George Gissing - Demos

Richard entered an uncarpeted room which had to serve too many distinct purposes to allow of its being orderly in appearance. In one corner was a bed, where two little children lay asleep; before the window stood a sewing-machine, about which was heaped a quantity of linen; a table in the midst was half covered with a cloth, on which was placed a loaf and butter, the other half being piled with several dresses requiring the needle. Two black patches on the low ceiling showed in what positions the lamp stood by turns.

Emma’s eldest sister was moving about the room. Hers were the children; her husband had been dead a year or more. She was about thirty years of age, and had a slatternly appearance; her face was peevish, and seemed to grudge the half-smile with which it received the visitor.

‘You’ve no need to look round you,’ she said. ‘We’re in & regular pig-stye, and likely to be. Where’s there a chair?’

She shook some miscellaneous articles on to the floor to provide a seat.

‘For mercy’s sake don’t speak too loud, and wake them children. Bertie’s had the earache; he’s been crying all day. What with him and Jane we’ve had a blessing, I can tell you. Can I put these supper things away, Emma?’

‘I’ll do it,’ was the other’s reply. ‘Won’t you have a bit more, Kate?’

‘I’ve got no mind for eating. Well, you may cut a slice and put it on the mantelpiece. I’ll go and sit with Jane.’

Richard sat and looked about the room absently. The circumstances of his own family had never fallen below the point at which it is possible to have regard for decency; the growing up of himself and of his brothers and sister had brought additional resources to meet extended needs, and the Mutimer characteristics had formed a safeguard against improvidence. He was never quite at his ease in this poverty-cumbered room, which he seldom visited.

‘You ought to have a fire,’ he said.

‘There’s one in the other room,’ replied Kate. ‘One has to serve us.’

‘But you can’t cook there.’

‘Cook? We can boil a potato, and that’s about all the cooking we can do now-a-days.’

She moved to the door as she spoke, and, before leaving the room, took advantage of Richard’s back being turned to make certain exhortatory signs to her sister. Emma averted her head.

Kate closed the door behind her. Emma, having removed the eatables to the cupboard, came near to Richard and placed her arm gently upon his shoulders. He looked at her kindly.

‘Kate’s been so put about with Bertie,’ she said, in a tone of excuse. ‘And she was up nearly all last night.’

‘She never takes things like you do,’ Richard remarked.

‘She’s got more to bear. There’s the children always making her anxious. She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor says he must have—I forget the name, somebody’s food. But it’s two-and-ninepence for ever such a little tin. They don’t think as his teeth ‘ll ever come.’

‘Oh, I daresay they will,’ said Richard encouragingly.

He had put his arm about her. Emma knelt down by him, and rested her head against his shoulder.

‘I’m tired,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had to go twice to the Minories to-day. I’m so afraid I shan’t be able to hold my eyes open with Jane, and Kate’s tireder still.’

She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence. Uttermost weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be spoken of in any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone. But it was priceless soothing to let her forehead repose against the heart whose love was the one and sufficient blessing of her life. Her brown hair was very soft and fine; a lover of another kind would have pressed his lips upon it. Richard was thinking of matters more practical. At another time his indignation—in such a case right good and manful—would have boiled over at the thought of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world’s dastard selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he smiled as one at ease.

‘Hadn’t you better give up your work?’ he said.

Emma raised her head. In the few moments of repose her eyelids had drooped with growing heaviness; she looked at him as if she had just been awakened to some great surprise.

‘Give up work? How can I?’

‘I think I would. You’d have more time to give to Jane, and you could sleep in the day. And Jane had better not begin again after this. Don’t you think it would be better if you left these lodgings and took a house, where there’d be plenty of room and fresh air?’

‘Richard, what are you talking about?’

He laughed, quietly, on account of the sleeping children.

‘How would you like,’ he continued, ‘to go and live in the country? Kate and Jane could have a house of their own, you know—in London, I mean, a house like ours; they could let a room or two if they chose. Then you and I could go where we liked. I was down in the Midland Counties yesterday; had to go on business; and I saw a house that would just suit us. It’s a bit large; I daresay there’s sixteen or twenty rooms. And there’s trees growing all about it; a big garden—’

Emma dropped her head again and laughed, happy that Richard should jest with her so good-humouredly; for he did not often talk in the lighter way. She had read of such houses in the weekly story-papers. It must be nice to live in them; it must be nice to be a denizen of Paradise.

‘I’m in earnest, Emma.’

His voice caused her to gaze at him again.

‘Bring a chair,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you something that’ll—keep you awake.’

The insensible fellow! Her sweet, pale, wondering face was so close to his, the warmth of her drooping frame was against his heart—and he bade her sit apart to listen.

She placed herself as he desired, sitting with her hands together in her lap, her countenance troubled a little, wishing to smile, yet not quite venturing. And he told his story, told it in all details, with figures that filled the mouth, that rolled forth like gold upon the bank-scales.

‘This is mine,’ he said, ‘mine and yours.’

Have you seen a child listening to a long fairy tale, every page a new adventure of wizardry, a story of elf, or mermaid, or gnome, of treasures underground guarded by enchanted monsters, of bells heard silverly in the depth of old forests, of castles against the sunset, of lakes beneath the quiet moon? Know you how light gathers in the eyes dreaming on vision after vision, ever more intensely realised, yet ever of an unknown world? How, when at length the reader’s voice is silent, the eyes still see, the ears still hear, until a movement breaks the spell, and with a deep, involuntary sigh the little one gazes here and there, wondering?

So Emma listened, and so she came back to consciousness, looking about the room, incredulous. Had she been overcome with weariness? Had she slept and dreamt?

One of the children stirred and uttered a little wailing sound. She stepped lightly to the bedside, bent for a moment, saw that all was well again, and came back on tip-toe. The simple duty had quieted her throbbing heart. She seated herself as before.

‘What about the country house now?’ said Richard.

‘I don’t know what to say. It’s more than I can take into my head.’

‘You’re not going to say, like mother did, that it was the worst piece of news she’d ever heard?’

‘Your mother said that?’

Emma was startled. Had her thought passed lightly over some danger? She examined her mind rapidly.

‘I suppose she said it,’ Richard explained, ‘just because she didn’t know what else to say, that’s about the truth. But there certainly is one thing I’m a little anxious about, myself. I don’t care for either Alice or ‘Arry to know the details of this windfall. They won’t come in for their share till they’re of age, and it’s just as well they should think it’s only a moderate little sum. So don’t talk about it, Emma.’