CHAPTER V.

SHALL WE DO AWAY WITH THE NURSERY?

It is a hard moment in the life of any woman when she has to make up her mind that she cannot any longer consistently retain one of the best rooms in the house for the nursery, more especially if she has been able to realise her ambition, and to give to her children an ideal chamber, where beauty and suitable arrangements for their comfort have been duly studied.

I know nothing sadder than an empty nursery. The children, who were as much our own as anything on this earth can ever be, have ceased to be children. They are still ours, but they are independent creatures; our care is no longer absolutely necessary to them. Some may even have married, and others may be trying their wings by some short flights from the home that will always be theirs, even if they do not care to return to it. But, in any case, they are no longer the dear little mites whose tiny ailments kept us awake at night, whose clothes and education were our unceasing care, and who found their heaven in our presence, believing honestly and thankfully that all they had came from us, and that we were without a flaw, as omnipotent as we were faultless.

The most melancholy part of middle age is this being left behind by our children, the eagerness on their parts to live their own lives and begin their own career. But it should not be sad, as it is only what happened to our parents, after all, and will happen again in the future generation. But all the same, it must be a hardened heart indeed that can contemplate an empty nursery and have no other thoughts than how best to decorate or use the room for a totally different purpose. There is a peculiar _serrement de cœur_, which, once experienced, can never be forgotten, when we enter a room made sacred to us by a thousand dreams and romances--a thousand dreads and fears we have never spoken of to any soul on earth, and have to consider how best we can alter it to another purpose.

I remember, years ago, going to see a house in which we had had many, many happy hours, and which had just passed from those we knew and loved to persons in an inferior station of life, with whom we should never have any dealings, and I have never forgotten the feeling of desolation that seized me when I looked up at the erstwhile nursery window, from which the bars were hanging broken, and remembered the faces that used never to be absent from that place--a feeling that was intensified a thousand times when I climbed up to the room itself, and looked for the last time on the walls, papered by ourselves with pictures from the ‘Illustrated News’ (I can remember them all vividly, from the marriage of the Princess Royal in one corner to pictures of the American War in the other), and recollected the boys who were all out in the world, each busy with his own life, with whom I had played, ridden, eaten far too much fruit in the sunny garden below the nursery windows (where I verily believe it was always fine and hot), and with whom I had risen at dawn in many a misty September morning, bent on collecting a great dish of mushrooms for breakfast, to surprise the house-mother with--a surprise that she must have been well accustomed to, but which she never failed to express; she knew we should have been so disappointed had she seemed in the least degree to expect the never-failing dish, though she had a hard struggle to be duly elated and not say one word about the draggled skirts and wringing wet stockings and boots, which she knew were reposing upstairs and would be shown to her in due course and with much wrath by Susan, to whose lot it always fell to remedy our dilapidations, which she used to say were always worse when I was there to rush about with the boys and lead them into mischief and dirt of all kinds.

There can be nothing more extinct on this earth than that dear old nursery, closed nearly twenty years ago and utterly swept away, but I can never think of it without becoming young again--without being the eldest of that small flock and worshipped as only five small boys can worship a London cousin much older than themselves, who yet could enter into all their games and excursions with the zest of a girl who has never tried living in the country, and sees only the poetical side of it; and without remembering the happiest of happy homes, where I cannot recollect a cross word, a disagreeable day, or anything but the noise of the boys rushing about, the scent of a thousand flowers, the planning of a hundred picnics, and a delightful sense of summer and sunshine that can never be forgotten, and that has influenced more lives than mine--more even than the generous, hospitable master and mistress will ever know--though perhaps he does in the rest he won so worthily and in the Heaven that must hold anyone who was as generous and good as he was to the many, many relations with whom he filled his house, and to whom he always gave a hearty welcome.

But no doubt there are a great many other nurseries just like this one--and, indeed, I know of several--so I would beg my readers to bear with me while I speak of these rooms, and beg them not to make a clean sweep of the nursery altogether until they are positively obliged to do so, not because there may be other babies to come, but because the nursery is useful for a thousand things, and it makes such a dreadful difference in a house when the room is completely altered and turned into a room for the maid who takes the place of the nurse, perhaps, or into a sitting-room for the girls or boys. Don’t let this be done, dear readers, until you are absolutely crowded out, because you will be miserable, and because you can never tell that the room may not be wanted as a sanitorium; an upstairs sitting-room, a refuge for our grandchildren, should we have married children, and should they be coming to stay with us, and bring their babies in due course of time; while the room having been decorated and furnished as a nursery is that and nothing else, and would have to be completely altered, should we settle to do away with it altogether.

Now, I want you to look just for a moment at the picture I have had drawn here of an empty nursery and see how admirably it is adapted for the purpose, and how cruel it would be to sweep away all these corners and shelves. You will notice how the cupboard fills in the recess between the fire and the wall, and you will see how a doll’s-house should be arranged, and then, I am sure, you will think twice about weeding out all this, and doing away with things that may give pleasure to future generations, particularly when we must all number among our acquaintances people with children, who come to tea, and will enjoy their tea twice as much if the children can be relegated to old nurse and the room where all is prepared for the small guests, who will for the moment take the place of those who are still children to us, albeit they are as old as we were when we began housekeeping ourselves, and set up a nursery with the pride and consequence inseparable from that most important step; while we can look hopefully forward to other small visitors who will be delighted to play with ‘mother’s old toys,’ and to hear things about that mother’s childhood, which can only be told them by an authority on the subject.

The nursery I have had sketched here is, of course, a much more expensive and elaborate room than could be suggested to folks with small incomes, but will serve as an example, I hope even in little houses, although, as those were amply catered for in my first book, I do not feel so bound to consider them as I did then. I should always have a real dado in any nursery. The one used here is of Indian matting, which is as neat and clean after ten years’ use as it was the day it was put up. By the way, a dado should be secured at the top with rather a heavier rail than the one illustrated, and this should be screwed on, not nailed. The screws can be removed at any moment, and the dado taken down. In the case of a cretonne dado this could be washed at any moment, while stuff or matting could be brushed or shaken; but I have taken down matting after ten years on a wall, which was sized before the matting was put up, and have never found the smallest dirt behind it, while the wall remained absolutely intact for that space of time, and, indeed, is as good as new now, after fifteen years’ wear, at least, I hear it is; unfortunately we have moved twice since then, and I cannot possibly inspect the matting to verify this statement for myself as I should like to do; but ten years is a long time, and, in these roving days of ours, when all too rarely do houses descend from father to son, is quite space enough for most of us.

Above the matting--which should be the kind sold by Treloar, in Ludgate Circus, for 35_s._ the roll of 40 yards--can be put any pretty blue paper. Pither’s new blue bay-tree paper, at 1_s._ 6_d._, is charming, and is of a colour that

we never tire of. The paint could be the same shade of blue; the tiny cornice should be coloured cream, and the ceiling paper should be Maple’s cheap yellow and white one, at 4½_d._ a piece. This could be cleaned twice a year with stale bread, and, as it is so cheap, could be replaced the moment it showed signs of becoming in the least degree shabby. The best toys could be arranged round the room on the shelf, which could be painted blue, and further appropriate decorations could be made by tennis rackets and skipping ropes if desired, albeit I should prefer a picture there of some kind or other, or else a lamp hanging out over the fireplace, beyond the reach of little fingers which might hanker after the fascinating occupation of lowering the light or putting it up to such an extent that the glass might be smashed in less than no time.

The short curtains and absence of blinds which I always advocate, and which idea has been largely copied and adopted, are just indicated in the picture, as is the long straight seat under the windows, which would take the place of the sofa if there were not room for one; but the useful serge or arras cloth should be used instead of cretonne here, as cretonne so soon gets out of order in a place which is so much used as such a window-seat might be. Corduroy velveteen would also make an admirable covering, and would always be, in a measure, tidy. It is possible to make these window-seats do double duty as a seat and also as a box, for instead of the front being a ‘hollow mockery,’ as it is when it is a simple frill and nothing else, it could be a wooden box, and the seat could be a padded lid, which could lift up and down. A small frill nailed on the top of the seat would conceal the opening, and the front of the box could be covered with frilled material like small organ pipes. This would hold any quantity of work, old books, magazines, and rubbish generally: rubbish which is of no use at all, but is absolutely priceless to the little owners.

I think anyone who has ever owned a dolls’-house will admire my idea for a fixed one, because all who have ever possessed a similar abode must have occasionally pulled it down about the ears when engaged in an orthodox game with this most fascinating toy, at least it used to be fascinating in my day; judging from my two girls no one can care now for them, for the beauty we had has long since gone to a hospital, owing to the absolute indifference with which its many charms were treated by our children. But if there still exist any small maidens who treat their houses as we used to, I am sure this arrangement of cupboard shelves with a real house front and a flap to let down, properly painted of course like a hall door, with windows above, must commend itself to them. The flap makes a table for dolls’ meals and parties, and is very useful for house cleaning, which delightful occupation invariably occurred in my day every Saturday regularly; but then we used to cover up our furniture with dust-sheets when we went to the seaside, and, furthermore, always deposited our wills in the drawing-room bureau under the same adventurous and dangerous circumstances, sealing the house at one side with the device of a dove bearing an olive-branch in its mouth, so that we might be quite sure profane hands had not meddled with our house or our possessions during our absence. I do not know if in these grown-up days of ours, and of competitive examinations and women’s rights, there is time or inclination either for elaborate games, such as we used to play over the dolls’-house, but I hope there is, as nothing is more truly engaging than such a possession, for which netting new curtains, and making new furniture, even occupied the boys, while, of course, we were never tired of altering and arranging and making too. Little as I work or care for working, I am sure I should enjoy making a Berlin-wool carpet now for someone‘s dolls’-house, only, unfortunately, I don’t know anyone who has one. I should not require a pattern; I remember the black diamonds accurately, each diamond being filled with a different coloured wool, making a _tout ensemble_ to be feared, indeed, in these æsthetic days of ours.

Many a wet afternoon has been happily passed in washing and ‘getting up’ our net curtains for the windows, in rearranging them and tying them up with ribands bought at Whiteley’s, when it was one wee shop served by the Universal Provider himself and two girls, for which we saved our money; and I sincerely believe my first love of decoration and adornment of the house was fostered, if it were not born, of the intense attachment I had for my dolls’-house, at the desk of which I wrote my first attempt at poetry--and very awful it was--and to whose sheltering care I confided many a packet of MSS., which I was always going to submit to a publisher, but which paucity of stamps kept safely in the dolls’-house until I was old enough to know what utter rubbish I had written, and how worthily it would have been rapidly entombed in the waste-paper basket.

Below the dolls’-house illustrated there is a drawer, which can hold any amount of odds and ends, and of course the whole side of the room could be dolls’-house if cupboard space were not required, but, as it may be, the cupboard is shown above the house, decorated with a spray of flowers, painted by someone who knows how to paint; not by any amateur dauber, for you must never allow bad art in your nursery, even if you know it will have to be done away with in a comparatively short time. The other side of the fireplace can be another cupboard; this should be treated exactly like the one shown, of course without the dolls’-house. This will give ample space for all the nursery belongings, for no one should be allowed to hoard, though a certain amount of rubbish should always be winked at, but broken toys and torn books should be mended and patched--capital work that for wet days--and should always be sent off to the omnivorous Sisters at Kilburn, who can use anything, it doesn’t matter what, and who will welcome as treasures what the children will no longer use; therefore nothing should be thrown away. Nurses and children alike all enjoy mending and making for the Kilburn orphans, if only they are told about them and asked to take an interest in the good work done there. I have looked about all over London, I think, since writing my first book to find a suitable floor-covering for the nursery, and have not satisfied myself quite that I have done it. I cannot like or in any way advise linoleum there. It is cold, ugly, and there is an undeniable odour about it that never leaves it, and therefore I do not like to see it in a room which should always be as pretty as we can make it. I think, therefore, it is best to buy a square carpet, with either a border or else a good woollen fringe round, and put this down over carpet felt. Wallace’s ‘blue anemone’ Brussels carpet, at 3_s._ 11_d._ a yard, would wear some years, or a cheaper carpet still might be had in the ‘blue lily,’ at 3_s._ 9_d._, wide width; but I should prefer the Brussels for really hard wear. The staining round the room should not be more than 12 inches wide, and should be done with Jackson’s varnish stains. When the stained boards begin to get shabby the nursemaid can paint them over herself with some stain, and they can be kept in order by a weekly polish from the stuff sold by Jackson for the purpose. Half a gallon of the stain is sufficient for a margin round a good-sized room. This would cost 6_s._, and proper directions for applying the stains are sent out with them. Personally, I prefer the dark oak or walnut stain to any of the others. There should never be a hearth-rug in any room; but I must again state this in connection with the nursery, it would only cause accidents, and would serve at least to conceal the depredations of a careless nursemaid, who cannot refrain from making that portion of the carpet filthy with carelessness when she is doing the grate if she should be provided with a rug with which to cover up her sins. The carpet can be turned round to ensure equal wear if the square is made as suggested, and should last quite ten years, which is as long as any carpet should be allowed to last, in my opinion; an older carpet being a repository of dirt and dust, and therefore cannot be healthy, a reason why I should never advocate very expensive carpets, as I much prefer to be able to have a new one without too much exertion on my part, especially in bedrooms, and in such rooms as nurseries and schoolrooms.

I am, however, again describing a nursery, and this instead of calmly discussing how best to do away with it; but I will make a confession here, and then I fear I shall show how bad an advocate I should prove were I called in to advise how best to do away with this room, which in all real homes is the very heart of the household. For be it known to my readers, that, as my youngest child was eight years old, I determined, Spartan-like, to do away with the nursery, and converted the room into a sitting and sleeping room for my nurse, who was henceforth to act as maid; the young person, who was as her own baby, being taken from her and sent to share her sister’s rooms, one of which was to be part school, part sitting room; but we were all so uncomfortable I had no heart to continue the arrangement. When small friends came to tea there was nowhere for them to go; wet days were things to be dreaded because the child had no real place of her own for her things, and, after struggling on for nearly a year, we have returned to the nursery, although we try our hardest to call it school-room, and are now so much happier in consequence.

Another problem--should we do away with the nursery--is, What is to become of the nurse? You may call her a maid and give her your garments to look after, and tell her she must now take on her the work of a maid, but she will never do this properly; she will miss her room and her occupation, and she will move about miserably, missing the children and yet not knowing what she misses, and will neither be useful nor pleasant. But leave her her nursery, and one child if possible, and she will be quite happy; and, much as we may hanker after a maid, the ideal creature who shall never have to be told that buttons are off or skirts torn, who shall make our every-day dresses and retrim our bonnets, we owe something to the nurse who has looked after the children at the worst and most critical time of their lives, and are bound, if we cannot afford the two luxuries, to sacrifice the maid and cling to the nurse. And be quite sure if we do we shall be rewarded; the children may be grown up, but even grown-up folks have colds and headaches, and sometimes worse ailments than these, and who so fit to keep watch over these ailments as the nurse, who has gallantly steered us through measles, whooping-cough, and the thousand ailments other people’s selfishness is always handing on from generation to generation?--no one, surely; and if she and the nursery are retained together, there is always someone who knows what to do in an emergency, and a place to go to to be petted and quieted and made much of, as only a nurse can do who has had her nurslings from the first and loves them as only their mother and nurse know how to love. We have two such nurses in our family: I one, my sister the other, and I can never advise doing away with any nursery when I remember all that this may probably mean to others beside the householders themselves.

In a large house, therefore--a house where, let us hope, people mean to stay some years--this is an extra reason for making the nursery as pretty as possible. One cannot be very sentimental over a schoolroom; there is always a suspicion of ogre’s castle about that room, and it can invariably be turned into the girls’ sitting-room or into a billiard-room at the earliest opportunity, but all the sentiment of the home is to be found in the nursery, where the children are without a care or a trouble, and where they are gaining strength and health for the battle of life; therefore, let us never grudge any money we can afford being spent upon the nursery. As I said before, I always consider blue by far the pleasantest colour to live with, which is one reason why I advocate blue in the nursery; but of course endless combinations of colour could be had which would be equally pleasing and successful, but not as nice to live with always. However, I will give one or two which might perhaps be liked better by people who are not as fully convinced as I am on the merits of blue.

A pink and cream nursery would be pretty and bright, and could be managed by using Pither’s cream and pink bay-tree paper, all cream paint, and a dado; the dado of Haines’ anaglypta, painted cream, the ceiling paper should be J. & H. Land’s green and white ‘Watteau’ ceiling, at 3_s._, the carpet should be either the green ‘lily,’ or ‘Stella,’ or ‘anemone,’ from Wallace, and the cretonne should be Oetzmann’s sage-green ‘algæ’ cretonne, at 1_s._ 3½_d._, the muslin curtains being, if possible, of Helbronner’s pink and green ‘lily’ muslin, an expensive muslin but a very lovely one, which would complete the room nicely. The furniture should be ash and as simple as possible, and the flowers on the cupboard should be the pink flowering rush with slender reeds, and a few pale Marguerites. Yet another decoration could be made by using a high dado of Liberty’s nut-brown arras cloth, at 9¾_d._ a yard; this would be sufficiently high to allow of the toy-shelf being used instead of a dado-rail; above this the paper should be Pither’s ‘Buttercup, C,’ at 2_s._ 6_d._, a dull yellow-brown paper; all the paint should be ‘golden-brown,’ the ceiling paper should be yellow and white, the curtains yellow ‘Venetian’ cretonne, reversible, at 1_s._ 1_d._, clear Indian muslin underneath, and the carpet should be Pither’s golden-brown cottage carpet. This scheme sounds dull, but were anyone so unfortunate as to be condemned to use a sunless room as a nursery, she would find this arrangement would bring the sunshine into the room in a remarkable manner; while dark-blue curtains, carpet, and coverings would make the room less severe and be equally satisfactory, more especially if Colbourne’s Hawthorne muslin in yellow and white were placed next the window. Still, in a sunless room, one cannot have too much yellow; yellow serge would be found useful here for curtains should the windows be large, or a draught come in which would be too much for the cretonne to keep out, though cretonne should always be lined with Burnett’s sateen at _7d._ a yard, and for a nursery should be edged with frills; the ball-fringe is really too tempting for small children, who cannot resist the delights of pulling off the little tufts wherever they are within reach of their fingers.

A most successful decoration, if rather a dainty one, was carried out under my directions the other day, and may be mentioned here, as variety is always pleasing to some minds, and it may be liked by those who approve of bright colours; it consisted in staining all the woodwork with Jackson’s malachite green stain and papering the walls with Pither’s admirable red and cream ‘buttercup’ paper, the ceiling being papered with a pale green and white paper; the floor was covered with a green drugget from Barr & Elliott’s, at 2_s._ a yard, wide width, which is wearing admirably, and all the furniture was in quaint stained wood from Mr. Armitage, examples of which are illustrated in the chapter on kitchens; the settle, table, and chairs, being all made by him, as were the mantel and over-mantel; in the centre of this latter piece of furniture was placed a square of looking-glass, though I personally should have preferred a good autotype in the red tints. The tiles in the grate were red, and there was the orthodox high fender with brass rails, which should never be wanting in any room where there are children; the table-cloth and curtains were of green serge, the exact shade of the staining, and the room altogether was far prettier than I had expected it to be, although I must confess my expectations were very high.

Out of one of these schemes of decoration--and I am glad to say that all are possible, for Pither, among others, will always keep in stock any paper that has really found favour with the public; therefore I am not recommending what will be out of anyone’s power to possess almost before these words are in type, as was the case a very few years ago--it will be quite easy to evolve a nursery in the new house which will be so pretty and appealing to the inhabitants, that when the last baby is a tall young person, either rejoicing in knickerbockers or a frock, or in being in the schoolroom as a matter of course, and who goes for walks and has meals in company with the elders--and we are forced to consider the problem with which I headed this chapter--we may reply unanimously, No; not as long as nurse lives, nor as long as there is the very smallest chance of illness or of our having to entertain small visitors. For these even the cots and high chairs should be retained; they do not eat anything, as one of our old nurses used to say when I wanted to give away some of the treasures, and they may even come in for the grandchildren, who will appreciate, as no one else can, the fact that they are having just what their parents had, and sitting and sleeping in the very beds and chairs they used to patronise. It is from the mistakes of others we learn most, and I have never forgotten the lamentations among old servants at home, when the nurseries being done away with and every cot scattered to the four winds of heaven, my mother had to borrow cots and turn the house almost upside down to take in her grandchildren, who were suddenly sent to her to be looked after during a sudden stress of illness, an inconvenience that caused endless worry and bustle, but would have been nothing at all had the old nurseries still been as they were, and which, as a rule, can be easily managed in a big house where the nurseries have been properly arranged for.

Then, too, the position of the two rooms close together, and generally a little way removed from the rest of the house, though not at the top, I beg, makes them a most admirable place for an invalid to retire to; there is always a chance of illness--aye, even serious illness--as one gets on in life, and all sorts of disagreeable things remind one that one is not immortal; and though, as a rule, houses are built emphatically to live in, and neither to be ill nor die in--though, despite the architects, both these unpleasant matters are possible--one can generally in a large house manage that the nurseries shall be close together and quiet; therefore, they should be kept apart for our own use. We could be ill most comfortably in the night nursery, and convalescent in the day nursery, which could, however, be used for our nurse did we require one, and the cheerful pretty papers and the thoughts that would be inseparable from these rooms would alike help us to bear our woes, while we could have nurse to talk to and to ‘do for us’ as no one else could--no one who did not know us thoroughly, and, having seen us in sickness and in health, in adversity and prosperity, knows exactly what we can bear and how to manage us best.

Thinking over everything, then, considering carefully what the nurseries have been and what they may be, I do most seriously beg all my contemporaries to pause a very long time before they lay a ruthless hand on what was once as sacred as a shrine. No amount of decoration can embellish walls decorated with the hopes and joys of our youth, and one’s first playing at Motherhood; no other paper and paint give us the idea, or remind us as do the old papers and paint, of a thousand and one things no one can possibly want to forget; not even the miseries endured during serious illness, the anxieties turned into joy, or may be deepened into dreadful gloom by death itself, should be forgotten; aye, a thousand times should they be remembered if this be the case, and, though this is an impatient age when no one wants to think, and when death is treated so lightly that people are in society and deepest black at the same time, and when all are so impatient of the sorrow death brings with it, that ‘no one stays at home except the corpse,’ I trust I shall not number many of them among my readers, or indeed anyone who cannot and will not thankfully remember their past, and as they grow old, Darby and Joan together, will not spare time to look back gladly and happily to days which were better, perhaps, than the present days of feeble steps and darkened lights, but which are no less happy if Edwin and Angelina are still hand int hand and heart to heart, and have proved for themselves the absolute truth that where marriage is begun in love, continued in love, and ended in love, it can never be anything save success, and that anyone who calls it a failure must know absolutely nothing whatever about it. To such a couple as this, the nurseries must always be sacred places, and they will be as reluctant as I am to do away with them. I think, therefore, I may take it for granted that unless absolutely pressed for room we shall retain our nurseries, keeping them fresh and bright and nice in case we are ill, or in case we have our grandchildren to see us, or in case we have small visitors, who, being provided with suitable rooms, are nothing but a pleasure to us, when otherwise they might be nothing except a trouble and a nuisance.