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THE HOLE IN THE WALL
by
ARTHUR MORRISON
London
Eyre & Spottiswoode
The Hole in the Wall was first published in 1902
First published in The Century Library, 1947
The Century Library is printed in England by Billing and
Sons Ltd., Guildford and Esher, for Eyre & Spottiswoode
(Publishers) Ltd., 15 Bedford Street, London, W.C. 2, and
bound by James Burn and Company Ltd., Royal Mills, Esher
_To_
MRS. CHARLES EARDLEY-WILMOT
CONTENTS
I. STEPHEN'S TALE
II. IN BLUE GATE
III. STEPHEN'S TALE
IV. STEPHEN'S TALE
V. IN THE HIGHWAY
VI. STEPHEN'S TALE
VII. STEPHEN'S TALE
VIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
IX. STEPHEN'S TALE
X. STEPHEN'S TALE
XI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XII. IN THE CLUB-ROOM
XIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
XIV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XVI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XVII. IN BLUE GATE
XVIII. ON THE COP
XIX. ON THE COP
XX. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXI. IN THE BAR-PARLOUR
XXII. ON THE COP
XXIII. ON THE COP
XXIV. ON THE COP
XXV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXVI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXVII. IN THE BAR-PARLOUR
XXVIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXIX. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXX. STEPHEN'S TALE
CHAPTER I
STEPHEN'S TALE
My grandfather was a publican--and a sinner, as you will see. His
public-house was the Hole in the Wall, on the river's edge at Wapping;
and his sins--all of them that I know of--are recorded in these pages.
He was a widower of some small substance, and the Hole in the Wall was
not the sum of his resources, for he owned a little wharf on the river
Lea. I called him Grandfather Nat, not to distinguish him among a
multitude of grandfathers--for indeed I never knew another of my
own--but because of affectionate habit; a habit perhaps born of the fact
that Nathaniel Kemp was also my father's name. My own is Stephen.
To remember Grandfather Nat is to bethink me of pear-drops. It is
possible that that particular sort of sweetstuff is now obsolete, and I
cannot remember how many years have passed since last I smelt it; for
the pear-drop was a thing that could be smelt farther than seen, and
oftener; so that its smell--a rather fulsome, vulgar smell I now
believe--is almost as distinct to my imagination while I write as it was
to my nose thirty years ago. For pear-drops were an unfailing part of
the large bagful of sticky old-fashioned lollipops that my grandfather
brought on his visits, stuffed into his overcoat pocket, and hard to get
out without a burst and a spill. His custom was invariable, so that I
think I must have come to regard the sweets as some natural production
of his coat pocket; insomuch that at my mother's funeral my muddled
brain scarce realised the full desolation of the circumstances till I
discovered that, for the first time in my experience, my grandfather's
pocket was void of pear-drops. But with this new bereavement the world
seemed empty indeed, and I cried afresh.
Associated in my memory with my grandfather's bag of sweets, almost more
than with himself, was the gap in the right hand where the middle finger
had been; for it was commonly the maimed hand that hauled out the paper
bag, and the gap was plain and singular against the white paper. He had
lost the finger at sea, they told me; and as my notion of losing a thing
was derived from my Noah's ark, or dropping a marble through a grating,
I was long puzzled to guess how anything like that could have happened
to a finger. Withal the circumstance fascinated me, and added vastly to
the importance and the wonder of my grandfather in my childish eyes.
He was perhaps a little over the middle height, but so broad and so deep
of chest and, especially, so long of arm, as to seem squat. He had some
grey hair, but it was all below the line of his hat-brim; above that it
was as the hair of a young man. So that I was led to reason that colour
must be washed out of hair by exposure to the weather; as perhaps in his
case it was. I think that his face was almost handsome, in a rough,
hard-bitten way, and he was as hairy a man as I ever saw. His short
beard was like curled wire; but I can remember that long after I had
grown to resent being kissed by women, being no longer a baby, I gladly
climbed his knee to kiss my grandfather, though his shaven upper-lip was
like a rasp.
In these early days I lived with my mother in a little house of a short
row that stood on a quay, in a place that was not exactly a dock, nor a
wharf, nor a public thoroughfare; but where people from the dock trying
to find a wharf, people from a wharf looking for the dock, and people
from the public thoroughfare in anxious search of dock and wharves, used
to meet and ask each other questions. It was a detached piece of
Blackwall which had got adrift among locks and jetties, and was liable
to be cut off from the rest of the world at any moment by the arrival of
a ship and the consequent swinging of a bridge, worked by two men at a
winch. So that it was a commonplace of my early childhood (though the
sight never lost its interest) to observe from a window a ship, passing
as it were up the street, warped into dock by the capstans on the quay.
And the capstan-songs of the dockmen--_Shenandore_, _Mexico is covered
with Snow_, _Hurrah for the Black Ball Line_, and the like--were as much
my nursery rhymes as _Little Boy Blue_ and _Sing a Song o' Sixpence_.
These things are done differently nowadays; the cottages on the quay are
gone, and the neighbourhood is a smokier place, where the work is done
by engines, with no songs.
My father was so much at sea that I remember little of him at all. He
was a ship's officer, and at the time I am to tell of he was mate of the
brig _Juno_, owned by Viney and Marr, one of the small shipowning firms
that were common enough thirty years ago, though rarer now; the sort of
firm that was made by a pushing skipper and an ambitious shipping clerk,
beginning with a cheap vessel bought with money raised mainly by pawning
the ship. Such concerns often did well, and sometimes grew into great
lines; perhaps most of them yielded the partners no more than a
comfortable subsistence; and a good few came to grief, or were kept
going by questionable practices which have since become
illegal--sometimes in truth by what the law called crime, even then.
Viney had been a ship's officer--had indeed served under Grandfather
Nat, who was an old skipper. Marr was the business man who had been a
clerk. And the firm owned two brigs, the _Juno_ and another; though how
much of their value was clear property and how much stood for borrowed
money was matter of doubt and disagreement in the conversation of mates
and skippers along Thames shore. What nobody disagreed about, however,
was that the business was run on skinflint principles, and that the
vessels were so badly found, so ill-kept, and so grievously
under-manned, that the firm ought to be making money. These things by
the way, though they are important to remember. As I was saying, I
remember little of my father, because of his long voyages and short
spells at home. But my mother is so clear and so kind in my recollection
that sometimes I dream of her still, though she died before I was eight.
It was while my father was on a long voyage with the _Juno_ that there
came a time when she took me often upon her knee, asking if I should
like a little brother or sister to play with; a thing which I demanded
to have brought, instantly. There was a fat woman called Mrs. Dann, who
appeared in the household and became my enemy. She slept with my mother,
and my cot was thrust into another room, where I lay at night and
brooded--sometimes wept with jealousy thus to be supplanted; though I
drew what consolation I might from the prospect of the promised
playmate. Then I could not go near my mother at all, for she was ill,
and there was a doctor. And then ... I was told that mother and
baby-brother were gone to heaven together; a thing I would not hear of,
but fought savagely with Mrs. Dann on the landing, shouting to my mother
that she was not to die, for I was coming. And when, wearied with
kicking and screaming--for I fought with neighbours as well as with the
nurse and the undertaker, conceiving them to be all in league to deprive
me of my mother--when at last the woman from next door took me into the
bedroom, and I saw the drawn face that could not smile, and my tiny
brother that could not play, lying across the dead breast, I so behaved
that the good soul with me blubbered aloud; and I had an added grief in
the reflection that I had kicked her shins not half an hour before. I
have never seen that good woman since; and I am ashamed to write that I
cannot even remember her name.
I have no more to say of my mother, and of her funeral only so much as
records the least part of my grief. Some of her relations came, whom I
cannot distinctly remember seeing at any other time: a group of elderly
and hard-featured women, who talked of me as "the child," very much as
they might have talked of some troublesome article of baggage; and who
turned up their noses at my grandfather: who, for his part, was uneasily
respectful, calling each of them "mum" very often. I was not attracted
by my mother's relations, and I kept as near my grandfather as possible,
feeling a vague fear that some of them might have a design of taking me
away. Though indeed none was in the least ambitious of that
responsibility.
They were not all women, for there was one quiet little man in their
midst, who, when not eating cake or drinking wine, was sucking the bone
handle of a woman's umbrella, which he carried with him everywhere,
indoors and out. He was in the custody of the largest and grimmest of
ladies, whom the others called Aunt Martha. He was so completely in her
custody that after some consideration I judged he must be her son;
though indeed he seemed very old for that. I now believe him to have
been her husband; but I cannot remember to have heard his name, and I
cannot invent him a better one than Uncle Martha.
Uncle Martha would have behaved quite well, I am convinced, if he had
been left alone, and would have acquitted himself with perfect propriety
in all the transactions of the day; but it seemed to be Aunt Martha's
immovable belief that he was wholly incapable of any action, even the
simplest and most obvious, unless impelled by shoves and jerks.
Consequently he was shoved into the mourning carriage--we had two--and
jerked into the corner opposite to the one he selected; shoved
out--almost on all fours--at the cemetery; and, perceiving him entering
the little chapel of his own motion, Aunt Martha overtook him and jerked
him in there. This example presently impressed the other ladies with the
expediency of shoving Uncle Martha at any convenient opportunity; so
that he arrived home with us at last in a severely jostled condition,
faithful to the bone-handled umbrella through everything.
Grandfather Nat had been liberal in provision for the funeral party, and
the cake and port wine, the gin and water, the tea and the watercress,
occupied the visitors for some time; a period illuminated by many moral
reflections from a rather fat relation, who was no doubt, like most of
the others, an aunt.
"Ah well," said the Fat Aunt, shaking her head, with a deep sigh that
suggested repletion; "ah well; it's what we must all come to!"
There had been a deal of other conversation, but I remember this remark
because the Fat Aunt had already made it twice.
"Ah, indeed," assented another aunt, a thin one; "so we must, sooner or
later."
"Yes, yes; as I often say, we're all mortal."
"Yes, indeed!"
"We've all got to be born, an' we've all got to die."
"That's true!"
"Rich an' poor--just the same."
"Ah!"
"In the midst of life we're in the middle of it."
"Ah yes!"
Grandfather Nat, deeply impressed, made haste to refill the Fat Aunt's
glass, and to push the cake-dish nearer. Aunt Martha jerked Uncle
Martha's elbow toward his glass, which he was neglecting, with a sudden
nod and a frown of pointed significance--even command.
"It's a great trial for all of the family, I'm sure," pursued the Fat
Aunt, after applications to glass and cake-dish; "but we must bear up.
Not that we ain't had trials enough, neither."
"No, indeed," replied Aunt Martha with a snap at my grandfather, as
though he were the trial chiefly on her mind; which Grandfather Nat took
very humbly, and tried her with watercress.
"Well, she's better off, poor thing," the Fat Aunt went on.
Some began to say "Ah!" again, but Aunt Martha snapped it into "Well,
let's hope so!"--in the tone of one convinced that my mother couldn't be
much worse off than she had been. From which, and from sundry other
remarks among the aunts, I gathered that my mother was held to have hurt
the dignity of her family by alliance with Grandfather Nat's. I have
never wholly understood why; but I put the family pride down to the
traditional wedding of an undoubted auctioneer with Aunt Martha's
cousin. So Aunt Martha said "Let's hope so!" and, with another sudden
frown and nod, shoved Uncle Martha toward the cake.
"What a blessing the child was took too!" was the Fat Aunt's next
observation.
"Ah, that it is!" murmured the chorus. But I was puzzled and shocked to
hear such a thing said of my little brother.
"And it's a good job there's only one left."
The chorus agreed again. I began to feel that I had seriously disobliged
my mother's relations by not dying too.
"And him a boy; boys can look after themselves." This was a thin aunt's
opinion.
"Ah, and that's a blessing," sighed the Fat Aunt; "a great blessing."
"Of course," said Aunt Martha. "And it's not to be expected that his
mother's relations can be burdened with him."
"Why, no indeed!" said the Fat Aunt, very decisively.
"I'm sure it wouldn't be poor Ellen's wish to cause more trouble to her
family than she has!" And Aunt Martha, with a frown at the watercress,
gave Uncle Martha another jolt. It seemed to me that he had really eaten
all he wanted, and would rather leave off; and I wondered if she always
fed him like that, or if it were only when they were visiting.
"And besides, it 'ud be standing in the child's way," Aunt Martha
resumed, "with so many openings as there is in the docks here, quite
handy."
Perhaps it was because I was rather dull in the head that day, from one
cause and another; at any rate I could think of no other openings in the
docks but those between the ships and the jetties, and at the
lock-sides, which people sometimes fell into, in the dark; and I
gathered a hazy notion that I was expected to make things comfortable by
going out and drowning myself.
"Yes, of course it would," said the Fat Aunt.
"It stands to reason," said a thin one.
"Anybody can see _that_," said the others.
"And many a boy's gone out to work no older."
"Ah, and been members o' Parliament afterwards, too."
The prospect of an entry into Parliament presented so stupefying a
contrast with that of an immersion in the dock that for some time the
ensuing conversation made little impression on me. On the part of my
mother's relations it was mainly a repetition of what had gone before,
very much in the same words; and as to my grandfather, he had little to
say at all, but expressed himself, so far as he might, by furtive pats
on my back; pats increasing in intensity as the talk of the ladies
pointed especially and unpleasingly to myself. Till at last the food and
drink were all gone. Whereupon the Fat Aunt sighed her last moral
sentiment, Uncle Martha was duly shoved out on the quay, and I was left
alone with Grandfather Nat.
"Well Stevy, ol' mate," said my grandfather, drawing me on his knee; "us
two's left alone; left alone, ol' mate."
I had not cried much that day--scarce at all in fact, since first
meeting my grandfather in the passage and discovering his empty
pocket--for, as I have said, I was a little dull in the head, and trying
hard to think of many things. But now I cried indeed, with my face
against my grandfather's shoulder, and there was something of solace in
the outburst; and when at last I looked up I saw two bright drops
hanging in the wiry tangle of my grandfather's beard, and another lodged
in the furrow under one eye.
"'Nough done, Stevy," said my grandfather; "don't cry no more. You'll
come home along o' me now, won't ye? An' to-morrow we'll go in the
London Dock, where the sugar is."
I looked round the room and considered, as well as my sodden little head
would permit. I had never been in the London Dock, which was a wonderful
place, as I had gathered from my grandfather's descriptions: a paradise
where sugar lay about the very ground in lumps, and where you might eat
it if you would, so long as you brought none away. But here was my home,
with nobody else to take care of it, and I felt some muddled sense of a
new responsibility. "I'm 'fraid I can't leave the place, Gran'fa' Nat,"
I said, with a dismal shake of the head. "Father might come home, an' he
wouldn't know, an'----"
"An' so--an' so you think you've got to stop an' keep house?" my
grandfather asked, bending his face down to mine.
The prospect had been oppressing my muzzy faculties all day. If I
escaped being taken away, plainly I must keep house, and cook, and buy
things and scrub floors, at any rate till my father came home; though it
seemed a great deal to undertake alone. So I answered with a nod and a
forlorn sniff.
"Good pluck! good pluck!" exclaimed my grandfather, exultantly, clapping
his hand twice on my head and rubbing it vigorously. "Stevy, ol' mate,
me an' you'll get on capital. I knowed you'd make a plucked 'un. But you
won't have to keep house alone jest yet. No. You an' me'll keep house
together, Stevy, at the Hole in the Wall. Your father won't be home a
while yet; an' I'll settle all about this here place. But Lord! what a
pluck for a shaver!" And he brightened wonderfully.
In truth there had been little enough of courage in my poor little body,
and Grandfather Nat's words brought me a deal of relief. Beyond the
vague terrors of loneliness and responsibility, I had been troubled by
the reflection that housekeeping cost money, and I had none. For though
my mother's half-pay note had been sent in the regular way to Viney and
Marr a week before, there had been neither reply nor return of the
paper. The circumstance was unprecedented and unaccountable, though the
explanation came before very long.
For the present, however, the difficulty was put aside. I put my hand in
my grandfather's, and, the door being locked behind us and the key in
his pocket, we went out together, on the quay, over the bridge and into
the life that was to be new for us both.