Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

I was able to follow the flight of the hours by hearing the distant church-clock strike. Midnight rang out, and then one o’clock, and then two o’clock. The wind had risen. It made a noise in the chimney and hissed about the windows; otherwise the house was buried in silence, saving that at intervals I seemed to hear a sound of footsteps, a very soft movement, as of naked or slippered feet restlessly pacing. But, listen as I might, I could not imagine in what room the person, whoever it might be, was pacing; it was not overhead, and it did not sound as though it were on the floor where the room I occupied was. I therefore supposed it a deception of the ear, though it held me in check until after three o’clock had struck, at which hour it ceased.

I waited until somewhat after four o’clock, then noiselessly rose, very softly lighted a candle, and completely dressed myself, with the exception of my veil, which I folded and put in my pocket. The fire had long ago gone out. A small pair of scissors lay upon the toilet-table, and on a chest of drawers was an Old Testament, with illustrations protected by sheets of tissue paper. The book had been my mother’s. I tore out several sheets of the tissue-paper, picked up the scissors, and, putting the candle in the grate, where it would be safe—I dared not move without a light, lest I should make a noise—I opened the door, crept forth on to the landing, and stood listening.

All was silent, save the noise of the wind. At the extremity of the landing a door stood ajar, and a faint light shone through it. I knew that my children slept in that room, that the faint illumination proceeded from a night-light, and that the door was left ajar in pursuance of a custom established by myself, for I always required that my children should have air, but would not permit their bedroom window to be left open during the night. I put my boots on the landing-carpet, and crept on noiseless feet to the door where the light shone, and, looking into the room, saw the two little brass bedsteads side by side. I stood listening, and plainly heard the deep breathing of the nurse, who slept in a small room adjoining this bedroom.

I crept to the side of one of the beds, and in it lay my little girl, Mary. I stood looking down upon her sleeping face, then cut off a little piece of her hair, and breathlessly pressed my lips to her cheek. Afterwards I stepped round to the bedside of my little boy, and, when I had looked down upon him for awhile, I cut off a little piece of his hair, and, with trembling but noiseless hands, placed the two curls in the tissue-paper and slipped them into my pocket. I then kissed my boy, and, going to the foot of the bedstead, knelt so that my posture might embrace both little forms, and, lifting up my eyes to God, I asked Him to look down and bless my children, and to give them to me soon, and to watch over them and preserve them whilst I continued absent from them.

I then rose, and, with a weeping heart and one long, lingering look at the two faces, I soundlessly descended the staircase, and, being intimately acquainted with the house, as you will suppose, knowing exactly how the house-door was bolted and locked, I opened it without more noise than would have scared a mouse, gently pulled it to after me, so that it would have been impossible upstairs to have heard the click of the latch, so gradually did I draw the door to; then, seating myself on the step, I put on my boots, and, rising again, hurried away down the hill.

It was snowing slightly, and the ground was thinly whitened. The wind blew piercingly cold. I had learnt that the railway-station was closed all night, and that the earliest train to London, which was the directest way to Newcastle from Bath, did not leave until eight o’clock or thereabouts. There was nothing for me to do but to walk about the cold, windy streets until the hotel where I had left my bag was opened.

This I did. I met nobody. Bath seemed as silent and as deserted as though the old plague that had visited London two hundred years ago had attacked and desolated this city of the Abbey Church. At last, at about a quarter to seven, on passing the hotel for the tenth or twelfth time, I saw a man sweeping in front of the door, which stood a little way open. I entered and passed into the coffee-room, and found a large fire, newly lighted, burning in the grate, before which sat a man reading a paper by the gas-light, for the sky was dark with cloud and there was no daylight as yet. The man did not lift his head nor make room for me; he was probably a commercial traveller. I rang the bell, ordered some breakfast, desired that my bag should be brought from my bedroom, and, whilst I waited, I drew as close to the fire as the commercial traveller would suffer me, and warmed myself.

I was very cold and very weary, but the rest I had taken at my husband’s house had given me strength enough to walk about the streets, and when I had warmed myself and breakfasted I found that my sense of exhaustion was considerably less than I had dreaded to find it. All the while that I had walked, and all the while that I was warming myself and eating my breakfast, I was thinking, ‘What will my sister say, or what will my husband suppose, when they find that their visitor, whom they so hospitably received, has fled from their house in the darkness of the night? Their first suspicion will be that my falling into a fit was a trick, and they will look over the house to see what I have stolen; then, on discovering that nothing whatever is missing, they will conjecture that my fit was epileptic, and that in an hour of madness I rose in the night and wandered from the house.’

This notion made me hurry, lest my husband should come to the hotel to inquire after me; for though, if he came, he would know no more about me this morning than he did last night, yet he might agitate and confuse me with questions—perhaps cause me to be detained for inquiries, as it is called—and this apprehension, as I have said, made me hurry. As soon, then, as I had breakfasted, I paid the bill, took my bag, and told a porter who stood in the hall to call a cab. An hour later I was safe in a railway-carriage, gliding out of the Great Western Railway station at Bath on my way to London.

I reached Newcastle at seven o’clock in the evening, and drove at once to Jesmond. I had telegraphed to Mrs. Lee from London, and I found her awaiting me, with a table cheerfully set forth and a great Newcastle coal fire roaring. She kissed me again and again; had I been her own child she could not have given me a gladder, more affectionate welcome. She saw exhaustion in my looks and the marks of much bitter weeping in my eyes, and asked no questions until after I had eaten and drunk and was resting upon the sofa before the fire, with my feet in comfortable slippers, and the dress in which I had travelled replaced by a warm dressing-gown.