The sins of the children; a study in social values

Preface

The Library Censorship Committee having entered the lists to do or die in defence of the Shibboleths, it behoves the obscure author, who essays to describe life in terms of the truth that is in him, to walk warily.

In order to write conscientiously, and at the same time not offend Powers that can hinder or speed his progress, the present writer has elected to describe a phase of life in which any violation of sexual morality is so unusual that even to mention it would be in the nature of a brutal incongruity. He ventures to hope the following story will be appreciated by chance readers.

CONTENTS f—

Part I JEANNIE’S YOUTH

CHAP. PAGE

I. EARLY DAYS I

II. DISCOVERIES . . , , , .II

III. A “ CRUET ” NIGHT . . , , .23

IV. A CHANCE MEETING . , , , *32

V. GREAT EXPECTATIONS . , , , -44

VI. jeannie’s triumph . , , . *56

VII. ONE OF MANY VISITS . , . . .68

IX. NEW year’s EVE . , , , *93

X. THE shepherd’s CROOK . , . . I 06

XI. BAVERSTOCK makes a call . ■ . . .121

XIII. TEA AT TITTERTON’S . . . . .154

XIV. THE MOMENTOUS MEAL . , . . 169

XV. “ LARKSLEASE ” . , . . . . I 83

XVI. JEANNIE DESPAIRS . . . . .199

XVII. JOE AND THE NIGHT ..... 209

XVIII. JOE AND THE CHILDREN . . . .221

XIX. THE FORLORN HOPE . . . » *233

vii

Vlll

Contents

CHAP.

XX.

joe’s last

ANECDOTE .

•

•

XXI.

A strange

WOMAN

•

•

XXII.

•

•

Part II JEANNIE’S MIDDLE AGE

XXIV. DISILLUSION ....

XXV. OLD ACQUAINTANCE

XXVI. A SURPRISE ....

XXVII. “ PYRACANTHA ” AGAIN XXVIII. TITTERTON SPEAKS HIS MIND .

XXIX. REVELATION ....

XXX. PILGRIMAGE ....

XXXI. THE SEQUEL TO ROMANCE XXXII. joe’s lady friend

. THE SCENT OF THE MAY , .

PAG a . 243

. 258

, 268

. 281 . 294 . 308 . 318

. 327

• 339

• 353

• 363

• 372

XXXIII

THE

SINS OF THE CHILDREN

PART I

JEANNIES YOUTH

Chapter I Early Days

Many years ago — thirty-four to be exact — those who daily journeyed to town by the Great Western Railway from a certain insignificant station one day saw the usual dismal preparations being made for the erection of a pair of villas upon a gracious patch of sward hard by the station.

It seemed but a short while before they were ready for occupation with “ To Let ” scrawled in white upon the windows, at the which those who had idly noticed the various stages of construction made trite but true remarks on the passage of time.

For weeks it seemed the houses would never let ; one early summer day, however, local curiosity was let loose at seeing furniture-vans disgorging their contents into one of the two houses ; this operation was superintended by a fresh-coloured, stoutish, middle-aged man ; he held a bright-eyed, happy, little girl, whose frock was getting too short for her, by the hand.

I

As the station platforms commanded the back garden of the new arrivals, the later of those who travelled down at the close of the working day could, during the ensuing summer months, observe their evening diversions.

When the train drew up at the station, a glimpse was caught of the fresh- coloured man, a wan woman, a little girl, a dog, and a servant in the kitchen, all enjoying some measure of repose after the burden of the day ; directly, however, the passengers were walking the platform, and the train had steamed away, a sudden animation possessed the family gathering. The middle-aged man would excitedly throw a ball into the air before catching it ; his wife would leave her chair and intently examine a plant ; the servant would energetically handle an iron, while the little girl would play about the garden, the dog (his name was “ Spot ”) barking at her heels.

All too soon, the new people ripened into old inhabitants, and with the passing of years the little girl grew surprisingly taller, while her white-faced, fading mother was rarely seen out of doors.

Then, to the grief of the little household, “Spot,” the dog, died of old age ; with many lamentations from little Jeannie Pilcher, his mistress, he was buried in a corner of the garden.

This was J eannie’s first sorrow ; its poignancy fastened on her memory, effacing considerably recollections of cloudless days. Soon, however, a grief came into her life which made what she had believed an overwhelming trouble to be of no moment.

Her mother passed away; although Jeannie’s eight years did not enable her to appreciate duly her loss, she suffered keenly by reason of the deep and abiding distress her father knew.

The home by the great iron way was given up and the little establishment moved into a small villa at Putney which belonged to the bereaved husband, where little Jeannie, with the assistance of a series of more or less

EARLY DAYS incompetent “ working-housekeepers,” was brought up by her father.

It was a long stretch from Putney to Hammersmith where the breadwinner took train to his work at Paddington ; and till the bridge was “ freed,” the penny a day he paid for tolls was something of a consideration ; but as Pilcher saved house rent, and when his villa was let he rarely got his rent (shady occupiers reading their landlord at a glance), he reckoned he was well in pocket by living such a long distance from his station.

His Christian name was Joseph, but Jeannie had never heard him addressed or spoken of by his friends as other than “Joe”; by tradesmen and menials as “ Mr. Joe.” To have had her daddie identified with Joseph would have surprised her, while if he had been spoken of as Mr. Pilcher she would have wondered who was meant.

“Joe” earned a hundred and seventy pounds a year as the chief of a department in the Great Western Railway at Paddington : sundry concessions in the way of a season ticket at a much reduced rate, and cheap coals and butter (these last being only granted to married men) were equivalent to an addition of about fifteen pounds to his yearly salary.

Also, the railway clerks ran a dining club where a solid midday meal could be obtained for eightpence.

By the rigid avoidance of the excellent dining-club beer, a self-denial shared by few of the members, he, by eating well and cheaply, calculated he added a further ten pounds to his income which, with what he saved in rent by living in a house of his own, was augmented, so he considered, to something approaching two hundred and twenty pounds a year.

Although Cockney born and bred, J oe had an abiding passion for fresh air. He loved his walk on the towpath (then a very different place to what it is now) twice a day in all weathers, and at all seasons of the year when going to and from the station.

On bad days in summer, and most days in winter, Joe wore gaiters ; one of Jeannie’s early recollections is of lengthening days when it was light enough to walk along the towpath and meet her father on his return from work.

They kept a sharp look-out for each other, and when she caught sight of his stuggy, gaitered figure rounding a bend, she would wave her little arm, at which Joe would run in her direction as fast as his wind and increasing years would permit.

Joe’s daily intercourse with nature had endowed him with the notion that he was an infallible weather prophet : he was hugely delighted when he was asked for a meteorological forecast, a weakness of which certain impecunious acquaintances were prone to take advantage : Joe found it hard to refuse a request for assistance on top of a desire that he should foretell the weather.

Although, so far back as Jeannie can remember, her father was always devoted to her, she recalls that, after the loss of her mother, Joe’s love and tenderness waxed for his little girl.

When he was home, he hated her out of his sight ; if he could help it, he would never suffer her to go out of doors alone.

Should she fall asleep of an evening, she would wake to find his protecting arm about her, while her supper or some little delicacy awaited her : should she call out in the night, Joe, all concern, was by her side in a moment.

His first grey hairs appeared after a rather sharp attack of measles she caught at school.

Joe was indulgent as he was fond.

Jeannie had been brought up by her mother on a rather strict diet of evangelical theological food, any frivolity on Sundays in the nature of toys or playbooks being strictly forbidden.

As time went on, Joe’s orthodoxy waned. If it were a very fine Sunday, Jeannie was not compelled to go to

EARLY DAYS church ; instead, she would accompany Joe on a walk. Of an afternoon, if she somewhat furtively looked through her picture-books, Joe invariably seemed asleep should he be in the room, or if he were not, and came in and discovered her, it appeared his mind was too occupied with other things to notice what she was at.

It is of Saturday afternoons that Jeannie has particularly happy memories. In those far-off days there were actually fish to be caught in the river between Hammersmith and Putney ; on most Saturday afternoons, when fishing was in season, a long line of anglers would be seen in the neighbourhood of the latter place of which Joe, invariably accompanied by Jeannie, who carried the bait can, was a patient unit.

For many weeks he caught scarcely anything, although he studied numerous fishing manuals and journals in order to obtain hints of likely baits ; when no sport was to be had, J eannie would laughingly tell her father how he had caught all the fish.

Joe, however, would console himself by noting how his fellow-anglers were in no better case than himself ; their ill-luck did not seem to affect adversely their thirst, boys being continually dispatched to the nearest public-house for cans of beer or “shandygaff.”

If it be true that every dog has his day, Joe was no exception. One afternoon, to the scarcely veiled envy of the other fishermen, he caught three fine flounders in quick succession, when Jeannie, for all her tender years, was touched by her father’s self-conscious pride which he vainly tried to suppress.

He sent Jeannie to the nearest hedge for twigs; when these were obtained, with hands trembling with excitement, he fastened the fish together by passing the wood through their gills, before feverishly resuming fishing.

For the rest of the day luck, having once visited him, was coy, but soon after six, Joe and Jeannie, the former proudly displaying his captures, might have been seen making a triumphant progress along the long line of anglers, ostensibly to discover what luck they had had.

It was on this occasion that Jeannie, perhaps for the first time in her life, saw her father really angry.

A narrow backwater ran parallel to the river, and just here it separated “ Bam Elms,” now Ranelagh, from the ground that ascended sharply to the towpath. Presently the backwater broadened and deepened before turning sharply to the right, and running swiftly (when the tide was going out) under a beam-supported, wooden bridge into the Thames.

This evening, certain men had dammed this backwater ; as the tide went down, they managed to entrap a surprising quantity of fish, which sight excited J oe’s ire. He trembled with anger, while his voice shook with indignation.

‘‘Most unsportsmanlike. Really most unsportsmanlike,” he kept on repeating, not only while they walked home, but for the best part of the evening.

His wrath was not allayed until the three flounders were served up piping hot for supper.

As Jeannie grew older, Joe tried to incline her mind in the direction of hobbies that had an educative bias.

To this end, John’s Flowers of the Field was purchased and closely studied by “Joe” who, it must be confessed, had not the remotest approach to a scientific mind ; indeed, when it came to a question of discovering the specimens they found in their rambles, Jeannie was far sharper in the counting of the varying number of stamens and pistils by which their finds were identified.

When Jeannie thinks of these days, there comes to her mind a picture of J oe’s honest face beaming with happiness, and with drops of perspiration on his forehead from carrying the tea-things, as he tramped at her side either on Barnes or Wimbledon Commons, or by the river, all places which differ vastly from their blighted picturesqueness of to-day.

Although wild flowers were scarce on Wimbledon

EARLY DAYS

Common, there was the great windmill, the fascinating rifle butts and iron running deer, and sometimes redcoated soldiers.

After all said and done, it was the towpath by the Thames, particularly at high tide, which Jeannie loved most.

Here, on the riverside, the thick growth of willow bushes made perpetual wind music, and if she tired of watching the passing tugs and steamers, the latter with their bands playing popular melodies, there was always the steep declivity to descend, with Joe’s trusty assistance, to the stream-like backwater which ran parallel to the river.

Here, in due season, was a profusion of meadowsweet, wild parsley, ragged-robin, and sometimes even strings of gilded honeysuckle ; in quiet places, the water was mantled with duckweed, while arrowhead shot up above the surface of the stream.

But as every rose has its thorn, so even this delightful walk had one decided drawback which was furnished by the soap works at Hammersmith ; this, particularly when the wind was blowing from the west, insistently and offensively reminded Joe and Jeannie of its existence.

When approaching and passing this place, father and daughter loftily ignored it ; so far as it was possible, they kept their eyes on the squat picturesqueness of the “ Crabtree ” on the farther side of the river.

Although the soap works interrupted the backwater, this was continued for some distance beyond ; later, when the study of “ Pond Life ” was added to Botany, this stretch of water, teeming with likely specimens, was frequently haunted by Joe and Jeannie, armed with nets and bait cans.

Here, little boys filled jam bottles with small, voracious fish, caught with a worm and a piece of cotton. They called their quarry “tiddlers,” and although “Joe,” proud of his new-found lore, repeatedly assured the urchins they were sticklebats, he could not disabuse their mind of their original impression.

He would argue at length when, more likely than not, he would be interrupted by an expectant angler remarking :

“ Cheese it, guv’nor ; I’ve got a bite.”

But although they disregarded Joe’s admonitions, they were only too glad to avail themselves of his services should they chance to catch an eft, a creature they were shy of handling.

Vivid memories of boat-race days are associated with Jeannie’s recollections of the ever-changing river.

Before and on the great day, Joe developed into a rowing expert ; he would take every opportunity of watching the crews practise, and would have counted it a grievous deprivation if, by any mischance, he had missed the race. When the boats finally passed with the tugs and steamers in attendance, he would particularly cheer Oxford, doubtless because that town was served by the railway for which he worked.

Also, she recalls specimen-hunting excursions to the ponds on Barnes Common ; one in particular when, despite her warnings, Joe persisted in mistaking a “boatman” for a water-spider, and got sharply stung for his obstinacy ; a certain pond near the railway where an otherwise rare water-snail was found in considerable quantities, at the which Joe was so elated at their profusion that he carried home as many as father and daughter could carry, which had the result of occasioning open mutiny on the part of the then working-housekeeper.

When Jeannie’s mind inclines to winter recollections, she has memories of long evenings spent before the fire! when Joe read aloud ; failing that, they would both stare reflectively at the red-hot coals and listen to the ticking of the solemn, brass-faced, grandfather clock, which Joe methodically wound up on Sunday mornings immediately after breakfast.

Sometimes old friends of her father’s would look in and stay to supper.

EARLY DAYS

One of these was a Mr. Coop, a rather coarse-looking, kindly man, who was seemingly bursting with vulgar laughter. He had not much to say for himself but, on the least provocation, or none at all, he would suddenly and explosively let off hilarious steam. He was by way of being well-to-do, being in business for himself as a manufacturer of invalid furniture ; he had a great affection for Jeannie, who could not help liking him ; he always brought her sweets.

On these occasions, they would play round games of cards till Jeannie went to bed, after which the two friends, if no one else had looked in, would play cribbage.

Now and again, Joe would venture on one of his favourite anecdotes, which J eannie very soon had by heart ; indeed, when her father, as not infrequently happened, lost his way and seemed in danger of forgetting the point, his daughter would give him a cue that would enable the story-teller to reach safely the journey’s end.

But if Joe were not much of a hand at anecdotes, there was one thing he could do to perfection, this — keep an assembly of children in constant laughter.

He loved Jeannie to invite her school friends to the house when, with inimitable drollery, and a seemingly unlimited fund of comic resource, he would go down on all fours and imitate various animals to the life.

One more recollection, and the tale of Jeannie’s memories is completed, so far as the purposes of this story are concerned.

It was spring-time, and she was immensely interested in the doings of a thrush family which nested in a willow by her favourite backwater.

She had often gone to watch the hen thrush sitting on her blue eggs, and had clapped her hands with delight when five nestlings persistently opened their flaming yellow bills for food.

It amused her immensely to see how the father and mother took turn and turn about in fetching worms, and when the hen was away her mate would solemnly mount guard on the edge of the nest.

There came a Sunday morning, however, when the youngsters had learned to fly ; despite the cries of alarm raised by their anxious parents, they were intent on leaving the nest, at which Jeannie, who had brought her father to see how her friends were getting on, was greatly diverted by the older birds’ distress.

“ Isn’t it funny, Joe ? ” asked Jeannie of her father, whom she frequently called by his Christian name.

“ D’ye think so ? ”

“ Don’t you ? ”

“ I can’t say I do. You see, dear, you’re not old enough to understand, but, after all the trouble and care those birds have taken with their young, it seems a bit ungrateful for the little ones to be off without so much as a thought for those to whom they owe so much.”

Jeannie stared at her father in wide-eyed surprise, first at differing from her on the matter, and secondly at the unusual length of his remarks, he being ordinarily a man of few words.

“ But there ! It’s the way of the world,” he sighed.

" Joe ! ”

“ One of these days when you grow up, there’ll be a man who wants to marry you, and then you won’t have a thought for your poor old father.”

Jeannie protested strongly that, whatever others might do, she would never, never be guilty of such hardheartedness.

” I couldn’t blame you, my dear, if you did,” continued Joe. “ It’s the way of the world.”

Jeannie was ever so positive that her heart would always cling to her loved father, but, for all her repeated assertions of lifelong attachment, Joe only shook his head and smiled sadly.

Chapter II

One fine spring afternoon, Jeannie, now nearer seventeen than sixteen, walked from school under romantic circumstances with her dearest friend, Gertrude Stubbs.

They had twice reached Jeannie’s home but, in the manner of schoolgirls, they had for the same number of times returned to where Gertrude lived, and now, followed at a discreet distance by a tall, good-looking young fellow, they were rather self-consciously proceeding in the direction of “ Laurel Villa, the name of Joe’s house.

Until Jeannie was sixteen, she had attended a school of no account in rapidly growing Putney, but when she reached that age J oe, perhaps foolishly, but with the best intentions in the world, sent his tall daughter to Clarence College, “ An Establishment for the Education of the Daughters of Gentlemen,” as it was grandiloquently termed by its proprietor, situated in the Upper Richmond Road. Here, Jeannie’s looks (she was undeniably a winsome girl) and her frank, unaffected manner made her many friends, of whom more anon : one of these had great influence in determining the course of her days.

“Is he still following ? ” asked romantically pretty Gertrude (her dark eyelashes were long and curled), with suppressed excitement, as the two girls passed the ripe picturesqueness of Fairfax House, which then decorated the High Street.

Jeannie half looked round and replied :

“ Rather.”

“ I wonder if he means to speak to me to-day.”

“ Shall I go, dear ? ” suggested Jeannie.

“ No, no : please, please don’t,” pleaded Gertrude, as her grasp tightened on her friend’s arm. “ I don’t know what I should do if you did.”

” But if you love each other, you simply must get acquainted sooner or later,” declared Jeannie, with the romantic wisdom of sixteen years.

I know, dear ; but — but ”

“ How long is it since he’s been following you about ? ”

“Three weeks, dearest. Mind, I only told you a very great secret — you’re the only girl I trust.” As a matter of fact, Jeannie was the fifth dear friend who had been honoured with a similar confidence from Miss Stubbs.

“ And you say he walks up and down outside your house ? ”

“ For hours, dear. And he’s so good-looking. And yesterday, when I got home, a box of roses had come for me by post.”

“ How lovely. I suppose he sent them ? ”

“ Of course.”

“ Do you love him ? ” asked Jeannie, after a moment’s thought.

“ Who could help it, dear ? I can’t do my lessons for thinking of him ; and as for tea, I simply can’t touch bread and butter unless there’s plenty of jam.”

Jeannie envied her friend from the bottom of her heart.

One of the two considerable discoveries she had made in the last two years had been the profound attraction which certain of the opposite sex exercised for her. At first, she had been frightened by this awakening, but use had made her accustomed to its manifestations ; now that her friend was confessedly dominated by that mysterious, and wholly unknown, so far as she was concerned, obsession called love, her mind was focused on the subject to the temporary exclusion of the many things, mostly trivial, which ordinarily interested her.

The fact of her friend being in love called attention to her own loveless state, and with her impulsive disposition she knew something akin to dismay at believing that no tall, good-looking young male would ever look on her as Gertrude was regarded by her unknown adorer.

Her extremity was short-lived.

In passing a plate-glass window of a recently opened draper’s shop, she caught sight of her reflection.

When she saw her tall, trim figure, which was already gracefully developed, the cloud of curling fair hair which descended her back like a golden cascade, her neat ankles, and little feet, her spirits rose.

For the moment, she could hardly believe that such a personable young woman was indeed Jeannie Pilcher, and if in the face of such evidence she were still disposed to doubt her comeliness, she had only to recall, no difficult matter, the ill-concealed admiration which was always more or less expressed in the faces of the majority of the men she encountered when out and about.

As if this were not enough to cheer her drooping spirits, she remembered how that very morning Joe had told her she was the prettiest girl in Putney ; this reminded her that her father would soon be home, and that he eagerly looked forward to his Jeannie giving him his tea.

She took a precipitate leave of Gertrude ; for all that person’s scarcely convincing trepidations at being left by herself, and with the interesting stranger but a few yards away, she scampered in the direction of home, when a glimpse of a clock in a shop told her she would just have time to see everything was all right before Joe’s key would be heard in the latch.

She was within a hundred yards of her gate when she encountered two maiden ladies of her acquaintance ; they were nearer forty than thirty, and both were dressed exactly alike : they made as if they would speak to Jeannie, who stopped and said :

“ How are you ? Can’t stop a moment.”

“ We want you to come to tea on Saturday,” said the elder of the two sisters. “ We’ve some quite nice people coming.”

The “ nice ” was so emphasised that Jeannie looked at the speaker with inquiring eyes.

“ People it would be well for you to know, dear,” went on Miss Hitch. “ One of them is connected on one side with the clergy, and on the other with a retired gentleman, who has just missed being made a knight.”

“ So you see how really nice they are,” put in the other sister.

” I’ll see what J — father’s doing,” hedged Jeannie, who, to tell the truth, was rather bored by the spinsters’ company. “ And thanks awfully. I must go now.”

They would have delayed her with further descriptions of the other nice people who were expected, but Jeannie was too quick for them, and was some distance away before they realised she had gone.

If Jeannie had had more leisure just then, this partiality of the sisters for basking in the company of their betters (the Miss Hitches’ father had been a small printer) would have awakened a train of thought which would have been connected with the other discovery she had made at the “ Establishment for the Education of the Daughters of Gentlemen,” in the Upper Richmond Road ; but there was J oe’s toast to be made, and in a way of which she had the secret ; also, her hat had to be taken off, and the effect of a new ribbon to be tried in her hair for her father’s approval — things which demanded her whole attention.

Joe welcomed her with his customary kiss, which was invariably followed, as now, by a long look of mingled admiration and affection. He was tired and hungry from his work and his walk, but before sitting down to tea, toast, and home-made cake, prepared by J eannie’s pretty fingers, he insisted on inquiring after her well-being since the morning.

They had hardly sat down to the simple meal when a propitiatory knock was heard at the front door.

“ Who can that be ? ” Joe’s face seemed to ask : he could not speak, his mouth being full of buttered toast.

“ Old Rabbitt. Who else ever knocks like that ? ” replied Jeannie.

“ Come about the clock ! ” exclaimed Joe, when his mouth was free of food.

“ And, as usual, at tea-time,” rejoined Jeannie.

By this time. Rose, the general servant, had answered the door (working-housekeepers had long since been discarded as extravagant and incompetent), but, seeing who the caller was, she did not trouble to announce him, but left him to shift for himself.

Very soon, the door was gently opened, and a fragile old man, who suffered from sore eyes, stood in the doorway with the tips of his fingers pressed together before his meagre body, which was inclined slightly forward.

“ My duty to you, miss : my duty to you, sir,” he began, with old-fashioned courtesy. “ I thought as I was passing I would take the liberty of calling ” (here he nervously coughed) “ to see how the clock was progressing.”

“ Good evening,” said Jeannie and Joe together, but with a greater and lesser inflection of welcome respectively in their voices : J eannie hated to see her father’s boundless good-nature taken advantage of.

“ I venture to take an interest in any clock which I may happen to have repaired,” declared Mr. Rabbitt. “ And if you would give permission for the young person in the kitchen to give me a candle, I will see if anything is amiss with the works.”

“ Have some tea,” said Joe genially.

“ I — I think not, sir ; thank you kindly all the same,” faltered Mr. Rabbitt, as his eyes sought Jeannie.