To London Town

To London Town by Arthur Morrison

Arthur Morrison's "To London Town" opens in Epping Forest, where the old butterfly-hunter and former postman David May roams Wormleyton Pits and Genesis Slade with his crippled granddaughter Bessy, who reads her tattered copy of "The Sicilian Romance" while he hunts moths and caterpillars to sell in London. They live in a forest cottage with Bessy's mother, the widow Nan May, and her brother Johnny. That evening Uncle Isaac (Mr. Mundy) visits with his blustering, genteel-mannered friend Mr. Henry Butson, an unemployed engineer estranged from his prosperous relations. The family frets over what trade fourteen-year-old Johnny should learn, since the forest offers little but bee-keeping or the post office, and old May compiles a long list of London trades from a borrowed Directory. Weeks later, gathering sloes with Bessy, Johnny separates from his grandfather, who goes to search Wormleyton Pits for caterpillars and never returns whole. Found staggering and delirious by Bessy's brother and the forest keeper Bob Smallpiece, the old man dies that night of a fractured skull, apparently from a fall in the pits. He is buried in the churchyard; Uncle Isaac attends but contributes little practical help. Nan May settles the modest estate herself, selling the insect collection for forty pounds, and since no one will buy the cottage, she resolves to open a chandler's shop in Harbour Lane, Blackwall, near the docks where her late husband once worked. The family's cart-journey into London is described at length, contrasting the fading forest with London's spreading brickfields and grime. In Harbour Lane, landlord Mr. Dunkin supplies stock at a profit to himself, and the new shop struggles badly at first, selling almost nothing beyond halfpenny items, while Uncle Isaac's visits consume what little food there is. Nan May takes Johnny to Maidment and Hurst's engineering works, the firm where his father died, and secures him an apprenticeship under the gruff foreman Cottam; Johnny is befriended by the shy, lanky fitter Long Hicks, who mentors him in trade and encourages him to study for engineering certificates. Trade at the shop turns when a new workmen's gate opens opposite, and Nan May's cooked bacon and general provisions become popular with the yard's laborers; the business grows steadily prosperous. Uncle Isaac, drawn back by good fortune, resumes his visits and his rhetoric about "Enterprise." Meanwhile Bob Smallpiece, who has long entertained quiet hopes of marrying Nan, visits London after his mother's death and lets the forest cottage to a woodman, but finds Nan now a comfortable tradeswoman and hesitates, ultimately leaving without declaring himself. Unknown to Johnny and Bessy, their mother has been meeting Mr. Butson, who has fallen into poverty and taken to loitering by the docks. Uncle Isaac reintroduces him to the shop, where Nan feeds and pities him. During a forest excursion by Johnny and Bessy to revisit old haunts (Staple Hill, Debden Slade, Monk Wood, and their grandfather's grave), Nan secretly marries Butson, revealing it only on their return, to the children's shock and dismay. Butson quickly asserts himself as master of the house, idling by day, drinking and courting fashionable West End amusements, and living off Nan's earnings while doing no work. He picks a quarrel with Uncle Isaac over free suppers and drives him off, then begins mistreating Bessy, burning her cherished books and striking her. Johnny, now a strong young apprentice, catches Butson abusing Bessy, beats him back with a poker, and threatens him with worse if he touches her again, forcing an uneasy truce in which Butson avoids the household more and more. Johnny continues his engineering training, encouraged by Long Hicks, attending evening classes at an Institute for drawing and boxing. There he again encounters the girl he once saw searching for a lost, ill lady on a dark morning near the docks, whom he had glimpsed once or twice since; he recognizes her as grown into womanhood, and finds himself increasingly drawn to her. The narrative breaks off here, mid-sentence, as Johnny is reflecting on his growing feelings for her, before any further development of this relationship or resolution of the Butson situation is given in the text provided.

By Arthur Morrison · First published 1893 · Genre: Novel, Historical fiction, Social realism · 36 chapters · 73,647 words

First lines

THE afternoon had slumbered in the sun, but now the August air freshened with an awakening breath, and Epping Thicks stirred and whispered through a myriad leaves. Far away beyond the heaving greenwoods distant clouds floated flat on the upper air, and a richer gold grew over the hills as the day went westward. This way and that, between and about trees and undergrowth, an indistinct path went straggling by easy grades to the lower ground by Wormleyton Pits; an errant path whose every bend gave choice of green passes toward banks of heather and bracken. It was by this way that an old man and a crippled child had reached the Pits. He was a small old man, white-haired, and a trifle bent; but he went his way with a sturdy tread, satchel at side and butterfly-net in hand. As for the child, she too went sturdily enough, but she hung from a crutch by the right shoulder, and she moved with a jog and a swing. The hand that gripped the crutch gripped also a little bunch of meadowsweet, and the other clasped tight against her pinafore a tattered old book that would else have fallen to pieces.

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London · city · life · drama · social · issues · poverty · inequality · class · status · conflict · relationships

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