To the little houses of Suburbia come many brides. What an interest the new bride takes in the one-year-longer-married matron of the next-door garden as she paces round it with the nurse-maid and the brand-new baby. By-and-by what comparisons and friendly talks, what advisings and what exchanging of plants and flowers, what sage remarks from the old inhabitants to the new, what pleasant evenings in the summer dusk, when husbands appear upon the scene in restful undress with tobacco-smoke, the spark of cigarette, and the latest news from town.
There are no unwritten laws about music and practising in Suburbia. Every one plays as loudly and as much as he can or likes. This is a pity, but it is difficult to see how it can be prevented.
“Sound loves to revel in a summer night,” says the poet; indeed he would have said so if ever he had sojourned in the suburbs; but many of the sounds are pleasing. There is the indescribable hum of the distant City, which seems to match the red glow on the sky-line of its countless fires; there is the chime of clocks, the ringing of church bells, the thrum of the banjo from a holiday group, the trumpet call and drum of the Salvationist.
But it is not for sentimental or ethical reasons alone that “next door” exercises so great, so extraordinary an influence; horticultural affairs of the deepest moment are also implicated. Imagine somebody, a yard or so removed from your most cherished border, planting a row of Poplar trees close on to the very boundary fence. Nothing can stop it—the hungry roots may burrow as they choose. They are not liable to the law of trespass; there is no redress. Or for years you have been enjoying some comfortable nook under the shelter of your next-door neighbour’s Elm or Oak tree. One fine morning you get up to find it has disappeared in the night, and with it your cosy corner; but this you must take in good part. It was your neighbour’s tree, not yours. Or upon the next-door frowning house-wall you have (on the sly) been planting Ivy. What a trial to see this carelessly or ruthlessly cut down, or injudiciously lopped; again you have to suffer in silence.
It is extraordinary how most children idealize “next door,” particularly if it so happen that the inhabitants thereof are personally unknown. Everything beyond their own wall is pervaded by a sense of mystery. They see a halo round every flower, which blooms more brightly than any in the home patch; the lawns are greener, and the trees and bushes give a pleasanter shade. Things half seen and only guessed at are fraught with breathless interest, and stray glimpses from the top of a dust-bin are heaven itself. The barriers of reserve once down, more than half of the excitement and all the glamour have departed.
Then there is the question of bonfires. Some people enjoy bonfires—I do myself—but the smoke of burning weeds in an adverse wind is liable to be too choky for choice. I have known the bonfire to rankle. As regards the hanging out of clothes to dry (smoke reminds me of them), I am informed that in the lease of many a suburban house a clause is inserted to forbid the family wash. I am quite sure, were such a thing attempted, the breach of good manners would not be tolerated for one moment in polite suburban circles. In one suburban house I knew, the coachman’s wife was allowed—once a week—to dry her linen for two hours of the very early morning, before the world was up. She was quite alive to the fearful necessity for punctuality, and this is really all I know about “next door,” except that, oddly enough, it is possible to live for thirty years without making any acquaintance with a neighbour of the next-door garden, and this simply for accidental reasons. In the thirty-first year the neighbours may meet abroad and find themselves dear friends! Such are the fruits of the whimsical juxtaposition of small suburban gardens—“United, yet divided.”
EARLY AUTUMN