Faces and Places Part 10

Mosquitoes do not meddle with woe so sacred as this; but at San Remo, for example, which has no Campo Santo, they are having what is known in the American language as a high old time. Along the Riviera the shutters of the hotels are taken down in the first week of October. Then arrives the proprietor with the advance guard of servants, and the third cook; the _chef_ and his first lieutenant will not come till a month later. In the meantime the third cook can prepare the meals for the establishment and for any chance visitor whom evil fate may have led untimeously into these parts. Then begins the scrubbing down and the dusting, the bringing out of stored carpets, and the m.u.f.fling of echoing corridors in brown matting. The season does not commence till November, coincidental with the departure of the mosquitoes. But there is enough to occupy the interval, and there are not wanting casual travellers whose bills suffice to cover current expenses. On these wayfarers the faithful mosquito preys with the desperate determination born of the conviction that time is getting a little short with him, and that his pleasant evenings are numbered.

There are several ways of dealing with the mosquito, all more or less unsatisfactory. The commonest is to make careful examination before blowing out the candle, with intent to see that none of the enemy lingers within the curtains of the bed. This is good, as far as it goes. But, having spent half an hour with candle in hand inside the curtains, to the imminent danger of setting the premises on fire, and having convinced yourself that there is not a mosquito in the inclosure, and so blown out the candle and prepared to sleep, it requires a mind of singular equanimity forthwith to hear without emotion the too familiar whiz. At Bordighera the mosquitoes, disdaining strategic movements, openly flutter round the lamps on the dinner-table, and ladies sit at meat with blue gauze veils obscuring their charms. Half measures were evidently of no use in these circ.u.mstances, and I tried a whole one. Having shut the windows of the bedroom, I smoked several cigars, tobacco fumes being understood to have a dreamy influence on the mosquito. At Bordighera they had none. I next made a fire of a box of matches, and burnt on the embers a quant.i.ty of insect powder. This filled the chamber with an intolerable stench, which, whatever may be the case elsewhere, is much enjoyed by the Bordighera mosquito. These operations serve a useful purpose in occupying the mind and helping the night to pa.s.s away. But as direct deterrents they cannot conscientiously be recommended.

There is one place along the Riviera where the mosquito is defied.

Monaco has special attractions of its own which triumphantly withstand all countervailing influences. Other places along the coast are deserted from the end of June to the beginning of November.

But Monaco, or rather the suburb of it situated on Monte Carlo, remains in full receipt of custom. In late October the place is enchanting. The wind, blowing across the sea from Africa, making the atmosphere heavy and sultry, has changed, coming now from the east and anon from the west. The heavy clouds that cast shadows of purple and reddish-brown on the sea have descended in a thunderstorm, lasting continuously for eight hours. Sky and sea vie in the production of larger expanse of undimmed blue. The well-ordered garden by the Casino is sweet with the breath of roses and heliotrope. The lawns have the fresh green look that we islanders a.s.sociate with earliest summer. The palm-trees are at their best, and along the road leading down to the bathing place one walks under the shadow of oleanders in full and fragrant blossom. The warmth of the summer day is tempered by a delicious breeze, which falls at night, lest peradventure visitors should be incommoded by undue measure of cold.

If there is an easily accessible Paradise on earth, it seems to be fixed at Monaco. Yet all these things are as nothing in the eyes of the people who have created and now maintain the place. It seems at first sight a marvel that the Administration should go to the expense of providing the costly appointments which crown its natural advantages.

But the Administration know very well what they are about. When man or woman has been drawn into the feverish vortex that sweeps around the gaming tables, the fair scene outside the walls is not of the slightest consequence. It would be all the same to them if the gaming tables, instead of being set in a handsome apartment in a palace surrounded by one of the most beautiful scenes in Europe, were made of deal and spread in a hovel. But gamesters are, literally, soon played out at Monaco, and it is necessary to attract fresh moths to the gaudily glittering candle. Moreover, the tenure of the place is held by slender threads. What is thought of Monaco and its doings by those who have the fullest opportunity of studying them is shown by the fact that the Administration are pledged to refuse admission to the tables to any subject of the Prince of Monaco, or to any French subject of Nice or the department of the Maritime Alps. The proclamation of this fact cynically stares in the face all who enter the Casino. The local authorities will not have any of their own neighbours ruined. Let foreigners, or even Frenchmen of other departments, care for themselves.

In face of this sentiment the Administration find it politic to propitiate the local authorities and the people, who, if they were aroused to a feeling of honest indignation at what daily pa.s.ses beneath their notice, might sweep the pestilence out of their midst.

Accordingly, whilst keeping the gaming rooms closed against natives resident in the department, the Administration throw open all the other pleasures of Monte Carlo, inviting the people of Monaco to stroll in their beautiful gardens, to listen to the concerts played twice a day by a superb band, and to make unfettered use of what is perhaps the best reading-room on the Continent. Monaco gets a good deal of pleasure out of Monte Carlo, which moreover brings much good money into the place.

The Casino will surely at no distant day share the fate of the German gambling places. But, as surely, the initiative of this most desirable consummation will not come from Monaco.

In the meanwhile, Monte Carlo, like the mosquitoes, is having a high good time. Night and day the tables are crowded, beginning briskly at eleven in the morning and closing wearily on the stroke of midnight.

There are a good many English about, but they do not contribute largely to the funds of the amiable and enterprising Administration. English girls, favoured by an indulgent father or a good-natured brother, put down their five-franc pieces, and, having lost them, go away smiling.

Sometimes the father or the brother may be discovered seated at the tables later in the day, looking a little flushed, and poorer by some sovereigns. But Great Britain and Ireland chiefly contribute spectators to the melancholy and monotonous scene.

As usual, women are among the most reckless players. Looking in at two o'clock one afternoon I saw at one of the tables a well-dressed lady of about thirty, with a purseful of gold before her and a bundle of notes under her elbow. She was playing furiously, disdaining the mild excitement of the five-franc piece, always staking gold. She was losing, and boldly played on with an apparent composure belied by her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. I saw her again at ten o'clock in the evening.

She was playing at another table, having probably tried to retrieve her luck at each in succession. The bank notes were gone, and she had put away her purse, for it was easy to hold in her prettily-gloved hand her remaining store of gold. It was only eight hours since I had last seen her, but in the meantime she had aged by at least ten years. She sat looking fixedly on the table, from time to time moistening her dry lips with scarcely less dry tongue. Her face wore a look of infinite sadness, which might have been best relieved by a burst of tears. But her eyes were as dry as her lips, and she stared stonily, staking her napoleons till the last was gone. This accomplished, she rose with evident intent to leave the room, but catching sight of a friend at another table she borrowed a handful of napoleons, and finding another table played on as recklessly as before. In ten minutes she had lost all but a single gold piece. Leaving the table again, she held this up between her finger and thumb, and showed it to her friend with a hysterical little laugh.

It was her last coin, and she evidently devised it for some such matter-of-fact purpose as paying her hotel bill. If she had turned her back on the table and walked straight out, she might have kept her purpose; but the ball was still rolling, and there remained a chance.

She threw down the napoleon, and the croupier raked it in amid a heap of coin that might be better or even worse spared.

This is one of the little dramas that take place every hour in this gilded hall, and I describe it in detail only because I chanced to be present at the first scene and the last. Sometimes the dramas become tragedies, and the Administration, who do all things handsomely, pay the funeral expenses, and beg as a slight acknowledgment of their considerate generosity that as little noise as possible may follow the echo of the pistol-shot.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WRECK IN THE NORTH SEA.

One December afternoon in the year 1875, just as night was closing in, the steam-tug _Liverpool_, which had left Harwich at six o'clock in the morning, was seen steaming into the harbour with flag half-mast high.

It was quite dark when she reached the quay, but there was light enough for the crowd collected to see rows of figures laid in the stern of the little steamer, the faces covered with blankets. These figures, as it presently was made known, were twelve dead bodies, the flotsam of the wreck of the _Deutschland_. When the tug arrived at the wreck she found her much as she had been left when the survivors had been brought off the previous day. The two masts and the funnel were all standing, the sails bellied out with the wind that bl.u.s.tered across the sandbank. The wind was so high and the sea so rough that Captain Corrington could not bring his tug alongside; but a boat was launched, under the charge of the chief mate and Captain Brickerstein, of the _Deutschland_. The chief officer and the engineer, with some sailors from the tug, rowed out and made fast to the wreck. It was low water, and the deck was dry. There were no bodies lying about the deck or near the ship; but on going below, in the saloon cabin there were found floating about eight women, a man, and two children. These were taken on board the boat, and further search in the fore-cabin led to the discovery of the dead body of a man, making twelve in all. One of the bodies was that of a lady who, when the wreck was first boarded, had been seen lying in her berth. She had since been washed out, and had she floated out by the companion-way or through the skylight might have drifted out to sea with others. Like all the bodies found, she was fully dressed. Indeed, as fuller information showed, there was an interval between the striking of the ship and her becoming water-logged sufficiently long to enable all to prepare for what might follow.

According to the captain's narrative, the ill-fated vessel steamed out of Bremenhaven on Sunday morning with a strong east wind blowing and snow falling thickly. This continued throughout Sunday. All Sunday night the lead was thrown every half-hour, the last record showing seventeen fathoms of water. At four o'clock on Monday morning a light was seen, which the captain believed to be that of the _North Hinderfire_ ship, a supposition which tallied with the reckoning. The vessel was forging slowly ahead, when, at half-past five, a slight shock was felt. This was immediately succeeded by others, and the captain knew he had run on a bank. The order was pa.s.sed to back the engines. This was immediately done, but before any way could be made the screw broke and the ship lay at the mercy of wind and waves. She was b.u.mping heavily, and it was thought if sail were set she might be carried over the bank. This was tried, but without effect. The captain then ordered rockets to be sent up and a gun fired.

In the meantime the boats were ordered to be swung out, but the sea was running so high that it was felt it would be madness to launch them. Two boats were, however, lowered without orders, one being immediately swamped, and six people who had got into her swept into the sea.

Life-preservers were served out to each pa.s.senger. The women were ordered to keep below in the saloon, and the men marshalled on deck to take turns at the pumps. At night, when the tide rose, the women were brought up out of the cabin; some placed in the wheel-house, some on the bridge, and some on the rigging, where they remained till they were taken off by the tug that first came to the rescue of the hopeless folk.

The whole of the mail was saved, the purser bringing it into the cabin, whence it was fished out and taken on board the tug.

The pa.s.sengers were all in bed when the ship struck, and were roused first by the b.u.mping of the hull, and next by the cry that rang fore and aft for every man and woman to put on life-belts, of which there was a plentiful store in hand. The women jumped up and swarmed in the companion-way of the saloon, making for the deck, where they were met by the stewardess, who stood in the way, and half forced, half persuaded them to go back, telling them there was no danger. After the screw had broken, the engines also failed, and the sails proved useless.

The male pa.s.sengers then cheerfully formed themselves into gangs and worked at the pumps, but, as one said, they "were pumping at the North Sea," and as it was obviously impossible to make a clearance of that, the task was abandoned, and officers, crew, and pa.s.sengers relapsed into a state of pa.s.sive expectancy of succour from without. That this could not long be coming happily seemed certain. The rockets which had been sent up had been answered from the sh.o.r.e. The lightship which had helped to mislead the captain was plainly visible, and at least two ships sailed by so near that till they began hopelessly to fade away, one to the northward and the other to the southward, the pa.s.sengers were sure those on board had seen the wreck, and were coming to their a.s.sistance.

Perhaps it was this certainty of the nearness of succour that kept off either the shrieking or the stupor of despair. However that be, it is one of the most notable features about this fearful scene that, with a few exceptions, after the first shock everybody was throughout the first day wonderfully cool, patient, and self-possessed. There was no regular meal on Monday, but there was plenty to eat and drink, and the opportunity seems to have been generally, though moderately, improved.

The women kept below all day, and, while the fires were going, were served with hot soup, meat, bread, and wine, and seemed to have been inclined to make the best of a bad job.

Towards night the horror of the situation increased in a measure far beyond that marked by the darkness. All day long the sea had been washing over the ship, but by taking refuge in the berths and on the tables and benches in the saloon it had been possible to keep comparatively dry. As night fell the tide rose, and at midnight the water came rushing over the deck in huge volumes, filling the saloon, and making the cabins floating coffins. The women were ordered up and instructed to take to the rigging, but many of them, cowed by the wildness of the sea that now swept the deck fore and aft, and shuddering before the fury of the pitiless, sleet-laden gale, refused to leave the saloon.

Then happened horrible scenes which the pen refuses to portray in their fulness. One woman, driven mad with fear and despair, deliberately hung herself from the roof of the saloon. A man, taking out his penknife, dug it into his wrist and worked it about as long as he had strength, dying where he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand frantically shouting for paper and pencil. Somebody gave him both, and, scribbling a note, he corked it down in a bottle and threw it overboard, following it himself a moment later as a great wave came and swept him out of sight.

There were five nuns on board who, by their terror-stricken conduct, seem to have added greatly to the weirdness of the scene. They were deaf to all entreaties to leave the saloon, and when, almost by main force, the stewardess (whose conduct throughout was plucky) managed to get them on to the companion-ladder, they sank down on the steps and stubbornly refused to go another step. They seemed to have returned to the saloon again shortly, for somewhere in the dead of the night, when the greater part of the crew and pa.s.sengers were in the rigging, one was seen with her body half through the skylight, crying aloud in a voice heard above the storm, "Oh, my G.o.d, make it quick! make it quick!" At daylight, when the tide had ebbed, leaving the deck clear, some one from the rigging went down, and, looking into the cabin, saw the nuns floating about face upwards, all dead.

There seems to have been a wonderful amount of unselfishness displayed, everybody cheering and trying to help every other body. One of the pa.s.sengers--a cheery Teuton, named Adolph Herrmann--took a young American lady under his special charge. He helped her up the rigging and held her on there all through the night, and says she was as brave and as self-possessed as if they had been comfortably on sh.o.r.e.

Some time during the night an unknown friend pa.s.sed down to him a bottle of whisky. The cork was in the bottle, and as he was holding on to the rigging with one hand and had the other round the lady, there was some difficulty in getting at the contents of the bottle.

This he finally solved by knocking the neck off, and then found himself in the dilemma of not being able to get the bottle to the lady's mouth.

"You are pouring it down my neck," was her quiet response to his first essay. In the end he succeeded in aiming the whisky in the right direction, and after taking some himself, pa.s.sed it on, feeling much refreshed.

Just before a terrible accident occurred, which threatened death to one or both. The purser, who had fixed himself in the rigging some yards above them, getting numbed, loosed his hold, and falling headlong struck against the lady and bounded off into the sea. But Herrmann kept his hold, and the shock was scarcely noticed. On such a night all the obligations were not, as Herrmann gratefully acknowledges, on the one side; for when one of his feet got numbed, his companion, following his direction, stamped on it till circulation was restored.

From their perilous post, with waves occasionally dashing up and blinding them with spray, they saw some terrible scenes below. A man tied to the mast nearer the deck had his head cut off by the waves, as Herrmann says, though probably a rope or a loose spar was the agent.

Not far off, a little boy had his leg broken in the same manner. They could hear and see one of the nuns shrieking through the skylight, and when she was silenced the cry was taken up by a woman wailing from the wheelhouse,--

"My child is drowned, my little one, Adam!"

At daylight a sailor, running nimbly down the rigging, reached the p.o.o.p, and, bending over, attempted to seize some of the half-drowned people who were floating about. Once he caught a little child by the clothes; but before he could secure it a wave carried it out of his grasp, and its shrieks were hushed in the roar of the waters. At nine o'clock, on the second morning of the wreck the tide had so far ebbed that the deck was clear, and, coming down from the rigging, the battered and shivering survivors began to think of getting breakfast. A provident sailor had, whilst it was possible, taken up aloft a couple of loaves of black bread, a ham, and some cheese. These were now brought out and fairly distributed.

An hour and a half later all peril was over, and the gallant survivors were steaming for Harwich in the tug-boat _Liverpool_.

CHAPTER XV.

A PEEP AT AN OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM THE LADIES' GALLERY.

"No," Mrs. Chiltern-Hundreds said when I asked, Was she in these days a constant visitor at the House of Commons? "Chiltern, you know, has accepted a place of profit under the Crown, and is no longer eligible to sit as a member. It is such trouble to get in, and when you are there the chances are that nothing is going on, so I have given it up.

I remember very well the first time I was there. I wrote all about it to an old schoolfellow. If you are interested in the subject, I will show you a copy of what I then jotted down."

I was much interested, and when I saw the letter was glad I had expressed my interest. The copy placed at my disposal was undated, but internal evidence showed that Mrs. Chiltern-Hundreds had paid her visit in the session of 1874, when Mr. Disraeli had for the first time in his history been returned to power as well as to office, and Mr.

Gladstone, crushed by an overwhelming defeat, had written his famous letter to "My dear Granville," announcing his retirement from political life. Looking down through the _grille_, the visitor in the gallery saw many bearers of well-known names who have travelled far since that date, some beyond the grave. Here are Madame's notes written in her own angular handwriting:--

"Be in the great hall at four o'clock."

Those were Chiltern's words to me as he hurried off after luncheon, and here we were in the great hall, but there was no Chiltern, which was vexatious. True, it was half-past four, and he is such a stickler for what he calls punctuality, and has no sympathy with those delays which are inseparable from going out in a new bonnet.

One of the strings----but there, what does it matter? Here we were standing in the great hall, where we had been told to come, and no one to meet us. There was a crowd of persons standing before the entrance to a corridor to the left of the hall. Two policemen were continually begging them to stand back and not block up the entrance, so that the members who were pa.s.sing in and out (I dare say on the look-out for their wives, so that they should not be kept here a moment) might not be inconvenienced. It is really wonderful how careful the police about Westminster are of the sacred persons of members. If I cross the road at the bottom of Parliament Street by myself I may be run over by a hansom cab or even an omnibus, without the slightest compunction on the part of the police on duty there.

But if Chiltern happens to be with me the whole of the traffic going east and west is stopped, and a policeman with outstretched hands stands waiting till we have gained the other side of the road.

We were gazing up with the crowd at somebody who was lighting the big chandelier by swinging down from somewhere in the roof a sort of censer, when Chiltern came out of the corridor and positively began to scold us for being late. I thought that at the time very mean, as I was just going to scold him; but he knows the advantage of getting the first word. He says, Why were we half an hour late?

and how could he meet us there at four if at that time we had not left home? But that's nonsense. Chiltern has naturally a great flow of words, which he has cultivated by close attendance upon his Parliamentary duties. But he is mistaken if he thinks I am a Resolution and am to be moved by being "spoken to."

We walked through a gallery into a hall something like that in which Chiltern had kept us waiting, only much smaller. This was full of men chattering away in a manner of which an equal number of women would have been ashamed. There was one nice pleasant-looking gentleman carefully wrapped up in an overcoat with a fur collar and cuffs.

That was Earl Granville, Chiltern said. I was glad to see his lordship looking so well and taking such care of himself. There was another peer there, a little man with a beaked nose, the only thing about him that reminded you of the Duke of Wellington. He had no overcoat, being evidently too young to need or care for such enc.u.mbrance. He wore a short surtout and a smart blue necktie, and frisked about the hall in quite a lively way. Chiltern said that he was Lord Hampton, with whom my great-grandfather went to Eton. He was at that time plain "John Russell" (not Lord John of course), and has for the last forty-five years been known as Sir John Pakington. But then Chiltern has a way of saying funny things, and I am not sure that he was in earnest in telling us that this active young man was really the veteran of Droitwich.

From this hall, through a long carpeted pa.s.sage, catching glimpses on the way of snug writing rooms, cosy libraries, and other devices for lightening senatorial labours, we arrived at a door over which was painted the legend "To the Ladies' Gallery." This opened on to a flight of steps at the top of which was another long corridor, and we found ourselves at last at the door of the Ladies' Gallery, where we were received by a smiling and obliging attendant.

I expected to find a fine open gallery something like the orchestra at the Albert Hall, or at least like the dress circle at Drury Lane.

Picture my disappointment when out of the bright light of the corridor we stepped into a sort of cage, with no light save what came through the trellis-work in front. I thought this was one of Chiltern's stupid practical jokes, and being a little cross through his having kept us waiting for such an unconscionable long time, was saying something to him when the smiling and obliging attendant said, "Hush-sh-sh!" and pointed to a placard on which was printed, like a spelling lesson, the impertinent injunction "Silence is requested."