A Pleasant Old House, With Bay-Windows, And
Three Peaked Gables, And Many Swallows' Nests Plastered About The
Eaves.
The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside:
Indeed, I
never saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted
parlour in which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a
short oblong in shape, save that the fireplace was built across one
of the angles so as to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle
was similarly truncated by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was
white, and there was a Turkey carpet on the floor, so old that it
might have been imported by Walter Shandy before he retired, worn
almost through in some places, but in others making a good show of
blues and oranges, none the less harmonious for being somewhat
faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable in design; and there were
just the right things upon the shelves - decanters and tumblers, and
blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. The furniture
was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down to
the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may
fancy how pleasant it looked, all flushed and flickered over by the
light of a brisk companionable fire, and seen, in a strange, tilted
sort of perspective, in the three compartments of the old mirror
above the chimney. As I sat reading in the great armchair, I kept
looking round with the tail of my eye at the quaint, bright picture
that was about me, and could not help some pleasure and a certain
childish pride in forming part of it. The book I read was about
Italy in the early Renaissance, the pageantries and the light loves
of princes, the passion of men for learning, and poetry, and art;
but it was written, by good luck, after a solid, prosaic fashion,
that suited the room infinitely more nearly than the matter; and
the result was that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo Lippi, or
Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman who had written
in that volume what he knew of them, and taken so much pleasure in
his solemn polysyllables.
I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty
little daughter, whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had made any
notes at the time, I might be able to tell you something definite
of her appearance. But faces have a trick of growing more and more
spiritualised and abstract in the memory, until nothing remains of
them but a look, a haunting expression; just that secret quality in
a face that is apt to slip out somehow under the cunningest
painter's touch, and leave the portrait dead for the lack of it.
And if it is hard to catch with the finest of camel's-hair pencils,
you may think how hopeless it must be to pursue after it with
clumsy words. If I say, for instance, that this look, which I
remember as Lizzie, was something wistful that seemed partly to
come of slyness and in part of simplicity, and that I am inclined
to imagine it had something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a
cast in one of her large eyes, I shall have said all that I can,
and the reader will not be much advanced towards comprehension. I
had struck up an acquaintance with this little damsel in the
morning, and professed much interest in her dolls, and an impatient
desire to see the large one which was kept locked away for great
occasions. And so I had not been very long in the parlour before
the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie with two dolls tucked
clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her brother John, a
year or so younger than herself, not simply to play propriety at
our interview, but to show his own two whips in emulation of his
sister's dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable to my
visitors, showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls' dresses,
and, with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about
their age and character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my
sincerity, but it was evident that she was both bewildered and a
little contemptuous. Although she was ready herself to treat her
dolls as if they were alive, she seemed to think rather poorly of
any grown person who could fall heartily into the spirit of the
fiction. Sometimes she would look at me with gravity and a sort of
disquietude, as though she really feared I must be out of my wits.
Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly into the question of
their names, she laughed at me so long and heartily that I began to
feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I asked to
be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself no longer to
herself. Clambering down from the chair on which she sat perched
to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of the
room and into the bar - it was just across the passage, - and I could
hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently more in
sorrow than in merriment, that THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PARLOUR WANTED
TO KISS DOLLY. I fancy she was determined to save me from this
humiliating action, even in spite of myself, for she never gave me
the desired permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once knew,
who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an
exaggerated sense of the dignity of that master's place and
carriage.
After the young people were gone there was but one more incident
ere I went to bed. I heard a party of children go up and down the
dark street for a while, singing together sweetly. And the mystery
of this little incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely
refrained from asking who they were, and wherefore they went
singing at so late an hour.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 36 of 70
Words from 35660 to 36683
of 70588
