Amabel Channice
BY
Anne Douglas Sedgwick
AUTHOR OF "THE RESCUE," "PATHS OF JUDGEMENT,"
"A FOUNTAINSEALED," ETC.
NEW YORK
The Century Co.
1908
Copyright, 1908, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Published October, 1908
THE DE VINNE PRESS
AMABEL CHANNICE
I
ady Channice was waiting for her son to come in from the garden. Theafternoon was growing late, but she had not sat down to the table,though tea was ready and the kettle sent out a narrow banner of steam.Walking up and down the long room she paused now and then to look at thebowls and vases of roses placed about it, now and then to look out ofthe windows, and finally at the last window she stopped to watchAugustine advancing over the lawn towards the house. It was a grey stonehouse, low and solid, its bareness unalleviated by any grace of ornamentor structure, and its two long rows of windows gazed out resignedly at atame prospect. The stretch of lawn sloped to a sunken stone wall; beyondthe wall a stream ran sluggishly in a ditch-like channel; on the leftthe grounds were shut in by a sycamore wood, and beyond were flatmeadows crossed in the distance by lines of tree-bordered roads. It wasa peaceful, if not a cheering prospect. Lady Channice was fond of it.Cheerfulness was not a thing she looked for; but she looked for peace,and it was peace she found in the flat green distance, the far, reticentripple of hill on the horizon, the dark forms of the sycamores. Her onlyregret for the view was that it should miss the sunrise and sunset; inthe evenings, beyond the silhouetted woods, one saw the golden sky; butthe house faced north, and it was for this that the green of the lawnwas so dank, and the grey of the walls so cold, and the light in thedrawing-room where Lady Channice stood so white and so monotonous.
She was fond of the drawing-room, also, unbeautiful and grave to sadnessthough it was. The walls were wainscotted to the ceiling with ancientoak, so that though the north light entered at four high windows theroom seemed dark. The furniture was ugly, miscellaneous andinappropriate. The room had been dismantled, and in place of the formerdrawing-room suite were gathered together incongruous waifs and straysfrom dining- and smoking-room and boudoir. A number of heavy chairspredominated covered in a maroon leather which had cracked in places;and there were three lugubrious sofas to match.
By degrees, during her long and lonely years at Charlock House, LadyChannice had, at first tentatively, then with a growing assurance in herlimited sphere of action, moved away all the ugliest, most trivialthings: tattered brocade and gilt footstools, faded antimacassars,dismal groups of birds and butterflies under glass cases. When she satalone in the evening, after Augustine, as child or boy, had gone to bed,the ghostly glimmer of the birds, the furtive glitter of a glass eyehere and there, had seemed to her quite dreadful. The removal of thecases (they were large and heavy, and Mrs. Bray, the housekeeper, hadlooked grimly disapproving)—was her crowning act of courage, and