He saw, however, that he would soon have to go. He clung on, but the
sale was imminent; red and black posters appeared on all the cottages;
and larger, redder, and blacker posters announced the sale, “By order of
Peregrine Chase, Esq.,” of “the unique collection of antique furniture,
tapestries, pictures, and contents of the mansion,” and in types of
varying size detailed these contents, so that Chase could see, flaunting
upon walls, trees, and gate-posts, when he wandered out, the soulless
dates and the auctioneer’s bombast that advertised for others the
quality of his possessions.
An illustrated booklet was likewise published. Nutley gave him a copy.
“This quite unique sixteenth century residence”; “the original panelling
and plasterwork”; “the moat and contemporary outbuildings”; “the
old-world garden”—Chase fluttered over the pages, and rage seized him by
the throat. “Nicely got up, don’t you think?” Nutley said complacently.
Chase took the booklet away with him, up into the gallery. He always
liked the gallery, because it was long, low, deserted, and so glowingly
ornate; and more peaceful than any of the other rooms in the whole
peaceful house. When he went there with the booklet in his hand that
evening, he sat quite still for a time while the hush that his entrance
had disturbed settled down again upon the room and its motionless
occupant. A latticed rectangle of deep gold lay across the boards, the
last sunlight of the day. Chase turned over the leaves of the book. “The
Oak Parlour, an apartment 20 ft. by 25 ft., partially panelled in
linen-fold in a state of the finest preservation,” was that his library?
it couldn’t be, so accurate, so precise? Why, the room was living!
through the windows one saw up the garden, and saw the peacocks perched
on the low wall, one heard their cry as they flew up into the cedars for
the night; and in the evening, in that room, the fir-cones crackled on
the hearth, the dry wood kindled, and the room began to smell ever so
slightly of the clean, acrid wood-smoke that never quite left it, but
remained clinging even when the next day the windows were open and the
warm breeze fanned into the room. He had known all that about it,
although he hadn’t known it was twenty foot by twenty-five. He hadn’t
known that the panelling against which he had been accustomed to set his
bowl of coral tulips was called linen-fold.
He was an ignorant fellow; he hadn’t known; he didn’t know anything even
now; the sooner he went back to Wolverhampton the better.
He turned over another page of the booklet. “The Great Staircase and
Armorial Window, (cir. 1584) with coats-of-arms of the families of
Chase, Dacre, Medlicott, and Cullinbroke,”—the window whose gaudiness
always seemed to attract a peacock to parade in rivalry on the outer
ledge, like the first day he had come to Blackboys; but why had they
given everything such high-sounding names? the “Great Staircase,” for
instance; it was never called that, but only “the staircase,” nor was it
particularly great, only wide and polished and leisurely. He supposed
Nutley was responsible, or was it Farebrother? Farebrother who was so
kindly, and might have wanted to salve Chase’s feelings by appealing to
his vanity through the splendour of his property?
What a fool he was; of course, neither Nutley nor Farebrother gave a
thought to his feelings, but only to the expediency of selling the
house.
He turned the pages further. “The Long Gallery,”—here, at least, they
had not tried to improve upon the usual name—“a spacious apartment
running the whole length of the upper floor, 100 ft. by 30 ft. wide,
sumptuously ornamented in the Italian style of the sixteenth century,
with mullioned heraldic windows, overmantel of sculptured marble, rich
plastered ceiling,” here he raised his eyes and let them stray down the
length of the gallery; the rectangle of sunlight had grown deeper and
more luminous; the blocks of shadow in the corners had spread, the
velvet chairs against the tapestry had merged and become yet more
fruity; they were like split figs, like plums, like ripe mulberries; the
colour of the room was as luxuriant as the spilling out of a cornucopia.
Chase became aware that Fortune was standing beside him.
“Mr. Nutley asked me to tell you, sir, that he couldn’t wait any longer,
but that he’ll be here again to-morrow.”
Chase blushed and stammered, as he always did when someone took him by
surprise, and as he more particularly did when that someone happened to
be one of his own servants. Then he saw tears standing in the old
butler’s eyes. He thought angrily to himself that the man was as
soft-hearted as an old woman.
“Seen this little book, Fortune?” he inquired, holding it out towards
him.
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the butler, turning aside.
“Well, what’s the matter? what’s the matter?” said Chase, in his most
irritable tone.
He got up and moved away. He went out into the garden, troubled and
disquieted by the excessive tumult in his soul. He gazed down upon the
mellow roofs and chimneys, veiled in a haze of blue smoke; upon all the
beauty that had given him peace and content; but far from deriving
comfort now he felt himself provoked by a fresh anguish, impotent and
yet rebellious, a weak fury, an irresolute insubordination. Schemes,
that his practical sense told him were fantastically futile, kept
dashing across his mind. He would tell Fortune to shut the door in
everybody’s face, more especially Nutley’s. He would destroy the bridge
across the moat. He would sulk inside his house, admitting no one; he
and his house, alone, allied against rapacity. Fortune and the few other
servants might desert him if they chose; he would cook for himself, he
would dust, he would think it an honour to dust; and suddenly the
contrast between the picture of himself with a duster in his hand, and
of himself striking at the bridge with a pickaxe, caused him to laugh
out loud, a laugh bitter and tormented, that could never have issued
from his throat in the Wolverhampton days. He wished that he were back
in those days, again the conscientious drudge, earning enough to keep
himself in decent lodgings (not among brocades and fringes, or plumed
and canopied beds! not in the midst of this midsummer loveliness, that
laid hands more gentle and more detaining than the hands of any woman
about his heart! not this old dignity that touched his pride!), and he
stared down upon the roofs of the house lying cupped in its hollow,
resentful of the vision that had thus opened out as though by treachery
at a turning of his drab existence, yet unable to sustain a truly
resentful or angry thought, by reason of the tenderness that melted him,
and the mute plea of his inheritance, that, scorning any device more
theatrical, quietly relied upon its simple beauty as its only mediator.