At Stepney in my young days lived many respectable families, and I don’t doubt that many respectable families still live at Stepney; but it is true that all that part of London has sunk since I was a little girl, and the sort of people who flourished in the east in the beginning of the century have now gone west with the jerry trowel and the nine-inch wall. My father’s house in Stepney might have been a lord’s in its time. It was strong as a fortress, cosy and homely, rich within doors with the colouring of age. It still stands; I visited it last year, but it is no longer a private house.
I was about twelve years old when my father died. The manner of his going was very sudden and fearful, and, old as I am, when I think of it I feel afraid, so haunting is youthful impression, the shock of it often trembling through the longest years into the last beats of one’s heart. My cousin, Will Johnstone, had been brought over from his house near the Tower to spend the afternoon with me. He was between six and seven years of age, a fine little manly boy, the only son of my father’s brother, William Johnstone, a lawyer, whose house and office were near the Tower. This little Will and I sat at the table in the parlour, playing at some game, and very noisy.
It was a November afternoon, the atmosphere of a true London sullenness; the fire burnt heartily, and the walls were merry with the dance of the flames, and the candle stood unlighted upon the mantelpiece. My father sat in an arm-chair close to the fire; he smoked a long clay pipe, and his eyes were fixed upon the glowing coals. He was a handsome man; I have his image before me. He had the completest air of a sailor that is to be figured. I seldom see such faces as his now. But then faces belong to times. My father’s belonged to his century; and you would seek for it there and not before nor after.
He sat with his legs crossed and his eyes upon the fire. Suddenly looking around, he cried, with some temper: ‘Not so much noise, little ’uns! not so much noise, or you’ll have to go to bed.’ Then his face relaxed, and I, with my child’s eyes, saw he was sorry for having spoken so sharply. ‘Little ones,’ said he softly, ‘let’s have a game. Let’s see who can go to sleep first and keep asleep longest;’ and dropping his hand so as to bring the pipe from his mouth, he sank his chin and shut his eyes, and snored once or twice as a make-believe.
I sank my head and closed my eyes as father had, and little Will shammed to be asleep. We were silent a minute or more. The pipe then fell from my father’s hand and lay in halves upon the floor. There was nothing in this. It was a common clay pipe, and father would break such things pretty nearly as often as he smoked them. I now peeped at Will; he was peeping at me. The child giggled, and burst into a little half-suffocated laugh.
‘Hush!’ said I; and now, being weary of this sort of sport, I looked at father and cried out: ‘I can’t sleep any longer.’
He never answered, so I stepped round the table to his chair to wake him up, and pulled him by the arm, and still he would not answer. I climbed upon his knee, and just then a bright gas flame spurted out of a lump of coal, and I saw his face very clearly. What was there in it to acquaint my childish sight with the thing that had come to him? I fell from his knee and ran to the door, and shrieked for mother. She was in the next room, or back parlour, talking with a woman hired to sew.
‘Mother,’ said I, ‘father can’t wake up.’
‘What do you mean, Marian? Where is he?’
‘We have been playing at sleep, and he can’t wake up,’ said I, and I began to cry.