The Nether World

by George Gissing

  ‘You haven’t told me yet,’ he said, with quiet disregard of her irrelevancies, ‘whether or not her father’s name was Joseph Snowdon.’

  ‘There’s no call to hide it. That was his name. I’ve got letters of his writin’. “J. J. Snowdon” stands at the end, plain enough. And he was your son, was he?’

  ‘He was. But have you any reason to think he’s dead?’

  ‘Dead! I never heard as he was. But then I never heard as he was livin’, neither. When his wife went, poor thing—an’ it was a chill on the liver, they said; it took her very sudden—he says to me, “Mrs. Peckover,” he says, “I know you for a motherly woman”—just like that—see?—”I know you for a motherly woman,” he says, “an’ the idea I have in my ‘ed is as I should like to leave Janey in your care, ‘cause,” he says, “I’ve got work in Birmingham, an’ I don’t see how I’m to take her with me. Understand me?” he says. “Oh!” I says—not feelin’ quite sure what I’d ought to do—see? “Oh!” I says. “Yes,” he says; “an’ between you an’ me,” he says, “there won’t be no misunderstanding. If you’ll keep Janey with you”—an’ she was goin’ to school at the time, ‘cause she went to the same as my own Clem—that’s Clemintiner—understand?—”if you’ll keep Janey with you,” he says, “for a year, or maybe two years, or maybe three years—’cause that depends on cirkinstances”—understand?—”I’m ready,” he says, “to pay you what it’s right that pay I should, an’ I’m sure,” he says, “as we shouldn’t misunderstand one another.” Well, of course I had my own girl to bring up, an’ my own son to look after too. A nice sort o’ son; just when he was beginnin’ to do well, an’ ought to a paid me back for all the expense I was at in puttin’ him to a business, what must he do but take his ‘ook to Australia.’

  Her scrutiny discerned something in the listener’s face which led her to ask:

  ‘Perhaps you’ve been in Australia yourself, mister?’

  ‘I have.’

  The woman paused, speculation at work in her eyes.

  ‘Do you know in what part of the country your son is?’ inquired the old man absently.

  ‘He’s wrote me two letters, an’ the last, as come more than a year ago, was from a place called Maryborough.’

  The other still preserved an absent expression; his eyes travelled about the room.

  ‘I always said,’ pursued Mrs. Peckover, ‘as it was Snowdon as put Australia into the boy’s ‘ed. He used to tell us he’d got a brother there, doin’ well. P’r’aps it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Yes, it was true,’ replied the old man coldly. ‘But you haven’t told me what came to pass about the child.’

  An exact report of all that Mrs. Peckover had to say on this subject would occupy more space than it merits. The gist of it was that for less than a year she had received certain stipulated sums irregularly; that at length no money at all was forthcoming; that in the tenderness of her heart she had still entertained the child, sent her to school, privately instructed her in the domestic virtues, trusting that such humanity would not lack even its material reward, and that either Joseph Snowdon or someone akin to him would ultimately make good to her the expenses she had not grudged.

  ‘She’s a child as pays you back for all the trouble you take, so much I will say for her,’ observed the matron in conclusion. ‘Not as it hasn’t been a little ‘ard to teach her tidiness, but she’s only a young thing still. I shouldn’t wonder but she’s felt her position a little now an’ then; it’s only natural in a growin’ girl, do what you can to prevent it. Still, she’s willin’; that nobody can deny, an’ I’m sure I should never wish to. Her cirkinstances has been peculiar; that you’ll understand, I’m sure. But I done my best to take the place of the mother as is gone to a better world. An’ now that she’s layin’ ill, I’m sure no mother could feel it more—’

  ‘Ill? Why didn’t you mention that before?’

  ‘Didn’t I say as she was ill? Why, I thought it was the first word I spoke as soon as you got into the ‘ouse. You can’t a noticed it, or else it was me as is so put about. What with havin’ a burial—’

  ‘Where is she?’ asked the old man anxiously.

  ‘Where? Why, you don’t think as I’d a sent her to be looked after by strangers? She’s layin’ in Mrs. Hewett’s room—that’s one o’ the lodgers—all for the sake o’ comfort. A better an’ kinder woman than Mrs. Hewett you wouldn’t find, not if you was to—’

  With difficulty the stranger obtained a few details of the origin and course of the illness—details wholly misleading, but devised to reassure. When he desired to see Jane, Mrs. Peckover assumed an air of perfect willingness, but reminded him that she had nothing save his word to prove that he had indeed a legitimate interest in the girl.

  ‘I can do no more than tell you that Joseph James Snowdon was my younger son,’ replied the old man simply. ‘I’ve come back to spend my last years in England, and I hoped—I hope still—to find my son. I wish to take his child into my own care; as he left her to strangers—perhaps he didn’t do it willingly; he may be dead—he could have nothing to say against me giving her the care of a parent. You’ve been at expense—’

  Mrs. Peckover waited with eagerness, but the sentence remained incomplete. Again the old man’s eyes strayed about the room. The current of his thoughts seemed to change, and he said:

  ‘You could show me those letters you spoke of—of my son’s writing?’

  ‘Of course I could,’ was the reply, in the tone of coarse resentment whereby the scheming vulgar are wont to testify to their dishonesty.

  ‘Afterwards—afterwards. I should like to see Jane, if you’ll be so good.’

  The mild voice, though often diffident, now and then fell upon a note of quiet authority which suited well with the speaker’s grave, pure countenance. As he spoke thus, Mrs. Peckover rose, and said she would first go upstairs just to see how things were. She was absent ten minutes, then a little girl—Amy Hewett—came into the kitchen and asked the stranger to follow her.

  Jane had been rapidly transferred from the mattress to the bedstead, and the room had been put into such order as was possible. A whisper from Mrs. Peckover to Mrs. Hewett, promising remission of half a week’s rent, had sufficed to obtain for the former complete freedom in her movements. The child, excited by this disturbance, had begun to moan and talk inarticulately. Mrs. Peckover listened for a moment, but heard nothing dangerous. She bade the old man enter noiselessly, and herself went about on tip-toe, speaking only in a hoarse whisper.

  The visitor had just reached the bedside, and was gazing with deep, compassionate interest at the unconscious face, when Jane, as if startled, half rose and cried painfully, ‘Mr. Kirkwood! oh, Mr. Kirkwood!’ and she stretched her hand out, appearing to believe that the friend she called upon was near her.

  ‘Who is that?’ inquired the old man, turning to his companion.

  ‘Only a friend of ours,’ answered Mrs. Peckover, herself puzzled and uneasy.

  Again the sick girl called ‘Mr. Kirkwood!’ but without other words. Mrs. Peckover urged the danger of this excitement, and speedily led the way downstairs.

  CHAPTER VI

  GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

  Sidney Kirkwood had a lodging in Tysoe Street, Clerkenwell. It is a short street, which, like so many in London, begins reputably and degenerates in its latter half. The cleaner end leads into Wilmington Square, which consists of decently depressing houses, occupied in the main, as the lower windows and front-doors indicate, by watchmakers, working jewellers, and craftsmen of allied pursuits. The open space, grateful in this neighbourhood, is laid out as a garden, with trees, beds, and walks. Near the iron gate, which, for certain hours in the day, gives admission, is a painted notice informing the public that, by the grace of the Marquis of Northampton, they may here take their ease on condition of good behaviour; to children is addressed a distinct warning that ‘This is not a playing ground.’ From his window Sidney had a good view of the Square. The h
ouse in which he lived was of two storeys; a brass plate on the door showed the inscription, ‘Hodgson, Dial Painter.’ The window on the ground-floor was arched, as in the other dwellings at this end of the street, and within stood an artistic arrangement of wax fruit under a glass shade, supported by a heavy volume of Biblical appearance. The upper storey was graced with a small iron balcony, on which straggled a few flower-pots. However, the exterior of this abode was, by comparison, promising; the curtains and blinds were clean, the step was washed and whitened, the brass plate shone, the panes of glass had at all events acquaintance with a duster. A few yards in the direction away from the Square, and Tysoe Street falls under the dominion of dry-rot.

  It was not until he set forth to go to work next morning that Sidney called to mind his conversation with Jane. That the child should have missed by five minutes a meeting with someone who perchance had the will and the power to befriend her, seemed to him, in his present mood, merely an illustration of a vice inherent in the nature of things. He determined to look in at the public-house of which she had spoken, and hear for himself what manner of man had made inquiries for people named Snowdon. The name was not a common one; it was worth while to spend a hope or two on the chance of doing Jane a kindness. Her look and voice when he bade her be of good courage had touched him. In his rejected state, he felt that it was pleasant to earn gratitude even from so humble a being as the Peckovers’ drudge.

  His workshop, it has been mentioned, was in St. John’s Square. Of all areas in London thus defined, this Square of St. John is probably the most irregular in outline. It is cut in two by Clerkenwell Road, and the buildings which compose it form such a number of recesses, of abortive streets, of shadowed alleys, that from no point of the Square can anything like a general view of its totality be obtained. The exit from it on the south side is by St. John’s Lane, at the entrance to which stands a survival from a buried world—the embattled and windowed archway which is all that remains above ground of the great Priory of St. John of Jerusalem. Here dwelt the Knights Hospitallers, in days when Clerkenwell was a rural parish, distant by a long stretch of green country from the walls of London. But other and nearer memories are revived by St. John’s Arch. In the rooms above the gateway dwelt, a hundred and fifty years ago, one Edward Cave, publisher of the Gentleman’s Magazine, and there many a time has sat a journeyman author of his, by name Samuel Johnson, too often impransus. There it was that the said Samuel once had his dinner handed to him behind a screen, because of his unpresentable costume, when Cave was entertaining an aristocratic guest. In the course of the meal, the guest happened to speak with interest of something he had recently read by an obscure Mr. Johnson; whereat there was joy behind the screen, and probably increased appreciation of the unwonted dinner. After a walk amid the squalid and toil-infested ways of Clerkenwell, it impresses one strangely to come upon this monument of old time. The archway has a sad, worn, grimy aspect. So closely is it packed in among buildings which suggest nothing but the sordid struggle for existence, that it looks depressed, ashamed, tainted by the ignobleness of its surroundings. The wonder is that it has not been swept away, in obedience to the great law of traffic and the spirit of the time.

  St. John’s Arch had a place in Sidney Kirkwood’s earliest memories. From the window of his present workshop he could see its grey battlements, and they reminded him of the days when, as a lad just beginning to put questions about the surprising world in which he found himself, he used to listen to such stories as his father could tell him of the history of Clerkenwell. Mr. Kirkwood occupied part of a house in St. John’s Lane, not thirty yards from the Arch; he was a printers’ roller maker, and did but an indifferent business. A year after the birth of Sidney, his only child, he became a widower. An intelligent, warm-hearted man, the one purpose of his latter years was to realise such moderate competency as should place his son above the anxieties which degrade. The boy had a noticeable turn for drawing and colouring; at ten years old, when (as often happened) his father took him for a Sunday in the country, he carried a sketch-book and found his delight in using it. Sidney was to be a draughtsman of some kind; perhaps an artist, if all went well. Unhappily things went the reverse of well. In his anxiety to improve his business, Mr. Kirkwood invented a new kind of ‘composition’ for printers’ use; he patented it, risked capital upon it, made in a short time some serious losses. To add to his troubles, young Sidney was giving signs of an unstable character; at fifteen he had grown tired of his drawing, wanted to be this, that, and the other thing, was self-willed, and showed no consideration for his father’s difficulties. It was necessary to take a decided step, and, though against his will, Sidney was apprenticed to an uncle, a Mr. Roach, who also lived in Clerkenwell, and was a working jeweller. Two years later the father died, all but bankrupt. The few pounds realised from his effects passed into the hands of Mr. Roach, and were soon expended in payment for Sidney’s board and lodging.

  His bereavement possibly saved Sidney from a young-manhood of foolishness and worse. In the upper world a youth may ‘sow his wild oats’ and have done with it; in the nether, ‘to have your fling’ is almost necessarily to fall among criminals. The death was sudden; it affected the lad profoundly, and filled him with a remorse which was to influence the whole of his life. Mr. Roach, a thick-skinned and rather thick-headed person, did not spare to remind his apprentice of the most painful things wherewith the latter had to reproach himself. Sidney bore it, from this day beginning a course of self-discipline of which not many are capable at any age, and very few indeed at seventeen. Still, there had never been any sympathy between him and his uncle, and before very long the young man saw his way to live under another roof and find work with a new employer.

  It was just after leaving his uncle’s house that Sidney came to know John Hewett; the circumstances which fostered their friendship were such as threw strong light on the characters of both. Sidney had taken a room in Islington, and two rooms on the floor beneath him were tenanted by a man who was a widower and had two children. In those days, our young friend found much satisfaction in spending his Sunday evenings on Clerkenwell Green, where fervent, if ungrammatical, oratory was to be heard, and participation in debate was open to all whom the spirit moved. One whom the spirit did very frequently move was Sidney’s fellow-lodger; he had no gift of expression whatever, but his brief, stammering protests against this or that social wrong had such an honest, indeed such a pathetic sound, that Sidney took an opportunity of walking home with him and converting neighbourship into friendly acquaintance. John Hewett gave the young man an account of his life. He had begun as a lath-render; later he had got into cabinet-making, started a business on his own account, and failed. A brother of his, who was a builder’s foreman, then found employment for him in general carpentry on some new houses; but John quarrelled with his brother, and after many difficulties fell to the making of packing-cases; that was his work at present, and with much discontent he pursued it. John was curiously frank in owning all the faults in himself which had helped to make his career so unsatisfactory. He confessed that he had an uncertain temper, that he soon became impatient with work ‘which led to nothing,’ that he was tempted out of his prudence by anything which seemed to offer ‘a better start.’ With all these admissions, he maintained that he did well to be angry. It was wrong that life should be so hard; so much should not be required of a man. In body he was not strong; the weariness of interminable days over-tried him and excited his mind to vain discontent. His wife was the only one who could ever keep him cheerful under his lot, and his wedded life had lasted but six years; now there was his lad Bob and his little girl Clara to think of, and it only made him more miserable to look forward and see them going through hardships like his own. Things were wrong somehow, and it seemed to him that ‘if only we could have universal suffrage—’

  Sidney was only eighteen, and strong in juvenile Radicalism, but he had a fund of common sense, and such a conclusion as this of poor John’
s half-astonished, half-amused him. However, the man’s personality attracted him; it was honest, warm-hearted, interesting; the logic of his pleadings might be at fault, but Sidney sympathised with him, for all that. He too felt that ‘things were wrong somehow,’ and had a pleasure in joining the side of revolt for revolt’s sake.

  Now in the same house with them dwelt a young woman of about nineteen years old; she occupied a garret, was seldom seen about, and had every appearance of being a simple, laborious girl, of the kind familiar enough as the silent victims of industrialism. One day the house was thrown into consternation by the news that Miss Barnes—so she was named—had been arrested on a charge of stealing her employer’s goods. It was true, and perhaps the best way of explaining it will be to reproduce a newspaper report which Sidney Kirkwood thereafter preserved.

  ‘On Friday, Margaret Barnes, nineteen, a single woman, was indicted for stealing six jackets, value 5l., the property of Mary Oaks, her mistress. The prisoner, who cried bitterly during the proceedings, pleaded guilty. The prosecutrix is a single woman, and gets her living by mantle-making, She engaged the prisoner to do what is termed “finishing off,” that is, making the button-holes and sewing on the buttons. The prisoner was also employed to fetch the work from the warehouse, and deliver it when finished. On September 7th her mistress sent her with the six jackets, and she never returned. Sergeant Smith, a detective, who apprehended the prisoner, said he had made inquiries in the case, and found that up to this time the prisoner had borne a good character as an honest, hard-working girl. She had quitted her former lodgings, which had no furniture but a small table and a few rags in a corner, and he discovered her in a room which was perfectly bare. Miss Oaks was examined, and said the prisoner was employed from nine in the morning to eight at night. The Judge: How much did you pay her per week? Miss Oaks: Four shillings. The Judge: Did you give her her food? Miss Oaks: No; I only get one shilling each for the jackets myself when completed. I have to use two sewing-machines, find my own cotton and needles, and I can, by working hard, make two in a day. The Judge said it was a sad state of things. The prisoner, when called upon, said she had had nothing to eat for three days, and so gave way to temptation, hoping to get better employment. The Judge, while commiserating with the prisoner, said it could not be allowed that distress should justify dishonesty, and sentenced the prisoner to six weeks’ imprisonment.’