Chapter 11.11 - Shirley

Not naturally very confident. A failure of physical strength and a depression of spirits had not tended to increase Caroline's presence of mind and ease of manner, or to give her additional courage to face strangers. And she quailed, in spite of self-remonstrance, as she and her uncle walked up the broad paved approach leading from the gateway of Field Head to its porch. She followed Mr. Hellstone reluctantly, through that porch into the sombre old vestibule beyond. Very sombre it was. Long, vast, and dark. One latticed window lit it but dimly. The wide old chimney contained now no fire, for the present warm weather needed it not. It was filled instead with willow boughs. The gallery on high, opposite the entrance, was seen but in outline. So shadowy became this hall towards its ceiling. Carved stag's heads, with real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls. This was neither a grand nor a comfortable house. Within, as without, it was antique, rambling, and incommodious. A property of a thousand a year belonged to it, which property had descended, for lack of male heirs, on a female. There were mercantile families in the district boasting twice the income, but the Kieldahs, by virtue of their antiquity and their distinction of Lords of the Manor, took the precedence of awe. Mr. and Miss Hellstone were ushered into a parlour. Of course, as was to be expected, in such a gothic old barrack, this parlour was lined with oak. Fine, dark, glossy panels compassed the walls gloomily and grandly. Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are. Very mellow in colouring and tasteful in effect, but, if you know what a spring clean is, very excreble and inhuman. Whoever, having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with beeswaxed cloths on a warm May day, must allow that they are tolerable and not to be endured.