Flaming June

Somewhere on the West coast of England, about a hundred miles from the metropolis, there stands a sleepy little town, which possesses no special activity nor beauty to justify its existence. People live in it for reasons of their own. The people who do not live in it wonder for what reasons, but attain no better solution of the mystery than the statement that the air is very fine. "We have such bracing air!" says the resident, as proudly as if that said air were his special invention and property. Certain West-country doctors affect Norton-on-Sea for patients in need of restful change, and their melancholy advent justifies the existence of the great hotel on the esplanade, and the row of bath-chairs at the corner. There are ten bath-chairs in all, and on sunny days ten crumpled-looking old ladies can generally be seen sitting inside their canopies, trundling slowly along the esplanade, accompanied by a paid companion, dressed in black and looking sorry for herself. Occasionally on Saturdays and Sundays a pretty daughter, or a tall son takes the companion's place, but as sure as Monday arrives they disappear into space. One can imagine that one hears them bidding their farewells--"So glad to see you getting on so well, mother dear! I positively must rush back to town to attend to a hundred duties. It's a comfort to feel that you are so well placed. Miss Biggs is a treasure, and this air is so bracing!..."

The esplanade consists of four rows of lodging-houses and two hotels, in front of which is a strip of grass, on which a band plays twice a week during the summer months, and the school-children twice a day all the year long. The invalids in the hotel object to the children and make unsuccessful attempts to banish them from their pitch, and the children in their turn regard the invalids with frank disdain, and make audible and uncomplimentary surmises as to the nature of their complaints as the procession of chairs trundles by.

In front of the green, and separating it from the steep, pebbly shore, are a number of fishermen's shanties, bathing machines, and hulks of old vessels stretched in a long, straggling row, while one larger shed stands back from the rest, labelled "Lifeboat" in large white letters.

Parallel with the esplanade runs the High Street, a narrow thoroughfare showing shops crowded with the useless little articles which are supposed to prove irresistibly attractive to visitors to the seaside. At the bazaar a big white label proclaims that everything in the window is to be sold at the astounding price of "eleven-three," and the purchaser is free to make his choice from such treasures as work-boxes lined in crimson plush, and covered with a massed pattern in shells; desks fitted with all the implements for writing, scent bottles tied with blue ribbons; packets of stationery with local views, photograph frames in plush and gelatine, or to select more perishable trophies in glass and china, all solemnly guaranteed to be worth double the price.

At the photographer's, a few yards farther along, a visitor can have his portrait taken a yard square, the size of a postage stamp, or on a postcard to send to his friends. Ingenious backgrounds are on hand, representing appropriate seaside scenes in which the sitter has nothing to do but to press his face against a hole on the canvas, and these are extensively patronised, for what can be more convenient than to stand on solid earth, attired in sober, everyday clothing, yet be portrayed splashing in the waves in the spandiest of French bathing costumes, riding a donkey along the sands, or manfully hauling down the sails of a yacht!

Mr Photographer Sykes is a man of resource, and deserves the prosperity which is the envy of his neighbours. Mrs Sykes wears silk linings to her skirts on Sundays, and rustles like the highest in the land. She had three new hats in one summer, and the fishmonger's wife knows for a fact that not one of the number costs less than "twenty-five-six."

The High Street and the esplanade constitute the new Norton-on-Sea which has sprung into being within the last ten years, but the real, original, aristocratic Norton lies a couple of miles inland, and consists of a wide, sloping street, lined with alternate shops and houses, branching off from which are a number of sleepy roads, in which detached and semi- detached villas hide themselves behind trees and hedges, and barricade their windows with stiff, white curtains. The one great longing actuating the Norton householder seems to be to see nothing, and to be seen by none. "Is the house overlooked?" they ask the agent anxiously on the occasion of the first application. "Does it overlook any other house?"

"There is another house across the road, madam!" the agent is sometimes regretfully obliged to admit, "but it has been very cleverly planted out."

So it has! by means of a fir or an elm planted within a few yards of the windows, and blocking out something more important than another villa, but the Norton resident desires privacy above all things. The sun and the air have to creep in as best they may.

The more aristocratic the position of a family, the more secluded becomes their position. Fences are raised by an arrangement of lattice- work on the top of boards; shrubs are planted thickly inside the hedges; even the railings of the gates are backed by discreetly concealing boards. If there happens to be a rise in the road from which a passer- by can catch a glimpse of white figures darting to and fro on the tennis courts, the owner promptly throws up a bank, and plants on the top one or two quickly growing limes. It is so disagreeable to be overlooked!

At the date at which this history opens, there were several large places in the neighbourhood of Norton, foremost among them were the Manor House, occupied by the young squire, Geoffrey Greville, and Madame, his mother; Green Arbour, owned by Admiral Perry, who had married the widow of the late High Sheriff; and The Meads, the ofttime deserted seat of a rich London banker.

With these exceptions, quite the most aristocratic dwellings were situated in what was known as "The Park," though perhaps "The Crescent" would have been the more appropriate name, for the twelve houses were built on one side of a curving road, looking out on a charming stretch of land, dipping down to a miniature lake, and rising again to a soft green knoll, surmounted by a bank of trees. The carefully-mowed grass looked like softest velvet, and might be seen, but not touched, being surrounded by tiny wire arches, and protected by wooden boards, requesting visitors to keep to the paths, and not trespass on the "verges." Impressive title! Visitors were likewise requested not to touch the flowering shrubs; not to pick the flowers; not to throw rubbish into the lake, or to inscribe their initials on the seats. These rules being carefully observed, the twelve householders who paid for the upkeep of these decorous gardens were free to enjoy such relaxations as could be derived from gravel paths, and wooden benches.

The view from their windows the residents apparently did not wish to enjoy, for they planted their trees and heightened their fences as industriously as the owners of the fifty-pound villas in Hill Street. Mrs Garnett, at Buona Vista, having a garden deficient in foliage, had even erected a temporary trellis at the end of the lawn, and covered it with creepers, rather than face the indignity of an open view. It gave her such a "feeling of publicity" to see the neighbours pass to and fro!

It was only the residents themselves who enjoyed the proud privilege of pacing the Park unmolested, for at either entrance stood small eaved lodges in which were housed the two gardeners and their wives. To be lodge-keeper to the Park was as great a guarantee of respectability in Norton as to be vicar of the parish church itself. Only middle-aged, married, teetotal, childless churchmen could apply for the posts, and among their scant ranks the most searching inquiries were instituted before an appointment was finally arranged. It is safe to affirm that no working couples on earth were more clean, industrious, and alive to their duty towards their betters, than the occupants of the North and South Lodges of Norton Park!

All day long the two husbands mowed grass, clipped hedges, and swept up gravel paths; all day long the wives scrubbed and dusted their immaculate little houses, keeping a weather-eye on the door to see who passed to and fro. Their duty it was to pounce out on any stranger who dared attempt to force an entrance through the hallowed portals, and send them back discomfited.

"You can't come this way, madam! This road is private!"

"Can't I just walk straight through on the path? It is so much nearer than going all the way round!"

"The park is private, madam; there is no thoroughfare."

Occasionally some child of sin would endeavour to prevaricate.

"I wish to pay a call!"

"Which house did you wish to go to, madam?"

"Er--Buona Vista!"

"Buona Vistas is away from home. They won't be back till the end of the month."

Foiled in her attempts the miscreant would have to retrace her steps, or make her way round by the narrow lane by means of which the tradesmen made their way to the back-doors of these secluded dwellings.

Perhaps the most unpromisingly decorous house in the Park was christened "The Nook," with that appalling lack of humour which is nowhere portrayed more strikingly than in the naming of suburban residences. It stood fair and square in the middle of the crescent; and from garret to cellar there was not a nooky corner on which the eye could light. Two drawing-room windows flanked the front door on the left; two dining-room windows on the right. There was not even a gable or a dormer to break the square solidity of the whole. Fourteen windows in all, each chastely shrouded in Nottingham lace curtains, looped back by yellow silk bands, fastened, to a fraction of an inch, at the same height from the sill, while Aspidistra plants, mounted on small tables, were artfully placed so as to fill up the space necessarily left in the centre. They were handsome plants of venerable age, which Mason, the parlourmaid, watered twice a week, sponging their leaves with milk before she replaced them in their pots.

It was a typical early Victorian residence, inhabited by a spinster lady of early Victorian type and her four henchwomen--Heap the cook, Mary the housemaid, Mason the parlourmaid, and Jane the tweeny. Four women, plus a boot-boy, to wait upon the wants of one solitary person, yet in conclave with the domestic at The Croft to the right, and The Holt to the left, Miss Briskett's maids were wont to assert that they were worked off their feet. It was, as has been said, an early Victorian household, conducted on early Victorian lines. Other people might be content to buy half their supplies ready-made from the stores, but Miss Briskett insisted on home-made bread, home-made jams and cakes; home- made pickles and sauces; home-cured tongues and hams, and home-made liqueurs. Cook kept the tweeny busy in the kitchen, while Mary grumbled at having to keep half a dozen unused bedrooms in spick and span perfection, and Mason spent her existence in polishing, and sweeping invisible grains of dust from out-of-the-way-corners.