The Nether World

by George Gissing

  Snowdon turned to Mrs. Peckover, and, after a few words with regard to the treatment that was being pursued, said that he would now relieve her; she lingered, but shortly left the room. Sidney, sitting by the bed, in a few minutes saw that Jane once more slept, or appeared to do so. He whispered to Snowdon that he was going to see his friends in the next room, and would look in again before leaving.

  His tap at the door was answered by Amy, who at once looked back and said:

  ‘Can Mr. Kirkwood come in, mother?’

  ‘Yes; I want to see him,’ was the answer.

  Mrs. Hewett was lying in bed; she looked, if possible, more wretchedly ill than four days ago. On the floor were two mattresses, covered to make beds for the children. The baby, held in its mother’s arms, was crying feebly.

  ‘Why, I hoped you were getting much better by now,’ said Sidney.

  Mrs. Hewett told him that she had been to the hospital on Saturday, and seemed to have caught cold. A common enough occurrence; hours of waiting in an out-patients’ room frequently do more harm than the doctor’s advice can remedy. She explained that Mrs. Peckover had requested the use of the other room.

  ‘There’s too many of us to be livin’ an’ sleepin’ in this Little place,’ she said; ‘but, after all, it’s a savin’ of rent. It’s a good thing Clara isn’t here. An’ you’ve heard as John’s got work?’

  He had found a job at length with a cabinet-maker; tonight he would probably be working till ten or eleven o’clock. Good news so far. Then Mrs. Hewett began to speak with curiosity of the old man who claimed Jane as his grandchild. Sidney told her what had just happened.

  ‘An’ what did you say about the girl?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I said as little as I could; I thought it wisest. Do you know what made her ill?’

  ‘It was that Clem as did it,’ Mrs. Hewett replied, subduing her voice, And she related what had befallen after Sidney’s last visit. ‘Mrs. Peckover, she’s that afraid the truth should get out. Of course I don’t want to make no bother, but I do feel that glad the poor thing’s got somebody to look after her at last. I never told you half the things as used to go on. That Clem’s no better than a wild-beast tiger; but then what can you do? There’s never any good comes out of makin’ a bother with other people’s business, is there? Fancy him comin’ to see you! Mrs. Peckover’s afraid of him, I can see that, though she pretends she isn’t goin’ to stand him interferin’. What do you think about him, Sidney? He’s sent for a doctor out of Islington; wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to the other. He must have plenty of money, don’t you think? Mrs. Peckover says he’s goin’ to pay the money owin’ to her for Jane’s keep. As if the poor thing hadn’t more than paid for her bits of meals an’ her bed in the kitchen! Do you think that woman ‘ud ever have kept her if it wasn’t she could make her a servant with no wages? If Jane ‘ud been a boy, she’d a gone to the workhouse long ago. She’s been that handy, poor little mite! I’ve always done what I could for her; you know that, Sidney. I do hope she’ll get over it. If anything happens, mind my word, there’ll be a nice to-do! Clara says she’ll go to a magistrate an’ let it all out, if nobody else will. She hates the Peckovers, Clara does.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ said Sidney. ‘I can see the old man’ll take her away as soon as possible. He may have a little money; he’s just come back from Australia. I like the look of him myself.’

  He began to talk of other subjects; waxed wrath at the misery of this housing to which the family had shrunk; urged a removal from the vile den as soon as ever it could be managed. Sidney always lost control of himself when he talked with the Hewetts of their difficulties; the people were, from his point of view, so lacking in resource, so stubbornly rooted in profitless habit. Over and over again he had implored them to take a rational view of the case, to borrow a few pounds of him, to make a new beginning on clean soil. It was like contending with some hostile force of nature; lie spent himself in vain.

  As Hewett did not return, he at length took his leave, and went into the back-room for a moment.

  ‘She’s asleep,’ said Snowdon, rising from the chair where he had been sitting deep in thought. ‘It’s a good sign.’

  Sidney just looked towards the bed, and nodded with satisfaction. The old man gave him a warm pressure of the hand, and he departed. All the way home, he thought with singular interest of the bare sick-room, of the white-headed man watching through the night; the picture impressed him in a way that could not be explained by its natural pathos merely; it kept suggesting all sorts of fanciful ideas, due in a measure, possibly, to Mrs. Hewett’s speculations. For an hour he was so lost in musing on the subject that he even rested from the misery of his ceaseless thought of Clara.

  He allowed three days to pass, then went to inquire about Jane’s progress. It had been satisfactory. Subsequent visits brought him to terms of a certain intimacy with Snowdon. The latter mentioned at length that he was looking for two rooms, suitable for himself and Jane. He wished them to be in a decent house, somewhere in Clerkenwell, and the rent was not to be more than a working man could afford.

  ‘You don’t know of anything in your street?’ he asked diffidently.

  Something in the tone struck Sidney. It half expressed a wish to live in his neighbourhood if possible. He looked at his companion (they were walking together), and was met in return with a glance of calm friendliness; it gratified him, strengthened the feeling of respect and attachment which had already grown out of this intercourse. In Tysoe Street, however, no accommodation could be found. Sidney had another project in his thoughts; pursuing it, he paid a visit the next evening to certain acquaintances of his named Byass, who had a house in Hanover Street, Islington, and let lodgings. Hanover Street lies to the north of City Road; it is a quiet byway, of curving form, and consists of dwellings only. Squalor is here kept at arm’s length; compared with regions close at hand, this and the contiguous streets have something of a suburban aspect.

  Three or four steps led up to the house-door. Sidney’s knock summoned a young, healthy-faced, comely woman, who evinced hearty pleasure on seeing who her visitor was. She brought him at once into a parlour on the ground-floor.

  ‘Well, an’ I was only this mornin’ tellin’ Sam to go an’ look after you, or write a note, or somethin’! Why can’t you come round oftener? I’ve no patience with you! You just sit at ‘ome an’ get humped, an’ what’s the good o’ that, I should like to know? I thought you’d took offence with me, an’ so I told Sam. Do you want to know how baby is? Why don’t you ask, then, as you ought to do the first thing? He’s a good deal better than he deserves to be, young rascal—all the trouble he gives me! He’s fast asleep, I’m glad to say, so you can’t see him. Sam’ll be back in a few minutes; at least I expect him, but there’s no knowin’ nowadays when lie can leave the warehouse. What’s brought you to-night, I wonder? You needn’t tell me anything about the Upper Street business; I know all about that!’

  ‘Oh, do you? From Clara herself?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t talk to me about her! There! I’m sick an tired of her—an’ so are you, I should think, if you’ve any sense left. Her an’ me can’t get along, an’ that’s the truth. Why, when I met her on Sunday afternoon, she was that patronisin’ you’d have thought she’d got a place in Windsor Castle. Would she come an’ have a cup of tea? Oh dear, no! Hadn’t time! The Princess of Wales, I suppose, was waitin’ round the corner!’

  Having so relieved her mind, Mrs. Byass laughed with a genuine gaiety which proved how little malice there was in her satire. Sidney could not refuse a smile, but it was a gloomy one.

  ‘I’m not sure you’ve done all you might have to keep her friends with you,’ he said seriously, but with a good-natured look.

  ‘There you go!’ exclaimed Mrs. Byass, throwing back her head. ‘Of course everybody must be in fault sooner than her! She’s an angel is Miss Hewett! Poor dear! to think how shameful she’s been used! Now I do wonder how you’ve the
face to say such things, Mr. Kirkwood! Why, there’s nobody else livin’ would have been as patient with her as I always was. I’m not bad-tempered, I will say that for myself, an’ I’ve put up with all sorts of things (me, a married woman), when anyone else would have boxed her ears and told her she was a conceited minx. I used to be fond of Clara; you know I did. But she’s got beyond all bearin’; and if you wasn’t just as foolish as men always are, you’d see her in her true colours. Do shake yourself a bit, do! Oh, you silly, silly man!’

  Again she burst into ringing laughter, throwing herself backwards and forwards, and at last covering her face with her hands. Sidney looked annoyed, but the contagion of such spontaneous merriment in the end brought another smile to his face. He moved his head in sign of giving up the argument, and, as soon as there was silence, turned to the object of his visit.

  ‘I see you’ve still got the card in the window. I shouldn’t wonder if I could find you a lodger for those top-rooms.’

  ‘And who’s that? No children, mind.’

  Sidney told her what he could of the old man. Of Jane he only said that she had hitherto lived with the Hewetts’ landlady, and was now going to be removed by her grandfather, having just got through an illness. Dire visions of infection at once assailed Mrs. Byass; impossible to admit under the same roof with her baby a person who had just been ill. This scruple was, however, overcome; the two rooms at the top of the house—unfurnished—had been long vacant, owing to fastidiousness in Mr. and Mrs. Byass, since their last lodger, after a fortnight of continuous drunkenness, broke the windows, ripped the paper off the walls, and ended by trying to set fire to the house. Sidney was intrusted with an outline treaty, to be communicated to Mr. Snowdon.

  This discussion was just concluded when Mr. Samuel Byass presented himself—a slender, large-headed young man, with very light hair cropped close upon the scalp, and a foolish face screwed into an expression of facetiousness. He was employed in some clerkly capacity at a wholesale stationer’s in City Road. Having stepped into the room, he removed a very brown silk hat and laid it on a chair, winking the while at Sidney with his right eye; then he removed his overcoat, winking with the left eye. Thus disembarrassed, he strode gravely to the fireplace, took up the poker, held it in the manner of a weapon upright against his shoulder, and exclaimed in a severe voice, ‘Eyes right!’ Then, converting the poker into a sword, he drew near to Sidney and affected to practise upon him the military cuts, his features distorted into grotesque ferocity. Finally, assuming the attitude of a juggler, he made an attempt to balance the poker perpendicularly upon his nose, until it fell with a crash, just missing the ornaments on the mantel-piece. All this time Mrs. Byass shrieked with laughter, with difficulty keeping her chair.

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ she panted forth, her handkerchief at her eyes, ‘what a fool you are! Do stop, or you’ll kill me!’

  Vastly gratified, Samuel advanced with ludicrous gestures towards the visitor, held out his hand, and said with affected nasality, ‘How do you do, sir? It’s some time since I had the pleasure of seeing you, sir. I hope you have been pretty tolerable.’

  ‘Isn’t he a fool, Mr. Kirkwood?’ cried the delighted wife. ‘Do just give him a smack on the side of the head, to please me! Sam, go an’ wash, an’ we’ll have supper. What do you mean by being so late to-night?’

  ‘Where’s the infant?’ asked Mr. Byass, thrusting his hands into his waistcoat pockets and peering about the room. ‘Bring forth the infant! Let a fond parent look upon his child.’

  ‘Go an’ wash, or I’ll throw something at you. Baby’s in bed, and mind, you wake him if you dare!’

  Sidney would have taken his leave, but found it impossible. Mrs. Byass declared that if he would not stay to supper he should never enter the house again.

  ‘Let’s make a night of it!’ cried Sam, standing in the doorway. ‘Let’s have three pots of six ale and a bottle of old Tom! Let us be reckless!’

  His wife caught up the pillow from the sofa and hurled it at him. Samuel escaped just in time. The next moment his head was again thrust forward.

  ‘Let’s send to the High Street for three cold roast fowls and a beef-steak pie! Let’s get custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry! Let’s have a pine-apple and preserved ginger! Who says, Go it for once?’

  Mrs. Byass caught up the poker and sprang after him. From the passage came sounds of scuffling and screaming, and in the end of something produced by the lips. Mrs. Byass then showed a very red face at the door, and said:

  ‘Isn’t he a fool? Just wait a minute while I get the table laid.’

  Supper was soon ready in the comfortable kitchen. A cold shoulder of mutton, a piece of cheese, pickled beetroot, a seed-cake, and raspberry jam; such was the fare to which Bessie Byass invited her husband and her guest. On a side-table were some open cardboard boxes containing artificial flowers and leaves; for Bessie had now and then a little ‘mounting’ to do for a shop in Upper Street, and in that way aided the income of the family. She was in even better spirits than usual at the prospect of letting her top-rooms. On hearing that piece of news, Samuel, who had just come from the nearest public-house with a foaming jug, executed a wild dance round the room and inadvertently knocked two plates from the dresser. This accident made his wife wrathful, but only for a moment; presently she was laughing as unrestrainedly as ever, and bestowing upon the repentant young man her familiar flattery.

  At eleven o’clock Sidney left them, and mused with smiles on his way home. This was not exactly his ideal of domestic happiness, yet it was better than the life led by the Hewetts—better than that of other households with which he was acquainted—better far, it seemed to him, than the aspirations which were threatening to lead poor Clara—who knew whither? A temptation beset him to walk round into Upper Street and pass Mrs. Tubbs’s bar. He resisted it, knowing that the result would only be a night of sleepless anger and misery.

  The next day he again saw Snowdon, and spoke to him of Mrs. Byass’s rooms. The old man seemed at first indisposed to go so far; but when he had seen the interior of the house and talked with the landlady, his objections disappeared. Before another week had passed the two rooms were furnished in the simplest possible way, and Snowdon brought Jane from Clerkenwell Close.

  Kirkwood came by invitation as soon as the two were fairly established in their home. He found Jane sitting by the fire in her grandfather’s room; a very little exertion still out-wearied her, and the strange things that had come to pass had made her habitually silent. She looked about her wonderingly, seemed unable to realise her position, was painfully conscious of her new clothes, ever and again started as if in fear.

  ‘Well, what did I say that night?’ was Sidney’s greeting. ‘Didn’t I tell you it would be all right soon?’

  Jane made no answer in words, but locked at him timidly; and then a smile came upon her face, an expression of joy that could not trust itself, that seemed to her too boldly at variance with all she had yet known of life.

  CHAPTER VIII

  PENNYLOAF CANDY

  In the social classification of the nether world—a subject which so eminently adapts itself to the sportive and gracefully picturesque mode of treatment—it will be convenient to distinguish broadly, and with reference to males alone, the two great sections of those who do, and those who do not, wear collars. Each of these orders would, it is obvious, offer much scope to an analyst delighting in subtle gradation. Taking the collarless, bow shrewdly might one discriminate between the many kinds of neckcloth which our climate renders necessary as a substitute for the nobler article of attire! The navvy, the scaffolder, the costermonger, the cab-tout—innumerable would be the varieties of texture, of fold, of knot, observed in the ranks of unskilled labour. And among these whose higher station is indicated by the linen or paper symbol, what a gap between the mechanic with collar attached to a flannel shirt, and just visible along the top of a black tie, and the shopman whose pride it is to adorn himself with the very ugliest
neck-encloser put in vogue by aristocratic sanction. For such attractive disquisition I have, unfortunately, no space; it must suffice that I indicate the two genera. And I was led to do so in thinking of Bob Hewett.

  Bob wore a collar. In the die-sinking establishment which employed him there were, it is true, two men who belonged to the collarless; but their business was down in the basement of the building, where they kept up a furnace, worked huge stamping-machines, and so on. Bob’s workshop was upstairs, and the companions with whom he sat, without exception, had something white and stiff round their necks; in fact, they were every bit as respectable as Sidney Kirkwood, and such as he, who bent over a jeweller’s table. To John Hewett it was no slight gratification that he had been able to apprentice his son to a craft which permitted him always to wear a collar. I would not imply that John thought of the matter in these terms, but his reflections bore this significance. Bob was raised for ever above the rank of those who depend merely upon their muscles, even as Clara was saved from the dismal destiny of the women who can do nothing but sew.

  There was, on the whole, some reason why John Hewett should feel pride in his eldest son. Like Sidney Kirkwood, Bob had early shown a faculty for draughtsmansbip; when at school, he made decidedly clever caricatures of such persons as displeased him, and he drew such wonderful horses (on the race-course or pulling cabs), such laughable donkeys in costers’ carts, such perfect dogs, that on several occasions some friend had purchased with a veritable shilling a specimen of his work. ‘Put him to the die-sinking,’ said an acquaintance of the family, himself so employed; ‘he’ll find a use for this kind of thing some day.’ Die-sinking is not the craft it once was; cheap methods, vulgarising here as everywhere, have diminished the opportunities of capable men; but a fair living was promised the lad if he stuck to his work, and at the age of nineteen he was already earning his pound a week. Then he was clever in a good many other ways. He had an ear for music, played (nothing else was within his reach) the concertina, sang a lively song with uncommon melodiousness—a gift much appreciated at the meetings of a certain Mutual Benefit Club, to which his father had paid a weekly subscription, without fail, through all adversities. In the regular departments of learning Bob had never shown any particular aptitude; he wrote and read decently, but his speech, as you have had occasion for observing, was not marked by refinement, and for books he had no liking. His father, unfortunately, had spoilt him, just as he had spoilt Clara. Being of the nobly independent sex, between fifteen and sixteen he practically free himself from parental control. The use he made of his liberty was not altogether pleasing to John, but the time for restraint and training had hopelessly gone by. The lad was selfish, that there was no denying; he grudged the money demanded of him for his support; but in other matters he always showed himself so easy-tempered, so disposed to a genial understanding, that the great fault had to be blinked. Many failings might have been forgiven him in consideration of the fact that he had never yet drunk too much, and indeed cared little for liquor.