On Monday morning, Christian saw
her father and mother start, too agitated by their coming journey to
have a spare thought for sentiment; too much beset by the fear of what
they might lose, their keys, their sandwiches, their dressing-boxes,
to shed a tear for what they were losing, and had lost. And on Monday
afternoon with the early darkness the storm began. There came first a
little run of wind round the house, like a cavalry patrol spying out
the land. There followed complete stillness; then a few scattered
drops of rain fell, and ceased; and then, with a heavy, travelling
roar, the wind came rushing up the valley. It thundered in the
cavernous chimneys of Mount Music; it bawled and whooped at the
windows, and shook them with a human fury, as though it were life or
death to it to get in, as though it were maddened by the failure of
its surprise attack. Christian and her ancient servitors ran from room
to room, barring shutters, fastening doors, the draughts down the long
passages snatching at the candle flames, the old man and woman full of
forebodings and of reminiscences of former storms, that came to
Christian in broken scraps, through the rattle of windows and the
shaking clatter of doors within the house, and the shrieking rage of
the wind outside. She sat up late, sorting and arranging things in her
room. She had none of the fears that might, for another, have filled
the empty house with visitants from another world, and might have
taught her to listen for footsteps in the echoing passages and knocks
on the shaking doors.
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