The feud over the furnace developed with alarming rapidity.
“In a house of this sort,” the professor observed severely to his child,
a week later, “which is not adapted to the complete independence of two
families, if the arrangement is to be tolerable, there must be a ready
and harmonious adjustment of the responsibilities. Now this Tench--the
other young man is away most of the time, and it is the natural, just,
and proper thing for this Tench to do his share in taking care of the
furnace.”
But “this Tench” steadily refused to do anything but write. He never
went near the furnace. Miss Smith pluckily attempted to do his part.
Three or four times a day she descended into the cellar, crammed the
grate with coal, turned on or off whatever little turnable things she
saw, and opened and closed all the doors, with great good will. Not only
was this repugnant to Professor Gayle’s innate chivalry, but it was
dangerous, and he implored so earnestly that finally she desisted, and
the professor did it all. Alone he carried up the ashes, alone he
intrigued with coal dealers.
When Miss Smith’s reckless management of her electric devices caused a
fuse to blow out--which happened often--Tench simply lighted a lamp. He
didn’t care.
Then there was the daily battle about the mail. The postman left all
letters for the house with whatever person opened the door, and the
professor, being on the ground floor, was usually that person. Now Tom
Tench had all an author’s morbid attitude about mail. Whenever he
thought a letter should have come, and it had not, he made general
accusations of criminal carelessness. At last he took to walking out to
meet the postman, and then the professor accused him of willful delay in
the transmission of highly important documents.
But it was in the matter of waste paper that Tom Tench was most
insufferable. He was always bringing down heaps of paper, and stuffing
it into the ash can. On windy days it blew out all over the garden; but
there was a still more serious aspect to this offense.
“Mr. Tench, sir!” protested the professor. “As you have persistently
shirked your duty in helping me to carry up those ashes, you may not be
aware that sometimes they are hot, and liable to set fire to any
inflammable material placed upon them. Tie your--_rubbish_--into
bundles, if you please, ready for the collector.”
“No time for that sort of nonsense,” said Tench, and kept on.
No attempt was made to gloss over this hostility. The professor had not
had a quarrel for years, and it seemed to Bess that he actually enjoyed
this one. He would not make the least effort to avoid Tench. Almost
every evening he went upstairs for a chat with Miss Smith, and his
manner of ignoring Tench was not soothing.
“Oh, Lord!” Tom Tench would rudely ejaculate.
Then he would go into his room and bang the door; but he would not stay
there. He would come in and out of the sitting room, with an obnoxious
smile.
If the two men enjoyed this, however, Bess and Angelina Smith did not.
They had grown very fond of each other, and they said that this
distressing situation did not and should not make the least difference
in their friendship. Angelina held that it was all the fault of her
temperamental cousin, Tom Tench, and that poor Professor Gayle was an
innocent victim: while Bess thought secretly that her father, being
older and wiser, should have avoided such an antagonism.
“But it does seem a pity,” she said once, “that--your brother has to
suffer for it. He seems to work so hard, and he comes home late, and
half the time the house is freezing cold, or the lights are out, because
they’re squabbling about whose place it is to do things.”
“Oh, Alan doesn’t mind,” Miss Smith assured her. “He’s the most
good-natured, darling creature! He doesn’t need to work so hard, either.
My dear, he stays late at his office simply because he doesn’t like to
come home. He told me so.”
Bess decided then that it would be more sensible not to bother about
Mr. Smith, especially if he stayed late in his office simply because he
didn’t want to come home. That meant, of course, that there was no one
in the two-family house he wished to talk to, no one he cared to see.
She had scarcely exchanged a word with him since that brief conversation
on the cellar stairs. Sometimes she saw him from her window, going off
in that dreadful old car, early, before any one else was stirring
upstairs, probably without having had a proper breakfast. At night she
often heard him come in late, to be greeted brightly by his sister, who
never seemed to go to bed.
To be sure, she had meant to discourage him, and apparently she had
succeeded. Very well--what of it? She had made up her mind to be a
little nicer the next time she talked to him, but evidently there wasn’t
going to be any next time. Again very well--what of it?
He was Angelina’s brother, and a neighbor, and as such she was obliged,
was she not, to take a human interest in him? She learned that he was a
naval architect, and that he had hurt his foot by falling down a ship’s
hold during a visit of inspection. She also learned that he was the best
brother in the world. She was pleased to hear this, and pleased to think
that that pathetic limp would soon be gone, so that it would no longer
be necessary to feel sorry for him; but she was not going to bother
about him.
V
The week before Christmas was one of terrific activity for Bess and
Angelina, and of unusually bitter hostility between Professor Gayle and
Tom Tench. They were shamefully immune from any sort of Christmas
spirit.
Indeed, it seemed impossible to arrange any sort of neighborly
celebration. Bess had made mince pies and a plum pudding; Angelina had
painted place cards to be used on the dinner table. They had both
planned all sorts of jolly little Christmas presents, and a Christmas
tree; but where was the gathering to be? Tom Tench refused to set foot
in Professor Gayle’s domain; and though the professor could probably be
induced to go upstairs, who could foresee the consequences?
Nevertheless, the two dauntless women refused to despair.
“At the very last instant we’ll find some way to reconcile them,” said
Angelina. “We’ll have a wonderful Christmas--I know it! Let’s walk into
the village this afternoon, and get quantities of holly and mistletoe.
Why, my dear, it’s Christmas Eve! They can’t quarrel to-day. Nobody
could!”
“They can, though,” said Bess, sadly. “I hear them now, out on the
stairs.”
“It’s a shame!” said Angelina. “Of course, Tom Tench is _very_
temperamental, but--my dear, I’m going to have one more talk with him
this evening. Alan talked to him, but he only made it worse.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, my dear, that any one who could be boorish and ill tempered
under the same roof as _you_ was a--well, all sorts of things.”
“Oh! Did he?” said Bess, after a long silence.
“And he wants us to move away,” Angelina continued. “He says he simply
can’t stand this.”
“Oh!” said Bess again.
Something in her voice touched the warm-hearted Angelina. She crossed
the room and put her arm about the younger girl.
“My dear,” she said, “I’m not going to leave you. I’m much too fond of
you. And--if you don’t mind my saying so--I really do think you need
somebody cheerful here. Alan said it was absolutely my duty to teach you
to laugh. He thinks--”
“It’s getting late, Angelina,” said Bess. “Let’s start!”
It was getting late, because Angelina had been suddenly inspired to
finish a drawing after lunch, and it was after three before they set off
for the village. When they had bought all the holly they could carry,
and turned toward home, it was beginning to grow dark.
It was a bleak and bitter day. The wind was against them now--a savage
wind that brought tears to their eyes. With their heads down against it,
they went along the desolate road, their numb hands clasping the prickly
holly, their numb feet suffering cruelly from the ruts frozen as hard as
iron.
They came to the foot of the long hill--and how long it looked, that
treeless road, going steeply up to meet the wild, dark sky!
“It’ll be--better--going down!” Bess shouted against the gale.
“Much!” cried Angelina. “And--I _love_ Christmas!”
Bess could have kissed her for those gallant words. The good will she
felt for her companion actually seemed to warm her, and she began the
ascent doggedly. Shoulder to shoulder, on they went, nearer and nearer
to home. They reached the top of the hill, where the wind was incredibly
fierce, and--
Angelina dropped her load of holly and seized Bess’s arm.
“Look!” she cried. “Oh, look! Fire!”
And there was the two-family house in a horrible, reddish glare!
Of one accord they started running, battling against the wind. For a
time Bess clung to her armful of holly, because she so hated throwing
things away, but in the end it had to go. Their footsteps rang sharply
on the frozen road. They were breathless and panting, but the world
about them seemed strangely still--no shouts, no hurrying engines, no
audible excitement. The two-family house was burning in solitary and
awful splendor.
Angelina stumbled to her knees at the foot of the hill, and Bess helped
her up. They heard the soft, rustling sound of flames, mounting
unhindered.
“Where--is--everybody?” gasped Angelina. “Oh, Bess!”
They struggled on, and turned in at the gate. The front of the building
was still untouched, and no one was there. They flew along the path to
the back of the house. Two figures were standing there, motionless,
sharply outlined against the red light--Professor Gayle and Tom Tench.
“Father!” cried Bess, with all the breath she had left. “Can’t you do
_anything_?”
He answered in a voice that was positively ferocious:
“No! This is Mr. Tench’s fire. He is responsible, and he alone. His
papers thrown upon the hot ashes--”
“Tom Tench!” cried Angelina, catching her cousin’s arm and shaking him.
“Do something! This instant!”
“I won’t!” said he. “The fire started downstairs, on Gayle’s premises,
and it was his business to check it.”
“It has spread to your premises. Put it out there, and--”
“You’ll begin,” said Tom Tench.
“I shall not!” said the professor. “I’ll be--I won’t!”
And they kept on doing nothing, in spite of the desperate appeals and
entreaties, the wrath and despair, of Angelina and Bess.
“Then we will!” cried Angelina.
Followed by Bess, she ran around to the front of the house and up the
steps of the veranda. She was just opening the door when she was seized
by the arm and spun around.
“I’m here,” said her brother. “Don’t worry!”
To the surprise and indignation of Bess, the mere fact of her brother’s
being there seemed to reassure Angelina entirely. She sat down on the
rail of the veranda with a sigh of relief.
“Alan’s very practical!” she observed, with satisfaction.
But that did not suit Bess. She was not going to leave the fate of all
their household goods in the hands of Mr. Smith. She opened the door and
went in.
“Come back!” shouted Alan, but she closed the door behind her.
It was very much worse in there than she had expected. The hall was
thick with smoke that stifled and blinded her. She groped her way toward
the sitting room, with the desperate idea of saving at least an armful
of her father’s precious books; but a few steps were enough. There was
death for her there. Tears were streaming from her smarting eyes, and
every breath was a fiery torment.
In a panic, she turned back. All she wanted now was to get out, to draw
one breath of cold, clear air; but the room was a trap, overcrowded as
it was with massive furniture. Stumbling and panic-stricken, she turned
this way and that. She could not find the door. She could not get out.
She tripped over something and fell.
Alan Smith lifted her up. She clung to him in that dreadful, choking
darkness. She felt his strong arm about her, and heard his voice,
cheerful and steady.
“All right! Don’t worry!”
“Father’s books!” she whispered.
And then the smoke came down and shut out all the world.