Within Bohemia; or, Love in London

Front matter

OR, LOVE IN LONDON. : OR, LOVE IN LONDON. r.v HENRY CURWEN. It Author of "Sorrow a^d Song: Studies of Literary Stiuggle," " Echoes from the French Poets," &c., &c. CAll Rights reseri'ed.J PRICE SIX SHILLINGS. LONDON : REMINGTON & CO., 5, ARUNDEL STREET, STRAND, W.C DEDICATION. TO EMILY. There is a mystic languor in your eyes, And in the rhythmed cadence of your feet, As if you kept some secret, strange surprise To cheer this lonely life of mine, 0 Sweet ! Those blue-black eyes have memories that tell Of all my holiest feelings, and my worst ! Those little hands could guide to heaven or hell, To bless two lives, or render two accurst. Unknown I lov'd you so ! — so long'd to meet, To feel your hand-touch, and to hear your speech — That when you gleam'd across the lonely street, It seemed at last that we were all to each.

Unknown I lov'd you, and because unknown, I scarcely dared to think your presence real, Till in your passionate songs and thrilling tone I found each echo of my youth's ideal. Yet you and I must go our various ways, To singly bear the brunt of all our grief ; Still in these sullen hours of hopeless days, Your passing presence is a life's relief ; For I can dream me — and my dreams outlast The fret and fever of my puny fights For bread and breathing-time — till all is past, And I can kiss your lips in endless nights ! Brindisi, 4th June, 1876.

Preface

. The Tales in this volume were written while, through the study involved by a previous work, I was under the literary influence of Balzac and Poe. These men certainly have little in common, save minuteness of detail ; still, on re-reading my stories, I am in fairness forced to own — though I do not suppose that others will see it — that they did have a simultaneous effect upon me. Of course on starting I had an ideal in view — equally of course I have missed it. I wished to attempt to do for London what Balzac has so admirably done for Paris. To prove that the poetry, the glamour, the mystery, the meaning of life have not been monopolised, as our latest school of novelists tell, by the fortunate people who live on, waste their days and die by the sea-side or the lake-side, or in the grass-grown sleepy hollow of some petty country town, with lazy rivers and wonderful wastes of moor and

PREFACE.

. mountain to lull them from every practical pur pose of existence. To prove, if I could, that these may be at least equally found in London — in the squalor of our deepest alley, the attic of our humblest student or struggling sempstress ; in the town-mansion of peer or merchantprince; even in the routine lives of petty tradesmen and office-stifled clerks. I have always loved London — never so much as now that I am leaving — loved to study its phases and moods. The heart of the world beats there. Its very gossip is the world's news. The hum of its myriad toilers speaks with a single voice, if one could but interpret. In the whirl and bustle of its surging life, throbs a pulse as of the whole English race. This focus of energetic humanity, of petty aims and grand, of wealth and want, of vice and culture, must needs be rife and rich with wonders and marvels of human doings, with the strangest life-stories of men and women — if one could but seize them. In this Httle volume I have only been able to

PREFACE.

. III broach my subject. Perhaps I may return to it; perhaps not. Now that I am going into banish ment, I feel half inclined to say with dying Miirger — "Pas de musigue, pas de bruit, pas de Boheme !" There is some sort of basis to most of these stories. But as history is a relation of events as they actually were, so fiction, I take it, is a rela tion of events as they might have been. I leave, unfortunately, just as the first sheets are coming from the printers, and I shall not be able, as if I had the proofs before me, to eliminate contradictions and absurdities, or to round off crude and clumsy periods. As to mere press corrections, I can safely leave them to my pub lishers. An excuse is no more available as to the comparative perfection of a literary work than to the absolute perfection of an accountant's balance sheet.

I state this, then, not as an excuse but as a fact, not possibly to be avoided. Henry Curwen, CONTENTS. 1. Bought and Sold ... 1 2. Aunt Margery's Sweetheart and Mine... 51 3. The Eldest Sister ..' 123 4. The Story or a Plain Woman 185 5. The Mystery of Malcolm Mackinnon ... 217 6. A Strange Ophelia 283 7. Hard Up OE, LOVE IN LONDON. BOUGHT AND SOLD.

Chapter I. Newman Street

*• Confound the sunshine I" cried Felix Grey, stopping, charcoal in hand before his sketch, " a fellow can't wish to be especially wretched, but the sun gives over sulking, and glares for hours together on his window ! Poignardons le soleil ! as poor Jacques has it, say 1 1" " Poignardons le soleil ?" Nay ! on looking around one it would be a pity. London is the city of contrasts, and never a greater contrast than London in the mud and rain, and London in the sunshine. A hazy, golden atmosphere of holiday-making, and playtime, and pleasure B hangs about the town. The smoke from the great tall factory chimneys goes up straight, and dense, and slow, as if the soul of modern industry were lazily taking the shortest cut to heaven. On the river the steamers drift listlessly, with no pretence of vehement snorting and puffing and exaggerated haste, but with wheels that dip and splash and loiter in the rippling water, till the penny passengers, hanging over the bulwarks, envy the wet paddles, and think of mermen and mermaidens, and a host of old home stories ; till the practical, but naughty, httle urchins on the muddy banks tear off their rags and tatters, and, careless quite of public morals, ofthe Chief Com missioner and his myrmidons the police, plunge their hot bodies deliciously and defiantly in the tepid waters of the Thames.

Rotten Row is empty, but the Lady's Mile is full. Oppressed and sweltering swells cling on to every chain post, and in the drive the carriages are teeming with warm divinities in most diaphonous costume and most languid poses, bestowing hither and thither, from under gossamer sunshade or parasol a glance of black eyes or blue, a slight inclination of a saucy head of gold or brown. Even the monotonous bustle of the " City" is broken ; men, meeting on 'Change, clad in cool linen garments and white shoes, and fantastically turbaned head-dresses, grumble at the unusual heat as they crowd round the thermometer, but in such a pleasant way as if they were making a boast of the changeful beauty of the English climate, and, grumbling, forget to cheat and fleece and swindle one another. In the stuffy offices the young clerks, tentatively at first, and then in a blatantly defiant way, go about without coat or waistcoat, and, under desk and counter, surreptitiously drink mighty potions of lemon kali and tepid ginger beer.

Workmen in the shops or on the building scaffoldings are less talkative than of wont, but, to make up for that, they keep their apprentices running, can in hand, for generous draughts of " four-penny" and " half-and-half." The elegant young ladies and young gentlemen in the fashionable establishments, forgetful of suavity and politeness, look long and thoughtfully upon all purchasers of the other sex — as inten tional intruders and antagonists. Work girls crane from gaping windows, and greet the chance b ; OR, LOVE IN LONDON. by-passers with ungenerous and unsympathetic chaff. And so great a monarch is the sun, that slums and back courts are gloriously lighted up ; paper-stuffed and battered windows glitter hke a king's diadem ; and the stray flowers in Whitechapel attics are bright and radiant as the gorgeous beds in the Botanical.

Bed-ridden old paupers, dying slowly of " parish relief," creep to the doorways and sit there contented. Erom these vile recesses troops of children have gone away under the guidance of some kindly curate to discover what Epping Forest or Bushy Park or Hampton Court are like ; to roll on grass that does not grow in city gutters ; to see flowers bloom that never flourished in the grand bonnets of their formal lady visitors ; to hear birds sing, and not in cages ; to watch what young lambs are like before they come to the butchers' shambles ; and then one and all to join in dolorous chorus of — " 0 ! what a day we're 'avin." Troops have gone, but troops remain — naughty, wicked Httle children these, whose beer-sodden papas and mammas never send them ta the Sunday school; but to-day even they are happy.

Here and there a smiling, swarthy, contented Savoyard is churning dismal music out of a shaky old barrel-organ, and round each Savoyard swarms a crowd of Httle ones — listening to the music — it is aU the music they are likely to hear below — till their tiny toes tingle with pleasure, and without knowing much about the art terpsichorean, dance and dance and dance as if there was never such a thing as a •f bobby" in the world, as long as the good Savoy ard can afford to play for nothing — and often he does afford much ; and, as they dance, the sun shine gilds them with its beauty, and for a moment their pale, pinched, wan, little cheeks glow as with life and health. Everywhere, to-day, the same story. Everywhere humanity, like the heathen of old, is calling out, " Ha ! ha ! we are >> warm. Poignardons le soleil! forsooth, Mr. Felix Grey, simply because you are more bilious than of wont !

Felix, however, does what he can to that end — and does it easily. He growls in language that may not be faithfully reported here, as he bangs-to his shutters and lights his lamp. " Now, I'll try again," he says, as if he half hoped a new faflure would give him a new grievance. He takes the stick of charcoal thoughtfully in his b hand, sits down defiantly on his bed, glares at the opposite wall and then, distracted, gazes uneasily around the chamber, as if he was quite prepared to see the sun make a fresh inroad from under the flooring or the doorway. There is not much in the room to glare at. A third floor back in Newman-street. Very bare, very desolate, and still very untidy. A bed, a crippled table, rather on crutches than on legs, a desk, two chairs, one of which is partly serviceable, more ruined furniture, an easel, a lay figure, a guitar and music, a pile of unfinished canvases and sketches, three pet rose trees in pots, a lady's shawl, some hair pins, and the remains of a chignon.

What did these here, Mr. Felix ? Charity bids us hope they are a model's — these things, combined with the curious atmosphere of paint and smoke, were nearly aU. The whitewashed walls are bare, save where some friend has written a message or a request for a trifling loan, or where they are hung with the faces of some passing sweetheart, or where they are defaced with red chalk or charcoal sketches, and at the youngest of these undeveloped sketches he was at present glowering. For a while he had been idle and very miserable, and then thoughts of this picture had come to him. To-day, for the first time, he sought' to give it being — the Power of Money ; and over and over again he had mercilessly explained to his wearied comrades the full glory of the subject. Even on that grimy wall the picture, as his warm imagination shadowed it forth, was vastly powerful.

"I can see it all," he cried, striking his forehead, " I can see it all, but I cannot draw it. A money-lender's shop. A pale, fair, sad young girl in mourning, stealing away from her dying mother, and now standing by the table. A Httle heap of the last family trinkets and treasures, precious to none but them. Money ! she must have money. The money-lender coolly and grimly laughs at her Httle store. ' Rubbish,' he says, disdainfully, half rising from his chair. His thick lips have a sensual smile, his eyes an unholy gleam. He stretches nearer and nearer across the table. He whispers how easily she can make money, more than she ever dreams of. He takes her hand. She half understands, she half shrinks. She turns away her head, she shivers, and it all bursts on her. Money ! money ! for her dying mother !

She does not withdraw her hand. She is lost." Felix paused ; and then, half in pride, half in anger and shame, he cried, " Oh ! there's a sub ject. No one will buy it ! No one will hang it. What do I care. The world is using me wretch edly. I will show the world how wretched it is ! Curse money — I wish I had enough to dine on — I have got the girl's face and pose all right ; but the man's, the brute's, confound it ! I can't do it ! I could, if it had not been for the sun shining merrily in all day !" For two hours he sat gazing manfully from the corner of the bed, rising every now and then to make a fresh attempt. All effort was useless, so he had some bread and cheese, and a little gin and water, then three thoughtful pipes, and these soothing him over much, he brought himself back to a proper and fit frame of mind by strumming discordantly on the guitar.

Still it was useless. Then he peeped out stealthily from behind a window-chink, to see how his enemy was getting on. " Hurrah ! he is going down," he shouted. '■ I will wander, and wander, and wander till I find the wretched face I want, and then rush home, and put it down on canvas !" In a moment he was in Oxford Street, with his broad-brimmed hat rammed savagely over his eyes, and gloomy and morose as ever, he stormed his way through the crowd ; but the crowd was far too gay and merry, so he passed into the back streets and slums, humming some lines from his favourite author — himself : — " One night I paced in dismal haste The gas-lit streets of London, To fly my debts and love regrets, And business done and undone ; For in the woes and glaring shows That surge about the city, We're apt to lose our private ' blues' In one vast human pity !

Awhile I staid to watch the trade That throve on sin and hunger ; The hideons joke that eased the yoke Of thief and costermonger : The dregs and dust of crime and lust, The squalid, leering faces ; The shame and want that starving flaunt In tatter'd silks and laces." And so on, and so on. The feeling these lines gave him had often served him as a solace. They did to-night. By the time he reached Piccadilly he was better, and every step towards Chelsea filled him with new hope. The ••wretched face" was forgotten as he peeped impudently and confidingly under the bonnet of this or that young milliner, returning cheerily from her day's toil. The summer twilight was glorious in town, more glorious in the country, so making for the first pretence of country he could, he came out at — Cremorne; but to-night he was in no mood for the humours of the place, and he had made for it only, because the district beyond — a Holy Land to him — had been trodden nightly with some one who was now gone away — dead to him, or worse than dead!

It was gloaming still, but just dark enough to give the Thames that resemblance to purity and transparency it lacks by day. The bridge lamps were reflected, far and near, on the still waters, as the tide crept stealthily up, with here and there an idle barge, and here and there a boat full of chorusing carousers ; and song and laughter, harsh enough in them selves, rolled in like music over some hundred yards of water. The Holy Land Felix wot of is a little district scarcely known even to your purest cockney. From Chelsea down to Fulham, for half a mile inside the river's bank, stretches one vast garden, with one tiny footpath thread ing its devious way, having, for the most part, neither hedge, nor rail, nor wall, but running pleasantly and confidingly through fields of flowers and acres of strawberry, and groves of balmy, fragrant fruit trees.

On and on he wandered till the moon shone out, glinting through the green leaves and the red fruit on the trees, fighting up the ripples of the river, and throwing shadow and refief aU around. In Holy Land there is only one cottage, and a pretty cottage too, and as Fefix passed by there was a scuffle of petticoats, a peal of girlish laughter, a banging-up of windows, and a violent outburst upon a cracked piano of the " Battle of Prague;" the music was ear-rending, and the laughter rather tempting. So he sauntered up to the wooden gate, and, despite a dismal-throated dog, went close to the open window and looked in. Two little screams of alarm, a fresh titter from one girl, a grave rebuke from the other. There was quite noise enough, so Felix sat quietly down on the window sill to wait. " Ladies, when you have done," he began in a cool tone of remon strance.

" Go away ! away ! you wicked man," cried the elder of the girls, flapping a piece of music at him, as if he had been a flock of geese. ••Allow me, ladies, to explain my equivocal position on your window sill." And as he smiled frankly and pleasantly they were melted. He wanted music chiefly, but simultaneously with that he wanted bread-and-butter, or cake or something, and a drink. And as " Pa" was out, his request was graciously granted. The plainer, elder, and musical genius finished the " Battle of Prague," and similar pieces; the younger fed him with her own fair fingers through the open window. " It is pleasant, but Hfe is short, and I must go !" he said at last. " Kiss me, lovely being for farewell." " Is Jemima looking V " No ! Jemima is in a noble rhapsody !" So he had a good hearty kiss from a fresh, full, red, Httle mouth, still crammed and flavoured with cake, and stretching far out of the window to fairly reach his lips.

But as sounds of altercation were soon heard from afar, it might be that Jemima's rhapsody was merely artistic. This encounter washed away the last traces of bitterness, and Felix walked on singing a pleasant song or two in a rich mellow voice, tiU he left the gardens behind, and left behind, too, the rivergirt bank, where the three big wiUows stand, in front of the bishop's palace, and went down a leafy turning, half lane, half street, with quaint, dear, old-fashioned cottages, jotted down as if from out some mighty pepper-box, here, there, anywhere; some opposite; some side by side; some close to the roadway ; some far back in cool green gardens ; but all, big or little, charmingly irregular. In front of one of these stood two ugly little children, sobbing bitterly. " Oh ! he threw dolly into the garden, and I can't get in," howled one.

" I did it a purpose ; I did, and the gate is locked tight," sobbed the other. Felix put his hands lightly on the top bar, and was over the gate in a moment. He groped about here and there. He could not find what he wanted, but he found something else, and he stopped dead still to gaze at what he found. A little bedroom window, with the lattice thrown wide open ; upon a window-sill, thick with roses and clematis, and across the flowers, a young girl was leaning, brought into strong relief in the darkness from the bright candle-light behind ; she had a dainty, cool, frail, dead-amber-coloured dressing gown, clasped carelessly around her ; and, with a toss of her head, she had just shaken a flood of light brown hair far down over her back and shoulders ; but her face was turned away wistfully to the stars or the river.

Felix saw the face in sharp profile. "By Jove, Correggio's Venus in a dressing gown!" he ejaculated; and it was Correggio's Venus — a face clear cut like some rare cameo, every line, every feature perfect; — so much he could see in the half shadow thrown by the candle-light. " She must have blue eyes," he whispered to himself, " and cheeks palely trans parent for the delicate blood to gfimmer through, but no full colours." And he made a false step, and was detected. Their eyes met. Yes ! her eyes were blue ; then the candle went out sud denly, and the lattice was half drawn in and then re-opened, and a soft, silvery voice, brave and decided, though][trembHng, asked, " Who are you, sir ! What do you want ? I shaU summon the servants ;" " Pray, don't ! don't ! I am looking for a doH." '' Looking for a doll !"

" Indeed, I am," and he told his story briefly ; his voice was frank and pleasant, and there was something good in the trouble he was taking for the little ones outside, so the fair divinity above forgave him in her heart. " But you shouldn't have climbed the gate," she said, severely ; " you have cfimbed it, but I don't see how I can help you." " Oh, you might come down with the candle and help me hunt. . . ." •' For shame, sir, you forget yourself. I will send one of the maids." "For shame, Miss," retorted Felix, saucily adding, " but light your candle, put it on the window-sill, and I shaU see down here quite weU !" This after some demur was accorded. " No !" said he, looking full up into her face ; " no, I like the profile best." He had just time to see her face flush quickly, and again the candle went out.

" You must find your doU for yourself. You have no right to be rude or complimentary either. Perhaps it is my fault. It shan't be my fault any more." " Oh, how vexed I am ! Say you forgive me ; say even ' good night.' " Still no answer. "Ah ! may I never see you again ?" A long pause, and then a "No !" a faintly spoken yet decided " No !" " - No,' you say. Oh listen for a moment ! I swear I will. I will think of nothing but seeing you. How can I help it else, now that I have once seen you ?" Then there was a half smile, or a half sigh, and then the window closed definitely, but a Httle rosebud dropped down at his feet, and Felix put it tenderly in his breast. The doll was quickly found. " I want my doUy," sobbed the little, ugly girl as he appeared. " Yes ! we all want our dollies," said Felix, as fie trudged home happy and radiant, dreaming of that face of the Venus of Correggio's. He rushed up the battered old staircase to his room, seized a wet cloth, and defiberately wiped out the Power of Money.

"Ah," he cried, with a sigh of refief, " who cares for misery now. The sun was right, and I was wrong." And he went to bed to dream over that day, that night — and, indeed, the night remained indelibly on his mind. The misery of the day time ; the pleasant, cool, green walk ; the laughing little girl, with the red Hps f uU of cake, and her fresh saucy kiss — all this as prologue — and then the Fulham cottage, the pecufiar fragrance of the garden, the indefinite sensation it had aroused in him ; the face as seen in profile, and the face as seen afterwards, the way her voice had thrilled him — all these, and many details more, used ever to come back at the slightest effort of his will. He was happy in his dreams, yet he kept awaking with a start, and he fought against his iHusion. Was it from love of art ?

What was it ? How could he tell ? One thing he knew, that the face he had seen so casually was an influence in his existence, henceforth and for ever, potent as life or death; that to think of never seeing it again was like annihilation — that to plot in sleep and scheme how to meet her, see her, win her, was Hke a distant glimpse of mi raged paradise.

Chapter II. Fulham

At eight Felix Grey was up thundering away at the door of his immediate neighbour, Carl Richter — a poorer man, apparently, than any other of the wild Bohemian set, but, though poor, one who did more good deeds than any. " Twenty devils shall not pull me out tfll two/' yawned Carl, in reply to the showering blows, " but come in, man or beast ; the door is ever ajar." Felix tried to explain what he wanted, but it was difficult to keep him to the point, so rapturous was he, and so descriptive. " Never mind the garden and the face ; I have heard all that before. You want money; that's it ; and you come to me. Open that coffer in the corner; it is crammed with big doubloons !" and Carl lay back to revel quietly in the absurdity of an appfication for money in such a quarter as this. " Come and breakfast with you ?

Well, I'll forego my night's rest. I wasn't in bed till seven." All breakfast time Carl was mysterious. Then, pushing back his chair, he began to toss over the pile of sketches and studies, selecting half a dozen. " There, that will do," he said. " I am going to give you a tip, my boy ; don't betray me. I make most of the little I do make by putting my things in at the fag end of the weekly furniture auction at 's, and I get four times as much there as the dealers pay you feUows. The British Pubfic Hkes to buy a picture at public auction. British Pubfic likes studies in the Life School. " Lydia Jones takes well with B. P. Poor Liddy ! I know you have heaps of her. Pro fanation to hang those beautiful tints on a Phifistine's walls, but Love demands a sacrifice !" Then for the auction rooms they started, and Carl went home to bed, and Felix was left alone to watch the bidding, and to his astonishment he returned with a round sum in his pocket.

He dined — the first time for three days — like a prince, filled his pockets with the biggest cigars, and ao-ain went down to Fulham — this time luxuriously O in a hansom. He was too happy to be unsuc cessful. Everything turned out exactly as he had expected. There was a cottage opposite ; there were two rooms to let, and though the landlady, with the natural terror of her species, objected at first to receive an artist, a month's payment in advance settled that. Everything was perfect — even to an open space in the trees, through which his window looked full on to the well-remembered little latticed window, where the apparition had appeared. Next day he was fairly installed, and the new rooms at Fulham in as great a litter as tfie old rooms in Newman street. All day, all night he was in a fever of expectation ; next morning he would see her, surely.

Would she come to the window early. Would she come into the garden. Would she know him again. Perhaps she had been there for a visit, and gone away for ever, and so forth and so forth ; but this last supposition rendered immediate inquiries essential. Mrs. Brown was garrulous enough. The young lady, Miss Cecilia Hardcastle, was a stranger ; had been staying for some months with her aunt, opposite ; was supposed to be fatherless and motherless and poor. And while Felix was making these inquiries Cecilia fieard — not without sundry misgiving — of the disturbance of their little neighbourhood by the unusual appearance of a lodger at Mrs. Brown's ; and when in the morning she began to water her window flowers, she saw some one opposite watering his window flowers. And somebody opposite glanced merrily at her and bowed reverentially, and Cecilia with drew in a pet with her pale cheeks flushed scarlet.