SEAGULLS AND WHTTE COIFFES AT CHELSEA. HATE VER may have
been written about Chelsea, one thing can never yet have been told as it may be told now. Not Holbein himself, not Sir Thomas More, not our old Carlyle can have seen, as we do with wondering eyes, the present aspects of the ancient hamlet. Chelsea has a history of its own and a character not to be overlooked ; from the days when the great chancellor walked in his riverside garden, with Henry VIII. and Holbein among his guests, to those when our own old poet Carlyle (he was surely a poet rather than a philosopher) trod the ancient Chelsea pavements discoursing with his friends, alternately blessing and mining the times and the worlds beyond them. Not one of these patron saints of Chelsea can have seen as we do now, as Henry :limes also eaw before he died (caring and helping to the last), the surrounding marks of heartfelt effort in our midst.
All along the river banks, in the old streets and the modern dwellings, a newly created life is arising, a signal of hope in this terrible present ; we become aware of some patient constancy spreading everywhere, fighting the woes of this abnormal hour. Earnest, merry Sir Thomas More, as Sidney Lee has shown him be us, would have liked to recognize these signs which are all around where was once his home. Not unlike the flights of the birds— of the white gulls which have come of late skimming across the water, or resting on the shores and barges that line the shore—we may also note the entrance of the white-coiffecl nurses who have taken up their silent abode among us and who aro to be seen passing quickly from one to another hospital on various duties and errands; the many children pushed and carried along the terraces may look alternately at the flying birds or the passing figures in their hospital dress.
Men and women are doing their best, the kindly spirit is moving In tho darkness, the signs are with us of outward and visible grace. Take the noble pile of Crosby Hall, brought by a pious enter- prise, stone by stone, to the very spot where the ancient home of the Mores once stood. When Sir Thomas first sold it, in the City as we hear, he received in addition to the stipulated price that well- known fur coat in which he was afterwards brought to the scaffold. This fine hall, once his appurtenance, now stands a place of refuge and comfort for exiled Belgians, where they may bring their pretty children and sweet-looking young mothers and daughters to a place of safety and escape from their terrible foes.
Take again other pleasant dwellings on the Embankment, con- verted into hospitals and depots and stores of help by their owners. A little farther afield is Mulberry Walk, out of Church Street— whether Sir Thomas and the false King, his master, ever paced it together I know not. But boundaries extend from memory to memory, as students of Mr. Blunt's welcome works all know Holbein, who added to the ancient Chelsea church, has left his in- fluence on more than one modern building, such as that one we came upon in Mulberry Walk two days ago. Flags were flying from an open doorway; we passed through the hall and the busy rooms on the ground floor to an inner yard where some of the workers, resting for a few minutes, were sipping their tea in the shade of trees; the group of women in their flapping white caps and working dresses made a pretty picture to behold. Other figures were to be seen up above through open windows ; my own friends, Nora and Mary, from under the trees, came forward to welcome US and, like the ladies in The Pitgrim's Progress, to refresh our spirits and to
e xplain the sights we saw, and the meaning of one and another strange symbol.
Nora and those who work with her, at the surgical appliances of this war workroom, have a special building set apart for making their mechanically adjusted splints and means for saving pain. Helpless limbs are supported, artificial strength is given until nature is able to take up the task once moro, and to give new power to the failing hand or dropping foot. Nora told us with pleasure of one patient in Chelsea Hospital who had been chair-ridden for years and who, thanks to her cunning foot-supporter, is able to walk a little again. Discoveries have been made of late and doctors find that for serious wounds open baths are far more effica- cious than confining bandages. These baths are made to fit the wounded limbs and devised out of papier nnlehe covered with enamel and costing pennies instead of the many shillings required for more elaborate vessels. As I looked round and about I was struck by the quiet absorption everywhere—pasting, moulding, fixing was going on. Some of the workers were wearing their pretty collies over grey hair, there were also young ladles with shining locks, but all seemed equally interested and assiduous, losing no time, for they have much to do. In truth, more help is badly wanted, though it is work suited to all the hours of life and all sorts and conditions of women.
Nora, who is an artist born, has put aside her gifts (as I hear other sculptors are doing) to mould for use and healing rather than for art. Her sister Mary, who has laid her pen away, took up the tale when Nora left us and showed us the many low rooms full of white cloths and bandages and careful working ladies. She told us of the constant applications for surgical requisites which come from every side and which they cannot fully comply with, alas I for they want helping hands no less than helping money. Lady members are gratefully received and taught, and are also asked to pay a shilling a week for their expenses. The house, No. 17, Mulberry Walk, has been lent to them by a soldier during the war, and her Majesty Queen Mary has been there and has pleased them all greatly by her approvaL Anyone following after, as we did, will be certainly Interested and may mark the odd symbols of goodwill to be found In the lists of the sympathizers. We read, for instance, of a thousand hot water bottles, of splints and pine dust, of soap and tow, and besides all we see a note of sphagnum moss, that mystical beneficent natural remedy for the wounds and sufferings of men. It is found in the Scotch moors and in the Irish bogs and the Sussex woodlands ; and for years the Germans, who knew of its power, imported it. Now it is prized by us and gathered carefully, with its roots, and dried and despatched by friends to the ladies in Mulberry Walk for their wounded in the hospitals, bringing its mysterious qualities of mercy and healing hidden in the modest fibres.
I have been moved to write of this particular altar erected in Mulberry Walk, but how many others are there in our midst from which the smoke is tieing upwards?
Axerz TKaCI,JnaAT RITCHIE!.
[Readers of the Spectator who, after reading Lady Ritchie's article, wish to help on the good work at Mulberry Walk—we trust they will be both numerous and generous--should send their subscriptions to "The Honorary Treasurer, 17 Mulberry Walk, Church Street, Chelsea, S.W." Cheques should be made payable to "The Surgical Requisites Association," and crossed "London County and Westminster Bank, Chelsea Branch."—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
