Lois retired very early. She had a fire in her bedroom. She drew the
curtains and stood holding aside a heavy fold, looking out at the
night. She could see only the nothingness of the fog; not even the
glare of the fair was evident, though the noise clamoured small in the
distance. In front of everything she could see her own faint image. She
crossed to the dressing-table, and there leaned her face to the mirror,
and looked at herself. She looked a long time, then she rose, changed
her dress for a dressing-jacket, and took up _Sesame and Lilies._
Late in the night she was roused from sleep by a bustle in the house.
She sat up and heard a hurrying to and fro and the sound of anxious
voices. She put on her dressing-gown and went out to her mother’s room.
Seeing her mother at the head of the stairs, she said in her quick,
clean voice:
“Mother, what it it?”
“Oh, child, don’t ask me! Go to bed, dear, do! I shall surely be
worried out of my life.”
“Mother, what is it?” Lois was sharp and emphatic.
“I hope your father won’t go. Now I do hope your father won’t go. He’s
got a cold as it is.”
“Mother, tell me what is it?” Lois took her mother’s arm.
“It’s Selby’s. I should have thought you would have heard the
fire-engine, and Jack isn’t in yet. I hope we’re safe!” Lois returned
to her bedroom and dressed. She coiled her plaited hair, and having put
on a cloak, left the house.
She hurried along under the fog-dripping trees towards the meaner part
of the town. When she got near, she saw a glare in the fog, and closed
her lips tight. She hastened on till she was in the crowd. With peaked,
noble face she watched the fire. Then she looked a little wildly over
the fire-reddened faces in the crowd, and catching sight of her father,
hurried to him.
“Oh, Dadda—is he safe? Is Will safe——?”
“Safe, aye, why not? You’ve no business here. Here, here’s Sampson,
he’ll take you home. I’ve enough to bother me; there’s my own place to
watch. Go home now, I can’t do with you here.”
“Have you seen Will?” she asked.
“Go home—Sampson, just take Miss Lois home—now!”
“You don’t really know where he is—father?”
“Go home now—I don’t want you here——” her father ordered peremptorily.
The tears sprang to Lois’ eyes. She looked at the fire and the tears
were quickly dried by fear. The flames roared and struggled upward. The
great wonder of the fire made her forget even her indignation at her
father’s light treatment of herself and of her lover. There was a
crashing and bursting of timber, as the first floor fell in a mass into
the blazing gulf, splashing the fire in all directions, to the terror
of the crowd. She saw the steel of the machines growing white-hot and
twisting like flaming letters. Piece after piece of the flooring gave
way, and the machines dropped in red ruin as the wooden framework
burned out. The air became unbreathable; the fog was swallowed up;
sparks went rushing up as if they would burn the dark heavens;
sometimes cards of lace went whirling into the gulf of the sky, waving
with wings of fire. It was dangerous to stand near this great cup of
roaring destruction.
Sampson, the grey old manager of Buxton and Co’s, led her away as soon
as she would turn her face to listen to him. He was a stout, irritable
man. He elbowed his way roughly through the crowd, and Lois followed
him, her head high, her lips closed. He led her for some distance
without speaking, then at last, unable to contain his garrulous
irritability, he broke out:
“What do they expect? What can they expect? They can’t expect to stand
a bad time. They spring up like mushrooms as big as a house-side, but
there’s no stability in ’em. I remember William Selby when he’d run on
my errands. Yes, there’s some as can make much out of little, and
there’s some as can make much out of nothing, but they find it won’t
last. William Selby’s sprung up in a day, and he’ll vanish in a night.
You can’t trust to luck alone. Maybe he thinks it’s a lucky thing this
fire has come when things are looking black. But you can’t get out of
it as easy as that. There’s been a few too many of ’em. No, indeed, a
fire’s the last thing I should hope to come to—the very last!”
Lois hurried and hurried, so that she brought the old manager panting
in distress up the steps of her home. She could not bear to hear him
talking so. They could get no one to open the door for some time. When
at last Lois ran upstairs, she found her mother dressed, but all
unbuttoned again, lying back in the chair in her daughter’s room,
suffering from palpitation of the heart, with _Sesame and Lilies_
crushed beneath her. Lois administered brandy, and her decisive words
and movements helped largely to bring the good lady to a state of
recovery sufficient to allow of her returning to her own bedroom.
Then Lois locked the door. She glanced at her fire-darkened face, and
taking the flattened Ruskin out of the chair, sat down and wept. After
a while she calmed herself, rose, and sponged her face. Then once more
on that fatal night she prepared for rest. Instead, however, or
retiring, she pulled a silk quilt from her disordered bed and wrapping
it round her, sat miserably to think. It was two o’clock in the
morning.