Books: In the Year of Jubilee

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Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

George Gissing

In the Year of Jubilee

Part I: Miss. Lord

CHAPTER 1

At eight o'clock on Sunday morning, Arthur Peachey unlocked his
front door, and quietly went forth. He had not ventured to ask that
early breakfast should be prepared for him. Enough that he was
leaving home for a summer holiday--the first he had allowed
himself since his marriage three years ago.

It was a house in De Crespigny Park; unattached, double-fronted,
with half-sunk basement, and a flight of steps to the stucco pillars
at the entrance. De Crespigny Park, a thoroughfare connecting Grove
Lane, Camberwell, with Denmark Hill, presents a double row of
similar dwellings; its clean breadth, with foliage of trees and
shrubs in front gardens, makes it pleasant to the eye that finds
pleasure in suburban London. In point of respectability, it has
claims only to be appreciated by the ambitious middle-class of
Camberwell. Each house seems to remind its neighbour, with all the
complacence expressible in buff brick, that in this locality
lodgings are _not_ to let.

For an hour after Peachey's departure, the silence of the house was
unbroken. Then a bedroom door opened, and a lady in a morning gown
of the fashionable heliotrope came downstairs. She had acute
features; eyes which seemed to indicate the concentration of her
thoughts upon a difficult problem, and cheeks of singular bloom. Her
name was Beatrice French; her years numbered six and twenty.

She entered the dining-room and drew up the blind. Though the
furniture was less than a year old, and by no means of the cheapest
description, slovenly housekeeping had dulled the brightness of
every surface. On a chair lay a broken toy, one of those elaborate
and costly playthings which serve no purpose but to stunt a child's
imagination. Though the time was midsummer, not a flower appeared
among the pretentious ornaments. The pictures were a strange medley
--autotypes of some artistic value hanging side by side with
hideous oleographs framed in ponderous gilding. Miss. then violently
rang the bell. When the summons had been twice French looked about
her with an expression of strong disgust, repeated, there appeared a
young woman whose features told of long and placid slumbers.

'Well? what does this mean?'

'The cook doesn't feel well, miss; she can't get up.

'Then get breakfast yourself, and look sharp about it.'

Beatrice spoke with vehemence; her cheeks showed a circle of richer
hue around the unchanging rose. The domestic made insolent reply,
and there began a war of words. At this moment another step sounded
on the stairs, and as it drew near, a female voice was raised in
song.

'_And a penny in his pocket, la-de-da, la-de-da,--and a penny in
his pocket, la-de-da_!'

A younger girl, this, of much slighter build; with a frisky gait, a
jaunty pose of the head; pretty, but thin-featured, and
shallow-eyed; a long neck, no chin to speak of, a low forehead with
the hair of washed-out flaxen fluffed all over it. Her dress was
showy, and in a taste that set the teeth on edge. Fanny French, her
name.

'What's up? Another row?' she asked, entering the room as the
servant went out.

'I've known a good many fools,' said Beatrice, 'but Ada's the
biggest I've come across yet.'

'Is she? Well, I shouldn't wonder,' Fanny admitted impartially. And
with a skip she took up her song again. '_A penny paper collar round
his neck, la-de-da_--'

'Are you going to church this morning?' asked her sister.

'Yes. Are you?'

'Come for a walk instead. There's something I want to talk to you
about.'

'Won't it do afterwards? I've got an appointment.'

'With Lord?'

Fanny laughed and nodded.

Interrupted by the reappearance of the servant, who brought a tray
and began to lay the table, they crossed the hall to the
drawing-room. In half-an-hour's time a sluttish meal was prepared
for them, and whilst they were satisfying their hunger, the door
opened to admit Mrs. Peachey. Ada presented herself in a costume
which, at any season but high summer, would have been inconveniently
cool. Beneath a loose thin dressing-gown her feet, in felt slippers,
showed stockingless, her neck was bare almost to the bosom, and the
tresses of pale yellow, upon which she especially prided herself,
lay raggedly pinned together on the top of her flat head. She was
about twenty-eight years old, but at present looked more than
thirty. Her features resembled Fanny's, but had a much less amiable
expression, and betokened, if the thing were possible, an inferior
intellect. Fresh from the morning basin, her cheeks displayed that
peculiar colourlessness which results from the habitual use of
paints and powders; her pale pink lips, thin and sullen, were
curiously wrinkled; she had eyes of slate colour, with lids so
elevated that she always seemed to be staring in silly wonder.

'So you've got breakfast, have you?' were her first words, in a thin
and rather nasal voice. 'You may think yourselves lucky.'

'You have a cheek of your own,' replied Beatrice. 'Whose place is it
to see that we get meals?'

'And what can any one do with servants like I've got?' retorted the
married sister.

'It's your own fault. You should get better; and when you've got
them, you should manage them. But that's just what you can't do.'

'Oh, _you_'d be a wonderful housekeeper, we know all about that. If
you're not satisfied, you'd better find board and lodging somewhere
else, as I've told you often enough. You're not likely to get it as
cheap.'

They squabbled for some minutes, Fanny looking on with ingenuous
amusement, and putting in a word, now for this side, now for that.

'And what am I going to have for breakfast?' demanded Mrs. Peachey
at length, surveying the table. 'You've taken jolly good care of
yourselves, it seems to me.'

She jumped up, and rang the bell. When a minute's interval brought
no reply, she rang again. Beatrice thought it probable that the bell
might be rung without effect, 'till all was blue.'

'We'll see about that,' answered her sister, and forthwith invaded
the lower parts of the house. Thence, presently, her voice became
audible, rising gradually to shrillness; with it there blended the
rougher accents of the housemaid, now in reckless revolt. Beatrice
listened for a minute or two in the hall, then passed on into the
drawing-room with a contemptuous laugh. Fanny, to whom the uproar
seemed to bring a renewal of appetite, cut herself a slice of bread
and butter, and ate it as she stood at the window.

'Dirty cat! beast! swine!'

The mistress of the house, fairly beaten away by superior force of
vocabulary, reappeared with these and other exclamations, her face
livid, her foolish eyes starting from their sockets. Fanny, a sort
of Mother Cary's chicken, revelled in the row, and screamed her
merriment.

It was long before the domestic uproar wholly subsided, but towards
eleven o'clock the sisters found themselves together in the
drawing-room. Ada sprawled limply on a sofa; Beatrice sat with legs
crossed in the most comfortable chair; and Fanny twirled about on a
music stool.

The only books in the room were a few show-volumes, which belonged
to Arthur Peachey, and half-a-dozen novels of the meaner kind,
wherewith Ada sometimes beguiled her infinite leisure. But on tables
and chairs lay scattered a multitude of papers: illustrated
weeklies, journals of society, cheap miscellanies, penny novelettes,
and the like. At the end of the week, when new numbers came in, Ada
Peachey passed many hours upon her sofa, reading instalments of a
dozen serial stories, paragraphs relating to fashion, sport, the
theatre, answers to correspondents (wherein she especially
delighted), columns of facetiae, and gossip about notorious people.
Through a great deal of this matter Beatrice followed her, and read
much besides in which Ada took no interest; she studied a daily
newspaper, with special note of law suits, police intelligence,
wills, bankruptcies, and any concern, great or small, wherein money
played a part. She understood the nature of investments, and liked
to talk about stocks and shares with her male acquaintances.

They were the daughters of a Camberwell builder, lately deceased; to
each of them had fallen a patrimony just sufficient for their
support in elegant leisure. Ada's money, united with a small capital
in her husband's possession, went to purchase a share in the
business of Messrs. Ducker, Blunt & Co., manufacturers of
disinfectants; Arthur Peachey, previously a clerk to the firm,
became a junior partner, with the result that most of the hard work
was thrown upon his shoulders. At their marriage, the happy pair
first of all established themselves in a modest house near
Camberwell Road; two years later, growing prosperity brought about
their removal to De Crespigny Park, where they had now resided for
some twelve months. Unlike their elder sister, Beatrice and Fanny
had learnt to support themselves, Beatrice in the postal service,
and Fanny, sweet blossom! by mingling her fragrance with that of a
florist's shop in Brixton; but on their father's death both forsook
their employment, and came to live with Mrs. Peachey. Between them,
these two were the owners of house-property, which produced L140 a
year. They disbursed, together, a weekly sum of twenty-four
shillings for board and lodging, and spent or saved the rest as
their impulses dictated.

CHAPTER 2

Ada brooded over her wrongs; Beatrice glanced over _The Referee_.
Fanny, after twirling awhile in maiden meditation, turned to the
piano and jingled a melody from 'The Mikado.' She broke off
suddenly, and, without looking round, addressed her companions.

'You can give the third seat at the Jubilee to somebody else. I'm
provided for.'

'Who are you going with?' asked Ada.

'My masher,' the girl replied with a giggle.

'Where?'

'Shop-windows in the Strand, I think.'

She resumed her jingling; it was now 'Queen of my Heart.' Beatrice,
dropping her paper, looked fixedly at the girl's profile, with an
eyelid droop which signified calculation.

'How much is he really getting?' she inquired all at once.

'Seventy-five pounds a year. "_Oh where, oh where, is my leetle dog
gone?_"'

'Does he say,' asked Mrs. Peachey, 'that his governor will stump
up?'

They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education and mock
refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity. One and all
would have been moved to indignant surprise if accused of ignorance
or defective breeding. Ada had frequented an 'establishment for
young ladies' up to the close of her seventeenth year; the other two
had pursued culture at a still more pretentious institute until they
were eighteen. All could 'play the piano;' all declared--and
believed--that they 'knew French.' Beatrice had 'done' Political
Economy; Fanny had 'been through' Inorganic Chemistry and Botany.
The truth was, of course, that their minds, characters, propensities
had remained absolutely proof against such educational influence as
had been brought to bear upon them. That they used a finer accent
than their servants, signified only that they had grown up amid
falsities, and were enabled, by the help of money, to dwell
above-stairs, instead of with their spiritual kindred below.

Anticipating Fanny's reply, Beatrice observed, with her air of
sagacity:

'If you think you're going to get anything out of an old screw like
Lord, you'll jolly soon find your mistake.'

'Don't you go and make a fool of yourself, Fanny,' said Mrs.
Peachey. 'Why, he can't be more than twenty-one, is he?'

'He's turned twenty-two.'

The others laughed scornfully.

'Can't I have who I like for a masher?' cried Fanny, reddening a
little. 'Who said I was going to marry him? I'm in no particular
hurry to get married. You think everybody's like yourselves.'

'If there was any chance of old Lord turning up his toes,' said
Beatrice thoughtfully. 'I dare say he'll leave a tidy handful behind
him, but then he may live another ten years or more.'

'And there's Nancy,' exclaimed Ada. 'Won't she get half the
plunder?'

'May be plenty, even then,' said Beatrice, her head aside. 'The
piano business isn't a bad line. I shouldn't wonder if he leaves ten
or fifteen thousand.'

'Haven't you got anything out of Horace?' asked Ada of Fanny. 'What
has he told you?'

'He doesn't know much, that's the fact.'

'Silly! There you are. His father treats him like a boy; if he
talked about marrying, he'd get a cuff on the ear. Oh, I know all
about old Lord,' Ada proceeded. 'He's a regular old tyrant. Why,
you've only to look at him. And he thinks no small beer of himself,
either, for all he lives in that grubby little house; I shouldn't
wonder if he thinks us beneath him.'

She stared at her sisters, inviting their comment on this_ ludicrous
state of things.

'I quite believe Nancy does,' said Fanny, with a point of malice.

'She's a stuck-up thing,' declared Mrs. Peachey. 'And she gets worse
as she gets older. I shall never invite her again; it's three times
she has made an excuse--all lies, of course.

'Who will _she_ marry?' asked Beatrice, in a tone of disinterested
speculation.

Mrs. Peachey answered with a sneer:

'She's going to the Jubilee to pick up a fancy Prince.'

'As it happens,' objected Fanny, 'she isn't going to the Jubilee at
all. At least she says she isn't. She's above it--so her brother
told me.'

'I know who _wants_ to marry her,' Ada remarked, with a sour smile.

'Who is that?' came from the others.

'Mr. Crewe.'

With a significant giggle, Fanny glanced at the more sober of her
sisters; she, the while, touched her upper lip with the point of her
tongue, and looked towards the window.

'Does he?' Fanny asked of the ceiling.

'He wants money to float his teetotal drink,' said Beatrice. 'Hasn't
he been at Arthur about it?'

'Not that I know,' answered the wife.

'He tried to get round me, but I--'

A scream of incredulity from Fanny, and a chuckle from Mrs. Peachey,
covered the rest of the sentence. Beatrice gazed at them defiantly.

'Well, idiots! What's up now?'

'Oh, nothing.'

'There's nobody knows Luckworth Crewe better than I do,' Beatrice
pursued disdainfully, 'and I think he knows _me_ pretty well. He'll
make a fool of himself when he marries; I've told him so, and he as
good as said I was right. If it wasn't for that, I should feel a
respect for him. He'll have money one of these days.'

'And he'll marry Nancy Lord,' said Ada tauntingly.

'Not just yet.'

Ada rolled herself from the sofa, and stood yawning.

'Well, I shall go and dress. What are you people going to do? You
needn't expect any dinner. I shall have mine at a restaurant.'

'Who have you to meet?' asked Fanny, with a grimace.

Her sister disregarded the question, yawned again, and turned to
Beatrice.

'Who shall we ask to take Fan's place on Tuesday? Whoever it 15,
they'll have to pay. Those seats are selling for three guineas,
somebody told me.'

Conversation lingered about this point for a few minutes, till Mrs.
Peachey went upstairs. When the door was open, a child's crying
could be heard, but it excited no remark. Presently the other two
retired, to make themselves ready for going out. Fanny was the first
to reappear, and, whilst waiting for her sister, she tapped out a
new music-hall melody on the piano.

As they left the house, Beatrice remarked that Ada really meant to
have her dinner at Gatti's or some such place; perhaps they had
better indulge themselves in the same way.

'Suppose you give Horace Lord a hint that we've no dinner at home?
He might take us, and stand treat.'

Fanny shook her head.

'I don't think he could get away. The guv'nor expects him home to
dinner on Sundays.'

The other laughed her contempt.

'You see! What good is he? Look here, Fan, you just wait a bit, and
you'll do much better than that. Old Lord would cut up rough as soon
as ever such a thing was mentioned; I know he would. There's
something I have had in my mind for a long time. Suppose I could
show you a way of making a heap of money--no end of money--?
Shouldn't you like it better,--to live as you pleased, and be
independent?'

The listener's face confessed curiosity, yet was dubious.

'What do you say to going into business with me?' pursued Miss
French. 'We've only to raise a little money on the houses, and m a
year or two we might be making thousands.'

'Business? What sort of business?'

'Suppose somebody came to you and said: Pay me a sovereign, and I'll
make you a member of an association that supplies fashionable
clothing at about half the ordinary price,--wouldn't you jump at
it?'

'If I thought it wasn't a swindle,' Fanny replied ingenuously.

'Of course. But you'd be made to see it wasn't. And suppose they
went on to say: Take a ten-pound share, and you shall have a big
interest on it, as well as your dresses for next to nothing. How
would you like that?'

'Can it be done?'

'I've got a notion it can, and I think I know two or three people
who would help to set the thing going. But we must have some capital
to show. Have you the pluck to join in?'

'And suppose I lose my money?'

'I'll guarantee you the same income you're getting now--if that
will satisfy you. I've been looking round, and making inquiries, and
I've got to know a bit about the profits of big dressmakers. We
should start in Camberwell, or somewhere about there, and fish in
all the women who want to do the heavy on very little. There are
thousands and thousands of them, and most of them'--she lowered
her voice--'know as much about cut and material as they do about
stockbroking. Do you twig? People like Mrs. Middlemist and Mrs.
Murch. They spend, most likely, thirty or forty pounds a year on
their things, and we could dress them a good deal more smartly for
half the money. Of course we should make out that a dress we sold
them for five guineas was worth ten in the shops, and the real cost
would be two. See? The thing is to persuade them that they're
getting an article cheap, and at the same time making money out of
other people.'

Thus, and at much greater length, did Miss. French discourse to her
attentive sister. Forgetful of the time, Fanny found at length that
it would be impossible to meet Horace Lord as he came out of church;
but it did not distress her.

CHAPTER 3

Nancy Lord stood at the front-room window, a hand grasping each side
of her waist, her look vaguely directed upon the limetree opposite
and the house which it in part concealed. She was a well-grown girl
of three and twenty, with the complexion and the mould of form which
indicate, whatever else, habitual nourishment on good and plenteous
food. In her ripe lips and softlyrounded cheeks the current of life
ran warm. She had hair of a fine auburn, and her mode of wearing it,
in a plaited diadem, answered the purpose of completing a figure
which, without being tall, had some stateliness and promised more.
Her gown, trimmed with a collar of lace, left the neck free; the
maiden cincture at her waist did no violence to natural proportion.

This afternoon--it was Monday--she could not occupy or amuse
herself in any of the familiar ways. Perhaps the atmosphere of
national Jubilee had a disturbing effect upon her,--in spite of
her professed disregard for the gathering tumult of popular
enthusiasm. She had not left home to-day, and the brilliant weather
did not tempt her forth. On the table lay a new volume from the
circulating library,--something about Evolution--but she had no
mind to read it; it would have made her too conscious of the
insincerity with which she approached such profound subjects. For a
quarter of an hour and more she had stood at the window, regarding a
prospect, now as always, utterly wearisome and depressing to her.

Grove Lane is a long acclivity, which starts from Camberwell
suburban dwellings. The houses vary considerably in size and Green,
and, after passing a few mean shops, becomes a road of aspect, also
in date,--with the result of a certain picturesqueness, enhanced
by the growth of fine trees on either side. Architectural grace can
nowhere be discovered, but the contract-builder of today has not yet
been permitted to work his will; age and irregularity, even though
the edifices be but so many illustrations of the ungainly, the
insipid, and the frankly hideous, have a pleasanter effect than that
of new streets built to one pattern by the mile. There are small
cottages overgrown with creepers, relics of Camberwell's rusticity;
rows of tall and of squat dwellings that lie behind grassy plots,
railed from the road; larger houses that stand in their own gardens,
hidden by walls. Narrow passages connect the Lane with its more
formal neighbour Camberwell Grove; on the other side are ways
leading towards Denmark Hill, quiet, leafy. From the top of the
Lane, where Champion Hill enjoys an aristocratic seclusion, is
obtainable a glimpse of open fields and of a wooded horizon
southward.

It is a neighbourhood in decay, a bit of London which does not keep
pace with the times. And Nancy hated it. She would have preferred to
live even in a poor and grimy street which neighboured the main
track of business and pleasure.

Here she had spent as much of her life as she remembered, from the
end of her third year. Mr. Lord never willingly talked of days gone
by, but by questioning him she had learnt that her birthplace was a
vaguely indicated part of northern London; there, it seemed, her
mother had died, a year or so after the birth of her brother Horace.
The relatives of whom she knew were all on her father's side, and
lived scattered about England. When she sought information
concerning her mother, Mr. Lord became evasive and presently silent;
she had seen no portrait of the dead parent. Of late years this
obscure point of the family history had often occupied her thoughts.

Nancy deemed herself a highly educated young woman,--'cultured'
was the word she would have used. Her studies at a day-school which
was reputed 'modern' terminated only when she herself chose to
withdraw in her eighteenth year; and since then she had pursued
'courses' of independent reading, had attended lectures, had thought
of preparing for examinations--only thought of it. Her father
never suggested that she should use these acquirements for the
earning of money; little as she knew of his affairs, it was
obviously to be taken for granted that he could ensure her life-long
independence. Satisfactory, this; but latterly it had become a
question with her how the independence was to be used, and no
intelligible aim as yet presented itself to her roving mind. All she
knew was, that she wished to live, and not merely to vegetate. Now
there are so many ways of living, and Nancy felt no distinct
vocation for any one of them.

She was haunted by an uneasy sense of doubtfulness as to her social
position. Mr. Lord followed the calling of a dealer in pianos; a
respectable business, to be sure, but, it appeared, not lucrative
enough to put her above caring how his money was made. She knew that
one's father may be anything whatever, yet suffer no social
disability, provided he reap profit enough from the pursuit. But
Stephen Lord, whilst resorting daily to his warehouse in Camberwell
Road--not a locality that one would care to talk about in
'cultured' circles--continued, after twenty years, to occupy this
small and ugly dwelling in Grove Lane. Possibly, owing to an
imperfect education, he failed to appreciate his daughter's needs,
and saw no reason why she should not be happy in the old
surroundings.

On the other hand, perhaps he cared very little about her.
Undoubtedly his favourite was Horace, and in Horace he had suffered
a disappointment. The boy, in spite of good schooling, had proved
unequal to his father's hope that he would choose some professional
career, by preference the law; he idled away his schooldays, failed
at examinations, and ultimately had to be sent into 'business.' Mr
Lord obtained a place for him in a large shipping agency; but it
still seemed doubtful whether he would make any progress there,
notwithstanding the advantage of his start; at two-and-twenty he was
remunerated with a mere thirty shillings a week, a nominal salary,'
his employers called it. Nancy often felt angry with her brother for
his lack of energy and ambition; he might so easily, she thought,
have helped to establish, by his professional dignity, her own
social status at the level she desired.

There came into view a familiar figure, crossing from the other side
of the way. Nancy started, waved her hand, and went to open the
door. Her look had wholly altered; she was bright, mirthful,
overflowing with affectionate welcome.

This friend of hers, Jessica Morgan by name, had few personal
attractions. She looked overwrought and low-spirited; a very plain
and slightly-made summer gown exhibited her meagre frame with undue
frankness; her face might have been pretty if health had filled and
coloured the flesh, but as it was she looked a ghost of girlhood, a
dolorous image of frustrate sex. In her cotton-gloved hand she
carried several volumes and notebooks.

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