us know if things went wrong. But how am
I to tell her father? I dursn't do it, Sidney; for my life, I
dursn't! I'd go an' see her where she's lodging--see, I've got the
address wrote down here--but I should do more harm than good;
she'd never pay any heed to me at the best of times, an' it isn't
likely she would now.'

'Look here if she's made no attempt to hide away, you may be quite
sure there's no truth in what Mrs. Tubbs says. They've quarrelled,
and of course the woman makes Clara as black as she can. Tell her
father everything as soon as he comes home; you've no choice.'

Mrs. Hewett averted her face in profound dejection. Sidney learnt at
length what her desire had been in coming to him; she hoped he would
see Clara and persuade her to return home.

'I dursn't tell her' father,' she kept repeating. 'But perhaps it
isn't true what Mrs. Tubbs says. Do go an' speak to her before it's
too late. Say we won't ask her to come 'ome, if only she'll let us
know what she's goin' to do.'

In the end he promised to perform this service, and to communicate
the result that evening. It was Saturday; at half-past one he left
the workroom, hastened home to prepare himself for the visit, and,
without thinking of dinner, set out to find the address Mrs. Hewett
had given him. His steps were directed to a dull street on the north
of Pentonville Road; the house at which he mad e inquiry was
occupied by a drum-manufacturer. Miss Hewett, he learnt, was not at
home; she had gone forth two hours ago, and nothing was known of her
movements. Sidney turned away and began to walk up and down the
shadowed side of the street; there was no breath of air stirring,
and from the open windows radiated stuffy odours. A quarter of an
hour sufficed to exasperate him with anxiety and physical malaise.
He suffered from his inability to do anything at once, from conflict
with himself as to whether or not it behoved him to speak with John
Hewett; of Clara he thought with anger rather than fear, for her
behaviour seemed to prove that nothing had happened save the
inevitable breach with Mrs. Tubbs. Just as he had said to himself
that it was no use waiting about all the afternoon, he saw Clara
approaching. At sight of him she manifested neither surprise nor
annoyance, but came forward with eyes carelessly averted. Not having
seen her for so long, Sidney was startled by the change in her
features; her cheeks had sunk, her eyes were unnaturally dark, there
was something worse than the familiar self-will about her lips.

'I've been waiting to see you,' he said. 'Will you walk along here
for a minute or two?'

'What do you want to say? I'm tired.'

'Mrs. Tubbs has told your mother what has happened, and she came to
me. Your father doesn't know yet.'

'It's nothing to me whether he knows or not. I've left the place,
that's all, and I'm going to live here till I've got another.'

'Why not go home?'

'Because I don't choose to. I don't see that it concerns you, Mr.
Kirkwood.'

Their eyes met, and Sidney felt how little fitted he was to reason
with the girl, even would she consent to hear him. His mood was the
wrong one; the torrid sunshine seemed to kindle an evil fire in him,
and with difficulty he kept back words of angry unreason; he even--
strangest of inconsistencies--experienced a kind of brutal
pleasure in her obvious misery. Already she was reaping the fruit of
obstinate folly. Clara read what his eyes expressed; she trembled
with responsive hostility.

'No, it doesn't concern me,' Sidney replied, half turning away. 'But
it's perhaps as well you should know that Mrs. Tubbs is doing her
best to take away your good name. However little we are to each
other, it's my duty to tell you that, and put you on your guard. I
hope your father mayn't hear these stories before you have spoken to
him yourself.'

Clara listened with a contemptuous smile.

'What has she been saying?'

'I shan't repeat it.'

As he gazed at her, the haggardness of her countenance smote like a
sword-edge through all the black humours about his heart, piercing
the very core of love and pity. He spoke in a voice of passionate
appeal.

'Clara, come home before it is too late! Come with me--now--come
at once? Thank heaven you have got out of that place! Come home, and
stay there quietly till we can find you something better.'

'I'll die rather than go home!' was her answer, flung at him as if
in hatred. 'Tell my father that, and tell him anything else you
like. I want no one to take any thought for me; and I wouldn't do as
_you_ wish, not to save my soul!'

How often, in passing along the streets, one catches a few phrases
of discord such as this! The poor can seldom command privacy; their
scenes alike of tenderness and of anger must for the most part be
enacted on the peopled ways. It is one of their misfortunes, one of
the many necessities which blunt feeling, which balk reconciliation,
which enhance the risks of dialogue at best semi-articulate.

Clara, having uttered the rancour which had so long poisoned her
mind, straightway crossed the street and entered the house where she
was lodging. She had just returned from making several applications
for employment--futile, as so many were likely to be, if she
persevered in her search for a better place than the last. The wages
due to her for the present week she had of course sacrificed; her
purchases of clothing--essential and superfluous--had left only
a small sum out of her earnings. Food, fortunately, would cost her
little; the difficulty, indeed, was to eat anything at all.

She was exhausted after her long walk, and the scene with Sidney had
made her tremulous. In thrusting open the windows, as soon as she
entered, she broke a pane which was already cracked; the glass cut
into her palm, and blood streamed forth. For a moment she watched
the red drops falling to the floor, then began to sob miserably,
almost as a child might have done. The exertion necessary for
binding the wound seemed beyond her strength; sobbing and moaning,
she stood in the same attitude until the blood began to congeal. The
tears, too, she let dry unneeded upon her eyelashes and her cheeks;
the mist with which for a time they obscured her vision was nothing
amid that cloud of misery which blackened about her spirit as she
brooded. The access of self-pity was followed, as always, by a
persistent sense of intolerable wrong, and that again by a fierce
desire to plunge herself into ruin, as though by such act she could
satiate her instincts of defiance. It is a phase of exasperated egotism
common enough in original natures frustrated by circumstance--never
so pronounced as in those who suffer from the social disease. Such
mood perverts everything to cause of bitterness. The very force of
sincerity, which Clara could not but recognise in Kirkwood's appeal,
inflamed the resentment she nourished against him; she felt that to
yield would be salvation and happiness, yet yield she might not, and
upon him she visited the anger due to the evil impulses in her own
heart. He spoke of her father, and in so doing struck the only nerve
in her which conveyed an emotion of tenderness; instantly the feeling
begot self-reproach, and of self-reproach was born as quickly the
harsh self-justification with which her pride ever answered blame.
She had made her father's life even more unhappy than it need have
been, and to be reminded of that only drove her more resolutely upon
the recklessness which would complete her ingratitude.

The afternoon wore away, the evening, a great part of the night. She
ate a few mouthfuls of bread, but could not exert herself to make
tea. It would be necessary to light a fire, and already the air of
the room was stifling.

After a night of sleeplessness, she could only lie on her bed
through the Sunday morning, wretched in a sense of abandonment. And
then began to assail her that last and subtlest of temptations, the
thought that already she had taken an irrevocable step, that an
endeavour to return would only be trouble spent in vain, that the
easy course was, in truth, the only one now open to her. Mrs. Tubbs
was busy circulating calumnies; that they were nothing more than
calumnies could never be proved; all who heard them would readily
enough believe. Why should she struggle uselessly to justify herself
in the eyes of people predisposed to condemn her? Fate was busy in
all that had happened during the last two days. Why had she quitted
her situation at a moment's notice? Why on this occasion rather than
fifty times previously? It was not her own doing; something impelled
her, and the same force--call it chance or destiny--would direct
the issue once more. All she could foresee was the keeping of her
appointment with Scawthorne to-morrow morning; what use to try and
look further, when assuredly a succession of circumstances
impossible to calculate would in the end constrain her? The best
would be if she could sleep out the interval.

At mid-day she rose, ate and drank mechanically, then contemplated
the hours that must somehow be killed. There was sunlight in the
sky, but to what purpose should she go out? She went to the window,
and surveyed the portion of street that was visible. On the opposite
pavement, at a little distance, a man was standing; it was Sidney
Kirkwood. The sight of him roused her from apathy; her blood
tingled, rushed into her cheeks and throbbed at her temples. So, for
all she had said, he was daring to act the spy! He suspected her; he
was lurking to surprise visitors, to watch her outgoing and coming
in. Very well; at least he had provided her with occupation.

Five minutes later she saw that he had gone away. Thereupon--
having in the meantime clad herself--she left the house and walked
at a quick step towards a region Of North London with which she had
no acquaintance. In an hour's time she had found another lodging,
which she took by the day only. Then back again to Islington. She
told her landlady that a sudden necessity compelled her to leave;
she would have a cab and remove her box at once. There was the
hazard that Sidney might return just as she was leaving; she braved
it, and in another ten minutes was out of reach. .

Let his be the blame. She had warned him, and he chose to disregard
her wish. Now she had cut the last bond that fretted her, and the
hours rushed on like a storm-wind driving her whither they would.

Her mind was relieved from the stress of conflict; despair had given
place to something that made her laugh at all the old scruples. So
far from dreading the judgments that would follow her disappearance,
she felt a pride in evil repute. Let them talk of her! If she dared
everything, it would be well understood that she had not done so
without a prospect worthy of herself. If she broke away from the
obligations of a life that could never be other than poor and
commonplace, those who knew her would estimate the compensation she
had found. Sidney Kirkwood was aware of her ambitions; for his own
sake he had hoped to keep her on the low level to which she was
born; now let him recognise his folly! Some day she would present
herself before him:--'Very sorry that I could not oblige you, my
dear sir, but you see that my lot was to be rather different from
that you kindly planned for me.' Let them gossip and envy!

It was a strange night that followed. Between one and two o'clock
the heavens began to be overflashed with summer lightning; there was
no thunder, no rain. The blue gleams kept illuminating the room for
more than an hour. Clara could not lie in bed. The activity of her
brain became all but delirium; along her nerves, through all the
courses of her blood, seemed to run fires which excited her with an
indescribable mingling of delight and torment. She walked to and
fro, often speaking aloud, throwing up her arms. She leaned from the
open window and let the lightning play freely upon her face: she
fancied it had the effect of restoring her wasted health. Whatever
the cause, she felt stronger and more free from pain than for many
months.

At dawn she slept. The striking of a church-clock woke her at nine,
giving her just time to dress with care and set forth to keep her
appointment.

CHAPTER XI

A DISAPPOINTMENT

On ordinary Sundays the Byasses breakfasted at ten o'clock; this
morning the meal was ready at eight, and Bessie's boisterous spirits
declared the exception to be of joyous significance. Finding that
Samuel's repeated promises to rise were the merest evasion, she
rushed into the room where he lay fly-fretted, dragged the pillows
from under his tousled head, and so belaboured him in schoolboy
fashion that he had no choice but to leap towards his garments. In
five minutes he roared down the kitchen-stairs for shaving-water,
and in five minutes more was seated in his shirt-sleeves, consuming
fried bacon with prodigious appetite. Bessie had the twofold
occupation of waiting upon him and finishing the toilet of the baby;
she talked incessantly and laughed with an echoing shrillness which
would have given a headache for the rest of the day to any one of
average nervous sensibility.

They were going to visit Samuel's parents, who lived at Greenwich.
Bessie had not yet enjoyed an opportunity of exhibiting her
first-born to the worthy couple; she had, however, written many and
long letters on the engrossing subject, and was just a little
fluttered with natural anxiety lest the infant's appearance or
demeanour should disappoint the expectations she had excited. Samuel
found his delight in foretelling the direst calamities.

'Don't say I didn't advise you to draw it mild,' he remarked whilst
breakfasting, when Bessie had for the tenth time obliged him to look
round and give his opinion on points of costume. 'Remember it was
only last week you told them that the imp had never cried since the
day of his birth, and I'll bet you three half-crowns to a bad
halfpenny he roars all through to. night.'

'Hold your tongue, Sam, or I'll throw something at you!'

Samuel had just appeased his morning hunger, and was declaring that
the day promised to be the hottest of the year, such a day as would
bring out every vice inherent in babies, when a very light tap at
the door caused Bessie to abandon her intention of pulling his ears.

'That's Jane,' she said. 'Come in!'

The Jane who presented herself was so strangely unlike her namesake
who lay ill at Mrs. Peckover's four months ago, that one who had not
seen her in the interval would with difficulty have recognised her.
To begin with, she had grown a little; only a little, but enough to
give her the appearance of her full thirteen years. Then her hair no
longer straggled in neglect, but was brushed very smoothly back from
her forehead, and behind was plaited in a coil of perfect neatness;
one could see now that it was soft, fine, mouse-coloured hair, such
as would tempt the fingers to the lightest caress. No longer were
her limbs huddled over with a few shapeless rags; she wore a
full-length dress of quiet grey, which suited well with her hair and
the pale tones of her complexion. As for her face--oh yes, it was
still the good, simple, unremarkable countenance, with the delicate
arched eyebrows, with the diffident lips, with the cheeks of
exquisite smoothness, but so sadly thin.

Here too, however, a noteworthy change was beginning to declare
itself. You were no longer distressed by the shrinking fear which
used to be her constant expression; her eyes no longer reminded you
of a poor animal that has been beaten from every place where it
sought rest and no longer expects anything but a kick and a curse.
Timid they were, drooping after each brief glance, the eyes of one
who has suffered and cannot but often brood over wretched memories,
who does not venture to look far forward lest some danger may loom
inevitable--meet them for an instant, however, and you saw that
lustre was reviving in their still depths, that a woman's soul had
begun to manifest itself under the shadow of those gently falling
lids. A kind word, and with what purity of silent gratitude the grey
pupils responded! A merry word, and mark if the light does not
glisten on them, if the diffident lips do not form a smile which you
would not have more decided lest something of its sweetness should
be sacrificed.

'Now come and tell me what you think about baby,' cried Bessie.
'Will he do? Don't pay any attention to my husband; he's a vulgar
man!'

Jane stepped forward.

'I'm sure he looks very nice, Mrs. Byass.'

'Of course he does, bless him! Sam, get your coat on, and brush your
hat, and let Miss Snowdon teach you how to behave yourself. Well,
we're going to leave the house in your care, Jane. We shall be back
_some time_ to-morrow night, but goodness knows when. Don't you sit
up for us.'

'You know where to wire to if there's a fire breaks out in the back
kitchen,' observed Samuel facetiously. 'If you hear footsteps in the
passage at half-past two to-morrow morning don't trouble to come
down; wait till daylight to see whether they've carried off the
dresser.'

Bessie screamed with laughter.

'What a fool you are, Sam! If you don't mind, you'll be making Jane
laugh. You're sure you'll be home before dark to-morrow, Jane?'

'Oh, quite sure. Mr. Kirkwood says there's a train gets to Liverpool
Street about seven, and grandfather thought that would suit us.'

'You'll be here before eight then. Do see that your fire's out
before you leave. And you'll be sure to pull the door to? And see
that the area-gate's fastened.'

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