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My Man Jeeves/Helping Freddie

I don't want to bore you, don't you know, and all that sort of rot, but I must tell you about dear old Freddie Meadowes. I'm not a flier at literary style, and all that, but I'll get some writer chappie to give the thing a wash and brush up when I've finished, so that'll be all right.

Dear old Freddie, don't you know, has been a dear old pal of mine for years and years; so when I went into the club one morning and found him sitting alone in a dark corner, staring glassily at nothing, and generally looking like the last rose of summer, you can understand I was quite disturbed about it. As a rule, the old rotter is the life and soul of our set. Quite the little lump of fun, and all that sort of thing.

Jimmy Pinkerton was with me at the time. Jimmy's a fellow who writes plays—a deuced brainy sort of fellow—and between us we set to work to question the poor pop-eyed chappie, until finally we got at what the matter was.

As we might have guessed, it was a girl. He had had a quarrel with Angela West, the girl he was engaged to, and she had broken off the engagement. What the row had been about he didn't say, but apparently she was pretty well fed up. She wouldn't let him come near her, refused to talk on the phone, and sent back his letters unopened.

I was sorry for poor old Freddie. I knew what it felt like. I was once in love myself with a girl called Elizabeth Shoolbred, and the fact that she couldn't stand me at any price will be recorded in my autobiography. I knew the thing for Freddie.

"Change of scene is what you want, old scout," I said. "Come with me to Marvis Bay. I've taken a cottage there. Jimmy's coming down on the twenty-fourth. We'll be a cosy party."

"He's absolutely right," said Jimmy. "Change of scene's the thing. I knew a man. Girl refused him. Man went abroad. Two months later girl wired him, 'Come back. Muriel.' Man started to write out a reply; suddenly found that he couldn't remember girl's surname; so never answered at all."

But Freddie wouldn't be comforted. He just went on looking as if he had swallowed his last sixpence. However, I got him to promise to come to Marvis Bay with me. He said he might as well be there as anywhere.

Do you know Marvis Bay? It's in Dorsetshire. It isn't what you'd call a fiercely exciting spot, but it has its good points. You spend the day there bathing and sitting on the sands, and in the evening you stroll out on the shore with the gnats. At nine o'clock you rub ointment on the wounds and go to bed.

It seemed to suit poor old Freddie. Once the moon was up and the breeze sighing in the trees, you couldn't drag him from that beach with a rope. He became quite a popular pet with the gnats. They'd hang round waiting for him to come out, and would give perfectly good strollers the miss-in-baulk just so as to be in good condition for him.

Yes, it was a peaceful sort of life, but by the end of the first week I began to wish that Jimmy Pinkerton had arranged to come down earlier: for as a companion Freddie, poor old chap, wasn't anything to write home to mother about. When he wasn't chewing a pipe and scowling at the carpet, he was sitting at the piano, playing "The Rosary" with one finger. He couldn't play anything except "The Rosary," and he couldn't play much of that. Somewhere round about the third bar a fuse would blow out, and he'd have to start all over again.

He was playing it as usual one morning when I came in from bathing.

"Reggie," he said, in a hollow voice, looking up, "I've seen her."

"Seen her?" I said. "What, Miss West?"

"I was down at the post office, getting the letters, and we met in the doorway. She cut me!"

He started "The Rosary" again, and side-slipped in the second bar.

"Reggie," he said, "you ought never to have brought me here. I must go away."

"Go away?" I said. "Don't talk such rot. This is the best thing that could have happened. This is where you come out strong."

"She cut me."

"Never mind. Be a sportsman. Have another dash at her."

"She looked clean through me!"

"Of course she did. But don't mind that. Put this thing in my hands. I'll see you through. Now, what you want," I said, "is to place her under some obligation to you. What you want is to get her timidly thanking you. What you want——"

"But what's she going to thank me timidly for?"

I thought for a moment.

"Look out for a chance and save her from drowning," I said.

"I can't swim," said Freddie.

That was Freddie all over, don't you know. A dear old chap in a thousand ways, but no help to a fellow, if you know what I mean.

He cranked up the piano once more and I sprinted for the open.

I strolled out on to the sands and began to think this thing over. There was no doubt that the brain-work had got to be done by me. Dear old Freddie had his strong qualities. He was top-hole at polo, and in happier days I've heard him give an imitation of cats fighting in a backyard that would have surprised you. But apart from that he wasn't a man of enterprise.

Well, don't you know, I was rounding some rocks, with my brain whirring like a dynamo, when I caught sight of a blue dress, and, by Jove, it was the girl. I had never met her, but Freddie had sixteen photographs of her sprinkled round his bedroom, and I knew I couldn't be mistaken. She was sitting on the sand, helping a small, fat child build a castle. On a chair close by was an elderly lady reading a novel. I heard the girl call her "aunt." So, doing the Sherlock Holmes business, I deduced that the fat child was her cousin. It struck me that if Freddie had been there he would probably have tried to work up some sentiment about the kid on the strength of it. Personally I couldn't manage it. I don't think I ever saw a child who made me feel less sentimental. He was one of those round, bulging kids.

After he had finished the castle he seemed to get bored with life, and began to whimper. The girl took him off to where a fellow was selling sweets at a stall. And I walked on.

Now, fellows, if you ask them, will tell you that I'm a chump. Well, I don't mind. I admit it. I am a chump. All the Peppers have been chumps. But what I do say is that every now and then, when you'd least expect it, I get a pretty hot brain-wave; and that's what happened now. I doubt if the idea that came to me then would have occurred to a single one of any dozen of the brainiest chappies you care to name.

It came to me on my return journey. I was walking back along the shore, when I saw the fat kid meditatively smacking a jelly-fish with a spade. The girl wasn't with him. In fact, there didn't seem to be any one in sight. I was just going to pass on when I got the brain-wave. I thought the whole thing out in a flash, don't you know. From what I had seen of the two, the girl was evidently fond of this kid, and, anyhow, he was her cousin, so what I said to myself was this: If I kidnap this young heavy-weight for the moment, and if, when the girl has got frightfully anxious about where he can have got to, dear old Freddie suddenly appears leading the infant by the hand and telling a story to the effect that he has found him wandering at large about the country and practically saved his life, why, the girl's gratitude is bound to make her chuck hostilities and be friends again. So I gathered in the kid and made off with him. All the way home I pictured that scene of reconciliation. I could see it so vividly, don't you know, that, by George, it gave me quite a choky feeling in my throat.

Freddie, dear old chap, was rather slow at getting on to the fine points of the idea. When I appeared, carrying the kid, and dumped him down in our sitting-room, he didn't absolutely effervesce with joy, if you know what I mean. The kid had started to bellow by this time, and poor old Freddie seemed to find it rather trying.

"Stop it!" he said. "Do you think nobody's got any troubles except you? What the deuce is all this, Reggie?"

The kid came back at him with a yell that made the window rattle. I raced to the kitchen and fetched a jar of honey. It was the right stuff. The kid stopped bellowing and began to smear his face with the stuff.

"Well?" said Freddie, when silence had set in. I explained the idea. After a while it began to strike him.

"You're not such a fool as you look, sometimes, Reggie," he said handsomely. "I'm bound to say this seems pretty good."

And he disentangled the kid from the honey-jar and took him out, to scour the beach for Angela.

I don't know when I've felt so happy. I was so fond of dear old Freddie that to know that he was soon going to be his old bright self again made me feel as if somebody had left me about a million pounds. I was leaning back in a chair on the veranda, smoking peacefully, when down the road I saw the old boy returning, and, by George, the kid was still with him. And Freddie looked as if he hadn't a friend in the world.

"Hello!" I said. "Couldn't you find her?"

"Yes, I found her," he replied, with one of those bitter, hollow laughs.

"Well, then——?"

Freddie sank into a chair and groaned.

"This isn't her cousin, you idiot!" he said.

"He's no relation at all. He's just a kid she happened to meet on the beach. She had never seen him before in her life."

"What! Who is he, then?"

"I don't know. Oh, Lord, I've had a time! Thank goodness you'll probably spend the next few years of your life in Dartmoor for kidnapping. That's my only consolation. I'll come and jeer at you through the bars."

"Tell me all, old boy," I said.

It took him a good long time to tell the story, for he broke off in the middle of nearly every sentence to call me names, but I gathered gradually what had happened. She had listened like an iceberg while he told the story he had prepared, and then—well, she didn't actually call him a liar, but she gave him to understand in a general sort of way that if he and Dr. Cook ever happened to meet, and started swapping stories, it would be about the biggest duel on record. And then he had crawled away with the kid, licked to a splinter.

"And mind, this is your affair," he concluded. "I'm not mixed up in it at all. If you want to escape your sentence, you'd better go and find the kid's parents and return him before the police come for you."

By Jove, you know, till I started to tramp the place with this infernal kid, I never had a notion it would have been so deuced difficult to restore a child to its anxious parents. It's a mystery to me how kidnappers ever get caught. I searched Marvis Bay like a bloodhound, but nobody came forward to claim the infant. You'd have thought, from the lack of interest in him, that he was stopping there all by himself in a cottage of his own. It wasn't till, by an inspiration, I thought to ask the sweet-stall man that I found out that his name was Medwin, and that his parents lived at a place called Ocean Rest, in Beach Road.

I shot off there like an arrow and knocked at the door. Nobody answered. I knocked again. I could hear movements inside, but nobody came. I was just going to get to work on that knocker in such a way that the idea would filter through into these people's heads that I wasn't standing there just for the fun of the thing, when a voice from somewhere above shouted, "Hi!"

I looked up and saw a round, pink face, with grey whiskers east and west of it, staring down from an upper window.

"Hi!" it shouted again.

"What the deuce do you mean by 'Hi'?" I said.

"You can't come in," said the face. "Hello, is that Tootles?"

"My name is not Tootles, and I don't want to come in," I said. "Are you Mr. Medwin? I've brought back your son."

"I see him. Peep-bo, Tootles! Dadda can see 'oo!"

The face disappeared with a jerk. I could hear voices. The face reappeared.

"Hi!"

I churned the gravel madly.

"Do you live here?" said the face.

"I'm staying here for a few weeks."

"What's your name?"

"Pepper. But——"

"Pepper? Any relation to Edward Pepper, the colliery owner?"

"My uncle. But——"

"I used to know him well. Dear old Edward Pepper! I wish I was with him now."

"I wish you were," I said.

He beamed down at me.

"This is most fortunate," he said. "We were wondering what we were to do with Tootles. You see, we have the mumps here. My daughter Bootles has just developed mumps. Tootles must not be exposed to the risk of infection. We could not think what we were to do with him. It was most fortunate your finding him. He strayed from his nurse. I would hesitate to trust him to the care of a stranger, but you are different. Any nephew of Edward Pepper's has my implicit confidence. You must take Tootles to your house. It will be an ideal arrangement. I have written to my brother in London to come and fetch him. He may be here in a few days."

"May!"

"He is a busy man, of course; but he should certainly be here within a week. Till then Tootles can stop with you. It is an excellent plan. Very much obliged to you. Your wife will like Tootles."

"I haven't got a wife," I yelled; but the window had closed with a bang, as if the man with the whiskers had found a germ trying to escape, don't you know, and had headed it off just in time.

I breathed a deep breath and wiped my forehead.

The window flew up again.

"Hi!"

A package weighing about a ton hit me on the head and burst like a bomb.

"Did you catch it?" said the face, reappearing. "Dear me, you missed it! Never mind. You can get it at the grocer's. Ask for Bailey's Granulated Breakfast Chips. Tootles takes them for breakfast with a little milk. Be certain to get Bailey's."

My spirit was broken, if you know what I mean. I accepted the situation. Taking Tootles by the hand, I walked slowly away. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow was a picnic by the side of it.

As we turned up the road we met Freddie's Angela.

The sight of her had a marked effect on the kid Tootles. He pointed at her and said, "Wah!"

The girl stopped and smiled. I loosed the kid, and he ran to her.

"Well, baby?" she said, bending down to him. "So father found you again, did he? Your little son and I made friends on the beach this morning," she said to me.

This was the limit. Coming on top of that interview with the whiskered lunatic it so utterly unnerved me, don't you know, that she had nodded good-bye and was half-way down the road before I caught up with my breath enough to deny the charge of being the infant's father.

I hadn't expected dear old Freddie to sing with joy when he found out what had happened, but I did think he might have shown a little more manly fortitude. He leaped up, glared at the kid, and clutched his head. He didn't speak for a long time, but, on the other hand, when he began he did not leave off for a long time. He was quite emotional, dear old boy. It beat me where he could have picked up such expressions.

"Well," he said, when he had finished, "say something! Heavens! man, why don't you say something?"

"You don't give me a chance, old top," I said soothingly.

"What are you going to do about it?"

"What can we do about it?"

"We can't spend our time acting as nurses to this—this exhibit."

He got up.

"I'm going back to London," he said.

"Freddie!" I cried. "Freddie, old man!" My voice shook. "Would you desert a pal at a time like this?"

"I would. This is your business, and you've got to manage it."

"Freddie," I said, "you've got to stand by me. You must. Do you realize that this child has to be undressed, and bathed, and dressed again? You wouldn't leave me to do all that single-handed? Freddie, old scout, we were at school together. Your mother likes me. You owe me a tenner."

He sat down again.

"Oh, well," he said resignedly.

"Besides, old top," I said, "I did it all for your sake, don't you know?"

He looked at me in a curious way.

"Reggie," he said, in a strained voice, "one moment. I'll stand a good deal, but I won't stand for being expected to be grateful."

Looking back at it, I see that what saved me from Colney Hatch in that crisis was my bright idea of buying up most of the contents of the local sweet-shop. By serving out sweets to the kid practically incessantly we managed to get through the rest of that day pretty satisfactorily. At eight o'clock he fell asleep in a chair, and, having undressed him by unbuttoning every button in sight and, where there were no buttons, pulling till something gave, we carried him up to bed.

Freddie stood looking at the pile of clothes on the floor and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple—a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again? I stirred the pile with my foot. There was a long linen arrangement which might have been anything. Also a strip of pink flannel which was like nothing on earth. We looked at each other and smiled wanly.

But in the morning I remembered that there were children at the next bungalow but one. We went there before breakfast and borrowed their nurse. Women are wonderful, by George they are! She had that kid dressed and looking fit for anything in about eight minutes. I showered wealth on her, and she promised to come in morning and evening. I sat down to breakfast almost cheerful again. It was the first bit of silver lining there had been to the cloud up to date.

"And after all," I said, "there's lots to be said for having a child about the house, if you know what I mean. Kind of cosy and domestic—what!"

Just then the kid upset the milk over Freddie's trousers, and when he had come back after changing his clothes he began to talk about what a much-maligned man King Herod was. The more he saw of Tootles, he said, the less he wondered at those impulsive views of his on infanticide.

Two days later Jimmy Pinkerton came down. Jimmy took one look at the kid, who happened to be howling at the moment, and picked up his portmanteau.

"For me," he said, "the hotel. I can't write dialogue with that sort of thing going on. Whose work is this? Which of you adopted this little treasure?"

I told him about Mr. Medwin and the mumps. Jimmy seemed interested.

"I might work this up for the stage," he said. "It wouldn't make a bad situation for act two of a farce."

"Farce!" snarled poor old Freddie.

"Rather. Curtain of act one on hero, a well-meaning, half-baked sort of idiot just like—that is to say, a well-meaning, half-baked sort of idiot, kidnapping the child. Second act, his adventures with it. I'll rough it out to-night. Come along and show me the hotel, Reggie."

As we went I told him the rest of the story—the Angela part. He laid down his portmanteau and looked at me like an owl through his glasses.

"What!" he said. "Why, hang it, this is a play, ready-made. It's the old 'Tiny Hand' business. Always safe stuff. Parted lovers. Lisping child. Reconciliation over the little cradle. It's big. Child, centre. Girl L.C.; Freddie, up stage, by the piano. Can Freddie play the piano?"

"He can play a little of 'The Rosary' with one finger."

Jimmy shook his head.

"No; we shall have to cut out the soft music. But the rest's all right. Look here." He squatted in the sand. "This stone is the girl. This bit of seaweed's the child. This nutshell is Freddie. Dialogue leading up to child's line. Child speaks like, 'Boofer lady, does 'oo love dadda?' Business of outstretched hands. Hold picture for a moment. Freddie crosses L., takes girl's hand. Business of swallowing lump in throat. Then big speech. 'Ah, Marie,' or whatever her name is—Jane—Agnes—Angela? Very well. 'Ah, Angela, has not this gone on too long? A little child rebukes us! Angela!' And so on. Freddie must work up his own part. I'm just giving you the general outline. And we must get a good line for the child. 'Boofer lady, does 'oo love dadda?' isn't definite enough. We want something more—ah! 'Kiss Freddie,' that's it. Short, crisp, and has the punch."

"But, Jimmy, old top," I said, "the only objection is, don't you know, that there's no way of getting the girl to the cottage. She cuts Freddie. She wouldn't come within a mile of him."

Jimmy frowned.

"That's awkward," he said. "Well, we shall have to make it an exterior set instead of an interior. We can easily corner her on the beach somewhere, when we're ready. Meanwhile, we must get the kid letter-perfect. First rehearsal for lines and business eleven sharp to-morrow."

Poor old Freddie was in such a gloomy state of mind that we decided not to tell him the idea till we had finished coaching the kid. He wasn't in the mood to have a thing like that hanging over him. So we concentrated on Tootles. And pretty early in the proceedings we saw that the only way to get Tootles worked up to the spirit of the thing was to introduce sweets of some sort as a sub-motive, so to speak.

"The chief difficulty," said Jimmy Pinkerton at the end of the first rehearsal, "is to establish a connection in the kid's mind between his line and the sweets. Once he has grasped the basic fact that those two words, clearly spoken, result automatically in acid-drops, we have got a success."

I've often thought, don't you know, how interesting it must be to be one of those animal-trainer Johnnies: to stimulate the dawning intelligence, and that sort of thing. Well, this was every bit as exciting. Some days success seemed to be staring us in the eye, and the kid got the line out as if he'd been an old professional. And then he'd go all to pieces again. And time was flying.

"We must hurry up, Jimmy," I said. "The kid's uncle may arrive any day now and take him away."

"And we haven't an understudy," said Jimmy. "There's something in that. We must work! My goodness, that kid's a bad study. I've known deaf-mutes who would have learned the part quicker."

I will say this for the kid, though: he was a trier. Failure didn't discourage him. Whenever there was any kind of sweet near he had a dash at his line, and kept on saying something till he got what he was after. His only fault was his uncertainty. Personally, I would have been prepared to risk it, and start the performance at the first opportunity, but Jimmy said no.

"We're not nearly ready," said Jimmy. "To-day, for instance, he said 'Kick Freddie.' That's not going to win any girl's heart. And she might do it, too. No; we must postpone production awhile yet."

But, by George, we didn't. The curtain went up the very next afternoon.

It was nobody's fault—certainly not mine. It was just Fate. Freddie had settled down at the piano, and I was leading the kid out of the house to exercise it, when, just as we'd got out to the veranda, along came the girl Angela on her way to the beach. The kid set up his usual yell at the sight of her, and she stopped at the foot of the steps.

"Hello, baby!" she said. "Good morning," she said to me. "May I come up?"

She didn't wait for an answer. She just came. She seemed to be that sort of girl. She came up on the veranda and started fussing over the kid. And six feet away, mind you, Freddie smiting the piano in the sitting-room. It was a dash disturbing situation, don't you know. At any minute Freddie might take it into his head to come out on to the veranda, and we hadn't even begun to rehearse him in his part.

I tried to break up the scene.

"We were just going down to the beach," I said.

"Yes?" said the girl. She listened for a moment. "So you're having your piano tuned?" she said. "My aunt has been trying to find a tuner for ours. Do you mind if I go in and tell this man to come on to us when he's finished here?"

"Er—not yet!" I said. "Not yet, if you don't mind. He can't bear to be disturbed when he's working. It's the artistic temperament. I'll tell him later."

"Very well," she said, getting up to go. "Ask him to call at Pine Bungalow. West is the name. Oh, he seems to have stopped. I suppose he will be out in a minute now. I'll wait."

"Don't you think—shouldn't we be going on to the beach?" I said.

She had started talking to the kid and didn't hear. She was feeling in her pocket for something.

"The beach," I babbled.

"See what I've brought for you, baby," she said. And, by George, don't you know, she held up in front of the kid's bulging eyes a chunk of toffee about the size of the Automobile Club.

That finished it. We had just been having a long rehearsal, and the kid was all worked up in his part. He got it right first time.

"Kiss Fweddie!" he shouted.

And the front door opened, and Freddie came out on to the veranda, for all the world as if he had been taking a cue.

He looked at the girl, and the girl looked at him. I looked at the ground, and the kid looked at the toffee.

"Kiss Fweddie!" he yelled. "Kiss Fweddie!"

The girl was still holding up the toffee, and the kid did what Jimmy Pinkerton would have called "business of outstretched hands" towards it.

"Kiss Fweddie!" he shrieked.

"What does this mean?" said the girl, turning to me.

"You'd better give it to him, don't you know," I said. "He'll go on till you do."

She gave the kid his toffee, and he subsided. Poor old Freddie still stood there gaping, without a word.

"What does it mean?" said the girl again. Her face was pink, and her eyes were sparkling in the sort of way, don't you know, that makes a fellow feel as if he hadn't any bones in him, if you know what I mean. Did you ever tread on your partner's dress at a dance and tear it, and see her smile at you like an angel and say: "Please don't apologize. It's nothing," and then suddenly meet her clear blue eyes and feel as if you had stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the handle jump up and hit you in the face? Well, that's how Freddie's Angela looked.

"Well?" she said, and her teeth gave a little click.

I gulped. Then I said it was nothing. Then I said it was nothing much. Then I said, "Oh, well, it was this way." And, after a few brief remarks about Jimmy Pinkerton, I told her all about it. And all the while Idiot Freddie stood there gaping, without a word.

And the girl didn't speak, either. She just stood listening.

And then she began to laugh. I never heard a girl laugh so much. She leaned against the side of the veranda and shrieked. And all the while Freddie, the World's Champion Chump, stood there, saying nothing.

Well I sidled towards the steps. I had said all I had to say, and it seemed to me that about here the stage-direction "exit" was written in my part. I gave poor old Freddie up in despair. If only he had said a word, it might have been all right. But there he stood, speechless. What can a fellow do with a fellow like that?

Just out of sight of the house I met Jimmy Pinkerton.

"Hello, Reggie!" he said. "I was just coming to you. Where's the kid? We must have a big rehearsal to-day."

"No good," I said sadly. "It's all over. The thing's finished. Poor dear old Freddie has made an ass of himself and killed the whole show."

"Tell me," said Jimmy.

I told him.

"Fluffed in his lines, did he?" said Jimmy, nodding thoughtfully. "It's always the way with these amateurs. We must go back at once. Things look bad, but it may not be too late," he said as we started. "Even now a few well-chosen words from a man of the world, and——"

"Great Scot!" I cried. "Look!"

In front of the cottage stood six children, a nurse, and the fellow from the grocer's staring. From the windows of the houses opposite projected about four hundred heads of both sexes, staring. Down the road came galloping five more children, a dog, three men, and a boy, about to stare. And on our porch, as unconscious of the spectators as if they had been alone in the Sahara, stood Freddie and Angela, clasped in each other's arms.

Dear old Freddie may have been fluffy in his lines, but, by George, his business had certainly gone with a bang!

title: My Man Jeeves/Helping Freddie


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Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/6

MACMILLAN AND CO.,

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA,

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Psmith in the City

Contents

 * 1. Mr Bickersdyke Walks behind the Bowler's Arm
 * 2. Mike Hears Bad News
 * 3. The New Era Begins
 * 4. First Steps in a Business Career
 * 5. The Other Man
 * 6. Psmith Explains
 * 7. Going into Winter Quarters
 * 8. The Friendly Native
 * 9. The Haunting of Mr Bickersdyke
 * 10. Mr Bickersdyke Addresses His Constituents
 * 11. Misunderstood
 * 12. In a Nutshell
 * 13. Mike is Moved On
 * 14. Mr Waller Appears in a New Light
 * 15. Stirring Times on the Common
 * 16. Further Developments
 * 17. Sunday Supper
 * 18. Psmith Makes a Discovery
 * 19. The Illness of Edward
 * 20. Concerning a Cheque
 * 21. Psmith Makes Inquiries
 * 22. And Takes Steps
 * 23. Mr Bickersdyke Makes a Concession
 * 24. The Spirit of Unrest
 * 25. At the Telephone
 * 26. Breaking the News
 * 27. At Lord's
 * 28. Psmith Arranges His Future
 * 29. And Mike's
 * 30. The Last Sad Farewells

title: Psmith in the City


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Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/15

 CHAPTER I

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD

in the nineteenth century Mr. James Hill was carrying on in Peterborough a business as corn merchant which his father had made very successful, and to which was added a banking business. Later on he removed to Wisbeach with his brother Thomas. James Hill showed much of his father’s business capacity, though sometimes carried away by an over-sanguine temperament. Both his ability and his hopefulness were to be put to a severe test, when in 1825 England suffered from a general banking panic, and Mr. Hill failed in company with other bankers of greater note. But he roused himself to meet the emergency, and to a great extent retrieved his fortunes, for a time.

His troubles, however, were increased in 1832 by the loss of his second wife; and, as a widower with six children, he found himself in an anxious and difficult position. He had always been a very affectionate husband and father; and he was most desirous to find some one who would help him in the care of his children. While thinking over this problem, his attention was attracted by some articles on education, which had lately appeared in The Monthly Repository; with these articles he was so much impressed that he obtained from the Editor the name and address of the writer. She proved to be Miss Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, the celebrated Sanitary Reformer.

Mr. Hill called on the writer at Wimbledon, and found that she was already engaged in teaching in a private family. B


text:
Index talk:The Poet's Chantry

For Commons.

title: Index talk:The Poet's Chantry


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 CHAPTER II

EARLY WORK IN LONDON

1851—APRIL, 1856

all the bright and free life at Finchley, Mrs. Hill had never forgotten that her daughters would have to earn their living. Miranda, indeed, at the age of thirteen, had begun to earn as a pupil teacher in the private school of a friend; and her sister Margaret mentions in a letter the characteristic fact that Miranda had wished to give some of her first earnings to her half-sisters, who were starting a school. When, then, these sisters realised that Mrs. Hill was considering Octavia’s future work, they, in their turn, offered to give her a free education, as a start in life. On the other hand, Octavia’s artistic talent had already attracted the attention of Mrs. Hill’s friend, Miss Margaret Gillies; and she offered to train Octavia in her studio. Both these offers attracted Octavia herself; but Mrs. Hill did not wish to part with her. Whilst she was still hesitating, her attention was drawn to the notice of an Exhibition, to be held at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, of special preparations of painted glass, consolidated so as to make it suitable for tables and other purposes. She found that Miss Wallace, the patentee, was promoting the Exhibition, partly to secure work for some Polish exiles, in whom she was interested, partly with the more general aim of finding regular suitable paying employment for ladies.

Mrs. Hill mentions that her first thought was that Miranda, whose overflowing fancy seemed to her dangerously unpractical, might be roused to more steady work by such an occupation as this. But it was natural that it soon occurred to her that Octavia’s admitted artistic talent might also be utilised in this 13


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 CHAPTER III

APRIL, 1856—DECEMBER, 1858

appointment mentioned in the last letter of the previous chapter must have been surprising to some of those interested in the classes. It was certainly a most responsible position for a girl not much over seventeen. Not only had Octavia to superintend the business arrangements of the classes, but also to advise the women attending as to the subjects that would be most useful to them. And she was even expected to step into the place of any teacher who happened to be absent from her class. This was a sufficiently trying demand, even when the class dealt with subjects with which she was tolerably well acquainted; but on one occasion, at any rate, she found herself required to teach botany; and, us she explained to her sister Gertrude, “I knew nothing of botany, but a great deal about flowers; and as there happened to be a bunch of flowers in the room, I talked to the women about them, and I do not think the time was wasted.” When the Ladies’ Guild was broken up the toy work was continued by Mr. Neale for a time, in a room at Devonshire Street, which, being near the working women’s classes, was convenient for Octavia. She and her mother and sisters were in lodgings at Francis Street, and then moved back to 4, Russell Place, which was let out in furnished apartments, after the Guild left.

In 1857 a scholarship at Queen’s College, Harley Street, was founded in honour of Mr. Maurice, who was given the choice of the first scholar, in recognition of the time and money that he had devoted to the College. He knew that Emily was very anxious to become a teacher; and he offered the scholarship to 80


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 CHAPTER IV

MILTON STREET, DORSET SQUARE DECEMBER, 1858—APRIL, 1861.

Miranda went to Italy, in 1858, Octavia suggested to her grandfather that it would be more economical, as well as more comfortable, if she and her mother and Emily could move into unfurnished rooms. Octavia said that, if he would lend the money for furniture, she would be able to repay him out of what would be saved on rent. He kindly undertook to lend the required amount; and, after the rooms had been secured, Octavia made out a list of necessary furniture, with approximate prices. Then after her day’s work, she visited various shops, and with Gertrude’s and Emily’s help chose what was required. If she spent more on one thing, she took the amount off something else; and she determined that she would keep to the fixed sum. This was achieved. Then she planned and cut the carpet, and each evening she and Emily sat on the floor sewing it. One night they worked till 12 o’clock. All this time Octavia was going each morning to Dulwich, where she stood drawing for about four hours, then she went to Great Ormond Street to the Women’s Classes, and walked from there to Milton Street, Dorset Square. Yet she was as merry as possible, and sang and repeated poetry while she and Emily were at work. And in due time she repaid the money that she had borrowed.

103, Milton St., Dorset Sq., January 4th, 1859.

I only came to this house to-day. It is so very pretty; you and Florence would be enchanted with it. 127


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removal to 14, Nottingham Place was one of the great crises in Octavia’s life. The housing work, with which her name is specially connected, was organised in this new home; and here began the regular co-operation of the sisters in the educational work, which they felt to be so important in itself, and which, as will be seen from the letters, linked itself on so happily to the work among the poor tenants of the Marylebone courts.

On the other hand, this period was marked by special troubles; which, however, led to the formation of new friendships, and the strengthening of old. Thus the value of her friendship with Mr. William Shaen, which had been realised many years earlier, was yet more fully appreciated, in consequence of the difficulties connected with the purchase of Ruskin’s houses; and the help, then begun, continued throughout his life. Her friendship with Mrs. Nassau Senior, the sister of Mr. Thomas Hughes, was increased by the ability which she brought to bear in the arrangement of the accounts for the houses. A time of great despondency and pain, during Octavia’s first visit to Italy, led her to appreciate the sympathy of her friend, Miss Mayo;


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Grandfather of Octavia Hill.

From a Chalk Drawing by Margaret Gillies.


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" the highest Gospel was a biography, so," asserts Carlyle, "is the life of every good man still an indubitable gospel." It is, indeed, the simplest and first of all evangels, the evangel of fact: and when by happy consummation it becomes also the evangel of beauty the crown is assured. The world is hungry for inspiration, and sooner or later will capitulate. The meek shall possess the land, the martyr shall reign, even the poet shall be listened to at last.

There is Robert Southwell, for instance—onetime priest of the Society of Jesus, onetime prisoner in the Tower of London town, onetime laureate of the Elizabethan Catholics—whose story no one can read to-day without more than an intellectual interest. To say that he is best worth knowing for the sublimity of his personal character is to indicate the chasm separating him from the great body of Elizabethan songsters. His memory is not, as so frequently happens, sanctified by his art; rather is his art sanctified by the life which produced it. And yet one would not willingly forget that the young priest's immortality is mainly due to the unique charm of his literary work. "It marks not only the large Roman Catholic element

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Rh On 20 June, Southwell rode over to Uxenden with Thomas Bellamy—some say in hopes of ministering to Anne, who herself had written for him—and fell directly into Topeliffe's snare. "I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly used," wrote that officer to the Queen; and the sinister meaning of his words was soon apparent. The young priest was brutally tortured in his captor's own house; then sent to West-minster, under the care of the scoundrel who had now become Anne Bellamy's husband. In September a new entry appeared in the records of the grim Tower of London, that of "Robert Southwell, alias Cotton, a Jesuit and infamous traitor"; and the old gruesome story was repeated. His fortitude during these ordeals coerced the admiration of Cecil himself. "There is," the latter wrote, "at present confined one Southwell, a Jesuit, who, thirteen times most cruelly tortured, cannot be induced to confess anything, not even the colour of a horse whereon on a certain day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries might conjecture in what house, or in what company of Catholics, he that day was."

Persecution makes of some men misanthropes; of others, saints; of Father Southwell it made a poet. Broken by torture, imprisoned in the darkness and filthiness of the dungeon, he still worked for his beloved people—and, unable to speak, he sang. His spirit was like that pure frankincense of which Lyly tells us that it "smelleth most sweet when it is in the fire." Dr. Grosart opines that the entire body of his poetical work was produced in prison, and this, being true, adds enormously to its interest and its pathos. The Government, no doubt in hopes of forcing some revelation, kept him awaiting trial over three years. During most of this time he was confined in a dungeon so

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2 in the country but also the strange contrasts of the times," comments Dr. Stopford Brooke, "that eleven editions [of his works] were published between 1595 and 1609, at a time when the Venus and Adonis of Shakespeare led the way for a multitude of poems that sung of love and delight in England's glory." Such was once his popularity; and, although that may have lapsed for ever now, the critics are not alone in insisting upon Father Southwell's permanent place in our literature. His poetry, so strangely free from the glad, passionate earthliness of most Elizabethan lyrics, is full of quaint, fanciful grace—of the grace, too, that follows deep religious fervour. The hopes, the fears, the pathetic weariness of Catholics in those evil days, all entered into his work; these, and the tender mysticism which bound them like a spell to the Old Religion. Yet, when all is said, the man's life is in itself our choicest heritage—his life as poet, as priest, and at last, as martyr.

Robert Southwell's birth is usually placed somewhere in 1561; a year which saw two events memorable in English history—the arrival on Scottish shores of the young Mary Stuart, and Elizabeth's final break with the Papacy in her refusal to send envoys to the Council of Trent. He was the third son of Richard Southwell, head of a prominent Catholic family of Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk; it is interesting also to note that his maternal grandmother was a Shelley, and of the same family which later gave birth to the "Skylark" poet. Robert's adventures seem to have begun in the very cradle, whence he was stolen by some wandering gypsies; but, as the theft was promptly discovered, it bore no serious consequence. Far more significant is the fact that at a

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 CHAPTER VI

1870–1875

GROWING PUBLICITY OF OCTAVIA'S WORK

period from 1870—1875, if it contains less of what may be called new departures in Octavia's life than the period which preceded it, or that which followed it, yet can show phases of struggle, constructive work, and the discipline of trial and opposition, as remarkable as at any time of her life; and it also includes an important change in her circumstances, which much affected all her subsequent career.

It may be said, perhaps, that the distinctive characteristic of this period was that it brought her greater publicity than her previous efforts had produced, and so answered her question to Ruskin, "Who will ever hear of what I do?"

First of all: the time was one in which a variety of circumstances had been compelling many, who had not hitherto shown much interest in the poor, to turn their attention in that direction; while many others, who had been anxious to do their duty to the poor, had begun to realise that the hap-hazard methods of relief hitherto in vogue had broken down.

The failure of large Mansion House Funds, which had been, raised in the 'sixties to meet special distress, had brought home to many workers among the poor the need of substituting closer co-operation for their isolated efforts. Some of those, who had realised this need, also perceived that it was necessary to make enquiry into the conditions of the applicants for relief, before they could discover the best means of assisting them.

The great variety of characters and ideals and experiences 256


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Rh very early age the boy was sent to school at Douay, where a seminary had been established to supply the needs of English Catholics. Here, in the person of Leonard Lessius, he first came into intimate contact with the Society of Jesus, destined to be so potent a factor in his life. Later, at Paris, his studies were continued under the guidance of Thomas Darbyshire, a zealous soul and one of the first Englishmen to enter that Order. The Catholic mind will scarcely need any comment on the ardour and self-consecration of these early Jesuits, but it is edifying to read the following tribute from such a critic as Dr. Alexander B. Grosart, in his "Memorial Introduction" to Southwell's Poems: "The name of Ignatius Loyola was still a recent 'memory' and power, and his magnificent and truly apostolic example of burning love, compassion, faith, zeal, self-denial, charged the very atmosphere with sympathy as with electricity. . . . The Society was then in its first fresh 'love' and force, unentangled with political action (real or alleged); and I pity the Protestant who does not recognise in Loyola and his disciples noble men . . . with the single object to win allegiance to Jesus Christ." There is nothing to surprise in the fact that the colossal Jesuit hope of winning back Europe to Catholic Christianity should have appealed to the earnest young English student, or that their lives should have excited his passionate admiration; but it is worth noting that while still in his early teens Robert Southwell should have formed a life-purpose, from which he never wavered. To "leave all," to take up the Cross, and bear it back to the old forsaken shrines, became the one dream of this elect young soul. He applied for admission into the Society of Jesus; and, being refused because of his youth, wrote an impassioned Lament expressing his

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4 disappointment. Delay tried, but did not in the least shake, his determination; so finally the coveted consent was obtained, and on the 17th October, 1578, his name was formally entered "amongst the children" of St. Ignatius. Two years later he took minor orders in Rome, and made his first vows as a scholastic of the Society. Then followed four peaceful years of study, during which Southwell was occupied with philosophy and divinity, and, incidentally it seems, with verse-making. In this case the "poetic temperament" was evidently quite compatible with hard work, for the brilliancy of his labours soon won him the prefecture of the English College at Rome. It was in 1584—probably his own twenty-fourth year—that Robert Southwell received the final rites of ordination, and stood prepared to begin his apostolic ministry.

Almost simultaneously, a law was passed in England (27 Elizabeth, c. 2) declaring any native-born subject who had entered the Catholic priesthood since the first year of the Queen's accession, and who thereafter resided more than forty days on English soil, to be a traitor, and liable to the penalty of death. Severe as it was, it nowise dampened the ardour of the Jesuits in general, nor of Robert Southwell in particular. The English mission—if most interesting—was obviously one of the most perilous in Europe: religious fanaticism had been aggravated and embittered by political hostility; the air was dark with con-spiracies for and against the imprisoned Queen of Scots; and the whole country was, to quote Mr. Turnbull's Memoir, "in a ferment of political intrigues." Alarmed by Catholic successes abroad, Elizabeth redoubled the rigour of her Uniformity Acts; the celebration of Mass was forbidden even in private houses, the fines of recusants were

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Rh increased, and over every Catholic lowered the shadow of high treason. But what was a stone about the neck of the layman became a knife at the throat of the priest; upon him fell the real weight of the persecution, for him the main work of martyrdom was reserved. Against Jesuits, as supposed tools of the Papacy to sow treason in England, popular hatred was even more intense; they were "tracked by pursuivants and spies, dragged from their hiding-places, and sent in batches to the Tower." Then from dungeon to scaffold was but a little way. And all this was done, of course, in the name of justice, on purely political grounds! "To modern eyes," as Green very aptly remarks, "there is something even more revolting than open persecution in a policy which branded every Catholic priest as a traitor, and all Catholic worship as disloyalty."

But had not Ignatius Loyola besought for his followers this legacy of persecution? And never a prayer so promptly answered! Seventy priests had already gone into banishment, not to mention those who had suffered death, when, on 8 May, 1586, two more intrepid missionaries set out for the island. One of them was Father Garnett, subsequently head of the English Jesuits; the other, Robert Southwell. In spite of spies, who somehow ascertained their coming, the priests succeeded in landing in July, and in reaching the house of Lord Vaux of Harrowden, whither they were later joined by others of the Society. There was plenty of work for them to do; there was also plenty of danger. Father Southwell, who passed in secular society by the name of Cotton and who is described as a man of middle height and auburn hair, seems to have been watched rather narrowly from the beginning. It was worse than a dog's life for them all, and the necessary precautions

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6 were irksome. Father Gerard, one of his companions, tells how the young priest tried to familiarise himself with terms of sport for the purpose of conversing with Protestant nobles, and adds that he "used often to complain of his bad memory for such things." On the other hand, one can well imagine how comforting the presence of this earnest, sympathetic soul was to his co-religionists, to whom he ministered largely in London, with occasional journeys to the north of England. "He much excelled," says Father Gerard, "in the art of helping and gaining souls, being at once prudent, pious, meek, and exceedingly winning."

Almost the first of Father Southwell's cares was to win back the wavering faith of his father and his brother. The former, who had married a Protestant lady of the Court, was restored to his birthright by a most eloquent and inimitable epistle from his son. "Howsoever," it concludes, after playing upon almost every key of emotion, "the soft gales of your morning pleasures lulled you into slumbers, however the violent heat of noon might awake affections, yet now in the cool and calm of the evening retire to a Christian rest, and close up the day of your life with a clear sunset."

In 1589 Father Southwell became chaplain and confessor to the Countess of Arundel, whose husband, Philip Howard, was then confined in the Tower. There followed several years of comparative safety at Arundel House in the Strand, during which began his real literary activity. Triumphs over Death, perhaps his first known work, was occasioned by the death of a certain "noble lady" of the Howards, and was designed as a comfort and check to inordinate grief. Notes on Theology, and other prose works mostly of a theological

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Rh nature, date also from these years. But it is improbable that any of his English poems were yet composed. From Father Gerard we learn that Southwell set up a private printing press; from which it would appear that the "apostolate of the press" is not altogether a recent idea. However, Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears, one of his most popular compositions, and model of Thomas Nash's Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, was printed by Cawood with a licence. None of these works was signed, but the Government seems somehow to have suspected the authorship.

The letters written by Father Southwell during these years reveal the Catholic life of the day with terrible simplicity. Mary Stuart had bowed her weary head upon the block; the Spanish Armada had come and gone, uniting Catholic and Protestant in a common zeal to protect England; it would seem that Elizabeth had no longer much need to fear the Old Religion. Yet the persecutions went on with pitiless insistence. "The condition of Catholic recusants here," wrote Father Southwell in 1590, "is the same as usual, deplorable and full of fears and dangers, more especially since our adversaries have looked for wars. As many as are in chains rejoice, and are comforted in their prisons; and they that are at liberty set not their hearts upon it, nor expect it to be of long continuance. All, by the great goodness and mercy of God, arm themselves to suffer anything that can come, how hard soever it may be, as it shall please our Lord . . . A little while ago they apprehended two priests, who have suffered such cruel treatment in the prison of Bridewell as can scarce be believed. . . . Some are there hung up for whole days by the hands, in such manner that they can but just touch the ground with the tips of their toes . . . This purgatory we are looking

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period recorded in the following letters marks the inauguration of a movement, which Octavia considered almost as important as that housing work with which her name is especially connected—the movement for the preservation of open spaces. It will be remembered that, in her first efforts to deal with tenement houses, she had been particularly anxious to secure a house with a garden; and, failing that, she had devoted a large part of her energies to laying out a play-ground, and brightening it by May Festivals, in which efforts she had the hearty co-operation of Mr. Ruskin, who sent his own gardener to plant the trees.

It was natural, therefore, that she should desire to keep open all outlets for her poor friends in Marylebone, which would enable them to enjoy the fresh air and open country.

Hence she became considerably alarmed, when she heard, in 1873, that some difficulties, which had hindered the destruction of the fields near the Swiss Cottage, had been removed; and that building plans were in preparation. The fields were dear to her, not only as the nearest country outlet for the Marylebone poor; but also as recalling her childhood, when they formed part of a wide stretch of open country where she and her sisters had played. She at once threw herself into the promotion of a scheme for saving these fields from the builder, and securing them as a recreation ground for the public. She enlisted the sympathy of Dean Stanley, Mr. Haweis and other well known Londoners in the movement; while Mr. Edward Bond and Mr. C. L. Lewes and other Hampstead residents tried to stave off


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8 for every hour, in which Topcliffe and Young, the two executioners of the Catholics, exercise all kinds of torments. But come what pleaseth God, we hope we shall be able to bear all ' in Him that strengthens us. ' " Even through this darkness, eyes of faith caught gleams of a coming sunrise. "It seems to me," he wrote later that year, in words which were to prove so deeply prophetic, "that I see the beginning of a religious life set on foot in England, of which we now sow the seeds with tears, that others hereafter may with joy carry in the sheaves to the heavenly granaries. . . . With such dews as these the Church is watered. . . . We also look for the time (if we are not unworthy of so great a glory) when our day (like that of the hired servant) shall come."

His day was, in fact, not long to be deferred. In 1592 Father Southwell made a dangerous acquaintance in the person of Richard Bellamy of Uxenden Hall, one of whose kinsmen had been executed in connection with the "Babington Conspiracy," and every member of whose family was under suspicion as to his belief. The young Jesuit said Mass at their home and ministered to the whole household, until the storm-cloud suddenly broke above their heads. Anne Bellamy, a young daughter, was chosen as the Government's first victim. She was confined in the Gatehouse at Westminster under the care of one Nicholas Jones, and the story of her double fall is as brief as it is ugly. Having lost both faith and virtue, the girl was soon persuaded to the final baseness of betraying her family and her friends. From her the savage Topcliffe learned that Richard Bellamy was in the habit of receiving Father Southwell and other priests at his home; he learned the manner of their coming and other details; then, like Judas of old, he acted quickly.

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 Should my said nephew Hanry James Hungerford marry, I empower in him to make a jointure.

In the case of the death of my said nephew without having a child or children, or of the death of the child or children he may have had under the age of twenty one years or intestate, I then bequeath the whole of my property subject to the annuity of one hundred pounds to John Fitall & for this security & payment of which I mean stock to remain in this country to the United States of American to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian institution, an establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men.

I think it proper here to state that all the money which will be standing in the French five per cents, at my death in the name of the father of my above mentioned nephew Henry James Hungerford, & all that in my name is the property of my said nephew being what he inherited from his father or what I have laid up for him from the savings upon his income.

James Smithson


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 at the expiration of three months after my death.

I have at divers times lent sums of money to Henry Honore Sailly, formerly my servant, but now Keeping the Hungerford Hotel, in the rue Caumartin at Paris, & for which sums of money I have undated bills or bonds signed by him. Now, I will & direct that if he desires it, these sums of money be let remain in his hands at an interest of five per cent, for five years after my death the date of the present Will.

To Henry James Hungerford, my nephew, heretofore called Henry James Dickinson, son of my late brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Louis Dickinson, now residing with Mr. Auboin, at Bourg la Reine, near Paris, I give and bequeath for his life the whole of the income arising from my property of every nature & kind whatever, after the payment of the above annuity, & after the death of John Fitall, that annuity likewise, the payments to be made to him at the time of the interest or dividends become due on the stocks or other property from which the income arises. Turn the next leaf


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300 could not see her, because at the moment he was facing me, his hand on my arm. His fingers touching me were not quite steady. It brought me back to reality. "Wrexler," I cried, "you—could leave Rougemont."

Her eyes clouded with anger. She looked at me reproachfully, commandingly. As though I were dreaming, I heard my own voice, "I don't want you to go, I would be lonely without you. Perhaps there is no danger."

Wrexler looked at me curiously. '"There is risk, I know that, but I do not care. I am like a man who has eaten a strange and terrible drug, who knows the danger, but can not resist it, I will stay."

Beyond him Helene smiled a satisfied smile, as she looked at Wrexler's broad back. It made me feel afraid. Then suddenly her gaze swept to me, and the smile changed into a languorous one that promised all things. My heart beat faster, and I forgot my fear.

Wrexler moved restlessly, turning so that we were side by side. Even in that second Helene had vanished—how, I do not know. One minute she was there, the next she was not.

We walked along slowly. Finally Wrexler spoke, "No matter what happens, and I mean that widely, my friend, you are not to regret. For a little time I have been happy. I have come alive. I have loved, even though the woman that I love is a wraith* I have felt a sensation I thought never to feel. If I could hold her in my arms and press my lips to hers, I would count the world well lost."

I could say nothing, because—God pity me!—I knew just how he felt.

days slipped away quickly, I did not see Helene again, but Wrexler did. Almost every day he met her in the rose garden, where they spent long hours.

He told me that she was always elusive, but at the same time promising that some day she would be kinder. He said her voice was like golden honey and that without her he could not face life.

Once I saw them myself, as I came from an interview with de Lacy. As I approached the rose garden through an opening in the arches, I saw them sitting side by side on the marble bench, and of the two, Helene looked the more earthly. For Wrexler had grown paler and more ethereal every day. His eyes were luminous as he looked at her adoringly. She saw me first, and her lips curved sweetly. She rose in a leisurely fashion, turned her back to me and dropped a low curtsy to Wrexler; then while I still watched, she extended one slender hand to him. He bent over it, his lips touched its soft whiteness. A little laugh like the tinkle of silver bells swept through the garden; then she was gone.

Wrexler stood like a man in a trance. I came quickly forward. "You are playing with fire!" I cried.

Wrexler roused. "You saw?"

I nodded.

"Have you ever seen anything more beautiful, more lovely?"

I shook my head.

"I'm not afraid any more. She has promised me"

But what Helene had promised I was not to know, for Wrexler's mouth shut with a snap. When I pressed him, he shook his head. Finally he said, carefully choosing his words with a reluctance that was strange to him:

"To me is to be granted something beyond the knowledge of mortal man, I can tell you no more, but some day you will know," There was an expression on his face that transcended earth.

The next night I spoke to de Lacy


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174 {| align=center
 * + IMPORTS.—Table exhibiting the quantity and value of the principal Articles of Import into Port Phillip for the year 1850. All Imports of less than £1000 value are excluded.
 * colspan=2 | DESCRIPTION. ||   | QUANTITY. ||   | VALUE.
 * | Agricultural Implements || | Packages ||  | 414 ||  | 1,086
 * | Alkali (Soda) || | „ ||  | 697 ||  | 2,987
 * | Apparel and Slops || | „ ||  | 1,964 ||  | 42,086
 * | Bags and Sacks || | „ ||  | 883 ||  | 15,485
 * | Beer and Ale || | Gallons ||  | 381,150 ||  | 38,115
 * | Blacking || | Packages ||  | 425 ||  | 1,379
 * | Blankets and Counterpanes || | „ ||  | 145 ||  | 3,252
 * | Bricks, Bath and Fire || | Number ||  | 114,438 ||  | 1,487
 * | Brushware || | Packages ||  | 225 ||  | 1,172
 * | Candles || | No. ||  | 35,000 ||  | 1,611
 * | Canvass || | Bales ||  | 112 ||  | 2,723
 * | Carpeting || | „ ||  | 40 ||  | 1,596
 * | Carriages and Car. materials || | Packages ||  | 91 ||  | 1,713
 * | Coals || | Tons ||  | 1,138 ||  | 1,284
 * | Coffee and Chocolate || | „ ||  | 46 ||  | 1,850
 * | Colours, Painters' || | Packages ||  | 1,424 ||  | 2,322
 * | Cordage and Rope || | „ ||  | 1,810 ||  | 4,522
 * | Corks and Bungs || | „ ||  | 388 ||  | 1,060
 * | Cottons || | „ ||  | 1,596 ||  | 50,924
 * | Cutlery || | „ ||  | 48 ||  | 1,550
 * | Drugs and Medicines || | „ ||  | 1,567 ||  | 10,307
 * | Earthenware and China || | Crates ||  | 991 ||  | 9,572
 * | Fish, Salted || | Packages ||  | 2,002 ||  | 1,810
 * | Flour and Bread || | Cwts. ||  | 14,360 ||  | 5,156
 * | Fruits, Dried || | Tons ||  | 279 ||  | 6,155
 * | „Green || | Bushels ||  | 7,603 ||  | 1,362
 * | Furniture || | Packages ||  | 765 ||  | 7,534
 * | Glass and Glassware || | „ ||  | 1,903 ||  | 7,162
 * | Grain, Wheat || | Bushels ||  | 30,492 ||  | 3,873
 * | „Oats || | „ ||  | 24,261 ||  | 2,579
 * | „Rice || | lbs. ||  | 277,760 ||  | 1,436
 * | Haberdashery || | Packages ||  | 2,044 ||  | 63,350
 * | Hardware and Ironmongery || | „ ||  | 11,506 ||  | 43,908
 * | Hats, Caps and Bonnets || | „ ||  | 353 ||  | 7,028
 * | Hosiery and Gloves || | „ ||  | 153 ||  | 4,494
 * | Instruments, Musical || | „ ||  | 98 ||  | 3,865
 * | Iron and Steel || | Tons ||  | 2,310 ||  | 23,653
 * | Lead || | „ ||  | 190 ||  | 3,547
 * | Leather, Boots and Shoes || | Packages ||  | 804 ||  | 14,600
 * | Linens || | „ ||  | 453 ||  | 12,848
 * | Machinery ||  | „ ||  | 480 ||  | 1,429
 * }
 * | Cutlery || | „ ||  | 48 ||  | 1,550
 * | Drugs and Medicines || | „ ||  | 1,567 ||  | 10,307
 * | Earthenware and China || | Crates ||  | 991 ||  | 9,572
 * | Fish, Salted || | Packages ||  | 2,002 ||  | 1,810
 * | Flour and Bread || | Cwts. ||  | 14,360 ||  | 5,156
 * | Fruits, Dried || | Tons ||  | 279 ||  | 6,155
 * | „Green || | Bushels ||  | 7,603 ||  | 1,362
 * | Furniture || | Packages ||  | 765 ||  | 7,534
 * | Glass and Glassware || | „ ||  | 1,903 ||  | 7,162
 * | Grain, Wheat || | Bushels ||  | 30,492 ||  | 3,873
 * | „Oats || | „ ||  | 24,261 ||  | 2,579
 * | „Rice || | lbs. ||  | 277,760 ||  | 1,436
 * | Haberdashery || | Packages ||  | 2,044 ||  | 63,350
 * | Hardware and Ironmongery || | „ ||  | 11,506 ||  | 43,908
 * | Hats, Caps and Bonnets || | „ ||  | 353 ||  | 7,028
 * | Hosiery and Gloves || | „ ||  | 153 ||  | 4,494
 * | Instruments, Musical || | „ ||  | 98 ||  | 3,865
 * | Iron and Steel || | Tons ||  | 2,310 ||  | 23,653
 * | Lead || | „ ||  | 190 ||  | 3,547
 * | Leather, Boots and Shoes || | Packages ||  | 804 ||  | 14,600
 * | Linens || | „ ||  | 453 ||  | 12,848
 * | Machinery ||  | „ ||  | 480 ||  | 1,429
 * }
 * | Haberdashery || | Packages ||  | 2,044 ||  | 63,350
 * | Hardware and Ironmongery || | „ ||  | 11,506 ||  | 43,908
 * | Hats, Caps and Bonnets || | „ ||  | 353 ||  | 7,028
 * | Hosiery and Gloves || | „ ||  | 153 ||  | 4,494
 * | Instruments, Musical || | „ ||  | 98 ||  | 3,865
 * | Iron and Steel || | Tons ||  | 2,310 ||  | 23,653
 * | Lead || | „ ||  | 190 ||  | 3,547
 * | Leather, Boots and Shoes || | Packages ||  | 804 ||  | 14,600
 * | Linens || | „ ||  | 453 ||  | 12,848
 * | Machinery ||  | „ ||  | 480 ||  | 1,429
 * }
 * | Iron and Steel || | Tons ||  | 2,310 ||  | 23,653
 * | Lead || | „ ||  | 190 ||  | 3,547
 * | Leather, Boots and Shoes || | Packages ||  | 804 ||  | 14,600
 * | Linens || | „ ||  | 453 ||  | 12,848
 * | Machinery ||  | „ ||  | 480 ||  | 1,429
 * }
 * | Linens || | „ ||  | 453 ||  | 12,848
 * | Machinery ||  | „ ||  | 480 ||  | 1,429
 * }
 * }


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 I James Smithson son to hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, & Elizabeth heiress of the hungerfords of Studley, & niece to Charles the Proud Duke of Somerset, now residing in Bentinck Street, cavendish square, do this twenty third day of October, one thousand eight hundred & twenty-six, make this my last will and Testament:

I bequeath the whole of my property of every nature & kind soever to my bankers, Messrs. Drummonds of Charing Cross, in trust, to be disposed of in the following manner; and I desire of my said executors to put my property under the management of the Court of Chancery.

To John Fitall, formerly my servant, but now employed in the London docks, and residing at No. 27, Jubilee Place, North Mile End, old town, in consideration of his attachment and fidelity to me, & the long and great care he has taken of my effects, & my having done but very little for him, I give and bequeath the annuity or annual sum of one hundred pounds sterling for his life, to be paid to him quarterly, free of legacy duty and all other deductions, the first payment to be made to him


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Rh those eyes go through him, and then he was in his father's embrace.

Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame. They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling.

Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "This is the happiest day of my life," he said. "You can never know how much I have longed for this moment."

Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair.

"I—I don't know how to act," he confessed. "You surprize me, Dad. You're so different from what I had expected."

 "He lay like a waxen figure tied to his bed." W.T.—4


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iv. 30-

1. I go about with the Rudras, the Vasus, I with the Ādityas and the All-gods; I bear Mitra-and-Varuṇa both, I Indra-and-Agni, I both Açvins.

2. I am queen, gatherer of good things, the first that has understood the matters of sacrifice; me here the gods distributed manifoldly, making me of many stations enter into many.

3. I my own self say this, [which is] enjoyable of gods and of men; whomsoever I desire, him I make formidable, him priest (brahmán), him seer, him very wise.

4. By me doth he eat food who looks abroad, who breathes, who indeed hears what is spoken; unknowing (? amantú) they dwell upon me; hear thou, heard-of one; I say to thee what is to be credited.

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User:OohBunnies!

Hi! I'm OohBunnies, most active on Wikipedia (user page here). I like to do a bit of proofreading.

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, in an earlier chapter, the way in which Octavia’s difficulties had, on more than one occasion, called out the help and sympathy of new friends. This good fortune was remarkably exemplified when she broke down in 1877. Miss Yorke, who now came forward to give her sympathy and help, became one of the most important figures in the remaining years of Octavia’s life; and, by her persistent devotion to her comfort and active help in her work, did much to encourage her to new efforts. But, for the moment, her help took the form of accompanying her in a foreign tour, which turned Octavia’s attention away from the troubles which were weighing on her mind, and gave her new sources of interest.

In the letters chosen to illustrate the tour, I have, as a rule, preferred those which show her sympathy with the people and modes of life with which she came in contact, rather than those descriptions of scenery, which often strike readers as familiar. But her strong artistic sense gave her so great a power of realising and describing natural beauty, that I have occasionally made exceptions to this rule.

As the final decision to go abroad was only accepted after considerable hesitation and delay, Octavia had to make all her provision for her time of absence in the course of a week. Under these circumstances, her sister, Mrs. Lewes, consented to undertake the guidance of the fellow workers in this emergency. As, however, Mrs. Lewes could not assume all the responsibility


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 Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian institution, an establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men.

I think it proper here to state, that all the money that which will be standing in the French five per cents, at my death in the names of the father of my above mentioned nephew, Henry James Hungerford, & all that in my names, is the property of my said nephew, being what he inherited from his father, or what I have laid up for him from the savings upon his income.


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period of return to work was marked by many very welcome successes. The consent of Ruskin to the legal transfer of his houses in Paradise Place to Octavia, and the purchase by Mr. Shaen of Freshwater Place were proofs of the stability of her plans.

From 1883 to 1889 lasted the great movement for rescuing Parliament Hill and the neighbouring land from the builder, and adding it to Hampstead Heath; and many other victories in the open space struggle were also achieved at this time.

But perhaps the most remarkable change in Octavia’s position, as a worker, was her appointment by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to manage a great part of their property in Southwark. She was asked to attend a meeting of that body. They wished to learn if she would buy some old courts belonging to them. This, she said, was impossible. Then they asked if she would take a lease of these same houses; and, when she declined to do so, they asked if she would undertake the management. This she consented to do; and the Commissioners were so much impressed with the capable business-like character of her remarks, and with her subsequent management, that they afterwards extended the territory under her care.

It should be noted, in this connection, that this position gave her the first opportunity of planning cottages, while Red Cross Hall and Garden gave further occasion for her development of entertainments and outdoor-life for the poor. It is in this period also that her links with foreign workers were extended. Some housing work had begun in Paris, at an earlier time; and the translation by H.R.H. Princess Alice of


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period, while including great developments in the movements in which Octavia was specially interested, was also marked by public discussions, which greatly affected her work. She was much interested in the controversy between General Booth and the Charity Organisation Society, about the General’s huge scheme of centralised, and despotically managed, relief; and in this, as in so many other matters, she warmly approved of the efforts of Mr. Loch, Secretary of the C.O.S., to produce wiser views of administration of charity. The same friend also assisted her in discussions with the poorer municipal voters, on the best method of distributing the payment of rates between landlord and tenant, and the most economical method of providing houses for the poor.

This time was also marked by another of the many proofs of Octavia’s desire to connect her interest in art with her efforts for moral and physical progress. The fine hall in Red Cross Garden, was used by the neighbourhood for entertainments; and, on Sundays, very good music was performed there by numerous friends, to large gatherings of the people. Among other friends, who helped, was Mrs. Julian Marshall, who


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as was the period of work mentioned in the last chapter, it was soon followed by an event which produced a deep influence on the remaining years of Octavia’s life. Her mother had throughout her life been her most helpful guide and inspirer, and her death at the end of 1902 produced a blank which could not be filled. Yet, in spite of this blow, the last period of Octavia’s life was marked by much vigorous work, as will be seen by the quotations from her “Letters to her Fellow Workers.” The Ecclesiastical Commissioners had steadily increased her sphere of operations, and at the time of her death she and her fellow workers were managing property for the Commissioners in Southwark, Lambeth, Westminster, and Walworth.

But far more trying were the anxieties connected with the latest acquisition of house property in the West-end, since the houses in this district had been used for evil purposes; and others near them were still misused in the same way. This made it doubly difficult to raise the standard of living among the people, and to protect the respectable tenants from annoyance.

Yet even here the vigour and sympathy of her fellow workers gave her much encouragement, especially such utterances as that of the policeman mentioned in the letter dated November 28th, 1911.


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201

5. I stretch the bow for Rudra, for his shaft to slay the bráhman-hater; I make strife (samád) for the people (jána); into heaven-and-earth have I entered.

6. I bear the heady (? āhanás) soma, I Tvashṭar, also Pūshan, Bhaga; I assign property to the giver of oblations, to the very zealous (?), the sacrificer, the presser of soma.

7. I quicken (give birth to?) the father in its (his?) head; my womb (yóni) is within the waters, the ocean; thence I extend myself (vi-sthā) to all beings; even yon sky I touch with my summit.

8. I myself blow forth like the wind, taking hold upon all beings; beyond the sky, beyond the earth here—such have I become by greatness.

This hymn and the one following are RV. hymns (x. 84 and 83), with few variants, and no change in the order of verses. Both are found also in Pāipp. iv., but not together. Very few of the verses occur in any other Vedic text. The two are used together in Kāuç. (14. 26 ff.), in the ceremonies for success in battle and for determining which of the two opposing armies will conquer; they are also (14. 7, note) reckoned

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10 unspeakably noisome that Richard Southwell finally petitioned the Queen that his son be put to death if he deserved it, or else, as he was a gentleman, that he be treated as such. This protest availed somewhat, for the prisoner was allowed to receive clothing and a few other necessaries and even some books; of which, however, he asked only for the Bible and St. Bernard.

At last, in 1595—and without any previous warning, says the St. Omer MS.—he was hurried off to Westminster and placed on trial for High Treason. The courtesy, dignity and Christian meekness of Father Southwell throughout this travesty of justice were most impressive. When questioned, he pleaded "not guilty of any treason"; but he freely acknowledged the only crime with which he was charged—that of fulfilling the duties of a Catholic priest to his suffering co-religionists. The result was fore-ordained; England had a law, "and by that law he ought to die." Once more torture did its revolting work upon his much-tried body; then, at dawn next morning, his gaoler bore him the final summons. "You could not bring me more joyful tidings," the priest answered simply.

So at daybreak, on 22 or 23 February, 1595, he was placed in a sledge and drawn to Tyburn for execution. Bishop Challoner tells us that a notorious highwayman was executed on the same day to divert popular attention from Father Southwell's doom; nevertheless, the usual mob awaited him. The priest who was to pour out his life-blood for these English people, the poet who had sung to them from his dungeon, gazed down upon the upturned faces—upon the hostile, the friendly, and the merely curious. Then, signing himself with the Cross, he began to speak. "Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or

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From an old print

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Rh whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord's." The words were scarcely uttered before the sheriff attempted some interruption; but silence being regained, the young priest continued, craving of the "most clement God and Father of Mercies," forgiveness "for all things wherein I may have offended since my infancy. Then, as regards the Queen (to whom I have never done nor wished any evil), I have daily prayed for her, and now with all my heart do pray, that from His great mercy. . . He may grant that she may use the ample gifts and endowments wherewith He hath endowed her to the immortal glory of His name, the prosperity of the whole nation, and the eternal welfare of her soul and body. For my most miserable and with all tears to be pitied country, I pray the light of truth whereby, the darkness of ignorance being dispelled, it may learn in and above all things to praise God, and seek its eternal good in the right way."

There is a quite superlative pathos in these prayers of the condemned man for the Queen and country which thus repudiated him. Far ahead into the future of England his thoughts were wandering, when suddenly he returned to the awful present. "For what may be done to my body," he cried, "I have no care. But since death, in the admitted cause for which I die, cannot be otherwise than most happy and desirable, I pray the God of all comfort that it may be to me the complete cleansing of my sins, and a real solace and increase of faith to others. For I die because I am a Catholic priest, elected unto the Society of Jesus in my youth; nor has any other thing, during the last three years in which I have been imprisoned, been charged against me. This death, therefore, although it may now seem

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12 base and ignominious, can to no rightly thinking person appear doubtful but that it is beyond measure an eternal weight of glory to be wrought in us, who look not to the things which are visible, but to those which are unseen."

The simple spiritual grandeur of this valediction sank into the hearts of the listening multitude, and won them, in spite of Protestant detractors, to the martyr's side. The executioner did his work clumsily, which added extra torment to Father Southwell's death; but to the last he calmly commended his soul to its Maker. One is comforted in this dark history to read that the mob itself prevented his body being taken down before dead, as the sentence had directed. "May my soul be with this man's!" exclaimed Lord Mountjoy, a bystander; and when the poor, severed head was held aloft to the public gaze, not one voice was heard to cry "Traitor."

The world, after its wont, was kinder to the man's work than to the man himself. Three volumes of his productions—already even popular, as it seems—were published immediately after Father Southwell's death; and they were followed by a host of others. In a very eminent degree was this young Jesuit the "poet of Roman Catholic England"; but he was not merely the poet of any single class. He spoke to the sorrowful and serious of soul, to the meek and the devout; and the Old Faith and the New ceased their warfare to listen. The longest and most ambitious of his poems, but by no means his best, is St. Peter's Complaint. The ever sympathetic Dr. Grosart anticipates a very natural objection in pointing out that "regarded as so many distinct studies of the tragic incident, it is ignorance and not knowledge that will pronounce it tedious or idly para-phrastic," for the constant play of fancy is too

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Rh redundant for modern readers. Such striking passages as the following, however, do much to relieve the monotony:—

Throughout his shorter poems Father Southwell shows to truer advantage. It was inevitable that the minor notes of life should have struck deepest echo in our poet's heart. Their very titles, Scorn Not the Least, Life is but Loss, What Joy to Live? etc., carry a message which those that run may read. But their sadness is utterly without bitterness or pessimism, their weariness of life always presses on to a hope beyond. A few lines from Times go by Turns will serve to illustrate the beauty, even the cheerfulness, of his thought:—

But the most masterful of Father Southwell's lyrics—the lyric, indeed, to claim which Drummond of Hawthornden tells us Ben Jonson would willingly have destroyed more than one of his own poems,—is the famous

BURNING-BABE.

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,

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14

Surprised I was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear, Who, scorchèd with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed, As though His floods should quench His flames, which with His tears were fed.

"Alas!" quoth He, "But newly born, in fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel My fire but I! My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns, Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals; The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defilèd souls, For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath to wash them in My blood": With these He vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away, And straight I callèd unto mind that it was Christmas Day.

This deep religious fervour permeates the poet's entire work, not merely the Mæoniæ, a series on the life of our Saviour and His Mother, but even the shortest lyric, without, I think, one single exception. He bitterly regretted the worldliness of most Elizabethan verse, complaining in one of his Introductions that "The finest wits are now given to write passionate discourses." To-day, perhaps, we see the deep human value of many of these same "passionate discourses" more clearly

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Rh than did the pious young priest; nor can we resist smiling a little at his ingenious recasting of Master Dyer's "Fancy," wherein the subject is made to mourn a lack of grace instead of love! But the constancy and depth of this devotion, and the delicacy of imagination which accompanied it, both charm and coerce our admiration. They are the characteristics of his prose as well as his verse—they are the dominant, unmistakable notes of his personality. And if, in his own words, his work be "coarse in respect of others' exquisite labours," we shall not easily forget the circumstances which called it into being: the "evident fact," to quote Mr. Saintsbury, "that the author thought of nothing else than of merely cultivating the Muses."

Two obvious defects to be found in Southwell's works are extravagance of metaphor and an almost monotonous habit of playing upon words; for both of which, however, the age must be held responsible. When one recalls the years during which he wrote—the vogue of the sonnet-sequences, of Euphues, Arcadia, and the Faerie Queene—it is understood that "conceits" were in the very air. Sir Philip Sidney himself, we remember, has somewhere compared a white horse speckled with red to "a few strawberries scattered in a dish of cream!" And the fundamental merit of Father Southwell's poetry has ever been recognised by the best critics, his literary influence being to-day more and more appreciated. This influence is very manifest in the poems of Richard Crashaw; and the lines from Scorn Not the Least—

find an echo in Blake's Tiger. "As a whole," summarises Dr. Grosart, "his poetry is healthy

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