The Nether World

by George Gissing

  The six weeks passed, and about a fortnight after that, John Hewett came into Sidney’s room one evening with a strange look on his face. His eyes were very bright, the hand which he held out trembled.

  ‘I’ve something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get married again.’

  ‘Really? Why, I’m glad to hear it!’

  ‘And who do you think? Miss Barnes.’

  Sidney was startled for a moment. John had had no acquaintance with the girl prior to her imprisonment. He had said that he should meet her when she came out and give her some money, and Sidney had added a contribution. For a man in Hewett’s circumstances this latest step was somewhat astonishing, but his character explained it.

  ‘I’m goin’ to marry her,’ he exclaimed excitedly, ‘and I’m doing the right thing! I respect her more than all the women as never went wrong because they never had occasion to. I’m goin’ to put her as a mother over my children, and I’m goin’ to make a happier life for her. She’s a good girl, I tell you. I’ve seen her nearly every day this fortnight; I know all about her. She wouldn’t have me when I first asked her—that was a week ago. She said no; she’d disgrace me. If you can’t respect her as you would any other woman, never come into my lodging!’

  Sidney was warm with generous glow. He wrung Hewett’s hand and stammered incoherent words.

  John took new lodgings in an obscure part of Clerkenwell, and seemed to have become a young man once more. His complaints ceased; the energy with which he went about his work was remarkable. He said his wife was the salvation of him. And then befell one of those happy chances which supply mankind with instances for its pathetic faith that a good deed will not fail of reward. John’s brother died, and bequeathed to him some four hundred pounds. Hereupon, what must the poor fellow do but open workshops on his own account, engage men, go about crying that his opportunity had come at last. Here was the bit of rock by means of which he could save himself from the sea of competition that had so nearly whelmed him! Little Clara, now eleven years old, could go on steadily at school; no need to think of how the poor child should earn a wretched living. Bob, now thirteen, should shortly be apprenticed to some better kind of trade. New rooms were taken and well furnished. Maggie, the wife, could have good food, such as she needed in her constant ailing, alas! The baby just born was no longer a cause of anxious thought, but a joy in the home. And Sidney Kirkwood came to supper as soon as the new rooms were in order, and his bright, manly face did everyone good to look at. He still took little Clara upon his knee. Ha! there would come a day before long when he would not venture to do that, and then perhaps—perhaps! What a supper that was, and how smoothly went the great wheels of the world that evening!

  One baby, two babies, three babies; before the birth of the third, John’s brow was again clouded, again he had begun to rail and fume at the unfitness of things. His business was a failure, partly because he dealt with a too rigid honesty, partly because of his unstable nature, which left him at the mercy of whims and obstinacies and airy projects. He did not risk the ordinary kind of bankruptcy, but came down and down, until at length he was the only workman in his own shop; then the shop itself had to be abandoned; then he was searching for someone who would employ him.

  Bob had been put to the die-sinker’s craft; Clara was still going to school, and had no thought of earning a livelihood—ominous state of things, When it shortly became clear even to John Hewett that he would wrong the girl if he did not provide her with some means of supporting herself, she was sent to learn ‘stamping’ with the same employer for whom her brother worked. The work was light; it would soon bring in a little money. John declared with fierceness that his daughter should never be set to the usual needle-slavery, and indeed it seemed very unlikely that Clara would ever be fit for that employment, as she could not do the simplest kind of sewing. In the meantime the family kept changing their abode, till at length they settled in Mrs. Peckover’s house. All the best of their furniture was by this time sold; but for the two eldest children, there would probably have been no home at all. Bob, aged nineteen, earned at this present time a pound weekly; his sister, an average of thirteen shillings. Mrs. Hewett’s constant ill-health (the result, doubtless, of semi-starvation through the years of her girlhood), would have excused defects of housekeeping; but indeed the poor woman was under any circumstances incapable of domestic management, and therein represented her class. The money she received was wasted in comparison with what might have been done with it. I suppose she must not be blamed for bringing children into the world when those already born to her were but half-clothed, half-fed; she increased the sum total of the world’s misery in obedience to the laws of the Book of Genesis. And one virtue she had which compensated for all that was lacking—a virtue merely negative among the refined, but in that other world the rarest and most precious of moral distinctions—she resisted the temptations of the public-house.

  This was the story present in Sidney Kirkwood’s mind as often as he climbed the staircase in Clerkenwell Close. By contrast, his own life seemed one of unbroken ease. Outwardly it was smooth enough. He had no liking for his craft, and being always employed upon the meaningless work which is demanded by the rich vulgar, he felt such work to be paltry and ignoble; but there seemed no hope of obtaining better, and he made no audible complaint. His wages were consider ably more than he needed, and systematically he put money aside each week.

  But this orderly existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind which Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly have described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father’s death put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could not ripen him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile order common in his world, and through passion, through conflict, through endurance, it had to develop such maturity as fate should permit. Saved from self-indulgence, he naturally turned into the way of political enthusiasm; thither did his temper point him. With some help—mostly negative—from Clerkenwell Green, he reached the stage of confident and aspiring Radicalism, believing in the perfectibility of man, in human brotherhood, in—anything you like that is the outcome of a noble heart sheltered by ignorance. It had its turn, and passed.

  To give place to nothing very satisfactory. It was not a mere coincidence that Sidney was going through a period of mental and moral confusion just in those years which brought Clara Hewett from childhood to the state of woman. Among the acquaintances of Sidney’s boyhood there was not one but had a chosen female companion from the age of fifteen or earlier; he himself had been no exception to the rule in his class, but at the time of meeting with Hewett he was companionless, and remained so. The Hewetts became his closest friends; in their brief prosperity he rejoiced with them, in their hardships he gave them all the assistance to which John’s pride would consent; his name was never spoken among them but with warmth and gratitude. And of course the day came to which Hewett had looked forward—the day when Sidney could no longer take Clara upon his knee and stroke her brown hair and joke with her about her fits of good and ill humour. Sidney knew well enough what was in his friend’s mind, and, though with no sense of constraint, he felt that this handsome, keen-eyed, capricious girl was destined to be his wife. He liked Clara; she always attracted him and interested him; but her faults were too obvious to escape any eye, and the older she grew, the more was he impressed and troubled by them. The thought of Clara became a preoccupation, and with the love which at length he recognised there blended a sense of fate fulfilling itself. His enthusiasms, his purposes, never defined as education would have defined them, were dissipated into utter vagueness. He lost his guiding interests, and found himself returning to those of boyhood. The country once more attracted him; he took out his old sketch-books, bought a new one, revived the regret that he could not be a painter of landscape. A visit to one or two picture-galleries, and then again profound discouragement, recognition of the fact that he was a mechanic and never could be any
thing else.

  It was the end of his illusions. For him not even passionate love was to preserve the power of idealising its object. He loved Clara with all the desire of his being, but could no longer deceive himself in judging her character. The same sad clearness of vision affected his judgment of the world about him, of the activities in which he had once been zealous, of the conditions which enveloped his life and the lives of those dear to him. The spirit of revolt often enough stirred within him, but no longer found utterance in the speech which brings relief; he did his best to dispel the mood, mocking at it as folly. Consciously he set himself the task of becoming a practical man, of learning to make the best of life as he found it, of shunning as the fatal error that habit of mind which kept John Hewett on the rack. Who was he that he should look for pleasant things in his course through the world? ‘We are the lower orders; we are the working classes,’ he said bitterly to his friend, and that seemed the final answer to all his aspirations.

  This was a dark day with him. The gold he handled stung him to hatred and envy, and every feeling which he had resolved to combat as worse than profitless. He could not speak to his fellow-workmen. From morning to night it had rained. St. John’s Arch looked more broken-spirited than ever, drenched in sooty moisture.

  During the dinner-hour he walked over to the public-house of which Jane had spoken, and obtained from the barman as full a description as possible of the person he hoped to encounter. Both then and on his return home in the evening he shunned the house where his friends dwelt.

  It came round to Monday. For the first time for many months he had allowed Sunday to pass without visiting the Hewetts. He felt that to go there at present would only be to increase the parents’ depression by his own low spirits. Clara had left them now, however, and if he still stayed away, his behaviour might be misinterpreted. On returning from work, he washed, took a hurried meal, and was on the point of going out when someone knocked at his door. He opened, and saw an old man who was a stranger to him.

  CHAPTER VII

  MRS. BYASS’S LODGINGS

  ‘You are Mr. Kirkwood?’ said his visitor civilly. ‘My name is Snowdon. I should be glad to speak a few words with you, if you could spare the time.’

  Sidney’s thoughts were instantly led into the right channel; he identified the old man by his white hair and the cloak. The hat, however, which had been described to him, was now exchanged for a soft felt of a kind common enough; the guernsey, too, had been laid aside. With ready goodwill he invited Mr. Snowdon to enter.

  There was not much in the room to distinguish it from the dwelling of any orderly mechanic. A small bed occupied one side; a small table stood before the window; the toilet apparatus was, of course, unconcealed; a half-open cupboard allowed a glimpse of crockery, sundries, and a few books. The walls, it is true, were otherwise ornamented than is usual; engravings, chromo-lithographs, and some sketches of landscape in pencil, were suspended wherever light fell, and the choice manifested in this collection was nowise akin to that which ruled in Mrs. Peckover’s parlour, and probably in all the parlours of Tysoe Street. To select for one’s chamber a woodcut after Constable or Gainsborough is at all events to give proof of a capacity for civilisation.

  The visitor made a quick survey of these appearances; then he seated himself on the chair Sidney offered. He was not entirely at his ease, and looked up at the young man twice or thrice before he began to speak again.

  ‘Mr. Kirkwood, were you ever acquainted with my son, by name Joseph Snowdon?’

  ‘No; I never knew him,’ was the reply. ‘I have heard his name, and I know where he once lived—not far from here.’

  ‘You’re wondering what has brought me to you. I have heard of you from people a grandchild of mine is living with. I dare say it is the house you mean—in Clerkenwell Close.’

  ‘So you have found it!’ exclaimed Sidney with pleasure. ‘I’ve been looking about for you as I walked along the streets these last two or three days.’

  ‘Looking for me?’ said the other, astonished.

  Sidney supplied the explanation, but without remarking on the circumstances which made Jane so anxious to discover a possible friend. Snowdon listened attentively, and at length, with a slight smile; he seemed to find pleasure in the young man’s way of expressing himself. When silence ensued, he looked about absently for a moment; then, meeting Sidney’s eyes, said in a grave voice:

  ‘That poor child is very ill.’

  ‘Ill? I’m sorry to hear it.’

  ‘The reason I’ve come to you, Mr. Kirkwood, is because she’s called out your name so often. They don’t seem able to tell me how she came into this state, but she’s had a fright of some kind, or she’s been living very unhappily. She calls on your name, as if she wanted you to protect her from harm. I didn’t know what to think about it at first. I’m a stranger to everybody—I may tell you I’ve been abroad for several years—and they don’t seem very ready to put trust in me; but I decided at last that I’d come and speak to you. It’s my grandchild, and perhaps the only one of my family left; nobody can give me news of her father since he went away four or five years ago. She came to herself this morning for a little, but I’m afraid she couldn’t understand what I tried to tell her; then I mentioned your name, and I could see it did her good at once. What I wish to ask of you is, would you come to her bedside for a few minutes? She might know you, and I feel sure it would be a kindness to her.’

  Sidney appeared to hesitate. It was not, of course, that he dreamt of refusing, but he was busy revolving all he knew of Jane’s life with the Peckovers, and asking himself what it behoved him to tell, what to withhold. Daily experience guarded him against the habit of gossip, which is one of the innumerable curses of the uneducated (whether poor or wealthy), and, notwithstanding the sympathy with which his visitor inspired him, he quickly decided to maintain reserve until he understood more of the situation.

  ‘Yes, yes; I’ll go with you at once,’ he made haste to reply, when he perceived that his hesitancy was occasioning doubt and trouble. ‘In fact, I was just starting to go and see the Hewetts when you knocked at the door. They’re friends of mine—living in Mrs. Peckover’s house. That’s how I came to know Jane. I haven’t been there for several days, and when I last saw her, as I was saying, she seemed as well as usual.’

  ‘I’m afraid that wasn’t much to boast of,’ said Snowdon. ‘She’s a poor, thin-looking child.’

  Sidney was conscious that the old man did not give expression to all he thought. This mutual exercise of tact seemed, however, to encourage a good understanding between them rather than the reverse.

  ‘You remain in the house?’ Kirkwood asked as they went downstairs.

  ‘I stay with her through the night. I didn’t feel much confidence in the doctor that was seeing her, so I made inquiries and found a better man.’

  When they reached the Close, the door was opened to them by Clem Peckover. She glared haughtily at Sidney, but uttered no word. To Kirkwood’s surprise, they went up to the Hewetts’ back-room. The mattress that formerly lay upon the floor had been removed; the bed was occupied by the sick girl, with whom at present Mrs. Peckover was sitting. That benevolent person rose on seeing Sidney, and inclined her head with stateliness.

  ‘She’s just fell asleep,’ was her whispered remark. ‘I shouldn’t say myself as it was good to wake her up, but of course you know best.’

  This was in keeping with the attitude Mrs. Peckover had adopted as soon as she understood Snowdon’s resolve to neglect no precaution on the child’s behalf. Her sour dignity was meant to express that she felt hurt at the intervention of others where her affections were so nearly concerned. Sidney could not help a certain fear when he saw this woman installed as sick-nurse. It was of purpose that he caught her eye and regarded her with a gravity she could scarcely fail to comprehend.

  Jane awoke from her fitful slumber. She looked with but half-conscious fearfulness at the figures darkening her view. Sid
ney moved so that his face was in the light, and, bending near to her, asked if she recognised him. A smile—slow-forming, but unmistakable at last—amply justified what her grandfather had said. She made an effort to move her hand towards him. Sidney responded to her wish, and again she smiled, self-forgetfully, contentedly.