It went against the grain with Hetty in the first pang of this discovery to think that mamma would be happy, and yet there was nothing but thanks and gratitude due to Miss Hofland. The girl was half choked by this conflict of gratitude and misery, and did not know what to say.
“Well, my dear, you must work very hard, and take advantage of all your opportunities,” said Miss Hofland; “one always regrets it in after life if one misses a chance. But it’s time now to go to bed. One wise thing in this hermitage,” she added, “is that they give us such good fires. Is your fire always good, my dear?” The governess followed Hetty along the corridor, into which this suite of rooms opened. It was very dimly lighted, and the two figures with their twinkling candles had a mysterious effect between the two dark wainscoted walls, which reflected the flicker of the lights. Miss Hofland went with Hetty into her room, and looked round it. “Yours is the only French window,” she said; “it opens into the garden, don’t you know. I prefer the sash-windows, they are much safer. But why don’t they shut your shutters and draw your curtains, my dear? You must not put up with any neglect.”
“Oh, I don’t like it so dark. I like to see the sky. I can’t breathe when the curtains are drawn. I am not accustomed to curtains,” said Hetty, feeling that she was making a confession of poverty. Miss Hofland gave an approving nod.
“It is a great deal better for the health,” she said; “still I can’t sleep unless it is dark, and they keep out the cold in this big house. I hope you always see that your window is well fastened. I must speak to Mrs. Mills about it. To live in this queer way, with a regiment of servants and not to be attended to, would be too absurd. Good-night, my dear,” Miss Hofland said. Her room was on the other side of the little passage, which also had a window looking out across the flower-beds of the parterre to the ghostly depths of the park. It was a moonlight night, and they both lingered looking out upon the strange, silent scene. The flower-beds were full of winterly chrysanthemums—for it was by this time November—which drooped their tall heads in the frosty air. The trees beyond stood up half stripped, showing here and there their great branches, with a leaf or two fluttering in the wind against the sky. Miss Hofland opened her own door with a shudder. “How cold it looks,” she said—“how still and deserted! I am glad everything is snug and shut up in my room. If I were to look out much longer I should see ghosts, I know I should. Run away, my dear, and get to bed.”
Hetty heard the little click of the key which Miss Hofland always turned at night, a precaution which had amused the girl on her first coming. “Fancy mamma locking her door!” she had said to herself. But it was eerie standing by that passage window by herself. She went back to her room and put down her candle, and took down her hair. Her mother had always been proud of Hetty’s hair. It was brown and silky, and very abundant, and, indeed, it was not so very long since it was first twisted up in that grown-up way which had made Hetty feel so dignified. Now that she had attained to that privilege she liked to shake it down, and feel it about her, rippling over her shoulders. But she had no leisure for any play that night. Her mind was overwhelmed with her new thoughts. An entire revelation had been made to her of her duty, of what girls were born for. To think she should have been so stupid, to suppose that all that was wanted was helping mamma with the children, mending, making, overlooking the housework! No, indeed, that was not all. It would be years before even Harry, the eldest boy, could earn anything; while Hetty was the eldest of all, and the first claim of duty naturally came to her. She strayed towards the window, half-undressed, to look out as people naturally do when they are full of thought, without any regard even to the moonlight, not thinking of anything outside, absorbed in those meditations which were not cheerful. The long pale distance between the trees, the masses of distant shadow, the chrysanthemums drooping as if whispering to each other close at hand, seemed to give a little air and outlet to the musing of her heart.
But all at once Hetty gave a smothered cry, and clung to the nearest solid thing, feeling as if the ground was reeling away from under her feet. Over the grass, which was damp and sodden with winter dews, winding among the beds and ranks of chrysanthemums, what was that she saw? Something black in the moonlight, a moving figure, the sight of which made her heart stand still. Her eyes seemed to strain out of her head, her heart to jump into her throat in sudden panic and horror. A man! Hetty rushed to the door in the first impulse after her senses returned to her; but then she remembered the key turned in Miss Hofland’s door; and though she opened her own softly, she closed it again, and locked it too, in her terror. And then she returned to the window, drawn as by a spell, to watch that mysterious figure slowly moving round and round among the drooping winter flowers.
CHAPTER XVI.
ALARMS.
“HAVE you a headache, my dear? I am sure you have a headache. You are looking quite ghostly. Poor little thing! you look as if you had not slept all night.”