Delia Blanchflower by Mrs. Humphry Ward (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📖

she brushed away the mist of tears from her eyes.

"Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as they do say is at the bottom of this business."

The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her.

"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"--said the man he addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the engine from Latchford--saw the fire from the train. He says he's been tricked--a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!--it's caught another roof!"

And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto--"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and tormented things.

Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong--grinding his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back breathless, shouting "all safe!"--and Daunt rushed off to help the firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the children.

"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside Winnington, while they both took breath--the sweat pouring from their smoke-blackened faces.

"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose--one could reach the roof better"--panted Winnington, pointing to the still intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, to the east of the doorway.

"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose.

The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, turned away with the thought--"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in his day!"

But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame.

The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on the ladder,--and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle--and both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of safety.

A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the generous heart within--unveiled.

"Splendid! Are you hurt?"

"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!"

"Come along then."

And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The main staircase had been steeped in petrol--and sacks full of shavings had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour--to be dragged out by the firemen--but again too late!--for the fire was already gnawing at the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been kindled with paraffin--the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched.

"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know who's done it!"

Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her--but what comfort was there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear--some terror of worse still to come.

Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every railway station had been warned.

On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century--a series of open arches, with twisted marble pillars--ran along the house from front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in its fall, the Loggia too must go.

Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate haste, and wailing--"Father!"

Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon of police, and running for the house.

Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran too.

"Delia!--go back!--go back!"

"Gertrude!" she said, gasping--and pointed to the Loggia. And he had hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd saw--the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling incoherently.

Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child.

With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The firemen swarmed to the spot.

But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought out--alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her.

"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector--transformed into a prophet-figure, his white hair streaming--as the multitude swayed against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you--and pray--for this woman!"

In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women sobbed.

"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had thrown his coat.

The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. A shudder ran through the dying frame.

"The child!--the child!"

And with that cry to heaven,--that protesting cry of an amazed and conquered soul--Gertrude Marvell passed away.

* * * * *

Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took