A London Home in the Nineties

by Hughes, M. V. ;

  My dear old friend of college and ‘bachelor diggings’ time, Miss Rogers, made a pilgrimage to see me, bringing a quilt for the cot, made by herself. She expected to find me sobered into the staid married woman, and on her entrance behaved accordingly. But her wonted address soon burst out: ‘Molly, you owl, you are making your poor infant as full of senseless laughter as yourself. Here, give her to me.’ Whereupon Bronwen was promptly deposited on Miss Rogers’s lap and taught sillier games than even I had indulged in.

  Not a week passed without a visit from Mary Wood, my friend in every phase of life. ‘How I wish you would be married, too,’ I often said to her, and she as often replied, ‘Find me a man exactly like Arthur, and I’ll marry him at once.’ She dropped in at any hour, and shared in any meal. Bronwen seemed almost her own child, and as godmother she used to ask frequently, ‘When shall I step in with the ten commandments?’ Her eldest sister and her husband were treated with rather more ceremony and asked to dinner in a proper way now and again. Such visits were always heartily enjoyed, but after one of them I noticed Arthur looking annoyed and fretful. This was so unusual that I said, ‘What’s the matter? Dinner all right, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes, everything went splendidly.’ ‘Well, then?’ ‘Oh I’m so ashamed,’ said he, with a scowl, ‘when people who have no child come here and see me with Bronwen.’ I was astounded. ‘But surely you’re not ashamed of being seen with her on your knee?’ ‘Gracious, no. But I feel that I have had far more than my share—everything in life that I’ve most wanted. I feel when anyone childless comes here just as ashamed as a millionaire ought to be when he shows off his house to a chap who lives in a hovel.’

  These particular guests were, I believe, perfectly happy in their life of painting, and needed no commiseration. But one of our visitors seemed to have endured far more than her share of the blows of fate. A career of sin or crime, romantic struggles with poverty, a pathetic illness—any such excitements would have been better than my Aunt Lizzie’s meek endurance of a miserable married life and lonely widowhood. Perhaps her lack of endearing foibles was her most serious shortcoming. Her religion must have given her consolation; but it’s a poor religion that adds no gaiety. The fact is that when she proposed to spend a fortnight with us I was a little alarmed at the idea, dreading a criticism of my domestic methods, or lack of them. When Bronwen was born she had written to me, ‘Is not your heart singing with joy all day long?’ Even this remark, astonishing from her, didn’t make me aware of all the empty longing she must have endured. But when she came my eyes were opened. To me she seemed someone absolutely new. I never remember to have heard her laugh before, and now, as she tended Bronwen, complete bliss shone in her face. We had merry shoppings in Portobello Lane. Aunt Lizzie was trusted to wheel the pram and even to do the bathing and dressing. Bronwen would sit contentedly in her lap, exploring her watch-chain and brooch and buttons, looking up into her face with laughter at each fresh discovery. Having the child in her arms aroused old memories of her visits to us when we were children, and she regaled me with many an anecdote about my brothers: how little Tom, when only three, on hearing talk of an outing, managed to pull open a big drawer and drag out his best velvet suit; how she saved the new-born Charles’s life when he was all but dead, and no doctor at hand; how little Barnholt greeted her once with urgent whisperings of ‘Appoo pooun—appoo pooun’ (interpreted by his mother as the glad news that there was to be apple pudding for dinner).

  Another thing that we enjoyed together was the planning and preparing the dinner for the evening. Aunt Lizzie had had long experience both in choosing the best joints and vegetables to buy, as well as in the most appetizing ways to cook them. She knew sixteen different ways of doing potatoes, and how to make a proper Irish stew and a real curry. She was delighted at my eagerness in writing down all her hints in my manuscript cookery book.

  Shortly before she arrived she had sent us her piano. She had now given up her teaching and said she no longer needed it. It was a grand acquisition for us, as I was able to practise again and accompany Arthur on his violin. Why is it that we are always more grateful for what people take from us than for what they give us? That piano is still with me and is a continual reminder of my aunt; but what I really thank her for is that fortnight in which she took Bronwen to her heart and was made happy.

  § 3

  The great event in the spring of 1899 was Bronwen’s birthday. As Arthur was leaving in the morning he gave her a toss in his arms and exclaimed, ‘One year old! You are now riding on your two, as the Welsh say.’ He promised to be sure to come home for tea.

  I was expecting quite a birthday party. Mary Wood was unable to come, but sent a white silk frock for her goddaughter to look grand for the occasion. One of my Cornish cousins and an old college friend came with gifts of shoes. M’Jane and Yetta brought a large ball for Bronwen to roll about, and a blue silk sash to add to her white frock. With them came an old lady friend of theirs and, most valuable of all, a cousin, an eight-year-old boy. This little Wilfred laid aside his dignity, abandoned himself to the situation, and crawled about the floor with Bronwen. He not only chased the ball with her as though it were the one end in life, but also he made circles with his arms and arches with his legs for her to crawl through to reach the ball, which she managed with crows of triumph.

  This was my first serious tea-party, and it seemed quite a cheerful company with no lack of conversation. On the material side I had endeavoured to make it as grand as possible, with wedding-presents at last given a chance to be shown off. On a wooden tray, carved for me by Miss Russell, the secretary of Bedford College, I had laid out the blue tea-service given me by M’Jane. A home-made cake, and some more reliable bought ones, I had displayed on a table given me by Mrs. Bryant. These various objects provided more talk when it was most required, for one of the wedding-presents was creating a hold-up; this was an extremely ornamental brass kettle on a tall tripod stand, with a minute methylated spirit-lamp poised in the middle. It was the first occasion that had been important enough for its use, and I may add that it was the last. However, it had one advantage—it afforded great pleasure to Yetta, who knew exactly how to manage it, and took over the duty. Even under her control it looked like being a long time before the thing would actually come to the boil, so I slid out into the kitchen to engineer a preliminary pot of tea in order to set things going. Here I found Emma in a great state of agitation. I had sent her out to get some cream at a dairy close by. ‘Look mum,’ she cried, ‘what they’ve charged me a shilling for! Why, down hoom it would have been tuppence.’

  The tea was poured out and cream added when Arthur breezed in, just in time to help Wilfred hand round the things. He felt obliged to remark that the birthday cake was a bit sad in the middle, but M’Jane immediately insisted that the best cakes are always sad in the middle. She also remarked when Bronwen’s white silk frock showed signs of devaluation from the floor exercise, ‘Never mind, Molly, it will wash like a rag.’ One would like to have M’Jane behind one at the Day of Judgement.

  After this first milestone Bronwen forged ahead faster than ever. She could walk about by pushing a little chair in front of her. She would spring in my arms with gleeful cries of ‘Mum, Mum’, and welcome her father with ‘Dad, Dad’. Her favourite word was ‘up’, the most expressive, I suppose, in the whole language, for joy or sorrow, life or death—we wake up and we break up. Often I heard Bronwen muttering it softly to herself before attempting the adventure; then she would pull herself upright to chair or couch and exclaim aloud ‘UP’, as triumphant as one who has achieved the Matterhorn.

  Mary Wood’s sister Ursula was then specializing in portraits, and suggested that she should do an oil-colour of Bronwen sitting in her high chair. This idea was particularly pleasing to Arthur, for his main vision of her was the little person thus seated at breakfast, ‘chatting’ to him in her own way. The portrait was a big business, necessitating several visits, and I wondered how Ursula managed it at all, for a li
vely baby can’t pose, and has to be caught; but it turned out a great success.

  The last days of May were upon us, and the warm spring sunshine was penetrating the flat, making us think of the coming summer and our long-promised visit to Cornwall, when we could show Bronwen to Tony, who would be sure to spoil her as she had spoilt all of us.

  One evening my old headmistress and friend, Miss Bennett, came over to see us. Whether it was the effect of the baby or not I can’t say, but she seemed to have shed her extreme propriety and to be as humanly foolish as our other visitors. She pronounced Bronwen to be the picture of health, and I said, ‘She has not had an hour’s illness since she was born.’ It was pleasant to note that Miss Bennett lapsed, as we all do at times, into our ancient paganism. ‘Oh, don’t say that,’ she immediately rejoined, ‘you know how the Greeks felt that the gods are jealous of human happiness, and if they hear people boasting…’ She broke off with a merry laugh and shake of the head.

  It was two mornings later that I noticed a new accomplishment in the little creature lying in her cot by my side. She was gurgling to herself, and waving her little hands about, as though keeping time to some tune she had made. As I watched, the sounds changed to something like a moan, and I soothed her to sleep in my arms. We were troubled to see that she hadn’t her usual appetite for breakfast, and made no objection to being laid in her cot again. Arthur was distressed out of all proportion to such a slight indisposition; said he had a case in court or would stop at home; he would look in at the doctor’s as he went by, to send him along; and I must be sure to send a wire if things were the least bit worse.

  The doctor came at once, and thought there was a little stomach trouble; I was to give no food, but watch very carefully and send for him again if things didn’t improve. I kept her in my arms all day, and she slept a little and smiled now and again, so that I felt hopeful that the trouble was passing. But at about four o’clock, when I thought she might swallow a little warm milk, she suddenly threw back her little head and began to gasp, and then to my horror she became unconscious. I told Emma to fetch the doctor, and then to go on to the post office and wire to the Temple, ‘Come home as early as you can’. I made her repeat the message very carefully. There was no need to tell the poor girl to hurry. Half distracted when alone with the little one I made my way to the book-case, found Yetta’s book of advice, and with one hand managed to see what to do in case of a fit—a hot bath was suggested. I went to the kitchen again but could do nothing about it till Emma’s return. At last she appeared. The doctor was out, but would come as soon as he returned. In her anxiety she had wired the words to Arthur, ‘Come at once’. This added to my anguish, for I knew how such a message would turn his heart to water. I ought to have remembered that whenever he was in a tight place all his wits were quickened, and that he would never spend an ounce of energy in mere emotion that might be useful in action. He did not come at once. Instead of that he tore round to his brother Alfred and brought him along with him. He also wired to Yetta, knowing her to be practical as well as ever ready to help. She was one of the governors of the London Hospital, and she wired for a nurse to be sent to me post-haste.

  I pass over hurriedly, although I can recall them only too vividly, the details of those dreadful hours, as the fight for the little life went on. The fit passed off, consciousness returned, and there came the blissful sound, the familiar little ‘Mum, Mum’. It was a chance that did redeem all sorrows that ever I had felt.

  The doctor and Alfred hung over the cot, with the nurse attending, keeping on with various spongings to keep the temperature down. Arthur and I stood by in the background. After hours of watching Alfred whispered something to Arthur, and I was asked to go and fetch some necessity—I forget what. Only too thankful to be able to do something I went into the dining-room to find the thing required. I had barely got there when Arthur followed me into the room, shut the door, took me in his arms and dropped his head on my shoulder with the words: ‘Let her go.’

  The supreme phases of our life here—love and birth and death—each has the power of breaking down the barrier between us. We glory in the first two, in spite of their attendant pain. Why don’t we acknowledge the majestic strength of the last? In that moment of anguish Arthur and I were one as we had never been before. But our poor human frames crack under the pain, and I hope I may never again see a man broken down with grief.

  Since writing this short record I have realized the number of empty hearts that Bronwen filled with warmth and joy. And she did her little stroke all unawares…‘dear childe’.

  XIII. Three Sons

  § 1

  DURING the following years three boys came to cheer us. Our natural anxiety about the health of the first gradually lessened as he got over every little ailment, and when his two brothers grew strong and lively our cares were thrown to the winds.

  Life was so full of things to be done every moment that there was hardly room for worry to take root. Money was never plentiful, and we were glad to add a little to our coffer by some simple literary work. Through Mr. Corner’s influence Arthur was given the job of writing the London Letter for the Herefordshire Times once a week. I was proud to be able to contribute a paragraph to this now and again, and I also wrote an occasional article for an educational paper, and did a great many reviews. All this made a pleasant change from domestic duties. I can give no orderly account of those strenuous years, but pull from my memory a few happenings that stand out, not for their importance, but for some oddity.

  Londoners who live in flats are more distant with one another, if that is possible, than next-door neighbours. This is, no doubt, from the fear that the proximity would be unbearable if relations became at all strained. In the flat below us there came to five a young married couple, and after a while I ventured to call. I was well received, and as we chatted I learnt that a baby was expected. I immediately offered to lend the trestle-bed I had bought for my nurse, and a few other appurtenances that were now lying idle. At this the lady drew herself up and looked at me queerly, obviously suspecting me of some sinister motive. ‘But,’ said she, ‘why should you, a perfect stranger, lend me these things?’ I replied that I was an old Londoner and knew that such an offer from a neighbour was ultra vires, but that I was also a Cornish woman, and accustomed to a different code. Then we both laughed and became friends. So much so indeed that later on, when she was in difficulties after her nurse had left, I was actually allowed to go down and bath the baby for her. She little knew what delight it was to me to have such a task again.

  That friendship was the only rapprochement afforded by the neighbourhood as such. We had endless visits from old friends, from relations passing through London, from my old schoolfellows, and from any friends of theirs who were within hail. But from mere neighbours, not one. There were several churches close by, but no clergyman called on us. People in flats are regarded as birds of passage, no doubt, devoid of souls, although we stayed seven years, and strange to say my friend below is still in her flat with husband and daughter.

  One child in a flat is all right, but when we had two boys we felt that more space was wanted, and a bit of garden. We consulted Bradshaw to find some spot that was ‘country’ and yet provided with a few fast trains to town. Barnet filled the bill, and was specially attractive to me for its associations with my father and brothers, who used to take long walks from it as a base. The very name pleased me, as reminiscent of my brother Barnholt.

  In those days Barnet was very different from what it is today. There were no trams, and the only bus was a little one-horse affair that plied between New and High Barnet—continually to be seen, but never on the spot when wanted. Where now you see road after road of new prim villas, of latest design, we enjoyed spacious open fields, country lanes, with over-hanging hedges, and enticing foot-paths. Our house was an old one, overlooking a park with a large pond and great spreading trees. A gate at the bottom of our garden led into the grounds of our landlord, a kindly old
fellow who loved the company of one of our small boys as he pottered among his fruit trees and vegetables.

  Kindly, yes, and so was everyone else. Accustomed all my life to the aloofness of Londoners I was amazed at the immediate friendliness of the Barnet people. The vicar came quite soon, and of course a doctor was necessary when our third boy arrived. Both the vicar’s wife and the doctor’s wife were of that charmingly indiscreet type that is the despair of their husbands and the joy of their neighbours.

  Another rich vein of friendship was the railway journey to town. Arthur was soon one of a coterie who took the same express every morning. He went third-class, but it was soon usual for some of the richer business men to forsake their first-class carriage and join those whose purses were fighter and conversation brighter.

  What with the vicar and the doctor, our quite contingent neighbours, and the wives of Arthur’s train companions, I soon had plenty of friends. Paying calls, however, was not in my line, and I found it expedient to build up a character for eccentricity.

  ‘You promised to come and see me,’ said a friend I met in the road, ‘but you have never been.’

  ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘but then I never meant what I said. What I like is for people to drop in on me just when they feel inclined and never expect me to call on them.’

  She was too astonished to be offended, and fell in pleasantly with the idea. So did many others, and hardly a day passed without someone popping in, to exchange notes about a cookery recipe, to play with the boys, or join in with anything we were doing.

  The days were full enough, for although I had a servant for housework I never had a nurse. This was not so much from lack of means as from my preference for looking after the boys myself. There was no kindergarten at hand, and even if there had been one I should not have cared to send them to it. Kindergartens are fine institutions, but those I had seen gave me the impression of too much dainty attention to the children, too much absorption in their important work on the part of the teachers, too much of the ‘Isn’t he sweet?’ and ‘Isn’t she a darling?’ My ideal was more of a rough-and-tumble environment. A married servant of my mother’s said to her once, in solemn tones, ‘You know, mum, children thrive in the dirt.’ Mother perceived the big principle underlying this statement, and determined that her own children should be perfectly clean once a day, and beyond that might get as dirty as they liked.