EXCURSIONS FROM LONDON.
Strange ways.—"The bears that went over to Charlestown."—The delights of a runaway without its dangers.—Flower show at the Crystal Palace.—Whit-Monday at Hampton Court.—A queen baby.—"But the carpets?"—Poor Nell Gwynne.—Vandyck faces.—Royal beds.—Lunch at the King's Arms.—O Music, how many murders have been committed in thy name!—Queen Victoria's home at Windsor.—A new "house that Jack built."—The Round Tower.—Stoke Pogis.—Frogmore.—The Knights of the Garter.—The queen's gallery.—The queen's plate.—The royal mews.—The wicker baby-wagons.—The state equipages.
WE bought an umbrella,—every one buys an umbrella who goes to London,—and this, in its alpaca glory, became our constant companion. We purchased a guide-book to complete our equipments; but so disreputable, so yellow-covered, was its outward appearance, so suggestive of everything but facts, that we consigned it to oblivion, and put ourselves under the guidance of our Boston friends, the Good Man and his family.
For two busy weeks we rattled over the flat pavings of the city in the low, one-horse cabs. We climbed towers, we descended into crypts, we examined tombstones, we gazed upon mummies. Everything was new, strange, and wonderful, even to the little boys in the street, who, as well as the omnibus drivers, were decked out in tall silk hats—a piece of absurdity in one case, and extravagance in the other, to our minds. The one-horse carriages rolled about upon two wheels; the occupants, like cross children, facing in every direction but the one they were going, and everybody, contrary to all our preconceived ideas of law and order, turned to the left, instead of to the right,—to say nothing of other strange and perplexing ways that came under our observation. We had come abroad upon the same errand as the bears who "went over to Charlestown to see what they could see," and so stared into every window, into every passing face, as though we were seeking the lost. We became known as the women who wanted a cab; our appearance within the iron posts that guard the entrance to Queen's Square from Southampton Row being the signal for a perfect Babel of unintelligible shouts and gesticulations down the long line of waiting vehicles, with the charging down upon us of the first half dozen in a highly dangerous manner. Wisdom is sometimes the growth of days; and we soon learned to dart out in an unexpected moment, utterly deaf and blind to everything and everybody but the first man and the first horse, and thus to go off in triumph.
But if our exit was triumphant, what was our entry to the square, when weary, faint with seeing, hearing, and trying in vain to fix everything seen and heard in our minds, we returned in a hansom! English ladies do not much affect this mode of conveyance, but American women abroad have, or take, a wide margin in matters of mere conventionality,—and so ride in hansom cabs at will. They are grown-up baby perambulators upon two wheels; the driver sitting up behind, where the handle would be, and drawing the reins of interminable length over the top of the vehicle. Picture it in your mind, and then wonder, as I did, what power of attraction keeps the horse upon the ground; what prevents his flying into the air when the driver settles down into his seat. A pair of low, folding doors take the place of a lap robe; you dash through the street at an alarming rate without any visible guide, experiencing all the delights of a runaway without any of its dangers.
FLOWER SHOW AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
A ride by rail of half an hour takes one to Sydenham. It is a charming walk from the station through the tastefully arranged grounds, with their shrubberies, roseries, and fountains, along the pebble-strewn paths, crowded this day with visitors. The palace itself is so like its familiar pictures as to need no description. Much of the grandeur of its vast proportions within is lost by its divisions and subdivisions. There are courts representing the various nations of the earth,—America, as usual, felicitously and truthfully shown up by a pair of scantily attired savages under a palm tree; there are the courts of the Alhambra, of Nineveh, and of Pompeii; there are fountains, and statues, and bazaars innumerable, where one may purchase almost anything as a souvenir; there are cafés where one may refresh the body, and an immense concert hall where one may delight the soul,—and how much more I cannot tell, for the crowd was almost beyond belief, and a much more interesting study than Egyptian remains, or even the exquisite mass of perfumed bloom, that made the air like summer, and the whole place a garden. They were of the English middle class, the upper middle class, bordering upon the nobility,—these rotund, fine-looking gentlemen in white vests and irreproachable broadcloth, these stout, red-faced, richly-attired ladies, with their soft-eyed, angular daughters following in their train, or clinging to their arms. We listened for an hour to the queen's own band in scarlet and gold, and then came back to town, meeting train after train filled to overflowing with expensively arrayed humanity in white kids, going out for the evening.
A DAY AT HAMPTON COURT.
It was Whit-Monday,—the workingman's holiday,—a day of sun and shower; but we took our turn upon the outside of the private omnibus chartered for the occasion, unmindful of the drops; our propelling power, six gray horses. By virtue of this private establishment we were free to pass through Hyde Park,—that breathing-place of aristocracy, where no public vehicle, no servant without livery, is tolerated. It was early, and only the countless hoof-prints upon Rotten Row suggested the crowd of wealth and fashion that would throng here later in the day. One solitary equestrian there was; perched upon a guarded saddle, held in her place by some concealed band, serenely content, rode a queen baby in long, white robes. A groom led the little pony. She looked at us in grave wonder as we dashed by,—born to the purple! I cannot begin to describe to you the rising up of London for this day of pleasure; the decking of itself out in holiday attire; the garnishing of itself with paper flowers; the smooth, hard roads leading into the country, all alive; the drinking, noisy crowd about the door of every pot-house along the way. It was a delightful drive of a dozen or more miles, through the most charming suburbs imaginable,—past lawns, and gardens, and green old trees shading miniature parks; past "detached" villas that had blossomed into windows; indeed, the plate glass upon houses of most modest pretension was almost reckless extravagance in our eyes, forgetting, as we did, the slight duty to be paid here upon what is, with us, an expensive luxury. No wonder the English are a healthful people,—the sun shines upon them. I like their manner of house-building, of home-making. They set up first a great bay-window, with a room behind it, which is of secondary importance, with wide steps leading up to a door at the side. They fill this window with the rarest, rosiest, most rollicksome flowers. Then, if there remain time, and space, and means, other rooms are added, the bay-windows increasing in direct proportion; while shades, drawn shades, are a thing unknown. "But the carpets?" They are so foolish as to value health above carpets.
It was high noon when we rolled up the wide avenue of Bushey Park, with its double border of gigantic chestnuts and limes, through Richmond Park, with its vast sweep of greensward flecked with the sunbeams, dripping like the rain through the royal oaks, past Richmond terrace, with its fine residences looking out upon the Thames, the translucent stream, pure and beautiful here, before going down to the city to be defiled—like many a life. We dismounted at the gates to the palace, in the rambling old village that clings to its skirts, and joined the crowd passing through its wide portals.
It is an old palace thrown aside, given over to poor relatives, by royalty,—as we throw aside an old gown; a vast pile of dingy, red brick that has straggled over acres of Hampton parish, and is kept within bounds by a high wall of the same ugly material. It has pushed itself up into towers and turrets, with pinnacles and spires rising from its battlemented walls. It has thrust itself out into oriel and queer little latticed windows that peep into the gardens and overhang the three quadrangles, and is with its vast gardens and park, with its wide canal and avenues of green old trees, the most delightfully ugly, old place imaginable. Here kings and queens have lived and loved, suffered and died, from Cardinal Wolsey's time down to the days of Queen Anne. It is now one of England's show places; one portion of its vast extent, with the grounds, being thrown open to the public, the remainder given to decayed nobility, or wandering, homeless representatives of royalty,—a kind of royal almshouse, in fact. A curtained window, the flutter of a white hand, were to us the only signs of inhabitation.
Through thirty or more narrow, dark, bare rooms,—bare but for the pictures that crowded the walls,—we wandered. There were two or three halls of stately proportions finely decorated with frescoes by Verrio, and one or two royal stairways, up and down which slippered feet have passed, silken skirts trailed, and heavy hearts been carried, in days gone by. The pictures are mostly portraits of brave men and lovely women, of kings and queens and royal favorites,—poor Nell Gwynne among them, who began life by selling oranges in a theatre, and ended it by selling virtue in a palace. The Vandyck faces are wonderfully beautiful. They gaze upon you through a mist, a golden haze,—like that which hangs over the hills in the Indian summer,—from out deep, spiritual eyes; a dream of fair women they are.
There were one or two royal beds, where uneasy have lain the heads that wore a crown, and half a dozen chairs worked in tapestry by royal fingers,—whether preserved for their questionable beauty, or because of the rarity of royal industry, I do not know. We wandered through the shrubberies, paid a penny to see the largest grape vine in the world,—and wished we had given it to the heathen, so like its less distinguished sisters did the vine appear,—and at last lunched at the King's Arms, a queer little inn just outside the gates, edging our way with some difficulty through the noisy, guzzling crowd around the door—the crowd that, having reached the acme of the day's felicity, was fast degenerating into a quarrel. In the long, bare room at the head of the narrow, winding stairs, we found comparative quiet. The tables were covered with joints of beef, with loaves of bread, pitchers of ale, and the ubiquitous cheese. A red-faced young man in tight new clothes—like a strait-jacket—occupied one end of our table with his blushing sweetheart. A band of wandering harpers harped upon their harps to the crowd of wrangling men and blowsy women in the open court below; strangely out of tune were the harps, out of time the measure, according well with the spirit of the hour. A loud-voiced girl decked out in tawdry finery, with face like solid brass, sang "Annie Laurie" in hard, metallic tones,—O Music, how many murders have been committed in thy name!—then passed a cup for pennies, with many a jest and rude, bold laugh. We were glad when the day was done,—glad when we had turned away from it all.
QUEEN VICTORIA'S HOME AT WINDSOR.
The castle itself is a huge, battlemented structure of gray stone,—a fortress as well as a palace,—with a home park of five hundred acres, the private grounds of Mrs. Guelph, and, beyond that, a grand park of eighteen hundred acres. But do not imagine that she lives here with only her children and servants about her,—this kindly German widow, whose throne was once in the hearts of her people. Royalty is a complicated affair,—a wheel within a wheel,—and reminds us of nothing so much as "the house that Jack built."
This is the Castle of Windsor.
This is the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the "military knights" forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the knights that the garter have worn, with armorial banners tattered and torn, that look down on the military knights forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
This is the dean, all shaven and shorn, with the canons and clerks that doze in the morn, that install the knights that the garter have worn, with armorial banners tattered and torn, that look down on the military knights forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
And so on. The train within the castle walls that follows the queen is endless.
We passed through the great, grand, state apartments, refurnished at the time of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, for the use of the Danish family. We mounted to the battlements of the Round Tower by the hundred steps, the grim cannon gazing down upon us from the top. Half a dozen visitors were already there, gathered as closely as possible about the angular guide, listening to his geography lesson, and looking off upon the wonderful panorama of park, and wood, and winding river. Away to the right rose the spire of Stoke Pogis Church, where the curfew still "tolls the knell of parting day." To the left, in the great park below, lay Frogmore, where sleeps Prince Albert the Good. Eton College, too, peeped out from among the trees, its gardens touching the Thames, and in the distance,—beyond the sleeping villages tucked in among the trees,—the shadowy blue hills held up the sky.
St. George's Chapel is in the quadrangle below. It is the chapel of the Knights of the Garter. And now, when you read of the chapels, or churches, or cathedrals in the old world,—and they are all in a sense alike,—pray don't imagine a New England meeting-house with a double row of stiff pews and a choir in the gallery singing "Antioch"! The body of the chapel was a great, bare space, with tablets and elaborate monuments against the walls. Opening from this were alcoves,—also called chapels,—each one containing the tombs and monuments of some family. As many of the inscriptions are dated centuries back, you can imagine they are often quaintly expressed. One old knight, who died in Catholic times, desired an open Breviary to remain always in the niche before his tomb, that passers might read to their comfort, and say for him an orison. Of course this would never do in the days when the chapel fell into Protestant hands. A Bible was substituted, chained into its place; but the old inscription, cut deep in the stone, still remains, beginning "Who leyde thys book here?" with a startling appropriateness of which the author never dreamed. Over another of these chapels is rudely cut an ox, an N, and a bow,—the owner having, in an antic manner, hardly befitting the place, thus written his name—Oxenbow.
You enter the choir, where the installations take place, by steps, passing under the organ. In the chancel is a fine memorial window to Prince Albert. On either side are the stalls or seats for the knights, with the armorial banner of each hanging over his place. Projecting over the chancel, upon one side, is what appears to be a bay-window. This is the queen's gallery, a little room with blue silk hangings,—for blue is the color worn by Knights of the Garter,—where she sits during the service. Through these curtains she looked down upon the marriage of the Prince of Wales. Think of being thus put away from everybody, as though one were plague-stricken. A private station awaits her when she steps from the train at the castle gates. A private room is attached to the green-houses, to the riding-school in the park, and even to the private chapel. A private photograph-room, for the taking of the royal pictures, adjoins her apartments. It must be a fine thing to be a queen,—and so tiresome! Even the gold spoon in one's mouth could not offset the weariness of it all, and of gold spoons she has an unbounded supply; from ten to fifteen millions of dollars worth of gold plate for her majesty's table being guarded within the castle! Think of it, little women who set up house-keeping with half a dozen silver teaspoons and a salt-spoon!
We waited before a great gate until the striking of some forgotten hour, to visit the royal mews. You may walk through all these stables in slippers and in your daintiest gown, without fear. A stiff young man in black—a cross between an undertaker and an incipient clergyman in manner—acted as guide. Other parties, led by other stiff young men, followed or crossed our path. There were stalls and stalls, upon either side, in room after room,—for one could not think of calling them stables,—filled by sleek bays for carriage or saddle. And the ponies!—the dear little shaggy browns, with sweeping tails, and wonderful eyes peeping out from beneath moppy manes, the milk-white, tiny steeds, with hair like softest silk,—they won our hearts. Curled up on the back of one, fast asleep, lay a Maltese kitten; the "royal mew" some one called it. The carriages were all plain and dark, for the ordinary use of the court. In one corner a prim row of little yellow, wicker, baby-wagons attracted our attention, like those used by the poorest mother in the land. In these the royal babies have taken their first airings.
The state equipages we saw another day at Buckingham Palace,—the cream-colored horses, the carriages and harnesses all crimson and gold. There they stand, weeks and months together, waiting for an occasion. The effect upon a fine day, under favoring auspices,—the sun shining, the bands playing, the crowd of gazers, the prancing horses, the gilded chariots,—must almost equal the triumphal entry of a first class circus into a New England town!