The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated)
“Oh, is it raining?” was Katy’s first question next morning, when the maid came to call her. The pretty room, with its gayly flowered chintz, and china, and its brass bedstead, did not look half so bright as when lit with gas the night before; and a dim gray light struggled in at the window, which in America would certainly have meant bad weather coming or already come.
“Oh no, h’indeed, ma’am, it’s a very fine day,—not bright, ma’am, but very dry,” was the answer.
Katy couldn’t imagine what the maid meant, when she peeped between the curtains and saw a thick dull mist lying over everything, and the pavements opposite her window shining with wet. Afterwards, when she understood better the peculiarities of the English climate, she too learned to call days not absolutely rainy “fine,” and to be grateful for them; but on that first morning her sensations were of bewildered surprise, almost vexation.
Mrs. Ashe and Amy were waiting in the coffee-room when she went in search of them.
“What shall we have for breakfast,” asked Mrs. Ashe,—“our first meal in England? Katy, you order it.”
“Let’s have all the things we have read about in books and don’t have at home,” said Katy, eagerly. But when she came to look over the bill of fare there didn’t seem to be many such things. Soles and muffins she finally decided upon, and, as an after-thought, gooseberry jam.
“Muffins sound so very good in Dickens, you know,” she explained to Mrs. Ashe; “and I never saw a sole.”
The soles when they came proved to be nice little pan-fish, not unlike what in New England are called “scup.” All the party took kindly to them; but the muffins were a great disappointment, tough and tasteless, with a flavor about them as of scorched flannel.
“How queer and disagreeable they are!” said Katy. “I feel as if I were eating rounds cut from an old ironing-blanket and buttered! Dear me! what did Dickens mean by making such a fuss about them, I wonder? And I don’t care for gooseberry jam, either; it isn’t half as good as the jams we have at home. Books are very deceptive.”
“I am afraid they are. We must make up our minds to find a great many things not quite so nice as they sound when we read about them,” replied Mrs. Ashe.
Mabel was breakfasting with them, of course, and was heard to remark at this juncture that she didn’t like muffins, either, and would a great deal rather have waffles; whereupon Amy reproved her, and explained that nobody in England knew what waffles were, they were such a stupid nation, and that Mabel must learn to eat whatever was given her and not find fault with it!
After this moral lesson it was found to be dangerously near train-time; and they all hurried to the railroad station, which, fortunately, was close by. There was rather a scramble and confusion for a few moments; for Katy, who had undertaken to buy the tickets, was puzzled by the unaccustomed coinage; and Mrs. Ashe, whose part was to see after the luggage, found herself perplexed and worried by the absence of checks, and by no means disposed to accept the porter’s statement, that if she’d only bear in mind that the trunks were in the second van from the engine, and get out to see that they were safe once or twice during the journey, and call for them as soon as they reached London, she’d have no trouble,—“please remember the porter, ma’am!” However all was happily settled at last; and without any serious inconveniences they found themselves established in a first-class carriage, and presently after running smoothly at full speed across the rich English midlands toward London and the eastern coast.
The extreme greenness of the October landscape was what struck them first, and the wonderfully orderly and trim aspect of the country, with no ragged, stump-dotted fields or reaches of wild untended woods. Late in October as it was, the hedgerows and meadows were still almost summer-like in color, though the trees were leafless. The delightful-looking old manor-houses and farm-houses, of which they had glimpses now and again, were a constant pleasure to Katy, with their mullioned windows, twisted chimney-stacks, porches of quaint build, and thick-growing ivy. She contrasted them with the uncompromising ugliness of farm-houses which she remembered at home, and wondered whether it could be that at the end of another thousand years or so, America would have picturesque buildings like these to show in addition to her picturesque scenery.
Suddenly into the midst of these reflections there glanced a picture so vivid that it almost took away her breath, as the train steamed past a pack of hounds in full cry, followed by a galloping throng of scarlet-coated huntsmen. One horse and rider were in the air, going over a wall. Another was just rising to the leap. A string of others, headed by a lady, were tearing across a meadow bounded by a little brook, and beyond that streamed the hounds following the invisible fox. It was like one of Muybridge’s instantaneous photographs of “The Horse in Motion,” for the moment that it lasted; and Katy put it away in her memory, distinct and brilliant, as she might a real picture.
Their destination in London was Batt’s Hotel in Dover Street. The old gentleman on the “Spartacus,” who had “crossed” so many times, had furnished Mrs. Ashe with a number of addresses of hotels and lodging-houses, from among which Katy had chosen Batt’s for the reason that it was mentioned in Miss Edgeworth’s “Patronage.” “It was the place,” she explained, “where Godfrey Percy didn’t stay when Lord Oldborough sent him the letter.” It seemed an odd enough reason for going anywhere that a person in a novel didn’t stay there. But Mrs. Ashe knew nothing of London, and had no preference of her own; so she was perfectly willing to give Katy hers, and Batt’s was decided upon.
“It is just like a dream or a story,” said Katy, as they drove away from the London station in a four-wheeler. “It is really ourselves, and this is really London! Can you imagine it?”
She looked out. Nothing met her eyes but dingy weather, muddy streets, long rows of ordinary brick or stone houses. It might very well have been New York or Boston on a foggy day, yet to her eyes all things had a subtle difference which made them unlike similar objects at home.
“Wimpole Street!” she cried suddenly, as she caught sight of the name on the corner; “that is the street where Maria Crawford in Mansfield Park, you know, ‘opened one of the best houses’ after she married Mr. Rushworth. Think of seeing Wimpole Street! What fun!” She looked eagerly out after the “best houses,” but the whole street looked uninteresting and old-fashioned; the best house to be seen was not of a kind, Katy thought, to reconcile an ambitious young woman to a dull husband. Katy had to remind herself that Miss Austen wrote her novels nearly a century ago, that London was a “growing” place, and that things were probably much changed since that day.
More “fun” awaited them when they arrived at Batt’s, and exactly such a landlady sailed forth to welcome them as they had often met with in books,—an old landlady, smiling and rubicund, with a towering lace cap on her head, a flowered silk gown, a gold chain, and a pair of fat mittened hands demurely crossed over a black brocade apron. She alone would have been worth crossing the ocean to see, they all declared. Their telegram had been received, and rooms were ready, with a bright, smoky fire of soft coals; the dinner-table was set, and a nice, formal, white-cravated old waiter, who seemed to have stepped out of the same book with the landlady, was waiting to serve it. Everything was dingy and old-fashioned, but very clean and comfortable; and Katy concluded that on the whole Godfrey Percy would have done wisely to go to Batt’s, and could have fared no better at the other hotel where he did stay.
The first of Katy’s “London sights” came to her next morning before she was out of her bedroom. She heard a bell ring and a queer squeaking little voice utter a speech of which she could not make out a single word. Then came a laugh and a shout, as if several boys were amused at something or other; and altogether her curiosity was roused, so that she finished dressing as fast as she could, and ran to the drawing-room window which commanded a view of the street. Quite a little crowd was collected under the window, and in their midst was a queer box raised high on poles, with little red curtains tied back on either side to form a miniature stage, on which puppets were moving and vociferating. Katy knew in