Robert Falconer

‘You seem hardly inclined to do me justice,’ said Lady Georgina, with, for the first time, a perceptible, though slight shadow crossing the disc of her resolution. ‘I only meant it,’ she went on, ‘as a step towards a further proposal, which I think you will allow looks at least in the direction you have been indicating.’

She paused.

‘May I beg of you to state the proposal?’ said Falconer.

But Lady Georgina was apparently in some little difficulty as to the proper form in which to express her object. At last it appeared in the cloak of a question.

‘Do you require no assistance in your efforts for the elevation of the lower classes?’ she asked.

‘I don’t make any such efforts,’ said Falconer.

Some of my lady-readers will probably be remarking to themselves, ‘How disagreeable of him! I can’t endure the man.’ If they knew how Falconer had to beware of the forwardness and annoyance of well-meaning women, they would not dislike him so much. But Falconer could be indifferent to much dislike, and therein I know some men that envy him.

When he saw, however, that Lady Georgina was trying to swallow a lump in her throat, he hastened to add,

‘I have only relations with individuals—none with classes.’

Lady Georgina gathered her failing courage. ‘Then there is the more hope for me,’ she said. ‘Surely there are things a woman might be useful in that a man cannot do so well—especially if she would do as she was told, Mr. Falconer?’

He looked at her, inquiring of her whole person what numen abode in the fane. She misunderstood the look.

‘I could dress very differently, you know. I will be a sister of charity, if you like.’

‘And wear a uniform?—as if the god of another world wanted to make proselytes or traitors in this! No, Lady Georgina, it was not of a dress so easily altered that I was thinking; it was of the habit, the dress of mind, of thought, of feeling. When you laid aside your beautiful dress, could you avoid putting on the garment of condescension, the most unchristian virtue attributed to Deity or saint? Could you—I must be plain with you, Lady Georgina, for this has nothing to do with the forms of so-called society—could your temper endure the mortifications of low opposition and misrepresentation of motive and end—which, avoid intrusion as you might, would yet force themselves on your perception? Could you be rudely, impudently thwarted by the very persons for whom you were spending your strength and means, and show no resentment? Could you make allowances for them as for your own brothers and sisters, your own children?’

Lady Georgina was silent.

‘I shall seem to glorify myself, but at that risk I must put the reality before you.—Could you endure the ugliness both moral and physical which you must meet at every turn? Could you look upon loathsomeness, not merely without turning away in disgust, and thus wounding the very heart you would heal, but without losing your belief in the Fatherhood of God, by losing your faith in the actual blood-relationship to yourself of these wretched beings? Could you believe in the immortal essence hidden under all this garbage—God at the root of it all? How would the delicate senses you probably inherit receive the intrusions from which they could not protect themselves? Would you be in no danger of finding personal refuge in the horrid fancy, that these are but the slimy borders of humanity where it slides into, and is one with bestiality? I could show you one fearful baboon-like woman, whose very face makes my nerves shudder: could you believe that woman might one day become a lady, beautiful as yourself, and therefore minister to her? Would you not be tempted, for the sake of your own comfort, if not for the pride of your own humanity, to believe that, like untimely blossoms, these must fall from off the boughs of the tree of life, and come to nothing at all—a theory that may do for the preacher, but will not do for the worker: him it would paralyze?—or, still worse, infinitely worse, that they were doomed, from their birth, to endless ages of a damnation, filthy as that in which you now found them, and must probably leave them? If you could come to this, you had better withhold your hand; for no desire for the betterment of the masses, as they are stupidly called, can make up for a lack of faith in the individual. If you cannot hope for them in your heart, your hands cannot reach them to do them good. They will only hurt them.’

Lady Georgina was still silent. Falconer’s eloquence had perhaps made her ashamed.

‘I want you to sit down and count the cost, before you do any mischief by beginning what you are unfit for. Last week I was compelled more than once to leave the house where my duty led me, and to sit down upon a stone in the street, so ill that I was in danger of being led away as intoxicated, only the policeman happened to know me. Twice I went back to the room I had left, crowded with human animals, and one of them at least dying. It was all I could do, and I have tolerable nerve and tolerable experience.’

A mist was gathering over Lady Georgina’s eyes. She confessed it afterwards to Miss St. John. And through the mist he looked larger than human.

‘And then the time you must spend before you can lay hold upon them at all, that is with the personal relation which alone is of any real influence! Our Saviour himself had to be thirty years in the world before he had footing enough in it to justify him in beginning to teach publicly: he had been laying the needful foundations all the time. Not under any circumstances could I consent to make use of you before you had brought yourself into genuine relations with some of them first.’

‘Do you count societies, then, of no use whatever?’ Lady Georgina asked, more to break the awkwardness of her prolonged silence than for any other reason.

‘In as far as any of the persons they employ fulfil the conditions of which I have spoken, they are useful—that is, just in as far as they come into genuine human relations with those whom they would help. In as far as their servants are incapable of this, the societies are hurtful. The chief good which societies might effect would be the procuring of simple justice for the poor. That is what they need at the hands of the nation, and what they do not receive. But though few can have the knowledge of the poor I have, many could do something, if they would only set about it simply, and not be too anxious to convert them; if they would only be their friends after a common-sense fashion. I know, say, a hundred wretched men and women far better than a man in general knows him with whom he claims an ordinary intimacy. I know many more by sight whose names in the natural course of events I shall probably know soon. I know many of their relations to each other, and they talk about each other to me as if I were one of themselves, which I hope in God I am. I have been amongst them a good many years now, and shall probably spend my life amongst them. When I went first, I was repeatedly robbed; now I should hardly fear to carry another man’s property. Two years ago I had my purse taken, but next morning it was returned, I do not know by whom: in fact it was put into my pocket again—every coin, as far as I could judge, as it left me. I seldom pretend to teach them—only now and then drop a word of advice. But possibly, before I die, I may speak to them in public. At present I avoid all attempt at organization of any sort, and as far as I see, am likely of all things to avoid it. What I want is first to be their friend, and then to be at length recognized as such. It is only in rare cases that I seek the acquaintance of any of them: I let it come naturally. I bide my time. Almost never do I offer assistance. I wait till they ask it, and then often refuse the sort they want. The worst thing you can do for them is to attempt to save them from the natural consequences of wrong: you may sometimes help them out of them. But it is right to do many things for them when you know them, which it would not be right to do for them until you know them. I am amongst them; they know me; their children know me; and something is always occurring that makes this or that one come to me. Once I have a footing, I seldom lose it. So you see, in this my labour I am content to do the thing that lies next me. I wait events. You have had no training, no blundering to fit you for such work. There are many other modes of being useful; but none in which I could undertake to direct you. I am not in the habit of talking so much about my ways—but that is of no consequence. I think I am right in doing so in this instance.’

‘I cannot misunderstand you,’ faltered Lady Georgina.

Falconer was silent. Without looking up from the floor on which her eyes had rested all the time he spoke, Lady Georgina said at last,

‘Then what is my next duty? What is the thing that lies nearest to me?’

‘That, I repeat, belongs to your every-day history. No one can answer that question but yourself. Your next duty is just to determine what your next duty is.—Is there nothing you neglect? Is there nothing you know you ought not to do?—You would know your duty, if you thought in earnest about it, and were not ambitious of great things.’

‘Ah then,’ responded Lady Georgina, with an abandoning sigh, ‘I suppose it is something very commonplace, which will make life more dreary than ever. That cannot help me.’

‘It will, if it be as dreary as reading the newspapers to an old deaf aunt. It will soon lead you to something more. Your duty will begin to comfort you at once, but will at length open the unknown fountain of life in your heart.’

Lady Georgina lifted up her head in despair, looked at Falconer through eyes full of tears, and said vehemently,

‘Mr. Falconer, you can have no conception how wretched a life like mine is. And the futility of everything is embittered by the consciousness that it is from no superiority to such things that I do not care for them.’

‘It is from superiority to such things that you do not care for them. You were not made for such things. They cannot fill your heart. It has whole regions with which they have no relation.’

‘The very thought of music makes me feel ill. I used to be passionately fond of it.’

‘I presume you got so far in it that you asked, “Is there nothing more?” Concluding there was nothing more, and yet needing more, you turned from it with disappointment?’

‘It is the same,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘with painting, modelling, reading—whatever I have tried. I am sick of them all. They do nothing for me.’

‘How can you enjoy music, Lady Georgina, if you are not in harmony with the heart and source of music?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Until the human heart knows the divine heart, it must sigh and complain like a petulant child, who flings his toys from him because his mother is not at home. When his mother comes back to him he finds his toys are good still. When we find Him in our own hearts, we shall find him in everything, and music will be deep enough then, Lady Georgina. It is this that the Brahmin and the Platonist seek; it is this that the mystic and the anchorite sigh for; towards this the teaching of the greatest of men would lead us: Lord Bacon himself says, “Nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God, and the contemplation of God.” It is Life you want. If you will look in your New Testament, and find out all that our Lord says about Life, you will find the only cure for your malady. I know what such talk looks like; but depend upon it, what I am talking about is something very different from what you fancy it. Anyhow to this you must come, one day or other.’

‘But how am I to gain this indescribable good, which so many seek, and so few find?’

‘Those are not my words,’ said Falconer emphatically. ‘I should have said—“which so few yet seek; but so many shall at length find.”’

‘Do not quarrel with my foolish words, but tell me how I am to find it; for I suppose there must be something in what so many good people assert.’

‘You thought I could give you help?’

‘Yes. That is why I came to you.’

‘Just so. I cannot give you help. Go and ask it of one who can.’

‘Speak more plainly.’

‘Well then: if there be a God, he must hear you if you call to him. If there be a father, he will listen to his child. He will teach you everything.’

‘But I don’t know what I want.’

‘He does: ask him to tell you what you want. It all comes back to the old story: “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him!” But I wish you would read your New Testament—the Gospels I mean: you are not in the least fit to understand the Epistles yet. Read the story of our Saviour as if you had never read it before. He at least was a man who seemed to have that secret of life after the knowledge of which your heart is longing.’

Lady Georgina rose. Her eyes were again full of tears. Falconer too was moved. She held out her hand to him, and without another word left the room. She never came there again.

Her manner towards Falconer was thereafter much altered. People said she was in love with him: if she was, it did her no harm. Her whole character certainly was changed. She sought the friendship of Miss St. John, who came at length to like her so much, that she took her with her in some of her walks among the poor. By degrees she began to do something herself after a quiet modest fashion. But within a few years, probably while so engaged, she caught a fever from which she did not recover. It was not till after her death that Falconer told any one of the interview he had had with her. And by that time I had the honour of being very intimate with him. When she knew that she was dying, she sent for him. Mary St. John was with her. She left them together. When he came out, he was weeping.

CHAPTER XI. THE SUICIDE

Falconer lived on and laboured on in London. Wherever he found a man fitted for the work, he placed him in such office as De Fleuri already occupied. At the same time he went more into society, and gained the friendship of many influential people. Besides the use he made of this to carry out plans for individual rescue, it enabled him to bestir himself for the first and chief good which he believed it was in the power of the government to effect for the class amongst which he laboured. As I have shown, he did not believe in any positive good being effected save through individual contact—through faith, in a word—faith in the human helper—which might become a stepping-stone through the chaotic misery towards faith in the Lord and in his Father. All that association could do, as such, was only, in his judgment, to remove obstructions from the way of individual growth and education—to put better conditions within reach—first of all, to provide that the people should be able, if they would, to live decently. He had no notion of domestic inspection, or of offering prizes for cleanliness and order. He knew that misery and wretchedness are the right and best condition of those who live so that misery and wretchedness are the natural consequences of their life. But there ought always to be the possibility of emerging from these; and as things were, over the whole country, for many who would if they could, it was impossible to breathe fresh air, to be clean, to live like human beings. And he saw this difficulty ever on the increase, through the rapacity of the holders of small house-property, and the utter wickedness of railway companies, who pulled down every house that stood in their way, and did nothing to provide room for those who were thus ejected—most probably from a wretched place, but only, to be driven into a more wretched still. To provide suitable dwellings for the poor he considered the most pressing of all necessary reforms. His own fortune was not sufficient for doing much in this way, but he set about doing what he could by purchasing houses in which the poor lived, and putting them into the hands of persons whom he could trust, and who were immediately responsible to him for their proceedings: they had to make them fit for human abodes, and let them to those who desired better accommodation, giving the preference to those already tenants, so long as they paid their reasonable rent, which he considered far more necessary for them to do than for him to have done.

One day he met by appointment the owner of a small block, of which he contemplated the purchase. They were in a dreadfully dilapidated condition, a shame that belonged more to the owner than the inhabitants. The man wanted to sell the houses, or at least was willing to sell them, but put an exorbitant price upon them. Falconer expostulated.

‘I know the whole of the rent these houses could bring you in,’ he said, ‘without making any deduction for vacancies and defalcations: what you ask is twice as much as they would fetch if the full rent were certain.’

The poor wretch looked up at him with the leer of a ghoul. He was dressed like a broken-down clergyman, in rusty black, with a neck-cloth of whitey-brown.

‘I admit it,’ he said in good English, and a rather educated tone. ‘Your arguments are indisputable. I confess besides that so far short does the yield come of the amount on paper, that it would pay me to give them away. But it’s the funerals, sir, that make it worth my while. I’m an undertaker, as you may judge from my costume. I count back-rent in the burying. People may cheat their landlord, but they can’t cheat the undertaker. They must be buried. That’s the one indispensable—ain’t it, sir?’

Falconer had let him run on that he might have the measure of him. Now he was prepared with his reply.

‘You’ve told me your profession,’ he said: ‘I’ll tell you mine. I am a lawyer. If you don’t let me have those houses for five hundred, which is the full market value, I’ll prosecute you. It’ll take a good penny from the profits of your coffins to put those houses in a state to satisfy the inspector.’

The wretched creature was struck dumb. Falconer resumed.

‘You’re the sort of man that ought to be kept to your pound of filthy flesh. I know what I say; and I’ll do it. The law costs me nothing. You won’t find it so.’

The undertaker sold the houses, and no longer in that quarter killed the people he wanted to bury.

I give this as a specimen of the kind of thing Falconer did. But he took none of the business part in his own hands, on the same principle on which Paul the Apostle said it was unmeet for him to leave the preaching of the word in order to serve tables—not that the thing was beneath him, but that it was not his work so long as he could be doing more important service still.

De Fleuri was one of his chief supports. The whole nature of the man mellowed under the sun of Falconer, and over the work that Falconer gave him to do. His daughter recovered, and devoted herself to the same labour that had rescued her. Miss St. John was her superior. By degrees, without any laws or regulations, a little company was gathered, not of ladies and gentlemen, but of men and women, who aided each other, and without once meeting as a whole, laboured not the less as one body in the work of the Lord, bound in one by bonds that had nothing to do with cobweb committee meetings or public dinners, chairmen or wine-flushed subscriptions. They worked like the leaven of which the Lord spoke.

But De Fleuri, like almost every one in the community I believe, had his own private schemes subserving the general good. He knew the best men of his own class and his own trade, and with them his superior intellectual gifts gave him influence. To them he told the story of Falconer’s behaviour to him, of Falconer’s own need, and of his hungry-hearted search. An enthusiasm of help seized upon the men. To aid your superior is such a rousing gladness!—Was anything of this in St. Paul’s mind when he spoke of our being fellow-workers with God? I only put the question.—Each one of these had his own trustworthy acquaintances, or neighbours, rather—for like finds out like all the world through, as well as over—and to them he told the story of Falconer and his father, so that in all that region of London it became known that the man who loved the poor was himself needy, and looked to the poor for their help. Without them he could not be made perfect.

Some of my readers may be inclined to say that it was dishonourable in Falconer to have occasioned the publishing of his father’s disgrace. Such may recall to their minds that concealment is no law of the universe; that, on the contrary, the Lord of the Universe said once: ‘There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.’ Was the disgrace of Andrew Falconer greater because a thousand men knew it, instead of forty, who could not help knowing it? Hope lies in light and knowledge. Andrew would be none the worse that honest men knew of his vice: they would be the first to honour him if he should overcome it. If he would not—the disgrace was just, and would fall upon his son only in sorrow, not in dishonour. The grace of God—the making of humanity by his beautiful hand—no, heart—is such, that disgrace clings to no man after repentance, any more than the feet defiled with the mud of the world come yet defiled from the bath. Even the things that proceed out of the man, and do terribly defile him, can be cast off like the pollution of the leper by a grace that goes deeper than they; and the man who says, ‘I have sinned: I will sin no more,’ is even by the voice of his brothers crowned as a conqueror, and by their hearts loved as one who has suffered and overcome. Blessing on the God-born human heart! Let the hounds of God, not of Satan, loose upon sin;—God only can rule the dogs of the devil;—let them hunt it to the earth; let them drag forth the demoniac to the feet of the Man who loved the people while he let the devil take their swine; and do not talk about disgrace from a thing being known when the disgrace is that the thing should exist.

One night I was returning home from some poor attempts of my own. I had now been a pupil of Falconer for a considerable time, but having my own livelihood to make, I could not do so much as I would.

It was late, nearly twelve o’clock, as I passed through the region of Seven Dials. Here and there stood three or four brutal-looking men, and now and then a squalid woman with a starveling baby in her arms, in the light of the gin-shops. The babies were the saddest to see—nursery-plants already in training for the places these men and women now held, then to fill a pauper’s grave, or perhaps a perpetual cell—say rather, for the awful spaces of silence, where the railway director can no longer be guilty of a worse sin than house-breaking, and his miserable brother will have no need of the shelter of which he deprived him. Now and then a flaunting woman wavered past—a night-shade, as our old dramatists would have called her. I could hardly keep down an evil disgust that would have conquered my pity, when a scanty white dress would stop beneath a lamp, and the gay dirty bonnet, turning round, reveal a painted face, from which shone little more than an animal intelligence, not brightened by the gin she had been drinking. Vague noises of strife and of drunken wrath flitted around me as I passed an alley, or an opening door let out its evil secret. Once I thought I heard the dull thud of a blow on the head. The noisome vapours were fit for any of Swedenborg’s hells. There were few sounds, but the very quiet seemed infernal. The night was hot and sultry. A skinned cat, possibly still alive, fell on the street before me. Under one of the gas-lamps lay something long: it was a tress of dark hair, torn perhaps from some woman’s head: she had beautiful hair at least. Once I heard the cry of murder, but where, in that chaos of humanity, right or left, before or behind me, I could not even guess. Home to such regions, from gorgeous stage-scenery and dresses, from splendid, mirror-beladen casinos, from singing-halls, and places of private and prolonged revelry, trail the daughters of men at all hours from midnight till morning. Next day they drink hell-fire that they may forget. Sleep brings an hour or two of oblivion, hardly of peace; but they must wake, worn and miserable, and the waking brings no hope: their only known help lies in the gin-shop. What can be done with them? But the secrets God keeps must be as good as those he tells.

But no sights of the night ever affected me so much as walking through this same St. Giles’s on a summer Sunday morning, when church-goers were in church. Oh! the faces that creep out into the sunshine then, and haunt their doors! Some of them but skins drawn over skulls, living Death’s-heads, grotesque in their hideousness.