Love and Life | Page 3

bay window of his
bed-room; though he wore a green velvet nightcap; and his whole

provision of mental food consisted of half a dozen worn numbers of the
_Tatler_, and a Gazette a fortnight old. The chair on which he sat was
elbowed, and made easy with cushions and pillows, but that on which
his lame foot rested was stiff and angular. The cushion was exquisitely
worked in chain-stich, as were the quilt and curtains of the great
four-post bed, and the only carpeting consisted of three or four narrow
strips of wool-work. The walls were plain plaster, white-washed, and
wholly undecorated, except that the mantelpiece was carved with the
hideous caryatides of the early Stewart days, and over it were
suspended a long cavalry sabre, and the accompanying spurs and
pistols; above them the miniature of an exquisitely lovely woman, with
a white rose in her hair and a white favour on her breast.
The window was a deep one projecting far into the narrow garden
below, for in truth the place was one of those old manor houses which
their wealthy owners were fast deserting in favour of new specimens of
classical architecture as understood by Louis XIV., and the room in
which the Major sat was one of the few kept in habitable repair. The
garden was rich with white pinks, peonies, lilies of the valley, and early
roses, and there was a flagged path down the centre, between the front
door and a wicket-gate into a long lane bordered with hawthorn hedges,
the blossoms beginning to blush with the advance of the season.
Beyond, rose dimly the spires and towers of a cathedral town, one of
those county capitals to which the provincial magnates were wont to
resort during the winter, keeping a mansion there for the purpose, and
providing entertainment for the gentry of the place and neighbourhood.
Twilight was setting in when the Major began to catch glimpses of the
laced hats of coachman and footmen over the hedges, a lumbering
made itself heard, and by and by the vehicle halted at the gate. Such a
coach! It was only the second best, and the glories of its landscape-
painted sides were somewhat dimmed, the green and silver of the
fittings a little tarnished to a critical eye; yet it was a splendid article,
commodious and capacious, though ill-provided with air and light.
However, nobody cared for stuffiness, certainly not the three young
ladies, who, fan in hand, came tripping down the steps that were
unrolled for them. The eldest paused to administer a fee to their
entertainer's servants who had brought them home, and the coach rolled
on to dispose of the remainder of the freight.

The father waved greetings from one window, a rosy little audacious
figure in a night-dress peeped out furtively from another, and the
house-door was opened by a tall old soldier-servant, stiff as a ramrod,
with hair tightly tied and plastered up into a queue, and a blue and
brown livery which sat like a uniform.
"Well, young ladies," he said, "I hope you enjoyed yourselves."
"Vastly, thank you, Corporal Palmer. And how has it been with my
father in our absence?"
"Purely, Miss Harriet. He relished the Friar's chicken that Miss Delavie
left for him, and he amused himself for an hour with Master Eugene,
after which he did me the honour to play two plays at backgammon."
"I hope," said the eldest sister, coming up, "that the little rogue whom I
saw peeping from the window has not been troublesome."
"He has been as good as gold, madam. He played in master's room till
Nannerl called him to his bed, when he went at once, 'true to his
orders,' says the master. 'A fine soldier he will make,' says I to my
master."
Therewith the sisters mounted the uncarpeted but well-polished oak
stair, knocked at the father's door, and entered one by one, each
dropping her curtsey, and, though the eldest was five-and-twenty,
neither speaking nor sitting till they were greeted with a hearty, "Come,
my young maids, sit you down and tell your old father your gay
doings."
The eldest took the only unoccupied chair, while the other two placed
themselves on the window-seat, all bolt upright, with both little high
heels on the floor, in none of the easy attitudes of damsels of later date,
talking over a party. All three were complete gentlewomen in air and
manners, though Betty had high cheek-bones, a large nose, rough
complexion, and red hair, and her countenance was more loveable and
trustworthy than symmetrical. The dainty decorations of youth looked
grotesque upon her, and she was so well aware of the fact as to put on
no more than was absolutely essential to a lady of birth and breeding.