When I had spent nearly a fortune upon it, I must confess that it wasn’t so bad after all; indeed, no one would have known it again, and I’ve over and over again seen very many worse in the houses of persons far better off in the world than ourselves, but whose names, for many reasons, of course, I’m not going to state. Certainly its tone was heavenly, and, upon my word, when it came home newly done up, and I ran over “The Soldier Tired,” I declare it sounded for all the world like the music of the spheres—such grandeur in the lower notes—such sweetness in the upper ones—such power when you were impassioned—such plaintiveness when you were sentimental—that I declare it seemed to go right through me, and be more than I could bear, for it would move me to tears; and as I playfully ran up and down the notes, really and truly I felt myself lifted from my seat and carried, without knowing it, into another region—Oh! it was such a little duck of a cottage, and such a darling little pet of a dear Broadwood, the reader can’t tell!
I don’t suppose I could have had the cottage in the house more than a fortnight before I began to feel that it was a sin to be possessed of such a beautifully toned instrument, and not give a party just to show it off—for really the quadrilles upon it sounded quite divinely—and if they did so under my humble fingers, I said to myself, what would they sound like under the more skilful execution of those sweet girls and admirable piano-forte players, the Miss B—yl—s’s, who I knew very well would be delighted to take it in turns and play the whole evening through for me. Besides, it wasn’t as if we had been seeing a whole house full of company every evening; on the contrary, I’m sure we had been living as retired as owls, and hadn’t given a party for I couldn’t safely say when, and I do think it is so dreadful to be obliged to sit moping, locked up in a box all day long, without ever seeing a single soul beyond the people you’ve got about you. Moreover, as I very properly observed to myself, it really was not left for us to say whether we liked to give a party or not; but, upon my word, when I looked at it again, I felt that it was a moral obligation, and nothing more nor less than a matter of common honesty on our side to do so; for, of course, having danced at all our friends’ houses, and eaten all our friends’ suppers, they naturally expected that we should make them some return, as indeed, in plain justice, we ought to; besides, how could we hope that we should ever be asked out to our friends again, if we didn’t give them supper for supper and dance for dance. I told Edward, too, that really and truly it would be little or no expense, for we should only want such a small supper that a five pound note would cover it all, I was sure; for I merely intended just to have a ham and beef sandwich or two for the top and bottom, and a chicken or so prettily done up in blue satin ribbon, as if it had been had from the pastrycooks; and then for the matter of confectionary, of course we might have a trifle from Camden Town for a mere nothing, and that with, say one or two custards, and a jelly, would make quite show enough for what we wanted, I was certain; besides, I could easily fill out the table with a few almonds, and raisins, and figs, and candied lemon peel, for, as I very properly said, there was no necessity for our going to the foolish expense of grapes, and surely they could do without crackers for once in a way, and if they couldn’t, why they wouldn’t have them, that was all I knew. And even then, supposing that upon second thoughts we didn’t fancy the table looked crowded and showy enough, why I could easily make a bargain with the pastrycook for the hire of some of their fancy articles, either a beautiful elephant in pound-cake, or a love of a barley-sugar bird-cage, and which we must take care and not press our friends to taste, and then with Edward’s two beautiful plated candelabras with silver edges, I was sure it would be as handsome an entertainment as any one could wish for, and if it wasn’t, why all I could say was, that I wasn’t going to any more expense about the matter,—no! not if the Queen herself were coming—and there’s an end of it!
Well, it was all so nicely arranged, and I sent out all my invitations in such good time, that I think I had only eight refusals, and those not from the best of our acquaintance, so I didn’t break my heart about them. But, as I very truly said to myself, I may as well have my rooms full whilst I am about it, so I packed off a card to some of my friends that I didn’t care very much for, and whom I had consequently made up my mind not to ask at all, with a note apologising for the shortness of the notice, and telling them that owing to the letter having been misdirected, the invitation I had sent them three weeks back had just been returned to me by the Post-office.
Upon my word, the preparations for the party were almost too much for me, and I declare to gracious I worked like a common cab-horse, for I hadn’t even time to sit down and take my meals decently, like a Christian, and when I went to bed, I can assure my lady-readers, I was so tired, that I made a vow to myself that even if the whole world depended upon it, I’d never again be dragged into giving another party,—no, not for ever so much! But I shouldn’t have minded it a very great deal after all, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Sk—n—st—n’s shameful behaviour, and total want of sympathy with my sufferings—for really and truly, if he hadn’t the bare-faced impudence to tell me that I had only myself to blame for it; for that “I (I, indeed!) was always bothering his life out about giving a party,” when all the while the wretch must have known, as well as I did, that it wasn’t for myself that I wanted any of your parties, but merely to oblige him, by keeping all his friends and clients together. But, of course, these are just the thanks one gets for slaving one’s life out, as one does, for the sake of one’s husband. It’s always the way with those selfish things of men, though. Mr. Edward, however, wont catch his dear (pretty dear!) Caroline making such a fool of herself again in a hurry—No! not if she knows it.
As our look out at the back is far from pretty, and to tell the truth never did please me, (for we had only a view of these S—mm—nds’ trumpery garden, and they are always washing at-home, and hanging the things out to dry right under our very noses) why, I thought (as I always had been, from my cradle, of an ingenious turn of mind) that I might as well ornament our staircase-window just a little bit, and so shut out that dreadful eyesore which we had at the back of us, and make the window quite a handsome object; for I must say that of all things in the world for a staircase, give me a stained glass window. Oh! I do think it looks so beautiful—so rich and distingué, to see bunches of roses, and pinks, and camelias, painted on ground glass, just for all the world as if they were growing there. So I set to work, and having a pair of old worn-out chintz bed-curtains up stairs, I cut out some of the best flowers that had had the least of their colour washed out of them, and dabbed some putty over all the panes, until, I declare to goodness gracious, a glazier himself would have sworn that the glass had been ground. Then, with some gum I stuck the chintz flowers in the centre of every one of the panes, and, upon my honour, I can assure the reader, it was the most perfect bit of deception I ever saw in all my life; and I’ll warrant, that even the best judges in stained glass would have had to have passed their fingers over the surface, before they would have been able to have found it out. As any one came in at our street-door, it positively gave the house quite a cathedral air. Oh! it was so beautiful, so chaste, and yet so rich; and when I first saw it from our hall, I couldn’t for the life of me help exclaiming, with the top of the bills of the Colosseum—“’Tis not a picture—it is nature.” Yet, when I think of what happened afterwards, I declare I feel as if I could sit down and cry my eyes out—but more of this hereafter.
Well, I got all the plate nicely cleaned, and all the carpets taken up, and all the papers cut for the wax candles, and the chandelier taken out of its brown holland bag, and had ordered the rout-seats, and the flowers, and the chickens, and the barley sugar bird-cage (which I thought would look best after all, for the man hadn’t a single elephant in his shop that he said would be large enough to place in the middle of the supper-table, and wanted to put me off with a trumpery hedgehog, with half its almond quills out, and which I could very easily see, from the stale look of the thing, had been out to an evening party every night that week.) The only thing that remained to be done was to get that lovely cottage of mine up into the drawing-room, and how the dickens we were ever to manage it, I’m sure I couldn’t tell. When I asked Mr. Edward about it, as he was decantering his wine at the side-board, before he went to business, on the morning of the party, and inquired of him whether he didn’t think Dick Farden could manage it for me, he merely said, stuff-a’-nonsense, I had better have proper people to do it, and then I should be sure to have it done rightly; on which I very justly remarked—“Proper people, indeed! did he know what proper people would come to? He seemed to be talking as if he had got more money in his pockets than he knew what to do with; and I should just like to know what on earth was the use of having Mr. Dick Farden always about the house, if he couldn’t be trusted to move my cottage just from one room to another.” This brought him to his senses, for he said, as I seemed to know so much more about it than he did, I had better do as I liked—only he must go spoiling it, by adding, in his nasty perverse way, “that I mustn’t go blame him if any thing happened to it.”—But I do blame him for it all, and can’t help saying, that it was entirely his own fault, for what business had he to tell me that I knew more about it than he did, and that I had better do it as I liked, when he must have known, as well as I did, that I knew nothing at all about moving cottages, and that something dreadful was going to happen. Oh! that dear, dear Broadwood of mine. But I must restrain myself.
Well, no sooner had I seen my husband fairly out of the house, than I rang the bell for Mr. Dick Farden, and when he came into the parlour, I asked him if he thought he could manage to move that piano of mine up into the drawing-room. So, after measuring the width of it, and then going and looking at our first landing, he said, “he was afeard there would be no getting the thing up the stairs anyhow, for there was no room to turn the corner with it;” and, on going up and looking for myself, sure enough the man was right; though as I told him, what on earth could make the people go building houses in that stupid way, was beyond a person of my limited understanding to comprehend. Dick Farden said that there were only two ways of getting over it, one was to take out my beautiful painted glass window, (which of course I wasn’t going to listen to—though I can’t help wishing now, from the very bottom of my heart, that I had); and the other to “hoist it up” outside the back of the house, and so get it in at the French window in the drawing-room, which, he said, he and a “pal” of his, as he called him, could do very easily for a pot of beer. I asked him whether he was sure that it would be perfectly safe; but he would have it that there was not the least danger, so long as the ropes were good. So I showed him the clothes lines, but my gentleman wanted to persuade me that it would be better to have them just a trifle thicker—though of course I knew what that all meant, and wasn’t going to be foolish enough to give him the money to go buying new ropes with, indeed, and making a pretty penny out of them, I’d be bound. So I quietly told him that as those very ropes had been strong enough to bear the weight of “La petite Saqui,” (and she was no feather,) jumping and frisking about on them, I thought they might manage to lift my Broadwood up to the drawing-room window—though, of course, like master like man, he must go saying, as Mr. Edward did, that I mus’n’t blame him if anything happened on account of the ropes,—and really, from their all talking so about something happening, I positively began to fancy that something was going to happen, (and so it was, too, with a vengeance,) and what I should do then goodness gracious only knows.
Off scampered Mr. Dick Farden for his friend, and I gave him permission to bring the beer in with him, for of course he couldn’t do a thing without tasting his beer first. I declare I never knew such a pig for beer as the man was in all my life; he couldn’t do anything beyond his everyday work without looking for something to drink; in fact, if I asked him to do ever such a trifle, he was always saying, in a nasty begging tone, “You haven’t got such a thing as a pint of beer about you, have you, ma’am?”
When he came back, he and his friend, whom he called Jim, carried my cottage out into the garden; and when they had tied the clothes line all round it, Jim went up stairs to the second-floor window, and threw out a string for us to tie the end of the rope to. As soon as he had got hold of it, Mr. Farden tied what he called the “guider” to one of the legs of my Broadwood, so as to prevent its knocking against the house as it went up. When they were all ready, Farden called out to Jim, “Now, pull steady, lad!” and up went my beautiful cottage in the air, as nicely as ever I saw anything done in all my life. Just as they had got it well over the area railings, and nearly on a level with our back-parlour window, that bothering Jim, who was as strong as a bull, began pulling too hard, and I saw that it was more than Farden could manage to keep the piano away from the house, and that in another minute I should be having it going bang in at our back-parlour window, and perhaps lodging right on the top of the sideboard, where I had put all the jellies and custards not ten minutes before. So I gave a slight scream, and ran up to him as fast as my legs could carry me, and seizing hold of the guider, told him, for goodness gracious sake, to pull the piano over towards the garden wall. But I declare the words were no sooner out of my mouth, than away he must tear, pulling away as hard as ever he could, just for all the world as if my beautiful instrument were made of cast iron, and he had no sooner got it opposite my beautiful staircase window, than all of a sudden off flew the leg of my Broadwood to which the guide rope was attached, and down he tumbled, and I with him; and ah, lor a mercy! I heard something go bang, smash, crash, and on looking up, oh dear! there was my lovely cottage gone right through my beautiful imitation-stained glass window, and dashing backwards and forwards, for all the world like one of those great big swings at a fair, and knocking against the window, as Jim kept pulling it up, until there wasn’t scarcely a bit of the frame or glass left standing. Lord love you, out came all the neighbours’ servants, in a swarm, just like a pack of bees at the sound of a gong; and I’d be bound to say they thought it a fine bit of fun, and a sight worth going a mile any day to see. Farden hallooed out as loud as he could, “Hold hard there, Jim!” but Jim (the stupid oaf!) being, as I afterwards learnt, rather hard of hearing, only kept pulling and pulling as fast as Mr. Farden kept saying, “Hold hard there, will you, Jim; I tell you the rope’s cut!” And sure enough so it had been, by the broken glass; and as I looked at it, I could see thread by thread giving way, until at last, when it was very nearly on a level with our drawing-room window, snap went the clothes lines—and oh! was ever poor woman born to be so tormented before! down came my lovely cottage, like a thunderclap, on to the top of our water-butt, which it upset, so that as my beautiful Broadwood fell smash upon the stones in the yard, whop came that great big heavy water-butt right upon it, crashing it all to shivers, and shooting the whole of its contents, for all the world like a torrent, into both of our kitchens, and flooding the whole place at least two pattens deep I declare—
When we went up stairs to look after that deaf scoundrel of a Jim, oh, lud! if the breaking of the rope hadn’t thrown him back into my darling little Kitty’s beautiful cradle, and as I said to myself, I am sure it was a perfect mercy that the poor dear innocent angel hadn’t been sleeping there at the time, or that heavy lout of a Jim must have killed her on the spot, and as it was, there were all the wicker work ribs of the thing broken in, so that it was impossible ever to think of letting her sleep in it again, for really and truly, it looked more like an old hamper than a respectable baby’s bassinet.