Penelope's English Experiences Part 9

That fowl has laid before eight in the morning for three weeks without interruption, and she has now entered upon a career of wild and reckless uncertainty which compels me to eat eggs from twelve to twenty-four hours old, just as if I were in London.

Alas for the rarity Of regularity Under the sun!

A hen, being of the feminine gender, underestimates the majesty of order and system; she resents any approach to the unimaginative monotony of the machine. Probably the Confederated Fowl Union has been meddling with our little paradise where Labour and Capital have dwelt in heavenly unity until now. Nothing can be done about it, of course; even if it were possible to communicate with the fowl, she would say, I suppose, that she would lay when she was ready, and not before; at least, that is what an American hen would say.

Just as I was brooding over these mysteries and trying to hatch out some conclusions, Mrs. Bobby knocked at the door, and, coming in, curtsied very low before saying, "It's about namin' the 'ouse, miss."

"Oh yes. Pray don't stand, Mrs. Bobby; take a chair. I am not very busy; I am only painting p.r.i.c.kles on my gorse bushes, so we will talk it over."

I shall not attempt to give you Mrs. Bobby's dialect in reporting my various interviews with her, for the spelling of it is quite beyond my powers. Pray remove all the h's wherever they occur, and insert them where they do not; but there will be, over and beyond this, an intonation quite impossible to render.

Mrs. Bobby bought her place only a few months ago, for she lived in Cheltenham before Mr. Bobby died. The last inc.u.mbent had probably been of Welsh extraction, for the cottage had been named 'Dan-y-cefn.' Mrs.

Bobby declared, however, that she wouldn't have a heathenish name posted on her house, and expect her friends to p.r.o.nounce it when she couldn't p.r.o.nounce it herself. She seemed grieved when at first I could not see the absolute necessity of naming the cottage at all, telling her that in America we named only grand places. She was struck dumb with amazement at this piece of information, and failed to conceive of the confusion that must ensue in villages where streets were scarcely named or houses numbered. I confess it had never occurred to me that our manner of doing was highly inconvenient, if not impossible, and I approached the subject of the name with more interest and more modesty.

"Well, Mrs. Bobby," I began, "it is to be Cottage; we've decided that, have we not? It is to be Cottage, not House, Lodge, Mansion, or Villa.

We cannot name it after any flower that blows, because they are all taken. Have all the trees been used?"

"Thank you, miss, yes, miss, all but h'ash-tree, and we 'ave no h'ash."

"Very good, we must follow another plan. Family names seem to be chosen, such as Gower House, Marston Villa, and the like. 'Bobby Cottage' is not pretty. What was your maiden name, Mrs. Bobby?"

"Buggins, thank you, miss. 'Elizabeth Buggins, Licensed to sell Poultry,' was my name and t.i.tle when I met Mr. Bobby."

"I'm sorry, but 'Buggins Cottage' is still more impossible than 'Bobby Cottage.' Now here's another idea: where were you born, Mrs. Bobby?"

"In Snitterfield, thank you, miss."

"Dear, dear! how unserviceable!"

"Thank you, miss."

"Where was Mr. Bobby born?"

"He never mentioned, miss."

(Mr. Bobby must have been expansive, for they were married twenty years.)

"There is always Victoria or Albert," I said tentatively, as I wiped my brushes.

"Yes, miss, but with all respect to her Majesty, them names give me a turn when I see them on the gates, I am that sick of them."

"True. Can we call it anything that will suggest its situation? Is there a Hill Crest?"

"Yes, miss, there is 'Ill Crest, 'Ill Top, 'Ill View, 'Ill Side, 'Ill End, H'under 'Ill, 'Ill Bank, and 'Ill Terrace."

"I should think that would do for Hill."

"Thank you, miss. 'Ow would 'The 'Edge' do, miss?"

"But we have no hedge." (She shall not have anything with an h in it, if I can help it.)

"No, miss, but I thought I might set out a bit, if worst come to worst."

"And wait three or four years before people would know why the cottage was named? Oh no, Mrs. Bobby."

"Thank you, miss."

"We might have something quite out of the common, like 'Providence Cottage,' down the bank. I don't know why Mrs. Jones calls it Providence Cottage, unless she thinks it's a providence that she has one at all; or because, as it's just on the edge of the hill, she thinks it's a providence that it hasn't blown off. How would you like 'Peace' or 'Rest' Cottage?"

"Begging your pardon, miss, it's neither peace nor rest I gets in it these days, with a twenty-five pound debt 'anging over me, and three children to feed and clothe."

"I fear we are not very clever, Mrs. Bobby, or we should hit upon the right thing with less trouble. I know what I will do: I will go down in the road and look at the place for a long time from the outside, and try to think what it suggests to me."

"Thank you, miss; and I'm sure I'm grateful for all the trouble you are taking with my small affairs."

Down I went, and leaned over the wicket-gate, gazing at the unnamed cottage. The brick pathway was scrubbed as clean as a penny, and the stone step and the floor of the little kitchen as well. The garden was a maze of fragrant bloom, with never a weed in sight. The fowl cackled cheerily still, adding insult to injury, the pet sheep munched gra.s.s contentedly, and the canaries sang in their cages under the vines.

Mrs. Bobby settled herself on the porch with a pan of peas in her neat gingham lap, and all at once I cried:--

"'Comfort Cottage'! It is the very essence of comfort, Mrs. Bobby, even if there is not absolute peace or rest. Let me paint the signboard for you this very day."

Mrs. Bobby was most complacent over the name. She had the greatest confidence in my judgment, and the characterisation pleased her housewifely pride, so much so that she flushed with pleasure as she said that if she 'ad 'er 'ealth she thought she could keep the place looking so that the pa.s.sers-by would easily h'understand the name.

Chapter XXIII. Tea served here.

It was some days after the naming of the cottage that Mrs. Bobby admitted me into her financial secrets, and explained the difficulties that threatened her peace of mind. She still has twenty-five pounds to pay before Comfort Cottage is really her own. With her cow and her vegetable garden, to say nothing of her procrastinating fowl, she manages to eke out a frugal existence, now that her eldest son is in a blacksmith's shop at Worcester, and is sending her part of his weekly savings. But it has been a poor season for canaries, and a still poorer one for lodgers; for people in these degenerate days prefer to be nearer the hotels and the mild gaieties of the larger settlements. It is all very well so long as I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that that may be for ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her Cheltenham and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a lodger as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children, to whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the fowl and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting the name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the village, and n.o.body can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape at it! But when her American lodger leaves her, she asks,--and who is she that can expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be naming her own cottage and painting signboards for herself before long, likely?--but when her American lodger is gone, how is she, Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few s.h.i.+llings a month towards the debt on the cottage? These are some of the problems she presents to me. I have turned them over and over in my mind as I have worked, and even asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter what he could suggest. Of course he could not suggest anything: men never can; although he offered to come there and lodge for a month at twenty-five pounds a week. All at once, one morning, a happy idea struck me, and I ran down to Mrs. Bobby, who was weeding the onion-bed in the back garden.

"Mrs. Bobby," I said, sitting down comfortably on the edge of the lettuce-frame, "I am sure I know how you can earn many a s.h.i.+lling during the summer and autumn months, and you must begin the experiment while I am here to advise you. I want you to serve five-o'clock tea in your garden."

"But, miss, thanking you kindly, n.o.body would think of stoppin' 'ere for a cup of tea once in a twelvemonth."

"You never know what people will do until you try them. People will do almost anything, Mrs. Bobby, if you only put it into their heads, and this is the way we shall make our suggestion to the public. I will paint a second signboard to hang below 'Comfort Cottage.' It will be much more beautiful than the other, for it shall have a steaming kettle on it, and a cup and saucer, and the words 'Tea Served Here' underneath, the letters all intertwined with tea-plants. I don't know how tea-plants look, but then neither does the public. You will set one round table on the porch, so that if it threatens rain, as it sometimes does, you know, in England, people will not be afraid to sit down; and the other you will put under the yew-tree near the gate. The tables must be immaculate; no spotted, rumpled cloths and chipped cups at Comfort Cottage, which is to be a strictly first-cla.s.s tea station. You will put vases of flowers on the tables, and you will not mix red, yellow, purple, and blue ones in the same vase-"

"It's the way the good Lord mixes 'em in the fields," interjected Mrs.

Bobby piously.

"Very likely; but you will permit me to remark that the good Lord can manage things successfully which we poor humans cannot. You will set out your cream-jug that was presented to Mrs. Martha Buggins by her friends and neighbours as a token of respect in 1823, and the bowl that was presented to Mr. Bobby as a sword and shooting prize in 1860, and all your pretty little odds and ends. You will get everything ready in the kitchen, so that customers won't have to wait long; but you will not prepare much in advance, so that there'll be nothing wasted."

"It sounds beautiful in your mouth, miss, and it surely wouldn't be any 'arm to make a trial of it."

"Of course it won't. There is no inn here where nice people will stop (who would ever think of asking for tea at the Retired Soldier?), and the moment they see our sign, in walking or driving past, that moment they will be consumed with thirst. You do not begin to appreciate our advantages as a tea station. In the first place, there is a watering-trough not far from the gate, and drivers very often stop to water their horses; then we have the lovely garden which everybody admires; and if everything else fails, there is the baby. Put that faded pink flannel slip on Jem, showing his tanned arms and legs as usual, tie up his sleeves with blue bows as you did last Sunday, put my white tennis-cap on the back of his yellow curls, turn him loose in the hollyhocks, and await results. Did I not open the gate the moment I saw him, though there was no apartment sign in the window?"

Mrs. Bobby was overcome by the magic of my arguments, and as there were positively no attendant risks, we decided on an early opening. The very next day after the hanging of the second sign, I superintended the arrangements myself. It was a nice thirsty afternoon, and as I filled the flower-vases I felt such a desire for custom and such a love of trade animating me that I was positively ashamed. At three o'clock I went upstairs and threw myself on the bed for a nap, for I had been sketching on the hills since early morning. It may have been an hour later when I heard the sound of voices and the stopping of a heavy vehicle before the house. I stole to the front window, and, peeping under the shelter of the vines, saw a char-a-bancs, on the way from Great Belvern to the Beacon. It held three gentlemen, two ladies, and four children, and everything had worked precisely as I intended.

The driver had seen the watering-trough, the gentlemen had seen the tea-sign, the children had seen the flowers and the canaries, and the ladies had seen the baby. I went to the back window to call an encouraging word to Mrs. Bobby, but to my horror I saw that worthy woman disappearing at the extreme end of the lane in full chase of our cow, that had broken down the fence, and was now at large with some of our neighbour's turnip-tops hanging from her mouth.