A Traveler at Forty

by Theodore Dreiser

I fancy this is a very fair and pretty example of the average country home near London, and it certainly lacks none of the appointments which might be considered worthy of a comfortable home; but it is as cold as a sepulcher, and I can’t understand the evoluted system of procedure which has brought about any such uncomfortable state and maintains it as satisfactory. These Britons are actually warm when the temperature in the room is somewhere between forty-five and fifty and they go about opening doors and windows with the idea that the rooms need additional airing. They build you small, weak coal fires in large, handsome fireplaces, and then if the four or five coals huddled together are managing to keep themselves warm by glowing, they tell you that everything is all right (or stroll about, at least, looking as though it were). Doors are left open; the casement windows flung out, everything done to give the place air and draughtiness.

“Now,” said my host, with his usual directness of speech, as I stood with my back to the hall fireplace, “I think it is best that you should go to bed at once and get a good night’s rest. In the morning you shall have your breakfast at whatever hour you say. Your bath will be brought you a half or three-quarters of an hour before you appear at table, so that you will have ample time to shave and dress. I shall be here until eleven-fifteen to see how you are getting along, after which I shall go to the city. You shall have a table here, or wherever you like, and the maid will serve your luncheon punctually at two o’clock. At half past four your tea will be brought to you, in case you are here. In the evening we dine at seven-thirty. I shall be down on the five fifty-two train.”

So he proceeded definitely to lay out my life for me and I had to smile. “That vast established order which is England,” I thought again. He accompanied me to my chamber door, or rather to the foot of the stairs. There he wished me pleasant dreams. “And remember,” he cautioned me with the emphasis of one who has forgotten something of great consequence, “this is most important. Whatever you do, don’t forget to put out your boots for the maid to take and have blacked. Otherwise you will disrupt the whole social procedure of England.”

It is curious—this feeling of being quite alone for the first time in a strange land. I began to unpack my bags, solemnly thinking of New York. Presently I went to the window and looked out. One or two small lights burned afar off. I undressed and got into bed, feeling anything but sleepy. I lay and watched the fire flickering on the hearth. So this was really England, and here I was at last—a fact absolutely of no significance to any one else in the world, but very important to me. An old, old dream come true! And it had passed so oddly—the trip—so almost unconsciously, as it were. We make a great fuss, I thought, about the past and the future, but the actual moment is so often without meaning. Finally, after hearing a rooster crow and thinking of Hamlet’s father—his ghost—and the chill that invests the thought of cock-crow in that tragedy, I slept.

* * * * *

Morning came and with it a knocking on the door. I called, “Come in.” In came the maid, neat, cleanly, rosy-cheeked, bringing a large tin basin—very much wider than an American tub but not so deep—a large water can, full of hot water, towels and the like. She put the tub and water can down, drew a towel rack from the wall nearby, spread out the towels and left.

I did not hear her take the boots, but when I went to the door they were gone. In the afternoon they were back again, nice and bright. I speculated on all this as an interesting demonstration of English life. Barfleur is not so amazingly well-to-do, but he has all these things. It struck me as pleasing, soothing, orderly—quite the same thing I had been seeing on the train and the ship. It was all a part of that interesting national system which I had been hearing so much about.

At breakfast it was quite the same—a most orderly meal. Barfleur was there to breakfast with me and see that I was started right. His face was smiling. How did I like it? Was I comfortable? Had I slept well? Had I slept very well? It was bad weather, but I would rather have to expect that at this season of the year.

I can see his smiling face—a little cynical and disillusioned—get some faint revival of his own native interest in England in my surprise, curiosity and interest. The room was cold, but he did not seem to think so. No, no, no, it was very comfortable. I was simply not acclimated yet. I would get used to it.

This house was charming, I thought, and here at breakfast I was introduced to the children. Berenice Mary Barfleur, the only girl and the eldest child, looked to me at first a little pale and thin—quite peaked, in fact—but afterwards I found her not to be so—merely a temperamental objection on my part to a type which afterwards seemed to me very attractive. She was a decidedly wise, high-spoken, intellectual and cynical little maid. Although only eleven years of age she conversed with the air, the manner and the words of a woman of twenty.