Part 14 (2/2)
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE BLUE NESTIE.
....This perhaps was love-- To have its hands too full of gifts to give For putting out a hand to take a gift, To have so much, the perfect mood of love Includes, in strict conclusion, being loved; As Eden dew went up and fell again, Enough for watering Eden, obviously She had not thought about his love at all.
The cataracts of her soul had poured themselves, And risen self-crown'd in rainbow; would she ask Who crown'd her?--it sufficed that she was crown'd.
E. B. BROWNING.
Redmond Hall was a curious old house; it had been built originally in Gothic style, but an aspiring Redmond, who was ignorant of the laws of architecture and not possessed with the spirit of uniformity, had thrown out windows and added wings that savored strongly of the Tudor style, while here and there a b.u.t.tress or arch was decidedly Norman in its tendency.
To a connoisseur this medley of architecture was a great eye-sore, but to the world in general the very irregularity of the gray old pile added to its picturesque entirety, and somehow the effect was very pleasing.
The various owners of the Hall, holding all modern innovations in abhorrence, had preserved its antiquity as far as possible by restoring the old carvings and frescoes that were its chief ornaments.
The entrance-hall was of n.o.ble dimensions, with a painted ceiling, and a great fire-place surrounded by oaken carvings of fruit and flowers, the work of Gibbon, with the Redmond motto, ”Fideles ad urnam,” in the center.
The walls were adorned with stags' antlers, and other trophies of the chase, while implements of warfare, from the bow and arrow to the modern revolver, were arranged in geometrical circles round the battered suits of armor.
The dwelling-rooms of the house, with the exception of the drawing-room and billiard-room, were long and low, with the same painted ceilings and heavy oak carvings; and some of the windows, especially in the library and morning-room, were furnished with such deep embrasures, as to form small withdrawing rooms in themselves, and leave the further end of the apartment in twilight obscurity even on the brightest summer's day.
Many people were of opinion that the old Hall needed complete renovation, but Sir Wilfred had cared little for such things. In his father's time a few of the rooms had been modernized and refurnished, the damask drawing-room for example, a handsome billiard-room added, and two or three bedrooms fitted up according to nineteenth century taste.
But Sir Wilfred had preferred the old rooms in the quaint embrasures, where many a fair Redmond dame had worked with her daughters at the tapestry that hung in the green bedroom, which represented the death of Saul and the history of Gideon.
In these rooms was furniture belonging to many a different age.
Carpets and chair-cus.h.i.+ons worked in tent st.i.tch and cross st.i.tch and old-fas.h.i.+oned harpsichord; gaudy white and gold furniture of the Louis Quatorze time, mixed with the spindle-legged tables of the Queen Anne epoch.
At the back of the Hall lay a broad stone terrace reaching from one end of the house to the other.
On one side were the stables and kennels, and on the other a walled sunny garden, with fruit trees and a clipped yew-hedge, and a sun-dial, on which a stately race of peac.o.c.ks loved to plume themselves.
Beyond, divided by the yew-hedge, was the herb-garden, where in the olden time many a notable house-mother, with her chintz skirts hustled through her pocket-holes, gathered simples for her medicines, and sweet-smelling lavender and rosemary for her presses of home-spun linen.
These gardens were walled and entered by a curiously wrought iron door, said to be Flemish work; and below the terrace lay a smooth, gently sloping lawn, that stretched to the edge of a large sheet of water, called by courtesy the lake--the whole shut in by the background of the Redmond wood.
Here through the sunny afternoon slept purple shadows, falling aslant the yellow water-lilies, and here underneath the willows and silvery birches, in what was called ”The Lover's Walk,” had Hugh dreamed many a day-dream, whose beginning and whose end was Margaret.
Poor Hugh! he little thought as he paced that walk that the day should come when his wife should walk there beside him, and look at him with eyes that were not Margaret's.
When Fay, escorted by Mrs. Heron and followed by Janet, had ascended the broad oaken staircase, and pa.s.sed through the long gallery, the housekeeper paused in a recess with four red-baized doors.
”Sir Hugh's dressing-room, my lady,” she explained, blandly, ”and the next door belongs to Sir Hugh's bathroom, and this,” pointing solemnly to the central door, ”is the oriel room.”
”What,” faltered Lady Redmond, rather fearing from Mrs. Heron's manner that this room might be the subject of some ghost story.
”The oriel room,” repeated the housekeeper still more impressively, ”where the Redmond ladies have always slept. In this room both Sir Wilfred and Sir Hugh were born, and Sir Marmaduke and his sons Percy and Herewald were laid in state after the battle.”
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