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 to
her husband's house; a day of singular and great events, influencing
the present and future of nearly all the personages whose actions in
a complex drama form the subject of this record.
The proceedings of the steward demand the first notice. Whilst
taking his breakfast on this particular morning, the clock pointing
to eight, the horse-and-gig that was to take him to Chettlewood
waiting ready at the door, Manston hurriedly cast his eyes down the
column of Bradshaw which showed the details and duration of the
selected train's journey.
The inspection was carelessly made, the leaf being kept open by the
aid of one hand, whilst the other still held his cup of coffee; much
more carelessly than would have been the case had the expected new-
comer been Cytherea Graye, instead of his lawful wife.
He did not perceive, branching from the column down which his finger
ran, a small twist, called a shunting-line, inserted at a particular
place, to imply that at that point the train was divided into two.
By this oversight he understood that the arrival of his wife at
Carriford Road Station would not be till late in the evening: by
the second half of the train, containing the third-class passengers,
and passing two hours 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
return from his day's engagement to meet this train. He finished
his breakfast, gave proper and precise directions to his servant on
the preparations that were to be made for the lady's reception,
jumped into his gig, and drove off to Lord Claydonfield's, at
Chettlewood.
He went along by the front of Knapwater House. He could not help
turning to look at what he knew to be the window of Cytherea's room.
Whilst he looked, a hopeless expression of passionate love and
sensuous anguish came upon his face and lingered there for a few
seconds; then, as on previous occasions, it was resolutely
repressed, and he trotted along the smooth white road, again
endeavouring to banish all thought of the young girl whose beauty
and grace had so enslaved him.
Thus it was that when, in the evening of the same day, Mrs. Manston
reached Carriford Road Station, her husband was still at
Chettlewood, ignorant of her arrival, and on looking up and down the
platform, dreary with autumn gloom and wind, she could see no sign
that any preparation whatever 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 usual signs of annoyance and irritation: she was the more
irritated in that this seemed a second and culminating instance of
her husband's neglect--the first having been shown in his not
fetching her.
Reflecting awhile upon the course it would be best to take, in order
to 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's house, as she had done on her first visit. She asked one
of the porters if he could find a lad to go with her and carry her
bag: he offered to do it himself.
The porter was a good-tempered, shallow-minded, ignorant man. Mrs.
Manston, being apparently in very gloomy spirits, would probably
have preferred walking beside him without saying a word: but her
companion would not allow silence to continue between them for a
longer period than two or three minutes together.
He had volunteered several remarks upon her arrival, chiefly to the
effect that it was very unfortunate Mr. Manston had not come to the
station for her, when she suddenly asked him concerning the
inhabitants of the parish.
He told her categorically the names of the chief--first the chief
possessors of property; then of brains; then of good looks. As
first among the latter he mentioned Miss Cytherea Graye.
After getting him to describe her appearance as completely as lay in
his power, she wormed out of him the statement that everybody had
been saying--before Mrs. Manston's existence was heard of--how well
the handsome Mr. Manston and the beautiful Miss Graye were suited
for each other as man and wife, and that Miss Aldclyffe was the only
one in the parish 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 to
correct 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 stood
still, as if reflecting upon the painful neglect her words had
recalled to her mind; then, with a sudden impulse, turned round, and
walked petulantly 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 said
plaintively. Then she paused and looked anxiously up and down the
deserted 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 as before, giving vent to a slight laugh.
It was a laugh full of character; the low forced laugh which seeks
to hide the painful perception of a humiliating position under the
mask of indifference.
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 the ineradicable blight of vacillation at the critical
hour of action.
'O, if I had only known that all this was going to happen!' she
murmured again, 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
this time, I imagine?'
'Very near now, ma'am.'
They soon reached Manston's residence, round which the wind blew
mournfully and chill.
Passing under the detached gateway, they entered the porch. The
porter stepped forward, knocked heavily and waited.
Nobody came.
Mrs. Manston then advanced to the door and gave a different series
of rappings--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 dry scratching of the withered leaves blown about
her feet upon the floor of the porch.
The steward, of course, was not at home. Mrs. Crickett, not
expecting that anybody would arrive till the time of the later
train, had set the place in order, laid the supper-table, and then
locked the door, to go into the village and converse with her
friends.
'Is there an inn in the village?' said Mrs. Manston, after the
fourth and loudest rapping upon the iron-studded old door had
resulted only in the 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,
and altogether too bad, for a woman to wait in the open road on
anybody's account, gentle or simple.'
They went down the park and through the gate, into the village of
Carriford. By the time they reached the Three Tranters, it was
verging upon ten o'clock. There, on the spot where two months
earlier in the season the sunny and lively group of villagers making
cider under the trees had greeted Cytherea's eyes, was nothing now
intelligible but a vast cloak of darkness, from which came the low
sough of the elms, and the 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 of winter winds.
It so happened that Edward Springrove was expected to arrive from
London either on that evening or the next, and at the sound of
voices his father came to the door fully expecting to see him. A
picture of disappointment seldom witnessed in a man's face was
visible 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
Edward was immediately named as being ready for her, another being
adaptable for Edward, should he come in.
Without taking any refreshment, or entering any room downstairs, or
even lifting her veil, she walked straight along the passage and up
to her apartment, the chambermaid preceding her.
'If Mr. Manston comes to-night,' she said, sitting on the bed as she
had come 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. Before
the servant had gone down more than two or three stairs, Mrs.
Manston unfastened 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 a
tumbler. When she came into the room, Mrs. Manston had not removed
a single article of apparel, and was walking up and down, as if
still quite undecided upon the course it was best to adopt.
Outside the door, when it was closed upon her, the maid paused to
listen for 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.
Springrove had ploughed, harrowed, and cleaned a narrow and shaded
piece of ground, lying at the back of his house, which for many
years had been looked upon as irreclaimable waste.
The couch-grass extracted from the soil had been left to wither in
the sun; afterwards it was raked together, lighted in the customary
way, and now lay smouldering in a large heap in the middle of the
plot.
It had been kindled three days previous to Mrs. Manston's arrival,
and one or two villagers, of a more cautious and less sanguine
temperament than Springrove, had suggested that the fire was almost
too near the back of the house for its continuance to be unattended
with risk; for though no danger could be apprehended whilst the air
remained moderately still, a brisk breeze blowing towards the house
might possibly carry a spark across.
'Ay, that's true enough,' said Springrove. 'I must look round
before going to bed and see that everything's safe; but to tell the
truth I am anxious to get the rubbish burnt up before the rain comes
to wash it into ground again. As to carrying the couch into the
back field to burn, and bringing it back again, why, 'tis more than
the ashes would be worth.'
'Well, that's very true,' said the neighbours, and passed on.
Two or three times during the first evening after the heap was lit,
he went to the back door to take a survey. Before bolting and
barring up 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 heap was not stirred, and the wind continued in the
quarter it blew from then, the couch would not flame, and that there
could be no shadow of danger to anything, even a combustible
substance, though it were no more than a yard off.
The next morning the burning couch was discovered in precisely the
same state as when he had gone to bed the preceding night. The heap
smoked in the same manner the whole of that day: at bed-time the
farmer looked towards it, but less carefully than on the first
night.
The morning and the whole of the third day still saw the heap in its
old smouldering condition; indeed, the smoke was less, and there
seemed a probability that it might have to be re-kindled on the
morrow.
After admitting Mrs. Manston to his house in the evening, and
hearing her retire, Mr. Springrove return to the front door to
listen for a sound of his son, and inquired concerning him of the
railway-porter, who sat for a while in the kitchen. The porter had
not noticed young Mr. Springrove get out of the train, at which
intelligence the old man concluded 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 had brought Mrs. Manston.
Half-an-hour later the porter left the inn, Springrove at the same
time going to the door to listen again an instant, then he walked
round and in 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 to bolt and bar as usual, when the idea struck him that there
was just a possibility of his son's return by the latest train,
unlikely as it was that he would be so delayed. The old man
thereupon left the door unfastened, looked to his usual matters
indoors, and went to bed, it being then half-past ten o'clock.
Farmers and horticulturists well know that it is in the nature of a
heap of couch-grass, when kindled in calm weather, to smoulder for
many days, and even weeks, until the whole mass is reduced to a
powdery charcoal ash, displaying the while scarcely a sign of
combustion beyond the volcano-like smoke from its summit; but the
continuance of this quiet process is throughout its length at the
mercy of one particular whim of Nature: that is, a sudden breeze,
by which the heap is liable to be fanned 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 heat had arisen inside.
As the railway-porter turned the corner of the row of houses
adjoining the Three Tranters, a brisk new wind greeted his face, and
spread past him into the village. He walked along the high-road
till he came to a gate, about three hundred yards from the inn.
Over the gate could be discerned the situation of the building he
had just quitted. He carelessly turned his head in passing, and saw
behind him a clear red glow indicating the position of the couch-
heap: a glow without a flame, increasing and diminishing in
brightness as the breeze quickened or fell, like the coal of a newly
lighted cigar. If those cottages had been his, he thought, he
should not care to have a fire so near them as that--and the wind
rising. But the cottages not being his, he went on his 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 probability
of any human being passing the Three Tranters Inn.
By eleven, everybody in the house was asleep. It truly seemed as if
the treacherous element knew there had arisen a grand opportunity
for devastation.
At a quarter past eleven a slight stealthy crackle made itself heard
amid the increasing moans of the night wind; the heap glowed
brighter still, and burst into a flame; the flame sank, another
breeze entered it, sustained it, and it grew to be first continuous
and weak, then continuous and strong.
At twenty minutes past eleven a blast of wind carried an airy bit of
ignited fern several yards forward, in a direction parallel to the
houses and inn, and there deposited it on the ground.
Five minutes later another puff of wind carried a similar piece to a
distance of five-and-twenty yards, where it also was dropped softly
on the ground.
Still the wind did not blow in the direction of the houses, and even
now to a casual observer they would have appeared safe. But Nature
does few things directly. A minute later yet, an ignited fragment
fell upon the straw covering of a long thatched heap or 'grave' of
mangel-wurzel, lying in a direction at right angles to the house,
and down toward the hedge. There the fragment faded to darkness.
A short time subsequent to this, after many intermediate deposits
and seemingly baffled attempts, another fragment fell on the mangel-
wurzel grave, and continued to glow; the glow was increased by the
wind; the straw caught fire and burst into flame. It was inevitable
that the flame should 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 now at this last moment have been safe;
but it was constructed as piggeries are mostly constructed, of wood
and thatch. The hurdles and straw roof of the frail erection became
ignited in their turn, and abutting as the shed did on the back of
the inn, flamed up to the eaves of the main roof in less than thirty
seconds.
3. HALF-PAST ELEVEN TO TWELVE P.M.
A hazardous length of time elapsed before the inmates of the Three
Tranters 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
were heard.
Mr. Springrove ran out first. Two minutes later appeared the ostler
and chambermaid, who were man and wife. The inn, as has been
stated, was a quaint old building, and as inflammable as a bee-hive;
it overhung the base at the level of the first floor, and again
overhung at the eaves, which were finished with heavy oak barge-
boards; every atom in its substance, every feature in its
construction, favoured the fire.
The forked flames, lurid and smoky, became nearly lost to view,
bursting forth again with a bound and loud crackle, increased
tenfold in power and brightness. The crackling grew sharper. Long
quivering shadows began to be flung from the stately trees at the
end of the house; the square outline of the church tower, on the
other side of the way, which had hitherto been a dark mass against a
sky comparatively light, now began to appear as a light object
against a sky of darkness; and even the narrow surface of the flag-
staff at the top could be seen in its dark surrounding, brought out
from its obscurity by the rays from the dancing light.
Shouts and other noises increased in loudness and frequency. The
lapse of ten minutes brought most of the inhabitants of that end of
the village 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 the
men, and vanished again. In a short time wheels were heard, and Mr.
Raunham and the men reappeared, with the garden engine, the only one
in the village, except that at Knapwater House. After some little
trouble the hose was connected with a tank in the old stable-yard,
and the puny instrument began to play.
Several seemed paralyzed at first, and stood transfixed, their rigid
faces looking like red-hot iron in the glaring light. In the
confusion a woman cried, 'Ring the bells backwards!' and three or
four of the old and superstitious entered the belfry and jangled
them indescribably. Some were only half dressed, and, to add to the
horror, among them was Clerk Crickett, running up and down with a
face streaming with blood, ghastly and pitiful to see, his
excitement being so great that he had not the slightest conception
of how, when, or where he came by the wound.
The crowd was now busy at work, and tried to save a little of the
furniture 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 old silver candlesticks, and half-a-dozen light
articles; but these were all.
Fiery mats of thatch slid off the roof and fell into the road with a
deadened thud, whilst white flakes of straw and wood-ash were flying
in the 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's engine, were seen to be on fire. The attenuated spirt
of water was as nothing upon the heated and dry surface of the
thatched roof; the fire prevailed without a minute's hindrance, and
dived through to the rafters.
Suddenly arose a cry, 'Where's Mr. Springrove?'
He had vanished from the spot by the churchyard wall, where he had
been standing a few minutes earlier.
'I fancy he's gone inside,' said a voice.
'Madness and folly! what can he save?' said another. 'Good God,
find him! Help here!'
A wild rush was made at the door, which had fallen to, and in
defiance of the scorching flame that burst forth, three men forced
themselves through it. Immediately inside the threshold they found
the object of their 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; a
basin of cold water was dashed in his face, and he began to recover
consciousness, but very slowly. He had been saved by a miracle. No
sooner were his preservers out of the building than the window-
frames lit up as if by magic with deep and waving fringes of flames.
Simultaneously, the joints of the boards forming the front door
started into view as glowing bars of fire: a star of red light
penetrated the centre, 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,
and threw his hands up wildly.
'Everybody, no! no! The lady who came by train, Mrs. Manston! I
tried to fetch her out, but I fell.'
An exclamation of horror burst from the crowd; it was caused partly
by this disclosure of Springrove, more by the added perception which
followed his words.
An average interval of about three minutes had elapsed between one
intensely fierce gust of wind and the next, and now another poured
over them; the roof swayed, and a moment afterwards fell in with a
crash, pulling the gable after it, and thrusting outwards the front
wall of wood-work, which fell into the road with a rumbling echo; a
cloud of black dust, myriads of sparks, and a great outburst of
flame followed the 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 a reply been volunteered.
The autumn wind, tameless, and swift, and proud, still blew upon the
dying old house, which was constructed so entirely of combustible
materials that it burnt almost as fiercely as a corn-rick. The heat
in the road increased, and now for an instant at the height of the
conflagration all stood still, and gazed silently, awestruck and
helpless, in the presence of so irresistible an enemy. Then, with
minds full of the tragedy unfolded to them, they rushed forward
again with the obtuse directness of waves, to their labour of saving
goods from the houses adjoining, which it was evident were all
doomed to destruction.
The minutes passed by. The Three Tranters Inn sank into a mere heap
of red-hot charcoal: the fire pushed its way down the row as the
church clock opposite slowly struck the hour of midnight, and the
bewildered chimes, scarcely heard amid the crackling of the flames,
wandered through 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
no very enviable frame of mind. The thought of domestic life in
Knapwater Old House, with the now eclipsed wife of the past, was
more than disagreeable, was positively distasteful to him.
Yet he knew that the influential position, which, from whatever
fortunate cause, he held on Miss Aldclyffe's manor, would never
again fall 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,
timing the pace of his horse by the hour, that he might reach
Carriford Road Station just soon enough to meet the last London
train.
He soon began to notice in the sky a slight yellow halo, near the
horizon. It rapidly increased; it changed colour, and grew redder;
then the glare visibly brightened and dimmed at intervals, showing
that its origin 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 a raging flame so suddenly.'
He trotted on again, attempting to particularize the local features
in the neighbourhood of the fire; but this it was too dark to do,
and the excessive winding of the roads misled him as to its
direction, not being an old inhabitant of the district, or a
countryman used to forming such judgments; whilst the brilliancy of
the light shortened its real remoteness to an apparent distance of
not more than half: it seemed so near that he again stopped his
horse, this time to listen; but he could hear no sound.
Entering now a narrow valley, the sides of which obscured the sky to
an angle of perhaps thirty or forty degrees above the mathematical
horizon, he was obliged to suspend his judgment till he was in
possession of further knowledge, having however assumed in the
interim, that the fire was somewhere between Carriford Road Station
and the village.
The self-same glare had just arrested the eyes of another man. He
was at that minute gliding along several miles to the east of the
steward's position, but nearing the same point as that to which
Manston tended. The younger Edward Springrove was returning from
London to his father's house by the identical train which the
steward was expecting to bring his wife, the truth being that
Edward's lateness was owing to the simplest of all causes, his
temporary want of money, which led him to make a slow journey for
the sake of travelling at third-class fare.
Springrove had received Cytherea's bitter and admonitory letter, and
he was clearly awakened to a perception of the false position in
which he had placed himself, by keeping silence at Budmouth on his
long engagement. An increasing reluctance to put an end to those
few days of ecstasy with Cytherea had overruled his conscience, and
tied his tongue till speaking was too late.
'Why did I do it? how could I dream of loving her?' he asked himself
as he 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
seven years--been distracting him, by unconsciously setting itself
to yearn for somebody wanting, he scarcely knew whom. Echoes of
himself, though rarely, he now and then found. Sometimes they were
men, sometimes women, his cousin Adelaide being one of these; for in
spite of a fashion which pervades the whole community at the present
day--the habit of exclaiming that woman is not undeveloped man, but
diverse, the fact remains that, after all, women are Mankind, and
that in many of the sentiments of life the difference of sex is but
a difference of degree.
But the indefinable helpmate to the remoter sides of himself still
continued invisible. He grew older, and concluded that the ideas,
or rather emotions, which possessed him on the subject, were
probably too unreal ever to be found embodied in the flesh of a
woman. Thereupon, he developed a plan of satisfying his dreams by
wandering away to the heroines of poetical imagination, and took no
further thought on the earthly realization of his formless desire,
in more homely matters satisfying 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
judgment cannot keep pace with its rise, and finds, on comprehending
the situation, that faithfulness to the old love is already
treachery to the new. Such women are not necessarily the greatest
of their sex, but there are very few of them. Cytherea was one.
On receiving the letter from her he had taken to thinking over these
things, and had not answered it at all. But 'hungry generations'
soon tread down the muser in a city. At length he thought of the
strong necessity of living. After a dreary search, the negligence
of which was ultimately overcome by mere conscientiousness, he
obtained a situation as assistant to an architect in the
neighbourhood of Charing Cross: the duties would not begin till
after the lapse of a month.
He could not at first decide whither he should go to spend the
intervening time; but in the midst of his reasonings he found
himself on the road homeward, impelled by a secret and unowned hope
of getting a last 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 he crossed the booking-office to go out upon the platform.
The porter who had accompanied Mrs. Manston to Carriford, and had
returned to the station on his night duty, recognized the steward as
he entered, 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 the
question without having heard it.
'Half Carriford is burnt down, or will be!' he exclaimed. 'You
can't see the flames from this station on account of the trees, but
step on the bridge--'tis tremendous!'
He also crossed the line to assist at the entry of the train, which
came in the next minute.
The steward stood in the office. One passenger alighted, gave up
his ticket, and crossed the room in front of Manston: a young man
with a black bag and umbrella in his hand. He passed out of the
door, down the steps, 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 thoughts after 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,
and considered a matter to which the words had painfully recalled
his mind.
The matter was Miss Aldclyffe's mention of the young man as
Cytherea's lover, which, indeed, had scarcely ever been absent from
his thoughts.
'But for the existence of my wife that man might have been my
rival,' he pondered, following the porter, who had now come back to
him, into the luggage-room. And whilst the man was carrying out and
putting in one box, 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,
mounted the 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 the
conflagration.
Of a sudden, a few yards ahead, within the compass of the rays from
the right-hand lamp, burst forward the figure of a man. Having been
walking in darkness the newcomer raised his hands to his eyes, on
approaching nearer, 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
the way.
'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 this
time, I suppose.'
The labourer leant his elbow upon the shaft of the gig and turned
his face, 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 be glad 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
know what 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 a
security.'
'Oh!'
'Let me go on,' said Manston.
'Thy wife is DEAD; that's 'the rest o' the news,' said the labourer
slowly. He waited for a reply; none came.
'She went to the Three Tranters, because she couldn't get into thy
house, 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
strikes the brain with more force than its fulfilment. The labourer
sank back into the ditch. Such a Cushi could not realize the
possibility of such an unmoved David as this.
Manston drove hastily to the turning of the road, tied his horse,
and ran 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 what
furniture they could lay hold of; the thatch of the roofs being
already on fire. The Knapwater fire-engine had arrived on the spot,
but it was small, and ineffectual. A group was collected round the
rector, who in a coat which had become bespattered, scorched, and
torn in his exertions, was directing on one hand the proceedings
relative to the removal of goods into the church, and with the other
was pointing out the spot on which it was most desirable that the
puny engines at their disposal should be made to play. Every tongue
was instantly silent at the sight of Manston's pale and clear
countenance, which contrasted strangely with the grimy and streaming
faces of the toiling villagers.
'Was she burnt?' he said in a firm though husky voice, and stepping
into the illuminated area. The rector came to him, and took him
aside. 'Is she burnt?' repeated Manston.
'She is dead: but thank God, she was spared the horrid agony of
burning,' the rector said solemnly; 'the roof and gable fell in upon
her, 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
door of your house locked, and concluded that you had retired, the
fact being that your servant, Mrs. Crickett, had gone out to supper.
She then came back to the inn and went to bed.'
'Where's the landlord?' said Manston.
Mr. Springrove came up, walking feebly, and wrapped in a cloak, and
corroborated 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 the shining light.
Everything had been done that could be done with the limited means
at their disposal. The whole row of houses was destroyed, and each
presented itself as one stage of a series, progressing from smoking
ruins at the end where the inn had stood, to a partly flaming mass--
glowing as none but wood embers will glow--at the other.
A feature in the decline of town fires was noticeably absent here--
steam. There was present what is not observable in towns--
incandescence.
The heat, and the smarting effect upon their eyes of the strong
smoke from the burning oak and deal, had at last driven the
villagers back from the road in front of the houses, and they now
stood in groups in the churchyard, the surface of which, raised by
the interments of generations, stood four or five feet above the
level of the road, and almost 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 the labourers, and in a mellower,
ruddier form on their faces and hands, on those of the grinning
gargoyles, and on other salient stonework of the weather-beaten
church in the background.
The rector had decided that, under the distressing circumstances of
the case, there would be no sacrilege in placing in the church, for
the night, the pieces of furniture and utensils which had been saved
from the several houses. There was no other place of safety for
them, and they 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 in
the north aisle. The lower atmosphere of this spot was shaded by
its own wall from the shine which streamed in over the window-sills
on the same side. The only light burning inside the church was a
small tallow candle, standing in the font, in the opposite aisle of
the building to that in which Manston had sat down, and near where
the furniture was piled. The candle's mild rays were overpowered by
the ruddier light from the ruins, making the weak flame to appear
like the moon by day.
Sitting there he saw Farmer Springrove enter the door, followed by
his son Edward, still carrying his travelling-bag in his hand. They
were speaking of the sad death of Mrs. Manston, but the subject was
relinquished for that of the houses burnt.
This row of houses, running from the inn eastward, had been built
under the following circumstances:--
Fifty years before this date, the spot upon which the cottages
afterwards stood was a blank strip, along the side of the village
street, difficult to cultivate, on account of the outcrop thereon of
a large bed of flints called locally a 'lanch' or 'lanchet.'
The Aldclyffe then in possession of the estate conceived the idea
that a row of cottages would be an improvement to the spot, and
accordingly granted leases of portions to several respectable
inhabitants. Each lessee was to be subject to the payment of a
merely nominal rent for the whole term of lives, on condition that
he built his own cottage, and delivered 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
were added 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 the chief 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 man
gloomily.
'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 had been raising the premiums on thatched premises higher for
some years, gave up insuring them altogether, as two or three other
fire-offices had done previously, on account, they said, of the
uncertainty and greatness of the risk of thatch undetached. Ever
since then I have been continually intending to go to another
office, but have never gone. Who expects a fire?'
'Do you remember the terms of the leases?' said Edward, still more
uneasily.
'No, not particularly,' said his father absently.
'Where are they?'
'In the bureau there; that's why I tried to save it first, among
other things.'
'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
then proceeded to open the bureau, which had been placed in a corner
under the 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
be sufficient. The terms of all are the same.'
Edward took the parchment, and read quickly and indistinctly for
some time; then aloud and slowly as follows:--
'And the said John Springrove for himself his heirs executors and
administrators doth covenant and agree with the said Gerald
Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns that he the said John
Springrove his heirs and assigns during the said term shall pay unto
the said Gerald Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns the clear
yearly rent of ten shillings and sixpence. . . . at the several
times hereinbefore appointed for the payment thereof respectively.
And also shall and at all times during the said term well and
sufficiently repair and keep the said Cottage or Dwelling-house and
all other the premises and all houses or buildings erected or to be
erected thereupon in good and proper repair in every respect without
exception and the said premises in such good repair upon the
determination of this demise shall yield up unto the said Gerald
Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns.'
They closed the bureau and turned towards the door of the church
without speaking.
Manston also had come forward out of the gloom. Notwithstanding the
farmer's own troubles, an instinctive respect and generous sense of
sympathy with the steward for his awful loss caused the old man to
step aside, that Manston might pass out without speaking to them if
he chose to 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
younger man. Their faces came almost close together: one large
flame, which still lingered upon the ruins outside, threw long
dancing shadows of each across the nave till they bent upwards
against the aisle wall, and also illuminated their eyes, as each met
those of the other. Edward had learnt, by a letter from home, of
the steward's passion for Cytherea, and his mysterious repression of
it, afterwards explained by his marriage. That marriage was now
nought. Edward realized the man's newly acquired freedom, and felt
an instinctive enmity towards him--he would hardly own to himself
why. The steward, too, knew Cytherea's attachment to 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
once proceeded upstairs to his bedroom.
Reasoning worldliness, especially when allied with sensuousness,
cannot repress on some extreme occasions the human instinct to pour
out the soul to some Being or Personality, who in frigid moments is
dismissed with the title of Chance, or at most Law. Manston was
selfishly and inhumanly, but honestly and unutterably, thankful for
the recent catastrophe. Beside his bed, for that first time during
a period of nearly twenty years, he fell down upon his knees in a
passionate outburst of feeling.
Many minutes passed before he arose. He walked to the window, and
then seemed to remember for the first time that some action on his
part was necessary in connection with the sad circumstance of the
night.
Leaving the house at once, he went to the scene of the fire,
arriving there in time to hear the rector making an arrangement with
a certain number of men to watch the spot till morning. The ashes
were still red-hot and flaming. Manston found that nothing could be
done towards searching them at that hour of the night. He turned
homeward again, in the company of the rector, who had considerately
persuaded him to retire from the scene for a while, and promised
that as soon as a man could live amid the embers of the Three
Tranters Inn, they should be carefully searched for the remains of
his unfortunate wife.
Manston then went indoors, to wait for morning.
