They were
not--decidedly not--"brainy," neither were they accomplished, never
having made any special study of the higher arts; but they evinced
nevertheless the keenest appreciation of painting, music, and
literature. Their library--a large one--boasted a delightful
harbourage of such writers as Jane Austen, Miss Mitford, and Maria
Edgeworth. And in their drawing-room, on the walls of which art was
represented by the old as well as modern masters, might be seen and
sometimes heard--for the Misses Harbordeens often entertained--a
well-tuned Broadwood, and a Bucksen harpsichord. I will describe this
old-world abode, not as I first saw it, for when I first visited my
aunts Amelia and Deborah, I was only one year old, but as I first
remember it--a house with the glamour of a many-gabled roof and
diamond window-panes. The house stood by the side of the turnpike road--that broad, white,
interminable road, originating from goodness knows where in the north,
and passing through Ayr--the nearest town of any importance--to
goodness knows where in the south. A shady avenue, entered by a wooden
swing gate bearing the superscription "Hennersley" in neat, white
letters, led by a circuitous route to it, and not a vestige of it
could be seen from the road. In front of it stretched a spacious lawn,
flanked on either side and at the farthest extremity by a thick growth
of chestnuts, beeches, poplars, and evergreens. The house itself was curiously built. It consisted of two storeys, and
formed a main building and one wing, which gave it a peculiarly
lop-sided appearance that reminded me somewhat ludicrously of
Chanticleer, with a solitary, scant, and clipped appendage. It was often on the tip of my tongue to ask my relatives the reason of
this singular disparity; whether it was the result of a mere whim on
the part of the architect, or whether it had been caused by some
catastrophe; but my curiosity was always held in check by a strange
feeling that my relatives would not like to be approached on the
subject. My aunts Amelia and Deborah belonged to that class of
people, unhappily rare, who possess a power of generating in others an
instinctive knowledge of "dangerous ground"--a power which enabled
them to avert, both from themselves and the might-be offender, many a
painful situation. To proceed--the nakedness of the walls of
Hennersley was veiled--who shall say it was not designedly veiled--by
a thick covering of clematis and ivy, and in the latter innumerable
specimens of the feathered tribe found a sure and safe retreat. On entering the house, one stepped at once into a large hall. A
gallery ran round it, and from the centre rose a broad oak staircase. The rooms, with one or two exceptions, opened into one another, and
were large, and low and long in shape; the walls and floors were of
oak and the ceilings were crossed by ponderous oak beams. The fireplaces, too, were of the oldest fashion; and in their
comfortable ingle-nook my aunts--in the winter--loved to read or knit. When the warm weather came, they made similar use of the deep-set
window-sills, over which they indulgently permitted me to scramble on
to the lawn. The sunlight was a special feature of Hennersley. Forcing its way
through the trellised panes, it illuminated the house with a radiancy,
a soft golden radiancy I have never seen elsewhere. My relatives seemed to possess some phenomenal attraction for the
sunlight, for, no matter where they sat, a beam brighter than the rest
always shone on them; and, when they got up, I noticed that it always
followed them, accompanying them from room to room and along the
corridors. But this was only one of the many pleasant mysteries that added to the
joy of my visits to Hennersley. I felt sure that the house was
enchanted--that it was under the control of some benevolent being who
took a kindly interest in the welfare of my relatives. I remember once, on the occasion of my customary good-morning to Miss
Amelia, who invariably breakfasted in bed, I inhaled the most
delicious odour of heliotrope. It was wafted towards me, in a cool
current of air, as I approached her bed, and seemed, to my childish
fancy, to be the friendly greeting of a sparkling sunbeam that rested
on Miss Amelia's pillow. I was so charmed with the scent, that, alas! forgetful of my manners,
I gave a loud sniff, and with a rapturous smile ejaculated, "Oh! Auntie! Cherry pie!" Miss Amelia started. "Dear me, child!" she exclaimed, "how quietly you
entered. I had no idea you were in the room. Heliotrope is the name of
the scent, my dear, but please do not allude to it again. Your Aunt
Deborah and I are very fond of it"--here she sighed--"but for certain
reasons--reasons you would not understand--we do not like to hear the
word heliotrope mentioned. Kiss me, dear, and run away to your
breakfast." For the first time in my life, perhaps, I was greatly puzzled. I could
not see why I should be forbidden to refer to such a pleasant and
harmless subject--a subject that, looked at from no matter what point
of view, did not appear to me to be in the slightest degree
indelicate. The more I thought over it, the more convinced I became
that there was some association between the scent and the sunbeam,
and in that association I felt sure much of the mystery lay. The house was haunted--agreeably, delightfully haunted by a golden
light, a perfumed radiant light that could only have in my mind one
origin, one creator--Titania--Titania, queen of the fairies, the
guardian angel of my aged, my extremely aged relatives. "Aunt Deborah," I said one morning, as I found her seated in the
embrasure of the breakfast room window crocheting, "Aunt Deborah! You
love the sunlight, do you not?" She turned on me a startled face. "What makes you ask such strange
questions, child?" she said. "Of course I like the--sun. Most people
do. It is no uncommon thing, especially at my age." "But the sunbeams do not follow every one, auntie, do they?" I
persisted. Miss Deborah's crochet fell into her lap. "How queerly you talk," she said, with a curious trembling of her
lips. "How can the sunbeams follow one?" "But they do, auntie, they do indeed!" I cried. "I have often watched
a bright beam of golden light follow Aunt Amelia and you, in
different parts of the room. And it has settled on your lace collar
now." Miss Deborah looked at me very seriously; but the moistening of her
eyes I attributed to the strong light. "Esther," she said, laying one
of her soft hands on my forehead, "there are things God does not want
little girls to understand--question me no more." I obeyed, but henceforth I felt more than ever assured that my aunts,
consciously or unconsciously, shared their charming abode with some
capricious genii, of whose presence in their midst I had become
accidentally aware; and to find out the enchanted neighbourhood of its
mysterious retreat was to me now a matter of all-absorbing importance.