Уилки Коллинз - No Name

He led the way to the door—stopped, and suddenly bethinking himself of his miniature ship, went back to put his model away in an empty cupboard—led the way to the door again—stopped once more—remembered that some of the rooms were chilly—and pottered about, swearing and grumbling, and looking for his hat. Magdalen sat down patiently to wait for him. She gratefully contrasted his treatment of her with the treatment she had received from the women. Resist it as firmly, despise it as proudly as we may, all studied unkindness—no matter how contemptible it may be—has a stinging power in it which reaches to the quick. Magdalen only knew how she had felt the small malice of the female servants, by the effect which the rough kindness of the old sailor produced on her afterward. The dumb welcome of the dogs, when the movements in the room had roused them from their sleep, touched her more acutely still. Brutus pushed his mighty muzzle companionably into her hand; and Cassius laid his friendly fore–paw on her lap. Her heart yearned over the two creatures as she patted and caressed them. It seemed only yesterday since she and the dogs at Combe–Raven had roamed the garden together, and had idled away the summer mornings luxuriously on the shady lawn.

Old Mazey found his hat at last, and they started on their exploring expedition, with the dogs after them.

Leaving the basement story of the house, which was entirely devoted to the servants' offices, they ascended to the first floor, and entered the long corridor, with which Magdalen's last night's experience had already made her acquainted. "Put your back ag'in this wall," said old Mazey, pointing to the long wall—pierced at irregular intervals with windows looking out over a courtyard and fish–pond—which formed the right–hand side of the corridor, as Magdalen now stood. "Put your back here," said the veteran, "and look straight afore you. What do you see?"—"The opposite wall of the passage," said Magdalen.—"Ay! ay! what else?"—"The doors leading into the rooms."—"What else?"—"I see nothing else." Old Mazey chuckled, winked, and shook his knotty forefinger at Magdalen, impressively. "You see one of the Pints of the Compass, my dear. When you've got your back ag'in this wall, and when you look straight afore you, you look Noathe. If you ever get lost hereaway, put your back ag'in the wall, look out straight afore you, and say to yourself: 'I look Noathe!' You do that like a good girl, and you won't lose your bearings."

After administering this preliminary dose of instruction, old Mazey opened the first of the doors on the left–hand side of the passage. It led into the dining–room, with which Magdalen was already familiar. The second room was fitted up as a library; and the third, as a morning–room. The fourth and fifth doors—both belonging to dismantled and uninhabited rooms, and both locked–brought them to the end of the north wing of the house, and to the opening of a second and shorter passage, placed at a right angle to the first. Here old Mazey, who had divided his time pretty equally during the investigation of the rooms, in talking of "his honor the Admiral," and whistling to the dogs, returned with all possible expedition to the points of the compass, and gravely directed Magdalen to repeat the ceremony of putting her back against the wall. She attempted to shorten the proceedings, by declaring (quite correctly) that in her present position she knew she was looking east. "Don't you talk about the east, my dear," said old Mazey, proceeding unmoved with his own system of instruction, "till you know the east first. Put your back ag'in this wall, and look straight afore you. What do you see?" The remainder of the catechism proceeded as before. When the end was reached, Magdalen's instructor was satisfied. He chuckled and winked at her once more. "Now you may talk about the east, my dear," said the veteran, "for now you know it."

The east passage, after leading them on for a few yards only, terminated in a vestibule, with a high door in it which faced them as they advanced. The door admitted them to a large and lofty drawing–room, decorated, like all the other apartments, with valuable old–fashioned furniture. Leading the way across this room, Magdalen's conductor pushed back a heavy sliding–door, opposite the door of entrance. "Put your apron over your head," said old Mazey. "We are coming to the Banqueting–Hall now. The floor's mortal cold, and the damp sticks to the place like cockroaches to a collier. His honor the admiral calls it the Arctic Passage. I've got my name for it, too—I call it, Freeze–your–Bones."

Magdalen passed through the doorway, and found herself in the ancient Banqueting–Hall of St. Crux.

On her left hand she saw a row of lofty windows, set deep in embrasures, and extending over a frontage of more than a hundred fee t in length. On her right hand, ranged in one long row from end to end of the opposite wall, hung a dismal collection of black, begrimed old pictures, rotting from their frames, and representing battle–scenes by sea and land. Below the pictures, midway down the length of the wall, yawned a huge cavern of a fireplace, surmounted by a towering mantel–piece of black marble. The one object of furniture (if furniture it might be called) visible far or near in the vast emptiness of the place, was a gaunt ancient tripod of curiously chased metal, standing lonely in the middle of the hall, and supporting a wide circular pan, filled deep with ashes from an extinct charcoal fire. The high ceiling, once finely carved and gilt, was foul with dirt and cobwebs; the naked walls at either end of the room were stained with damp; and the cold of the marble floor struck through the narrow strip of matting laid down, parallel with the windows, as a foot–path for passengers across the wilderness of the room. No better name for it could have been devised than the name which old Mazey had found. "Freeze–your–Bones" accurately described, in three words, the Banqueting–Hall at St. Crux.

"Do you never light a fire in this dismal place?" asked Magdalen.

"It all depends on which side of Freeze–your–Bones his honor the admiral lives," said old Mazey. "His honor likes to shift his quarters, sometimes to one side of the house, sometimes to the other. If he lives Noathe of Freeze–your–Bones—which is where you've just come from—we don't waste our coals here. If he lives South of Freeze–your–Bones—which is where we are going to next—we light the fire in the grate and the charcoal in the pan. Every night, when we do that, the damp gets the better of us: every morning, we turn to again, and get the better of the damp."

With this remarkable explanation, old Mazey led the way to the lower end of the Hall, opened more doors, and showed Magdalen through another suite of rooms, four in number, all of moderate size, and all furnished in much the same manner as the rooms in the northern wing. She looked out of the windows, and saw the neglected gardens of St. Crux, overgrown with brambles and weeds. Here and there, at no great distance in the grounds, the smoothly curving line of one of the tidal streams peculiar to the locality wound its way, gleaming in the sunlight, through gaps in the brambles and trees. The more distant view ranged over the flat eastward country beyond, speckled with its scattered little villages; crossed and recrossed by its network of "back–waters"; and terminated abruptly by the long straight line of sea–wall which protects the defenseless coast of Essex from invasion by the sea.

"Have we more rooms still to see?" asked Magdalen, turning from the view of the garden, and looking about her for another door.

"No more, my dear—we've run aground here, and we may as well wear round and put back again," said old Mazey. "There's another side of the house—due south of you as you stand now—which is all tumbling about our ears. You must go out into the garden if you want to see it; it's built off from us by a brick bulkhead, t'other side of this wall here. The monks lived due south of us, my dear, hundreds of years afore his honor the admiral was born or thought of, and a fine time of it they had, as I've heard. They sang in the church all the morning, and drank grog in the orchard all the afternoon. They slept off their grog on the best of feather–beds, and they fattened on the neighborhood all the year round. Lucky beggars! lucky beggars!"