Miss Darcy's Diversions

by Ronald McGowan

  “He is calling today? It is all totally unexpected, I assure you. But, oh dear! I feel a fit of the vapours coming on, and I doubt if it will improve at all without the benefit of sea air. It is fortunate, is it not, that we leave for Margate in the morning.”

  “Please make my excuses to poor Mr Kerr, and tell him I am so unwell that I am quite unable to see anyone at all today. I am sure he will understand, and agree to postpone his errand, especially if you forget to mention my imminent departure.”

  What else could I do? The choice was between a morning in my room with my maid and a lifetime in Scotland with a tailor’s dummy. I may have been but fifteen at the time, but I knew what I wanted.

  Chapter Seventeen:One Foot on Sea and one on Shore

  Our departure for Margate was an education in itself. Fitzwilliam had prophesied that we would see another side of life east of Temple Bar, and he was quite correct.

  We had engaged passages on the Peter and Jane, on the strength of Mrs Younge’s fond memories and a handbill which she had produced from her reticule. It made interesting reading, of a sort, promising -

  “Margate Passage Cutter

  The Peter and Jane being fitted up in a very commodious manner for the reception of passengers, Robert Hind, master, intends sailing during the Summer season, every Monday from Margate, and every Thursday from Wool Key, near the Custom house, London, when the favours of the public will be most gratefully acknowledged, and every attention paid to the convenience and pleasure of such passengers as please to honour him with their company.

  The Peter and Jane having two distinct cabins, any family, or select party, to the number of eleven, may be accommodated with the After cabin, for three guineas, by giving a week’s notice to Mr Smith, wharfinger, at Wool Key, or to Mr Kidd, in Margate, or on board the vessel.”

  The Margate Hoy has a certain notoriety, but the alternative is to commit oneself to the mercy of the coachmen on a road, where, as Mr Carey puts it,

  “The purpose of your journey is known by every inn-keeper, hostler, coachman, postboy, and waiter, on the road; and, like a sheep that has been under the necessity of making his way through a wild of thickets, in order to get at and assemble with the social flock, you are sure to lose a great deal of wool before you get to your journey's end; and when you arrive at the place in question, you are considered as a summer-fly, certain of meeting with gaping swallows enough that are always ready to receive you.”

  Mr Feltham, in his new guide, however, had held out the prospect of the passage as part of the amusement afforded by the resort, in that, “The passage in the Margate hoy, which, like the grave, levels all distinctions, is frequently so replete with whim, incident and character that it may be considered as a dramatic entertainment on the stage of the ocean.”

  It was as well that I had held out for the private cabin, following Mr Feltham’s advice, although it did involve the week’s notice, for the sight of our fellow passengers assembled on the quayside at Billingsgate did not bode well.

  On one side, a mountainous woman, with fading traces of comeliness, was sitting squarely in an arm-chair, plying a fan, between her husband and a servant who stood with his hat under his arm and his hands in his pockets.

  “An please you Master and Mississ, The Sailor Man has sent word as how the Wessel is ready to swim,” the latter announced.

  The husband, a paunchy tradesman of some sort – a butcher, I imagined from his speech, in old-fashioned dress, stood comforting his wife, saying, “

  “Why my Dove — I am loaded with provisions like a tilt cart on a fair day, and my pockets stick out as if I was just return’d from a City Feast.”

  As if in proof, the heads of two geese hung from his pocket.

  Madam Butcher reproved him, however, with

  “Dont be so Wulgar Mr Dripping — you are now among genteel folks, and must behave yourself — we shall want all the Wickalls on the Woyage depend upon it — bless me how Varm it is, I am all over in a muck.”

  Even they, however, were quite extinguished by the nouveau riche family standing behind them, whose manservant now ran up, saying:

  “Please your honours I have stowd little Master and Miss the Poll-Parrott and Brown Puppy in the Boot of the Carriage – there was no room inside.”

  His mistress, meanwhile had her customary instructions for her husband:

  “What a way you have put on your cravat – now I desire you’ll have none of your City vulgar manners – but behave as becomes the dignity of Sir Philip Fig!”, to which that luminary replied :

  “I don’t know how it is my Lady – but somehow I can’t get rightly into the way of it and all the people fall a laughing.”

  Meanwhile, to his left a man whom I took to be his brother was brandishing an

  “Inventory of Necessaries for the Road: Rum, Wine, Brandy, Tobacco, Ale, Goose Pye, Ham, Chickens, Bread, Beer, Heart Cakes, Hollands, Peppermint Drops, Carroway Comfits. N.B. My Wife’s best Wig in the little Trunk’, and saying

  “Brother Sir Philip you have forgot the Backy Pipes”.

  While all this was going on, Sir Philip’s daughter usefully occupied her time in talking to a soldier.

  “Pon my consciences Miss Fig you will be the admiration of all Margate,” quoth the military man, to which she was contented to reply, with much simpering,

  “Dear Captain Blarney you are pleased to flatter me!”

  The son of the family now coming up with his other sister was sure that -

  “Now father is made a Knight – I’ll astonish the Natives and let them see I can be as much the Tippy as any of them.”

  These sentiments were echoed by the second sister, saying -

  “Yes I think we shall make a little noise in the Town and I’m resolved to find out a Captain, as well as my Sister.”

  All this time a little man stood off to one side with a sketch pad, taking a likeness of the scene, and notes of what was said, and I felt sure that I was witnessing a cartoon in the making.

  With such entertainment as part of the voyage, who could regret the Brighton stagecoach? I quite understood, however, why the experience might not be recommended to persons of delicacy, except by parties hiring the state cabin. In the common cabins, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the sick and the sound, the gentleman and the blackguard are all jumbled together, and though there is much for the humourist to laugh at, there is more to offend the decent and well-bred.

  As may be seen, I had not neglected to prepare myself, mentally, at least, for the journey, and was looking forward to my first sight of a new place.

  Mr Carey’s description, indeed, might well strike one as fulsome, claiming that he does not “know a watering-place that is more calculated to gratify a party on a summer's excursion than Margate and its environs; nor is there one where the Ladies have been so considered, or so accommodated.

  The Bathing-rooms are not only well situated as to their easy access to the machines, but as a pleasant retreat, at a small subscription, where you are furnished with the news of the day, and have a pleasant look-out in the morning over the green ocean,—now a calm, now a breeze; and sometimes presenting itself with all its grandeur in a terrific storm.

  In the evening, parties assemble in the different rooms, and, what is seldom found in other places of the kind, accord in amity, and find an innocent and laudable entertainment for themselves. Each room is generally provided with a piano-forte; and is seldom at a loss for a willing and ingenious hand to display its dexterity, and give it harmony; nor are the vocal powers restrained in those that are possessed of that enviable ability. The harbour is sheltered and defended by the pier, has a fine sand, and a level bottom; so that the bather, unless the wind and the tide be uncommonly high, is seldom annoyed by the turbulency of the waves. The Assembly-room is spacious, and a good object, standing in the centre of the town. The theatre is a royal one, well concerted in respect to size, and proportioned to the place. It is remarkably neat, and seems t
o be well conducted; the performers are better, in point of competition in the gross, than at most watering-places, but are not always so well attended as they sometimes deserve to be.”

  Could such a utopia truly exist upon our shores? I was eager to find out.

  For our bodily comforts, however, I had singularly failed to provide, and it was as well that Mrs Younge and Hannah were with me. While the former oversaw the stowing of our baggage, Hannah set out some cold chicken and a bottle of hock upon the table, and was set to serve us instantly.

  “For we shall be gone in a few minutes, Miss, and then we shall be all at sea, so to speak, and who knows what might go amiss then, with the rolling and the pitching and the rocking about, and the mariners rushing here and there, not to mention them French privateers that we hear about, and shipwrecks and typhoons and such. You had best fortify yourself, Miss, for who knows what we may have to face before we see England again, venturing overseas like this in the middle of a war, too.”

  With such encouragement we could scarce refuse and the poor bird was very soon demolished, along with the hock and the pound cake that accompanied it. Hannah then cleared away, and set to her own bread and cheese, while all the while casting anxious eyes about her.

  Meanwhile the clashes and clatterings all about us bore witness to the moorings being cast off and the sails set, and as we moved smoothly away from the quayside we all felt the same impulse to rush on deck and bid farewell to the shore.

  I fear that the London dockside, when seen from the river, does not recommend itself to lovers of the picturesque, although there was a gentleman standing in the bows with a sketch pad and charcoal taking a view of St Paul’s. I cannot see an artist ever making a romantic painting of the Thames Reach, even though it should have, say, a palace in the background and a great ship of the line sailing in with the sunset behind it.

  For now, however, the wind freshened, and rain threatened, and we were glad enough to make use of our three-guinea’s worth, stuffy and smelly though it was.

  The wind did not abate, however, and very soon we were tossing about in quite an alarming fashion, and I began to regret the cold chicken.

  Once such sensations have begun to make themselves felt, there is only ever one end for the landsman, and I spent the rest of the voyage stretched out upon the cot at the back of the cabin, though not before Mrs Younge had condemned the mattress provided as a nest of fleas, and replaced it with a pair of blankets from her valise. My frequent calls for the bucket which stood in one corner were the only source of amusement left for my companions until we tied up again in Kent, and I cannot but honour them both for the way they preserved me from a watery grave that day.

  At the time, I felt quite otherwise, of course. We had not gone halfway before I had passed from the stage of fearing that I was going to die to the far worse one of fearing that I was going to live, and as I struggled onto the jetty at the end of the voyage I vowed to join the other sheep to be shorn, and return to London by land at the end of our stay, or else live in Margate for the rest of my life.

  Chapter Eighteen:The Marvels of Margate

  The solid, unmoving boards of the landing stage at Margate were the most comfortable things I had ever walked upon after the rigours of the voyage. I could have stood there all day, rejoicing in the security that comes from a complete lack of motion.

  This was not to be, however, and our traps, and ourselves, must all be carted up to Union Crescent. There was, luckily, no shortage of porters, and I positively denied all efforts to make me board any form of mechanical conveyance. I could already feel the sea air doing me good, and the relaxation of the limbs produced by the short walk to our lodgings left me feeling that I might, after all, survive the day.

  We passed through Cecil Square, where Mrs Younge made a great thing out of pointing out the large houses and well-stocked shops. She also pointed out the view of the seafront, but I had had enough, for the time being, of all things marine.

  Union Crescent proved to be as elegant and regular a range of buildings as I remembered seeing anywhere on my – admittedly not very extensive – travels, and the house at which we stopped had the air of being in very good order.

  We were welcomed at the door by our landlady, Mrs Scroggs, who remembered my companion from her last visit.

  “Why, Miss Turner,” she remarked as soon as we were all inside, “how little you have changed since I saw you last!”

  “I have changed,” replied dear Ethalia. “I am Mrs Younge now, you know.”

  “Of course, it all comes back to me now. You were to marry Captain Younge when you left us. How is the dear Captain? Are we to have the pleasure of expecting his arrival soon?”

  “Not unless he should rise from his grave at Corunna, I fear. We were married but a few months, after all.”

  “Oh! Miss Turner, that is to say Mrs Younge, I did not know. Please forgive me, I should never have …”

  “Say no more, Mrs Scroggs. Time heals, as they say, and it was all a long time ago. But I must introduce you to your new guest, to whom I am no more than an appendage. This is Miss Darcy, my patroness, a young lady of very good family in Derbyshire, whose brother will be joining us in a few weeks time.”

  “Honoured to meet you, Miss Darcy, I am sure. William here will take your bags and show you your rooms, and when you are all settled in, perhaps you would do me the honour of joining me in dish of tea, and I can give you some idea of what is doing at Margate these days? There have been all sorts of changes since Miss Turner, that is to say, Mrs Younge was here last.”

  This encounter set the tone for the rest of our stay in Union Crescent. Mr Scroggs was a very friendly, motherly sort of person, capable of taking a great interest in her clients’ (her guests, she called them, to keep up the amiable fiction that she was our hostess and we were not paying her for her services), and a fund of knowledge about all things to do with Margate and with the Isle of Thanet generally.

  I found her familiarity both amusing and comforting. She reminded me of the old cook at Pemberley when I was a little girl. I could not help but wonder how she would strike Fitzwilliam, however.

  In the following few days we explored the place thoroughly. Mrs Younge had been thoroughly coached by our hostess on her previous visit and took delight in pointing out such memorable landmarks as the spot where the Grand Old Duke of York set off for his expedition to Flanders, and where the gallant Duncan landed after his great victory over the Dutch at Camperdown.

  I confess, alas, that one stretch of quayside looked much like another to me, and I took more interest in the new pier that is a-building after the old one was damaged by the winter storms. Its exalted promenade was, according to my guide, a most beautiful walk, and had been universally resorted to when it was in repair, in spite of the exorbitant entry fee of one penny charged.

  The pier being impossible, I found the bathing halls even more interesting. There are seven of them, all conveniently near the harbour, each one with several bathing machines.

  One would have thought that access to such a considerable number of conveyances would be a simple matter, but they are so popular, and so frequented, that one must put one’s name down and wait one’s turn. This, of course, is the real purpose of the halls along the seashore, since while one waits for one’s bathing machine, one has nothing else to do but patronize the stall set up in them selling newspapers, light refreshments and so forth.

  Each hall also has several salt water warm baths, of massive marble, which may be had at any temperature, for a price, of course, if one does not care to wait for the actual sea.

  I thought it all very odd. What was wrong with having the bathing machines directly upon the beach, and why were there not more of them?

  Mrs Younge was loud in her praise for the bathing amenities of her favourite, however.

  ‘I do not know,” she replied on my observing the oddity of these customs, “a watering-place that is more calculated to gratify a party on a summer's
excursion than Margate and its environs; nor is there one where the Ladies have been so considered, or so accommodated. The Bathing-rooms are not only well situated as to their easy access to the machines, but as a pleasant retreat, at a small subscription, where you are furnished with the news of the day, and have a pleasant look-out in the morning over the green ocean,—now a calm, now a breeze; and sometimes presenting itself with all its grandeur in a terrific storm. In the evening, parties assemble in the different rooms, and, what is seldom found in other places of the kind, accord in amity, and find an innocent and laudable entertainment for themselves. Each room is generally provided with a piano-forte; and is seldom at a loss for a willing and ingenious hand to display its dexterity, and give it harmony; nor are the vocal powers restrained in those that are possessed of that enviable ability.”

  Mrs Younge, I might mention, was inordinately proud of her ‘possession of that enviable ability’, although I could not bring myself to envy her.

  The tide was, in any case, out, so we were obliged to postpone further acquaintance with the town’s bathing machines until another day, and pass on to view the other attractions, if any were to be viewed.

  After agreeing to our destination, I had quite alarmed myself by reading Mr Carey’s description, where he says that –

  “There is no proper inlet to the town from any direction whatever; and what they call the High-street is a close contracted thoroughfare; many parts of it filthy, with scarcely a decent habitation, and only serves in the present instance to shew us what their now-flourishing town was in its original state. The street is too narrow for one carriage to pass another in the day, but in the night it is dangerous indeed, being of considerable length, commencing from the London road down to the old Parade, which is nearly the extent of the town.