London's Heart: A Novel

"You know all about the moon, Skipper?"

"Not all, but something-sufficient for my purpose; and about the stars also. I ought to, for they're the sailor's friends."

"Yes," responded the old man; "they are nearer to sailors than to us. They are more than visible signs at sea; they are testimony. On land, we glance at them carelessly, regardless of their beauty and of the lessons they teach. I never travelled much myself, but a generation ago I knew one – "

Here, however, the old man paused, as if he were being drawn on by the attractiveness of the theme to speak at greater length than he deemed proper, or as if this were not the right time to relate personal experiences. But the Captain of the Fancy said, in a tone of the deepest interest,

"Proceed, sir, I pray. You knew one – "

–"Who passed an adventurous life, and who, being wrecked, floated on a spar on the wild seas for three days and three nights, being happily picked up then by a passing vessel. What you said just now about the stars brought him to my mind. He was alone, and but for the stars, which were like companions to him, he would have relinquished his hold of the spar, and bade good-bye to life. 'Hope on,' the stars said to him; 'Do not despair. You are not forsaken.' The sight of them gave him courage to persevere and to suffer; and they taught him the lesson that, however lonely, however forsaken, however utterly wretched a man may be in the world, the future contains for him a revelation in which there is much goodness and sweetness. Which is surely true. For this beautiful world, with all its wonders, was not made in vain; and we, the highest form of intelligence it contains, have not played out the parts allotted to us when the curtain drops upon our lives. The poet says truly that the grave is not the goal of life, and only the utterly selfish man can believe that it is the be-all and the end-all. This friend of mine was almost a sceptic before he had the good fortune to be wrecked; but the stars taught him differently. They instilled a kind of faith into him. If a dark night had come, when he could not have seen his consolers, he might have despaired. But he was saved, happily. You say right. The stars are the sailor's friends."

Pollypod found this dialogue so entrancing, that, eager as she was to ask questions, she did not interrupt it. Taking advantage now of the pause that followed, she asked of the Captain,

"How did you find us out?"

"Very easily, my lass; my friend Felix directed me."

"Where is Felix?"

"You will see him soon. Did you think I was not coming?"

"I knew you would come. I told Snap so, and everybody. Are you Felix's brother?"

"No, my lass. What makes you think so?"

"You speak like Felix, and yet your voice is different. Where have you been to with your ship?"

"The Fancy sails all over the world, and under it, and in the middle of it, for that matter."

"I want to know! How can a ship do all that?"

"My ship can, and does, little one."

"Are you a wizard, then, as well as Felix?" asked the pertinacious little maid, who was in her glory, asking questions, and nursing the doll, which was enveloped in silver tissue paper.

"Being Captain of the Fancy, I may say, Yes. Else how could I see into the heart of a little girl when I was so many miles away, and how could I know that she was waiting and hoping and hoping that father's ship would come home?"

Then, to please the child, the Captain told of some wondrous voyages he had made in the Fancy; spoke of mermaids and coral reefs, and wonderful lands across the seas, where it was always summer. According to his reckoning, life contained no sorrow; and "O, how I should like to be there! O, how I should like to see!" murmured Pollypod, as the bright pictures were presented to her young mind. Even the old man, who had tasted the bitterest of experiences, listened approval to the utterings of the Captain of the Fancy, divining, perchance, the motive which prompted them. Lily said not a word; but when the Captain came to the end of one of the prettiest flights of the Fancy, Pollypod exclaimed, with enthusiasm,

"O Lily! isn't it beautiful!"

Whereupon, singular to say, the Captain's eloquence suddenly deserted him. Somewhat of an awkward silence followed; broken by the old man asking, in an amused voice, whether Pollypod did not want to see her doll. The child answering, "Yes, yes!" eagerly, the old man lit the lamp. They all looked with curiosity at the Captain, who, however, had found something exceedingly interesting in the street, and as he was looking out of window, they could see only his back. When he turned to them, as he could not help doing presently, he had a very red face; yet there was a sly gleam of humour in his eyes as he advanced to the old man and said,

"It was only for Pollypod's amusement, and for my own selfish pleasure, that I sailed under false colours, sir. I did not expect to find myself here."

Unwinding a large handkerchief which was round his neck, and which partially hid his face, he presented himself to them in his proper colours. When Pollypod discovered that Felix and the Captain were one, her delight may be imagined. She ran out of the room, and called her mother excitedly, and then ran back and jumped into Felix's arms, forgetting even her doll for the moment. Mrs. Podmore coming down-stairs, and being informed of the part that Felix had played, said aside to Lily, in a tone of complete admiration, "Well, I never! But it's just like him. I never saw such a gentleman in all my born days!"

The old man shook hands with Felix, and bade him heartily welcome, and Lily also in her gentle manner, and in two or three minutes they were as much at home together as if they had known each other all their lives. Then came the important ceremony of unwrapping the doll, and revealing its glories. Its reputation as the most beautiful doll that ever was seen was firmly established in a moment. Pollypod gazed at it in mute ecstacy, and worshipped the giver with all her heart and soul. The great longing of her life was satisfied, and she was supremely happy. She was allowed by her mother to sit up later than usual in honour of Felix; but the excitement of the day proved too much for her, and after a little while she fell asleep with the doll in her arms.

The others sat by the window, and the old man and Felix, finding in each other much that was congenial, talked unreservedly of many matters. It seemed to be tacitly understood that the painful incidents which had occurred on the day of the funeral should not be spoken of, and no reference was therefore made to them. Lily took but little part in the conversation; she sat and listened with a soul in harmony with everything about her. It was very seldom that her grandfather had the opportunity of enjoying a quiet hour with a nature which so nearly resembled his own. Both he and Felix evidently loved to look at common things from almost an ideal point of view, and the most ordinary matters, as they conversed upon them, were occasionally invested with bright bits of colour which matter-of-fact and prosaic minds would have utterly failed to see. Only once was Lily's mother referred to; the reference arose from a remark made by Felix concerning the singular peculiarity in the room that nearly everything was on castors. The old man explained that it originated from his daughter's sickness.

"Every little noise fretted her," he said, "and as I had learnt turning in my young days, I amused myself by making small wheels to whatever I laid hands on, so that it could be moved about without noise. It was not quite an idle whim, therefore; it has occupied my time, which otherwise would have hung heavily, and I have really grown to believe that it could be made to serve many useful purposes. The man who first conceived the idea of a wheel was a great benefactor. Civilization," he added, with a pleasant laugh, "would be at a standstill without its wheel."

One thing leading to another, in the course of conversation they found themselves conversing upon deeper than mundane matters. They had been talking of the comparative value of creeds, and the old man said,

"Faith is everything. So long as a man believes-if his belief be associated with anything that is pure and good in itself-it matters little what it is. To me it is the worst kind of arrogance, the worst kind of intolerance, for a man to say, 'Believe as I believe, or you are lost.'"

"And those who don't believe?" suggested Felix.

"Degrade themselves. We are but part of a system, they say, and we live and wither and die like birds and beasts and plants. Our parts being played out, we perish utterly, and make room for others. Do they ever consider that man is the only form of life which seems to be capable of improvement-that only man advances, improves, discovers, acquires, and that all other things in Nature are the same now as they were in the beginning? That the sun rises as in the olden time; that the seasons are the same; that all forms of vegetable life show no change in all these centuries; that beasts make their lairs as of yore, and birds their nests, – that all these, according to the laws of nature, are sufficient for and in themselves, and that of all the wonders that fill the earth, man is the only one that thinks, aspires, thirsts to know, and conquers?"

In this strain they talked until nearly midnight. Long before their talk was over, Pollypod had been taken to bed so fast asleep, that she could not even wake to kiss Felix. She smiled as he kissed her, and Mrs. Podmore thrilled with joy as she gazed, in thankful, full-hearted admiration, on the beautiful face of her child as she lay in her arms. Unclouded happiness rested in Polly's face, and rested also in the hearts of all present, old and young.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BEATING OF THE PULSE

Being thrown upon his own resources, Felix employed his time in looking about him-not in the most industrious fashion, it must be confessed, but after the manner of one who was entirely independent of the world, and who had merely to make up his mind which of the many good things by which he was surrounded would be most suitable to a young gentleman in his position. The weapons with which he was armed to fight the battle into which he had thrown himself were trustfulness, simplicity, and faith in human nature. These weapons are good enough, in all conscience, in themselves; but we are not content, nowadays, as we were of old, to fight a fair fight, man to man. Torpedoes and other infernal weapons have come into fashion; and a man, unless he be crafty, has but a small chance of victory when he throws down his glove.

One of the first things Felix did when he came into London to conquer it was to make himself comfortable. He established himself in a capital hotel not half a mile from Soho, so as to be near his friends; for it may be truly said that the only friends he had in London lived in the little house in Soho inhabited by the Podmores, and the Gribbles, and Lily and her grandfather. He found plenty of excuses for going there often: Gribble junior was an umbrella maker, and Felix's umbrella was so continually out of repair, that it became quite a source of revenue to the bustling frame mender.

"What! another rib gone!" Gribble junior would say, with a look of astonishment, not suspecting that Felix had broken it purposely, so that he might have an excuse for calling at the house in the middle of the day; "it'd be cheaper to buy a new one, sir."

But Felix protested that he would on no account part with so old a friend; and the repairs continued to be made, until not a particle of the original structure was left. There was no necessity for these small subterfuges on Felix's part, for after a time he was always welcome in that house, and his happiest hours were spent there. They all liked him; and as for Pollypod, her mother declared, in the pleasantest of voices, that she was as jealous as jealous could be, her little girl was that fond of him! All this was very agreeable, and Felix decided that his new career had commenced in the most satisfactory manner. His training had not been of such a nature as to cause him to value money, or to be careful of it; and while he had it in his purse, he spent it freely. He did not do so from recklessness, but from a largeness of nature (although he himself would have disputed it warmly and with a quaint logic), in the light of which small matters of feeling were ridiculously magnified, and the world's goods dwindled down to insignificant proportions. Therefore, while he had he spent; and it was fortunate for him that his tastes and desires were simple and easily satisfied, for he grudged himself nothing. The present being amply provided for, he had no fears and no anxiety for to-morrow. His nature was one which it was easy to impose upon, and he did not escape the snares set in the public thoroughfares for liberal hearts. The piteous eyes and faces of beggars that were raised to his appealingly were never raised in vain. When he was told that these were part of a trade, he refused to believe. Arrows tipped with doubts of human goodness glanced from off his generous nature, and left no wound behind. And yet, as will be seen, he was keen enough in some matters concerning which men who knew infinitely more of the world than he (priding themselves upon it) were blind. Speaking upon the subject to Lily's grandfather, the old man said,

"If you thought a man who begged of you was an impostor, you would not give."

"I don't know that," replied Felix. "I am selfish enough to think I should."

The old man smiled at this reference to one of Felix's pet theories.

"It does not so much concern them as me," continued Felix, with sly gleams. "I give to please myself. Is not that a selfish motive? Not to give would be to deprive myself of a gratification. I say to myself sometimes, almost unconsciously (but the sentiment which prompts it belongs to my nature, or I should not have the thought), 'Bravo, Felix! that was a good thing to do. You are not a bad fellow.'"

The old man was amused at this.

"The thought comes afterwards," he said.

"But it comes," insisted Felix, as if determined to deprive the kind promptings of his nature of grace-"it comes, and that is enough. It is an investment. I give away a penny, and receive the best of interest. Pure selfishness, upon my word, as is every other action of our lives. But apart from this, I don't believe that these men and women are not in want."

"Ah, well," said the old man, looking in admiration at the animated face of Felix; "it is better to trust than doubt. Suspicion ages the heart, and robs life of bright colour."

Satisfied that he was spending his time profitably, Felix found life very enjoyable. He did not trouble himself about the past; the world was before him, and he was observing, and studying, and preparing himself to open his oyster. His hotel was in the Strand, and he soon became well acquainted with the phases of life presented in that locality. The streets were so full of life, and there was so much to see. The shops; the theatres; the conveyances the streams of people flowing this way and that, a few smiling as they walked, some idling, some talking eagerly to themselves, unconscious of the surging life through which they make their way-each man perfectly engrossed in his own personality, each a world, the secret ways of which were known only to himself. He was soon quite familiar also with the singular variety of street-shows which can there be seen daily. With the broad-shouldered, frizzly-haired Italian with his monkeys, residents of Short's-gardens, where probably the dumb brutes are not so tenderly treated as strangers, who see them hugged to their master's breast as he walks along, might suppose them to be. With another monkey also, a poor little creature, who, being pulled this way and that by a chain attached to its master's wrist, capers on the pavement (generally at night) to the dismal moaning of an organ, upon whose grinder's face a ghastly smile for ever sits, suggesting the idea that it must have been carved upon his features in infancy. With the melancholy-looking, straight-haired young man who plays operatic selections upon the spout of a coffee-pot and through the nozzle of a bellows, and who selects the widest of the side thoroughfares for his entertainment, seldom commencing until a perfect ring of admirers and curiosity-mongers is formed, and who, while his island is being made, stands with an air of proud humility, as who should say, "I am the only and original player upon the spout and nozzle in the kingdom; all others are counterfeit." With the inconceivably-maniacal Swiss quartette, who shout and caper, and produce hideous sounds from throat and windbag. With the Mongolian impostor who sits upon a doorstep, uttering never a word, with a look upon his face as of one suddenly stricken with fatal disease. With the poor miserable woman, whose thought may soar upwards, but whose eyes never see the sun, for her body is literally bent in two, who creeps almost daily along the Strand; and with many other forms of beggary, even less attractive than these.

What Felix saw in the streets were not his only studies; he read the newspapers carefully, and not seldom was he amazed at the inequality of things. He found it difficult to understand how, in one shape, a certain thing was held up for public censure and condemnation, while in another shape precisely the same thing (in a worse form perhaps) was quietly tolerated, and even admired. As thus: He read in the papers from time to time accounts of proceedings taken against the publishers and venders of a weekly illustrated sheet, against which it was charged that it contained objectionable pictures. When he saw the illustrations he at once acquiesced in the justice of the proceedings, and decided in his own mind that they pandered to the worst taste, and were calculated to do much harm. But looking in many of the shop windows in the locality of the Strand, he saw pictures infinitely worse in the effect they would be likely to produce than those which were published in the objectionable paper. The portraits and full-length pictures of nearly naked women, taken in every attitude that the lascivious imagination could suggest, and paraded conspicuously in these windows for public admiration, were worse, in their insidious badness, than anything that Holywell Street ever produced. There was no disguise of what are called "female charms" in the pictures; they were displayed to their fullest extent to feed the sensual taste, and neither art nor any useful purpose was served by these degrading exhibitions. On the contrary; they tended to mislead, in their incongruous mixture of worth and shamelessness. For here was an actor deservedly popular; here was a courtesan, deservedly notorious; here was a statesman and a poet, whose names add lustre to the history of the times in which they live; between them a shameless woman, bold and lewd, and almost naked; above her, a princess, worthily loved, with her baby on her back, clasping the mother round her neck-a picture which the poorest wife in England feels the happier for looking at, so much of homely love and wifely virtue and sisterly kinship does it suggest; while below was paraded the painted face of a wanton, whose name is shame. In one window of a semi-religious kind, in which the frequenters of the May meetings at Exeter Hall might be supposed to gaze without fear of contamination, the very worst of these lewd pictures were displayed in the company of Bibles, and Prayer Books, and Church Services; an association which, by any sophistry, could not have been proved to be a good one.

In the study of these and other matters Felix found the time pass rapidly away. Something else passed rapidly away also-his money. Calling for his hotel-bill one day, he found that, after paying it, he would have scarcely twenty pounds left. This set him thinking. If he continued to live in the hotel, he might not be able to pay his next bill, and the dishonour attaching to such a contingency caused him to resolve to adopt a more modest mode of living. The gravity of the position made him serious, but not for long. His idle days were gone-well, he was glad of it; he was tired of idleness, and longed to be up and doing. "If I were a rich man," he thought, "and could not get work without paying for it, I'd pay for it willingly, rather than be idle." Yes, it was time for him to set to work. He would first take lodgings in some cheap neighbourhood, and there he would look things straight in the face. It is amazing what comfort is found in metaphor, until the time for action arrives. In making this resolution Felix worked himself into such a state of excitement that he really believed he had already commenced life in earnest. At first he thought of Soho, but very slight reflection induced him to forego the temptation of living in the neighbourhood of Lily. "Whatever struggles I have," he thought, "I will keep to myself." Chance directing his steps to Vauxhall, he saw there numbers of bills in the windows announcing rooms to let. Seeing a decent-looking woman with a baby in her arms standing at the door of a house in which there was a first-floor to let, he spoke to her, and asked for particulars. The rent for sitting-room and bedroom was very moderate, he found. Upon inquiry he learned that there were other lodgers in the house, that indeed it was filled with lodgers. The landlady and her husband lived in the basement; a married couple occupied the parlours; and four or five persons, perfectly independent of each other, lived on the second and third floors. "You'll find us very quiet, sir," the landlady said, looking with an eye of favour upon Felix, and wondering why so smart a young gentleman as he should desire to live in that poor neighbourhood, "and you'll have no call to complain of the attendance." Felix, perfectly satisfied, pinched the baby's cheek, paid the first week's rent in advance, and received his latch-key. It was characteristic of him that when he left the hotel he was as liberal to the attendants as if he had been a gentleman of independent property.

When he was settled in his new lodgings, he bethought himself of his promise to Martha Day, his father's housekeeper, to let her know his address in London. He had written to her from his hotel, and had heard from her there. As he wrote now, he thought, "If Martha knew how poor this neighbourhood is, she would guess the reason of my moving; but she cannot know much of London, and will not be able to learn anything from the address." He wrote his letter, and went out in the afternoon with the intention of posting it. But wandering about in idle humour he forgot it, and at about nine o'clock in the evening he found himself at his street-door with the letter still in his pocket. He was about to put his latch-key into the lock when he remembered the letter, and he was turning away, thinking how stupid he was to be so forgetful, when the door opened from within, and the very woman in his thoughts passed swiftly into the street. Martha Day! To see her in London, away from his father's house, with whose gloom her own joyless gloomy manner was so thoroughly in unison that they might have been deemed inseparable, would have been surprise enough in itself; but to see her there, in that house, so suddenly and strangely, was so great a surprise that for a moment he thought he had seen an apparition. When the first shock of the surprise was over, he looked after the woman, and saw her turn the corner of the street. Then he knew that he was not mistaken-it was Martha Day he had seen. He hurried after her, intending to speak to her; but when he turned the corner, he could not see her, and although he ran hither and thither, he could find no trace of her. Strangely perplexed, he walked slowly back to the house. Perhaps she had come there to see him-but how could she know he lived in that house, having been in it only a few hours? He questioned the landlady, but she could not enlighten him. She had seen no particular woman pass in or out of the house. There were so many lodgers, you see, sir, that all sorts of strange people come in and out. Had any inquiry been made for him? he asked. No; how could there be, was the reply, when the landlady didn't know his name? That was true enough; he had not given his name when he paid the week's rent in advance. Then he described Martha Day-her face with no trace of colour in it, her eyes nearly always cast down, her hands nearly always hidden, her black dress and bonnet-and asked if the landlady knew her. No, the landlady never remembered to have seen her; and when Felix went up-stairs to his room, the landlady thought it was singular that he should be so anxious about the woman-and not a young woman either, according to his description, she added mentally.