The sound above the doorway

An original literary non-fiction-style account of hearing wind chimes outside a rented holiday cottage.

I heard the cottage before I saw its number. From somewhere above the doorway came three clear notes, followed by a thinner fourth which seemed uncertain whether to join them. The lane was quiet enough for the small hesitation to matter. I stopped beside the gate with the suitcase handle still in my hand.

The chimes were made of hollow metal tubes. They hung beneath a faded wooden disc, moving so slightly that I could not connect each movement with a sound. A leaf scraped along the wall. The tubes touched again, this time producing a brief tangle of notes which separated before I had decided whether they were pleasant.

Inside, I opened the suitcase and began putting things away. The sound reached the bedroom as an occasional bright interruption. It did not form a tune I could remember. Whenever I thought I had caught the beginning of one, the next note arrived too late or not at all. My ear kept completing something which the air had no intention of finishing.

By evening, I had stopped waiting for a tune. The chimes sounded once while I washed a cup, then remained quiet through supper. Later, a single note came through the open window. I recognised it immediately, though I could not have sung it. The unfamiliar house had acquired a sound by which I could know it.

How does the writer use language to present the narrator's experience of the chimes?