The Worn Doorstep

by Margaret Pollock Sherwood

Presently came an old man with a rake, and I made some inquiries about the house, but the haymaker's dialect was as hard for me to understand as mine was for him. I learned only that the little 'ouse belonged to the 'All; that it had been occupied by one of the functionaries at the 'All;—it will be good for you, you Englishman, to live in a little house once inhabited by an unimportant person, good for you to forget caste and class and bend a bit, if need be, at your own front door! Like yourself, young Master went with the first adventurers to the war, the old man said, and the 'All was closed. And he added, with significant gestures with his rake, what he would do to "they Germans", if he once got hold of them. I judged, by the red satisfaction in his face, that the wooden rake in a shaking old hand constituted for him a vision of "preparedness for war."

So there it stands, on the edge of a great estate that sweeps out to eastward; low-lying lines of green in the west mean forest, and that soft look of sky and cloud in the east means the sea. It is absolutely the place for which we looked so long and will satisfy the home sense, so strong in both of us. I wonder at my good fortune in finding it, as I carried on the search alone, and I refuse to entertain the idea that I may not have it for my own. The roof droops low over the windows; there is a tall poplar by the wrought-iron gateway; the brick wall, vine-covered in places, will shut us away from all the world, belovèd. Within we shall plant our garden, and light our fire on the hearth, and live our life together, you and I, just you and I.

August 27. But can I get it? I am in a prolonged state of suspense. Nobody in the village seems to know anything, but everybody is of firm conviction that somebody higher up knows everything, and that all is well. I appealed to my landlady; she very pleasantly informed me with an air of great wisdom that it might be I could 'ave it, it might be I couldn't; nobody could say. No, she could not tell me to whom to apply, with the 'All closed, as it was, 'm, and the Squire away. Standing—there was barely standing-place—in her own over-furnished sitting room, filled to its low ceiling with bric-a-brac, whatnots with unshapely vases, tall glass cases with artificial flowers or alabaster vases under them, porcelain figures,—one a genuine purple cow,—she seemed, as many a more imposing person on this side of the water and the other seems, a victim of property.

"An' I do 'ave difficulty, Miss, in gettin' about," she said, as her apron knocked a Dresden china shepherdess and a Spanish guitar player off an over-crowded table; "but I don't quite know what to do about it."

"A broom!" I suggested.

"Broom? Oh, it's nicely swept, and everything dusted regularly once a week, 'm," she assured me. Oh, for one German bomb!

Luncheon time, and no solution of my problem; a futile visit to the postmistress, who informed me that I should have to wait until the war was over, and Master came home to the Hall. I was meditating an inquiry at the vicarage, though that involved more audacity than I can easily summon, when my landlord came riding home on a big bony steed and had a conference with his wife in the kitchen. He, it seems, is temporarily agent for the property; he has the keys to the little red house and to my future destiny. I try hard to think what will be pleasing to so huge and so important a personage, as I walk down the village street at his side, two steps to his one. An unfortunate conjecture about the retreat of the British brings forth the emphatic statement that the British never retreat. With a train of thought of which I am, at the time, unconscious, I tell him that I am an American; he listens indifferently. I tell him that my uncle is at the head of an important New York banking house; he at once becomes responsive and respectful. We go through the little iron gate and up the brick walk; out of a vast pocket he takes an old wrought-iron key and unlocks the white front door.

As we entered, I had a curious sense that you were inside; I never draw near a closed door without a feeling that it may open on your face. Instead, there was only the blankness and the empty odour of a house long closed, and yet it seemed hospitable, as if glad to have me come. I examined every inch of it, peered into each corner, and explored every nook and cranny. It is just as it should be, with low ceilings, old brown rafters, and brick fireplaces,—the one in the kitchen has a crane. The little dining room is panelled, the living room wainscoted; I like the dull old oak woodwork and the solidity of everything, which seems to belong to an elder, stable order, not to this earth-quakey world of to-day. The living room, facing the south, and thus the meadow and the brook, is sunny, but not over-light, with its window seats and casement windows, diamond-paned. The stairs are narrow and a bit cramped, but my landlord of the Inn gives me permission—ah, I forgot to say that he tells me I may have the house and grounds for fifty pounds a year; fifty pounds for all this and a running stream too!—permission to make a few changes which I hesitatingly suggested, and for which I shall pay, as the rent is low. There must be a bathroom—perhaps water can be piped from the stream; a partition is to be knocked down, and the stairs will then go up from the living room, not in the little box wherein they are at present enclosed. Where can I find an old stair rail and newel post suitable for the old house? Mine host will himself attend to the roof and the chimneys; and he says that there are some discarded diamond-paned windows lying in an outhouse at the Inn, from which glass may be taken to replace those that are broken, if any one can be found to set it properly.

He was amused that I wanted them, amused by my pleasure in the old and quaint. If he had his way, large new panes of glass should go into all windows wheresoever; he would like everything shiny and varnishy. Naturally I did not confess, when he apologized for the lack of this and that, that I was glad of the inconveniences, glad of relief from the mechanical and tinkling comforts of our modern life; he would never understand! To speak of an old-fashioned American would be to him a contradiction in terms; yet in some ways we are one of the most conservative people on earth, holding certain old ways of thought most tenaciously. It is only our muscles that are modern! I am very like a Pilgrim mother in my convictions of right and wrong.

There is some deep reason why many Americans care so profoundly for old buildings, old furnishings, old habits which we find here; they typify inner characteristics which we must not forget in a young land where changes come too swiftly. There is a steadfastness about it all; these old stone houses wear a look as if they had been built for something more immutable than human life. Never as in these recent wanderings have I had this sense of England, innermost England, of that enduring beauty of spirit best expressed in Westminster and the old Gothic churches; that England of ancient faiths and old reverences. Delicate carving and soft tinted glass bear witness to the richness of inherited spiritual life and make visible the soul of a people grown fine, old, and wise. Old shields, grey with hoary dust, still hang on the tombs of those who have fought and conquered, or have been defeated; a sense of old sacredness lingers at Oxford's heart,—and yours. There is something here which not all the sins and shortcomings and decadences of contemporary life can change; not the luxury and the selfishness of titled folk whose high glass-guarded walls shut miles of green land away from common people; not the mistakes—and they are many—of the government. Back of all this, and beyond, is a something which means keeping, as no other nation keeps, the old and sacred fire, safeguarding civilization from the over-new, the merely efficient, the unremembering.