AN INCONGRUOUS BIT OF HOUSEBOATING
By this time, we were becoming anxious about the lateness of the
season. Of course it was only through some mistake that we were getting
all those fine warm days in December. Perhaps Nature had not had her
weather eye open when Father Time wet his thumb and turned over to the
last page of the calendar. But now, there was something in the look of
the sky and in the feel of the air to make us fearful that the mix-up
of the seasons had been discovered, and that winter was being prodded
to the front.
Still we lingered in Eppes Creek, and soon we could not do otherwise
than linger; for we wakened one morning to find the stream frozen over,
and Gadabout presenting the incongruous spectacle of a houseboat fast
in the ice.
All that day and the next the coldness held; and the ice and the tide
battled along the creek with crackings and roarings and, now and then,
reports like pistol shots. This surely was strange houseboating. It was
a serious matter too. We knew that we might be held in the grip of the
ice indefinitely. We did not care to spend the winter in Eppes Creek;
nor could we abandon our boat there.
Throwing on our heavy wraps and trying to throw off our heavy spirits,
we went above and paced the deck. In mockery our flags rippled under
the northwest wind; from our flower-boxes, leafless, shrivelled little
arms were held up to us; while our bright striped awning, with all its
associations of sunshine and summer-time, was close furled and frozen
stiff and hung with icicles.
We were surprised enough when the weather suddenly changed again, and
the bright, warm sun set up such a thawing as soon sent the ice out of
the creek and our anxieties with it. But no time was to be lost in
getting away from that beautiful, treacherous stream. We should make
one more visit to Shirley and then head again up river. But that last
visit should be a quite conventional one; we should run the houseboat
around to the regular steamboat pier in front of the old manor-house.
It was a warm, hazy afternoon down in Eppes Creek when we untied our
ropes from the trees (cast them off, we ought to say), and Gadabout
pulled her nose from the reedy bank and slowly backed out into the
stream. She was obeying every turn of the steering-wheel perfectly (as
indeed she always did except when the mischievous wind put notions into
her head); and it was not her fault at all when her bow swung round
under the tree that leaned out over the water and almost knocked her
little chimney off. We dropped down the stream and passed out into the
river where everything was softened and beautified by the light fog.
Skirting the low northern shore, we looked across the river at the high
southern one where, through the mist, we could see the town of City
Point and the bold promontory that marked where the Appomattox was
flowing into the James. Upon the tip of the promontory was the home of
the Eppes family, "Appomattox." While the present house is not a
colonial one, the estate is one of the oldest in the country.
Now, just ahead of us was the Shirley pier on one side of the river and
the village of Bermuda Hundred on the other. We headed first for the
village, our intention being to get some supplies there.
We could not see much of Bermuda Hundred, perhaps because there was not
much to see. It consists principally of age, having been founded only
four years after the settlement of James Towne. Still, we let the
sailor go ashore for butter and eggs, trusting that both would be as
modern as possible. Our supplies aboard, Gadabout quickly carried us
across the river and landed us at Shirley.
[Illustration: THE KITCHEN BUILDING, FIFTY YARDS FROM THE MANOR-HOUSE.]
In that last visit to the old home, we went across the quadrangle and
into the kitchen building, with its cook-room on one side of the hall
and its bake-room on the other. Of course most of the colonial kitchen
appointments had long since disappeared; but we were glad to see, in
the stone-paved bake-room, the old-time brick ovens. With their
cavernous depths, they were quite an object lesson in early Virginia
hospitality.
And can any modern ranges bake quite as perfectly as did those colonial
brick ovens? After a fire of oven-wood had flamed for hours in one of
those brick chambers, and at last the iron door had been opened and the
ashes swept out, the heated interior was ready to receive the meats and
breads and pastry, and to bake them "to a turn."
When, in the restoration of Mount Vernon, the kitchen was reached,
recourse was had to Shirley's kitchen. Drawings were made of an unusual
colonial table, of a pair of andirons with hooks for spits to rest on,
and of several other old-time cookery appointments; and, from these
drawings, were constructed the duplicates that are now in the Mount
Vernon kitchen.
It was on our way from the kitchen to the mansion that we came upon
another visitor to Shirley. She was short and round and black and
smiling and "feelin' tol'ble, thank you, ma'am." This, we learned, was
Aunt Patsy. She had "jes heard dat Miss Marion done come home"; and so,
arrayed in her best clothes including a spotless checked apron, she had
come to "de gre't house" to pay her respects to Mrs. Oliver.
Drawn out somewhat for our benefit, she gave her views upon the subject
of matrimony.
"I been married five times," she said. We were not particularly
surprised at that; but were scarcely prepared for the added statement,
"an' I done had two husban's."
However, no one could fail to understand Aunt Patsy's position, and to
heartily agree with her, when she came to explain her marital paradox.
"De way 'tis is dis way," she said. "What I calls a _husban_' is one
dat goes out, he do, an' gethahs up" (here, a sweeping gesture with the
apron, suggestive of lavish ingathering), "gethahs up things an' brings
'em in to me. But what I calls _havin' a man aroun'_ is whar he sets by
de fiah and smokes he pipe, while I goes out an' wuks an' brings things
home, an' he eats what I gives him. An' dat's how come I been married
five times, an' I done had two husban's."
[Illustration: BRICK OVEN IN THE BAKE-ROOM.]
Before the old oak chest was opened for us, that day at Shirley, we
knew that this colonial home was rich in antique silver. Yet, the
family speak of the many pieces as "remnants," because of the still
greater number lost at the time of the war. The plate was sent for
safe-keeping to a man in Richmond who was afterward able to account for
but a small part of it. Evidently, the Hills and the Carters went far
in following the old colonial custom of investing in household silver.
And as an investment the purchase of this ware was largely regarded in
those days; family plate being deemed one of the best forms in which to
hold surplus wealth.
Different periods are represented in the old pieces yet remaining at
Shirley. There are the graceful, classic types of the days of the
Georges; the earlier ornate, rococo forms; and the yet earlier massive
styles of the time of Queen Anne and long before. Among the most
ancient pieces, are heavy tankards that remind one of the long ago,
when such great communal cups went round from merry lip to merry
lip--microbes all unknown. The numerous spoons too speak of the time
when there were no forks to share their labours. Most of the silver
remaining to-day is engraved with the coat of arms of the Carters.
Suggestive of the days when colonial belles were toasted about
Shirley's table, are the old punch bowl and the punch strainer and the
wine coasters; though a more noteworthy object, having the same
associations, is an antique mahogany wine chest with many of the
original cut glass bottles still in its compartments.
[Illustration: SOME NOTEWORTHY PIECES OF OLD SHIRLEY PLATE.]
And looking at Shirley's old silver in Shirley's old dining-room, we
thought of the lavish colonial entertainments in which both had played
their part. What hospitable places were those early planters' homes! As
courts, assemblies, races, funerals, weddings, and festivals took the
people up and down the country, they found few inns; but, instead, at
every great plantation, wide-spreading roofs and ever-open doors. The
spirit of welcome even stood at the gates and laid hands upon the
passing traveller, drawing him up the shady avenues and into the
hospitable homes.
In the days of the colonial Carters (who, through a complicated network
of intermarriages, were cousins to all the rest of Virginia), Shirley
must often have been full to overflowing.
And, along with our thoughts of Shirley's hospitality, came the
recollection of a pretty story that had been told to us one day at
Brandon by Miss Mary Lee, daughter of General Robert E. Lee. It was a
story of one of the merry, old-time gatherings about Charles Carter's
long table in the Shirley dining-room. Among the guests was a dashing
young cavalry officer who had won fame and the rank of general in the
Revolutionary War; and who, in his unsatisfied military ardour, was
contemplating joining the Revolutionary Army of France. But just now,
he was contemplating only his host and his dinner.
Suddenly, he became aware of a flushed and charming maiden in distress.
She had lifted a great cut glass dish filled with strawberries, and it
was more than her little hands could hold. She strove to avert a crash;
and, just in time, the gallant young General caught the appealing look
from the dark eyes and the toppling dish from the trembling hands. But
in saving the bowl and the berries, he lost his heart.
And the maiden was Anne Hill Carter, daughter of the genial host; and
the young General was "Light Horse Harry" Lee. The dreams of further
glory on French battlefields were abandoned; and there was another
feast at Shirley when bridal roses of June were in bloom. The young
people went to live at Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees; and
there was born their famous son, Robert E. Lee.
As Shirley's old dining-room thus brought to our minds that greatest
Virginian of our day, so it brought to mind the greatest Virginian of
all days; for, even as we looked at silver and thought of love stories,
a life-size portrait of George Washington, by Charles Wilson Peale,
stood looking down upon us from the panelled wall.
[Illustration: PEALE'S PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.]
It is a noted and invaluable canvas that hangs there at Shirley, and it
is doubtless a good likeness of the Father of our Country; but it is
not just the George Washington that most of us have in our mind's eye.
When the average American thinks of hatchets and cherry trees and
abnormal truthfulness, the face that rises before him is that benign
and fatherly one that he has seen a thousand times in the popular
reproductions of the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Just as for
generations only the good has been told of George Washington, so has
this handsomest picture (doubtless a trifle flattering) always been the
popular one.
However, in this day, when the ideal George Washington of story is
being ruthlessly brushed aside in the search for the real
flesh-and-blood man, any canvas also that has idealized him is somewhat
in jeopardy.
It is well that the Washington of Sparks and of Irving and of Stuart
should be superseded by the truer Washington of Mitchell and of Ford
and of Peale; but the result will be that, for a while, the country
will scarcely recognize its own father.
Always at Shirley our interest came back to the old colonial hall. Of
course, to get the good of it, one had to set one's eyes so as to throw
out of focus many marks of modernism; but that adjustment would almost
come of itself with a little study of quaint transoms, or of ancient
hatchments, or, above all, of the time-worn stairway.
Why is it that the spirit of the long-ago so clings about an old
stairway? Why should the empty stair seem to remember so much, to
suggest so much, of a life that came to it only in fitful passings and
that left nothing of itself behind?
There were no signs of that long by-gone life upon Shirley's stairway,
save for a dimming of the old rail where countless hands--strong,
feeble, fair--had lightly rested or, more helpless, clung; and save for
that worn trail of the generations that followed up the dull, dark
treads. But even these had much to tell of the passings for nearly two
centuries and a half up and down this household highway: of the
masterful tread of spur-shod boots, the dancing of the belle's
slim-slippered feet, the pompous double steps of bumpy baby shoes, the
gouty stump of old grandsire, and the faithful shamble of the black boy
at his heels.
That day (regretfully our last in this colonial home) not only the
stairway but all of the old house seemed inclined to become
reminiscent. Nautica noticed this in the quiet drawing-room that would
keep bringing up by-gone times, and, she insisted, by-gone people too.
In the great hall, even the Commodore felt the mood of old Shirley and
the presence of a life that all seemed natural enough, but that must
have come a good ways out of the past.
On the staircase, despite the dim light over there (or because of it),
one could even catch sight of a shadowy old-time company.
There were stately figures passing up and down: the old lords of the
wilderness in velvet coats and huge wigs, and ladies of the wilderness
too in rich brocades and laced stomachers. There were many slender and
youthful figures. Charmingly odd and quaint were the merry groups of
girls, catching and swaying upon the shadowy stair; dainty ruffles
peeping through the balusters; laughing faces bending above the dark,
old rail. And fine indeed were the gallants that did them homage; those
young colonials of bright velvets and flowered waistcoats and lace
ruffles and powdered periwigs.
Now, from the stairway the old-time life spread throughout the old-time
home. Shirley was living over again some merry-making of colonial days.
That was the Governor that just passed with the glint of gold lace and
the glint of gold snuff-box; and that, a councillor's lady that rustled
by in stiff silks, her feet in gold-heeled slippers and her powdered
head dressed "Dutch." And quite as fine and quite as quaint were the
ladies that followed in their gay flowered "sacques" looped back from
bright petticoats and point lace aprons.
It was all as London-like as might be: rich velvets and brocades,
wide-hooped skirts and stiff stomachers, laced coats and embroidered
waistcoats, broad tuckers and Mechlin ruffles, high-heeled shoes and
handsome buckles, powdered wigs and powdered puffs, and crescent beauty
patches.
Evidently, by colonial time, twilight was coming on; for now the
fragrant bayberry candles were lighted. There was the faint tinkle of a
harpsichord. Dim figures moved in the stately minuet; their curtsies,
punctiliously in keeping with the last word from London, were "slow and
low."
Little groups gathered about the card tables, where fresh candles and
ivory counters were waiting. Lovers found their way to deep
window-seats; and lovers of yet another sort to brimming glasses and
colonial toasts, and perhaps to wigs awry.
It was the old-time Shirley, the strange, incongruous Shirley that was
a bright bit of English manor life within; and, without, wilderness and
savages and tobacco-fields and Africans. In from the life of the old
messuage, came a touch of the barbaric; weird minor songs that belonged
with the hot throb of the African tom-tom floated in through the deep
windows, and strangely mingled with the thin tinkle of the harpsichord
and the tender strains of an old English ballad.
The green bayberry candles grew dim, and in their fragrant smoke the
old colonials faded away. Our visit at Shirley was over.
Out in the quadrangle, we turned for a last look at the homestead, and
were almost forced to doubt that old colonial scene that we had just
left within. There stood the fine buildings in perfect preservation,
insisting at last as they had insisted at first that this matter of old
age was but a huge mistake--that they had been built but yesterday.