Читать книгу The Life & Work of Charles Bradlaugh - J. M. Robertson - Страница 17

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TOTTENHAM.

Our house at Sunderland Villa was what I suppose would be called an eight-roomed house. It comprised four bedrooms, two sitting-rooms, and a little room built out over the kitchen, which was Mr. Bradlaugh's "den" or study. There was a garden in the rear communicating by a private way with "The Grove," a road running at right angles to Northumberland Park, in which our house was situated; and at the bottom of this garden, when things looked very prosperous indeed, some stables were built. There was to be stalled the longed-for horse which was to take my father to the City every day; but before the stables were quite completed Black Friday came, and with it vanished all these entrancing dreams. The building indeed remained, but merely as a playhouse for us children, or to afford an occasional lodging for a friend (the coachman's quarters being well and snugly built), and also, I fear, as a "good joke" to the neighbourhood.

We usually had one or more dogs, belonging to the various members of the family, for we were all fond of animals, and any big ones were kept in the paved forecourt of the stables. At one time there were three dwellers in the court, but these ultimately thinned down to one, the dog Bruin, my father's special favourite. Bruin was part retriever and part St. Bernard, a fine dog to look at, and wonderfully clever. Mr. Bradlaugh was never weary of relating anecdotes of his intelligence and sagacity. From his kennel in the court Bruin's chain-range covered the garden gate, and with him there no bolt or lock was necessary, for while with friends he was the mildest and gentlest of dogs, with strangers or suspicious persons he was truly formidable. He made no unnecessary show of what he could do; he quietly watched the person until he was well within his reach, and then hurled himself at his throat. This I once saw. He was devoted to my father, and with him almost perfectly docile and obedient. And when, in 1870, Mr. Bradlaugh had to part with him, losing Bruin was by no means the smallest grief at a time when there was little else but sadness and sorrow.

At St. Helen's Place Mr. James Thomson (B. V.) had shared our home, and he again lived with us for some years at Sunderland Villa. The acquaintance which sprang up between them during Mr. Bradlaugh's army experiences in Ireland had soon ripened into warm friendship.

When my father quitted the service they kept up a close correspondence, and many a time have I heard my mother lament that Mr. Thomson's "beautiful letters" had been destroyed. When Mr. Thomson also left the army and came to London at the end of 1862, he came to my father, who at once held out a helping hand to him. In 1863 Mr. Bradlaugh obtained for him the appointment of Secretary to the Polish Committee, but his inherited curse of intemperance seized upon him, and at a crucial moment he disappeared.[33] On May 29th Mr. W. J. Linton wrote from Ambleside:—

"Dear Bradlaugh—The enclosed from Taylor. I send it to you knowing no other way of getting at Thomson, and wishful not to throw over any one spoken kindly of by you. But for myself I would not stand a second utter neglect of this kind. However, it rests with Taylor.

"After some trouble about Thomson, he might at least have written to me in the first instance, or to Taylor now, to account even for 'illness'—which I begin to doubt.

"I only asked him for a daily paper, which would have satisfied me of his daily attention. I have had three since I left. Row him, please!—Yours ever, very hard worked,

W. J. Linton."

Enclosure.

"House of Commons, May 28, 1863.

"Dear Linton—Do you know Thomson's address or how to get at it? He has not been at S. Street this week, and everything is going to the D——l.—

Yours ever, P. A. Taylor."

These fits of intemperance, comparatively rare at first, unhappily became more and more frequent. While Mr. Thomson lived with us when he came back after one of these attacks—or was brought back, for indeed it usually happened that some friend searched for him and brought him home despite himself—he was nursed and cared for until he was quite himself again, for it often happened that he was bruised and wounded, and unfit to go out for some days.

Although he failed so miserably in his secretary's work, Mr. Bradlaugh gave him a post in his own office, and encouraged him to write for the National Reformer. He had already written a few scattered articles, first for the Investigator in 1859, and then for the National Reformer. In the latter his writings ultimately extended over a period of fifteen years, commencing in 1860, and ending in the summer of 1875. His contributions range from the smallest review notice of some pamphlets written by Frederic Harrison, to his great and remarkable poem of "The City of Dreadful Night." Those who think most highly of this wonderful work admit that there was no other publisher in London who would have published it, but at the same time they give no credit to my father for discerning genius to which every one else was then blind; on the contrary, they join in the suggestion that Mr. Thomson was in some way ill-used by Mr. Bradlaugh, although how they do not deign to tell. Most of "B. V.'s" writings to the National Reformer were done in the years 1865, 1866, 1867, the first half of 1868, and second half of 1869, 1870, 1871, 1874, and the early months of 1875. In the other years his contributions were more scattered, but no year is entirely without.

While he lived with us at Sunderland Villa, Mr. Thomson was just one of the family, sharing our home life in every particular. He was a favourite with us all; my father loved him with a love that had to bear many a strain, and we children simply adored him. Sometimes in the evenings he, with my mother for a partner, my father with Miss Lacey (a frequent inmate of our house), would form a jovial quartet at whist; and many were the jokes and great the fun on these whist evenings. On Sundays, if my father were at home, he and Mr. Thomson would take us children and Bruin for a walk over the Tottenham Marshes to give Bruin a swim in the Lea; or if my father were away lecturing, as was too frequently the case, then Mr. Thomson would take us for a long ramble to Edmonton to see Charles Lamb's grave, or maybe across the fields to Chingford. In the winter time, when the exigencies of the weather kept us indoors, he would devote his Sunday afternoons to us, and tell us the most enchanting fairy tales it was ever the lot of children to listen to. One snowy night my father and he came to fetch my sister and me home from a Christmas party. They had to carry us, for the snow was deep. They took us out of the house with due regard to propriety; but they had not got far before they were all too conscious of the weight of their respective burdens, so they set us down in a fairly clear spot, and then readjusted us "pick-a-back." There was much joking over our weight, and we heartily joined in the laugh and enjoyed the jests at our expense, and over and above all the notion of being aided and abetted by our elders in doing something so shocking as a "pick-a-back" ride through the streets. These were delightful, happy times to us at least, and, in spite of all his cares, not unhappy for my father. He had youth and health and hope and courage, a friend he loved, and children he was ever good to. I feel indeed as though my pen must linger over these small trifles, over these merry moods and happy moments, and I am loth to put them aside for sadder, weightier matters.

Or the two would sit in my father's little "den" or study, and smoke. Mr. Bradlaugh smoked a great deal at this time, and "B. V." was an inveterate smoker; the one had his cigar, and the other his pipe; and while the smoke slowly mounted up and by degrees so filled the room that they could scarce see each other's faces across the table, they would talk philosophy, politics, or literature. I can see them now, in some ways a strangely assorted pair, as they sat in that little room lined with books; at the far side of the table the poet and dreamer, with his head thrown back and with the stem of his pipe never far from his lips, his face almost lost in the blue clouds gently and lazily curling upwards; and here, near the fireplace, my father, essentially a man to whom to think, to plan, was to do, sitting in careless comfort in his big uncushioned oaken chair, now taking frequent strong draws at his cigar, transforming the dull ash into a vigorous point of light, and again laying it aside to die into dull ash once more, whilst he argued a point or drew himself up to write. How often and how vividly that once familiar scene rises before my closed eyes! Of course, whilst with us, Mr. Thomson had the use of my father's little library as his own, and many of the books still bear the traces of his reading in the pencilled notes.

During the Carlist War, in 1873, Mr. Bradlaugh obtained for his friend an appointment to go to Spain as special correspondent to a New York paper; but alas! he was taken "ill" whilst about his duties, wrote irregularly and infrequently, and as a climax wrote three lines describing an important event when three columns were expected. He was consequently recalled, and when he got back my father found, to his additional vexation, that he (Mr. Thomson) had lost the Colt's revolver which he had lent him. It was an old friend to Mr. Bradlaugh; he had had it for many years, and it had served him well.

My father's anger was, as usual, short lived; and in the next year he published "B. V.'s" "City of Dreadful Night," and thenceforward gave him regular work on the National Reformer. But he was unhappily one not to be relied upon; and on a special occasion when he was left with the responsibility of the paper he disappeared and left it, as far as he was concerned, to come out as best it could. At length, in 1875, in spite of all my father's forbearance and affection, Mr. Thomson for some reason felt injured; but whatever might have been his grievances, they were in fact utterly baseless. Mr. Thomson resented his supposed injury by an open insult, and from that moment the friendship between these two was dead. On Mr. Thomson's side it seemed turned to hatred and bitter animosity, and he said against my father some of the most bitter things possible for a man to say. The memory of all past love and kindness seemed washed out and drowned in a whirl of evil passions. My father was deeply wounded, and at first, for some year or two, never voluntarily mentioned his old friend's name; but when the first soreness had passed he spoke of him, seldom, it is true, but with a certain tenderness, and always as "poor Thomson." We found amongst things long put away a silver cup won by Mr. Thomson and inscribed with his name; we asked my father what we should do with it. "Send it to him, my daughters; I dare say he needs it, poor fellow." And indeed we heard afterwards that it soon found its way to the pawnshop. It was characteristic of my father that he said nothing to us, his daughters, of his quarrel with one to whom he knew we were greatly attached; we heard of it from others not too friendly to my father. We, naturally and without a word, although not without great grief, ranged ourselves on our father's side, and met Mr. Thomson as a stranger; we felt that he was grateful for our sacrifice, but he neither uttered a syllable of approval or comment, nor did he ever attempt to sway us by sign or word.

Although our home was small, the doors were made to open very wide. Relations and friends, all who stood in need of kindness and hospitality, seemed to find their way here. My father's youngest sister Harriet, after leaving the Orphan Asylum in which she had been placed at her father's death, lived with us for a long time. She was a brilliant, handsome girl, yet bearing a strong resemblance to my father. I can always picture her as she stood one 30th of April, awaiting the child guests who were to come to make merry over my sister's birthday. Standing against the wall I can see her tall, well-proportioned figure, robed in one of the sprigged muslin gowns of those days, the short sleeves and low neck of the time showing her fine arms and shoulders. I see her face with its fair complexion, alive with vivacity and the warm glow of health, her light brown hair, her laughing mouth and eyes—eyes which were certainly not of the "angel" order, but whose fire and flash gave some warning of the unrestrained temper within. Poor Harriet! this same temper was her own undoing. Driven by it she married badly, in every sense of the word, dragged through a few years of miserable existence, and eventually died in the Fulham Hospital, of smallpox, when it fell to my father to discharge the funeral expenses—such was the poverty of her own home. I have heard that stories have been told and even preached from a public platform of her "deathbed conversion," but this is only one of the common pious frauds. Her illness was quite unexpected, and lasted only a few days, none of her family, except her husband, knowing of it until after she was dead. Apart from that point and the nature of her illness, which would somewhat stand in the way of much visiting, I am not aware that she ever called herself anything but a Christian. She was brought up in that religion, and she was not interfered with whilst with us.

Here, also, Mr. Bradlaugh's younger brother found a resting place and tendance after illness; but as I shall have occasion to speak of him later, I will for the moment pass him with a mere mention.

Others, too, more than I can count, found their way to that small house in Northumberland Park. Some were nursed there, some did their courtship there, and some were even married from there. In the meantime, who can tell how many were the visitors to that little study at the back, over the kitchen? Alas! I can only remember the names of a few. There were Frenchmen like Talandier, Le Blanc, Elisée Reclus, Alphonse Esquiros; Italians and Englishmen working for Mazzini and Garibaldi; Irish politicals like General Cluseret and Kelly; and there was Alexander Herzen, for whom my father had a great admiration, and whom he always counted as a friend. These, whose names are sometimes joined to faces, and others, faces without names, lie indistinctly in the dim far-back memory of my childhood.

I was here about to break off and take up again the thread of the story of Mr. Bradlaugh's public work, but it occurs to me that I have said little about my father's treatment of us, his children, and of our early education. There is so little to say, and certainly so little of importance to linger over, that I should have passed on to other matters were it not for the imaginings of those who make it their business to spread false statements concerning Mr. Bradlaugh, even on such a purely personal matter as his children's education.

My father was away from home so much that ordinarily we saw him very little, and my earliest recollection of him is at St. Helen's Place. One evening in particular seems to stand out in my memory. The room was alight and warm with gas and fire; and at one end of the table, covered with papers, sat my father. I suppose that we were romping and noisy, and interfered with his work, for he turned towards us and said in grave tones, which I can always hear, "Is it not time you little lassies went to bed?" A trifling incident, but it shows that at that time he was obliged to do his thinking and writing in the common room in the midst of his family, and the term "little lassies" was a characteristic one with him. When we were quite little, if he had anything serious to say to us, it was his "little lassies" he talked to; as we grew older it was "my daughters," and what he had to say always seemed to have an additional emphasis by the use of the special, yet tender term, almost entirely reserved for serious occasions. In the morning, when he left home, we three children always assembled for the "goodbye" kiss; after that we seldom saw him until the next day. If, however, he was home in the evenings while we were still up, we used to sit by his elbow while he played whist or chess, and after the game was over he would so carefully explain his own moves, and perhaps the faults of his partner or his opponents, that before I was twelve years old I could play whist as well as I can to-day, and chess a great deal better, merely through watching his play, and paying attention to his comments.

Broxbourne was then his favourite place for fishing; it was easily reached from Northumberland Park, and there were in those days good fish in the Lea. He and the proprietor of the fishing-right were very good friends; and sometimes when it grew too dark to fish, he would wind up his day with a pleasant game at billiards before taking the train home. He generally took us children with him if the day was fine, and these were indeed red-letter days for us. We were on our honour not to get into any mischief, and, with the one restriction that we were not to make a noise close to the water, we were allowed a perfect, glorious liberty. Sometimes we too would fish, and my father would give us little lines and floats and hooks, and with an impromptu rod stolen from the nearest willow or ash tree we would do our best to imitate our superior. But my brother was the only one who showed great perseverance in this respect; my sister and I soon tired of watching the placid float on the sparkling water, and sought other amusements. At Carthagena Weir my father would "make it right" with old Brimsden the lock-keeper, and he would rig us up a rope swing on which he would make a seat of a most wonderful sheep-skin; or there were a score of ways in which we amused ourselves, for there was no one to say, "Don't do this" or "Don't do that." We could roll in the grass and get our white muslin dresses grass-green, jump in the ditch and fill our shoes with mud, anything so long as we enjoyed ourselves and did no harm. Whether it was the feeling of freedom and the being made our own judges of right or wrong, I do not know, but I do not remember one occasion on which we were rebuked either by the lenient guardian with us or by the stricter one when we got home again—for, of course, as is mostly the way with women, my mother was much more particular about the "proprieties" than my father; and had he brought us home in a very tumbled, muddy condition, our fishing expeditions would have been less frequent.

As to our early education, our father did the best he could for us; but his means were small, and the opportunities for schooling twenty-five and thirty years ago were not such as they are to-day. My sister and I, first alone and then with my brother, were sent to a little school taught by two maiden ladies; the boys being taught upstairs, and the girls in a room below. At this school, as always, although the contrary has been stated, we were withdrawn from religious instruction, but the Misses Burnell did not always obey this injunction: if a bogie was wanted to frighten us with, then "God" was trotted out. I remember on one occasion, when I suppose I had been naughty, Miss Burnell, pointing to the sky, told me that God was watching me from above and could see all I did. Childlike, I took this literally, though I suppose with the proverbial "grain of salt," for I leaned out of the window and gazed up into the sky to see for myself this "God" who was always watching my actions. It was just dusk, and it happened to be a time when some comet was visible. When I looked out and saw this brilliant body lighting up the darkness all about it, I was convinced that this was the "eye of God" of which Miss Burnell had been talking, and hastily drew in my head again to get out of his sight! But as at home we had no mysterious Being either to fear (because that seems the first impression generally made upon sensitive children) or to love, this awful Eye blazing away overhead merely left a vague feeling of uneasiness behind, which time and healthier thought effaced. My little brother was soon taken from this school and sent to a boarding-school, where he remained only a few months, as it was unsatisfactory; he was also over-walked, which resulted in laming him for a time. The master who took the boys out for walking exercise could not have been of an exactly cheerful disposition, for at the time of the dreadful ice accident in 1867, when forty persons were drowned, he marched the boys to Regent's Park to see the dead bodies taken out of the water. It was a terrible sight for little boys to see; and as my little brother was only just over seven years old, the remembrance of these rows of dead bodies made an indelible impression upon his mind. He was then sent to some good friends at Plymouth, Mr. and Mrs. John Williamson, and while he grew well and strong in the sea breezes, he went to school with their son. On coming home again, he was sent to Mr. John Grant, schoolmaster in the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards—then a friend of Mr. Thomson's, and so of my father's—who took him as a private pupil. My sister and I learned French of different French refugees who frequented our house, and I must do them the justice to say that our French was both a great deal better taught and learned than our English. My father used to hold sudden examinations at unstated times of our progress in the French language, especially if he happened to come across a franc piece, reminiscent of his journeys to the Continent. This franc was to be the reward of the one who answered best; but somehow I was so stupid and desperately nervous that I never once won the prize: my sister always carried it off in triumph.

Never during the whole of our childhood did my father once raise his hand against us, never once did he speak a harsh word. We were whipped, for my mother held the old-fashioned, mistaken notion that to "spare the rod" was to "spoil the child;" but when scolding or whipping failed to bring obedience, the culprit was taken to that little study; there a grave look and a grave word brought instant submission. But it seldom went beyond the threat of being taken there, for we loved him so that we could not bear him even to know when we were naughty.

I feel that much of this may well seem very trivial to those who read my book, but my excuse for dwelling so long on such details is that even the most ordinary incidents in my father's history have been misstated and distorted. I take my opportunity whilst I may, for many lie cold in the grave, and mine is now almost the only hand which can nail down the wretched calumnies which strike at such small personal matters as these.