And so, indeed, it was, extraordinarily large, and of an old-fashioned construction.
My Aunt, who was of an active inquiring genius, opened a bit of one of the shutters and peeped out. It showed a view of the inn yard. The side next her had been formed by a wing of the house; but that now stood up a gaunt roofless wall, with the broad moon shining through its sashless windows. On the left was a row of tall and dingy stables and offices, and opposite, another ruined building, a shed, and a tall arched gate. The pavement was grass-grown and rutty, and the whole thing looked awfully seedy, and not the less gloomy for some great trees that darkly overhung the buildings from the outside.
Having made her survey, my Aunt would have closed the shutter, but that she saw a man walk lazily from the side beneath her, his hands in his pockets, across the yard, casting an undulating and misshapen shadow over the uneven pavement.
When he reached the gate at the other side, he took a key from his pocket, and unlocked a wicket in it, and setting his foot on the plank beneath, leaned his elbow on the side, and lazily looked out, as if on the watch for somebody. A huge dog came pattering out of a kennel in the shadow, and placing his great head by the man’s leg, sniffed gloomily into the darkness.
“Are ye expectin’ any friends, ma’am?” asked Nell’s coarse voice over my Aunt’s shoulder, so sharply and suddenly that the start brought the blood to her thin cheeks.
“Not very likely to see friends here,” replied my Aunt, very tartly. “What do you mean, woman, by talking that way over my shoulder?”
The grim chambermaid by this time had seen the man, and was eyeing him under her projecting and somewhat shrewish brows.
“An’ ye come from Hoxton?” she said rather slowly and sharply.
“I told you so, woman.”
“It wasn’t from Westherton, ye’re sure?”
“I’ve told you where we came from, though it is no business of yours. I never heard of Westerton.”
My Aunt added this a little emphatically, owing to an undefined feeling that a suspicion of having come from Westerton was likely in some mysterious way to prejudice her.
The maid replied nothing, but said a little gruffly,
“By your lave, ma’am;” and pushing by her, she closed the shutters, and drew a great wooden sliding bolt across with a jerk.
My Aunt was so taken by surprise that she lost her time for retorting with effect, as she would have done, but she was so incensed, that from the fireplace she could not forbear saying,
“I think you a most impertinent woman.”
To which the maid made no reply, but turned down the bedclothes, and arranged the curtains; and gathering together the tea equipage, carried the tray away, shutting the door.
VII
An Accident Befalls the Candle
My Aunt Margaret stood for a while with her back to the fire, very erect, and her nose in air, sniffing defiantly toward the door through which that “most impertinent woman” had disappeared. Winnie was nodding profoundly in her chair by the fire. My Aunt with a toss of her head walked off again to the window, jerked back the bolt, and looked once more into the stable-yard.
She saw Nell at the wicket-door, talking and gesticulating roughly with the man who had taken his stand there with the dog. Nell seemed to prevail with him, for he whistled back the dog, who had gone out, and locking the door again, he returned across the yard with Nell, who continued talking volubly as they walked side by side, and pointed up at my Aunt’s window. On seeing the shutter again open and my Aunt’s head and shoulders revealed against the light, both maid and man stopped in amaze, and silently gazed at her for some moments. I dare say, as my Aunt observed the evident impression produced upon those mysterious persons, she regretted inwardly the act of defiance which had removed the bolt and replaced her at the window. The woman walked into the house without speaking; the man called the dog, and strolled away towards the stable.
My Aunt closed the shutter, drew the bolt, and coming again to the fire, shook Winnie up from her sleep, and ordered her to say her prayers and get to bed.
These orders were soon complied with, and honest Winnie slept the sleep of a good conscience and a good digestion, sweetened by fatigue, while her mistress, who was cursed with an active mind, sat by the fire, with a well-snuffed candle, and conned over her correspondence and her figures, and prepared for the critical interview with the defaulting tobacconist next day. Then she fell into a reverie with her foot on the fender. I don’t think she dozed; but the fire grew low, and the snuff of the candle waxed long and heavy at top like a fungus, and the room was tenebrose and silent, as indeed was the house, for by this time it was very late.
After a while, my Aunt fancied she heard someone approaching her chamber door very softly. It was the stealthy creaking of the boards that warned her; she could not hear the tread of the foot. She held her breath, sitting straight upon her chair, and gazing at the door with such faint light as her unsnuffed taper afforded her; and I dare say she looked extremely frightened.
She heard someone breathing close outside the door, then a hand softly laid on the door-handle; the door gently opened, and the face of the woman of the high cheek bones, pale and lowering, looked in. Her ill-omened stare encountered my Aunt’s gaze, and each was perhaps unpleasantly surprised.
Both looked on, pale enough, for some time without speaking. At last my Aunt stood up and said sharply—
“What’s your business here, pray?”
“ ’Tis late to be burnin’ candle
