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OLD KENSINGTON
BY MISS THACKERAY
LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO.,
15 WATERLOO PLACE
1908.
[_All rights reserved_]
T'is life whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh! life, not death, for which we pant,
More life and fuller that I want.
Alfred Tennyson.
A DEDICATION
_TO SOME NEW FRIENDS._
Sometimes new friends meet one along the mid-way of life, and come
forward with sweet unknown faces and with looks that seem strangely
familiar to greet us.
To some of these new friends I must dedicate my story. It was begun ten
years ago, and is older than my god-daughter Margie herself, who is the
oldest among them. She is playing with her sister and her little cousins
in the sunny Eton nurseries. Harry has a crown on. Annie is a queen who
flies on errands. Ada and Lilly are Court ladies.
My neighbour Dolly and the little Dorotheas, however, have a first right
to a presentation copy. It is true that the little ones cannot read, but
they need not regret it; for Margie will take them on her knee and show
them the pictures, and Georgie and Stella and Molly shall stand round
too, and dark-eyed little Margaret can tell them her own sweet little
stories, while Francis chimes in from the floor. Eleanor cannot talk,
but she can sing; and so can our Laura at home and her song is her own;
a sweet home song; the song of all children to those who love them. It
tells of the past, and one day brings it back without a pang; it tells
of a future, not remorselessly strange and chill and unknown, but bound
to us by a thousand hopes and loving thoughts--a kingdom-come for us
all, not of strangers, but of little children. And meanwhile Laura,
measures the present with her soft little fingers as she beats time upon
her mother's hand to her own vague music.
8 Southwell Gardens: _March 20, 1873_
CONTENTS.
I. BRICKS AND IVY
II. DUTCH TILES
III. TO OLD STREET BY THE LANES
IV. AN AFTERNOON AT PENFOLD'S
V. STEEL PENS AND GOOSE QUILLS
VI. DOWNSTAIRS IN THE DARK
VII. CLOUD-CAPPED TOWERS AND GORGEOUS PALACES
VIII. IMMORTELLES
IX. THE BOW-WINDOWED HOUSE
X. A SNOW GARDEN
XI. RABAN MEETS THE SHABBY ANGEL
XII. DOROTHEA BY FIRELIGHT
XIII. LITTLE BROTHER AND LITTLE SISTER
XIV. RAG DOLLS
XV. GEORGE'S TUNES
XVI. A WALKING PARTY
XVII. 'INNER LIFE'
XVIII. AN AUTUMN MORNING
XIX. KENSINGTON PALACE CHAPEL
XX. RHODA TO DOLLY
XXI. CINDERS
XXII. MRS. PALMER
XXIII. THE TERRACE AT ALL SAINTS' COLLEGE
XXIV. ROSES HAVE THORNS, AND SILVER FOUNTAINS MUD
XXV. GOOD-NIGHT
XXVI. GOOD-MORNING
XXVII. LOVE LANE FROM KENSINGTON TO FULHAM
XXVIII. UNBORN TO-MORROW AND DEAD YESTERDAY
XXIX. UNDER THE GREAT DOME
XXX. WAVE OR FLAME
XXXI. A BOAT UPON THE WATER
XXXII. TRUST ME
XXXIII. CIRCUMSTANCE
XXXIV. WHITE ROSES
XXXV. 'ONLY GEORGE'
XXXVI. THE SLOW SAD HOURS
XXXVII. IN AN EMPTY ROOM
XXXVIII. THE POLLARD-TREES
XXXIX. THUS FAR THE MILES ARE MEASURED FROM THY FRIEND
XL. UNDER THE CLOCK-TOWER
XLI. I BRING YOU THREE LETTERS--I PRAY YOU READ ONE
XLII. RACHEL
XLIII. CRAGS AND FRESH AIR
XLIV. WHITE WITH GAZING
XLV. WHAT AUNT SARAH LEFT FOR DOLLY
XLVI. THE SORROWFUL MESSAGE
XLVII. FROM HEART OF VERY HEART
XLVIII. AN EXPLANATION
XLIX. SHEEP-SHEARING
L. TEMPERED WINDS
LI. 'SING HOARSE, WITH TEARS BETWEEN'
LII. AN ANDANTE OF HAYDN'S
LIII. THAT THOU ART BLAMED SHALL NOT BE THY DEFECT
LIV. HOLY ST. FRANCIS, WHAT A CHANGE IS HERE!
LV. SEE YOU NOT SOMETHING BESIDE MASONRY?
LVI. THE PLAY IS PLAYED, THE CURTAIN DROPS
OLD KENSINGTON.
CHAPTER I.
BRICKS AND IVY.
From the ivy where it dapples
A grey ruin, stone by stone,
Do you look for grapes and apples,
Or for sad green leaves alone?
--E. B. Browning.
A quarter of a century ago the shabby tide of progress had not spread to
the quiet old suburb where Lady Sarah Francis's house was standing, with
its many windows dazzling as the sun travelled across the old-fashioned
house-tops to set into a distant sea of tenements and echoing life. The
roar did not reach the old house. The children could listen to the
cawing of the rooks, to the echo of the hours, as they struck on from
one day to another, vibrating from the old square tower of the church.
At night the strokes seemed to ring more slowly than in the day. Little
Dolly Vanborough, Lady Sarah's niece, thought each special hour had its
voice. The church clock is silent now, but the rooks caw on undisturbed
from one spring to another in the Old Kensington suburb. There are
tranquil corners still, and sunny silent nooks, and ivy wreaths growing
in the western sun; and jessamines and vine-trees, planted by a former
generation, spreading along the old garden-walls. But every year the
shabby stream of progress rises and engulfs one relic or another,
carrying off many and many a landmark and memory. Last year only, the
old church was standing, in its iron cage, at the junction of the
thoroughfares. It was the Church of England itself to Dolly and George
Vanborough in those early church-going days of theirs. There was the old
painting of the lion and the unicorn hanging from the gallery; the light
streaming through the brown saints over the communion-table. In
after-life the children may have seen other saints more glorious in
crimson and in purple, nobler piles and arches, but none of them have
ever seemed so near to heaven as the old Queen Anne building; and the
wooden pew with its high stools, through which elbows of straw were
protruding, where they used to kneel on either side of their aunt,
watching with awe-stricken faces the tears as they came falling from the
widow's sad eyes.
Lady Sarah could scarcely have told you the meaning of those tears as
they fell--old love and life partings, sorrows and past mercies, all
came returning to her with the familiar words of the prayers. The tears
fell bright and awe-stricken as she thought of the present--of distances
immeasurable--of life and its inconceivable mystery; and then her heart
would warm with hope perhaps of what might be to come, of the
overwhelming possibilities--how many of them to her lay in the warm
clasp of the child's hand that came pushing into hers!--For her, as for
the children, heaven's state was in the old wooden pew. Then the
sing-song of the hymn would flood the old church with its homely
cadence.
Prepare your glad voices;
Let Hisreal rejoice,
sang the little charity children; poor little Israelites, with blue
stockings, and funny woollen knobs to their fustian caps, rejoicing,
though their pastures were not green as yet, nor was their land
overflowing with milk and honey. How ever, they sang praises for others,
as all people do at times, thanks be to the merciful dispensation that
allows us to weep, to work, to be comforted, and to rejoice with one
another's hearts, consciously or unconsciously, as long as life exists.
Every lane, and corner, and archway had a childish story for Dolly and
her brother--for Dolly most especially, because girls cling more to the
inanimate aspects of life than boys do. For Dolly the hawthorn bleeds as
it is laid low and is transformed year after year into iron railings and
areas, for particulars of which you are requested to apply to the
railway company, and to Mr. Taylor, the house-agent. In those days the
lanes spread to Fulham, white with blossom in spring, or golden with the
yellow London sunsets that blazed beyond the cabbage-fields. In those
days there were gardens, and trees, and great walls along the high-road
that came from London, passing through the old white turnpike. There
were high brown walls along Kensington Gardens, reaching to the Palace
Gate; elms spread their shade, and birds chirrupped, and children played
behind them.
Dolly Vanborough and her brother had had many a game there, and knew
every corner and haunt of this sylvan world of children and ducks and
nursemaids. They had knocked their noses against the old sun-dial many
and many a time. Sometimes now, as she comes walking along the straight
avenues, Dolly thinks she can hear the echo of their own childish voices
whooping and calling to one another as they used to do. How often they
had played with their big cousin, Robert Henley, and the little Morgans,
round about the stately orange-house, and made believe to be statues in
the niches!
'I am Apollo,' cries George Vanborough, throwing himself into an
attitude.
'Apollo?' cries Robert, exploding with schoolboy wit: 'an Apollo-guy,
you mean.'
Dolly does not understand why the Morgan boys laugh and George blushes
up furiously. When they are tired of jumping about in the sun, the
statues straggle homewards, accompanied by Dolly's French governess, who
has been reading a novel on a bench close by. They pass along the front
of the old palace that stands blinking its sleepy windows across elmy
vistas, or into tranquil courts where sentries go pacing. Robert has his
grandmother living in the Palace, and he strides off across the court to
her apartments. The children think she is a witch, and always on the
watch for them, though they do not tell Robert so. The Morgans turn up
Old Street, and George and Dolly escort them so far on their way home.
It is a shabby street, with shops at one end and old-fashioned houses,
stone-stepped, bow-windowed at the other. Dear Old Street! where an echo
still lingers of the quaint and stately music of the past, of which the
voice comes to us like a song of Mozart, sounding above the dreamy
flutterings of a Wagner of the present! Little Zoe Morgan would linger
to peep at the parrot that lived next door in the area, with the little
page-boy, who always winked at them as they went by; little Cassie would
glance wistfully at a certain shop-front where various medals and
crosses were exposed for sale. There were even in those days convents
and Catholics established at Kensington, and this little repository had
been opened for their use.
When they have seen the little Morgans safe into their old brown
house--very often it is John Morgan who comes to the door to admit
them--(John is the eldest son, the curate, the tutor, the mainstay of
the straggling establishment)--Dolly and her brother trudge home through
the Square, followed by Mademoiselle, still lost in her novel. The
lilacs are flowering behind the rusty rails, the children know every
flagstone and window; they turn up a passage of narrow doorways and
wide-eaved roofs, and so get out into the high-road again. They look up
with friendly recognition at the little boy and girl in their quaint
Dutch garb standing on their pedestals above the crowd as it passes the
Vestry-hall; then they turn down a sunshiny spring lane, where ivy is
growing, and bricks are twinkling in the western sunshine; and they ring
at a gateway where an iron bell is swung. The house is called Church
House, and all its windows look upon gardens, along which the sunshine
comes flowing. The light used to fill Dolly's slanting wooden
school-room at the top of the house. When the bells were ringing, and
the sun-flood came in and made shadows on the wall, it used to seem to
her like a chapel full of music.
George wanted to make an altar one day, and to light Lady Sarah's toilet
candles, and to burn the sandal-wood matches; but Dolly, who was a
little Puritan, blew the matches out and carried the candles back to
their places.
'I shall go over to the Morgans,' said George, 'since you are so
disagreeable.'
Whether Dolly was agreeable or not, this was what George was pretty sure
to do.