Rambles in Dickens' Land Part 6

"... The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them... .

"On this last night of the great riots-for the last night it was-the wretched victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of London."

It will be remembered that Mr. Langdale and Mr. Haredale, being in the house that night, were rescued by Edward Chester and Joe Willett, all four finding their way to safety by a back entrance.

"The narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had crawled through the pa.s.sage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding Mr. Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they hurried through the streets at a rapid pace."

This door gives into Fetter Lane (No. 79), and still exists for the inspection of the curious. The old house in Holborn has, for more than a century, replaced the premises so destroyed. Close at hand (by No. 23) is the entrance to Barnard's Inn-

"The dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats."

The locality is referred to in these complimentary terms by Mr. Pip (in the pages of "Great Expectations"), who lived here with his friend Herbert Pocket for a short time when he first came to London. Mr. Joe Gargery's verdict is worth remembrance:-

"The present may be a wery good inn, and I believe its character do stand i; but I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself, not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome, and to eat with a meller flavour on him."

Pip further describes as follows:-

"We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an introductory pa.s.sage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses (in number half-a-dozen or so), that I had ever seen... . A frowzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewed ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus for my sense of sight; while dry rot, and wet rot, and all the silent rots that rot in neglected root and cellar-rot of rat, and mouse, and bug, and coaching stables near at hand besides-addressed themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, 'Try Barnard's Mixture.'"

Great alterations are now (1899) being carried out; the old buildings-as above referred to by Mr. Pip-have been demolished, and a new and better arrangement of the locality is in active progress for the improvement of the neighbourhood.

On the opposite side of Holborn are the handsome and extensive offices of THE PRUDENTIAL a.s.sURANCE COMPANY. These premises, with their frontage, occupy the site of FURNIVAL'S INN, which has recently disappeared, having been pulled down to make room for the extension of the a.s.surance offices above referred to-_Sic transit memoria mundi_.

Furnival's Inn was an interesting locality, as a.s.sociated with the earlier experience of Mr. d.i.c.kens himself. Here the young author resided in 1835, the year previous to the production of the "Pickwick Papers,"

the first number of that work being published April 1, 1836. On the day following that notable date, Mr. d.i.c.kens married Miss Catherine Hogarth; and for some time the young couple resided on the third floor apartments at _No._ 15 _Furnival's Inn_-on the right side of the square. A personal reminiscence of these early days is no doubt intended in chapter 59 of "David Copperfield;" a pleasant description being there given of the residential chambers of Mr. and Mrs. Traddles, as located in Gray's Inn just beyond.

_Mr. John Westlock_ had his bachelor apartments in this same place at Furnival's Inn (_vide_ "Martin Chuzzlewit"), and here he received the unexpected visit of Tom Pinch on his first arrival in London. We may remember the incidents of that cordial welcome, when

"John was constantly running backwards and forwards to and from the closet, bringing out all sorts of things in pots, scooping extraordinary quant.i.ties of tea out of the caddy, dropping French rolls into his boots, pouring hot water over the b.u.t.ter, and making a variety of similar mistakes, without disconcerting himself in the least."

In the centre of the interior square, standing within the precincts of Furnival's Inn during the past seventy-five years, and flourishing in recent days-a quiet oasis of retirement and good cheer amidst the bustle and noise of central London-there existed (until 1895) Woods' Hotel.

This hotel was a.s.sociated with "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," being the house at which Mr. Grewgious found accommodation for the charming Rosa Budd (on the occasion of her flight from the importunities of Jasper at Cloisterham), including an "unlimited head chambermaid" for her special behoof and benefit.

"Rosa's room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The Unlimited had laid in everything omitted from the very little bag (that is to say, everything she could possibly need), and Rosa tripped down the great many stairs again, to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate care of her.

"'Not at all, my dear,' said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely gratified; 'it is I who thank you for your charming confidence and for your charming company. Your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful little sitting-room (appropriate to your figure), and I will come to you at ten o'clock in the morning. I hope you don't feel very strange indeed, in this strange place.'

"'Oh no, I feel so safe!'

"'Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fire-proof,' said Mr.

Grewgious, 'and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be perceived and suppressed by the watchmen.'

"'I did not mean that,' Rosa replied. 'I mean, I feel so safe from him.'

"'There is a stout gate of iron bars to keep him out,' said Mr.

Grewgious smiling; 'and Furnival's is fire-proof, and specially watched and lighted, and _I_ live over the way!' In the stoutness of his knight-errantry, he seemed to think the last-named protection all-sufficient. In the same spirit he said to the gate-porter as he went out, 'If some one staying in the hotel should wish to send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger.' In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she might tumble out."

The Hotel was originally built 181819, and was enlarged as recently as 1884. Woods was the proprietor for fifty years.

Crossing to the other side of the street, at a short distance onwards, opposite Gray's Inn Road, the Rambler reaches (by No. 334 High Holborn) the gateway of Staple Inn; a little nook, composed of two irregular quadrangles behind the most ancient part of Holborn, where certain gabled houses, some centuries of age, still stand looking on the public way.

Staple Inn was the favourite summer promenade of the meditative _Mr.

Snagsby_ (see "Bleak House"); and in this Inn _Mr. Grewgious_ occupied a set of chambers. The house is No. 10, in the inner quadrangle, "presenting in black and white, over its ugly portal, the mysterious inscription, 'P. J. T., 1747.' Perhaps John Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler." And, under certain social conditions, "for a certainty, P. J. T.

was Pretty Jolly Too." _Neville Landless_ also had rooms in this locality; the top set in the corner (on the right), overlooking the garden "where a few smoky sparrows twitter in the smoky trees, as though they had called to each other, 'let us play at country.'" Close to these lived _Mr. Tartar_, in "the neatest, the cleanest, and the best-ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars." And we may recall the writer's delicate treatment of this, the blushing "beanstalk country"

of dear little Rosa Budd. For the several a.s.sociations herewith connected, reference should be made to our author's last book, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."-See concluding paragraphs of chapter 21:-

"Rosa wondered what the girls would say if they could see her crossing the wide street on the sailor's arm. And she fancied that the pa.s.sers-by must think her very little and very helpless, contrasted with the strong figure that could have caught her up and carried her out of any danger, miles and miles without resting.

"She was thinking further, that his far-seeing blue eyes looked as if they had been used to watch danger afar off, and to watch it without flinching, drawing nearer and nearer: when, happening to raise her own eyes, she found that he seemed to be thinking something about _them_.

"This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her never afterwards quite knowing how she ascended (with his help) to his garden in the air, and seemed to get into a marvellous country that came into sudden bloom like the country on the summit of the magic bean-stalk. May it flourish for ever!"

[Picture: Doorway in Staple Inn]

In this connection, the reader may be interested in chapter 22; the first part of which deals most tenderly and beautifully with "love's awaking,"

in the heart of the innocent heroine.

Recrossing to the other side of High Holborn, past _Gray's Inn Road_ (on the north), at No. 22, we reach the gateway of GRAY'S INN. At No. 2 South Square (formerly Holborn Court) we may find the upper chambers formerly occupied by _Mr. Traddles_ and his wife _Sophy_, whose domestic arrangements included accommodation for "the beauty" and the other Devonshire sisters. Copperfield says, in the chapter before referred to:-

"If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered Gray's Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers, and the attorneys' offices; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs, seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talking-bird, the singing-tree, and the Golden water into Gray's Inn Hall."

The offices of _Mr. Perker_, the legal adviser of Mr. Pickwick, were also located in Gray's Inn. We read that the "outer door" of these chambers was to be found "after climbing two pairs of steep and dirty stairs;" but no indication is given of their exact situation.

Proceeding westward from Gray's Inn, and pa.s.sing the stately, elegant, and commodious _First Avenue Hotel_, between Warwick Court and Brownlow Street, and a half-a-dozen side streets beyond, we come, on the north side, at No. 92, to the Bull and Anchor Tavern. This is the house known in the pages of "Martin Chuzzlewit" as "_The Bull Inn_," then a more important hostelry than at present. It will be remembered as the inn at which Mr. Lewsome, during his illness, was professionally attended by _Sairey Gamp_ and _Betsy Prig_, "turn and turn about."

Pa.s.sing on to the next turning but one, we reach Kingsgate Street, where _Poll Sweedlepipes_-barber and bird-fancier-once had his business location, "next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite the original cat's-meat warehouse." At this place the immortal _Mrs. Gamp_ had lodgings on the first floor, where she

"Was easily a.s.sailed at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco pipes, all much more efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, without making the smallest impression on the premises to which it was addressed."

It is recollected in the neighbourhood that, fifty years since, a barber by the name of Patterson (who was also a bird-dealer) lived in this street, at the second house on the left. The shop has been pulled down, is now absorbed by the corner premises in Holborn, and can be only identified by its position. Here, then, did _Mr. Pecksniff_ arrive on his doleful mission, in accordance with the recommendation of _Mr.

Mould_, the undertaker, with regard to the death of old _Anthony Chuzzlewit_; and here did that memorable teapot cause a lasting difference between two friends, as narrated in chapter 49 of "Martin Chuzzlewit." "This world-famous personage, Mrs. Gamp, has pa.s.sed into and become one with the language" whose vernacular she has adorned with her own flowers of speech. As Mr. Forster remarks, "she will remain among the everlasting triumphs of fiction, a superb masterpiece of English humour." "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale, her infinite variety." At the Holborn corner of Kingsgate Street we may remember _Mr.

Bailey_, _junior_, on the occasion when, at this exact spot, he collided with Poll Sweedlepipes, afterwards going "round and round in circles on the pavement," the better to exhibit to Poll's admiring gaze his fashionable livery as Tiger in the service of _Mr. Montague Tigg_, "rather to the inconvenience of the pa.s.sengers generally, who were not in an equal state of spirits with himself."

The next turning but one, westward, on the right, by the West Central Post Office (No. 126), is Southampton Street, leading to Bloomsbury Square.

Here it will be remembered that lodgings were taken by Mr. Grewgious for _Miss Twinkleton_ and Rosa, of the redoubtable _Mrs. Billickin_, "the person of the 'ouse," who, from prudential motives, suppressed her Christian name.

"Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines and his earnest-money ready.

'I have signed it for the ladies, ma'am,' he said, 'and you'll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and Surname, there, if you please.'

"'Mr. Grewgious,' said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, 'no, sir! You must excuse the Christian name.'

"Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

"'The door-plate is used as a protection,' said Mrs. Billickin, 'and acts as such, and go from it I will not.'

"Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

"'No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this 'ouse is known indefinite as Billickin's, and so long as it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin', near the street-door or down the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe.