The Lure of Old London Part 9

They have a companion in adversity in the royal pauper, Theodore, King of Corsica, who died in Soho, and who, as Edward Walford says in his "Old and New London," was buried at the cost of a small tradesman who had known him in the days of his prosperity.

We found the tablet without difficulty at the base of the church tower, close to that of William Hazlitt. The epitaph is by Horace Walpole, and runs:--

"The grave, great teacher, to a level brings Heroes and beggars, galley slaves and kings, But Theodore this moral learn'd ere dead; Fate pour'd its lesson on his living head-- Bestow'd a kingdom and denied him bread."

Unfortunate Theodore, who, on leaving the prison without a sixpence in his pocket, took refuge with a tailor in Soho, where three days later he died. Who out of those pa.s.sing through the churchyard pause to give a thought to Theodore or to ponder Walpole's reflections on "The grave, great teacher".

We found we should have to make a detour to get inside the church, which lies at a level below the churchyard and is shut off by an iron railing.

So we retraced our steps along Shaftesbury Avenue and into Dean Street.

The church door was open and some one inside was practising on the organ. The sound came faintly as we entered the porch, and rushed out to meet us with a burst of melody as we pushed back the inner door. The player was performing to an empty church, and I recognised the rhythm of the tumbling notes as Bach's. How many times have I clambered the gallery stairs of this same old church to listen to the music of John Sebastian! Strangely enough, it was the recollection of those occasions which had prompted my visit this afternoon. Good old John! who can sweep away the cobwebs like a March wind with one of his fugues, set one smiling at the tender grace of a pastorale, or thrill one with that solemn and awful summons to Calvary in the dramatic opening of the Pa.s.sion Music.

The fugue gave place to a quaint old dance, and Spring, which was paying a premature visit to the Soho streets outside, stole with the suns.h.i.+ne through the windows into the church. With it came a dream, and as I listened to the music, ladies in silk petticoats, with patches and powder, and gentlemen in wigs and knee breeches paced gravely through a minuet in the aisle. It was irreverent, but John Sebastian was to blame, and somehow the dancers seemed no more out of place than did the sunbeams which found entrance through the dusty windows.

Mrs. Darling had gone to read the "Roll of Honour" in a corner of the church decorated by flags. She has sounded depths in life which are outside my experience, and I do not like to obtrude my presence at such moments. I could see her from where I sat wiping her eyes, yet I knew that presently she would come back with a cheerful face and some soul-destroying remark which would knock the bottom out of my dreams.

There is no pose with Mrs. Darling.

It was as I expected. She wanted to know if the man was tuning the organ? Oh, Mrs. D.! What is the tie which binds me to your prosaic, plush-jacketed person? Why do I court your unappreciative companions.h.i.+p, and sacrifice _you_ to my mania for imparting information?

Perhaps the answer was supplied by the old lady herself when we issued from the church. "I 'spose you'd 'ave stopped in that old church all the afternoon if I 'adn't tipped you the wink to git out, sir," she said.

"No one could accuse you er bein' a rollin' stone. If it wasn't for _me_ you'd be _choked up_ with moss."

When I leave Shaftesbury Avenue for Berwick Market I always think of Hogarth, which, by the way, reminds me that I saw a bronze bust of him at the Portrait Gallery. A keen, small-featured, refined face, with a penetrating, bad-tempered expression about the eyes--not the face one would picture of the creator of "The Rake's Progress" or "Marriage a la Mode". But when is the occasion on which one does not have to readjust one's mental att.i.tude towards the artist (known only through his works) on first making acquaintance with his face and features?

[Ill.u.s.tration: BERWICK MARKET.]

Berwick Market, with a Spring sky above the costers' barrows of fruit and flowers making splashes of colour amidst the motley crowd peopling its narrow confines, might have stepped straight out of an Italian canvas on this delectable afternoon. Busy sellers and loitering buyers seemed to be making a pleasant pastime of it all. The stall-keepers, with an artless intimacy and a reckless confidence in the weather, had hung out on lines silk stockings, articles of lingerie, yards of ribbon and laces. Everything here is open to the world, even the little shops on either side of the gutter are windowless. What happens in Berwick Market on wet days, I don't know. I always choose the time of my visits, carefully avoiding it when there's a blizzard or a downpour. I want to keep the memory of its cheeriness intact, undimmed. When I pine for a continental trip, which my purse will not allow, I go to Berwick Market and stare at the long French loaves in the bakers' shops, at the weird, dirty-looking sausages enclosed in a network of string, the ropes of garlic, the spaghetti and salad dressings in the Italian provision dealers, listening meanwhile to the chatter of foreign tongues all round. Berwick Market lives out of doors and it doesn't wear hats. It takes the stranger into its confidence and is never dull. It thrusts fur coats, frocks, and blouses under your nose as you walk. It will supply you with butcher's meat, cabbages and potatoes, flowers and fruit, ironware, books, music, toys, jewellery, leather goods and trinkets, all within the s.p.a.ce of a few hundred yards, and if you buy any of these things you will go away under the pleasant but false impression that you have taken advantage of an ingenuous huckster who didn't know the value of his goods.

Mrs. D. bought a flat-iron, two saucepan lids, and a hat shape. In view of these articles having to accompany us on the remainder of our journey, they seemed to me an unwise purchase, especially as it was problematical whether the lids would fit the saucepans for which they were intended. She was, however, so convinced that never again would the opportunity occur for securing ironware at so low a price, or a hat of such a becoming shape, that I shouldered my share of the burden (the flat-iron and saucepan lids) and refrained from putting a damper on her satisfaction.

At the top of Greek Street is the house where De Quincey lived, and it is always of De Quincey and poor Ann that I think when meditating in Soho Square. The story of that poor child of the streets, who, out of her penury, befriended her companion in misfortune and afterwards disappeared so mysteriously, is one of undying interest and pathos. "For weeks," says De Quincey, "I had walked with this poor friendless girl up and down Oxford Street, or rested with her on steps under the shelter of porticoes...." What a picture of the misery of these two children the words call up! Speaking of that night in Soho Square when he fainted in her arms, and she rose and fetched the gla.s.s of hot spiced wine which he was convinced saved his life, he continues, "We sat down on the steps of a house, which, to this hour, I never pa.s.s without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit of that unhappy girl, in memory of the n.o.ble action which she there performed".

I told Mrs. D. the story, and we speculated as to the particular doorstep on which the outcasts sat. Mrs. D., who treats all facts more than fifty years old as fiction, said it was "very touchin'," and that she hoped the young man found Ann in the end and married her. I did not insist on the truth of the story or the sadness of the end. There are times when I envy Mrs. D.'s limitations, and this was one of them. I would give a good deal to know that De Quincey found Ann again. I picture him after his short absence from London, going at six o'clock to the bottom of Great t.i.tchfield Street (the appointed place of rendezvous) in the sure expectation of meeting her. The minutes would pa.s.s and he would watch for the familiar form, at first with confidence, then with a disappointment which grew minute by minute, and was accompanied by foreboding conjectures as to the cause of her absence.

When the last hope of her appearance had fled he would seek consolation in the thought that she who had never failed him in the past must have had some good reason for not keeping her tryst to-night. She would come to-morrow. But to-morrow night and all other to-morrows came without bringing Ann. "I sought her daily," he says, "and waited for her every night so long as I staid in London, at the corner of t.i.tchfield Street.... But to this hour I have never heard a syllable about her...." "Some feelings," he records in another pa.s.sage, "though not deeper or more pa.s.sionate, are more tender than others, and often when I walk in Oxford Street by dreamy lamplight and hear those airs played on a barrel organ, which years ago solaced me and my dear companion, as I must always call her, I shed tears and muse with myself at the mysterious dispensation which so suddenly and so critically separated us for ever."

We went and looked at the house in Greek Street, on the front of which is a tablet stating that De Quincey lived there. One has a feeling of grat.i.tude towards the Society of Arts which in such fas.h.i.+on strives to keep green the memory of those men and women who trod the streets of the great city, dreaming their dreams, and leaving for those who came after them great deeds to inspire, romance to allure, thoughts of beauty to refresh the mind, and visions of colour to delight the eyes.

Frith Street was noisy with the play of children just released from school, and there was a hint of the slackening of the day's activities.

We left Frith Street for Old Compton Street, and from thence into New Compton Street, which has a dreary "end of the world" sort of atmosphere. Cheery Soho loses heart at this point, where it is about to take leave of you, and Church Pa.s.sage, which terminates in a little flight of stone steps, and an iron gateway leading into the churchyard of St. Giles's in the Fields, has a d.i.c.kens'-like suggestion of "Joe"

and "Bleak House".

When I told Mrs. D. that St. Giles was the patron saint of lepers, and that the present church stood not very far from the site of a hospital for lepers built by the wife of Henry I in 1118, she said she could well believe it. She was also not surprised to hear that the plague broke out in St. Giles's, and that the gallows named "Tyburn Tree" was set up near the aforesaid leper hospital.

I asked her if she had ever read the "Newgate Calendar". She replied with regret that she hadn't, admitting that if there _was_ a book she would enjoy it was this particular one. In her estimation there was nothing like a good murder trial for taking you out of yourself.

The "Newgate Calendar" had occurred to me in connection with "Tyburn Tree" by reason of references in that gruesome volume to the "last drink," a gla.s.s of ale which used to be presented to the criminals on their way to the gallows when they pa.s.sed the gate of the leper hospital. Yes, there really _is_ some foundation for the eerie atmosphere of the churchyard of St. Giles. I always remember coming upon that gate at the end of Church Pa.s.sage one autumn evening when twilight was merging into dusk. I had no idea where it led, and I mounted the steps and found myself in the old churchyard with something of the sensation which characterises the initial stage of a nightmare. The backs of squalid houses overlooked the place, and still figures, sunk in abysmal meditation, sat about on the benches. In the window of a studio-like building were some plaster casts of heads, and the white glimmering faces stared into the glimmering shades of evening which were stealing across the dingy burying-ground. I left the place without identifying it, and did not see it again for years. Then one day I stumbled on it unexpectedly, and discovered that my ghostly churchyard was St. Giles's in the Fields.

Even on this afternoon of sweet promise St. Giles's straggling graveyard was not a cheerful spot. I have, by the by, never seen so many cats congregated in any corner of London as I saw in St. Giles's Churchyard.

A villainous-looking old tom, with torn ears, the hero of many a fray, was seated on a large tomb ab.u.t.ting on to the path, and the first line of the epitaph chiselled on the stone arrested my attention. "Hold, pa.s.senger!" it began peremptorily, and I barred Mrs. D.'s path whilst I read:--

"Hold, pa.s.senger, here's shrouded in his hea.r.s.e, Unparallel'd Pendrill through the universe."

"Pendrill," said I to myself--"who's he?" and, ashamed of my ignorance of a person so eulogised, I inquired of Mrs. D. if she knew anyone of that name. She said there was a man named Pennybill who used to sell Ostend rabbits in Shepherd's Market, but he hadn't been dead long enough for his tomb to have got so dirty. As she spoke, enlightenment came.

Ostend, Holland, the battle of Worcester, Charles II, and yes, on the other side of the tomb was the inscription to Richard Pendrill, the preserver of the life of Charles II.

What an odd, unexpected link with the past that forgotten old tomb made, standing solitary amidst the sooty shrubs in the cat-haunted churchyard!

The escape of Charles from Worcester to Sh.o.r.eham, where he found a coal boat that carried him over to Normandy, might well be a page out of some romance for all one realises it, as a rule. There are times when I share Mrs. D.'s scepticism about the past, and Charles, Cromwell, Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII and the Gunpowder Plot, wars, plagues, and fires are just so many incidents in a story book. Then I stumble on an ancient tombstone with such an inscription as this, almost obliterated by the winds and rains, the frosts and heats of centuries, or I open Pepys and read how, on 27th February, 1659, the old chap was "Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token that the boy left the hole as it was before," and I say to myself with the shock of coming up b.u.mp against something solid where one had antic.i.p.ated vacancy, "Then it _was_ all true!"

The church was closed, but we found the "Resurrection Gateway," where it rears itself in dignified isolation above the iron railings on the western side of the church. There is, over it, a curious carving in oak of the "Last Judgment," depicting that day when long-dead citizens, endowed with renewed strength, will throw off their earthen trammels, and shouldering their tombstones with the ease of a Samson, rise to disclose those secret thoughts and deeds which the kindly grave had hidden for centuries.

Mrs. Darling remarked that, for her part, she had no fear of death or judgment. "If I wos to go to bed this night and never git up no more,"

she stated, "there ain't a livin' soul can say I owe them a bra.s.s farthin'. I never done one er my fellow creatures a hinjury, and there's the things all ready to lay me out in the bottom drawer near the washstand."

She flourished the paper bag containing the hat shape with an air of conscious virtue, but I could not emulate her action with the flat iron, which weighed seven pounds! To tell the truth, I was looking out for a friendly tombstone behind which that article, together with the saucepan lids, could be conveniently lost, but some children playing in the churchyard were watching me as if they suspected my designs, and I had to abandon the idea.

We took a 'bus down Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly Circus, and had tea in Jermyn Street at a little confectioner's for which we have an affection. The cakes are home made and the tea and bread and b.u.t.ter are good. There is an inner sanctuary with coloured prints of old London on the walls where one can talk cosily, and is admitted to an amusing intimacy with the workings of the establishment. Now and again a man in a white jacket comes and delves into a corner cupboard, and we have glimpses of pots of jam and groceries. Young men and women drop in from neighbouring businesses for tea, and everybody knows everybody else. The waitress has admitted Mrs. D. and me to the family circle, and with a "Same as usual, sir?" goes to fetch our pot of tea and two plates of bread and b.u.t.ter. This afternoon she did not even trouble to make the formal inquiry, but appeared before us with the tea-tray almost as quickly as we had seated ourselves.

Piccadilly was like fairyland as we walked down it on our way back to Shepherd Market, and I wished you were with me. The red lights in the rear of the vehicles, and the silver ones in front, were dancing like fireflies in one of the most wonderful gloamings I have ever witnessed.

The perfect day, drawing its garments of smoke and rose over the mauve sky, was making its tender, reluctant farewell, whilst above the sadness of its pa.s.sing hung the evening star, companioned by the most slender of new moons. We turned our money, and felt that Fortune was about to smile on us.

In the quiet of Half Moon Street, whom should I encounter but Katherine, in her car? The first intimation I had of her neighbourhood was a white-gloved hand waving a greeting from the window of the car, then a face appeared eloquent of a satirical enjoyment of the picture presented by Mrs. D. and myself with our respective parcels. The incident was over in a flash and Mrs. D. none the wiser. I am reminded to mention it by reason of an odd but peculiarly vivid impression I received of Katherine having suddenly become an old woman. It may have been some trick of light as the car shot by in the dusk, or a moment of prophetic insight on my part. But whatever it was, it made me feel I wanted to take up the cudgels for her and keep the enemy at bay. Blood, after all, is thicker than water, and Katherine has no weapons with which to fight _that_ spectre.

Shepherd Market is almost deserted at this hour in the late afternoon.

The old coaching yard is full of black shadows, and there are no customers in the shops. Lights are dim, and the echoes of footsteps in neighbouring courts and pa.s.sages can be heard a long way off. In Carrington Mews some warmth of the fading sunset still lingered, and I left it with reluctance to mount the dark staircase to my room. There are days when one feels all is well--not only with _this_ world, but with the next, which is presumably more important. Youth, on such days, returns to whisper flatteries in the ears of Old Age. Is it wisdom or foolishness on the part of Old Age to listen? I leave you with that question on the thirty-fifth anniversary of our friends.h.i.+p. Do you remember?

GEORGE.

CHAPTER XI

CARRINGTON MEWS, SHEPHERD MARKET, _17th February._

My Dear Agatha,--So you, too, remembered! Strange, after our having overlooked the anniversary for so long! The violets you picked for me in your garden _that_ afternoon scented my room for days. Thank you.

Acting on your advice, I took Mrs. D. to the London Museum yesterday.

You are quite right, the place was made for children, and the old lady thoroughly enjoyed herself.

The bas.e.m.e.nt, with its long stone-paved corridors, its gloom (dispelled, I am forced to admit, by electric light), is the right place for the models of ancient London, old doorways, knockers, horn lanthorns, oak panelling, relics of Newgate, prison cells, and yellowed news sheets containing the accounts of the execution of celebrated criminals.

One catches the mood of the place when one gets to the bottom of the stairs and sees the row of wooden figures each of which has weathered many a storm from its post outside some shop in the London streets of a hundred and fifty years or more ago. The grocers' Chinaman, the tobacconists' Highlander, and the scale-makers' figure of Justice. Now and again, at rare intervals, we may meet the Highlander outside a tobacconist's, or the figure of Justice over the scale-maker's window, but the Chinaman seems to have completely disappeared.

To go into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the London Museum is like opening the door of some dim, dusty lumber-room and unearthing the forgotten toys of our childhood. Things which we greet with an indulgent smile, and now and again a sigh. The bas.e.m.e.nt is a place to visit on that sort of idle afternoon in early Spring when one is moved to turn out old letters, to bring to mind the playmates of one's youth, and muse, while the light wanes, on the changes the years have brought.

Here is a shop-front of George III's time, and behind the small-paned window a grotesque collection of ragged puppets, the property of some long-defunct proprietor of a Punch and Judy show. Many a time must those grimacing dolls have played in the immortal drama to an audience of our great-great-great-grandfathers.

The oak-panelled, seventeenth century parlour where a man sits drinking by candle-light sets one speculating. There are his gloves on the table and his pipe, which he has removed from his pocket. His wife has filled his gla.s.s with wine, and stands telling him what has been happening during his absence. He sits back in his chair, too intent on her news to fill his pipe or lift the gla.s.s to his lips. The Great Fire, perhaps, is raging at that very moment, and the wife may be telling her husband that three hundred houses are already burnt, and how the churches were all filled with goods and people. Or maybe it is of the outbreak of the plague which the man learns, and the fear of which makes him forget his pipe and the wine poured out at his elbow. Every time I go to the London Museum I visit the pair, and always they are carrying on that same conversation. The woman's dress gets dustier and dustier, and the wine in the gla.s.s does not grow less. People come and stare and go away, leaving the couple unmoved. Is it my fancy, that when _I_ come, the conversation in that oak-panelled room becomes more tense, and if only I stayed long enough I should discover what it was about?