The Nether World

by George Gissing

  ‘It’s all that Tom, father,’ piped Annie. ‘There’s no living with him.’

  John’s eye fell on the broken window.

  ‘Which of you’s done that?’ he asked sternly, pointing to it.

  No one spoke.

  ‘Who’s goin’ to pay for it, I’d like to know? Doesn’t it cost enough to keep you, but you must go makin’ extra expense? Where’s the money to come from, I want to know, if you go on like this?’

  He turned suddenly upon the elder girl.

  ‘I’ve got something to say to you, Miss. Why wasn’t you at work this morning?’

  Amy avoided his look. Her pale face became mottled with alarm, but only for an instant; then she hardened herself and moved her head insolently.

  ‘Why Wasn’t you at work? Where’s your week’s money?’

  ‘I haven’t got any.’

  ‘You haven’t got any? Why not?’

  For a while she was stubbornly silent, but Hewett constrained her to confession at length. On his way home to-day he had been informed by an acquaintance that Amy was wandering about the streets at an hour when she ought to have been at her employment. Unable to put off the evil moment any longer, the girl admitted that four days ago she was dismissed for bad behaviour, and that since then she had pretended to go to work as usual. The trifling sum paid to her on dismissal she had spent.

  John turned to his youngest daughter and asked in a hollow voice:

  ‘Where’s Clara?’

  ‘She’s got one of her headaches, father,’ replied the girl, trembling.

  He turned and went from the room.

  It was long since he had lost his place of porter at the filter-works. Before leaving England, Joseph Snowdon managed to dispose of his interest in the firm of Lake, Snowdon, & Co., and at the same time Hewett was informed that his wages would be reduced by five shillings a week—the sum which had been supplied by Michael Snowdon’s benevolence. It was a serious loss. Clara’s marriage removed one grave anxiety, but the three children had still to be brought up, and with every year John’s chance of steady employment would grow less. Sidney Kirkwood declared himself able and willing to help substantially, but he might before long have children of his own to think of, and in any case it was Shameful to burden him in this way.

  Shameful or not, it very soon came to pass that Sidney had the whole family on his hands. A bad attack of rheumatism in the succeeding winter made John incapable of earning anything at all; for two months he was a cripple. Till then Sidney and his wife had occupied lodgings in Holloway; when it became evident that Hewett must not hope to be able to support his children, and when Sidney had for many weeks p aid the rent (as well as supplying the money to live upon) in Farringdon Road Buildings, the house at Crouch End was taken, and there all went to live together. Clara’s health was very uncertain, and though at first she spoke frequently of finding work to do at home, the birth of a child put an end to such projects. Amy Hewett was shortly at the point when the education of a board-school child is said to be ‘finished;’ by good luck, employment was found for her in Kentish Town, with three shillings a week from the first. John could not resign himself to being a mere burden on the home. Enforced idleness so fretted him that at times he seemed all but out of his wits. In despair he caught at the strangest kinds of casual occupation; when earning nothing, he would barely eat enough to keep himself alive, and if he succeeded in bringing home a shilling or two, he turned the money about in his hands with a sort of angry joy that it would have made your heart ache to witness. Just at present he had a job of cleaning and whitewashing some cellars in Stoke Newington.

  He was absent from the kitchen for five minutes, during which time the three sat round the table. Amy pretended to eat unconcernedly; Tom made grimaces at her. As for Annie, she cried. Their father entered the room again.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this at once?’ he asked, in a shaking voice, looking at his daughter with eyes of blank misery.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re a bad, selfish girl!’ he broke out, again overcome with anger. ‘Haven’t you got neither sense nor feelin’ nor honesty? Just when you ought to have begun to earn a bit higher wages—when you ought to have been glad to work your hardest, to show you wasn’t unthankful to them as has done so much for you! Who earned money to keep you when you was goin’ to school? Who fed and clothed you, and saw as you didn’t want for nothing? Who is it as you owe everything to?—just tell me that.’

  Amy affected to pay no attention. She kept swallowing morsels, with ugly movements of her lips and jaws.

  ‘How often have I to tell you all that if it wasn’t for Sidney Kirkwood you’d have been workhouse children? As sure as you’re livin’, you’d all of you have gone to the workhouse! And you go on just as if you didn’t owe thanks to nobody. I tell you it’ll be years and years before one of you’ll have a penny you can call your own. If it was Annie or Tom behaved so careless, there’d be less wonder; but for a girl of your age—I’m ashamed as you belong to me! You can’t even keep your tongue from bein’ impudent to Clara, her as you ain’t worthy to be a servant to!’

  ‘Clara’s a sneak,’ observed Tom, with much coolness. ‘She’s always telling lies about us.’

  ‘I’ll half-knock your young head off your shoulders,’ cried his father, furiously, ‘if you talk to me like that! Not one of you’s fit to live in the same house with her.’

  ‘Father, I haven’t done nothing,’ whimpered Annie, hurt by being thus included in his reprobation.

  ‘No more you have—not just now, but you’re often enough more trouble to your sister than you need be. But it’s you I’m talkin’ to, Amy. You dare to leave this house again till there’s another place found for you! If you’d any self-respect, you couldn’t bear to look Sidney in the face. Suppose you hadn’t such a brother to work for you, what would you do, eh? Who’d buy your food? Who’d pay the rent of the house you live in?’

  A noteworthy difference between children of this standing and such as pass their years of play-time in homes unshadowed by poverty. For these, life had no illusions. Of every mouthful that they ate, the price was known to them. The roof over their heads was there by no grace of Providence, but solely because such-and-such a sum was paid weekly in hard cash, when the collector came; let the payment fail, and they knew perfectly well what the result would be. The children of the upper world could not even by chance give a thought to the sources whence their needs are supplied; speech on such a subject in their presence would be held indecent. In John Hewett’s position, the indecency, the crime, would have been to keep silence and pretend that the needs of existence are ministered to as a matter of course.

  His tone and language were pitifully those of feeble age. The emotion proved too great a strain upon his body, and he had at length to sit down in a tremulous state, miserable with the consciousness of failing authority. He would have made but a poor figure now upon Clerkenwell Green. Even as his frame was shrunken, so had the circle of his interests contracted; he could no longer speak or think on the subjects which had fired him through the better part of his life; if he was driven to try and utter himself on the broad questions of social wrong, of the people’s cause, a senile stammering of incoherencies was the only result. The fight had ever gone against John Hewett; he was one of those who are born to be defeated. His failing energies spent themselves in conflict with his own children; the concerns of a miserable home were all his mind could now cope with.

  ‘Come and sit down to your dinner, father,’ Annie said, when he became silent.

  ‘Dinner? I want no dinner. I’ve no stomach for food when it’s stolen. What’s Sidney goin’ to have when he comes home?’

  ‘He said he’d do with bread and cheese to-day. See, we’ve cut some meat for you?’

  ‘You keep that for Sidney, then, and don’t one of you dare to say anything about it. Cut me a bit of bread, Annie.’

  She did so. He ate it, standing by the fi
replace, drank a glass of water, and went into the sitting-room. There he sat unoccupied for nearly an hour, his head at times dropping forward as if he were nearly asleep; but it was only in abstraction. The morning’s work had wearied him excessively, as such effort always did, but the mental misery he was suffering made him unconscious of bodily fatigue.

  The clinking and grinding of the gate drew his attention; he stood up and saw his son-in-law, returned from Clerkenwell. When he had heard the house-door grind and shake and close, he called ‘Sidney!’

  Sidney looked into the parlour, with a smile.

  ‘Come in here a minute; I want to speak to you.’

  It was a face that told of many troubles. Sidney might resolutely keep a bright countenance, but there was no hiding the sallowness of his cheeks and the lines drawn by ever-wakeful anxiety. The effect of a struggle with mean necessities is seldom anything but degradation, in look and in character; but Sidney’s temper, and the conditions of his life, preserved him against that danger. His features, worn into thinness, seem to present more distinctly than ever their points of refinement. You saw that he was habitually a grave and silent man; all the more attractive his aspect when, as now, he seemed to rest from thought and give expression to his natural kindliness. In the matter of attire he was no longer as careful as he used to be; the clothes he wore had done more than just service, and hung about him unregarded.

  ‘Clara upstairs?’ he asked, when he had noticed Hewett’s look.

  ‘Yes; she’s lying down. May’s been troublesome all the morning. But it was something else I meant.’

  And John began to speak of Amy’s ill-doing. He had always in some degree a sense of shame when he spoke privately with Sidney, always felt painfully the injustice involved in their relations. At present he could not look Kirkwood in the face, and his tone was that of a man who abases himself to make confession of guilt.

  Sidney was gravely concerned. It was his habit to deal with the children’s faults good-naturedly, to urge John not to take a sombre view of their thoughtlessness; but the present instance could not be made light of. Secretly he had always expected that the girl would be a source of more serious trouble the older she grew. He sat in silence, leaning forward, his eyes bent down.

  ‘It’s no good whatever I say,’ lamented Hewett. ‘They don’t heed me. Why must I have children like these? Haven’t I always done my best to teach them to be honest and good-hearted? If I’d spent my life in the worst ways a man can, they couldn’t have turned out more worthless. Haven’t I wished always what was right and good and true? Haven’t I always spoke up for justice in the world? Haven’t I done what I could, Sidney, to be helpful to them as fell into misfortune? And now in my old age I’m only a burden, and the children as come after me are nothing but a misery to all as have to do with them. If it wasn’t for Clara I feel I couldn’t live my time out. She’s the one that pays me back for the love I’ve given her. All the others—I can’t feel as they’re children of mine at all.’

  It was a strange and touching thing that he seemed nowadays utterly to have forgotten Clara’s past. Invariably he spoke of her as if she had at all times been his stay and comfort. The name of his son who was dead never passed his lips, but of Clara he could not speak too long or too tenderly.

  ‘I can’t think what to do,’ Sidney said. ‘If I talk to her in a fault-finding way, she’ll only dislike me the more; she feels I’ve no business to interfere.’

  ‘You’re too soft with them. You spoil them. Why, there’s one of them broken a pane in the kitchen to-day, and they know you’ll take it quiet, like you do everything else.’

  Sidney wrinkled his brow. These petty expenses, ever repeated, were just what made the difficulty in his budget; he winced whenever such demands encroached upon the poor weekly income of which every penny was too little for the serious needs of the family. Feeling that if he sat and thought much longer a dark mood would seize upon him, he rose hastily.

  ‘I shall try kindness with her. Don’t say anything more in her hearing.’

  He went to the kitchen-door, and cried cheerfully, ‘My dinner ready, girls?’

  Annie’s voice replied with a timorous affirmative.

  ‘All right; I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Treading as gently as possible, he ascended the stairs and entered his bedroom. The blind was drawn down, but sunlight shone through it and made a softened glow in the chamber. In a little cot was sitting his child, May, rather more than a year old; she had toys about her, and was for the moment contented. Clara lay on the bed, her face turned so that Sidney could not see it. He spoke to her, and she just moved her arm, but gave no reply.

  ‘Do you wish to be left alone?’ he asked, in a subdued and troubled voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shall I take May downstairs?’

  ‘If you like. Don’t speak to me now.’

  He remained standing by the bed for a minute, then turned his eyes on the child, who smiled at him. He could not smile in return, but went quietly away.

  ‘It’s one of her bad days,’ whispered Hewett, who met him at the foot of the stairs. ‘She can’t help it, poor girl!’

  ‘No, no.’

  Sidney ate what was put before him without giving a thought to it. When his eyes wandered round the kitchen the disorder and dirt worried him, but on that subject he could not speak. His hunger appeased, he looked steadily at Amy, and said in a kindly tone:

  ‘Father tells me you’ve had a stroke of bad luck, Amy. We must have a try at another place, mustn’t we? Hollo, there’s a window broken! Has Tom been playing at cricket in the room, eh?’

  The girls kept silence.

  ‘Come and let’s make out the list for our shopping this afternoon,’ he continued. ‘I’m afraid there’ll have to be something the less for that window, girls; what do you say?’

  ‘We’ll do without a pudding to-morrow, Sidney,’ suggested Annie.

  ‘Oh come, now! I’m fond of pudding.’

  Thus it was always; if he could not direct by kindness, he would never try to rule by harsh words. Six years ago it was not so easy for him to be gentle under provocation, and he would then have made a better disciplinarian in such a home as this. On Amy and Tom all his rare goodness was thrown away. Never mind; shall one go over to the side of evil because one despairs of vanquishing it?

  The budget, the budget! Always so many things perforce cut out; always such cruel pressure of things that could not be cut out. In the early days of his marriage he had accustomed himself to a liberality of expenditure out of proportion to his income; the little store of savings allowed him to indulge his kindness to Clara and her relatives, and he kept putting off to the future that strict revision of outlay which his position of course demanded. The day when he had no longer a choice came all too soon; with alarm he discovered that his savings had melted away; the few sovereigns remaining must be sternly guarded for the hour of stern necessity. How it ground on his sensibilities when he was compelled to refuse some request from Clara or the girls! His generous nature suffered pangs of self-contempt as often as there was talk of economy. To-day, for instance, whilst he was worrying in thought over Amy’s behaviour, and at the same time trying to cut down the Saturday’s purchases in order to pay for the broken window, up comes Tom with the announcement that he lost his hat this morning, and had to return bareheaded. Another unforeseen expense! And Sidney was angry with himself for his impulse of anger against the boy.

  Clara never went out to make purchases, seldom indeed left the house for any reason, unless Sidney persuaded her to walk a short distance with him after sundown, when she veiled herself closely. Neither Amy nor Anne could be trusted to do all the shopping, so that Sidney generally accompanied one or other of them for that purpose on Saturday afternoon. To-day he asked Amy to go with him, wishing, if possible, to influence her for good by kind, brotherly talk. Whilst she was getting ready he took John aside into the parlour, to impart a strange piece of new
s he had brought from Clerkenwell.

  ‘Mrs. Peckover has had a narrow escape of being poisoned. She was found by one of her lodgers all but dead, and last night the police arrested her daughter on the charge.’

  ‘Mrs. Snowdon?’

  ‘Yes. The mother has accused her. There’s a man concerned in the affair. One of the men showed me a report in to-day’s paper; I didn’t buy one, because we shall have it in the Sunday paper to-morrow. Nice business, oh?’

  ‘That’s for the old woman’s money, I’ll wager!’ exclaimed Hewett, in an awed voice. ‘I can believe it of Clem; if ever there was a downright bad ‘un! Was she living in the Close?’

  ‘Mrs. Snowdon wasn’t. Somewhere in Hoxton. No doubt it was for the money—if the charge is true. We won’t speak of it before the children.’