Uncle Silas - J. Sheridan Le Fanu (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

in half an hour did not return. I had a dull longing to leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of poor Milly, it had grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to escape on any terms from it was a blessing unspeakable.

Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably feverish. I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see Madame, who, I feared, was probably to-ing and fro-ing in and out of Uncle Silas’s room.

Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who told her that she thought Madame had gone to her bed half an hour before.

XXIV A Sudden Departure

“Mary,” said I, “I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have to tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much trouble as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she told me?”

“No, Miss Maud,” she answered, rising and drawing near.

“She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place perhaps forever.”

“Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!” said Mary, with more energy than was common with her, “for there is no luck about it, and I don’t expect to see you ever well or happy in it.”

“You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room, upstairs; I found it accidentally myself one evening.”

“But Wyat won’t let us upstairs.”

“Don’t mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I can’t sleep till we hear.”

“What direction is her room in, Miss?” asked Mary.

“Somewhere in that direction, Mary,” I answered, pointing. “I cannot describe the turns; but I think you will find it if you go along the great passage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to the cross-galleries, and then turn to your left; and when you have passed four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she will hear if you call.”

“But will she tell me⁠—she is such a rum ’un, Miss?” suggested Mary.

“Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you already know as much as I do, she may⁠—unless, indeed, she wishes to torture me. If she won’t, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to me for a moment. Try, dear Mary; we can but fail.”

“Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?” asked Mary, uneasily, as she lighted her candle.

“I can’t help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could almost get up and dance and sing. I can’t bear this dreadful uncertainty any longer.”

“If old Wyat is outside, I’ll come back and wait here a bit, till she’s out o’ the way,” said Mary; “and, anyhow, I’ll make all the haste I can. The drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss, by your hand.”

And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly, and did not immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way clear, and had gained the upper story without interruption.

This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a sense of loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which increased at last to such a pitch, that I wondered at my own madness in sending my companion away; and at last my terrors so grew, that I drew back into the farthest corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bedclothes huddled about me, with only a point open to peep at.

At last the door opened gently.

“Who’s there?” I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting I knew not whom.

“Me, Miss,” whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief; and with her candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into the room, locking the door as she entered.

I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast with both my hands as we stood side by side on the floor.

“Mary, you are terrified; for God’s sake, what is the matter?” I cried.

“No, Miss,” said Mary, faintly, “not much.”

“I see it in your face. What is it?”

“Let me sit down, Miss. I’ll tell you what I saw; only I’m just a bit queerish.”

Mary sat down by my bed.

“Get in, Miss; you’ll take cold. Get into bed, and I’ll tell you. It is not much.”

I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary’s frightened face, I felt a corresponding horror.

“For mercy’s sake, Mary, say what it is?”

So again assuring me “it was not much,” she gave me in a somewhat diffuse and tangled narrative the following facts:⁠—

On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and surveyed the lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the stairs swiftly. She passed along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at the cross gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly, and followed the passage to the right.

There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me at which Madame’s was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a bat, which had very nearly put her candle out. She went on a little, paused, and began to lose heart in the dismal solitude, when on a sudden, a few doors farther on, she thought she heard Madame’s voice.

She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, and hearing Madame still talking within, she opened it.

There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a stable lantern near the window. Madame was conversing volubly on the hearth, with her face toward the window, the entire frame of which had been taken from its place: Dickon Hawkes, the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There was a third figure standing, buttoned up in a