CHAPTER XXXVIII
TALE TOLD BY THE PORTRAITS
“If you will give me leave, maister, I’ll go roond and speak to Mistress Bolton, t’ hoosekeeper, and get her to coom and open t’ great door,” said Jonah Kirby, as he got down from his seat and struck into a flagged walk that led to the rear of the house.
“Le! Le! don’t look so down-hearted, dear boy! Remember, come what may, my daughter shall never be the wife of Angus Anglesea! Come, come, cheer up, lad!” said Abel Force, clapping his young companion on the back.
But Le’s only answer was a profound sigh.
“I think the best and shortest way out of our difficulty will be to go back to America, have that man prosecuted for bigamy and robbery, and sent to the State prison, and then have him divorced, if, indeed, he has any claim whatever on Odalite. And I don’t see why you don’t take that way,” said Wynnette.
“Because, my dearest dear,” answered her father, “to prosecute the man would be to bring our darling Odalite’s name into too much publicity. And, as for divorce, the very word is an offense to right-minded people.”
“It is better than——”
But whatever Wynnette was about to say was cut short by the loud, harsh turning of a key, and the noisy opening of the great door of Anglewood Manor House.
Jonah Kirby appeared, accompanied by altogether the very largest woman our travelers had ever seen in their lives, even at a traveling circus.
She appeared to be about forty years old, and was dressed in a very full, light blue calico skirt, and loose basque of the same, that made her look even larger than she was. She wore a high-crowned, book-muslin cap, with a broad, blue ribbon around it. She carried in her hand a formidable bunch of keys.
“She’s ‘fearfully and wonderfully’ huge, papa. And she will expect a crown, and, maybe, half a guinea, for showing the house,” said Wynnette, in a low tone.
By this time Jonah Kirby had come down the steps and up to the side of the carriage.
“Mrs. Bolton, maister, and she’ll show t’ hoose with pleasure. She always loikes to oblige t’ gentlefolks, she bed me say.”
“Papa, it must be half a guinea, and don’t you forget!” whispered Wynnette, as she gave her hand to Kirby and allowed him to help her out of the carriage.
Mr. Force and Le followed, and they all walked up the steps, to be met by the enormous woman in blue, with many courtesies.
She led them at once into a vast stone hall, whose walls were hung with ancient armor, battle-axes, crossbows, lances and other insignia of war; and with horns, bugles, antlers, weapons and trophies of the chase, and whose tessellated floor was covered with the skins of wild animals. From the center of this hall a magnificent flight of stairs ascended, in large, spiral circles, to the stained glass skylight in the roof.
There were handsome doors of solid oak on either side.
Mrs. Bolton paused in the middle of the hall and said:
“The doors on the right lead into the justice room, and the long dining room; those on the left into the ballroom, which is the largest room, three times told, in the house. There is nothing on this floor very interesting except the antique furniture and the curiously carved woodwork of the chimney pieces and doors.”
She spoke like a guide book, but presently added:
“Some gentlefolks, if they have a heap of time, like to look through them, but many prefer the picture gallery and the library, and the drawing rooms, which are all on the floor above and all very handsome.”
“We will go upstairs first, if you please; later, if we have time, we will see the rooms down here,” said Abel Force.
The housekeeper led the way upstairs to the next landing, where they came out upon the hall, whose walls were hung with antique tapestry, and whose oaken floor was covered here and there with Persian rugs.
On every side handsome mahogany double doors led into apartments. Before every door lay a rich Persian rug.
Mrs. Bolton opened a door on the left.
“The picture gallery, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, using her formula, though there was but one lady present.
They entered a long, lofty room lighted from the roof. The walls were hung with many pictures, so dark and dim with age that even the good light failed to make their meanings intelligible to the spectators. Yet these were considered the most valuable in the whole collection, and the housekeeper, with great pride, gave the history of each, in something like this style:
“Martyrdom of St. Stephen, ladies and gentlemen—painted by Leonardo da Vinci, in the year of our Lord 1480, purchased at Milan in 1700 for five thousand guineas, by Ralph d’Anglesea of Anglewood. A very rare picture, no copy of it being in existence.”
Our party looked up and saw in a heavy, gilded frame, about five feet square, a very dark, murky canvas, with a small smirch in the middle—nothing more.
This was only a sample of a score of other priceless paintings, invisible as to forms and unintelligible as to meanings, which the housekeeper introduced to the visitors with much pride in the showing.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the family portraits,” said Mrs. Bolton, passing under a lofty archway adorned by the Anglesea arms, and leading the visitors into another compartment of the same gallery.
“Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a portrait of Kenneth d’Anglesea, year 800; very old.”
Our party looked at it and thought it was “very old”—a long brown smudge crowned with an oval yellow smudge, all in a very dark ground, and supposed to represent a human form—no more.
“And here, ladies and gentlemen, is Ethus d’Anglesea, year 950—also old.”
Again the visitors agreed with the housekeeper. The figure was old and almost invisible.
And so she went through a dozen or more of these earlier family portraits, and came down at last to later periods, to crusaders in the reign of Richard the Lion-hearted, by gradations down to courtiers in the reign of Elizabeth, to cavaliers in the reigns of the unfortunate Stuarts, to gallants in the reigns of the Georges, and finally down to the ladies and gentlemen of the reign of Queen Victoria.
“Here, sir, is an excellent portrait of our present master, Col. Angus Anglesea, and of his late lamented lady,” said the housekeeper, pausing before two full length portraits that hung side by side, like companion pictures, at the end of the gallery.
Our travelers paused before the pictures and gazed at them in silence for some moments.
The portrait of Col. Anglesea was a very striking likeness. All our party recognized it at once as such.
But how was this? Here was the form, face and complexion, perfect to a curve of figure, perfect to a shade of color; yet the expression was different. For whereas the expression of Anglesea’s face, as our friends had known it, was either joyous, morose, or defiant, the character of this face was grave, thoughtful and benevolent. Yet it was certainly the portrait of Angus Anglesea.
Wynnette perceived the perplexity on the brows of her companions and whispered:
“A two-faced, double-dealing as well as double-dyed, villain, papa! A sanctimonious hypocrite at home and a brawling ruffian abroad!”
“I should scarcely take this to be the face of a hypocrite, my dear, or of any other than of a good, wise and brave man; yet—yet it is all very strange.”
Then they looked at the portrait of Lady Mary Anglesea, at which they had only glanced before.
It was the counterfeit presentment of a lady whose beauty, or rather the special character of whose beauty, at once riveted attention.
It was that of a tall, well-formed though rather delicate woman, with sweet, pale, oval face, tender, serious brown eyes, and soft, rippling brown hair that strayed in little, careless ringlets about her forehead and temples, adding to the exquisite sweetness and pathos of the whole presence.
“What a beautiful, beautiful creature! What lovely, lovely eyes!” breathed Wynnette, gazing at the picture.
“Yes, young lady,” said the housekeeper, “and as good and wise as she was beautiful. And when the lovely eyes closed on this world, be sure they opened in heaven. And when the beautiful form was laid in the tomb all the light seemed to have gone out of this world for us! It nearly killed the master. And no wonder—no wonder!” said Mrs. Bolton, drawing a large pocket handkerchief, that would have answered for a small tablecloth, from her pocket and wiping her eyes.
Again Abel Force and Leonidas looked at each other.
“Ah, yes! They were a handsome pair!” said the housekeeper, with a sigh that raised her mighty bosom as the wind raises the ocean—“a very handsome pair, and the parting of ’em has been nigh the death of the colonel,” she added, as she replaced her handkerchief in her pocket.
“And yet I have heard that he married again while he was abroad,” Mr. Force could not refrain from saying.
“He!” exclaimed Mrs. Bolton, in a tone of indignant astonishment.
“Yes; there is no law against a widower marrying, is there?” replied Abel Force, quietly.
“He! he marry again! Oh, sir, you are mistaken! He was more likely to die than to marry! Whoever told you so, sir—begging your pardon—told a most haynious falsehood!”
“I really hope he never did marry again.”
“He never did, sir, and he never will. He is true to her memory, and he lives only for their son, who is at Eton. Now, sir, shall I show you the library and the drawing rooms?”
Mr. Force bowed, and with his party followed the housekeeper from the picture gallery to the hall and through that to the drawing rooms, into which they only looked, for the apartment was fitted up in modern style and all the furniture shrouded in brown holland.
The library was more interesting, and contained many rare black-letter tomes, into which Abel Force would have liked to look, had time allowed.
The sun was setting and it was growing dusk in this grand and gloomy mansion.
“We must go now, I think, my dear,” said Mr. Force, in a low voice, to his daughter.
Wynnette drew him quite away from the group into the light of the great oriel window of the library and whispered:
“Not a crown, nor a half sov., but a guinea, papa! a whole guinea for all those thundering bouncers—I mean those romances she has told us about the jolly old smoke-dried window shades and fire screens hung up in frames for pictures of the ancestors, and called Kenneths and Ethuses and things! Why, papa, those couldn’t have been portraits! There were no painters in Britain at the time those are said to have lived. And then about the Leonardo da Vinci picture! If he ever painted that it would be in one of the great art galleries of the world! Not in a private collection! Give her a guinea, papa! She can’t afford to lie so much for less!”
“My dear, the woman only repeats what she has heard,” said Mr. Force.
They rejoined Le and the housekeeper.
Mr. Force thanked the good woman for her attention and left a generous remuneration in her hand.
She courtesied and then saw them downstairs.
In the hall below she pointed out the full suits of armor worn by this or that knight in such or such a battle; and the antlers of the stag killed by this or that huntsman, in such or such a chase.
“Would your honor now like to look into the ballroom, or the long dining room, or justice room?”
“No, thank you; it is getting late. We have to return to Angleton,” replied Mr. Force.
And then each of the party, in turn, again thanked the housekeeper for the pleasure she had given them and took leave of her.