OF KENSINGTON GARDENS
So strange a matter is this journey to the City of Beautiful Nonsense,
that one cannot be blamed if, at times, one takes the wrong turning,
finds oneself in the cul de sac of a digression and is compelled to
retrace one's steps. It was intended with the best of good faith that
the last chapter should be of Kensington Gardens. Quite honestly it
began with that purpose. In Kensington Gardens, you will find Romance.
What could be more open and above-board than that? Then up starts a
ballad-monger out of nowhere and he has to be reckoned with before
another step of the way can be taken.
But now we can proceed with our journey to that far city that lies so
slumberously on the breast of the Adriatic.
If you live in Fetter Lane, these are your instructions. Walk straight
up the Lane into Holborn; take your first turning on the left and
continue directly through Oxford Street and Bayswater, until you reach
Victoria Gate in the Park railings. This you enter. This is the very
portal of the way.
'Twas precisely this direction taken by John Grey on that Friday morning
in April, in such a year as history seems reticent to afford.
There is a means of travelling in London, you know, which is not exactly
in accordance with the strict principles of honesty, since it is worked
on the basis of false pretences; and if a hero of a modern day romance
should stoop to employ it as a means of helping him on his journey to
the City of Beautiful Nonsense, he must, on two grounds, be excused.
The first ground is, that he has but a penny in his pocket, which is
needed for the chair in Kensington Gardens; the second, that most human
of all excuses which allows that, when Circumstance drives, a man may
live by his wits, so long as he takes the risk of the whipping.
This, then, is the method, invented by John Grey in an inspired moment
of poverty. There may be hundreds of others catching inspiration from
the little street arabs, who have invented it too. Most probably there
are, and they may be the very first to exclaim against the flippant
treatment of so dishonest a practice. However that may be, out of his
own wits John Grey conceived this felonious means of inexpensive
travelling--absolutely the most inexpensive I ever knew.
You are going from Holborn to Victoria Gate in the Park railings--very
well. You must mount the first 'bus which you see going in the
direction you require; grasp the railings--and mount slowly to the top,
having first ascertained that the conductor himself is on the roof. By
the time you have reached the seat upstairs, if you have done it in a
masterly and approved-of fashion, the 'bus has travelled at least twenty
yards or so. Then, seeing the conductor, you ask him politely if his
'bus goes in a direction, which you are confident it does not. This,
for example, is the conversation that will take place.
"Do you go to Paddington Station?"
"No, sir, we don't; we go straight to Shepherd's Bush."
"But I thought these green 'busses went to Paddington?"
"There are green 'busses as does, but we don't."
"Oh, yes, I think I know now, haven't they a yellow stripe--you have a
red one."
"That's right."
You rise slowly, regretfully.
"Oh, then I'm sorry," and you begin slowly to descend the stairs.
"But we go by the Edgware Road, and you can get a 'bus to Paddington
there," says the conductor.
For a moment or two longer you stand on the steps and try
ineffectually--or effectually, it does not matter which, so long as you
take your time over it--to point out to him why you prefer the 'bus
which goes direct to its destination, rather than the one which does
not; then you descend with something like a hundred yards or so of your
journey accomplished. Repeat this _ad lib_ till the journey is fully
complete and you will find that you still possess your penny for the
chair in Kensington Gardens. The honesty which is amongst thieves
compels you--for the sake of the poor horses who have not done you
nearly so much harm as that conductor may have done--to mount and
descend the vehicle while in motion. This is the unwritten etiquette of
the practice. It also possesses that advantage of prohibiting all fat
people from its enjoyment, whose weight on the 'bus would perceptibly
increase the labour of the willing animals.
Beyond this, there is nothing to be said. The method must be left to
your own conscience, with this subtle criticism upon your choice, that
if you refuse to have anything to do with it, it will be because you
appreciate the delight of condemning those who have. So you stand to
gain anyhow by the possession of the secret. For myself, since John
Grey told me of it, I do both--strain a sheer delight in a condemnation
of those who use it, and use it myself on all those occasions when I
have but a penny in my pocket for the chair in Kensington Gardens. Of
course, you must pay for the chair.
By this method of progress, then, John Grey reached Kensington Gardens
on that Friday morning--that Friday morning in April which was to prove
so eventful in the making of this history.
The opening of the month had been too cold to admit of their beginning
the trade in tea under the fat mushroom umbrellas--that afternoon tea
which you and oh, I don't know how many sparrows and pigeons, all eat to
your heart's content for the modest sum of one shilling. But they might
have plied their trade that day with some success. There was a warm
breath of the Spring in every little puff of wind that danced down the
garden paths. The scarlet tulips nodded their heads to it, the
daffodils courteseyed, bowed and swayed, catching the infection of the
dancer's step. When Spring comes gladsomely to this country of ours,
there is no place in the world quite like it. Even Browning, in the
heart of the City of Beautiful Nonsense, must write:
"Oh to be in England,
Now that April's there."
From Fetter Lane to the flower-walk in Kensington Gardens, it is a far
cry. Ah, you do not know what continents might lie between that
wonderful flower-walk and Fetter Lane. Why, there are people in the
darksome little alleys which lie off that neighbourhood of Fleet Street,
who have never been further west than the Tottenham Court Road! Fetter
Lane, the Tottenham Court Road, and the flower-walk in Kensington
Gardens! It may be only three miles or so, but just as there is no such
thing as time in the ratio of Eternity, so there is no such thing as
distance in the ratio of Space. There is only contrast--and suffering.
They measure everything.
John made his way first to the flower-walk, just for the sight and the
scent of those wonderful growing things that bring their treasures of
inimitable colour up out of the secret breast of the dull brown earth.
Where, in that clod of earth, which does but soil the hands of him who
touches it, does the tulip get its red? Has the Persian Poet guessed
the secret? Is it the blood of a buried Caesar? Enhance it by calling
it a mystery--all the great things of the world are that. Wherever the
tulip does get its red, it is a brave thing to look at after the dull,
smoky bricks of the houses in Fetter Lane.
John stood at the top of the walk and filled his eyes with the varied
colours. There were tulips red, tulips yellow, tulips purple and
scarlet and mauve. The little hunchback was already there painting them,
hugging up close to his easel, taking much more into the heart of him
than he probably ever puts down upon his canvas.
He comes every season of every year, that little hunchback, and Spring
and Summer, and Autumn and Winter, he paints in Kensington Gardens; and
Spring and Summer, and Autumn and Winter, I have no doubt he will
continue to paint the Gardens that he loves. And then one day, the
Gardens will miss him. He will come no more. The dull brown earth will
have taken him as it takes the bulb of a tulip, and perhaps out of his
eyes--those eyes which have been drinking in the colours of the flowers
for so long, some tulip will one day get its red.
Surely there cannot be libel in such a statement as this? We must all
die. The little hunchback, if he reads this, will not approach me for
damages, unless he were of the order of Christian Scientists or some
such sect, who defy the ravages of Time. And how could he be that? He
must have seen the tulips wither.
From the flower-walk, John made his way to the round pond. The ships
were sailing. Sturdy mariners with long, thin, bamboo poles were
launching their craft in the teeth of the freshening breeze. Ah, those
brave ships, and those sturdy men with their young blue eyes, searching
across that vast expanse of water for the return of the _Daisy_ or the
_Kittywake_ or some such vessel with some such fanciful name!
John took a chair to watch them. A couple of hoary sailors--men who had
vast dealings with ships and traffic on deep waters--passed by him with
their vessels tucked up under their arms.
"I sail for 'Frisco in five minutes," said one--"for 'Frisco with a
cargo of iron."
"What do you use for iron?" asked the other, with the solemnity that
such cargo deserved.
"My sister gave me some of her hairpins," was the stern reply.
This, if you like it, is romance! Bound for 'Frisco with a cargo of
iron! Think of it! The risk, the peril, the enormous fortune at stake!
His sister's hairpins! What a world, what a City of Beautiful Nonsense,
if one could only believe like this!
John spread out his short story on his knee, looked at the first lines
of it, then closed it with disgust. What was the good of writing
stories, when such adventures as these were afoot? Perhaps the little
hunchback felt that too. What was the good of painting with red paint
on a smooth canvas when God had painted those tulips on the rough brown
earth? Why had not he got a sister who would hazard her hairpins in his
keeping, so that he might join in the stern business of life and carry
cargoes of iron to far-off parts?
He sat idly watching the good ship start for 'Frisco. One push of the
thin bamboo pole and it was off--out upon the tossing of the waves. A
breath of Spring air blew into its sails, filled them--with the scent of
the tulips, perhaps--and bore it off upon its voyage, while the anxious
master, with hands shading his eyes, watched it as it dipped over the
horizon of all possible interference.
Where was it going to come to shore? The voyage lasted fully five
minutes and, at the last moment, a trade wind seizing it--surely it must
be a trade wind which seizes a vessel with a cargo such as this--it was
born direct for the shore near where John was sitting.
The captain came hurrying along the beach to receive it and, from a seat
under the elm trees, a girl came toward him.
"Do you think it's brought them safely?" she asked.
He looked up with a touch of manly pride.
"The _Albatross_ has never heaved her cargo overboard yet," he said with
a ringing voice.
So this was the sister. From that wonderful head of hair of hers had
come the cargo of the good ship _Albatross_. She turned that head away
to hide a smile of amusement. She looked in John's direction. Their
eyes met.
It was the lady of the heavy fur coat who had prayed to St. Joseph in
the Sardinia Street chapel.