On this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had seen before—the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law, Mr. Gascoigne—when all had got down from the carriage, and were standing under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could have a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and staircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood fire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all looked at Gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her decision. Of the girls, from Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in her tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they were girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. Miss Merry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. Mrs. Davilow’s worn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal which she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the landscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. Imagine a young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient hacks.
“Well, dear, what do you think of the place,” said Mrs. Davilow at last, in a gentle, deprecatory tone.
“I think it is charming,” said Gwendolen, quickly. “A romantic place; anything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for anything. No one need be ashamed of living here.”
“There is certainly nothing common about it.”
“Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We ought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to this. It would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my uncle and aunt Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna,” added Gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise.
“We are early,” said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to the housekeeper who came forward, “You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?”
“Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about the fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I’ve had ‘em in all the rooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish some of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it’s had, but I think you’ll see the brasses have been done justice to. I think when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne come, they’ll tell you nothing has been neglected. They’ll be here at five, for certain.”
This satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival treated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the matted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again, and followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening from the hall—the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask, with a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the side-board, and a Christ breaking bread over the mantelpiece; the library with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and lastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber crowded with venerable knick-knacks.
“Mamma, mamma, pray come here!” said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having followed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. “Here is an organ. I will be Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa (this was her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?”
She had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its owner’s slim waist.
Mrs. Davilow smiled and said, “A charming picture, my dear!” not indifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a housekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a background.
“What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!” she went on, looking about her. “I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs—nothing but ribs and darkness—I should think that is Spanish, mamma.”
“Oh, Gwendolen!” said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room.
Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. “How horrible!” said Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said—
“You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen.”
“How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse little creature?” said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily, saying, “There is a lock—where is the key? Let the key be found, or else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the key be brought to me.”
At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, “Let us go up to our own room, mamma.”
The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady’s-maid, telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Startin,” said Bugle, who had been busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather offended at this irony in a new servant.
“I mean the young lady that’s to command us all-and well worthy for looks and figure,” replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. “She’ll know what key it is.”
“If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,” Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. “I will help mamma.”
But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection.
“That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color that sets you off?” said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand brushing back the stream of hair.
“I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my head,” said Gwendolen,—”only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint’s noses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your perfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of character—a nose of all work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not do so well for tragedy.”