Читать книгу The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary - Hugh Walpole - Страница 27

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Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the housekeeper, went softly down the passages to give one last glimpse at the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden shell, empty, expectant. The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, shining floor, there the golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties, throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful relief, and none of them so scornful as that Duchess in the far distance, frowning from her golden frame.

Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She worshipped the Beaminster family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms, that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that light upon the shining floor, absorbed the silence and the space and the colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her God that she was not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to assist in no small measure in the glories and splendours of this great family.

Then, with a little sigh of satisfied approval, she softly walked away again.