The hostess should, in furnishing her house, provide a number of
bath-tubs. The tin ones, shaped like a hat, are very convenient, as
are also india-rubber portable baths. If there is not a bath-room
belonging to every room, this will enable an Englishman to take his
tub as cold as he pleases, or allow the American to take the warmer
sponge bath which Americans generally prefer.
The house should also be well supplied with lunch-baskets for picnics
and for the railway journey. These can be had for a small sum, and are
well fitted up with drinking-cups, knives, forks, spoons, corkscrews,
sandwich-boxes, etc. These and a great supply of unbreakable cups for
the lawn-tennis ground are very useful.
There should be also any number of painted tin pails, and small
pitchers to carry hot water; several services of plain tea things, and
Japanese waiters, on which to send tea to the bedrooms; and in every
room should be placed a table, thoroughly furnished with
writing-materials, and with all the conveniences for writing and
sealing a letter.
Shakspeare's bequest to his wife of his second-best bed has passed as
a bit of post-mortem ungallantry, which has dimmed his fame as a model
husband; but to-day that second-best bed would be a very handsome
bequest, not only because it was Shakspeare's, but because it was
doubtless a "tester," for which there is a craze. All the old
four-posters, which our grandmothers sent to the garret, are on their
way back again to the model bedroom. With all our rage for ventilation
and fresh air, we no longer fear the bed curtains which a few years
ago were supposed to foster disease and death; because the model
bedroom can now be furnished with a ventilator for admitting the
fresh, and one permitting the egress of the foul air. Each gas bracket
is provided with a pipe placed above it, which pierces the wall and
through which the product of combustion is carried out of the house.
This is a late sanitary improvement in London, and is being introduced
in New York.
As for the bed curtains, they are hung on rods with brass rings, no
canopy on top, so that the curtains can be shaken and dusted freely.
This is a great improvement on the old upholstered top, which recalls
Dickens's description of Mrs. Todger's boarding-house, where at the
top of the stairs "the odour of many generations of dinners had
gathered and had never been dispelled." In like manner the unpleasant
feeling that perhaps whole generations of sleepers had breathed into
the same upholstery overhead, used to haunt the wakeful, in old
English inns, to the murdering of sleep.
There is a growing admiration, unfortunately, for tufted bedsteads.
They are in the long run neither clean nor wholesome, and not easily
kept free from vermin; but they are undeniably handsome, and recall
the imperial beds of state apartments, where kings and queens are
supposed to seek that repose which comes so unwillingly to them, but
so readily to the plough-boy. These upholstered, tufted, satin-covered
bedsteads should be fitted with a canopy, and from this should hang a
baldachin and side curtains. Certain very beautiful specimens of this
regal arrangement, bought in Italy, are in the Vanderbilt palaces in
New York. Opulent purchasers can get copies at the great
furnishing-houses, but it is becoming difficult to get the real
antiques. Travellers in Brittany find the most wonderful carved
bedsteads built into the wall, and are always buying them of the
astonished fisher-folk, who have no idea how valuable is their
smoke-stained, carved oak.
But as to the making up of the bed. There are nowadays cleanly springs
and hair mattresses, in place of the old feather-beds; and as to stiff
white bedcovers, pillowslips and shams, false sheets and valenciennes
trimmings, monogrammed and ruffled fineries, there is a truce. They
were so slippery, so troublesome, and so false withal, that the beds
that have known them shall know them no more forever. They had always
to be unpinned and unhooked before the sleeper could enter his bed;
and they were the torment of the housemaid. They entailed a degree of
washing and ironing which was endless, and yet many a young
housekeeper thought them indispensable. That idea has gone out
completely. The bed now is made up with its fresh linen sheets, its
clean blankets and its Marseilles quilt, with square or long pillow as
the sleeper fancies, with bolster in plain linen sheath. Then over the
whole is thrown a light lace cover lined with Liberty silk. This may
be as expensive or as cheap as the owner pleases. Or the spreads may
be of satin covered with Chinese embroidery, Turkish Smyrniote, or
other rare things, or of the patchwork or decorative art designs now
so fashionable. One light and easily aired drapery succeeds the four
or five pieces of unmanageable linen. If the bed is a tester and the
curtains of silk or chintz, the bed-covering should match in tint. In
a very pretty bedroom the walls should be covered with chintz or silk.
The modern highly glazed tile paper for walls and ceiling is an
admirable covering, as it refuses to harbour dirt, and the housemaid's
brush can keep it sweet and clean. Wall papers are so pretty and so
exquisite in design that it seems hardly necessary to do more than
mention them. Let us hope the exasperating old rectangular patterns,
which have confused so many weary brains and haunted so many a
feverish pillow, are gone forever.
The floors should be of plain painted wood, varnished, than which
nothing can be cleaner; or perhaps of polished or oiled wood of the
natural colour, with parquetried borders. If this is impossible cover
with dark-stained mattings, which are as clean and healthful as
possible. These may remain down all winter, and rugs may be laid over
them at the fireplace and near the bed, sofa, etc. Readily lifted and
shaken, rugs have all the comfort of carpets, and none of their
disadvantages.
Much is said of the unhealthfulness of gas in bedrooms, but if it does
not escape, it is not unhealthful. The prettiest illumination is by
candles in the charming new candlesticks in tin and brass, which are
as nice as Roman lamps.
On the old bedsteads of Cromwell's time we find a shelf running across
the head of the bed, just above the sleeper's head,--placed there for
the posset cup. This is now utilized for a safety lamp, for those who
indulge in the pernicious practice of reading in bed; but it is even
better used as a receptacle for the book, the letter-case, the many
little things which an invalid may need, and it saves calling a
nurse.
All paint used in a model bedroom should be free from poison. The
fireplace should be tiled, and the windows made with a deep beading on
the sill. This is a piece of wood like the rest of the frame, which
comes up two or three inches in front of the lower part of the window.
The object of this is to admit of the lower sash being raised without
causing a draught. The room is thus ventilated by the air which
filters through the slight aperture between the upper and lower
sashes. Above all things have an open fireplace in the bedroom.
Abolish stoves from that sacred precinct. Use wood for fuel if
possible; if not, the softest of cannel-coal.
Have brass rods placed, on which to hang portières in winter.
Portières and curtains may be cheaply made of ingrain carpet
embroidered; or of Turkish or Indian stuffs; splendid Delhi pulgaries,
a mass of gold silk embroidered, with bits of looking-glass worked in;
of velvet; camel's-hair shawls; satin, chintz, or cretonne. Costly thy
portières as thy purse can buy; nothing is so pretty and so
ornamental.
Glazed chintzes may be hung at the windows, without lining, as the
light shines through the flowers, making a good effect. Chenille
curtains of soft rich colours are appropriate for the modern bedroom.
Madras muslin curtains will do for the windows, but are not heavy
enough for portières.
There are hangings made of willow bamboo, which can be looped back, or
left hanging, which give a window a furnished look, without
intercepting the light. Low wooden tables painted red, tables for
writing materials, brackets on the walls for vases, candlesticks, and
photograph screens, a long couch with many pillows, a Shaker
rocking-chair, a row of hanging book-shelves,--these, with bed and
curtains in fresh tints, make a pretty room in a country house.
If possible, people who entertain much should have a suite of bedrooms
for guests, so that no one need be turned out of one's room to make
way for a guest.
Brass beds are to be recommended as cleanly, handsome, and durable.
Many ladies have, however, found fault with them because they show the
under mattress, where the clothes are tucked in over the upper one.
This can be remedied by making a valance which is finished with a
ruffle at the top, which can be fluted, the whole tied on by tapes.
Two or three of these in white will be all that a housekeeper needs,
and if made of pretty coloured merino to match the room, they will
last clean a long time.
Every bedroom should have, if possible, a dressing-room, where the
wash-stand, wardrobe, bath-tub, box for boots and shoes, box for
soiled clothes, and toilet-table, perhaps, can be kept. In the new
sanitary houses in London, the water cistern is placed in view behind
glass in these rooms, so that if anything is the matter with the water
supply, it can be remedied immediately. However, in old fashioned
houses, where dressing-rooms cannot be evoked, screens can be so
placed as to conceal the unornamental objects.
A toilet-table should be ornamental and not hidden, with its curtains,
pockets, looking-glasses, little bows, shelves for bottles, devices
for secret drawers for love letters, and so on. Ivory brushes with the
owner's monogram, all sorts of pretty Japanese boxes, and
dressing-cases, silver-backed brushes and mirrors, buttonhooks,
knives, scissors can be neatly laid out.
A little table for afternoon tea should stand ready, with a tray of
Satsuma or old Worcester, with cups and tea equipage, and a copper
kettle with alcohol lamp should stand on a bracket on the wall. In the
heating of water, a trivet should be attached to the grate, and a
little iron kettle might sing forever on the hob. Ornamental ottomans
in plush covers, which open and disclose a wood box, should stand by
the fireplace. Chameleon glass lamps with king-fisher stems are pretty
on the mantel-piece, which can be upholstered to match the bed; and
there may be vases in amber, primrose, cream-colour, pale blue, and
ruby. No fragrant flowers or growing plants should be allowed in a
bedroom. There should be at least one clock in the room, to strike the
hour with musical reiteration.
As for baths, the guest should be asked if he prefers hot or cold
water, and the hour at which he will have it. If a tin hat-bath, or an
india-rubber tub is used, the maid should enter and arrange it in this
manner: first lay a rubber cloth on the floor and then place the tub
on it. Then bring a large pail of cold water, and a can of hot. Place
near the tub a towel-rack hung with fresh towels, both damask and
Turkish, and if a full-length Turkish towel be added it will be a
great luxury. If the guest be a gentleman, and no man-servant be kept,
this should all be arranged the night before, with the exception of
course of the hot water, which can be left outside the door at any
hour in the morning when it is desired. If it is a stationary tub, of
course the matter is a simple one, and depends on the turn of a couple
of faucets.
Some visitors are very fussy and dislike to be waited on; to such the
option must be given: "Do you prefer to light your own fire, to turn
on your bath, to make your own tea, or shall the maid enter at eight
o'clock and do it for you?" Such questions are often asked in an
English country house. Every facility for doing the work would of
course be supplied to the visitor.
The bedroom being nowadays made so very attractive, the guest should
stay in it as much as possible, if he or she find that the hostess
likes to be alone; in short, absent yourself occasionally. Do your
letter-writing and some reading in your room. Most people prefer this
freedom and like to be let alone in the morning.
At a country house, gentlemen should be very particular to dress for
dinner. If not in the regulation claw-hammer, still with a change of
garment. There is a very good garment called a smokee, which is worn
by gentlemen in the summer, a sort of light jacket of black cloth,
which goes well with either black or white cravat; but with all the
_laisser aller_ of a country visit, inattention to the proprieties of
dress is not included.
A guest must go provided with a lawn-tennis costume, if he plays that
noble game which has become the great consolation of our rising
generation. No doubt the hostess blesses the invention of this great
time killer, as she sees her men and maidens trooping out to the
ground, under the trees. This suggests the subject of out-of-door
refreshment, the claret cup, the champagne cup, the shandy gaff, the
fresh cider, and the thousand and one throat-coolers, for which our
American genius seems to have been inspired to meet the drain of a
very dry climate, and which we shall consider elsewhere.