Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2). Bonner Hypatia Bradlaugh

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      One morning I was seated on the floor (chairs were a scarce commodity at Turner Street) in my father's study sorting some pamphlets when a knock was heard at the street door; the landlady opened it, and then came to say that a man had called who particularly wished to see Mr Bradlaugh. "Ask him in," said my father, and I began hurriedly to rise from my lowly position, but a "Stay where you are" nailed me to the floor. "What can I do for you?" asked Mr Bradlaugh pleasantly, as a thick-set man of middle age, with a reddish beard, entered the room. The man replied that he wished to buy a copy of a book written by my father and entitled, "Man, whence and how." Rather to my surprise, because as a rule he refused to sell any literature from his Turner Street lodgings, and indeed kept none there for sale, my father hunted up a copy of the Freethinker's Text-Book, Part I., entitled "Man, whence and how? or Revealed and Real Science in Conflict," carefully dusted it, and handed it to the man, asking suavely, "Is there anything more I can do for you?" The man replied that that was all, put the book in his pocket, paid for it, and went away. He was hardly outside the door when my father began to laugh. "Did you see his boots, Hypatia?" he asked. "His boots!" I repeated vaguely, wondering rather what the joke was. "Yes; he actually came in the regulation boots," he said. "That was a detective, and those who instructed him evidently think that 'Man, whence and how?' is some book upon the population question." Undoubtedly it is a book upon the population question, but not exactly from the Malthusian point of view; and if it was bought in that idea, the purchasers must have felt rather foolish when they read the first lines referring to the Hebrew chronology and the alleged creation of Adam and Eve!

      In 1876 my father was relieved from the pressure of those debts which had been burdening him for so long. First of all a Liverpool friend died, bequeathing to Mr Bradlaugh £100, less legacy duty. This is a "new experience," said my father on receiving the money, adding, "I owe £90 less than I owed last week." Then in August he received £2500 through a compromised will suit. Mr Henry Turberville, brother of Mr R. D. Blackmore, had a very great admiration for my father; so much so that the year before his death, when my father was about to go to the United States, he felt so anxious not to lose sight of him that he offered to pay the whole of his debts if only he would not go. He made a will leaving the bulk of his property, valued at £15,000, to Mr Bradlaugh, and to simplify matters he also made him his sole executor. Not long after this Mr Turberville, while staying at Yeovil, died suddenly, having a few hours before made his will in favour of a daughter of a chemist of the neighbourhood. Mr Blackmore asked the Court to pronounce for an intestacy, and he joined with Mr Bradlaugh as against the propounders of the new will. At last a compromise was agreed upon, by which Mr Bradlaugh received £2500 in addition to his costs. Like the £90 legacy, the £2500 was immediately applied by my father to the discharge of his liabilities. I was in Court with him when the suits were compromised, and we went straight from the Court to the office of his chief creditor. "That was only just in time, my daughter," he said, as we turned towards home.

      As one or other of us girls was now almost continuously with my father, and his books were bursting all available bounds at Turner Street, in February 1877 he decided to seek some more wholesome and more commodious lodging. Turner Street left much to be desired from the sanitary point of view. I remember one hot summer's evening a kindly, enthusiastic gentleman, who lived in the west of London, came eastwards to speak at one of the working-men's clubs. My father was to take the chair for him, and he came to Turner Street before going to the club. We all walked down together, and this gentleman, turning with enthusiasm to my sister and me, said, "I think your father living here is just the right man in the right place!" My sister and I looked at one another; it had been so hot that day, yet we had not been able to open our windows to let in the air because of the abundance of smells which came in with it. If Turner Street was the "right" place, we, at least, did not appreciate it.

      At the end of February we removed to 10 Portland Place (as it was then called), Circus Road, St John's Wood. It was a queerly-arranged house; we had the top floor and the basement, with a bath-room on the first floor, the ground floor and the rest of the first floor being occupied by a firm of music-sellers. In the basement was a very large and dark room, which we used for meals, and in which at first our tiny table and four chairs looked very desolate. On the top floor was one large room given over to my father's study, the other rooms being quite small. The library again outgrowing its bounds, in 1880 it descended to the still larger room on the first floor, whence the books were sold after the death of their owner in 1891.

      At Circus Road my sister and I started housekeeping for my father, with one little servant much given to fainting. I was appointed head cook to the establishment, and my father and sister uncomplainingly devoted themselves to the task of swallowing my experiments in the culinary art. Never once, either while I cooked for him myself, or later when we ordered his dinners for him, do I remember my father grumbling at the food we set before him. His meals had to be punctual to the moment, or, if asked for at an unaccustomed hour, they had to be promptly served; if that was done, he was content with whatever was given him.

      We had been only a few weeks at Circus Road when the new edition of the Knowlton pamphlet was printed. Mr Bradlaugh was away in Scotland, and as Mrs Besant's mind was filled with the idea of the possibility of a police raid and seizure of the stock, we hid parcels of the pamphlet in every conceivable place. We buried some by night in her garden, concealed some under the floor, and others behind the cistern. When my father was informed of this cleverness he was by no means pleased, and sent word immediately that there should be no more hiding; and as soon as he came home again the process began of finding as quickly as possible these well-hidden treasures – some indeed so well hidden that they were not found till some time afterwards. He also knew that a search was possible, but he had no wish to look supremely ridiculous – to put it no more seriously – by parcels being found in all these eccentric places.

      When the Saturday came on which Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant attended at Stonecutter Street to sell the new edition of the Knowlton pamphlet, my sister and I went with them: not to sell the book – that my father would not allow – but to help in the mechanical work of counting out dozens or in giving change; for although there had been no other advertisement than the one announcement in the National Reformer, the crush of buyers in the little shop was enormous, and in the course of twenty minutes over 500 copies changed hands, in single copies or in small numbers. Several days elapsed between this formal sale and the arrest, but my father had told me that in the event of such an arrest I was immediately to go home and fetch his volumes of Russell "On Crime and Misdemeanours," while my sister was to remain with them to take any instructions at the moment. Mr Bradlaugh notified the police headquarters that he and Mrs Besant would attend at 28 Stonecutter Street from 10 to 11 A.M. for the convenience of the arrest. The police accordingly made their appearance promptly at ten o'clock one morning; I flew off to St John's Wood, collected the great books, and caught the next train to the city. It was a warm morning, I was hot with running, and anxious, for I rather think that I had some sort of notion that "Russell" was a sort of golden key to unlock all legal difficulties. City men in the train, going to their ordinary business, looked at me rather curiously as I sat in the carriage closely hugging those three bulky red volumes (which would slip about on one another, for I had not stayed to tie them together) on criminal procedure, of all things for a girl of nineteen to be carrying about with her on a sunny April morning.

      But my sister and I felt very, very lonely and very cold at heart as we sat in the dreary Police Court at the Guildhall – I hardly know how we got there – listening to cases of drunkenness or assault, and waiting, with a shudder of horror and disgust at the thought, for our father and Mrs Besant to come and take their places in that dock which we had seen occupied by some of the lowest specimens of London low life. The time came for people to snatch what lunch they could get; and a kindly gentleman with a slightly foreign accent came to us and wanted to take us to lunch. He knew us, for he was my father's very good friend, Mr Joannes Swaagman, though we did not know him. However, he talked to us of our father, and found the way to persuade us, so we went with him; and I shall never forget the feeling of gratitude towards him, and the sensation of comfort we felt in seeing his friendly face and hearing his friendly voice. We attended the first day's hearing at the Guildhall, but at our father's wish we were СКАЧАТЬ