Lady of the house

摘要

The ancient and stately pile of Chats-worth sits in 1,000 acres of parkland, hills and woods in the Peak District of Derbyshire. It contains 297 rooms and 397 windows; and in one of these, facing west, Deborah Devonshire especially liked to sit, revelling in the view to the River Derwent and beyond. Beauty surrounded her, with nothing ugly to be seen anywhere. The house was about the right size for an army of occupation, and sometimes awkward to live in. The 1.3 acres of lead on the roof, weighing 244 tons, tended to spring leaks and buckle ceilings. Moths ate the hangings, timber warped, and beetles feasted on the carpets. It was a terrible place to house-train puppies or lose one's keys, and some of the bathrooms (she had installed 17) were a convenient size for dwarves. But it was breathtaking outside, built in best grey Derbyshire limestone, and inside a most delightful jumble of things glorious and homely: tin baths, tapestries, Old Masters, stags' heads, rampant gilding, marble nudes by Canova, Roman busts (wreathed with tinsel at Christmas), four-posters hung with chintzes two centuries old, and runners to stop aged spaniels injuring themselves on slippery floors.