The Nether World. George Gissing
that the men had already left; she waited for several minutes with anxious mind. No; the door opened, and two workmen came forth. Jane's eagerness impelled her to address one of them.
'Please, sir, Mr. Kirkwood hasn't gone yet, has he?'
'No, he ain't,' the man answered pleasantly; and turning back, he called to some one within the doorway; 'Hello, Sidney! here's your sweetheart waiting for you.'
Jane shrank aside; but in a moment she saw a familiar figure; she advanced again, and eagerly delivered her message.
'All right, Jane! I'll walk on with you,' was the reply. And whilst the other two men were laughing good-naturedly, Kirkwood strode away by the girl's side. He seemed to be absent-minded, and for some hundred yards' distance was silent; then he stopped of a sudden and looked down at his companion.
'Why, Jane,' he said, 'you'll get your death, running about in weather like this.' He touched her dress. 'I thought so; you're wet through.'
There followed an inarticulate growl, and immediately he stripped off his short overcoat.
'Here, put this on, right over your head. Do as I tell you, child!'
He seemed impatient to-night. Wasn't he going to talk with her as before? Jane felt her heart sinking. With her hunger for kind and gentle words, she thought nothing of the character of the night, and that Sidney Kirkwood might reasonably be anxious to get over the ground as quickly as possible.
'How is Mrs. Hewett?' Sidney asked, when they were walking on again. 'Still poorly, eh? And the baby?'
Then he was again mute. Jane had something she wished to say to him—wished very much indeed, yet she felt it would have been difficult even if he had encouraged her. As he kept silence and walked so quickly, speech on her part was utterly forbidden. Kirkwood, however, suddenly remembered that his strides were disproportionate to the child's steps. She was an odd figure thus disguised in his over-jacket; he caught a glimpse of her face by a street lamp, and smiled, but with a mixture of pain.
'Feel a bit warmer so?' he asked.
'Oh yes, sir.'
'Haven't you got a jacket, Jane?'
'It's all to pieces, sir. They're goin' to have it mended, I think.'
'They' was the word by which alone Jane ventured to indicate her aunt.
'Going to, eh? I think they'd better be quick about it.'
Ha! that was the old tone of kindness! How it entered into her blood and warmed it! She allowed herself one quick glance at him.
'Do I walk too quick for you?'
'Oh no, sir. Mr. Kirkwood, please, there's something I—'
The sentence had, as it were, begun itself, but timidity cut it short. Sidney stopped and looked at her.
'What? Something you wanted to tell me, Jane?'
He encouraged her, and at length she made her disclosure. It was of what had happened in the public-house. The young man listened with much attention, walking very slowly. He got her to repeat her second-hand description of the old man who had been inquiring for people named Snowdon.
'To think that you should have been just too late!' he exclaimed with annoyance. 'Have you any idea who he was?'
'I can't think, sir,' Jane replied sadly.
Sidney took a hopeful tone—thought it very likely that the inquirer would pursue his search with success, being so near the house where Jane's parents had lived.
'I'll keep my eyes open,' he said. 'Perhaps I might see him. He'd be easy to recognise, I should think.'
'And would you tell him, sir,' Jane asked eagerly.
'Why, of course I would. You'd like me to, wouldn't you?'
Jane's reply left small doubt on that score. Her companion looked down at her again, and said with compassionate gentleness:
'Keep a good heart, Jane. Things'll be better some day, no doubt.'
'Do you think so, sir?'
The significance of the simple words was beyond all that eloquence could have conveyed. Sidney muttered to himself, as he had done before, like one who is angry. He laid his hand on the child's shoulder for a moment.
A few minutes more, and they were passing along by the prison wall, under the ghastly head, now happily concealed by darkness. Jane stopped a little short of the house and removed the coat that had so effectually sheltered her.
'Thank you, sir,' she said, returning it to Sidney.
He took it without speaking, and threw it over his arm. At the door, now closed, Jane gave a single knock; they were admitted by Clem, who, in regarding Kirkwood, wore her haughtiest demeanour. This young man had never paid homage of any kind to Miss Peckover, and such neglect was by no means what she was used to. Other men who came to the house took every opportunity of paying her broad compliments, and some went so far as to offer practical testimony of their admiration. Sidney merely had a 'How do you do, miss?' at her service. Coquetry had failed to soften him; Clem accordingly behaved as if he had given her mortal offence on some recent occasion. She took care, moreover, to fling a few fierce words at Jane before the latter disappeared into the house. Thereupon Sidney looked at her sternly; he said nothing, knowing that interference would only result in harsher treatment for the poor little slave.
'You know your way upstairs, I b'lieve,' said Clem, as if he were all but a stranger.
'Thank you, I do,' was Sidney's reply.
Indeed he had climbed these stairs innumerable times during the last three years; the musty smells were associated with ever so many bygone thoughts and states of feeling; the stains on the wall (had it been daylight), the irregularities of the bare wooden steps, were remembrancers of projects and hopes and disappointments. For many months now every visit had been with heavier heart; his tap at the Hewetts' door had a melancholy sound to him.
A woman's voice bade him enter. He stepped into a room which was not disorderly or unclean, but presented the chill discomfort of poverty. The principal, almost the only, articles of furniture were a large bed, a wash-hand stand; a kitchen table, and two or three chairs, of which the cane seats were bulged and torn. A few meaningless pictures hung here and there, and on the mantel-piece, which sloped forward somewhat, stood some paltry ornaments, secured in their places by a piece of string stretched in front of them. The living occupants were four children and their mother. Two little girls, six and seven years old respectively, were on the floor near the fire; a boy of four was playing with pieces of fire-wood at the table. The remaining child was an infant, born but a fortnight ago, lying at its mother's breast. Mrs. Hewett sat on the bed, and bent forward in an attitude of physical weakness. Her age was twenty-seven, but she looked several years older. At nineteen she had married; her husband, John Hewett, having two children by a previous union. Her face could never have been very attractive, but it was good-natured, and wore its pleasantest aspect as she smiled on Sidney's entrance. You would have classed her at once with those feeble-willed, weak-minded, yet kindly-disposed women, who are only too ready to meet affliction half-way, and who, if circumstances be calamitous, are more harmful than an enemy to those they hold dear. She was rather wrapped up than dressed, and her hair, thin and pale-coloured, was tied in a ragged knot. She wore slippers, the upper parts of which still adhered to the soles only by miracle. It looked very much as if the same relation subsisted between her frame and the life that informed it, for there was no blood in her cheeks, no lustre in her eye. The baby at her bosom moaned in the act of sucking; one knew not how the poor woman could supply sustenance to another being.
The children were not dirty nor uncared for, but their clothing hung very loosely upon them; their flesh was unhealthy, their voices had an unnatural sound.
Sidney stepped up to the bed and gave his hand.
'I'm so glad you've come before Clara,' said Mrs. Hewett. 'I hoped you would. But she can't be long, an' I want to speak to you first. It's a bad night, isn't it? Yes, I feel it in my throat, and it goes right through my chest—just 'ere, look! And I haven't slep' not a hour a night this last week; it makes me feel that low. I want to get to the Orspital,