quite that far. I must contrive other mischief. Annie undertook to amuse me in the morning, by a tour of the house. There was hardly a nook of it I had not been into already. With some interest in architecture, it was not to be supposed I had not long since got into all unlocked chambers except the master bedroom. I got in there that morning. How I longed to be at it, rearranging the furniture, stripping the yellowing paper from the walls and putting up new, removing those great heavy pieces and putting in better ones that stood unseen and unused in bedrooms seldom occupied by any guests. In the gold guest suite on the east corner, for instance, sat a perfectly beautiful Queen Anne desk and matching chair, while the master of the house used a scratched mahogany that might have been hammered together by himself, for any aesthetic value it had. Worst of all was that I could not even chide him about it, for I had no idea of announcing what I had been doing, unless Annie blurted it out. Far from impossible, but I counted on her faulty memory.
Next we went to the attics, where I had not earlier ventured, to see that finer furnishings were stored as lumber than graced many of the saloons belowstairs. I could not bring myself to leave up in the dark a satinwood cabinet, Hepplewhite I judged from the straight legs and other details, with delicate pietra-dura panels inlaid on the front doors. “Why do you not have that pretty thing taken down to the main Saloon, Annie?” I asked her.
“Ruth never liked it,” she told me.
Ruth, I had already learned, was Abbie’s mother. She seemed a special deity of Annie’s, often quoted, so that I saw some trouble talking her into bringing it down. It was my intention to place it in lieu of the heavy Kent chest presently forming the focal point of the Saloon. Whether half a dozen stout footmen could ever get the Kent monstrosity up these narrow stairs was a moot point, but they could surely get it out of the Saloon at least, and lose it in some dark corner, of which there were many.
By a series of judicious compliments on the panels, I soon convinced her Ruth could not have had the poor taste to dislike this particular piece. It was the old Kent one in the Green Saloon Ruth detested. She was furious with Ludwig then for having defied his mother’s wishes in removing this one from below. She even set on the occasion when he had done it in spite over some detail in the woman’s will. Giving Annie five hundred pounds, I believe it was. I had to tread warily to make her see it was only forgetfulness on Ludwig’s part that had caused him to be so callous, for I didn’t want a full-scale war on my hands. I needed him in a good mood, and he hadn’t been recently. The thing was done in jig time. It was the smallness of Annie’s bequest that had triggered his anger. Kent was consigned to a corner of the study, a nice dark corner so that it need not be too frequently seen. The Hepplewhite was a vast improvement to the Saloon, except that its delicate lines and coloring rendered more jarring those hideous hunter-green draperies and more insipid the salmon-pink rug. After a few repetitions, Annie tumbled to it she was to disapprove of these two items, and before long she announced, “I shall make Lud change them. See if I don’t! The place was used to be much more stylish when Ruth was alive.”
Ruth, I assumed, must have gone to her maker some several years ago, for that carpet had been without nap for a decade.
“We’ll see if we can’t get it done in time for the New Year’s party,” she said. “A party makes a dandy excuse for a bit of trimming up. We don’t often have a party since Ruth is gone, which is why we have fallen into rack and ruin; (perhaps I ought not to have used such a strong phrase for her to repeat). But at New Year’s, at least we have a do.”
Christmas was fast approaching. It was past mid-December already, the twentieth. To get these things done by New
Next we went to the attics, where I had not earlier ventured, to see that finer furnishings were stored as lumber than graced many of the saloons belowstairs. I could not bring myself to leave up in the dark a satinwood cabinet, Hepplewhite I judged from the straight legs and other details, with delicate pietra-dura panels inlaid on the front doors. “Why do you not have that pretty thing taken down to the main Saloon, Annie?” I asked her.
“Ruth never liked it,” she told me.
Ruth, I had already learned, was Abbie’s mother. She seemed a special deity of Annie’s, often quoted, so that I saw some trouble talking her into bringing it down. It was my intention to place it in lieu of the heavy Kent chest presently forming the focal point of the Saloon. Whether half a dozen stout footmen could ever get the Kent monstrosity up these narrow stairs was a moot point, but they could surely get it out of the Saloon at least, and lose it in some dark corner, of which there were many.
By a series of judicious compliments on the panels, I soon convinced her Ruth could not have had the poor taste to dislike this particular piece. It was the old Kent one in the Green Saloon Ruth detested. She was furious with Ludwig then for having defied his mother’s wishes in removing this one from below. She even set on the occasion when he had done it in spite over some detail in the woman’s will. Giving Annie five hundred pounds, I believe it was. I had to tread warily to make her see it was only forgetfulness on Ludwig’s part that had caused him to be so callous, for I didn’t want a full-scale war on my hands. I needed him in a good mood, and he hadn’t been recently. The thing was done in jig time. It was the smallness of Annie’s bequest that had triggered his anger. Kent was consigned to a corner of the study, a nice dark corner so that it need not be too frequently seen. The Hepplewhite was a vast improvement to the Saloon, except that its delicate lines and coloring rendered more jarring those hideous hunter-green draperies and more insipid the salmon-pink rug. After a few repetitions, Annie tumbled to it she was to disapprove of these two items, and before long she announced, “I shall make Lud change them. See if I don’t! The place was used to be much more stylish when Ruth was alive.”
Ruth, I assumed, must have gone to her maker some several years ago, for that carpet had been without nap for a decade.
“We’ll see if we can’t get it done in time for the New Year’s party,” she said. “A party makes a dandy excuse for a bit of trimming up. We don’t often have a party since Ruth is gone, which is why we have fallen into rack and ruin; (perhaps I ought not to have used such a strong phrase for her to repeat). But at New Year’s, at least we have a do.”
Christmas was fast approaching. It was past mid-December already, the twentieth. To get these things done by New
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