Carolyn Wells

Faulkner's Folly Carolyn Wells

Beatrice Faulkner paused a moment, on her way down the great staircase, to gaze curiously at the footman in the lower hall. A perfectly designed and nobly proportioned staircase is perhaps the finest indoor background for a beautiful woman, but though Mrs. Faulkner had often taken advantage of this knowledge, there was no such thought in her mind just now. She descended the few remaining steps, her eyes still fixed on the astonishing sight of a footman's back, when he should have been standing at attention. He might not have heard her soft footfall, but he surely had no business to be peering in at a door very slightly ajar. Faulkner's Folly was the realised dream of the architect who had been its original owner. It was a perfect example of the type known in England as Georgian and in our own country as Colonial, a style inspired by the Italian disciples of Palladio, and as developed by Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, it had seemed to James Faulkner to possess the joint qualities of comfort and dignity that made it ideal for a home. The house was enormous, the rooms perfectly proportioned, and the staircase had been the architect's joy and delight. It showed the wooden wainscoting, which was handed down from the Jacobeans; broad, deep steps with low risers, large, square landings, newels with mitred tops and rather plain balusters. But the carved wood necessary to carry out the plans, the great problems of lighting, the necessity for columned galleries and long, arched and recessed windows, together with the stupendous outlay for appropriate grounds and gardens, overtaxed the available funds and Faulkner's Folly, in little more than two years after its completion, was sold for less than its intrinsic value.