_The First Waking_.
While I hesitated, Nature had her own way, and, with a deep-drawn sigh,
Lady Alice opened her eyes. Never shall I forget the look of mingled
bewilderment, alarm, and shame, with which her great eyes met mine. But,
in a moment, this expression changed to that of anger. Her dark eyes
flashed with light; and a cloud of roseate wrath grew in her face, till
it glowed with the opaque red of a camellia. She had almost started from
the couch, when, apparently discovering the unsuitableness of her dress,
she checked her impetuosity, and remained leaning on her elbow. Overcome
by her anger, her beauty, and my own confusion, I knelt before her,
unable to speak, or to withdraw my eyes from hers. After a moment’s
pause, she began to question me like a queen, and I to reply like a
culprit.
“How did I come here?”
“I carried you.”
“Where did you find me, pray?”
Her lip curled with ten times the usual scorn.
“In the old house, in a long corridor.”
“What right had you to be there?”
“I heard a cry, and could not help going.”
“Tis impossible.--I see. Some wretch told you, and you watched for me.”
“I did not, Lady Alice.”
She burst into tears, and fell back on the couch, with her face turned
away. Then, anger reviving, she went on through her sobs:--
“Why did you not leave me where I fell? You had done enough to hurt me
without bringing me here.”
And again she fell a-weeping.
Now I found words.
“Lady Alice,” I said, “how could I leave you lying in the moonlight?
Before the sun rose, the terrible moon might have distorted your
beautiful face.”
“Be silent, sir. What have you to do with my face?”
“And the wind, Lady Alice, was blowing through the corridor windows,
keen and cold as the moonlight. How could I leave you?”
“You could have called for help.”
“Forgive me, Lady Alice, if I erred in thinking you would rather command
the silence of a gentleman to whom an accident had revealed your secret,
than be exposed to the domestics who would have gathered round us.”
Again she half raised herself, and again her eyes flashed.
“A secret with _you_, sir!”
“But, besides, Lady Alice,” I cried, springing to my feet, in distress
at her hardness, “I heard the horse with the clanking shoe, and, in
terror, I caught you up, and fled with you, almost before I knew what I
did. And I hear it now--I hear it now!” I cried, as once more the
ominous sound rang through my brain.
The angry glow faded from her face, and its paleness grew almost ghastly
with dismay.
“Do _you_ hear it?” she said, throwing back her covering, and rising
from the couch. “I do not.”
She stood listening with distended eyes, as if _they_ were the gates by
which such sounds entered.
“I do not hear it,” she said again, after a pause. “It must be gone
now.” Then, turning to me, she laid her hand on my arm, and looked at
me. Her black hair, disordered and entangled, wandered all over her
white dress to her knees. Her face was paler than ever; and her eyes
were so wide open that I could see the white all round the large dark
iris.
“Did you hear it?” she said. “No one ever heard it before but me. I must
forgive you--you could not help it. I will trust you, too. Take me to my
room.”
Without a word of reply, I wrapped my plaid about her. Then bethinking
me of my chamber-candle, I lighted it, and opening the two doors, led
her out of the room.
“How is this?” she asked. “Why do you take me this way? I do not know
the place.”
“This is the way I brought you in, Lady Alice,” I answered. “I know no
other way to the spot where I found you. And I can guide you no farther
than there--hardly even so far, for I groped my way there for the first
time this night or morning--whichever it may be.”
“It is past midnight, but not morning yet,” she replied, “I always know.
But there must be another way from your room?”
“Yes, of course; but we should have to pass the housekeeper’s door--she
is always late.”
“Are we near her room? I should know my way from there. I fear it would
not surprise any of the household to see me. They would say--‘It is only
Lady Alice.’ Yet I cannot tell you how I shrink from being seen. No--I
will try the way you brought me--if you do not mind going back with me.”
This conversation passed in low tone and hurried words. It was scarcely
over before we found ourselves at the foot of the staircase. Lady Alice
shivered, and drew the plaid close round her.
We ascended, and soon found the corridor; but when we got through it,
she was rather bewildered. At length, after looking into several of the
rooms, empty all, except for stray articles of ancient furniture, she
exclaimed, as she entered one, and, taking the candle from my hand, held
it above her head--
“Ah, yes! I am right at last. This is the haunted room. I know my way
now.”
I caught a darkling glimpse of a large room, apparently quite furnished;
but how, except from the general feeling of antiquity and mustiness, I
could not tell. Little did I think then what memories--old, now, like
the ghosts that with them haunt the place--would ere long find their
being and take their abode in that ancient room, to forsake it never
more. In strange, half-waking moods, I seem to see the ghosts and the
memories flitting together through the spectral moonlight, and weaving
mystic dances in and out of the storied windows and the tapestried
walls.
At the door of this room she said, “I must leave you here. I will put
down the light a little further on, and you can come for it. I owe you
many thanks. You will not be afraid of being left so near the haunted
room?”
I assured her that at present I felt strong enough to meet all the
ghosts in or out of Hades. Turning, she smiled a sad, sweet smile, then
went on a few paces, and disappeared. The light, however, remained; and
I found the candle, with my plaid, deposited at the foot of a short
flight of steps, at right angles to the passage she left me in. I made
my way back to my room, threw myself on the couch on which she had so
lately lain, and neither went to bed nor slept that night. Before the
morning, I had fully entered that phase of individual development
commonly called _love_, of which the real nature is as great a mystery
to me now, as it was at any period previous to its evolution in myself.