THE FAMILY HOUSE.
The old house proved to be even older than it looked. ‘It was built,’
said the present owner, ‘by the first of the Wapping Burnikels. I
don’t know where he came from; but he was already a man of substance
when he built this house. That was in the time of James the Second. It
was close by here--at a low riverside tavern--that Judge Jeffreys hid
himself, and it was our ancestor who discovered him and gave him up to
justice. At least, so they say.’
Within, it was the house of a solid and substantial merchant, who
understood the arts of comfort. The Hall was wainscoted with a dark
polished oak relieved by a line of gold along the top, and lit by a
broad window on the stairs; it contained no other furniture than a
tall old clock ticking gravely, and the large model of a boat under a
glass case. The staircase was broad and stately: such a staircase as
is impossible in a narrow London house, where the unhappy tenants have
to climb up and down a ladder. Robert Burnikel opened the door of
the room on the left. ‘Come in here,’ he said, ‘till tea is ready. We
can talk at our ease in here. This is my own room.’ He looked around
with some pride, not so much in the old-world beauty of the room, in
which anyone might have taken pride, as in the things which belonged
to, and proclaimed, his own studies. It would be difficult indeed to
find anywhere a more beautiful room. The walls were of panelled cedar,
dark and polished; over the mantel was a mass of carved wood, grapes
in bunches, vine-leaves, scrolls, branches, heads of Cupids, all
apparently thrown together upon the wall, but there was method in the
mass; the fruit and the leaves formed a frame round a shield on which
were blazoned--or and gules and azure, in proper heraldic colours, a
coat-of-arms.
‘Why,’ I cried, ‘those are my arms! I thought they were granted to the
Judge as the first “Armiger” of the family. He had them already, then.
This is very curious. We were a family of gentlefolk.’
‘As if that matters!’ said the representative of the race. ‘There’s
always been that Thing belonging to us.’
‘The man who built this house may have been a pretender, but I doubt
it. People did not assume arms so readily in those days. It was a kind
of robbery.’
‘Oh! the arms are ours fast enough, if we want them. I’ve got an old
seal upstairs with the first boat-builder’s arms on it.’
‘Where did he come from? Do you know?’
‘I don’t know. That’s his portrait, perhaps. And perhaps it isn’t. Why
inquire about the dead? We are only concerned with the living.’
On one side of the mantel hung a portrait in oils of a dead and gone
Burnikel. He wore white lace ruffles, a white lace neckcloth, a
colossal wig, and he had the smooth, fat cheek and double chin of his
generation, which was a bibulous, armchair-loving generation.
‘I believe,’ Robert repeated, ‘that this is the man who came here
first, but it is not certain. It may be his son or his grandson. Did
you think really that your family began with the Judge, Sir George?’
‘Well, I never heard much about his predecessors, except that story of
the lost diamonds.’
‘Now you see. The first man of whom we know anything builds this fine
house, lines it with cedar and rosewood, and oak wainscoting; adorns it
with wood-carving----’
‘That overmantel work might belong to a later time,’ I interrupted. ‘It
looks like Grinling Gibbons, though. He may have done it--or perhaps
one of his scholars.’
‘And had a coat-of-arms. He was a gentleman, I suppose, if you care
about that fact. I don’t. Gentleman or not, he did not despise the
craft of boat-builder.’
‘Yes, I do care about that fact. Gentility is a real thing, whatever
you may think. I am very glad indeed to recover this long-lost
ancestor.’
On the other side of the mantel was a large oval mirror. Its duty,
which it discharged faithfully, was to catch the light, and so to
relieve the room of some of the shadows which lay about in the corners,
shifting from place to place as the day went on, until the evening
fell, when the candles were reflected in the polished walls, and the
room was ghostly to those who ever thought upon the dead and gone.
One side of the room, however, was completely spoiled as regards the
original intention of him who clothed it with cedar by the introduction
of a bookcase covering the whole wall, and fitted with books. There was
a central table littered with papers, and a smaller table with a row
of books. And there were only two chairs, both of them wooden chairs
with arms--the students’ chair. The books, one might observe, had the
external appearance of having been read and well used; the bindings
being cracked or creased and robbed of their pristine shininess. I
looked at them. Heavens! What a serious library of solid reading!
Herbert Spencer, Mill, Hallam, Freeman, Stubbs, Hamilton, Spinoza,
Bagehot, Seeley, Lecky, and a crowd of others for history; Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, Wallace, and more for science; rows of books on the
institutions of the country and on the questions of the day.
‘These are my books.’ Robert pointed to them with undisguised pride.
‘I don’t believe there’s a better collection this side of the Tower.
I collected them all myself. You see, my people were never given much
to books. My father in the evening smoked his pipe. His father smoked
his pipe in the evening. The girls of the family did their sewing all
the time. They didn’t want to read. All the books we had stood in two
shelves in a cupboard. They were chiefly devotional books. “Meditations
among the Tombs,” “Sermons,” “Reflections for the Serious,” “Pilgrim’s
Progress,” and such-like--mighty useful to me. So I had to collect my
own books. And, mind you, no rubbish among them all--no silly novels
and poetry and stuff--all good and useful books. And, what’s more, I’ve
read them every one, and I know them all.’
I now began to understand how he had been training for the post of Home
Secretary.
‘I wish I had read half as many,’ I said. ‘I assure you that I seldom
feel any curiosity as to what may be inside a book.’
‘Well, if you only read what most of ’em do you are quite as well
out of it. Novels! Sickening love stories--I’ve tried that kind. And
poetry! Pah! Now, here on these shelves is something worth reading.
These books have made me the man I am.’
‘I suppose,’ I ventured, ‘that you are not married?’
‘No, I am not. No, sir. Marriage holds a man down just where it finds
him. If I were married I should be wheeling the perambulator, fidgeting
about the children, insuring my life for the children, saving money for
the children, running for the doctor. No. I shall marry some day--when
I have succeeded. Not before.’
‘Then, you have a mother or a sister living with you?’
‘No. Father died five years ago, and there were left my mother with
myself, two brothers and a sister. The business isn’t good enough for
more than one. So my two brothers went off to Tasmania, and they’ve
started a yard of their own, and they tell me it’s going to pay. My
mother went out to see them, and I think she’ll stay. You see, mother
is a determined kind of a woman; she’d always been master here, father
being an easy kind of man, and she wanted to go on being master.
Now, there can’t be two masters in this house. So, when she came to
understand that, she concluded to go. My sister Kate went with her.
Kate wanted to be master too. So it’s just as well, for family peace
and quietness, that they did go away. I’m all for peace, and always
shall be, but I mean to be master in my own house.’
The speech revealed things volcanic; the son of the mother, the mother
of the son; the sister of the brother, the brother of the sister--all
masterful, and all striving for the mastery. And the son getting the
best of it. So he made a solitude, and he called it peace.
‘And you are left all alone in this great house?’
‘No. Some cousins of mine--not your cousins--mother’s cousins, live
here and keep the house for me. They are a retired skipper and his
daughter. The daughter does the housekeeping. She is also my secretary,
and keeps the accounts of the place over the way. She’s a clever girl
in her way, always right to a farthing with the accounts; and she
copies things for me when I want passages copied. Can’t follow an
argument, of course. No woman can.’ This is to have lived all your life
at Wapping. ‘You’ll see her presently. I’ve told her, by the way, if
that matters--only I want you to understand how I stand, and what sort
of a man I am--that I shall marry her one of these days, when I have
got on. Not before. You see, I want a wife who won’t be thinking all
the time about her clothes and company and stuff. I train my own wife
in my own way. It may be ten years, or twelve years, or forty, that
she’ll have to wait. Of course,’ he snorted, ‘she doesn’t expect any
fondling and kissing and foolishness.’
‘Poor girl!’ I did not say this. I only murmured, ‘Yes, I see, of
course,’ in the usual way when one is surprised, and a coherent reply
is difficult.
‘I only tell you this because I am consulting you about myself, and
you ought to know everything. Otherwise, it’s a perfectly unimportant
affair.’
‘Only a woman.’
‘That’s all. One must marry, some time, and it’s as well to know what
you are about. Not that I’m afraid of any woman. Still, it saves
trouble to get your wife into proper order before you begin.’
‘My own opinion, quite. Whether it will be my wife’s opinion or not I
cannot say.’
Here was a gallant lover for you! Here was an ardent lover! Here, in
the language of the last century, were flames and darts, and pains and
madness of love! He was going to wait for ten or twelve or forty years,
until he had achieved the object of his ambition; and there was to be
no fondling, and the future wife was to be reduced to proper order!
‘And now,’ said the man of ambition abruptly, ‘about that information
that you promised to get for me. That’s what we came here to talk
about, not coats-of-arms and girls. Have you got it?’
‘I have been to see a man whom I know. He is a politician; he lives in
politics; he thinks about nothing else. And I spent this morning with
him discussing your case--much as you told me last night. I can only
tell you’--I felt a little embarrassed, for obvious reasons--‘what he
told me.’
‘Go on. What did he say? That a boat-builder from Wapping mustn’t dare
to think of the House?’
‘Not at all. They don’t mind much what a man is by calling. What I
understood last night is this: You wish to go into the House and to
make your way upwards by your own abilities, alone. You will force the
House to recognise you.’
‘Yes. My model is John Bright. I’ve got his speeches, and I know his
history.’
‘But John Bright became in the long-run a Party man.’
‘John Bright was a power in the country as an independent member long
before he went into the Cabinet. I want to be a power in the country.’
‘Well, my friend says that the time of the Independent Member is
gone. The only way to get on, nowadays, is to belong to a Party from
the outset. Do you know what that means? You have to fall in and obey
orders; you must not advance opinions of your own unless they happen
to be those of the Party; you must vote as you are told; you must
advocate whatever the leaders do. When you have proved yourself a good
servant--trustworthy, unscrupulous, and loyal--then, and not till then,
if you fit in other respects, and if there is nobody in the way, and if
you are personally liked by the Cabinet, and if there is any vacancy
into which you could be pushed, then, and not till then, you might get
promoted, and so rise.’
‘Oh,’ he snarled again defiantly, ‘we shall see. What next?’
‘You will, of course, belong to the Liberal side. All the men who want
to get on enter on that side, because the others have got young men of
their own. If you do not know a constituency where you think you would
have a chance, the Party, supposing they approve of you as a candidate,
will perhaps find you one. They’ve always got a list of boroughs where
they want a good candidate. Then you must set yourself to become
agreeable to the electors; you must stay there, lecture them, humour
them, coax and cajole and flatter and fawn to them--my man didn’t say
all this, but he meant it--above all, you must promise them everything
they want. It is perfectly easy, though it does seem rather dirty work.
But it has to be done, and by yourself, because it can’t be done by
deputy.’
‘I shall not do it.’
‘As you please. You know that there is a Party Committee in every
borough. You will have to study that Committee, and all the members.
Lastly, you will have to undergo the process of heckling, which a man
of your temper will, I imagine, find extremely disagreeable.’
‘I shall get in, Sir George, without any of these tricks; and I shall
get in as an Independent Member. I will neither fawn to my people nor
flatter them. I shall say: “Here am I, your candidate; elect me.” And I
shall go in pledged to neither side.’
‘Then, my cousin, between the two you will fall to the ground.’
‘No; I shall succeed. You do not understand yet, Sir George, that you
have to do with a very able man indeed.’
This kind of talk may be arrogant and offensive; but Robert Burnikel
was neither. He made an arrogant assertion with a calmness which was
modesty. He advanced it as one who states a scientific fact. Belief in
himself was a part of the man’s nature. More than this, as you will
see: he succeeded in convincing those who heard him.
‘Now for my fitness,’ he went on. ‘Listen to this. First of all,
there’s nobody like me in the House at all. I am a Master Craftsman.
Formerly there were hundreds of crafts all carried on in London. They
made everything. There were in every craft the masters and the men. The
master knew the craft as well as the men. I make what I sell. I am not
a shopkeeper; I make. That is a great difference, because it helps me
to understand the Labour Question--work, wages, hours, and all the rest
of it. There are working men in the House: shopkeepers, manufacturers,
lawyers, country gentlemen; but the Master Craftsman the House hasn’t
got, and it wants him badly.’
‘Well?’
‘That is not all. This place, so secluded and cut off by the docks and
its river, is a little world in itself. You can study everything in
Wapping. I know the working of the whole system--parish, vestry, County
Council, School Board, everything. I understand the education business,
because I know my own men and their families, and what they want, and
the foolishness of what they get. I understand the Poor Law business. I
know all about the Church, the parish, the school, the workhouse, the
parish rates. That’s practical knowledge. But that is not enough. One
must understand principles. All institutions are based on principles.
So I have read Herbert Spencer and Mill, and all the books that treat
of practical things and what they mean. There is an ideal standard in
every institution--the thing aimed at--and there is a practical level
which is as near as we can get. They are sometimes very wide apart;
they are kept apart by the selfishness of the men for whom the system
has been devised. We must never lose sight of the ideal, and we must
work steadily to bring the attainable nearer to the ideal.’
‘Go on.’ I grew more and more interested in this man--this strong man.
‘Well, I read the debates every day. Nothing interests me in the paper
so much as the debates. Day after day I say to myself, when I read the
rubbish that is talked there: “This is wrong; this is ignorant; this
is foolish; this is mischievous; this man doesn’t understand the first
facts of the case.” And so on. Because, you see, when a man has got the
workings of one single parish like this firmly fixed in his mind, with
the history and the meaning of every institution in it--and they are
all in it--from a coroner’s jury up to a General Election, he’s got an
amount of practical knowledge that covers nearly the whole field of
home politics.’
‘Well, but you are as yet untried in oratory and in debate.’
‘Not at all. I went into the Blackwall Parliament at sixteen; at
twenty I led the House. I can speak; not to pour out floods of slushy
talk. I tell you I can speak. I have studied the art of oratory; I
have read all I could find on the subject. I have also read many great
speeches--Bright’s, above all. I told you just now, Sir George, that I
am an able man. I now tell you that I am an eloquent man. I know that
the House doesn’t want claptrap. I spoke at Poplar last winter, and I
made ’em laugh and made ’em cry just as I chose, and because I wanted
to try what I could do with them. That was only claptrap. I can speak
better than that. And as for my voice, listen: Do, Re, Mi----’ He ran
up and down the scales not only with correctness and ease, but with a
flexible, rich, and musical baritone. ‘That’s good enough for anything,
isn’t it? Why, as soon as I found I had a voice, I rejoiced, because I
knew that for such work as I resolved, even then, to go in for, a voice
is most useful. I went into the church choir in order to learn the use
of it. I sing there every Sunday for practice. I didn’t want to sing in
the choir; it wastes good time; but there is the practice. Nothing like
singing for keeping the voice flexible.’
‘Very good--very good indeed.’
‘Well, I have told you everything. What do you think about my fitness
to go into the House to-morrow, and to rise in it?’
The question was meek. The manner was aggressive. It said plainly,
‘Deny, if you dare, my fitness.’
At that moment the door was opened, and a girl’s head appeared. ‘Tea is
ready,’ she said, and disappeared.
‘Let us go in to tea,’ I said; ‘and then I will answer your question.’