No Thoroughfare

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NO THOROUGHFARE


THE OVERTURE.


Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight
hundred and thirty-five. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul's,
ten at night. All the lesser London churches strain their metallic
throats. Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great
cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind
it; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air,
as if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding
sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city.

What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear,
that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibration alone?
This is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children. Time was, when
the Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate.
Time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as
by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them
and claim to them for evermore.

The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The
day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the
droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who
flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling
Children has need to be well shod to-night.

She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often
pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall,
with her face turned towards the gate. As above her there is the purity
of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the
pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of
reflection or experience. As her footprints crossing and recrossing one
another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have
involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle.

The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a
young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees
that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young
woman.

Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following
close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and
touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled.

"You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you would not
speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost?"

"It was not," returned the lady, in a low voice, "that I would not speak,
but that I could not when I tried."

"What do you want of me? I have never done you any harm?"

"Never."

"Do I know you?"

"No."

"Then what can you want of me?"

"Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little present, and I
will tell you."

Into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as
she replies: "There is neither grown person nor child in all the large
establishment that I belong to, who hasn't a good word for Sally. I am
Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought?"

"I do not mean to buy you; I mean only to reward you very slightly."

Sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the offering hand.
"If there is anything I can do for you, ma'am, that I will not do for its
own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for
money. What is it you want?"

"You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital; I saw you leave
to-night and last night."

"Yes, I am. I am Sally."

"There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that
very young children would take readily to you."

"God bless 'em! So they do."

The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's. A
face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with
sorrow.

"I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. I
have a prayer to make to you."

Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil,
Sally--whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity--replaces
it, and begins to cry.

"You will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "You will not be deaf to
the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am?"

"O dear, dear, dear!" cries Sally. "What shall I say, or can say! Don't
talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of All, and
not to nurses and such. And there! I am only to hold my place for half
a year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am
going to be married. I shouldn't have been out last night, and I
shouldn't have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I
am going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to
watch him. Don't take on so, don't take on so!"

"O good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, catching at her dress
entreatingly. "As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in
life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can
aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a
proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD'S
sake hear my distracted petition!"

"Deary, deary, deary ME!" cries Sally, her desperation culminating in the
pronoun, "what am I ever to do? And there! See how you turn my own
words back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to
make it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn't
help you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as
if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It ain't
kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?"

"Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It
applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words."

"There! This is worse and worse," cries Sally, "supposing that I
understand what two words you mean."

"You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby? I
ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has
been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the
book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him?"

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they have
strayed--an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark
gardens of the Hospital--the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty,
but that Sally prevents her.

"Don't! Don't! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be
good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in
mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me anything more than the two
words?"

"Never! Never!"

"You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?"

"Never! Never!"

"Walter Wilding."

The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in her
embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, "Kiss him for
me!" and is gone.

* * * * *

Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand
eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint
Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for
Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day. Service in the
chapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.

There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are
two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller
groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The
bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed
windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it
strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's pictures.
The girls' refectory (including that of the younger children) is the
principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly
and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them;
comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not
unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some
of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They
have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular
seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word
or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are
generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the
long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved
by these incidents, although so slight.

A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. It would
seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before.
She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes
the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy
manner. At length she comes to the refectory of the boys. They are so
much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she
looks in at the doorway.

But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly
female attendant: some order of matron or housekeeper. To whom the lady
addresses natural questions: As, how many boys? At what age are they
usually put out in life? Do they often take a fancy to the sea? So,
lower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question: "Which is
Walter Wilding?"

Attendant's head shaken. Against the rules.

"You know which is Walter Wilding?"

So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady's
eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor,
lest by wandering in the right direction they should betray her.

"I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, to tell
names to visitors."

"But you can show me without telling me."

The lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand. Pause and
silence.

"I am going to pass round the tables," says the lady's interlocutor,
without seeming to address her. "Follow me with your eyes. The boy that
I stop at and speak to, will not matter to you. But the boy that I
touch, will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little
away."

Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks
about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way,
walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. She
goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside.
Very slightly glancing in the lady's direction, she stops, bends forward,
and speaks. The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies. Good
humouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand
upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. That the action may be
well noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return,
and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her tour
of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the
opposite end of the long room.

Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables
commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns,
and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled in, fortunately
for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping at
the touched boy, asks how old he is?

"I am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers.

"Are you well and happy?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"May you take these sweetmeats from my hand?"

"If you please to give them to me."

In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face with her
forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, she passes
on, and passes out without looking back.




ACT I.


THE CURTAIN RISES


In a court-yard in the City of London, which was No Thoroughfare either
for vehicles or foot-passengers; a court-yard diverging from a steep, a
slippery, and a winding street connecting Tower Street with the Middlesex
shore of the Thames; stood the place of business of Wilding & Co., Wine
Merchants. Probably as a jocose acknowledgment of the obstructive
character of this main approach, the point nearest to its base at which
one could take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore the appellation
Break-Neck-Stairs. The court-yard itself had likewise been descriptively
entitled in old time, Cripple Corner.

Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people
had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had ceased to
ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a
slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty
iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck
glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into
the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would
arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish; but
at most times the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the
conveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from
the cellars of Wilding & Co., Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was but
occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty
indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at
the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and
wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the Right
Honourable the Lord Mayor.

Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill
(approaching it from the low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was Cripple
Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple
Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants.
Their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. It
really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the City,
and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support,
like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long
narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to
render it symmetrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a
bell in it.

"When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say 'this hat
covers the owner of this property and of the business which is transacted
on this property,' I consider, Mr. Bintrey, that, without being boastful,
he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. I don't know how it may appear
to you, but so it appears to me."

Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own counting-house;
taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and
hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of
nature.

An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with
a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for
so young a man, though of a good stature. With crispy curling brown
hair, and amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely communicative man: a
man with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment
and gratitude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man, with
twinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly
but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or
heart.

"Yes," said Mr. Bintrey. "Yes. Ha, ha!"

A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk.

"You like this forty-five year old port-wine?" said Mr. Wilding.

"Like it?" repeated Mr. Bintrey. "Rather, sir!"

"It's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin," said Mr.
Wilding.

"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bintrey. "It's most excellent."

He laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly
ludicrous idea of giving away such wine.

"And now," said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of
affairs, "I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintrey."

"Everything straight," said Bintrey.

"A partner secured--"

"Partner secured," said Bintrey.

"A housekeeper advertised for--"

"Housekeeper advertised for," said Bintrey, "'apply personally at Cripple
Corner, Great Tower Street, from ten to twelve'--to-morrow, by the bye."

"My late dear mother's affairs wound up--"

"Wound up," said Bintrey.

"And all charges paid."

"And all charges paid," said Bintrey, with a chuckle: probably occasioned
by the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle.

"The mention of my late dear mother," Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes
filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, "unmans me
still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I loved her; you (her lawyer) know how
she loved me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between
us, and we never experienced one moment's division or unhappiness from
the time when she took me under her care. Thirteen years in all!
Thirteen years under my late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight
of them her confidentially acknowledged son! You know the story, Mr.
Bintrey, who but you, sir!" Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes,
without attempt at concealment, during these remarks.

Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his
mouth: "I know the story."

"My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey," pursued the wine-merchant, "had been
deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that subject my late
dear mother's lips were for ever sealed. By whom deceived, or under what
circumstances, Heaven only knows. My late dear mother never betrayed her
betrayer."

"She had made up her mind," said Mr. Bintrey, again turning his wine on
his palate, "and she could hold her peace." An amused twinkle in his
eyes pretty plainly added--"A devilish deal better than _you_ ever will!"

"'Honour,'" said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the Commandments,
"'thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.' When
I was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it,
that I apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I afterwards
came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly. And I honour and revere her
memory. For seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, still with
the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears,
"did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business,
Pebbleson Nephew. Her affectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me
to the Vintners' Company, and made me in time a free Vintner,
and--and--everything else that the best of mothers could desire. When I
came of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me;
it was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted
in Wilding and Co.; it was she who left me everything she possessed, but
the mourning ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey," with a fresh burst of
honest affection, "she is no more. It is little over half a year since
she came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her own eyes,
WILDING AND CO., WINE MERCHANTS. And yet she is no more!"

"Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding," observed Bintrey. "At some time
or other we must all be no more." He placed the forty-five year old port-
wine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh.

"So now, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, putting away his
pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, "now
that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom
my heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she first spoke to me, a
strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I
can at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and
that I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in
my employment. Therefore," continued Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in
his loquacity, "therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to
undertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, Cripple
Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt
employer and employed! So that I may live in it on the spot where my
money is made! So that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which
the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast
and boiled, and drink of the same beer! So that the people in my
employment may lodge under the same roof with me! So that we may one and
all--I beg your pardon, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has
suddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the
pump."

Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a
moment in leading him forth into the court-yard. It was easily done; for
the counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one
side of the dwelling-house. There the attorney pumped with a will,
obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and
face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. After these remedies, he
declared himself much better.

"Don't let your good feelings excite you," said Bintrey, as they returned
to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel
behind an inner door.

"No, no. I won't," he returned, looking out of the towel. "I won't. I
have not been confused, have I?"

"Not at all. Perfectly clear."

"Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?"

"Well, you left off--but I wouldn't excite myself, if I was you, by
taking it up again just yet."

"I'll take care. I'll take care. The singing in my head came on at
where, Mr. Bintrey?"

"At roast, and boiled, and beer," answered the lawyer,--"prompting
lodging under the same roof--and one and all--"

"Ah! And one and all singing in the head together--"

"Do you know, I really _would not_ let my good feelings excite me, if I
was you," hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. "Try some more pump."

"No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And one and all
forming a kind of family! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used in my
childhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals
have led, more or less, in their childhood. After that time I became
absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more
fit for being one of a body than one by myself one. To be that, and at
the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to
me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. I don't know how it may
appear to you, Mr Bintrey, but so it appears to me."

"It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you," returned
Bintrey. "Consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small
importance."

"It appears to me," said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, "hopeful, useful,
delightful!"

"Do you know," hinted the lawyer again, "I really would not ex--"

"I am not going to. Then there's Handel."

"There's who?" asked Bintrey.

"Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn.
I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel
Collection. Why shouldn't we learn them together?"

"Who learn them together?" asked the lawyer, rather shortly.

"Employer and employed."

"Ay, ay," returned Bintrey, mollified; as if he had half expected the
answer to be, Lawyer and client. "That's another thing."

"Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey! The same thing. A part of the bond
among us. We will form a Choir in some quiet church near the Corner
here, and, having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come
home and take an early dinner together with a relish. The object that I
have at heart now is, to get this system well in action without delay, so
that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his
partnership."

"All good be with it!" exclaimed Bintrey, rising. "May it prosper! Is
Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell,
Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn?

"I hope so."

"I wish them all well out of it," returned Bintrey, with much heartiness.
"Good-bye, sir."

They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his knuckles for
leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his
private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head
Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst
Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in
question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human
architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a
composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide.

"Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding," said
he.

"Yes, Joey?"

"Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding--and I never did speak and I
never do speak for no one else--_I_ don't want no boarding nor yet no
lodging. But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. I can
peck as well as most men. Where I peck ain't so high a object with me as
What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is
all to live in the house, Young Master Wilding? The two other cellarmen,
the three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men?"