Where we live, high on the southern moorlands of Surrey, the desolation of winter never seems to reach us; unless, indeed, upon certain days of streaming rains, or weeping mists that rush rapid and ghost-like up the valley, and blot out the world from view. But those days would be dreary anywhere and in any season. Our funny little house, more like an Italian “Villino,” perhaps, than anything English, stands high, midway between the rolling shoulders of moor and the green-wooded dip of the valley. And the moor has always colour in it. There are some sunset days when it seems not so much to reflect as to give out rose and purple and carmine. And now in January it is a wonderful copper-brown, with the tawny of dying Bracken and the yellow of young Gorse. And opposite to us a belt of birchwood is purple against solemn green of pine. And the purple and solemn green run right down together to the bright verdure of fields and dells; then up again to moorland, where the fir trees march up once more against the sky. There are Larches in these woods, and Oaks, so that the spring tints are almost as wonderful as the autumn. When the Furze and Broom are all guinea-gold on the moor, the A LITTLE PLACE OF ONE’S OWN For a long time we—Loki’s Grandfather and Grandmother—had said to each other that we must have a week-end cottage. We were so tired of hiring other people’s houses, summer after summer, and of the labour not unattended by some pleasurable excitement on Loki’s Grandmother’s part of pulling their furniture about, and hiding away all the family portraits and the choicest works of art, to make the alien spaces tolerable to one’s own individuality. So tired, too, of the boredom and worry of having to restore everything to its pristine ugliness and hang up the enlarged photographs and the dreadful oil paintings on the walls once more—a tedious task, albeit enlivened on one occasion by the thrilling discovery that, having consigned these treasures to an oak chest in the hall, most of them had street view of house At the end of each summer, therefore, we would make elaborate calculations to prove what a great economy it would be to have a little place of our own. Finally these plans and desires crystallized into action. When Loki’s Grandfather returned from a round of inspection to the hotel where we were staying in the district we fancied, and told Loki’s Grandmother that he had visited a funny little house with a terrace upon which he “saw her”—in his own phraseology—she was extremely sceptical. And when we drove down the hill to view his discovery, and were literally dropped from the side road through a perfunctory gate into the steepest little courtyard it is possible to imagine, and she beheld green stains on the rough-cast wall of the white small house, her scepticism increased to scoffing point. She was blind to the charms of the pretty pillared porch. The narrowness of the It still seems incomprehensible to us that anyone could have desired to dispossess himself of so attractive a place—an Italian “Villino” on the Surrey Highlands is not to be found every day. But, after all, it only became a Villino after our ownership. It was just a small white house on the hillside before that. Heather and Gorse, Bramble and Bracken pressed hard upon the small area of the property which was at all cultivated, between densely growing clumps of pine and holly. THE FIRST TRANSFORMATIONS The courtyard is no longer dank: it is widened, levelled, and walled in against its high fir-grown strip of bank. It is guarded by bright green wooden gates, and three sentinel Cypresses that begin to mark the Italian note. As for the lower reach—the Reserve Garden now—which in former days was a dumping-ground for horrors of broken glass, potsherds and tin cans a dreary patch of weeds and couch grass withal, it is unrecognizable. Especially this year, when, to the herbaceous border, to the espaliered apple-trees, and to the neat little turfed walks, we have Where the jungle waxed thickest, fair paths have been cleared. An avenue bordered by a double row of tall slender Pines runs from top to bottom of the hill, with a view of our neighbour’s buttercup field on the one hand, and of our own Bluebell and May-tree glade on the other. It requires a positive effort of imagination to recall that this was a literally impenetrable thicket when we first came. entrance to house off street A VILLINO ON SURREY HILLS Nor is the house less altered. As it was hinted before, a small white Surrey house has, by some singular, scarcely intentional process, become enchanted into an Italian Villino. Of course, some structural alterations were necessary. house interior with plants On entering the red-tiled hall once the pantry!, at the end of which the glass door giving on the terrace frames Verrochio’s little naked boy, struggling with his big fish, flanked on each side by Cypresses, you might easily fancy yourself at Fiesole or Bello Sguardo, but for the unmistakable northern stamp of the moorland beyond. Passing through the other glass doors into the inner hall, the first THE DORATORE’S ANTIQUES house interior with window view So Italy walked into the little white Surrey house almost as soon as the doors were open to us. But it is in the drawing-room that she has mostly established her self. It is so filled with dear Roman things that we can think ourselves back again in that haunt of all joy, when we cross its threshold. It is full of associations of delightful days, of quaint beings. There is the rococo paravent, gilt and carved in most delicate extravagance, which we bought of the doratore in the Piazza Nicosia. That fire-screen—a real Bernini, once the frame of an altar-piece—now holds in its strong bold oval a pane of glass where perhaps some wan Madonna shewed her seven-pierced heart. The doratore picked up these things in old villas and disused churches. His booth was indeed a sight to see.—Having recently been on a visit to Rome, Loki’s “great-aunt” was naturally charged with many commissions in that quarter. Armed with a letter of directions from the Italian scholar of the family, she and a Lancashire maid wandered down The doratore’s wares winked through the dimness; and having duly knocked their heads against wreaths of dangling frames in his doorway, the pilgrims proceeded to steer a perilous path among the heaps of gilded dÉbris within. The doratore, made visible only by his paper cap, was seated in a nest of angels, tinkering at a fat cherub and whistling gaily. Hearing steps he poked his head through the large oval of an empty mirror, and stared unconcernedly at the visitors, whose advance was punctuated by cataclysms of falling frames, church candlesticks, and other “oggetti religiosi.” At the fifth or sixth tumble, he rolled away from his angels with unimpaired cheerfulness, and apologized. “Scusi, scusi!” Smilingly he picked up a broken wing and a bit of acanthus leaf. “Scusi!” again. “Aha! a letter!” Here the fat laugh merged into a bellow which made the walls ring, and brought a dirty little urchin tumbling down a ladder from some loft overhead. The urchin diving under a heap of prostrate apostles, produced a stick with an iron spike, which he held respectfully under his patron’s chin. The doratore stuck a candle on the spike, lit it, and with the flame in fearful proximity to his bearded face, proceeded to open the letter. “Aha! from the noble family at Villino Loki!” Here he took off his cap with a flourish and did not replace it. “The signor Inglese, is he well?—Mi piace. And the He pointed to a pair of fantastic creatures that jutted out like gargoyles under the ceiling. “What? Not pretty? Ma! Scusi! they are antichi bellissimi—they come from a castle in the Abruzzi; there is not their match in Rome.” Snapping the candle from the imp, on whose locks it was unheededly guttering, he waved it round his own head, waking up unexpected companies of saints on the walls and making pools of light and darkness among the golden hillocks. “They are exactly the noble family’s taste,” said the doratore, replacing his cap with an air of finality. “She said cinquanta lire—she shall have them for quaranta!” Recognizing that this incident was closed, Loki’s aunt thought she would do a deal on her own account, and picking up a little antique frame, fell back on the only Italian word she knew: “Quanto?” The doratore unexpectedly priced the frame at twenty-five lire, and cheap at that, and all of a sudden the little shop was filled with confusion. The would-be purchaser wished to take away her prize, the doratore, misunderstanding, vociferated that nothing would be broken on the sea-journey; the Lancashire maid struck in with English addresses for the other wares; finally, the candle-bearer Breathless, he returned, with a bundle of rags hobbling along on a crutch, by his side. “Benissimo!” exclaimed the doratore, with a sigh of relief. “This gentleman, signora, is a friend of all the artists in Rome! He knows English, French, German—everything!” He then performed the ceremonious rites of introduction! “Signor Guiseppi Renzo, a person of great worth and learning.—The noble lady belonging to the family of my cherished patrons, i Castelli.” The bundle of rags swept off its battered hat with a flourish, disclosing a wall-eye and a three-weeks-old beard, and remarked, in Italian, that the weather was beautiful for the time of the year. “But not so beautiful as in spring,” said the doratore encouragingly. Upon which Loki’s aunt bowed too, and smiled and murmured, “Oh! si, si—I mean no.” And then feeling dreadfully uncouth and ill-mannered in presence of so much courtesy, picked up her frame again and looked helpless. Instantly the interpreter warmed to his office. In fluent if curious English, he ascertained her wishes, and then communicated them with much gesticulation to the doratore, who slapped a fat forehead, exclaiming in a contrite manner, “Va bene, va bene!” Finally, the imp was dispatched on a last errand in search of a little open carriage, and having carefully wrapped the frame in a copy of the “Corriere” produced from his own pocket, the bundle of rags hobbled out into the Piazza, where he and the doratore stood bareheaded to wish the fancy glass MORE BRIC-A-BRAC It is little wonder that the doratore should cherish us. The drawing-room of the Villino on the Surrey hill is chiefly furnished out of his store. Therefrom come the Venetian chairs, the huge Goldoni armchair, the two cabinets of rusty gold. The hanging cabinet is full of Venetian glass, picked up—of all places—at that roaring cheap emporium, Finocchi’s, in the hideous modern corso fitly dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele. To think these bubbles of ethereal loveliness, these liquid curves, these foam-frail phantasies, should have been discovered, unshattered, in such a spot! There from the walls a wistful Giovannino, with pious, sentimental, guileless head inclined, looks down from his golden background, a true bit of early Siennese simplicity and faith. He came to us from the talons of a voluble Jew in the Via due Macelli, from which unclean grasp were likewise rescued those meek companions, “St. Bernardino of Siena” and “St. Antoninus,” on the opposite wall. St. Bernardino’s face is quite out of drawing, but, nevertheless, rarely has any presentment been more impregnated with holy benignity. The gentle pair hang just above a statue of Polyhymnia.... Oh! that “Manifattura di Signa,” in the dark purlieus of the Via Babuino! It is a blessing that we only discovered it the last week of our four months’ stay in Rome, and that our resources were then at a low Yes, indeed, there are a great many “Madonnas” about the place. There is an undeniably papistical atmosphere.—An old gentleman, of developed intellectuality, who stumbled in upon us shortly after our establishment, could not conceal the horrible impression it made upon him. His thoughts would have been easy to read even if the hurry of his adieux had not so plainly proclaimed his disgust. Seeing his eyes fixed upon the majolica statuette in question, we perhaps with a little malice informed him that it was known as the “Madonna del Bacio.” It was then he rose, not quite swallowing down his “Faugh!” AN OLD-TIME NOTE “You had not expected to find such superstition abroad in an enlightened age,” we murmured politely. We cling to these old-world symbols—some of us by conviction, others for mere love of the beautiful past.—A little mistake? The wrong house, say you? How could we have been so stupid as not to guess!—Of course, you wanted the bungalow at the other end of the village. Yes, Mrs. Ludwigsohn is everything that you can desire to meet. Up-to-date cap-a-pie. Socialism, rationalism, suffragism. You can begin on the suffrage: she will saw the air with her right hand in a convincing platform manner. A delightful, capable woman! She feeds her infants scientifically on proteids. And there are RÖntgen pictures—anatomical, you know—in the hall, that you will find more inspiring than della Robbia. Oh, you will get on with her splendidly. We know her ... slightly. Indeed, we Poor lady, how could we? No—the Villino is certainly no place for the higher critic; for the lady of ’isms. We are not rationalistic in our tastes; we love old and simple things; prefer to take much for granted in life and enjoy the good peace that is vouchsafed. decorative oval |