The Nether World Read online

  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 fi
rst-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.’

  ‘Can’t you find a few more orders?’ observed Samuel.

  ‘Hold your tongue! Jane doesn’t mind; do you, Jane? Now, Sam, are you ready? Bless the man, if he hasn’t got a great piece of bread sticking in his whiskers! How did it get there? Off you go!’

  Jane followed them, and stood at the front door for a moment, watching them as they departed.

  Then she went upstairs. On the first floor the doors of the two rooms stood open, and the rooms were bare. The lodgers who had occupied this part of the house had recently left; a card was again hanging in the window of Bessie’s parlour. Jane passed up the succeeding flight and entered the chamber which looked out upon Hanover Street. The truckle-bed on which her grandfather slept had been arranged for the day some two hours ago; Snowdon rose at six, and everything was orderly in the room when Jane came to prepare breakfast an hour later. At present the old man was sitting by the open window, smoking a pipe. He spoke a few words with reference to the Byasses, then seemed to resume a train of thought, and for a long time there was unbroken silence. Jane seated herself at a table, on which were a few books and writing materials. She began to copy something, using the pen with difficulty, and taking extreme pains. Occasionally her eyes wandered, and once they rested upon her grandfather’s face for several minutes. But for the cry of a milkman or a paper-boy in the street, no sound broke the quietness of the summer morning. The blessed sunshine, so rarely shed from a London sky—sunshine, the source of all solace to mind and body—reigned gloriously in heaven and on earth.

  When more than an hour had passed, Snowdon came and sat down beside the girl. Without speaking she showed him what she had written. He nodded approvingly.

  ‘Shall I say it to you, grandfather?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jane collected her thoughts, then began to repeat the parable of the Samaritan. From the first words it was evident that she frequently thus delivered passages committed to memory; evident, too, that instruction and a natural good sense guarded her against the gabbling method of recitation. When she had finished Snowdon spoke with her for awhile on the subject of the story. In all he said there was the earnestness of deep personal feeling. His theme was the virtue of Compassion; he appeared to rate it above all other forms of moral goodness, to regard it as the saving principle of human life.

  ‘If only we had pity on one another, all the worst things we suffer from in this world would be at an end. It’s because men’s hearts are hard that life is so full of misery. If we could only learn to be kind and gentle and forgiving—never mind anything else. We act as if we were all each other’s enemies; we can’t be merciful, because we expect no mercy; we struggle to get as much as we can for ourselves and care nothing for others. Think about it; never let it go out of your mind. Perhaps some day it’ll help you in your own life.’

  Then there was silence again. Snowdon went back to his seat by the window and relit his pipe; to muse in the sunshine seemed sufficient occupation for him. Jane opened another book and read to herself.

  In the afternoon they went out together. The old man had grown more talkative. He passed cheerfully from subject to subject, now telling a story of his experiences abroad, now reviving recollections of London as he had known it sixty years ago. Jane listened with quiet interest. She did not say much herself, and when she did speak it was with a noticeable effort to overcome her habit of diffidence. She was happy, but her nature had yet to develop itself under these strangely novel conditions.

  A little before sunset there came a knocking at the house-door. Jane went down to open, and found that the visitor was Sidney Kirkwood. The joyful look with which she recognised him changed almost in the same moment; his face wore an expression that alarmed her; it was stern, hard-set in trouble, and his smile could not disguise the truth. Without speaking, he walked upstairs and entered Snowdon’s room
. To Sidney there was always something peculiarly impressive in the first view of this quiet chamber; simple as were its appointments, it produced a sense of remoteness from the common conditions of life. Invariably he subdued his voice when conversing here. A few flowers such as can be bought in the street generally diffused a slight scent through the air, making another peculiarity which had its effect on Sidney’s imagination. When Jane moved about, it was with a soundless step; if she placed a chair or arranged things on the table, it was as if with careful avoidance of the least noise. When his thoughts turned hitherwards, Sidney always pictured the old man sitting in his familiar mood of reverie, and Jane, in like silence, bending over a book at the table. Peace, the thing most difficult to find in the world that Sidney knew, had here made itself a dwelling.

  He shook hands with Snowdon and seated himself. A few friendly words were spoken, and the old man referred to an excursion they had agreed to make together on the morrow, the general holiday.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ replied Kirkwood, ‘but it’ll be impossible for me to go.’

  Jane was standing near him; her countenance fell, expressing uttermost disappointment.