The Nether World

by George Gissing

  And the change that she had observed in him since that evening at Danbury? A real change, but only of manner. He would not say to her what he had meant to say until she knew the truth about her own circumstances. In simple words, she being rich and he having only what he earned by his daily work, Sidney did not think it right to speak whilst she was still in ignorance. The delicacy of her instincts, and the sympathies awakened by her affection, made this perfectly clear to her, strange and difficult to grasp as the situation was at first. When she understood, how her soul laughed with exulting merriment! Consecration to a great idea, endowment with the means of wide beneficence—this not only left her cold, but weighed upon her, afflicted her beyond her strength. What was it, in truth, that restored her to herself and made her heart beat joyously? Knit your brows against her; shake your head and raze her name from that catalogue of saints whereon you have inscribed it in anticipation. Jane rejoiced simply because she loved a poor man, and had riches that she could lay at his feet.

  Great sums of money, vague and disturbing to her imagination when she was bidden hold them in trust for unknown people, gleamed and made music now that she could think of them as a gift of love. By this way of thought she could escape from the confusion in which Michael’s solemn appeal had left her. Exalted by her great hope, calmed by the assurance of aid that would never fail her, she began to feel the beauty of the task to which she was summoned; the appalling responsibility became a high privilege now that it was to be shared with one in whose wisdom and strength she had measureless confidence. She knew now what wealth meant; it was a great and glorious power, a source of blessings incalculable. This power it would be hers to bestow, and no man more worthy than he who should receive it at her hands.

  It was not without result that Jane had been so long a listener to the conversations between Michael and Kirkwood. Defective as was her instruction in the ordinary sense, those evenings spent in the company of the two men had done much to refine her modes of thought. In spite of the humble powers of her mind and her narrow experience, she had learned to think on matters which are wholly strange to girls of her station, to regard the life of the world and the individual in a light of idealism and with a freedom from ignoble association rare enough in any class. Her forecast of the future to be spent with Sidney was pathetic in its simplicity, but had the stamp of nobleness. Thinking of the past years, she made clear to herself all the significance of her training. In her general view of things, wealth was naturally allied with education, but she understood why Michael had had her taught so little. A wealthy woman is called a lady; yes, but that was exactly what she was not to become. On that account she had gone to work, when in reality there was no need for her to do so. Never must she remove herself from the poor and the laborious, her kin, her care; never must she forget those bitter sufferings of her childhood, precious as enabling her to comprehend the misery of others for whom had come no rescue. She saw, moreover, what was meant by Michael’s religious teaching, why he chose for her study such parts of the Bible as taught the beauty of compassion, of service rendered to those whom the world casts forth and leaves to perish. All this grew upon her, when once the gladness of her heart was revived. It was of the essence of her being to exercise all human and self-forgetful virtues, and the consecration to a life of beneficence moved her profoundly now that it followed upon consecration to the warmer love.

  When Sidney paid his next visit Jane was alone in the new sitting-room; her grandfather said he did not feel well enough to come down this evening. It was the first time that Kirkwood had seen the new room. After making his inquiries about Michael he surveyed the arrangements, which were as simple as they could be, and spoke a few words regarding the comfort Jane would find in them. He had his hand on a chair, but did not sit down, nor lay aside his hat. Jane suffered from a constraint which she had never before felt in his presence.

  ‘You know what grandfather has been telling me?’ she said at length, regarding him with grave eyes.

  ‘Yes. He told me of his intention.’

  ‘I asked him if I might speak to you about it. It was hard to understand at first.’

  ‘It would be, I’ve no doubt.’

  Jane moved a little, took up some sewing, and seated herself. Sidney let his hat drop on to the chair, but remained standing, his arms resting on the back.

  ‘It’s a very short time since I myself knew of it,’ he continued. ‘Till then, I as little imagined as you did that—’ He paused, then resumed more quickly, ‘But it explains many things which I had always understood in a simpler way.’

  ‘I feel, too, that I know grandfather much better than I did,’ Jane said. ‘He’s always been thinking about the time when I should be old enough to hear what plans he’d made for me. I do so hope he really trusts me, Mr. Kirkwood! I don’t know whether I speak about it as he wishes. It isn’t easy to say all I think, but I mean to do my best to be what he—’

  ‘He knows that very well. Don’t be anxious; he feels that all his hopes have been realised in you.’

  There was silence. Jane made a pretence of using her needle, and Sidney watched her hands.

  ‘He spoke to you of a lady called Mrs. Lant?’ were his next words.

  ‘Yes. He just mentioned her.’

  ‘Are you going to see her soon?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have you seen her?’

  ‘No. But I believe she’s a woman you could soon be friendly with. I hope your grandfather will ask her to come here before long.’

  ‘I’m rather afraid of strangers.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said the other, smiling. ‘But you’ll get over that. I shall do my best to persuade Mr. Snowdon to make you acquainted with her.’

  Jane drew in her breath uneasily.

  ‘She won’t want me to know other people, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, if she does, they’ll be kind and nice and easy to talk to.’

  Jane raised her eyes and said half-laughingly:

  ‘I feel as if I was very childish, and that makes me feel it still more. Of course, if it’s necessary, I’ll do my best to talk to strangers. But they won’t expect too much of me, at first? I mean, if they find me a little slow, they won’t be impatient?’

  ‘You mustn’t think that hard things are going to be asked of you. You’ll never be required to say or do anything that you haven’t already said and done many a time, quite naturally. Why, it’s some time since you began the kind of work of which your grandfather has been speaking.’

  ‘I have begun it? How?’

  ‘Who has been such a good friend to Pennyloaf, and helped her as nobody else could have done?’

  ‘Oh, but that’s nothing!’

  Sidney was on the point of replying! but suddenly altered his intention. He raised himself from the leaning attitude, and took his hat.

  ‘Well, we’ll talk about it another time,’ he said carelessly. ‘I can’t stop long to-night, so I’ll go up and see your grandfather.’

  Jane rose silently.

  ‘I’ll just look in and say good-night before I go,’ Sidney added, as he left the room.

  He did so, twenty minutes after. When he opened the door Jane was sewing busily, but it was only on hearing his footsteps that she had so applied herself. He gave a friendly nod, and departed.

  Still the same change in his manner. A little while ago he would have chatted freely and forgotten the time.

  Another week, and Jane made the acquaintance of the lady whose name we have once or twice heard, Miss Lant, the friend of old Mr. Percival. Of middle age and with very plain features, Miss Lant had devoted herself to philanthropic work; she had an income of a few hundred pounds, and lived almost as simply as the Snowdons in order to save money for charitable expenditure. Unfortunately the earlier years of her life had been joyless, and in the energy which she brought to this self-denying enterprise there was just a touch of excess, common enough in those who have been defrauded of their natural satisfactions and find a resource in al
truism. She was no pietist, but there is nowadays coming into existence a class of persons who substitute for the old religious acerbity a narrow and oppressive zeal for good works of purely human sanction, and to this order Miss Lant might be said to belong. However, nothing but what was agreeable manifested itself in her intercourse with Michael and Jane; the former found her ardent spirit very congenial, and the latter was soon at ease in her company.

  It was a keen distress to Jane when she heard from Pennyloaf that Bob would allow no future meetings between them. In vain she sought an explanation; Pennyloaf professed to know nothing of her husband’s motives, but implored her friend to keep away for a time, as any disregard of Bob’s injunction would only result in worse troubles than she yet had to endure. Jane sought the aid of Kirkwood, begging him to interfere with young Hewett; the attempt was made, but proved fruitless. ‘Sic volo, sic jubeo,’ was Bob’s standpoint, and he as good as bade Sidney mind his own affairs.

  Jane suffered, and more than she herself would have anticipated. She had conceived a liking, almost an affection, for poor, shiftless Pennyloaf, strengthened, of course, by the devotion with which the latter repaid her. But something more than this injury to her feelings was involved in her distress on being excluded from those sorry lodgings. Pennyloaf was comparatively an old friend; she represented the past, its contented work, its familiar associations, its abundant happiness. And now, though Jane did not acknowledge to herself that she regretted the old state of things, still less that she feared the future, it was undeniable that the past seemed very bright in her memory, and that something weighed upon her heart, forbidding such gladsomeness as she had known.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  SIDNEY’S STRUGGLE

  In the dreary days when autumn is being choked by the first fogs, Sidney Kirkwood had to bestir himself and to find new lodgings. The cheerless task came upon him just when he had already more than sufficient trouble, and to tear himself out of the abode in which he had spent eight years caused him more than regret; he felt superstitiously about it, and questioned fate as to what sorrows might be lurking for him behind this corner in life’s journey. Move he must; his landlady was dead, and the house would perhaps be vacant for a long time. After making search about Islington one rainy evening, he found himself at the end of Hanover Street, and was drawn to the familiar house; not, however, to visit the Snowdons, but to redeem a promise recently made to Bessie Byass, who declared herself vastly indignant at the neglect with which he treated her. So, instead of going up the steps to the front door, he descended into the area. Bessie herself opened to him, and after a shrewd glance, made as though she would close the door again. ‘Nothing for you! The idea of beggars coming down the area-steps. Be off!’

  ‘I’m worse than a beggar,’ replied Sidney. ‘Housebreaking’s more in my line.’

  And he attempted to force an entrance. Bessie struggled, but had to give in, overcome with laughter. Samuel was enjoying a pipe in the front kitchen; in spite of the dignity of keeping a servant (to whom the back kitchen was sacred), Mr. and Mrs. Byass frequently spent their evenings below stairs in the same manner as of old.

  The talk began with Sidney’s immediate difficulties.

  ‘Now if it had only happened half a year ago,’ said Bessie, ‘I should have got you into our first-floor rooms.’

  ‘Shouldn’t wonder if we have him there yet, some day,’ remarked Sam, winking at his wife.

  ‘Not him,’ was Bessie’s rejoinder, with a meaning smile. ‘He’s a cool hand, is Mr. Kirkwood. He knows how to wait. When something happens, we shall have him taking a house out at Highbury, you see if he don’t.’

  Sidney turned upon her with anything but a jesting look.

  ‘What do you mean by that, Mrs. Byass?’ he asked, sharply. ‘When what happens? What are you hinting at?’

  ‘Bless us and save us!’ cried Bessie. ‘Here, Sam, he’s going to swallow me. What harm have I done?’

  ‘Please tell me what you meant?’ Sidney urged, his face expressing strong annoyance. ‘Why do you call me a “cool hand,” and say that “I know how to wait”? What did you mean? I’m serious; I want you to explain.’

  Whilst he was speaking there came a knock at the kitchen door. Bessie cried, ‘Come in,’ and Jane showed herself; she glanced in a startled way at Sidney, murmured a ‘good-evening’ to him, and made a request of Bessie for some trifle she needed. Sidney, after just looking round, kept his seat and paid no further attention to Jane, who speedily retired.

  Silence followed, and in the midst of it Kirkwood pushed his chair impatiently.

  ‘Bess,’ cried Samuel, with an affected jocoseness, ‘you’re called upon to apologise. Don’t make a fool of yourself again.’

  ‘I don’t see why he need be so snappish with me,’ replied his wife. ‘I beg his pardon, if he wants me.’

  But Sidney was laughing now, though not in a very natural way. He put an end to the incident, and led off into talk of quite a different kind. When supper-time was at hand he declared that it was impossible for him to stay. The hour had been anything but a lively one, and when he was gone his friends discussed at length this novel display of ill-humour on Sidney’s part.

  He went home muttering to himself, and passed as bad a night as he had ever known. Two days later his removal to new lodgings was effected; notwithstanding his desire to get into a cleaner region, he had taken a room at the top of a house in Red Lion Street, in the densest part of Clerkenwell, where his neighbours under the same roof were craftsmen, carrying on their business at home.

  ‘It’ll do well enough just for a time,’ he said to himself. ‘Who can say when I shall be really settled again, or whether I ever shall?’

  Midway in an attempt to put his things in order, to nail his pictures on the walls and ring forth his books again, he was seized with such utter discouragement that he let a volume drop from his hand and threw himself into a seat. A moan escaped his lips—’That cursed money!’

  Ever since the disclosure made to him by Michael Snowdon at Danbury he had been sensible of a grave uneasiness respecting his relations with Jane. At the moment he might imagine himself to share the old man’s enthusiasm, or dream, or craze—whichever name were the most appropriate—but not an hour had passed before he began to lament that such a romance as this should envelop the life which had so linked itself with his own. Immediately there arose in him a struggle between the idealist tendency, of which he had his share, and stubborn everyday sense, supported by his knowledge of the world and of his own being—a struggle to continue for months, thwarting the natural current of his life, racking his intellect, embittering his heart’s truest emotions. Conscious of mystery in Snowdon’s affairs, he had never dreamed of such a solution as this; the probability was—so he had thought—that Michael received an annuity under the will of his son who died in Australia. No word of the old man’s had ever hinted at wealth in his possession; the complaints he frequently made of the ill use to which wealthy people put their means seemed to imply a regret that he, with his purer purposes, had no power of doing anything. There was no explaining the manner of Jane’s bringing-up if it were not necessary that she should be able to support herself; the idea on which Michael acted was not such as would suggest itself, even to Sidney’s mind. Deliberately to withhold education from a girl who was to inherit any property worth speaking of would be acting with such boldness of originality that Sidney could not seriously have attributed it to his friend. In fact, he did not know Michael until the revelation was made; the depths of the man’s character escaped him.

  The struggle went all against idealism. It was a noble vision, that of Michael’s, but too certainly Jane Snowdon was not the person to make it a reality; the fearful danger was, that all the possibilities of her life might be sacrificed to a vain conscientiousness. Her character was full of purity and sweetness and self-forgetful warmth, but it had not the strength necessary for the carrying out of a purpose beset with difficulties and perils.
Michael, it was true, appeared to be aware of this; it did not, however, gravely disturb him, and for the simple reason that not to Jane alone did he look for the completion of his design; destiny had brought him aid such as he could never have anticipated; Jane’s helpmate was at hand, in whom his trust was unbounded.

  What was in his way, that Sidney should not accept the responsibility? Conscience from the first whispered against his doing so, and the whisper was grown to so loud a voice that not an adverse argument could get effective hearing. Temptations lurked for him and sprang out in moments of his weakness, but as temptations they were at once recognised. ‘He had gone too far to retire; he would be guilty of sheer treachery to Jane; he would break the old man’s heart.’ All which meant merely that he loved the girl, and that it would be like death to part from her. But why part? What had conscience got hold of, that it made all this clamour? Oh, it was simple enough; Sidney not only had no faith in the practicability of such a life’s work as Michael visioned, but he had the profoundest distrust of his own moral strength if he should allow himself to be committed to lifelong renunciation. ‘I am no hero,’ he said, ‘no enthusiast. The time when my whole being could be stirred by social questions has gone by. I am a man in love, and in proportion as my love has strengthened, so has my old artist-self revived in me, until now I can imagine no bliss so perfect as to marry Jane Snowdon and go off to live with her amid fields and trees, where no echo of the suffering world should ever reach us.’ To confess this was to make it terribly certain that sooner or later the burden of conscientiousness would become intolerable. Not from Jane would support come in that event; she, poor child! I would fall into miserable perplexity, in conflict between love and duty, and her life would be ruined.