Fireside Fancies

We had the first fire of the year yesterday.  I’ve been checking the weather for weeks now, remembering with a sigh the years that the first earnest cold snap descended in late September.  And I’ve been laughing inwardly at the thought of the night last fall when I invited one of my best girl friends over for a fireside dinner and had to open the windows and turn on a fan to keep from smothering us out of the house.  But what an aura of soft enchantment it lends to a room, what witchery of light and shadow glancing over familiar objects and loved faces.  I once read in a very old decorating book that there were only three principles the author considered of any major importance in the realm of interior design: real flowers in vases, real candlelight at table, and real fires crackling on the hearth. 

In the stark light of day there is the blessed bother to be considered, of course—with fireplaces in every room of our rambling old farmhouse sometimes I can feel a bit like Cinderella on my knees with an ash bucket at my side.  There’s smoke and sparks, and wood to be hauled up either one or two flights of stairs from underneath the porch.  And nothing can make shorter work of a freshly dusted room than a sudden gust down the chimney that sends forth a disheartening grey puff.

But few household hassles are more worthwhile in my opinion.  I love the lure of a fireside in a room, the gathering-in quality that draws the occupants a bit tighter than they’d otherwise be as the shadows deepen in the corners and the whispering crackle adds its voice to the conversation at hand.  I even love the way that a room smells the next day after a fire has warmed its hearth the night before.  What is more nostalgic than the fragrance of wood smoke?

Our fireplaces have played a major role in so many of the great moments in our home: one in particular commands my memory and represents their fascinating influence as perhaps nothing else can.  It was the evening of Philip’s brother’s wedding last spring which was to take place in our front hall.  The sun had dropped behind the pines and the candles had begun to gleam out in the deepening gloom.  The maid-of-honor took her place, her face a posy of happy smiles.  Our adorable nieces as flower girls—looking quite seraphic in their poufs of white organza—slipped quietly between the two rows of chairs we’d arranged to form an aisle, sprinkling rose petals with careful deliberation.  And in the breathless pause before Edie appeared you could hear the companionable snapping of the fires in the adjoining rooms, and see the rosy light dancing on the walls.  It was magical.  It made our house seem alive, as if it were bestowing yet another blessing on this dear, consecrated pair.  And then there was Edie, frosted over with clinging veil like a bride of a century ago, clutching her roses and callas and gazing at Michael with eyes full of love.  I’ll never forget the holiness of that moment—and I feel sure that my house will be whispering of it for long years to come.

And so, to my infinite satisfaction, yesterday marked the opening of the fireside season.  The night before we had decided to get up early and make some progress on our never-ending ‘to-do’ list.  But the morning proved overcast and the weather was changing—right there before us, as it were.  So, over a later-than-expected breakfast we decided we’d just go to Home Depot and then come back and work a while, just do enough to feel good about ourselves.  Then we decided we’d not go out but stay in and get a few things done.  Then we decided to just piddle.  In the end we decided not to work at all and Philip built me a fire in the den.  And there I stayed with my books and my tea.  It feels so delicious to be lazy sometimes…and there’s no finer cohort in such decadence than a friendly fire.