Olla Podrida Part 65

The equinoxes now came on, and we had several gales of wind, with heavy rain--the slates blew off and rattled up and down all night, while the wind howled round the corner of the square. The next morning complaints from all the attic residents; one's bed was wetted quite through with the water dropping through the ceiling--another had been obliged to put a basin on the floor to catch the leak--all declared that the roof was like a sieve. Sent again for Mr Smithers, and made a complaint.

"This time, Mr Smithers," said I, with the lease in my hand, "I believe you will acknowledge these are landlord's repairs."

"Certainly, sir, certainly," exclaimed Mr Smithers; "I shall desire one of my men to look to it immediately; but the fact is, with such heavy gales, the slates must be expected to move a little. d.u.c.h.esses and countesses are very light, and the wind gets underneath them."

"d.u.c.h.esses and countesses very light!" exclaimed my wife; "what do you mean?"

"It's the term we give to slates, madam," replied he; "we cannot put on a heavy roof with a brick-and-a-half wall. It would not support one."

"_Brick-and-a-half_ wall!" exclaimed I;--"surely, Mr Smithers, that's not quite safe with a house so high."

"Not quite safe, my dear sir, if it were a single house; but," added he, "in a row, one house supports another."

"Thank Heaven," thought I, "I have but a three-years' lease, and sixth months are gone already."

But the annoyances up to this period were internal; we now had to experience the external nuisances attending a modern-built house.

"No. 1 is taken, papa, and they are getting the furniture in," said my eldest daughter one day; "I hope we shall have nice neighbours. And William told Mary that Mr Smithers told him, when he met him in the street, that he was now going to fit up No. 3 as fast as he could."

The report was true, as we found from the report of the carpenters'

hammers for the next three or four weeks. We could not obtain a moment's sleep except in the early part of the night, or a minute's repose to our ears during the day. The sound appeared as if it was _in_ our house instead of next door; and it commenced at six o'clock in the morning, and lasted till seven in the evening. I was hammered to death; and, unfortunately, there was a constant succession of rain, which prevented me from going out to avoid it. I had nothing to do but to watch my pictures, as they jumped from the wall with the thumps of the hammers.

At last No. 3 was floored, wainscotted and glazed, and we had a week's repose.

By this time No. 1 was furnished, and the parties who had taken it came in. They were a gouty old gentleman, and his wife, who, report said, had once been his cook. My daughters' hopes of pleasant neighbours were disappointed. Before they had been in a week, we found ourselves at issue: the old gentleman's bed was close to the part.i.tion-wall, and in the dead of the night we could distinctly hear his groans, and also his execrations and exclamations, when the fit came on him. My wife and daughters declared that it was quite horrible, and that they could not sleep for them.

Upon the eighth day there came a note:--

"Mrs Whortleback's compliments to Mr and Mrs ----, and begs that the young people will not play on the piany, as Mr Whortleback is very ill with the gout."

Now, my daughters were proficients on the piano, and practised a great deal. This note was anything but satisfactory: to play when the old gentleman was ill would be barbarous,--not to play was to deprive ourselves of our greatest pleasure.

"Oh dear! how very disagreeable," cried my daughters.

"Yes, my dear; but if we can hear his groans, it's no wonder that he can hear the piano and harp: recollect the wall is only a brick and a half thick."

"I wonder music don't soothe him," observed the eldest.

Music is mockery to a man in agony. A man who has been broken on the wheel would not have his last hours soothed by the finest orchestra.

After a week, during which we sent every day to inquire after Mr Whortleback's health, we ventured to resume the piano and harp; upon which the old gentleman became testy, and sent for a man with a trumpet, placing him in the balcony, and desiring him to play as much out of tune as possible whenever the harp and piano sounded a note. Thus were we at open hostility with our only neighbour; and, as we were certain if my daughters touched their instruments, to have the trumpet blowing discord for an hour or two either that day or the next, at last the piano was unopened, and the harp remained in its case. Before the year closed, No.

3 became tenanted; and here we had a new annoyance. It was occupied by a large family; and there were four young ladies who were learning music.

We now had our annoyance: it was strum, strum, all day long; one sister up, another down; and every one knows what a bore the first lessons in music are to those who are compelled to hear them. They could just manage to play a tune, and that eternal tune was ringing in our ears from morning to night. We could not send our compliments, or blow a trumpet. We were forced to submit to it. The nursery also being against the part.i.tion-wall, we had the squalls and noise of the children on the one side, added to groans and execrations of the old gentleman on the other.

However, custom reconciled us to everything, and the first vexation gradually wore off. Yet I could not help observing that when I was supposed not to be in hearing, the chief conversation of my wife, when her friends called upon her, consisted of a description of all the nuisances and annoyances that we suffered; and I felt a.s.sured that she and my daughters were as anxious to return to Brompton Hall as I was.

In fact, the advantages which they had antic.i.p.ated by their town residence were not realised. In our situation, we were as far off from most of our friends, and still farther from some than we were before, and we had no longer the same amus.e.m.e.nts to offer them. At our former short distance from town, access was more easy to those who did not keep a carriage, that is, the young men; and those were the parties who, of course, my wife and daughters cared for most. It was very agreeable to come down with their portmanteaus,--enjoy the fresh air and green lanes of the country for an afternoon,--dine, sleep, and breakfast, and return the next morning by conveyances which pa.s.sed us every quarter of an hour; but to dine with us in ---- square, when the expense of a hackney-coach there and back was no trifle, and to return at eleven o'clock at night, was not at all agreeable. We found that we had not so much society, nor were we half so much courted, as at Brompton Hall.

This was the bitterest blow of all, and my wife and daughters would look out of the windows and sigh; often a whole day pa.s.sed without one friend or acquaintance dropping in to relieve its monotony.

We continued to reside there, nevertheless, for I had made up my mind that the three years would be well spent if they cured my wife and daughters of their town mania; and although anxious as I am sure they were to return, I never broached the matter, for I was determined that the cure should be radical. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, were finished the next year, and, by the persuasions of Mr Smithers, were taken by different parties in the spring. And now we had another nuisance.

Nothing but eternal rings at the bell. The man-servant grumbled, and was behind with his work; and when scolded, replied that there was no time for anything, that when cleaning his knives and plate the bell was rung, and he was obliged to wash himself, throw on his jacket, and go up to answer the front door; that the bell was not rung for us, but to find out where some new-comer lived, and to ascertain this they always rang at the house which appeared the longest inhabited. There was no end to the ringing for some months, and we had three servants who absolutely refused to stay in so bad a place. We had also to contend with letters and notes in the same way, brought to us at haphazard: "Does Mr So-and-so live here?"--"No, he does not."--"Then pray where does he?"

This was interminable, and not five minutes in the day pa.s.sed without the door-bell being rung. For the sake of not changing my servants I was at last put to the expense of an extra boy for no other purpose but to answer the constant applications at the door. At last we had remained there for two years and nine months, and then my wife would occasionally put the question whether I intended to renew the lease; and I naturally replied that I did not like change.

Then she went upon another tack; observed that Clara did not appear well for some time, and that she thought that she required country air; but, in this, I did not choose to agree with her.

One day I came home, and, rubbing my hands as if pleased, said, "Well, at last I've an offer for Brompton Villa for a term of seven years,--a very fair offer and good tenants,--so that will now be off my hands."

My wife looked mortified, and my daughters held down their heads.

"Have you let it, papa?" said one of my daughters, timidly.

"No, not yet; but I am to give an answer to-morrow morning."

"It requires consideration, my dear," replied my wife.

"Requires consideration!" said I. "Why, my dear, the parties have seen the house, and I have been trying to let it these three years. I recollect when I took this house I said it required consideration, but you would not allow any such thing."

"I'm sure I wish we had," said Clara.

"And so do I."

"The fact is, my dear," said my wife, coming round to the back of my chair, and putting her arms round my neck, "we all wish to go back to Brompton."

"Yes, yes, papa," added my daughters, embracing me on each side.

"You will allow, then, that I was right in not taking a lease for more than three years."

"Yes: how lucky you were so positive!"

"Well, then, if that is the case, we will unfurnish this house, and, as soon as you please, go back to Brompton Hall."

I hardly need observe that we took possession of our old abode with delight, and that I have had no more applications for a change of residence, or have again heard the phrase that we were living "out of the world."

The Way to be Happy

Cut your coat according to your cloth, is an old maxim and a wise one; and if people will only square their ideas according to their circ.u.mstances, how much happier might we all be! If we only would come down a peg or two in our notions, in accordance with our waning fortunes, happiness would be always within our reach. It is not what we have, or what we have not, which adds or subtracts from our felicity. It is the longing for more than we have, the envying of those who possess that more, and the wish to appear in the world of more consequence than we really are, which destroy our peace of mind, and eventually lead to ruin.

I never witnessed a man submitting to circ.u.mstances with good humour and good sense, so remarkably as in my friend Alexander Willemott. When I first met him, since our school days, it was at the close of the war: he had been a large contractor with government for army clothing and accoutrements, and was said to have realised an immense fortune, although his accounts were not yet settled. Indeed, it was said that they were so vast, that it would employ the time of six clerks for two years, to examine them, previous to the balance sheet being struck. As I observed, he had been at school with me, and, on my return from the East Indies, I called upon him to renew our old acquaintance, and congratulate him upon his success.

"My dear Reynolds, I am delighted to see you. You must come down to Belem Castle; Mrs Willemott will receive you with pleasure, I'm sure.

You shall see my two girls."

I consented. The chaise stopped at a splendid mansion, and I was ushered in by a crowd of liveried servants. Everything was on the most sumptuous and magnificent scale. Having paid my respects to the lady of the house, I retired to dress, as dinner was nearly ready, it being then half-past seven o'clock. It was eight before we sat down. To an observation that I made, expressing a hope that I had not occasioned the dinner being put off, Willemott replied, "On the contrary, my dear Reynolds, we never sit down until about this hour. How people can dine at four or five o'clock, I cannot conceive. I could not touch a mouthful."

The dinner was excellent, and I paid it the encomiums which were its due.

"Do not be afraid, my dear fellow--my cook is an _artiste extraordinaire_--a regular _Cordon Bleu_. You may eat anything without fear of indigestion. How people can live upon the English cookery of the present day, I cannot conceive. I seldom dine out, for fear of being poisoned. Depend upon it, a good cook lengthens your days, and no price is too great to insure one."