CHAPTER XVII
A GLARE IN THE SKY
The Society for the Maintenance of the Public Decency has a record oflong and distinguished usefulness, but never in its annals has it beenmoved to a more determined activity than during the week which followedthis ill-starred run. The Ruling Dames or Past Grand Mistresses--Idon't quite know what their true official title is--of this august bodymet and conferred and drank tea continually. Those who were conversantwith the Society's methods made dire prophecy of a public action of anunparalleled rigour. But beyond the fact that Mrs. Arbuthnot'schina-blue eyes had an inscrutable glint, and that Mrs. Catesby'sMinerva-like front was as lofty and menacing as became the daughter ofJove, nothing happened during this critical period which really aspiresto the dignity of history.
Three times within that fateful space the noble Master led forth hishounds; three times was it whispered confidently in my ear by my littlefriend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins with a piquant suggestion in her accentof her old Kentucky home, which sometimes overtakes her very charminglyin moments of acute emotion, "that if the tenderfoot from the rotundahit the trail, Reg would take the fox-dogs home"[1]; three times didthe lady in the scarlet coat do her best to override the fox-dogs inquestion; three times, as the veracious historian is fain to confess,nothing happened whatever. It is true that more than once the nobleMaster looked at the offender "as no gentleman ought to look at alady." More than once he cursed her by all his gods, but never withinher hearing. Rumour had it that he also told Fitz that if he didn'tlook after his wife he should give the order for the kennels.Unfortunately, Miss Laura Glendinning was the sole authority for thismelodramatic statement.
However, on the evening of the seventh day the stars in their coursessaid their word in the matter. Doubtless the behaviour of the astralbodies was the outcome of a formally expressed wish of the Society; atleast it is well known that certain of its members carry weight inheaven. Whether Mrs. Catesby and the Vicar's Wife headed a deputationto Jupiter I am not in a position to affirm. Be that as it may, on theevening of the seventh day fate issued a decree against "the circusrider from Vienna" and all her household.
Let this fell occurrence be recorded with detail. Myself andco-partner in life's felicities had had a tolerable if somewhatfatiguing day with the Crackanthorpe Hounds. We had assisted at thedestruction of a couple of fur-coated members of society who had doneus no harm whatever; and having exchanged the soaked, muddy andgenerally uncomfortable habiliments of the chase for the garb of peace,had fared _tete-a-tete_--Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstrutherregaling his friends at the Hall with the light of his countenance andhis post-prandial skill at snooker--with sumptuous decency upon bakedmeats and the good red wine.
We were in the most harmonious stage of all that this chequeredexistence has to offer; taking our ease in our inn while our netherlimbs, whose stiffness was a not unpleasing reminiscence of thestrenuous day we had spent in the saddle, toasted luxuriously before agood sea-coal fire; smoking the pipe of peace together, although thisis by way of being a figure of speech, since Mrs. Arbuthnot affected amild Turkish cigarette; comparing notes of our joint adventures byflood and field, with the natural and inevitable De VereVane-Anstruther note of condescension quite agreeably mitigated by onetiny liqueur glass of the 1820 brandy--a magic potion which ere now hascaused the Magnificent Youth himself to abate a few feathers of hisplumage. We were conducting an exhaustive inquiry into the respectivemerits of Pixie and Daydream, and I had been led with a charm that wasirresistible into a concurrence with the sharer of my bliss that bothwere worth every penny of the price that had been paid for them,although I had not so much as thrown a leg over either of thesequadrupeds of most distinguished ancestry.
"It is rather a lot to pay, but you can't call them dear, can you,because they _do_ fetch such prices nowadays, don't they? And Laura isperfectly green with envy."
"I'm glad of that," said I, with undefeated optimism. "If hergreenness approximates to the right shade it will match the Huntcollar. How green is she?"
"Funny old thing!" Mrs. Arbuthnot's beam was of childlike benignity."She is not such a bad sort, really. Besides, plain people are alwaysthe nicest, aren't they, poor dears? Yes, Parkins, what is it?"
Parkins the peerless had entered the drawing-room after a discreetpreliminary knock for which the circumstances really made no demandwhatever. He had sidled up to his mistress, and in his mien naturalreserve and a desire to dispense information were finely mingled.
"Beg pardon, ma'am, but have you seen the glare in the sky?"
"What sort of a glare, Parkins?" A lazy voice emerged from the seventhheaven of the hedonist. "Do you mean it's a what-do-you-call-it? A_planet_ I suppose you mean, Parkins?"
"It can hardly be a _comet_, ma'am," said Parkins, with his mostencyclopaedic air. "It is so bright and so fixed, and it seems to begetting larger."
"So long as it isn't the end of the world," said Mrs. Arbuthnot,fondling her gold cigarette-case with a little sigh.
"It looks to me like the Castle, ma'am. It is over in that direction.I remember when the west wing was burnt twelve years ago."
"You think the Castle is on fire?" said I.
I also was in the seventh heaven of the hedonist. But gathering myfaculties as resolutely as I could, I rose from the good sea-coal fireand assisted Parkins to pull aside the curtains.
"By Jove, you're right. There is a blaze somewhere, But isn't itrather near for the Castle?"
"It might be the Grange," said Parkins.
I was fain to agree that the Grange it might be. Somehow that seemed aplace excellently laid for disaster. The announcement that the Grangewas on fire brought Mrs. Arbuthnot to the window. Born under Mars, thestar of my destiny is nothing if not a woman of action. In spite ofher present rather lymphatic state she ordered the car roundimmediately. Within five minutes we were braving a dark and stormyDecember night.
The beacon growing ever brighter as we went, it did not take long toconvince us that the Grange would be our destination. It is to befeared that we broke the law, for in something considerably under halfan hour we had come to the home of the Fitzwarens.
A heartrending scene it was. The beautiful but always rather desolateold house, which dates from John o' Gaunt, seemed already doomed. Aportion of it was even now in ruins and on all sides the flames wereleaping up fiercely to the sky. Engines had not yet had time to comefrom Middleham, and the progress of the fire was appalling.
A number of servants and villagers had devoted themselves to the taskof retrieving the furniture. On a lawn at some distance from the housean incongruous collection of articles had been laid out: a picture byRubens side by side with a trouser-press; a piece of Sevres cheek byjowl with a kitchen saucepan. Standing in their midst in the charge ofa nurse was the small elf of four. Her eyes were sparkling and she wasdancing and clapping her hands in delight at the spectacle. The nursewas in tears.
Mrs. Arbuthnot had not seen the creature before. But her instincts areswift and they are sure.
"Come with me," she said to the nurse. "Saunders will take you in thecar to Dympsfield House. They will make up a bed for you in the daynursery and see that you get some warm food."
Hardly had the little girl suffered herself to be led away by theprospect of a new adventure before two men came towards the spot whereI stood. They were grimy and dishevelled, and the upper part of theirpersons seemed to be enveloped in folds of wet blanket. They werestaggering under a very large and unwieldy burden which was swathed ina material similar to that which they wore themselves.
With much care this object was deposited upon a Sheraton table, andthen I found myself greeted by a familiar voice.
"Hullo, Arbuthnot! Didn't expect to see you here. Very good of you tocome."
It was the voice of Fitz speaking with the almost uncanny _insouciance_of the wonderful night at Portland Place. He cast off the curiouswrappings which encumbered his head, and said to his companion
, who wasin similar guise, "I'm afraid it has us beat. The sooner we get out ofthis kit the better."
There came an incoherent growl out of the folds of wet blanket.
"Why, Coverdale!" I said in astonishment.
"I think we ought to make a sporting dash for that Holbein," said thegrowl, becoming coherent. "That is, if you are quite sure it isn't aforgery."
"Personally I think it is," said Fitz, in his voice of unnatural calm."But my father always believed it to be genuine."
"Better take the word of your father. Let us get at it."
It was the work of a moment to strip the wrappings off the retrievedmasterpiece upon the Sheraton table.
"Can I help?" said I.
"If you want to be of use," said Fitz, "go and give the Missus a handwith the horses."
Leaving Fitz and Coverdale to make yet another entry into what seemedhardly less than a furnace of living fire, I made my way round to thestables. To approach them one had to be careful. The heat wasintense; sparks and burning fragments were being flung a considerabledistance by the gusts of wind, and masonry was crashing continually.The out-buildings had not yet caught, but with the wind in its presentquarter it would only be the work of a few moments before they did so.
My recollection is of plunging, rearing and frightened animals, and ofa commanding, all-pervading presence in their midst. Amid the throngof stable-hands, villagers, firemen and policemen who had now come uponthe scene, it rose supreme, directing their energies and sustainingthem with that imperious magnetism which she possessed beyond anycreature I have ever seen. I heard it said afterwards that she alonehad the power to induce the twelve horses to quit their loose boxes;that one by one she led them out, soothing and caressing them; and thatso long as she was with them they showed comparatively little fear ofthe roaring furnace that was so near to them, but that no sooner werethey handed over to others than they became unmanageable.
Certainly it was due to a consummate exhibition of her power that thehorses were got out of their stalls without harm to themselves or toothers. They were confided to the care of the friendly farmers of theneighbourhood, who, assembled in force, were working heroically tocombat the flames. All night long the work of salvage went on, but inspite of all that could be done, even with the aid of numerousfire-engines from Middleham, nothing could save the old house. Itburnt like tinder. By three o'clock that December morning it was asmouldering ruin, with only a few fragments of stone wall remaining.
At intervals during the night some of the Grange servants had beendispatched to Dympsfield House, with as many of the personal belongingsof their master and mistress as they could collect. Our establishmentis a modest one, but not for a moment did it occur to Mrs. Arbuthnotthat it would be unable to offer sanctuary to those who needed it sosorely.
The fire had run its course and all were resigned to the inevitablewhen Mrs. Arbuthnot, without deigning to consult the nominal head ofour household, made the offer of our hospitality to Fitz and his wife.At her own request she had previously forgone an introduction to "thecircus rider from Vienna"; and now in these tragic December small hoursshe deemed such a formality to be unnecessary. Verily misfortune makesstrange bedfellows!
If I must tell the truth, it surprised me to learn that the Fitzwarenshad been prevailed upon to accept the hospitality of Dymspfield House.True, they were homeless; but, looking at the case impartially, itseemed to me that they had not been very generously treated by theirneighbours. The foibles of "the circus rider from Vienna" had arouseda measure of covert hostility to which the most obtuse people could nothave been insensible. Had the average ordinary married couple been inthe case of Fitz and his wife, I do not think they would have yieldedto Mrs. Arbuthnot's impulsive generosity.
The Fitzwarens, however, were far from being ordinary average people.Therefore, by a quarter to five that morning they had crossed ourthreshold; and as some recompense for the privations of that tragicnight they were promptly regaled with a scratch meal of coffee andsandwiches.
One other individual, at his own suggestion, accompanied our guests toDympsfield House. He was of a sinister omen, being no less a personthan the Chief Constable of the county. His presence at the fire hadbeen a matter for surprise. And when, as we were about to quit theunhappy scene, he came to me privately and said that if we couldsqueeze a corner for him in the car he should be glad to come with us,that surprise was not made less.
[1] In the opinion of Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins this passage fullyguarantees the author's total ignorance of a very great proposition.