Chapter one: meeting the stranger
There was a court-yard in front, and that was barred; so, we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to bave gone on for a long time.
A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded, "What name?" To which my conductor replied, "Pumblechook." The voice returned,
"Quite right," and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard, with keys in her hand
"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is John."
"This is john, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty, and seemed very proud; "Come in, John ."
Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.
"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Charlotte?"
"If Miss Charlotte wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.
"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."
She said it so finally, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not pro-and departed with the words reproachfully delivered:
your behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!"
My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the court-yard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice.
The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it; and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused.
The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship st sea.
She saw me looking at it, and she said, "You could drink withous hurt all the strong beer that's browed there now, boy."
"I should think I could, miss," said I, in a shy way.
boy; don't you think so?"
"Better not try to brow beer there now, or it would turn oat sour,
It looks like it, miss."
"Not that anybody means to tiny," she added,
"for that's all done
with, and the place will stand as idle as it is, till it falls. As to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor House."
"Is that the name of this house, miss?"
"One of ite names, boy."
"It has more then one, then, miss?"
"One more. Ita other name was Saties which is Greek, or Latin, or Eebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough."
"Enough House!" said I; "that's a curious name, miss."
"Yes," she replied; "but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever bad this house, could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those deys, I should think. But don't loiter, boy."
Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age.
She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and benutiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she bad been one-and-twenty, and a queen.
We went into the house by a side door--the grest front entrance had two chains across it outside-and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up s staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.
At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in." I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss."
To this she returned; "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going la." And scornfully walked away, and--what was worse -took the candle with her.
This was very uncomfortable, and I was helf afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in & pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed. from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was s draped table with & gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.
Whether I should have made out this objet so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say.
In an arm-ohair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.
She was dressed in rich materials sating and lace, and silkg-all of white.
Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her bands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on--the other was on the table near her hand- her veil wes but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a Preyer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be sup-posed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young womsn, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone.
"Who is it?" said the lady at the table.
"John.ma'am."
"John ?"
"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play."
"Come nesrer; let me look at you. Come close."
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clook in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.
"Look at me," said Miss Charlotte . "You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?"
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer "No."
"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.
"Yes, ma'am." (It made me think of the young man.)
"What do I touch?"
"Your heart."
"Broken!"
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it,
Afterwards,
she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they were heavy.