Maddest of madness. The girl thought she was arriving at it all by processes of reason; she was merely delirious. Grief had been a five-days' fever with her, and this was the crisis. But there were no kind hearts to understand her sickness; no gentle hands to restrain her. Delirium, that she took to be reason, dictated "Go," and she was going.
Vague dreams of vague work in vague towns blew through her comprehension, like drifting mists from the sea. She would go here; she would go there; she would get work as a dressmaker; as a cook; as a clerk in some other post office; as a secretary ... as God knows what.
Night drew on as she fashioned her plans. One by one the familiar sounds acquainted her exactly with the progress of it. In the darkness of her pillow, before the moon got round to her window, she needed no clock. She heard the clatter of pottery; "good-nights" exchanged in the kitchen; creaking of the twisted staircase to the postmaster's stockinged feet, with the hollow bump of his hands as he steadied his ascent; the amiable gasping of Mrs. Morland, gathering up her forepetticoats and laboring in the wake of her husband's ascent; the unutterable sound of the schoolmaster's footsteps, that sent pangs through her, each one, as though he were treading all the way on her heart; the cruel catch of his bedroom door, so hard, remorseless, and sinister. In such wise he had shut the door of his compassion on her soul's fingers, and heeded not. And last of all, the sounds of bolts shot beneath; journeyings of Emma to and fro between the two kitchens. Now she would be extinguishing the lamp; now she would be lighting her candle; now she would be putting the kitchen lamp back for safety on the dresser by the wall; now she would be coming upstairs ... ah! here she came. The flickers of her candle winked momentarily in the keyhole of Pam's door, as though she were listening at the head of the staircase to gather assurance of her sound repose. Then the keyhole closed its blinking eye, and there ensued the click of Emma's own latch.
At that last culminating sound, Pam's heart turned palpitatingly within her, part exultant, part terrified; seemed almost to come into her mouth like a solid materialised sob. Now all the path was clear. Its clearness dismayed her. Soon slumber would prevail over the post-house, and act sentinel to her purpose. But though purpose, standing like a bather by the brink of wintry waters, shivered at the prospect of immersion—yet did not falter. Purpose had vowed to go, and purpose was going. Another hour the girl kept stillness upon her bed, and the half of an hour after that, listening until the rhythmic ronflement of the postmaster's snore was established, and the intervals between that horrible menaceful cough—short at first—had spaced themselves out into ultimate silence. Then from her bed she rose.
Stealthily, seated on the side of it, she unlaced her shoes and laid them on the quilt, that her feet might be noiseless upon the floor. Then, letting the weight of her body slide gradually on to the rug by the side of her bed, she moved forward, balancing with outstretched hands. The clear beams of the moon filled her white bedroom by this time, as though it were day. And now that the actual moment of flight was upon her, its keen, constricted space in eternity acted like a pin-hole lens, through which, magnified, she saw the difficulties of her task.
What, in the nature of personalty, should go with her? She would have need of her bath, of her big sponge, of her toothbrushes, of her dentifrice and powder, of her brushes and comb, of her night-gowns, of her dressing-gown, of changes of underlinen, of her blouses, of her best dress, of her Sunday shoes, of her walking-boots, of pocket-handkerchiefs ... these only concerning her toilette.
And she would have need of her mother's books, and her own little library; her own little stock of French grammars and easy reading books; the music that he had given her ... heaps and heaps of precious, inconsiderable gifts and souvenirs that in this hour of severance her soul clung to tenaciously, as to dear, human fingers.
Alas! of such latter, it seemed, she had none to cling to.
But all these things she could not convey with her. Flight could not hamper itself with baths and books, and boots and blouses. All that hindered it must be cast aside. And these things ... the only trifling landmarks in life to remind her who she was, and what small place she held in the great waste of existence ... these must be cast aside too.
These must be cast aside!