Country Lodgings

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Title:     Country Lodgings
Author: Eliza Leslie [More Titles by Leslie]

"Chacun a son gout."--French Proverb.

It has often been a subject of surprise to me, that so many even of those highly-gifted people who are fortunate enough to possess both sorts of sense (common and uncommon), show, nevertheless, on some occasions, a strange disinclination to be guided by the self-evident truth, that in all cases where the evil preponderates over the good, it is better to reject the whole than to endure a large portion of certain evil for the sake of a little sprinkling of probable good. I can think of nothing, just now, that will more aptly illustrate my position, than the practice so prevalent in the summer-months of quitting a commodious and comfortable home, in this most beautiful and convenient of cities, for the purpose of what is called boarding out of town; and wilfully encountering an assemblage of almost all "the ills that flesh is heir to," in the vain hope of finding superior coolness in those establishments that go under the denomination of country lodgings, and are sometimes to be met with in insulated locations, but generally in the unpaved and dusty streets of the villages and hamlets that are scattered about the vicinity of Philadelphia.

These places are adopted as substitutes for the springs or the sea-shore; and it is also not unusual for persons who have already accomplished the fashionable tour, to think it expedient to board out of town for the remainder of the summer, or till they are frightened home by the autumnal epidemics.

I have more than once been prevailed on to try this experiment, in the universal search after coolness which occupies so much of the attention of my fellow-citizens from June to September, and the result has been uniformly the same: a conviction that a mere residence beyond the limits of the city is not an infallible remedy for all the désagrémens of summer; that (to say nothing of other discomforts) it is possible to feel the heat more in a small house out of the town than in a large one in it.

The last time I was induced to make a trial of the delights of country lodgings, I had been told of a very genteel lady (the widow of an Englishman, said to have been highly connected in his own country), who had taken a charming house at a short distance from the city, with the intention of accommodating boarders for the summer; and I finally allowed myself to be prevailed on to become an inmate of her establishment, as I had just returned from the north, and found the weather still very warm.

Two of my friends, a lady and gentleman, accompanied me when I went to engage my apartment. The ride was a very short one, and we soon arrived at a white frame house with green window-shutters, and also a green gate which opened into a little front garden with one gravel walk, two grass plats, and four Lombardy poplar trees, which, though excluded in the city, still keep their ground in out-of-town places.

There was no knocker, but, after hammering and shaking the door for near five minutes, it was at last opened by a barefooted bound-girl, who hid herself behind it as if ashamed to be seen. She wore a ragged light calico frock, through the slits of which appeared at intervals a black stuff petticoat: the body was only kept together with pins, and partly concealed by a dirty cape of coarse white muslin; one lock of her long yellow hair was stuck up by the wreck of a horn comb, and the remaining tresses hung about her shoulders. When we inquired if Mrs. Netherby was at home, the girl scratched her head, and stared as if stupified by the question, and on its being repeated, she replied that "she would go and look," and then left us standing at the door. A coloured servant would have opened the parlour, ushered us in, and with smiles and curtsies requested us to be seated. However, we took the liberty of entering without invitation: and the room being perfectly dark, we also used the freedom of opening the shutters.

The floor was covered with a mat which fitted nowhere, and showed evidence of long service. Whatever air might have been introduced through the fire-place, was effectually excluded by a thick chimney-board, covered with a square of wall-paper representing King George IV. visiting his cameleopard. I afterwards found that Mrs. Netherby was very proud of her husband's English origin. The mantel-piece was higher than our heads, and therefore the mirror that adorned it was too elevated to be of any use. This lofty shelf was also decorated with two pasteboard baskets, edged with gilt paper, and painted with bunches of calico-looking flowers, two fire-screens ditto, and two card-racks in the shape of harps with loose and crooked strings of gold thread. In the centre of the room stood an old-fashioned round tea-table, the feet black with age, and the top covered with one of those coarse unbleached cloths of figured linen that always look like dirty white. The curiosities of the centre-table consisted of a tumbler of marigolds: a dead souvenir which had been a living one in 1826: a scrap work-box stuck all over with figures of men, women, and children, which had been most wickedly cut out of engravings and deprived of their backgrounds for this purpose: an album with wishy-washy drawings and sickening verses: a china writing-apparatus, destitute alike of ink, sand, and wafers: and a card of the British consul, which, I afterwards learnt, had once been left by him for Mr. Netherby.

The walls were ornamented with enormous heads drawn in black crayon, and hung up in narrow gilt frames with bows of faded gauze riband. One head was inscribed Innocence, and had a crooked mouth; a second was Beneficence, with a crooked nose; and a third was Contemplation, with a prodigious swelling on one of her cheeks; and the fourth was Veneration, turning up two eyes of unequal size. The flesh of one of these heads looked like china, and another like satin; the third had the effect of velvet, and the fourth resembled plush.

All these things savoured of much unfounded pretension; but we did not then know that they were chiefly the work of Mrs. Netherby herself, who, as we learned in the sequel, had been blest with a boarding-school education, and was, according to her own opinion, a person of great taste and high polish.

It was a long time before the lady made her appearance, as we had arrived in the midst of the siesta in which it was the custom of every member of the establishment (servants included) to indulge themselves during the greatest part of the afternoon, with the exception of the bound-girl, who was left up to "mind the house." Mrs. Netherby was a tall, thin, sharp-faced woman, with an immense cap, that stood out all round, and encircled her head like a halo, and was embellished with an enormous quantity of yellowish gauze riband that seemed to incorporate with her huge yellow curls: fair hair being much affected by ladies who have survived all other fairness. She received us with abundance of smiles, and a profusion of flat compliments, uttered in a voice of affected softness; and on making known my business, I was conducted up-stairs to see a room which she said would suit me exactly. Mrs. Netherby was what is called "a sweet woman."

The room was small, but looked tolerably well, and though I was not much prepossessed in favour of either the house or the lady, I was unwilling that my friends should think me too fastidious, and it was soon arranged that I should take possession the following day.

Next afternoon I arrived at my new quarters; and tea being ready soon after, I was introduced to the other boarders, as they came down from their respective apartments. The table was set in a place dignified with the title of "the dining-room," but which was in reality a sort of anti-kitchen, and located between the acknowledged kitchen and the parlour. It still retained vestiges of a dresser, part of which was entire, in the shape of the broad lower-shelf and the under-closets. This was painted red, and Mrs. Netherby called it the side-board. The room was narrow, the ceiling was low, the sunbeams had shone full upon the windows the whole afternoon, and the heat was extreme. A mulatto man waited on the tea-table, with his coat out at elbows, and a marvellous dirty apron, not thinking it worth his while to wear good clothes in the country. And while he was tolerably attentive to every one else, he made a point of disregarding or disobeying every order given to him by Mrs. Netherby: knowing that for so trifling a cause as disrespect to herself, she would not dare to dismiss him at the risk of getting no one in his place; it being always understood that servants confer a great favour on their employers when they condescend to go with them into the country. Behind Mrs. Netherby's chair stood the long-haired bound girl (called Anna by her mistress, and Nance by Bingham the waiter), waving a green poplar branch by way of fly-brush, and awkwardly flirting it in every one's face.

The aspect of the tea-table was not inviting. Everything was in the smallest possible quantity that decency would allow. There was a plate of rye-bread, and a plate of wheat, and a basket of crackers: another plate with half a dozen paltry cakes that looked as if they had been bought under the old Court House: some morsels of dried beef on two little tea-cup plates, and a small glass dish of that preparation of curds, which in vulgar language is called smearcase, but whose nom de guerre is cottage-cheese, at least that was the appellation given it by our hostess. The tea was so weak that it was difficult to discover whether it was black or green; but, finding it undrinkable, I requested a glass of milk: and when Bingham brought me one, Mrs. Netherby said with a smile, "See what it is to live in the country!" Though, after all, we were not out of sight of Christ Church steeple.

The company consisted of a lady with three very bad children; another with a very insipid daughter, about eighteen or twenty, who, like her mother, seemed utterly incapable of conversation; and a fat Mrs. Pownsey, who talked an infinite deal of nothing, and soon took occasion to let me know that she had a very handsome house in the city. The gentlemen belonging to these ladies never came out till after tea, and returned to town early in the morning.

Towards sunset, I proposed taking a walk with the young lady, but she declined on account of the dew, and we returned to the parlour, where there was no light during the whole evening, as Mrs. Netherby declared that she thought nothing was more pleasant than to sit in a dark room in the summer. And when we caught a momentary glimpse from the candles that were carried past the door as the people went up and down stairs, we had the pleasure of finding that innumerable cockroaches were running over the floor and probably over our feet; these detestable insects having also a fancy for darkness.

The youngest of the mothers went up stairs to assist her maid in the arduous task of putting the children to bed, a business that occupied the whole evening; though the eldest boy stoutly refused to go at all, and stretching himself on the settee, he slept there till ten o'clock, when his father carried him off kicking and screaming.

The gentlemen talked altogether of trade and bank business. Some neighbours came in, and nearly fell over us in the dark. Finding the parlour (which had but one door) most insupportably warm, I took my seat in the entry, a narrow passage which Mrs. Netherby called the hall. Thither I was followed by Mrs. Pownsey, a lady of the Malaprop school, who had been talking to me all the evening of her daughters, Mary Margaret and Sarah Susan, they being now on a visit to an aunt in Connecticut. These young ladies had been educated, as their mother informed me, entirely by herself, on a plan of her own: and, as she assured me, with complete success; for Sarah Susan, the youngest, though only ten years old, was already regarded as quite a phinnominy (phenomenon), and as to Mary Margaret, she was an absolute prodigal.

"I teach them everything myself," said she, "except their French, and music, and drawing, in all which they take lessons from the first masters. And Mr. Bullhead, an English gentleman, comes twice a week to attend to their reading and writing and arithmetic, and the grammar of geography. They never have a moment to themselves, but are kept busy from morning till night. You know that idleness is the root of all evil."

"It is certainly the root of much evil," I replied; "but you know the old adage, which will apply equally to both sexes--'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'"

"Oh! they often play," resumed Mrs. Pownsey. "In the evening, after they have learned their lessons, they have games of history, and botany, and mathematics, and all such instructive diversions. I allow them no other plays. Their minds certainly are well stored with all the arts and science. At the same time, as I wish them to acquire a sufficient idea of what is going on in the world, I permit them every day to read over the Marianne List in our New York paper, the Chimerical Advertiser, that they may have a proper knowledge of ships: and also Mr. Walsh's Experts in his Gazette; though I believe he does not write these little moral things himself, but hires Mr. Addison, and Mr. Bacon, and Mr. Locke, and other such gentlemen for the purpose. The Daily Chronicle I never allow them to touch, for there is almost always a story in every paper, and none of these stories are warranted to be true, and reading falsehoods will learn them to tell fibs."

I was much amused with this process of reasoning, though I had more than once heard such logic on the subject of fictitious narratives.

"But, surely, Mrs. Pownsey," said I, "you do not interdict all works of imagination? Do you never permit your daughters to read for amusement?"

"Never," replied this wisest of mothers; "amusement is the high-road to vice. Indeed, with all their numerous studies, they have little or no time for reading anything. And when they have, I watch well that they shall read only books of instruction, such as Mr. Bullhead chooses for them. They are now at Rowland's Ancient History (I am told he is not the same Rowland that makes the Maccassar oil), and they have already got through seven volumes. Their Aunt Watson (who, between ourselves, is rather a weak-minded woman) is shocked at the children reading that book, and says it is filled with crimes and horrors. But so is all the Ancient History that ever I heard of, and of course it is proper that little girls should know these things. They will get a great deal more benefit from Rowland than from reading Miss Edgeworth's story-books, that sister Watson is always recommending."

"Have they ever read the history of their own country?" said I.

"I suppose you mean the History of America," replied Mrs. Pownsey. "Oh! that is of no consequence at all, and Mr. Bullhead says it is never read in England. After they have got through Rowland, they are going to begin Sully's Memoirs. I know Mr. Sully very well; and when they have read it, I will make the girls tell me his whole history; he painted my portrait, and a most delightful man he is, only rather obstinate; for with all I could say, I could not prevail on him to rub out the white spots that he foolishly put in the black part of my eyes. And he also persisted in making one side of my nose darker than the other. It is strange that in these things painters will always take their own course in spite of us, as if we that pay for the pictures have not a right to direct them as we please. But the artist people are all alike. My friend, Mrs. Oakface, tells me she had just the same trouble with Mr. Neagle; in that respect he's quite as bad as Mr. Sully."

She paused a moment to take breath, and then proceeded in continuation of the subject. "Now we talk of pictures, you have no idea what beautiful things my daughters can paint. The very first quarter they each produced two pieces to frame. And Mary Margaret is such a capital judge of these things, that whenever she is looking at a new souvenir, her first thought is to see who did the pictures, that she may know which to praise and which not. There are a great many artists now, but I remember the time when almost all the pictures were done by Mr. Sculp and Mr. Pinx. And then as to music! I wish you could hear my daughters. Their execution is wonderful. They can play crotchets quite as well as quivers; and they sing sollos, and dooets, and tryos, and quartetties equal to the Musical Fund. I long for the time when they are old enough to come out. I will go with them everywhere myself; I am determined to be their perpetual shabberoon."

So much for the lady that educated her daughters herself.

And still, when the mother is capable and judicious, I know no system of education that is likely to be attended with more complete success than that which keeps the child under the immediate superintendence of those who are naturally the most interested in her improvement and welfare; and which removes her from the contagion of bad example, and the danger of forming improper or unprofitable acquaintances. Some of the finest female minds I have ever known received all their cultivation at home. But much, indeed, are those children to be commiserated, whose education has been undertaken by a vain and ignorant parent.

About nine o'clock, Mrs. Netherby had begun to talk of the lateness of the hour, giving hints that it was time to think of retiring for the night, and calling Bingham to shut up the house: which order he did not see proper to obey till half-past ten. I then (after much delay and difficulty in obtaining a bed-candle) adjourned to my own apartment, the evening having appeared to me of almost interminable length, as is generally the case with evenings that are passed without light.

The night was warm, and after removing the chimney-board, I left the sash of my window open: though I had been cautioned not to do so, and told that in the country the night air was always unwholesome. But I remembered Dr. Franklin's essay on the art of sleeping well. It was long before I closed my eyes, as the heat was intense, and my bed very uncomfortable. The bolster and pillow were nearly flat for want of sufficient feathers, and the sheets of thick muslin were neither long enough nor wide enough. At "the witching time of night," I was suddenly awakened by a most terrible shrieking and bouncing in my room, and evidently close upon me. I started up in a fright, and soon ascertained the presence of two huge cats, who, having commenced a duel on the trellis of an old blighted grape-vine that unfortunately ran under the back windows, had sprung in at the open sash, and were finishing the fight on my bed, biting and scratching each other in a style that an old backwoodsman would have recognised as the true rough and tumble.

With great difficulty I succeeded in expelling my fiendish visiters, and to prevent their return, there was nothing to be done but to close the sash. There were no shutters, and the only screen was a scanty muslin curtain, divided down the middle with so wide a gap that it was impossible to close it effectually. The air being now excluded, the heat was so intolerable as to prevent me from sleeping, and the cats remained on the trellis, looking in at the window with their glaring eyes, yelling and scratching at the glass, and trying to get in after some mice that were beginning to course about the floor.

The heat, the cats and the mice, kept me awake till near morning; and I fell asleep about daylight, when I dreamed that a large cat stood at my bed-side, and slowly and gradually swelling to the size of a tiger, darted its long claws into my throat. Of course, I again woke in a fright, and regretted my own large room in the city, where there was no trellis under my windows, and where the sashes were made to slide down at the top.

I rose early with the intention of taking a walk, as was my custom when in town, but the grass was covered with dew, and the road was ankle-deep in dust. So I contented myself with making a few circuits round the garden, where I saw four altheas, one rose-tree, and two currant-bushes, with a few common flowers on each side of a grass-grown gravel walk; neither the landlord nor the tenant being willing to incur any further expense by improving the domain. The grape-vine and trellis had been erected by a former occupant, a Frenchman, who had golden visions of wine-making.

At breakfast, we were regaled with muddy water, miscalled coffee; a small dish of doubtful eggs; and another of sliced cucumbers, very yellow and swimming in sweetish vinegar; also two plates containing round white lumps of heavy half-baked dough, dignified by the title of Maryland biscuit; and one of dry toast, the crumb left nearly white, and the crust burnt to a coal.

After breakfast, there came walking into the room a tame white pigeon, which Mrs. Netherby told us was a turtle-dove. "Dear sweet Phebe," she exclaimed, taking up the bird and fondling it, "has it come for its breakfast; well, then, kiss its own mistress, and it shall have some nice soft bread."

The pigeon was then handed round to be admired (it was really a pretty one), and Mrs. Netherby told us a long story of its coming to the house in the early part of the summer with its mate, who was soon after killed by lightning in consequence of sitting on the roof close by the conductor during a thunderstorm, and she was very eloquent and sentimental in describing the manner in which Phebe had mourned for her deceased companion, declaring that the widowed dove often reminded her of herself after she had lost poor dear Mr. Netherby.

Our hostess then crumbled some bread on the floor, and placed near it a saucer of water, and she rose greatly in my estimation when I observed the fixed look of delight with which she gazed on the pet-bird, and her evident fondness as she caressed it, and carried it out of the room, after it had finished its repast. "Notwithstanding her parsimony and her pretension," thought I, "Mrs. Netherby has certainly a good heart."

I went to my own room, and could easily have beguiled the morning with my usual occupations, but that I was much incommoded by the intense heat of my little apartment, whose thin walls were completely penetrated by the sun. Also, I was greatly annoyed by the noise of the children in the next room and on the staircase. It was not the joyous exhilaration of play, or the shouts and laughter of good-humoured romping (all that I could easily have borne); but I heard only an incessant quarrelling, fighting, and screaming, which was generally made worse by the interference of the mother whenever she attempted to silence it.

Shortly before dinner, the bound-girl came up and went the rounds of all the chambers to collect the tumblers from the washing-stands, which tumblers were made to perform double duty by figuring also on the dining-table. This would have been no great inconvenience, only that no one remembered to bring them back again, and the glasses were not restored to our rooms till after repeated applications.

The dinner consisted of very salt fried ham; and a pair of skeleton chickens, with a small black-looking leg of mutton; and a few half-drained vegetables, set about on little plates with a puddle of greasy water in the bottom of each. However, as we were in the country, there was a pitcher of milk for those that chose to drink milk at dinner. For the dessert we had half a dozen tasteless custards, the tops burnt, and the cups half-full of whey, a plate of hard green pears, another of hard green apples, and a small whitish watermelon.

"What a fine thing it is to be in the country," said Mrs. Netherby, "and have such abundance of delicious fruit! I can purchase every variety from my next neighbour."

The truth is, that even where there is really an inclination to furnish a good table, there is generally much difficulty and inconvenience in procuring the requisite articles at any country place that is not absolutely a farm, and where the arrangements are not on an extensive scale. Mrs. Netherby, however, made no apology for any deficiency, but always went on with smiling composure, praising everything on the table, and wondering how people could think of remaining in the city when they might pass the summer in the country. As the gentlemen ate their meals in town (a proof of their wisdom), ours were very irregular as to time; Mrs. Netherby supposing that it could make no difference to ladies, or to any persons who had not business that required punctual attention.

Two days after my arrival, the dust having been laid by a shower, Mrs. Pownsey and myself set out to walk on the road, in the latter part of the afternoon. When we came home, I found that the washing-stand had been removed from my room, and the basin and pitcher placed in the corner on a little triangular shelf that had formerly held a flower-pot. The mirror was also gone, and I found as a substitute a little half-dollar Dutch glass in a narrow red frame. The two best chairs were also missing, one chair only being left, and that a broken one; and a heavy patch-work quilt had taken the place of the white dimity bed-cover. I learnt that these articles had been abstracted to furnish a chamber that was as yet disengaged, and which they were to decorate by way of enticing a new-comer. Next morning, after my room had been put in order, I perceived that the mattrass had been exchanged for a feather-bed, and on inquiring the reason of Mrs. Netherby she told me, with much sweetness, that it had been taken for two southern ladies that were expected in the afternoon, and who, being southern, could not possibly sleep on anything but a mattrass, and that she was sorry to cause me any inconvenience, but it would be a great disadvantage to her if they declined coming.

In short, almost every day something disappeared from my room to assist in fitting up apartments for strangers; the same articles being afterwards transferred to others that were still unoccupied. But what else was to be done, when Mrs. Netherby mildly represented the impossibility of getting things at a short notice from town?

My time passed very monotonously. The stock of books I had brought with me was too soon exhausted, and I had no sewing of sufficient importance to interest my attention. The nonsense of Mrs. Pownsey became very tiresome, and the other ladies were mere automatons. The children were taken sick (as children generally are at country lodgings), and fretted and cried all the time. I longed for the society of my friends in the city, and for the unceremonious visits that are so pleasant in summer evenings.

After a trial of two weeks, during which I vainly hoped that custom would reconcile me to much that had annoyed me at first, I determined to return to Philadelphia; in the full persuasion that this would be my last essay at boarding out of town.

On the day before my departure, we were all attracted to the front-garden, to see a company of city volunteers, who were marching to a certain field where they were to practise shooting at a target. While we were lingering to catch the last glimpse of them as long as they remained in sight, the cook came to Mrs. Netherby (who was affectedly smelling the leaves of a dusty geranium), and informed her that though she had collected all the cold meat in the house, there was still not enough to fill the pie that was to be a part of the dinner.[85] "Oh! then," replied Mrs. Netherby, with perfect sang-froid, and in her usual soft voice, "put Phebe on the top of it--put Phebe on the top." "Do you mean," said the cook, "that I am to kill the pigeon to help out with?" "Certainly," rejoined Mrs. Netherby, "put Phebe in the pie."

[Footnote 85: Fact.]

There was a general exclamation from all present, except from the automaton young lady and her mamma; and the children who were looking out of the front windows were loud in lamentations for the poor pigeon, who, in truth, had constituted their only innocent amusement. For my part, I could not forbear openly expressing my surprise that Mrs. Netherby should think for a moment of devoting her pet pigeon to such a purpose, and I earnestly deprecated its impending fate.

Mrs. Netherby reddened, and forgetting her usual mildness, her eyes assumed a very cat-like expression as she replied to me in a loud sharp voice. "Upon my word, miss, this is very strange. Really, you astonish me. This is something quite new. I am not at all accustomed to having the ladies of my family to meddle in my private affairs. Really, miss, it is excessively odd that you should presume to dictate to me about the disposal of my own property. I have some exquisite veal-cutlets and some delicious calves-feet, but the pie is wanted for a centre dish. I am always, as you know, particular in giving my table a handsome set-out."

In vain we protested our willingness to dine without the centre dish, rather than the pigeon, whom we regarded in the light of an intimate acquaintance, should be killed to furnish it, all declaring that nothing could induce us to taste a mouthful of poor Phebe. Mrs. Netherby, obstinately bent on carrying her point (as is generally the case with women who profess an extra portion of sweetness), heard us unmoved, only replying, "Certainly, miss, you cannot deny that the bird is mine, and that I have a right to do as I please with my own property. Phillis, put Phebe in the pie!"

The cook grinned, and stood irresolute; when suddenly Bingham the waiter stepped up with Phebe in his hands, and calling to a black boy of his acquaintance, who lived in the neighbourhood, and was passing at the moment: "Here, Harrison," said he, "are you going to town?" "Yes," replied the boy, "I am going there of an errand." "Then take this here pigeon with you," said Bingham, "and give it as a gift from me to your sister Louisa. You need not tell her to take good care of it. I know she'll affection it for my sake. There, take it, and run." So saying, he handed the pigeon over the fence to the boy, who ran off with it immediately, and Bingham coolly returned to the kitchen, whistling as he went.

"Well, if I ever saw the like!" exclaimed Mrs. Netherby. "But Bingham will always have his way; he's really a strange fellow." Then, looking foolish and subdued, she walked into the house. I could not help laughing, and was glad that the life of the poor pigeon had been saved on any terms, though sorry to find that Mrs. Netherby, after all, had not the redeeming quality I ascribed to her.

To conclude,--I have no doubt that summer establishments may be found which are in many respects more agreeable than the one I have attempted to describe. But it has not been my good fortune, or that of my friends who have adopted this plan of getting through the warm weather, to meet with any country lodgings (of course, I have no reference to decided farm-houses), in which the comparison was not decidedly in favour of the superior advantages of remaining in a commodious mansion in the city, surrounded with the comforts of home, and "with all the appliances, and means to boot," which only a large town can furnish.

[The end]
Eliza Leslie's short story: Country Lodgings

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