Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I
could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the
avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared
him to be happy at Thornfield.
"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house?
Will he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed
here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident
eight weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he
should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine
and fine days will seem!"
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any
rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and
lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had
kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits
were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was
hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck
two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers
had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery
outside. I said, "Who is there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled
with fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the
kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way
up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him
lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I
lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now
reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of
slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night. A
dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted,
scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it
seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed
was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood
at my bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked
round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural
sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels.
My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to
cry out, "Who is there?"
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the
gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been
made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all
was still.