She would read to us in the evenings, when it was too dark to be outside; sitting by the fire in the long drawing-room, with the lamp beside her. I can see her now, distinctly, if I shut my eyes. In the high-backed arm-chair, her chin resting on her hand, and her elbow on the arm of the chair. The lamplight would fall across her hair and shine redly through her fingers on to the book; and the ends of the room would be dark. Guy and Hugo would be lying on the floor, Hugo almost always on the hearthrug, with his chin in his hands, Guy more sideways, nearer the lamp, and I would be on a footstool beside the fender.
The crackling of a wood fire, wet sap spurting in the logs, the slight warm smell of an oil lamp brings those evening ‘reads’ back to me so vividly, even now, that I could cry to know how long ago they are, and how hopelessly past.
The books she read to us were very varied—Burnt Njal, the Morte d’Arthur, Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, are some I remember particularly, and sometimes poetry; but Guy did not care for poetry so much.
My mother used to say that Cousin Delia was a stupid woman. ‘I have no patience with these beautiful cows,’ she said once. But I do not believe that at all. She could not have read to us as she did, and made us understand and enjoy the books so much, if she had been stupid. I am not clever, I know, and it might not have mattered to me, but it would to Hugo, and I know he never felt her so. He loved her as much as I did, and admired her as much; and Hugo understood people almost always, I think.
After the reading we would go up to bed—running and chasing each other across the high, shadowy hall and up the wide stairs. We had candles with glass shades, so the grease did not drip when we ran. Sometimes I was frightened, when I was the first to run, and Guy and Hugo came after me round the great bends of the staircase; and Hugo was sometimes frightened, but never Guy.
We would separate at the top of the stairs and call ‘Good night’ to each other across the echoing space of the hall. Guy and Hugo slept together at the south side of the house. My room was at the opposite corner, looking out eastward to the beech trees, and at night I could hear the owls in the High Wood calling to the owls in the ivy—till the world seemed full of owls.
On the north side of the house was a small stretch of park, with a drive meandering through it. Once there had been deer in the park, and it was still surrounded by a high iron deer fence, but there were only cows grazing in it now, among the trees. They were Jersey cows, for Cousin John had a prize herd and took great interest in them. They would stand about the house, close up under the dining-room windows, and the soft munching sound they made could be heard distinctly during the pauses in the talk at meals. The dining-room was a panelled room, painted a pale green, with two windows to the north. Our schoolroom led out of it, with one window on to the rose garden and one to the north.
The nursery had been upstairs, where Guy and Hugo now slept, when they were very little, but I can hardly remember the earliest time, when I first came to stay at Yearsly, and afterwards, in the time I think of mostly, we were downstairs in that schoolroom, when we were not out of doors. We made things there; cardboard theatres, and plays and clay statues, and illustrated stories; and we would look out of the window into the garden and show Cousin Delia what we had done.
We used to have tea there too with our governess, Miss Bateson. She was kind to us and we were fond of her, but she was not very important—not nearly so important as Nunky, who had been Guy and Hugo’s nurse, and mine too when I first went to Yearsly, and who looked after us always, in a way, and said good night to us and unpacked for us and saw that our feet were dry. She stayed there always, long after Miss Bateson went away.
There was a round white teapot with bright flowers, raised up a little, on it, and a bright blue bird on each side. It never got broken till Hugo was at Oxford and his scout dropped it—but Hugo had it riveted, and I have got it now. We thought it lovely, and I still do, but Eleanor thinks it absurd, and ‘funny,’ so we don’t use it now. I keep it in a cupboard, and I think I shall give it to John when he marries, if his wife likes it; but perhaps she won’t.