The Nether World Page 49

  ‘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 success, 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 not 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.’

  ‘You find it easier to bear than I do.’

  ‘Yes; I find it easier. I am stronger-bodied, and at all events I have some variety, whilst you have none. I know it. If I could take your share of the burden, how gladly I’d do so! If I could take your suffering upon myself, you shouldn’t be unhappy for another minute. But that is another impossible thing. People who are fortunate in life may ask each day what they can do; we have always to remind ourselves what we can’t.’

  ‘You take a pleasure in repeating such things; it shows how little you feel them.’

  ‘It shows how I have taken to heart the truth of them.’

  She waved her hand impatiently, again sighed, and moved towards the door.

  ‘Don’t go just yet,’ said Sidney. ‘We have more to say to each other.’

  ‘I have nothing more to say. I am miserable, and you can’t help me.’

  ‘I can, Clara.’

  She looked at him with wondering, estranged eyes. ‘How? What are you going to do?’

  ‘Only speak to you, that’s all. I have nothing to give but words. But—’

  She would have left him. Sidney stepped forward and prevented her.

  ‘No; you must hear what I have got to say. They may be only words, but if I have no power to move you with my words, then our life has come to utter ruin, and I don’t know what dreadful things lie before us.’

  ‘I can say the same,’ she replied, in a despairing tone.

  ‘But neither you nor I shall say it! As long as I have strength to speak, I won’t consent to say that Clara, you must put your hand in mine, and think of your life and mine as one. If not for my sake, then for your child’s. Think; do you wish May to suffer for the faults of her parents?’

  ‘I wish she had never been born!’

  ‘And yet you were the happier for her birth. It’s only these last six months that you have fallen again into misery. You indulge it, and it grows worse, harder to resist. You may say that life seems to grow worse. Perhaps so. This affair of Amy’s has been a heavy blow, and we shall miss the little money she brought; goodness knows when another place will be found for her. But all the more reason why we should help each other to struggle. Perhaps just this year or two will be our hardest time. If Amy and Annie and Tom were once all earning something, the worst would be over—wouldn’t it? And can’t we find strength to hold out a little longer, just to give the children a start in life, just to make your father’s last years a bit happier? If we manage it, shan’t we feel glad in looking back? Won’t it be something worth having lived for?’

  He paused, but Clara had no word for him.

  ‘There’s Amy. She’s a hard girl to manage, partly because she has very bad health. I always think of that—or try to—when she irritates me. This afternoon I took her out with me, and spoke as kindly as I could; if she isn’t better for it, she surely can’t be worse, and in any case I don’t know what else to do. Look, Clara, you and I are going to do what we can for these children; we’re not going to give up the work now we’ve begun it. Mustn’t all of us who are poor stand together and help one another? We have to fight against the rich world that’s always crushing us down, down—whether it means to or not. Those people enjoy their lives. Well, I shall find my enjoyment in defying them to make me despair? But I can’t do without your help. I didn’t feel very cheerful as I sat here a while ago, before you came down; I was almost afraid to go upstairs, lest the sight of what you were suffering should be too much for me. Am I to ask a kindness of you and be refused, Clara?’

  It was not the first time that she had experienced the constraining power of his words when he was moved with passionate earnestness. Her desire to escape was due to a fear of yielding, of suffering her egotism to fail before a stronger will.

  ‘Let me go,’ she said, whilst he held her arm. ‘I feel too ill to talk longer.’

  ‘Only one word—only one promise—now whilst we are the only ones awake in the house. We are husband and wife, Clara, and we must be kind to each other. We are not going to be like the poor creatures who let their misery degrade them. We are both too proud for that—what? We can think and express our thoughts; we can speak to each other’s minds and hearts. Don’t let us be beaten!’

  ‘What’s the good of my promising? I can’t keep it. I suffer too much.’

  ‘Promise, and keep the promise for a few weeks, a few days; then I’ll find strength to help you once more. But now it’s your turn to help me. To-morrow begins a new week; the rich world allows us to rest to-morrow, to be with each other. Shall we make it a quiet, restful, hopeful day? When they go out in the morning, you shall read to father and me—read as you know how to, so much better than I can. What? Was that really a smile?’

  ‘Let me go, Sidney. Oh, I’m tired, I’m tired!’

  ‘And the promise?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. It won’t last long, but I’ll try.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  ‘No,’ she replied, despondently. ‘It’s I that ought to thank you. But I never shall—never. I only understand you now and then—just for an hour—and all the selfishness comes back again. It’ll be the same till I’m dead.’

  He put out the lamp and followed her upstairs. His limbs ached; he could scarcely drag one leg after the other. Never mind; the battle was gained once more.

  CHAPTER XL

  JANE

  ‘The poisoning business startled me. I shouldn’t at all wonder if I had a precious narrow squeak of something of the kind myself before I took my departure; in fact, a sort of fear of the animal made me settle things as sharp as I could. Let me know the result of the trial. Wonder whether there’ll be any disagreeable remarks about a certain acquaintance of yours, detained abroad on business? Better send me newspapers—same name and address. But I’ve something considerably more important to think about. A big thing; I scarcely dare tell you how big. I stand to win $2,000,000! Not a soul outside suspects the ring. When I tell you that R.S.N. is in it, you’ll see that I’ve struck the right ticket this time. Let me hear about Jane. If all goes well here, and you manage that little business, you shall have $100,000, just for house-furnishing, you know. I suppose you’ll have your partnership in a few months?’

  Extracts from a letter, with an American stamp, which Mr. Scawthorne read as he waited for his breakfast. It was the end of October, and cool enough to make the crackling fire grateful. Having mused over the epistle, our friend took up his morning paper and glanced at the report of criminal trials. Whilst he was so engaged his landlady entered, carrying a tray of appetising appearance.

  ‘Good-morning, Mrs. Byass,’ he said, with much friendliness. Then, in a lower voice, ‘There’s a fuller report here than there was in the evening paper. Perhaps you looked at it?’

  ‘Well, yes, sir; I thought you wouldn’t mind,’ replied Bessie, arranging the table.

  ‘She’ll be taken care of or three years, at all events.’

  ‘If you’d seen her that day she came here after Miss Snowdon, you’d understand how glad I feel that she’s out of the way. I’m sure I’ve been uneasy ever since. If ever there comes a rather loud knock at—there I begin to tremble; I do indeed. I don’t think I shall ever get over it.’

  ‘I dare say Miss Snowdon will be easier in mind?’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder. But she won’t say anything about it. She feels the disgrace so much, and I know it’s almost more than she can do to go to work, just because she thinks they talk about her.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll very soon pass over. There’s always something new happening, and people quickly forget a case like this.’

  Bessie with
drew, and her lodger addressed himself to his breakfast.

  He had occupied the rooms on the first floor for about a year and a half. Joseph Snowdon’s proposal to make him acquainted with Jane had not been carried out, Scawthorne deeming it impracticable; but when a year had gone by, and Scawthorne, as Joseph’s confidential correspondent, had still to report that Jane maintained herself in independence, he one day presented himself in Hanover Street, as a total stranger, and made inquiry about the rooms which a card told him were to let. His improved position allowed him to live somewhat more reputably than in the Chelsea lodging, and Hanover Street would suit him well enough until he obtained the promised partnership. Admitted as a friend to Mr. Percival’s house in Highbury, he had by this time made the acquaintance of Miss Lant, whom, by the exercise of his agreeable qualities, he one day led to speak of Jane Snowdon. Miss Lant continued to see Jane, at long intervals, and was fervent in her praise as well as in compassionating the trials through which she had gone. His position in Mr. Percival’s office of course made it natural that Scawthorne should have a knowledge of the girl’s story. When he had established himself in Mrs. Byass’s rooms, he mentioned the fact casually to his friends, making it appear that, in seeking lodgings, he had come upon these by haphazard.