‘Come along,’ she interrupted, eagerly. ‘We shall just be in time to see them go across from the drawing-room to the ball-room. Come, come. Leave your candle.’
I put down my book with some reluctance. She led me into the armoury, and from the armoury out on the gallery half-encompassing the great hall, which was lighted up, and full of servants. Opening another door in the gallery, she conducted me down a stair which led almost into the hall, but, ascending again behind it, landed us in a little lobby, on one side of which was the drawing-room, and on the other the ball-room, on another level, reached by a few high, semi-circular steps.
‘Quick! quick!’ said Clara, and turning sharply round, she opened another door, disclosing a square-built stone staircase. She pushed the door carefully against the wall, ran up a few steps, I following in some trepidation, turned abruptly, and sat down. I did as she did, questioning nothing: I had committed myself to her superior knowledge.
The quick ear of my companion had caught the first sounds of the tuning of the instruments, and here we were, before the invitation to dance, a customed observance at Moldwarp Hall, had begun to play. In a few minutes thereafter, the door of the drawing-room opened; when, pair after pair, the company, to the number of over a hundred and fifty, I should guess, walked past the foot of the stair on which we were seated, and ascended the steps into the ball-room. The lobby was dimly lighted, except from the two open doors, and there was little danger of our being seen.
I interrupt my narrative to mention the odd fact that so fully was my mind possessed with the antiquity of the place, which it had been the pride of generation after generation to keep up, that now, when I recall the scene, the guests always appear dressed not as they were then, but in a far more antique style with which after knowledge supplied my inner vision.
Last of all came Lady Brotherton, Sir Giles’s wife, a pale, delicate-looking woman, leaning on the arm of a tall, long-necked, would-be-stately, yet insignificant-looking man. She gave a shiver as, up the steps from the warm drawing-room, she came at once opposite our open door.
‘What a draught there is here!’ she said, adjusting her rose-coloured scarf about her shoulders. ‘It feels quite wintry. Will you oblige me, Mr Mellon, by shutting that door? Sir Giles will not allow me to have it built up. I am sure there are plenty of ways to the leads besides that.’
‘This door, my lady?’ asked Mr Mellon.
I trembled lest he should see us.
‘Yes. Just throw it to. There’s a spring lock on it. I can’t think—’