FIRST DAYS IN ENGLAND.
Up the harbor of Liverpool.--We all emerge as
butterflies.--The Mersey tender.--Lot's
wife.--"Any tobacco?"--"Names, please."--St.
George's Hall.--The fashionable promenade.--The
coffee-room.--The military man who showed the
purple tide of war in his face.--The railway
carriage.--The young man with hair all
aflame.--English villages.--London.--No place for
us.--The H. house.--The Babes in the Wood.--The
party from the country.--We are taken in charge by
the Good Man.--The Golden Cross.--Solitary
confinement.--Mrs. B.'s at last.
WE steamed up the harbor of Liverpool the next morning. New Brighton,
with its green terraces, its Chinese-pagoda villas, spread out upon one
side, upon the other that solid wall of docks, the barricade that breaks
the constant charges of the sea, with the masts of ships from every land
for an abattis. The wraps and shapeless garments worn so long were laid
aside; the pretty hood which had, like charity, covered so many sins of
omission, hidden, itself, at last, the soft wool stiffened with the sea
spray, the bright colors dimmed by smoke, and soot, and burning sun. We
crept shyly upon the deck in our unaccustomed finery, as though called
at a moment's notice to play another woman's part, half-learned. Not in
us alone was the transformation. The girl in blue had blossomed into a
bell--a blue bell. The Cattle Man, his hands released at last from the
thraldom of his pockets, stalked about, funereal, in wrinkled black. A
solferino neck-tie and tall hat of a pie-Adamite formation
transmogrified our Mowing Machine friend. Nondescripts, that had lain
about the deck wrapped in cocoons of rugs and shawls, emerged
suddenly--butterflies! A painful courtesy seized us all. We had doffed
the old familiar intercourse with our sea-garments. We gathered in
knots, or stood apart singly, mindful at last of our dignity.
The Mersey tender (a tender mercy to some) puffed out to meet us, and we
descended the plank as those who turn away from home, leaving much of
our thoughts, and something of our hearts, within the ship. It had been
such a place of rest, of blessed idleness! Only when our feet touched
the wharf did we take up the burden of life again. There were the
meeting of friends, in which we had no part; the maelstrom of horses,
and carts, and struggling humanity, in which we found a most unwilling
place; and then we followed fast in the footsteps of the Mowing Machine
Man, who in his turn followed a hair-covered trunk upon the shoulders of
a stout porter, our destination the custom-house shed close by. For a
moment, as we were tossed hither and thither by the swaying mass, our
desires followed our thoughts to a certain sheltered nook, upon a still,
white deck, with the sunbeams slanting down through the furled sails
above, with the lazy, lapping sea below, and only our own idle thoughts
for company. Then we remembered Lot's wife.
There was a little meek-faced custom-house officer in waiting, with a
voice so out of proportion to his size, that he seemed to have hired it
for the occasion, or come into it with his uniform by virtue of his
office. "Any tobacco?" he asked, severely, as we lifted the lid of our
one trunk. We gave a virtuous and indignant negative. That was all. We
might go our several ways now unmolested. One fervent expression of good
wishes among our little company, while we make for a moment a network of
clasped hands, and then we pass out of the great gates into our new
world, and into the clutches of the waiting cabmen. By what stroke of
good fortune we and our belongings were consigned to one and the same
cab, in the confusion and terror of the moment, we did not know at the
time. It was clearly through the intervention of a kind
fellow-passenger, who, seeing that amazement enveloped us like a
garment, kindly took us in charge. The dazed, as well as the lame and
lazy, are cared for, it seems. By what stroke of good fortune we ever
reached our destination, we knew still less. Our cab was a triumph of
impossibilities, uncertainties, and discomfort. Our attenuated beast,
like an animated hoop skirt, whose bones were only prevented, by the
encasing skin, from flying off as we turned the corners, experienced
hardly less difficulty in drawing his breath than in drawing his load.
We descended at the entrance to the hotel as those who have escaped from
imminent peril. We mounted the steps--two lone, but by no means lorn,
damsels, two anxious, but by no means aimless females, knowing little of
the world, less of travelling, and nothing whatever of foreign ways.
Our very air, as we entered the door, was an apology for the intrusion.
"Names, please," said the smiling man in waiting, opening what appeared
to be the book of fate. We added ours to the long list of pilgrims and
strangers who had sojourned here, dotting our i's and crossing our t's
in the most elegant manner imaginable. If any one has a doubt as to our
early advantages, let him examine the record of the Washington Hotel,
Liverpool. The heading, "Remarks," upon the page, puzzled us. Were they
to be of a sacred or profane nature? Of an autobiographical character?
Were they to refer to the dear land we had just left? Through some
political throes she had just brought forth a ruler. Should we add to
the U. S. against our names, "As well as could be expected"? We
hesitated,--and wrote nothing. Up the wide stairs, past the transparency
of Washington--in the bluest of blue coats, the yellowest of top boots,
and an air of making the best of an unsought and rather ridiculous
position--we followed the doily upon the head of the pretty chambermaid
to our wide, comfortable room, with its formidable, high-curtained beds.
The satchels and parcels innumerable were propped carefully into
rectitude upon the dressing table, under the impression that the ship
would give a lurch; and then, gazing out through the great plate glass
windows upon the busy square below, we endeavored to compose our
perturbed minds and gather our scattered wits.
It is not beautiful, this great city of Liverpool, creeping up from the
sea. It has little to interest a stranger aside from its magnificent
docks and warehouses. There are mammoth truck horses from Suffolk, with
feet like cart wheels; there is St. George's Hall, the pride of the
people, standing in the busy square of the same name, with a statue of
the saint himself--a terror to all dragons--just before it. It is gray,
many columned, wide stepped, vast in its proportions. Do you care for
its measurement? Having seen that, you are ready to depart; and, indeed,
there is nothing to detain one here beyond a day of rest, a moment to
regain composure after the tossing of the sea. There are some
substantial dwellings,--for commerce has its kings,--and some fine
shops,--for commerce also has its queens,--and one fine drive, of which
we learned too late. The air of endurance, which pervades the whole
city, as it does all cities in the old world, impresses one greatly, as
though they were built for eternity, not time; the founders having
forgotten that here we are to have no continuing city. In the new world,
man tears down and builds up. Every generation moulds and fashions its
towns and cities after its own desires, or to suit its own means. Man is
master. In the old world, one generation after another surges in and out
of these grim, gray walls, leaving not so much as the mark the waves
leave upon the rocks. Unchanged, unchanging, they stand age after age,
time only softening the hard outlines, deepening the shadows it has cast
upon them, and so bringing them into a likeness of each other that they
seem to have been the design of one mind, the work of one pair of hands,
and hardly of mortal mind or hands at that. They seem to say to man, "We
have stood here ages before you were born. We shall stand here ages
after you are forgotten." They must be filled with echoes, with ghosts,
and haunting memories.
Bold Street, a tolerably narrow and winding way, in which many are found
to walk,--contrary to all precedent,--boasts the finest shops. Here the
Lancashire witches, as the beauties of the county are called, walk, and
talk, and buy gewgaws of an afternoon. It was something strange to us to
see long silken skirts entirely destitute of crinoline, ruffle, or
flounce, trailed here through mud and mire, or raised displaying low
Congress gaiters, destitute of heels. For ourselves, if we had been the
king of the Cannibal Islands, we could hardly have attracted more
attention than we did in our plain, short travelling suits and
high-heeled boots. It grew embarrassing, especially when our expression
of unqualified benevolence drew after us a train of beggars. They
crossed the street to meet us. They emerged from every side street and
alley, thrusting dirty hands into our faces, and repeating twice-told
tales in our ears, until we were thankful when oblivion and the shadow
of the hotel fell upon us.
We dined in the coffee-room,--that comfortable and often delightfully
cosy apartment fitted with little tables, and with its corner devoted to
books, to papers and conversation,--that combination of dining, tea and
reading-room unknown to an American hotel,--sacred to the sterner sex
from all time, and only opened to us within a few years,--the gates
being forced then, I imagine, by American women, who will not consent to
hide their light under a bushel, or keep to some faraway corner,
unseeing and unseen. English women, as a rule, take their meals in
their own private parlors. Perhaps because English men generally desire
the flowers intrusted to their fostering care to blush unseen. It may be
better for the gardeners; it may be better for the flowers--I cannot
tell; but we dined in the coffee-room, as Americans usually do. One of
the _clergymen_, who attend at such places, received our order. It was
not so very formidable an affair, after all, this going down by
ourselves; or would not have been, if the big-eyed waiter, who watched
our every movement, would have left us, and the military man at the next
table, who showed "the purple tide of war," or something else, in his
face, and blew his nose like a trombone, ceased to stare. As it was, we
aired our most elegant table manners. We turned in our elbows and turned
out our toes,--so to speak,--and ate our mutton with a grace that
destroyed all appetite. We tried to appear as though we had frequently
dined in the presence of a whole battalion of soldiery, under the
scrutiny of innumerable waiters,--and failed, I am sure. "With verdure
clad" was written upon every line of our faces. The occasion of this
cross fire we do not know to this day. Was it unbounded admiration? Was
it spoons?
Having brushed off the spray of the sea, having balanced ourselves upon
the solid earth, having seen St. George's Hall, there was nothing to
detain us longer, and the next morning we were on our way to London. We
had scrutinized our bill,--which might have been reckoned in pounds,
ounces, and penny-weights, for aught we knew to the contrary,--and
informed the big-eyed waiter that it was correct. We had also offered
him imploringly our largest piece of silver, which he condescended to
accept; and having been presented with a ticket and a handful of silver
and copper by the porter who accompanied us to the station across the
way, in return for two or three gold pieces, we shook off the dust of
Liverpool from our feet, turned our eyes from the splendors of St.
George's Hall, and set our faces steadfastly towards our destination.
There was a kind of luxury, notwithstanding our prejudices, in this
English railway carriage, with its cushions all about us, even beneath
our elbows; a restfulness unknown in past experience of travel, in the
ability to turn our eyes away from the flying landscape without, to the
peaceful quiet, never intruded upon, within. We did not miss the woman
who will insist upon closing the window behind you, or opening it, as
the case may be. Not one regret had we for the "B-o-s-t-o-n papers!" nor
for the last periodical or novel. The latest fashion gazette was not
thrown into our lap only to be snatched away, as we became interested in
a plan for rejuvenating our wardrobe; nor were we assailed by venders of
pop corn, apples, or gift packages of candy. Even the blind man, with
his offering of execrable poetry, was unknown, and the conductor
examined our tickets from outside the window. Settling back among our
cushions, while we mentally enumerated these blessings of omission,
there came a thought of the perils incurred by solitary females locked
into these same comfortable carriages with madmen. If the danger had
been so great for one solitary female, what must it be for two, we
thought with horror. We gave a quick glance at our fellow-passenger, a
young man with hair all aflame. Certainly his eyes did roll at that
moment, but it was only in search of a newsboy; and when he exclaimed,
like any American gentleman, "Hang the boy!" we became perfectly
reassured. He proved a most agreeable travelling companion. We exchanged
questions and opinions upon every subject of mutual interest, from the
geological formation of the earth to the Alabama claims. I can hardly
tell which astonished us most, his profound erudition or our own. Now, I
have not the least idea as to whether Lord John Russell sailed the
Alabama, or the Alabama sailed of itself, spontaneously; but, whichever
way it was, I am convinced it was a most iniquitous proceeding, and so
thought it safe to take high moral ground, and assure him that as a
nation we could not allow it to go unpunished. You have no idea what an
assistance it is, when one is somewhat ignorant and a good deal at a
loss for arguments, to take high moral ground.
When we were weary of discussion, when knowledge palled upon our taste,
we pulled aside the little blue curtain, and gave ourselves up to gazing
upon the picture from the window. I doubt if any part of England is
looked upon with more curious eyes than that lying between Liverpool and
London. It is to so many Americans the first glimpse of strange lands.
Spread out in almost imperceptible furrows were the velvet turfed
meadows, the unclipped hedges a mass of tangled greenness between. For
miles and miles they stretched away, with seldom a road, never a
solitary house. The banks on either side were tufted with broom and
yellow with gorse; the hill-sides in the distance, white with chalk, or
black with the heather that would blossom into purple beauty with the
summer. We rushed beneath arches festooned, as for a gala-day, with
hanging vines. Tiny gardens bloomed beside the track at every station,
and all along the walls, the arched bridges, and every bit of stone upon
the wayside, was a mass of clinging, glistening ivy. Not the half-dead,
straggling thing we tend and shield so carefully at home, with here and
there a leaf put forth for very shame. These, bright, clear-cut,
deep-tinted, crowded and overlapped each other, and ran riot over the
land, transforming the dingy, mildewy cottages, bits of imperishable
ugliness, into things of beauty, if not eternal joys. Not in the least
picturesque or pleasing to the eye were these English villages;
straggling rows of dull red brick houses set amidst the fields--dirty
city children upon a picnic--with a foot square garden before each door,
cared for possibly, possibly neglected. A row of flower-pots upon the
stone ledge of every little window, a row of chimney-pots upon the slate
roof of every dwelling. Sometimes a narrow road twisted and writhed
itself from one to another, edged by high brick walls, hidden beneath a
weight of ivy; sometimes romantic lanes, shaded by old elms, and green
beyond all telling. The towns were much the same,--outgrown villages.
And the glimpse we caught, as we flew by, so far above the roofs often
that we could almost peep down upon the hearths through the chimney
tops, was by no means inviting.
Dusk fell upon us with the smoke, and mist, and drizzling rain of
London, bringing no anxiety; for was there not, through the
thoughtfulness of friends, a place prepared for us? Our pleasant
acquaintance of the golden locks forsook his own boxes, and bundles, and
innumerable belongings to look for our baggage, and saw us safely
consigned to one of the dingy cabs in waiting. I trust the people of our
own country repay to wanderers there something of the kindness which
American women, travelling alone, receive at the hands of strangers
abroad. It was neither the first nor the last courtesy proffered most
respectfully, and received in the spirit in which it was offered. There
is a deal of nonsense in the touch-me-not air with which many go out to
see the world, as there is a deal of folly in the opposite extreme. But
these acquaintances of a day, the opportunity of coming face to face
with the people in whose country you chance to be, of hearing and
answering their strange questions in regard to our government, our
manners and customs, as well as in displaying our own ignorance in
regard to their institutions, in giving information and assistance when
it is in our power, and in gratefully receiving the same from
others,--all this constitutes one of the greatest pleasures of
journeying.
Our peace of mind received a rude shock, when, after rattling over the
pavings around the little park in Queen's Square, and pulling the bell
at Mr. B.'s boarding-house, we found that we were indeed expected, but
indefinitely, and no place awaited us. We had forgotten to telegraph. It
was May, the London season, and the hotels full. "X. told us you were
coming," said the most lady-like landlady, leading us into the
drawing-room from the dank darkness of the street. There was a glow of
red-hot coals in the grate, a suggestion of warmth and comfort in the
bright colors and cosy appointments of the room--but no place for us.
"I'm very sorry; if you had telegraphed--but we can take you by Monday
certainly," she said. I counted my fingers. Two days. Ah! but we might
perish in the streets before that. Everything began to grow dark and
doleful in contemplation. Some one entered the room. The landlady turned
to him: "O, here is the good man to whose care you were consigned by X."
We gave a sigh of relief, as we greeted the Good Man, for all our
courage, like the immortal Bob Acres's, had been oozing from our finger
ends. And if we possess one gift above another, it is an ability to be
taken care of. "Do you know X.?" asked another gentleman, glancing up
from his writing at the long, red-covered table. "We travelled with
him," nodding towards his daughter, whose feet touched the fender,
"through Italy, last winter." "Indeed--"
"I'll just send out to a hotel near by," interrupted kind Mrs. B., "and
see if you can be accommodated a day or two." How very bright the room
became! The world was not hollow, after all, nor our dolls stuffed with
sawdust. Even the cabman's rattle at the knocker, and demand of an extra
sixpence for waiting, could not disturb our serenity. The messenger
returned. Yes; we could be taken in (?) at the H. house; and accepting
Mrs. B.'s invitation to return and spend the evening, we mounted to our
places in the little cab, as though it had been a triumphal car, and
were whizzed around the corner at an alarming pace by the impatient
cabman.
I should be sorry to prejudice any one against the H. house--which I
might perhaps say is not the H. house at all; I hardly like to compare
it to a whited sepulchre, though that simile did occur to my mind. Very
fair in its exterior it was, with much plate glass, and ground glass,
and gilding of letters, and shining of brass. It had been two
dwelling-houses; it was now one select family hotel. But the two
dwelling-houses had never been completely merged into one; never
married, but joined, like the Siamese twins. There was a confusing
double stairway; having ascended the right one, you were morally certain
to descend the wrong. There was a confusing double hall, with doors in
every direction opening everywhere but upon the way you desired to go.
We mounted to the top of the house, followed by two porters with our
luggage, one chambermaid with the key, another to ask if we would dine,
and two more bearing large tin cans of hot water. We grew confused, and
gasped, "We--we believe we don't care for any more at present, thank
you," and so dismissed them all. The furniture was so out of proportion
to the room that I think it must have been introduced in an infant
state, and grown to its present proportions there. The one window was so
high that we were obliged to jump up to look out over the mirror upon
the bureau--a gymnastic feat we did not care to repeat. The bed curtains
were gray; indeed there was a gray chill through the whole place. We sat
down to hold a council of war. We resolved ourselves into a committee of
ways and means, our feet upon the cans of hot water. "Pleasant," I said,
as a leading remark, my heart beginning to warm under the influence of
the hot water. "Pleasant?" repeated Mrs. K.; "it's enough to make one
homesick. We can't stay here." "But," I interposed, "suppose we leave
here, and can't get in anywhere else?" A vision of the Babes in the Wood
rose before me. There was a rap at the door; the fourth chambermaid, to
announce dinner. We finished our consultation hurriedly, and descended
to the parlor, where we were to dine. It was a small room, already
occupied by a large table and a party from the country; an old lady to
play propriety, a middle-aged person of severe countenance to act it,
and a pair of incipient and insipid lovers. He was a spectacled prig in
a white necktie, a clergyman, I suppose, though he looked amazingly like
a waiter, and she a little round combination of dimples and giggle.
_He._ "Have you been out for a walk this morning?"
_She._ "No; te-he-he-he."
_He._ "You ought to, you know."
_She._ "Te-he-he-he--yes."
_He._ "You should always exercise before dinner."
_She._ "Te-he-he-he."
Here the words gave out entirely, and, it being remarkably droll, all
joined in the chorus. "We must go somewhere else, if possible," we
explained to Mrs. B., when, a little later, we found our way to her
door. "At least we shall be better contented if we make the attempt."
The Good Man offered his protection; we found a cab, and proceeded to
explore the city, asking admittance in vain at one hotel after another,
until at last the Golden Cross upon the Strand, more charitable than
its neighbor, or less full, opened its doors, and the good landlady, of
unbounded proportions, made us both welcome and comfortable. Quite
palatial did our neat bed-room, draped in white, appear. We were the
proud possessors, also, of a parlor, with a round mirror over the
mantel, a round table in the centre, a sofa, of which Pharaoh's heart is
no comparison as regards hardness, a row of stiff, proper arm-chairs,
and any amount of ornamentation in the way of works of art upon the
walls, and shining snuffers and candlesticks upon the mantel. Our
bargain completed, there remained nothing to be done but to remove our
baggage from the other house, which I am sure we could never have
attempted alone. Think of walking in and addressing the landlady, while
the chambermaids and waiters peeped from behind the doors, with, "We
don't like your house, madam. Your rooms are tucked up, your beds
uninviting, your chambermaids frowsy, your waiters stupid, and your
little parlor an abomination." How could we have done it? The Good Man
volunteered. "But do you not mind?" "Not in the least." Is it not
wonderful? How can we believe in the equality of the sexes? In less than
an hour we were temporarily settled in our new quarters, our rescued
trunks consigned to the little bed-room, our heart-felt gratitude in the
possession of the Good Man.
We took our meals now in our own parlor, trying the solitary confinement
system of the English during our two days' stay. It seemed a month. Not
a sign of life was there, save the landlady's pleasant face behind the
bar and the waiter who answered our bell, with the exception of a pair
of mammoth shoes before the next door, mornings, and the bearded face
of a man that startled us, once, upon the stairs. And yet the house was
full. It was a relief when our two days of banishment Mere over, when in
Mrs. B.'s pretty drawing-room, and around her table, we could again meet
friends, and realize that we were still in the world.