The Intervention of the Unforeseen
Carleigh stalked off in a pet and smoked innumerable cigarettes, not
under the stars, but under heavy low-sailing clouds which swept in from
the Solway Firth. His mood was as sullen as the night.
He thought unutterable things, walking to the farthest limits of the
park--and farther. It was near to midnight when he returned, his light
top-coat dripping, for the wind and the clouds had brought with them a
chill and drenching mist.
He paused in the hall. Voices penetrated from the drawing-room. The
bridge game was still on. He climbed the broad staircase, gazed down
upon by Archdeacons of past centuries in time-blackened frames. On the
landings stands of armor, reflecting dim lights, appeared as sentinels.
He found his valet drowsing.
"Fetch me a brandy-and-soda at once," he ordered. "Better make it a
decanter and two sodas," he added. "I'm chilled to the bone."
He might have added that his spirits were low, and required strenuous
lifting measures. But he was not the sort that shares emotions with
one's servants.
He drank the pegs when they came, dismissed the man, and was almost
pleased to find himself drowsy. Had he been conscious, it would have
surprised him to realize that he dropped into the deepest of deep
slumbers directly his head rested on a pillow.
He slept soundly for four hours, and then awakened with a start and sat
bolt upright in bed. He was choking. The room was full of smoke.
Coughing like an unmuffled gas engine, he got his feet to the floor,
crept to where he imagined the light-switch was--found it by a miracle
and turned it on.
But there was no answering illumination. Somewhere the rubber insulation
had been burned away and the current short-circuited.
This fact of itself told him that the fire was no tiny matter. Carfen
House was ablaze, and probably some of its inmates were still sleeping,
unwarned, as he had been. Nina! She was his first thought. Was Nina in
peril?
Every minute the smoke in the room grew more dense. It seemed to him
that he would never be able to find his coat or a dressing-gown; and
even seconds were perhaps precious.
Desperately, at length, he snatched a blanket from the bed, drew it
about him, and groped for the door. Half-blinded, his eyes smarting, he
jerked it open and a scorching blast struck him in the face.
The smoke here was hot and lurid. And he dropped to his knees and crept.
One way he could see flashes of lambent flame. The other way was black
as night itself. But he chose it, and half-crawled, half-leaped,
questioning that he would ever be able to reach the open alive.
In his ears was the roar of a thing more ferocious, more devouring than
any beast of the jungle. And mingled with the roar was the crackling
sound of havoc.
For what seemed like hours the thing was ever at his heels,
gaining--gaining. Weird, horrid monsters appeared to rise out of the
murk to threaten and affright.
But with aching chest, gripping his blanket closer against a rain of
sparks that showered on him as he fled, he flogged his flagging soul to
fresh and stronger effort.
Again and again he stumbled and fell--only to recover himself and plunge
waveringly, staggeringly onward.
And then, all at once, he was conscious of a cooler breath on his brow
and cheeks. The smoke thinned. His nostrils sucked in greedily a
refreshing, life-giving damp.
He had reached an open window and was stretching far out into the
grateful mist and sea-scented air of God's wide, unconfined world.
A tongue of flame licked his blanket and ran up and out around his neck,
scorching his hair. The fire was on him. It had caught up. It was
reaching for him to drag him back.
He felt its withering hand clutch at his shoulder. Its fingers seared
through the lamb's-wool that cloaked them--through the silken mesh of
his pajama coat beneath.
Death chanted a victorious paean in his ears, as with open arms it waited
at his back. And before him something beckoned that would not be denied.
Out there in the dark it stood with wooing finger and cool, sweet
breath, waiting, too. But whether it was death's other self--or whether
it was life--he could not know.
His blanket dropped--a flag of flame behind him. And he pitched forward,
turning and returning, as his body dropped downward into the blackness
below.
And, oddly enough, as he fell there was before him a woman's face--but
not that of Nina Darling. It was younger, frailer, less trained by
experience, and no less beautiful--the face of Rosamond Veynol.
He fell on his back upon a slanting slate roof, jarring his briefly
recovered breath quite out of him for the moment. And then he rolled,
over and over and over--three times--to drop again. This time into a
mass of tall dahlia bushes and the soft, spongy mold beneath.
"Not a scratch on you, by Jove!" It was the Honorable Julian who
exclaimed it, in unqualified, exuberant delight, as two of the grooms
who had heard the fall and hurried to pick up the fallen object, having
led him into the glow of the pyre that had once been Carfen House,
rubbed their trained hands over bones, joints, muscles, and sinews
without eliciting a single protesting cry.
"A miracle! Thank God! Thank God!"
But Carleigh was not so sure about the scratches. He had certainly hit
his back a resounding thump on that slate roof, and though he didn't
feel it now--who ever did feel anything in the relief of regaining life
after having calmly, or not calmly, said good-by to it--what might he
not feel to-morrow?
In point of fact he was still dazed, as he might well be. He stood
gaping, mute, an almost hideous figure with blackened face, singed
hair, and rent and soil-stained garments.
An excited, questioning group pressed about him. Every one seemed
talking at once, but the only words that made any impression were
Archdeacon's "Not a scratch," and his fervent "Thank Gods!"
The rescued--every one had been got out in some shape or other--were
gathered on the edge of a wood at some distance from the conflagration
and to windward of it.
The main building was doomed. Even now, it was little more than a shell
enclosing a furnace at white heat.
The garages, stables, and kennels were never in danger; but the head
gardener's cottage had gone up in a puff after catching from a rain of
sparks wind-hurled against its thatched roof.
Some one thrust Carleigh into a great coat. He found he was wearing one
an hour later, but remembered nothing of how he came by it. And he had
been provided with slippers as well.
He was sitting on a damp, moss-grown boulder, and a stout woman, with
strands of gray hair falling limply and dankly about her face, was
addressing him in piteous tones.
The reflection from the fire made the night three times as bright as the
ordinary English fine day, and he noted that his companion was wearing a
bath-towel pinned about her in lieu of a skirt.
Her adipose shoulders were draped in a velour table-cover, and her right
hand pressed against her ample bosom a framed photograph, with the
glass-side outward. In general terms she was picturesque in the
extreme.
"I do hope you can oblige me with a cigarette, dear Sir Caryll!"
They were the first words he remembered since Julian's repeated "Thank
God!" The voice sounded more or less familiar, yet he couldn't place it,
and the picture the lady presented failed to help him.
It was at that instant that he became conscious of the great coat. In
the hope of possibility to provide he ran his hands through its pockets.
All he discovered was a soiled handkerchief and a bit of string.
"Sorry," he said, "but I fear I left my case in my room. You see, I came
away in something of a hurry."
He didn't in the least mean to be funny, and the stout woman took him
quite seriously.
"You're the tenth man I've asked," she said, "and they've all said the
same thing."
"Perhaps some of the ladies--" suggested Carleigh.
"No," came the reply. "There's not a cigarette among them. But they seem
to have everything else, from jewels to tooth-brushes. Mrs. Blythe, I
hear, saved her manicure set and left behind a manuscript poem that
would have made lasting fame for her. It's really too bad."
Carleigh, still perplexed, looked at her again. There was something
suggestive of--But no, that couldn't be. The Marchioness of Highshire
had the most beautiful golden-bronze hair in the kingdom.
Then he stole a look at the framed photograph. Perhaps that would help.
The glare from what was left of Carfen House made it stand out as
though spotted by a calcium. It was of a small, wizened old man with
gray whiskers. Certainly not Mr. Telborn.
She caught him stealing the look and turned the photograph over.
"It's the only thing I saved," she explained.
"Fancy!" murmured Sir Caryll.
"It's the marquis, you know. It's my most valuable possession. Mr.
Telborn adores me for my devotion to dear Highshire's memory." Marvel of
marvels, it was the marchioness, then! "He says it shows the true woman.
He'll gladly replace everything I've lost twice over." She sighed
deeply. "But I'd be tempted to give the photograph for a cigarette at
this minute," she added disconsolately.
"Let me try for you," said Carleigh, dropping off his mossy boulder.
"Did you ask Mrs. Darling?"
The Marchioness of Highshire lifted her hands, the photograph with them.
"Then you don't know?" she asked in surprise.
"Don't know?" he echoed with sinking heart. "Don't know what?" Her tone
had filled him with a sudden terror. Could it be--
"She's burned--very badly burned. They've taken her over to Cross Saddle
Hall."
"Nina burned!" he gasped. "Good God!"
"Yes, isn't it awful? I thought every one knew. They can't say how
serious it is. They fear she inhaled flames, and in that case, of
course--"
"Oh, no, no!" he cried. "I won't believe it."
The eyes of the marchioness lighted. Sir Caryll was so delightfully
ingenuous.
"Telborn has gone for the doctors," she went on. "Sir Guy was burned,
too, you know, most fearfully. It was he who saved Mrs. Darling."
"If I'd only known where her room was," Carleigh reproached himself,
forgetting that it had been all he could do to save himself.
"Sir Guy seems to have known."
Oh, how he resented that! Still it was best to be silent. If there was
the double meaning he suspected he would be the last one to point it
out.
"She was already safe, it seems. Had got downstairs without a mark,
better dressed than any of us. But she went back."
"Went back?"
"Yes. It was suicidal. Every one said so. Every one begged her. But she
wouldn't listen. She had forgotten something. Fancy that!"
Carleigh ground his teeth. The face of Rosamond Veynol was forgotten
again. Anxiety for Nina tore at his heart and rent his soul in pieces.
Now she was doubly precious.
And that Waldron fellow! He hoped he would die. Otherwise gratitude
might play a part. It probably would--and that would mean for himself
her utter loss.
"We waited five minutes," his informant continued. "It seemed ages. She
didn't return. And just then Sir Guy appeared. We were all women there,
you know. We told him, and he dashed off at once. It seems she reached
her room quite safely. But before she could turn round she was penned
in. Sir Guy went to her through a curtain of flame."
"Was she unconscious?" asked Carleigh anxiously.
"Unfortunately--no. Her screams were pitiful!"
"Don't!" he begged. "It's horrible!"
"I heard some one say it was her just recompense. You've heard she shot
her husband, haven't you?"
"I've heard it, of course. But it isn't true. I know it isn't. She has
the kindest heart in the world," he defended.
"Where there's smoke there's always some fire," quoted the marchioness.
"We've just had proof of that. Possibly she didn't fire the shot, but
I'll wager she had a hand in it."
"I'll never believe that. Never!"
"And you'll never find a cigarette for me unless you try, you know," she
suggested.
"I beg your pardon," he said in a lifeless voice. "I'll go at once."
He went at once, but he forgot again almost directly. He was bent on
learning more about Nina. What were her chances of life? That was what
he asked every one.
"Oh, she may pull through," said Archdeacon, who was helping in the
distribution of sandwiches and coffee. "I hope to Heaven she will! But
I'm afraid she'll be terribly disfigured. It was her face that got the
worst of it. Have a sandwich, old chap? Gad, what a narrow shave you
had!"
Hugh Blissmore, the novelist, burly and long-haired, was drinking black
coffee. He was likewise smoking a cigarette, but Carleigh, in spite of
his quest, never noticed it.
"Awful about Mrs. Darling, isn't it?" was the way he broached the topic.
"Awful!" exclaimed the writer--and was rather interrogative as well as
exclamatory. "Oh, yes, I dare say! I've been thinking of the heroic
side. Devilish fine of Sir Guy, don't you know! Sorry she's got to die,
too! Heroism so bootless--and all that. But situation out of the
ordinary. Oh, quite out of the ordinary."
"But it isn't certain that--" objected Carleigh.
"Certain?" the other interrupted, drawing his lungs full of smoke. "Of
course it's certain. Hasn't a chance, poor lady. Not the smallest
chance."
Sir Caryll's chin dropped and a grim, inarticulate sound came up from
his throat.
"Heard anything of the cars from Cross Saddle?" the novelist inquired in
turn. "Rotting uncomfortable messing about here, I say."
"Is that what's proposed?" asked the saddened one indifferently.
"Yes. Didn't you know? They took Mrs. Darling and Waldron over to the
hall in one from here, and some fellows went off to Carlisle for the
doctor-chaps in the other. They were to bring back some of Lord
Dalgries's cars with them. They've been gone over an hour now--and no
signs."
Carleigh was about to seek something more consoling in another quarter
when one of the giggling girls of the previous afternoon asked him the
time.
"Haven't the faintest idea," he said. "Left my watch behind."
At which she giggled in such an irritating way that he turned sharply
upon her.
"That's so funny," she managed to enunciate. "There isn't a single watch
among us. They were all forgotten--and we can't find out the exact
time."
"And--and _you_ were saved," said Carleigh boorishly. But she didn't in
the least understand.
Just then the horn of a motor echoed from the park's main drive and a
minute later its lamps flared as it rolled over the sward toward the
wood.
Sir Caryll ran forward, but the novelist was before him, desirous of
being first to secure a place. The young baronet's object, however, was
different.
"What do they say of Mrs. Darling?" he called as the car slowed down.
"Who, sir?" asked the chauffeur.
"The lady who was so severely burned. Have the doctors seen her, do you
know?"
"Oh, her, sir!" The man was in ill-humor at having been called from his
bed at such an hour. "I believe they have, sir. I 'eard some one say as
it was all up with some one. I suppose it was 'er they meant, sir. Now
don't crowd, please, there's more cars be'ind this one!"
Carleigh stood as one stunned.
It was the voice of the marchioness that recalled him.
"Did you find me a smoke?" she was asking.
"Cigarettes," said Carleigh, "are as scarce as--as watches,
unfortunately." And his tone was more lifeless than ever.