A LAND OF TWILIGHT
It happened that Mrs. Jarmey, the landlady of the house in which the
sisters lived, had business in the neighbourhood of the 'Prince
Albert,' and chanced to exchange a word with an acquaintance who had
just come away after hearing Thyrza sing. Returning home, she found
Lydia at the door, anxiously and impatiently waiting for Thyrza's
appearance. The news, of course, was at once communicated, with moral
reflections, wherein Mrs. Jarmey excelled. Not five minutes later, and
whilst the two were still talking in the passage, the front door
opened, and Thyrza came in. Lydia turned and went upstairs.
Thyrza, entering the room, sought her sister's face; it had an angry
look. For a moment Lydia did not speak; the other, laying aside her
hat, said: 'I'm sorry I'm so late, Lyddy.'
'Where have you been?' her sister asked, in a voice which strove to
command itself.
Thyrza could not tell the whole truth at once, though she knew it would
have to be confessed eventually; indeed, whether or no discovery came
from other sources, all would eventually be told of her own free will.
She might fear at the moment, but in the end kept no secret from Lydia.
'I've been about with Totty,' she said, averting her face as she drew
off her cotton gloves.
'Yes, you have! You've been singing at a public-house.'
Lydia was too upset to note the paleness of Thyrza's face, which at
another moment would have elicited anxious question. She was deeply
hurt that Thyrza made so little account of her wishes; jealous of the
influence of Totty Nancarrow; stirred with apprehensions as powerful as
a mother's. On the other hand, it was Thyrza's nature to shrink into
coldness before angry words. She suffered intensely when the voice
which was of wont so affectionate turned to severity, but she could not
excuse herself till the storm was over. And it was most often from the
elder girl that the first words of reconcilement came.
'That's your Totty Nancarrow,' Lydia went on, with no check upon her
tongue. 'Didn't I tell you what 'ud come of going about with her? What
next, I should like to know! If you go on and sing in a public-house, I
don't know what you won't do. I shall never trust you out by yourself
again. You shan't go out at night at all, that's about it!'
'You've no right to speak to me like that, Lydia,' Thyrza replied, with
indignation. The excitement and the fainting fit had strung her nerves
painfully; and, for all her repentance, the echo of applause was still
very sweet in her ears. This vehement reproach caused a little injury
to her pride. 'It doesn't depend on you whether I go out or not. I'm
not a child, and I can take care of myself. I haven't done nothing
wrong.'
'You have--and you know you have! You knew I shouldn't have let you go
near such a place. You know how I've begged you not to go with Totty
Nancarrow, and how you've promised me you wouldn't be led into no harm.
I shall never be able to trust you again. You _are_ only a child! You
show it! And in future you'll do as I tell you!'
Thyrza caught up her hat.
'I'm not going to stop here whilst you're in such a bad temper,' she
said, in a trembling voice; 'you'll find that isn't the way to make me
do as you wish.'
She stepped to the door. Lydia, frightened, sprang forward and barred
the way.
'Go and sit down, Thyrza!'
'Let me go! What right have you to stop me?'
Then both were silent. At the same moment they became aware that a
common incident of Saturday night was occurring had got thus far on
their way home, the wife's shrill tongue in the street below. A
half-tipsy man and a nagging woman running over every scale of
scurrility and striking every note of ingenious malice. The man was at
length worked to a pitch of frenzy, and then--thud, thud, mingled with
objurgations and shrill night-piercing yells. Fury little short of
murderous was familiar enough to dwellers in this region, but that
woman's bell-clapper tongue had struck shame into Lydia. She could not
speak another angry word.
'Thyrza, take your hat off,' she said quietly, moving away a little
from the door. Her cheeks burned, and she quivered in the subsidence of
her temper.
Her sister did not obey, but, unable to stand longer, she went to a
chair at a distance. The uproar in the street continued for a quarter
of an hour, then by degrees passed on, the voice of the woman shrieking
foul abuse till remoteness stifled it. Lydia forced herself to keep
silence from good or ill; it was no use speaking the thoughts she had
till morning. Thyrza sat with her eyes fixed on vacancy; she was so
miserable, her heart had sunk so low, that tears would have come had
she not forced them back. More than once of late she had known this
mood, in which life lay about her barren and weary. She was very young
to suffer that oppression of the world-worn; it was the penalty she
paid for her birthright of heart and mind.
By midnight they were lying side by side, but no 'goodnight' had passed
between them. When Thyrza's gentle breathing told that she slept, Lydia
still lay with open eyes, watching the flicker of the street lamp upon
the ceiling, hearing the sounds that came of mirth or brutality in
streets near and far. She did not suffer in the same way as her sister;
as soon as she had gently touched Thyrza's unconscious hand love came
upon her with its warm solace; but her trouble was deep, and she looked
into the future with many doubts.
The past she could scarcely deem other than happy, though a stranger
would have thought it sad enough. Her mother she well remembered--a
face pale and sweet, like Thyrza's: the eyes that have their sad beauty
from foresight of death. Her father lived only a year longer, then she
and the little one passed into the charge of Mr. Boddy, who was paid a
certain small sum by Trent's employers, in consideration of the death
by accident. Then came the commencement of Mr. Boddy's misfortunes; his
shop and house were burnt down, he lost his limb in an endeavour to
save his property, he lost his wife in consequence of the shock. Dreary
things for the memory, yet they did not weigh upon Lydia; she was so
happily endowed that her mind selected and dwelt on sunny hours, on
kind looks and words which her strong heart cherished unassailably, on
the mutual charities which sorrow had begotten rather than on the
sorrow itself. Above all, the growing love of her dear one, of her to
whom she was both mother and sister, had strengthened her against every
trouble. Yet of late this strongest passion of her life had become a
source of grave anxieties, as often as circumstance caused her to look
beyond her contentment. Thyrza was so beautiful, and, it seemed to her,
so weak; always dreaming of something beyond and above the life which
was her lot; so deficient in the practical qualities which that life
demanded. At moments Lydia saw her responsibility in a light which
alarmed her.
They worked at a felt-hat factory, as 'trimmers;' that is to say, they
finished hats by sewing in the lining, putting on the bands, and the
like. In the busy season they could average together wages of about a
pound a week; at dull times they earned less, and very occasionally had
to support themselves for a week or two without employment. Since the
age of fourteen Lydia herself had received help from no one; from
sixteen she had lived in lodgings with Thyrza, independent. Mr. Boddy
was then no longer able to do more than supply his own needs, for
things had grown worse with him from year to year. Lydia occasionally
found jobs for her free hours, and she had never yet wanted. She was
strong, her health had scarcely ever given her a day's uneasiness;
there never came to her a fear lest bread should fail. But Thyrza could
not take life as she did. It was not enough for that imaginative nature
to toil drearily day after day, and year after year, just for the sake
of earning a livelihood. In a month she would be seventeen; it was too
true, as she had said to-night, that she was no longer a child. What
might happen if the elder sister's influence came to an end? Thyrza
loved her: how Lydia would have laughed at anyone who hinted that the
love could ever weaken! But it was not a guard against every danger.
It was inevitable that Lydia should have hoped that her sister might
marry early. And one man she knew in whom--she scarcely could have told
you why--her confidence was so strong that she would freely have
entrusted him with Thyrza's fate. Thyrza could not bring herself to
think of him as a husband. It was with Ackroyd that Lydia's thoughts
were busy as she lay wakeful. Before to-night she had not pondered so
continuously on what she knew of him. For some two years he had been an
acquaintance, through the Bowers, and she had felt glad when it was
plain that he sought Thyrza's society. 'Yes,' she had said to herself,
'I like him, and feel that he is to be relied upon.' Stories, to be
sure, had reached her ears; something of an over-fondness for
conviviality; but she had confidence. To-night she seemed called upon
to review all her impressions. Why? Nothing new had happened. She
longed for sleep, but it only came when dawn was white upon the blind.
When it was time to rise, neither spoke. Lydia prepared the breakfast
as usual--it seemed quite natural that she should do nearly all the
work of the home--and they sat down to it cheerlessly.
Since daybreak a mist had crept over the sky; it thinned the sunlight
to a suffusion of grey and gold. Within the house there was the silence
of Sunday morning; the street was still, save for the jodeling of a
milkman as he wheeled his clattering cans from house to house. In that
London on the other side of Thames, known to these girls with scarcely
less of vagueness than to simple dwellers in country towns, the
autumn-like air was foretaste of holiday; the martyrs of the Season and
they who do the world's cleaner work knew that rest was near, spoke at
breakfast of the shore and the mountain. Even to Lydia, weary after her
short sleep and unwontedly dejected, there came a wish that it were
possible to quit the streets for but one day, and sit somewhere apart
under the open sky. It was not often that so fantastic a dream visited
her.
In dressing, Thyrza had left her hair unbraided. Lydia always did that
for her. When the table was cleared, the former took up a story-paper
which she bought every week, and made a show of reading. Lydia went
about her accustomed tasks.
Presently she took a brush and comb and went behind her sister's chair.
She began to unloosen the rough coils in which the golden hair was
pinned together. It was always a joy to her to bathe her hands in the
warm, soft torrent. With delicate care she combed out every intricacy,
and brushed the ordered tresses till the light gleamed on their smooth
surface; then with skilful fingers she wove the braid, tying it with a
blue ribbon so that the ends hung loose. The task completed, it was her
custom to bend over the little head and snatch an inverted kiss, always
a moment of laughter. This morning she omitted that; she was moving
sadly away, when she noticed that the face turned a little, a very
little.
'Isn't it right?' she asked, keeping her eyes down.
'I think so--it doesn't matter.'
She drew near again, as if to inspect her work. Perhaps there was a
slight lack of smoothness over the temple; she touched the spot with
her fingers.
'Why are you so unkind to me, Thyrza?'
The words had come involuntarily; the voice shook as they were spoken.
'I don't mean to be, Lyddy--you know I don't.'
'But you do things that you know 'll make me angry. I'm quick-tempered,
and I couldn't bear to think of you going to that place; I ought to
have spoke in a different way.'
'Who told you I'd been singing?'
'Mrs. Jarmey. I'm very glad she did; it doesn't seem any harm to you,
Thyrza, but it does to me. Dear, have you ever sung at such places
before?'
Thyrza shook her head.
'Will you promise me never to go there again?'
'I don't want to go. But I get no harm. They were very pleased with my
singing. Annie West was there, and several other girls. Why do you make
so much of it, Lyddy?'
'Because I'm older than you, Thyrza; and if you'll only trust me, and
do as I wish, you'll see some day that I was right. I know you're a
good girl; I don't think a wrong thought ever came into your head. It
isn't that, it's because you can't go about the streets and into
public-houses without hearing bad things and seeing bad people. I want
to keep you away from everything that isn't homelike and quiet. I want
you to love me more than anyone else!'
'I do, Lyddy! I do, dear! It's only that I--'
'What--?'
'I don't know how it is. I'm discontented. There's never any change.
How can you be so happy day after day? I love to be with you, but--if
we could go and live somewhere else! I should like to see a new place.
I've been reading there about the seaside what it must be like! I want
to know things. You don't understand me?'
'I think I do. I felt a little the same when I heard Mrs. Isaacs and
her daughter talking about Margate yesterday. But we shall be better
off some day, see if we aren't! Try your best not to think about those
things. Suppose you ask Mr. Grail to lend you a book to read? I met
Mrs. Grail downstairs last night, and she asked if we'd go down and
have tea to-day. I can't, because Mary's coming, but you might. And I'm
sure he'd lend you something nice if you asked him.'
'I don't think I durst. He always sits so quiet, and he's such a queer
man.'
'Yes, he is rather queer, but he speaks very kind.'
'I'll see. But you mustn't speak so cross to me if I do wrong, Lyddy. I
felt as if I should like to go away, some time when you didn't know. I
did, really!'
Lydia gazed at her anxiously.
'I don't think you'd ever have the heart to do that, Thyrza,' she said,
in a low voice.
'No,' she shook her head, smiling. 'I couldn't do without you. And now
kiss me properly, like you always do.'
Lydia stood behind the chair again, and the laughing caress was
exchanged.
'I should stay,' Thyrza went on, 'if it was only to have you do my
hair. I do so like to feel your soft hands!'
'Soft hands! Great coarse things. Just look!'
She took one of Thyrza's, and held it beside her own. The difference
was noticeable enough; Lydia's was not ill-shapen, but there were marks
on it of all the rough household work which she had never permitted her
sister to do. Thyrza's was delicate, supple, beautiful in its kind as
her face.
'I don't care!' she said laughing. 'It's a good, soft, sleepy hand.'
'Sleepy, child!'
'I mean it always makes me feel dozy when it's doing my hair.'
There was no more cloud between them. The morning passed on with
sisterly talk. Lydia had wisely refrained from exacting promises; she
hoped to resume the subject before long--together with another that was
in her mind. Thyrza, too, had something to speak of, but could not
bring herself to it as yet.
Though it was so hot, they had to keep a small fire for cooking the
dinner. This meal consisted of a small piece of steak, chosen from the
odds and ends thrown together on the front of a butcher's shop, and a
few potatoes. It was not always they had meat; yet they never went
hungry, and, in comparing herself with others she knew, it sometimes
made Lydia a little unhappy to think how well she lived.
Then began the unutterable dreariness of a Sunday afternoon. From the
lower part of the house sounded the notes of a concertina; it was Mr.
Jarmey who played. He had the habit of doing so whilst half asleep,
between dinner and tea. With impartiality he passed from strains of
popular hymnody to the familiar ditties of the music hall, lavishing on
each an excess of sentiment. He shook pathetically on top notes and
languished on final chords. A dolorous music!
The milkman came along the street. He was followed by a woman who
wailed 'wa-ater-creases!' Then the concertina once more possessed the
stillness. Few pedestrians were abroad; the greater part of the male
population of Lambeth slumbered after the baked joint and flagon of
ale. Yet here and there a man in his shirt-sleeves leaned forth
despondently from a window or sat in view within, dozing over the
Sunday paper.
A rattling of light wheels drew near, and a nasal voice cried
''Okey-pokey! 'Okey-'okey-'okey Penny a lump!' It was the man who sold
ice-cream. He came to a stop, and half a dozen boys gathered about his
truck. The delicacy was dispensed to them in little green and yellow
glasses, from which they extracted it with their tongues. The vendor
remained for a few minutes, then on again with his ''Okey'-okey-'okey!'
sung through the nose.
Next came a sound of distressful voices, whining the discords of a
mendicant psalm. A man, a woman, and two small children crawled along
the street; their eyes surveyed the upper windows. All were ragged and
filthy; the elders bore the unmistakable brand of the gin-shop, and the
children were visaged like debased monkeys. Occasionally a copper fell
to them, in return for which the choragus exclaimed 'Gord bless yer!'
Thyrza sat in her usual place by the window, now reading for a few
minutes, now dreaming. Lydia had some stockings to be darned; she
became at length so silent that her sister turned to look at her. Her
head had dropped forward. She slumbered for a few minutes, then started
to consciousness again, and laughed when she saw Thyrza regarding her.
'I suppose Mary'll be here directly?' she said. 'I'd better put this
work out of sight.' And as she began to spread the cloth, she asked:
'What'll you do whilst we're at chapel, Thyrza?'
'I think I'll go and have tea with Mrs. Grail; then I'll see if I dare
ask for a book.'
'You've made up your mind not to go out?'
'There was something I wanted to tell you. I met Mr. Ackroyd as I was
coming home last night. I told him I couldn't come out alone, and I
said I couldn't be sure whether you'd come or not.'
'But what a pity!' returned Lydia. 'You knew I was going to chapel. I'm
afraid he'll wait for us.'
'Yes, but I somehow didn't like to say we wouldn't go at all. What time
is he going to be there?'
'He said at six o'clock.'
'Would you mind just running out and telling him? Perhaps you'll be
going past with Mary, not long after?'
'That's a nice job you give me!' remarked Lydia, with a half smile.
'But I know you don't mind it, Lyddy. It isn't the first thing you've
done for me.'
It was said with so much _naivete_ that Lydia could not but laugh.
'I should like it much better if you'd go yourself,' she replied. 'But
I'm afraid it's no good asking.'
'Not a hit! And, Lyddy, I told Mr. Ackroyd that it would always be the
same. He understands now.'
The other made no reply.
'You won't be cross about it?'
'No, dear; there's nothing to be cross about. But I'm very sorry.'
The explanation passed in a tone of less earnestness than either would
have anticipated. They did not look at each other, and they dismissed
the subject as soon as possible. Then came two rings at the house-bell,
signifying the arrival of their visitor.
Mary Bower and Lydia had been close friends for four or five years, yet
they had few obvious points of similarity, and their differences were
marked enough. The latter increased; for Mary attached herself more
closely to religious observances, whilst Lydia continued to declare
with native frankness that she could not feel it incumbent upon her to
give grave attention to such matters. Mary grieved over this attitude
in one whose goodness of heart she could not call in question; it
troubled her as an inconsequence in nature; she cherished a purpose of
converting Lydia, and had even brought herself to the point of hoping
that some sorrow might befall her friend--nothing of too sad a nature,
but still a grief which might turn her thoughts inward. Yet, had
anything of the kind come to pass, Mary would have been the first to
hasten with consolation.
Thyrza went downstairs, and the two gossiped as tea was made ready.
Mary had already heard of the incident at the 'Prince Albert;' such a
piece of news could not be long in reaching Mrs. Bower's. She wished to
speak of it, yet was in uncertainty whether Lydia had already been
told. The latter was the first to bring forward the subject.
'It's quite certain she oughtn't to make a friend of that girl Totty,'
Mary said, with decision. 'You must insist that it is stopped, Lydia.'
'I shan't do any good that way,' replied the other, shaking her head.
'I lost my temper last night, like a silly, and of course only harm
came of it.'
'But there's no need to lose your temper. You must tell her she's _not_
to speak to the girl again, and there's an end of it!'
'Thyrza's too old for that, dear. I must lead her by kindness, or I
can't lead her at all. I don't think, though, she'll ever do such a
thing as that again. I know what a temptation it was; she does sing so
sweetly. But she won't do it again now she knows how I think about it.'
Mary appeared doubtful. Given a suggestion of iniquity, and it was her
instinct rather to fear than to hope. Secretly she had no real liking
for Thyrza; something in that complex nature repelled her. As she
herself had said: 'Thyrza was not easy to understand,' but she did
understand that the girl's essential motives were of a kind radically
at enmity with her own. Thyrza, it seemed to her, was worldly in the
most hopeless way.
'You'll be sorry for it if you're not firm,' she remarked.
Lydia made no direct reply, but after a moment's musing she said:
'If only she could think of Mr. Ackroyd!'
She had not yet spoken so plainly of this to Mary; the latter was
surprised by the despondency of her tone.
'But I thought they were often together?'
'She's only been out with him when I went as well, and last night she
told him it was no use.'
'Well, I can't say I'm sorry to hear that,' Mary replied with the air
of one who spoke an unpleasant truth.
'Why not, Mary?'
'I think he's likely to do her every bit as much harm as Totty
Nancarrow.'
'What _do_ you mean, Mary?' There was a touch of indignation in Lydia's
voice. 'What harm can Mr. Ackroyd do to Thyrza?'
'Not the kind of harm you're thinking of, dear. But if I had a sister I
know I shouldn't like to see her marry Mr. Ackroyd. He's got no
religion, and what's more he's always talking against religion. Father
says he made a speech last week at that place in Westminster Bridge
Road where the Atheists have their meetings. I don't deny there's
something nice about him, but I wouldn't trust a man of that kind.'
Lydia delayed her words a little. She kept her eyes on the table; her
forehead was knitted.
'I can't help what he thinks about religion,' she replied at length,
with firmness. 'He's a good man, I'm quite sure of that.'
'Lydia, he can't be good if he does his best to ruin people's souls.'
'I don't know anything about that, Mary. Whatever he says, he says
because he believes it and thinks it right. Why, there's Mr. Grail
thinks in the same way, I believe; at all events, he never goes to
church or chapel. And he's a friend of Mr. Ackroyd's.'
'But we don't know anything about Mr. Grail.'
'We don't know much, but it's quite enough to talk to him for a few
minutes to know he's a man that wouldn't say or do anything wrong.'
'He must be a wonderful man, Lydia.'
These Sunday conversations were always fruitful of trouble. Mary was
prepared by her morning and afternoon exercises to be more aggressive
and uncompromising than usual. But the present difficulty appeared a
graver one than any that had yet risen between them. Lydia had never
spoken in the tone which marked her rejoinder:
'Really, Mary, it's as if you couldn't put faith in no one! You know I
don't feel the same as you do about religion and such things, and I
don't suppose I ever shall. When I like people, I like them; I can't
ask what they believe and what they don't believe. We'd better not talk
about it any more.'
Mary's face assumed rather a hard look.
'Just as you like, my dear,' she said.
There ensued an awkward silence, which Lydia at length broke by speech
on some wholly different subject. Mary with difficulty adapted herself
to the change; tea was finished rather uncomfortably.
It was six o'clock. Lydia, hearing the hour strike, knew that Ackroyd
would be waiting at the end of Walnut Tree Walk. She was absent-minded,
halting between a desire to go at once, and tell him that they could
not come, and a disinclination not perhaps very clearly explained. The
minutes went on. It seemed to be decided for her that he should learn
the truth by their failure to join him.
Church bells began to sound. Mary rose and put on her hat, then, taking
up the devotional books she had with her, offered her hand as if to say
good-bye.
'But,' said Lydia in surprise, 'I'm going with you.'
'I didn't suppose you would,' the other returned quietly.
'But haven't you had tea with me?'
Mary had not now to learn that her friend held a promise inviolable;
her surprise would have been great if Lydia had allowed her to go forth
alone. She smiled.
'Will there be nice singing?' Lydia asked, as she prepared herself
quickly. 'I do really like the singing, at all events, Mary.'
The other shook her head, sadly.
They left the house and turned towards Kennington Road. Before Lydia
had gone half a dozen steps she saw that Ackroyd was waiting at the end
of the street. She felt a pang of self-reproach; it was wrong of her to
have allowed him to stand in miserable uncertainty all this time; she
ought to have gone out at six o'clock. In a low voice she said to her
companion:
'There's Mr. Ackroyd. I want just to speak a word to him. If you'll go
on when we get up, I'll soon overtake you.'
Mary acquiesced in silence. Lydia, approaching, saw disappointment on
the young man's face. He raised his hat to her--an unwonted attention
in these parts--and she gave him her hand.
'I'm going to chapel,' she said playfully.
He had a sudden hope.
'Then your sister'll come out?'
'No, Mr. Ackroyd; she can't to-night. She's having tea with Mrs. Grail.'
He looked down the street. Lydia was impelled to say earnestly:
'Some time, perhaps! Thyrza is very young yet, Mr. Ackroyd. She thinks
of such different things.'
'What does she think of?' he asked, rather gloomily.
'I mean she--she must get older and know you better. Good-bye! Mary
Bower is waiting for me.'
She ran on, and Ackroyd sauntered away without a glance after her.