Another day of fear and distress. A change for the worse set in at half-past four this morning, and the physician in attendance at once summoned his colleagues to the Queen's bedside. Sir Thomas Barlow's departure from Osborne was only temporary. He did not, in fact, leave the island. The three physicians held a consultation, and the grave view they took of the patient's case was seen in the bulletin issued at eight o'clock, announcing that the Queen showed signs of diminishing strength and that her condition ╥again assumes a more serious aspect.╙
At noon came the second bulletin of the day, announcing no change for the worse, and containing the statement that the Queen had ╥recognised the several members of the Royal Family that are here.╙
There has been a regular stream of callers at the lodge, and in the course of the day a curious thing happened. Three Indian gentlemen in the bright garb of their country drove up to the lodge and signalled to the driver to go on. The police stopped them, and after a parley turned them back. After a while the party returned, and made, this time, towards Osborne Cottage, where the Duke and Duchess of Connaught reside. Gently but firmly the police again interposed and demanded explanations. The Indians, who spoke good English, explained that they were on a lecturing tour around the world, and that they had cancelled their engagements to come to Osborne and pay a tribute to ╥our Empress.╙ ╥But,╙ they added, ╥your conventionalities seem to stand in the way.╙ They expressed a wish to be allowed at least to see the Queen's Indian secretary, but this gratification was also denied.
The people of Cowes seem stunned by the calamity, which affects them peculiarly. It is not merely that the trade of the town is sure to suffer. They had a real affection for the Queen. They knew how much she desired their patronage. Two or three times a week before her last visit she would drive through the streets of the town. The country generally did not know of these drives. None the less they were taken as a mark of the Queen's confidence in the townsfolk. She always went about unattended. It is feared that the Prince of Wales will not care to keep up the establishment here.
People were talking to-night about the title of the new King. ╥Albert Edward I,╙ suggested somebody. ╥Oh no,╙ was the reply: ╥he will be Edward VII; we don't want King Alberts╙ ╤ a statement that met with general approval.
A later bulletin informed Her Majesty's subjects that she was sinking, and at seven o'clock the tidings reached London that Queen Victoria had passed away. The message was sent over the telephone direct from Osborne to the Foreign Office, and that Department promptly informed Marlborough House, Buckingham Palace, and other centres. Shortly after this copies of the fateful message were posted on the various notice boards. Both at the palace and at Marlborough House a large number of persons read the news, but within an incredibly short time the tidings had become common property through the medium of the press. On all hands bells were tolled, and there were abundant evidences of the general and profound character of the public grief.
╥Death of the Queen!╙ was suddenly called in raucous tones as I descended upon Charing Cross, having only a moment or two before heard the dread news. At that very moment even the bell of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields tolled forth its knell. Hearing it, a working girl beside me, with grief in her voice, explained, ╥Then it's true! Dear old lady! is she really gone?╙ This was the keynote to the feeling in London to-night, as I discovered it in a walk through some of the principal streets. I am anxious not to put it too high, for exaggeration in such a case is foolish; but everywhere there is the same quiet, subdued, almost unexpressed sentiment. The Strand, as the news flashed along it with incredible speed, became filled with a crowd, a large proportion of which had been hastening to the theatres and found itself stopped at the doors. Not a theatre was open to-night. Not a theatre is likely to open until after the funeral, and the seekers after pleasure had turned back, looking sad and almost anxious. There was a very easily recognised seriousness upon the multitudes that passed westward down the Strand. They had for the moment only one topic of conversation, and if one had passed through London without knowing the news one must have demanded why the joy had seemed to leave its people. The universal expression of eye and mouth was all the more impressive as it was so obviously involuntary and without conscious demonstration. Through the whole length of the Strand and Fleet-street an observer listening for it did not hear one laugh. All the glee of a crowded thoroughfare had suddenly ceased. Another smaller matter which struck the imagination was the liking of the crowd to read the news over again. Those who travelled eastwards seemed to go to each newspaper office window, there to peruse again precisely the bulletins which had been already pondered, and they passed on each time in a curiously eloquent silence.
But the most remarkable sight was that to be seen at St. Paul's Cathedral. It is very remarkable that this spot ╤ the heart of the City, as it has been called ╤ seems to be attracting its crowds on great occasions as it was wont to do in the old mediaeval and Elizabethan days. Possibly a more imaginative Churchmanship would have put some purpose into the crowd which stood about the great doors of the London Cathedral, but as it happened ╥Great Paul╙ boomed his knell from out a mass of architectural darkness, unrelieved save by a very feeble light from a gas lamp at the small north-west portal. Yet on the steps was an almost silent waiting crowd. On the bases of the pillars boys sat in unboyish patience, and the people, spread away to Queen Anne's statue, or crossed the road and gathered on the pavement of what is called the Churchyard. There must have been some thousands there when I first passed, and when I returned an hour later they appeared not to have stirred. The faces of such as were on the steps were all turned westward down Ludgate Hill, and at each stroke of the mighty bell they seemed to wake to full intelligence. But why they had come there, why they stood there for hours when there was nothing to see, nothing to learn ╤ only the monotonous and infrequent knell overhead ╤ they would have been greatly puzzled to explain. Some of them did seem to imagine that Dean Gregory would throw wide the doors and chant some penitential psalms. But there was silence save from the belfry, and the lingerers looked sadly into vacancy, the young men among them smoking with serious persistency, and the young women, who formed more than half of this strange congregation, standing almost motionless. And there was another crowd ╤ not so large, of course, and more mobile ╤ about the north door of the Cathedral, at which it seemed to be imagined that some news would be pasted, though none came. On the south side only the ordinary passengers went their way, but during the whole evening the crowd seemed to come up Ludgate Hill, to gather aimlessly where no object was to be attained. In Cheapside the bells of Bow rang out, as in Fleet-street the bell of St. Dunstan's. Here, the same seriousness, the same self-repression, the same absence of laughter, the same subdued tone of conversation were observable.
There was another centre of interest at the Mansion House. I reached this neighbourhood at the very moment when, as I judge, the restaurants and cafes were sending forth their bevies of waitresses to their homes. They had all heard the news, but it did not suffice them. They all rushed to buy the papers which were being thrust on them by the hawkers of Lombard-street. They came on towards the Mansion House, reading, but hardly talking at all. It was strange to note their comparative silence. And when they came to the Lord Mayor's residence they were not content with their news. They must see it posted in front of his home.
The crowd at this point was again great, but the police had a very easy task in keeping it from too great congestion. Born of the sadness of the occasion, there was an ╥obligingness╙ on the part of everybody ╤ a silent submission. Here, too, the exclamations which one heard were all the same kind, nothing violent or exaggerated, not to say hysterical, nothing even loud ╤ ╥I am sorry!╙ or ╥She's been a good Queen!╙ or, ╥Ah! she felt the war too much!╙ or, ╥Didn't she do splendidly for her soldiers!╙ or (to take one saying which I overheard), ╥What a pity she can't know how sorry we are ╤ she'd have been glad to know we were so sorry!╙ ╤ a very true thing.
