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2. TWO TO FIVE A.M.

2. TWO TO FIVE A.M.With Cytherea it was otherwise. Unused to the place and

circumstances, she continued wakeful, ill at ease, and mentally

distressed. She withdrew herself from her companion's embrace,

turned to the other side, and endeavoured to relieve her busy brain

by looking at the window-blind, and noticing the light of the

rising moon—now in her last quarter—creep round upon it: it was the

light of an old waning moon which had but a few days longer to

live.

The sight led her to think again of what had happened under the

rays of the same month's moon, a little before its full, the

ecstatic evening scene with Edward: the kiss, and the shortness of

those happy moments—maiden imagination bringing about the

apotheosis of a status quo which had had several unpleasantnesses

in its earthly reality.

But sounds were in the ascendant that night. Her ears became

aware of a strange and gloomy murmur.

She recognized it: it was the gushing of the waterfall, faint

and low, brought from its source to the unwonted distance of the

House by a faint breeze which made it distinct and recognizable by

reason of the utter absence of all disturbing sounds. The groom's

melancholy representation lent to the sound a more dismal effect

than it would have had of its own nature. She began to fancy what

the waterfall must be like at that hour, under the trees in the

ghostly moonlight. Black at the head, and over the surface of the

deep cold hole into which it fell; white and frothy at the fall;

black and white, like a pall and its border; sad everywhere.

She was in the mood for sounds of every kind now, and strained

her ears to catch the faintest, in wayward enmity to her quiet of

mind. Another soon came.

The second was quite different from the first—a kind of

intermittent whistle it seemed primarily: no, a creak, a metallic

creak, ever and anon, like a plough, or a rusty wheelbarrow, or at

least a wheel of some kind. Yes, it was, a wheel—the water-wheel in

the shrubbery by the old manor-house, which the coachman had said

would drive him mad.

She determined not to think any more of these gloomy things; but

now that she had once noticed the sound there was no sealing her

ears to it. She could not help timing its creaks, and putting on a

dread expectancy just before the end of each half-minute that

brought them. To imagine the inside of the engine-house, whence

these noises proceeded, was now a necessity. No window, but

crevices in the door, through which, probably, the moonbeams

streamed in the most attenuated and skeleton-like rays, striking

sharply upon portions of wet rusty cranks and chains; a glistening

wheel, turning incessantly, labouring in the dark like a captive

starving in a dungeon; and instead of a floor below, gurgling

water, which on account of the darkness could only be heard; water

which laboured up dark pipes almost to where she lay.

She shivered. Now she was determined to go to sleep; there could

be nothing else left to be heard or to imagine—it was horrid that

her imagination should be so restless. Yet just for an instant

before going to sleep she would think this—suppose another

sound should come—just suppose it should! Before

the thought had well passed through her brain, a third sound

came.

The third was a very soft gurgle or rattle—of a strange and

abnormal kind—yet a sound she had heard before at some past period

of her life—when, she could not recollect. To make it the more

disturbing, it seemed to be almost close to her—either close

outside the window, close under the floor, or close above the

ceiling. The accidental fact of its coming so immediately upon the

heels of her supposition, told so powerfully upon her excited

nerves that she jumped up in the bed. The same instant, a little

dog in some room near, having probably heard the same noise, set up

a low whine. The watch-dog in the yard, hearing the moan of his

associate, began to howl loudly and distinctly. His melancholy

notes were taken up directly afterwards by the dogs in the kennel a

long way off, in every variety of wail.

One logical thought alone was able to enter her flurried brain.

The little dog that began the whining must have heard the other two

sounds even better than herself. He had taken no notice of them,

but he had taken notice of the third. The third, then, was an

unusual sound.

It was not like water, it was not like wind; it was not the

night-jar, it was not a clock, nor a rat, nor a person snoring.

She crept under the clothes, and flung her arms tightly round

Miss Aldclyffe, as if for protection. Cytherea perceived that the

lady's late peaceful warmth had given place to a sweat. At the

maiden's touch, Miss Aldclyffe awoke with a low scream.

She remembered her position instantly. 'O such a terrible

dream!' she cried, in a hurried whisper, holding to Cytherea in her

turn; 'and your touch was the end of it. It was dreadful. Time,

with his wings, hour-glass, and scythe, coming nearer and nearer to

me—grinning and mocking: then he seized me, took a piece of me

only… But I can't tell you. I can't bear to think of it. How those

dogs howl! People say it means death.'

The return of Miss Aldclyffe to consciousness was sufficient to

dispel the wild fancies which the loneliness of the night had woven

in Cytherea's mind. She dismissed the third noise as something

which in all likelihood could easily be explained, if trouble were

taken to inquire into it: large houses had all kinds of strange

sounds floating about them. She was ashamed to tell Miss Aldclyffe

her terrors.

A silence of five minutes.

'Are you asleep?' said Miss Aldclyffe.

'No,' said Cytherea, in a long-drawn whisper.

'How those dogs howl, don't they?'

'Yes. A little dog in the house began it.'

'Ah, yes: that was Totsy. He sleeps on the mat outside my

father's bedroom door. A nervous creature.'

There was a silent interval of nearly half-an-hour. A clock on

the landing struck three.

'Are you asleep, Miss Aldclyffe?' whispered Cytherea.

'No,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'How wretched it is not to be able to

sleep, isn't it?'

'Yes,' replied Cytherea, like a docile child.

Another hour passed, and the clock struck four. Miss Aldclyffe

was still awake.

'Cytherea,' she said, very softly.

Cytherea made no answer. She was sleeping soundly.

The first glimmer of dawn was now visible. Miss Aldclyffe arose,

put on her dressing-gown, and went softly downstairs to her own

room.

'I have not told her who I am after all, or found out the

particulars of Ambrose's history,' she murmured. 'But her being in

love alters everything.'