Netta Syrett

“ And now there won’t be any more magic for ages.”
“That will be your own fault then,” returned Godmother briskly. “With certain books, some of which you know already, as guides, and a certain exercise of imagination which will grow stronger if you practise it, the Present will melt into the Past, and you will be able to call it up at your pleasure. But never forget, Betty, that the Past has made the Present, and when you are grown up, try to make other people reverence the Past of London, and be unwilling, except for very pressing reasons, to destroy what is old and full of memories. ”

“ As Betty followed her, she looked back at Sir Thomas Gresham’s quaint building with its sloping roof, its high middle tower, and the gilded grasshoppers on its pinnacles. It was a very different place indeed from the one she had visited this very morning with all the roar and bustle of modern London round about it, but its purpose was the same. For now, as then, the Royal Exchange is the centre of London’s enormous trade. ”

“ Yet how changed! Instead of a forest of reeds and bushes, here was a stately Palace and a still more stately Abbey. Busy men and women lived, where formerly only birds and water-rats made their homes. The island had, in fact, become a little town, divided from the greater city by massive walls.
“We are facing the Palace now,” said Godmother presently. “Do you see anything about it that looks familiar?”
“Why, surely that’s Westminster Hall?” Betty exclaimed after a moment, pointing to a long steep-roofed building in the midst of towers and pinnacles that were strange to her. ”

“ Oh, Godmother! Just fancy its being here after all these years and years.”
“It is wonderful,” said Godmother. “How many of the thousands of people who every day hurry along the streets near London Bridge either know or remember that deep down under their feet lies a buried Roman city? Every now and then a fragment of it, like this one, is dug up. But there must be much, much more hidden far beneath houses and shops and roads where trams and omnibuses roll and rattle. ”

“ London is changing before our eyes, and too much that is beautiful and interesting is being swept away, often through carelessness and indifference. I hope you’ll be one of the small group of people who help to guard the Past, and use their influence to prevent unnecessary destruction in our wonderful city. And remember that you’ve only just begun to know a tiny fraction of its history. There is enough yet left to learn to last you your lifetime.”
“I know,” said Betty. “Godmother,” she added after a moment, “you said you would read me the rhyme about London bells.” ”

“ Godmother replied, “and neither right costume nor proper scenery makes good acting, you know. If we had time to stay and listen, we should hear this play very well acted. Do you notice how breathlessly quiet the audience is?”
Betty followed her guide reluctantly out of this strange theatre, looking back at the curtain-hung stage, with the young men in their short velvet cloaks, seated on stools close to the players, at the crowd standing in the open space under the blue sky, and at the circular galleries thronged with people. ”

“ Now you see it the home and pleasure-ground of thousands of people whose turn it is to enjoy the sunshine, the blue sky, and all the pleasant things the Romans and the British who lived side by side in this London of ours, enjoyed long ago.”
“This may be a Museum, but it’s an awfully nice one,” declared Betty, as she and Godmother walked back towards the corridor. “It wouldn’t be dull, even without the magic. But that makes it a hundred times more fascinating, of course. Can’t we look at some other things?” ”

“ Godmother replied. “Because all that surrounds us every day is London after the Fire. Many buildings exist now, just as they were put up when the city began to rise from its ashes in the latter part of Charles the Second’s reign.”
“Isn’t there to be any ‘magic’ at all to-day, then?” Betty’s voice was full of disappointment.
“Not just yet, at any rate. We are not going back quite so far into the Past this time. Only, in fact, about a hundred and fifty years—to the middle of the eighteenth century.” ”

“ There was the Roman city, with its fortress and its market-place filled with the British people the Romans had conquered. Then the city of the Middle Ages, inhabited by a different race—the English race—the little city with its gabled houses encircled by fields and woods. Next came the city of Elizabeth’s day, richer and bigger now, with its ships floating up to London Bridge, its beautiful “Chepe” or market-place crowded with prosperous people. ”

“ There will be no one left in London except perhaps a handful of British slaves, and most of them will have to flee to that forest over there, to escape from the murderous people who will overrun this island....”
The people were still passing to and fro upon London Bridge, as Betty gazed about her. The sunlight was still sparkling on the river, and from the fortress came the sound of the tramping feet of the soldiers.
“There’s a little boat just putting off,” said Godmother. “The man in it is going to fish higher up the river. We’ll step in with him. It’s a great advantage to be invisible!” ”

“ The Middle Ages THE LONDON OF DICK WHITTINGTON
All the week, Betty went to a High School, but Saturday was a whole holiday, and greatly to her satisfaction, it was arranged that she should spend her Saturdays with Godmother.
It was just a week since she had visited the London of Roman times, but not till the following Saturday, when she actually saw her Godmother, did the memory of “the magic part” come back to her.
“It’s so exciting to remember the secret directly I see you!” she exclaimed. “How far back are we going to-day? Oh, do let us begin at once, without wasting a single instant.” ”

“ They will see the ruined gardens and orchards of buildings the use of which they can’t even guess. For many, many years London has lain deserted, because on account of the fighting in the country all round, no food could reach it, and all its people have fled. Wondering and afraid, believing, no doubt, all these decaying remains of luxury to be some magic device of demons, those rough warriors will hurry away from the silent city, leaving it to fall into still deeper ruin. ”

“ I think it’s even more interesting than the last time we saw it—in the Middle Ages,” Betty declared, as they stepped again into the boat whose waterman seemed to have been waiting for them. “I should love to stay in Queen Elizabeth’s London for weeks.”
“We’ve only had a glimpse of it,” said Godmother, “but even this glimpse is enough, I hope, to show you that London is full of life and energy in the sixteenth century. Full of great men who love and are proud of England, and have already made her a famous country. ”

“ The people of London call it the Chepe, which is an old English word for market. The Chepe (Cheapside in our day) is the great market-place of London. We needn’t walk to it. Just shut your eyes and wish yourself there. A magic visit such as this has many advantages. One of them is that we needn’t tire ourselves with walking.”
Betty did as she was told, and a second later looked round her.
“Oh, Godmother, what a nice place! But it isn’t a bit like our Cheapside. It’s much wider, for one thing—and of course the houses are all different. ”

“ Betty followed her godmother up some steps from the landing-stage, and sat down beside her on a marble bench behind which ran a yew hedge, shutting off the view of the palace beyond.
“Let me see if I can guess where we are now, if we were back in our own time, I mean,” she began. “I suppose this shady walk would be the part of the Victoria Embankment near Westminster Bridge?”
“That’s about right,” agreed Godmother approvingly. “Right and left of us we should see bridges crossing the river where now we see none at all. For London Bridge is out of sight, and that’s the only one that yet exists. ”

“ Godmother said. “Having seen the Tabard Inn as it looked in the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, you can sweep away in thought, all the railway part of the yard, and see it as it used to be. But I agree with you that except for its memories, Southwark is dreary enough, though even now at the back of this High Street where in ancient times so many processions have passed in and out of London, there are old houses still standing.” ”

“ And she sighed.
“It’s very sad to think of,” she said.
“Yes,” answered Godmother in an understanding voice. “But the life of London still goes on, even though it’s a different life, and Roman London is forgotten.” They were standing by the window of the room, and beyond the garden upon which it looked, in the road outside St. James’s Park, people were walking, children running, and taxicabs and motor-cars swept past in a constant stream.
“When the Romans lived here, all this”—she waved her hand towards the Park and the busy road—“was a dreary swamp, impossible for human existence. ”

“ We’ll sit down in the porch of the Chapel of St. Thomas.”
“This is where we sat before, two hundred years ago, when Richard the Second was king,” murmured Betty.
“And there are the English people still coming and going over London Bridge as almost in the same place they come and go in our own century to-day! People of the same character,—the descendants of those men and women we saw in the fourteenth century, and of these we see now in their doublets and hose, their ruffs and hoops. It’s only their dress that changes after all,” said Godmother, as though speaking to herself. ”

“ They hastened over the bridge, and much more quickly than they could have made the journey in what Betty called un-magic time, found themselves somehow or other seated at a window overlooking the Chepe. The market-place below was gaily decorated and crowded by eager people. Soon cheers announced that the Queen was in sight, and in a moment or two she passed the window from which they were leaning, riding on a white horse covered with splendid trappings. A very handsome young man dressed in white and silver, with a blue velvet cloak flung back from his shoulder, led the horse by the bridle. ”

“ They’ve learnt how to make roads after our famous Roman plan. You can see one of our roads from this corner of the terrace. And how to build houses and ships, and work in metal and do a thousand other things. Some of them have grown rich, and have been educated, so that they are as good scholars now as we are. Already Londinium is a famous port to which foreign merchants come bringing riches. My father says it will some day be a great city, equal to any city in the world.”
“It has become a great city!” exclaimed Betty to herself, remembering the London she knew. ”

“ Betty exclaimed.... “What are these other buildings along the river, Godmother?”
“Some of them are theatres, more or less like the Globe, with pretty names such as the Rose and the Swan. That place some way farther up, where you see a crowd of people and a few roofs, is the famous Paris-Gardens, where poor wretched bears are kept, and baited for the people’s amusement. A horrible so-called sport! But the rich young noblemen enjoy the sight quite as much as the roughs do, and Paris-Gardens is a very fashionable place of amusement.” ”

“ A few wharves and quays stretched along the bank of the river just below. There certainly a busy life went on, for men were loading and unloading boats. Behind the lanes leading down to the river, there was a belt of cultivated land, dotted over with gleaming one-storied dwellings which Godmother said were Roman villas, and beyond them, enclosing all the cultivated land, rose a strong wall with towers at intervals. ”

“ Now Londinium is a Christian city, and we’re teaching the British to be Christians also. It’s rather difficult though, because a great many of them cling to their old gods. Still, most of them at least call themselves Christians.”
“Do you like living in this country—in Britain?” asked Betty after a moment.
“Oh yes. It’s my home. I was born here. But I should like to go to Rome—the city from which my great-grandfather came when he settled here, and built this villa. Perhaps I shall, some day,” he went on dreamily. “My father often says we may have to go back to our own land. ”

“ The monasteries were the homes of the monks, so they were swept away because they represented the old Roman Catholic faith. When Elizabeth came to the throne, London was as full of ruins as it had formerly been full of monasteries. Now, as we shall see, new buildings are everywhere rising on the sites of the old religious houses. But as yet there hasn’t been time to build over all of them. This, for instance,” she pointed to the crumbling walls and broken pillars at which Betty was sadly gazing, “is still nothing but a heap of ruins.” ”