A Red Wallflower Part 81

'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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 gra.s.s, 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 a.s.semblage 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s were so set in a frame that a s.p.a.ce of some three or four inches separated them. In this s.p.a.ce, 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 gla.s.s 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 workmans.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 princ.i.p.al 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 gla.s.s 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 Devons.h.i.+re. 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.