CHAPTER IV.MONKSWOOD.
Monkswood was the original family place of the Fairfaxes. It was from Monkswood that a Fairfax sallied forth, booted and spurred, to ride with Prince Rupert; and owing to having espoused that side, many a fair acre was shorn away from him and his descendants. Nothing, in fact, was left to the next generation but the house and demesne.
A succession of lucky speculations and prudent marriages had restocked the Fairfax purse, and Sir Reginald’s grand-father,instead of gambling and squandering at Arthur’s, Crockford’s, Boodle’s, or White’s, as was the fashion in his day—being, on the contrary, of a thrifty turn of mind—purchased Looton, which a card-playing owner had brought to the hammer, and it became the family seat. Still all Fairfaxes were at leastburiedat Monkswood, and during the season it was generally visited for woodcock-shooting, for which its thick woods were famous.
Monkswood was a good-sized red-brick house, hideous and rambling and inconvenient to the last degree. It was a rare collection of architecture on a small scale, as a room had been added here, a window knocked out there, according to the sweet will of the reigning Fairfax. It was approached by a long drive, skirted on one side by a thick laurel cover, and on the other by a broad open demesne, dottedabout with some splendid timber, oak and copper beech in particular.
The house was entered by a shallow flight of steps and heavy portico, leading into a lofty oak-panelled hall, opening on one side into the drawing-room and tea-room, and on the other into the dining-room and library.
The drawing-room side looked out on a grand old-fashioned pleasure-ground; the dining-room “gave”—oh horror!—on the yard—a yard large enough for a barrack square, with a long range of loose-boxes and deserted stalls and coach-houses. A couple of saddle-horses, and Miss Saville’s fat ponies, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, revelled at least in plenty of room. Upstairs the house was still more old-fashioned than below; fireplaces in corners abounded; cupboards broke out in the strangestplaces; and there were various passages leading everywhere in general and nowhere in particular, as you angrily discover when, having followed one down to its source as you flatter yourself, you open a fine promising-looking door, and find a set of empty shelves staring you in the face! On the other hand, you are disagreeably surprised when, on bursting open the door of what you take to be a cupboard, you find yourself precipitated headlong down three steps into a large room. Huge four-post beds and furniture to correspond werede rigueur, and there was an old-world feeling about the place altogether, as if it had gone to sleep one hundred years ago, and awoke, greatly surprised to find itself in the present century. Everything was antiquated, with the exception of new carpets and curtains in the sitting-room, a few fashionable chairs and tea-tables,Alice’s piano, and the furniture of her bedroom, where a modern brass construction relieved the time-honoured four-poster, and a writing-table, wardrobe, and lounge took the place of furniture that would have been thene plus ultraof luxury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Need I here mention that the maiden monarch slept a night at Monkswood? According to the number of places which boast of this honour, her majesty can have rarely passed a night at home.
The house was overrun with old china, and there were a good many family portraits, simpering and scowling, about the walls. The best—the beauties and the handsome cavaliers—were all at Looton; but frosty-faced old divines and plain elderly matrons had been left undisturbed. There was some Chippendale furniture too,and all kinds of queer old ornaments, odds and ends, and evenclothes, stowed away carefully among the venerable wardrobes; in fact, enough unappreciatedbric-à-bracto turn a collector’s head.
The pleasure-grounds opened through a rustic gate into the plantations, which skirted the whole demesne inside a high wall. Through the plantations ran a walk just wide enough for two. A dense growth of underwood gave cover to thousands of rabbits, and where the ground was visible it was one mass of blue-bells and primroses in the season.
Opening also out of the pleasure-grounds was a large old-fashioned garden, chiefly devoted to fruit and vegetables, though the broad gravel walks that intersected it were lined with wallflowers, carnations, lavender, and hollyhocks. Its four gray walls did not look down upon a “wealth of flowers,”but they were covered with very excellent fruit trees, and they overlooked the best beds of asparagus within a radius of ten miles.