Overcome with admiration, bewildered with happiness, I kneel on the soft carpet of grass, and, burying my face extravagantly, in alternate laps of luxurious, downy, scent-laden petals, fill my lungs with soul-inspiring nectar.
My intoxication has barely worn off before my eyes are dimly conscious that the soil all around me is generously besprinkled with the remains of my floral friends. I spring hurriedly to my feet, and, gazing anxiously about me, suddenly perceive the gaily nodding heads of new arrivals—dahlias, sunflowers, anemones, chrysanthemums. As I continue gazing, the aromatic odour of mellow apples from the Hennersley orchards reaches my nostrils; I turn round, and there, there in front of me, I see row upon row of richly-laden fruit trees, their leaves a brilliant copper in the scintillating rays of the ruddy autumn sun. I gasp for breath—the beauty of tint and tone surpasses all that I have hitherto seen—it is sublime, the grand climax of transformation. As the curtain falls with the approach of winter, I hurry to my Edinburgh home and pray for the prompt return of early spring.
For many years my aged relatives, the Misses Amelia and Deborah Harbordeens, lived at Hennersley. Rarest and kindest of old ladies, they were the human prototypes of the flowers both they and I loved. Miss Amelia, with her beautiful complexion, rounded form and regal mien, suggested to my childish mind more, much more, than the mere semblance of a rose, whilst Miss Deborah, with her sprightly grace and golden hair, was only masquerading as a woman—she was in reality a daffodil.
Unlike so many of the fair sex who go in for gardening, my aunts were essentially dainty. Their figures were shapely and elegant, their hands slim and soft. I never saw them working without gloves, and I have good reason to believe they anointed their fingers every night with a special preparation to keep them smooth and white. They were not—decidedly not—"brainy," neither were they accomplished, never having made any special study of the higher arts; but they evinced nevertheless the keenest appreciation of painting, music, and literature. Their library—a large one—boasted a delightful harbourage of such writers as Jane Austen, Miss Mitford, and Maria Edgeworth. And in their drawing-room, on the walls of which art was represented by the old as well as modern masters, might be seen and sometimes heard—for the Misses Harbordeens often entertained—a well-tuned Broadwood, and a Bucksen harpsichord. I will describe this old-world abode, not as I first saw it, for when I first visited my aunts Amelia and Deborah, I was only one year old, but as I first remember it—a house with the glamour of a many-gabled roof and diamond window-panes.
The house stood by the side of the turnpike road—that broad, white, interminable road, originating from goodness knows where in the north, and passing through Ayr—the nearest town of any importance—to goodness knows where in the south. A shady avenue, entered by a wooden swing gate bearing the superscription "Hennersley" in neat, white letters, led by a circuitous route to it, and not a vestige of it could be seen from the road. In front of it stretched a spacious lawn, flanked on either side and at the farthest extremity by a thick growth of chestnuts, beeches, poplars, and evergreens.
The house itself was curiously built. It consisted of two storeys, and formed a main building and one wing, which gave it a peculiarly lop-sided appearance that reminded me somewhat ludicrously of Chanticleer, with a solitary, scant, and clipped appendage.
It was often on the tip of my tongue to ask my relatives the reason of this singular disparity; whether it was the result of a mere whim on the part of the architect, or whether it had been caused by some catastrophe; but my curiosity was always held in check by a strange feeling that my relatives would not like to be approached on the subject. My aunts Amelia and Deborah belonged to that class of people, unhappily rare, who possess a power of generating in others an instinctive knowledge of "dangerous ground"—a power which enabled them to avert, both from themselves and the might-be offender, many a painful situation. To proceed—the nakedness of the walls of Hennersley was veiled—who shall say it was not designedly veiled—by a thick covering of clematis and ivy, and in the latter innumerable specimens of the feathered tribe found a sure and safe retreat.
On entering the house, one stepped at once into a large hall. A gallery ran round it, and from the centre rose a broad oak staircase. The rooms, with one or two exceptions, opened into one another, and were large, and low and long in shape; the walls and floors were of oak and the ceilings were crossed by ponderous oak beams.
The fireplaces, too, were of the oldest fashion; and in their comfortable ingle-nook my aunts—in the winter—loved to read or knit.
When the warm weather came, they made similar use of the deep-set window-sills, over which they indulgently permitted me to scramble on to the lawn.