Book: The Foolish Lovers

S >> St. John G. Ervine >> The Foolish Lovers




"You're a terrible cod," said John, laughing at him.

"Damn the cod there's about it! You listen to these Cockney fellows
talking, and then you'll understand me. It's worse nor the Dublin
adenoids voice. There's no people in the earthly world talks as fine as
the Ulster people. Here's the man with your luggage!" The porter
wheeled a truck, bearing John's trunk and bag, up to them as he spoke.
"Is that all you have?"

"Aye," said John.

"And enough, too! What anybody wants with more, I never can make out,
unless they're demented with the mania of owning things! That's a bit
out of Walt Whitman. Ever read any of him?"

"No," said John.

"It's about time you begun then. Put this stuff in the hansom, will
you?" he went on to the porter, and while the porter did so, he
continued his conversation with John. "Miss Squibb ... that's the name
of the landlady ... comic name, isn't it? ... like a name out of
Dickens ... and she's a comic-looking woman, too ... hasn't got a spare
sitting-room to let you have, but you can share mine 'til she has. My
bedroom's on the same floor as the sitting-room, but yours is on the
floor above. We're a rum crew in that house. There's a music-hall man
and his wife on the ground-floor ... a great character altogether ...
Cream is their name ... and a Mr. and Mrs. Tarpey ... but you'll see
them all for yourself. I'll be back on Tuesday night. Give this porter
sixpence, and the cabman's fare'll be three and sixpence, but you'd
better give him four bob. If he tries to charge you more nor that,
because you're a stranger, take his number. Good-bye, now, and don't
forget I'll be back on Tuesday night!"

He helped John into the hansom, and after giving instructions to the
cabman, stood back on the pavement, smiling and waving his hand, while
the cab, with a flourish of whip from the driver and a jingle of
harness, drove out of the station.

"I like that man," said John to himself, as he lay back against the
cushions and gave himself up to the joy of riding in a hansom cab.



II

The house to which John was carried was in the Brixton Road, near to
the White House public-house. Fifty years ago it had been a rich
merchant's home and was almost a country house, but now, like many
similar houses, it had fallen to a dingy estate: it was, without
embroidery of description, a lodging-house. Miss Squibb, who opened the
door to him, had a look of settled depression on her face that was not,
as he at first imagined, due to disapproval of him, but, as he speedily
discovered, to a deeply-rooted conviction that the rest of humanity was
engaged in a conspiracy to defraud her. She eyed the cabman with so
much suspicion that he became uneasy in his mind and deposited the
trunk and the bag in the hall in silence, nor did he make any comment
on the amount of his fare.

Miss Squibb helped John to carry the luggage to his room. Her niece,
Lizzie, who usually performed such work, was spending the week-end with
another aunt in North London, so Miss Squibb said, and she was due to
return before midnight, but Miss Squibb would expect her when she saw
her. It would not surprise her to find that Lizzie did not return to
her home until Monday evening. Nothing would surprise Miss Squibb. Miss
Squibb had long since ceased to be surprised at anything. No one had
had more cause to feel surprised than Miss Squibb had had in the course
of her life, but now she never felt surprised at anything. She
prophesied that a time would come when John would cease to feel
surprise at things....

She stood in the centre of his bedroom in a bent attitude, with her
hands folded across her flat chest, and regarded him with large,
protruding eyes. "You're Irish, aren't you?" she said, accusingly.

"Yes, Miss Squibb," he said, using her name with difficulty, because it
created in him a desire to laugh.

"Like Mr. 'Inde?"

"Inde!" he repeated blankly, and then comprehension came to him. "Oh,
Mr. Hinde! Yes! Oh, yes, yes!"

"I thought so," she continued. "You have the syme sort of talk. Funny
talk, I calls it. Wot time du want your breakfis?"

"Eight o'clock," he said.

"I s'pose you'll do syme as Mr. 'Inde ... leave it to me to get the
things for you, an' charge it up?"

"Oh, yes," John replied. "I'll do just what Mr. Hinde does!"

He looked around the dingy room, and as he did so, he felt depression
coming over him; but Miss Squibb misjudged his appraising glance.

"It's a nice room," she said, as if she were confirming his judgment on
it.

"Yes," he said dubiously, glancing at the bed and the table and the
ricketty washstand. There were pictures and framed mottoes on the
walls. Over his bed was a large motto-card, framed in stained deal,
bearing the word: ETERNITY; and on the opposite wall, placed so that he
should see it immediately he awoke, was a coloured picture of Daniel in
the Lions' Den, in which the lions seemed to be more dejected than
Daniel.

"A gentleman wot used to be a lodger 'ere done that," said Miss Squibb
when she saw that he was looking at the picture. "'E couldn't py 'is
rent an' 'e offered to pynt the bath-room, but we 'aven't got a bath-room
so 'e pynted that instead. It used to be a plyne picture 'til 'e
pynted it. 'E sort of livened it up a bit. Very nice gentleman 'e was,
only 'e did get so 'orribly drunk. Of course, 'e was artistic!"

The drawing was out of perspective, and John remarked upon the fact,
but Miss Squibb, fixing him with her protruding eyes, said that she
could not see that there was anything wrong with the picture. It was
true, as she admitted, that if you were to look closely at the lion on
the extreme right of the picture, you would find he had two tails, or
rather, one tail and the remnant of another which the artist had not
completely obliterated. But that was a trifle.

"Pictures ain't meant to be looked at close," said Miss Squibb, "an'
any'ow you can't expect to 'ave everythink in this world. Some people's
never satisfied without they're finding fault in things!"

John, feeling that her final sentence was a direct rebuke to himself,
hurriedly looked away from the picture.

"There's a good view from the window," he said to console her for his
depreciation of the picture.

"That's wot I often says myself," she replied. "People says it's 'igh
up 'ere an' a long way to climb, but wot I says is, it's 'ealthy when
you get 'ere, _and_ you 'ave a view. I'll leave you now," she
concluded. "When you've 'ad a wash, your supper'll be waitin' for you.
in Mr. 'Inde's sitting-room. I expect you'll be glad to 'ave it!"

"I shall," he replied. "I'm hungry!"

"Yes, I expect so," she said, closing the door.

He sat down on the bed and again looked about the room, and the
dreariness of it filled him with nostalgia. He had not yet unpacked his
trunk or his bag, and he felt that he must immediately carry them down
the stairs again, that he must call for a cabman and have his luggage
and himself carried back to Euston Station so that he might return to
his home. The clean air of Ballyards and the bright sunlit bedroom over
the shop seemed incomparably lovely when he looked about the dingy
Brixton bedroom. If this was the beginning of adventure!... He gazed at
the picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, and wished that a lion would
eat Daniel or that Daniel would eat a lion!...

Then he went to the washstand and washed his face and hands, and when
he had done so, he went downstairs and ate his supper.



III

In the morning, there was a thump on his bedroom door, and before he
had had time to consider what he should do, the door opened and a girl
entered, carrying a tray. "Eight o'clock," she said, "an' 'ere's your
breakfast! Aunt said you'd better 'ave it in bed 'smornin', after your
journey!"

She set the tray down on the table so carelessly that she spilled some
of the contents of the coffee-pot.

"Aunt forgot to ask would you have tea or coffee, so she sent up
coffee. Mr. 'Inde always 'as coffee, so she thought you would, too! An'
there's a 'addick. Mr. 'Inde likes 'addick. It ain't a bad fish!"

John looked at her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the
room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother,
had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that
this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in
bed. He had never in his life seen so untidy a woman as this. Her hair
had been hastily pinned together in a shapeless lump on the top of her
head, and loose ends straggled from it. Her dress was _on_ her ...
that was certain ... but _how_ it was on her was more than he
could understand. She seemed to bristle with safety-pins!...

Her total lack of shame, in the presence of a man, undressed and in
bed, caused him to wonder whether she was one of the Bad Women against
whom Mr. McCaughan had so solemnly warned him. If she, were, the
warning was hardly necessary!...

"I think you got everythink?" she said briskly, glancing over the table
to see that nothing was missing.

He saw now that, she bore some facial resemblance to Miss Squibb. She
was not, as that lady was, ashen-hued, but her eyes, though less
prominently, bulged. This must be Lizzie!...

"Who are you?" he asked, as she turned to leave the room. "Eih?"

"What's your name? I've not seen you before!"

"Naow," she exclaimed, "I've been awy! I'm Lizzie. 'Er niece!"

She nodded her head towards the door, and he interpreted this to mean
Miss Squibb.

"Oh, yes," he said. "She told me about you. Were you very late last
night?"

She laughed. "Naow," she replied, "I was very early this mornin'!"

She stood with her hand on the knob of the door. "If you want anythink
else," she said, "just 'oller down, the stairs for it. An' you needn't
'urry to get up. I know wot travellin's like. I've travelled a bit
myself in my time. That 'addick ain't as niffy as it smells!..."

She closed the door behind her and he could hear her quick steps all
the way down the stairs to the ground floor.

"That's a queer sort of woman," he said to himself.

As he ate his breakfast, he wondered at Lizzie's lack of embarrassment
as she stood in his bedroom and saw him lying in bed. She had behaved
as coolly as if she had been in a dining-room and he had been
completely clothed. What would his mother say if she knew that a girl
had entered his bedroom as unconcernedly as if she were entering a
tramcar? Never in all his life had such a thing happened to him before.
He had been very conscious of his bare neck, for the collar of his
night-shirt had come unfastened. He had tried to fasten it again, but
in his desire to do so without drawing Lizzie's attention to his state,
he had merely fumbled with it, and had, finally, to abandon the
attempt. What astonished him was that Lizzie appeared to be totally
unaware of anything unusual in the fact that she was in the bedroom of
a strange man. She did not look like a Bad Woman ... and surely Mr.
Hinde would not live in a house where Bad Women lived!... Perhaps
Englishwomen were not so particular about things as Irishwomen!...
Anyhow the haddock was good and the coffee tasted nice enough, although
he would much rather have had tea.

He finished his meal, and then dressed himself and went downstairs to
the sitting-room which he was to share with Hinde. It was less dreary
than the bedroom from which he had just emerged, but what brightness it
had was not due to any furnishing provided by Miss Squibb, but to a
great case full of books which occupied one side of the room. "He's as
great a man for books as my Uncle Matthew," John thought, examining a
volume here and a volume there. He opened a book of poems by Walt
Whitman. "That's the man he was telling me about last night," he said
to himself, as he turned the pages. He read a passage aloud:

_Come, Muse, migrate--from Greece and Ionia,
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas',
Odysseus' wanderings,
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy
Parnassus,
Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and
on Mount Moriah,
The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,
and Italian collections,
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you_.

"That's strange poetry," he murmured, turning over more of the pages.
"Queer stuff! I never read poetry like that before!" He began to read
"The Song of the Broad Axe," at first to himself, and then aloud:

_What do you think endures?
Do you think a great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing State? or a prepared Constitution? or
the best built steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chefs d'oeuvre of engineering,
forts, armaments?
Away! these are not to be cherished for themselves,
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,
The show passes, all does well, of course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the world.
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's
or woman's look!_

He re-read aloud the last four lines, and then closed the book and
replaced it on the shelf. "That man must have been terribly angry," he
said to himself.

Lizzie came into the room. "I 'eard you," she said, "syin' poetry to
yourself. You're as bad as Mr. 'Inde, you are. 'E's an' awful one for
syin' poetry. Why down't you go out for a walk? You 'aven't seen
nothink of London yet, an' 'ere you are wystin' the mornin' syin'
poetry. If I was you, now, I'd go and see the Tahr of London where they
used to be'ead people. An' the Monument, too! You can go up that for
thruppence. An' the view you get! Miles an' miles an' miles! Well, you
can see the Crystal Palace anywy! I do like a view! Or if you down't
like the Tahr of London, you could go to the Zoo. Ow, the monkeys! Ow,
dear! They're so yooman, I felt quite uncomfortable. Any'ow, I should
go out if I was you, an' 'ave a look at London. Wot's the good of
comin' to London if you don't 'ave a look at it!"

"I think I will," said John.

"I should," Lizzie added emphatically. "I don't suppose we'll see you
until dinner time. Seven o'clock, we 'ave it!"

"I always had my dinner in the middle of the day at home," John
replied.

"Ow, yes, in Ireland," said Lizzie tolerantly. "But this is London.
London's different from Ireland, you know. You'll find things very
diff'rent 'ere from wot they are in Ireland. I've 'eard a lot about
Ireland. Mr. 'Inde ... 'e does go on about it. Anybody would think to
'ear 'im there wasn't any other plyce in the world!..." She changed the
subject abruptly, speaking in a more hurried tone. "I ought reely to be
dustin' this room ... only of course you're in it!"

John apologised to her. "I'm interfering with your work," he murmured
in confusion.

"Ow, no you ain't. It don't matter if it's dusted or not ... reely.
Only Aunt goes on about it. Mr. 'Inde wouldn't notice if it was never
dusted. I think he likes dust reely. I suppose you're goin' to do some
work now you're 'ere, or are you a writer, too, like Mr. 'Inde?"

"I want to be a writer," John shyly answered.

"Well, there's no 'arm in it," Lizzie said, "But it ain't reg'lar. I
believe in reg'lar work myself. Of course, there's no 'arm in bein' a
writer, but you'd be much better with a tryde or a nice business, I
should think. Reely!"

"Oh, yes," John murmured. "Well, I think I'll go out now!"

"Are you goin' to the Tahr, then?" "No," he answered. "No, I hadn't
thought of that. I want to see Fleet Street!..."

"Fleet Street!" Lizzie exclaimed. "Wotever is there to see there."

"Oh, I don't know. I want to see it. That's all!"

"You 'ave got funny tyste. I should, 'ave thought you'd go to see the
Tahr reely!..." She broke off as she observed him moving to the door.
"Mind, be back at seven sharp. I 'ate the dinner kep' 'angin' about. I
don't get no time to myself if people aren't punctual. Mr. 'Inde's
awful, 'e is. 'E don't care about no one else, 'e don't. Comes in any
time, 'e does, an' expects a 'ot dinner just the syme. Never thinks
nobody else never wants to go nowhere!..."

"I'll be back in time," said John, hurrying from the room.

"Well, mind you are," she called after him.



IV

In the street, he remembered that he had forgotten to ask Lizzie to
tell him how to find Fleet Street, but her capacity for conversation
prevented him from returning to the house to ask her. The number of
trams and 'buses of different colours bewildered him, as he stood
opposite to the White Horse, and watched them go by: and the accents of
the conductors, when they called out their destinations, were
unintelligible to him. He heard a man shouting "Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng,
Beng, BENGK!" in a voice that sounded like a quick-firing gun, but the
noise had no meaning for him. He saw names of places that were familiar
to him through his reading or his talk with Uncle Matthew, painted on
the side of the trams and buses, but he could not see the name of Fleet
Street among them. He turned to a policeman and asked for advice, and
the policeman put him in the care of a 'bus-conductor.

"You 'op on top, an' I'll tell you where to git off," the 'bus
conductor said, and John did as he was bid.

He took a seat in the front of the 'bus, just behind the driver, for he
had often heard stories of the witty sayings of London 'busmen and he
was anxious to hear a 'bus-driver's wit being uttered.

"That's a nice day," he said, when the 'bus had gone some distance.

The driver, red-faced, obese and sleepy-eyed, slowly turned and
regarded John, and having done so, nodded his head, and turned away
again.

"Nice pair of horses you have," John continued affably.

"Yes," the driver grunted, without looking around.

John felt dashed by the morose manner of the driver and he remained
silent for a few moments, but he leant forward again and said, "I
expect you see a good deal of life on this 'bus?"

"Eih?" said the driver, glancing sharply at him. "Wot you sy?"

"I suppose you've seen a good many queer things from that seat?" John
answered.

"'Ow you mean ... queer things?"

"Well, strange things!..."

The driver turned away and whipped up the horses.

"I've never seen anythink strynge in my life," he said. "Kimmup there!
Kimmup!..."

"But I thought that 'bus-drivers always saw romantic things!"

"I dunno wot you're talkin' abaht. Look 'ere, young feller, are you a
reporter, or wot are you?"

"A reporter!"

"Yus. One of these 'ere noospyper chaps?"

"No."

"Well, anybody'd think you was, you ast so many questions!"

John's face coloured. "I beg your pardon," he said in confusion. "I
didn't mean to be inquisitive!"

"That's awright. No need to 'pologise. I can see you down't mean no
'arm!" His manner relaxed a little, as if he would atone to John for
his former surliness. "That's the 'Orns," he said, pointing to a large
public-house. "Well-known 'ouse, that is. Best known 'ouse in Sahth
London, that is. Bert ... that's the conductor ... 'e says the White
'Orse at Brixton is better-known, an' I know a chep wot says the
Elephant an' Castle is!..."

"It's mentioned in Shakespeare," John eagerly interrupted.

"Wot is?"

"The Elephant and Castle. In _Twelfth Night_. My Uncle, who knew
Shakespeare by heart, told me about it. It was a public-house in those
days, too. But I never heard of the Horns!"

The 'bus-driver was impressed by this statement, but he would not
lightly yield in the argument. "Of course," he said, "The Elephant my
'ave been well-known in them dys, and I don't sy it ain't well-known in
these dys, but I do sy thet it ain't so well-known now as wot the 'Orns
is. There ain't a music-'all chep in London wot down't know the 'Orns.
Not one!"

"Shakespeare didn't know it," John exclaimed.

"Well, 'e didn't know everythink did 'e?" the driver retorted. "P'raps
the 'Orns wasn't built then. I dessay not. 'E'd 'ave mentioned it if
'e'd 'ave known abaht it. All these actor cheps know it, so of course
'e'd 'a' known abaht it, too. We'll be at the Elephant presently. I
always sy to Bert we 'ave the most interestin' pubs in London on this
route, White 'Orse, the 'Orns, the Elephant an' the Ayngel. Ever 'eard
of the Ayngel at Islington?"

"Yes," said John, "That's where Paine wrote _The Rights of Man_."

"Did 'e?" the driver answered. "Well, I dessay 'e did. It's a
celebrated 'ouse, it is. Celebrated in 'istory. There's a song abaht
it. You know it, down't you!...

Up and dahn the City Rowd,
In at the Ayngel...
Thet's the wy the money gows,
Pop gows the weasel.

Ever 'eard thet?"

"Oh, yes," John replied, smiling. "I used to sing that song at home!"

"Did you nah. An' w'ere is your 'ome?"

"In Ireland!"

"Ow! Thet acahnts for it. I couldn't myke aht 'ow it was you never
'eard of the 'Orns. Fency you hearin' abaht the Elephant in Ireland!"

"Well, you see, Shakespeare mentions it!..."

"I down't tyke much interest in 'im. 'Ere's the Elephant! Thet's
Spurgeon's Tabernacle over there!..."

The driver became absorbed in the business of pulling up at the
stopping-place and alluring fresh passengers on to the 'bus in place of
those who were now leaving it, and John had time to look about him. The
public-house was big and garish and even at this hour of the morning
the hot odour of spirits floated out of it when a door was swung open.
"I don't suppose it was like that in Shakespeare's day," he said to
himself, as he turned away and gazed at the flow of people and traffic
that passed without ceasing through the circus where the six great
roads of South London meet and cross. It seemed to him that an accident
must happen, that these streams of carts and trams and 'buses and
hurrying people must become so involved that disaster must follow. He
became reassured when he observed how imperturbed everyone was. There
were moments when the whole traffic seemed to become chaotic and the
roads were choked, and then as suddenly as the congestion was created,
it was relieved. He felt enthralled by this wonder of traffic, of great
crowds moving with ease through a criss-cross of confusing streets.

"It's wonderful," he said, leaning forward and speaking almost in a
whisper to the driver.

"Wot is?"

"All that traffic!"

"Ow, thet's nothink. We think nothink of thet owver 'ere," the driver
replied. "We down't tyke no notice of a little lot like thet!"

The conductor rang his bell, and the driver whipped up his horses, and
the 'bus proceeded on its way.

John remembered that he had not heard any witticisms from the driver.
Uncle Matthew had told him that one could always depend upon a 'busman
to provide comic entertainment, but this man, although, after a while,
he had become talkative enough, had not said one funny thing. He had
not chaffed a policeman or a footpassenger or another 'busman, and now
that they had passed away from the Elephant and Castle, his
conversation seemed to have dried up. The 'bus tooled through the
Newington Butts, along the Borough High Street (past the very inn where
Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, although John was then unaware that
he was passing it) and under the railway bridge at St. Saviour's
Cathedral Church of Southwark.

"What's that place?" John said to the driver, pointing to the
Cathedral.

"Eih? Ow, thet! Thet's a cathedral!"

"A cathedral! Hidden away like that!..."

A hideous railway bridge cramped St. Saviour's on one side, and hideous
warehouses and offices cramped it on the other. There was a mess of
vegetable debris lying about the Cathedral pavement, the refuse from
the Borough Market.

"What cathedral is it?" John demanded.

"Southwark!" the driver replied, pronouncing it "Suth-ark." "Suthark!"
John said vaguely. "Do you mean Southwark?..." He pronounced the name
as it is spelt.

"We call it Suthark!" said the driver. "Yes, thet's it, Southwark
Cathedral!..."

"But that's where Shakespeare used to go to church!" John exclaimed.

"Ow!" the driver replied.

"And look at it!..."

"Wot's wrong with it?" The 'bus was now rolling over London Bridge, and
the Cathedral could not be seen.

"They've hidden it. That awful bridge!..."

"I down't see nothink wrong with it," the driver interrupted.

"Nothing wrong with it! You'd think they were ashamed of it, they've
hidden it so!"

"I down't see nothink wrong with it. Wot you gettin' so excited abaht?"

"_Shakespeare said his prayers there!_" John ejaculated.

"Well, wot if 'e did?" the driver replied. "We down't think nothink of
Cathedrals owver 'ere! We've got 'undreds of 'em!"

John sat back in his seat and stared at the driver. He was incapable of
speaking, and the driver, busy with his horses, said no more. The 'bus
crossed the river, drove along King William Street into Prince's
Street, and stopped. The conductor climbed to the roof and called to
John. "You chynge 'ere," he said, beckoning him.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.