IT was clear that these two women could not live in London on
seventy-five pounds a year, most certainly not with the prospect before
them, and Clara cast about for something to do. Marshall had a
brother-in-law, a certain Baruch Cohen, a mathematical instrument maker
in Clerkenwell, and to him Marshall accidentally one day talked about
Clara, and said that she desired an occupation. Cohen himself could not
give Clara any work, but he knew a second-hand bookseller, an old man who
kept a shop in Holborn, who wanted a clerk, and Clara thus found herself
earning another pound a week. With this addition she and her sister
could manage to pay their way and provide what Madge would want. The
hours were long, the duties irksome and wearisome, and, worst of all, the
conditions under which they were performed, were not only as bad as they
could be, but their badness was of a kind to which Clara had never been
accustomed, so that she felt every particle of it in its full force. The
windows of the shop were, of course, full of books, and the walls were
lined with them. In the middle of the shop also was a range of shelves,
and books were stacked on the floor, so that the place looked like a huge
cubical block of them through which passages had been bored. At the back
the shop became contracted in width to about eight feet, and consequently
the central shelves were not continued there, but just where they ended,
and overshadowed by them were a little desk and a stool. All round the
desk more books were piled, and some manœuvring was necessary in order to
sit down. This was Clara’s station. Occasionally, on a brilliant, a
very brilliant day in summer, she could write without gas, but, perhaps,
there were not a dozen such days in the year. By twisting herself
sideways she could just catch a glimpse of a narrow line of sky over some
heavy theology which was not likely to be disturbed, and was therefore
put at the top of the window, and once when somebody bought the _Calvin
Joann_. _Opera Omnia_, 9 _vol. folio_, _Amst._ 1671—it was very clear
that afternoon—she actually descried towards seven o’clock a blessed star
exactly in the middle of the gap the Calvin had left.
The darkness was very depressing, and poor Clara often shut her eyes as
she bent over her day-book and ledger, and thought of the Fenmarket flats
where the sun could be seen bisected by the horizon at sun-rising and
sun-setting, and where even the southern Antares shone with diamond
glitter close to the ground during summer nights. She tried to reason
with herself during the dreadful smoke fogs; she said to herself that
they were only half-a-mile thick, and she carried herself up in
imagination and beheld the unclouded azure, the filthy smother lying all
beneath her, but her dream did not continue, and reality was too strong
for her. Worse, perhaps, than the eternal gloom was the dirt. She was
naturally fastidious, and as her skin was thin and sensitive, dust was
physically a discomfort. Even at Fenmarket she was continually washing
her hands and face, and, indeed, a wash was more necessary to her after a
walk than food or drink. It was impossible to remain clean in Holborn
for five minutes; everything she touched was foul with grime; her collar
and cuffs were black with it when she went home to her dinner, and it was
not like the honest, blowing road-sand of Fenmarket highways, but a
loathsome composition of everything disgusting which could be produced by
millions of human beings and animals packed together in soot. It was a
real misery to her and made her almost ill. However, she managed to set
up for herself a little lavatory in the basement, and whenever she had a
minute at her command, she descended and enjoyed the luxury of a cool,
dripping sponge and a piece of yellow soap. The smuts began to gather
again the moment she went upstairs, but she strove to arm herself with a
little philosophy against them. ‘What is there in life,’ she moralised,
smiling at her sermonising, ‘which once won is for ever won? It is
always being won and always being lost.’ Her master, fortunately, was
one of the kindest of men, an old gentleman of about sixty-five, who wore
a white necktie, clean every morning. He was really a _gentle_man in the
true sense of that much misused word, and not a mere _trades_man; that is
to say, he loved his business, not altogether for the money it brought
him, but as an art. He was known far and wide, and literary people were
glad to gossip with him. He never pushed his wares, and he hated to sell
them to anybody who did not know their value. He amused Clara one
afternoon when a carriage stopped at the door, and a lady inquired if he
had a Manning and Bray’s _History of Surrey_. Yes, he had a copy, and he
pointed to the three handsome, tall folios.
‘What is the price?’
‘Twelve pounds ten.’
‘I think I will have them.’
‘Madam, you will pardon me, but, if I were you, I would not. I think
something much cheaper will suit you better. If you will allow me, I
will look out for you and will report in a few days.’
‘Oh! very well,’ and she departed.
‘The wife of a brassfounder,’ he said to Clara; ‘made a lot of money, and
now he has bought a house at Dulwich and is setting up a library.
Somebody has told him that he ought to have a county history, and that
Manning and Bray is the book. Manning and Bray! What he wants is a
Dulwich and Denmark Hill Directory. No, no,’ and he took down one of the
big volumes, blew the dust off the top edges and looked at the old
book-plate inside, ‘you won’t go there if I can help it.’ He took a
fancy to Clara when he found she loved literature, although what she read
was out of his department altogether, and his perfectly human behaviour
to her prevented that sense of exile and loneliness which is so horrible
to many a poor creature who comes up to London to begin therein the
struggle for existence. She read and meditated a good deal in the shop,
but not to much profit, for she was continually interrupted, and the
thought of her sister intruded itself perpetually.
Madge seldom or never spoke of her separation from Frank, but one night,
when she was somewhat less reserved than usual, Clara ventured to ask her
if she had heard from him since they parted.
‘I met him once.’
‘Madge, do you mean that he found out where we are living, and that he
came to see you?’
‘No, it was just round the corner as I was going towards Holborn.’
‘Nothing could have brought him here but yourself,’ said Clara, slowly.
‘Clara, you doubt?’
‘No, no! I doubt you? Never!’
‘But you hesitate; you reflect. Speak out.’
‘God forbid I should utter a word which would induce you to disbelieve
what you know to be right. It is much more important to believe
earnestly that something is morally right than that it should be really
right, and he who attempts to displace a belief runs a certain risk,
because he is not sure that what he substitutes can be held with equal
force. Besides, each person’s belief, or proposed course of action, is a
part of himself, and if he be diverted from it and takes up with that
which is not himself, the unity of his nature is impaired, and he loses
himself.’
‘Which is as much as to say that the prophet is to break no idols.’
‘You know I do not mean that, and you know, too, how incapable I am of
defending myself in argument. I never can stand up for anything I say.
I can now and then say something, but, when I have said it, I run away.’
‘My dearest Clara,’ Madge put her arm over her sister’s shoulder as they
sat side by side, ‘do not run away now; tell me just what you think of
me.’
Clara was silent for a minute.
‘I have sometimes wondered whether you have not demanded a little too
much of yourself and Frank. It is always a question of how much. There
is no human truth which is altogether true, no love which is altogether
perfect. You may possibly have neglected virtue or devotion such as you
could not find elsewhere, overlooking it because some failing, or the
lack of sympathy on some unimportant point, may at the moment have been
prominent. Frank loved you, Madge.’
Madge did not reply; she withdrew her arm from her sister’s neck, threw
herself back in her chair and closed her eyes. She saw again the
Fenmarket roads, that summer evening, and she felt once more Frank’s
burning caresses. She thought of him as he left St Paul’s, perhaps
broken-hearted. Stronger than every other motive to return to him, and
stronger than ever, was the movement towards him of that which belonged
to him.
At last she cried out, literally cried, with a vehemence which startled
and terrified Clara,—
‘Clara, Clara, you know not what you do! For God’s sake forbear!’ She
was again silent, and then she turned round hurriedly, hid her face, and
sobbed piteously. It lasted, however, but for a minute; she rose, wiped
her eyes, went to the window, came back again, and said,—
‘It is beginning to snow.’
The iron pillar bolted to the solid rock had quivered and resounded under
the blow, but its vibrations were nothing more than those of the rigid
metal; the base was unshaken and, except for an instant, the column had
not been deflected a hair’s-breadth.