MY LIFE IN KENSAL RISE
The landlord of my new diggings in Mortimer Street was a blacksmith. He
used to go somewhere near Edgware Road to work every day. He told me it
was the hardest work in the world, especially in hot summer days, to
beat red-hot irons with such heavy hammers near a furnace all day long.
I could not lift up his hammer, it was so heavy. I could not believe he
lifted it thousands and thousands of times every day.
His wife used to call him “Ted,” so I called him “Ted” too. I have
forgotten his family name. He married his own cousin, and had three
girls and one boy. The eldest daughter was about nine or ten, and the
youngest about two years and a half. The latter’s name was Clarie, and
she was my favorite.
They had such a sweet home, if poor. Many rich peoples ought to be
ashamed before them if they saw such a sweet harmony in their devotion
to each other. I engaged a very small room in this house for 3s. 6d. a
week. They gave me a large kitchen table for my work. When they put this
table into my room there was no space to put a single chair, so I used
to sit on my bed to work. They charged so little for my meals;
practically it was only the original price of the food. I am sure they
could not make any profit from my meals.
As I said before, £2, 10s. was all the money I had. Naturally I could
not attend to the school any longer; but my teacher, Mr. Wilson, was so
kind to call me to his house at Vicarage Gate once a week. He did try
all he could to help me. With his introduction letters in my pocket, I
used to visit many peoples. Everywhere I was rejected. My £2, 10s. was
almost gone. Mr. Wilson himself bought a few drawings of mine for 10s.
6d. each, “just for encouragement.” About these drawings I have a
strange story to tell the reader.
One evening on July last year (1909), I had a walk on Chelsea Embankment
and saw a young Japanese. Naturally I stopped and began to talk with my
country-fellow. He said he came to England to study Art, and now he was
a pupil of Mr. Wilson’s. When this Japanese Art-student met with Mr.
Wilson the first time, the latter asked the former if he knew a Japanese
artist called Yoshio Markino, who lately illustrated the books “The
Color of London” and “The Color of Paris.” The Japanese student said,
“No.” Then Mr. Wilson brought him my drawings which he bought from me,
and said to him: “Look! these were Markino’s works about seven years
ago. How wonderful that one could get on so well by his own earnestness!
I give these drawings to you now. Keep them, and look at them whenever
you yourself feel disheartened. They will encourage you.”
Then Mr. Wilson told him how he was delighted to hear my “success” (I
myself cannot sincerely accept this word just yet, though) and added,
“Perhaps Yoshio Markino might be too proud to see me now.”
I told my Japanese friend that it was on the contrary. I should be far
more delighted to meet my kindest teacher. Only I had been so busy and
had no chance. Perhaps I shall see him some day soon.
[Illustration: OPENING DAY AT EARL’S COURT (THE FIRST SKETCH THE ARTIST
STRUGGLED TO SELL).]
At Mortimer Street I used to get up at 4.30 or 5.30 in the summer-time,
and make all sorts of designs and sketches “for sale,” until 9.30, the
time of breakfast. Then I had to take them down to the City to show to
publishers. Sometimes they would say the managers would like to see me
at five o’clock; then, with some bright encouragement, I walked all way
back from City to Kensal Rise for luncheon, and walked the same way to
the City again, only to meet disappointment, as the managers did not
like my work. I used to look at those posters on the dead walls to find
out printers’ names, then went to the free library to find out their
addresses in the post guide. I had heaps of their names and addresses on
the back of my sketch-book. I tried every one of them, but all were
fruitless. My last penny was gone then, and I got into debt with that
poor landlord. His wages were only £2 a week, and he had to keep his
wife and four children. I was too sorry for them to take meals there, so
I did not come back for luncheons; I used to drink water from fountains
in the streets. It was my only luncheon then; my landlady knew that.
Every morning when I left the house she used to say to me, “Come back
for meals, and please don’t starve yourself!”
How could I accept these kind words from such a poor woman? It was only
heart-breaking to me; and she also said to me, “Good luck to-day,” every
morning, and she was waiting me in the evenings to hear “happy news.” It
was always difficult for me to enter into the house after fruitless
tasks all day, because she was such a sympathetic woman, and she often
showed me her tears and said, “Never mind about your debts to us, but I
am so sorry for your own hard life!”
So often I wanted some good news, more for her sake than for my own,
just to see a smiling face of this kind-hearted woman. Nevertheless,
things were still going on harder and harder upon me.
As I walked a good deal every day, my boots were quite worn-out, and my
torn-out socks were peeping out almost half the size of my feet.
Wherever I went, the editors used to stare at my boots first, then at my
works afterwards, with this simple word--“No, thanks.”
If I could not come back at the dinner-time I was too sorry to trouble
that poor woman, so I used to tell all sorts of lies, that I had a nice
dinner out; and many a night I went to bed with my hungry stomach.
Indeed, I was too hungry to sleep. A cup of coffee and a few pieces of
bread at breakfast were not enough to keep me all day.
When one gets too hungry one’s nerves always get sharper. My head was
too clear to sleep. I tried not to move quickly, as that made me still
more hungry. I lit the gas and began to study anatomy and perspective
books. That was the way to avoid waste time in vain.
On Sundays I stayed at home all day, and had full meals, and worked out
my designs and sketches. My landlord “Ted” used to bring tea and
pastries into my room, and say: “Mr. Markino, please take this tea, as a
pleasure to me. I cannot bear to see you working so hard without tea.”
And “Ted” used to offer me one cigarette every night; and he always
said, “Smoker has sympathy with smoker.” Indeed, it was such a treat for
me.
The landlord and his wife both were always as kind as kind could be.
They always said to me, “We have never seen a man so honest and so
diligent. God bless you. Believe us, you will be all right some day
soon.” They never pressed me about my debts. They had a little wooden
box in which they used to save a few shillings every week for their
quarterly “rents.” The wife told me they had never touched that money
before, as they must be honest and pay their landlord. But now, as I was
going to get a few pounds as the copyright from _The Studio_ some day,
she began to violate her own law, and used to take out sixpence for my
luncheons whenever I went out to the City. She said, “It is too great a
temptation for me to control. I cannot bear to see such an honest man
like you starve.”
While I was thus struggling at Kensal Rise, my old class-mate Jennings
got a “better job” (£2, 10s. a week, I believe it was). He wrote me that
I should not work so hard all through the week, or else I might get
illness. He persuaded me to spend every Saturday afternoon with him. I
used to meet him at Westminster Bridge. Then he would take me to Kew,
Richmond, Hampton Court, &c., &c., paying all my expenses. He also gave
me one pair of his old boots, as mine were too old to wear. Oh, I forgot
to mention that I had only two broken socks at this time. I used to
wash one pair in my wash-stand every morning before I went out.
At this moment there was only one job for me to get a little money by.
It was to be a model at my old school, Goldsmith Institute, at New
Cross. Mr. Marriott suggested it to me, and I was delighted to take this
job. I had to go there from 2 P.M. until 5 every day. I used to get
half-a-crown a day.
My landlord and his wife were so pleased.
I had to take trams on the way there in order to reach there by the
time. But on the way back home I walked all the way from New Cross to
Kensal Rise in order to give every penny to my landlady. I used to eat
my dinner at Lockhart’s in Westminster Bridge. Steak and friend onion,
sixpence a dish, was a great dinner for me then.
I found out it was not quite easy task to be a model. I was in Japanese
costume, and had to sit down like Japanese too. My neck muscles began to
crack, and my arm felt as if it was going to be broken. And such a pin
and needles! I could not walk for quarter hour after the posing. I did
the same thing for three weeks.
Then my pocket began to be dead silent again. How much I envied those
who had any sort of work to make livelihood. Even the domestic servants
were my great envy! How often I wished to wash windows to get 2½d. each.
A most spoilt child of the Samurai, and a boy-king in his village once,
now become a starving unemployee! And I myself was surprised that my
heart was become the same as those miserable unemployees too. Indeed, I
had such a dirty beggar’s heart then. It was one of these days that I
saw a gentleman in the Park. He was smoking a cigarette, and he threw
away more than half of that unfinished cigarette. I said to myself,
“What an extravagant man he is! If he knew what poor life meant, he
ought not to do that. It is most cruel thing of him to do that before
me!” I dared not pick it up, but practically my heart felt just same as
if I picked it up. I could not help without recollecting an unfortunate
Englishman whom I had met before.
While I was at the Japanese Naval office in Nottingham Place, I often
went with my Japanese friends to a billiard-room upstairs of some
publican’s near by. My Japanese friends went to play billiard, and I to
study sketching their movement. There was an old man who was the counter
of billiard. We used to give him sixpence, and he was always so grateful
to us. One evening while my friends were playing billiard, I had a chat
with him. He told me he was once “a very rich gentleman, in an elegant
house with stables.” He also told me all his sad history, how he was
bankrupted. As he was a great sportsman when he was rich, he found out
the billiard counter was the only business left for him at last. I asked
him, “If you were so rich then, I suppose you often rebel against
yourself. Don’t you feel it is rather ridiculous that you should thank
so politely for our little sixpence? I hope you would not feel that we
are insulting you?”
He looked at me with such a happy face, and said, “No, sir; not at all,
sir. Sixpence is something so valuable to me, sir.” Then he shook my
hand, and said in low voice, “This world don’t think as you do, sir; you
are very kind, sir.” I saw his eyes were quite moisted.
Who knows! The time had come that I myself wanted to say, “Sixpence is
something so valuable for me!” Indeed, I wanted any work to earn
sixpence then. But only one thing was, I could not ask any disgraceful
money like chips or charity. Even in my hardest time, it seemed to me
the Samurai spirit of my dead father above was always demanding me,
“Keep your own dignity.”
It was almost useless to try those printing firms any longer. The
porters of some firms began to turn most unpleasant faces to me, saying,
“You again!” And some of them absolutely refused to let me see the
managers. I began to think some other way to earn livelihood. I
remembered my old schoolmate Jennings used to work at a tombstone-maker
at Norwood, and lately he had left there to get a “better job.” It came
to mind, “Try that tombstone-maker.” But Jennings was having his
holidays in Belgium.
I saw the manager of that tombstone-maker only once when Jennings was
there. I remembered his name--Mr. Edward--so I wanted to write him. I
borrowed twopence again from my landlady. One penny for notepaper and
envelope, and the other penny for the postal stamp. The very next
morning I got a telegram from Mr. Edward--“Come immediately.”
My landlady was more pleased than myself. She lent me the traffic fares,
and I arrived at Mr. Edward’s office on midday. He said he would keep me
for thirty shillings a week, and advanced me ten shillings. He told me
Jennings was living very cheap somewhere near there, and surely he would
be pleased to share his room with me. But unfortunately he wouldn’t be
back within ten days. So I decided to travel from Kensal Rise during
next ten days. All the family at Kensal Rise were so pleased with “good
news.” I gave nine shillings to my landlady, notwithstanding she refused
several times to accept “so much.”
She used to make sandwiches every night for my next day’s luncheon, and
I left there in early morning and walked to Westminster, took the tram
to Brixton, and walked the rest, I could not reach to the office before
ten. But Mr. Edward “understood” my late arrival. Then, on my back
journey, I walked all way from Norwood to Kensal Rise for ten days. It
was always quite midnight before I got home. After I removed to West
Dulwich I used to send “Ted” ten shillings a week. Alas! the rent day
had come, and my pictures were not published by _The Studio_ yet! My
poor landlady had trouble with her landlord. It was all through me. It
gave me such a pain. I wrote her to mention my name and tell him all the
circumstances. To my relief I got her answer--“Don’t worry, it is all
right; my landlord will wait.”
The next month _The Studio_ published my sketches, and I was paid all my
copyright. I returned all my debts to that most kind-hearted landlady in
Kensal Rise.
Later on, when I got a little better off, I sent “something” to them,
and they were delighted. Last year (1909) I went to Kensal Rise in hope
to see these most sympathetic peoples. To my great disappointment
everything was changed there, and I could not trace anything of them
after eight long years!