The Lure of Old London Part 8

CARRINGTON MEWS, SHEPHERD MARKET, _19th December._

My Dear Agatha,--I am sorry you accuse me of levity. It wasn't in human nature to resist the unique opportunity for mischief provided by the meeting between Katherine and Mrs. D. I followed it up with lunch in Curzon Street, during which I discovered in myself a quite new and marked talent for fiction. I won't say more out of consideration for your scruples, but I may mention it's a long while since I had such an excellent lunch. It must be many days, too, since Katherine was provided with so surprising a succession of thrills in the course of an hour and a half.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]

This Sunday morning Mrs. D. and I have been to service at the Foundling Hospital, a place I have never before visited, although I have often, in pa.s.sing, looked inquisitively through the iron railings at the immense block of buildings at the top of Great Coram Street.

Hogarth has painted the portrait of Thomas Coram, the old sailor who endowed the hospital, and the picture hangs in the gallery there. A kindly gentleman he looks, with ruddy smiling face which may well be the index of a heart large enough to hold the big family he fathers.

That family sits in the galleries of the church on each side of the organ, the girls in their white caps and ap.r.o.ns to the right, to the left the boys in their funny uniform of brown cloth, with red waistcoats and twinkling bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. "Love children!" It always seems to me, by the way, that the term is an aspersion against the inst.i.tution of marriage. Why can't _all_ children be "love children"?

It is a touching sight, and Mrs. D., who is very soft-hearted, was visibly affected. The cherubic face of the smallest of the children certainly finds out the c.h.i.n.k in the armour of even an old bachelor like myself. Mrs. D. said the boys looked like robin redb.r.e.a.s.t.s in their cut-away coats and red waistcoats, and there certainly is something of the perkiness of that bird in the little round heads above the white collars and black bows. I noticed that Mrs. D.'s attention was focussed on the boys. The poor old lady lost two sons in the war, and I expect she was seeing them again as small boys in some of those youngsters in the red waistcoats. For myself, it was the girls who distracted my attention from prayers and psalms. Those small maidens with their burnished hair under the white caps, their rosy faces and primly clasped hands! How well drilled they were, and how well behaved! No fidgeting or giggling, not even any wandering glances in _my_ direction. One's eyes travelled along the tiers of faces and figures, noting the variety of types. No two children wore their uniform in quite the same way. The cap and ap.r.o.n on some seemed a badge of servitude, on others the prettiest of adornments, suggestive of musical comedy.

Those same ap.r.o.ns play a quaint part in the ritual of the service when, during prayers, the children raise the ap.r.o.ns and hide their small countenances behind them. The demure gesture has a savour of bygone times, and is no doubt as old as the inst.i.tution.

As we left our seat in the gallery we met, face to face, the brown-clad boys clattering down the stairs opposite. They all wore trousers, big and little, and one of the smallest of them took a joyous slide over the tiled pavement of the ambulatory. No doubt he was glad to be out of church, and was looking forward to his dinner. We shared his pleasant antic.i.p.ations. It was the prospect of seeing him and his companions feed which had brought Mrs. D. and myself to the hospital that morning, and the sight well rewarded us for the journey.

The rooms are long, having a gallery-like effect, with rows of windows on one side, and everywhere is cleanliness and light and s.p.a.ce. There was an appetising smell of potatoes baked in their jackets, and cold roast mutton, and down the long tables were placed at intervals a knife and fork, a mug, a piece of bread and a cake. The girls came trooping in and stood each by her place behind the forms, then at a given signal they stepped over the forms and stood to sing grace. At another signal they seated themselves, and the nurses who were serving placed portions of meat and potatoes on plates, which were handed from one to another down the long length of the narrow tables.

The children seemed quite unconscious of the spectators who had come to stare at them whilst they ate their Sunday dinner, and as one watched their contented faces and unconcerned manners one felt that, no matter what tragedies had accompanied their advent into a world of dark problems, _here_, at least, there was no tragedy.

"An' to think," said Mrs. D., as we followed the attendant upstairs to inspect the dormitories, "to think that there might 'ave bin some of the _mothers_ in that very church this mornin'."

"_And_ fathers," I reminded her.

"I _don't think_," answered the old lady. "A father out er wedlock's a very different thing to a mother out er wedlock. Nature never took much account er the _fathers_. _They_ ony got a walkin'-on part, and some of them's precious quick at _walkin' orf_ when it's a case er payin' the piper."

The long, long rows of little white-counterpaned beds in the dormitories were an eloquent comment on the old lady's indictment of my s.e.x, and I am glad it was a _man_ who thought of making a home for the babies. If Thomas Coram's ghost walks, it must sometimes pay a visit to the little sleepers who have no mothers to tuck them up. Those long dormitories, too, must often be haunted at nights by ghosts of the living women, who, in their dreams, look for _one_ round face on its pillow--the one who is _theirs_. To visit them in the flesh is not allowed. The surrender of the babies is complete, no alternative being compatible with the working of the scheme which is to save the child and at the same time to hide the mother's shame.

One hears stories of callous behaviour on the part of some of the mothers. But such cases are rare, I should think, and that long pathway leading from the hospital to the iron gates must have been a _via dolorosa_ to many a woman who trod it on her way back home with empty arms.

No child is received after the age of twelve months, and they are put out to nurse in country homes until the age of five, when they are returned to the hospital. Would a woman who had parted from her child of a year old know it again at five? Did such women ever go to that prosaic-looking church and search the rows of small faces for the one which belonged to her by rights of the flesh? If she did she must, anyhow, have found comfort in the sight of that happy-looking crowd of youngsters.

Mrs. Darling asked me if I thought the children ever found their parents when, at the age of fifteen and sixteen, they left the hospital? It was a question which opened up all sorts of possibilities and situations.

There must be mothers who had died, mothers who, in the course of years, had become reconciled to the loss of their children, but what of those who had _not_ forgotten or died?

In one of the yearly reports which I saw there is mention of _one_ child only restored to its mother. I believe instances of this kind are rare, very searching inquiry being made by the governors before they consent to such an application. As a rule, once the inst.i.tution takes the children they belong to it practically for life. It does not wash its hands of them when it sends them out to service or apprenticeship, but gives them substantial a.s.sistance (when needed, and as far as the means of the Inst.i.tution permit) to the day of their death.

The situation of these children is not only pathetic but strange in the entire isolation from the ordinary ties and obligations of humanity. No going home for holidays, no parcels from fond parents, no one particular person to whom the small boy or girl _belongs_. They do not miss these things because they have never known them, and, at least, they are not burdened with objectionable or tiresome relatives. There must, though, be moments when they feel lonely: moments when they could sympathise with the little drudge I once saw in a play who wrote letters to herself, and put a c.r.a.pe band on her arm for the death of a supposed relative.

The picture gallery, with its polished floor, its great expanse of Turkey carpet, its richly carved plaster ceiling, is a room in which to spend a winter afternoon with a book, watching the light fade through the row of long windows, and finding fresh horrors in Rafaelle's "Murder of the Innocents," an enormous cartoon which covers nearly the whole of the wall at one end. The apartment is the Court Room as well as the picture gallery, and it must have been the Calvary of many a woman who parts from her child within its walls.

The "tokens," used as a means of identification in those days when children were received indiscriminately in a basket hung at the gate of the hospital, have a dumb eloquence. In a gla.s.s case before the windows are the old coins, pieces of ribbon worked in beads, metal hearts, crosses, and b.u.t.tons which were attached to the persons of the children when they were left behind. On a mother of pearl shield, dated 1757, I noticed inscribed, "James, son of James Concannon, gent.," the "gent."

being scratched in as an afterthought apparently.

Those two Jameses have long ago pa.s.sed away, but human nature is the same, and there are still such James the firsts to father such James the seconds. Probably many of the children we had been watching in the chapel could write "gent." after their father's name. "Breed _will_ out," said Mrs. D., and one could see it in the faces and figures of some of the small boys and girls.

There is an autograph of Queen Elizabeth in one of the cases, and if character can be read by handwriting, this autograph should offer a lifelong study. Mrs. D., who is interested in Elizabeth since she saw her wax effigy, said, "No one but a queen could have the cheek to sign her name _like that_!" The signature certainly has a regal significance in its largeness and maze-like convolutions. The ink is faded and brown, the flourishes have the shakiness of age. One would give a great deal for an intimate knowledge of the occasion on which it was written.

The Earl of Leicester's autograph is close by, and it bears a marked resemblance to Elizabeth's. Did he model it on that of his royal mistress? Did Elizabeth love Leicester? and if she did, was it with a tragic unconsciousness of his self-seeking? A woman as clever as Elizabeth can lose her head and be strangely blind in matters of s.e.x; also, Elizabeth was vain. But no--I don't think Elizabeth was blind. On the contrary, it was her clear-sightedness which prevented her marriage with the man who appealed to the natural instincts of her s.e.x. She was woman enough to like to love and be loved, but shrewd enough to know where to stop.

Outside the birds were singing, and the light falling through the long rows of windows had in it something of the quality of spring. I should have liked to linger in the old rooms for a while--the Stone Hall, the Picture Gallery, and the Secretary's Room--all of which have treasures demanding a great deal more than a cursory glance. One has to _live_ with such things to appreciate them, and these pa.s.sing glimpses seem to me in the nature of an insult. There is, behind those glimpses, a haunted atmosphere made up of the echoes of laughter long since silenced, of words spoken, and dreams dreamed, and to breathe it is to capture romance. True, it is only a mirage, but actually to set foot in a mirage and stay there awhile is an achievement for which to thank the G.o.ds.

It occurred to me after lunch that, instead of sitting over the fire with a novel I would go to the National Portrait Gallery. Sir Walter Scott says that portraits of our ancestors enable us "to compare their persons and countenances with their sentiments and actions," and I wanted to see if the Earl of Leicester's countenance fitted the story of his relations with Elizabeth, whether Nell Gwynne was as attractive as I had been told, if Pepys resembled the bust on his tomb, also to renew acquaintance with dear old Sir Thomas More and some other of those "ancestors" whose haunts I had lately been exploring.

Mrs. Darling excused herself. No power on earth will on a Sunday afternoon draw her from the fireside, where she can, in comfort, study humanity through the pages of "The News of the World".

A visit to the National Portrait Gallery isn't exactly a restful experience. Those long rows of faces, each making its appeal for understanding, have an exhausting effect after a time. They promise so much to Paul Pry, then baffle him with their underlying secretiveness.

Sunday afternoon is not the best time to go. Early on a week-day morning is better, when the gallery is almost deserted, and in the silence you can hear the traffic in the street outside, and the echoes of an attendant's voice in some far room where he gossips to a companion. The rows upon rows of faces staring patiently from its walls give a curiously crowded sense to its emptiness, and one pictures them at closing time when the last visitor has gone, and the attendant has switched off the lights. I think I should give the Duke of Monmouth, painted after his execution, a wide berth _then_. There are others, too, who would not be cheerful companions--some of those waxen mediaeval countenances would glimmer unpleasantly in the dusk, and one would be conscious of a stirring amongst the gathering of kings and queens, poets and statesmen, courtesans and cardinals, at the approach of night.

I found Leicester, next to Elizabeth--a haughty-looking gentleman in his high collar and ruff. I don't like his eyes. They aren't trustworthy--but perhaps that is because I _know_. Anyhow, he has an air which would win favour with women, and he played a big part in the life of his queen from her girlhood's days until his death. There have been sinister stories told about Leicester. Ben Jonson said the Earl gave his wife "a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he died". According to the gossip of the times, the Queen's favourite seems to have been accounted a veritable Bluebeard. Well, the secrets of his life were buried with him three hundred years ago and more, and no matter how deep we dig, we shall never discover them.

I found Pepys, and he looks much more _material_ in paint than he does in stone. There is, though, an expression of childlike speculation in the eyes, and there one finds Samuel of the Diary. Bunyan hangs next to him, a humorous looking old chap, a man one could trust. The same can be said of Sir Thomas More, with his gentle, clean-cut face, and his kind, intellectual brown eyes.

Nell Gwynne is neighbour to her Charles. She is pert, with a look of the gamin about her as she points a derisive finger in direction of her royal lover. By the by, I didn't know Whitfield squinted! There is a quaint picture of him preaching to an audience of four, and an admiring female in the front row is making a vain effort to catch his eye.

What a mixed company it is! and how do they pair off at nights when, in the darkness and echoing silence of the long galleries, they step out of their frames? Pepys might hob-n.o.b with Bunyan very easily, Sir Thomas More with Hannah More, and Charlotte Bronte with Dr. Johnson, but how about Nell Gwynne with Charles's lawful consort. How about "b.l.o.o.d.y Queen Mary" with old John Foxe and Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots?

Meanwhile Horace Walpole would be quizzing the lot of them (I know it by the bright busy-body expression in his eyes), and writing letters to Madame du Deffand to tell her all about it. I have always been curious about his friendship with the infatuated old Frenchwoman of sixty-nine, and very disgusted with Walpole for causing his correspondence with her to be destroyed. By the way, Madame du Deffand was blind. I wonder who had the privilege of reading Horace's letters to her?

I left the gallery pondering the odd situation, and was met by Mrs. D.

on my return with the announcement that she had got crumpets for tea--would I like some? I said I would; moreover, I suggested that I should eat them in her company and have a cup of tea out of her tea-pot.

I told her about Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand as we sat over the fire drinking our tea, and she remarked that there were "no fools like old fools". This was a bit damping, and I said to myself, "George, you must be a _very_ lonely man to seek the company of such an unsympathetic woman!" Nevertheless, I was in no hurry to return to my solitary room, but sat smoking and watching the old lady mend my socks until the bells began to ring for evening service, and I bethought myself of this letter I had in my mind to write to you. Here it is, with the affectionate thought of

Your old friend, GEORGE.

CHAPTER X

CARRINGTON MEWS, SHEPHERD MARKET, _20th January._

Dear Agatha,--Mrs. D. and I have been exploring Soho this afternoon. I started out with the intention of localising certain houses in certain streets a.s.sociated with men of letters, but, alas! it was a question of "change" (_without_ decay) "in all around I see". Old landmarks gone, and brand new buildings, mostly offices, in their place. Still, there is enough left to make a visit well worth while, and the weather was perfect. Frowsy old Soho was almond-scented from the great bunches of mimosa in the costers' barrows, whilst the streets smiled under the light of a January afternoon into which Spring had wandered.

There are moods to fit different districts. A mood for the City, one for Piccadilly, a Chelsea mood, one for the East End, and one for Soho. Soho was the one spot in the world for me this afternoon, and Mrs. Darling, who is not subject to moods, said it was "all the same to her where we went so long as it wasn't a lunatic asylum or a prison".

Soho has an atmosphere distinct from any other spot in London.

Blindfold, you would be aware of the fact directly you crossed its borders. Its restaurants smell of savoury dishes and its narrow streets echo gaily to the jangle of piano organs. Its language is cosmopolitan, and its postcards and paper-covered novels have to be taken with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders for the odd taste of "those foreigners".

Its shops are dingy, but they _get there_ all the same. There is an art in their very carelessness. They invite search and have an air of being at the mercy of the customer.

Mrs. Darling was obviously hoodwinked by this stratagem, and remarked that she supposed you could get "one er them necklaces" (referring to a string of real amber beads in a jeweller's window) for about "'alf a crown". I explained to her that the beads were probably worth 10, to which she replied that perhaps the shopkeeper _didn't know it_! I got her away from the window with difficulty, and I have no doubt she will go to her grave thinking she might have bought that necklace for a song but for my impatience.

The unusual mildness of the afternoon was indicated in the number of figures seated on the benches in St. Anne's Churchyard. Drink has stamped its sinister hall-mark on most of them. Dirt and disease, the companions of drink, are there too. Despair, which one might reasonably look for, is absent. Despair argues sensibility, and these human wrecks seem to have got beyond that stage. They exist in a comatose state, feeling perhaps a momentary amelioration of their misery in this hour of Spring, and not looking beyond it.