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LODGINGS.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
- Most
- friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Song in As You Like It.
Hugh felt rather dreary as, through Bermondsey, he drew nigh to the
London Bridge Station. Fog, and drizzle, and smoke, and stench
composed the atmosphere. He got out in a drift of human atoms.
Leaving his luggage at the office, he set out on foot to
explore -- in fact, to go and look for his future, which, even when he
met it, he would not be able to recognise with any certainty. The
first form in which he was interested to find it embodied, was that
of lodgings; but where even to look, he did not know. He had been
in London for a few days in the spring on his way to Arnstead, so he
was not utterly ignorant of the anatomy of the monster city; but his
little knowledge could not be of much service to him now. And how
different it was from the London of spring, which had lingered in
his memory and imagination; when, transformed by the "heavenly
alchemy" of the piercing sunbeams that slanted across the streets
from chimney-tops to opposite basements, the dust and smoke showed
great inclined planes of light, up whose steep slopes one longed to
climb to the fountain glory whence they flowed! Now the streets,
from garret to cellar, seemed like huge kennels of muddy, moist,
filthy air, down through which settled the heavier particles of
smoke and rain upon the miserable human beings who crawled below in
the deposit, like shrimps in the tide, or whitebait at the bottom of
the muddy Thames. He had to wade through deep thin mud even on the
pavements. Everybody looked depressed, and hurried by with a cowed
look; as if conscious that the rain and general misery were a plague
drawn down on the city by his own individual crime. Nobody seemed
to care for anybody or anything. "Good heavens!" thought Hugh; "what
a place this must be for one without money!" It looked like a chaos
of human nomads. And yet, in reality, the whole mass was so bound
together, interwoven, and matted, by the crossing and inter-twisting
threads of interest, mutual help, and relationship of every kind,
that Hugh soon found how hard it was to get within the mass at all,
so as to be in any degree partaker of the benefits it shared within
itself.
He did not wish to get lodgings in the outskirts, for he thought
that would remove him from every centre of action or employment.
But he saw no lodgings anywhere. Growing tired and hungry, he went
at length into an eating-house, which he thought looked cheap; and
proceeded to dine upon a cinder, which had been a steak. He tried
to delude himself into the idea that it was a steak still, by
withdrawing his attention from it, and fixing it upon a newspaper
two days old. Finding nothing of interest, he dallied with the
advertisements. He soon came upon a column from which single
gentlemen appeared to be in request as lodgers. Looking over these
advertisements, which had more interest for him at the moment than
all home and foreign news, battles and murders included, he drew a
map from his pocket, and began to try to find out some of the
localities indicated. Most of them were in or towards the suburbs.
At last he spied one in a certain square, which, after long and
diligent search, and with the assistance of the girl who waited on
him, he found on his map. It was in the neighbourhood of Holborn,
and, from the place it occupied in the map, seemed central enough
for his vague purposes. Above all, the terms were said to be
moderate. But no description of the character of the lodgings was
given, else Hugh would not have ventured to look at them. What he
wanted was something of the same sort as he had had in Aberdeen -- a
single room, or a room and bed-room, for which he should have to pay
only a few shillings a week.
Refreshed by his dinner, wretched as it was, he set out again. To
his great joy, the rain was over, and an afternoon sun was trying,
with some slight measure of success, to pierce the clouds of the
London atmosphere: it had already succeeded with the clouds of the
terrene. He soon found his way into Holborn, and thence into the
square in question. It looked to him very attractive; for it was
quietness itself, and had no thoroughfare, except across one of its
corners. True, it was invaded by the universal roar -- for what place
in London is not? -- but it contributed little or nothing of its own
manufacture to the general production of sound in the metropolis.
The centre was occupied by grass and trees, inclosed within an iron
railing. All the leaves were withered, and many had dropped already
on the pavement below. In the middle stood the statue of a queen,
of days gone by. The tide of fashion had rolled away far to the
west, and yielded a free passage to the inroads of commerce, and of
the general struggle for ignoble existence, upon this once favoured
island in its fluctuating waters. Old windows, flush with the
external walls, whence had glanced fair eyes to which fashion was
even dearer than beauty, now displayed Lodgings to Let between
knitted curtains, from which all idea of drapery had been expelled
by severe starching. Amongst these he soon found the house he sought,
and shrunk from its important size and bright equipments; but,
summoning courage, thought it better to ring the bell. A withered
old lady, in just the same stage of decay as the square, and adorned
after the same fashion as the house, came to the door, cast a
doubtful look at Hugh, and when he had stated his object, asked him,
in a hard, keen, unmodulated voice, to walk in. He followed her,
and found himself in a dining-room, which to him, judging by his
purse, and not by what he had been used to of late, seemed
sumptuous. He said at once:
"It is needless for me to trouble you further. I see your rooms
will not suit me."
The old lady looked annoyed.
"Will you see the drawing-room apartments, then?" she said,
crustily.
"No, thank you. It would be giving you quite unnecessary trouble."
"My apartments have always given satisfaction, I assure you, sir."
"Indeed, I have no reason to doubt it. I wish I could afford to
take them," said Hugh, thinking it better to be open than to hurt
her feelings. "I am sure I should be very comfortable. But a
poor -- "
He did not know what to call himself.
"O-oh!" said the landlady. Then, after a pause -- "Well?"
interrogatively.
"Well, I was a tutor last, but I don't know what I may be next."
She kept looking at him. Once or twice she looked at him from head
to foot.
"You are respectable?"
"I hope so," said Hugh, laughing.
"Well!" -- this time not interrogatively.
"How many rooms would you like?"
"The fewer the better. Half a one, if there were nobody in the
other half."
"Well! --and you wouldn't give much trouble, I daresay."
"Only for coals and water to wash and drink."
"And you wouldn't dine at home?"
"No -- nor anywhere else," said Hugh; but the second and larger clause
was sotto voce.
"And you wouldn't smoke in-doors?"
"No."
"And you would wipe your boots clean before you went up-stairs?"
"Yes, certainly." Hugh was beginning to be exceedingly amused, but
he kept his gravity wonderfully.
"Have you any money?"
"Yes; plenty for the meantime. But when I shall get more, I don't
know, you see."
"Well, I've a room at the top of the house, which I'll make
comfortable for you; and you may stay as long as you like to behave
yourself."
"But what is the rent?"
"Four shillings a week -- to you. Would you like to see it?"
"Yes, if you please."
She conducted him up to the third floor, and showed him a good-sized
room, rather bare, but clean.
"This will do delightfully," said Hugh.
"I will make it a little more comfortable for you, you know."
"Thank you very much. Shall I pay you a month in advance?"
"No, no," she answered, with a grim smile. "I might want to get rid
of you, you know. It must be a week's warning, no more."
"Very well. I have no objection. I will go and fetch my luggage.
I suppose I may come in at once?"
"The sooner the better, young man, in a place like London. The
sooner you come home the better pleased I shall be. There now!"
So saying, she walked solemnly down-stairs before him, and let him
out. Hugh hurried away to fetch his luggage, delighted that he had
so soon succeeded in finding just what he wanted. As he went, he
speculated on the nature of his landlady, trying to account for her
odd rough manner, and the real kindness of her rude words. He came
to the conclusion that she was naturally kind to profusion, and that
this kindness had, some time or other, perhaps repeatedly, been
taken shameful advantage of; that at last she had come to the
resolution to defend herself by means of a general misanthropy, and
supposed that she had succeeded, when she had got no further than to
have so often imitated the tone of her own behaviour when at its
crossest, as to have made it habitual by repetition.
In all probability some unknown sympathy had drawn her to Hugh. She
might have had a son about his age, who had run away thirty years
ago. Or rather, for she seemed an old maid, she had been jilted
some time by a youth about the same size as Hugh; and therefore she
loved him the moment she saw him. Or, in short, a thousand things.
Certainly seldom have lodgings been let so oddly or so cheaply.
But some impulse or other of the whimsical old human heart, which
will have its way, was satisfied therein.
When he returned in a couple of hours, with his boxes on the top of
a cab, the door was opened, before he knocked, by a tidy maid, who,
without being the least like her mistress, yet resembled her
excessively. She helped him to carry his boxes up-stairs; and when
he reached his room, he found a fire burning cheerily, a muffin down
before it, a tea-kettle singing on the hob, and the tea-tray set
upon a nice white cloth on a table right in front of the fire, with
an old-fashioned high-backed easy-chair by its side -- the very chair
to go to sleep in over a novel. The old lady soon made her
appearance, with the teapot in one hand, and a plate of butter in
the other.
"Oh! thank you," said Hugh. "This is comfortable!"
She answered only by compressing her lips till her mouth vanished
altogether, and nodding her head as much as to say: "I know it is.
I intended it should be." She then poured water into the teapot,
set it down by the fire, and vanished.
Hugh sat down in the easy-chair, and resolved to be comfortable, at
least till he had had his tea; after which he would think what he
was to do next. A knock at the door -- and his landlady entered, laid
a penny newspaper on the table, and went away. This was just what
he wanted to complete his comfort. He took it up, and read while he
consumed his bread and butter. When he had had enough of tea and
newspaper, he said to himself:
"Now, what am I to do next?"
It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to
concern ourselves about -- what to do next. No man can do the second
thing. He can do the first. If he omits it, the wheels of the
social Juggernaut roll over him, and leave him more or less crushed
behind. If he does it, he keeps in front, and finds room to do the
next again; and so he is sure to arrive at something, for the onward
march will carry him with it. There is no saying to what perfection
of success a man may come, who begins with what he can do, and uses
the means at his hand. He makes a vortex of action, however slight,
towards which all the means instantly begin to gravitate. Let a man
but lay hold of something -- anything, and he is in the high road to
success -- though it may be very long before he can walk comfortably
in it. -- It is true the success may be measured out according to a
standard very different from his.
But in Hugh's case, the difficulty was to grasp anything -- to make a
beginning anywhere. He knew nobody; and the globe of society seemed
like a mass of adamant, on which he could not gain the slightest
hold, or make the slightest impression. Who would introduce him to
pupils? Nobody. He had the testimonials of his professors; but who
would ask to see them? -- His eye fell on the paper. He would
advertise.
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