Volume Two—Chapter Three.
A Search.
About a couple of hours earlier there was a ring at the gaunt-looking gate at the Firs, and that ring caused Mrs Alleyne’s Eliza to start as if galvanised, and to draw her feet sharply over the sanded floor, and beneath her chair.
Otherwise Eliza did not move. She had been darning black stockings, and as her feet went under her chair, she sat there with the light—a yellow and dim tallow dip, set up in a great tin candlestick—staring before her, lips and eyes wide open, one hand and arm covered with a black worsted stocking, the fingers belonging to the other arm holding up a stocking needle, motionless, as if she were so much stone.
Anon, the bell, which hid in a little pent-house of its own high up on the ivied wall, jangled again, and a shock of terror ran through Eliza’s body once more, but only for her to relapse into the former cataleptic state.
Then came a third brazen clanging; and this time the kitchen door opened, and Eliza uttered a squeal.
“Why, Eliza,” cried Lucy, “were you asleep? The gate bell has rung three times. Go and see who it is.”
“Oh, please, miss, I dursn’t,” said Eliza with a shiver.