Rambles in Dickens' Land Part 20

Mr. t.i.te Barnacle had his residence in _Mews Street_, _Grosvenor Square_-

"It was a hideous little street of dead wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses inhabited by coachmen's families, who had a pa.s.sion for drying clothes, and decorating their window-sills with miniature turnpike-gates. The princ.i.p.al chimney-sweep of that fas.h.i.+onable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews Street... . Yet there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject hangers-on to a fas.h.i.+onable situation; and whenever one of these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of the town, inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde."

The Patriarchal Casby, with his daughter-the irrepressible _Flora_-and _Mr. F.'s Aunt_,

"Lived in a street in the Gray's Inn Road, which had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; but which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood still ever since. There is no such place in that part now; but it remained there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens, and pimpled with eruptive summer-houses, that it had meant to run over in no time."

TALE OF TWO CITIES.

In this Tale we read of the funeral of _Cly_, the Old Bailey Informer; the interment taking place in the burial-ground attached to the ancient church of St. Pancras in the Fields. This edifice still exists in PANCRAS ROAD (east side, opposite _Goldington Crescent_), which leads from King's Cross, northward, to Kentish Town. There is a church of the same name to be found in the EUSTON ROAD-east of _Upper Woburn Place_, but this is altogether another and more modern structure than the one above referred to. A century since, at the time of the funeral described, the name of this locality was literally correct; the church being situated in the outlying fields of the suburban village of PANCRAS.

We may here recollect the fis.h.i.+ng expedition undertaken by _Mr. Cruncher_ and his two companions, on the night following the funeral; when young _Jerry_ quietly followed his "honoured parent," and a.s.sured himself of the nature of his father's secret avocation.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

Mr. Jaggers, the Old Bailey lawyer, had his private residence on the south side of _Gerrard Street_, _Soho_, where he lived in solitary state, with his eccentric housekeeper, the mother of Estella: "Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with dirty windows."

Wemmick's Castle at _Walworth_ is altogether a place of the past; Walworth being now one of the most populous and crowded of metropolitan districts. We read that in Pip's time

"It appeared to be a collection of black lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement.

Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns."

Mr. Barley, _alias Old Gruff-and-Glum_, lived at _Mill Pond Bank_, by c.h.i.n.ks's Basin and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk. Pip says the place was anything but easy to find. Losing himself among s.h.i.+pbuilders' and s.h.i.+pbreakers' yards, he continues the description of his search as follows:-

"After several times falling short of my destination, and as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circ.u.mstances considered, where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk-whose long and narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking rakes, which had grown old and lost most of their teeth.

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank, a house with a wooden front and three storeys of bow-window (not bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there Mrs. Whimple ... the name I wanted."

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

The House of Gaffer Hexam, the humble home of _Lizzie Hexam_ and her brother, was situated somewhere in the district of _Limehouse_, near the river. In a description given of the route by which Messrs. Lightwood and Wrayburn approached this locality, we read-

"Down by the Monument, and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe... . In and out among vessels that seemed to have got ash.o.r.e, and houses that seemed to have got afloat-among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows staring into s.h.i.+ps-the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, river-washed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted and opened the door."

"The Six Jolly Fellows.h.i.+p Porters" was located in this same vicinity, overlooking the river. A waterside public-house, kept by _Miss Abbey Patterson_, who enforced a certain standard of respectability among her numerous clients, and conducted the house with a strict regard to discipline and punctuality-

"Externally, it was a narrow, lop-sided, wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another, as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed, the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flagstaff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all... . The back of the establishment, though the chief entrance, was there so contracted that it merely represented, in its connection with the front, the handle of a flat iron set upright on its broadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a wilderness of court and alley; which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the 'Six Jolly Fellows.h.i.+p Porters,' as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyond its door."

Rogue Riderhood and his daughter _Pleasant_ traded at _Limehouse Hole_, in the same district as above, where they kept "a leaving shop" for sailors; advancing small sums of money on the portable property of seafaring customers. Mr. Riderhood did not stand well in the esteem of the neighbourhood, which "was rather shy in reference to the honour of cultivating" his acquaintance, his daughter being the more respectable and respected member of the firm.

Mr. Twemlow, "an innocent piece of dinner furniture," often in request in certain West-end circles of society, lodged in _Duke Street_, _St.

James's_, "over a livery stable-yard."

The Location of the Veneering Family is described as "a bran-new house, in a bran-new quarter," designated by the appellation of "_Stucconia_;"

while their intimate friends The Podsnaps flourished "in a shady angle adjoining _Portman Square_."

Boffin's Bower, the home in which we are first introduced to the Golden Dustman and his wife, was to be found "about a mile and a quarter up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge," in the close vicinity of the Mounds of Dust for which Mr. Harman was the contractor.

The Location of Mr. R. Wilfer and family was in the northern district of _Holloway_, beyond Battle Bridge, divided therefrom by "a tract of suburban Sahara, where tiles and bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were beat, rubbish was shot, dogs were fought, and dust was heaped by contractors."

The Establishment of Mr. Venus was in _Clerkenwell_, among

"The poorer shops of small retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keep folks warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers, and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds.

From these, in a narrow and a dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr. Wegg selects one dark shop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save the candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs fighting a small-sword duel."

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.

In the first chapter of the tale we are introduced to "the meanest and closest of small rooms," where, "through the ragged window-curtain, the light of early day steals in from a miserable court." A man

"Lies dressed, across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that has indeed given way under the weight upon it. Lying, also dressed, and also across the bed, not longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a haggard woman. The two first are in a sleep or stupor; the last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to kindle it."

This Opium Smokers' Den had its location in an eastern district of London, probably the _Shadwell_ neighbourhood of the LONDON DOCKS, but no precise indication of its whereabouts is given in the tale. We read of John Jasper starting from his hotel in _Falcon Square_: "Eastward, and still eastward, through the stale streets, he takes his way, until he reaches his destination-a miserable court, specially miserable among many such."

THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM

is readily attainable from _Charing Cross_ (or any other) station of the _District Metropolitan Railway_. Entrance in _Cromwell Road_, five minutes' walk, on the north side, from South Kensington Station.

The Forster Collection-on the first floor-in this museum contains several of the earlier LETTERS written by d.i.c.kens to Forster, and the pen-and-ink sketch by _Maclise_, representing the "Apotheosis of 'Grip,'" the celebrated Raven, who departed this life at No. 1 Devons.h.i.+re Terrace, March 12th, 1841. There are also here exhibited The Ma.n.u.scripts of the princ.i.p.al WORKS OF d.i.c.kENS, together with a _Proof Copy_ of "David Copperfield," showing the corrections of the Author. Most of these lie opened, each at its first page; and it is interesting to observe the careful interlineations and alterations with which the various original copies were amended. In the case of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," the sorrowful memento of its final page is exposed to view, as being the last sheet written by the "vanished hand" of our much loved and faithful friend,

[Picture: Charles d.i.c.kens Signature]