At the time Mary
had noted nothing of these things; now she saw them all, as for
the first time, in minute detail, while slowly she went up the
stair and through the narrowed ways, and heard the same wind that
raved alike about the new grave and the old house, into which
latter, for all the bales banked against the walls, it found many
a chink of entrance. The smell of the linen, of the blue cloth,
and of the brown paper--things no longer to be handled by those
tender, faithful hands--was dismal and strange, and haunted her
like things that intruded, things which she had done with, and
which yet would not go away. Everything had gone dead, as it
seemed, had exhaled the soul of it, and retained but the odor of
its mortality. If for a moment a thing looked the same as before,
she wondered vaguely, unconsciously, how it could be. The
passages through the merchandise, left only wide enough for one,
seemed like those she had read of in Egyptian tombs and pyramids:
a sarcophagus ought to be waiting in her chamber. When she opened
the door of it, the bright fire, which Beenie undesired had
kindled there, startled her: the room looked unnatural,
_uncanny_, because it was cheerful. She stood for a moment
on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood listened to the howling
swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and shake. Now and
then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as if in
fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing
through the dark heaven.
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