THE FIRE
There is a terror which shakes man's equanimity to its foundation--and
that terror fell upon Trevlyn Hold. At the evening hour its inmates were
sitting in idleness; the servants gossiping quietly in the kitchen, the
girls lingering over the fire in the drawing-room; when those terrible
sounds disturbed them. With a simultaneous movement, all flew to the
hall, only to see Mr. Chattaway leaping down the stairs, followed by his
wife and Miss Diana Trevlyn.
"What is it? What is the matter?"
"The rick-yard is on fire!"
None knew who answered. It was not Mr. Chattaway's voice; it was not
their mother's; it did not sound like Miss Diana's. A startled pause,
and they ran out to the rick-yard, a terrified group. Little Edith
Chattaway, a most excitable girl, fell into hysterics, and added to the
confusion of the scene.
The blaze was shooting upwards, and men were coming from the
out-buildings, giving vent to their dismay in various exclamations. One
voice was heard distinctly above all the rest--that of Miss Diana
Trevlyn.
"Who has done this? It must have been purposely set on fire."
She turned sharply on the group of servants as she spoke, as if
suspecting one of them. The blaze fell on their alarmed faces, and they
visibly recoiled; not from any consciousness of guilt, but from the
general sense of fear which lay upon all. One of the grooms spoke
impulsively.
"I heard voices not a minute ago in the rick-yard," he cried. "I was
going across the top there to fetch a bucket of water from the pump, and
heard 'em talking. One was a woman's. I saw a light, too."
The women-servants were grouped together, staring helplessly at the
blaze. Miss Diana directed her attention particularly to them: she
possessed a ready perception, and detected such unmistakable signs of
terror in the face of one of them, that she drew a rapid conclusion. It
was not the expression of general alarm, seen on the countenance of the
rest; but a lively, conscious terror. The girl endeavoured to draw
behind, out of sight of Miss Diana.
Miss Diana laid her hand upon her. It was Bridget, the kitchenmaid. "You
know something of this!"
Bridget burst into tears. A more complete picture of helpless fear than
she presented at that moment could not well be drawn. In her apron was
something hidden.
"What have you got there?" sharply continued Miss Diana, whose thoughts
may have flown to incendiary adjuncts.
Bridget, unable to speak, turned down the apron and disclosed a little
black puppy, which began to whine. There was nothing very guilty about
that.
"Were you in the rick-yard?" questioned Miss Diana; "was it your voice
Sam heard?" And Bridget was too frightened to deny it.
"Then, what were you doing? What brought you in the rick-yard at all?"
Mrs. Chattaway, timid Mrs. Chattaway, trembling almost as much as
Bridget, but who had compassion for every one in distress, came to the
rescue. "Don't, Diana," she said. "I am sure Bridget is too honest a
girl to have taken part in anything so dreadful as this. The rick may
have got heated and taken fire spontaneously."
"No, Madam, I'd die before I'd do such a thing," sobbed Bridget,
responding to the kindness. "If I was in the rick-yard, I wasn't doing
no harm--and I'm sure I'd rather have went a hundred miles the other way
if I'd thought what was going to happen. I turned sick with fright when
I saw the flame burst out."
"Was it you who screamed?" inquired Miss Diana.
"I did scream, ma'am. I couldn't help it."
"Diana," whispered Mrs. Chattaway, "you may see she's innocent."
"Yes, most likely; but there's something behind for all that," replied
Miss Diana, decisively. "Bridget, I mean to come to the bottom of this
business, and the sooner you explain it, the less trouble you'll get
into. I ask what took you to the rick-yard?"
"It wasn't no harm, ma'am, as Madam says," sobbed Bridget, evidently
very unwilling to enter on the explanation. "I never did no harm in
going there, nor thought none."
"Then it is the more easily told," responded Miss Diana. "Do you hear
me? What business took you to the rick-yard, and who were you talking
to?"
There appeared to be no help for it; Bridget had felt this from the
first; she should have to confess to her rustic admirer's stolen visit.
And Bridget, whilst liking him in her heart, was intensely ashamed of
him, from his being so much younger than herself.
"Ma'am, I only came into it for a minute to speak to a young boy; my
cousin, Jim Sanders. Hatch came into the kitchen and said Jim wanted to
see me, and I came out. That's all--if it was the last word I had to
speak," she added, with a burst of grief.
"And what did Jim Sanders want with you?" pursued Miss Diana, sternly.
"It was to show me this puppy," returned Bridget, not choosing to
confess that the small animal was brought as a present. "Jim seemed
proud of it, ma'am, and brought it up for me to see."
A very innocent confession; plausible also; and Miss Diana saw no reason
for disbelieving it. But she was one who liked to be on the sure side,
and when corroborative testimony was to be had, did not allow it to
escape her. "One of you find Hatch," she said, addressing the maids.
Hatch was found with the men-servants and labourers, who were tumbling
over each other in their endeavours to carry water to the rick under the
frantic directions of their master. He came up to Miss Diana.
"Did you go into the kitchen, and tell Bridget Jim Sanders wanted her in
the rick-yard?" she questioned.
I think it has been mentioned once before that this man, Hatch, was too
simple to answer anything but the straightforward truth. He replied that
he did so; had been called to by Jim Sanders as he was passing along the
rick-yard near the stables, who asked him to go to the house and send
out Bridget.
"Did he say what he wanted with her?" continued Miss Diana.
"Not to me," replied Hatch. "It ain't nothing new for that there boy to
come up and ask for Bridget, ma'am. He's always coming up for her, Jim
is. They be cousins."
A well-meant speech, no doubt, on Hatch's part; but Bridget would have
liked to box his ears for it there and then. Miss Diana, sufficiently
large-hearted, saw no reason to object to Mr. Jim's visits, provided
they were paid at proper times and seasons, when the girl was not at her
work. "Was any one with Jim Sanders?" she asked.
"Not as I saw, ma'am. As I was coming back after telling Bridget, I see
Jim a-waiting there, alone. He----"
"How could you see him? Was it not too dark?" interrupted Miss Diana.
"Not then. Bridget kep' him waiting ever so long afore she came out. Jim
must a' been a good half-hour altogether in the yard; 'twas that, I
know, from the time he called me till the blaze burst out. But Jim might
have went away afore that," added Hatch, reflectively.
"That's all, Hatch; make haste back again," said Miss Diana. "Now,
Bridget, was Jim Sanders in the yard when the flames broke out, or was
he not?"
"Yes, ma'am, he was there."
"Then if any suspicious characters got into the rick-yard, he would no
doubt have seen them," thought Miss Diana, to herself. "Do you know who
did set it on fire?" she impatiently asked.
Bridget's face, which had regained some of its colour, grew white again.
Should she dare to tell what she had heard about Rupert? "I did not see
it done," she gasped.
"Come, Bridget, this will not do," cried Miss Diana, noting the signs.
"There's more behind, I see. Where's Jim Sanders?"
She looked around as she spoke but Jim was certainly not in sight. "Do
you know where he is?" she sharply resumed.
Instead of answering, Bridget was taken with a fresh fit of shivering.
It amazed Miss Diana considerably.
"Did Jim do it?" she sharply asked.
"No, no," answered Bridget. "When I got to Jim he had somehow lost the
puppy"--glancing down at her apron--"and we had to look about for it. It
was just in the minute he found it that the flames broke forth. Jim was
showing of it to me, ma'am, and started like anything when I shrieked
out."
"And what has become of Jim?"
"I don't know," sobbed Bridget. "Jim seemed like one dazed when he
turned and saw the blaze. He stood a minute looking at it, and I could
see his face turn all of a fright; and then he flung the puppy into my
arms and scrambled off over the palings, never speaking a word."
Miss Diana paused. There was something suspicious in Jim's making off in
the manner described; it struck her so at once. On the other hand she
had known Jim from his infancy--known him to be harmless and
inoffensive.
"An honest lad would have remained to see what assistance he could
render towards putting it out, not have run off in that cowardly way,"
spoke Miss Diana. "I don't like the look of this."
Bridget made no reply. She was beginning to wish the ground would open
and swallow her up for a convenient half-hour; wished Jim Sanders had
been buried also before he had brought this trouble upon her. Miss
Diana, Madam, and the young ladies were surrounding her; the
maid-servants began to edge away suspiciously; even Edith had dismissed
her hysterics to stare at Bridget.
Cris Chattaway came leaping past them. Cris, who had been leisurely
making his way to the Hold when the flames broke out, had just come up,
and after a short conference with his father, was now running to the
stables. "You are a fleet horseman, Cris," Mr. Chattaway had said to
him: "get the engines here from Barmester." And Cris was hastening to
mount a horse, and ride away on the errand.
Mrs. Chattaway caught his arm as he passed. "Oh, Cris, this is dreadful!
What can have caused it?"
"What?" returned Cris, in savage tones--not, however, meant for his
mother, but induced by the subject. "Don't you know what has caused it?
He ought to swing for it, the felon!"
Mrs. Chattaway in her surprise connected his words with what she had
just been listening to. "Cris!--do you mean----It never could have been
Jim Sanders!"
"Jim Sanders!" slightingly spoke Cris. "What should have put Jim Sanders
into your head, mother? No; it was your favoured nephew, Rupert
Trevlyn!"
Mrs. Chattaway broke into a cry as the words came from his lips. Maude
started a step forward, her face full of indignant protestation; and
Miss Diana imperiously demanded what he meant.
"Don't stop me," said Cris. "Rupert Trevlyn was in the yard with a torch
just before it broke out, and he must have set it on fire."
"It can't be, Cris!" exclaimed Mrs. Chattaway, in accents of intense
pain, arresting her son as he was speeding away. "Who says this?"
Cris twisted himself from her. "I can't stop, mother, I say. I am going
for the engines. You had better ask my father; it was he told me. It's
true enough. Who _would_ do it, except Rupert?"
The shaft lanced at Rupert struck to the heart of Mrs. Chattaway;
unpleasantly on the ear of Miss Diana Trevlyn: was anything but
agreeable to the women-servants. Rupert was liked in the household, Cris
hated. One of the latter spoke up in her zeal.
"It's well to try to throw it off the shoulders of Jim Sanders on to Mr.
Rupert! Jim Sanders----"
"And what have you to say agin' Jim Sanders?" interrupted Bridget,
fearing, it may be, that the crime should be fastened on him. "Perhaps
if I had spoken my mind, I could have told it was Mr. Rupert as well as
others could; perhaps Jim Sanders could have told it, too. At any rate,
it wasn't----"
"What is that, Bridget?"
The quiet but imperative interruption came from Miss Diana. Excitement
was overpowering Bridget. "It was Mr. Rupert, ma'am; Jim saw him fire
it."
"Diana! Diana! I feel ill," gasped Mrs. Chattaway, in faint tones. "Let
me go to him; I cannot breathe under this suspense."
She meant her husband. Pressing across the crowded rick-yard--for
people, aroused by the sight of the flames, were coming up now in
numbers--she succeeded in reaching Mr. Chattaway. Maude, scared to
death, followed her closely. She caught him just as he had taken a
bucket of water to hand on to some one standing next him in the line,
causing him to spill it. Mr. Chattaway turned with a passionate word.
"What do you want here?" he roughly asked, although he saw it was his
wife.
"James, tell me," she whispered. "I felt sick with suspense, and could
not wait. What did Cris mean by saying it was Rupert?"
"There's not a shadow of doubt that it was Rupert," answered Mr.
Chattaway. "He has done it out of revenge."
"Revenge for what?"
"For the horsewhipping I gave him. When I joined you upstairs just now,
I came straight from it. I horsewhipped him on this very spot,"
continued Mr. Chattaway, as if it afforded him satisfaction to repeat
the avowal. "He had a torch with him, and I--like a fool--left it with
him, never thinking of consequences, or that he might use it in the
service of felony. He must have fired the rick in revenge."
Mrs. Chattaway had been gradually drawing away from the heat of the
blaze; from the line formed to pass buckets for water on to the flames,
which crackled and roared on high; from the crowd and confusion
prevailing around the spot. Mr. Chattaway had drawn with her, leaving
his place in the line to be filled by another. She fell against a
distant rick, sick unto death.
"Oh, James! Why did you horsewhip him? What had he done?"
"I horsewhipped him for insolence; for bearding me to my face. I bade
him tell me who let him in last night when he returned home, and he set
me at defiance by refusing to tell. One of my servants must be a
traitor, and Rupert is screening him."
A great cry escaped her. "Oh, what have you done? It was I who let him
in."
"_You!_" foamed Mr. Chattaway. "It is not true," he added, the next
moment. "You are striving also to deceive me--to defend him."
"It is true," she answered. "I saw him come to the house from my
dressing-room window, and I went down the back-stairs and opened the
door for him. If he refused to betray me, it was done in good feeling,
out of love for me, lest you should reproach me. And you have
horsewhipped him for it!--you have goaded him on to this crime! Oh,
Rupert! my darling Rupert!"
Mr. Chattaway turned impatiently away; he had no time to waste on
sentiment when his ricks were burning. His wife detained him.
"It has been a wretched mistake altogether, James," she whispered. "Say
you will forgive him--forgive him for my sake!"
"Forgive him!" repeated Mr. Chattaway, his voice assuming quite a
hissing angry sound. "Forgive this? Never. I'll prosecute him to the
extremity of the law; I'll try hard to get him condemned to penal
servitude. Forgive _this_! You are out of your mind, Madam Chattaway."
Her breath was coming shortly, her voice rose amidst sobs, and she
entwined her arms about him caressingly, imploringly, in her agony of
distress and terror.
"For my sake, my husband! It would kill me to see it brought home to
him. He must have been overcome by a fit of the Trevlyn temper. Oh,
James! forgive him for my sake."
"I never will," deliberately replied Mr. Chattaway. "I tell you that I
will prosecute him to the utmost limit of the law; I swear it. In an
hour's time from this he shall be in custody."
He broke from her; she staggered against the rick, and but for Maude
might have fallen. Poor Maude, who had stood and listened, her face
turning to stone, her heart to despair.