result. The appearance on the scene of Jane’s father revived their
speculation, and just after the old man’s illness in the month of
August occurred something which gave them still fresh matter for
argument. The rooms on the first floor having become vacant, Michael
proposed certain new arrangements. His own chamber was too much that of
an invalid to serve any longer as sitting-room for Jane; he desired to
take the front-room below for that purpose, to make the other on the
same floor Jane’s bedroom, and then to share with the Byasses the
expense of keeping a servant, whose lodging would be in the chamber
thus set free. Hitherto Bessie and Jane and an occasional charwoman had
done all the work of the house; it was a day of jubilation for Mrs.
Byass when she found herself ruling over a capped and aproned maid. All
these things set it beyond doubt that Michael Snowdon had means greater
than one would have supposed from his way of living hitherto. Jane’s
removal from work could, of course, be explained by her grandfather’s
growing infirmities, but Bessie saw more than this in the new order of
things; she began to look upon the girl with a certain awe, as one
whose future might reveal marvels.

For Jane, as we know, the marvels had already begun. She came back from
Danbury not altogether like herself; unsettled a little, as it
appeared; and Michael’s illness, befalling so soon, brought her into a
nervous state such as she had not known for a long time. The immediate
effect of the disclosure made to her by Michael whilst he was
recovering was to overwhelm her with a sense of responsibilities, to
throw her mind into painful tumult. Slow of thought, habituated to the
simplest views of her own existence, very ignorant of the world beyond
the little circle in which her life had been passed, she could not at
once bring into the control of her reflection this wondrous future to
which her eyes had been opened. The way in which she had been made
acquainted with the facts was unfortunate. Michael Snowdon, in spite of
his deep affection for her, and of the trust he had come to repose in
her character, did not understand Jane well enough to bring about this
revelation with the needful prudence. Between him, a man burdened with
the sorrowful memories of a long life, originally of stern temperament,
and now, in the feebleness of his age, possessed by an enthusiasm which
in several respects disturbed his judgment, which made him desperately
eager to secure his end now that he felt life slipping away from
him—between him and such a girl as Jane there was a wider gulf than
either of them could be aware of. Little as he desired it, he could not
help using a tone which seemed severe rather than tenderly trustful.
Absorbed in his great idea, conscious that it had regulated every
detail in his treatment of Jane since she came to live with him, he
forgot that the girl herself was by no means adequately prepared to
receive the solemn injunctions which he now delivered to her. His
language was as general as were the ideas of beneficent activity which
he desired to embody in Jane’s future; but instead of inspiring her
with his own zeal, he afflicted her with grievous spiritual trouble.
For a time she could only feel that something great and hard and high
was suddenly required of her; the old man’s look seemed to keep
repeating, ‘Are you worthy?’ The tremor of bygone days came back upon
her as she listened, the anguish of timidity, the heart sinking, with
which she had been wont to strain her attention when Mrs. Peckover or
Clem imposed a harsh task.

One thing alone had she grasped as soon as it was uttered; one word of
reassurance she could recall when she sat down in solitude to collect
her thoughts. Her grandfather had mentioned that Sidney Kirkwood
already knew this secret. To Sidney her whole being turned in this hour
of distress; he was the friend who would help her with counsel and
teach her to be strong. But hereupon there revived in her a trouble
which for the moment she had forgotten, and it became so acute that she
was driven to speak to Michael in a way which had till now seemed
impossible. When she entered his room—it was the morning after their
grave conversation—Michael welcomed her with a face of joy, which,
however, she still felt to be somewhat stern and searching in its look.
When they had talked for a few moments, Jane said:

‘I may speak about this to Mr. Kirkwood, grandfather?’

‘I hope you will, Jane. Strangers needn’t know of it yet, but we can
speak freely to him.’

After many endeavours to find words that would veil her thought, she
constrained herself to ask:

‘Does he think I can be all you wish?’

Michael looked at her with a smile.

‘Sidney has no less faith in you than I have, be sure of that.’

‘I’ve been thinking—that perhaps he distrusted me a little.’

‘Why, my child?’

‘I don’t quite know. But there’s been a little difference in him, I
think, since we came back.’

Michael’s countenance fell.

‘Difference? How?’

But Jane could not go further. She wished she had not spoken. Her face
began to grow hot, and she moved away.

‘It’s only your fancy,’ continued Michael. ‘But may be that—You think
he isn’t quite so easy in his talking to you as he was?’

‘I’ve fancied it. But it was only—’

‘Well, you may be partly right,’ said her grandfather, softening his
voice. ‘See, Jane, I’ll tell you something. I think there’s no harm;
perhaps I ought to. You must know that I hadn’t meant to speak to
Sidney of these things just when I did. It came about, because _he_ had
something to tell _me_, and something I was well pleased to hear. It
was about you, Jane, and in that way I got talking—something about you,
my child. Afterwards, I asked him whether he wouldn’t speak to you
yourself, but he said no—not till you’d heard all that was before you.
I think I understood him, and I dare say you will, if you think it
over.’

Matter enough for thinking over, in these words. Did she understand
them aright? Before leaving the room she had not dared to look her
grandfather in the face, but she knew well that he was regarding her
still with the same smile. Did she understand him aright?

Try to read her mind. The world had all at once grown very large, a
distress to her imagination; worse still, she had herself become a
person of magnified importance, irrecognisable in her own sight,
moving, thinking so unnaturally. Jane, I assure you, had thought very
little of herself hitherto—in both senses of the phrase. Joyous because
she could not help it, full of gratitude, admiration, generosity, she
occupied her thoughts very much with other people, but knew not
self-seeking, knew not self-esteem. The one thing affecting herself
over which she mused frequently was her suffering as a little thrall in
Clerkenwell Close, and the result was to make her very humble. She had
been an ill-used, ragged, work-worn child, and something of that
degradation seemed, in her feeling, still to cling to her. Could she
have known Bob Hewett’s view of her position, she would have felt its
injustice, but at the same time would have bowed her head. And in this
spirit had she looked up to Sidney Kirkwood, regarding him as when she
was a child, save for that subtle modification which began on the day
when she brought news of Clara Hewett’s disappearance. Perfect in
kindness, Sidney had never addressed a word to her which implied more
than friendship—never until that evening at the farm; then for the
first time had he struck a new note. His words seemed spoken with the
express purpose of altering his and her relations to each other. So
much Jane had felt, and his change since then was all the more painful
to her, all the more confusing. Now that of a sudden she had to regard
herself in an entirely new way, the dearest interest of her life
necessarily entered upon another phase. Struggling to understand how
her grandfather could think her worthy of such high trust, she
inevitably searched her mind for testimony as to the account in which
Sidney held her. A fearful hope had already flushed her cheeks before
Michael spoke the words which surely could have but one meaning.

On one point Sidney had left her no doubts; that his love for Clara
Hewett was a thing of the past he had told her distinctly. And why did
he wish her to be assured of that? Oh, had her grandfather been
mistaken in those words he reported? Durst she put faith in them,
coming thus to her by another’s voice?

Doubts and dreads and self-reproofs might still visit her from hour to
hour, but the instinct of joy would not allow her to refuse admission
to this supreme hope. As if in spite of herself, the former
gladness—nay, a gladness multiplied beyond conception—reigned once more
in her heart. Her grandfather would not speak lightly in such a matter
as this; the meaning of his words was confessed, to all eternity
immutable. Had it, then, come to this? The friend to whom she looked up
with such reverence, with voiceless gratitude, when he condescended to
speak kindly to _her_, the Peckovers’ miserable little servant—he,
after all these changes and chances of life, sought her now that she
was a woman, and had it on his lips to say that he loved her. Hitherto
the impossible, the silly thought to be laughed out of her head, the
desire for which she would have chid herself durst she have faced it
seriously—was it become a very truth? ‘Keep a good heart, Jane;
things’ll be better some day.’ How many years since the rainy and windy
night when he threw his coat over her and spoke those words? Yet she
could hear them now, and the tears that rushed to her eyes as she
blessed him for his manly goodness were as much those of the desolate
child as of the full-hearted woman.

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 altruism. 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 bring 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! would fall into miserable
perplexity, in conflict between love and duty, and her life would be
ruined.

Of course a man might have said, ‘What matter how things arrange
themselves when Michael is past knowledge of them? I will marry the
woman I honestly desire, and together we will carry out this
humanitarian project so long as it be possible. When it ceases to be
so, well—.’ But Sidney could not take that view. It shamed him beyond
endurance to think that he must ever avoid Jane’s look, because he had
proved himself dishonest, and, what were worse, had tempted her to
become so.

The conflict between desire and scruple made every day a weariness.
Instead of looking forward eagerly to the evening in the week which he
spent with Michael and Jane, he dreaded its approach. Scarcely had he
met Jane’s look since this trouble began; he knew that her voice when
she spoke to him expressed consciousness of something new in their
relations, and even whilst continuing to act his part he suffered
ceaselessly. Had Michael ever repeated to his granddaughter the
confession which Sidney would now have given anything to recall? It was
more than possible. Of Jane’s feeling Sidney could not entertain a
serious doubt, and he knew that for a long time he had done his best to
encourage it. It was unpardonable to draw aloof from her just because
these circumstances had declared themselves, circumstances which
brought perplexity into her life and doubtless made her long for
another kind of support than Michael could afford her. The old man
himself appeared to be waiting anxiously; he had fallen back into his
habit of long silences, and often regarded Sidney in a way which the
latter only too well understood.

He tried to help himself through the time of indecision by saying that
there was no hurry. Jane was very young, and with the new order of
things her life had in truth only just begun. She must have a space to
look about her; all the better if she could form various acquaintances.
On that account he urged so strongly that she should be brought into
relation with Miss Lant, and, if possible, with certain of Miss Lant’s
friends. All very well, had not the reasoning been utterly insincere.
It might have applied to another person; in Jane’s case it was mere
sophistry. Her nature was home-keeping; to force her into alliance with
conscious philanthropists was to set her in the falsest position
conceivable; striving to mould herself to the desires of those she
loved, she would suffer patiently and in secret mourn for the time when
she had been obscure and happy. These things Sidney knew with a
certainty only less than that wherewith he judged his own sensations;
between Jane and himself the sympathy was perfect. And in despite of
scruple he would before long have obeyed the natural impulse of his
heart, had it not been that still graver complications declared
themselves, and by exasperating his over-sensitive pride made him
reckless of the pain he gave to others so long as his own self-torture
was made sufficiently acute.

With Joseph Snowdon he was doing his best to be on genial terms, but
the task was a hard one. The more he saw of Joseph, the less he liked
him. Of late the filter manufacturer had begun to strike notes in his
conversation which jarred on Sidney’s sensibilities, and made him
disagreeably suspicious that something more was meant than Joseph cared
to put into plain speech. Since his establishment in business Joseph
had become remarkably attentive to his father; he appeared to enter
with much zeal into all that concerned Jane; he conversed privately
with the old man for a couple of hours at a time, and these dialogues,
for some reason or other, he made a point of reporting to Sidney.
According to these reports—and Sidney did not wholly discredit
them—Michael was coming to have a far better opinion of his son than
formerly, was even disposed to speak with him gravely of his dearest
interests.

‘We talked no end about you, Sidney, last night,’ said Joseph on one
occasion, with the smile, whereby he meant to express the last degree
of friendly intelligence.

And Sidney, though anxiously desiring to know the gist of the
conversation, in this instance was not gratified. He could not bring
himself to put questions, and went away in a mood of vague annoyance
which Joseph had the especial power of exciting.

With the Byasses, Joseph was forming an intimacy; of this too Sidney
became aware, and it irritated him. The exact source of this irritation
he did not at first recognise, but it was disclosed at length
unmistakably enough, and that on the occasion of the visit recently
described. Bessie’s pleasantry, which roused him in so unwonted a
manner, could bear, of course, but one meaning; as soon as he heard it,
Sidney saw as in a flash that one remaining aspect of his position
which had not as yet attracted his concern. The Byasses had learnt, or
had been put in the way of surmising, that Michael Snowdon was wealthy;
instantly they passed to the reflection that in marrying Jane their old
acquaintance would be doing an excellent stroke of business. They were
coarse-minded, and Bessie could even venture to jest with him on this
detestable view of his projects. But was it not very likely that they
derived their information from Joseph Snowdon? And if so, was it not
all but certain that Joseph had suggested to them this way of regarding
Sidney himself?

So when Jane’s face appeared at the door he held himself in stubborn
disregard of her. A thing impossible to him, he would have said a few
minutes ago. He revenged himself upon Jane. Good; in this way he was
likely to make noble advances.

The next evening he was due at the Snowdons’, and for the very first
time he voluntarily kept away. He posted a note to say that the
business of his removal had made him irregular; he would come next
week, when things were settled once more.

Thus it came to pass that he sat wretchedly in his unfamiliar room and
groaned about ‘that accursed money.’ His only relief was in bursts of
anger. Why had he not the courage to go to Michael and say plainly what
he thought? ‘You have formed a wild scheme, the project of a fanatic.
Its realisation would be a miracle, and in your heart you must know
that Jane’s character contains no miraculous possibilities. You are
playing with people’s lives, as fanatics always do. For Heaven’s sake,
bestow your money on the practical folks who make a solid business of
relieving distress! Jane, I know, will bless you for making her as poor
as ever. Things are going on about you which you do not suspect. Your
son is plotting, plotting; I can see it. This money will be the cause
of endless suffering to those you really love, and will never be of as
much benefit to the unknown as if practical people dealt with it. Jane
is a simple girl, of infinite goodness; what possesses you that you
want to make her an impossible sort of social saint?’ Too hard to speak
thus frankly. Michael had no longer the mental pliancy of even six
months ago; his _idea_ was everything to him; as he became weaker, it
would gain the dire force of an hallucination. And in the meantime he,
Sidney, must submit to be slandered by that fellow who had his own ends
to gain.

To marry Jane, and, at the old man’s death, resign every farthing of
the money to her trustees, for charitable uses?—But the old pang of
conscience; the lifelong wound to Jane’s tender heart.

A day of headache and incapacity, during which it was all he could do
to attend to his mechanical work, and again the miserable loneliness of
his attic. It rained, it rained. He had half a mind to seek refuge at
some theatre, but the energy to walk so far was lacking. And whilst he
stood stupidly abstracted there came a knock at his door.

‘I thought I’d just see if you’d got straight,’ said Joseph Snowdon,
entering with his genial smile.

Sidney made no reply, but turned as if to stir the fire. Hands in
pockets, Joseph sauntered to a seat.

‘Think you’ll be comfortable here?’ he went on. ‘Well, well; of course
it’s only temporary.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ returned Sidney. ‘I may stay here as long as
I was at the last place—eight years.’

Joseph laughed, with exceeding good-nature.

‘Oh yes; I shouldn’t wonder,’ he said, entering into the joke.
‘Still’—becoming serious—‘I wish you’d found a pleasanter place. With
the winter coming on, you see—’

Sidney broke in with splenetic perversity.

‘I don’t know that I shall pass the winter here. My arrangements are
all temporary—all of them.’

After glancing at him the other crossed his legs and seemed to dispose
himself for a stay of some duration.

‘You didn’t turn up the other night—in Hanover Street.’

‘No.’

‘I was there. We talked about you. My father has a notion you haven’t
been quite well lately. I dare say you’re worrying a little, eh?’

Sidney remained standing by the fireplace, turned so that his face was
in shadow.

‘Worry? Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied, idly.

‘Well, _I’m_ worried a good deal, Sidney, and that’s the fact.’

‘What about?’

‘All sorts of things. I’ve meant to have a long talk with you; but then
I don’t quite know how to begin. Well, see, it’s chiefly about Jane.’

Sidney neither moved nor spoke.

‘After all, Sidney,’ resumed the other, softening his voice, ‘I _am_
her father, you see. A precious bad one I’ve been, that there’s no
denying, and dash it if I don’t sometimes feel ashamed of myself. I do
when she speaks to me in that pleasant way she has—you know what I
mean. For all that, I am her father, and I think it’s only right I
should do my best to make her happy. You agree with that, I know.’

‘Certainly I do.’

‘You won’t take it ill if I ask whether—in fact, whether you’ve ever
asked her—you know what I mean.’

‘I have not,’ Sidney replied, in a clear, unmoved tone, changing his
position at the same time so as to look his interlocutor in the face.

Joseph seemed relieved.

‘Still,’ he continued, ‘you’ve given her to understand—eh? I suppose
there’s no secret about that?’

‘I’ve often spoken to her very intimately, but I have used no words
such as you are thinking of. It’s quite true that my way of behaving
has meant more than ordinary friendship.’

‘Yes, yes; you’re not offended at me bringing this subject up, old man?
You see, I’m her father, after all, and I think we ought to understand
each other.’

‘You are quite right.’

‘Well, now, see.’ He fidgeted a little. ‘Has my father ever told you
that his friend the lawyer, Percival, altogether went against that way
of bringing-up Jane?’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘You do?’ Joseph paused before proceeding. ‘To tell you the truth, I
don’t much care about Percival. I had a talk with him, you know, when
my business was being settled. No, I don’t quite take to him, so to
say. Now, you won’t be offended? The fact of the matter is, he asked
some rather queer questions about you—or, at all events, if they
weren’t exactly questions, they—they came to the same thing.’

Sidney was beginning to glare under his brows. Commonsense told him how
very unlikely it was that a respectable solicitor should compromise
himself in talk with a stranger, and that such a man as J. J. Snowdon;
yet, whether the story were true or not, it meant that Joseph was
plotting in some vile way, and thus confirmed his suspicions. He
inquired, briefly and indifferently, what Mr. Percival’s insinuations
had been.

‘Well, I told you I don’t much care for the fellow. He didn’t say as
much, mind, but he seemed to be hinting-like that, as Jane’s father, I
should do well to—to keep an eye on you—ha, ha! It came to that, I
thought—though, of course, I may have been mistaken. It shows how
little he knows about you and father. I fancy he’d got it into his head
that it was _you_ set father on those plans about Jane—though _why_ I’d
like to know.’

He paused. Sidney kept his eyes down, and said nothing.

‘Well, there’s quite enough of that; too much. Still I thought I’d tell
you, you see. It’s well to know when we’ve got enemies behind our
backs. But see, Sidney; to speak seriously, between ourselves.’ He
leaned forward in the confidential attitude. ‘You say you’ve gone just
a bit further than friendship with our Janey. Well, I don’t know a
better man, and that’s the truth—but don’t you think we might put this
off for a year or two? Look now, here’s this lady, Miss Lant, taking up
the girl, and it’s an advantage to her; you won’t deny that. I
sympathise with my good old dad; I do, honestly; but I can’t help
thinking that Janey, in her position, ought to see a little of the
world. There’s no secrets between _us_; you know what she’ll have as
well as I do. I should be a brute if I grudged it her, after all she’s
suffered from my neglect. But don’t you think we might leave her free
for a year or two?’

‘Yes, I agree with you.’

‘You do? I thought you and I could understand each other, if we only
got really talking. Look here, Sidney; I don’t mind just whispering to
you. For anything I know, Percival is saying disagreeable things to the
old man; but don’t you worry about that. It don’t matter a scrap, you
see, so long as you and I keep friendly, eh? I’m talking very open to
you, but it’s all for Janey’s sake. If you went and told father I’d
been saying anything against Percival—well, it would make things nasty
for me. I’ve put myself in your hands, but I know the kind of man you
are. It’s only right you should hear of what’s said. Don’t worry; we’ll
just wait a little, that’s all. I mean it all for the little girl’s
sake. It wouldn’t be nice if you married her and then she was told—eh?’

Sidney looked at the speaker steadily, then stirred the fire and moved
about for a few moments. As he kept absolute silence, Joseph, after
throwing out a few vague assurances of goodwill and trust, rose to take
his leave. Kirkwood shook hands with him, but spoke not a word. Late
the same night Sidney penned a letter to Michael Snowdon. In the
morning he read it over, and instead of putting it into an envelope,
locked it away in one of his drawers.

When the evening for his visit to Hanover Street again came round he
again absented himself, this time just calling to leave word with the
servant that business kept him away. The business was that of walking
aimlessly about Clerkenwell, in mud and fog. About ten o’clock he came
to Farringdon Road Buildings, and with a glance up towards the Hewetts’
window he was passing by when a hand clutched at him. Turning, he saw
the face of John Hewett, painfully disturbed, strained in some wild
emotion.

‘Sidney! Come this way; I want to speak to you.’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’

‘Come over here. Sidney—I’ve found my girl—I’ve found Clara!’

CHAPTER XXVII

CLARA’S RETURN

Mrs. Eagles, a middle-aged woman of something more than average girth,
always took her time in ascending to that fifth storey where she and
her husband shared a tenement with the Hewett family. This afternoon
her pause on each landing was longer than usual, for a yellow fog,
which mocked the pale glimmer of gas-jets on the staircase, made her
gasp asthmatically. She carried, too, a heavy market-bag, having done
her Saturday purchasing earlier than of wont on account of the
intolerable weather. She reached the door at length, and being too much
exhausted to search her pocket for the latch-key, knocked for admission.
Amy Hewett opened to her, and she sank on a chair in the first room,
where the other two Hewett children were bending over ‘home-lessons’
with a studiousness not altogether natural. Mrs. Eagles had a shrewd
eye; having glanced at Annie and Tom with a discreet smile, she turned
her look towards the elder girl, who was standing full in the
lamplight.

‘Come here, Amy,’ she said after a moment’s scrutiny. ‘So you _will_
keep doin’ that foolish thing! Very well, then, I shall have to speak
to your father about it; I’m not goin’ to see you make yourself ill and
do nothing to prevent you.’

Amy, now a girl of eleven, affected much indignation.

‘Why, I haven’t touched a drop, Mrs. Eagles!’

‘Now, now, now, now, now! Why, your lips are shrivelled up like a bit
of o’ dried orange-peel! You’re a silly girl, that’s what you are!’

Of late Amy Hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity;
whenever she could obtain vinegar, she drank it as a toper does
spirits. Inadequate nourishment, and especially an unsatisfied palate,
frequently have this result in female children among the poor; it is an
anticipation of what will befall them as soon as they find their way to
the public-house.

Having administered a scolding, Mrs. Eagles went into the room which
she and her husband occupied. It was so encumbered with furniture that
not more than eight or ten square feet of floor can have been available
for movement. On the bed sat Mr. Eagles, a spare, large-headed, ugly,
but very thoughtful-looking man; he and Sidney Kirkwood had been
acquaintances and fellow-workmen for some years, but no close intimacy
had arisen between them, owing to the difference of their tastes and
views. Eagles was absorbed in the study of a certain branch of
political statistics; the enthusiasm of his life was Financial Reform.
Every budget presented to Parliament he criticised with extraordinary
thoroughness, and, in fact, with an acumen which would have made him no
inefficient auxiliary of the Chancellor himself. Of course he took the
view that the nation’s resources were iniquitously wasted, and of
course had little difficulty in illustrating a truth so obvious; what
distinguished him from the ordinary malcontent of Clerkenwell Green was
his logical faculty and the surprising extent of the information with
which he had furnished himself. Long before there existed a ‘Financial
Reform Almanack,’ Eagles practically represented that work in his own
person. Disinterested, ardent, with thoughts for but one subject in the
scope of human inquiry, he lived contentedly on his two pounds a week,
and was for ever engaged in the theoretic manipulation of millions.
Utopian budgets multiplied themselves in his brain and his note-books.
He devised imposts such as Minister never dreamt of, yet which, he
declared, could not fail of vast success. ‘You just look at these
figures!’ he would exclaim to Sidney, in his low, intense voice. ‘There
it is in black and white!’ But Sidney’s faculties were quite unequal to
calculations of this kind, and Eagles could never summon resolve to
explain his schemes before an audience. Indefatigably he worked on, and
the work had to be its own reward.

He was busy in the usual way this afternoon, as he sat on the bed,
coatless, a trade journal open on his knees. His wife never disturbed
him; she was a placid, ruminative woman, generally finding the details
of her own weekly budget quite a sufficient occupation. When she had
taken off her bonnet and was turning out the contents of her bag,
Eagles remarked quietly:

‘They’ll have a bad journey.’

‘What a day for her to be travelling all that distance, poor thing! But
perhaps it ain’t so bad out o’ London.’

Lowering their voices, they began to talk of John Hewett and the
daughter he was bringing from Lancashire, where she had lain in
hospital for some weeks. Of the girl and her past they knew next to
nothing, but Hewett’s restricted confidences suggested disagreeable
things. The truth of the situation was, that John had received by post,
from he knew not whom, a newspaper report of the inquest held on the
body of Grace Danver, wherein, of course, was an account of what had
happened to Clara Vale; in the margin was pencilled, ‘Clara Vale’s real
name is Clara Hewett.’ An hour after receiving this John encountered
Sidney Kirkwood. They read the report together. Before the coroner it
had been made public that the dead woman was in truth named Rudd; she
who was injured refused to give any details concerning herself, and her
history escaped the reporters. Harbouring no doubt of the information
thus mysteriously sent him—the handwriting seemed to be that of a man,
but gave no further hint as to its origin—Hewett the next day journeyed
down into Lancashire, Sidney supplying him with money. He found Clara
in a perilous condition; her face was horribly burnt with vitriol, and
the doctors could not as yet answer for the results of the shock she
had suffered. One consolation alone offered itself in the course of
Hewett’s inquiries; Clara, if she recovered, would not have lost her
eyesight. The fluid had been thrown too low to effect the worst injury;
the accident of a trembling hand, of a movement on her part, had kept
her eyes untouched.

Necessity brought the father back to London almost at once, but the
news sent him at brief intervals continued to be favourable. Now that
the girl could be removed from the infirmary, there was no retreat for
her but her father’s home. Mr. Peel, the manager, had made her a
present of 20_l_.—it was all he could do; the members of the company
had subscribed another 5_l_., generously enough, seeing that their tour
was come perforce to an abrupt close. Clara’s career as an actress had
ended. . . .

When the fog’s artificial night deepened at the close of the winter
evening, Mrs. Eagles made the Hewetts’ two rooms as cheerful as might
be, expecting every moment the arrival of John and his companion. The
children were aware that an all but forgotten sister was returning to
them, and that she had been very ill; they promised quietude. Amy set
the tea-table in order, and kept the kettle ready. . . . The knock for
which they were waiting! Mrs. Eagles withdrew into her own room; Amy
went to the door.

A tall figure, so wrapped and veiled that nothing but the womanly
outline could be discerned, entered, supported by John Hewett.

‘Is there a light in the other room, Amy?’ John inquired in a thick
voice.

‘Yes, father.’

He led the muffled form into the chamber where Amy and Annie slept. The
door closed, and for several minutes the three children stood regarding
each other, alarmed, mute. Then their father joined them. He looked
about in an absent way, slowly drew off his overcoat, and when Amy
offered to take it, bent and kissed her cheek. The girl was startled to
hear him sob and to see tears starting from his eyes. Turning suddenly
away, he stood before the fire and made a pretence of warming himself;
but his sobs overmastered him. He leaned his arms on the mantel-piece.

‘Shall I pour out the tea, father?’ Amy ventured to ask, when there was
again perfect silence.

‘Haven’t you had yours?’ he replied, half-facing her.

‘Not yet.’

‘Get it, then—all of you. Yes, you can pour me out a cup—and put
another on the little tray. Is this stuff in the saucepan ready?’ ‘Mrs.
Eagles said it would be in five minutes.’.

‘All right. Get on with your eatin’, all of you.’

He went to Mrs. Eagles’ room and talked there for a short time.
Presently Mrs. Eagles herself came out and silently removed from the
saucepan a mixture of broth and meat. Having already taken the cup of
tea to Clara, Hewett now returned to her with this food. She was
sitting by the fire, her face resting upon her hands. The lamp was
extinguished; she had said that the firelight was enough. John
deposited his burden on the table, then touched her shoulder gently and
spoke in so soft a voice that one would not have recognised it as his.

‘You’ll try an’ eat a little, my dear? Here’s somethin’ as has been
made particular. After travellin’—just a spoonful or two.’

Clara expressed reluctance.

‘I don’t feel hungry, father. Presently, perhaps.’

‘Well, well; it do want to cool a bit. Do you feel able to sit up?’

‘Yes. Don’t take so much trouble, father. I’d rather you left me
alone.’

The tone was not exactly impatient; it spoke a weary indifference to
everything and every person.

‘Yes, I’ll go away, dear. But you’ll eat just a bit? If you don’t like
this, you must tell me, and I’ll get something you could fancy.’

‘It’ll do well enough. I’ll eat it presently; I promise you.’

John hesitated before going.

‘Clara—shall you mind Amy and Annie comin’ to sleep here? If you’d
rather, we’ll manage it somehow else.’

‘No. What does it matter? They can come when they like, only they
mustn’t want me to talk to them.’

He went softly from the room, and joined the children at their tea. His
mood had grown brighter. Though in talking he kept his tone much
softened, there was a smile upon his face, and he answered freely the
questions put to him about his journey. Overcome at first by the dark
aspect of this home-coming, he now began to taste the joy of having
Clara under his roof, rescued alike from those vague dangers of the
past and from the recent peril. Impossible to separate the sorrow he
felt for her blighted life, her broken spirit, and the solace lurking
in the thought that henceforth she could not abandon him. Never a word
to reproach her for the unalterable; it should be as though there were
no gap between the old love and its renewal in the present. For Clara
used to love him, and already she had shown that his tenderness did not
appeal to her in vain; during the journey she had once or twice pressed
his hand in gratitude. How well it was that he had this home in which
to receive her! Half a year ago, and what should he have done? He would
not admit to himself that there were any difficulties ahead; if it came
to that, he would manage to get some extra work in the evening and on
Saturday afternoons. He would take Sidney into council. But thereupon
his face darkened again, and he lost himself in troubled musing.

Midway in the Sunday morning Amy told him that Clara had risen and
would like him to go and sit with her. She would not leave her room;
Amy had put it in order, and the blind was drawn low. Clara sat by the
fireside, in her attitude of last night, hiding her face as far as she
was able. The beauty of her form would have impressed anyone who
approached her, the grace of her bent head; but the countenance was no
longer that of Clara Hewett; none must now look at her, unless to pity.
Feeling herself thus utterly changed, she could not speak in her former
natural voice; her utterance was oppressed, unmusical, monotonous.

When her father had taken a place near her she asked him, ‘Have you got
that piece of newspaper still?’

He had, and at her wish produced it. Clara held it in the light of the
fire, and regarded the pencilled words closely. Then she inquired if he
wished to keep it, and on his answering in the negative threw it to be
burnt. Hewett took her hand, and for a while they kept silence.

‘Do you live comfortably here, father?’ she said presently.

‘We do, Clara. It’s a bit high up, but that don’t matter much.’

‘You’ve got new furniture.’

‘Yes, some new things. The old was all done for, you know.’

‘And where did you live before you came here?’

‘Oh, we had a place in King’s Cross Road—it wasn’t much of a place, but
I suppose it might a’ been worse.’

‘And that was where—?’

‘Yes—yes—it was there.’

‘And how did you manage to buy this furniture?’ Clara asked, after a
pause.

‘Well, my dear, to tell you the truth—it was a friend as—an old friend
helped us a bit.’

‘You wouldn’t care to say who it was?’

John was gravely embarrassed. Clara moved her head a little, so as to
regard him, but at once turned away, shrinkingly, when she met his
eyes.

‘Why don’t you like to tell me, father? Was it Mr. Kirkwood?’

‘Yes, my dear, it was.’

Neither spoke for a long time. Clara’s head sank lower; she drew her
hand away from her father’s, and used it to shield her face. When she
spoke, it was as if to herself.

‘I suppose he’s altered in some ways?’

‘Not much; I don’t see much change, myself, but then of course— No,
he’s pretty much the same.’

‘He’s married, isn’t he?

‘Married? Why, what made you think that. Clara? No, not he. He had to
move not long ago; his lodgin’s is in Red Lion Street now.’

‘And does he ever come here?’

‘He has been—just now an’ then.’

‘Have you told him?’

‘Why—yes, dear—I felt I had to.’

‘There’s no harm. You couldn’t keep it a secret. But he mustn’t come
whilst I’m here; you understand that, father?’

‘No, no, he shan’t. He shall never come, if you don’t wish it.’

‘Only whilst I’m here.’

‘But—Clara—you’ll _always_ be here.’

‘Oh no! Do you think I’m going to burden you all the rest of my life? I
shall find some way of earning a living, and then I shall go and get a
room for myself.’

‘Now don’t—now don’t talk like that!’ exclaimed her father, putting his
hand on her. ‘You shall do what else you like, my girl, but don’t talk
about goin’ away from me. That’s the one thing as I couldn’t bear. I
ain’t so young as I was, and I’ve had things as was hard to go
through—I mean when the mother died and—and other things at that time.
Let you an’ me stay by each other whilst we may, my girl. You know it
was always you as I thought most of, and I want to keep you by me—I do,
Clara. You won’t speak about goin’ away?’

She remained mute. Shadows from the firelight rose and fell upon the
walls of the half-darkened room. It was a cloudy morning; every now and
then a gust flung rain against the window.

‘If you went,’ he continued, huskily, ‘I should be afraid myself. I
haven’t told you. I didn’t behave as I’d ought have done to the poor
mother, Clara; I got into drinkin’ too much; yes, I did. I’ve broke
myself off that; but if you was to leave me—I’ve had hard things to go
through. Do you know the Burial Club broke up just before she died? I
couldn’t get not a ha’penny! A lot o’ the money was stolen. You may
think how I felt, Clara, with her lyin’ there, and I hadn’t got as much
as would pay for a coffin. It was Sidney Kirkwood found the money—he
did! There was never man had as good a friend as he’s been to me; I
shall never have a chance of payin’ what I owe him. Things is better
with me now, but I’d rather beg my bread in the streets than you should
go away. Don’t be afraid, my dearest. I promise you nobody shan’t come
near. You won’t mind Mrs. Eagles; she’s very good to the children. But
I must keep you near to me, my poor girl!’

Perhaps it was that word of pity—though the man’s shaken voice was
throughout deeply moving. For the first time since the exultant hope of
her life was blasted, Clara shed tears.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SOUP-KITCHEN

With the first breath of winter there passes a voice half-menacing,
half-mournful, through all the barren ways and phantom-haunted refuges
of the nether world. Too quickly has vanished the brief season when the
sky is clement, when a little food suffices, and the chances of earning
that little are more numerous than at other times; this wind that gives
utterance to its familiar warning is the vaunt-courier of cold and
hunger and solicitude that knows not sleep. Will the winter be a hard
one? It is the question that concerns this world before all others,
that occupies alike the patient workfolk who have yet their home
unbroken, the strugglers foredoomed to loss of such scant needments as
the summer gifted them withal, the hopeless and the self-abandoned and
the lurking creatures of prey. To all of them the first chill breath
from a lowering sky has its voice of admonition; they set their faces;
they sigh, or whisper a prayer, or fling out a curse, each according to
his nature.

And as though the strife here were not already hard enough, behold from
many corners of the land come needy emigrants, prospectless among their
own people, fearing the dark season which has so often meant for them
the end of wages and of food, tempted hither by thought that in the
shadow of palaces work and charity are both more plentiful. Vagabonds,
too, no longer able to lie about the country roads, creep back to their
remembered lairs and join the combat for crusts flung forth by casual
hands. Day after day the stress becomes more grim. One would think that
hosts of the weaker combatants might surely find it seasonable to let
themselves be trodden out of existence, and so make room for those of
more useful sinew; somehow they cling to life; so few in comparison
yield utterly. The thoughtful in the world above look about them with
contentment when carriage-ways are deep with new-fallen snow. ‘Good;
here is work for the unemployed.’ Ah, if the winter did but last a few
months longer, if the wonted bounds of endurance were but, by some
freak of nature, sensibly overpassed, the carriage-ways would find
another kind of sweeping! . . .

This winter was the last that Shooter’s Gardens were destined to know.
The leases had all but run out; the middlemen were garnering their
latest profits; in the spring there would come a wholesale demolition,
and model lodgings would thereafter occupy the site. Meanwhile the
Gardens looked their surliest; the walls stood in a perpetual black
sweat; a mouldy reek came from the open doorways; the beings that
passed in and out seemed soaked with grimy moisture, puffed into
distortions, hung about with rotting garments. One such was Mrs. Candy,
Pennyloaf’s mother. Her clothing consisted of a single gown and a shawl
made out of the fragments of an old counterpane; her clothing—with
exception of the shoes on her feet, those two articles were literally
all that covered her bare body. Rage for drink was with her reaching
the final mania. Useless to bestow anything upon her; straightway it or
its value passed over the counter of the beer-shop in Rosoman Street.
She cared only for beer, the brave, thick, medicated draught, that was
so cheap and frenzied her so speedily.

Her husband was gone for good. One choking night of November he beat
her to such purpose that she was carried off to the police-station as
dead; the man effected his escape, and was not likely to show himself
in the Gardens again. With her still lived her son Stephen, the potman.
His payment was ten shillings a week (with a daily allowance of three
pints), and he saw to it that there was always a loaf of bread in the
room they occupied together. Stephen took things with much philosophy;
his mother would, of course, drink herself to death—what was there
astonishing in that? He himself had heart disease, and surely enough
would drop down dead one of these days; the one doom was no more to be
quarrelled with than the other. Pennyloaf came to see them at very long
intervals; what was the use of making her visits more frequent? She,
too, viewed with a certain equanimity the progress of her mother’s
fate. Vain every kind of interposition; worse than imprudence to give
the poor creature money or money’s worth. It could only be hoped that
the end would come before very long.

An interesting house, this in which Mrs. Candy resided. It contained in
all seven rooms, and each room was the home of a family; under the roof
slept twenty-five persons, men, women, and children; the lowest rent
paid by one of these domestic groups was four-and-sixpence. You would
have enjoyed a peep into the rear chamber on the ground floor. There
dwelt a family named Hope—Mr. and Mrs. Hope, Sarah Hope, aged fifteen,
Dick Hope, aged twelve, Betsy Hope, aged three. The father was a
cripple; he and his wife occupied themselves in the picking of rags—of
course at home—and I can assure you that the atmosphere of their abode
was worthy of its aspect. Mr. Hope drank, but not desperately. His
forte was the use of language so peculiarly violent that even in
Shooter’s Gardens it gained him a proud reputation. On the slightest
excuse he would threaten to brain one of his children, to disembowel
another, to gouge out the eyes of the third. He showed much ingenuity
in varying the forms of menaced punishment. Not a child in the Gardens
but was constantly threatened by its parents with a violent death; this
was so familiar that it had lost its effect; where the nurse or mother
in the upper world cries, ‘I shall scold you!’ in the nether the phrase
is, ‘I’ll knock yer ’ed orff!’ To ‘I shall be very angry with you’ in
the one sphere, corresponds in the other, ‘I’ll murder you!’ These are
conventions—matters of no importance. But Mr. Rope was a man of
individuality; he could make his family tremble; he could bring lodgers
about the door to listen and admire his resources.

In another room abode a mother with four children. This woman drank
moderately, but was very conscientious in despatching her three younger
children to school. True, there was just a little inconvenience in this
punctuality of hers, at all events from the youngsters’ point of view,
for only on the first three days of the week had they the slightest
chance of a mouthful of breakfast before they departed. ‘Never mind,
I’ll have some dinner for you,’ their parent was wont to say. Common
enough in the Board schools, this pursuit of knowledge on an empty
stomach. But then the end is so inestimable!

Yet another home. It was tenanted by two persons only; they appeared to
be man and wife, but in the legal sense were not so, nor did they for a
moment seek to deceive their neighbours. With the female you are
slightly acquainted; christened Sukey Jollop, she first became Mrs.
Jack Bartley, and now, for courtesy’s sake, was styled Mrs. Higgs.
Sukey had strayed on to a downward path; conscious of it, she abandoned
herself to her taste for strong drink, and braved out her degradation.
Jealousy of Clem Peckover was the first cause of discord between her
and Jack Bartley; a robust young woman, she finally sent Jack about his
business by literal force of arms, and entered into an alliance with
Ned Higgs, a notorious swashbuckler, the captain of a gang of young
ruffians who at this date were giving much trouble to the Clerkenwell
police. Their speciality was the skilful use, as an offensive weapon,
of a stout leathern belt heavily buckled; Mr. Higgs boasted that with
one stroke of his belt he could, if it seemed good to him, kill his
man, but the fitting opportunity for this display of prowess had not
yet offered. . . .

Now it happened that, at the time of her making Jane Snowdon’s
acquaintance, Miss Lant was particularly interested in Shooter’s
Gardens and the immediate vicinity. She had associated herself with
certain ladies who undertook the control of a soup-kitchen in the
neighbourhood, and as the winter advanced she engaged Jane in this work
of charity. It was a good means, as Michael Snowdon agreed, of enabling
the girl to form acquaintances among the very poorest, those whom she
hoped to serve effectively—not with aid of money alone, but by her
personal influence. And I think it will be worth while to dwell a
little on the story of this same soup-kitchen; it is significant, and
shall take the place of abstract comment on Miss Lant’s philanthropic
enterprises.

The kitchen had been doing successful work for some years; the society
which established it entrusted its practical conduct to very practical
people, a man and wife who were themselves of the nether world, and
knew the ways thereof. The ‘stock’ which formed the basis of the soup
was wholesome and nutritious; the peas were of excellent quality;
twopence a quart was the price at which this fluid could be purchased
(one penny if a ticket from a member of the committee were presented),
and sometimes as much as five hundred quarts would be sold in a day.
Satisfactory enough this. When the people came with complaints, saying
that they were tired of this particular soup, and would like another
kind for a change, Mr. and Mrs. Batterby, with perfect understanding of
the situation, bade their customers ‘take it or leave it—an’ none o’
your cheek here, or you won’t get nothing at all!’ The result was much
good-humour all round.

But the present year saw a change in the constitution of the committee:
two or three philanthropic ladies of great conscientiousness began to
inquire busily into the working of the soup-kitchen, and they soon
found reason to be altogether dissatisfied with Mr. and Mrs. Batterby.
No, no; these managers were of too coarse a type; they spoke grossly;
what possibility of their exerting a humanising influence on the people
to whom they dispensed soup? Soup and refinement must be disseminated
at one and the same time, over the same counter. Mr. and Mrs. Batterby
were dismissed, and quite a new order of things began. Not only were
the ladies zealous for a high ideal in the matter of soup-distributing,
they also aimed at practical economy in the use of funds. Having
engaged a cook after their own hearts, and acting upon the advice of
competent physiologists, they proceeded to make a ‘stock’ out of
sheep’s and bullocks’ heads; moreover, they ordered their peas from the
City, thus getting them at two shillings a sack less than the price
formerly paid by the Batterbys to a dealer in Clerkenwell. But, alas!
these things could not be done secretly; the story leaked out;
Shooter’s Gardens and vicinity broke into the most excited feeling. I
need not tell you that the nether world will consume—when others supply
it—nothing but the very finest quality of food, that the heads of sheep
and bullocks are peculiarly offensive to its stomach, that a saving
effected on sacks of peas outrages its dearest sensibilities. What was
the result? Shooter’s Gardens, convinced of the fraud practised upon
them, nobly brought back their quarts of soup to the kitchen, and with
proud independence of language demanded to have their money returned.
On being met with a refusal, they—what think you?—emptied the soup on
to the floor, and went away with heads exalted.

Vast was the indignation of Miss Lant and the other ladies. ‘This is
their gratitude!’ Now if you or I had been there, what an opportunity
for easing our minds! ‘Gratitude, mesdames? You have entered upon this
work with expectation of gratitude?—And can you not perceive that these
people of Shooter’s Gardens are poor, besotted, disease-struck
creatures, of whom—in the mass—scarcely a human quality is to be
expected? Have you still to learn what this nether world has been made
by those who belong to the sphere above it?—Gratitude, quotha?—Nay, do
_you_ be grateful that these hapless, half-starved women do not turn
and rend you. At present they satisfy themselves with insolence. Take
it silently, you who at all events hold some count of their dire state;
and endeavour to feed them without arousing their animosity!’

Well, the kitchen threatened to be a failure. It turned out that the
cheaper peas were, in fact, of inferior quality, and the ladies
hastened to go back to the dealer in Clerkenwell. This was something,
but now came a new trouble; the complaint with which Mr. and Mrs.
Batterby had known so well how to deal revived in view of the
concessions made by the new managers. Shooter’s Gardens would have no
more peas; let some other vegetable be used. Again the point was
conceded; a trial was made of barley soup. Shooter’s Gardens came,
looked, smelt, and shook their heads. ‘It don’t look nice,’ was their
comment; they would none of it.

For two or three weeks, just at this crisis in the kitchen’s fate, Jane
Snowdon attended with Miss Lant to help in the dispensing of the
decoction. Jane was made very nervous by the disturbances that went on,
but she was able to review the matter at issue in a far more fruitful
way than Miss Lant and the other ladies. Her opinion was not asked,
however. In the homely grey dress, with her modest, retiring manner,
her gentle, diffident countenance, she was taken by the customers for a
paid servant, and if ever it happened that she could not supply a can
of soup quickly enough sharp words reached her ear. ‘Now then, you
gyurl there! Are you goin’ to keep me all d’y? I’ve got somethink else
to do but stand ’ere.’ And Jane, by her timid hastening, confirmed the
original impression, with the result that she was treated yet more
unceremoniously next time. Of all forms of insolence there is none more
flagrant than that of the degraded poor receiving charity which they
have come to regard as a right.

Jane did speak at length. Miss Lant had called to see her in Hanover
Street; seated quietly in her own parlour, with Michael Snowdon to
approve—with him she had already discussed the matter—Jane ventured
softly to compare the present state of things and that of former
winters, as described to her by various people.

‘Wasn’t it rather a pity,’ she suggested, ‘that the old people were
sent away?’

‘You think so?’ returned Miss Lant, with the air of one to whom a novel
thought is presented. ‘You really think so, Miss Snowdon?’

‘They got on so well with everybody,’ Jane continued. ‘And don’t you
think it’s better, Miss Lant, for everybody to feel satisfied?’

‘But really, Mr. Batterby used to speak so very harshly. He destroyed
their self-respect.’

‘I don’t think they minded it,’ said Jane, with simple good faith. ‘And
I’m always hearing them wish he was back, instead of the new managers.’

‘I think we shall have to consider this,’ remarked the lady,
thoughtfully.

Considered it was, and with the result that the Batterbys before long
found themselves in their old position, uproariously welcomed by
Shooter’s Gardens. In a few weeks the soup was once more concocted of
familiar ingredients, and customers, as often as they grumbled, had the
pleasure of being rebuked in their native tongue.

It was with anything but a cheerful heart that Jane went through this
initiation into the philanthropic life. Her brief period of joy and
confidence was followed by a return of anxiety, which no resolve could
suppress. It was not only that the ideals to which she strove to form
herself made no genuine appeal to her nature; the imperative hunger of
her heart remained unsatisfied. At first, when the assurance received
from Michael began to lose a little of its sustaining force, she could
say to herself, ‘Patience, patience; be faithful, be trustful, and your
reward will soon come.’ Nor would patience have failed her had but the
current of life flowed on in the old way. It was the introduction of
new and disturbing things that proved so great a test of fortitude.
Those two successive absences of Sidney on the appointed evening were
strangely unlike him, but perhaps could be explained by the
unsettlement of his removal; his manner when at length he did come
proved that the change in himself was still proceeding. Moreover, the
change affected Michael, who manifested increase of mental trouble at
the same time that he yielded more and more to physical infirmity.

The letter which Sidney wrote after receiving Joseph Snowdon’s
confidential communications was despatched two days later. He expressed
himself in carefully chosen words, but the purport of the letter was to
make known that he no longer thought of Jane save as a friend; that the
change in her position had compelled him to take another view of his
relations to her than that he had confided to Michael at Danbury. Most
fortunately—he added—no utterance of his feelings had ever escaped him
to Jane herself, and henceforth he should be still more careful to
avoid any suggestion of more than brotherly interest. In very deed
nothing was altered; he was still her steadfast friend, and would
always aid her to his utmost in the work of her life.

That Sidney could send this letter, after keeping it in reserve for a
couple of days, proved how profoundly his instincts were revolted by
the difficulties and the ambiguity of his position. It had been bad
enough when only his own conscience was in play; the dialogue with
Joseph, following upon Bessie Byass’s indiscretion, threw him wholly
off his balance, and he could give no weight to any consideration but
the necessity of recovering self-respect. Even the sophistry of that
repeated statement that he had never approached Jane as a lover did not
trouble him in face of the injury to his pride. Every word of Joseph
Snowdon’s transparently artful hints was a sting to his sensitiveness;
the sum excited him to loathing. It was as though the corner of a
curtain had been raised, giving him a glimpse of all the vile greed,
the base machination, hovering about this fortune that Jane was to
inherit. Of Scawthorne he knew nothing, but his recollection of the
Peckovers was vivid enough to suggest what part Mrs. Joseph Snowdon was
playing in the present intrigues, and he felt convinced that in the
background were other beasts of prey, watching with keen, envious eyes.
The sudden revelation was a shock from which he would not soon recover;
he seemed to himself to be in a degree contaminated; he questioned his
most secret thoughts again and again, recognizing with torment the
fears which had already bidden him draw back; he desired to purify
himself by some unmistakable action.

That which happened he had anticipated. On receipt of the letter
Michael came to see him; he found the old man waiting in front of the
house when he returned to Red Lion Street after his work. The
conversation that followed was a severe test of Sidney’s resolve. Had
Michael disclosed the fact of his private understanding with Jane,
Sidney would probably have yielded; but the old man gave no hint of
what he had done—partly because he found it difficult to make the
admission, partly in consequence of an indecision in his own mind with
regard to the very point at issue. Though agitated by the consciousness
of suffering in store for Jane, his thoughts disturbed by the
derangement of a part of his plan, he did not feel that Sidney’s change
of mind gravely affected the plan itself. Age had cooled his blood;
enthusiasm had made personal interests of comparatively small account
to him; he recognised his granddaughter’s feeling, but could not
appreciate its intensity, its supreme significance. When Kirkwood made
a show of explaining himself, saying that he shrank from that form of
responsibility, that such a marriage suggested to him many and
insuperable embarrassments, Michael began to reflect that perchance
this was the just view. With household and family cares, could Jane
devote herself to the great work after the manner of his ideal? Had he
not been tempted by his friendship for Sidney to introduce into his
scheme what was really an incompatible element? Was it not decidedly,
infinitely better that Jane should be unmarried?

Michael had taken the last step in that process of dehumanisation which
threatens idealists of his type. He had reached at length the pass of
those frenzied votaries of a supernatural creed who exact from their
disciples the sacrifice of every human piety. Returning home, he
murmured to himself again and again, ‘She must not marry. She must
overcome this desire of a happiness such as ordinary women may enjoy.
For my sake, and for the sake of her suffering fellow-creatures, Jane
must win this victory over herself.’

He purposed speaking to her, but put it off from day to day. Sidney
paid his visits as usual, and tried desperately to behave as though he
had no trouble. Could he have divined why it was that Michael had ended
by accepting his vague pretences with apparent calm, indignation,
wrath, would have possessed him; he believed, however, that the old man
out of kindness subdued what he really felt. Sidney’s state was
pitiable. He knew not whether he more shrank from the thought of being
infected with Joseph Snowdon’s baseness or despised himself for his
attitude to Jane. Despicable entirely had been his explanations to
Michael, but how could he make them more sincere? To tell the whole
truth, to reveal Joseph’s tactics would be equivalent to taking a part
in the dirty contest; Michael would probably do him justice, but who
could say how far Joseph’s machinations were becoming effectual? The
slightest tinct of uncertainty in the old man’s thought, and he,
Kirkwood, became a plotter, like the others, meeting mine with
countermine.

‘There will be no possibility of perfect faith between men until there
is no such thing as money! H’m, and when is that likely to come to
pass?’

Thus he epigrammatised to himself one evening, savagely enough, as with
head bent forward he plodded to Red Lion Street. Some one addressed
him; he looked up and saw Jane. Seemingly it was a chance meeting, but
she put a question at once almost as though she had been waiting for
him. ‘Have you seen Pennyloaf lately, Mr. Kirkwood?’

Pennyloaf? The name suggested Bob Hewett, who again suggested John
Hewett, and so Sidney fell upon thoughts of some one who two days ago
had found a refuge in John’s home. To Michael he had said nothing of
what he knew concerning Clara; a fresh occasion of uneasy thought. Bob
Hewett—so John said—had no knowledge of his sister’s situation,
otherwise Pennyloaf might have come to know about it, and in that case,
perchance, Jane herself. Why not? Into what a wretched muddle of
concealments and inconsistencies and insincerities had he fallen!

‘It’s far too long since I saw her,’ he replied, in that softened tone
which he found it impossible to avoid when his eyes met Jane’s.

She was on her way home from the soup-kitchen, where certain
occupations had kept her much later than usual; this, however, was far
out of her way, and Sidney remarked on the fact, perversely, when she
had offered this explanation of her meeting him, Jane did not reply.
They walked on together, towards Islington.

‘Are you going to help at that place all the winter?’ he inquired.

‘Yes; I think so.’

If he had spoken his thought, he would have railed against the
soup-kitchen and all that was connected with it. So far had he got in
his revolt against circumstances; Jane’s ‘mission’ was hateful to him;
he could not bear to think of her handing soup over a counter to ragged
wretches.

‘You’re nothing like as cheerful as you used to be,’ he said, suddenly,
and all but roughly. ‘Why is it?’

What a question! Jane reddened as she tried to look at him with a
smile; no words would come to her tongue.

‘Do you go anywhere else, besides to—to that place?’

Not often. She had accompanied Miss Lant on a visit to some people in
Shooter’s Gardens.

Sidney bent his brows. A nice spot, Shooter’s Gardens.

‘The houses are going to be pulled down, I’m glad to say,’ continued
Jane. ‘Miss Lant thinks it’ll be a good opportunity for helping a few
of the families into better lodgings. We’re going to buy furniture for
them—so many have as good as none at all, you know. It’ll be a good
start for them, won’t it?’

Sidney nodded. He was thinking of another family who already owed their
furniture to Jane’s beneficence, though they did not know it.

‘Mind you don’t throw away kindness on worthless people,’ he said
presently.

‘We can only do our best, and hope they’ll keep comfortable for their
own sakes.’

‘Yes, yes. Well, I’ll say good-night to you here. Go home and rest; you
look tired.’

He no longer called her by her name. Tearing himself away, with a last
look, he raged inwardly that so sweet and gentle a creature should be
condemned to such a waste of her young life.

Jane had obtained what she came for. At times the longing to see him
grew insupportable, and this evening she had yielded to it, going out
of her way in the hope of encountering him as he came from work. He
spoke very strangely. What did it all mean, and when would this winter
of suspense give sign of vanishing before sunlight?

CHAPTER XXIX

PHANTOMS

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Snowdon were now established in rooms in Burton
Crescent, which is not far from King’s Cross. Joseph had urged that
Clerkenwell Close was scarcely a suitable quarter for a man of his
standing, and, though with difficulty, he had achieved thus much
deliverance. Of Clem he could not get rid—just yet; but it was
something to escape Mrs. Peckover’s superintendence. Clem herself
favoured the removal, naturally for private reasons. Thus far working
in alliance with her shrewd mother, she was now forming independent
projects. Mrs. Peckover’s zeal was assuredly not disinterested, and
why, Clem mused with herself, should the fruits of strategy be shared?
Her husband’s father could not, she saw every reason to believe, be
much longer for this world. How his property was to be divided she had
no means of discovering; Joseph professed to have no accurate
information, but as a matter of course he was deceiving her. Should he
inherit a considerable sum, it was more than probable he would think of
again quitting his native land—and without encumbrances. That movement
must somehow be guarded against; how, it was difficult as yet to
determine. In the next place, Jane was sure to take a large share of
the fortune. To that Clem strongly objected, both on abstract grounds
and because she regarded Jane with a savage hatred—a hatred which had
its roots in the time of Jane’s childhood, and which had grown in
proportion as the girl reaped happiness from life. The necessity of
cloaking this sentiment had not, you may be sure, tended to mitigate
it. Joseph said that there was no longer any fear of a speedy marriage
between Jane and Kirkwood, but that such a marriage would come off some
day,—if not prevented—Clem held to be a matter of certainty. Sidney
Kirkwood was a wide-awake young man; of course he had his satisfactory
reasons for delay. Now Clem’s hatred of Sidney was, from of old, only
less than that wherewith she regarded Jane. To frustrate the hopes of
that couple would be a gratification worth a good deal of risk.

She heard nothing of what had befallen Clara Hewett until the latter’s
return home, and then not from her husband. Joseph and Scawthorne,
foiled by that event in an ingenious scheme which you have doubtless
understood (they little knowing how easily the severance between Jane
and Kirkwood might be effected), agreed that it was well to get Clara
restored to her father’s household—for, though it seemed unlikely, it
was not impossible that she might in one way or another aid their
schemes—and on that account the anonymous letter was despatched which
informed John Hewett of his daughter’s position. Between John and
Snowdon, now that they stood in the relations of master and servant,
there was naturally no longer familiar intercourse, and, in begging
leave of absence for his journey northwards, Hewett only said that a
near relative had met with a bad accident. But it would be easy, Joseph
decided, to win the man’s confidence again, and thus be apprised of all
that went on. With Clem he kept silence on the subject; not improbably
she would learn sooner or later what had happened, and indeed, as
things now stood, it did not matter much; but on principle he excluded
her as much as possible from his confidence. He knew she hated him, and
he was not backward in returning the sentiment, though constantly
affecting a cheerful friendliness in his manner to her; after all,
their union was but temporary. In Hanover Street he was also silent
regarding the Hewetts, for there his role was that of a good,
simple-minded fellow, incapable of intrigue, living for the domestic
affections. If Kirkwood chose to speak to Michael or Jane of the
matter, well, one way or another, that would advance things a stage,
and there was nothing for it but to watch the progress.

Alone all through the day, and very often in the evening Clem was not
at all disposed to occupy herself in domestic activity. The lodgings
were taken furnished, and a bondmaid of the house did such work as was
indispensable. Dirt and disorder were matters of indifference to the
pair, who represented therein the large class occupying cheap London
lodgings; an impure atmosphere, surroundings more or less squalid,
constant bickering with the landlady, coarse usage of the servant—these
things Clem understood as necessaries of independent life, and it would
have cost her much discomfort had she been required to live in a more
civilised manner. Her ambitions were essentially gross. In the way of
social advancement she appreciated nothing but an increased power of
spending money, and consequently of asserting herself over others. She
had no desire whatever to enter a higher class than that in which she
was born; to be of importance in her familiar circle was the most she
aimed at. In visiting the theatre, she did not so much care to occupy a
superior place—indeed, such a position made her ill at ease—as to
astonish her neighbours in the pit by a lavish style of costume, by
loud remarks implying a free command of cash, by purchase between the
acts of something expensive to eat or drink. Needless to say that she
never read anything but police news; in the fiction of her world she
found no charm, so sluggishly unimaginative was her nature. Till of
late she had either abandoned herself all day long to a brutal
indolence, eating rather too much, and finding quite sufficient
occupation for her slow brain in the thought of how pleasant it was not
to be obliged to work, and occasionally in reviewing the chances that
she might eventually have plenty of money and no Joseph Snowdon as a
restraint upon her; or else, her physical robustness demanding
exercise, she walked considerable distances about the localities she
knew, calling now and then upon an acquaintance.

Till of late; but a change had come upon her life. It was now seldom
that she kept the house all day; when within doors she was restless,
quarrelsome. Joseph became aware with surprise that she no longer tried
to conceal her enmity against him; on a slight provocation she broke
into a fierceness which reminded him of the day when he undeceived her
as to his position, and her look at such times was murderous. It might
come, he imagined, of her being released from the prudent control of
her mother. However, again a few weeks and things were somewhat
improved; she eyed him like a wild beast, but was less frequent in her
outbreaks. Here, too, it might be that Mrs. Peckover’s influence was at
work, for Clara spent at least four evenings of the seven away from
home, and always said she had been at the Close. As indifferent as it
was possible to be, Joseph made no attempt to restrain her
independence; indeed he was glad to have her out of his way.

We must follow her on one of these evenings ostensibly passed at Mrs.
Peckover’s—no, not follow, but discover her at nine o’clock.

In Old Street, not far from Shoreditch Station, was a shabby little
place of refreshment, kept by an Italian; pastry and sweet-stuff filled
the window; at the back of the shop, through a doorway on each side of
which was looped a pink curtain, a room, furnished with three
marble-topped tables, invited those who wished to eat and drink more at
ease than was possible before the counter. Except on Sunday evening
this room was very little used, and there, on the occasion of which I
speak, Clem was sitting with Bob Hewett. They had been having supper
together—French pastry and a cup of cocoa.

She leaned forward on her elbows, and said imperatively, ‘Tell
Pennyloaf to make it up with her again.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to know what goes on in Hanover Street. You was a fool
to send her away, and you’d ought to have told me about it before now.
If they was such friends, I suppose the girl told her lots o’ things.
But I expect they see each other just the same. You don’t suppose she
does all _you_ tell her?’

‘I’ll bet you what you like she does!’ cried Bob.

Clem glared at him.

‘Oh, you an’ your Pennyloaf! Likely she tells you the truth. You’re so
fond of each other, ain’t you! Tells you everything, does she?—and the
way you treat her!’

‘Who’s always at me to make me treat her worse still?’ Bob retorted
half angrily, half in expostulation.

‘Well, and so I am, ’cause I hate the name of her! I’d like to hear as
you starve her and her brats half to death. How much money did you give
her last week? Now you just tell me the truth. How much was it?’

‘How can I remember? Three or four bob, I s’pose.’

‘Three or four bob!’ she repeated, snarling. ‘Give her one, and make
her live all the week on it. Wear her down! Make her pawn all she has,
and go cold!’

Her cheeks were on fire; her eyes started in the fury of jealousy; she
set her teeth together.

‘I’d better do for her altogether,’ said Bob, with an evil grin.

Clem looked at him, without speaking; kept her gaze on him; then she
said in a thick voice:

‘There’s many a true word said in joke.’

Bob moved uncomfortably. There was a brief silence, then the other,
putting her face nearer his:

‘Not just yet. I want to use her to get all I can about that girl and
her old beast of a grandfather. Mind you do as I tell you. Pennyloaf’s
to have her back again, and she’s to make her talk, and you’re to get
all you can from Pennyloaf—understand?’

There came noises from the shop. Three work-girls had just entered and
were buying cakes, which they began to eat at the counter. They were
loud in gossip and laughter, and their voices rang like brass against
brass. Clem amused herself in listening to them for a few minutes; then
she became absent, moving a finger round and round on her plate. A
disagreeable flush still lingered under her eyes.

‘Have you told her about Clara?’

‘Told who?’

‘Who? Pennyloaf, of course.’

‘No, I haven’t. Why should I?’

‘Oh, you’re such a affectionate couple! See, you’re only to give her
two shillin’s next week. Let her go hungry this nice weather.’

‘She won’t do that if Jane Snowdon comes back, so there you’re out of
it!’

Clem bit her lip.

‘What’s the odds? Make it up with a hit in the mouth now and then.’

‘What do you expect to know from that girl?’ inquired Bob.

‘Lots o’ things. I want to know what the old bloke’s goin’ to do with
his money, don’t I? And I want to know what my beast of a ’usband’s got
out of him. And I want to know what that feller Kirkwood’s goin’ to do.
He’d ought to marry your sister by rights.’

‘Not much fear of that now.’

‘Trust him! He’ll stick where there’s money. See, Bob; if that Jane was
to kick the bucket, do you think the old bloke ‘ud leave it all to Jo?’

‘How can I tell?’

‘Well, look here. Supposin’ he died an’ left most to her; an’ then
supposin’ _she_ was to go off; would Jo have all her tin?’

‘Course he would.’

Clem mused, eating her lower lip.

‘But supposin’ Jo was to go off first, after the old bloke? Should I
have all he left?’

‘I think so, but I’m not sure.’

‘You think so? And then should I have all _hers_? If she had a
accident, you know.’

‘I suppose you would. But then that’s only if they didn’t make wills,
and leave it away from you.’

Clem started. Intent as she had been for a long time on the
possibilities hinted at, the thought of unfavourable disposition by
will had never occurred to her. She shook it away.

‘Why should they make wills? They ain’t old enough for that, neither of
them.’

‘And you might as well say they ain’t old enough to be likely to take
their hook, either,’ suggested Bob, with a certain uneasiness in his
tone.

Clem looked about her, as if her fierce eyes sought something. Her
brows twitched a little. She glanced at Bob, but he did not meet her
look. ‘I don’t care so much about the money,’ she said, in a lower and
altered voice. ‘I’d be content with a bit of it, if only I could get
rid of him at the same time.’

Bob looked gloomy.

‘Well, it’s no use talking,’ he muttered.

‘It’s all your fault.’

‘How do you make that out? It was you quarrelled first.’

‘You’re a liar!’

‘Oh, there’s no talking to you!’

He shuffled with his feet, then rose.

‘Where can I see you on Wednesday morning?’ asked Clem. ‘I want to hear
about that girl.’

‘It can’t be Wednesday morning. I tell you I shall be getting the sack
next thing; they’ve promised it. Two days last week I wasn’t at the
shop, and one day this. It can’t go on.’

His companion retorted angrily, and for five minutes they stood in
embittered colloquy. It ended in Bob’s turning away and going out into
the street. Clem followed, and they walked westwards in silence.
Reaching City Road, and crossing to the corner where lowers St. Luke’s
Hospital—grim abode of the insane, here in the midst of London’s
squalor and uproar—they halted to take leave. The last words they
exchanged, after making an appointment, were of brutal violence.

This was two days after Clara Hewett’s arrival in London, and the same
fog still hung about the streets, allowing little to be seen save the
blurred glimmer of gas. Bob sauntered through it, his hands in his
pockets, observant of nothing; now and then a word escaped his lips,
generally an oath. Out of Old Street he turned into Whitecross Street,
whence by black and all but deserted ways—Barbican and Long Lane—he
emerged into West Smithfield. An alley in the shadow of Bartholomew’s
Hospital brought him to a certain house: just as he was about to knock
at the door it opened, and Jack Bartley appeared on the threshold. They
exchanged a ‘Holloa!’ of surprise, and after a whispered word or two on
the pavement, went in. They mounted the stairs to a bedroom which Jack
occupied. When the door was closed:

‘Bill’s got copped!’ whispered Bartley.

‘Copped? Any of it on him?’

‘Only the half-crown as he was pitchin’, thank God! They let him go
again after he’d been to the station. It was a conductor, I’d never try
them blokes myself; they’re too downy.’

‘Let’s have a look at ’em,’ said Bob, after musing. ‘I thought myself
as they wasn’t quite the reg’lar.’

As he spoke he softly turned the key in the door. Jack then put his arm
up the chimney and brought down a small tin box, soot-blackened; he
opened it, and showed about a dozen pieces of money—in appearance
half-crowns and florins. One of the commonest of offences against the
law in London, this to which our young friends were not unsuccessfully
directing their attention; one of the easiest to commit, moreover, for
a man with Bob’s craft at his finger-ends. A mere question of a mould
and a pewter-pot, if one be content with the simpler branches of the
industry. ‘The snyde’ or ‘the queer’ is the technical name by which
such products are known. Distribution is, of course, the main
difficulty; it necessitates mutual trust between various confederates.
Bob Hewett still kept to his daily work, but gradually he was being
drawn into alliance with an increasing number of men who scorned the
yoke of a recognised occupation. His face, his clothing, his speech,
all told whither he was tending, had one but the experience necessary
for the noting of such points. Bob did not find his life particularly
pleasant; he was in perpetual fear; many a time he said to himself that
he would turn back. Impossible to do so; for a thousand reasons
impossible; yet he still believed that the choice lay with him.

His colloquy with Jack only lasted a few minutes, then he walked
homewards, crossing the Metropolitan Meat-market, going up St. John’s
Lane, beneath St. John’s Arch, thence to Rosoman Street and Merlin
Place, where at present he lived. All the way he pondered Clem’s words.
Already their import had become familiar enough to lose that first
terribleness. Of course he should never take up the proposal seriously;
no, no, that was going a bit too far; but suppose Clem’s husband were
really contriving this plot on his own account? Likely, very likely;
but he’d be a clever fellow if he managed such a thing in a way that
did not immediately subject him to suspicion. How could it be done? No
harm in thinking over an affair of that kind when you have no intention
of being drawn into it yourself. There was that man at Peckham who
poisoned his sister not long ago; he was a fool to get found out in the
way he did; he might have—

The room in which he found Pennyloaf sitting was so full of fog that
the lamp seemed very dim; the fire had all but died out. One of the
children lay asleep; the other Pennyloaf was nursing, for it had a bad
cough and looked much like a wax doll that has gone through a great
deal of ill-usage. A few more weeks and Pennyloaf would be again a
mother; she felt very miserable as often as she thought of it, and Bob
had several times spoken with harsh impatience on the subject.

At present he was in no mood for conversation; to Pennyloaf’s remarks
and questions he gave not the slightest heed, but in a few minutes
tumbled himself into bed.

‘Get that light put out,’ he exclaimed, after lying still for a while.

Pennyloaf said she was uneasy about the child; its cough seemed to be
better, but it moved about restlessly and showed no sign of getting to
sleep.

‘Give it some of the mixture, then. Be sharp and put the light out.’

Pennyloaf obeyed the second injunction, and she too lay down, keeping
the child in her arms; of the ‘mixture’ she was afraid, for a few days
since the child of a neighbour had died in consequence of an overdose
of this same anodyne. For a long time there was silence in the room.
Outside, voices kept sounding with that peculiar muffled distinctness
which they have on a night of dense fog, when there is little or no
wheel-traffic to make the wonted rumbling.

‘Are y’asleep?’ Bob asked suddenly.

‘No.’

‘There’s something I wanted to tell you. You can have Jane Snowdon here
again, if you like.’

‘I can? Really?’

‘You may as well make use of her. That’ll do; shut up and go to sleep.’

In the morning Pennyloaf was obliged to ask for money; she wished to
take the child to the hospital again, and as the weather was very bad
she would have to pay an omnibus fare. Bob growled at the demand, as
was nowadays his custom. Since he had found a way of keeping his own
pocket tolerably well supplied from time to time, he was becoming so
penurious at home that Pennyloaf had to beg for what she needed copper
by copper. Excepting breakfast, he seldom took a meal with her. The
easy good-nature which in the beginning made him an indulgent husband
had turned in other directions since his marriage was grown a weariness
to him. He did not, in truth, spend much upon himself, but in his
leisure time was always surrounded by companions whom he had a pleasure
in treating with the generosity of the public-house. A word of flattery
was always sure of payment if Bob had a coin in his pocket. Ever hungry
for admiration, for prominence, he found new opportunities of
gratifying his taste now that he had a resource when his wages ran out.
So far from becoming freer-handed again with his wife and children, he
grudged every coin that he was obliged to expend on them. Pennyloaf’s
submissiveness encouraged him in this habit; where other wives would
have ‘made a row,’ she yielded at once to his grumbling and made shift
with the paltriest allowance. You should have seen the kind of diet on
which she habitually lived. Like all the women of her class, utterly
ignorant and helpless in the matter of preparing food, she abandoned
the attempt to cook anything, and expended her few pence daily on
whatever happened to tempt her in a shop, when meal-time came round. In
the present state of her health she often suffered from a morbid
appetite and fed on things of incredible unwholesomeness. Thus, there
was a kind of cake exposed in a window in Rosoman Street, two layers of
pastry with half an inch of something like very coarse mincemeat
between; it cost a halfpenny a square, and not seldom she ate four, or
even six, of these squares, as heavy as lead, making this her dinner. A
cook-shop within her range exhibited at midday great dough-puddings,
kept hot by jets of steam that came up through the zinc on which they
lay; this food was cheap and satisfying, and Pennyloaf often regaled
both herself and the children on thick slabs of it. Pease-pudding also
attracted her; she fetched it from the pork-butcher’s in a little
basin, which enabled her to bring away at the same time a spoonful or
two of gravy from the joints of which she was not rich enough to
purchase a cut. Her drink was tea; she had the pot on the table all
day, and kept adding hot water. Treacle she purchased now and then, but
only as a treat when her dinner had cost even less than usual; she did
not venture to buy more than a couple of ounces at a time, knowing by
experience that she could not resist this form of temptation, and must
eat and eat till all was finished.

Bob flung sixpence on the table. He was ashamed of himself—you will not
understand him if you fail to recognise that—but the shame only served
to make him fret under his bondage. Was he going to be tied to
Pennyloaf all his life, with a family constantly increasing?
Practically he had already made a resolve to be free before very long;
the way was not quite clear to him as yet. But he went to work still
brooding over Clem’s words of the night before.

Pennyloaf let the fire go out, locked the elder child into the room for
safety against accidents, and set forth for the hospital. It rained
heavily, and the wind rendered her umbrella useless. She had to stand
for a long time at a street-corner before the omnibus came; the water
soaked into her leaky shoes, but that didn’t matter; it was the child
on whose account she was anxious. Having reached her destination, she
sat for a long time waiting her turn among the numerous out-patients.
Just as the opportunity for passing into the doctor’s room arrived, a
movement in the bundle she held made her look closely at the child’s
face; at that instant it had ceased to live.

The medical man behaved kindly to her, but she gave way to no outburst
of grief; with tearless eyes she stared at the unmoving body in a sort
of astonishment. The questions addressed to her she could not answer
with any intelligence; several times she asked stupidly, ‘Is she really
dead?’ There was nothing to wonder at, however; the doctor glanced at
the paper on which he had written prescriptions twice or thrice during
the past few weeks, and found the event natural enough. . . .

Towards the close of the afternoon Pennyloaf was in Hanover Street. She
wished to see Jane Snowdon, but had a fear of going up to the door and
knocking. Jane might not be at home, and, if she were, Pennyloaf did
not know in what words to explain her coming and say what had happened.
She was in a dazed, heavy, tongue-tied state; indeed she did not
clearly remember how she had come thus far, or what she had done since
leaving the hospital at midday. However, her steps drew nearer to the
house, and at last she had raised the knocker—just raised it and let it
fall.

Mrs. Byass opened; she did not know Pennyloaf by sight. The latter
tried to say something, but only stammered a meaningless sound;
thereupon Bessie concluded she was a beggar, and with a shake of the
head shut the door upon her.

Pennyloaf turned away in confusion and dull misery. She walked to the
end of the street and stood there. On leaving home she had forgotten
her umbrella, and now it was raining heavily again. Of a sudden her
need became powerful enough to overcome all obstacles; she knew that
she _must_ see Jane Snowdon, that she could not go home till she had
done so. Jane was the only friend she had; the only creature who would
speak the kind of words to her for which she longed.

Again the knocker fell, and again Mrs. Byass appeared.

‘What do you want? I’ve got nothing for you,’ she cried impatiently.

‘I want to see Miss Snowdon, please, mum—Miss Snowdon, please—’

‘Miss Snowdon? Then why didn’t you say so? Step inside.’

A few moments and Jane came running downstairs.

‘Pennyloaf!’

Ah! that was the voice that did good. How it comforted and blessed,
after the hospital, and the miserable room in which the dead child was
left lying, and the rainy street!

CHAPTER XXX

ON A BARREN SHORE

About this time Mr. Scawthorne received one morning a letter which,
though not unexpected, caused him some annoyance, and even anxiety. It
was signed ‘C. V.,’ and made brief request for an interview on the
evening of the next day at Waterloo Station.

The room in which our friend sat at breakfast was of such very modest
appearance that it seemed to argue but poor remuneration for the
services rendered by him in the office of Messrs. Percival & Peel. It
was a parlour on the second floor of a lodging-house in Chelsea;
Scawthorne’s graceful person and professional bearing were out of place
amid the trivial appointments. He lived here for the simple reason that
in order to enjoy a few of the luxuries of civilisation he had to spend
as little as possible on bare necessaries. His habits away from home
were those of a man to whom a few pounds are no serious consideration;
his pleasant dinner at the restaurant, his occasional stall at a
theatre, his easy acquaintance with easy livers of various kinds, had
become indispensable to him, and as a matter of course his expenditure
increased although his income kept at the same figure. That figure was
not contemptible, regard had to the path by which he had come thus far;
Mr. Percival esteemed his abilities highly, and behaved to him with
generosity. Ten years ago Scawthorne would have lost his senses with
joy at the prospect of such a salary; to-day he found it miserably
insufficient to the demands he made upon life. Paltry debts harassed
him; inabilities fretted his temperament and his pride; it irked him to
have no better abode than this musty corner to which he could never
invite an acquaintance. And then, notwithstanding his mental
endowments, his keen social sense, his native tact, in all London not
one refined home was open to him, not one domestic circle of educated
people could he approach and find a welcome.

Scawthorne was passing out of the stage when a man seeks only the
gratification of his propensities; he began to focus his outlook upon
the world, and to feel the significance of maturity. The double
existence he was compelled to lead—that of a laborious and
clear-brained man of business in office hours, that of a hungry rascal
in the time which was his own—not only impressed him with a sense of
danger, but made him profoundly dissatisfied with the unreality of what
he called his enjoyments. What, he asked himself, had condemned him to
this kind of career? Simply the weight under which he started, his poor
origin, his miserable youth. However carefully regulated his private
life had been, his position to-day could not have been other than it
was; no degree of purity would have opened to him the door of a
civilised house. Suppose he had wished to marry; where, pray, was he to
find his wife? A barmaid? Why, yes, other men of his standing wedded
barmaids and girls from the houses of business, and so on; but they had
neither his tastes nor his brains. Never had it been his lot to
exchange a word with an educated woman—save in the office on rare
occasions. There is such a thing as self-martyrdom in the cause of
personal integrity; another man might have said to himself, ‘Providence
forbids me the gratification of my higher instincts, and I must be
content to live a life of barrenness, that I may at least be above
reproach.’ True, but Scawthorne happened not to be so made. He was of
the rebels of the earth. Formerly he revolted because he could not
indulge his senses to their full; at present his ideal was changed, and
the past burdened him.

Yesterday he had had an interview with old Mr. Percival which, for the
first time in his life, opened to him a prospect of the only kind of
advancement conformable with his higher needs. The firm of Percival &
Peel was, in truth, Percival & Son, Mr. Peel having been dead for many
years; and the son in question lacked a good deal of being the capable
lawyer whose exertions could supplement the failing energy of the
senior partner. Mr. Percival having pondered the matter for some time,
now proposed that Scawthorne should qualify himself for admission as a
solicitor (the circumstances required his being under articles for
three years only), and then, if everything were still favourable,
accept a junior partnership in the firm. Such an offer was a testimony
of the high regard in which Scawthorne was held by his employer; it
stirred him with hope he had never dared to entertain since his eyes
were opened to the realities of the world, and in a single day did more
for the ripening of his prudence than years would have effected had his
position remained unaltered. Scawthorne realised more distinctly what a
hazardous game he had been playing.

And here was this brief note, signed ‘C. V.’ An ugly affair to look
back upon, all that connected itself with those initials. The worst of
it was, that it could not be regarded as done with. Had he anything to
fear from ‘C. V.’ directly? The meeting must decide that. He felt now
what a fortunate thing it was that his elaborate plot to put an end to
the engagement between Kirkwood and Jane Snowdon had been accidentally
frustrated—a plot which _might_ have availed himself nothing, even had
it succeeded. But was he, in his abandonment of rascality in general,
to think no more of the fortune which had so long kept his imagination
uneasy? Had he not, rather, a vastly better chance of getting some of
that money into his own pocket? It really seemed as if Kirkwood—though
he might be only artful—had relinquished his claim on the girl, at all
events for the present; possibly he was an honest man, which would
explain his behaviour. Michael Snowdon could not live much longer; Jane
would be the ward of the Percivals, and certainly would be aided to a
position more correspondent with her wealth. Why should it then be
impossible for _him_ to become Jane’s husband? Joseph, beyond a doubt,
could be brought to favour that arrangement, by means of a private
understanding more advantageous to him than anything he could
reasonably hope from the girl’s merely remaining unmarried. This change
in his relations to the Percivals would so far improve his social
claims that many of the difficulties hitherto besieging such a scheme
as this might easily be set aside. Come, come; the atmosphere was
clearing. Joseph himself, now established in a decent business, would
become less a fellow-intriguer than an ordinary friend bound to him, in
the way of the world, by mutual interests. Things must be put in order;
by some device the need of secrecy in his intercourse with Joseph must
come to an end. In fact, there remained but two hazardous points. Could
the connection between Jane and Kirkwood be brought definitely to an
end. And was anything to be feared from poor ‘C. V.’?

Waterloo Station is a convenient rendezvous; its irregular form
provides many corners of retirement, out-of-the-way recesses where talk
can be carried on in something like privacy. To one of these secluded
spots Scawthorne drew aside with the veiled woman who met him at the
entrance from Waterloo Road. So closely was her face shrouded, that he
had at first a difficulty in catching the words she addressed to him.
The noise of an engine getting up steam, the rattle of cabs and
porters’ barrows, the tread and voices of a multitude of people made
fitting accompaniment to a dialogue which in every word presupposed the
corruptions and miseries of a centre of modern life.

‘Why did you send that letter to my father?’ was Clara’s first
question.

‘Letter? What letter?’

‘Wasn’t it you who let him know about me?’

‘Certainly not, How should I have known his address? When I saw the
newspapers, I went down to Bolton and made inquiries. When I heard your
father had been, I concluded you had yourself sent for him. Otherwise,
I should, of course, have tried to be useful to you in some way. As it
was, I supposed you would scarcely thank me for coming forward.’

It might or might not be the truth, as far as Clara was able to decide.
Possibly the information had come from some one else. She knew him well
enough to be assured by his tone that nothing more could be elicited
from him on that point.

‘You are quite recovered, I hope?’ Scawthorne added, surveying her as
she stood in the obscurity. ‘In your general health?’

He was courteous, somewhat distant.

‘I suppose I’m as well as I shall ever be,’ she answered coldly. ‘I
asked you to meet me because I wanted to know what it was you spoke of
in your last letters. You got my answer, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I received your answer. But—in fact, it’s too late. The time has
gone by; and perhaps I was a little hasty in the hopes I held out. I
had partly deceived myself.’

‘Never mind. I wish to know what it was,’ she said impatiently.

‘It can’t matter now. Well, there’s no harm in mentioning it. Naturally
you went out of your way to suppose it was something dishonourable.
Nothing of the kind; I had an idea that you might come to terms with an
Australian who was looking out for actresses for a theatre in
Melbourne—that was all. But he wasn’t quite the man I took him for. I
doubt whether it could have been made as profitable as I thought at
first.’

‘You expect me to believe that story?’

‘Not unless you like. It’s some time since you put any faith in my
goodwill. The only reason I didn’t speak plainly was because I felt
sure that the mention of a foreign country would excite your
suspicions. You have always attributed evil motives to me rather than
good. However, this is not the time to speak of such things. I
sympathise with you—deeply. Will you tell me if I can—can help you at
all?’

‘No, you can’t. I wanted to make quite sure that you were what I
thought you, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think, on the whole, you have any reason to complain of
ill-faith on my part. I secured you the opportunities that are so hard
to find.’

‘Yes, you did. We don’t owe each other anything—that’s one comfort.
I’ll just say that you needn’t have any fear I shall trouble you in
future; I know that’s what you’re chiefly thinking about.’

‘You misjudge me; but that can’t be helped. I wish very much it were in
my power to be of use to you.’

‘Thank you.’

On that last note of irony they parted. True enough, in one sense, that
there remained debt on neither side. But Clara, for all the fierce
ambition which had brought her life to this point, could not divest
herself of a woman’s instincts. That simple fact explained various
inconsistencies in her behaviour to Scawthorne since she had made
herself independent of him; it explained also why this final interview
became the bitterest charge her memory preserved against him.

Her existence for some three weeks kept so gloomy a monotony that it
was impossible she should endure it much longer. The little room which
she shared at night with Annie and Amy was her cell throughout the day.
Of necessity she had made the acquaintance of Mrs. Eagles, but they
scarcely saw more of each other than if they had lived in different
tenements on the same staircase; she had offered to undertake a share
of the housework, but her father knew that everything of the kind was
distasteful to her, and Mrs. Eagles continued to assist Amy as
hitherto. To save trouble, she came into the middle room for her meals,
at these times always keeping as much of her face as possible hidden.
The children could not overcome a repulsion, a fear, excited by her
veil and the muteness she preserved in their presence; several nights
passed before little Annie got to sleep with any comfort. Only with her
father did Clara hold converse; in the evening he always sat alone with
her for an hour. She went out perhaps every third day, after dark,
stealing silently down the long staircase, and walking rapidly until
she had escaped the neighbourhood—like John Hewett when formerly he
wandered forth in search of her. Her strength was slight; after
half-an-hour’s absence she came back so wearied that the ascent of
stairs cost her much suffering.

The economy prevailing in to-day’s architecture takes good care that no
depressing circumstance shall be absent from the dwellings in which the
poor find shelter. What terrible barracks, those Farringdon Road
Buildings! Vast, sheer walls, unbroken by even an attempt at ornament;
row above row of windows in the mud-coloured surface, upwards, upwards,
lifeless eyes, murky openings that tell of bareness, disorder,
comfortlessness within. One is tempted to say that Shooter’s Gardens
are a preferable abode. An inner courtyard, asphalted, swept
clean—looking up to the sky as from a prison. Acres of these edifices,
the tinge of grime declaring the relative dates of their erection;
millions of tons of brute brick and mortar, crushing the spirit as you
gaze. Barracks, in truth; housing for the army of industrialism, an
army fighting with itself, rank against rank, man against man, that the
survivors may have whereon to feed. Pass by in the night, and strain
imagination to picture the weltering mass of human weariness, of
bestiality, of unmerited dolour, of hopeless hope, of crushed
surrender, tumbled together within those forbidding walls.

Clara hated the place from her first hour in it. It seemed to her that
the air was poisoned with the odour of an unclean crowd. The yells of
children at play in the courtyard tortured her nerves; the regular
sounds on the staircase, day after day repeated at the same hours,
incidents of the life of poverty, irritated her sick brain and filled
her with despair to think that as long as she lived she could never
hope to rise again above this world to which she was born. Gone for
ever, for ever, the promise that always gleamed before her whilst she
had youth and beauty and talent. With the one, she felt as though she
had been robbed of all three blessings; her twenty years were now a
meaningless figure; the energies of her mind could avail no more than
an idiot’s mummery. For the author of her calamity she nourished no
memory of hatred; her resentment was against the fate which had cursed
her existence from its beginning.

For this she had dared everything, had made the supreme sacrifice.
Conscience had nothing to say to her, but she felt herself an outcast
even among these wretched toilers whose swarming aroused her disgust.
Given the success which had been all but in her grasp, and triumphant
pride would have scored out every misgiving as to the cost at which the
victory had been won. Her pride was unbroken; under the stress of
anguish it became a scorn for goodness and humility; but in the
desolation of her future she read a punishment equal to the daring
wherewith she had aspired. Excepting her poor old father, not a living
soul that held account of her. She might live for years and years. Her
father would die, and then no smallest tribute of love or admiration
would be hers for ever. More than that; perforce she must gain her own
living, and in doing so she must expose herself to all manner of
insulting wonder and pity. Was it a life that could be lived?

Hour after hour she sat with her face buried in her hands. She did not
weep; tears were trivial before a destiny such as this. But groans and
smothered cries often broke the silence of her solitude—cries of
frenzied revolt, wordless curses. Once she rose up suddenly, passed
through the middle room, and out on to the staircase; there a gap in
the wall, guarded by iron railings breast-high, looked down upon the
courtyard. She leaned forward over the bar and measured the distance
that separated her from the ground; a ghastly height! Surely one would
not feel much after such a fall? In any case, the crashing agony of but
an instant. Had not this place tempted other people before now?

Some one coming upstairs made her shrink back into her room, She had
felt the horrible fascination of that sheer depth, and thought of it
for days, thought of it until she dreaded to quit the tenement, lest a
power distinct from will should seize and hurl her to destruction. She
knew that that must not happen here; for all her self-absorption, she
could not visit with such cruelty the one heart that loved her. And
thinking of him, she understood that her father’s tenderness was not
wholly the idle thing that it had been to her at first; her love could
never equal his, had never done so in her childhood, but she grew
conscious of a soothing power in the gentle and timid devotion with
which he tended her. His appearance of an evening was something more
than a relief after the waste of hours which made her day. The rough,
passionate man made himself as quiet and sympathetic as a girl when he
took his place by her. Compared with her, his other children were as
nothing to him. Impossible that Clara should not be touched by the
sense that he who had everything to forgive, whom she had despised and
abandoned, behaved now as one whose part it is to beseech forgiveness.
She became less impatient when he tried to draw her into conversation;
when he held her thin soft hand in those rude ones of his, she knew a
solace in which there was something of gratitude.

Yet it was John who revived her misery in its worst form. Pitying her
unoccupied loneliness, he brought home one day a book that he had
purchased from a stall in Farringdon Street; it was a novel (with a
picture on the cover which seemed designed to repel any person not
wholly without taste), and might perhaps serve the end of averting her
thoughts from their one subject. Clara viewed it contemptuously, but
made a show of being thankful, and on the next day she did glance at
its pages. The story was better than its illustration; it took a hold
upon her; she read all day long. But when she returned to herself, it
was to find that she had been exasperating her heart’s malady. The book
dealt with people of wealth and refinement, with the world to which she
had all her life been aspiring, and to which she might have attained.
The meanness of her surroundings became in comparison more mean, the
bitterness of her fate more bitter. You must not lose sight of the fact
that since abandoning her work-girl existence Clara had been constantly
educating herself, not only by direct study of books, but through her
association with people, her growth in experience. Where in the old
days of rebellion she had only an instinct, a divination to guide her,
there was now just enough of knowledge to give occupation to her
developed intellect and taste. Far keener was her sense of the loss she
had suffered than her former longing for what she knew only in dream.
The activity of her mind received a new impulse when she broke free
from Scawthorne and began her upward struggle in independence. Whatever
books were obtainable she read greedily; she purchased numbers of plays
in the acting-editions, and studied with the utmost earnestness such
parts as she knew by repute; no actress entertained a more superb
ambition, none was more vividly conscious of power. But it was not only
at stage-triumph that Clara aimed; glorious in itself, this was also to
serve her as a means of becoming nationalised among that race of beings
whom birth and breeding exalt above the multitude. A notable illusion;
pathetic to dwell upon. As a work-girl, she nourished envious hatred of
those the world taught her to call superiors; they were then as remote
and unknown to her as gods on Olympus. From her place behind the
footlights she surveyed the occupants of boxes and stalls in a changed
spirit; the distance was no longer insuperable; she heard of fortunate
players who mingled on equal terms with men and women of refinement.
There, she imagined, was her ultimate goal. ‘It is to _them_ that I
belong! Be my origin what it may, I have the intelligence and the
desires of one born to freedom. Nothing in me, nothing, is akin to that
gross world from which I have escaped!’ So she thought—with every drop
of her heart’s blood crying its source from that red fountain of revolt
whereon never yet did the upper daylight gleam! Brain and pulses such
as hers belong not to the mild breed of mortals fostered in sunshine.
But for the stroke of fate, she might have won that reception which was
in her dream, and with what self-mockery when experience had matured
itself! Never yet did true rebel, who has burst the barriers of social