The same suggestion must have been that moment on her lips. "Go, wake the servants," she said, "tell them to dress quickly. Get your cloak and light the lantern." She gave her short sharp directions. The young servant was to go with me. The old one was to lock the door behind us, and wait up with my mother. I went with a candle through silent passages, and knocked on doors.
I left the lantern burning down in the hall, and in my cloak went back to my mother's room.
She was leaning out, over the side of the bed listening.
"Aren't they ready?"
"They are only just roused."
"Servants take ten times as long to dress as——Hark. Look out!"
I went back to the window and peered between the close-drawn curtains, with hands at my temples on either side of my eyes.
Nothing.
Except.... Yes, I could hear the heavy step of the older woman down in the hall unlocking, unbolting, unchaining the door ... that the housemaid and I might lose no time when she was ready.
The old woman must be waiting for us there below, with the lantern in her hand. A faint light was lying on the path. Not a sound now in all the world except my mother's voice behind me: