At the beginning of Chapter 3, the narrator uses a simile that compares the unsettling stillness of Audley Court to the stillness of death:
The very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity, and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivy-covered pile of building—so deathlike was the tranquillity of all around.
In the passage just before this, the countryside around Audley Court is silent and expectant. This passage continues that work, but moves into a distinctly creepy and uneasy mode of describing the pastoral scene. The narrator describes the "very repose" of the twilight countryside as not just quiet, but eerily silent. It's so quiet in this place, so intensely still, that it feels as if "a corpse must be lying somewhere." By comparing the tranquility of the setting to the stillness associated with death, the passage suggests that there’s more to the scene than the reader is aware of. There’s an unsettling, creeping undercurrent at play here.
Terms such as "painful repose" further compound this sense of unease, and contribute to the foreshadowing this passage sets up. The word “repose” would typically suggest a peaceful state of rest, but in this context, it's reframed as "painful." This choice by the author suggests that the "rest" itself is confining, unpleasant, and akin to the sleep of death. The scene is full of breathless expectation, as the reader is led to believe that the silence is building toward a break. On the whole, the reader feels that the surrounding environment is just waiting for a disturbance to shatter its silence.
