“Will you come in, please, sir?” invited Jill. “The kettle’s on the boil and I’ve just baked some scones.”
“We didn’t mean to put you to any trouble, Jill,” said George. “We’ve really come to bring a note from my wife and to ask your aunt if we may look at the inn. It’s of historical interest, I understand, and Lady Eliot thought we ought to take a look at it before it changes hands.”
“Auntie Rose and I will be pleased to show you over, sir,” said Jill. “But you’ll have tea first, won’t you? It’s no trouble and the children will be hungry.”
George, handing her Nadine’s note, liked the way she spoke to him, with no shyness or coquetry, respectfully, yet showing him firmly that she put the children’s hunger before his own desire for archaeological research.
They all trooped in, the old ship’s door shut behind them, and immediately they had a wonderful feeling of being most royally and loudly welcomed, almost as though some generous, glowing personality had shouted aloud at the sight of them. They looked about them, but there was no one with them in the stone-flagged passage except Jill. To their right beautiful oak paneling reached from floor to ceiling, to their left an oak partition reached not quite elbow-high, and they looked over it between old oak posts, strangely carved with birds and beasts, into the bar. A few steps farther and the partition ended, giving entrance to the bar. It was the most attractive bar parlor George had ever set eyes upon. The bar itself, with a door behind it that evidently led through into the kitchen, was against the inner wall, facing the wide window set in the huge thickness of the outer wall, and looking out upon the garden. The ceiling was not so low as the ceilings of old houses so often are, and was whitewashed and crossed by strong oak beams. There was an open fireplace in the wall opposite the partition, with spotted china dogs upon the mantel, and two old settles with crimson cushions to either side of it. There were crimson curtains at the window and red rag rugs on the snowy stone floor. There were other treasures, too: a grandfather clock, very old brass spittoons, old sporting prints upon the walls, but George’s eye was caught away from them by the glory of the staircase that exactly faced the front door. It was of black oak and highly polished with age, each stair sagging in the middle like a bent bow. It sloped up between high paneled walls, then divided and curved away to right and left beneath an alcove in the paneling where there must once have been a cupboard, and that now held some strange little carved figure that he could not make out in the dim light. The sweep of this dividing staircase was most beautiful and gracious, and gave one a feeling of welcome like strong arms held out, the arms of that glowing personality who had welcomed them in. And Ben noticed, though George did not, that the whole structure of the staircase, with the arms held out beneath the upright panel, was like a cross.
“We go this way,” said Jill, and lifted the latch of a door that was so a part of the paneling to the right of the passage that they had not seen it until she opened it. “It’s Auntie Rose’s parlor,” she said with pride, and stood back for them to enter.
George exclaimed in delight. It was a lovely little room, paneled in green-painted wood. It had two windows, a small one looking over the garden through which they had come, and a large one looking out over another patch of garden, that was now a swaying mass of daffodils, and over the low wall to the river with the marshes and the woods beyond. The room was full of silvery light reflected upwards from the river. There was a floor of dark oak, and fine old candle sconces upon the walls. It was furnished according to the taste of Auntie Rose, with a modern “suite” upholstered in puce velvet, lace curtains at the windows, a very ugly carpet, innumerable embroidered cushion covers and antimacassars, and pictures in gold frames of gentlemen in cocked hats bowing to ladies in crinolines, all of them with exactly the same face. The fireplace was truly terrible, a heavy overmantel trimmed with red velvet and a surround of imitation black marble, but George noticed that the basket grate was old and that the black marble was obviously a superimposed structure. . . . Yet through these things the beauty of the room shone like the sun through mist.
“What Mother could make of this!” ejaculated George suddenly to Ben, and Ben nodded. . . . He had already seen in his mind’s eye just what Mother would make of it.
“This house is just like Damerosehay,” cried Caroline in delight.
“It’s not in the least like it,” retorted Tommy a little contemptuously, and Caroline flushed painfully. Ben took her arm and pinched it comfortingly. “Exactly,” he whispered. He knew what she meant. Both old houses gave one the feeling of having been built from inside as well as from outside, as though the men and women who had made them were not only the actual masons and carpenters, but those who had lived in them too, and had put them forth bit by bit from their own souls and bodies like a squirrel building his cage in a tree, or a badger his holt in the ground. And the strength of their blood and bones still lived on in the wood and stone of each house, plain for all to see, and something of their spirits lived on in the two houses. The spirit, though so ancient, was not yet full-grown; it waited on those who would come for the perfect flowering. It was like that at Damerosehay and it was like that here.
“What aspect?” asked George.
“South,” said Jill. “The river takes a bend here, you see, sir, so that this room looks due south and gets all the sun. The front of the inn looks west and the sunsets are lovely behind the wood. This way, sir. Tea’s ready in the kitchen.”
She opened a door in the east wall beside the fireplace, and they went through into a small square room paneled in dark oak that also looked towards the river. It was uncarpeted, and there was nothing in it except a few boxes and a sewing machine. “It’s just a passage room and we don’t seem to have much use for it,” said Jill apologetically.
“A library and studio combined,” said Ben. “Lined with books. A table in the window. There’d be a good light if one wanted to paint or write or anything like that.”
“Good place to store fishing tackle,” said George.
“Put up a partition,” said Tommy. “Make a passage out of this end. You could have a door with green bottle glass in it to give light in the passage. The bottom part of the bookshelves could be cupboards. I could keep my bones there, and work at my anatomy at the table in the window.”
George and Ben said no more about painting or fishing tackle. Tommy always had what he wanted. This room was now dedicated to books and bones.
“There are two kitchens,” said Jill. “One behind the bar parlor, where we do all the work, and one through here where we live.”
She opened a door opposite to the one by which they had entered and they went down two steps into the most glorious room of all, the living-kitchen. It was a large room, stone-floored, with whitewashed walls and great beams crossing a whitewashed ceiling, and with a fine old oil lamp hanging from the central beam. There was a wide fireplace with a fire burning in it and a kettle singing on the hearth, and two wide windows, one looking south towards the river, the other east onto the stable yard. The room was furnished with old furniture: a splendid oak table, a huge dresser with blue willow-pattern china upon it, a tallboy, high-backed rush-seated chairs, and a rocking chair. There were some fine bits of Bristol ware upon the mantelpiece, flowered chintz curtains at the windows, strips of plain matting upon the floor, and pots of geraniums upon the window sills. The table was laid for tea with a blue-and-white-check tablecloth, willow-pattern china, a homemade cake, scones, and honey. The room was gracious, lived in, warm, glowing, and altogether glorious. . . . And extraordinarily familiar. . . . Standing there in the sunlight and firelight George and the children felt as though they had come home. They looked at each other, but they could not speak.
“Auntie Rose did think of running the inn as a guesthouse at one time,” said Jill. “That was after they put on the busses to Radford and people started going there of an evening instead of coming here,
so that as an inn it wasn’t a paying concern any more. But she didn’t feel equal to it. It would have made a good guesthouse. The bar parlor, the dining room, the green parlor, the lounge, and this kept private for the family.”
“A lovely guesthouse for tired people,” said Caroline with shining eyes. “I could leave school and help Mother run it.”
“One would be a fool not to keep this room exactly as it stands,” murmured George. “Jill, is the furniture as well as the house for sale?”
Jill looked doubtful. “Auntie Rose is very attached to all the things in the parlor,” she said. “The pictures were her wedding presents, and all the cushions and antimacassars she embroidered herself, and that lovely suite she and Uncle bought for their silver wedding. But I don’t think she sets much store by the things here. They’re old, and shabby, too, and belonged to her mother-in-law. Nor yet I don’t think she cares much for anything in the bar parlor. That’s all shabby old stuff too.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking your aunt to part with anything in her parlor,” George assured Jill. “It’s these things here—”
“Auntie’s in the other kitchen,” said Jill. “We’ll ask her.”
They went through into the farther kitchen, but Auntie Rose had disappeared. This kitchen, too, was delightful, with a north window looking out into the orchard and an east window looking out on the stable yard. It had the same whitewashed walls and the same oak beams crossing a whitewashed ceiling, but here the wide hearth had a cooking range in it, the long table was of scrubbed deal, and the dresser of pitch pine. But there were brass pots and pans on the mantelpiece, bunches of herbs and another fine old oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, a cuckoo clock upon the wall, queer old bulging cupboards everywhere, and best of all in the children’s eyes, an open door in one corner showed the beginning of a stone-turret staircase winding away into the darkness to one knew not what.
“Auntie must have stepped outside,” said Jill, and opened a door in the east wall that led into a porch like the one at Damerosehay, a porch as big as a little room, with seats upon either side. They went through into the stable yard, and George saw with satisfaction that the rough road leading from the lane through the orchard to the stable yard was wide enough for a good-sized car, and that some of the stable buildings would be easily convertible into garages. This yard was beautiful, with its old rounded cobbles and green-painted pump. The stable buildings were of mellowed garnet-colored brick, roofed with those same amber tiles that roofed the inn. The place reminded George of an old London mews, for opposite the house a flight of steps built against the wall led up to what had obviously once been a coachman’s living quarters. There was a beautiful wrought-iron handrail protecting the stairs, with a small balcony above, upon which opened two windows, one on either side of a green door.
“There’s a bit of vegetable garden behind the stables,” said Jill. “Lovely onions.”
And then Auntie Rose came towards them from the orchard with a little basket of bantam’s eggs. “For the children’s tea,” she murmured, in her soft yet brisk old voice. “They’ll be hungry, the dears. And in London, so they tell me, you’ve but the one egg a month, and that addled as likely as not.”
“This is Mrs. Spelman, my Auntie Rose,” said Jill to George. “The General’s taken a real fancy to the place, Auntie.”
“I’m pleased to hear that, sir,” said Auntie Rose. “I’ve not put it in the agent’s hands yet, or advertised it in any way. Lady Eliot, she wanted me to give you the first refusal.”
“Lady Eliot—what did you say?” asked George.
“It was an honor to see her ladyship,” said Auntie Rose. “Came herself, she did, to see Jill and tell her to answer Mrs. Eliot’s advertisement. So anxious, she is, to have you living in the country near her. Yes, sir, I said you should have the first refusal. I was glad to oblige her ladyship. Is the kettle on, Jill?”
They were all going back into the house. George came last, moving like a sleepwalker. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
Auntie Rose presided very charmingly over the tea party. She was of the old school and respected what she still called “the gentry,” and because of her respect felt perfectly at home with them. Feeling no necessity for proving herself as good as anyone else she was content to be just herself, and was happy.
And Auntie Rose’s self was delightful. She was a little roundabout woman with rosy cheeks and round blue eyes and white hair done up in a bun on the top of her head; she was marvelously attired in a gray-brown tweed skirt, a purple satin blouse, and high button boots. Auntie Rose had not moved with the times, and was as restful as are all things and persons who seem impervious to change. She was about as restful as the Herb of Grace itself.
“Mrs. Spelman, how can you endure to leave this beautiful place?” asked George, drinking hot, strong, sweet tea poured out of a large brown earthenware teapot, and wondering why tea always tastes so much better when it is poured out of a brown teapot than out of any other kind.
“I’m gettin’ old, sir, and it’s a burden on me now. I’m lookin’ forward to takin’ me ease with me daughter-in-law. And as for beauty, sir, I’ve never let that trouble me. Jill, now, she’s the one for beauty, lettin’ a saucepan boil over while she looks at a rainbow, but then she’s had the time for it, while I’ve had too much to do between dawn and sunset to waste me time lookin’ at ’em. . . . Another egg, dearie?”
Jerry graciously accepted another bantam’s egg and Tommy helped himself to his sixth scone. George, remembering the lunch they’d had, was ashamed of them.
“It’s all right, sir,” Jill, who was sitting beside him, said softly. “There’s plenty, and country food is good for children. Master Ben and Miss Caroline will soon put on weight when you’ve settled here, and Master Ben will lose that nasty cough.”
“It’s nothing,” Ben said, smiling at her.
George looked at his two eldest. Yes, they were too thin and fine-drawn. And though Nadine said it was nothing, he had been worried about Ben’s cough for a long time now. They had taken their full share of family anxiety through the war. Carefree country holidays were exactly what they needed. “Messing about in boats . . . simply messing about in boats.”
They ate all there was to eat and then Auntie Rose took them up the turret staircase. Halfway up there was a small arched door in the stone wall. It was of very old oak studded with nails, and looked as though it might lead into a dungeon.
“What’s in there?” demanded the twins as one child.
“Only my storeroom, ducks,” said Auntie Rose.
“Let’s see,” commanded the twins.
Obediently Auntie Rose fished a large key out of her capacious pocket and unlocked the door. She had scarcely got it ajar when the twins were inside, squeaking with delight, enchanted by this room as nothing else at the Herb of Grace had enchanted them yet. George was at a loss to understand their pleasure. The little room was attractive in its strange, octagonal shape, and its narrow lancet windows were attractive too, but the stone floor was very worn, and the room was papered with a rather dirty, mustard-colored paper with chocolate-colored lozenges upon it. Slatted shelves, bulging and stained with age, were nailed round the walls, and supported a large assortment of black bottles and brown crocks, of all shapes and sizes, filled with Auntie Rose’s home-brewed wines, pickles, and preserves.
“I keep it locked so that no one shan’t get at me wines,” explained Auntie Rose. “All me own make—cowslip and elder-berry wine and sloe gin. There’s a big cellar down below, sir, for the stout and cider and beer—what there is of it these days. The cellar door is behind the bar.”
“What beautiful Easter eggs on the paper!” cried José in ecstasy.
“Wizard,” ejaculated Jerry.
But no one else seemed to like the little room much except Ben, who lingered at the door a moment feeling in the r
oom some indefinable attraction, almost as though there were buried treasure here.
They went on up the staircase to see the rooms upstairs. There were eight of them altogether, with several large attics up above in the roof. Upstairs was an enchanting place, with odd corners, surprising little flights of steps, unexpected windows, and deep cupboards. The refracted light of the sun upon the river danced on the ceilings; there were the murmuring of birds beneath the eaves, the smell of lavender and furniture polish. The walls were papered with old-fashioned flowered wallpaper, bright and gay, and there was some priceless old furniture to which Auntie Rose seemed entirely indifferent, if not actively hostile. “It all belonged to me mother-in-law,” she said. “Barrin’ me lovely brass bedstead.” Casually she mentioned the price she had been advised to ask for the house and it was surprisingly reasonable. Provided she might have her precious suite and the hideous brass bedstead she was prepared to sell all the rest of the furniture.
George began making frantic calculations upon the back of an envelope. They’d get a good price for the Chelsea house. They could borrow from the bank. It could be done. Run as a guesthouse (but he liked the old-world “inn” better) the place was bound to pay. Nadine was a wonderful organizer, and abandoning himself to wishful thinking he assured himself that she’d not get overworked, for help was more easily come by in the country than in the town and he’d be there to help her. The words “there to help her” sang in his mind like a song. Together, working together, planning together, coming closer to each other than they had ever done in their difficult married life of constant separation, estrangement, difficult adjustment, and then separation again, and estrangement again, and bitterness and sorrow, and always in his soul that desperate longing to be loved by Nadine as he loved her, wholeheartedly. . . . He stumbled upon one of the unexpected steps, dropped the envelope, and entirely forgot to ask Auntie Rose if there was a bathroom.