The Lure of Old London Part 7

Now Katherine may be a cat, but she knows how to behave, and she didn't turn a hair.

"How sporting of you!" she exclaimed, with a sympathetic glance towards Mrs. D., who emerged from the entanglements of the blouse like a diver coming to the surface to take breath.

"That'll be ninepence, and you can keep the change," remarked the old lady, with a satirical glance towards the saleswoman. (I may add, in parenthesis, that the offer was not intended to be taken seriously.) "Talk about skinnin' a rabbit! I dunno who they make these blouses for!"

Then she caught sight of Katherine, and a.s.sumed what one might call her "company smile" with a jerk of her facial machinery.

"This is my sister, Mrs. Darling," said I, "the one who lives in Curzon Street."

There was a moment's pause whilst Mrs. D. adjusted herself to the situation, then, getting on the stilts with much more ease than she had got out of the blouse, she said, "Hindeed! I 'ope you're well and can get wot you want, mam. Shoppin' ain't ixactly a dream in these days.

They don't seem to make anythink suitable for middle-aged people like your ladys.h.i.+p and myself."

"But don't you think that's very kind of them," argued Katherine with undiminished amiability. "You see, they want to help us keep up the illusion of youth."

"Well, I got a few grains er common sense," announced the old lady, "and ain't goin' to make a igiot er meself in one er them tom fool blouses. I know what I want. I got in me mind's eye, but I ain't seen it in this shop."

"Why not take the advice offered with such dreary persistency in the tube, 'Get it at Harrods'!'" suggested Katherine.

"A good idea," said I to Mrs. D., "and we'll explore Kensington at the same time. We haven't been there yet."

Katherine glanced from Mrs. Darling to myself. I foresaw that the scene would be reproduced for the benefit of her guests next time she gave a dinner party. She had already grasped the situation and _got_ Mrs. D.

You know Katherine's powers of mimicry. Well, I don't grudge her the fun. She's ent.i.tled to a little return for the two hundred a year she allows me, and she has a pretty dull time with her eternal round of so-called gaieties.

"No, we _'aven't_ bin to Kensington," agreed Mrs. D., "and wot's more, you know quite well, sir, we ain't goin'," with a warning glance in my direction. "It's quite a haccident your ladys.h.i.+p finds me 'ere with your brother," the old lady went on. "I little thought when I come out this mornin' ter buy a blouse I should meet Mr. Tallenach in the shop." Oh, Mrs. Darling, and I had imagined you a truthful woman!

"Fate arranges such meetings for us," declared Katherine fervently, and her self-congratulation was obviously genuine. I had provided her with that most desirable thing in life, a _sensation_, and it is long since she bestowed on me any invitation so genuine as the one she gave for dinner that night.

But I had no intention of satisfying her curiosity, and excused myself on the plea that my dinner jacket had gone to the tailor's to be pressed. She said there was no need to dress as she would be alone, and Mrs. D. signalled frantically to me to accept.

I, however, persisted in my refusal, and, with a growing feeling for the dramatic possibilities of the situation, mentioned that, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Darling and I usually went to the pictures on Wednesday evening. There is no telling to what further lengths I might have gone had not Mrs. D. began to display symptoms of apoplexy, whilst Katherine's desire for my company became so urgent that, to get rid of her at the moment, I promised to go to Curzon Street on the morrow.

"I see _this_ comin' all along," remarked Mrs. D., with tragic emphasis, as we made our way down Cheapside. "You bin and done it with a vengeance now, sir. I drempt I 'ad a tooth out last night, and that's a bad sign.

I shouldn't wonder if the Countess didn't wash 'er 'ands of you after _this_!"

I rea.s.sured the old lady by telling her the Countess hadn't been so gracious for years--not since the occasion on which she tried to manoeuvre me into marriage with a rich woman old enough to be my mother.

In Bishopsgate Street we came to a halt before the giant pair of spectacles placed over the fronts of the two ancient shops which stand in the porch of St. Ethelburga. There is no more gracious surprise in the whole city than that bit of antiquity which breaks the long line of new buildings in Bishopsgate. So unexpectedly does it occur, and so un.o.btrusive are the quaint little shops in their unique situation, that thousands of people must pa.s.s the place daily without noticing them, or being aware that behind them is the smallest of the eight churches that escaped the Great Fire. From the opposite side of the road one can see the west front of the church rising behind the jutting first floor of the shops, and an inscription that this is "The Church of St.

Ethelburga" invites the curious to cross the road and pa.s.s through the gateway leading to the tunnel-like entrance.

The charm of this hidden sanctuary will reward him for lingering by the way. It has an atmosphere all its own, entirely unlike the atmosphere of the typical City churches, with their chill air of having survived the wors.h.i.+p of long dead days. Tucked away so cosily and standing its ground so st.u.r.dily amidst the pus.h.i.+ng, elbowing crowd of new buildings all round, St. Ethelburga's has ready for each person who enters a glimpse of beauty to refresh the eyes, and a garment of peace in which to enwrap the spirit.

You pa.s.s under the low west gallery, and looking down the nave, with its pointed arches and cl.u.s.tered columns, see through the fretted screen at the east end, a red lamp burning dimly against the dull blue altar hangings. The windows of the nave are almost entirely blocked up, and pictures hang on the old grey walls. Through the clerestory a chill light mingles with the yellow gleam of the electric burners below, and the little building is full of soft shadows, picturesque vistas, and mystery.

The monuments are few and the names on them unknown. There are no ghosts with claims for recollection on one's affection or homage. Those obscure citizens who lie buried within the church or outside it, in what one might call the church's little "back garden," are content to be forgotten, but some of their names figure in the parish records, and in the paper-covered book which one can buy in the church there are such entries as:--

"John de Weston, called 'de St. Ives,' brewer of Colmanstrete, left 13s.

4d. for the repair of the belfry in 1374, and Matilda Balsham left 10s.

for the building of a porch over the entrance in the year before!" Ten s.h.i.+llings for building a porch! Money must have gone farther then than now! Witness the fact that in 1570 the "little shop" on the south side of the porch was let at a rent of 5s. a year!

Rents, however, went up, even in those days, and in 1577 a certain George Clarke paid 6s. 8d. a year for the same premises, whilst in 1616 a Mr. John Miller, the s.e.xton, paid 1. Meanwhile the shop on the north side had been built in 1615, and let at a rent of 4. One would like to know the character of the business carried on by the numerous tenants mentioned, but save for one reference to "the eye-man" (which looks as if the present spectacle-makers are carrying on the traditions), another to the "little shop," in 1832, as the "Gold Beater's House," and the mention, 1592, of "Samuel Aylesworde, a glover," no light is thrown on the subject.

In this same paper-covered book there is recorded the loss of "a curious sculptured figure of stone," which a few years ago was removed from the tower to "serve as a guide to the modeller in the preparation of a silver figure which now crowns the beadle's staff". Who could have stolen the old figure? What was the motive? Where is it now? Huddled in a dusty corner in the shop of some dealer in antiques perhaps. Or was it seized by some zealous Roman Catholic as lawful booty? The ghosts maybe themselves have appropriated it? I shall never think of St. Ethelburga's without pausing to speculate, with a pleasant little thrill, on the fate of "the curious sculptured figure of stone". To find it would be an adventure after my own heart. One would take up such a quest as a hobby and continue it until it became an obsession. Think of the hunt for antique shops where such a thing would be likely to make a temporary halt. The more obscure the shop, the more heterogeneous its contents, the more likely to contain the treasure. "Imidges," as Mrs. D. calls them, would haunt one's dreams by night and lure one to strange journeys by day. The particular "imidge" which had bewitched you would take on the attributes of the Philosopher's Stone, and the pursuit of it become what the winning number in a lottery is to the gambler who hopes with every fresh stake to retrieve his fortunes. Then, one day, perhaps, success (which in your heart you had never expected, or, let me whisper it, _really_ wanted) comes. The solution of the riddle was quite ordinary, the----

In the middle of my meditations the old lady, who had been making a tour of the church examining the pictures, tapped me on the back, announcing she had seen all there was to be seen and that, judging from my looks, I must have gone out that morning before I got up. The interruption was not unwelcome, arriving as it did at the moment of disillusionment, and I followed her out of the church.

Being in the neighbourhood of St. Mary Axe, it occurred to me we might go on to St. Andrew Undershaft to see Stow's monument. The church is open from 12 to 2, and I asked Mrs. D. whether she would have lunch before, or after, the visit. She said she thought "two churches running"

might be "rather dry," and, taking the hint, I came to a halt at the nearest restaurant.

The beefsteak was tough but the ale was good, and Mrs. D. declared, as we rose from the table, that she felt quite equal to another church, but she hoped it was not an underground one. She seemed to connect the word "Undershaft" with coal mines, and I hastened to tell her the story of the Maypole, which used, on May Day, to be set up hung with flowers opposite the south door of St. Andrew's. It must have been a very tall one, for Stow says of it that the "shaft when it was set on end and fixed in the ground was higher than the church steeple".

St. Andrew's is s.p.a.cious, dignified, and rather chill. The windows are a special feature, and some of them display the coats of arms of various of the city guilds. I never, by the way, think of those guilds without smelling in imagination that odour reminiscent of centuries of past dinners, which hangs about their old halls, remembering, too, Hallam's words, "The common banquet and the common purse". Here is the coat of arms of the Merchant Tailors, the Haberdashers, Wool Staplers, and Merchant Adventurers. (I should have liked to have been a "Merchant Adventurer".) There you have the ideal mingling of Commerce with Romance--Romance, with nothing behind it, is as evanescent as the rainbow, a lopsided article which satisfies no one for long, but that Romance which is an integral part of the business of living makes for a solid happiness that wears well.

I am afraid John Stow did not achieve it. _His_ work could not have been of a lucrative nature seeing that, at the age of 78, he obtained from James I a licence to beg! There, in the far corner at the east end of the church, he sits at his writing table, the implement of his craft, a quill pen, in his hand. A funny little squat figure with a ruff, framing a small, delicate face, not the face of one able to battle successfully with a hard world. I wondered how his widow, who erected the monument, found the necessary cash. But Mrs. D. remarked that no matter how the poor lived, they always contrived the means to pay respect to their dead with the "insurance money". _Her_ husband had had three coaches, with a pair of horses in each, to follow him to the grave, although, on account of his long illness, she owed two months' rent at the time of his death, and had p.a.w.ned the parlour clock and the fire-irons. Such talk seemed to savour of bad taste, under the circ.u.mstances, and I sent an apprehensive glance in Stow's direction, but he was too absorbed with his task to look up. How often must he have sat thus in his lifetime writing those endless pages without which we should know so little of the intimate history of the middle ages! In his love of detail he was, like Pepys, chosen to preserve for future generations living doc.u.ments made of small homely details. The sculptured face gives testimony to the patience and concentration of the historian who wrote "The Survey of London". It is the face of one who, if he made up his mind to discover the difference between two blades of gra.s.s, would pursue that study with the world tumbling about his ears. It is consistent with the neglect with which he was treated in life that in 1732 his body was removed from its resting place "to make way for another". Who that "other" was I don't know, but this much I am sure--he was a beastly interloper who had no more right to usurp poor old Stow's last resting place than has the cat to turn me out of my armchair.

We left the painstaking worker at his task, the white feather of the quill being the last thing I saw as I turned my head for a parting look.

Does the quill move sometimes in the silence and darkness of the long nights in the old church? and could I, if I had the eyes, read what it writes?

On our way back we went into St. Peter's, Cornhill, where the dusk of the sombre interior makes a rich setting for the lovely peac.o.c.k blue of the windows at the east end. As we pushed back the door we were greeted with the solemn chant of Wagner's "Pilgrims' Chorus," a strange and beautiful subst.i.tute for the roar of the traffic in Cornhill. Who shall say the City churches are of no use when they provide such interludes of rest and refreshment for men and women working in the offices at their doors?

St. Peter's lives in my memory not because it claims to be the first Christian church founded in London, but by reason of a tablet which I once discovered there in a dark corner. On it is described a story that for pathos and terror stands alone in my experience of such things. At the conclusion of the organ recital I took Mrs. Darling to that spot at the south-east end of the church where the sinister record is to be seen. Below the sculptured heads of seven cherubs is the following inscription:--

"Jane, born 1773. May, 1774. Charles, 1776. Harriet, 1777. George, 1778. John and Eliza, twins, 1779.... The whole offspring of James and Mary Woodmason, in the same awful moment on the 18th January, 1782, were translated by sudden and irresistible flames, in the late mansion of their sorrowing parents, from the sleep of innocence to eternal bliss.

"Their remains, collected from the ruins, are here combined. A sympathetic friend of the bereaved parents, their companion during the night of the 18th January, in a scene of distress beyond the powers of language, perhaps of imagination, devotes this spontaneous tribute of the feelings of his mind to the memory of innocence."

We turned away in silence, and we had got the length of the church before Mrs. D. said, "I wonder wot them parents 'ad done to be treated _like that_ by the Almighty. 'Tisn't as if you paid yer money and took yer choice about livin' in this ole world. They didn't ask to be born neither, did them poor lambs that was burnt."

I wondered too. Did those parents continue to live in an empty world?

Did they even live long enough to forget that night of surpa.s.sing horror?

There was no one to answer these questions, and catching sight of the caretaker it occurred to me that I had another question to ask which she would certainly be able to answer.

I had heard there was a subterranean pa.s.sage entered by a flight of steps from the belfry, and I wanted to know if it was true.

"Yes, it is quite true," she answered. The pa.s.sage led "right across to St. Helen's," but this may be only hearsay, as it has been bricked up a number of years. Why brick up such relics of mediaevalism? They are of no use, answers the practical person, so why keep them? and he might add, just for the edification of a few Paul Prys like yourself. Subterranean pa.s.sages, secret drawers, sliding panels, concealed cupboards, all, alas! have gone out of fas.h.i.+on. They belong to a childish age which we have outgrown.

Mrs. D. said she had no patience with people who were always putting their noses into holes and corners, expressing her conviction that such pa.s.sages had dark histories in connection with "them monks," and after this I had not the courage to name my desire to explore the flight of steps leading from the belfry to the pa.s.sage.

I think some day, though, I must return, without Mrs. D., and see if I can get round that caretaker to show me the spot.

How infinitely poorer the city would be without these old landmarks which have stood their ground so obstinately against the pus.h.i.+ng, vulgar spirit of progress. What would the streets be like without the surprises they provide? An ancient wall in which there is a door leading to silence and the company of those for whom the fight is over. A sooty graveyard where the sparrows quarrel in the plane trees at dusk, and the mouldering tombstones stir the imagination to dreams and reflection. A spire or tower rising like a challenge above the roofs of offices and warehouses. Those old churches--one never goes a walk in the city without playing hide and seek with them. They lurk round corners and materialise under one's very nose out of blank walls. They are as much a part of this city of ours as are the men and women who in the dim ages trod its streets and made its history. Yet those same st.u.r.dy old churches are, to-day, as criminals awaiting their death sentence in the dock. There are those who would treat many of them, as poor old Stow's body was treated when it was moved, "to make room for another".

May such an act of vandalism be delayed until I too have to go that another man may take my place. Meanwhile, dear Agatha,

I am ever your devoted, GEORGE.

CHAPTER IX