Fig. 5.
Instead of curtains, which the modern form of bedstead renders incongruous and impossible, screens on either side of the bed are a much prettier and more healthy substitute. I like screens immensely; they insure privacy, they keep out the light if necessary, and are a great improvement to the look of any room. It is hardly necessary to say they should suit the style of its decoration. If you are arranging a lofty old-fashioned room, then let your screens be of old Dutch leather—of which beautiful fragments are to be found—with a groundwork which can only be described by paradoxes, for it is at once solid and light, sombre and gay. Any one who has seen those old stamped leather screens of a peculiar sea-green blue, with a raised dull gold arabesque design on them, will know what I mean. There are also beautiful old Indian or Japan lacquered screens, light, and with very little pattern on them; even imitation ones of Indian pattern paper are admissible to narrow purses, but anything real is always much more satisfactory. If again your bower is a modern Frenchified concern, then screen off its angles by écrans of gay tapestry or embroidered folding leaves, or paper-covered screens of delicate tints with sprays of trailing blossom, and here and there a bright-winged bird or butterfly. Designs for all these varieties of screens can be obtained in great perfection at the Royal School of Art Needlework. But for a simple modern English bedroom, snug as a bird’s nest, and bright and fresh as a summer morning I should choose screens of slender wooden rails with fluted curtains of muslin and lace cunningly hung thereon. Only it must be remembered that these entail constant change, and require to be always exquisitely fresh and clean.
It often happens that another spare bed is wanted on an emergency, and it is a great point in designing couches for a nondescript room, a room which is some one person’s peculiar private property, whether called a den or a study, a smoking-room or a boudoir, that the said couch should be able “a double debt to pay” on a pinch. I have lately seen two such resting-places which were both convenient and comfortable. The first was a long, low settee of cane, with a thin mattress over its seat, and a thicker one, doubled in two, forming a luxurious back against the wall by day. At night, this mattress could be laid flat out on the top of the other, which gave increased width as well as softness to the extempore bed.
The other, of modern carved oak, had been copied from the pattern of an old settle. It was low and wide, with only one deep well-stuffed mattress, round which an Algerine striped blue and white cotton cloth had been wrapped. Of course this could be removed at night, and the bed made up in the usual way. It struck me, with its low, strong railing round three sides, as peculiarly suitable for a change of couch for a sick child, though it could hardly be used by a full-grown person as a bed.
So now all has been said that need be on the point of a sleeping place. It is too essentially a matter of choice to allow of more than suggestion; and at least my readers will admit that I am only arbitrary on the points of fresh air and cleanliness.
