An Isle of Surrey: A Novel. Dowling Richard
called the Pine Groves. The pine-wood which gives them their name has ceased to be a landscape ornament many years, and now stands upright about ten feet high on either side of the roads, in the form of tarred planks.
There are miles of this monotonous black fencing, with no house or gate to break the depressing sameness. By day the Pine Groves are busy with the rumble of heavy traffic from the docks and wharves; by night they are as deserted as the crypt of St. Paul's.
Between the great gasworks and the docks, and at a point upon which the canal, the main railway, and three of these Pine Groves converge, there is an oasis of houses, a colony of men, a village, as it were, in this desert made by man in the interest of trade and commerce. This patch of inhabited ground supports at most two hundred houses. The houses are humble, but not squalid. The inhabitants are not longshore-men, nor are they mostly connected with the sea or things maritime. They seem to be apart and distinct from the people found within a rifle-shot of the place. Although they are no farther than a thousand yards from Welford Bridge, to judge by their manners and speech, they are so much better mannered, civilised, and refined, that a thousand years and a thousand miles might lie between them and the longshore-men and loafers from whom William Crawford had been supplied with a guide in Red Jim. This oasis in the desert of unbuilt space, this refuge from the odious solitude by night of the Pine Groves, this haunt of Arcadian respectability in the midst of squalid and vicious surroundings, is honoured in the neighbourhood by the name of Leeham, and is almost wholly unknown in any other part of London. It will not do to say it has been forgotten, for it has never been borne in memory. The taxman and the gasman and the waterman, and the people who own houses there, know Leeham; but no other general outsiders. It is almost as much isolated from the rest of London as the Channel Islands.
It has not grown or diminished since the railway was built. No one ever thinks of pulling down an old house or building up a new one. Time-worn brass knockers are still to be found on the doors, and old-fashioned brass fenders and fireirons on the hearths within. Families never seem to move out of the district, and it never recruits its population from the outer world. Now and then, indeed, a young man of Leeham may bring home a bride from one of the neighbouring tribes; but this is not often. A whole family is imported never. It is the most unprogressive spot in all Her Majesty's dominions.
At first it seems impossible to account for so respectable a settlement in so squalid and savage a district. Who are the people of Leeham? And how do they live? When first put, the question staggers one. Most of the houses are not used for trade. Indeed, except at the point where the three Pine Groves meet, there is hardly a shop in the place. Where the East and West and River Pine Groves meet, there stands a cluster of shops, not more than a dozen, and the one public-house, the Neptune. But the name of this house is the only thing in the business district telling of the sea. Here is no maker of nautical instruments, no marine-store dealer, no curiosity shop for the purchase of the spoil of other climes brought home by Jack Tar, no music-hall or singing-saloon, no slop-shop, no cheap photographer.
Here are a couple of eating-houses, noticeable for low prices and wholesome food; a butcher's, and two beef-and-ham shops, two grocers', and a greengrocer's, two bakers', and an oil-and-colour man's. These, with the Neptune, or nucleus, form by night the brightly lighted business region of the settlement. This point is called the Cross.
Leeham repudiated the sea, and would have nothing to do with it at any price. Down by the docks the sea may be profitable, but it has not a good reputation. It is inclined to be rowdy, disreputable. Jack Tar ashore may not be worse than other men, but he is more noisy and less observant of convention. He is too much given to frolic. He is not what any solid man would call respectable.
No one ever thought of impugning the respectability, as a class, of gasmen or railway officials. In fact, both are bound to be respectable. Leeham had, no doubt, some mysterious internal resources, but its chief external dependence was on the enormous gasworks and the railway hard by. Hundreds of men were employed in the gashouse and on the railway, and Leeham found a roof and food for three-fourths of the number. There were quiet houses for those whose means enabled them to keep up a separate establishment, and cheap lodgings for those who could afford only a single room. No man living in a dwelling-house of Leeham was of good repute unless he had private means, or was employed at either the railway-yard or the gasworks-called, for the sake of brevity, the yard and the works. But it was a place in which many widows and spinsters had their homes, and sought to eke out an income from the savings of their dead husbands, fathers, or brothers, by some of the obscure forms of industry open to women of small needs and very small means.
The greengrocer's shop at Leeham Cross, opposite the Neptune, was owned by Mrs. Pemberton, an enormously fat, very florid widow of fifty. She almost invariably wore a smile on her expansive countenance, and was well known in the neighbourhood for her good nature and good temper. In fact, she was generally spoken of as "Mrs. Pemberton, that good-natured soul." The children all idolised her; for when they came of errands to buy, or for exercise and safety and a sight of the world with their mothers, Mrs. Pemberton never let them go away empty-handed as long as there was a small apple, or a bunch of currants, or a couple of nuts in the shop.
On that evening late in May when Red Jim showed Crawford the way to Crawford's House, Mrs. Pemberton stood at her shop door. She held her arms a-kimbo, and looked up and down the Cross with the expression of one who does not notice what she sees, and who is not expecting anything from the direction in which she is looking. The stout florid woman standing at the door of the greengrocer's was as unlike the ordinary Mrs. Pemberton as it was in the power of a troubled mind to make her. At this hour very few people passed Leeham Cross, and for a good five minutes no one had gone by her door.
Mrs. Pemberton had not remained constantly at the door. Once or twice she stepped back for a moment, and threw her head on one side, and held her ear up as if listening intently; then, with a sigh, she came back to her post at the threshold. There must have been something very unusual in the conditions of her life to agitate this placid sympathetic widow so much.
Presently a woman of fine presence came in view, hastening towards the greengrocery. This was Mrs. Pearse, a widow like Mrs. Pemberton, and that good lady's very good friend.
"I needn't ask you; I can see by your face," said Mrs. Pearse, as she came up. "She is no better."
"She is much worse," said Mrs. Pemberton in a half-frightened, half-tearful way; "she is dying."
"Dying!" said the other woman. "I didn't think it would come to that."
"Well, it hurts me sore to say it, but I don't think she'll live to see the morning."
"So bad as that? Well, Mrs. Pemberton, I am sorry. Along with everything else, I am sorry for the trouble it will give you."
"O! don't say anything about that; I am only thinking of the poor lady herself. She's going fast, as far as I am a judge. And then, what's to become of the child? Poor innocent little fellow! he has no notion of what is happening. How could he? he's little more than a baby of three or four."
"Poor little fellow! I do pity him. Has she said anything to you?"
"Not a word."
"Not even told you her name?
"No."
"Does she know, Mrs. Pemberton, how bad she is? Surely, if she knew the truth of her state of health, she'd say a word to you, if it was only for the child's sake. She would not die, if she knew she was dying, and say nothing that could be of use to her little boy."
"You see, when the doctor was here this morning, he told her she was dangerously ill, but he did not tell her there was no hope. So I did my best to put a good face on the matter, and tried to persuade the poor thing that she'd be on the mending hand before nightfall. But she has got worse and worse all day, and I am sure when the doctor comes (I'm expecting him every minute) he'll tell her she's not long for this world. It's my opinion she won't last the night."
"Dear, dear, dear! – but I'm sorry."
"Here he is. Here's the doctor!"
"I'll run home now, Mrs. Pemberton, and give the children their supper. I'll come back in an hour to hear what the doctor says, and to do anything for you I can."
"Thank you! Thank you, Mrs.