ALARMS.
“Have you a headache, my dear? I am sure you have a headache. You are
looking quite ghostly. Poor little thing! you look as if you had not
slept all night.”
“Oh, it is nothing,” said Hetty. “I didn’t sleep very well, I got off my
sleep somehow.”
“I know; people talk about the sleep of youth, but I can remember many
nights, when I was a girl like you, when I never closed my eyes. Take
your tea, my dear, and it will refresh you. I suppose as you couldn’t
sleep you got to thinking, and cried for your mother like a baby, and to
go home.”
“Oh, Miss Hofland!” cried Hetty.
“Yes, I know very well how girls do who have got mothers to cry after. I
used to envy them, not having one. Don’t cry now, but take your
breakfast and cheer up a little. Have a little of this nice toast. When
you cannot have what you want, you should try to get all the good you
can out of what you have,” the governess said. This philosophy of her
profession was dreary, and not suited to Hetty’s tremulous and
unaccustomed ease.
“Didn’t you sleep?” said Rhoda. “Oh, isn’t it awfully quiet in the night
when one can’t sleep?” The child, who had thawed very much out of her
first gravity, threw her arms round Hetty and kissed her; but while she
gave her this embrace asked, with a nervous whisper in her ear, “Did you
hear anything?--did you see anything?” with an anxious look.
“I heard the stable clock, and the hours striking from the village,”
said Hetty. “Oh! don’t say anything more. It was only that I couldn’t
sleep.”
Mrs. Mills looked keenly at her from the other side of the table. She
seemed to examine the girl’s pale face with questioning eyes. She came
in every morning while they were at breakfast, for orders, she said, but
there were never any orders to give her. She suggested what there was to
be for dinner, if the ladies pleased; and the ladies generally did
please, though Miss Hofland, to show her independence, would make an
alteration now and then.
“It’s cheerful to hear the clocks when one can’t sleep,” said Mrs.
Mills, as if it were possible that she could have heard Rhoda’s
question. “And in this quiet place there is nothing else to hear, unless
one was to believe the stories of the ghosts about the place, and
there’s not much sense in them.”
“I beg you won’t speak of anything of the kind before Miss Rhoda!” cried
the governess, sharply. “And you, Hetty, you’re trembling, you silly
child!”
“N--no, Miss Hofland,” Hetty said; but her head was racked with pain,
and she scarcely knew what she said. Was it a ghost she had seen, a
disembodied soul? She had not been so entirely without sleep as she
thought, but had dozed and woke again, always in a fever of alarm and
misery, recalling to herself the long muffled figure, the slow, soft,
noiseless movements, the winding out and in of the flower beds where the
yellow and brown heads of the chrysanthemums drooped in the frost. It
seemed to stand before her now as Mrs. Mills stood--though very unlike
Mrs. Mills--a long thin figure, wrapped from head to foot in some
clinging garment.
“If I speak it is in a joke,” said Mrs. Mills; “you don’t think I
believe in anything of the sort?”
“I don’t admire that kind of joking,” Miss Hofland said. “Rhoda, come,
if you have finished your breakfast it is quite time to begin lessons. I
think we are a little late to-day.”
Hetty followed, heavy-eyed and heavy-hearted, her mind oppressed with
the secret, which was a burden almost beyond her power of supporting.
Should she tell Miss Hofland? she kept asking herself. Should she ask
Mrs. Mills? And oh! what was it? it was no thief watching the house, of
that Hetty was sure. The fantastic movements of the figure among those
flower-beds came up before her eyes a hundred times, and made her almost
cry out with terror. She remembered the very poise of the figure, light,
with a little swing in the step. Could that be a ghost that moved in
such a human way, not gliding, not mystical, as ghosts are described as
being? Her head turned round as again and again the moonlight scene rose
before her. It seemed impossible to get it out of her eyes. She closed
them, to rest her hot strained eyeballs, and lo, there it was before her
in those wonderful contrasts of black and white, so clear, so clear! the
broad stretch of wistful silvery mist and distance behind, the black
solid line of the moving object, the tall flowers drooping their heads,
the trees gathering like spectators on every side. The hum of the voices
near her was to Hetty’s ears like a monotonous murmur without meaning.
When it came to her turn to read or answer a question, she raised a
white face without intelligence to the governess. “My dear, you have not
been attending,” Miss Hofland cried, astonished; but this by degrees
changed into, “My dear, you must be ill. Is your head bad? have you
caught cold? What is the matter?” Miss Hofland was very philosophical on
her own account, but to the young people under her charge she was kind,
and it was understood in her code of laws that a headache was always to
be respected, being in some sort a girl’s only refuge in heartache and
all other ills.
“I feel dreadfully stupid,” said Hetty, not knowing how to excuse
herself.
“It is your head that is bad. You will be better if you will go and lie
down,” said Miss Hofland; but this was a remedy that made Hetty shiver.
Lie down with her face towards the window from which she had seen that
sight, or, worse still, turning her back to it, so that the figure
might be performing any kind of wild gyration behind her! This made the
throbbing in her head and the fluttering at her heart worse than ever.
“Oh no!” she cried, “I don’t want to lie down; let me stay here--oh! let
me stay with you. It is so much nicer to be with you.”
“Then lie down on the sofa,” said the governess, “and try to go to
sleep. Poor little thing! how you are trembling, your nerves are all
wrong. That’s what it is to have a _nuit blanche_ when one is young.”
“Did you hear anything, Hetty? did you see anything?” cried little Rhoda
in her ear, while Miss Hofland covered her up. Hetty, in the agony of
her unwonted secret, did not know how to make any reply. She had never
known what it was to have a secret before. To know something which she
kept to herself seemed wrong to Hetty. If there ever was any little
thing unknown to mamma, such as that project for the private paying of
the bills, it was breathed to Janey. Little secrets about Christmas
presents and suchlike--secrets so little, so innocent--were always
shared with somebody. To have this dark knowledge in her heart, and
nobody to tell it to, made Hetty’s heart sick. And Rhoda’s big eyes
appealing to her made everything more difficult. She had heard nothing,
not a sound, which made what she had seen still more weird and
unearthly. And what did the child mean, whispering as if she had a
secret too?
Hetty, however, slumbered a little in the warm room, with the protecting
sense of society round her, and the hum of the voices in her ears.
Nothing could happen there to her that would not be known. If that thing
should really appear again, at least Miss Hofland would be there to see
it too. This soothed and brought the ease of rest to the feverish brain.
But when night came again, and Hetty had to go to bed by herself in that
room, with the window as usual open to the sky, and the formal
flower-beds with the chrysanthemums all spread out in the moonlight,
and the consciousness that Miss Hofland had turned the key in her door,
and shut herself off from all possibility of appeal, Hetty’s sensations
of alarm were indescribable. She rushed to the window and drew the
curtains close that she might not see out; then, feeling still more
intolerable the thought that outside, in the whiteness of the moon, that
ghastly thing might be pacing, drew them back again in a panic, and
gazed out in a trance of speechless terror. But the white light fell
unbroken over the garden, and the long vista of the park opened before
her, a wistful vacancy stretching to the sky, without a living thing to
disturb the scene. Hetty stood clinging to the curtains, half hidden in
their folds, as if she were herself afraid to be seen, for a long time,
she did not know how long. But there was no movement or shadow upon the
undisturbed stillness, and ghostly, motionless, half-frozen calm
without. She stood there till she was chilled to the heart with cold;
her fire had gone out; her candles were nearly burnt to the socket, and
nature began to assert her rights. The stable clock shrilling all the
hours close at hand, and the village clock booming in a minute after
like a bass accompaniment, were half consoling, half alarming. Twelve!
how long it took to strike! and was not this the hour “when churchyards
yawn and graves give up----” Hetty hung upon the curtains, half
unconscious, for a minute or two; if she had not grasped them so she
would have fallen, and probably fainted. But the support of the heavy,
thick folds, which sustained her slight little figure, kept her from
that climax. And after a time she crept to bed and slept soundly, and
woke wondering at herself; trying to laugh at herself; chiding herself
for all this excitement. Her night’s rest had restored her nerves. She
appeared at breakfast, if still a little tremulous, yet herself again,
and smiled as she met Miss Hofland’s sympathetic inquiries, and Mrs.
Mills’ keen look. Why did Mrs. Mills look at her with that gaze of
suspicion? and little Rhoda, with her big eyes, seizing the first
opportunity to whisper, “Did you hear anything?” The look and the
question raised again a little flutter in her spirits, but she felt
brave in the strength of her night’s sleep, and of the passage of time,
which has always a soothing effect: and began to forget.
Another night passed, and she saw nothing, and then another day. The
girl felt more safe; life began to wear its usual aspect. It might be
one of the servants after all; some one, perhaps, who did not venture to
go into the garden during the day, and who had heard of the
chrysanthemums; or it might be the gardener, stealing out to cover some
of his more delicate plants. None of those common-sense explanations had
occurred to Hetty at first. They came upon her now in a crowd. Of course
she said to herself, How foolish not to have thought of it before! The
frosts were beginning to be harder every night; what more natural than
that the gardener should take every precaution against the severe
weather? In the reaction from her panic, Hetty became more cheerful,
more gay than ever. If suddenly her vision came before her eyes and
chilled her, she flung it away, saying to herself: how silly! Why was it
that she had not seen how easily the thing was to be accounted for
before?
This continued for some time. She was not so courageous when she went
into her room at night. There she invariably passed half an hour or so
enveloped in the curtains, gazing out; but with less and less alarm,
sometimes even with a little bravado, opening her window, giving herself
the keen and thrilling sensations of the wintry night. And a long time
passed before she had any occasion for a renewal of her alarm. It was
close upon Christmas when the second incident occurred. Suddenly, in the
grey of a rainy night, as she took her accustomed stand, something
seemed to move outside, and brought her heart with a leap into her
throat. Something moved; that was all. She could distinguish nothing;
the grey of the night, the soft haze of the falling rain, filled up the
landscape. The opening of the park was but a pale blotch upon the
surrounding darkness. After the first moment of pain, Hetty chid
herself again. Yes, she said to herself, something moved. Of that there
was no doubt; the rain falling down straight through the windless air
moved, of course, keeping a sensation of flow and action in the
immovable atmosphere. But this did not still the beating of her heart.
She pressed close to the window, holding it with her hand, peering out
into the grey. To see anything was impossible through the veil of that
falling rain. It went on, not violently--softly, a gentle cold stream of
imperceptible drops, soaking everything, obliterating sound and sight.
Who could see, had they the sharpest eyes in the world, through that
mist of continuous dropping? who could hear anything, had they ears as
keen as those of a savage? And yet Hetty, with her heart beating so loud
that it filled all the world with commotion, both heard and saw and knew
that something--she could not tell what--something living, that had a
will and action of its own, was somewhere near her outside, disguised
and enveloped in the soft pouring of the rain. She said to herself, the
gardener, one of the servants, as she had done before; but her heart was
sick with terror. She could not satisfy herself with that argument; half
the night through she watched; and yet she could not say that she had
seen anything. No, nothing at all, nothing at all! but she felt in every
fibre, in every nerve, that someone had been there.
This time she resolved on telling Miss Hofland. It was impossible to
live under the spell of this terror. She must, at least--she must--have
somebody to share it; and insensibly she began to hope that perhaps Miss
Hofland, being older, and having seen so much in her life, might be able
to suggest some explanation, and clear the mystery up. Hetty slept
little that night. Her resolution gave her a little steadiness, but it
did not restore her calm; and in the dawn of the winter morning she was
up before any one, unable to rest. When there was something like
daylight in the grey skies, a ghost of morning just making the garden
and its formal flower-beds visible, she stole again to her window; and
finally, encouraged by the hour, and the consciousness that, though
there was still so little light, it was day and not night that was
approaching, opened it softly and stole out. The rain had ceased, but
everything was sodden and wet, her foot sinking into the spongy grass,
which came close up to the window ledge. There was nothing there that
could conceal any lurking figure. If there had been anything, any
clandestine visitor, whoever it was must have crouched by the wall,
close, close to where she stood within. Hetty thought she saw some of
the moss upon the wall scraped away as by some one rubbing against it;
and her heart sprang up once more with the flutter of terror to think of
this possibility. Only the wall between her--so young, so frightened,
and helpless--and that presence, whether spirit or man, whatever it was.
It was all she could do to stand upon her trembling limbs and keep
upright, though it was now morning and no longer dark. And when suddenly
something appeared round the corner of
[Illustration: “I FEAR I HAVE DISTURBED YOU” (_p. 243_).]
the house, a dark figure making its way towards her, she could not
restrain a scream as she flew back to the shelter of her window. Quick
as her movements were, she was not quick enough, however, to elude this
presence; and Hetty’s fear gave place to a stupefied astonishment when
she recognised the doctor, Mr. Darrell, who touched her shoulder, and
called her by her name.
“Let me speak to you a moment,” he said, breathlessly. “I fear I have
disturbed you--perhaps more than once.”
“You!” was all that Hetty could say, panting with fright, relief, and
profound surprise above all. He was in his usual dress, looking somehow
as if he had not taken it off all night, and looked harassed and pale.
“Yes,” he said. “I was afraid you had seen me, and might be frightened.
I have a patient with whom I have to be at all hours, both night and
day; who is not quite sane but quite harmless. Forgive me; and might I
ask you not to speak of it to frighten the house?”
[Illustration]