In the Year of Jubilee. George Gissing
and low,—calling themselves “ladies,”—thinking themselves too good for any honest, womanly work. Town and country, it’s all the same. They’re educated; oh yes, they’re educated! What sort of wives do they make, with their education? What sort of mothers are they? Before long, there’ll be no such thing as a home. They don’t know what the word means. They’d like to live in hotels, and trollop about the streets day and night. There won’t be any servants much longer; you’re lucky if you find one of the old sort, who knows how to light a fire or wash a dish. Go into the houses of men with small incomes; what do you find but filth and disorder, quarrelling and misery? Young men are bad enough, I know that; they want to begin where their fathers left off, and if they can’t do it honestly, they’ll embezzle or forge. But you’ll often find there’s a worthless wife at the bottom of it,—worrying and nagging because she has a smaller house than some other woman, because she can’t get silks and furs, and wants to ride in a cab instead of an omnibus. It is astounding to me that they don’t get their necks wrung. Only wait a bit; we shall come to that presently!’
It was a rare thing for Stephen Lord to talk at such length. He ceased with a bitter laugh, and sat down again in his chair. Horace and his sister waited.
‘I’ve no more to say,’ fell from their father at length. ‘Go and talk about it together, if you like.’
Horace moved sullenly towards the door, and with a glance at his sister went out. Nancy, after lingering for a moment, spoke.
‘I don’t think you need have any fear of it, father.’
‘Perhaps not. But if it isn’t that one, it’ll be another like her. There’s not much choice for a lad like Horace.’
Nancy changed her purpose of leaving the room, and drew a step nearer.
‘Don’t you think there might have been?’
Mr. Lord turned to look at her.
‘How? What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to make you angry with me—’
‘Say what you’ve got to say,’ broke in her father impatiently.
‘It isn’t easy, when you so soon lose your temper.’
‘My girl,’—for once he gazed at her directly,—‘if you knew all I have gone through in life, you wouldn’t wonder at my temper being spoilt.—What do you mean? What could I have done?’
She stood before him, and spoke with diffidence.
‘Don’t you think that if we had lived in a different way, Horace and I might have had friends of a better kind?’
‘A different way?—I understand. You mean I ought to have had a big house, and made a show. Isn’t that it?’
‘You gave us a good education,’ replied Nancy, still in the same tone, ‘and we might have associated with very different people from those you have been speaking of; but education alone isn’t enough. One must live as the better people do.’
‘Exactly. That’s your way of thinking. And how do you know that I could afford it, to begin with?’
‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have taken that for granted.’
‘Perhaps not. Young women take a good deal for granted now a-days. But supposing you were right, are you silly enough to think that richer people are better people, as a matter of course?’
‘Not as a matter of course,’ said Nancy. ‘But I’m quite sure—I know from what I’ve seen—that there’s more chance of meeting nice people among them.’
‘What do you mean by “nice”?’ Mr. Lord was lying back in his chair, and spoke thickly, as if wearied. ‘People who can talk so that you forget they’re only using words they’ve learnt like parrots?’
‘No. Just the contrary. People who have something to say worth listening to.’
‘If you take my advice, you’ll pay less attention to what people say, and more to what they do. What’s the good of a friend who won’t come to see you because you live in a small house? That’s the plain English of it. If I had done as I thought right, I should never have sent you to school at all. I should have had you taught at home all that’s necessary to make a good girl and an honest woman, and have done my best to keep you away from the kind of life that I hate. But I hadn’t the courage to act as I believed. I knew how the times were changing, and I was weak enough to be afraid I might do you an injustice. I did give you the chance of making friends among better people than your father. Didn’t I use to talk to you about your school friends, and encourage you when they seemed of the right kind? And now you tell me that they don’t care for your society because you live in a decent, unpretending way. I should think you’re better without such friends.’
Nancy reflected, seemed about to prolong the argument, but spoke at length in another voice.
‘Well, I will say good-night, father.’
It was not usual for them to see each other after dinner, so that a good-night could seldom be exchanged. The girl, drawing away, expected a response; she saw her father nod, but he said nothing.
‘Good-night, father,’ she repeated from a distance.
‘Good-night, Nancy, good-night,’ came in impatient reply.
CHAPTER 6
On Tuesday afternoon, when, beneath a cloudless sky, the great London highways reeked and roared in celebration of Jubilee, Nancy and her friend Miss. Morgan walked up Grove Lane to Champion Hill. Here and there a house had decked itself with colours of loyalty; otherwise the Lane was as quiet as usual.
Champion Hill is a gravel byway, overhung with trees; large houses and spacious gardens on either hand. Here the heat of the sun was tempered. A carriage rolled softly along; a nurse with well-dressed children loitered in the shade. One might have imagined it a country road, so profound the stillness and so leafy the prospect.
A year ago, Jessica Morgan had obtained a three months’ engagement as governess to two little girls, who were sent under her care to the house of their grandmother at Teignmouth. Their father, Mr Vawdrey of Champion Hill, had recently lost his wife through an illness contracted at a horse-race, where the lady sat in wind and rain for some hours. The children knew little of what is learnt from books, but were surprisingly well informed on matters of which they ought to have known nothing; they talked of theatres and race-courses, of ‘the new murderer’ at Tussaud’s, of police-news, of notorious spendthrifts and demi-reps; discussed their grown-up acquaintances with precocious understanding, and repeated scandalous insinuations which could have no meaning for them. Jessica was supposed to teach them for two hours daily; she found it an impossibility. Nevertheless a liking grew up between her and her charges, and, save by their refusal to study, the children gave her no trouble; they were abundantly good-natured, they laughed and sported all day long, and did their best to put life into the pale, overworked governess.
Whilst living thus at the seaside, Jessica was delighted by the arrival of Nancy Lord, who came to Teignmouth for a summer holiday. With her came Mary Woodruff. The faithful servant had been ill; Mr Lord sent her down into Devon to make a complete recovery, and to act as Nancy’s humble chaperon. Nancy’s stay was for three weeks. The friends saw a great deal of each other, and Miss. Lord had the honour of being presented to Mrs. Tarrant, the old lady with whom Jessica lived, Mr. Vawdrey’s mother-in-law. At the age of three score and ten, Mrs. Tarrant still led an active life, and talked with great volubility, chiefly of herself; Nancy learnt from her that she had been married at seventeen, and had had two children, a son and a daughter, both deceased; of relatives there remained to her only Mr Vawdrey and his family, and a grandson, Lionel Tarrant.
One evening, as Jessica returned from a ramble with the children, they encountered a young man who was greeted, without much fervour, as ‘cousin Lionel.’ Mr. Tarrant professed himself merely a passing visitant; he had come to inquire after the health of his grandmother, and in a day or two must keep an appointment with friends elsewhere. Notwithstanding this announcement, he remained at Teignmouth for a fortnight, exhibiting a pious