‘Thou art not the first in this house to be,’ she said. ‘Secrets and mysteries before thy time have encompassed those that dwelt herein. Their shadows yet linger in the rooms and walk upon the stairs. Thou art not the first to feel the darkness and unrest. There is always coming and going here; ay, even when it is emptiest of mortal life—always something to see, though thou seest it not. This is the place where plots are laid in darkness and fulfilled in silence.’
To say that Brion, hearing her, was conscious of a passing chill is not to underrate his healthy young sanity. He believed the old creature crazy: yet there is an eeriness, after all, in crazy company. What she said might have no significance, but somehow it assorted drearily with the lonely and desolate house and with the strange movements of its inmates. His physical shiver converted itself, however, in shame of its own weakness, into a shrug of irritable dissent.
‘I am not afeard of your plots and shadows, old mother,’ said he, with petulant scorn. ‘It is enough shadow for me that my friend hath left me, without a word.’
She nodded her head grimly, thinning her lips.
‘Brave spirit,’ she said. ‘It shall need all of itself, maybe, in the days to come.’
He turned from her, with an impatient exclamation, and began to descend the stairs. Half way down he met the boy William, mounting hot-faced towards him. This was a buxom swain, on the near side of manhood, rosy and bucolic. His face was round as a gooseberry; an incipient corn-gold beard frizzled on the spit of his chin. He pulled up, and twitched his forelock with a breathless grimace.
‘Was comin’, Mars Brion, to help ee to dress,’ he said, panting. ‘Mars Phineas a bade me humbly to tender myself.’
‘William,’ said the boy, ‘did Clerivault—did my Uncle say when they would be back again?’
The scullion shook his noddle soberly.
‘Mars Clerivault a’ bade me to tell ee to be of good heart and not to forget him. Mars Bagott was in a main hurry to be gone. A mounted to thy chamber with a taper while the cattle were a-baiting, and was off as soon as down.’