Kabanata Kabanata 13 · The Empire of Notting Hill_

. The Empire of Notting Hill_

On the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the great

victory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, King

Auberon came, as of old, out of Kensington Palace.

He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair,

for his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were,

decrepit.

If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental.

It was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, the

frock-coat and high hat of the days before the great war. "I have

survived the Deluge," he said. "I am a pyramid, and must behave as

such."

As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians, in their picturesque

blue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a

curiosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an

attire.

The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant

("Gaffer Auberon" his friends were now confidentially desired to call

him), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his

eye, at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great

gates of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, by

the hand of Chiffy himself.

"Ah!" he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air of

age, and a provincialism of accent--"Ah! I mind when there warn't none

of this here."

He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion,

wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, "Nothing Ill."

The guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd.

It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused to

look at them, for they were Chiffy's finest work, and his artistic eye

never failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of the

Lamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword

in hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if

ready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should again

show their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could play

about the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of the

salvation of his country in the dreadful year.

"Old Wayne was right in a way," commented the King. "The sword does

make things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now.

And to think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting a

romantic Notting Hill. Deary me, deary me! (I think that is the

expression)--it seems like a previous existence."

Turning a corner, he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the four

shops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He entered

idly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older,

like the rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore with

a moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured.

He was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown,

and crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, and

covered with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his wares

passing from hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neck

was the chain with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as

Grand Master of the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and

sumptuous look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominently

as in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with a

sense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers of

those forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not so

much as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as an

educated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored

in great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable

sayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange and

purple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and dreamy, stored

symbolically the tea of India. A row of caskets of a simple silvery

metal contained tinned meats. Each was wrought with some rude but

rhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicate

what material had been canned in it.

"Your Majesty," said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. "This

is an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city."

Auberon took off his hat.

"Mr. Mead," he said, "Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, can

deal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?"

"Liquorice, sire," said Mr. Mead, "is not the least important of our

benefits out of the dark heart of Arabia."

And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in the

form of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer.

"I was just thinking, Mr. Mead," said the King, reflectively, "I don't

know why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking of

twenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?"

The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper

(inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large grey

eyes dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside.

"Oh yes, your Majesty," he said. "I remember these streets before the

Lord Provost began to rule us. I can't remember how we felt very well.

All the great songs and the fighting change one so; and I don't think

we can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can remember

his coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember

the things he said. The singular thing is that, as far as I remember,

I thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it's the things

that I said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd--as odd

as a madman's antics."

"Ah!" said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness.

"I thought nothing of being a grocer then," he said. "Isn't that odd

enough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places that

my goods come from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did not

know that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearing

fishes near the secret pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under

the world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as a

hatter."

The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the great

lamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming.

"And is this the end of poor old Wayne?" he said, half to himself. "To

inflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze. Is

this his victory that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a

world of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace?

Must Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strange

world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble

to go mad!"

And he went dreamily out of the shop.

He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost had

done two decades before.

[Illustration: "A FINE EVENING, SIR," SAID THE CHEMIST.]

"How uncommonly creepy this shop looks!" he said. "But yet somehow

encouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in a

jolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of your skin,

and yet know that things always end well. The way those low sharp

gables are carved like great black bat's wings folded down, and the

way those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine like

giants eye-balls. It looks like a benevolent warlock's hut. It is

apparently a chemist's."

Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door in

a long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with a

touch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face

even paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red

star cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He

belonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the

lamps displayed by doctors and chemists.

"A fine evening, sir," said the chemist. "Why, I can scarcely be

mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and

share a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that may take your fancy.

As it happens, there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty's in my

shop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at

this moment."

The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades and

hues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant than

the grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and

fancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of

medicines been presented to the artistic eye.

But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or

even eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His

form, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue

velvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to

show gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had

several chains round his neck, and his plumes, which were of several

tints of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long

sword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal

tint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall

figure, whose face was in shadow; then he said--

"By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!"

The figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and

long, almost equine face which the King had so often seen rising out

of the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each

temple, it was totally unchanged.

"Your Majesty," said Barker, "this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a

meeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old

days;" and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling.

"I am delighted to see you again, Barker," said the King. "It is

indeed long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my

book having to be written (you have read my 'Life of Prince Albert for

Children,' of course?), we have scarcely met twice since the Great

War. That is twenty years ago."

"I wonder," said Barker, thoughtfully, "if I might speak freely to

your Majesty?"

"Well," said Auberon, "it's rather late in the day to start speaking

respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom."

"Well, your Majesty," replied Barker, lowering his voice, "I don't

think it will be so long to the next war."

"What do you mean?" asked Auberon.

"We will stand this insolence no longer," burst out Barker, fiercely.

"We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with

a water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We

in South Kensington, we also have memories--ay, and hopes. If they

fought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not

fight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural History

Museum?"

"Great Heavens!" said the astounded Auberon. "Will wonders never

cease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned

altruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he

the tyrant?"

"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes,"

answered Barker. "He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and

sits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the

tyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been so

intoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne's old ways

and visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule every

one, and civilise every one, and tell every one what is good for him.

I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed,

gave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a young

man, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to see

our own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because of

something Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am

just waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that

Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are putting

up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and white

shameless breach of the terms on which we surrendered to Turnbull

after the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs and

self-government. If that is so--"

"It is so," said a deep voice; and both men turned round.

A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his

neck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the

doorway.

"Yes," he said, acknowledging the King's start, "I am Provost Buck,

and the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we

fought round the Tower as well as they, and that it is sometimes

foolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered."

"Let us step outside," said Barker, with a grim composure.

Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit

street.

"I would like to have a go at smashing all this," he muttered,

"though I am over sixty. I would like--"

His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to

his eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before.

"Darkness!" he cried--"darkness again! What does it mean?"

For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could

not see even each other's outline, except faintly. The voice of the

chemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density.

"Oh, don't you know?" he said. "Did they never tell you this is the

Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost

lost and just saved Notting Hill? Don't you know, your Majesty, that

on this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson's green uniforms

charging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon

the gas-works, fighting with their handful like fiends from hell? And

that then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the

gas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole

city, and then with a cry like a lion's, that was heard through four

streets, flew at Wilson's men, sword in hand, and swept them,

bewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the

sacred street again? And don't you know that upon that night every

year all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing the

Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins."

Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of

human voices--

"When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill,

(There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;

On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow,

From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know,

Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe,

And the old guard of God turned to bay.

For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay,

And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day:

For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde,

When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword,

The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord,

When the old guard of God turned to bay."

The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse when they

were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the

street with a cry of "South Kensington!" and a drawn dagger. In less

time than a man could blink, the whole packed street was full of

curses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front,

but used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and

calling out, "This is not the first time I've come through the thick

of you," flung himself again into the press. It was evident that he

had drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many

other knives and swords were discernible in the faint light. Barker,

after having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of being

flung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He

had no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of the

great burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old

sombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he

broke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop,

and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and

calling out, "Kensington! Kensington!" rushed to Barker's assistance.

Barker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his

dagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill struck Barker down,

but Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up

again, the blood running down his face.

Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to

fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King,

from its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible

because it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they

had not heard for so long.

"Turn up the lights," said the voice from above them, and for a moment

there was no reply, but only a tumult.

"In the name of Notting Hill and of the great Council of the City,

turn up the lights."

There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole

street and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as

every lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a

balcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the

face of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked

with grey.

"What is this, my people?" he said. "Is it altogether impossible to

make a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked?

The glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has

been enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the

fire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many other

affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why

should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the

statue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightly

erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did

Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that

it is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other

cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have created

not only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too

humble fools, why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have

done something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish

to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an

obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before

Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith

Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to

abolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the

artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of

it before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I

have heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast

towards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to

the great black monument of a crowned raven, which commemorates the

skirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they

there before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which

was enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the

humble purpose, of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because

Romans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology for expressing

their own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry because as a little village it

has become the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobs

say, no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys?

Are all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans. No! but

the soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soul

of Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified. So has

the soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realise what it is to

live in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so

they have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to contend against

them? Notting Hill is right; it has always been right. It has moulded

itself on its own necessities, its own _sine qua non_; it has accepted

its own ultimatum. Because it is a nation it has created itself; and

because it is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shall

always be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter of

General Wilson's statue to make war upon Bayswater--"

A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech was

impossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and again

to speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark and

roaring masses in the street below him. He said something further, but

it was not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret in

which he lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses.

Finding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queer

affection and gravity, and said--

"To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as the

flowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been through

three battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiar

delight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to

exchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we

shall probably both be dead."

Turnbull looked dimly surprised.

"I don't mind so much about being dead," he said, "but why should you

say that we shall be defeated?"

"The answer is very simple," replied Wayne, calmly. "It is because we

ought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before

now; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on

our side, and that we ought to get out. Now I know that we ought not

to get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won."

As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a

third figure was listening to them--a small figure with wondering

eyes.

"Is it really true, my dear Wayne," said the King, interrupting, "that

you think you will be beaten to-morrow?"

"There can be no doubt about it whatever," replied Adam Wayne; "the

real reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a

concession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organised

army of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself,

however, would be unimportant."

Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent.

"You are quite sure," he said, "that you must be beaten?"

"I am afraid," said Turnbull, gloomily, "that there can be no doubt

about it."

"Then," cried the King, flinging out his arms, "give me a halberd!

Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I,

Auberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate, and implore the

Provost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a

halberd!"

He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped

solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this

time, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the

wrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before

morning.