Deephaven | Page 5

there they meant to remain. The carpets were particularly interesting,
and I remember Kate's pointing out to me one day a great square figure
in one, and telling me she used to keep house there with her dolls for
lack of a better play-house, and if one of them chanced to fall outside

the boundary stripe, it was immediately put to bed with a cold. It is a
house with great possibilities; it might easily be made charming. There
are four very large rooms on the lower floor, and six above, a wide hall
in each story, and a fascinating garret over the whole, where were many
mysterious old chests and boxes, in one of which we found Kate's
grandmother's love-letters; and you may be sure the vista of rummages
which Mr. Lancaster had laughed about was explored to its very end.
The rooms all have elaborate cornices, and the lower hall is very fine,
with an archway dividing it, and panellings of all sorts, and a great door
at each end, through which the lilacs in front and the old pensioner
plum-trees in the garden are seen exchanging bows and gestures.
Coming from the Lancasters' high city house, it did not seem as if we
had to go up stairs at all there, for every step of the stairway is so broad
and low, and you come half-way to a square landing with an old
straight-backed chair in each farther corner; and between them a large,
round-topped window, with a cushioned seat, looking out on the garden
and the village, the hills far inland, and the sunset beyond all. Then you
turn and go up a few more steps to the upper hall, where we used to
stay a great deal. There were more old chairs and a pair of remarkable
sofas, on which we used to deposit the treasures collected in our
wanderings. The wide window which looks out on the lilacs and the sea
was a favorite seat of ours. Facing each other on either side of it are
two old secretaries, and one of them we ascertained to be the
hiding-place of secret drawers, in which may be found valuable records
deposited by ourselves one rainy day when we first explored it. We
wrote, between us, a tragic "journal" on some yellow old letter-paper
we found in the desk. We put it in the most hidden drawer by itself, and
flatter ourselves that it will be regarded with great interest some time or
other. Of one of the front rooms, "the best chamber," we stood rather in
dread. It is very remarkable that there seem to be no ghost-stories
connected with any part of the house, particularly this. We are neither
of us nervous; but there is certainly something dismal about the room.
The huge curtained bed and immense easy-chairs, windows, and
everything were draped in some old-fashioned kind of white cloth
which always seemed to be waving and moving about of itself. The
carpet was most singularly colored with dark reds and indescribable
grays and browns, and the pattern, after a whole summer's study, could

never be followed with one's eye. The paper was captured in a French
prize somewhere some time in the last century, and part of the figure
was shaggy, and therein little spiders found habitation, and went
visiting their acquaintances across the shiny places. The color was an
unearthly pink and a forbidding maroon, with dim white spots, which
gave it the appearance of having moulded. It made you low-spirited to
look long in the mirror; and the great lounge one could not have
cheerful associations with, after hearing that Miss Brandon herself did
not like it, having seen so many of her relatives lie there dead. There
were fantastic china ornaments from Bible subjects on the mantel, and
the only picture was one of the Maid of Orleans tied with an
unnecessarily strong rope to a very stout stake. The best parlor we also
rarely used, because all the portraits which hung there had for some
unaccountable reason taken a violent dislike to us, and followed us
suspiciously with their eyes. The furniture was stately and very
uncomfortable, and there was something about the room which
suggested an invisible funeral.
There is not very much to say about the dining-room. It was not
specially interesting, though the sea was in sight from one of the
windows. There were some old Dutch pictures on the wall, so dark that
one could scarcely make out what they were meant to represent, and
one or two engravings. There was a huge sideboard, for which Kate had
brought down from Boston Miss Brandon's own silver which had stood
there for so many years, and looked so much more at home and in place
than any other