X. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT
1. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH. UNTIL TEN P.M.
Monday came, the day named for Mrs. Manston's journey from London toher husband's house; a day of singular and great events, influencingthe present and future of nearly all the personages whose actions in acomplex drama form the subject of this record.
The proceedings of the steward demand the first notice. Whilst takinghis breakfast on this particular morning, the clock pointing to eight,the horse-and-gig that was to take him to Chettlewood waiting ready atthe door, Manston hurriedly cast his eyes down the column of Bradshawwhich showed the details and duration of the selected train's journey.
The inspection was carelessly made, the leaf being kept open by the aidof one hand, whilst the other still held his cup of coffee; much morecarelessly than would have been the case had the expected new-comer beenCytherea Graye, instead of his lawful wife.
He did not perceive, branching from the column down which his fingerran, a small twist, called a shunting-line, inserted at a particularplace, to imply that at that point the train was divided into two. Bythis oversight he understood that the arrival of his wife at CarrifordRoad Station would not be till late in the evening: by the second halfof the train, containing the third-class passengers, and passing twohours and three-quarters later than the previous one, by which the lady,as a second-class passenger, would really be brought.
He then considered that there would be plenty of time for him to returnfrom his day's engagement to meet this train. He finished his breakfast,gave proper and precise directions to his servant on the preparationsthat were to be made for the lady's reception, jumped into his gig, anddrove off to Lord Claydonfield's, at Chettlewood.
He went along by the front of Knapwater House. He could not help turningto look at what he knew to be the window of Cytherea's room. Whilst helooked, a hopeless expression of passionate love and sensuous anguishcame upon his face and lingered there for a few seconds; then, as onprevious occasions, it was resolutely repressed, and he trotted alongthe smooth white road, again endeavouring to banish all thought of theyoung girl whose beauty and grace had so enslaved him.
Thus it was that when, in the evening of the same day, Mrs. Manstonreached Carriford Road Station, her husband was still at Chettlewood,ignorant of her arrival, and on looking up and down the platform, drearywith autumn gloom and wind, she could see no sign that any preparationwhatever had been made for her reception and conduct home.
The train went on. She waited, fidgeted with the handle of her umbrella,walked about, strained her eyes into the gloom of the chilly night,listened for wheels, tapped with her foot, and showed all the usualsigns of annoyance and irritation: she was the more irritated inthat this seemed a second and culminating instance of her husband'sneglect--the first having been shown in his not fetching her.
Reflecting awhile upon the course it would be best to take, in orderto secure a passage to Knapwater, she decided to leave all her luggage,except a dressing-bag, in the cloak-room, and walk to her husband'shouse, as she had done on her first visit. She asked one of the portersif he could find a lad to go with her and carry her bag: he offered todo it himself.
The porter was a good-tempered, shallow-minded, ignorant man. Mrs.Manston, being apparently in very gloomy spirits, would probably havepreferred walking beside him without saying a word: but her companionwould not allow silence to continue between them for a longer periodthan two or three minutes together.
He had volunteered several remarks upon her arrival, chiefly to theeffect that it was very unfortunate Mr. Manston had not come to thestation for her, when she suddenly asked him concerning the inhabitantsof the parish.
He told her categorically the names of the chief--first the chiefpossessors of property; then of brains; then of good looks. As firstamong the latter he mentioned Miss Cytherea Graye.
After getting him to describe her appearance as completely as lay inhis power, she wormed out of him the statement that everybody had beensaying--before Mrs. Manston's existence was heard of--how well thehandsome Mr. Manston and the beautiful Miss Graye were suited for eachother as man and wife, and that Miss Aldclyffe was the only one in theparish who took no interest in bringing about the match.
'He rather liked her you think?'
The porter began to think he had been too explicit, and hastened tocorrect the error.
'O no, he don't care a bit about her, ma'am,' he said solemnly.
'Not more than he does about me?'
'Not a bit.'
'Then that must be little indeed,' Mrs. Manston murmured. She stoodstill, as if reflecting upon the painful neglect her words had recalledto her mind; then, with a sudden impulse, turned round, and walkedpetulantly a few steps back again in the direction of the station.
The porter stood still and looked surprised.
'I'll go back again; yes, indeed, I'll go back again!' she saidplaintively. Then she paused and looked anxiously up and down thedeserted road.
'No, I mustn't go back now,' she continued, in a tone of resignation.Seeing that the porter was watching her, she turned about and came on asbefore, giving vent to a slight laugh.
It was a laugh full of character; the low forced laugh which seeks tohide the painful perception of a humiliating position under the mask ofindifference.
Altogether her conduct had shown her to be what in fact she was, a weak,though a calculating woman, one clever to conceive, weak to execute:one whose best-laid schemes were for ever liable to be frustrated by theineradicable blight of vacillation at the critical hour of action.
'O, if I had only known that all this was going to happen!' she murmuredagain, as they paced along upon the rustling leaves.
'What did you say, ma'am?' said the porter.
'O, nothing particular; we are getting near the old manor-house by thistime, I imagine?'
'Very near now, ma'am.'
They soon reached Manston's residence, round which the wind blewmournfully and chill.
Passing under the detached gateway, they entered the porch. The porterstepped forward, knocked heavily and waited.
Nobody came.
Mrs. Manston then advanced to the door and gave a different series ofrappings--less forcible, but more sustained.
There was not a movement of any kind inside, not a ray of light visible;nothing but the echo of her own knocks through the passages, and the dryscratching of the withered leaves blown about her feet upon the floor ofthe porch.
The steward, of course, was not at home. Mrs. Crickett, not expectingthat anybody would arrive till the time of the later train, had set theplace in order, laid the supper-table, and then locked the door, to gointo the village and converse with her friends.
'Is there an inn in the village?' said Mrs. Manston, after the fourthand loudest rapping upon the iron-studded old door had resulted only inthe fourth and loudest echo from the passages inside.
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Who keeps it?'
'Farmer Springrove.'
'I will go there to-night,' she said decisively. 'It is too cold, andaltogether too bad, for a woman to wait in the open road on anybody'saccount, gentle or simple.'
They went down the park and through the gate, into the village ofCarriford. By the time they reached the Three Tranters, it was vergingupon ten o'clock. There, on the spot where two months earlier in theseason the sunny and lively group of villagers making cider under thetrees had greeted Cytherea's eyes, was nothing now intelligible but avast cloak of darkness, from which came the low sough of the elms, andthe occasional creak of the swinging sign.
They went to the door, Mrs. Manston shivering; but less from the cold,than from the dreariness of her emotions. Neglect is the coldest ofwinter winds.
It so happened that Edward Springrove was expected to arrive from Londoneither on that evening or the next, and at the sound of voices hisfather came to the door fully expecting to see him. A picture ofdisappointment seldom witnessed in a man's face was vis
ible in old Mr.Springrove's, when he saw that the comer was a stranger.
Mrs. Manston asked for a room, and one that had been prepared for Edwardwas immediately named as being ready for her, another being adaptablefor Edward, should he come in.
Without taking any refreshment, or entering any room downstairs, or evenlifting her veil, she walked straight along the passage and up to herapartment, the chambermaid preceding her.
'If Mr. Manston comes to-night,' she said, sitting on the bed as she hadcome in, and addressing the woman, 'tell him I cannot see him.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The woman left the room, and Mrs. Manston locked the door. Beforethe servant had gone down more than two or three stairs, Mrs. Manstonunfastened the door again, and held it ajar.
'Bring me some brandy,' she said.
The chambermaid went down to the bar and brought up the spirit in atumbler. When she came into the room, Mrs. Manston had not removed asingle article of apparel, and was walking up and down, as if stillquite undecided upon the course it was best to adopt.
Outside the door, when it was closed upon her, the maid paused to listenfor an instant. She heard Mrs. Manston talking to herself.
'This is welcome home!' she said.
2. FROM TEN TO HALF-PAST ELEVEN P.M.
A strange concurrence of phenomena now confronts us.
During the autumn in which the past scenes were enacted, Mr. Springrovehad ploughed, harrowed, and cleaned a narrow and shaded piece of ground,lying at the back of his house, which for many years had been lookedupon as irreclaimable waste.
The couch-grass extracted from the soil had been left to wither in thesun; afterwards it was raked together, lighted in the customary way, andnow lay smouldering in a large heap in the middle of the plot.
It had been kindled three days previous to Mrs. Manston's arrival, andone or two villagers, of a more cautious and less sanguine temperamentthan Springrove, had suggested that the fire was almost too near theback of the house for its continuance to be unattended with risk; forthough no danger could be apprehended whilst the air remained moderatelystill, a brisk breeze blowing towards the house might possibly carry aspark across.
'Ay, that's true enough,' said Springrove. 'I must look round beforegoing to bed and see that everything's safe; but to tell the truth Iam anxious to get the rubbish burnt up before the rain comes to wash itinto ground again. As to carrying the couch into the back field toburn, and bringing it back again, why, 'tis more than the ashes would beworth.'
'Well, that's very true,' said the neighbours, and passed on.
Two or three times during the first evening after the heap was lit, hewent to the back door to take a survey. Before bolting and barringup for the night, he made a final and more careful examination.The slowly-smoking pile showed not the slightest signs of activity.Springrove's perfectly sound conclusion was, that as long as the heapwas not stirred, and the wind continued in the quarter it blew fromthen, the couch would not flame, and that there could be no shadow ofdanger to anything, even a combustible substance, though it were no morethan a yard off.
The next morning the burning couch was discovered in precisely the samestate as when he had gone to bed the preceding night. The heap smokedin the same manner the whole of that day: at bed-time the farmer lookedtowards it, but less carefully than on the first night.
The morning and the whole of the third day still saw the heap in its oldsmouldering condition indeed, the smoke was less, and there seemed aprobability that it might have to be re-kindled on the morrow.
After admitting Mrs. Manston to his house in the evening, and hearingher retire, Mr. Springrove returned to the front door to listen for asound of his son, and inquired concerning him of the railway-porter,who sat for a while in the kitchen. The porter had not noticed youngMr. Springrove get out of the train, at which intelligence the old manconcluded that he would probably not see his son till the next day,as Edward had hitherto made a point of coming by the train which hadbrought Mrs. Manston.
Half-an-hour later the porter left the inn, Springrove at the same timegoing to the door to listen again an instant, then he walked round andin at the back of the house.
The farmer glanced at the heap casually and indifferently in passing;two nights of safety seemed to ensure the third; and he was about tobolt and bar as usual, when the idea struck him that there was just apossibility of his son's return by the latest train, unlikely as itwas that he would be so delayed. The old man thereupon left the doorunfastened, looked to his usual matters indoors, and went to bed, itbeing then half-past ten o'clock.
Farmers and horticulturists well know that it is in the nature of a heapof couch-grass, when kindled in calm weather, to smoulder for many days,and even weeks, until the whole mass is reduced to a powdery charcoalash, displaying the while scarcely a sign of combustion beyond thevolcano-like smoke from its summit; but the continuance of this quietprocess is throughout its length at the mercy of one particular whimof Nature: that is, a sudden breeze, by which the heap is liable to befanned into a flame so brisk as to consume the whole in an hour or two.
Had the farmer narrowly watched the pile when he went to close the door,he would have seen, besides the familiar twine of smoke from its summit,a quivering of the air around the mass, showing that a considerable heathad arisen inside.
As the railway-porter turned the corner of the row of houses adjoiningthe Three Tranters, a brisk new wind greeted his face, and spread pasthim into the village. He walked along the high-road till he came to agate, about three hundred yards from the inn. Over the gate couldbe discerned the situation of the building he had just quitted. Hecarelessly turned his head in passing, and saw behind him a clear redglow indicating the position of the couch-heap: a glow without a flame,increasing and diminishing in brightness as the breeze quickened orfell, like the coal of a newly lighted cigar. If those cottages hadbeen his, he thought, he should not care to have a fire so near them asthat--and the wind rising. But the cottages not being his, he went onhis way to the station, where he was about to resume duty for the night.The road was now quite deserted: till four o'clock the next morning,when the carters would go by to the stables there was little probabilityof any human being passing the Three Tranters Inn.
By eleven, everybody in the house was asleep. It truly seemed as ifthe treacherous element knew there had arisen a grand opportunity fordevastation.
At a quarter past eleven a slight stealthy crackle made itself heardamid the increasing moans of the night wind; the heap glowed brighterstill, and burst into a flame; the flame sank, another breeze enteredit, sustained it, and it grew to be first continuous and weak, thencontinuous and strong.
At twenty minutes past eleven a blast of wind carried an airy bit ofignited fern several yards forward, in a direction parallel to thehouses and inn, and there deposited it on the ground.
Five minutes later another puff of wind carried a similar piece to adistance of five-and-twenty yards, where it also was dropped softly onthe ground.
Still the wind did not blow in the direction of the houses, and even nowto a casual observer they would have appeared safe. But Nature does fewthings directly. A minute later yet, an ignited fragment fell upon thestraw covering of a long thatched heap or 'grave' of mangel-wurzel,lying in a direction at right angles to the house, and down toward thehedge. There the fragment faded to darkness.
A short time subsequent to this, after many intermediate deposits andseemingly baffled attempts, another fragment fell on the mangel-wurzelgrave, and continued to glow; the glow was increased by the wind; thestraw caught fire and burst into flame. It was inevitable that the flameshould run along the ridge of the thatch towards a piggery at the end.Yet had the piggery been tiled, the time-honoured hostel would even nowat this last moment have been safe; but it was constructed as piggeriesare mostly constructed, of wood and thatch. The hurdles and straw roofof the frail erection became ignited in their turn, and abutting as theshed did on the back of the inn, flamed up to the ea
ves of the main roofin less than thirty seconds.
3. HALF-PAST ELEVEN TO TWELVE P.M.
A hazardous length of time elapsed before the inmates of the ThreeTranters knew of their danger. When at length the discovery was made,the rush was a rush for bare life.
A man's voice calling, then screams, then loud stamping and shouts wereheard.
Mr. Springrove ran out first. Two minutes later appeared the ostler andchambermaid, who were man and wife. The inn, as has been stated, was aquaint old building, and as inflammable as a bee-hive; it overhung thebase at the level of the first floor, and again overhung at the eaves,which were finished with heavy oak barge-boards; every atom in itssubstance, every feature in its construction, favoured the fire.
The forked flames, lurid and smoky, became nearly lost to view, burstingforth again with a bound and loud crackle, increased tenfold in powerand brightness. The crackling grew sharper. Long quivering shadows beganto be flung from the stately trees at the end of the house; the squareoutline of the church tower, on the other side of the way, which hadhitherto been a dark mass against a sky comparatively light, now beganto appear as a light object against a sky of darkness; and even thenarrow surface of the flag-staff at the top could be seen in its darksurrounding, brought out from its obscurity by the rays from the dancinglight.
Shouts and other noises increased in loudness and frequency. The lapseof ten minutes brought most of the inhabitants of that end of thevillage into the street, followed in a short time by the rector, Mr.Raunham.
Casting a hasty glance up and down, he beckoned to one or two of themen, and vanished again. In a short time wheels were heard, and Mr.Raunham and the men reappeared, with the garden engine, the only one inthe village, except that at Knapwater House. After some little troublethe hose was connected with a tank in the old stable-yard, and the punyinstrument began to play.
Several seemed paralyzed at first, and stood transfixed, their rigidfaces looking like red-hot iron in the glaring light. In the confusiona woman cried, 'Ring the bells backwards!' and three or four of the oldand superstitious entered the belfry and jangled them indescribably.Some were only half dressed, and, to add to the horror, among them wasClerk Crickett, running up and down with a face streaming with blood,ghastly and pitiful to see, his excitement being so great that he hadnot the slightest conception of how, when, or where he came by thewound.
The crowd was now busy at work, and tried to save a little of thefurniture of the inn. The only room they could enter was the parlour,from which they managed to bring out the bureau, a few chairs, some oldsilver candlesticks, and half-a-dozen light articles; but these wereall.
Fiery mats of thatch slid off the roof and fell into the road with adeadened thud, whilst white flakes of straw and wood-ash were flying inthe wind like feathers. At the same time two of the cottages adjoining,upon which a little water had been brought to play from the rector'sengine, were seen to be on fire. The attenuated spirt of water was asnothing upon the heated and dry surface of the thatched roof; thefire prevailed without a minute's hindrance, and dived through to therafters.
Suddenly arose a cry, 'Where's Mr. Springrove?'
He had vanished from the spot by the churchyard wall, where he had beenstanding a few minutes earlier.
'I fancy he's gone inside,' said a voice.
'Madness and folly! what can he save?' said another. 'Good God, findhim! Help here!'
A wild rush was made at the door, which had fallen to, and in defianceof the scorching flame that burst forth, three men forced themselvesthrough it. Immediately inside the threshold they found the object oftheir search lying senseless on the floor of the passage.
To bring him out and lay him on a bank was the work of an instant; abasin of cold water was dashed in his face, and he began to recoverconsciousness, but very slowly. He had been saved by a miracle. Nosooner were his preservers out of the building than the window-frameslit up as if by magic with deep and waving fringes of flames.Simultaneously, the joints of the boards forming the front door startedinto view as glowing bars of fire: a star of red light penetrated thecentre, gradually increasing in size till the flames rushed forth.
Then the staircase fell.
'Everybody is out safe,' said a voice.
'Yes, thank God!' said three or four others.
'O, we forgot that a stranger came! I think she is safe.'
'I hope she is,' said the weak voice of some one coming up from behind.It was the chambermaid's.
Springrove at that moment aroused himself; he staggered to his feet, andthrew his hands up wildly.
'Everybody, no! no! The lady who came by train, Mrs. Manston! I tried tofetch her out, but I fell.'
An exclamation of horror burst from the crowd; it was caused partlyby this disclosure of Springrove, more by the added perception whichfollowed his words.
An average interval of about three minutes had elapsed between oneintensely fierce gust of wind and the next, and now another poured overthem; the roof swayed, and a moment afterwards fell in with a crash,pulling the gable after it, and thrusting outwards the front wall ofwood-work, which fell into the road with a rumbling echo; a cloud ofblack dust, myriads of sparks, and a great outburst of flame followedthe uproar of the fall.
'Who is she? what is she?' burst from every lip again and again,incoherently, and without leaving a sufficient pause for a reply, had areply been volunteered.
The autumn wind, tameless, and swift, and proud, still blew upon thedying old house, which was constructed so entirely of combustiblematerials that it burnt almost as fiercely as a corn-rick. The heatin the road increased, and now for an instant at the height of theconflagration all stood still, and gazed silently, awestruck andhelpless, in the presence of so irresistible an enemy. Then, with mindsfull of the tragedy unfolded to them, they rushed forward again withthe obtuse directness of waves, to their labour of saving goods from thehouses adjoining, which it was evident were all doomed to destruction.
The minutes passed by. The Three Tranters Inn sank into a mere heap ofred-hot charcoal: the fire pushed its way down the row as the churchclock opposite slowly struck the hour of midnight, and the bewilderedchimes, scarcely heard amid the crackling of the flames, wanderedthrough the wayward air of the Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth Psalm.
4. NINE TO ELEVEN P.M.
Manston mounted his gig and set out from Chettlewood that evening in novery enviable frame of mind. The thought of domestic life in KnapwaterOld House, with the now eclipsed wife of the past, was more thandisagreeable, was positively distasteful to him.
Yet he knew that the influential position, which, from whateverfortunate cause, he held on Miss Aldclyffe's manor, would never againfall to his lot on any other, and he tacitly assented to this dilemma,hoping that some consolation or other would soon suggest itself to him;married as he was, he was near Cytherea.
He occasionally looked at his watch as he drove along the lanes, timingthe pace of his horse by the hour, that he might reach Carriford RoadStation just soon enough to meet the last London train.
He soon began to notice in the sky a slight yellow halo, near thehorizon. It rapidly increased; it changed colour, and grew redder; thenthe glare visibly brightened and dimmed at intervals, showing that itsorigin was affected by the strong wind prevailing.
Manston reined in his horse on the summit of a hill, and considered.
'It is a rick-yard on fire,' he thought; 'no house could produce such araging flame so suddenly.'
He trotted on again, attempting to particularize the local features inthe neighbourhood of the fire; but this it was too dark to do, and theexcessive winding of the roads misled him as to its direction, not beingan old inhabitant of the district, or a countryman used to formingsuch judgments; whilst the brilliancy of the light shortened its realremoteness to an apparent distance of not more than half: it seemed sonear that he again stopped his horse, this time to listen; but he couldhear no sound.
Entering now a narrow valley, the sides of which ob
scured the sky to anangle of perhaps thirty or forty degrees above the mathematical horizon,he was obliged to suspend his judgment till he was in possession offurther knowledge, having however assumed in the interim, that the firewas somewhere between Carriford Road Station and the village.
The self-same glare had just arrested the eyes of another man. He wasat that minute gliding along several miles to the east of the steward'sposition, but nearing the same point as that to which Manston tended.The younger Edward Springrove was returning from London to his father'shouse by the identical train which the steward was expecting to bringhis wife, the truth being that Edward's lateness was owing to thesimplest of all causes, his temporary want of money, which led him tomake a slow journey for the sake of travelling at third-class fare.
Springrove had received Cytherea's bitter and admonitory letter, and hewas clearly awakened to a perception of the false position in whichhe had placed himself, by keeping silence at Budmouth on his longengagement. An increasing reluctance to put an end to those few days ofecstasy with Cytherea had overruled his conscience, and tied his tonguetill speaking was too late.
'Why did I do it? how could I dream of loving her?' he asked himself ashe walked by day, as he tossed on his bed by night: 'miserable folly!'
An impressionable heart had for years--perhaps as many as six or sevenyears--been distracting him, by unconsciously setting itself to yearnfor somebody wanting, he scarcely knew whom. Echoes of himself, thoughrarely, he now and then found. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women,his cousin Adelaide being one of these; for in spite of a fashion whichpervades the whole community at the present day--the habit of exclaimingthat woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse, the fact remains that,after all, women are Mankind, and that in many of the sentiments of lifethe difference of sex is but a difference of degree.
But the indefinable helpmate to the remoter sides of himself stillcontinued invisible. He grew older, and concluded that the ideas, orrather emotions, which possessed him on the subject, were probably toounreal ever to be found embodied in the flesh of a woman. Thereupon,he developed a plan of satisfying his dreams by wandering away to theheroines of poetical imagination, and took no further thought on theearthly realization of his formless desire, in more homely matterssatisfying himself with his cousin.
Cytherea appeared in the sky: his heart started up and spoke:
'Tis She, and here Lo! I unclothe and clear My wishes' cloudy character.'
Some women kindle emotion so rapidly in a man's heart that the judgmentcannot keep pace with its rise, and finds, on comprehending thesituation, that faithfulness to the old love is already treachery to thenew. Such women are not necessarily the greatest of their sex, but thereare very few of them. Cytherea was one.
On receiving the letter from her he had taken to thinking over thesethings, and had not answered it at all. But 'hungry generations' soontread down the muser in a city. At length he thought of the strongnecessity of living. After a dreary search, the negligence of which wasultimately overcome by mere conscientiousness, he obtained a situationas assistant to an architect in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross: theduties would not begin till after the lapse of a month.
He could not at first decide whither he should go to spend theintervening time; but in the midst of his reasonings he found himselfon the road homeward, impelled by a secret and unowned hope of getting alast glimpse of Cytherea there.
5. MIDNIGHT
It was a quarter to twelve when Manston drove into the station-yard.The train was punctual, and the bell, announcing its arrival, rang as hecrossed the booking-office to go out upon the platform.
The porter who had accompanied Mrs. Manston to Carriford, and hadreturned to the station on his night duty, recognized the steward as heentered, and immediately came towards him.
'Mrs. Manston came by the nine o'clock train, sir,' he said.
The steward gave vent to an expression of vexation.
'Her luggage is here, sir,' the porter said.
'Put it up behind me in the gig if it is not too much,' said Manston.
'Directly this train is in and gone, sir.'
The man vanished and crossed the line to meet the entering train.
'Where is that fire?' Manston said to the booking-clerk.
Before the clerk could speak, another man ran in and answered thequestion without having heard it.
'Half Carriford is burnt down, or will be!' he exclaimed. 'You can't seethe flames from this station on account of the trees, but step on thebridge--'tis tremendous!'
He also crossed the line to assist at the entry of the train, which camein the next minute.
The steward stood in the office. One passenger alighted, gave up histicket, and crossed the room in front of Manston: a young man with ablack bag and umbrella in his hand. He passed out of the door, down thesteps, and struck out into the darkness.
'Who was that young man?' said Manston, when the porter had returned.The young man, by a kind of magnetism, had drawn the steward's thoughtsafter him.
'He's an architect.'
'My own old profession. I could have sworn it by the cut of him,'Manston murmured. 'What's his name?' he said again.
'Springrove--Farmer Springrove's son, Edward.'
'Farmer Springrove's son, Edward,' the steward repeated to himself, andconsidered a matter to which the words had painfully recalled his mind.
The matter was Miss Aldclyffe's mention of the young man as Cytherea'slover, which, indeed, had scarcely ever been absent from his thoughts.
'But for the existence of my wife that man might have been my rival,' hepondered, following the porter, who had now come back to him, into theluggage-room. And whilst the man was carrying out and putting in onebox, which was sufficiently portable for the gig, Manston still thought,as his eyes watched the process--
'But for my wife, Springrove might have been my rival.'
He examined the lamps of his gig, carefully laid out the reins, mountedthe seat and drove along the turnpike-road towards Knapwater Park.
The exact locality of the fire was plain to him as he neared home.He soon could hear the shout of men, the flapping of the flames,the crackling of burning wood, and could smell the smoke from theconflagration.
Of a sudden, a few yards ahead, within the compass of the rays from theright-hand lamp, burst forward the figure of a man. Having been walkingin darkness the newcomer raised his hands to his eyes, on approachingnearer, to screen them from the glare of the reflector.
Manston saw that he was one of the villagers: a small farmer originally,who had drunk himself down to a day-labourer and reputed poacher.
'Hoy!' cried Manston, aloud, that the man might step aside out of theway.
'Is that Mr. Manston?' said the man.
'Yes.'
'Somebody ha' come to Carriford: and the rest of it may concern you,sir.'
'Well, well.'
'Did you expect Mrs. Manston to-night, sir?'
'Yes, unfortunately she's come, I know, and asleep long before thistime, I suppose.'
The labourer leant his elbow upon the shaft of the gig and turned hisface, pale and sweating from his late work at the fire, up to Manston's.
'Yes, she did come,' he said.... 'I beg pardon, sir, but I should beglad of--of--'
'What?'
'Glad of a trifle for bringen ye the news.'
'Not a farthing! I didn't want your news, I knew she was come.'
'Won't you give me a shillen, sir?'
'Certainly not.'
'Then will you lend me a shillen, sir? I be tired out, and don't knowwhat to do. If I don't pay you back some day I'll be d--d.'
'The devil is so cheated that perdition isn't worth a penny as asecurity.'
'Oh!'
'Let me go on,' said Manston.
'Thy wife is _dead_; that's the rest o' the news,' said the labourerslowly. He waited for a reply; none came.
'She went to the Three Tranters, because she couldn't get into
thyhouse, the burnen roof fell in upon her before she could be called up,and she's a cinder, as thou'lt be some day.'
'That will do, let me drive on,' said the steward calmly.
Expectation of a concussion may be so intense that its failure strikesthe brain with more force than its fulfilment. The labourer sank backinto the ditch. Such a Cushi could not realize the possibility of suchan unmoved David as this.
Manston drove hastily to the turning of the road, tied his horse, andran on foot to the site of the fire.
The stagnation caused by the awful accident had been passed through,and all hands were helping to remove from the remaining cottage whatfurniture they could lay hold of; the thatch of the roofs being alreadyon fire. The Knapwater fire-engine had arrived on the spot, but it wassmall, and ineffectual. A group was collected round the rector, who in acoat which had become bespattered, scorched, and torn in his exertions,was directing on one hand the proceedings relative to the removal ofgoods into the church, and with the other was pointing out the spoton which it was most desirable that the puny engines at their disposalshould be made to play. Every tongue was instantly silent at the sightof Manston's pale and clear countenance, which contrasted strangely withthe grimy and streaming faces of the toiling villagers.
'Was she burnt?' he said in a firm though husky voice, and stepping intothe illuminated area. The rector came to him, and took him aside. 'Isshe burnt?' repeated Manston.
'She is dead: but thank God, she was spared the horrid agony ofburning,' the rector said solemnly; 'the roof and gable fell in uponher, and crushed her. Instant death must have followed.'
'Why was she here?' said Manston.
'From what we can hurriedly collect, it seems that she found the doorof your house locked, and concluded that you had retired, the fact beingthat your servant, Mrs. Crickett, had gone out to supper. She then cameback to the inn and went to bed.'
'Where's the landlord?' said Manston.
Mr. Springrove came up, walking feebly, and wrapped in a cloak, andcorroborated the evidence given by the rector.
'Did she look ill, or annoyed, when she came?' said the steward.
'I can't say. I didn't see; but I think--'
'What do you think?'
'She was much put out about something.'
'My not meeting her, naturally,' murmured the other, lost in reverie.He turned his back on Springrove and the rector, and retired from theshining light.
Everything had been done that could be done with the limited meansat their disposal. The whole row of houses was destroyed, and eachpresented itself as one stage of a series, progressing from smokingruins at the end where the inn had stood, to a partly flamingmass--glowing as none but wood embers will glow--at the other.
A feature in the decline of town fires was noticeably absenthere--steam. There was present what is not observable intowns--incandescence.
The heat, and the smarting effect upon their eyes of the strong smokefrom the burning oak and deal, had at last driven the villagers backfrom the road in front of the houses, and they now stood in groupsin the churchyard, the surface of which, raised by the interments ofgenerations, stood four or five feet above the level of the road, andalmost even with the top of the low wall dividing one from the other.The headstones stood forth whitely against the dark grass and yews,their brightness being repeated on the white smock-frocks of some of thelabourers, and in a mellower, ruddier form on their faces and hands, onthose of the grinning gargoyles, and on other salient stonework of theweather-beaten church in the background.
The rector had decided that, under the distressing circumstances ofthe case, there would be no sacrilege in placing in the church, for thenight, the pieces of furniture and utensils which had been saved fromthe several houses. There was no other place of safety for them, andthey accordingly were gathered there.
6. HALF-PAST TWELVE TO ONE A.M.
Manston, when he retired to meditate, had walked round the churchyard,and now entered the opened door of the building.
He mechanically pursued his way round the piers into his own seat inthe north aisle. The lower atmosphere of this spot was shaded by its ownwall from the shine which streamed in over the window-sills on thesame side. The only light burning inside the church was a small tallowcandle, standing in the font, in the opposite aisle of the building tothat in which Manston had sat down, and near where the furniture waspiled. The candle's mild rays were overpowered by the ruddier light fromthe ruins, making the weak flame to appear like the moon by day.
Sitting there he saw Farmer Springrove enter the door, followed by hisson Edward, still carrying his travelling-bag in his hand. Theywere speaking of the sad death of Mrs. Manston, but the subject wasrelinquished for that of the houses burnt.
This row of houses, running from the inn eastward, had been built underthe following circumstances:--
Fifty years before this date, the spot upon which the cottagesafterwards stood was a blank strip, along the side of the villagestreet, difficult to cultivate, on account of the outcrop thereon of alarge bed of flints called locally a 'lanch' or 'lanchet.'
The Aldclyffe then in possession of the estate conceived the idea thata row of cottages would be an improvement to the spot, and accordinglygranted leases of portions to several respectable inhabitants. Eachlessee was to be subject to the payment of a merely nominal rent forthe whole term of lives, on condition that he built his own cottage, anddelivered it up intact at the end of the term.
Those who had built had, one by one, relinquished their indentures,either by sale or barter, to Farmer Springrove's father. New lives wereadded in some cases, by payment of a sum to the lord of the manor, etc.,and all the leases were now held by the farmer himself, as one of thechief provisions for his old age.
The steward had become interested in the following conversation:--
'Try not to be so depressed, father; they are all insured.'
The words came from Edward in an anxious tone.
'You mistake, Edward; they are not insured,' returned the old mangloomily.
'Not?' the son asked.
'Not one!' said the farmer.
'In the Helmet Fire Office, surely?'
'They were insured there every one. Six months ago the office, which hadbeen raising the premiums on thatched premises higher for some years,gave up insuring them altogether, as two or three other fire-offices haddone previously, on account, they said, of the uncertainty andgreatness of the risk of thatch undetached. Ever since then I have beencontinually intending to go to another office, but have never gone. Whoexpects a fire?'
'Do you remember the terms of the leases?' said Edward, still moreuneasily.
'No, not particularly,' said his father absently.
'Where are they?'
'In the bureau there; that's why I tried to save it first, among otherthings.'
'Well, we must see to that at once.'
'What do you want?'
'The key.'
They went into the south aisle, took the candle from the font, and thenproceeded to open the bureau, which had been placed in a corner underthe gallery. Both leant over upon the flap; Edward holding the candle,whilst his father took the pieces of parchment from one of the drawers,and spread the first out before him.
'You read it, Ted. I can't see without my glasses. This one will besufficient. The terms of all are the same.'
Edward took the parchment, and read quickly and indistinctly for sometime; then aloud and slowly as follows:--
'And the said John Springrove for himself his heirs executors andadministrators doth covenant and agree with the said Gerald FellcourtAldclyffe his heirs and assigns that he the said John Springrove hisheirs and assigns during the said term shall pay unto the said GeraldFellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns the clear yearly rent of tenshillings and sixpence.... at the several times hereinbefore appointedfor the payment thereof respectively. And also shall and at all timesduring the said term well and sufficiently repair and keep the saidCottage or
Dwelling-house and all other the premises and all houses orbuildings erected or to be erected thereupon in good and proper repairin every respect without exception and the said premises in such goodrepair upon the determination of this demise shall yield up unto thesaid Gerald Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns.'
They closed the bureau and turned towards the door of the church withoutspeaking.
Manston also had come forward out of the gloom. Notwithstanding thefarmer's own troubles, an instinctive respect and generous sense ofsympathy with the steward for his awful loss caused the old man to stepaside, that Manston might pass out without speaking to them if he choseto do so.
'Who is he?' whispered Edward to his father, as Manston approached.
'Mr. Manston, the steward.'
Manston came near, and passed down the aisle on the side of the youngerman. Their faces came almost close together: one large flame, whichstill lingered upon the ruins outside, threw long dancing shadows ofeach across the nave till they bent upwards against the aisle wall, andalso illuminated their eyes, as each met those of the other. Edward hadlearnt, by a letter from home, of the steward's passion for Cytherea,and his mysterious repression of it, afterwards explained by hismarriage. That marriage was now nought. Edward realized the man's newlyacquired freedom, and felt an instinctive enmity towards him--he wouldhardly own to himself why. The steward, too, knew Cytherea's attachmentto Edward, and looked keenly and inscrutably at him.
7. ONE TO TWO A.M.
Manston went homeward alone, his heart full of strange emotions.Entering the house, and dismissing the woman to her own home, he at onceproceeded upstairs to his bedroom.
Reasoning worldliness, especially when allied with sensuousness, cannotrepress on some extreme occasions the human instinct to pour out thesoul to some Being or Personality, who in frigid moments is dismissedwith the title of Chance, or at most Law. Manston was selfishly andinhumanly, but honestly and unutterably, thankful for the recentcatastrophe. Beside his bed, for that first time during a periodof nearly twenty years, he fell down upon his knees in a passionateoutburst of feeling.
Many minutes passed before he arose. He walked to the window, and thenseemed to remember for the first time that some action on his part wasnecessary in connection with the sad circumstance of the night.
Leaving the house at once, he went to the scene of the fire, arrivingthere in time to hear the rector making an arrangement with a certainnumber of men to watch the spot till morning. The ashes were stillred-hot and flaming. Manston found that nothing could be done towardssearching them at that hour of the night. He turned homeward again, inthe company of the rector, who had considerately persuaded him to retirefrom the scene for a while, and promised that as soon as a man couldlive amid the embers of the Three Tranters Inn, they should be carefullysearched for the remains of his unfortunate wife.
Manston then went indoors, to wait for morning.