implicit meaning of "in darkness"

[bigC]

The following sentence is extracted from a post:

“The finest of the big houses in this place were in darkness.”

Besdides "in a place of no visible light", does the phrase "in darkness" have other implicit meaning?

 

[5jj]

Possibly, but we'd need more context to be sure.

 

[Tdol]

It might be suggesting that this darkness was strange or unexpected. It does depend on the context.