“I did not mean to trouble anybody. I heard a step, and I opened the window to see what it was.”
“Dear me!” said the housekeeper; “I shouldn’t have done that. What a daring thing for a young lady to do! Supposing it had been housebreakers, and your window so nice and handy for them to step into the house?”
“Do you think it was housebreakers?” Hetty cried.
“Bless you, my child, no, not in daylight. They’re not as bold as that. But another time, Miss Asquith, take my advice, and don’t open your window in that confiding way. You’re always a deal safer with everything shut. And there are always sounds about an old house like this. For my part, I never pay any attention. Have everything well shut and fastened, and then you can’t take any harm, whoever may be about.”
“I thought perhaps,” said Hetty, timidly, “there might be some danger—that it might be right to call some one—that I ought to ring the bell, or something.”
“Bless me!” said the housekeeper again. “You would be as good as an extra watchman for the family. But look here, my dear young lady, don’t you take any trouble. What is the house to you? You’re only a stranger in it. Shut up your window and lock your door, and nothing can harm you. I’ll have it done myself to-night. As for the house, there are plenty to see to that, and no danger of housebreakers here.”
Hetty was very much agitated by these interviews. She found no satisfaction in them. The doctor’s repeated assurance that he was always near was little more consolatory than the housekeeper’s injunctions to shut herself up, and take no concern for the house. Hetty could not understand anything of the kind. To be shut up in shivering safety, a poor little atom of terrified consciousness in the midst of unknown dangers, indifferent to and shut off from everybody around, seemed to her so unnatural, so horrible. She remembered now the chill she had felt when she heard Miss Hofland lock her door. Was it possible to live in a house like this—each shut in, safe under lock and key, and no one taking any interest in the panic or trouble which might be in the next room?
This thought was more strange to Hetty than even the thought of danger. Danger! She had known what it was to feel a thrill of terror when she woke in the night and heard some of those sounds which are always alarming to a watcher: the vague noises of the darkness, sounds exaggerated by the surrounding silence into something inexplainable, mysterious creaks and cracklings. But then there was the sense of habitation in the house, the certainty of father and mother always ready to be appealed to, and at whose appearance all dangers were disarmed. At Horton the sensation was very different. The house felt empty, cold, with a mysterious chill in it, and a few trembling individuals dotted along the side of the house, each shut up in her separate room. This was more dreadful to Hetty than words could say. She was very silent all day, shivering from time to time, extremely pale, as unlike the bright-faced girl she had been a little while before as it is possible to conceive. And they were all very kind. Miss Hofland flew to her favourite idea of a headache and to her favourite expedient of lying on the sofa, which was her panacea for all troubles. “I’ll get you a book, my dear,” she said. “I have a very nice book, which I brought with me. I am sure you have never read it; and now you can lie quite comfortably, and not be disturbed by anything. Going to bed may be better when you have a headache; some people think so: but it is giving in so when you go to bed, and then it’s lonely, and unless you can sleep, I don’t see the advantage. You are just as well on the sofa, and more cheerful. I am afraid Horton is not going to agree with you: and that would be such a bore when we have just got so nicely settled down.”
“I don’t wonder it does not agree with her,” said the housekeeper, “a young lady that sleeps with her window open in this weather.”
“Oh, goodness!” cried Miss Hofland. “A window opening on the park in any weather! You must not do it, my dear. Why, anything might run in—a rabbit or a squirrel out of the woods, or one of the sheep that’s grazing about, or even a cow. Fancy being woke in the middle of the night by a cow! I can’t conceive what I should do—shriek till I brought the house down. Fancy a cow’s breath suddenly puffed out upon you, and a great ‘Mo—oo’ in the middle of the night!”