DRESSING-ROOM.
There is no doubt in my mind that the proper furniture for Edwin’s
dressing-room has not yet been evolved out of the inner consciousness of
some enterprising and clever designer of dressing-tables and wardrobes.
Of course there are plenty of so-called gentlemen’s wardrobes, but I
have never yet found one that was perfectly satisfactory, and if any one
knows of one I should be very glad to hear from that happy creature.
I am quite sure gentlemen’s coats should never be suspended from hooks,
for if they are hung up there is always an unpleasant bulge in the
collar, and it is impossible to keep the wretched things in shape;
almost as impossible as it is to make a man look nice unless he has a
valet to look after his clothes, brush them, fold them, and, in fact,
turn him out respectably, with a neatly folded, clean umbrella and
decent hat--that is to say, the ordinary male, who has business
occupations, and gets up at the very last moment he can, to be able to
snatch his breakfast and then catch his train.
I have, personally, no very expensive yearnings, but when I see one who
shall be nameless in a coat that looks as if it had voyaged up the
chimney and back, nether garments that, to put it mildly, have seen
better days, and a hat that would disgrace the Sunday get-up of his own
coachman, and hear that no one is to touch the venerable accumulation in
a wardrobe upstairs, I do long for a good, strong-minded man-servant
indoors who would see to his master’s clothes, and insist on their being
worn properly and treated decently.
This sounds like straying from the subject, but it really is not, for
one unanswerable argument which puts a stop to a great deal of my
eloquence is, ‘If I had a decent place to keep my clothes in I should
always look respectable.’ Now, my readers shall give me their opinion as
to the decency, or otherwise, of the accommodation afforded to this
nameless individual.
In the first place, there is a charming-looking wardrobe in ash. The top
is embellished by a ledge, on which artistic pottery is meant to stand,
but where at this present moment repose a microscope, a lamp, very grimy
and full of dreadful-looking oil that no one may touch, several dusty
piles of lectures and reports of divers societies, and on the plain
space below are at least five paper bandboxes, containing old and
dilapidated hats, all more or less suggestive of Noah’s ark and
scarecrows; yet one and all far too precious to give away, and which no
one dare touch, on pain of instant death.
One half of this wardrobe is lined with striped calico, against the
dust, and is used for hanging up coats, dressing-gowns, &c., and where
there is quite a crowd of the most hideous old coats, all too precious
to part with--I can’t think why--and then on the other side there is a
deep space sacred to trousers, and three deep drawers besides, for
shirts and under-garments of all kinds. Now this is actually not
sufficient accommodation, and I have other drawers in the bedroom
itself, where stores of summer or winter raiment, as the case may be,
repose; and the dress things are also in yet another place; but I do
think it is rather a mistake to have so much space for spoiling coats by
hanging them up, and I am thinking of having shelves put in in that
division, and seeing if that will be any good at all, though, as it is
so much easier to hang up a coat than to fold it up, I much fear there
will be strenuous opposition to that plan--at least at the first.
A wardrobe is a necessity in a dressing-room--unless one is lucky enough
to find a good deep cupboard there already--and they can be bought at
all prices. The one described above was about 10_l._, and is certainly
very pretty, but I am sure it is nothing like as useful or as well
arranged as it ought to be, and I have one in the nursery, which is all
drawers and shelves, that cost 4_l._ 10_s._, and is hideous, which I am
thinking of having painted turquoise blue, and adding brass handles and
substituting this for the ash one, which can go nicely into the spare
room, where it will no longer be desecrated with all sorts of débris
being placed where pretty china is meant to go. There is one piece of
furniture, invented by Mr. Watts, of Grafton Street, Tottenham Court
Road, W., which is, however, perfect for a dressing-room, and therefore
deserves more than a word of mention.
It is a combination of dressing-table and washing-stand that is simply
invaluable. A long glass starts on the right-hand side from three
drawers, with a place for brushes and combs, while on the left is ample
space for washing, with a high tiled back, and a species of shelf to
hold bottles, glasses, &c. There is also a deep space under the marble
shelf on which the jug and basin stand, meant for boots, and covered in
with a cretonne curtain on a brass rod, and is altogether as charming,
artistic-looking, and useful a piece of furniture as any one would wish;
it costs 6_l._ 10_s._ in stained deal, is beautifully made, and would
not only be useful in a dressing-room, but in a young girl’s room or any
small place where there really is not sufficient accommodation for both
washing-stand and toilet-table. I have narrow tapestry mats trimmed with
ball fringe on the shelves, but I should not like to say how many have
been wanted there, for men never can remember that wet sponges should be
put in the sponge-dish and not on the new covers, or that brushes are
best in the drawers intended for them, and not for sundry bits and
scraps of paper, old soiled gloves, spoiled white ties, cartridges,
fly-books, bits of gut, string, ‘objects’ for microscopes, and other
nastinesses ‘too numerous to mention,’ as the auctioneers say when they
have come to the end of their descriptive resources.
And, _apropos_ of this, let me beg Angelina never to allow accumulations
in either small or big drawers if she can possibly help it; nothing
breeds moths or harbours dust like this, and I should advise her
occasionally to brave Edwin’s wrath, and turn out on her own account, if
he is obdurate, and will keep every scrap and shred of rubbish that has
ever come into his possession, because he cannot believe a time will not
come when the possession of a few inches of paper, string, or catgut
will be of paramount importance to him, and when a store of old clothes
will stand between him and utter and entire destitution of raiment.
Now, without emulating a silly little friend of mine, who was only saved
by the difference of a pot of snowdrops from bartering her bridegroom’s
best coat for a supply of flowers, with one of those engaging gentlemen
who frequent the suburbs with a supply of blossoms, warranted to fade
and die utterly within the space of twenty-four hours, I would strongly
suggest a little dissimulation to Angelina, should Edwin prove the
orthodox hoarder of old clothes that it appears to me, from judicious
questioning, most men are.
Angelina should make a point of remembering the date of Edwin’s coats,
and should mark them in an invisible place (on the lining of the inside
of the sleeve is the best) with the date of the purchase; and with this
triumphant proof of her accuracy should she face and utterly confound
Edwin when he meets her request for the coat to be given away, with the
remark, ‘_That_ coat! What can you be thinking of? I only bought it a
month or two ago!’ He is often so flabbergasted at learning the treasure
is at least eighteen months old that he says no more, and allows
Angelina to bear it off to gladden the heart of some old pensioner, on
whose back it somehow looks so extremely well that Edwin cannot believe
Angelina was right in her dates, and at every opportunity points out its
excellent appearance on Jones or Styles as a proof of her reckless
extravagance.
A little careful stealing from a husband who is an inveterate hoarder,
and will not even succumb to the uncontradictable date, can be practised
to advantage, and at the risk of exposing my own wickedness, and
believing that a male eye rarely, if ever, falls upon my words of
wisdom, I may tell Angelina in the very strictest confidence how I have
sometimes been driven to circumvent the nameless one spoken of before.
I have watched the gradual overflow of the wardrobe--ay, even on to the
floor and the three chairs, and, biding my time, have neatly arranged
the drawers, being quite sure I shall be asked immediately what I have
done with all the precious things, missed the moment the dressing-room
is entered. I disclose them arranged elsewhere, and after a week or two,
when the gardener and the coachman’s children have been scanned
surreptitiously but eagerly to see if I have already given these
valuable relics away, they become forgotten, or are only asked after
occasionally; then, as time goes on, they are quite forgotten, and if
asked for after three months cannot be found, as they are already doing
duty elsewhere, under new and altered circumstances. Old boots it is
almost impossible to get rid of without a positive battle, though how a
man’s happiness or welfare depends on knowing he has fourteen pairs of
dreadful old boots under the kitchen dresser, to say nothing of as many
more concealed in his own room and his dressing-room, is really more
than I can understand, and must be one of those problems of life we are
compelled to take as such, and leave for time to solve, if it possibly
can.
I do not think it is of the very smallest use to give Edwin anything
pretty of his ‘very own,’ as the children say, in his dressing-room. It
is always a narrow, circumscribed spot, and brackets are apt to be
knocked askew and their contents smashed, picture-glasses also coming in
for similar hard treatment, while extra shelves for books are soon
overloaded, and come rattling down in the dead of night, taking at least
ten years off one’s life with the awful fright received.
Therefore, if Edwin have a really nice wardrobe, a chair, and a
dressing-table and washing-stand combined, as described previously, it
is really all he wants, unless, of course, the room be a good size, when
the walls can be decorated at will. Equally, of course, the wall-paper
and the dado should match the bedroom, and here more than anywhere else
should be the substantial dado of either cretonne or matting, as here
the walls get mysterious knocks and indentations even more than they do
in the passages and bedrooms.
If the bath has to be taken in the dressing-room--and sometimes even now
old houses have not bath-rooms--the bath should stand on a large square
of oilcloth, covered by a ‘bath blanket.’ This should be taken up and
dried, and the oilcloth wiped carefully, as soon as the bath is emptied,
or both will soon rot and be spoiled.
Very nice ‘bath blankets’ are made by taking the old-gold and dark brown
blankets one buys of Mansergh and Sons, Lancaster, from 3_s._ to 11_s._
6_d._ a pair, according to size, though those at 7_s._ a pair are the
best size. A piece should be cut from one end to make the blanket
square; and one of Francis’s conventional designs should be ironed off
in each corner, which is then worked over in either outline or a thick
‘rope’ or twisted chain-stitch, in double crewels, in about two or
three colours. For instance, old gold looks well with the work in two
shades of brown crewels, with a dash of dull blue; the brown blankets
with golden crewels with, perhaps, a dash of red. But as it is rather
difficult to get the design clearly on the rough, fuzzy blanket, an
easier style is in cross-stitch. The canvas must be very coarse, and
tacked to the blanket. An edging, as well as corners, looks nice, and
the canvas threads must be pulled out afterwards. I think a big
cross-stitch, monogram, or cypher looks nice. The edges of the blanket
can be either button-holed over or hemmed with a line of cross-stitch
defining the hem. These blankets are a great ornament to a bath or
dressing-room, and are invaluable in any room where the bath must be
taken in the room itself.