THE CHURCHYARD.
I pass over as irrelevant, or at least superfluous, the very
disagreeable interview in which I revealed my plans to Frances. She
had found a new opening for me--I was to be appointed Commissioner
for Tobago, or President of Turk’s Island, or Lieutenant-Governor of
the Gold Coast; she could obtain the post for me; it was an excellent
opening; I was to spend two or three years in the endeavour to escape
fever, and five or six years of sick-leave at intervals. I should then
have a clear claim to the gratitude of the Colonial Office, and should
be appointed Governor of some colony with a salary of many thousands.
What more could any man desire?
Nothing, truly. And, as Frances observed, no creeping; no wriggling; no
back-stairs; also there is no examination for these appointments. And
they are obtained in the good old way, by interest alone.
Why not, then, accept? Because, unfortunately, I was now a craftsman,
and I really desired no other kind of life.
It was then that Frances spoke with conviction of demoniac
possession--I never before thought she believed in it--and of the
extreme madness which sometimes seizes on men; of the follies
unspeakable which they commit. She was very angry--very angry indeed.
She also declared her disgustful surprise at the bad, low, grovelling
taste which made it possible for me to leave the ranks of gentlehood,
and to go down--down--down--to live among beery, tobacco-smoking,
ill-bred, uncultivated boors and bourgeois. She displayed on this
subject quite an unexpected flow of language and command of adjectives.
To be sure, I had never seen her in a real rage before. And she looked
very handsome indeed, marching about the room with flushed cheeks and
angry eyes, while she declaimed and denounced and lamented. I never
admired her so much. She became so entirely unexpected that I very
nearly fell in love with her.
When she had quite finished by throwing such words as ‘insensate,’
‘clod,’ and ‘stock and stone,’ at my head, and by saying that she had
now done with me for ever; and when she had thrown herself into a
chair, and had held her handkerchief to her eyes--I had never seen her
cry before, and, indeed, it was so unexpected that I very nearly, as I
said before--and when I had said a few brotherly words, and uttered a
few assurances--and when we had shaken hands again--I kissed her hand
if I remember aright--we sat down opposite to each other, and close
together, and had a pleasant talk quite in the old style, though it was
understood that I was henceforth only a plain boat-builder.
It was then that I told her first about my cousin. She listened without
much interest. The man was a mere tradesman.
‘You want a recruit, Frances, for the Party? Of course you do. Well,
then, I tell you that you could not do better than look after this man.’
‘A man’s a man, of course; otherwise, George, the working men
members do not always turn out worth much. Still, there are one or
two--and--well, tell me more about this man.’
‘He is not exactly a working man. He is, like myself, a Master
Craftsman.’
‘Oh!’ She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. Such distinctions she
knew not. And then I told her about his attainments, and his boundless
ambitions, and everything, till at last I succeeded in making her
believe that here really was a man who might be worth considering--the
only fault which Frances possessed was that she underrated the powers
of everybody outside a certain circle. I told her about Robert at
first, I believe, in order to divert her mind from the distressing
spectacle of my decline and fall, and next in order to show her that
we were not all beery boors and bourgeois at Wapping-on-the-Wall, and,
lastly, it came into my head, that if she should peradventure take an
interest in his Parliamentary career it might be very useful to him.
After a bit she began to understand a little. Her imagination was
at last fired by the picture of this young man resolving, while yet
a boy, on entering the House of Commons, and learning to speak at a
sham Parliament; working at home on history, politics, social economy,
all the questions of the day; reading Mill, Herbert Spencer, Darwin,
Huxley, Lecky, Froude, Freeman, Green, and Seeley, and all the rest of
them; becoming a learned man; denying himself the joys of youth--all
for the sake of his ambition; and all the time remaining strong and
masterful as one born to command. Because I am a dull person in
narrative, or because she was prejudiced generally against trade, it
was a long time before I succeeded in awakening her interest in the
man. ‘Do you know,’ she said at last, ‘that you seem to have got a
very remarkable creature down there! Of course I cannot really believe
that he will ever come to anything. A man living all by himself, and
ignorant of all the world outside his trade, cannot come to any good.
In the House one must know men, not books only.’
‘I wonder if you would like to hear him speak. He speaks every Sunday
evening. If you like we will go.’
So it was arranged. Frances would like to see the kind of people who
formed that constituency; she would like to hear the kind of speech
that pleased them; she would go, subject to one condition, that she
was not to see the Boat-Yard. ‘I could not, George,’ she said. ‘It is
bad enough that you should descend into that horrid place--when you
might become a Colonial Governor. I could not actually see the chips
and shavings. Oh, George! you are very wilful--but I must always
forgive you. Yes, I will go with you to see this wonderful person of
Wapping. You only try to excuse your abominable alacrity in sinking by
pretending that you have got a prophet down there.’
So I came away forgiven and reconciled, but for ever fallen in her
esteem, and I returned to my riverside work with greater heart now that
the worst was over.
It was natural that one should take an interest in the people of the
place--especially in those of the house. I spent every day an hour--the
dinner-hour--with Robert’s household. Sometimes, too, another half-hour
over a cup of tea. Therefore, of course, one thought a good deal about
the people. The Captain I found an honest, hearty old fellow, who liked
his meals, took a cheerful glass after his dinner and supper, and slept
away most of the remaining time. He had a room at the back called the
Captain’s cabin, where there was a narrow bed and an easy-chair; a hob
with a kettle; a table with a tobacco-jar and other conveniences. There
I sometimes visited him and heard experiences.
But the person of real interest was Isabel. I thought her, at first,
inanimate, and perhaps stupid. I discovered, first, that she had a
very beautiful head--the poets do not seem to understand the charm of
a well-shaped head--but it was nearly always drooping. Then I observed
that her hair was quite wonderful--there was such a lot of it, and it
was of such a lovely light colour, looking as if it held the sunshine
even in that dark ‘parlour.’ It was, however, only rolled up without
any coquettish display--was the girl quite ignorant of her charms? Her
eyes were generally down-drooped as in shyness or humility--once she
lifted them with some strange wonder because I made some frivolous
remark--there was never any frivolity about this house before I went
into it. They were large and limpid eyes, of a deep blue, like the dark
blue of a pansy. And then I discovered that her features were straight
and regular, and that, though her cheek was pale, and her manner was
listless and drooping, the girl was full of beauty in face, and head,
and figure. And Robert, like a thing of wood, had no eyes for the
loveliness that was his by engagement! Wonderful!
I could never get the girl to talk to me. She sat at table, carving
in silence, or pouring out the tea in silence. When it was over, she
spread out her books and began to work again. And week after week
passed by. I was an old shipmate with the Captain; I was on the most
confidential terms, as you have seen, with Robert; but Isabel remained
a stranger.
Then the opportunity came.
It was a Saturday afternoon. I had been spending an hour after dinner
talking with the Captain in his den. Then, as he showed signs of going
to sleep, I left him and bent my steps westward. It was a bright, sunny
afternoon in May. The street was deserted; the warehouses were shut up;
the sunshine increased, but set off, the dreariness of the tall places
on either side.
I came to the mouth of the Dock. As once before, the gates were open
for the passing of a ship, and I had to wait. I leaned against the
rail and watched. On the right was the Dock, with the masts of the
ships; on the left was the river. I looked at the river and looked at
the Dock. Then I became aware of a most unexpected fact: on the right
hand, besides the Dock, there were trees--green trees. ‘Anything green
in Wapping?’ I asked. ‘Trees and green leaves! Do they grow out of the
water?’
I then perceived that there was a street leading north; I thought that
there was nothing north of the High Street except the Dock. I was
mistaken. At the corner was a substantial modern house--the vestry
house of the parish--with its brass plate and clean windows. Next I
observed a lovely eighteenth-century house--sober, square, built of red
brick, having an ample portal, and in the wall effigies of boy and girl.
This was the parish school. The figures looked more demure than one
could believe possible in human boy and human girl. And then I came
to the church, a plain and unaffected preaching-house of brick, with
pillars and portico of stone. Beside it, on the south side, was a
narrow churchyard, adorned with old tombstones, head-stones, and
altar-stones--the sepulchres of bygone captains, past owners, sailors,
and boat-builders. I observed with some pride the name of Burnikel on
one of them, the nearest to the street--my ancestor. Perhaps all the
important tombs belonged to Burnikels, if I could only climb over the
rails to see. The church was shut, yet it might have been more useful
in the week, when Wapping is full, than on Sunday, when Wapping is
empty. Had it been open, I could have gratified my family pride still
more by observing the tablets and reading of the incomparable virtues
of other Burnikels belonging to this fine old stock. There was part of
the churchyard on the north side. Its houses had been recently cleared
away, and the space turned into a recreation-ground. So liberal is the
County Council that they have swept away half the remnant of Wapping
that had been spared by the Docks, and now there are not enough people
left in the town to populate the recreation-ground. Children were
recreating in it, however, and there was a gymnasium for them in one
corner, and a stand for the summer band in another corner. A highly
picturesque row of ‘backs’ revealed the character of the streets that
had been cleared away.
I noted these things. I observed also that there were still remaining
beyond the recreation-ground other streets of small houses--not
beautiful, not clean, perhaps squalid, if one were inclined to
harshness--and beyond these streets tall masts, which told of another
Dock. Wapping, then, did not, as I had fondly imagined, consist of
one street only, with a river on one side and docks on the other,
and no living person in it at night except the Burnikels. Wapping
is a collection of human beings; it is a hamlet, a township, a town
complete. Here was the Parish Church; here were the endowed schools;
here was the Vestry Hall; here was the playground. I turned back, and
then, which I had passed over before, I perceived before me, fenced
round, a peaceful, beautiful burying-ground, lying opposite the Parish
Church on the other side of the road. A more peaceful spot one would
not expect in the most secluded village. It was filled with tombs and
head-stones; it was planted with a thick coppice of limes, lilacs,
laburnums, and all kinds of flowering trees and shrubs growing among
the tombs. I looked through the bars. Wapping, then, had this one
garden left; and since the greater part of Wapping was dead and gone,
buried deep below the docks, a churchyard seemed the fittest place
in which to possess a garden. Wherever industries spread, and trade
increases, we ought to find the past always beside the present. In the
midst of the noise and hurry of Manchester there stands the ancient
college; in the midst of Hull rises the ancient church; in the midst
of the smoke and grime of Newcastle there is its ancient fortress;
and beside the modern docks of Wapping stands the old church, with
its burying-ground and its schools. Let us never live where there is
nothing ancient, nothing to connect us with our forefathers, nothing
to remind us of death, nothing to preach to us on the continuous life
in which the living are but links, and the past is neither lost nor
forgotten.
The gate was unlocked. I gently pushed it open and stepped within,
reverently, yet with the sense of ownership. Why not? Before me stood a
head-stone--the name had been recently cleaned and restored--‘Sacred to
the Memory of John Burnikel, Master Mariner, died March 16, 1808, aged
ninety-two years.’ That must be the man with the diamonds. I stooped
down and pushed aside the grass to read the text with which his pious
cousins had decorated the tomb. ‘Of whom the world was not worthy,’ I
read. Astonishing! ‘Of whom the world was not worthy.’ This must have
been written while they still expected to find the diamonds. Then I
plunged, so to speak, into the recesses of this coppice. And there I
found, to my amazement, sitting on a tomb with folded hands and hanging
head, in an attitude of the most profound dejection, the girl Isabel.
She lifted her head when she heard my step. She had been crying; the
tears, like dewdrops, lay still upon her cheeks.
‘You here, Isabel?’ I cried. ‘What are you doing in the place of tombs?’
‘I am sitting here.’ But she rose as if she was tired of sitting there,
and should now go home.
‘Yes, I see. But----’
‘It is a pretty place. There are not too many pretty places in
Wapping.’
‘No. Do you often come here?’
‘In spring and summer sometimes, when I can get away--on Saturday
afternoons. It is quiet. Nobody else ever comes. I have it all to
myself.’
‘Why are you crying, Isabel? Don’t cry. It makes me miserable to see a
girl crying. Are you unhappy?’
She turned away her head, and made no reply.
‘Sit down again where you were, Isabel. It is a pretty place. The
lilacs are bursting into blossom, and the laburnums are beginning. It
is a very pretty place. The dead sleep well, and the living you do not
see. Can you tell me, Isabel, why you are unhappy?’
She shook her head, but she obeyed in sitting down again.
‘Of course I have seen all along that you are not happy. You work too
hard, for one thing. Is it the work?’
‘Oh, no, no, no. I must do what Robert tells me to do.’
‘You are too much confined to the house. Is it the want of change?’
‘No, no; I want no change. I do what I have to do.’
‘You will not tell me?’
‘I cannot.’
‘Of course, I have no right to ask. Still, I am Robert’s cousin, and I
see you every day, and you can’t wonder if I take an interest in you.
Will you be offended if I speak just a little of my mind?’
‘I offended? Does that matter?’ A strange thing for a girl to say, as
if she was of no importance at all--as if surprised that anyone should
regard her at all.
‘Well, Isabel, in that part of the world where I have chiefly lived
the girls are treated with consideration. They are princesses; they
are filled with the consciousness of their own power; their words are
received with respect, and their wishes are studied. It matters very
much indeed whether one offends them or not. So I hope not to offend
your ladyship.’
‘You will not offend me.’
‘Well, then, you work too hard; you get no society; you have no change;
you take too little exercise; you are growing nervous and shy; you
shrink from seeing people.’
‘I live the life that is assigned to me.’
‘You are so young, Isabel, that you ought to sing in the house; you
ought to walk as if you had wings; you ought to laugh all day; you
ought to rebel, and revolt, and mutiny----’
She did laugh, but not with merriment.
‘All these things belong to your age, and your sex, and--your beauty.’
‘My beauty!’ she repeated, with a kind of wonder--‘my beauty! Oh no;
you must not talk nonsense.’
‘Your beauty. You should be a very beautiful girl if the cloud would
lift. Come, now; may I lift that cloud for you? May I try, at least?’
I held out my hand. She hesitated a moment. Then she gave me her own
timidly.
I did not suspect the real cause of her unhappiness. I did, however,
feel a most profound pity for a young girl who could find no better
amusement than to sit among the tombs on a fine afternoon in spring.
Even those who are nearing the time when they will be put to lie there
do not generally like to sit among them.
‘You will tell me some other time,’ I said, ‘why you are so sad.
Meantime, let me be your friend; and look here, Isabel: I am a great
physician. You must believe that I have cured countless cases of
Languishing Lady and Doleful Damsel. I am thousands of years old,
although I am apparently only five-and-twenty; that is because I am
such a great physician.’ Well, at this nonsense she actually smiled.
‘And now I will prescribe for you: Not so much work; not so much house;
not so much monotony.’
‘The work has to be done.’
‘Robert is so busy himself that he does not observe. I shall speak to
him.’
‘Oh, but what he says----’
‘Yes, yes, I know. I will speak to him. Now come with me. I will take
you out upon the river. That will do you more good than sitting among
the tombs--even the tombs of the Burnikels.’
There are still boats and ‘first oars’ at Wapping Old Stairs.
In five minutes I was sitting beside her in the stern of a
wherry--Burnikel-built--with a couple of stout fellows pulling us
down-stream. And I brought her back with colour in her cheeks and
brightness in her eyes. ‘My medicine works already,’ I said. ‘Robert
will say that I have done wonders.’
Alas! Robert observed no change at all; and during the half-hour of tea
the poor girl sat as usual with hanging head and down-dropped eyes. But
it was a beginning.