WITHIN
THE PRECINCTS
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1879.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
CONTENTS
OF VOLUME II.
WITHIN THE PRECINCTS.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE MUSICIAN AT HOME.
The Signor’s house was one of those which, when general peacefulness had made the battlements round St. Michael’s unnecessary, had grown within the outer wall. It was more like a growth than a building. Windows which looked, as we have said, as if cut in the side of a precipice, gave light to the small panelled chambers which were connected by bits of quaint passages, here and there by a little flight of stairs, with tiny vestibules and landing-places, wasting the little space there was. Room after room had no doubt been added as necessity arose, and each new room had to be connected somehow with the others. The house occupied more space than a comfortable ugly modern house with tolerably sized rooms would have done, and when the Signor came into possession it had been a miracle of picturesque awkwardness, not a room in it capable of holding more than three or four people at a time, yet as many rooms as would have lodged a dozen—the least possible use for the greatest possible expenditure of space. The Signor, however, had built on the inner side a dining-room in red brick, which made existence possible, though it failed in the point of beauty. To tell the truth, the musician’s dining-room was an eyesore to all the antiquaries and all the critics. Nobody knew by what neglect of the architect, by what partiality of the Board of Works, it had been permitted to be built. It was of no style at all, neither Gothic, like the original building, nor Queen Anne, like the fashion. He had failed in his duty in every respect. It was a square box with a large window filling up one side. It was lighted with gas. It had red curtains in bold and uncompromising rep, and a large mahogany sideboard of the worst period. How he had been allowed to build this monstrosity nobody knew. It had been made the subject of a painful discussion in the Chapter itself, where Canon Skeffington (the Honble. and Revd.) complained so bitterly of the injury done to his best principles and highest feelings, that the Dean was irritated, and took up the cudgels on his side on behalf of his favourite musician. “He has a right, I suppose, to make himself comfortable like the rest of us,” the head of the community said. “No right to make my life a burden to me,” said the Honourable Canon; and, he added, almost weeping, “I cannot look out of my window without seeing the thing. You talk at your ease, you others——” But what was to be done? The Chapter could not take so bold a step as to invade the rights of private property, tear down the Signor’s red curtains, burn his sideboard, destroy his walls. He had to be left to the enjoyment of his villainous erection. The Signor laughed in his sleeve, but in public was remorseful, bemoaning his own ignorance of art, and declaring that if he could afford it, rather than give pain to Canon Skeffington—but then he could not afford it—and what was to be done? He kept his dining-room, which was big enough to accommodate his friends, but for himself the Signor had better taste than he professed to have. His favourite sitting-room was in the same position and had the same view as that of his housekeeper, but its window was between two buttresses of the wall, which held in their gigantic arms a little square shelf of green turf, a small projection of the hill, which above and below was covered with masonry, leaving this little ledge of grass, like one of the hanging gardens of Scripture, hung high in the air above the town and the landscape. The Signor’s window opened upon this little terrace. His room within was low and dark, but in summer at least this mattered little, for its dim light and shadowy walls made a pleasant shelter, like a bower in a wood, from the lightness and brightness outside. There was a heavy beam across the roof, from which hung a little chandelier of old Venice glass, reflected in a tall old mirror among the oak panels over the mantelpiece, and not much more bright than they were. On one side were the carved doors of a cupboard in the wall, which was full of old music, the Signor’s chief treasures, and on the other was a range of low bookshelves, also filled with music books of every size and kind. The piano stood in the corner near the window, with the keyboard close to the light. There were a few chairs about the room, and a writing-table piled with papers. This was all the furniture of the dim little chamber, and it was impossible to imagine a greater contrast than existed between it and the new building which had so shocked Canon Skeffington. And the Signor was not in this particular much unlike his house. A touch of sentiment, which some people were disposed to call high-flown, mingled in him with a curious undercurrent of cynicism, which few people suspected at all. He liked to jar upon the Canon Skeffingtons of existence and ruffle their tempers and their finest feelings. But in his heart he had feelings equally fine, and was as easily froissé as they. He mocked at them on the very points in which he himself was weak, affecting an insensibility which he did not feel, building the vile modern room with profound enjoyment of their delicate distress, but retiring out of it himself to the shelter of this dim romantic chamber. The combination was very like the Signor.