‘In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you’d never come right.’
Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable.
‘It’ll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You’ve swore you won’t speak about it. I don’t think I shall come to work after this week—but you’ll have to come an’ see us. You’ll promise to, won’t you?’
Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane’s countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her.
When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead’s to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps sat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing.
‘Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?’ said Jane.
‘Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!’ exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby’s sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares. Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby’s fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care.
‘I can’t stop,’ said Jane, ‘but I thought I’d just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?’
‘Oh, do come in for just a minute!’ pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room—much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter’s Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. ‘Come in ’ere, Johnny,’ she Called to the child lying on the landing. ‘What’s the good o’ washin’ you, I’d like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he’s made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an’ play with it, do! I can’t keep ’em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it’s no use talkin’.’
‘Are you going somewhere to-night?’ Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume.