GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Sidney Kirkwood had a lodging in Tysoe Street, Clerkenwell. It is a
short street, which, like so many in London, begins reputably and
degenerates in its latter half. The cleaner end leads into Wilmington
Square, which consists of decently depressing houses, occupied in the
main, as the lower windows and front-doors indicate, by watchmakers,
working jewellers, and craftsmen of allied pursuits. The open space,
grateful in this neighbourhood, is laid out as a garden, with trees,
beds, and walks. Near the iron gate, which, for certain hours in the
day, gives admission, is a painted notice informing the public that, by
the grace of the Marquis of Northampton, they may here take their ease
on condition of good behaviour; to children is addressed a distinct
warning that ‘This is not a playing ground.’ From his window Sidney had
a good view of the Square. The house in which he lived was of two
storeys; a brass plate on the door showed the inscription, ‘Hodgson,
Dial Painter.’ The window on the ground floor was arched, as in the
other dwellings at this end of the street, and within stood an artistic
arrangement of wax fruit under a glass shade, supported by a heavy
volume of Biblical appearance. The upper storey was graced with a small
iron balcony, on which straggled a few flower-pots. However, the
exterior of this abode was, by comparison, promising; the curtains and
blinds were clean, the step was washed and whitened, the brass plate
shone, the panes of glass had at all events acquaintance with a duster.
A few yards in the direction away from the Square, and Tysoe Street
falls under the dominion of dry-rot.
It was not until he set forth to go to work next morning that Sidney
called to mind his conversation with Jane. That the child should have
missed by five minutes a meeting with someone who perchance had the
will and the power to befriend her, seemed to him, in his present mood,
merely an illustration of a vice inherent in the nature of things. He
determined to look in at the public-house of which she had spoken, and
hear for himself what manner of man had made inquiries for people named
Snowdon. The name was not a common one; it was worth while to spend a
hope or two on the chance of doing Jane a kindness. Her look and voice
when he bade her be of good courage had touched him. In his rejected
state, he felt that it was pleasant to earn gratitude even from so
humble a being as the Peckovers’ drudge.
His workshop, it has been mentioned, was in St. John’s Square. Of all
areas in London thus defined, this Square of St. John is probably the
most irregular in outline. It is cut in two by Clerkenwell Road, and
the buildings which compose it form such a number of recesses, of
abortive streets, of shadowed alleys, that from no point of the Square
can anything like a general view of its totality be obtained. The exit
from it on the south side is by St. John’s Lane, at the entrance to
which stands a survival from a buried world—the embattled and windowed
archway which is all that remains above ground of the great Priory of
St. John of Jerusalem. Here dwelt the Knights Hospitallers, in days
when Clerkenwell was a rural parish, distant by a long stretch of green
country from the walls of London. But other and nearer memories are
revived by St. John’s Arch. In the rooms above the gateway dwelt, a
hundred and fifty years ago, one Edward Cave, publisher of the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, and there many a time has sat a journeyman
author of his, by name Samuel Johnson, too often _impransus_. There it
was that the said Samuel once had his dinner handed to him behind a
screen, because of his unpresentable costume, when Cave was
entertaining an aristocratic guest. In the course of the meal, the
guest happened to speak with interest of something he had recently read
by an obscure Mr. Johnson; whereat there was joy behind the screen, and
probably increased appreciation of the unwonted dinner. After a walk
amid the squalid and toil-infested ways of Clerkenwell, it impresses
one strangely to come upon this monument of old time. The archway has a
sad, worn, grimy aspect. So closely is it packed in among buildings
which suggest nothing but the sordid struggle for existence, that it
looks depressed, ashamed, tainted by the ignobleness of its
surroundings. The wonder is that it has not been swept away, in
obedience to the great law of traffic and the spirit of the time.
St. John’s Arch had a place in Sidney Kirkwood’s earliest memories.
From the window of his present workshop he could see its grey
battlements, and they reminded him of the days when, as a lad just
beginning to put questions about the surprising world in which he found
himself, he used to listen to such stories as his father could tell him
of the history of Clerkenwell. Mr. Kirkwood occupied part of a house in
St. John’s Lane, not thirty yards from the Arch; he was a printers’
roller maker, and did but an indifferent business. A year after the
birth of Sidney, his only child, he became a widower. An intelligent,
warm-hearted man, the one purpose of his latter years was to realise
such moderate competency as should place his son above the anxieties
which degrade. The boy had a noticeable turn for drawing and colouring;
at ten years old, when (as often happened) his father took him for a
Sunday in the country, he carried a sketch-book and found his delight
in using it. Sidney was to be a draughtsman of some kind; perhaps an
artist, if all went well. Unhappily things went the reverse of well. In
his anxiety to improve his business, Mr. Kirkwood invented a new kind
of ‘composition’ for printers’ use; he patented it, risked capital upon
it, made in a short time some serious losses. To add to his troubles,
young Sidney was giving signs of an unstable character; at fifteen he
had grown tired of his drawing, wanted to be this, that, and the other
thing, was self-willed, and showed no consideration for his father’s
difficulties. It was necessary to take a decided step, and, though
against his will, Sidney was apprenticed to an uncle, a Mr. Roach, who
also lived in Clerkenwell, and was a working jeweller. Two years later
the father died, all but bankrupt. The few pounds realised from his
effects passed into the hands of Mr. Roach, and were soon expended in
payment for Sidney’s board and lodging.
His bereavement possibly saved Sidney from a young-manhood of
foolishness and worse. In the upper world a youth may ‘sow his wild
oats’ and have done with it; in the nether, ‘to have your fling’ is
almost necessarily to fall among criminals. The death was sudden; it
affected the lad profoundly, and filled him with a remorse which was to
influence the whole of his life. Mr. Roach, a thick-skinned and rather
thick-headed person, did not spare to remind his apprentice of the most
painful things wherewith the latter had to reproach himself. Sidney
bore it, from this day beginning a course of self-discipline of which
not many are capable at any age, and very few indeed at seventeen.
Still, there had never been any sympathy between him and his uncle, and
before very long the young man saw his way to live under another roof
and find work with a new employer.
It was just after leaving his uncle’s house that Sidney came to know
John Hewett; the circumstances which fostered their friendship were
such as threw strong light on the characters of both. Sidney had taken
a room in Islington, and two rooms on the floor beneath him were
tenanted by a man who was a widower and had two children. In those
days, our young friend found much satisfaction in spending his Sunday
evenings on Clerkenwell Green, where fervent, if ungrammatical, oratory
was to be heard, and participation in debate was open to all whom the
spirit moved. One whom the spirit did very frequently move was Sidney’s
fellow-lodger; he had no gift of expression whatever, but his brief,
stammering protests against this or that social wrong had such an
honest, indeed such a pathetic sound, that Sidney took an opportunity
of walking home with him and converting neighbourship into friendly
acquaintance. John Hewett gave the young man an account of his life. He
had begun as a lath-render; later he had got into cabinet-making,
started a business on his own account, and failed. A brother of his,
who was a builder’s foreman, then found employment for him in general
carpentry on some new houses; but John quarrelled with his brother, and
after many difficulties fell to the making of packing-cases; that was
his work at present, and with much discontent he pursued it. John was
curiously frank in owning all the faults in himself which had helped to
make his career so unsatisfactory. He confessed that he had an
uncertain temper, that he soon became impatient with work ‘which led to
nothing,’ that he was tempted out of his prudence by anything which
seemed to offer ‘a better start.’ With all these admissions, he
maintained that he did well to be angry. It was wrong that life should
be so hard; so much should not be required of a man. In body he was not
strong; the weariness of interminable days over-tried him and excited
his mind to vain discontent. His wife was the only one who could ever
keep him cheerful under his lot, and his wedded life had lasted but six
years; now there was his lad Bob and his little girl Clara to think of,
and it only made him more miserable to look forward and see them going
through hardships like his own. Things were wrong somehow, and it
seemed to him that ‘if only we could have universal suffrage—’
Sidney was only eighteen, and strong in juvenile Radicalism, but he had
a fund of common sense, and such a conclusion as this of poor John’s
half-astonished, half-amused him. However, the man’s personality
attracted him; it was honest, warm-hearted, interesting; the logic of
his pleadings might be at fault, but Sidney sympathised with him, for
all that. He too felt that ‘things were wrong somehow,’ and had a
pleasure in joining the side of revolt for revolt’s sake.
Now in the same house with them dwelt a young woman of about nineteen
years old; she occupied a garret, was seldom seen about, and had every
appearance of being a simple, laborious girl, of the kind familiar
enough as the silent victims of industrialism. One day the house was
thrown into consternation by the news that Miss Barnes—so she was
named—had been arrested on a charge of stealing her employer’s goods.
It was true, and perhaps the best way of explaining it will be to
reproduce a newspaper report which Sidney Kirkwood thereafter
preserved.
‘On Friday, Margaret Barnes, nineteen, a single woman, was indicted for
stealing six jackets, value 5_l_., the property of Mary Oaks, her
mistress. The prisoner, who cried bitterly during the proceedings,
pleaded guilty. The prosecutrix is a single woman, and gets her living
by mantle-making. She engaged the prisoner to do what is termed
“finishing off,” that is, making the button-holes and sewing on the
buttons. The prisoner was also employed to fetch the work from the
warehouse, and deliver it when finished. On September 7th her mistress
sent her with the six jackets, and she never returned. Sergeant Smith,
a detective, who apprehended the prisoner, said he had made inquiries
in the case, and found that up to this time the prisoner had borne a
good character as an honest, hard-working girl. She had quitted her
former lodgings, which had no furniture but a small table and a few
rags in a corner, and he discovered her in a room which was perfectly
bare. Miss Oaks was examined, and said the prisoner was employed from
nine in the morning to eight at night. The Judge: How much did you pay
her per week? Miss Oaks: Four shillings. The Judge: Did you give her
her food? Miss Oaks: No; I only get one shilling each for the jackets
myself when completed. I have to use two sewing-machines, find my own
cotton and needles, and I can, by working hard, make two in a day. The
Judge said it was a sad state of things. The prisoner, when called
upon, said she had had nothing to eat for three days, and so gave way
to temptation, hoping to get better employment. The Judge, while
commiserating with the prisoner, said it could not be allowed that
distress should justify dishonesty, and sentenced the prisoner to six
weeks’ imprisonment.’
The six weeks passed, and about a fortnight after that, John Hewett
came into Sidney’s room one evening with a strange look on his face.
His eyes were very bright, the hand which he held out trembled.
‘I’ve something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get married
again.’
‘Really? Why, I’m glad to hear it!’
‘And who do you think? Miss Barnes.’
Sidney was startled for a moment. John had had no acquaintance with the
girl prior to her imprisonment. He had said that he should meet her
when she came out and give her some money, and Sidney had added a
contribution. For a man in Hewett’s circumstances this latest step was
somewhat astonishing, but his character explained it.
‘I’m goin’ to marry her,’ he exclaimed excitedly, ‘and I’m doing the
right thing! I respect her more than all the women as never went wrong
because they never had occasion to. I’m goin’ to put her as a mother
over my children, and I’m goin’ to make a happier life for her. She’s a
good girl, I tell you. I’ve seen her nearly every day this fortnight; I
know all about her. She wouldn’t have me when I first asked her—that
was a week ago. She said no; she’d disgrace me. If you can’t respect
her as you would any other woman, never come into my lodging!’
Sidney was warm with generous glow. He wrung Hewett’s hand and
stammered incoherent words.
John took new lodgings in an obscure part of Clerkenwell, and seemed to
have become a young man once more. His complaints ceased; the energy
with which he went about his work was remarkable. He said his wife was
the salvation of him. And then befell one of those happy chances which
supply mankind with instances for its pathetic faith that a good deed
will not fail of reward. John’s brother died, and bequeathed to him
some four hundred pounds. Hereupon, what must the poor fellow do but
open workshops on his own account, engage men, go about crying that his
opportunity had come at last. Here was the bit of rock by means of
which he could save himself from the sea of competition that had so
nearly whelmed him! Little Clara, now eleven years old, could go on
steadily at school; no need to think of how the poor child should earn
a wretched living. Bob, now thirteen, should shortly be apprenticed to
some better kind of trade. New rooms were taken and well furnished.
Maggie, the wife, could have good food, such as she needed in her
constant ailing, alas! The baby just born was no longer a cause of
anxious thought, but a joy in the home. And Sidney Kirkwood came to
supper as soon as the new rooms were in order, and his bright, manly
face did everyone good to look at. He still took little Clara upon his
knee. Ha! there would come a day before long when he would not venture
to do that, and then perhaps—perhaps! What a supper that was, and how
smoothly went the great wheels of the world that evening!
One baby, two babies, three babies; before the birth of the third,
John’s brow was again clouded, again he had begun to rail and fume at
the unfitness of things. His business was a failure, partly because he
dealt with a too rigid honesty, partly because of his unstable nature,
which left him at the mercy of whims and obstinacies and airy projects.
He did not risk the ordinary kind of bankruptcy, but came down and
down, until at length he was the only workman in his own shop; then the
shop itself had to be abandoned; then he was searching for someone who
would employ him.
Bob had been put to the die-sinker’s craft; Clara was still going to
school, and had no thought of earning a livelihood—ominous state of
things, When it shortly became clear even to John Hewett that he would
wrong the girl if he did not provide her with some means of supporting
herself, she was sent to learn ‘stamping’ with the same employer for
whom her brother worked. The work was light; it would soon bring in a
little money. John declared with fierceness that his daughter should
never be set to the usual needle-slavery, and indeed it seemed very
unlikely that Clara would ever be fit for that employment, as she could
not do the simplest kind of sewing. In the meantime the family kept
changing their abode, till at length they settled in Mrs. Peckover’s
house. All the best of their furniture was by this time sold; but for
the two eldest children, there would probably have been no home at all.
Bob, aged nineteen, earned at this present time a pound weekly; his
sister, an average of thirteen shillings. Mrs. Hewett’s constant
ill-health (the result, doubtless, of semi-starvation through the years
of her girlhood), would have excused defects of housekeeping; but
indeed the poor woman was under any circumstances incapable of domestic
management, and therein represented her class. The money she received
was wasted in comparison with what might have been done with it. I
suppose she must not be blamed for bringing children into the world
when those already born to her were but half-clothed, half-fed; she
increased the sum total of the world’s misery in obedience to the laws
of the Book of Genesis. And one virtue she had which compensated for
all that was lacking—a virtue merely negative among the refined, but in
that other world the rarest and most precious of moral distinctions—she
resisted the temptations of the public-house.
This was the story present in Sidney Kirkwood’s mind as often as he
climbed the staircase in Clerkenwell Close. By contrast, his own life
seemed one of unbroken ease. Outwardly it was smooth enough. He had no
liking for his craft, and being always employed upon the meaningless
work which is demanded by the rich vulgar, he felt such work to be
paltry and ignoble; but there seemed no hope of obtaining better, and
he made no audible complaint. His wages were considerably more than he
needed, and systematically he put money aside each week.
But this orderly existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind which
Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly have
described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father’s death
put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could not ripen
him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile order common in
his world, and through passion, through conflict, through endurance, it
had to develop such maturity as fate should permit. Saved from
self-indulgence, he naturally turned into the way of political
enthusiasm; thither did his temper point him. With some help—mostly
negative—from Clerkenwell Green, he reached the stage of confident and
aspiring Radicalism, believing in the perfectibility of man, in human
brotherhood, in—anything you like that is the outcome of a noble heart
sheltered by ignorance. It had its turn, and passed.
To give place to nothing very satisfactory. It was not a mere
coincidence that Sidney was going through a period of mental and moral
confusion just in those years which brought Clara Hewett from childhood
to the state of woman. Among the acquaintances of Sidney’s boyhood
there was not one but had a chosen female companion from the age of
fifteen or earlier; he himself had been no exception to the rule in his
class, but at the time of meeting with Hewett he was companionless, and
remained so. The Hewetts became his closest friends; in their brief
prosperity he rejoiced with them, in their hardships he gave them all
the assistance to which John’s pride would consent; his name was never
spoken among them but with warmth and gratitude. And of course the day
came to which Hewett had looked forward—the day when Sidney could no
longer take Clara upon his knee and stroke her brown hair and joke with
her about her fits of good and ill humour. Sidney knew well enough what
was in his friend’s mind, and, though with no sense of constraint, he
felt that this handsome, keen-eyed, capricious girl was destined to be
his wife. He liked Clara; she always attracted him and interested him;
but her faults were too obvious to escape any eye, and the older she
grew, the more was he impressed and troubled by them. The thought of
Clara became a preoccupation, and with the love which at length he
recognised there blended a sense of fate fulfilling itself. His
enthusiasms, his purposes, never defined as education would have
defined them, were dissipated into utter vagueness. He lost his guiding
interests, and found himself returning to those of boyhood. The country
once more attracted him; he took out his old sketch-books, bought a new
one, revived the regret that he could not be a painter of landscape. A
visit to one or two picture-galleries, and then again profound
discouragement, recognition of the fact that he was a mechanic and
never could be anything else.
It was the end of his illusions. For him not even passionate love was
to preserve the power of idealising its object. He loved Clara with all
the desire of his being, but could no longer deceive himself in judging
her character. The same sad clearness of vision affected his judgment
of the world about him, of the activities in which he had once been
zealous, of the conditions which enveloped his life and the lives of
those dear to him. The spirit of revolt often enough stirred within
him, but no longer found utterance in the speech which brings relief;
he did his best to dispel the mood, mocking at it as folly. Consciously
he set himself the task of becoming a practical man, of learning to
make the best of life as he found it, of shunning as the fatal error
that habit of mind which kept John Hewett on the rack. Who was he that
he should look for pleasant things in his course through the world? ‘We
are the lower orders; we are the working classes,’ he said bitterly to
his friend, and that seemed the final answer to all his aspirations.
This was a dark day with him. The gold he handled stung him to hatred
and envy, and every feeling which he had resolved to combat as worse
than profitless. He could not speak to his fellow-workmen. From morning
to night it had rained. St. John’s Arch looked more broken-spirited
than ever, drenched in sooty moisture.
During the dinner-hour he walked over to the public-house of which Jane
had spoken, and obtained from the barman as full a description as
possible of the person he hoped to encounter. Both then and on his
return home in the evening he shunned the house where his friends
dwelt.
It came round to Monday. For the first time for many months he had
allowed Sunday to pass without visiting the Hewetts. He felt that to go
there at present would only be to increase the parents’ depression by
his own low spirits. Clara had left them now, however, and if he still
stayed away, his behaviour might be misinterpreted. On returning from
work, he washed, took a hurried meal, and was on the point of going out
when someone knocked at his door. He opened, and saw an old man who was
a stranger to him.