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Updated: May 18, 2025
It had white-painted woodwork, and built-in bookshelves instead of ordinary bookcases, and lots of window-seats, and chintz draperies which trailed flowers or birds or peacocks, which were like a combination of both, and big wicker chairs with deep cushions all very bright and cosy and beautiful.
To one of these houses the cabman had been directed by a good-natured cheesemonger, at a corner not far off; and here Clarissa found a second-floor a gaunt-looking sitting-room, with three windows and oaken window-seats, sparsely furnished, but inexorably clean; a bedroom adjoining at a rent which seemed moderate to this inexperienced wayfarer.
It had three great uncurtained windows looking into the court, with deep window-seats, olive-coloured painted walls, the worse for damp and wear, a small amount of old-fashioned solid furniture, and all Leonard's individual goods, chiefly disposed of in a cupboard in the wall, but Averil's beautiful water-coloured drawings hung over the chimney.
I remember Maude's naive delight when we inspected it. "You'd never guess what the inside was like, would you, Hugh?" she cried. From the panelled box of an entrance hall one went up a few steps to a drawing-room which had a bowed recess like an oriel, and window-seats. There was a "den" for me, and an octagonal reception-room on the corner.
The time of the day was indicated to our forefathers in their homes by "noon marks" on the floor or window-seats, and by picturesque sundials; and in the civil and religious meetings the passage of time was marked by a strong brass-bound hour-glass, which stood on a desk below or beside the pulpit, or which was raised on a slender iron rod and standard, so that all the members of the congregation could easily watch "the sands that ran i' the clock's behalf."
Not a suggestion there of the fripperies of a fine lady's toilet, but, in their stead, heads of cherubs, wings of angels, slender bell-towers, friezes of acanthus leaves, beauty of line and form everywhere, and not a hint of colour save in the riotous bunches of poppies and oleanders that lie on the broad window-seats or stand upright in great blue jars.
His imagination was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa Here." "Stove Here."
She led them indoors, and showed them how the ancient edifice had been encased by the modern house, and bade them note, from the deep shelving window-seats, that the stone walls were three feet thick.
The carved coffers, the solid tables, the spacious window-seats, the well-fitting cabinets let into the walls, the carefully wrought metal-work we see there are not luxurious; their merit is quite other than that. In workmanship as in design, how utterly do they put to shame the contents of the ordinary "luxuriously furnished apartments" of the present day!
It was, perhaps, a thought too pale mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a little devitalised, even wan.... Yes, decidedly it would bear a robuster note more and richer flowers, and possibly some warm and gay stuff for cushions for the window-seats.... "Of course, I really can't afford it," he muttered, as he went for a two-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses....
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