"_All day within the dreamy house
The doors upon their hinges creak'd,
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or from the crevice peer'd about,
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without._"--MARIANA.
My eyes had been occupied with the grey chimneys below, among the
Spanish chestnuts, at the very moment when I slipped on the northern
face of Skirrid and twisted my ankle. This indeed explains the
accident; and the accident explains why my interest in the house with
the grey chimneys suddenly became a personal one. Five miles separated
me from my inn in Aber town. But the white smoke of a goods train went
crawling across the green and cultivated plain at my feet; and I knew,
though I carried no map, that somewhere under the slope to my left must
hide the country station of Llanfihangel. To reach it I must pass the
house, and there, no doubt, would happen on someone to set me on the
shortest way.
So I picked up my walking-stick and hobbled down the hillside, albeit
with pain. Where the descent eased a little I found and followed a
foot-track, which in time turned into a sunk road scored deep with old
cart-ruts, and so brought me to a desolate farmstead, slowly dropping to
ruin there in the perpetual shadow of the mountain. The slates that had
fallen from the roof of byre and stable lay buried already under the
growth of nettle and mallow and wild parsnip; and the yard-wall was down
in a dozen places. I shuffled through one of these gaps, and almost at
once found myself face to face with a park-fence of split oak--in yet
worse repair, if that were possible. It stretched away right and left
with promise of a noble circumference; but no hand had repaired it for
at least twenty years. I counted no less than seven breaches through
which a man of common size might step without squeezing; availed myself
of the nearest; and having with difficulty dragged my disabled foot up
the ha-ha slope beyond, took breath at the top and looked about me.
The edge of the ha-ha stood but fifty paces back from an avenue of the
most magnificent Spanish chestnuts I have ever seen in my life. A few
of them were withering from the top; and under these many dead boughs
lay as they had fallen, in grass that obliterated almost all trace of
the broad carriage-road. But nine out of ten stood hale and stout, and
apparently good for centuries to come. Northward, the grey facade of
the house glimmered and closed their green prospective, and towards it I
now made my way.
But, I must own, this avenue daunted me, as a frame altogether too
lordly for a mere limping pedestrian. And therefore I was relieved, as
I drew near, to catch the sound of voices behind the shrubberies on my
right hand. This determined me to take the house in flank, and I
diverged and pushed my way between the laurels in search of the
speakers.
"A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! Lobelia, how many horses
has your father in stable? Red, white, or grey?"
"One, Miss Wilhelmina; an' that's old Sentry-go, and father says _he'll_
have to go to the knacker's before another winter."
"Then he shall carry me there on his back: with rings on my fingers and
bells on my toes"--
She rode unto the knacker's yard,
And tirled at the pin:
Right glad were then the cat's-meat men
To let that lady in!
--especially, Lobelia, when she alighted and sat upon the ground and
began to tell them sad stories of the death of kings. But they cut off
Sentry-go's head and nailed it over the gate. So he died, and she very
imprudently married the master knacker, who had heard she was an heiress
in her own right, and wanted to decorate his coat-of-arms with an
escutcheon of pretence; and besides, his doctor had recommended a
complete change "--
"Law, miss, how you _do_ run on!"
The young lady who had given utterance to this amazing rigmarole stood
at the top of a terrace flight (much cracked and broken) between two
leaden statuettes (headless)--a willowy child in a large-brimmed hat,
with a riding-switch in one hand and the other holding up an old tartan
shawl, which she had pinned about her to imitate a horse-woman's habit.
As she paced to and fro between the leaden statuettes--
pedes vestis defluxit ad imos
Et vera incessu patuit dea,
--and I noted almost at once that two or three butterflies ("red
admirals" they were) floated and circled about her in the sunlight.
A child of commoner make, and perhaps a year older, dressed in a buff
print frock and pink sunbonnet, looked up at her from the foot of the
steps. The faces of both were averted, and I stood there for at least a
minute on the verge of the laurels, unobserved, considering the picture
they made, and the ruinous Jacobean house that formed its background.
Never was house more eloquent of desolation. Unpainted shutters,
cracking in the heat, blocked one half of its windows. Weather-stains
ran down the slates from the lantern on the main roof. The lantern over
the stable had lost its vane, and the stable-clock its minute-hand.
The very nails had dropped out of the gable wall, and the wistaria and
Gloire de Dijons they should have supported trailed down in tangles,
like curtains. Grass choked the rain-pipes, and moss dappled the gravel
walk. In the border at my feet someone had attempted a clearance of the
weeds; and here lay his hoe, matted with bindweed and ring-streaked with
the silvery tracks of snails.
"Very well, Lobelia. We will be sensible house-maid and cook, and talk
of business. We came out, I believe, to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an
apple-pie"--
At this point happening to turn her head she caught sight of me, and
stopped with a slight, embarrassed laugh. I raised my hat.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but no strangers are admitted here."
"I beg your pardon"--I began; and with that, as I shifted my
walking-stick, my foolish ankle gave way, and plump I sat in the very
middle of the bindweed.
"You are ill?" She came quickly towards me, but halted a pace or two
off. "You look as if you were going to faint."
"I'll try not to," said I. "The fact is, I have just twisted my ankle
on the side of Skirrid, and I wished to be told the shortest way to the
station."
"I don't believe you can walk; and"--she hesitated a second, then went
on defiantly--"we have no carriage to take you."
"I should not think of putting you to any such trouble."
"Also, if you want to reach Aber, there is no train for the next two
hours. You must come in and rest."
"But really "--
"I am mistress here. I am Wilhelmina Van der Knoope."
Being by this time on my feet again, I bowed and introduced myself by
name. She nodded. The child had a thoughtful face--thoughtful beyond
her years--and delicately shaped rather than pretty.
"Lobelia, run in and tell the Admirals that a gentleman has called, with
my permission."
Having dismissed the handmaiden, she observed me in silence for a few
moments while she unpinned her tartan riding-skirt. Its removal
disclosed, not--as I had expected--a short frock, but one of quite
womanly length; and she carried it with the air of a grown woman.
"You must make allowances, please. I think," she mused, "yes, I really
think you will be able to help. But you must not be surprised, mind.
Can you walk alone, or will you lean a hand on my shoulder?"
I could walk alone. Of what she meant I had of course no inkling; but I
saw she was as anxious now for me to come indoors as she had been prompt
at first to warn me off the premises. So I hobbled after her towards
the house. At the steps by the side-door she turned and gave me a hand.
We passed across a stone-flagged hall and through a carpetless corridor,
which brought us to the foot of the grand staircase: and a magnificent
staircase it was, ornate with twisted balusters and hung with fine
pictures, mostly by old Dutch masters. But no carpet covered the broad
steps, and the pictures were perishing in their frames for lack of
varnish. I had halted to stare up at a big Hondecoeter that hung in the
sunlight over the first short flight of stairs--an elaborate "Parliament
of Fowls"--when the girl turned the handle of a door to my right and
entered.
"Uncle Peter, here is the gentleman who has called to see you."
As I crossed the threshold I heard a chair pushed back, and a very old
gentleman rose to welcome me at the far end of the cool and shadowy
room; a tall white-haired figure in a loose suit of holland. He did not
advance, but held out a hand tentatively, as if uncertain from what
direction I was advancing. Almost at once I saw that he was
stone-blind.
"But where is Uncle Melchior?" exclaimed Wilhelmina.
"I believe he is working at accounts," the old gentleman answered--
addressing himself to vacancy, for she had already run from the room.
He shook hands courteously and motioned me to find a chair, while he
resumed his seat beside a little table heaped with letters, or rather
with bundles of letters neatly tied and docketed. His right hand rested
on these bundles, and his fingers tapped upon them idly for a minute
before he spoke again.
"You are a friend of Fritz's? of my grandson?"
"I have not the pleasure of knowing him, sir. Your niece's introduction
leaves me to explain that I am just a wayfarer who had the misfortune to
twist an ankle, an hour ago, on Skirrid, and crawled here to ask his
way."
His face fell. "I was hoping that you brought news of Fritz. But you
are welcome, sir, to rest your foot here; and I ask your pardon for not
perceiving your misfortune. I am blind. But Wilhelmina--my grandniece
--will attend to your wants."
"She is a young lady of very large heart," said I. He appeared to
consider for a while. "She is with me daily, but I have not seen her
since she was a small child, and I always picture her as a child.
To you, no doubt, she is almost a woman grown?"
"In feeling, I should say, decidedly more woman than child; and in
manner."
"You please me by saying so. She is to marry Fritz, and I wish that to
happen before I die."
Receiving no answer to this--for, of course, I had nothing to say--he
startled me with a sudden question. "You disapprove of cousins
marrying?"