The Master Craftsman

I pass over as irrelevant, or at least superfluous, the very disagreeable interview in which I revealed my plans to Frances. She had found a new opening for me—I was to be appointed Commissioner for Tobago, or President of Turk’s Island, or Lieutenant-Governor of the Gold Coast; she could obtain the post for me; it was an excellent opening; I was to spend two or three years in the endeavour to escape fever, and five or six years of sick-leave at intervals. I should then have a clear claim to the gratitude of the Colonial Office, and should be appointed Governor of some colony with a salary of many thousands. What more could any man desire?

Nothing, truly. And, as Frances observed, no creeping; no wriggling; no back-stairs; also there is no examination for these appointments. And they are obtained in the good old way, by interest alone.

Why not, then, accept? Because, unfortunately, I was now a craftsman, and I really desired no other kind of life.

It was then that Frances spoke with conviction of demoniac possession—I never before thought she believed in it—and of the extreme madness which sometimes seizes on men; of the follies unspeakable which they commit. She was very angry—very angry indeed. She also declared her disgustful surprise at the bad, low, grovelling taste which made it possible for me to leave the ranks of gentlehood, and to go down—down—down—to live among beery, tobacco-smoking, ill-bred, uncultivated boors and bourgeois. She displayed on this subject quite an unexpected flow of language and command of adjectives. To be sure, I had never seen her in a real rage before. And she looked very handsome indeed, marching about the room with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, while she declaimed and denounced and lamented. I never admired her so much. She became so entirely unexpected that I very nearly fell in love with her.

When she had quite finished by throwing such words as ‘insensate,’ ‘clod,’ and ‘stock and stone,’ at my head, and by saying that she had now done with me for ever; and when she had thrown herself into a chair, and had held her handkerchief to her eyes—I had never seen her cry before, and, indeed, it was so unexpected that I very nearly, as I said before—and when I had said a few brotherly words, and uttered a few assurances—and when we had shaken hands again—I kissed her hand if I remember aright—we sat down opposite to each other, and close together, and had a pleasant talk quite in the old style, though it was understood that I was henceforth only a plain boat-builder.

It was then that I told her first about my cousin. She listened without much interest. The man was a mere tradesman.

‘You want a recruit, Frances, for the Party? Of course you do. Well, then, I tell you that you could not do better than look after this man.’

‘A man’s a man, of course; otherwise, George, the working men members do not always turn out worth much. Still, there are one or two—and—well, tell me more about this man.’

‘He is not exactly a working man. He is, like myself, a Master Craftsman.’

‘Oh!’ She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. Such distinctions she knew not. And then I told her about his attainments, and his boundless ambitions, and everything, till at last I succeeded in making her believe that here really was a man who might be worth considering—the only fault which Frances possessed was that she underrated the powers of everybody outside a certain circle. I told her about Robert at first, I believe, in order to divert her mind from the distressing spectacle of my decline and fall, and next in order to show her that we were not all beery boors and bourgeois at Wapping-on-the-Wall, and, lastly, it came into my head, that if she should peradventure take an interest in his Parliamentary career it might be very useful to him.

After a bit she began to understand a little. Her imagination was at last fired by the picture of this young man resolving, while yet a boy, on entering the House of Commons, and learning to speak at a sham Parliament; working at home on history, politics, social economy, all the questions of the day; reading Mill, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Lecky, Froude, Freeman, Green, and Seeley, and all the rest of them; becoming a learned man; denying himself the joys of youth—all for the sake of his ambition; and all the time remaining strong and masterful as one born to command. Because I am a dull person in narrative, or because she was prejudiced generally against trade, it was a long time before I succeeded in awakening her interest in the man. ‘Do you know,’ she said at last, ‘that you seem to have got a very remarkable creature down there! Of course I cannot really believe that he will ever come to anything. A man living all by himself, and ignorant of all the world outside his trade, cannot come to any good. In the House one must know men, not books only.’

‘I wonder if you would like to hear him speak. He speaks every Sunday evening. If you like we will go.’

So it was arranged. Frances would like to see the kind of people who formed that constituency; she would like to hear the kind of speech that pleased them; she would go, subject to one condition, that she was not to see the Boat-Yard. ‘I could not, George,’ she said. ‘It is bad enough that you should descend into that horrid place—when you might become a Colonial Governor. I could not actually see the chips and shavings. Oh, George! you are very wilful—but I must always forgive you. Yes, I will go with you to see this wonderful person of Wapping. You only try to excuse your abominable alacrity in sinking by pretending that you have got a prophet down there.’

So I came away forgiven and reconciled, but for ever fallen in her esteem, and I returned to my riverside work with greater heart now that the worst was over.

It was natural that one should take an interest in the people of the place—especially in those of the house. I spent every day an hour—the dinner-hour—with Robert’s household. Sometimes, too, another half-hour over a cup of tea. Therefore, of course, one thought a good deal about the people. The Captain I found an honest, hearty old fellow, who liked his meals, took a cheerful glass after his dinner and supper, and slept away most of the remaining time. He had a room at the back called the Captain’s cabin, where there was a narrow bed and an easy-chair; a hob with a kettle; a table with a tobacco-jar and other conveniences. There I sometimes visited him and heard experiences.

But the person of real interest was Isabel. I thought her, at first, inanimate, and perhaps stupid. I discovered, first, that she had a very beautiful head—the poets do not seem to understand the charm of a well-shaped head—but it was nearly always drooping. Then I observed that her hair was quite wonderful—there was such a lot of it, and it was of such a lovely light colour, looking as if it held the sunshine even in that dark ‘parlour.’ It was, however, only rolled up without any coquettish display—was the girl quite ignorant of her charms? Her eyes were generally down-drooped as in shyness or humility—once she lifted them with some strange wonder because I made some frivolous remark—there was never any frivolity about this house before I went into it. They were large and limpid eyes, of a deep blue, like the dark blue of a pansy. And then I discovered that her features were straight and regular, and that, though her cheek was pale, and her manner was listless and drooping, the girl was full of beauty in face, and head, and figure. And Robert, like a thing of wood, had no eyes for the loveliness that was his by engagement! Wonderful!

I could never get the girl to talk to me. She sat at table, carving in silence, or pouring out the tea in silence. When it was over, she spread out her books and began to work again. And week after week passed by. I was an old shipmate with the Captain; I was on the most confidential terms, as you have seen, with Robert; but Isabel remained a stranger.

Then the opportunity came.

It was a Saturday afternoon. I had been spending an hour after dinner talking with the Captain in his den. Then, as he showed signs of going to sleep, I left him and bent my steps westward. It was a bright, sunny afternoon in May. The street was deserted; the warehouses were shut up; the sunshine increased, but set off, the dreariness of the tall places on either side.

I came to the mouth of the Dock. As once before, the gates were open for the passing of a ship, and I had to wait. I leaned against the rail and watched. On the right was the Dock, with the masts of the ships; on the left was the river. I looked at the river and looked at the Dock. Then I became aware of a most unexpected fact: on the right hand, besides the Dock, there were trees—green trees. ‘Anything green in Wapping?’ I asked. ‘Trees and green leaves! Do they grow out of the water?’

I then perceived that there was a street leading north; I thought that there was nothing north of the High Street except the Dock. I was mistaken. At the corner was a substantial modern house—the vestry house of the parish—with its brass plate and clean windows. Next I observed a lovely eighteenth-century house—sober, square, built of red brick, having an ample portal, and in the wall effigies of boy and girl.

This was the parish school. The figures looked more demure than one could believe possible in human boy and human girl. And then I came to the church, a plain and unaffected preaching-house of brick, with pillars and portico of stone. Beside it, on the south side, was a narrow churchyard, adorned with old tombstones, head-stones, and altar-stones—the sepulchres of bygone captains, past owners, sailors, and boat-builders. I observed with some pride the name of Burnikel on one of them, the nearest to the street—my ancestor. Perhaps all the important tombs belonged to Burnikels, if I could only climb over the rails to see. The church was shut, yet it might have been more useful in the week, when Wapping is full, than on Sunday, when Wapping is empty. Had it been open, I could have gratified my family pride still more by observing the tablets and reading of the incomparable virtues of other Burnikels belonging to this fine old stock. There was part of the churchyard on the north side. Its houses had been recently cleared away, and the space turned into a recreation-ground. So liberal is the County Council that they have swept away half the remnant of Wapping that had been spared by the Docks, and now there are not enough people left in the town to populate the recreation-ground. Children were recreating in it, however, and there was a gymnasium for them in one corner, and a stand for the summer band in another corner. A highly picturesque row of ‘backs’ revealed the character of the streets that had been cleared away.

I noted these things. I observed also that there were still remaining beyond the recreation-ground other streets of small houses—not beautiful, not clean, perhaps squalid, if one were inclined to harshness—and beyond these streets tall masts, which told of another Dock. Wapping, then, did not, as I had fondly imagined, consist of one street only, with a river on one side and docks on the other, and no living person in it at night except the Burnikels. Wapping is a collection of human beings; it is a hamlet, a township, a town complete. Here was the Parish Church; here were the endowed schools; here was the Vestry Hall; here was the playground. I turned back, and then, which I had passed over before, I perceived before me, fenced round, a peaceful, beautiful burying-ground, lying opposite the Parish Church on the other side of the road. A more peaceful spot one would not expect in the most secluded village. It was filled with tombs and head-stones; it was planted with a thick coppice of limes, lilacs, laburnums, and all kinds of flowering trees and shrubs growing among the tombs. I looked through the bars. Wapping, then, had this one garden left; and since the greater part of Wapping was dead and gone, buried deep below the docks, a churchyard seemed the fittest place in which to possess a garden. Wherever industries spread, and trade increases, we ought to find the past always beside the present. In the midst of the noise and hurry of Manchester there stands the ancient college; in the midst of Hull rises the ancient church; in the midst of the smoke and grime of Newcastle there is its ancient fortress; and beside the modern docks of Wapping stands the old church, with its burying-ground and its schools. Let us never live where there is nothing ancient, nothing to connect us with our forefathers, nothing to remind us of death, nothing to preach to us on the continuous life in which the living are but links, and the past is neither lost nor forgotten.

The gate was unlocked. I gently pushed it open and stepped within, reverently, yet with the sense of ownership. Why not? Before me stood a head-stone—the name had been recently cleaned and restored—‘Sacred to the Memory of John Burnikel, Master Mariner, died March 16, 1808, aged ninety-two years.’ That must be the man with the diamonds. I stooped down and pushed aside the grass to read the text with which his pious cousins had decorated the tomb. ‘Of whom the world was not worthy,’ I read. Astonishing! ‘Of whom the world was not worthy.’ This must have been written while they still expected to find the diamonds. Then I plunged, so to speak, into the recesses of this coppice. And there I found, to my amazement, sitting on a tomb with folded hands and hanging head, in an attitude of the most profound dejection, the girl Isabel.

She lifted her head when she heard my step. She had been crying; the tears, like dewdrops, lay still upon her cheeks.

‘You here, Isabel?’ I cried. ‘What are you doing in the place of tombs?’

‘I am sitting here.’ But she rose as if she was tired of sitting there, and should now go home.

‘Yes, I see. But——’

‘It is a pretty place. There are not too many pretty places in Wapping.’

‘No. Do you often come here?’

‘In spring and summer sometimes, when I can get away—on Saturday afternoons. It is quiet. Nobody else ever comes. I have it all to myself.’

‘Why are you crying, Isabel? Don’t cry. It makes me miserable to see a girl crying. Are you unhappy?’

She turned away her head, and made no reply.

‘Sit down again where you were, Isabel. It is a pretty place. The lilacs are bursting into blossom, and the laburnums are beginning. It is a very pretty place. The dead sleep well, and the living you do not see. Can you tell me, Isabel, why you are unhappy?’

She shook her head, but she obeyed in sitting down again.

‘Of course I have seen all along that you are not happy. You work too hard, for one thing. Is it the work?’

‘Oh, no, no, no. I must do what Robert tells me to do.’

‘You are too much confined to the house. Is it the want of change?’

‘No, no; I want no change. I do what I have to do.’

‘You will not tell me?’

‘I cannot.’

‘Of course, I have no right to ask. Still, I am Robert’s cousin, and I see you every day, and you can’t wonder if I take an interest in you. Will you be offended if I speak just a little of my mind?’

‘I offended? Does that matter?’ A strange thing for a girl to say, as if she was of no importance at all—as if surprised that anyone should regard her at all.

‘Well, Isabel, in that part of the world where I have chiefly lived the girls are treated with consideration. They are princesses; they are filled with the consciousness of their own power; their words are received with respect, and their wishes are studied. It matters very much indeed whether one offends them or not. So I hope not to offend your ladyship.’

‘You will not offend me.’

‘Well, then, you work too hard; you get no society; you have no change; you take too little exercise; you are growing nervous and shy; you shrink from seeing people.’

‘I live the life that is assigned to me.’

‘You are so young, Isabel, that you ought to sing in the house; you ought to walk as if you had wings; you ought to laugh all day; you ought to rebel, and revolt, and mutiny——’

She did laugh, but not with merriment.

‘All these things belong to your age, and your sex, and—your beauty.’

‘My beauty!’ she repeated, with a kind of wonder—‘my beauty! Oh no; you must not talk nonsense.’

‘Your beauty. You should be a very beautiful girl if the cloud would lift. Come, now; may I lift that cloud for you? May I try, at least?’

I held out my hand. She hesitated a moment. Then she gave me her own timidly.

I did not suspect the real cause of her unhappiness. I did, however, feel a most profound pity for a young girl who could find no better amusement than to sit among the tombs on a fine afternoon in spring. Even those who are nearing the time when they will be put to lie there do not generally like to sit among them.

‘You will tell me some other time,’ I said, ‘why you are so sad. Meantime, let me be your friend; and look here, Isabel: I am a great physician. You must believe that I have cured countless cases of Languishing Lady and Doleful Damsel. I am thousands of years old, although I am apparently only five-and-twenty; that is because I am such a great physician.’ Well, at this nonsense she actually smiled. ‘And now I will prescribe for you: Not so much work; not so much house; not so much monotony.’

‘The work has to be done.’

‘Robert is so busy himself that he does not observe. I shall speak to him.’

‘Oh, but what he says——’

‘Yes, yes, I know. I will speak to him. Now come with me. I will take you out upon the river. That will do you more good than sitting among the tombs—even the tombs of the Burnikels.’

There are still boats and ‘first oars’ at Wapping Old Stairs. In five minutes I was sitting beside her in the stern of a wherry—Burnikel-built—with a couple of stout fellows pulling us down-stream. And I brought her back with colour in her cheeks and brightness in her eyes. ‘My medicine works already,’ I said. ‘Robert will say that I have done wonders.’

Alas! Robert observed no change at all; and during the half-hour of tea the poor girl sat as usual with hanging head and down-dropped eyes. But it was a beginning.