_AN OLD HOUSE_.
Arrangements were soon made. The landlady of the house was contented
with a handsome bonus; baggage was sent off; a carriage was ordered,
and the party set forth.
It was a very strange experience to Betty. If her position was felt to
be a little awkward, at the same time it was most deliciously
adventurous and novel. She sat demurely enough by Mrs. Dallas's side,
eyeing the strange streets through which they passed, hearing every
word that was spoken by anybody, and keeping the while herself an
extremely smooth and careless exterior. She was full of interest for
all she saw, and yet the girl saw it as in a dream, or only as a
background upon which she saw Pitt. She saw him always, without often
seeming to look at him. The content of Mr. and Mrs. Dallas was
inexpressible.
'Where will you find anything like that, now?' said Mr. Dallas, as they
were passing Hyde Park. 'Ah, Miss Betty, wait; you will never want to
see Washington again. The Capitol? Pooh, pooh! it may do for a little
beginning of a colony; but wait till you have seen a few things here.
What will you show her first, Pitt?'
'Kensington.'
'Kensington! Ah, to be sure. Well, I suppose your new house takes
precedence of all other things for the present.'
'Not my _new_ house,' said Pitt. 'It is anything but that. There is
nothing new about it but the master. I thought I should bring you back
with me, mother; so I told Mrs. Bunce to have luncheon ready. As I
said, she can cook a chop.'
By degrees the houses became thinner, as they drove on; grass and trees
were again prominent; and it was in a region that looked at least half
country that the carriage at last stopped. Indeed more than half
country, for the city was certainly left behind. Everything was in
fresh green; the air was mild and delicious; the place quiet. The
carriage turned from the road and passed through an iron gateway and up
a gravel sweep to the door of an old house, shaded by old trees and
surrounded by a spread of velvety turf. The impression, as Betty
descended from the carriage, was that here had been ages of dignified
order and grave tranquillity. The green-sward was even and soft and of
vivid freshness; the old trees were stately with their length of limb
and great solid trunks; and the house?--
The house, towards which she turned, as if to ask questions of it, was
of moderate size, built of stone, and so massively built as if it had
been meant to stand for ever. That was seen at once in the thickness of
the walls, the strong oaken doorway, and the heavy window frames. But
as soon as Betty set foot within the door she could almost have
screamed with delight.
'Upon my word, very good! very well!' said Mr. Dallas, standing in the
hall and reviewing it. And then, perceiving the presence of the
servants, he checked himself and reviewed them.
'These are my uncle's faithful old friends, mother,' Pitt was saying;
'Mrs. Bunce, and Stephen Hill. Have you got something ready for
travellers, Mrs. Bunce?'
Dignified order and grave tranquillity was the impression on Betty's
mind again, as they were ushered into the dining-room. It was late, and
the party sat down at once to table.
But Betty could hardly eat, for feasting her eyes. And when they went
up-stairs to their rooms that feast still continued. The house was
irregular, with rather small rooms and low ceilings; which itself was
pleasant after the more commonplace regularity to which Miss Frere had
been accustomed; and then it was full--all the rooms were full--of
quaintness and beauty. Oak wainscottings, dark with time; oaken
doorways with singular carvings; chimney-pieces, before which Betty
stood in speechless delight and admiration; small-paned windows set in
deep window niches; in one or two rooms dark draperies; but the late
Mr. Strahan had not favoured anything that shut out the light, and in
most of the house there were no curtains put up. And then, on the
walls, in cupboards and presses, on tables and shelves, and in
cabinets, there was an endless variety and wealth of treasures and
curiosities. Pictures, bronzes, coins, old armour, old weapons,
curiosities of historical value, others of natural production, others,
still, of art; some of all these were very valuable and precious. To
examine them must be the work of many days; it was merely the fact of
their being there which Betty took in now, with a sense of the great
riches of the new mental pasture-ground in which she found herself. She
changed her dress in a kind of breathless mood; noticing as she did so
the old-fashioned and aged furniture of her room. Aged, not infirm; the
manufacture solid and strong as ever; the wood darkened by time, the
patterns quaint, but to Betty's eye the more picturesque. Her apartment
was a corner room, with one deep window on each of two sides; the
look-out over a sunny landscape of grass, trees, and scattered
buildings. On another side was a deep chimney-place, with curious
wrought-iron fire-dogs. What a delightful adventure--or what a terrible
adventure--was it which had brought her to this house! She would not
think of that; she dressed and went down.
The rest of the party were gathered in the library, and this room
finished Betty's enchantment. It was a well-sized room, the largest in
the house, on the second floor; and all the properties that made the
house generally interesting were gathered and culminated here. Dark
wainscotting, dark bookcases, and dark books, gave it an aspect that
might have been gloomy, yet was not so; perhaps because of the many
other objects in the room, which gave points of light or bits of
colour. What they were, Betty could only find out by degrees; she saw
at once, in general, that this must have been a favourite place of the
late owner, and that here he had collected a special assemblage of the
things that pleased him best. A table at one side must have been made,
she thought, about the same time with her chamber furniture, and by the
same hand. The floor was dark and polished, and on it lay here and
there bits of soft carpeting, which were well worn. Betty advanced
slowly to the corner where the party were siting, taking in the effect
of all this; then almost started as Pitt gave her a chair, to see in
the corner just beyond the group a stuffed bear showing his teeth at
her.
The father and mother had been talking about various matters at home,
and the talk went on. Betty presently left them, and began to examine
the sides of the room. She studied the bear, which was in an upright
position, resting one paw on a stick, while the other supported a lamp.
From the bear her eyes passed on to a fire-screen, which stood before
the empty chimney, and then she went to look at it nearer by. It was a
most exquisite thing. Two great panes of plate glass were so set in a
frame that a space of some three or four inches separated them. In this
space, in every variety of position, were suspended on invisible wires
some twenty humming birds, of different kinds; and whether the light
fell upon this screen in front or came through it from behind, the
display was in either case most beautiful and novel. Betty at last
wandered to the chimney-piece, and went no farther for a good while;
studying the rich carving and the coat of arms which was both
sculptured and painted in the midst of it. By and by she found that
Pitt was beside her.
'Mr. Strahan's?' she asked.
'No; they belonged to a former possessor of the house. It came into my
uncle's family by the marriage of his father.'
'It is very old?'
'Pretty old; that is, what in America we would call so. It reaches back
to the time of the Stuarts. Really that is not so long ago as it seems.'
'It is worth while to be old, if it gives one such a chimney-piece as
that. But I should not like another man's arms in it, if I were you.'
'Why not?'
'I don't know--I believe it diminishes the sense of possession.'
'A good thing, then,' said Pitt. 'Do you remember that "they that have"
are told to be "as though they possessed not"?'
'How can they?' answered Betty, looking at him.
'You know the words?'
'I seem to have read them--I suppose I have.'
'Then there must be some way of making them true.'
'What is this concern, Pitt?' inquired his father, who had followed
them, and was looking at a sort of cabinet which was framed into the
wall.
'I was going to invite Miss Frere's attention to it; yet, on
reflection, I believe she is not enthusiastic for that sort of thing.
That is valuable, father. It is a collection of early Greek coins.
Uncle Strahan was very fond of that collection, and very proud of it.
He had brought it together with a great deal of pains.'
'Rubbish, I should say,' observed the elder man; and he moved on, while
Betty took his place.
'Now, I do not understand them,' she said.
'You can see the beauty of some of them. Look at this head of Apollo.'
'That is beautiful--exquisite! Was that a common coin of trade?'
'Doubtful, in this case. It is not certain that this was not rather a
medal struck for the members of the Amphictyonic Council. But see this
coin of Syracuse; _this_ was a common coin of trade; only of a size not
the most common.'
'All I can say is, their coinage was far handsomer than ours, if it was
like that.'
'The reverse is as fine as the obverse. A chariot with four horses,
done with infinite spirit.'
'How can you remember what is on the other side--I suppose this side is
what you mean by the _obverse_--of this particular coin? Are you sure?'
Pitt produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the glass door of the
cabinet, and took the coin from its bed. On the other side was what he
had stated to be there. Betty took the piece in her hands to look and
admire.
'That is certainly very fine,' she said; but her attention was not
entirely bent on the coin 'Is this lovely head meant for Apollo too?'
'No; don't you see it is feminine? Ceres, it is thought; but Mr.
Strahan held that it was Arethusa, in honour of the nymph that presided
over the fine fountain of sweet water near Syracuse. The coinage of
that city was extremely beautiful and diversified; yielding to hardly
any other in design and workmanship. Here is an earlier one; you see
the very different stage art had attained to.'
'A regular Greek face,' remarked Betty, going back to the coin she held
in her hand. 'See the straight line of the nose and the very short
upper lip. Do you hold that the Greek type is the only true beauty?'
'Not I. The only _true_ beauty, I think, is that of the soul; or at
least that which the soul shines through.'
'What are these little fish swimming about the head? They would seem to
indicate a marine deity.'
'The dolphin; the Syracusan emblem.'
'I wish I had been born in those times!' said Betty. And the wish had a
meaning in the speaker's mind which the hearer could not divine.
'Why do you wish that?' asked Pitt, smiling.
'I suppose the principal reason is, that then I should not have been
born in this. Everything is dreadfully prosy in our age. Oh, not
_here_, at this moment! but this is a fairy tale we are living through.
I know how the plain world will look when I go back to it.'
'At present,' said Pitt, taking the Syracusan coin and restoring it to
its place, 'you are not an enthusiastic numismatist!'
'No; how should I? Coins are not a thing to excite enthusiasm. They are
beautiful, and curious, but not exactly--not exactly stirring.'
'I had a scholar once,' remarked Pitt, as he locked the glass door of
the cabinet, 'whose eyes would have opened very wide at sight of this
collection. Have you heard anything of the Gainsboroughs, mother?'
Betty started, inwardly, and was seized with an unreasoning fear lest
the question might next be put to herself. Quietly, as soon as she
could, she moved away from the coin cabinet, and seemed to be examining
something else; but she was listening all the while.
'Nothing whatever,' Mrs. Dallas had answered.
'They have not come back to England. I have made out so much. I looked
up the family after I came home last fall; their headquarters are at a
nice old place down in Devonshire. I introduced myself and got
acquainted with them. They are pleasant people. But they knew nothing
of the colonel. He has not come home, and he has not written. Thus much
I have found out.'
'It is not certain, however,' grumbled Mr. Dallas. 'I believe he _has_
come home; that is, to England. He was on bad terms with his people,
you know.'
'When are you going to show Miss Frere and me London?' asked Mrs.
Dallas. She was as willing to lead off from the other subject as Betty
herself.
'Show you London, mamma! Show you a bit of it, you mean. It would take
something like a lifetime to show you London. What bit will you begin
with?'
'What first, Betty?' said Mrs. Dallas.
Betty turned and slowly came back to the others.
'Take her to see the lions in the Tower,' suggested Mr. Dallas; 'and
the wax-work.'
'Do you think I have never seen a lion, Mr. Dallas?' said the young
lady.
'Well,--small ones,' said the gentleman, stroking his chin. 'But the
Tower is a big lion itself. I believe _I_ should like to go to the
Tower. I have never been there yet, old as I am.'
'I do not want to go to the Tower,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I do not care
for that kind of thing. I should like to see the Temple, and Pitt's
chambers.'
'So should I,' said the younger lady.
'You might do worse,' said Pitt. 'Then to-morrow we will go to the
Temple, and to St. Paul's.'
'St. Paul's? _that_ will not hold us long, will it?' said Betty. 'Is it
so much to see?'
'A good deal, if you go through and study the monuments!'
'Well,' said Betty, 'I suppose it will be all delightful.'
But when she had retired to her room at night, her mood was not just
so. She sat down before her glass and ruminated. That case of coins,
and Pitt's old scholar, and the Gainsboroughs, who had not come home.
He would find them yet; yes, and Esther would one day be standing
before those coins; and Pitt would be showing them to her; and she--she
would enter into his talk about them, and would understand and have
sympathy, and there would be sympathy on other points too. If Esther
ever stood there, in that beautiful old library, it would be as
mistress and at home. Betty had a premonition of it; she put her hands
before her eyes to shut out the picture. Suppose she earned well of the
two and gained their lasting friendship by saying the words that would
bring them to each other? That was one way out of her difficulty. But
then, why should she? What right had Esther Gainsborough to be happy
more than Betty Frere? The other way out of her difficulty, namely, to
win Pitt's liking, would be much better; and then, they both of them
might be Esther's friends. For of one thing Betty was certain; _if_ she
could win Pitt, he would be won. No half way-work was possible with
him. He would never woo a woman he did not entirely love; and any woman
so loved by him would not need to fear any other woman; it would be
once for all. Betty had never, as it happened, met thoroughgoing truth
before; she recognised it and trusted it perfectly in Pitt; and it was
one of the things, she confessed to herself, that drew her most
mightily to him. A person whom she could absolutely believe, and always
be sure of. Whom else in the world could she trust so? Not her own
brothers; not her own father; mother she had none. How did she know so
securely that Pitt was an exception to the universal rule?--the
question might be asked, and she asked it. She had not seen him tested
in any great thing. But she had seen him tried in little bits of
everyday things, in which most people think it is no harm to dodge the
truth a little; and Betty recognised the soundness of the axiom,--'He
that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.'