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THE LURE OF OLD LONDON
by
SOPHIE COLE
Author of "A London Posy," "The Loitering Highway," etc.
With 8 Illustrations
Mills & Boon, Limited
49 Rupert Street
London, W. 1
Published 1921
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
WAX EFFIGIES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES THE SECOND 16
From a photograph by D. Weller
GREAT ST. HELEN'S 47
From a photograph by the Autotype Company
THE CHARTERHOUSE 50
From a photograph by the Autotype Company
A BIT OF OLD SMITHFIELD 57
From a photograph by the Autotype Company
DR. JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN GOUGH SQUARE 69
GREAT CHEYNE ROW AND CARLYLE'S HOUSE 89
From a photograph by Hedderley, circa 1860
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 117
From a photograph by the Autotype Company
BERWICK MARKET 136
From a photograph by the Autotype Company
TO THE FRIEND WHO WANDERED WITH ME
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GEORGE AND
MRS. DARLING
PREFACE
People who are kind enough to read my stories sometimes tell me they
like them on account of their London atmosphere. This is reassuring,
because London is, to me, what "King Charles' head" was to "Mr. Dick,"
and when my publisher suggested that I should write this volume I
mounted my hobby-horse with glee.
The objects of the journeys recorded were chosen haphazard. With a
myriad places clamouring for notice, and each place brimful of interest,
one takes the first that comes, reflecting that what one doesn't see
to-day can be seen to-morrow, regretful only that, no matter how many
to-morrows may remain, there will not be enough to exhaust the charms of
London. London has moods for each hour and surprises round every corner.
It may be the enchantress, or the "stony-hearted step-mother," but one
part it can never play--that of the bore. "Strange stories," says
Walter Thornbury, in his introduction to "Old and New London," "about
strange men grow like moss in every crevice of the bricks." To people
the streets with the shades of those "strange men" is a fascinating
pastime which I owe, in large measure, to the guidance of that wonderful
and inexhaustible book.
If, in this humble little volume of my own, I dared aspire to do
anything more than please myself, it would be to share with some lovers
of London those moods of curious happiness which one finds in the haunts
of London's ghosts.
CHAPTER I
When the Countess of Corbridge sent the quarterly cheque for fifty
pounds to her brother, the Hon. George Tallenach, she always addressed
the envelope to Carrington Mansions, Mayfair. As a matter of fact, the
Honourable George lived in Carrington Mews, Shepherd Market, and derived
a certain ironic pleasure from the contemplation of his sister's
snobbishness. But then the Honourable George had never acted up to the
traditions of his family. His Bohemianism, coupled with an inability to
settle down to any calling, had been the despair of that family ever
since he was ploughed at Oxford. And now, at the age of sixty-five, he
was a pensioner on the bounty of the Countess of Corbridge, living in a
workman's flat in Carrington Mews, an adept in the art of poetic
loafing, an inveterate gossip and roamer of the streets, a kindly old
vagabond with well-brushed shabby clothes, a clean collar and a spotless
pocket handkerchief, the love of London in his bones, and of his fellows
in his heart.
Mrs. Darling, the pensioned widow of a night watchman, who lived in the
flat below, was in the habit of rendering the Honourable George small
services. It was she to whom he applied in any domestic emergency--she
mended his socks and kept his handkerchiefs a good colour, sewed on his
buttons, and inculcated a policy of thrift towards the end of the
quarter when funds were getting low.
Such a period was imminent now, and when Mrs. Darling brought in a pile
of snowy handkerchiefs and deposited them on the table this warm
September morning, the Honourable George, faced with the prospect of
three lean weeks, propounded to her a scheme he had devised for a cheap
form of enjoyment.
"Mrs. Darling," he began, "I have noticed with regret your lamentable
ignorance of the place in which you live."
"Me ignorant of Shepherd Market. I don't think!" declared Mrs. Darling
indignantly. "I 'aven't lived in it for thirty-five years for nothink.
Why, there isn't a shop or a person I----"
"Not so fast, Mrs. Darling. I was referring to London as a whole, of
which Shepherd Market is as a needle in a haystack. And your knowledge
even of the Market and its surroundings is purely superficial. I suppose
you are not aware that Shepherd Market is the place where the fair,
which gave Mayfair its name, was held up to the middle of the
eighteenth century, and that the Market itself is nearly two hundred
years old. No doubt you are also in ignorance of the fact that Kitty
Fisher lived in Carrington Street: Kitty, the celebrated courtesan who
married John Norris and gave herself up to repairing two dilapidated
fortunes, thus proving the inaccuracy of the statement that the leopard
cannot change its spots, and challenging the baseness and the scurvy
malevolence of those 'little scribblers' who accused her of having
'neither sense nor wit, but only impudence'."
"Well, sir, I must admit I _didn't_ know all them things."
"Of course you didn't; but cheer up, it isn't too late to learn. What
d'you say to our having some outings together? Suppose we make a start
this afternoon? London's at its best on these calm autumn days."
"What, _me_ and _you_?"
"Yes--why not?"
"'Spose we met any of yer grand friends? Me, in my ole plush coat I've
'ad this ten years. It's true I got a new 'at, ten and eleven at
Selfridge's bargain basement, but a hat ain't everythink."
"No, you certainly want more than that. But clothes, also, aren't
everything. It's your company I hanker after, Mrs. Darling. I seek a
virgin mind on which to make first impressions. I'm tired of people who
_know everything_. In seeing things through your eyes I shall----"
But Mrs. Darling interrupted the speaker to remark with a scandalised
air that there wasn't much of the virgin about _her_, seeing she'd been
married thirty-three years, and a widow too, not to speak of being the
mother of four children.
This drew forth from the Honourable George a charge of frivolity coupled
with a long-winded explanation of his newly conceived idea, and an
equally long-winded explanation of the benefit Mrs. Darling might derive
from it. The listener, who had been standing first on one leg, then on
the other, her mind racked by a suspicion that the potatoes would be
reduced to pulp, made a reckless promise at the first pause, and then
beat a precipitate retreat to her flat below.
"'E gets worse and worse," she meditated, as she strained off the
potatoes--just in time. "Talk about balmy--if this don't take the bun!
But if it gives 'im any pleasure, it won't do me no 'arm. I'll go this
once, just to pacify 'im. I bet 'e won't ask me again!" and Mrs.
Darling's smile had a quality of grim humour.
The Honourable George, always a favourite with the opposite sex, had had
many love affairs of a more or less light nature, loves of a day, a
week, or a month. But existing with, and surviving these ephemeral
distractions, was "Agatha," the woman he had always meant some day to
ask in marriage. Owing, however, to the Honourable George's thriftless
habits, that day had never arrived, and "Agatha," who had allowed all
her birds in the hand to escape in favour of that elusive bird in the
bush, was at the age of sixty still a spinster, finding her interests in
church work, dogs, and other people's babies. At regular intervals she
had letters from George. George, who was apt to ride rough-shod over her
well-bred susceptibilities with his racy comments on people and things.
George, who shocked her and saved her from old maidishness, whose
letters came into the prim little country house with a refreshing breath
of Bohemianism, providing an antidote to dry rot, and a healthy interest
in men and things outside her narrow circle. The following letters are
those particular ones which gave the account of his peregrinations with
Mrs. Darling.