Margot Asquith, an Autobiography Part 8

To-night it doth inherit The vasty hall of death.

CHAPTER III

SLUMMING IN LONDON; ADVENTURE IN WHITECHAPEL; BRAWL IN A SALOON; OUTINGS WITH WORKING GIRLS--MARGOT MEETS THE PRINCESS OF WALES-- GOSSIP OVER FRIENDs.h.i.+P WITH PRINCE OF WALES--LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL'S BALL--MARGOT'S FIRST HUNT; ECCENTRIC DUKE OF BEAUFORT; FALLS IN LOVE AT SEVENTEEN; COMMANDEERS A HORSE

After Laura's death I spent most of my time in the East End of London. One day, when I was walking in the slums of Whitechapel, I saw a large factory and girls of all ages pouring in and out of it. Seeing the name "Cliffords" on the door, I walked in and asked a workman to show me his employer's private room. He indicated with his finger where it was and I knocked and went in. Mr.

Cliffords, the owner of the factory, had a large red face and was sitting in a bare, squalid room, on a hard chair, in front of his writing-table. He glanced at me as I shut the door, but did not stop writing. I asked him if I might visit his factory once or twice a week and talk to the work-girls. At this he put his pen down and said:

"Now, miss, what good do you suppose you will do here with my girls?"

MARGOT: "It is not exactly THAT. I am not sure I can do any one any good, but do you think I could do your girls any harm?"

CLIFFORDS: "Most certainly you could and, what is more, you WILL"

MARGOT: "How?"

CLIFFORDS: "Why, bless my soul! You'll keep them all jawing and make them late for their work! As it is, they don't do overmuch.

Do you think my girls are wicked and that you are going to make them good and happy and save them and all that kind of thing?"

MARGOT: "Not at all; I was not thinking of them, _I_ am so very unhappy myself."

CLIFFORDS (RATHER MOVED AND LOOKING AT ME WITH CURIOSITY): "Oh, that's quite another matter! If you've come here to ask me a favour, I might consider it."

MARGOT (HUMBLY): "That is just what I have come for. I swear I would only be with your girls in the dinner interval, but if by accident I arrive at the wrong time I will see that they do not stop their work. It is far more likely that they won't listen to me at all than that they will stop working to hear what I have to say."

CLIFFORDS: "Maybe!"

So it was fixed up. He shook me by the hand, never asked my name and I visited his factory three days a week for eight years when I was in London (till I married, in 1894).

The East End of London was not a new experience to me. Laura and I had started a creche at Wapping the year I came out; and in following up the cases of deserving beggars I had come across a variety of slums. I have derived as much interest and more benefit from visiting the poor than the rich and I get on better with them. What was new to me in Whitechapel was the head of the factory.

Mr. Cliffords was what the servants describe as "a man who keeps himself to himself," gruff, harsh, straight and clever. He hated all his girls and no one would have supposed, had they seen us together, that he liked me; but, after I had observed him blocking the light in the doorway of the room when I was speaking, I knew that I should get on with him.

The first day I went into the barn of a place where the boxes were made, I was greeted by a smell of glue and perspiration and a roar of wheels on the cobblestones in the yard. Forty or fifty women, varying in age from sixteen to sixty, were measuring, cutting and glueing cardboard and paper together; not one of them looked up from her work as I came in.

I climbed upon a h.o.a.rding, and kneeling down, pinned a photograph of Laura on a s.p.a.ce of the wall. This attracted the attention of an elderly woman who turned to her companions and said:

"Come and have a look at this, girls! why, it's to the life!"

Seeing some of the girls leave their work and remembering my promise to Cliffords, I jumped up and told them that in ten minutes' time they would be having their dinners and then I would like to speak to them, but that until then they must not stop their work. I was much relieved to see them obey me. Some of them kept sandwiches in dirty paper bags which they placed on the floor with their hats, but when the ten minutes were over I was disappointed to see nearly all of them disappear. I asked where they had gone to and was told that they either joined the men packers or went to the public-house round the corner.

The girls who brought sandwiches and stayed behind liked my visits and gradually became my friends. One of them--Phoebe Whitman by name--was beautiful and had more charm than the others for me; I asked her one day if she would take me with her to the public- house where she always lunched, as I had brought my food with me in a bag and did not suppose the public-house people would mind my eating it there with a gla.s.s of beer. This request of mine distressed the girls who were my friends. They thought it a terrible idea that I should go among drunkards, but I told them I had brought a book with me which they could look at and read out loud to each other while I was away--at which they nodded gravely --and I went off with my beautiful c.o.c.kney.

The "Peggy Bedford" was in the lowest quarter of Whitechapel and crowded daily with sullen and sad-looking people. It was hot, smelly and draughty. When we went in I observed that Phoebe was a favourite; she waved her hand gaily here and there and ordered herself a gla.s.s of bitter. The men who had been hanging about outside and in different corners of the room joined up to the counter on her arrival and I heard a lot of chaff going on while she tossed her pretty head and picked at potted shrimps. The room was too crowded for any one to notice me; and I sat quietly in a corner eating my sandwiches and smoking my cigarette. The frosted- gla.s.s double doors swung to and fro and the shrill voices of children asking for drinks and carrying them away in their mugs made me feel profoundly unhappy. I followed one little girl through the doors out into the street and saw her give the mug to a cabman and run off delighted with his tip. When I returned I was deafened by a babel of voices; there was a row going on: one of the men, drunk but good-tempered, was trying to take the flower out of Phoebe's hat. Provoked by this, a young man began jostling him, at which all the others pressed forward; the barman shouted ineffectually to them to stop; they merely cursed him and said that they were backing Phoebe. A woman, more drunk than the others, swore at being disturbed and said that Phoebe was a blasted something that I could not understand. Suddenly I saw her hitting out like a prize-fighter; and the men formed a ring round them. I jumped up, seized an under-fed, blear-eyed being who was nearest to me and flung him out of my way. Rage and disgust inspired me with great physical strength; but I was prevented from breaking through the ring by a man seizing my arm and saying:

"Let be or her man will give you a d.a.m.ned thras.h.i.+ng!"

Not knowing which of the women he was alluding to, I dipped down and, dodging the crowd, broke through the ring and flung myself upon Phoebe; my one fear was that she would be too late for her work and that the promise I had made to Cliffords would be broken.

Women fight very awkwardly and I was battered about between the two. I turned and cursed the men standing round for laughing and doing nothing and, before I could separate the combatants, I had given and received heavy blows; but unexpected help came from a Cliffords packer who happened to look in. We extricated ourselves as well as we could and ran back to the factory. I made Phoebe apologise to the chief for being late and, feeling stiff all over, returned home to Grosvenor Square.

Cliffords, who was an expert boxer, invited me into his room on my next visit to tell him the whole story and my shares went up.

By the end of July all the girls--about fifty-two--stayed with me after their work and none of them went to the "Peggy Bedford."

The Whitechapel murders took place close to the factory about that time, and the girls and I visited what the journalists call "the scene of the tragedy." It was strange watching crowds of people collected daily to see nothing but an archway.

I took my girls for an annual treat to the country every summer, starting at eight in the morning and getting back to London at midnight. We drove in three large wagonettes behind four horses, accompanied by a bra.s.s band. On one occasion I was asked if the day could be spent at Caterham, because there were barracks there.

I thought it a dreary place and strayed away by myself, but Phoebe and her friends enjoyed glueing their noses to the rails and watching the soldiers drill. I do not know how the controversy arose, but when I joined them I heard Phoebe shout through the railings that some one was a "b.l.o.o.d.y fis.h.!.+" I warned her that I should leave Cliffords for ever, if she went on provoking rows and using such violent language, and this threat upset her; for a short time she was on her best behaviour, but I confess I find the poor just as uninfluenceable and ungrateful as the rich, and I often wonder what became of Phoebe Whitman.

At the end of July I told the girls that I had to leave them, as I was going back to my home in Scotland.

PHOEBE: "You don't know, lady, how much we all feels for you having to live in the country. Why, when you pointed out to us on the picnic-day that kind of a tower-place, with them walls and dark trees, and said it reminded you of your home, we just looked at each other! 'Well, I never!' sez I; and we all shuddered!"

None of the girls knew what my name was or where I lived till they read about me in the picture-papers, eight years later at the time of my marriage.

When I was not in the East-end of London, I wandered about looking at the shop-windows in the West. One day I was admiring a photograph of my sister Charty in the window of Macmichael's, when a footman touched his hat and asked me if I would speak to "her Grace" in the carriage. I turned round and saw the d.u.c.h.ess of Manchester [Footnote: Afterwards the late Dutchess of Devons.h.i.+re]; as I had never spoken to her in my life, I wondered what she could possibly want me for. After shaking hands, she said:

"Jump in, dear child! I can't bear to see you look so sad. Jump in and I'll take you for a drive and you can come back to tea with me."

I got into the carriage and we drove round Hyde Park, after which I followed her upstairs to her boudoir in Great Stanhope Street.

In the middle of tea Queen Alexandra--then Princess of Wales-- came in to see the d.u.c.h.ess. She ran in unannounced and kissed her hostess.

My heart beat when I looked at her. She had more real beauty, both of line and expression, and more dignity than any one I had ever seen; and I can never forget that first meeting.

These were the days of the great beauties. London wors.h.i.+pped beauty like the Greeks. Photographs of the Princess of Wales, Mrs.

Langtry, Mrs. Cornwallis West, Mrs. Wheeler and Lady Dudley [Footnote: Georgiana, Countess of Dudley.] collected crowds in front of the shop windows. I have seen great and conventional ladies like old Lady Cadogan and others standing on iron chairs in the Park to see Mrs. Langtry walk past; and wherever Georgiana Lady Dudley drove there were crowds round her carriage when it pulled up, to see this vision of beauty, holding a large holland umbrella over the head of her lifeless husband.

Groups of beauties like the Moncrieffes, Grahams, Conynghams, de Moleynses, Lady Mary Mills, Lady Randolph Churchill, Mrs. Arthur Sa.s.soon, Lady Dalhousie, Lady March, Lady Londonderry and Lady de Grey were to be seen in the salons of the 'eighties. There is nothing at all like this in London to-day and I doubt if there is any one now with enough beauty or temperament to provoke a fight in Rotten Row between gentlemen in high society: an incident of my youth which I was privileged to witness and which caused a profound sensation.

Queen Alexandra had a more perfect face than any of those I have mentioned; it is visible even now, because the oval is still there, the frownless brows, the carriage and, above all, the grace both of movement and of gesture which made her the idol of her people.

London society is neither better nor worse than it was in the 'eighties; there is less talent and less intellectual ambition and much less religion; but where all the beauty has gone to I cannot think!

When the Princess of Wales walked into the d.u.c.h.ess of Manchester's boudoir that afternoon, I got up to go away, but the d.u.c.h.ess presented me to her and they asked me to stay and have tea, which I was delighted to do. I sat watching her, with my teacup in my hand, thrilled with admiration.

Queen Alexandra's total absence of egotism and the warmth of her manner, prompted not by consideration, but by sincerity, her gaiety of heart and refinement--rarely to be seen in royal people --inspired me with a love for her that day from which I have never departed.

I had been presented to the Prince of Wales--before I met the Princess--by Lady Dalhousie, in the Paddock at Ascot. He asked me if I would back my fancy for the Wokingham Stakes and have a little bet with him on the race. We walked down to the rails and watched the horses gallop past. One of them went down in great form; I verified him by his colours and found he was called Wokingham. I told the Prince that he was a sure winner; but out of so many entries no one was more surprised than I was when my horse came romping in. I was given a gold cigarette-case and went home much pleased.

King Edward had great charm and personality and enormous prestige; he was more touchy than King George and fonder of pleasure. He and Queen Alexandra, before they succeeded, were the leaders of London society; they practically dictated what people could and could not do; every woman wore a new dress when she dined at Marlborough House; and we vied with each other in trying to please him.

Opinions differ as to the precise function of royalty, but no one doubts that it is a valuable and necessary part of our Const.i.tution. Just as the Lord Mayor represents commerce, the Prime Minister the Government, and the Commons the people, the King represents society. Voltaire said we British had shown true genius in preventing our kings by law from doing anything but good. This sounds well, but we all know that laws do not prevent men from doing harm.