Part 5

Sentimental Tommy met me at Euston Station, and bought tickets for Stratford as casually as if it had been on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Tommy was in jubilant spirits that morning, with the peculiar kind of international triumph which comes only to an American who has attained some especial favour of the English. Gleefully he told me of his great luck: Only that morning he had been kicked by the King’s cat! An early stroll past Buckingham Palace and along Constitution Hill had resulted in an interview with the royal feline, and the above-mentioned honorable result had been achieved. My observation to the effect that I didn’t know that cats kicked, was met by the simple statement that this cat did,—and then we went on to Stratford.

The ride being in part through the same country that I had traversed when coming to London, I felt quite at home in my surroundings; and we chatted gayly of everything under the sun except the immortal hero of our pilgrimage.

That’s what I like about Tommy—he has such a wonderful intuitive sense of conversational values. And though his obsession by Shakespeare is precisely the same as my own, and though he is himself a _Bartlett’s Concordance_ in men’s clothing, yet I knew, for a surety, that he would quote no line from the poet through the entire day.

As we had neither of us ever been in Stratford before, we left the train at the station and paced the little town with an anticipation that was like a blank page, to be written on by whatever might happen next.

Trusting to Tommy’s instinct, we asked no questions of guidance, and started off at random, on a nowise remarkable street. It was an affable August day, and our gait was much like that of a snail at full gallop; yet before we turned the first corner tears stood in my eyes,—though whether caused by the thrill of being on Shakespeare’s ground, or the reflection of Tommy’s discernibly suppressed emotion, I’ve no idea.

But for pure delightfulness of sensation it is difficult to surpass that aimless wandering through Stratford, with a subconsciousness of what was awaiting us.

In London, historical associations crop up at every step; but, though pointing backward, each points in a different direction, and so they form a great semicircular horizon which becomes misty and vague in the distance. This is restful, and gives one a mere sense of blurred perspective. But Stratford is definite and coherent. Everything in it, material or otherwise, points sharply back to the one figure, and the converging rays meet with a suddenness that is dazzling and well-nigh stunning.

Stratford is reeking with dramatic quality, and a sudden breath of its atmosphere makes for mental unbalance.

“Don’t take it so hard,” said Tommy, with his gentle smile; “this is really the worst of it,—except perhaps one other bit,—and it will soon be over.”

“Why, we haven’t begun yet,” said I, in astonishment.

“You’re thinking of the Birthplace, the Memorial, and the Church. You ought to know that we can see, absorb, and assimilate those things in just about one minute each. It is this that counts,—this, and the footpath across the fields to Shottery.”

“And the River,” I added.

“Yes, and the River.”

Following his unerring instincts, Tommy’s steps led us, though perhaps not by the most direct route, to the Shakespeare Hotel.

“You know,” he said, “intending visitors to Stratford are invariably instructed by returned visitors to go to the Red Lion Inn, or Red Bear, or Red something; but instinct tells me that this hostelry has a message for us.”

Nor was the message only that of the typical English luncheon which the dining-room afforded. There were many other points about that hotel which impressed me with peculiar delight, from the quaint entrance hall to the garden at the back.

Each room is named for one of Shakespeare’s plays, and has the title over its door. After hesitating between _Hamlet_ and _Twelfth Night_, I finally concluded that should I ever spend a whole summer in Stratford, which I fully intend to do, I should take possession of the delightful, chintz-furnished _Love’s Labour’s Lost_.

The library was a continuation of fascination. A strange-shaped room whose length is half a dozen times its width, it seemed a place to enter but not to leave.

However, one does not visit Stratford for the delights of hotel-life, and, luncheon over, we again began our wanderings.

By good luck we chanced first upon the Memorial Theatre. The good luck lay in the fact that, having seen the outside of this Tribute to Genius, we had no desire to enter. It was remindful of a modern New England high school building, and, though we knew it contained authentic portraits and first folios, it had little to do with our Shakespeare.

We paused at the Monument, and commented on the cleverness of the happy thought that provided _Philosophy_ to fill up the fourth side of Shakespeare’s genius.

And then we went on to Henley Street and the house where Shakespeare was born.

We entered the narrow door-way into the old house, which shows so plainly the frantic endeavor at preservation, and we climbed the stairs to the room where the poet was born. The air was smoky with memory and through it loomed the rather smug bust, its weight supported by a thin-legged, inadequate table.

With Tommy I was not troubled by the objectionable thought of “first impressions.” In the first moment we took in, with one swift glance, the fireplace, the walls, the windows, and the few scant properties, and after that our attitude was as of pilgrims returning to an oft-visited shrine.

In the room back of the Birthroom, the one that looks out over the garden, sat the old custodian of the place. He was a large handsome man with none of the doddering, mumbling effects of his profession.

He looked at me keenly, as I stood looking out of the back window, my thoughts all with Mary Arden, and he said, in a low voice, “You love him, too,” and I said, “Yes.”

A little shaken by the Birthplace, but of no mind to admit it, we went gayly through the Stratford streets, passing groups of Happy Villagers, and so suddenly did we meet the Avon, that we almost fell into it. We chanced upon two broad marble steps that seemed to be the terminal of a macadamized path to the river.

The Avon was using the lower of these two steps, so we sat on the upper one and watched the children sailing boats upon the Memorial Stream. This brought to my mind Mr. Mabie’s word picture of Shakespeare at four years old, and for a time the baby Shakespeare took precedence over the man poet.

It is scarcely fair that the Avon should be so beautiful of itself, for this, with its vicarious interests, makes it too blessed among rivers.

Then we went to Holy Trinity. The approach, plain as way to parish church, seemed like a solemn ceremony, and, as Tommy afterward admitted, “it got on his nerves.”

Unbothered by verger or guide, oblivious to tourists, if any were there, we walked straight to the chancel, looked at Shakespeare’s grave,—and walked away.

It was fortunate for me at this moment that I had taken Sentimental Tommy with me; for, as his emotions are so much more available than mine, so he has them under much better control.

I had expected to look around the church a bit, but Tommy led me away, through the old graveyard, to the low wall by the river. And there, under the waving old trees, we sat until we could pick up our lost three hundred years.

Back through the town we went; and I must needs stop here and there at the little shops, which, with their modern attempts at quaintness, display relics and antiques, more or less genuine.

Few of their wares appealed to me, so I contented myself with a tiny celluloid bust of Shakespeare, which by chance presented the familiar features with an expression of real power and intellect. It was strange to find this poet face on a cheap trinket, and with deep thankfulness of heart I possessed myself of my one souvenir of Stratford.

It is directly opposed to all the instincts of Tommy’s nature to ask instructions in matters which he feels that he ought to know intuitively.

And so, upon his simple announcement, “This is the footpath across the fields to Shottery,—to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,” we started.

As Tommy had hinted, during our walk from the station, there would be another bit of the real thing; and this was it. The walk across the fields was crowded with impulses that came perilously near emotional intensity. But from such appalling fate we were saved by our sense of humor. One cannot give way to emotion if one is conscious of its humorous aspect. And we agreed that as the path across the field had been here ever since Shakespeare trod it, and as it would in all probability remain for some time in the future, the mere coincidence that we were traversing it at this particular moment was nothing to be thrilled about.

And yet,—it _was_ the path from Stratford to Shottery, and we _were_ there!

But it was a longer path than we had thought, and the practicality which is one of the chief ingredients of Tommy’s sentiment moved him to look at his watch and announce that we would have to turn back at once, if we would catch the last train to London.

Not entirely disheartened at leaving Anne Hathaway’s cottage unvisited,—for we both well knew the value of the unattained,—we turned, and wandered back to the station just in time for the late afternoon train.

And that was why we didn’t discover until some time afterward that we had taken the wrong road across the fields; and that, as we imagined our faces turned toward it, Anne Hathaway’s cottage was getting further and further away to our left.

Wandering about in the luggage-room, I suddenly chanced upon my friends calmly sitting on their own boxes, and looking as if they had been evicted for not paying their rent.

And such a multiplicity of luggage as they had! I had contented myself with one box of goodly proportions, but my cherished friends had no less than twelve pieces of the varying patterns of enamelled blackness and pig-skinned brownness which only England knows.

“Why sit ye here idle?” I demanded.

“We await the psychical moment,” responded the Wag O’ The World; “you see they won’t stick our luggage sooner than ten minutes before train time, and they’re not allowed to stick it later than five minutes before train time. The game is to catch a porter between those times.”

The game seemed not only difficult, but impossible, for the porters were not only elusive but for the most part invisible. Preoccupied-looking men strolled about with a handful of labels and a paste-pot, but could not be induced to decorate our luggage therewith.

“The principle is all wrong!” I declared. “It is absurd for one to be such a slave to one’s luggage. Somebody ought to invent a trunk with legs and intelligence, that would run after us,—instead of our running after it!”

“Even that would not be necessary,” responded the Wag O’ The World, in his mild way; “if somebody would only invent a porter with legs and intelligence, it would fulfil all requirements.”

Now this is the strange part.

Though there were more than a thousand people waiting to have their luggage stuck (_i. e._, labelled), and though there were but few of the invisible porters, yet everybody was properly stuck, and started when the train did!

The next entertainment was the securing of an entire compartment for our party of three. This is always accomplished in England, but by many devious and often original devices.

“I’ve thought of a good plan, which I’ve never tried yet,” observed the Wag O’ The World, “to get a compartment to one’s self. That is, to invent some collapsible rubber people,—like balloon pigs, you know,—that may be carried in the pocket, and blown up when necessary. Three or four of these, when blown up and placed in the various seats would fool any guard. And if one were shaped like a baby, with a crying arrangement that would work mechanically, the others would not be needed.”

This plan was ingenious, but, like everything else in England, unnecessary. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the English that nothing is absolutely necessary to their well-being or happiness. If anything is omitted or mislaid, it is not missed but promptly forgotten, and no harm done.

After an hour or two of pleasant travel through the hop-poled scenery of Southeastern England, we reached a place with one of those absurd names which always suggest Edward Lear’s immortal lyrics, where we must needs change cars.

My Cherished Friends strolled along the length of the platform to the luggage van, and judiciously selected such boxes as they cared to claim; though I am sure they did not get all of their own, and acquired a few belonging to other passengers. I easily picked out my own American trunk, and, surrounded by our spoil, we stood on the platform while the train wandered on.

After a long, but by no means tedious, wait there appeared on the other side of the platform a toy railroad train, so amateurish that it looked like one drawn by a child on a slate.

We were put into a box-stall, and locked in. The ridiculous little contraption bobbled along its track, and finally stopped in the middle of a beautiful landscape, and we jumped out to become part of it.

The barouche of our hostess awaited us, with still life in the shape of liveried attendants. A huge wagon awaited the luggage, which had mysteriously dumped itself out of the train, and we were whisked away to the Garden Party.

Partly to be polite, and partly because I couldn’t help it, I remarked on the marvellous beauty of the country.

The Wag O’ The World enthusiastically agreed with me. “But, Emily,” he said, “if you could only see this same country in the spring! These lanes are walled on either side with the pink bloom of the may,—and the wild flowers . . .”

Tears stood in the blue eyes of the Wag, at the mere thought of spring in Kent, and I realized at last why English poets have sometimes written poems about Spring.

We passed through the village, one of those tiny hamlets which acquire merit only by age and local tradition. The Happy Villagers stared at us with just the correct degree of bucolic curiosity, and we rolled on through the lodge gates, and along the winding, beautiful avenue to the house. In every direction stretched wide lawns of perfect grass, that probably acquired its uppish look when William the Conqueror trod it.

We were met by no humanity of our own stamp, but were shown to our room by benevolent-minded factotums, and gently advised to prepare for the Garden Party.

With the exception of entertainments of a public nature, I have never seen so beautiful and elaborate an affair. The guests, to the number of two hundred, came from all the country round; some in equipages dripping with ancestral glory, and some in motor-cars reeking with modern wealth.

The women’s costumes were of themselves a study. The English woman’s dress often inclines to the _bizarre_; and at a garden fête she lets herself loose in radiant absurdities, which she wears with the absolute self-satisfaction born of the knowledge that in the matter of feminine adornment England is the land of the free and home of the brave.

The Garden Party proceeded with the regularity of clock-work. The invitations read from four till six, and promptly at four the whole two hundred guests arrived. This occasioned no confusion, and the hostess greeted them with a neatness and despatch equalling that of our own Presidential receptions.

The guests then conversed in amiable groups on the lawn, while a band of musicians in scarlet and gold uniforms played popular airs.

All were then marshalled into a huge marquee, of dimensions exceeding our largest circus tent. Here, a Lucullian feast was served at small tables, and the country gentry, in their vague, involuntary way, amply satisfied their healthy English appetites.

After the feast, the assemblage was rounded up into a compact audience, to witness the performance of a troupe of Pierrots. The antics of these Mountebanks, with accompanying songs and dances, were appreciatively applauded, and then, as it was six o’clock, the assemblage dissolved and vanished, almost with the rapidity of a bursting bubble.

To my easily flustered American mentality, it all seemed like a feat of magic; and I looked in amazement at my hostess who, after the departure of the last guest, was as composed and serene as if she had entertained but a single guest. And like the insubstantial pageant faded, it left not a rack behind. More magic dissolved the tent, the band-stand, the Pierrots’ platform, and all other incriminating evidence, and then, with true English forgetfulness, the Garden Party was a thing of the past, and dinner was toward.

The house-party numbered forty, and, after exchanging the filmy finery of the garden garb for the more gorgeous regalia demanded by candle-light, the guests repaired to the stately dining-hall. Of course, _repaired_ is the only verb of locomotion befitting the occasion.

Sunday passed like a beautiful daydream. The English have a great respect for the Sabbath day, and, perhaps as a reward for this, the weather on Sunday is usually perfect. It is not incumbent on guests to go to church, but it is considered rather nice of them to do so; especially if, as happened in this instance, the old church is on the estate where one is visiting. Nor is it any hardship to sit in an old carved high-backed pew, that has belonged to the family for ages.

Sabbath amusements are of a mild nature, one of the favorites being photography. English people have original ideas of posing, and any one who can invent a new mode of grouping his subjects is looked upon as a hero.

Aside from Lord Nelson’s declaration, if there is one thing that England expects, it is Tea; and tea she gets every day. But of all the various modes of conducting the function, the out-of-door Tea at a country house is probably the most delightful.

The appointments are the perfection of wicker, china, and silver, but it is the local color and surrounding that count most.

I cease to wonder that the English are only vaguely interested in their viands, for who could definitely consider the flavor of tea when in full view was a rising terrace leading to a magnificent old mansion of the correct and approved period of architecture, and covered with ivy that may have been planted by an Historical Character? or, looking in another direction, one could perceive a formal garden, with fountain and sun-dial; another turn of the head brought into view a unique rose orchard, unmatched even in England; while toward the only point of the compass left, rolled hills and dales that made many an English landscape painter famous.

Add to this the inconsequent and always delightful small-talk of English society, spiced here and there by their dreadful expletive, “My word!” and enlivened by the English humor, which is, to those who care for it, the most truly humorous thing on earth,—and I, for one, am quite ready to concede that these conditions combine to make Afternoon Tea a Spangle of Existence.

Once in our seats, it was not so bad; though very like riding the whirlwind, without being allowed to direct the storm.

Miss Anna drew my attention to points of interest as we passed them. In her tactful way she humored my idiosyncrasy. She never said, “On your right is the ‘Salutation and Cat,’ where Coleridge and Southey and Lamb used to congregate of a winter evening.” She said, instead, “Haven’t you always thought ‘Salutation and Cat’ the very dearest tavern in all London?”

Nor when we came to the half-timbered houses of Holborn did she say, “Here lived Lamb’s godfather, who was known to and visited by Sheridan.”

She said: “Don’t you like Hawthorne’s way of putting these things? You remember how he tells us that on his first visit to London he went astray in Holborn, through an arched entrance, in a court opening inward, with a great many Sunflowers in full bloom.”

All this pleased me, as did also Bumpus’s great book-shop, which is, I think, in this neighborhood.

Another delightful pastime was observing the signs over the shop doors. As the English are adept in the making of phrases, so are they especially happy in adjusting their callings to their names.