Part 9

Ground so well trodden by honeymooning couples seems to offer a fit stage for fiction; and the Isle of Wight, if it sometimes finds itself called out of its proper names, has less cause to complain of want of appreciation among the novelists who deal with it. Jane Austen only sights it from the walls of Portsmouth, but her interest was in human rather than natural features; and she at least compliments it with its local title “the Island.” Mr Meredith coasts or touches its shores here and there, taking such snapshots as:--“The Solent ran up green waves before a full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam, and flashed their sails, light as sea nymphs. A cloud of deep summer blue topped the flying mountains of cloud.” Mr Zangwill pushes inland, and writes this testimonial:--“A maze of loveliness, abounding in tempting perspectives. Every leafy avenue is rich in promise; such nestling farmhouses, such peeping spires, such quaint red tiled cottages, such picturesque old-fashioned mullioned windows, such delicious wafts of perfume from the gardens and orchards, such bits of beautiful old England as are perhaps nowhere else so profusely scattered!” But another popular novelist, who shall here be nameless, playing _Advocatus Diaboli_ through the mouth of one of his characters in a perverse humour, puts the seamy side thus:--“That the Isle of Wight was only a trumpery toyshop, that its ‘scenery’ was fitly adorned with bazaars for the sale of sham jewellery, that its amusements were on a par with those of Rosherville Gardens; that its rocks were made of mud and its sea of powdered lime.”

This does not exhaust the catalogue of stories which have their scene here. Professor Church’s _Count of the Saxon Shore_ and Mr F. Cowper’s _Captain of the Wight_ come rather into the category of boys’ books, the latter being specially well stuffed with swashing blows and strong “language of the period.” Mr Headon Hill’s _Spies of the Wight_ gives a lurid peep into the machinations of a foreign power against our coast defences, and the tricks of a Fosco-like villain foiled by one of those Sherlock Holmes intellects that find it so easy to discover what has been invented for discovery. We are now approaching the most fashionable resort in the Island, and there perhaps may come across some of those scandals and sins of society that give a popular relish to so much of our circulating literature. Meanwhile, since there is nothing like seeing ourselves as others see us, for a careful picture of Isle of Wight life, let us turn to a French story-teller whose modesty might prefer his name to be withheld.

A collection of novelettes entitled _Amours Anglais_, one of which centres in the Island, is put forth by this writer as an essay in a new school of romance. His preface, dated from “Margate, Isle of Thanet,” lets us understand how after long years of sojourn in England he has observed John Bull as closely and profoundly as is possible for a stranger to do, and that he proposes to present English life to his countrymen, stripped of the ridiculous exterior with which it is charged by their caricaturing spirit. This sympathising stranger knows the British soul to be not less interesting and more wholesome than the gloomy and flabby Russian sentiment that has had such a vogue in French fiction. To the facts of _Outre-Manche_, then, he will apply his native “psychologic methods,” writing as a Frenchman what he has felt as an Englishman. His aim is “to create an international _genre_ of romance, marrying our taste to the humour and the morality of our neighbours. Have I succeeded? The public will judge.” So, with the best intentions, our _entente cordialiste_ appeals to his French readers. Let the English public now judge.

The heroine of this story is Lilian North, nearly out of her teens, whose home is a cottage wreathed with ivy and honeysuckle in the outskirts of Newport. Her father, who “says the service in the chapel” across the road, is “in orders,” not indeed Anglican orders, he being a fanatical Baptist who holds that “one is surer of going to hell with the Archbishop of Canterbury than with the Pope of Rome himself.” Her mother is dead. She has a married sister not far off at Plymouth--in which, for once, the author makes a slip, as he evidently means Portsmouth. Poor Lilian sees almost no society, except Jedediah, “papa’s disciple,” a sort of apprentice minister who “is to read the service when papa dies.” This young colleague and successor loves Lilian, with her father’s approval; but she loves him not, as how should she when he has red eyes, hair of no particular colour, and can talk about nothing but going to heaven!

Jedediah looks like turning out the hypocritical villain of the piece. Lilian likes him less than ever when the hero appears in the person of Harry Gordon, a young city clerk who has come courting Miss Arabella Jones, elder daughter of the Baptist minister at Newport. Mr Jones has the advantage of his colleague in being a rich man who “preaches only for his amusement”; and his daughters lead a rackety life that must have scandalised the connection, especially in the Ryde yachting season, when they are always at some party of pleasure, “sometimes in a boat, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in _char-à-bancs_, never knowing in the morning where they shall lunch in the afternoon, nor where and with whom they shall dance in the evening”; and when they visit Newport it is with a train of ever fresh cavaliers.

At a picnic in the ruins of Carisbrooke, Lilian makes the acquaintance of Harry Gordon, whom her friend Arabella Jones professes to disdain as a shy awkward boy. But Lilian takes to him, and Harry begins to pay more attention to her than to the proud Miss Jones. At a game of blindman’s buff among the ruins, the blindfolded hero is more deliberate than need be in pawing over Lilian’s face and figure before giving her name. Cupid catches them both.

Another day there was a party to Freshwater, where the sea is always _méchant_, even in fine weather. The ladies having ventured out in a boat, found themselves in such danger that they were glad to get on shore. Then Arabella put her backward swain to the test with the question--“if we had gone down, which of us would you have saved first?” Harry did not answer, but his looks were on Lilian, to the spiteful displeasure of Miss Jones. So, in talking of a ball about to be given by the wealthy Baptist pastor of Ryde, she scornfully bid Lilian come to it only if properly dressed--“none of your shabby dyed frocks and halfpenny flowers!”

Lilian’s cheeks glowed with shame under this insult, and she took the first opportunity of stealing away to weep all alone by moonlight. But Harry, indignantly sympathetic, had followed her, guided by her sobs. In vain she bid him return to his Arabella. Arabella indeed! He had never much cared for Miss Jones, whom he now detested after such an exhibition of ill-natured rudeness. As they strolled on the Freshwater esplanade, Lilian’s foot slipped; and Harry, holding-her up, took the opportunity to clasp the heroine in his arms. They went back an engaged couple--_cela va sans dire_.

The courtship had to be done on the sly; yet the young couple must have attracted suspicion in any more censorious neighbourhood, such as that not far away, which we hear of, on good authority, as bubbling over with “gossip, scandal, and spite.” Every day Harry rode from Ryde to Newport, met at her garden-gate by Lilian, to keep company with all the freedom of a British maiden and of an innocent heart. “I gave sugar to his horse, which was called Fly; we picked flowers, and ran races against each other.” Only the jealous Jedediah guessed what was going on. When Harry entered the house, he feigned great attention to the religious exhortations of the father, but could not make way in his good-will, while Jedediah scowled at every sight of his rival, whose ring Lilian wore “hidden under my mitten,” yet not perhaps from that green-spectacled monster.

Autumn broke up the gay non-conformist society of the Island. The Misses Jones went off to make fresh conquests at Brighton. Harry had to go back to his London office, but every week-end he took a bed at the “Bugle” Hotel of Newport, spent Sunday with his _fiancée’s_ family, and returned to business by the last train. In spite of this breaking of the Sabbath, the Baptist minister believed that the young man came all the way from London to hear him preach. But at last the neighbours began to talk; so the lovers saw themselves obliged to meet only in secret, and to pour out their hearts in long letters. The worst of it was that Harry grew cross and impatient. His father, a rich shipowner at Cardiff, would never consent to his engagement with the daughter of a poor Baptist preacher. If he knew, he would cut his son off with a shilling, “as the law authorises him to do.” The Rev. Mr North, for his part, would frown on his child’s union with a family far from sound in faith. Lilian was for a long engagement, in hopes that the old people would come round. Harry’s more heroic remedy was an immediate secret marriage such as, in tale and history, has sooner or later the effect of forcing parents to make the best of a bad business. The wooer becomes ill-temperedly pressing; Lilian at length consents; but when these unpractical youngsters lay their heads together, they run up at once against the serious difficulty of finding a minister to marry them. Then the heroine takes the desperate resolution of throwing herself upon the generosity of her unsuccessful suitor. She leads Jedediah into the garden; and now for a scene in the best style of French fiction.

“Do you love me, Mr Jedediah?” I said.

The poor fellow had a moment of joy and hope.

“I ask if you love me well enough to wish my happiness, even if that should cause you pain?”

“Yes,” said he, all at once overcast again.

“And do you feel yourself capable of doing all you can to aid the accomplishment of what will be grievous to you?”

“Perhaps,” replied Jedediah with a sigh.

“Mr Jedediah, I love Harry Gordon.”

“I feared so!”

“I wish to marry him.”

“And you reckon on me to win the consent of Mr North. But nothing will move him, Miss Lilian: he has discovered that Mr Harry’s father is a Puseyite, and his aunt a nun in Ireland. His conviction is that Mr Harry is a treacherous foe who has got into intimacy with him for the purpose of stealing his papers and spying upon his conduct. Nothing will move him!”

“I am aware of it, so I have made up my mind to marry without his knowledge.”

“Without his knowledge! But who will marry you?”

“You, Mr Jedediah!”

“Me!”

“Yourself, my good, my dear Jedediah!”

“But,” went on Jedediah, after a moment’s consideration, “even if I were weak enough to consent to so culpable an action, such a union would not be valid in the eye of the law. Not being a member of the Established Church, I cannot celebrate a civil marriage. You must go before the Registrar; and, as you are both under age, this official will not marry you without your father’s authorisation in writing.”

“Alas! what are we to do?”

Jedediah reflected.

“What would you say if I undertook to get this authorisation for you?”

“I should say that you are our good angel.”

“Then, let me manage.”

I held out my hand and he kissed it. His glasses were moist with tears.

Three days later, he brought me the document which I required. He was very pale. I would have asked questions, but he let me understand that he would not answer. “I have done wrong for your sake, Miss Lilian,” he said.

I learned afterwards that he had procured my father’s _blanc-seing_ under pretext of a petition addressed to the Government against the Ritualists, and especially against the use of surplices, baldaquins over altars, and confessionals.

I do not know to what stratagems Harry had recourse for obtaining the necessary papers. What is certain is that we were married on Easter Tuesday, before the Registrar of the county, after which Jedediah gave us the nuptial benediction in a little chapel of the Baptist communion situated in the environs of Plymouth (_Portsmouth_). He married us without looking at us. I have never seen a scene more strange, nor a man more unfortunate.

He refused to come and share the wedding-cake with us, which we ate at my sister’s.

But those English love-marriages between rash young people by no mean always end in living happily all the rest of their days; and the story soon turns tragic, its scene shifting from the Island. After that secret wedding, Harry returns to London, leaving his wife in an awkward position, where Jedediah is her only comfort. Love still blinds her eyes to the selfishness of Harry; but the reader sees how she might have been better off with poor Jedediah, who is not such a villain after all, but only the Dobbin or Seth Bede of the tale. The time comes when her marriage can no longer be hidden. Harry takes lodgings for her in London at the house of a Mrs Benson, whose husband, being employed at the Bricklayers’ Arms Goods Station, finds it convenient to live in a four-roomed house in Shoreditch, too large for a quiet couple.

To this sympathetic landlady, Lilian relates the foregoing story, with many tears and gulps of _tisane_, a refreshment, it seems, known to Shoreditch sickbeds. Her child is born dead. The young mother in her feverish weakness fancies that Jedediah has revengefully contrived some defect in the ceremony, and cries out to have her marriage made legally complete at the parish church. Harry, moved by her delirium, writes to both parents, confessing the truth. A curate is sent for, who politely but hastily says a few prayers at the sick-bed, then hurries off to a tea-party at the West-end. Lilian dies the same night. Harry weeps, to be sure, but soon grows tired of sitting up with the dead, and comes down to smoke a pipe with the landlord.

Next day Gordon _père_ arrives in a great rage, but, at the sight of his dead daughter-in-law, he is touched to the point of taking off his hat, as English gentlemen, it appears, will do on such special occasions. Mr North, on his arrival, shows natural grief, which is soon turned to wrath by the sight of a crucifix laid on his daughter’s breast, contrary to “the statute of the fifteenth year of Elizabeth,” as he knows well; and he gives up all hope of her eternal welfare, on hearing how her last moments had been corrupted by the prayers of an Anglican priest. Mrs Benson, who takes that wide view of religion spread in France by such divines as the Savoyard Vicar and such poets as Beranger, in vain tries to comfort him.

“What! Is she lost for such a small matter? The curate did not stay ten minutes. I know nothing about any of your sects; but I am sure that there is only one _bon Dieu_ for all of us; and Benson thinks so too.”

Jedediah’s grief is not less deep but more reasonable. It is he who performs the service when, on a snowy evening, Lilian is buried in Bethnal Green Cemetery.

But the sensational story has a cynical epilogue. Kind Mrs Benson, _qui sent son Dickens_, never forgets her young lodger. One Sunday, as her husband is reading _Lloyd’s News_, which he spells out conscientiously from the “_premier Londres_ of M. Jerrold to the last line of the advertisements,” he exclaims at a paragraph stating that a clergyman, named North, formerly of the Isle of Wight, had been caught trying to break images over the altar of Exeter Cathedral, and sent to an asylum as a madman. Nothing is heard of Jedediah, and we can only trust that he duly succeeded to the Newport pastorate and found some consoling helpmeet in the congregation. Of Harry there is no news till some years later, when the Bensons go to Cardiff to meet a married daughter returning from New Zealand. Calling at the Gordons’ house, they learn that the father is dead, and that Harry, now his own master, is about to marry a Miss Jones of Ryde, not indeed the proud Arabella, but her younger sister Florence, to whom time has transferred his facile affections.

The last scene introduces Miss Florence going over the house soon to be her own, and finding in a drawer an old black glove torn and soiled. Harry denies all knowledge of it, but when his new beloved proposes to throw it away, he shows that it has some value for him. The suspicious damsel sulks, plays off on his jealousy a cousin in the Scots Greys, refuses to waltz with her _fiancé_, except at the price of his giving up that glove. He sighs as a widower, but obeys as a wooer. Giving one secret kiss to poor Lilian’s glove, he resigns it to the triumphant Miss Jones, who flings it on the fire, and holds out her white fingers for the forgiven Harry to kiss, yet not without a smiling stab at that unknown rival’s memory--“Her hand was larger than mine!”

Now for the moral of this realistic romance. “Let him who has never committed a cowardice of the kind, who has never sacrificed a memory to a hope, the forgotten love to the fresh one, the dead to the living, let him cast at Harry the first stone!” To which poor Jedediah will not say _Amen_.

The latest scene for fiction set in the Isle of Wight--_All Moonshine_, by Richard Whiteing--is no photograph of actual society like that just reduced, but a most imaginative romance, not to say a wild nightmare inspired by the dangers of over-population, and based on the statistical claim quoted in my first chapter, that the world’s eighteen hundred millions or so could all find room to meet in this Island. The author, falling asleep at Ventnor, dreams of such a universal rendezvous as coming about in the form of astral bodies from all ends of the earth, when some very strange things happen among the unsubstantial multitude. At one moment it seems as if the ghostly armies of England and Germany were about to close here in a lurid Armageddon; but they are fain to fraternise before the general peril of an earthquake announced at Shide as threatening to crack the globe and overwhelm civilisation in waves of fire let loose from hell. The dreamer awakes to find the world what it is, with nations and classes seeking to fatten on their neighbours’ poverty, kings and statesmen watching each other’s armaments in mutual suspicion, priests hoisting flags on their churches in exultation over the slaughter of fellow-Christians, and only an unpractical poet or romancer to cry here and there--

Ah! when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro’ all the circle of the golden year.

COWES

We now come to one of the most important places in the Island, a place that holds up its double head for second to none in the way of dignity and fashion, though it began life as two small castles built by Henry VIII. at the Medina’s mouth to protect the harbour of Newport.

The two great Cows that in loud thunder roar, This on the eastern, that the western shore, Where Newport enters stately Wight.

“I knew when there was not above three or four houses at Cowes,” says Sir John Oglander, who yet had counted three hundred ships at anchor there; “and I was and am persuaded that if our wars and troubles had not unfortunately happened, it would have grown as famous as Newport.” Another scourge of the Island in his time was the activity of lawyers to stir up strife, whereas the first attorney who ventured himself here had been ignominiously charivaried out of this Arcadian scene by order of the Governor. But it might be, he admits, that lawyers were no more to blame than the absence of ships of war, once such good customers for the Islanders’ produce. “Now peace and law hath beggared us all, so that within my memory many of the gentlemen and almost all the yeomanry are undone.” One observes the distinction drawn by this rule of thumb economist between the ruinous effects of civil war and the profitable accidents of helping to ruin another country.

It is easy to understand how Cowes came to be the Tilbury and Gravesend of Newport, then by and by to supplant it as the Island’s chief port. In the days of small vessels, such a harbour as Newport offers was roomy and accessible enough, while it had the advantage of being more out of the way of hostile attack. London, Glasgow, Newcastle, Exeter, Bristol are only a few examples of great ports lying some way up navigable rivers; then on the larger scale of the world, one at once thinks of Calcutta, Canton, Montreal, New Orleans, Rosario, and so on. Some of these inland havens have kept their commercial position only by pains and cost hardly worth while to save half-a-dozen miles of water carriage; so, as ships grew too big for the tiny wharves of Newport, they would unload at the mouth of the river that makes the one good harbour on the Island. Thus Cowes grew apace; and a century ago it bid fair to be at least the second Wight town, till Ryde took a sudden start in prosperity. Like Ryde and Yarmouth it throve by victualling the great war fleets and convoys that often lay wind-bound in the Solent. But Cowes got a special string to its bow in the ship-building industry rooted here, then another in its position as headquarters of Solent yachting; and royal favour went to bring it into fashion. There was a time when it aspired to be a mere Margate or Sandown, in honour of which a Georgian poet named Jones is moved to predict--

No more to foreign baths shall Britain roam But plunge at Cowes and find rich health at home!

To tell the truth, Cowes hardly shines in this capacity. Its bathing is not everywhere safe in the currents of the Solent; and to pick out a sandy oasis on the rough beach one must go eastward towards Gurnard Bay. Nowadays, indeed, the place is so spoilt by the patronage of European royalties and American millionaires, that it does not much care to lay itself out for the holiday-making _bourgeois_ and his olive branches. The straggling town, divided by the Medina, has no particular charm unless that of a marine flavour. It is far from being so picturesque as Ventnor, or so imposing as Ryde; and apart from the artificial beauties of the parks enclosing it, its surroundings are commonplace beside those of Newport. Its main interest is on the sea-face looking over the shallow waters of the Solent, beside which East Cowes huddles along a narrow main street, that winds up and down, in and out, here and there, making a quaint show of houses old and new, half and half, dwellings mixed with shops, an unusual proportion of them providing refreshments, when they do not display such wares as ship’s lanterns, and other sea-fittings from cordage to carronades. The central point is the steamboat pier opposite the station; then further west comes the Victoria Pier with its pavilion, on a scale that shows how little Cowes cares to cater for your common Saturday to Monday visitor.