Do you actually mean to sit there and tell me you never heard about the
fire at Hawthornden's Hotel last July? Why, it was the sensation of the
season. There was over a column about it in the _Manchester Guardian_.
Everybody talked of it for weeks.... And no one ever told you that we
were in it? Half the annexe was burnt down. We were in the annexe, all
four of us. I fancy the Smiths had chosen it because the rooms in the
annexe are larger. Have you ever been in a fire?... Well, thank your
stars! We were wakened up at three o'clock. It was getting light, even.
Somehow that made it worse. The confusion--you can't imagine it. We got
out all right. Oh! there was no special danger to life and limb. But
after all we only _did_ get out just in time. And with practically
nothing but our dressing-gowns--some not even that! It's queer, in a
fire, how at first you try to save things, and keep calm, and pretend
you _are_ calm, until the thing gets hold of you. I actually began to
shovel clothes into my trunks. Somebody said we should have time for
that. Well--we hadn't. And it was a very good thing there wasn't a lift
in the annexe. It seems a lift well acts like a chimney, and half of us
might have been burnt alive.
I must say the fire-brigade was pretty good. They got the fire out very
well--very quickly in fact. We women, or most of us, had been bundled
into private parlours and things in the main part of the hotel, which
wasn't threatened, and when we knew that the fire was out we naturally
wanted to go back and see whether any of our things could be saved out
of the wreck.
Oh! what a sight it was! What a sight it was! You'd never believe that
so much damage could be done in an hour or so. Chiefly by water, of
course. All the ground floor was swimming in water. In fact there was a
river of it running across the promenade into the sea. About five-sixths
of Llandudno, dressed nohow, was on the promenade. However, policemen
kept the people outside the gates.
The firemen began bringing trunks down the stairs; they wouldn't let us
go up at first. It really was a wonderful scene, at the foot of the
stairs, lots of us paddling about in that lake, and perfectly lost to
all sense of--what shall I say?--well, correctness. I do believe most of
us had forgotten all about civilization. We wanted our things. We wanted
our things so badly that we even lost our interest in the origin of the
fire and in the question whether we should get anything out of the
insurance company. By the way, I mustn't omit to tell you that we never
saw the proprietors after the fire was out; the proprietors could only
be seen by appointment. The German and Swiss waiters had to bear the
brunt of us.
I was very lucky. I received both my trunks nearly at once. They came
sliding on a plank down those stairs. And most of my things were in them
too. I was determined to be energetic then, and to get out of all that
crowd. Do you know what I did? I simply called two men in out of the
street, and told them to shoulder my trunks into the main building of
the hotel. I defied policemen and the superintendent of the
fire-brigade. And in the main building I demanded a bedroom, and I was
told that everything would be done to accommodate me as quickly as
possible. So I went straight upstairs and told the men to follow me, and
I began knocking at every door till I found a room that wasn't occupied,
and I took possession of it, and gave the men a shilling a piece. They
seemed to expect half-a-crown, because I'd been in a fire, I suppose!
Curious ideas odd job men have! Then I dressed myself out of what was
left of my belongings and went down again.
All the people said how lucky I was, and what presence of mind I had,
and how calm and practical I was, and so on and so on. But they didn't
know that I'd been stupid enough not to give a thought to Ellis's blue
suit. One can't think of everything, and I didn't think of that. I
believe if I had thought of it, at the start, I should have taken the
bonnet-box with me at any cost.
I came across Ellis; smoking a cigarette, of course, just to show, I
suppose, that a fire was a most ordinary event to him. He was completely
dressed, like me. He had saved the whole of his belongings. He said the
Smiths were fixing themselves up in private rooms somewhere, and would
be down soon. So we moved along into the dining-room and had breakfast.
The place was full and noisy. Ellis was exceedingly facetious. He said:
"Well, auntie, did you have a pretty good night?"
Also:
"A fire is a very clumsy way of waking you up in the morning. A bell
would be much simpler, and cost less," etcetera, etcetera. And then he
said:
"A nice thing, auntie, if I'd followed your advice and brought my
beauteous new suit! It would have been bound to be burnt to a cinder.
One's best suit always is in a fire."
I ought to have told him then the trick I'd played on him, but I didn't.
I merely agreed with him in a lame sort of way that it _would_ have been
a nice thing if he'd brought his beauteous suit. I hoped that I might be
able later on to invent some good excuse, something really plausible,
for having brought along with me his newest suit unknown to him. But the
more I reflected the more I couldn't think of anything clever enough.
Then the three Smiths came in. There was some queer attire in that
dining-room, but I think that Mrs Smith won the gold medal for
queerness. All her "colonialness" had come suddenly out. They evidently
hadn't been very fortunate. But they didn't seem to mind much. They
hadn't thought very highly of the hotel before, and they accepted the
fire good-humouredly as one of the necessary drawbacks of a hotel that
wasn't quite up to their Winnipeg form. Nellie Smith was delightful. I
must say she was delightful, and she looked delightful. She was wearing
a blue-and-red striped petticoat, rather short, and a white jersey, and
over that a man's blue jacket, which fitted her pretty well. She looked
indescribably pert and charming, though the jacket was dirty and
stained.