The architect suggested only the obvious, and with unwarranted faith I hardly ventured to suggest anything; but when the summer brought an American friend, who looked over the house, then approaching completion, she sat on the solitary chair and shook her head.
"He hasn't thought of a single thing," she cried. "Think of not having a dumb-waiter (English: dinner-lift) in this unheated house. Stone walls and cold blasts--don't invite me to your lukewarm repasts! Besides you must have a hardwood floor" (parquet floor) "in your drawing-room" (being an American she really said _parlor_). "Think of all the dirty carpets it will save," she urged. "My dear, you don't mean to say that you will live in this Bunker Hill Monument of a house"--(she comes from Boston)--"without speaking tubes?" She was aghast.
"What an architect! Supposing you want to speak to the cook, why you'd have to run down four flights for a _tête-à-tête_; then supposing you want coals up four flights--must the maid climb up four flights to find out what you want before doing it? My dear, even an English servant has human legs, and she can't stand it."
I was convinced. I spoke to the architect, and he was politely acquiescent, and as all these very necessary suggestions came late they were doubly expensive, and now I have come to the conclusion that domestic architecture is the proper field for a woman with ideas--a mere man-architect does not know the meaning of comfort, ingenuity, resource, and economy.
As the house declined to get done, I braved the architect, the contractor, and the workmen, and arrived one day in company with a bed, a table, and a chair (also a husband), and took possession.
I did have one treasure at the time--a caretaker. She saved my life, and she protected my innocent self from the British tradesman, whilst she gently taught me what the British servant will and will not do. She informed me when I was paying twice as much as right to the obsequious tradesman, and she regulated the (to me) perplexing fee. She was very religious, and I think she looked upon me as her mission and that she was to rescue me--which she did. Her wages were one pound a week including her food, and to be just I could not have got such a treasure in America at the price.