They and I Part 8

"Don't you answer me, you saucy minx! You go straight into the middle of the room, and don't you dare to come out of it till I tell you!"

The difficulty with the artistic house is finding the right people to put into it. In the picture the artistic room never has anybody in it.

There is a strip of art embroidery upon the table, together with a bowl of roses. Upon the ancient high-backed settee lies an item of fancy work, unfinished-just as she left it. In the "study" an open book, face downwards, has been left on a chair. It is the last book he was reading-it has never been disturbed. A pipe of quaint design is cold upon the lintel of the lattice window. No one will ever smoke that pipe again: it must have been difficult to smoke at any time. The sight of the artistic room, as depicted in the furniture catalogue, always brings tears to my eyes. People once inhabited these rooms, read there those old volumes bound in vellum, smoked-or tried to smoke-these impracticable pipes; white hands, that someone maybe had loved to kiss, once fluttered among the folds of these unfinished antimaca.s.sars, or Berlin wool-work slippers, and went away, leaving the things about.

One takes it that the people who once occupied these artistic rooms are now all dead. This was their "Dining-Room." They sat on those artistic chairs. They could hardly have used the dinner service set out upon the Elizabethan dresser, because that would have left the dresser bare: one a.s.sumes they had an extra service for use, or else that they took their meals in the kitchen. The "Entrance Hall" is a singularly chaste apartment. There is no necessity for a door-mat: people with muddy boots, it is to be presumed, were sent round to the back. A riding-cloak, the relic apparently of a highwayman, hangs behind the door. It is the sort of cloak you would expect to find there-a decorative cloak. An umbrella or a waterproof cape would be fatal to the whole effect.

Now and again the ill.u.s.trator of the artistic room will permit a young girl to come and sit there. But she has to be a very carefully selected girl. To begin with, she has got to look and dress as though she had been born at least three hundred years ago. She has got to have that sort of clothes, and she has got to have her hair done just that way.

She has got to look sad; a cheerful girl in the artistic room would jar one's artistic sense. One imagines the artist consulting with the proud possessor of the house.

"You haven't got such a thing as a miserable daughter, have you? Some fairly good-looking girl who has been crossed in love, or is misunderstood. Because if so, you might dress her up in something out of the local museum and send her along. A little thing like that gives verisimilitude to a design."

She must not touch anything. All she may do is to read a book-not really read it, that would suggest too much life and movement: she sits with the book in her lap and gazes into the fire, if it happens to be the dining-room: or out of the window if it happens to be a morning-room, and the architect wishes to call attention to the window-seat. Nothing of the male species, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has ever entered these rooms. I once thought I had found a man who had been allowed into his own "Smoking-Den," but on closer examination it turned out he was only a portrait.

Sometimes one is given "Vistas." Doors stand open, and you can see right away through "The Nook" into the garden. There is never a living soul about the place. The whole family has been sent out for a walk or locked up in the cellars. This strikes you as odd until you come to think the matter out. The modern man and woman is not artistic. I am not artistic-not what I call really artistic. I don't go well with Gobelin tapestry and warming-pans. I feel I don't. Robina is not artistic, not in that sense. I tried her once with a harpsichord I picked up cheap in Wardour Street, and a reproduction of a Roman stool. The thing was an utter failure. A cottage piano, with a photo-frame and a fern upon, it is what the soul cries out for in connection with Robina. d.i.c.k is not artistic. d.i.c.k does not go with peac.o.c.ks' feathers and guitars. I can see d.i.c.k with a single peac.o.c.k's feather at St. Giles's Fair, when the bulldogs are not looking; but the decorative panel of peac.o.c.k's feathers is too much for him. I can imagine him with a banjo-but a guitar decorated with pink ribbons! To begin with he is not dressed for it.

Unless a family be prepared to make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers and to talk blank verse, I don't see how they can expect to be happy living in these fifteenth-century houses. The modern family-the old man in baggy trousers and a frock-coat he could not b.u.t.ton if he tried to; the mother of figure distinctly Victorian; the boys in flannel suits and collars up to their ears; the girls in motor caps-are as incongruous in these mediaeval dwellings as a party of Cook's tourists drinking bottled beer in the streets of Pompeii.

The designer of "The Artistic Home" is right in keeping to still life.

In the artistic home-to paraphrase Dr. Watts-every prospect pleases and only man is inartistic. In the picture, the artistic bedroom, "in apple green, the bedstead of cherry-wood, with a touch of turkey-red throughout the draperies," is charming. It need hardly be said the bed is empty.

Put a man or woman in that cherry-wood bed-I don't care how artistic they may think themselves-the charm would be gone. The really artistic party, one supposes, has a little room behind, where he sleeps and dresses himself. He peeps in at the door of this artistic bedroom, maybe occasionally enters to change the roses.

Imagine the artistic nursery five minutes after the real child had been let loose in it. I know a lady who once spent hundreds of pounds on an artistic nursery. She showed it to her friends with pride. The children were allowed in there on Sunday afternoons. I did an equally silly thing myself not long ago. Lured by a furniture catalogue, I started Robina in a boudoir. I gave it to her as a birthday-present. We have both regretted it ever since. Robina reckons she could have had a bicycle, a diamond bracelet, and a mandoline, and I should have saved money. I did the thing well. I told the furniture people I wanted it just as it stood in the picture: "Design for bedroom and boudoir combined, suitable for young girl, in teak, with sparrow blue hangings." We had everything: the antique fire arrangements that a vestal virgin might possibly have understood; the candlesticks, that were pictures in themselves, until we tried to put candles in them; the book-case and writing-desk combined, that wasn't big enough to write on, and out of which it was impossible to get a book until you had abandoned the idea of writing and had closed the cover; the enclosed washstand, that shut down and looked like an old bureau, with the inevitable bowl of flowers upon it that had to be taken off and put on the floor whenever you wanted to use the thing as a washstand; the toilet-table, with its cunning little gla.s.s, just big enough to see your nose in; the bedstead, hidden away behind the "thinking corner," where the girl couldn't get at it to make it. A prettier room you could not have imagined, till Robina started sleeping in it. I think she tried. Girl friends of hers, to whom she had bragged about it, would drop in and ask to be allowed to see it. Robina would say, "Wait a minute," and would run up and slam the door; and we would hear her for the next half-hour or so rus.h.i.+ng round opening and shutting drawers and dragging things about. By the time it was a boudoir again she was exhausted and irritable. She wants now to give it up to Veronica, but Veronica objects to the position, which is between the bathroom and my study. Her idea is a room more removed, where she would be able to shut herself in and do her work, as she explains, without fear of interruption.

Young Bute told me that a friend of his, a well-to-do young fellow, who lived in Piccadilly, had had the whim to make his flat the reproduction of a Roman villa. There were of course no fires, the rooms were warmed by hot air from the kitchen. They had a cheerless aspect on a November afternoon, and n.o.body knew exactly where to sit. Light was obtained in the evening from Grecian lamps, which made it easy to understand why the ancient Athenians, as a rule, went to bed early. You dined sprawling on a couch. This was no doubt practicable when you took your plate into your hand and fed yourself with your fingers; but with a knife and fork the meal had all the advantages of a hot picnic. You did not feel luxurious or even wicked: you only felt nervous about your clothes. The thing lacked completeness. He could not expect his friends to come to him in Roman togas, and even his own man declined firmly to wear the costume of a Roman slave. The compromise was unsatisfactory, even from the purely pictorial point of view. You cannot be a Roman patrician of the time of Antoninus when you happen to live in Piccadilly at the opening of the twentieth century. All you can do is to make your friends uncomfortable and spoil their dinner for them. Young Bute said that, so far as he was concerned, he would always rather have spent the evening with his little nephews and nieces, playing at horses; it seemed to him a more sensible game.

Young Bute said that, speaking as an architect, he of course admired the ancient masterpieces of his art. He admired the Erechtheum at Athens; but Spurgeon's Tabernacle in the Old Kent Road built upon the same model would have irritated him. For a Grecian temple you wanted Grecian skies and Grecian girls. He said that, even as it was, Westminster Abbey in the season was an eyesore to him. The Dean and Choir in their white surplices pa.s.sed muster, but the congregation in its black frock-coats and Paris hats gave him the same sense of incongruity as would a banquet of barefooted friars in the dining-hall of the Cannon Street Hotel.

It struck me there was sense in what he said. I decided not to mention my idea of carving 1553 above the front-door.

He said he could not understand this pa.s.sion of the modern house-builder for playing at being a Crusader or a Canterbury Pilgrim. A retired Berlin boot-maker of his acquaintance had built himself a miniature Roman Castle near Heidelberg. They played billiards in the dungeon, and let off fireworks on the Kaiser's birthday from the roof of the watch-tower.

Another acquaintance of his, a draper at Holloway, had built himself a moated grange. The moat was supplied from the water-works under special arrangement, and all the electric lights were imitation candles. He had done the thing thoroughly. He had even designed a haunted chamber in blue, and a miniature chapel, which he used as a telephone closet. Young Bute had been invited down there for the shooting in the autumn. He said he could not be sure whether he was doing right or wrong, but his intention was to provide himself with a bow and arrows.

A change was coming over this young man. We had talked on other subjects and he had been shy and deferential. On this matter of bricks and mortar he spoke as one explaining things.

I ventured to say a few words in favour of the Tudor house. The Tudor house, he argued, was a fit and proper residence for the Tudor citizen-for the man whose wife rode behind him on a pack-saddle, who conducted his correspondence by the help of a moss-trooper. The Tudor fireplace was designed for folks to whom coal was unknown, and who left their smoking to their chimneys. A house that looked ridiculous with a motor-car before the door, where the electric bell jarred upon one's sense of fitness every time one heard it, was out of date, he maintained.

"For you, sir," he continued, "a twentieth-century writer, to build yourself a Tudor House would be as absurd as for Ben Jonson to have planned himself a Norman Castle with a torture-chamber underneath the wine-cellar, and the fireplace in the middle of the dining-hall. His fellow cronies of the Mermaid would have thought him stark, staring mad."

There was reason in what he was saying. I decided not to mention my idea of altering the chimneys and fixing up imitation gables, especially as young Bute seemed pleased with the house, which by this time we had reached.

"Now, that is a good house," said young Bute. "That is a house where a man in a frock-coat and trousers can sit down and not feel himself a stranger from another age. It was built for a man who wore a frock-coat and trousers-on weekdays, maybe, gaiters and a shooting-coat. You can enjoy a game of billiards in that house without the feeling that comes to you when playing tennis in the shadow of the Pyramids."

We entered, and I put before him my notions-such of them as I felt he would approve. We were some time about the business, and when we looked at our watches young Bute's last train to town had gone. There still remained much to talk about, and I suggested he should return with me to the cottage and take his luck. I could sleep with d.i.c.k and he could have my room. I told him about the cow, but he said he was a practised sleeper and would be delighted, if I could lend him a night-s.h.i.+rt, and if I thought Miss Robina would not be put out. I a.s.sured him that it would be a good thing for Robina; the unexpected guest would be a useful lesson to her in housekeeping. Besides, as I pointed out to him, it didn't really matter even if Robina were put out.

"Not to you, sir, perhaps," he answered, with a smile. "It is not with you that she will be indignant."

"That will be all right, my boy," I told him; "I take all responsibility."

"And I shall get all the blame," he laughed.

But, as I pointed out to him, it really didn't matter whom Robina blamed.

We talked about women generally on our way back. I told him-impressing upon him there was no need for it to go farther-that I personally had come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with women was to treat them all as children. He agreed it might be a good method, but wanted to know what you did when they treated you as a child.

I know a most delightful couple: they have been married nearly twenty years, and both will a.s.sure you that an angry word has never pa.s.sed between them. He calls her his "Little One," although she must be quite six inches taller than himself, and is never tired of patting her hand or pinching her ear. They asked her once in the drawing-room-so the Little Mother tells me-her recipe for domestic bliss. She said the mistake most women made was taking men too seriously.

"They are just overgrown children, that's all they are, poor dears," she laughed.

There are two kinds of love: there is the love that kneels and looks upward, and the love that looks down and pats. For durability I am prepared to back the latter.

The architect had died out of young Bute; he was again a shy young man during our walk back to the cottage. My hand was on the latch when he stayed me.

"Isn't this the back-door again, sir?" he enquired.

It was the back-door; I had not noticed it.

"Hadn't we better go round to the front, sir, don't you think?" he said.

"It doesn't matter-" I began.

But he had disappeared. So I followed him, and we entered by the front.

Robina was standing by the table, peeling potatoes.

"I have brought Mr. Bute back with me," I explained. "He is going to stop the night."

Robina said: "If ever I go to live in a cottage again it will have one door." She took her potatoes with her and went upstairs.

"I do hope she isn't put out," said young Bute.

"Don't worry yourself," I comforted him. "Of course she isn't put out.

Besides, I don't care if she is. She's got to get used to being put out; it's part of the lesson of life."

I took him upstairs, meaning to show him his bedroom and take my own things out of it. The doors of the two bedrooms were opposite one another. I made a mistake and opened the wrong door. Robina, still peeling potatoes, was sitting on the bed.

I explained we had made a mistake. Robina said it was of no consequence whatever, and, taking the potatoes with her, went downstairs again.

Looking out of the window, I saw her making towards the wood. She was taking the potatoes with her.

"I do wish we hadn't opened the door of the wrong room," groaned young Bute.

"What a worrying chap you are!" I said to him. "Look at the thing from the humorous point of view. It's funny when you come to think of it.

Wherever the poor girl goes, trying to peel her potatoes in peace and quietness, we burst in upon her. What we ought to do now is to take a walk in the wood. It is a pretty wood. We might say we had come to pick wild flowers."

But I could not persuade him. He said he had letters to write, and, if I would allow him, would remain in his room till dinner was ready.

d.i.c.k and Veronica came in a little later. d.i.c.k had been to see Mr. St.

Leonard to arrange about lessons in farming. He said he thought I should like the old man, who wasn't a bit like a farmer. He had brought Veronica back in one of her good moods, she having met there and fallen in love with a donkey. d.i.c.k confided to me that, without committing himself, he had hinted to Veronica that if she would remain good for quite a long while I might be induced to buy it for her. It was a st.u.r.dy little animal, and could be made useful. Anyhow, it would give Veronica an object in life-something to strive for-which was just what she wanted.

He is a thoughtful lad at times, is d.i.c.k.

The dinner was more successful than I had hoped for. Robina gave us melon as a _hors d'uvre_, followed by sardines and a fowl, with potatoes and vegetable marrow. Her cooking surprised me. I had warned young Bute that it might be necessary to regard this dinner rather as a joke than as an evening meal, and was prepared myself to extract amus.e.m.e.nt from it rather than nourishment. My disappointment was agreeable. One can always imagine a comic dinner.