and in the course of half an hour or so the company were sufficiently restored to address themselves anew to the bottles and decanters. Mrs. Gully was now permitted to obey her instincts; the natural result could be attributed to overstrung feelings.
Just when the mourners had grown noisily hilarious, testifying thereby to the respectability with which things were being conducted to the very end, Mrs. Peckover became aware of a knocking at the front-door. She bade her daughter go and see who it was. Clem, speedily returning, beckoned her mother from among the guests.
'It's somebody wants to know if there ain't somebody called Snowdon livin' 'ere,' she whispered in a tone of alarm. 'An old man.'
Mrs. Peckover never drank more than was consistent with the perfect clearness of her brain. At present she had very red cheeks, and her cat-like eyes gleamed noticeably, but any kind of business would have found her as shrewdly competent as ever.
'What did you say?' she whispered savagely
'Said I'd come an' ask.'
'You stay 'ere. Don't say nothink.'
Mrs. Peckover left the room, closed the door behind her, and went along the passage. On the doorstep stood a man with white hair, wearing an unusual kind of cloak and a strange hat. He looked at the landlady without speaking.
'What was you wantin', mister?'
'I have been told,' replied the man in a clear, grave voice, 'that a child of the name of Snowdon lives in your house, ma'am.'
'Eh? Who told you that?'
'The people next door but one. I've been asking at many houses in the neighbourhood. There used to be relations of mine lived somewhere here; I don't know the house, nor the street exactly. The name isn't so very common. If you don't mind, I should like to ask you who the child's parents was.'
Mrs. Peckover's eyes were searching the speaker with the utmost closeness.
'I don't mind tellin' you,' she said, 'that there is a child of that name in the 'ouse, a young girl, at least. Though I don't rightly know her age, I take her for fourteen or fifteen.'
The old man seemed to consult his recollections.
'If it's anyone I'm thinking of,' he said slowly, 'she can't be quite as old as that.'
The woman's face changed; she looked away for a moment.
'Well, as I was sayin', I don't rightly know her age. Any way, I'm responsible for her. I've been a mother to her, an' a good mother—though I say it myself—these six years or more. I look on her now as a child o' my own. I don't know who you may be, mister. P'r'aps you've come from abroad?'
'Yes, I have. There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you that I'm trying to find any of my kin that are still alive, There was a married son of mine that once lived somewhere about here. His name was Joseph James Snowdon. When I last heard of him, he was working at a 'lectroplater's in Clerkenwell. That was thirteen years ago. I deal openly with you; I shall thank you if you'll do the like with me.'
'See, will you just come in? I've got a few friends in the front-room; there's been a death in the 'ouse, an' there's sickness, an' we're out of order a bit, I'll ask you to come downstairs.'
It was late in the afternoon, and though lights were not yet required in the upper rooms, the kitchen would have been all but dark save for the fire. Mrs. Peckover lit a lamp and bade her visitor be seated. Then she re-examined his face, his attire, his hands. Everything about him told of a life spent in mechanical labour. His speech was that of an untaught man, yet differed greatly from the tongue prevailing in Clerkenwell; he was probably not a Londoner by birth, and—a point of more moment—he expressed himself in the tone of one who is habitually thoughtful, who, if the aid of books has been denied to him, still has won from life the kind of knowledge which develops character. Mrs. Peckover had small experience of faces which bear the stamp of simple sincerity. This man's countenance put her out. As a matter of course, he wished to overreach her in some way, but he was obviously very deep indeed. And then she found it so difficult to guess his purposes. How would he proceed if she gave him details of Jane's history, admitting that she was the child of Joseph James Snowdon? What, again, had he been told by the people of whom he had made inquiries? She needed time to review her position.
'As I was sayin',' she resumed, poking the fire, 'I've been a mother to her these six years or more, an' I feel I done the right thing by her. She was left on my 'ands by them as promised to pay for her keep; an' a few months, I may say a few weeks, was all as ever I got. Another woman would a sent the child to the 'Ouse; but that's always the way with me; I'm always actin' against my own interesses.'
'You say that her parents went away and left her?' asked the old man, knitting his brows.
'Her father did. Her mother, she died in this very 'ouse, an' she was buried from it. He gave her a respectable burial, I'll say that much for him. An' I shouldn't have allowed anything but one as was respectable to leave this 'ouse; I'd sooner a paid money out o' my own pocket. That's always the way with me. Mr. Willis, he's my undertaker; you'll find him at Number 17 Green Passage. He buried my 'usband; though that wasn't from the Close; but I never knew a job turned out more respectable. He was 'ere to-day; we've only just buried my 'usband's mother. That's why I ain't quite myself—see?'
Mrs. Peckover was not wont to be gossippy. She became so at present, partly in consequence of the stimulants she had taken to support her through a trying ceremony, partly as a means of obtaining time to reflect. Jane's unlucky illness made an especial difficulty in her calculations. She felt that the longer she delayed mention of the fact, the more likely was she to excite suspicion; on the other hand, she could not devise the suitable terms in which to reveal it. The steady gaze of the old man was disconcerting. Not that he searched her face with a cunning scrutiny, such as her own eyes expressed; she would have found that less troublesome, as being familiar. The anxiety, the troubled anticipation, which her words had aroused in him, were wholly free from shadow of ignoble motive; he was pained, and the frequent turning away of his look betrayed that part of the feeling was caused by observation of the woman herself, but every movement visible on his features was subdued by patience and mildness. Suffering was a life's habit with him, and its fruit in this instance that which (spite of moral commonplace) it least often bears—self-conquest.
'You haven't told me yet,' he said, with quiet disregard of her irrelevancies, 'whether or not her father's name was Joseph Snowdon.'
'There's no call to hide it. That was his name. I've got letters of his writin'. "J. J. Snowdon" stands at the end, plain enough. And he was your son, was he?'
'He was. But have you any reason to think he's dead?'
'Dead! I never heard as he was. But then I never heard as he was livin', neither. When his wife went, poor thing—an' it was a chill on the liver, they said; it took her very sudden—he says to me, "Mrs. Peckover," he says, "I know you for a motherly woman"—just like that—see?—"I know you for a motherly woman," he says, "an' the idea I have in my 'ed is as I should like to leave Janey in your care, 'cause," he says, "I've got work in Birmingham, an' I don't see how I'm to take her with me. Understand me?" he says. "Oh!" I says—not feelin' quite sure what I'd ought to do—see? "Oh!" I says. "Yes," he says; "an' between you an' me," he says, "there won't be no misunderstanding. If you'll keep Janey with you"—an' she was goin' to school at the time, 'cause she went to the same as my own Clem—that's Clemintiner—understand?—"if you'll keep Janey with you," he says, "for a year, or maybe two years, or maybe three years—'cause that depends on cirkinstances"—understand?—"I'm ready," he says, "to pay you what it's right that pay I should, an' I'm sure," he says, "as we shouldn't misunderstand one another." Well, of course
