VII
THE FIRST NIGHT
I spoke with a due regard to truth when I assured Miss Knollys that Ientertained no fears at the prospect of sleeping apart from the rest ofthe family. I am a woman of courage--or so I have always believed--andat home occupy my second floor alone without the least apprehension. Butthere is a difference in these two abiding-places, as I think you areready by this time to acknowledge, and, though I felt little of what iscalled fear, I certainly did not experience my usual satisfaction in theminute preparations with which I am accustomed to make myselfcomfortable for the night. There was a gloom both within and without thefour bare walls between which I now found myself shut, which I wouldhave been something less than human not to feel, and though I had nodread of being overcome by it, I was glad to add something to the cheerof the spot by opening my trunk and taking out a few of those littlematters of personal equipment without which the brightest room looksbarren and a den like this too desolate for habitation.
Then I took a good look about me to see how I could obtain for myselfsome sense of security. The bed was light and could be pulled in frontof the door. This was something. There was but one window, and that wasclosely draped with some thick, dark stuff, very funereal in itsappearance. Going to it, I pulled aside the thick folds and looked out.A mass of heavy foliage at once met my eye, obstructing the view of thesky and adding much to the lonesomeness of the situation. I let thecurtain fall again and sat down in a chair to think.
The shortness of the candle-end with which I had been provided hadstruck me as significant, so significant that I had not allowed it toburn long after Miss Knollys had left me. If these girls, charming, nodoubt, but sly, had thought to shorten my watch by shortening my candle,I would give them no cause to think but that their ruse had beensuccessful. The foresight which causes me to add a winter wrap to mystock of clothing even when the weather is at the hottest, leads me toplace a half dozen or so of candles in my travelling trunk, and so I hadonly to open a little oblong box in the upper tray to have the means atmy disposal of keeping a light all night.
So far, so good. I had a light, but had I anything else in case WilliamKnollys--but with this thought Miss Knollys's look and reassuring wordsrecurred to me. "Whatever you may hear--if you hear anything--will haveno reference to yourself and need not disturb you."
This was comforting certainly, from a selfish standpoint; but did itrelieve my mind concerning others?
Not knowing what to think of it all, and fully conscious that sleepwould not visit me under existing circumstances, I finally made up mymind not to lie down till better assured that sleep on my part would bedesirable. So after making the various little arrangements alreadyalluded to, I drew over my shoulders a comfortable shawl and set myselfto listen for what I feared would be more than one dreary hour of thisnot to be envied night.
And here just let me stop to mention that, carefully considered as allmy precautions were, I had forgotten one thing upon leaving home whichat this minute made me very nearly miserable. I had not included amongmy effects the alcohol lamp and all the other private and particularconveniences which I possess for making tea in my own apartment. Had Ibut had them with me, and had I been able to make and sip a cup of myown delicious tea through the ordeal of listening for whatever soundsmight come to disturb the midnight stillness of this house, what reliefit would have been to my spirits and in what a different light I mighthave regarded Mr. Gryce and the mission with which I had been intrusted.But I not only lacked this element of comfort, but the satisfaction ofthinking that it was any one's fault but my own. Lena had laid her handon that teapot, but I had shaken my head, fearing that the sight of itmight offend the eyes of my young hostesses. But I had not calculatedupon being put in a remote corner like this of a house large enough toaccommodate a dozen families, and if ever I travel again----
But this is a matter personal to Amelia Butterworth, and of no interestto you. I will not inflict my little foibles upon you again.
Eleven o'clock came and went. I had heard no sound. Twelve, and I beganto think that all was not quite so still as before; that I certainlycould hear now and then faint noises as of a door creaking on itshinges, or the smothered sound of stealthily moving feet. Yet all was sofar from being distinct, that for some time I hesitated to acknowledgeto myself that anything could be going on in the house, which was not tobe looked for in a home professing to be simply the abode of a decentyoung man and two very quiet-appearing young ladies; and even after thenoises and whispering had increased to such an extent that I could evendistinguish the sullen tones of the brother from the softer and morecarefully modulated accents of Lucetta and her sister, I found myselfready to explain the matter by any conjecture short of that whichinvolved these delicate young ladies in any scheme of secret wickedness.
But when I found there was likely to be no diminution in the variousnoises and movements that were taking place in the front of the house,and that only something much out of the ordinary could account for somuch disturbance in a country home so long after midnight, I decidedthat only a person insensible to all sight and sound could be expectedto remain asleep under such circumstances, and that I would be perfectlyjustified in their eyes in opening my door and taking a peep down thecorridor. So without further ado, I drew my bed aside and glanced out.
All was perfectly dark and silent in the great house. The only lightvisible came from the candle burning in the room behind me, and as forsound, it was almost too still--it was the stillness of intent ratherthan that of natural repose.
This was so unexpected that for an instant I stood baffled andwondering. Then my nose went up, and I laughed quietly to myself. Icould see nothing and I could hear nothing; but Amelia Butterworth, likemost of her kind, boasts of more than two senses, and happily there wassomething to smell. A quickly blown-out candle leaves a witness behindit to sensitive nostrils like mine, and this witness assured me that thedarkness was deceptive. Some one had just passed the head of my corridorwith a light, and because the light was extinguished it did not followthat the person who held it was far away. Indeed, I thought that now Iheard a palpitating breath.
"Humph," I cried aloud, but as if in unconscious communion with myself,"it is not often I have so vivid a dream! I was sure that I heard stepsin the hall. I fear I'm growing nervous."
Nothing moved. No one answered me.
"Miss Knollys!" I called firmly.
No reply.
"Lucetta, dear!"
I thought this appeal would go unanswered also, but when I raised myvoice for the third time, a sudden rushing sound took place down thecorridor, and Lucetta's excited figure, fully dressed, appeared in thefaint circle of light caused by my now rapidly waning candle.
"Miss Butterworth, what is the matter?" she asked, making as if shewould draw me into my room--a proceeding which I took good care sheshould not succeed in.
Giving a glance at her dress, which was the same she had worn at thesupper table, I laughingly retorted:
"Isn't that a question I might better ask you? It is two o'clock by mywatch, and you, for all your apparent delicacy, are still up. What doesit mean, my dear? Have I put you out so completely by my coming thatnone of you can sleep?"
Her eyes, which had fallen before mine, quickly looked up.
"I am sorry," she began, flushing and trying to take a peep into myroom, possibly to see if I had been to bed. "We did not mean to disturbyou, but--but--oh, Miss Butterworth, pray excuse our makeshifts and ourpoverty. We wished to fix up another room for you, and were ashamed tohave you see how little we had to do it with, so we were moving somethings out of our own room to-night, and----"
Here her voice broke, and she burst into an almost uncontrollable floodof tears.
"Don't," she entreated, "don't," as, quite thoroughly ashamed, I beganto utter some excuses. "I shall be all right in a moment. I am used tohumiliations. Only"--and her whole body seemed to join in the plea, ittrembled so--"do not, I pray, speak quite so loud. My br
other is moresensitive than even Loreen and myself about these things, and if heshould hear----"
Here a suppressed oath from way down the hall assured me that he didhear, but I gave no sign of my recognition of this fact, and Lucettaadded quickly: "He would not forgive us for our carelessness in wakingyou. He is rough sometimes, but so good at heart, so good."
This, with the other small matter I have just mentioned, caused arevulsion in my feelings. He good? I did not believe it. Yet her eyesshowed no wavering when I interrogated them with mine, and feeling thatI had perhaps been doing them all an injustice, and that what I had seenwas, as she evidently meant to intimate, due to their efforts to make asudden guest comfortable amid their poverty, I put the best face I couldon the matter and gave the poor, pitiful, pleading face a kiss. I wasstartled to feel how cold her forehead was, and, more and moreconcerned, loaded her down with such assurances of appreciation as cameto my lips, and sent her back to her own room with an injunction not totrouble herself any more about fixing up any other room for me. "Only,"I added, as her whole face showed relief, "we will go to the locksmithto-morrow and get a key; and after to-night you will be kind enough tosee that I have a cup of tea brought to my room just before I retire. Iam no good without my cup of tea, my dear. What keeps other people awakemakes me sleep."
"Oh, you shall have your tea!" she cried, with an eagerness that wasalmost unnatural, and then, slipping from my grasp, she uttered anotherhasty apology for having roused me from my sleep and ran hastily back.
I stretched out my arm for the candle guttering in my room and held itup to light her. She seemed to shrink at sight of its rays, and the lastvision I had of her speeding figure showed me that same look of dread onher pallid features which had aroused my interest in our firstinterview.
"She may have explained why the three of them are up at this time ofnight," I muttered, "but she has not explained why her everyconversation is seasoned by an expression of fear."
And thus brooding, I went back to my room and, pushing the bed againagainst the door, lay down upon it and out of sheer chagrin fell fastasleep.