The last words were no more than a breath of utter agony. A second
later Nancy turned, and ran. She did not hear the protest that followed
her, nor realize that, as she had taken off her wide-brimmed hat for
the card-game, she was bare-headed under the burning August sun. She
choked back the scream that seemed her only possible utterance, and
fought the deadly faintness that assailed her. Unhearing, unseeing,
unthinking, she ran across the porch, and down the steps to the drive.
Here she paused, checkmated. For every one of the motor-sheds was
empty, and not a car was in sight on the lawns or driveway, where
usually a score of them stood. The green, clipped grass, and the
blossoming shrubs, baking in the afternoon heat, were silent and
deserted. The flame of geraniums, and the dazzle of the empty white
courts, smote her eyes. She heard Mrs. Fielding's feet flying down the
steps, and turned a bewildered, white face toward her.
"Elsie--there's not a car! What shall I do?"
"Listen, dear," said the new-comer, breathlessly, "Ruth is telephoning
for a car--"
But Nancy's breath caught on a short, dry sob, and she shook her head.
"All the way to the village--it can't be here for half an hour! Oh, no,
I can't wait--I can't wait--"
And quite without knowing what she did, or hoped to do, she began to
run. The crunched gravel beneath her flying feet was hot, and the mile
of road between her and Holly Court lay partly in the white sunlight,
but she thought only of Priscilla--the happy, good, inexacting little
baby, who had been put in her crib--with her "cacker"--and left
there--and left there--
"My baby!" she said out loud, in a voice of agony. "You were having
your nap--and mother a mile away!"
She passed the big stone gateway of the club, and the road--endless it
looked--lay before her. Nancy felt as helpless as one bound in a
malignant dream. She could make no progress, her most frantic efforts
seemed hardly more than standing still. A sharp pain sprang to her
side, she pressed her hand over it. No use; she would only kill herself
that way, she must get her breath.
Oh, why had she left her--even for a single second! So small, so gay,
so helpless; how could any mother leave her. She had been so merry, in
her high chair at breakfast, she had toddled off so dutifully with
Agnes, when Nancy had left the doleful boys and the whimpering Anne, to
go to the club. The little gold crown of hair--the small buckskin
slippers--Nancy could see them now. They were the real things, and it
was only a terrible dream that she was running here through the
merciless heat--
"Get in here, Mrs. Bradley!" said a voice. One of the Ingram boys had
brought his roadster to a stop beside her. She turned upon him her
tear-streaked face.
"Oh, Bob, tell me--what's happened?"
"I don't know," he said, in deep concern. "I just happened to go into
the club, and Mrs. Biggerstaff sent me after you! I don't know--I guess
it's not much of a fire!"
Nancy did not answer. She shut her lips tight, and turned her eyes
toward the curve in the road. Even while they rushed toward it, a great
mushroom of smoke rose and flattened itself against the deep blue
summer sky, widening and sinking over the tops of the trees. Presently
they could hear the confused shouts and groans that always surround
such a scene, and the hiss of water.
A turn of the road; Holly Court at last. Her escort murmured something,
but Nancy did not answer. She had only one sick glance for the scene
before them; the fringe of watchers about the house, the village
fire-company struggling and shouting over the pitifully inadequate
hose, the shining singed timbers of Holly Court. A great funnel of heat
swept up above the house, and the green under-leaves on the trees
crackled and crisped. From the casement windows smoke trickled or
puffed, the roof was falling, in sections, and at every crash and every
uprush of sparks the crowd uttered a sympathetic gasp.
The motor, curving up on the lawn, passed the various other vehicles
that obstructed the drive. As the mistress of the house arrived, and
was recognized, there was a little pitiful stir in the crowd. Nancy
remembered some of this long afterward, remembered seeing various
household goods--the piano, and some rugs, and some loose
books--carefully ranged at one side, remembered a glimpse of Pauline
crying, and chattering French, and Pierre patting his wife's shoulder.
She saw familiar faces, and unfamiliar faces, as in a dream.
But under her dream hammered the one agonized question: The
children--the children--ah, where were they? Nancy stumbled from the
car, asked a sharp question. The villager who heard it presented her a
blank and yet not unkindly face. He didn't know, ma'am, he didn't know
anything--he had just come.
She knew now that she was losing her reason, that she would never be
sane again if anything--anything had happened--
The crowd parted as she ran forward. And she saw, with a lightning look
that burned the picture on her brain for all her life, the boys blessed
little figures--and Anne leaning on her father's knee, as he sat on an
overturned bookcase--and against Bert's shoulder the little fat, soft
brown hand, and the sunny crown of hair that were Priscilla's--