XXXIV
HOURS OF DARKNESS
Long before this the women of the house had fled, taking Lady Sybil'smaid with them. And dreadful as was the situation of those whoremained, appalling as were the fears of two of them, they were ableto control themselves; the better because they knew that they had noaid but their own to look to, and that their companion was helpless.Fortunately Lady Sybil, who had watched the earlier phases of the riotwith the detachment which is one of the marks of extreme weakness, hadat a certain point turned faint, and demanded to be removed from thewindow. She was ignorant, therefore, of the approach of the flames andof the imminence of the peril. She had even, in spite of the uproar,dozed off, after a few minutes of trying irritation, into an uneasysleep.
Mary and Miss Sibson were thus left free. But for what? Compelled towatch in suspense the progress of the flames, driven at times to fancythat they could feel the heat of the fire, assailed more than once bygusts of fear, as one or the other imagined that they were already cutoff, they could not have held their ground but for theirunselfishness; but for their possession of those qualities of love andheroism which raise women to the height of occasion, and nerve them toa pitch of endurance of which men are rarely capable. In theschoolmistress, with her powdered nose and her portly figure, and herdull past of samplers and backboards and Mrs. Chapone, there dwelt assturdy a spirit as in any of the rough Bristol shipmasters from whomshe sprang. She might be fond of a sweetbread, and a glass of portmight not come amiss to her. But the heart in her was stout and large,and she had as soon dreamed of forsaking her forlorn companions asthose bluff sailormen would have dreamed of striking their flag to acodfish Don, or to a shipload of mutinous slaves.
And Mary? Perchance the gentlest and the mildest are also the bravest,when the stress is real. Or perhaps those who have never known amother's love cling to the veriest shred and tatter of it, if it fallin their way. Or perhaps--but why explain that which all history hasproved a hundred times over---that love casts out fear. Mary quailed,deafened by the thunder of the fire, with the walls of the roomturning blood-red round her, and the smoke beginning to drift beforethe window. But she stood; and only once, assailed by every form offear, did her courage fail her, or sink below the stronger nerve ofthe elder woman.
That was when Miss Sibson, after watching that latest and mostpregnant sign, the eddying of smoke past the window, spoke out. "I'mgoing next door," she cried in Mary's ear. "There are papers I mustsave; they are all I have for my old age. The rest may go, but I can'tsee them burn when five minutes may save them."
But Mary clung to her desperately. "Oh!" she cried, "don't leave me!"
Miss Sibson patted her shoulder. "I shall come back," she said. "Ishall come back, my dear, never fear. And then we must move yourmother--into the Square if no better can be. Do you come down and letme in when I knock three times."
Lady Sybil was still dozing, with a woollen wrap about her head todeaden the noise; and giving way to the cooler brain Mary went downwith the schoolmistress. In the hall the roar of the fire was less,for the only window was shuttered. But the raucous voices of the mob,moving to and fro outside, were more clearly heard.
Miss Sibson, however, remained undaunted. "Put up the chain the momentI am outside," she said.
"But are you not afraid?" Mary cried, holding her back.
"Of those scamps?" Miss Sibson replied truculently. "They had betternot touch me!" And she turned the key and slipped out. Nor did sheleave the step until Mary had put up the chain and re-locked the door.
Mary waited--oh, many, many minutes it seemed--in the gloom of thehall, pierced here and there by a lurid ray; with half her mind on hermother upstairs, and the other half on the ribald laughter, thedrunken oaths and threats and curses which penetrated from the Square.It was plain that Miss Sibson had not gone too soon, for twice orthrice the door was struck with some heavy instrument, and harshvoices called on the inmates to open if they did not wish to beburned. Uncertain how the fire advanced, Mary heard them with a sickheart. But she held her ground, until, oh, joy! she heard voicesraised in altercation, and among them the schoolmistress's. A handknocked thrice, she turned the key and let down the chain. The dooropened upon her, and on the steps, with her hand on a man's shoulder,appeared Miss Sibson. Behind her and her captive, between them andthat background of flame and confusion, stood a group of four or fivemen--dock labourers, in tarpaulins and frocks, who laughed tipsily.
"This lad will help to carry your mother out," Miss Sibson said withthe utmost coolness. "Come, my lad, and no nonsense! You don't want toburn a sick lady in her bed!"
"No, I don't, Missis," the man grumbled sheepishly. "But I'm none herefor that! I'm none here for that, and----"
"You'll do it, all the same," the schoolmistress replied. "And I wantone more. Here, you," she continued, addressing a grinning hobbledehoyin a sealskin cap. "I know your face, and you'll want someone to speakfor you at the Assizes. Come in, you two, and the rest must wait untilthe lady's carried out!"
And thereon, with that strange mixture of humanity and unreasoningfury of which the night left many examples, the men complied. The twowhom she had chosen entered, the others suffered her to shut the doorin their faces. Only, "You'll be quick!" one bawled after her. "She'safire next door!"
That was the warning that went with them upstairs, and it nerved themfor the task before them. Over that task it were well to draw a veil.The poor sick woman, roused anew and abruptly to a sense of hersurroundings, to the flickering lights, the smell of smoke, thestrange faces, to all the horrors of that scene rarely equalled in ourmodern England, shrieked aloud. The courage, which had before upheldher, deserted her. She refused to be moved, refused to believe thatthey were there to save her; she failed even to recognise herdaughter, she resisted their efforts, and whatever Mary could say ordo, she added to the peril of the moment all the misery which franticterror and unavailing shrieks could add. They did not know, while theyreasoned with her, and tried to lift her, and strove to cloak heragainst the outer air, the minute at which the house might be entered;nor even that it was not already entered, already in some part onfire. The girl, though her hands were steady, though she neverwavered, though she persisted, was white as paper. And even MissSibson was almost unnerved, when at last nature came to their aid, andwith a frantic protest, a last attempt to thrust them from her, thepoor woman swooned; and the men who had looked on, as unhappy as thoseengaged, lifted the couch and bore her down the stairs. Odd are thewindings of chance and fate. These men, in whom every good instinctwas awakened by the sight before them, might, had the schoolmistress'seye alighted on others, have plundered on with their fellows; and withthe more luckless of those fellows have stood on the scaffold a monthlater!
Still, time had been lost. And perforce the men descended slowly, sothat as they reached the hall the door gave way, and admitted a dozenrascals, who tumbled over one another in their greed. The moment wascritical, the inrush of horrid sounds and sights appalling. But Maryrose to the occasion. With a courage which from this time remainedwith her to the end, she put herself forward.
"Will you let us pass out?" she said. "My mother is ill. You do notwish to harm her?"
Now Lady Sybil had made Mary put off the Quaker-like costume in whichshe had wished to nurse her, and she had had no time to cover thelight muslin dress she wore. The men saw before them a beautifulcreature, white-robed, bareheaded, barenecked--even the schoolmistresshad not snatched up so much as a cloak--a Una with sweet shining eyes,before whom they fell aside abashed.
"Lord love you, Miss!" one cried heartily. "Take her out! And Godbless you!" while the others grinned fatuously.
So down the steps and into the turmoil of the seething Square, walledon two sides by fire, and full of a drunken, frenzied rabble--for alldecent onlookers had fled, awake at last to the result of theirquiescence--the strange procession moved, the girl going first. Tipsygroups, singing and dancing
delirious jigs to the music of fallingwalls, pillagers hurrying in ruthless haste from house to house, orquarrelling over their spoils, householders striving to save a remnantof their goods from dwellings past saving--all made way for it. Menwho swayed on their feet, brandishing their arms and shouting obscenesongs, being touched on the shoulder by others, stared, and gave placewith mouths agape. Even boys, whom the madness of that night madeworse than men, and unsexed women, shrank at sight of it, and weresilent--nay, followed with a strange homage the slender white figure,the shining eyes, the pure sweet face.
In the worst horrors of the French Revolution it is said that thedevotion of a daughter stayed the hands which were raised to slay herfather. Even so, on this night in Bristol, amid surroundings lessbloody, but almost as appalling, the wildest and the most furious madeway for the daughter and the mother.
Led by instinct rather than by calculation, Mary did not pause, orlook aside, but moved onward, until she reached the middle of theSquare; until some sixty or seventy yards divided her charge from thenearest of the burning houses. The heat was less scorching here, thecrowd less compact. A fixed seat afforded shelter on one side, and byit she signed to the bearers to set the couch down. The statue stoodnot far away on the other side, and secured them against the uglyrushes which were caused from time to time by the fall of a roof or arain of sparks.
Mary gazed round her in stupor. And no wonder. The whole of the northside of the great Square, and a half of the west side--thirty loftyhouses in all--were in flames, or were sinking in red-hot ruin. Thelong wall of fire, the canopy of glowing smoke, the ceaseless roar ofthe element, the random movements of the forms which, pigmy-like,played between her and the conflagration, the doom which threatenedthe whole city, held her awestruck, spellbound, fascinated.
But even the feelings which she experienced, confronted by that sight,were exceeded by the emotions of one who had seen her advance, and, atfirst with horror, then as he recognised her, with incredulity, hadwatched the white figure which threaded its way through this rout ofsatyrs, this orgy of recklessness. She had not succeeded in wrestingher eyes from the spectacle before a trembling hand fell on her arm,and the last voice she expected to hear called her by name.
"Mary!" Sir Robert cried. "Mary! My God! What are you doing here?"For, taken up with staring at her, he had seen neither who accompaniedher nor what they bore.
A sob of relief and joy broke from her, as she recognised him andflung herself into his arms and clung to him.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" She could say no more at that moment. But thejoy of it! To have at last a man to turn to, a man to lean upon, a manto look to!
And still he could not grasp the position. "My God!" he repeated inwonder. "What, child, what are you doing here?"
But before she could answer him, his eyes sank to the level of thecouch, which the figures about it shaded from the scorching light. Andhe started--and stepped back. In a lower voice and a quavering tone hecalled upon his Maker. He was beginning to understand.
"We had to bring her out," she sobbed. "We had to bring her out. Thehouse is on fire. See!" She pointed to the house beside Miss Sibson's,from the upper windows of which smoke was beginning to curl and eddy.Men were pouring from the door below, carrying their booty andjostling others who sought to enter.
"You have been here all day?" he asked, passing his hand over hisbrow.
"Yes."
"All day? All day?" he repeated.
"Yes."
He covered his eyes with his hand, while Mary, recalled by a touchfrom Miss Sibson, knelt beside her mother, to feel her pulse, to rubher hands, to make sure that life still lingered in the inanimateframe. He had not asked, he did not ask who it was over whom hisdaughter hung with so tender a solicitude. He did not even look at thecloaked figure. But the sidelong glance which at once sought andshunned, the quivering of his mouth, which his shaking fingers did notavail to hide, the agitation which unnerved a frame, erect but feeble,all betrayed his knowledge. And what must have been his thoughts, howpoignant his reflections as he considered that there, there, envelopedin those shapeless wraps, there lay the bride whom he had wedded withhopes so high a score of years before! The mother of his child, thewife whom he had last seen in the pride of her beauty, the woman fromwhom he had been parted for sixteen years, and who through all thosesixteen years had never been absent from his thoughts for an hour,nor ever been aught in them but an abiding, clinging, embitteringmemory--she lay there!
What wonder, if the scene about them rolled away and he saw her againin the stately gardens at Stapylton, walking, smiling, talking,flirting, the gayest of the gay, the lightest of the butterflies, theadmired of all? Or if his heart bled at the remembrance--at thatremembrance and many another? Or again, what wonder if his mind wentback to long hours of brooding in his sombre library, hours given upto the rehearsal of grave remonstrances, vain reproofs, bittercomplaints, all destined to meet with defiance? And if his head sanklower, his hands trembled more senilely, his breast heaved at thispicture of the irrevocable past?
Of all the strange things wrought in Bristol that night, of all thestrangely begotten brood of riot and fire, and Reform, none werestranger than this meeting, if meeting that could be called where onewas ignorant of the other's presence, and he would not look upon herface. For he would not, perhaps he dared not. He stood with bent head,pondering and absorbed, until an uprush of sparks, more fiery thanusual, and the movement of the crowd to avoid them, awoke him from histhoughts. Then his eyes fell on Mary's uncovered head and neck, and hetook the cloak from his own shoulders and put it on her, with a touchas if he blessed her. She was kneeling beside the couch at the moment,her head bent to her mother's, her hair mingling with her mother's,but he contrived to close his eyes and would not see his wife's face.
After that he moved to the farther side of the couch, where somesneaking hobbledehoys showed a disposition to break in upon them. Andold as he was, and shaken and weary, he stood sentry there, a gauntstooping figure, for long hours, until the prayed-for day began tobreak above Redcliffe and to discover the grim relics of the night'swork.