There could be no mistake. By the side of the front window,
encumbered by the shadows of nondescript things, the door, standing
ajar, let escape on the pavement a narrow, clear streak of gas-
light within.
Behind the Assistant Commissioner the van and horses, merged into
one mass, seemed something alive – a square-backed black monster
blocking half the street, with sudden iron-shod stampings, fierce
jingles, and heavy, blowing sighs. The harshly festive, ill-omened
glare of a large and prosperous public-house faced the other end of
Brett Street across a wide road. This barrier of blazing lights,
opposing the shadows gathered about the humble abode of Mr Verloc’s
domestic happiness, seemed to drive the obscurity of the street
back upon itself, make it more sullen, brooding, and sinister.
CHAPTER VIII
Having infused by persistent importunities some sort of heat into
the chilly interest of several licensed victuallers (the
acquaintances once upon a time of her late unlucky husband), Mrs
Verloc’s mother had at last secured her admission to certain
almshouses founded by a wealthy innkeeper for the destitute widows
of the trade.
This end, conceived in the astuteness of her uneasy heart, the old
woman had pursued with secrecy and determination. That was the
time when her daughter Winnie could not help passing a remark to Mr
Verloc that “mother has been spending half-crowns and five
shillings almost every day this last week in cab fares.” But the
remark was not made grudgingly. Winnie respected her mother’s
infirmities. She was only a little surprised at this sudden mania
for locomotion. Mr Verloc, who was sufficiently magnificent in his
way, had grunted the remark impatiently aside as interfering with
his meditations. These were frequent, deep, and prolonged; they
bore upon a matter more important than five shillings. Distinctly
more important, and beyond all comparison more difficult to
consider in all its aspects with philosophical serenity.
Her object attained in astute secrecy, the heroic old woman had
made a clean breast of it to Mrs Verloc. Her soul was triumphant
and her heart tremulous. Inwardly she quaked, because she dreaded
and admired the calm, self-contained character of her daughter
Winnie, whose displeasure was made redoubtable by a diversity of
dreadful silences. But she did not allow her inward apprehensions
to rob her of the advantage of venerable placidity conferred upon
her outward person by her triple chin, the floating ampleness of
her ancient form, and the impotent condition of her legs.
The shock of the information was so unexpected that Mrs Verloc,
against her usual practice when addressed, interrupted the domestic
occupation she was engaged upon. It was the dusting of the
furniture in the parlour behind the shop. She turned her head
towards her mother.
“Whatever did you want to do that for?” she exclaimed, in
scandalised astonishment.
The shock must have been severe to make her depart from that
distant and uninquiring acceptance of facts which was her force and
her safeguard in life.
“Weren’t you made comfortable enough here?”
She had lapsed into these inquiries, but next moment she saved the
consistency of her conduct by resuming her dusting, while the old
woman sat scared and dumb under her dingy white cap and lustreless
dark wig.
Winnie finished the chair, and ran the duster along the mahogany at
the back of the horse-hair sofa on which Mr Verloc loved to take
his ease in hat and overcoat. She was intent on her work, but
presently she permitted herself another question.
“How in the world did you manage it, mother?”
As not affecting the inwardness of things, which it was Mrs
Verloc’s principle to ignore, this curiosity was excusable. It
bore merely on the methods. The old woman welcomed it eagerly as
bringing forward something that could be talked about with much
sincerity.
She favoured her daughter by an exhaustive answer, full of names
and enriched by side comments upon the ravages of time as observed
in the alteration of human countenances. The names were
principally the names of licensed victuallers – “poor daddy’s
friends, my dear.” She enlarged with special appreciation on the
kindness and condescension of a large brewer, a Baronet and an M.
P., the Chairman of the Governors of the Charity. She expressed