The
Emily Emmins Papers
By
Carolyn Wells
With Illustrations by
Josephine A. Meyer
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1907
COPYRIGHT, 1907
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
EDITH MENDALL-TAYLOR
IN MEMORY OF
PICCADILLY
[Illustration] CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A TICKET TO EUROPE 1
II. CROSSING THE ATLANTIC 23
III. “IN ENGLAND—NOW!” 45
IV. MAYFAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 67
V. A HOSTESS AT HOME 86
VI. THE LIGHT ON BURNS’S BROW 106
VII. CERTAIN SOCIAL UNCERTAINTIES 126
VIII. A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 146
IX. ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR 167
X. “I WENT AND RANGED ABOUT TO MANY CHURCHES” 186
XI. PICCADILLY CIRCUS AND ITS ENVIRONS 208
XII. THE GAME OF GOING ON 230
XIII. A FRENCH WEEK-END 252
Transcriber's Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.
THE EMILY EMMINS PAPERS
[Illustration] _I._ _A Ticket to Europe_
It has always seemed to me a pity that nearly all of the people one
meets walking in New York are going somewhere. I mean they have some
definite destination. Thus they lose the rare delight, that all too
little known pleasure, of a desultory stroll through the city streets.
For myself, I know of no greater joy than an aimless ramble along the
crowded metropolitan thoroughfares. Nor does _ramble_ imply, as some
might mistakenly suppose, a slow, dawdling gait. Not at all; the
atmosphere of the city itself inspires a brisk, steady jog-trot; but the
impression of a ramble is inevitable if the jog-trot have no intended
goal.
I am a country woman,—that is, I live in a suburban town; but it is
quite near enough to the metropolis for us to consider ourselves
near-New Yorkers. And Myrtlemead is a dear little worth-while place in
its own way. We have a Current Culture Club and a Carnegie library and
several of us have telephones. I am not a member of the Club, but that
must not be considered as any disparagement of my culture—or, rather,
of my capacity for assimilating culture (for the Club’s aim is the
disbursement of that desirable commodity). On the contrary, I was among
the first invited to belong to it.
[Illustration: Oh! yes, you have temperament, she twittered.]
“You must be a member, Miss Emmins,” said the vivacious young thing who
called to lay the matter before me, “because you have so much
temperament.”
This word was little used in Myrtlemead at this time (although, since,
it has become as plenty as blackberries), and I simply said “What!” in
amazement.
“Oh! yes, you have,” she twittered, “and you create an atmosphere. Don’t
attempt to deny it,—you know you do create an atmosphere.” This was too
much. I didn’t join the Club, although I occasionally look in on them at
their cultured tea hour, which follows the more intellectual part of
their programme. As they have delicious chicken-salad and hot rolls and
coffee, I find their culture rather comforting than otherwise.
Living so near New York, I find it convenient to run into the city
whenever I hear it calling.
[Illustration: Lilacs blossom along the curb]
In the spring its calls are especially urgent. I know popular sympathy
leans toward springtime in the country, but for my part, as soon as
March has blown itself away, and April comes whirling along the cleared
path of the year, I hurry to keep my annual appointment to meet Spring
in New York. The trees are budding in the parks, daffodils and tulips
are blooming riotously on the street-corners, while hyacinths and lilacs
blossom along the curb. A pearl-colored cloud is poised in that intense
blue just above the Flatiron Building, and the pretty city girls smile
as they prank along in their smart spring costumes behind their violet
mows. The birds twitter with a sophisticated chirp, and the
street-pianos respond with a brisk sharpness of tune and time. The very
air is full of an urban ozone, that is quite different from the romantic
lassitude of spring in the country.
Of course, all this is a matter of individual taste. I prefer walking in
dainty boots, along a clean city pavement, while another equally sound
mind might vote for common-sense shoes and a rough country road.
[Illustration: Common-sense shoes and a rough country road.]
And so, as I, Emily Emmins, spinster, have the full courage of my own
convictions, I found myself one crisp April morning walking happily
along the lower portion of Broadway. Impulse urged me on toward the
Battery, but, as often happens, my impulse was side-tracked. And all
because of a woman’s smiling face. I was passing the offices of the
various steamship companies, and I saw, coming down the steps of one of
them, a young woman whose countenance was positively glorified with joy.
I couldn’t resist a second glance at her, and I saw that both her hands
were filled with circulars and booklets.
It required no clairvoyance to understand the situation; she had just
bought her first ticket to Europe, and it was the glorious achievement
of a lifelong desire. I knew, as well as if she had told me, how she had
planned and economized for it, and probably studied all sorts of
text-books that she might properly enjoy her trip, and make it an
education as well as a pleasure. And as I looked at the gay-colored
pamphlets she clutched, I was moved to go in and acquire a few for
myself.
With Emily Emmins, to incline is to proceed; so I stepped blithely into
the big light office and requested booklets. They were bestowed on me in
large numbers, the affable clerk was most polite, and,—well, I’m sure I
don’t know how it happened, but the first thing I knew I was paying a
deposit on my return ticket to Liverpool.
I may as well confess, at the outset, that I am of a chameleonic nature.
I not only take color from my surroundings, but reflect manners and
customs as accurately and easily as a mirror. And so, in that great,
business-like office, with its maps and charts and time-tables and
steamer plans, the only possible thing to do seemed to be to buy my
ticket, and I did so. But I freely admit it was entirely the influence
of the ocean-going surroundings that made the deed seem to me a casual
and natural one. No sooner had I regained the street, with its spring
air and stone pavement, than I realized I had done something unusual and
perhaps ill-advised. However, a chameleonic nature implies an ability to
accept a situation, and after one jostled moment I walked uptown,
planning as I went.
Two days later the postman brought me an unusually large budget of mail.
The first letter I opened caused me some surprise, and a mild amusement.
It began, quite cosily:
MISS EMILY EMMINS.
_Dear Madam_: Learning that you intend sailing from New York in
the near future, I take the liberty of calling your attention to
the Hotel Xantippe as a most desirable stopping place during
your stay in this city.
The letter went on to detail the advantages and charms of the hotel, and
gave a complete list of rates, which, for the comforts and luxuries
promised, seemed reasonable indeed! But how in the world did the urbane
proprietor of the Hotel Xantippe know that I contemplated a trip abroad?
I hadn’t yet divulged my secret to my fellow-residents of Myrtlemead,
and how an utter stranger could learn of it, was a puzzle to me. But the
other letters were equally amazing. One from a dry-goods emporium
besought me to inspect their wares before going abroad to buy. Another
begged me to purchase their shoes, and gave fearful warnings of the
shortcomings of English footgear. Another, and perhaps the most
flattering, requested the honor of taking my photograph before I sailed.
But one and all seemed not only cognizant of my recently formed plans,
but entirely approved of them, and earnestly desired to assist me in
carrying them out.
With my willingness to accept a situation, I at once assumed that
somehow the news of my intended departure had crept into one or other of
the New York daily papers. I couldn’t understand why this should be, but
surely the only possible explanation was my own prominence in the public
eye. This, I placidly admitted to myself, was surprising, but
gratifying. To be sure, I had written a few nondescript verses, and an
occasional paper on some foolish thing as a fine art, but I had not
reached the point where my name was mentioned among “What Our Authors
are Saying and Doing.”
However—alas for my vainglory!—a neighbor soon explained to me, that
all up-to-date business firms procure lists of those who have bought
steamship tickets, and send circular letters to each address. This was
indeed a blow to my vanity, but so interesting were the letters which
continued to pour in that I cared little for the reason of their
sending. They pleased me mightily, because of their patronizing
attitude, treating me as if I were either Josiah Allen’s wife or a
Choctaw Indian. Invariably they assumed I had never been in the
metropolis before, and would prove exceeding ignorant of its ways. Nor
were they entirely mistaken.
One elaborate circular set forth the wonders of the city as viewed from
the “Seeing [or Touring] New York Motor-Coach.” Now I had passed these
great arks hundreds of times, but it had never occurred to me to enter
one. And yet, so great is my susceptibility to suggestion, that I
determined to take the trip before leaving my native land.
Another letter left me hesitating as to whether my proposed journey was
advisable after all. This letter was from the Elsinore Travel Bureau,
and explained how, by the purchase of a new-fangled stereoscope and
innumerable sets of “views,” one could get far more satisfaction out of
a European trip by staying at home than by going abroad. “So real are
the scenes,” the circular assured me, “that one involuntarily stretches
out a hand to grasp what isn’t there.” Surely, realism need go no
farther than that; yet some over-exacting people might demand that the
grasped-for thing should be there.
At least, that’s the way I felt about it; and besides, now that all
Myrtlemead was stirred up over my going to Europe, I couldn’t decently
abandon my project. That’s one of the delightful annoyances of life in a
country village. Everybody belongs to everybody else, and your neighbors
have a perfect right to be as interferingly helpful as they choose. My
house was besieged by what I came to call the noble army of starters,
for the kind-hearted ones brought me every imaginable help or hindrance
to an ocean voyage.
[Illustration: They walked away with their plaids in their arms and
their heads in the air.]
I had already bought myself a steamer rug, whose soft bright colors and
silky texture delighted my soul; but none the less were steamer rugs
brought me by dozens, as intended loans. It was with a slight air of
resentment that my would-be benefactors received my humble apology for
possessing a rug of my own, and walked away with their plaids in their
arms and their heads in the air. Then came one who earnestly advised me
not to take my lovely, silky rug, as it was sure to be ruined on the
steamer, and after that to be devoured by moths during its summer in a
steamer trunk. The best plan, she informed me, was to hire a rug from
the steamship company, as I would hire my deck-chair, and leave my own
rug at home, to be used as a couch robe. Being amiable by nature I
agreed to this plan. Next came a neighbor who, having heard that I had
concluded to hire a rug on the steamer, asked to borrow mine to take
with her on a lake trip. Of course I lent it to her, but a few weeks
later, when I tried to cuddle into one of the small harsh rugs that the
steamship company provides, I almost regretted my amiability.
Then came friends with cushions—large, small, and double-jointed. Also,
they brought air-pillows, and water-pillows, and patent contrivances for
comfort, that were numerous and bulky, and adequately expressed their
donors’ kind interest in my well-being at sea. Also came many sure and
absolute remedies for sea-sickness, or preventives thereof. Had I taken
them all with me, and had they made good their promise, not one of the
cabin passengers, or the steerage, need have been ill for a moment.
Interspersed among the more material gifts was much and various advice.
This was easily remembered, for taken as a whole it included every
possible way of doing anything. Said one: “Pack your trunks very
tightly, for clothing carries much better that way.” Said another: “Pack
your trunks very loosely; for then you will have room to bring home many
purchases and yet declare at customs only the same number of trunks as
you took with you from America.” Said a third: “Let me help you pack,
for if a trunk is crammed too tightly or filled too loosely, it makes
all sorts of trouble.”
But, being amiable, I smiled pleasantly on all, agreed with each
adviser, and held my peace. For, to me, preliminaries mattered little,
and I knew that as soon as I was fairly at sea, or at least beyond the
three-mile limit, I could make my own plans, and carry them out without
let or hindrance.
My itinerary was, of course, arranged and rearranged for me, but usually
the would-be arbiters of my destinations fell into such hot discussions
among themselves that they quite forgot I was going away at all. But it
mattered little to me whether they advised the Riviera by way of the
North Cape, or the Italian lakes after the Cathedral tour; for my entire
summer was irrevocably planned in my own mind. No “touristing” for me.
No darting through Europe with a shirtwaist in a “suit” case, and a
Baedeker in my other hand.
[Illustration: No “touristing” for me.]
No, my “tour of extended foreign travel,” as our local newspaper
persisted in calling it, was, on my part, an immutable resolve to go by
the most direct route to London and remain there until the date of my
return ticket to New York. This plan, being simple in the main, left me
leisure to listen to my friends’ advices and recommendations. But,
though I listened politely, I really paid little heed, and at last I
sailed away with the advice, in a confused medley drifting out of my
memory.
The only points that seemed to be impressed on my mind were that, in
London parlance, “Thank you” invariably means either “Yes” or “No”
(nobody seemed quite sure which), and that in England one must always
call a telephone a lift.
[Illustration] _II._ _Crossing the Atlantic_
The most remarkable effect of a sea-trip is, to my mind, its wonderful
influence for amiability. I hadn’t passed Sandy Hook before I felt an
affable suavity settling down upon me like a February fog. I am at all
times of a contented and peaceful nature, but this lethargic urbanity
was a new sensation, and, as I opined it was but the beginning of a
series of new sensations, I gave myself up to it with a satisfied
feeling that my trip had really begun.
And yet I was haunted by a vague uneasiness that it hadn’t begun right.
I had planned to be most methodical on this voyage. I had resolved that
when I came aboard I would go first to my stateroom and unpack my
steamer trunk, arrange my belongings neatly in their proper portholes
and bunkers, find my reserved deck-chair, and attach to it my carefully
tagged rug and pillow. Then I meant to take off and pack away my pretty
travelling costume, and array myself in my “steamer clothes,” these
having been selected with much care and thought in accordance with
numerous and conflicting advices.
Whereas, instead of all this, I had hurriedly looked into my stateroom,
and only noted that it was a tiny white box, piled high with luggage,
part of which I recognized as my own, and the rest I assumed belonged to
my as yet unknown room-mate. Then I had drifted out on deck, dropped
into some chair, I know not whose; and, still in my trig tailor-made
costume and feathered hat, I watched the coast line fade away and leave
the sea and sky alone together.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I was receiving “first impressions.” How
I hated the term! Every one I knew, who had ever crossed the ocean
before I did, had said to me, “And you’ve never been over before? Oh,
how I _envy_ you your first impressions!”
As I realized that about seventy-nine people were even then consumed
with a burning envy of these first impressions of mine, I somehow felt
it incumbent upon me to justify their attitude by achieving the most
intensely enviable impressions extant.
And yet, so prosaic are my mental processes, or else so contrary-minded
is my subconscious self, that the impression that obtruded itself to the
exclusion of all others was the somewhat obvious one that the sea air
would soon spoil my feathers. While making up my mind to go at once to
my stateroom and save my lovely plumes from their impending fate, I fell
to wondering what my room-mate would be like. I knew nothing of her save
that her name was Jane Sterling. This, though, was surely an indication
of her personality, for notwithstanding the usual inappropriateness of
cognomens, any one named Jane Sterling could not be otherwise than well
born, well bred, and companionable, though a bit elderly.
I seemed to see Jane Sterling with a gaunt face, hooked nose, and
grizzled hair, though I admitted to myself that she _might_ be a
fragile, porcelain-like little old maid.
This conflict of possibilities impelled me to go to my stateroom and
make Jane Sterling’s acquaintance, and, incidentally, put away my best
hat.
So I started, and on my way received another of my “first impressions.”
This was a remarkable feeling of at-homeness on the steamer. I had never
been on an ocean liner before, yet I felt as though I had lived on one
for years. The balancing of myself on the swaying stairs seemed to come
naturally to me, and I felt that I should have missed the peculiar
atmosphere of the dining-saloon had it not assailed my senses.
[Illustration: Portrait of Jane Sterling]
As I entered Stateroom _D_, I found Jane Sterling already there. But as
the physical reality was so different from the lady of my imagination, I
sat down on the edge of my white-spread berth and stared at her.
Sitting on the edge of the opposite berth, and staring back at me, was a
small child with big eyes. She wore a stiff little frock of white piqué,
and her brown hair was “bobbed” and tied up with an enormous white bow.
Her brown eyes had a solemn gaze, and her little hands were clasped in
her lap.
It was quite needless to ask her name, for Jane Sterling was plainly and
unmistakably written all over her, and I marvelled that the name hadn’t
told me at once what she looked like.
“How old are you, Jane?” I asked.
“Seven,” she replied, with a little sigh, as of the weight of years.
Her voice satisfied me. She was one of those unusual children, whom some
speak of as “queer,” and others call “old-fashioned.”
But they are neither. They are distinctly a modern variety, and their
unusualness lies in the fact that they have a sense of humor.
“And is this your first trip abroad?” I went on.
“No, my seventh,” said Jane, with a delicious little matter-of-fact air.
“Indeed! Well, this is the first time I have crossed, so I trust you
will take pity on my ignorance, and instruct me as to what I should do.”
I said this with an intent to be sociable, and make, the child feel at
ease, but no such effort was necessary.
“There is nothing to do diffelunt,” she said, with a bewitching smile.
“You just do what you would in your own house.”
It was the first really good advice I had had concerning my steamer
manners, and I put it away among my other first impressions for future
use.
Then Jane’s mother appeared, and I learned that she occupied the next
stateroom, and that she hoped Jane would not annoy me, and that she was
glad I liked children, and that she had three, and that they crossed
every year, and that if I wanted anything at all I was to ask her for
it. Then she put a few polite questions to me, and duly envied me my
first impressions, and returned to her other babies.
Jane proved a most delightful roommate, and, as she was never intrusive
or troublesome, I felt that I had drawn a prize in the ship’s lottery.
The morning of the second day I rose with a determination to get to
work. I had no intention of dawdling, and, moreover, I had much to do.
In the first place, I wanted to get settled in my deck-chair, in that
regulation bent-mummy position so often pictured in summer novels, and
study my fellow-passengers. I had been told that nothing was so much fun
as to study people on deck. Then I had many letters to write and many
books to read. I wanted to learn how to compute the ship’s log, and how
to talk casually of “knots.” After all these had been accomplished, I
intended to plan out my itinerary for the summer. This I wanted to do
after I was out of all danger of advice from friends at home and before
I made the acquaintance of any one on board who might attempt to advise
me.
So determined was I to plan my own trip that I would have been glad to
get out on a desert island and wait there for the next steamer, rather
than have any assistance in the matter of laying out my route.
Immediately after breakfast, therefore, arrayed in correct steamer
costume, and carrying rug, pillow, paper-covered novel, veil, fur boa,
and two magazines, I went to my deck-chair and prepared to camp out for
the morning. As the deck steward was not about, I tried to arrange my
much desired mummy effect myself. Technique seemed lacking in my
efforts, and, slightly embarrassed at my inability to manage the
refractory rug, I looked up to see Jane watching me.
“You mustn’t put the rug over you,” she explained, in her kind little
way. “You must put yourself over the rug.”
At her advice I got out of the chair, and she spread the rug smoothly in
it.
“Sit down,” she said, briefly, and I obeyed.
Cleverly, then, she flung up the sides and tucked in the corners, until
the rug swathed me in true seventeenth-trip fashion. Jane proceeded to
arrange my pillow and the other odds and ends of comfort. She
disapproved, however, of my reading-matter.
“Magazines won’t stay open,” she observed, “and paper books won’t,
eever.”
Jane’s few mispronunciations were among her chiefest charms.
“But it won’t matter,” she added cheerfully. “You won’t read, anyhow.”
This reminded me that I had no intention of reading, being there for the
purpose of studying my fellow-passengers.
I was still obsessed by that strange sensation of inanition.
Although beatifically serene and abnormally good-natured, I felt an
utter aversion to exertion of any kind, mental, moral, or physical. Even
the thought of studying my fellow-travellers seemed a task too arduous
to contemplate.
And so I sat there all the morning and not a fellow-traveller was
studied.
“This won’t do,” I said to myself, severely, after luncheon. “Here you
are, not a hint of sea-sickness, the day is perfect, you know how to
adjust your rug, and all conditions are favorable. You _must_ study your
fellow-travellers.”
But the afternoon showed little improvement on the morning. As a result
of desperate effort, I scrutinized one lady and decided to call her the
Lady with the Green Bag.
It wasn’t a very clever characterization, but it was, at least, founded
on fact.
Another I conscientiously contemplated, and finally dubbed her the Lady
Who Isn’t an Actress. This was rather a negative description, but I
based it on the neatness of her vanity-bag and the carelessness of her
belt, and I am sure it was true.
The Clucking Mother was easily recognized, and a pink-cheeked and
white-handed young man, who attempted to talk to me, I snubbed, and then
to myself I designated him as Simple Simon.
I wasn’t really rude to him, and I fully intended to make acquaintances
among the passengers later on; but I am methodical, and after I had all
my other tasks attended to, I hoped to have two or three days left for
social intercourse.
[Illustration: Simple Simon.]
But after a time the chair next mine was left vacant, and then a
laughing young girl seated herself in it.
Apparently it didn’t belong to her, and she sat down there with the
express purpose of talking to me. My arduous study of my
fellow-travellers had somewhat wearied me, and her sudden and uninvited
appearance disturbed that serene calm which I had supposed unassailable,
and so I angrily characterized her in my mind as a Bold-Faced Jig.
This name was so apt that it really pleased me, and I involuntarily
smiled in appreciation of my appreciation of her.
So sympathetic was she (as I afterward discovered) that she smiled too,
and then I couldn’t, in common decency, be rude to her. She chatted
away, and before I knew it I was charmed with her. I didn’t change the
name I had mentally bestowed on her, but, instead, I told her of it, and
it delighted her beyond measure. I told her, too, how I intended to
devote the next two days to planning my summer trip, then a day for
writing letters, and after that I hoped to play bridge, or otherwise
hobnob socially with certain people whom I had mentally selected for
that purpose.
The Bold-Faced Jig laughed heartily at this.
“Haven’t you any idea where you’re going to travel?” she asked.
“Not the slightest.”
“Well, let me advise you——”
“Oh, please don’t!” I cried. “I left my planning until now in order to
get away from all advisers. I _must_ decide for myself. I know just what
I want, and I can’t bear to be interfered with.”
The B.-F. J. looked amazed at first, and then she laughed.
“All right,” she said. “Now listen, Miss Emmins. I think you’re
delightful, and I’m going to help you all I can by _not_ advising you.
But if you’ve not finished your itinerary plans in two days, mayn’t I
tell you then what I was going to advise?”
“Yes,” I said, with dignity and decision, “if you will keep away from me
for two days, and do all you can to keep others away.”
She promised, and it was more of a task than it might seem, for as I sat
in my deck-chair, or, oftener, at a table in the library, surrounded by
Baedekers, time-tables, maps, guide-books, and Hare’s _Walks in London_,
many of the socially inclined or curious-minded paused to make a
tentative remark. My replies were so coolly polite that they rarely
ventured on a second observation, but I soon discovered that my laughing
friend had told her comrades what I was doing, and they awaited the
result.
It is strange what trivialities will interest the idle minds of those
who dawdle about in the library of an ocean steamer.
Jane would occasionally come and stand by me, saying wisely, “Are you
still making your itinnery?”
When I said yes, she sighed and smiled and ran away, being desirous not
to bother.
The first morning I engaged in this work, I read interestedly of
picture-galleries and architectural specialties. That afternoon my
interest waned, and I studied time-tables and statistical information.
The next morning I grew sick of the whole performance and, bundling the
books and maps away, I went out to my deck-chair, and idled away the
hours in waking dreams that never were on sea or land.
That afternoon the Bold-Faced Jig approached me.
“It’s all over,” I said. “I’ve capitulated. I make no plans while I’m on
this blessed ocean. It’s wicked to do anything at all but to do
nothing.”
“And don’t you want my advice?” she asked, laughing still.
“I don’t care,” I answered. “You can voice your advice if you choose. I
sha’n’t listen to it, much less follow it.”
Her girlish laughter rang out again. “That was my advice,” she said. “I
was going to tell you not to plan any trip while you are at sea. Just
enjoy the days as they come and go; don’t count them; don’t do anything
at all but just _be_.
“I’m not through yet,” she went on. “Don’t write any letters or read any
books. Don’t study human nature, and of all things don’t voluntarily
make acquaintances. If they happen along, as I did, chat a bit if you
choose, and when they pass on, forget them.”
And so I took advice after all. I made no plans, I made no abstruse
diagnoses of human character, I made no acquaintances save such as
casually happened of themselves. And the days passed in a sort of
rose-colored haze, as indefinite as a foggy sunrise, and as satisfying
as a painted nocturne of Whistler’s. And so, my first impressions of my
first ocean crossing are indeed enviable.
[Illustration] _III._ “_In England—Now!_”
The trip from Liverpool to London I found to be a green glimpse of
England in the shape of a biograph. But the word _green_, as we say it
in our haste, is utterly inadequate to apply to the color of the English
landscape. Though of varying shades, it is always green to the n^{th}
power; it is a saturated solution of green; it is a green that sinks
into the eye with a sensation of indelibility. And as this green flew by
me, I watched it from the window of a car most disappointingly like our
own Pullmans.
I had hoped for the humorous absurdities of the compartmented English
trains. I had almost expected to see sitting opposite me a gentleman
dressed in white paper, and I involuntarily watched for a guard who
should look at me through a telescope, and say “You’re travelling the
wrong way.”
For my most definite impressions of English railway carriages had been
gained from my “Alice,” and I was annoyed to find myself booked for a
large arm-chair seat in a parlor car, with my luggage checked to its
London destination on “the American plan”!
What, pray, was the use of coming abroad, if one was to have all the
comforts of home?
As if to add to the unsatisfactoriness of my first impressions of
English travel, I found myself sitting opposite a young American woman.
We faced each other across a small table, covered with what seemed to be
green baize, but was more likely the reflection of the insistent
landscape.
The lady was one of those hopeless, helpless, newly rich, that affect so
strongly the standing of Americans in Europe.
She was blatantly pretty, and began to talk at once, apparently quite
oblivious of the self-evident fact that I wanted to absorb in silence
that flying green, to which her own nature was evidently quite
impervious.
“Your first trip?” she said, though I never knew how she guessed it.
“My! it must be quite an event in your life. Now it’s only an incident
in mine.”
“You come often, then?” said I, not specially interested.
[Illustration: “The one with the plaid travelling-cap.”]
“Yes; that is, we shall come every summer now. You see, he made a lot of
money in copper,—that’s my husband over there, the one with the plaid
travelling-cap,—so we can travel as much as we like. We’ve planned a
long trip for this year, and we’ve got to hustle, I can tell you. I’m
awfully systematic. I’ve bought all the Baedekers, and this year I’m
going to see everything that’s marked with a double star. You know those
are the ‘sights which should on no account be omitted.’ Then next year
we’ll do up the single stars, and after that we can take things more
leisurely.”
“You’ve never been over before, then?” I observed.
“No,” she admitted, a little reluctantly; “I went to California last
year. I think Americans ought to see their own country first.”
I couldn’t help wishing she had chosen this year for her California
trip, but the accumulation of green vision had somehow magicked me into
a mood of cooing amiability, and I good-naturedly assisted her to
prattle on, by offering an encouraging word now and then.
“He’s so good to me,” she said, nodding toward her husband. “He says he
welcomes the coming and speeds the parting dollar. Isn’t that cute? He’s
an awfully witty man.”
She described the home he had just built for her in Chicago, and it
seemed to be a sort of Liberal Arts Building set in the last scene of a
comic opera.
For a moment, I left the green to itself, while I looked at my
unrefractive countrywoman with an emotion evenly divided between pity
and envy. For had she not reached the ultimate happiness, the apotheosis
of content only possible to the wealthy Nitro-Bromide? And what was I
that I should depreciate such soul-filling satisfaction? And why should
my carping analysis dub it ignorance? Why, indeed!
After a few more green miles, an important-mannered guard, who proved to
be also guide, philosopher, and friend, piloted me to a dining-car which
might have been a part of the rolling-stock of the Pennsylvania
Railroad.
Nothing about it suggested the anticipated English discomfort, unless it
might be the racks for the glasses, which, after all, relieved one of
certain vague apprehensions.
But at dinner it was my good luck to sit in a quartet, the other three
members of which were typical English people.
I suppose it is a sort of reflex nervous action that makes people who
eat together chummy at once. The fact of doing the same thing at the
same time creates an involuntary sympathy which expands with the effects
of physical refreshment.
I patted myself on my mental shoulder as I looked at the three pleasant
English faces, and I suddenly became aware that, though of a different
color, they affected me with exactly the same sensation as the clean,
green English scenery.
This, I conclude, was because English people are so essentially a part
of their landscape, a statement true of no Americans save the aboriginal
Indian tribes.
My table-mates were a perfect specimen of the British matron, her
husband, and her daughter. I should describe them as well-bred, but that
term seems to imply an effect of acquisition by means of outside
influences. They were, rather, well-born, in a sense that implies
congenital good-breeding.
Their name was Travers, and we slid into conversation as easily as a
launching ship slides down into the water. Naturally I asked them to
tell me of London, explaining that it was my first visit there, and I
wished to know how to manage it.
“What London do you want to use?” asked Mr. Travers, interestedly. “You
know there are many Londons for the entertainment of visitors. We can
give you the Baedeker London, or Dickens’s London, or Stevenson’s
London, or Bernard Shaw’s London, or Whistler’s London——”
“Or our own W. D. Howells’s London,” I finished, as he paused in his
catalogue.
“I think,” I went on, “the London I want is a composite affair, and I
shall compile it as I go along. You know Browning says ‘The world is
made for each of us,’ and so I think there’s a London made for each of
us, and we have only to pick it out from among the myriad others.”
“That’s quite true,” said Mrs. Travers. “You’ll be using, do you see,
many bits of those Londons mentioned, but combining them in such a way
as to make an individual London all your own.”
The prospect delighted me, and I mentally resolved to build up such a
London as never was on land or sea.
“But,” I observed, “aside from an individually theorized London, there
must be a practical side that is an inevitable accompaniment. There must
be facts as well as opinions. I should be most glad of any hints or
advices from experienced and kind-hearted Londoners.”
“Without doubt,” said Mr. Travers, “the question trembling on the tip of
your tongue is the one that trembles on the tip of every American tongue
that lands on our shores—‘What fee shall I give a cabman?’”
I laughed outright at this, for it was indeed one of my collection of
tongue-tipped questions.
[Illustration: He treats you to his opinion of you in choice
Billingsgate.]
“But, sadly enough,” went on the Englishman, “it is a question that it
is useless for me to answer you at present. An American must be in
London for four years before he can believe the true solution of the
cab-fee problem. The correct procedure is to give the cabby nothing
beyond his legal fare. If you give him tuppence, he looks at you
reproachfully; if you give him fourpence, he scowls at you fearfully; if
you give him sixpence, he treats you to his verbal opinion of you in
choice Billingsgate. Whereas, if you give him no gratuity, he assumes
that you have lived here for four years, and lifts his hat to you with
the greatest respect.”
“Why can’t I follow your rule at once?” I demanded.
“I do not know,” returned Mr. Travers. “Nobody knows; but the fact
remains that you cannot. You think you believe the theory now, because
you hear me set it forth with an air of authority; but it will take you
at least four years to attain a true working knowledge of it. Moreover,
you will ask every Englishman you meet regarding cab-fees, and so
conflicting will be their advices that you will change your tactics with
every hansom you ride in.”
“Then,” said I, with an air of independence, “I shall keep out of
hansom-cabs, until I am fully determined what course to pursue in this
regard.”
“But you can’t, my dear lady,” continued my instructor. “To be in London
is to be in a hansom. They are inevitable.”
“Why not omnibuses?” I asked, eager for general information. “I have
long wanted to ride in or on a London ’bus.”
Mr. Travers’s eyes twinkled.
“You have an American joke,” he said, “which cautions people against
going into the water before they learn how to swim. I will give you an
infallible rule for ’buses: never get on a London ’bus until you have
learned to get on and off of them while they are in motion.”
[Illustration: “What waggery,” observed Mrs. Travers.]
“What waggery!” observed Mrs. Travers, in a calm, unamused tone, and I
suddenly realized that I was in the midst of an English sense of humor.
The dinner progressed methodically through a series of specified
courses, and when we had reached the vegetable marrow I had ceased to
regard the green distance outside and gave my full attention to my lucky
find of the Real Thing in English people.
Mr. Travers’s advice was always excellent and practical, though usually
hidden in a jest of somewhat heavy _persiflage_.
We discussed the English tendency to elide letters or syllables from
their proper names, falling back on the time-worn example of the
American who complained that Englishmen spell a name B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p
and pronounce it _Chumley_.
“But it’s better for an American,” said Mr. Travers, “to pronounce a
name as it is spelled than to elide at his own sweet will. I met a
Chicagoan last summer, who said he intended to run out to Win’c’s’le.”
“What _did_ he mean?” I asked, in my ignorance.
“Windsor Castle,” replied Mr. Travers, gravely.
The mention of Chicago made me remember my companion in the parlor car,
and I spoke of her as one type of the American tourist.
“I saw her,” said Mrs. Travers, with that inimitable air of separateness
that belongs to the true Londoner; “she is not interesting. Merely a
smart party who wears a hat.”
As this so competently described the lady from Chicago, I began to
suspect, what I later came thoroughly to realize, that the English are
wonderfully adept in the making of picturesque phrases.
[Illustration: “Merely a smart party who wears a hat.”]
During our animated conversation, Miss Travers had said almost nothing.
I had read of the mental blankness of the British Young Person, and was
not altogether surprised at this.
But the girl was a delight to look at. By no means of the pink-cheeked,
red-lipped variety immortalized in English novels, she was of a delicate
build, with a face of transparent whiteness. Her soft light brown hair
was carelessly arranged, and her violet eyes would have been pathetic
but for a flashing, merry twinkle when she occasionally raised their
heavy, creamy lids.
Remembering Mrs. Travers’s aptness in coining phrases of description, I
tried to put Rosalind Travers into a few words, but was obliged to
borrow from the Master-Coiner, and I called her “The Person of
Moonshine.”
By the time I was having my first interview with real Cheddar cheese,
the Traverses were inviting me to visit them, and I was gladly accepting
their delightfully hospitable and unmistakably sincere invitation.
Scrupulously careful to bid good-bye to my Chicago friend before we
reached London, alone I stepped from the train at Euston Station with a
feeling of infinite anticipation.
Owing probably to an over-excited imagination, the mere physical
atmosphere of the city impressed me as something quite different from
any city I had ever seen. I felt as if I had at last come into my own,
and had far more the attitude of a returning wanderer than a visiting
stranger.
The hansom-cabs did not appear any different from the New York vehicles
of the same name, but I climbed into one without that vague wonder as to
whether it wouldn’t be cheaper to buy the outfit than to pay my fare.
My destination was a club in Piccadilly—a woman’s club, which I had
joined for the sole purpose of using its house as an abiding-place.
The cab-driver was cordial, even solicitous about my comfort, but
finally myself and my hand-luggage were carefully stowed away, the glass
was put down, and we started.
It was after dark, and it was raining, two conditions which might appall
an unescorted woman in a strange city. The rain was of that ridiculous
English sort, where the drops do not fall, but play around in the air,
now and then whisking into the faces of passers-by, but never spoiling
their clothes. It was enough, though, to wet the asphalt, and when we
swung into Piccadilly, and the flashing lights from everywhere dived
down into the street, and rippled themselves across the wet blackness of
the pavement, I suddenly realized that I was driving over one of the
most beautiful things in the world.
I looked out through my hansom-glass darkly, at London. Unknown,
mysterious, silent, but enticing with its twinkling eyes, it was like a
masked beauty at a ball. Yet, beneath that mocking, elusive witchery, I
was conscious of an implied promise, that my London would yet unmask,
and I should know and love her face to face.
[Illustration] _IV._ _Mayfair in the Fair Month of May_
I suppose that the earliest thing that happens anywhere is the London
dawn. In all my life, my waking hours had never reached three o’clock
A.M., from either direction, and when, on the first morning after my
arrival in London, I was awakened at that hour by a gently intrusive
daybreak, I felt as if I had received a personal and intentional
affront.
I rose, and stalked to the window, with an air of haughty reproach,
intending to close the shutters tightly until a more seemly hour.
As there are only six window-shutters in the whole city of London, it is
not surprising that none of these was attached to my window; but it
really didn’t matter, for after reaching the window that morning I never
thought of a shutter again until I returned to America.
My window, which was a large French affair in three parts, looked out
upon Piccadilly. It opened on a small stone-railed balcony, and as I
looked out three pigeons looked in. They were of the fat and pompous
kind and they strutted along the railing, with a frankly sociable air,
cocking their heads pertly in an endeavor to draw my attention to the
glistening iridescence of their neck-feathers.
I liked the pigeons, and I told them so, but even better I liked the
sight across the street.
Green Park at dawn is as solemnly impressive as the interior of
Westminster Abbey. The trees sway and quiver, giving an occasional
glimpse of the Clock Tower of Parliament House. From the throats of
myriad birds comes a sound as of one blended twitter, and a strange,
unreal radiance pervades the whole scene. With the rapidly increasing
daylight definiteness ensues, and railings, benches, roadway, and other
details of the Park add strength to the picture.
Having seen three o’clock in Green Park, I promptly forgot my errand
with the shutters, and, hastily donning conventional morning costume, I
prepared to watch four o’clock, and five, and six appear from the same
direction.
[Illustration: They were occupying the only earthly home they
possessed.]
As outlines became clearer I noticed a park bench directly opposite my
window, on which sat four old women. All were garbed in black, and all
were sleeping soundly. I was then unaware of the large proportion of the
elderly feminine in London’s seamy side of population, and so casual was
the aspect of the quartet that it did not occur to me they were
occupying the only earthly home they possessed.
They seemed to me more like duplicate Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshines, who
had paused for a time in Green Park instead of in mid-ocean.
But after I had seen the same women there at three o’clock on a dozen
consecutive mornings I began to realize that they were part of the
landscape.
Nor was I unduly sorry for them. They sat on that bench with the same
air of voluntary appropriation that marked the birds in the trees, or
the pigeons on the railing. And as the days went on I became accustomed
to seeing them there, and ceased to feel any inclination to go out and
try to persuade them to enter an old ladies’ home.
At about seven o’clock the omnibuses began to ply. I had never known
before what was indicated by the verb _to ply_. But I saw at once that
it is the only word that properly expresses the peculiar gait of an
omnibus, which is a cross between a rolling lurch and a lumbering
wobble. Fascination is a mild term for the effect these things had on
me.
One omnibus might not so enthrall me. I don’t know; I have never seen
one omnibus alone. But the procession of them along Piccadilly is the
one thing on earth of which I cannot conceive myself becoming tired.
Their color, form, motion, and sound all partake of the primeval, and
their continuity of effect is eternal.
My Baedeker tells me that the first omnibuses plying in London were
“much heavier and clumsier than those now in use.” But of course this is
a mistake, for they couldn’t have been.
I have heard that tucked away among the gay-colored advertisements that
are patchworked all over these moving Mammoth Caves are small and
neatly-lettered signs designating destinations. I do not know this. I
have never been able to find them. But it doesn’t matter. To get to
Hampstead Heath, you take a Bovril; to go to the City, take Carter’s
Ink; and to get anywhere in a hurry, jump on a Horlick’s Malted Milk.
There is also a graceful serpentine legend lettered down the back of
each ’bus, but as this usually says “Liverpool Street,” I think it can’t
mean much.
Personally, I never patronize one of the things. They are too uncanny
for me, and their ways are more devious than those of our Seventeenth
Street horse-cars.
Besides, I always feared that, if I got in or on one, I couldn’t see the
rest of them as a whole. And it is the unbroken continuity that, after
the coloring, is their greatest charm. I have spent many hours watching
the Piccadilly procession of them, “like a wounded snake drag its slow
length along,” and look forward to many hours more of the same delight.
But the dawn, the daybreak, and the early morning slipped away, and all
too soon my first day in London had begun.
My mail brought me difficulties of all sorts. There were invitations
from people, whom well-meaning mutual friends had advised of my arrival.
There were offers from friends or would-be friends to escort me about on
shopping or sight-seeing tours. There were cards for functions of more
or less formality, and there were circulars from tradesmen and
professional people.
With a Gordian-knot-cutting impulse, I tossed the whole collection into
my desk, and started out alone for a morning walk.
[Illustration: Tossed the whole collection into my desk.]
Nor shall I ever forget that walk. Not only because it was a “first
impression,” but because it was the most beautiful piece of
pedestrianism that ever fell to my lot.
My clubhouse home was almost at the corner of Hamilton Place, and as I
stepped from its portal out into Piccadilly I seemed to breathe the
quintessence of London, past, present, and to come.
Meteorologically speaking, the atmosphere was perfect. The reputation
for fogginess, that London has somehow acquired, is a base libel. Its
air is marked by a dazzling clearness of haze that, more than anything
else, “life’s leaden metal into gold transmutes.”
Thus exhilarated at the start, I began my stroll down Piccadilly, and at
every step I added to my glowing sense of satisfied well-being. I turned
north into Berkeley Street, and thus started on my first sight-seeing
tour. And was it not well that I was by myself?
For the most kind and well-meaning cicerone would probably have said,
“Do you not want to see the house where Carlyle died?”
And how embarrassed would I have been to be obliged to make reply:
“No, not especially. But I do want to see where Tomlinson gave up the
ghost in his house in Berkeley Square.”