A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Part 27

A few steps from "Lawn House" lead us to the drive approaching "Fort House," pleasantly surrounded by a sloping lawn and shrubbery. John Forster, alluding to it in the _Life_, says:--

"The residence he most desired there, 'Fort House,' stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill on the road to Kingsgate, with a cornfield between it and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always occupied."

Alas! the cornfield is no more, but "Fort House," or "Bleak House," as it is indifferently termed locally, remains intact. It is the most striking object of the place, standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, the harbour, and the town (made familiar by several photographs and engravings), with its curious verandahs and blinds, as seen in the vignette of J. C. Hotten's interesting book, _Charles d.i.c.kens: The Story of His Life_. An excellent photograph is published in the town, of which we are glad to secure a copy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Bleak House" Broadstairs]

In the sixth chapter of _Bleak House_ it is called "an old-fas.h.i.+oned house with three peaks in the roof in front, and a severe sweep leading to the porch." In the same chapter there is a minute account of the interior, too lengthy to be quoted; but the description does not resemble Fort House. We are kindly permitted by the occupier to see the study in which the novelist worked, a privilege long to be remembered.

This room is approached by "a little staircase of shallow steps" from the first floor, as described in _Bleak House_; but it will be borne in mind that the "Bleak House" of the novel is placed in Hertfords.h.i.+re, near St. Albans, and _not_ at Broadstairs, although many persons still believe that Fort House is the original of the story. From the study we have a lovely view of the sea--the balmy breeze of a summer's day lightly fanning the waves, and just sufficing to move the delicate filamentous foliage of the tamarisk trees now standing in the place where the cornfield was. Even at the time we see it, changed as all its surroundings are, we can imagine the enjoyment which d.i.c.kens had in this healthy spot on the North Downs.

In that interesting "book for an idle hour" called _The Shuttlec.o.c.k Papers_, Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry thus sympathetically alludes to "Bleak House":--"What a romantic place this is to write in, is it not? What a glorious study to work in! Indeed, both from situation and a.s.sociation, it would be impossible to find a better place for writing, were it not that one feels that so much superb work has been done on this very spot by so great an artist, that the mere craftsman is inclined to question whether it is worth while for him to write at all."

How well d.i.c.kens loved Broadstairs is told in his letter of the 1st September, 1843, addressed to Professor Felton, of Cambridge, U. S. A., as follows:--

"This is a little fis.h.i.+ng-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon--in the centre of a tiny semi-circular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and das.h.i.+ng under the windows. Seven miles out are the Goodwin Sands (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?), whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a lighthouse called the North Foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. Under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children a.s.semble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high-water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms, and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. Other old gentlemen look all day long through telescopes and never see anything.

"In a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. His name is Boz. At one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen--a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise--splas.h.i.+ng about in the ocean.

After that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. n.o.body bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very comfortable indeed. He's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. But this is mere rumour. Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles or so away), and then I'm told there is a sound in Lincoln's Inn Fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks, and wine-gla.s.ses."

And further in a letter to another correspondent recently made public:--

"When you come to London, to a.s.sist at Miss Liston's sacrifice, don't forget to remind your uncle of our Broadstairs engagement to which I hold you bound. A good sea--fresh breezes--fine sands--and pleasant walks--with all manner of fis.h.i.+ng-boats, lighthouses, piers, bathing-machines, are its only attractions, but it's one of the freshest little places in the world, consequently the proper place for you."

In the year 1851, in a letter dated 8th September, addressed to Mr.

Henry Austin, he thus alludes to a wreck which took place at Broadstairs:--

"A great to-do here. A steamer lost on the Goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. I stood supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize--which, I suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sa.s.sages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders."

d.i.c.kens got tired of Broadstairs in 1847, for reasons given in the following letter to Forster, though he did not forsake it till some years after:--

"Vagrant music is getting to that height here, and is so impossible to be escaped from, that I fear Broadstairs and I must part company in time to come. Unless it pours of rain, I cannot write half an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers. There is a violin of the most torturing kind under the window now (time, ten in the morning), and an Italian box of music on the steps--both in full blast."

By good luck we fall in with an "old salt," formerly one of the boatmen of _Our English Watering Place_ who are therein immortalized by much kindly mention, with whom we have a pleasant chat about Charles d.i.c.kens.

Harry Ford (the name of our friend) well remembers the great novelist, when in early days he used to come on his annual excursions with his family to Broadstairs. "Bless your soul," he says, "I can see 'Old Charley,' as we used to call him among ourselves here, a-coming flying down from the cliff with a hop, step, and jump, with his hair all flying about. He used to sit sometimes on that rail" (pointing to the one surrounding the harbour), "with his legs lolling about, and sometimes on the seat that you're a-sitting on now" (adjoining the old Look-out House opposite the Tartar Frigate Inn), "and he was very fond of talking to us fellows and hearing our tales--he was very good-natured, and n.o.body was liked better. And if you'll read" (continues our informant) "that story that he wrote and printed about _Our Watering Place_, _I_ was the man who's mentioned there as mending a little s.h.i.+p for a boy.

_I_ held that child between my knees. And what's more, sir, _I_ took 'Old Charley,' on the very last time that he came over to Broadstairs (he wasn't living here at the time), round the foreland to Margate, with a party of four friends. I took 'em in my boat, the _Irene_," pointing to a clinker-built strong boat lying in the harbour, capable of holding twenty people. "The wind was easterly--the weather was rather rough, and it took me three or four hours to get round. There was a good deal of chaffing going on, I can tell you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old Look-out House Broadstairs]

Mrs. Long, of Zion Place, Broadstairs, the wife of an old coastguardman, who was stationed at the Preventive Station when d.i.c.kens lodged at Fort House, also remembered the novelist. The coastguard men are also immortalized in _Our English Watering Place_, as "a steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet, thorough-going way of pa.s.sing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou'wester clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession. They are handy fellows--neat about their houses, industrious at gardening, would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert island--and people it too soon."

Mrs. Long says "Mr. d.i.c.kens was a very nice sort of gentleman, but he didn't like a noise." The windows of Fort House, she reminds us, overlooked the coastguard station, and whenever the children playing about made more noise than usual, he used to tell her husband gently "to take the children away," or "to keep the people quiet." This little story fully confirms d.i.c.kens's often-expressed feeling of dislike, which subsequently grew intolerable, to Broadstairs as a watering-place.

After taking a turn or two on the lively Promenade,--made bright by the rich ma.s.ses of flesh-coloured flowers of the valerian which fringe its margin,--to enjoy the suns.h.i.+ne and air, and watch the holiday folks, we bid adieu to Broadstairs, and proceed to Margate.

Of Margate there is not much to say. We reach it by an early afternoon train of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, to get the quickest service by the South-Eastern Railway on to Canterbury. Our stay at Margate is consequently very limited.

To some minds this popular c.o.c.kney watering-place has great attractions; its broad sands, its beautiful air, and its boisterous amus.e.m.e.nts, negro-melodies, merry-go-rounds, and the like; but it was a place seldom visited by d.i.c.kens, although he was so often near it. Only twice in the _Life_ is it recorded that he came here; once being in 1844, when he wrote to Forster respecting the theatre as follows:--

"'_Nota Bene._--The Margate Theatre is open every evening, and the four Patagonians (see Goldsmith's _Essays_) are performing thrice a week at Ranelagh.' A visit from me"--Forster goes on to say--"was at this time due, to which these were held out as inducements; and there followed what it was supposed I could not resist, a transformation into the broadest farce of a deep tragedy by a dear friend of ours. 'Now you really must come. Seeing only is believing, very often isn't that, and even Being the thing falls a long way short of believing it. Mrs.

Nickleby herself once asked me, as you know, if I really believed there ever was such a woman; but there will be no more belief, either in me or my descriptions, after what I have to tell of our excellent friend's tragedy, if you don't come and have it played again for yourself, 'by particular desire.' We saw it last night, and oh! if you had but been with us! Young Betty, doing what the mind of man without my help never _can_ conceive, with his legs like padded boot-trees wrapped up in faded yellow drawers, was the hero. The comic man of the company, enveloped in a white sheet, with his head tied with red tape like a brief, and greeted with yells of laughter whenever he appeared, was the venerable priest. A poor toothless old idiot, at whom the very gallery roared with contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged Creon. And Ismene, being arrayed in spangled muslin trousers very loose in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as Fatima would wear in _Blue Beard_, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song!

After this can you longer--?'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "Falstaff": Westgate Canterbury]

He speaks in a letter to Forster, dated September, 1847, of "improvements in the Margate Theatre since his memorable first visit."

It had been managed by a son of the great comedian Dowton, and the piece which d.i.c.kens then saw was _As You Like It_, "really very well done, and a most excellent house." It was Mr. Dowton's benefit, and "he made a sensible and modest kind of speech," which impressed d.i.c.kens, who thus concludes his letter:--"He really seems a most respectable man, and he has cleaned out this dusthole of a theatre into something like decency."

There is also the following significant mention of Margate in chapter nineteen of _Bleak House_:--

"It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pant for bliss with the beloved object at Margate, Ramsgate, or Gravesend."

If Broadstairs was noisy, Margate must have been intensely so. We leave the crowded holiday-making place without much feeling of regret, and pa.s.sing Ramsgate--of which there is but one mention in the _Life_--on our way, reach Canterbury in the afternoon.

We are delighted with this exquisitely beautiful old city, our only regret being that our time is very limited, and our means of ascertaining places situated in "d.i.c.kens-Land" more so.

Taking up our temporary quarters at the "Sir John Falstaff" Hotel, in remembrance of its namesake at Gad's Hill, after the refreshment of a meal, we commence our tramp through Canterbury, where David Copperfield pa.s.sed some of his happiest days. Of the Falstaff here there is an excellent picture in Mr. Rimmer's _About England with d.i.c.kens_; a very quaint old inn with double front, and bay-windows top and bottom, possibly of the sixteenth century, and with a long swinging sign extending over the pavement, on which is painted a life-like presentment of the portly knight, the pretty ornamental ironwork supporting it reminding one of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving's description in _Bracebridge Hall_, "fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "Dane John" from the City Wall Canterbury]

A few steps further on is the West Gate, "standing between two lofty and s.p.a.cious round towers erected in the river," built by Archbishop Sudbury, who was barbarously murdered by Wat Tyler in the reign of Richard II., which is the sole remaining one of six gates formerly const.i.tuting the approaches to the city. From this gate, looking eastward, with the river Stour on either side, banked by neatly-trimmed private gardens, a beautiful view of the city is obtained. The High Street, crowded with gables of the sixteenth century and later timbered houses, slightly bends and rises as well, until the perspective seems to lose itself in a distant grove of trees, locally called the "Dane John,"

a corruption of "Donjon." This view, especially when seen on a summer afternoon, is most picturesque. The present appearance of the quiet street is decidedly unlike that which it presented on that busy market-day when Miss Betsey Trotwood drove her nephew along it, for David says, "My aunt had a good opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference."

We notice in the windows and in many of the shops an abundance of brightly-coloured cut-flowers, a notable feature of the county of Kent; but we have little time to spare, and hasten on to the Cathedral precincts.

"What a magnificent edifice!" is our first thought on beholding the Cathedral, a n.o.ble pile so well befitting the Metropolitan See of England, from which the Christianity of the Kingdom first flowed. Dating from Ethelbert, at the close of the sixth century, three structures have successively occupied the site, culminating in the present one, which, according to Mr. Phillips Bevan, was erected at different times between 1070 and 1500; and he goes on to say:--"No wonder that it exhibits so many styles and peculiarities of detail, although the two most prominent architectural eras are those of 'Transition-Norman' and 'Perpendicular.'"

The appropriate stone figures in niches of distinguished Royal and Ecclesiastical personages a.s.sociated with the Cathedral (which at the suggestion of Dean Alford in 1863 replaced those of the murderers of the martyr, Thomas a Becket), from King Ethelbert to Queen Victoria, and from Archbishop Lanfranc to Archbishop Longley; the lofty groined arches and stately towers, the beautiful carved screen, the n.o.ble monuments, the splendid choir (a hundred and eighty feet in length) approached by many steps, the rich stained-gla.s.s windows, all attract our admiring attention, and confirm our impression that a modern pilgrimage to Canterbury is a thing to be highly appreciated; and on no account would we have missed this part of our excursion. The murder of Thomas a Becket (1170) took place between the nave and the choir in a transept or cross aisle called "The Martyrdom."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bell Harry Tower: Canterbury Cathedral:]

There is an interesting Sidney Cooper Gallery of Art, and also a Museum in the city, the latter containing some rare old Roman Mosaic pavement discovered in Burgate Street at a depth of ten feet.

But our object is to identify spots made memorable in _David Copperfield_, and we walk round the s.p.a.cious Cathedral Close and "make an effort" (as Mrs. Chick said) in trying to find the simple-minded and good Dr. Strong's House. It is described as "a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers, and walked with a clerkly bearing on the gra.s.s-plat."

Alas! it is not here, although there are many such houses that correspond with it in some particulars. So we try several of the "dear old tranquil streets," but fail to discover the identical building.

The next object of our search is Mr. Wickfield's residence, "a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with low latticed windows, bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends, bulging out too." How strongly the description in many parts tallies with the houses in Rochester opposite "Eastgate House"; but here again we are baffled, as other modern pilgrims have been before, and we cannot a.s.sociate any particular building with either of the two houses. The house in Burgate Street now occupied as offices by Messrs. Plummer and Fielding, Diocesan Registrars, who obligingly permit an examination of it, is suggested to us as being Mr. Wickfield's house, but, after an inspection, on several grounds we are obliged to reject this suggestion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scene of the Martyrdom Canterbury Cathedral]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Bits" of Old Canterbury.]

There was many a "low old-fas.h.i.+oned room, walked straight into from the street," which would have served for the "umble" dwelling of Uriah Heep and his mother, but none can be pointed out with absolute certainty as being the veritable one.

By the kindness of Dr. Sheppard and Mr. T. B. Rosseter, F.R.M.S., we are, however, enabled to identify two houses in Canterbury alluded to in _David Copperfield_. The "County Inn," where Mr. d.i.c.k slept on his visits to David "every alternate Wednesday," was no doubt The Royal Fountain Hotel in St. Margaret's Street (formerly the Watling Street), which is still recognized as such. A pa.s.sage in the seventeenth chapter thus refers to these visits:--

"Mr. d.i.c.k was very partial to ginger-bread. To render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one s.h.i.+lling's-worth in the course of any one day.

This, and the reference of all his little bills at the County Inn, where he slept, to my aunt before they were paid, induced me to think that Mr. d.i.c.k was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it."