George MacDonald - Wilfrid Cumbermede

As we stood, I discovered that I had been a little mistaken about the position of the Hall. I saw that, although from some points in front it seemed to stand on an isolated rock, the ground rose behind it, terrace upon terrace, the uppermost of which terraces were crowned with rows of trees. Over them, the moon was now gathering her strength.

‘It is rather cold; I think we had better go in,’ said Clara, after we had remained there for some minutes without seeing any fresh arrivals.

‘Very well,’ I answered. ‘What shall we do? Shall you go home?’

‘No, certainly not. We must see a good deal more of the fun first.’

‘How will you manage that? You will go to the ball-room, I suppose. You can go where you please, of course.’

‘Oh no! I’m not grand enough to be invited. Oh, dear no! At least I am not old enough.’

‘But you will be some day.’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps. We’ll see. Meantime we must make the best of it. What are you going to do?’

‘I shall go back to the library.’

‘Then I’ll go with you—till the music begins; and then I’ll take you where you can see a little of the dancing. It’s great fun.’

‘But how will you manage that?’

‘You leave that to me.’

We descended at once to the armoury, where I had left my candle; and thence we returned to the library.

‘Would you like me to read to you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t mind—if it’s anything worth hearing.’

‘Well, I’ll read you a bit of the book I was reading when you came in.’

‘What! that musty old book! No, thank you. It’s enough to give one the horrors—the very sight of it is enough. How can you like such frumpy old things?’

‘Oh! you mustn’t mind the look of it,’ I said. ‘It’s very nice inside!’

‘I know where there is a nice one,’ she returned. ‘Give me the candle.’

I followed her to another of the rooms, where she searched for some time. At length—‘There it is!’ she said, and put into my hand The Castle of Otranto . The name promised well. She next led the way to a lovely little bay window, forming almost a closet, which looked out upon the park, whence, without seeing the moon, we could see her light on the landscape, and the great deep shadows cast over the park from the towers of the Hall. There we sat on the broad window-sill, and I began to read. It was delightful. Does it indicate loss of power, that the grown man cannot enjoy the book in which the boy delighted? Or is it that the realities of the book, as perceived by his keener eyes, refuse to blend with what imagination would supply if it might?

No sooner however did the first notes of the distant violins enter the ear of my companion than she started to her feet.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, looking up from the book.

‘Don’t you hear the music?’ she said, half-indignantly.

‘I hear it now,’ I answered; ‘but why—?’

‘Come along,’ she interrupted, eagerly. ‘We shall just be in time to see them go across from the drawing-room to the ball-room. Come, come. Leave your candle.’

I put down my book with some reluctance. She led me into the armoury, and from the armoury out on the gallery half-encompassing the great hall, which was lighted up, and full of servants. Opening another door in the gallery, she conducted me down a stair which led almost into the hall, but, ascending again behind it, landed us in a little lobby, on one side of which was the drawing-room, and on the other the ball-room, on another level, reached by a few high, semi-circular steps.

‘Quick! quick!’ said Clara, and turning sharply round, she opened another door, disclosing a square-built stone staircase. She pushed the door carefully against the wall, ran up a few steps, I following in some trepidation, turned abruptly, and sat down. I did as she did, questioning nothing: I had committed myself to her superior knowledge.

The quick ear of my companion had caught the first sounds of the tuning of the instruments, and here we were, before the invitation to dance, a customed observance at Moldwarp Hall, had begun to play. In a few minutes thereafter, the door of the drawing-room opened; when, pair after pair, the company, to the number of over a hundred and fifty, I should guess, walked past the foot of the stair on which we were seated, and ascended the steps into the ball-room. The lobby was dimly lighted, except from the two open doors, and there was little danger of our being seen.

I interrupt my narrative to mention the odd fact that so fully was my mind possessed with the antiquity of the place, which it had been the pride of generation after generation to keep up, that now, when I recall the scene, the guests always appear dressed not as they were then, but in a far more antique style with which after knowledge supplied my inner vision.

Last of all came Lady Brotherton, Sir Giles’s wife, a pale, delicate-looking woman, leaning on the arm of a tall, long-necked, would-be-stately, yet insignificant-looking man. She gave a shiver as, up the steps from the warm drawing-room, she came at once opposite our open door.

‘What a draught there is here!’ she said, adjusting her rose-coloured scarf about her shoulders. ‘It feels quite wintry. Will you oblige me, Mr Mellon, by shutting that door? Sir Giles will not allow me to have it built up. I am sure there are plenty of ways to the leads besides that.’

‘This door, my lady?’ asked Mr Mellon.

I trembled lest he should see us.

‘Yes. Just throw it to. There’s a spring lock on it. I can’t think—’

The slam and echoing bang of the closing door cut off the end of the sentence. Even Clara was a little frightened, for her hand stole into mine for a moment before she burst out laughing.

‘Hush! hush!’ I said. ‘They will hear you.’

‘I almost wish they would,’ she said. ‘What a goose I was to be frightened, and not speak! Do you know where we are?’

‘No,’ I answered; ‘how should I? Where are we?’

My fancy of knowing the place had vanished utterly by this time. All my mental charts of it had got thoroughly confused, and I do not believe I could have even found my way back to the library.

‘Shut out on the leads,’ she answered. ‘Come along. We may as well go to meet our fate.’

I confess to a little palpitation of the heart as she spoke, for I was not yet old enough to feel that Clara’s companionship made the doom a light one. Up the stairs we went—here no twisting corkscrew, but a broad flight enough, with square turnings. At the top was a door, fastened only with a bolt inside—against no worse housebreakers than the winds and rains. When we emerged, we found ourselves in the open night.

‘Here we are in the moon’s drawing-room!’ said Clara.

The scene was lovely. The sky was all now—the earth only a background or pedestal for the heavens. The river, far below, shone here and there in answer to the moon, while the meadows and fields lay as in the oblivion of sleep, and the wooded hills were only dark formless masses. But the sky was the dwelling-place of the moon, before whose radiance, penetratingly still, the stars shrunk as if they would hide in the flowing skirts of her garments. There was scarce a cloud to be seen, and the whiteness of the moon made the blue thin. I could hardly believe in what I saw. It was as if I had come awake without getting out of the dream.

We were on the roof of the ball-room. We felt the rhythmic motion of the dancing feet shake the building in time to the music. ‘A low melodious thunder’ buried beneath—above, the eternal silence of the white moon!

We passed to the roof of the drawing-room. From it, upon one side, we could peep into the great gothic window of the hall, which rose high above it. We could see the servants passing and repassing, with dishes for the supper which was being laid in the dining-room under the drawing-room, for the hall was never used for entertainment now, except on such great occasions as a coming of age, or an election-feast, when all classes met.