A SUPERFLUOUS FAMILY
Kirkwood’s face, as he turned to greet the new-comer, changed suddenly
to an expression of surprise.
‘Why, what have you been doing to your hair?’ he asked abruptly.
A stranger would have seen nothing remarkable in John Hewett’s hair,
unless he had reflected that, being so sparse, it had preserved its
dark hue and its gloss somewhat unusually. The short beard and whiskers
were also of richer colour than comported with the rest of the man’s
appearance. Judging from his features alone, one would have taken John
for sixty at least; his years were in truth not quite two-and-fifty. He
had the look of one worn out with anxiety and hardship; the lines
engraven upon his face were of extraordinary depth and frequency; there
seemed to be little flesh between the dry skin and the bones which
sharply outlined his visage. The lips were, like those of his son,
prominent and nervous, but none of Bob’s shrewdness was here
discoverable; feeling rather than intellect appeared to be the father’s
characteristic. His eyes expressed self-will, perhaps obstinacy, and he
had a peculiarly dogged manner of holding his head. At the present
moment he was suffering from extreme fatigue; he let himself sink upon
a chair, threw his hat on to the floor, and rested a hand on each knee.
His boots were thickly covered with mud; his corduroy trousers were
splashed with the same. Rain had drenched him; it trickled to the floor
from all his garments.
For answer to Sidney’s question, he nodded towards his wife, and said
in a thick voice, ‘Ask her.’
‘He’s dyed it,’ Mrs. Hewett explained, with no smile. ‘He thought one
of the reasons why he couldn’t get work was his lookin’ too old.’
‘An’ so it was,’ exclaimed Hewett, with an angry vehemence which at
once declared his position and revealed much of his history. ‘So it
was. My hair was a bit turned, an’ nowadays there’s no chance for old
men. Ask any one you like. Why, there’s Sam Lang couldn’t even get a
job at gardenin’ ’cause his hair was a bit turned. It was him as told
me what to do. “Dye your hair, Jack,” he says; “it’s what I’ve had to
myself,” he says. “They won’t have old men nowadays, at no price.” Why,
there’s Jarvey the painter; you know him, Sidney. His guvnor sent him
on a job to Jones’s place, an’ they sent him back. “Why, he’s an old
man,” they says. “What good’s a man of that age for liftin’ ladders
about?” An’ Jarvey’s no older than me.’
Sidney knitted his brows. He had heard the complaint from too many men
to be able to dispute its justice.
‘When there’s twice too many of us for the work that’s to be done,’
pursued John, ‘what else can you expect? The old uns have to give way,
of course. Let ’em beg; let ’em starve! What use are they?’
Mrs. Hewett had put a kettle on the fire, and began to arrange the
table for a meal.
‘Go an’ get your wet things off, John,’ she said. ‘You’ll be havin’
your rheumatics again.’
‘Never mind me, Maggie. What business have you to be up an’ about? You
need a good deal more takin’ care of than I do. Here, let Amy get the
tea.’
The three children, Amy, Annie, and Tom, had come forward, as only
children do who are wont to be treated affectionately on their father’s
return. John had a kiss and a caress for each of them; then he stepped
to the bed and looked at his latest born. The baby was moaning feebly;
he spoke no word to it, and on turning away glanced about the room
absently. In the meantime his wife had taken some clothing from a chest
of drawers, and at length he was persuaded to go into the other room
and change. When he returned, the meal was ready. It consisted of a
scrap of cold steak, left over from yesterday, and still upon the
original dish amid congealed fat; a spongy half-quartern loaf, that
species of baker’s bread of which a great quantity can be consumed with
small effect on the appetite; a shapeless piece of something purchased
under the name of butter, dabbed into a shallow basin; some pickled
cabbage in a tea-cup; and, lastly, a pot of tea, made by adding a
teaspoonful or two to the saturated leaves which had already served at
breakfast and midday. This repast was laid on a very dirty cloth. The
cups were unmatched and chipped, the knives were in all stages of
decrepitude; the teapot was of dirty tin, with a damaged spout.
Sidney began to affect cheerfulness. He took little Annie on one of his
knees, and Tom on the other. The mature Amy presided. Hewett ate the
morsel of meat, evidently without thinking about it; he crumbled a
piece of bread, and munched mouthfuls in silence. Of the vapid liquor
called tea he drank cup after cup.
‘What’s the time?’ he asked at length. ‘Where’s Clara?’
‘I daresay she’s doin’ overtime,’ replied his wife. ‘She won’t be much
longer.’
The man was incapable of remaining in one spot for more than a few
minutes. Now he went to look at the baby; now he stirred the fire; now
he walked across the room aimlessly. He was the embodiment of worry. As
soon as the meal was over, Amy, Annie, and Tom were sent off to bed.
They occupied the second room, together with Clara; Bob shared the bed
of a fellow-workman upstairs. This was great extravagance, obviously;
other people would have made two rooms sufficient for all, and many
such families would have put up with one. But Hewett had his ideas of
decency, and stuck to them with characteristic wilfulness.
‘Where do you think I’ve been this afternoon?’ John began, when the
three little ones were gone, and Mrs. Hewett had been persuaded to lie
down upon the bed. ‘Walked to Enfleld an’ back. I was told of a job out
there; but it’s no good; they’re full up. They say exercise is good for
the ’ealth. I shall be a ’ealthy man before long, it seems to me. What
do _you_ think?’
‘Have you been to see Corder again?’ asked Sidney, after reflecting
anxiously.
‘No, I haven’t!’ was the angry reply; ‘an’ what’s more, I ain’t goin’
to! He’s one o’ them men I can’t get on with. As long as you make
yourself small before him, an’ say “sir” to him with every other word,
an’ keep tellin’ him as he’s your Providence on earth, an’ as you don’t
know how ever you’d get on without him—well, it’s all square, an’ he’ll
keep you on the job. That’s just what I _can’t_ do—never could, an’
never shall. I should have to hear them children cryin’ for food before
I could do it. So don’t speak to me about Corder again. It makes me
wild!’
Sidney tapped the floor with his foot. Himself a single man, without
responsibilities, always in fairly good work, he could not invariably
sympathise with Hewett’s sore and impracticable pride. His own temper
did not err in the direction of meekness, but as he looked round the
room he felt that a home such as this would drive him to any degree of
humiliation. John knew what the young man’s thoughts were; he resumed
in a voice of exasperated bitterness.
‘No, I haven’t been to Corder—I beg his pardon; _Mister_ Corder—James
Corder, Esquire. But where do you think I went this mornin’? Mrs.
Peckover brought up a paper an’ showed me an advertisement. Gorbutt in
Goswell Bead wanted a man to clean windows an’ sweep up, an’ so
on;—offered fifteen bob a week. Well, I went. Didn’t I, mother? Didn’t
I go after that job? I got there at half-past eight; an’ what do you
think I found? If there was one man standin’ at Gorbutt’s door, _there
was five hundred_! Don’t you believe me? You go an’ ask them as lives
about there. If there was one, there was five hundred! Why, the p’lice
had to come an’ keep the road clear. Fifteen bob! What was the use o’
me standin’ there, outside the crowd? What was the use, I say? Such a
lot o’ poor starvin’ devils you never saw brought together in all your
life. There they was, lookin’ ready to fight with one another for the
fifteen bob a week. Didn’t I come back and tell you about it, mother?
An’ if they’d all felt like me, they’d a turned against the shop an’
smashed it up—ay, an’ every other shop in the street! What use? Why, no
use; but I tell you that’s how I felt. If any man had said as much as a
rough word to me, I’d a gone at him like a bulldog. I felt like a
beast. I wanted to fight, I tell you—to fight till the life was kicked
an’ throttled out of me!’
‘John, don’t, don’t go on in that way,’ cried his wife, sobbing
miserably. ‘Don’t let him go on like that, Sidney.’
Hewett jumped up and walked about.
‘What’s the time?’ he asked the next moment. And when Sidney told him
that it was half-past nine, he exclaimed, ‘Then why hasn’t Clara come
’ome? What’s gone with her?’
‘Perhaps she’s at Mrs. Tubbs’s,’ replied his wife, in a low voice,
looking at Kirkwood.
‘An’ what call has she to be there? Who gave her leave to go there?’
There was another exchange of looks between Sidney and Mrs. Hewett;
then the latter with hesitation and timidity told of Mrs. Tubbs’s visit
to her that evening, and of the proposals the woman had made.
‘I won’t hear of it:’ cried John. ‘I won’t have my girl go for a
barmaid, so there’s an end of it. I tell you she shan’t go!’
‘I can understand you, Mr. Hewett,’ said Sidney, in a tone of argument
softened by deference; ‘but don’t you think you’d better make a few
inquiries, at all events? You see, it isn’t exactly a barmaid’s place.
I mean to say, Mrs. Tubbs doesn’t keep a public-house where people
stand about drinking all day. It is only a luncheon-bar, and
respectable enough.’
John turned and regarded him with astonishment.
‘Why, I thought you was as much set against it as me? What’s made you
come round like this? I s’pose you’ve got tired of her, an’ that’s made
you so you don’t care.’
The young man’s eyes flashed angrily, but before he could make a
rejoinder Mrs. Hewett interposed.
‘For shame o’ yourself, John. If you can’t talk better sense than that,
don’t talk at all. He don’t mean it, Sidney. He’s half drove off his
head with trouble.’
‘If he does think it,’ said Kirkwood, speaking sternly but with
self-command, ‘let him say what he likes. He can’t say worse than I
should deserve.’
There was an instant of silence. Hewett’s head hung with more than the
usual doggedness. Then he addressed Sidney, sullenly, but in a tone
which admitted his error.
‘What have you got to say? Never mind me. I’m only the girl’s father,
an’ there’s not much heed paid to fathers nowadays. What have you got
to say about Clara? If you’ve changed your mind about her goin’ there,
just tell me why.’
Sidney could not bring himself to speak at once, but an appealing look
from Mrs. Hewett decided him.
‘Look here, Mr. Hewett,’ he began, with blunt earnestness. If any harm
came to Clara I should feel it every bit as much as you, and that you
ought to know by this time. All the same, what I’ve got to say is this:
Let her go to Mrs. Tubbs for a month’s trial. If you persist in
refusing her, mark my words, you’ll be sorry. I’ve thought it all over,
and I know what I’m talking about. The girl can’t put up with the work
room any longer. It’s ruining her health, for one thing, anybody can
see that, and it’s making her so discontented, she’ll soon get
reckless. I understand your feeling well enough, but I understand her
as well; at all events, I believe I do. She wants a change; she’s
getting tired of her very life.’
‘Very well,’ cried the father in shrill irritation, ‘why doesn’t she
take the change that’s offered to her? She’s no need to go neither to
workroom nor to bar. There’s a good home waiting for her, isn’t there?
What’s come to the girl? She used to go on as if she liked you well
enough.’
‘A girl alters a deal between fifteen and seventeen,’ Sidney replied,
forcing himself to speak with an air of calmness, of impartiality. ‘She
wasn’t old enough to know her own mind. I’m tired of plaguing her. I
feel ashamed to say another word to her, and that’s the truth. She only
gets more and more set against me. If it’s ever to come right, it’ll
have to be by waiting; we won’t talk about that any more. Think of her
quite apart from me, and what I’ve been hoping. She’s seventeen years
old. You can’t deal with a girl of that age like you can with Amy and
Annie. You’ll have to trust her, Mr. Hewett. You’ll have to, because
there’s no help for it. We’re working people, we are; we’re the lower
orders; our girls have to go out and get their livings. We teach them
the best we can, and the devil knows they’ve got examples enough of
misery and ruin before their eyes to help them to keep straight. Rich
people can take care of their daughters as much as they like; they can
treat them like children till they’re married; people of our kind can’t
do that, and it has to be faced.’
John sat with dark brow, his eyes staring on vacancy.
‘It’s right what Sidney says, father,’ put in Mrs. Hewett; ‘we can’t
help it.’
‘You may perhaps have done harm when you meant only to do good,’
pursued Sidney. ‘Always being so anxious, and showing what account you
make of her, perhaps you’ve led her to think a little too much of
herself. She knows other fathers don’t go on in that way. And now she
wants more freedom, she feels it worse than other girls do when you
begin to deny her. Talk to her in a different way; talk as if you
trusted her. Depend upon it, it’s the only hold you have upon her.
Don’t be so much afraid. Clara has her faults—I see them as well as any
one—but I’ll never believe she’d darken your life of her own free
will.’
There was an unevenness, a jerky vehemence, in his voice, which told
how difficult it was for him to take this side in argument. He often
hesitated, obviously seeking phrases which should do least injury to
the father’s feelings. The expression of pain on his forehead and about
his lips testified to the sincerity with which he urged his views, at
the same time to a lurking fear lest impulse should be misleading him.
Hewett kept silence, in aspect as far as ever from yielding. Of a
sudden he raised his hand, and said, ‘Husht!’ There was a familiar step
on the stairs. Then the door opened and admitted Clara.
The girl could not but be aware that the conversation she interrupted
had reference to herself. Her father gazed fixedly at her; Sidney
glanced towards her with self-consciousness, and at once averted his
eyes; Mrs. Hewett examined her with apprehension. Having carelessly
closed the door with a push, she placed her umbrella in the corner and
began to unbutton her gloves. Her attitude was one of affected
unconcern; she held her head stiffly, and let her eyes wander to the
farther end of the room. The expression of her face was cold,
preoccupied; she bit her lower lip so that the under part of it
protruded.
‘Where have you been, Clara?’ her father asked.
She did not answer immediately, but finished drawing off her gloves and
rolled them up by turning one over the other. Then she said
indifferently:
‘I’ve been to see Mrs. Tubbs.’
‘And who gave you leave?’ asked Hewett with irritation.
‘I don’t see that I needed any leave. I knew she was coming here to
speak to you or mother, so I went, after work, to ask what you’d said.’
She was not above the middle stature of women, but her slimness and
erectness, and the kind of costume she wore made her seem tall as she
stood in this low-ceiled room. Her features were of very uncommon type,
at once sensually attractive and bearing the stamp of intellectual
vigour. The profile was cold, subtle, original; in full face, her high
cheekbones and the heavy, almost horizontal line of her eyebrows were
the points that first drew attention, conveying an idea of force of
character. The eyes themselves were hazel-coloured, and, whatever her
mood, preserved a singular pathos of expression, a look as of
self-pity, of unconscious appeal against some injustice. In contrast
with this her lips were defiant, insolent, unscrupulous; a shadow of
the naivete of childhood still lingered upon them, but, though you
divined the earlier pout of the spoilt girl, you felt that it must have
foretold this danger-signal in the mature woman. Such cast of
countenance could belong only to one who intensified in her personality
an inheritance of revolt; who, combining the temper of an ambitious
woman with the forces of a man’s brain, had early learnt that the world
was not her friend nor the world’s law.
Her clothing made but poor protection against the rigours of a London
winter. Its peculiarity (bearing in mind her position) was the lack of
any pretended elegance. A close-fitting, short jacket of plain cloth
made evident the grace of her bust; beneath was a brown dress with one
row of kilting. She wore a hat of brown felt, the crown rising from
back to front, the narrow brim closely turned up all round. The high
collar of the jacket alone sheltered her neck. Her gloves, though worn,
were obviously of good kid; her boots—strangest thing of all in a
work-girl’s daily attire—were both strong and shapely. This simplicity
seemed a declaration that she could not afford genuine luxuries and
scorned to deck herself with shams.
The manner of her reply inflamed Hewett with impotent wrath. He smote
the table violently, then sprang up and flung his chair aside.
‘Is that the way you’ve learnt to speak to your father?’ he shouted.
‘Haven’t I told you you’re not to go nowhere without my leave or your
mother’s? Do you pay no heed to what I bid you? If so, say it! Say it
at once, and have done with it.’
Clara was quietly removing her hat. In doing so, she disclosed the one
thing which gave proof of regard for personal appearance. Her hair was
elaborately dressed. Drawn up from the neck, it was disposed in thick
plaits upon the top of her head; in front were a few rows of crisping.
She affected to be quite unaware that words had been spoken to her, and
stood smoothing each side of her forehead.
John strode forward and laid his hands roughly upon her shoulders.
‘Look at me, will you? Speak, will you?’
Clara jerked herself from his grasp and regarded him with insolent
surprise. Of fear there was no trace upon her countenance; she seemed
to experience only astonishment at such unwonted behaviour from her
father, and resentment on her own behalf. Sidney Kirkwood had risen,
and advanced a step or two, as if in apprehension of harm to the girl,
but his interference was unneeded. Hewett recovered his self-control as
soon as Clara repelled him. It was the first time he had ever laid a
hand upon one of his children other than gently; his exasperation came
of over-tried nerves, of the experiences he had gone through in search
of work that day, and the keen suffering occasioned by his argument
with Sidney. The practical confirmation of Sidney’s warning that he
must no longer hope to control Clara like a child stung him too
poignantly; he obeyed an unreasoning impulse to recover his authority
by force.
The girl’s look entered his heart like a stab; she had never faced him
like this before, saying more plainly than with words that she defied
him to control her. His child’s face, the face he loved best of all!
yet at this moment he was searching it vainly for the lineaments that
were familiar to him. Something had changed her, had hardened her
against him, in a moment. It seemed impossible that there should come
such severance between them. John revolted against it, as against all
the other natural laws that visited him harshly.
‘What’s come to you, my girl?’ he said in a thick voice. ‘What’s wrong
between us, Clara? Haven’t I always done my best for you? If I was the
worst enemy you had, you couldn’t look at me crueller.’
‘I think it’s me that should ask what’s come to _you_, father,’ she
returned with her former self-possession. ‘You treat me as if I was a
baby. I want to know what you’re going to say about Mrs. Tubbs. I
suppose mother’s told you what she offers me?’
Sidney had not resumed his chair. Before Hewett could reply he said:
‘I think I’ll leave you to talk over this alone.’
‘No; stay where you are,’ said John gruffly. ‘Look here, Clara.
Sidney’s been talkin’ to me; he’s been sayin’ that I ought to let you
have your own way in this. Yes, you may well look as if it surprised
you.’ Clara had just glanced at the young man, slightly raising her
eyebrows, but at once looked away again with a careless movement of the
head. ‘He says what it’s hard an’ cruel for me to believe, though I
half begin to see that he’s right; he says you won’t pay no more heed
to what _I_ wish, an’ it’s me now must give way to you. I didn’t use to
think me an’ Clara would come to that; but it looks like it—it looks
like it.’
The girl stood with downcast eyes. Once more her face had suffered a
change; the lips were no longer malignant, her forehead had relaxed
from its haughty frown. The past fortnight had been a period of contest
between her father’s stubborn fears and her own determination to change
the mode of her life. Her self-will was only intensified by opposition.
John had often enough experienced this, but hitherto the points at
issue had been trifles, matters in which the father could yield for the
sake of pleasing his child. Serious resistance brought out for the
first time all the selfish forces of her nature. She was prepared to go
all lengths rather than submit, now the question of her liberty had
once been broached. Already there was a plan in her mind for quitting
home, regardless of all the misery she would cause, reckless of what
future might be in store for herself. But the first sign of yielding on
her father’s part touched the gentler elements of her nature. Thus was
she constituted; merciless in egotism when put to the use of all her
weapons, moved to warmest gratitude as soon as concession was made to
her. To be on ill terms with her father had caused her pain, the only
effect of which, however, was to heighten the sullen impracticability
of her temper. At the first glimpse of relief from overstrained
emotions, she desired that all angry feeling should be at an end.
Having gained her point, she could once more be the affectionately
wilful girl whose love was the first necessity of John Hewett’s
existence.
‘Well,’ John pursued, reading her features eagerly, ‘I’ll say no more
about that, and I won’t stand in the way of what you’ve set your mind
on. But understand, Clara, my girl! It’s because Sidney persuaded me.
Sidney answers for it, mind you that!’
His voice trembled, and he looked at the young man with something like
anger in his eyes.
‘I’m willing to do that, Mr. Hewett,’ said Kirkwood in a low but firm
voice, his eyes turned away from Clara. ‘No human being can answer for
another in the real meaning of the word; but I take upon myself to say
that Clara will bring you no sorrow. She hears me say it. They’re not
the kind of words that a man speaks without thought of what they mean.’
Clara had seated herself by the table, and was moving a finger along
the pattern of the dirty white cloth. She bit her under-lip in the
manner already described, seemingly her habit when she wished to avoid
any marked expression of countenance.
‘I can’t see what Mr. Kirkwood’s got to do with it at all,’ she said,
with indifference, which now, however, was rather good-humoured than
the reverse. ‘I’m sure I don’t want anybody to answer for _me_.’ A
slight toss of the head. ‘You’d have let me go in any case, father; so
I don’t see you need bring Mr. Kirkwood’s name in.’
Hewett turned away to the fireplace and hung his head. Sidney, gazing
darkly at the girl, saw her look towards him, and she smiled. The
strange effect of that smile upon her features! It gave gentleness to
the mouth, and, by making more manifest the intelligent light of her
eyes, emphasised the singular pathos inseparable from their regard. It
was a smile to which a man would concede anything, which would vanquish
every prepossession, which would inspire pity and tenderness and
devotion in the heart of sternest resentment.
Sidney knew its power only too well; he averted his face. Then Clara
rose again and said:
‘I shall just walk round and tell Mrs. Tubbs. It isn’t late, and she’d
like to know as soon as possible.’
‘Oh, surely it’ll do in the mornin’!’ exclaimed Mrs. Hewett, who had
followed the conversation in silent anxiety.
Clara paid no attention, but at once put on her hat again. Then she
said, ‘I won’t be long, father,’ and moved towards the door.
Hewett did not look round.
‘Will you let me walk part of the way with you?’ Sidney asked abruptly.
‘Certainly, if you like.’
He bade the two who remained ‘Good-night,’ and followed Clara
downstairs.