LONDON.
He had eaten, for he was hungry, and ham and bread and butter are not to
be despised when nothing better is to be had. Even, which was curious to
his state of mind, he had eaten largely, putting up before him the
railway book which he had not read on his journey, and going on
unconsciously with his vigorous, youthful appetite. This, the first act
of his solitude, was by no means so disagreeable as he had feared. It
increased his personal comfort, for he had eaten scarcely anything all
day, and the increase of personal comfort ameliorates everything. When
he had finished, he carried one of his candles to a small table near the
window, and sat down there and read on, finishing his book, which had
interested him. When he had closed it, and laid it on the table, the
realisation of all the circumstances, which returned to his mind, was
not so heavy as the first time. His heart began to spring up again,
after being crushed under the foot of fate. It began to throb and tingle
with the thought that he was in London, on the border of everything that
was most living and desirable. The little fumes of interest of his story
increased the effect by soothing away his personal misery. And now, as
he sat in the small, silent room, something came to him which he had
been conscious of all along, without knowing what it was, a sound
continuous, like the far-off sound of the sea or of the wind, but
subdued, as though the storm was far off, a sound which, now that he was
free from those claims made by his lowered bodily condition upon his
mind, became more and more apparent, filling the air with an
uninterrupted murmur. What was it?
He sat up and listened, and then, with an excitement which made his
heart jump, he recognised what it was. It was London! Had he not read in
many a book of that great, low volume of sound, which some people
described as the sound of many waters, and some as the distant roar of
a tempest. It was soft here in his little hermitage, amid the strange
solitude and silence, but rolled and murmured continuous, never ending.
He perceived now that he had noticed it from the first moment, that all
along he had wondered when it would stop, vaguely disquieted by it
without knowing what it was; and now he knew that it would never stop,
that it was the breath of the great multitude, the hum of their endless
going on and on. John sat and listened to it till it went to his head,
exciting him like wine. He could not rest. The contrast of this little
prison-chamber in which he sat, and all that was implied in that low,
continuous roar and hum of men, stirred his imagination more and more.
He got up and opened the window, and looked out. Opposite to him was the
great mass of building dark against the sky, which seemed to oppress and
stifle the neighbourhood, taking away the air; but outside of that, away
across the river where the world was, the hum, the roar, the continuous
roll of sound came stronger and stronger. It called upon the young soul
which stood and throbbed and listened. He had the habits of his youth
and innocence strong upon him--a sort of unspoken sense of duty that
restrained him and kept him from following his own impulses. It was not
till some time had elapsed that he began to think it possible to obey
that call--to go out and see what it was which gave forth that mighty
voice. When the thought entered his mind it filled all his veins with
excitement. Should he go? Why should he not go? No word had been said to
him to bind him to remain where he was. It was not to waste day and
night shut up in a dreary little room that he had come to London. He
looked round upon the blank, grey walls, and found their bondage
intolerable. It was like a box in which he was shut up. His brain and
his veins seemed to be swelling, bursting with life that must have an
outlet somehow. No, certainly, he could not stay there. He must have air
and room to breathe; he must see for himself what was meant by London.
But John, even in his excitement, was prudent. He put away his
watch--which was not the one Mrs. Egerton had given him, but the old,
dear silver one, the one that had no value at all and yet so great a
value. He was aware that in London the natural thing was to rob a
countryman, to take his watch from him. He would not expose his treasure
to such a risk; but when he had laid that away he felt, with confidence,
that there was nothing else to lose. They might hustle or knock him
down, if they could, but there was nothing else they could do to him.
Nevertheless, it was with something of that warlike exhilaration, with
which a struggle is foreseen at his age, that John buttoned his coat and
took his hat. He felt that ‘they’ (though he had not the least notion
who _they_ might be) would not have an easy bargain of him.
He went out without even being remarked. No ‘Where are you going?’ ‘When
will you come back?’ to impede his liberty. That fact also went to his
heart a little. He had felt his loneliness very forlorn--now he felt it
exciting, exhilarating. He set his hat firmly on his head, and drew a
long breath when he felt the fresh air of the night, so different from
that of any parlour, encircle him with its coolness and vastness. That,
too, has an intoxication in it which everything that is young
acknowledges. The air may be sober in the morning--it is like wine at
night. The darkness has a mystery, a magic in it--the lights twinkling
through it--the world made into something ideal, in which miracles are.
John stood still for a moment at the door, realising that he was there,
that he was unshackled--his own master--and then, drawn by the great
voice that called and called him, he turned his face towards the distant
blazing of the lights, and set out--to discover that new world.
To discover London! how many do it every day, with hearts beating high,
with hopes immeasurable, which so often collapse and come to nothing;
but this is not the time for moralising. John set out. His way began in
the darkness of this little street, with its little houses, faced by the
great sombre shadow of the hospital, which shut out the air from it and
the sky. He plunged into the darkness at first, making his way between
rows of insignificant buildings, with a feeble shop here and there
flashing its faint illumination, and then, with a great sweep of fresh
air seizing him, came out upon the bridge. The sky was full of the
clearness of spring, though there was no moon. The river flowed dark and
silent below, faintly visible further up the stream in pale streaks of
reflection, across which would rise a dark and ghostly shadow of
something floating, a barge, a heavy blackness in the middle of the
faint light; but lamps blazing overhead, the glare of gas, and here and
there the chill contradictory artificial moon of the electric light
‘swearing’ horribly, as the French say, with all the yellow lamps
around. The murmur of sound grew and grew as the boy went on; it was a
rhythmic roar as of waves beating against a shore, or the rush of a
prodigious waterfall, a great moral Niagara, bigger than any physical
falls, however gigantic. It was made up of the sounds of carriages of
every description, of voices, the hum of the crowd constantly broken by
some shrill interruption of a cry or shout, which gave emphasis to the
general continual, unfailing current of sound. He hurried along,
quickening his pace, led by it as if it had been a syren’s song.
On the other side of the river a noble mass of walls and towers rose
against the night. He guessed what it was, and his heart beat high.
Then suddenly he was over the bridge, he was in it, in the very crowd
itself, among the thunder of the carriages, the perpetual movement of
the passengers, the very heart of London--he thought even, in awe,
holding his breath--of the world. Was that Parliament? He got as near as
he could and watched the carriages, the heads appearing at the windows,
men in whose hands was the fate of the world. John felt as if he had
some hand in it all as he watched them dashing up to the doorway,
sometimes cheered, with a running fire of remark volleying about from
the voices of the crowd. It was all so unusual, that he could scarcely
make out at first what the people about him said; and, when he
understood the words, he did not understand the allusions, not knowing
who the members were or anything but that they were members, and
therefore surrounded with a halo of wonder and interest. Presently one
of the men standing near began to perceive his ignorance and curiosity,
and to offer explanations. But John was not so simple as that, he said
to himself. He knew that the danger of London was to listen to people
who expressed themselves benevolently towards you, and wanted to give
you information. He withdrew accordingly from that spot, and by-and-by,
feeling that there were still other worlds beyond, left this scene of
overwhelming interest altogether, promising himself that he would look
up all the prints in the shop windows, and so learn to identify the
members of parliament himself.
The dark shadow to his right hand was that of the Abbey. He held his
breath with awe, but he was in no mood for the silence and darkness. He
followed the roar and crush of the crowd through a dark, broad, vacant
street or two until he emerged into another kind of blaze and din, into
the tumult and bustle and noise and commotion of the Strand. Here the
shops, the lights, the wild confusion of traffic, the hoarse cries, the
flare and glare and riot, the wild medley of life, the wretched figures
in squalid groups, the gentlemen passing with evening dress under their
overcoats, the ragged and shouting vendors of the newspapers, the crowds
rushing to the theatres, the other crowds that hung upon their steps and
importuned them with unnecessary services, ended in turning altogether
John’s young and unaccustomed brain. He was hustled by the ceaseless
stream of people rushing past him in both ways, coming and going, and
after a while felt himself like a straw upon a river, carried along
without knowing where he was going, tossed into a corner, seized again
by the stream, swept away breathless, with a strange pleasure and wonder
and disgust and incomprehension. He was doing nothing but gazing,
looking on wondering where they were all going, what they all meant,
what need there was to hurry so, to shout so; and yet he felt as if he
too were living, as he never before had lived all his life.
Strange illusion; an older man perhaps would have concluded that here
was no real life at all, but only a fantastic, half-conscious dream.
Half the people streaming along were doing it by no will of their own,
but only because of the treadmill action of habit, which made them fancy
this way of spending the evening the natural thing to do--and that to go
somewhere, to do something, as they said--that is to frequent noisy
places in which the depth of dulness was touched, yet where rampant
folly extracted a strained laugh--or to bustle out and in of swinging
doors, and exchange jests at bars, and rub shoulders with crowds, coming
and going--was life. It was life indeed for the poor hangers-on greedy
for pence or sixpences, to the poor hawkers of miserable merchandises,
to the servants of the crowd. To them it was fatigue, cold,
disappointment, weary waiting, miserable snatches at recompense, eager
greed, and accumulation and gain; bread, perhaps to poor little children
in squalid rooms somewhere about, or whisky at the street corners--at
all events, a real yet possible existence, the only one of which they
were conscious or capable. The more wretched in such scenes have the
advantage of the less. The newspaper boy, the girl with her poor basket
of faded flowers, the hundred other vassals of the crowd are real in
their poor work and competition. It is their masters, the lords of
unrule, who are the ghosts.
John, driven hither and thither by the currents of passengers, happily
was as unaware as a woman of the darker and more horrible dangers of
the streets. No squalid siren smiled for him; he did not understand
these profounder depths. But the confusion and the noise, and the
strange contrast of pleasure and wretchedness, the carriages passing,
with pretty glimpses of white figures bound for the theatres, the groups
of the ragged and miserable on the pavement, the whole resounding,
conflicting, moving world gave him a sort of intoxication, so that he
scarcely knew what he was about, or where he was.
He had got in front of one of the theatres in the midst of a crowd more
noisy than usual, the pavement encumbered with poor and squalid
spectators, with men shrieking their wares to sell, and pushing books of
words into the carriage windows, the confusion of cabs and carriages
greater than ever, when John was suddenly roused out of all this
phantasmagoria to something real. As he stood gazing, his eyes suddenly
fell upon a group at the entrance of the theatre, a man with a tall,
shiny hat, and coat buttoned up to his throat, with a woman somewhat
fantastically but poorly dressed, on his arm. They were standing to see
the people get out of their carriages, with looks somewhat wistful, as
if envious of the pleasure the others were about to enjoy. The man, who
was tall, inspected the ladies with a smile half patronising, half
satirical. But the wife looked pathetically, wistfully, with an envy
which was not bitter, nor bore any trace of unkindness. They were
standing close together, rapt in that sight. At the woman’s feet was a
child, holding fast by her skirts. While the parents gazed, something
caught the eye of the little girl, a flower which somebody had dropped
out of the window of a carriage. The little thing made one spring, while
the absorbed attention of her parents was fixed upon the play-goers, and
secured the prize out of the mud of the street, but not before the
prancing horse of a hansom, drawn back suddenly upon its haunches, was
dashing its hoofs into the air over her head. There was a universal
shriek and commotion, in the midst of which the mother put down her hand
instinctively but tranquilly to grasp the child. Then, finding it
absent, she gave a wild cry, and turned round with arms wildly waving,
facing the crowd. John took no time to think. He was the nearest, or
thought himself so, and he was pushed forward by the shrieking crowd. He
flung himself on the child, caught it, tossed it back to some one, he
could not tell whom--but fell forward with the impetus. He felt a sharp
touch on his head like a knife, and then no more--till he came to
himself with the sensation of a crowd round him, and of cool
applications applied to his head, which seemed to burn under the hands
of some one who was leaning over him.
‘It will be nothing, it will be nothing,’ he heard some one say; and
then, ‘A wonderful escape,’ ‘It might have killed him,’ in different
tones. It seemed to John at first to be but another scene in that
bewildering phantasmagoria through which he had been walking. When he
opened his eyes he found that he was in an apothecary’s shop, which was
crowded with people, faces everywhere filling up the window outside,
piled one upon another. Close to him stood the man in the tall and very
shiny hat. John caught in it the reflection of the great blue and red
bottles in the window, and burst into a feeble laugh.
‘Gently, gently, you’re all right: but there’s nothing to laugh about,’
some one said.
‘Where am I?’ said John, still fascinated by the reflection.
‘Me dear young gentleman, ye have done a heroic action. Ye’ve behaved
like a hero. Ye’ve saved me child,’ said the man in the hat.
‘Now stand back. Let him have plenty of air. Try if you can stand,’ said
another voice.
John stood up, but felt faint and giddy. It seemed ridiculous in a few
minutes to change from the robust village youth who feared nothing to a
creature whose head seemed to swim independent of him, and who could not
steady himself. He caught at the arm of the tall man to support himself.
‘That’s right, that’s right, me noble boy. I’ll take him home with me.
The child is unhurt, me young hero. She’s waiting out o’ doors with her
mother, who’s longing to embrace ye and bless ye. Come, it’s but a step
to me humble door.’
John was not quite clear about this address, but he was glad of the tall
man’s arm, on which he could lean, and allowed himself to be led away
in a dazed condition through the crowd, followed by the woman and the
child, who was still crying with fright and excitement. The mother,
happily, neither embraced nor blessed him, but he was so dazed that he
scarcely knew what happened, except that she looked at him anxiously,
with troubled eyes. He was glad of the support of the man, who guided
him very kindly for a little way through the crowded street, then
suddenly turned down a quiet one. Here the waft of a purer, colder air
upon John’s face brought him to himself, and he would have drawn his arm
from that of his guide.
‘I can go now,’ he said, ‘thank you. I’m myself, now----’
‘What, let you go like this--the saviour of me child’s life--when we’re
close to our humble door? Never!’ said his new friend. ‘Maria, go first
and light a candle--you’ve got the key----’
And presently John found himself, after stumbling up several flights of
stairs, in a room high up, very shabbily and sparely furnished, where
there was a glimmer of fire, and where he was not unwilling to sit down
and rest, though his senses had come back to him, and he began to
recover from the shock. While he sat looking round him, vaguely
wondering with his still slightly clouded faculties where he was, and
if, perhaps, he might have fallen into some of the traps he had read of,
the couple talked a little in whispers behind him. Was it of him they
were talking? Were they consulting together what to do with him? He
smiled to himself even while he half entertained this thought. Then one
innocent word came to his ears which made him laugh to himself. It was
‘sausages.’ John, in his most suspicious mood, in the deepest alarms of
the country lad, could not suppose that they meant to make sausages of
him. The sound of his laugh startled both himself and the little group
behind him. The woman hurried away, and the man came forward with the
grand air which sat so strangely on his evident poverty.
‘Ye laugh, me young friend,’ he said. ‘Perhaps ye overheard our
consultations how to receive ye, our young benefactor. It is not much at
present that is in Montressor’s power, but what we have is at your
service to the last sou. I am not an ungrateful, though ye see in me a
fallen man. Did ye see the crowds at that theatre door? Young sir, a few
years ago it was to see Montressor those crowds--and there were more,
more! than are ever drawn now--that those crowds flowed in to boxes,
pit, and gallery, and not a scrap of paper, but all solid money
throughout the house.’
John but dimly understood, but yet had a glimmering of what was meant.
‘Are you Montressor?’ he said.
Montressor lifted his hands, in one of which was still the shiny hat, to
heaven--or rather to the low, smoke-darkened ceiling which was its
substitute.
‘Me downfall is indeed proved,’ he said, ‘me young friend, when ye have
to ask that question. Me portrait was once in all the shop windows: but
now----’ The arms were raised again, and then Montressor put down his
hat and drew a chair towards the waning fire, which he poked gently and
with precaution. ‘If she’s to cook ’em when she comes in, we must mind
the fire,’ he said, falling into a more familiar tone, and raking
together the embers with a careful and experienced hand. ‘Ye find me,
young gentleman, in a small apartment that is kitchen and chamber and
hall, as the song says. What does it matter to a lofty mind, s’longs ye
find honour and a warm heart of gratitude there?’
‘But, indeed, I think I must go,’ said John, with the timidity of his
age. ‘I feel all right now. It was only just for a moment. I feel quite
steady, and I think I must go.’
‘Not before ye have tasted such hospitality as I have to give ye, me
heroic boy. The saviour of me child must not go from me doors without a
sign of me appreciation--without a bit of supper, at least. Maria! are
ye come at last? And here is our honoured guest that says he must go.
Come, child, and bid ye’r deliverer stay.’
‘Wait and take some supper,’ said the woman, with her pathetic look; ‘it
will be a pleasure to us both. It’s not late, and you needn’t fear;
you’ll get no harm.’
‘Harm!’ said her husband, ‘from you, me love, or from Montressor? No, he
will get no harm, whatever a brutal manager or designing critics may
say. Thank God, Maria, corrupting the young was never laid to your
husband’s charge, me dear. He shall see that conscious virtue is not
ashamed of humble offices. I will prepare the table while she makes
ready our food. There is nothing derogatory in that, me young friend.
Look at Mrs. Montreseor if you would see one that is superior to every
fortune. She has had her cooks, her housemaids, her grooms; she has
driven in her own carriages, and worn silks and satins. And now ye see
her preparing to fry the sausages. And which is the finest office?--the
last, sir!--for she’s always a lady--a perfect lady--whatever her
occupation may be.’
John did not feel called upon to make any answer to this. He sat in a
half dream of wonderment, while all these domestic arrangements went on
in this strange little interior, where all was so new and extraordinary
to him. How had he got there? What sort of place was it? What kind of
people were these? The curious serio-comic character of the episode did
not strike him so much as it might have done an older spectator; but the
hissing of the sausages on the fire, before which this unknown woman
stood, her wistful eyes fixed upon the frying-pan, while her husband,
with his fine language and fine sentiments, laid the cloth upon the
table behind, were too strange, too peculiar, too ridiculous, even--for
he was hungry again, and there was a sort of warm friendliness in the
air that comforted his young, childish soul--too comfortable, not to
affect the boy. He felt a sort of pleasurable disquietude and alarm and
embarrassment. He ought to go, he felt, but he was shy and they were
kind, and he did not know how to get himself away. Presently the child
who was the occasion of it all, and who had clung to her mother’s skirts
all the time, pulled a stool towards John’s feet, and sitting down by
him began to pat his leg with soft little touches.
‘Did it hurt much,’ she said, ‘that big horse’s foot? I called mamma and
it was you. What made you get hurt for a poor little girl like me?’
‘What made him? It was God, Edie, to save you to mother: and God bless
him for it,’ said the woman, turning round.
‘It was a heroic action,’ said Montressor, ‘it was the act of a hero, me
chyild. Your saviour will always be to us a noble youth. Me young
benefactor, as yet we do not know your honoured name.’
John paused for a moment. He never could tell what curious impulse
possessed him. Perhaps it was because he was in a new world of his own
discovery, with which no one else had anything to do. He said, with the
blood rushing to his face,
‘My name is John May.’
When he heard his own voice, his heart gave a great leap and throb; but
whether it was the feeling of one who takes a false name, or of one who
for the first time claims a true one, he could not tell. The act, which
was almost involuntary, filled him with an excitement which he could not
explain.
‘May!’ cried Montressor--‘Maria! what did I say? that there was
something in the countenance of this noble youth not unfamiliar. I knew
a May once--I have not forgotten him. Me young friend, ye are like that
companion of me youth--yes, ye are like him. I felt it from the first.
He was the kindest, the dearest--but misfortune fell upon him. Ah! may
it be that the blood of our friend runs in your veins.’
‘Montressor,’ said his wife, hurriedly, ‘this young gentleman can have
nothing to do with the May you once knew. It is not a thing to be talked
about, that connection. You know what I mean. There is not the slightest
likeness, nor the least possibility: for goodness sake keep your ideas
to yourself, and think how impossible--The supper is ready,’ she added,
in a lighter tone. ‘Come, Mr. May, a little food will do you good,
though it is neither rich nor rare.’