CHAPTER IX.
Sky-larks and Stoke-Pogis.
THE only really hot weather we felt in the British Isles fell to our lot at Brighton. The fashionable world was “up in London.” The metropolis is always “up,” go where you will. “The season” takes in July, then everybody stays in the country until after Christmas, usually until April. Benighted Americans exclaim at the unreason of this arrangement, and are told—“It is customary.”
“But you lose the glory of Spring and Summer; and muddy (Anglicé, ‘dirty’) roads and wintry storms must be a serious drawback to country pleasures. We think the American plan more sensible and comfortable.”
“It is not customary with us.”
With the Average Briton, and with multitudes who are above the average in intelligence and breeding, “custom” is an end of all controversy.
For one week of the two we spent in Brighton, it was unequivocally hot. The sea was a burnished mirror between the early morning and evening hours. The Parade and the Links were deserted; the donkey-boys and peripatetic minstrels retired discouraged from the sultry streets. We had a pleasant suite of rooms upon Regency Square and kept tolerably comfortable by lowering the awning of the front balcony and opening all the inner doors and windows to invite the breeze. Our landlord had been a butler in Lord Somebody’s family for twenty-eight years; had married the housekeeper, and with their joint savings and legacies leased the “four-story brick,” No. 60 Regency Square, and kept a first-class lodging-house. Every morning, at nine o’clock, he appeared with slate and pencil for orders for the day. “Breakfast,” “Luncheon,” “Dinner” were written above as many spaces, and beneath each I made out a bill-of-fare. Meals were served to the minute in the back-parlor and the folding-doors, opened by his august hand, revealed him in black coat and white necktie, ready to wait at table. Cookery and service were excellent; the rooms handsomely furnished, including napery, china, silver, and gas. We paid as much as we would have done at a hotel, but were infinitely more contented, having the privacy and many of the comforts of a real home.
Our worthy landlord remonstrated energetically at sight of the open windows; protested against the draughts and our practice of drawing reading-chairs and lounges into the cooling currents.