Haddon Hall Is To Me Like A Dream Of The Past Come True.
Lots of other
old places have seemed like dreams, but this one was right before my
eyes, just as it always was.
Of course, you must have read all about
it, madam, and I am not going to tell it over again. But think of it; a
grand old baronial mansion, part of it built as far back as the eleven
hundreds, and yet in good condition and fit to live in. That is what I
thought as I walked through its banqueting hall and courts and noble
chambers. "Why," said I to Jone, "in that kitchen our meals could be
cooked; at that table we could eat them; in these rooms we could sleep;
in these gardens and courts we could roam; we could actually live
here!" We haven't seen any other romance of the past that we could say
that about, and to this minute it puzzles me how any duke in this world
could be content to own a house like this and not live in it. But I
suppose he thinks more of water-pipes and electric lights than he does
of the memories of the past and time-hallowed traditions.
As for me, if I had been Dorothy Vernon, there's no man on earth, not
even Jone, that could make me run away from such a place as Haddon
Hall. They show the stairs down which she tripped with her lover when
they eloped; but if it had been me, it would have been up those stairs
I would have gone. Mr. Poplington didn't agree a bit with me about the
joy of living in this enchanting old house, and neither did Jone, I am
sure, although he didn't say so much. But then, they are both men, and
when it comes to soaring in the regions of romanticism you must not
expect too much of men.
After leaving Haddon Hall, which I did backward, the coach took us to
Chatsworth, which is a different sort of a place altogether. It is a
grand palace, at least it was built for one, but now it is an enormous
show place, bright and clean and sleek, and when we got there we saw
hundreds of visitors waiting to go in. They was taken through in squads
of about fifty, with a man to lead them, which he did very much as if
they was a drove of cattle.
The man who led our squad made us step along lively, and I must say
that never having been in a drove before, Jone and I began to get
restive long before we got through. As for the show, I like the British
Museum a great deal better. There is ever so much more to see there,
and you have time to stop and look at things. At Chatsworth they charge
you more, give you less, and treat you worse. When it came to taking us
through the grounds, Jone and I struck. We left the gang we was with,
and being shown where to find a gate out of the place, we made for that
gate and waited until our coach was ready to take us back to Buxton.
It is a lot of fun going to the theatre here. It doesn't cost much, and
the plays are good and generally funny, and a rheumatic audience is a
very jolly one. The people seemed glad to forget their backs, their
shoulders, and their legs, and they are ready to laugh at things that
are only half comic, and keep up a lively chattering between the acts.
It's fun to see them when the play is over. The bath-chairs that have
come after some of them are brought right into the building, and are
drawn up just like carriages after the theatre. The first time we went I
wanted Jone to stop a while and see if we didn't hear somebody call
out, "Mrs. Barchester's bath-chair stops the way!" but he said I
expected too much, and would not wait.
We sit about so much in the gardens, which are lively when it is clear,
and not bad even in a little drizzle, that we've got to know a good
many of the people; and although Jone's a good deal given to reading, I
like to sit and watch them and see what they are doing.
When we first came here I noticed a good-looking young woman who was
hauled about in a bath-chair, generally with an open book in her lap,
which she never seemed to read much, because she was always gazing
around as if she was looking for something. Before long I found out
what she was looking for, for every day, sooner or later, generally
sooner, there came along a bath-chair with a good-looking young man in
it. He had a book in his lap too, but he was never reading it when I
saw him, because he was looking for the young woman; and as soon as
they saw each other they began to smile, and as they passed they always
said something, but didn't stop. I wondered why they didn't give their
pullers a rest and have a good talk if they knew each other, but before
long I noticed not very far behind the young lady's bath-chair was
always another bath-chair with an old gentleman in it with a
bottle-nose. After a while I found out that this was the young lady's
father, because sometimes he would call to her and have her stop, and
then she generally seemed to get some sort of a scolding.
Of course, when I see anything of this kind going on, I can't help
taking one side or the other, and as you may well believe, madam, I
wouldn't be likely to take that of the old bottle-nosed man's side. I
had not been noticing these people for more than two or three days when
one morning, when Jone and me was sitting under an umbrella, for there
was a little more rain than common, I saw these two young people in
their bath-chairs, coming along side by side, and talking just as hard
as they could.
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