Читать книгу Period Piece - Gwendolyn Raverat - Страница 15

From that window you could look up the river, under the arching trees, and see far off the cows crossing the ford below the Newnham Millpool, as they went to and from their stables to be milked, four times a day; a very pretty sight. My mother loved watching them; she loved the whole place, and in her romantic fervour she hopefully asked one of the old Misses Beales if there were not a ghost in the house? The old lady replied: 'Oh, we never speak about it! I can't tell you anything about that.' And would say no more. So my mother assumed that there was a ghost of some kind. Years later, this first old lady having meanwhile died, my mother met the surviving sister, and said: 'I wish you would tell me the story of the ghost. Your sister would not tell me anything about it.' Miss Beales seemed displeased and surprised; and hummed and hawed for some time; but at last she said: 'Did my sister really imply that there was a ghost there? That was just like her. She had a very curious sense of humour.' Which was the Victorian way of saying, that she had been pulling my mother's leg. But whether this was really her little joke, or whether both sisters knew of some story they wished to conceal, we were never able to find out. No one ever saw a ghost; but we children all knew very well where the ghost would have lived, if there had been one; by the dark cupboard, on the top landing. The house had a ghostly feeling anyhow.

The architect turned one of the river granaries into a long narrow gallery, overlooking the tennis-court. This court has not proved large enough for the fury of the modern game, but it was quite big enough for the pat-ball tennis of those primitive times, when young and old hopped about together in a gentle and unprofessional manner. He had intended tennis parties to sit in this gallery to watch the game; but as it faces north, it has always been far too cold for that. Also, as he was a really good architect, he naturally built an elegant, carved, stone bow window in the latest Victorian-Gothic style, on to the outer wall of this plain old Georgian granary. This gives an agreeable exotic flavour to the building; in fact, it is so absurd as to be rather charming. But what very odd minds architects do have!

In summer tea was in the garden, under the great copper-beech by the river. It was here that Miss Cecilia Beaux, a well-known American artist, painted my mother's portrait in pastel. She was a fine portrait-painter in the Impressionist tradition, more or less after Manet; and this portrait of my mother is very charming. Miss Beaux was a great friend of my mother's, and was one of the ladies I sometimes used to chaperon (see Chapter VI). She was certainly one of the very few visitors whom I really liked; I believe I was even then interested in her painting.