Part 65 (1/2)

The equinoxes now came on, and we had several gales of wind, with heavy rain--the slates blew off and rattled up and down all night, while the wind howled round the corner of the square. The next morning complaints from all the attic residents; one's bed was wetted quite through with the water dropping through the ceiling--another had been obliged to put a basin on the floor to catch the leak--all declared that the roof was like a sieve. Sent again for Mr Smithers, and made a complaint.

”This time, Mr Smithers,” said I, with the lease in my hand, ”I believe you will acknowledge these are landlord's repairs.”

”Certainly, sir, certainly,” exclaimed Mr Smithers; ”I shall desire one of my men to look to it immediately; but the fact is, with such heavy gales, the slates must be expected to move a little. d.u.c.h.esses and countesses are very light, and the wind gets underneath them.”

”d.u.c.h.esses and countesses very light!” exclaimed my wife; ”what do you mean?”

”It's the term we give to slates, madam,” replied he; ”we cannot put on a heavy roof with a brick-and-a-half wall. It would not support one.”

”_Brick-and-a-half_ wall!” exclaimed I;--”surely, Mr Smithers, that's not quite safe with a house so high.”

”Not quite safe, my dear sir, if it were a single house; but,” added he, ”in a row, one house supports another.”

”Thank Heaven,” thought I, ”I have but a three-years' lease, and sixth months are gone already.”

But the annoyances up to this period were internal; we now had to experience the external nuisances attending a modern-built house.

”No. 1 is taken, papa, and they are getting the furniture in,” said my eldest daughter one day; ”I hope we shall have nice neighbours. And William told Mary that Mr Smithers told him, when he met him in the street, that he was now going to fit up No. 3 as fast as he could.”

The report was true, as we found from the report of the carpenters'

hammers for the next three or four weeks. We could not obtain a moment's sleep except in the early part of the night, or a minute's repose to our ears during the day. The sound appeared as if it was _in_ our house instead of next door; and it commenced at six o'clock in the morning, and lasted till seven in the evening. I was hammered to death; and, unfortunately, there was a constant succession of rain, which prevented me from going out to avoid it. I had nothing to do but to watch my pictures, as they jumped from the wall with the thumps of the hammers.

At last No. 3 was floored, wainscotted and glazed, and we had a week's repose.

By this time No. 1 was furnished, and the parties who had taken it came in. They were a gouty old gentleman, and his wife, who, report said, had once been his cook. My daughters' hopes of pleasant neighbours were disappointed. Before they had been in a week, we found ourselves at issue: the old gentleman's bed was close to the part.i.tion-wall, and in the dead of the night we could distinctly hear his groans, and also his execrations and exclamations, when the fit came on him. My wife and daughters declared that it was quite horrible, and that they could not sleep for them.

Upon the eighth day there came a note:--

”Mrs Whortleback's compliments to Mr and Mrs ----, and begs that the young people will not play on the piany, as Mr Whortleback is very ill with the gout.”

Now, my daughters were proficients on the piano, and practised a great deal. This note was anything but satisfactory: to play when the old gentleman was ill would be barbarous,--not to play was to deprive ourselves of our greatest pleasure.

”Oh dear! how very disagreeable,” cried my daughters.

”Yes, my dear; but if we can hear his groans, it's no wonder that he can hear the piano and harp: recollect the wall is only a brick and a half thick.”

”I wonder music don't soothe him,” observed the eldest.

Music is mockery to a man in agony. A man who has been broken on the wheel would not have his last hours soothed by the finest orchestra.

After a week, during which we sent every day to inquire after Mr Whortleback's health, we ventured to resume the piano and harp; upon which the old gentleman became testy, and sent for a man with a trumpet, placing him in the balcony, and desiring him to play as much out of tune as possible whenever the harp and piano sounded a note. Thus were we at open hostility with our only neighbour; and, as we were certain if my daughters touched their instruments, to have the trumpet blowing discord for an hour or two either that day or the next, at last the piano was unopened, and the harp remained in its case. Before the year closed, No.

3 became tenanted; and here we had a new annoyance. It was occupied by a large family; and there were four young ladies who were learning music.

We now had our annoyance: it was strum, strum, all day long; one sister up, another down; and every one knows what a bore the first lessons in music are to those who are compelled to hear them. They could just manage to play a tune, and that eternal tune was ringing in our ears from morning to night. We could not send our compliments, or blow a trumpet. We were forced to submit to it. The nursery also being against the part.i.tion-wall, we had the squalls and noise of the children on the one side, added to groans and execrations of the old gentleman on the other.

However, custom reconciled us to everything, and the first vexation gradually wore off. Yet I could not help observing that when I was supposed not to be in hearing, the chief conversation of my wife, when her friends called upon her, consisted of a description of all the nuisances and annoyances that we suffered; and I felt a.s.sured that she and my daughters were as anxious to return to Brompton Hall as I was.

In fact, the advantages which they had antic.i.p.ated by their town residence were not realised. In our situation, we were as far off from most of our friends, and still farther from some than we were before, and we had no longer the same amus.e.m.e.nts to offer them. At our former short distance from town, access was more easy to those who did not keep a carriage, that is, the young men; and those were the parties who, of course, my wife and daughters cared for most. It was very agreeable to come down with their portmanteaus,--enjoy the fresh air and green lanes of the country for an afternoon,--dine, sleep, and breakfast, and return the next morning by conveyances which pa.s.sed us every quarter of an hour; but to dine with us in ---- square, when the expense of a hackney-coach there and back was no trifle, and to return at eleven o'clock at night, was not at all agreeable. We found that we had not so much society, nor were we half so much courted, as at Brompton Hall.

This was the bitterest blow of all, and my wife and daughters would look out of the windows and sigh; often a whole day pa.s.sed without one friend or acquaintance dropping in to relieve its monotony.