iam writing these notes on tuesday, november twenty-eighth, very close to a grate fire in a pretty little sitting-room in an english country house about twenty-five miles from london, and i am very chilly.
we reached this place by some winding road, inscrutable in the night, and i wondered keenly what sort of an atmosphere it would have. the english suburban or country home of the better class has always been a concrete thought to me—rather charming on the whole. a carriage brought us, with all the bags and trunks carefully looked after (in england you always keep your luggage with you), and we were met in the hall by the maid who took our coats and hats and brought us something to drink. there was a small fire glowing in the fireplace in the entrance hall, but it was so small—cheerful though it was—that i wondered why barfleur had taken all the trouble to send a wireless from the sea to have it there. it seems it is a custom, in so far as his house is concerned, not to have it. but having heard something of english fires and english ideas of warmth, i was not greatly surprised.
“i am going to be cold,” i said to myself, at once. “i know it. the atmosphere is going to be cold and raw and i am going to suffer greatly. it will be the devil and all to write.”
i fancy this is a very fair and pretty example of the average country home near london, and it certainly lacks none of the appointments which might be considered48 worthy of a comfortable home; but it is as cold as a sepulcher, and i can’t understand the evoluted system of procedure which has brought about any such uncomfortable state and maintains it as satisfactory. these britons are actually warm when the temperature in the room is somewhere between forty-five and fifty and they go about opening doors and windows with the idea that the rooms need additional airing. they build you small, weak coal fires in large, handsome fireplaces, and then if the four or five coals huddled together are managing to keep themselves warm by glowing, they tell you that everything is all right (or stroll about, at least, looking as though it were). doors are left open; the casement windows flung out, everything done to give the place air and draughtiness.
“now,” said my host, with his usual directness of speech, as i stood with my back to the hall fireplace, “i think it is best that you should go to bed at once and get a good night’s rest. in the morning you shall have your breakfast at whatever hour you say. your bath will be brought you a half or three-quarters of an hour before you appear at table, so that you will have ample time to shave and dress. i shall be here until eleven-fifteen to see how you are getting along, after which i shall go to the city. you shall have a table here, or wherever you like, and the maid will serve your luncheon punctually at two o’clock. at half past four your tea will be brought to you, in case you are here. in the evening we dine at seven-thirty. i shall be down on the five fifty-two train.”
so he proceeded definitely to lay out my life for me and i had to smile. “that vast established order which is england,” i thought again. he accompanied me to my chamber door, or rather to the foot of the stairs. there he wished me pleasant dreams. “and remember,”49 he cautioned me with the emphasis of one who has forgotten something of great consequence, “this is most important. whatever you do, don’t forget to put out your boots for the maid to take and have blacked. otherwise you will disrupt the whole social procedure of england.”
it is curious—this feeling of being quite alone for the first time in a strange land. i began to unpack my bags, solemnly thinking of new york. presently i went to the window and looked out. one or two small lights burned afar off. i undressed and got into bed, feeling anything but sleepy. i lay and watched the fire flickering on the hearth. so this was really england, and here i was at last—a fact absolutely of no significance to any one else in the world, but very important to me. an old, old dream come true! and it had passed so oddly—the trip—so almost unconsciously, as it were. we make a great fuss, i thought, about the past and the future, but the actual moment is so often without meaning. finally, after hearing a rooster crow and thinking of hamlet’s father—his ghost—and the chill that invests the thought of cock-crow in that tragedy, i slept.
morning came and with it a knocking on the door. i called, “come in.” in came the maid, neat, cleanly, rosy-cheeked, bringing a large tin basin—very much wider than an american tub but not so deep—a large water can, full of hot water, towels and the like. she put the tub and water can down, drew a towel rack from the wall nearby, spread out the towels and left.
i did not hear her take the boots, but when i went to the door they were gone. in the afternoon they were back again, nice and bright. i speculated on all this as an interesting demonstration of english life. barfleur is not so amazingly well-to-do, but he has all these things.50 it struck me as pleasing, soothing, orderly—quite the same thing i had been seeing on the train and the ship. it was all a part of that interesting national system which i had been hearing so much about.
at breakfast it was quite the same—a most orderly meal. barfleur was there to breakfast with me and see that i was started right. his face was smiling. how did i like it? was i comfortable? had i slept well? had i slept very well? it was bad weather, but i would rather have to expect that at this season of the year.
i can see his smiling face—a little cynical and disillusioned—get some faint revival of his own native interest in england in my surprise, curiosity and interest. the room was cold, but he did not seem to think so. no, no, no, it was very comfortable. i was simply not acclimated yet. i would get used to it.
this house was charming, i thought, and here at breakfast i was introduced to the children. berenice mary barfleur, the only girl and the eldest child, looked to me at first a little pale and thin—quite peaked, in fact—but afterwards i found her not to be so—merely a temperamental objection on my part to a type which afterwards seemed to me very attractive. she was a decidedly wise, high-spoken, intellectual and cynical little maid. although only eleven years of age she conversed with the air, the manner and the words of a woman of twenty.
“oh, yes. amáyreeka! is that a nice place? do you like it?”
i cannot in the least way convey the touch of lofty, well-bred feeling it had—quite the air and sound of a woman of twenty-five or thirty schooled in all the niceties of polite speech. “what a child,” i thought. “she talks as though she were affected, but i can see that she is not.” quite different she seemed from what any51 american child could be—less vigorous, more intellectual, more spiritual; perhaps not so forceful but probably infinitely more subtle. she looked delicate, remote, burne-jonesy—far removed from the more commonplace school of force we know—and i think i like our type better. i smiled at her and she seemed friendly enough, but there was none of that running forward and greeting people which is an average middle-class american habit. she was too well bred. i learned afterward, from a remark dropped at table by her concerning american children, that it was considered bad form. “american children are the kind that run around hotel foyers with big bows on their hair and speak to people,” was the substance of it. i saw at once how bad american children were.
well, then came the eldest boy, percy franklin barfleur, who reminded me, at first glance, of that american caricature type—dear to the newspaper cartoonist—of little johnnie bostonbeans. here he was—“glawses,” inquiring eyes, a bulging forehead, a learned air; and all at ten years, and somewhat undersized for his age—a clever child; sincere, apparently; rather earnest; eager to know, full of the light of youthful understanding. like his sister, his manners were quite perfect but unstudied. he smiled and replied, “quite well, thank you,” to my amused inquiries after him. i could see he was bright and thoughtful, but the unconscious (though, to me, affected) quality of the english voice amused me here again. then came charles gerard barfleur, and james herbert barfleur, who impressed me in quite the same way as the others. they were nice, orderly children but english, oh, so english!
it was while walking in the garden after breakfast that i encountered james herbert barfleur, the youngest; but, in the confusion of meeting people generally, i did not52 recognize him. he was outside the coach house, where are the rooms of the gardener, and where my room is.
“and which little barfleur might this be?” i asked genially, in that patronizing way we have with children.
“james herbert barfleur,” he replied, with a gravity of pronunciation which quite took my breath away. we are not used to this formal dignity of approach in children of so very few years in america. this lad was only five years of age and he was talking to me in the educated voice of one of fifteen or sixteen. i stared, of course.
“you don’t tell me,” i replied. “and what is your sister’s name, again?”
“berenice mary barfleur,” he replied.
“dear, dear, dear,” i sighed. “now what do you know about that?”
of course such a wild piece of american slang as that had no significance to him whatsoever. it fell on his ears without meaning.
“i don’t know,” he replied, interested in some fixture he was fastening to a toy bath tub.
“isn’t that a fine little bath tub you have,” i ventured, eager to continue the conversation because of its novelty.
“it’s a nice little bawth,” he went on, “but i wouldn’t call it a tub.”
i really did not know how to reply to this last, it took me so by surprise;—a child of five, in little breeches scarcely larger than my two hands, making this fine distinction. “we surely live and learn,” i thought, and went on my way smiling.
this house interested me from so many other points of view, being particularly english and new, that i was never weary of investigating it. i had a conversation with the gardener one morning concerning his duties and found that he had an exact schedule of procedure53 which covered every day in the year. first, i believe, he got hold of the boots, delivered to him by the maid, and did those; and then he brought up his coal and wood and built the fires; and then he had some steps and paths to look after; and then some errands to do, i forget what. there was the riding pony to curry and saddle, the stable to clean—oh, quite a long list of things which he did over and over, day after day. he talked with such an air of responsibility, as so many english servants do, that i was led to reflect upon the reliability of english servants in general; and he dropped his h’s where they occurred, of course, and added them where they shouldn’t have been. he told me how much he received, how much he had received, how he managed to live on it, how shiftless and irresponsible some people were.
“they don’t know ’ow to get along, sir,” he informed me with the same solemn air of responsibility. “they just doesn’t know ’ow to manige, sir, i tyke it; some people doesn’t, sir. they gets sixteen or highteen shillin’s, the same as me, sir, but hawfter they goes and buys five or six g’uns (i thought he said guns—he actually said gallons) o’ beer in the week, there hain’t much left fer other things, is there, sir? now that’s no wy, sir, is it, sir? i hawsk you.”
i had to smile at the rural accent. he was so simple minded—so innocent, apparently. every one called him wilkins—not mr. wilkins (as his colleagues might in america) or john or jack or some sobriquet, but just wilkins. he was wilkins to every one—the master, the maid, the children. the maid was dora to every one, and the nurse, nana. it was all interesting to me because it was so utterly new.
and then this landscape round about; the feel of the country was refreshing. i knew absolutely nothing about it, and yet i could see and feel that we were in a54 region of comfortable suburban life. i could hear the popping of guns all day long, here—and thereabouts—this being the open season for shooting, not hunting, as my host informed me; there was no such thing as hunting hereabouts. i could see men strolling here and there together, guns under their arms, plaid caps on their heads, in knee breeches, and leather leggings. i could see, from my writing desk in the drawing-room window, clever-riding english girls bounding by on light-moving horses, and in my limited walks i saw plenty of comfortable-looking country places—suburban homes. i was told by a friend of mine that this was rather a pleasant country section, but that i might see considerable of the same thing anywhere about london at this distance.
“dora” the maid interested me very much. she was so quiet, so silent and so pretty. the door would open, any time during the day when i was writing, and in she would come to look after the fire, to open or close the windows, to draw the curtains, light the candles and serve the tea, or to call me to luncheon or dinner. usually i ate my luncheon and drank my four-o’clock tea alone. i ate my evening meal all alone once. it made no difference—my eating alone. the service was quite the same; the same candles were lighted—several brackets on different parts of the table; the fire built in the dining-room. there were four or five courses and wine. dora stood behind me watching me eat in silence, and i confess i felt very queer. it was all so solemn, so stately. i felt like some old gray baron or bachelor shut away from the world and given to contemplating the follies of his youth. when through with nuts and wine—the final glass of port—it was the custom of the house to retire to the drawing-room and drink the small cup of black coffee which was served there. and on this night, although i was quite alone, it was the same. the coffee55 was served just as promptly and dignifiedly as though there were eight or ten present. it interested me greatly, all of it, and pleased me more than i can say.
personally i shall always be glad that i saw some rural aspects of england first, for they are the most characterful and, to me, significant. london is an amazing city and thoroughly english, but the rural districts are more suggestive. in what respects do the people of one country differ from those of another, since they eat, sleep, rise, dress, go to work, return, love, hate, and aspire alike? in little—dynamically, mechanically speaking. but temperamentally, emotionally, spiritually and even materially they differ in almost every way. england is a mood, i take it, a combination of dull colors and atmosphere. it expresses heaven only knows what feeling for order, stability, uniformity, homeliness, simplicity. it is highly individual—more so almost than italy, france or germany. it is vital—and yet vital in an intellectual way only. you would say off-hand, sensing the feel of the air, that england is all mind with convictions, prejudices, notions, poetic longings terribly emphasized. the most egotistic nation in the world because, perhaps, the most forcefully intellectual.
how different is the very atmosphere of it from america. the great open common about this house smacked of english individuality, leisure, order, stratification—anything you will. the atmosphere was mistily damp, the sun at best a golden haze. all the bare trees were covered with a thin coating of almost spring-green moss. the ground was springy, dewy. rooks were in the sky, the trees. little red houses in the valleys, with combination flues done in quaint individual chimney pots send upward soft spirals of blue smoke. laborers, their earth-colored trousers strapped just below the knees by a small leather strap, appeared ever and anon; housemaids,56 spick and span, with black dresses, white aprons, white laces in their hair, becoming streamers of linen made into large trig bows at their backs, appeared at some door or some window of almost every home. the sun glints into such orderly, well-dressed windows; the fields suspire such dewy fragrances. you can encounter hills of sheep, creaking wains, open common land of gorse and wild berries. my little master, smartly clad, dashes by on a pony; my young mistress looks becomingly gay and superior on a shetland or a cob. a four-year-old has a long-eared white donkey to ride. that is england.
how shall it be said—how described? it is so delicate, so remote, so refined, so smooth, a pleasant land of great verse and great thought.
