On the following Saturday there was a letter from Charles. Agatha was down with ’flu and rather ill. There was no chance of her being well enough to leave her bed on Monday, but he, if he might, would come alone.
It was the seventh fresh case of ’flu Betty had heard of that day. For two or three weeks an epidemic had been raging, and now it seemed to have reached its climax. It was not a serious type, but it left its victims weak and acutely sorry for themselves.
So far Betty had escaped, but next day, on the Sunday, she developed a suggestive lassitude with accompanying headache. She fought it off, but it persisted, and that night she went early to bed, having taken quinine and hot drinks.
The post on Monday morning brought a letter from Sir Geoffrey. He wrote from a hotel in Capri, where, he said, he was spending a fortnight with some Americans whom he had met in Rome. After inquiries about herself and the Manor, he went on: ‘I have mislaid a certain paper, a testimonial from my employers in Chicago, which I require in connection with a company out here. I am thinking of buying an interest in it, on condition that I am made a director. I want to prove my business ability. It has occurred to me that this paper may be in one of the drawers in the old bureau in the library. I thought I cleared out everything valuable from those drawers, but might not have done so. The key of the bureau is on the smaller of the two bunches you hold. I should be grateful if you would have a look, and if you can find the testimonial, please send it here under registered cover.’
Betty felt somewhat better, and after breakfasting in bed she got up and went over to the Manor to look for the paper. She was still a little shaky and it was an effort to concentrate on what she was doing.
She quickly found the key of the bureau and began to work. In accordance with an apparently immutable law of the universe, the document was in the last drawer she opened. She replaced the papers she had disturbed and locked the bureau. Then enclosing the document with a short note to Sir Geoffrey, she went over to the post office, registered the letter, and returned to the lodge.
She was tired by her walk, though the distance was not great. The day was unpleasant, heavy and muggy, with a blustering wind from the west which drove before it a fine and very wetting rain. Indeed, when she reached her room she frightened herself by suddenly feeling faint. Mrs Relf shook her head reproachfully.
‘You didn’t ought to have gone out at all, mem,’ she admonished her, as she poured her out some brandy; ‘not with ’flu coming on or whatever it is. And if you take my advice you’ll go straight back to bed and I’ll bring you up a bit of lunch later.’
‘But Mr Barke is coming to tea,’ Betty protested.
‘Well, it’s not for me to say, mem, but you tell me his number and I’ll ring and put him off. Or if you wish, I’ll see he gets his tea here, all just as if you were down yourself.’
‘I’m sure you would, Mrs Relf. But I mustn’t give way like that. I’ll go and lie down and get up again before he comes.’
It was not long, however, before she realized that she was too ill to entertain Charles. She therefore called Mrs Relf and asked her to ring him up and put the visit off. The lodge was on an extension from the Manor, but on the closing of the latter, the extension had been left switched through, so that the lodge was directly connected with the exchange.
The visit off her mind, Betty turned in and found that bed was the place for which she had been unconsciously longing all the morning. She listened dully to Mrs Relf’s voice telephoning the message, then gave herself up to the luxury of thinking about nothing whatever. Presently she fell asleep.
She woke feeling a good deal better, though with no desire to get up. The house was very still, but presently she heard Mrs Relf moving in the next room and called her in.
‘Oh, mem, you’re looking more like yourself,’ she was greeted. ‘Maybe it’s not the ’flu after all.’
‘I don’t believe it is,’ Betty answered bravely, though she had little doubt that it was a mild attack. ‘I’m feeling better. Did you get through to Mr Barke?’
‘No, mem, he called here about an hour ago. He had left home when I rang up, and the message was not repeated on. He was sorry to know you were laid up, but he wouldn’t allow me to wake you.’
‘Oh,’ Betty cried, ‘I’m so sorry I was asleep. He’s coming back to tea, I hope?’
‘I asked him, saying I knew you would wish me to. But he wouldn’t come. He said he hoped to pay another visit with Mrs Barke when you were all right again.’
‘Yes, I hope he’ll do that. Too bad; I wanted him to see the pictures.’
‘He saw them, mem. He asked me and I sent Relf with him.’
‘Oh, good! That was quite right.’
So he had seen Sir Geoffrey’s improvements. Betty wondered what he had thought of them. That he had disapproved, she could have sworn.
She spent the rest of the day luxuriously in bed. For once she was content to lie still without thinking even of her book.
That night she had a rather unpleasant dream: not the usual nightmare in which she was trying to run through a glutinous sea or with impossibly heavy weights attached to her feet, but still disagreeable enough. She was in some large, dark and dangerous space, trying desperately to find an EXIT notice which she knew was there, but which she could not see because she was blinded by some unknown operator flashing a gigantic torch at intervals into her eyes. She would all but catch the letters with their message of safety, when flash! another beam would strike her, leaving everything else a pitchy black.
Presently she struggled into half wakefulness. The flashing was still going on. It was, she now saw, not bright like a torch; rather was it a faint continuous light which increased and diminished irregularly and to a small extent.
She opened her eyes. The room was dark, but the square of the window was faintly illuminated. As she gazed the light waxed slightly, then waned again.
For a moment she lay pondering the strange phenomenon. Then suddenly she was wide awake. Leaping from bed, she tore aside the curtain and gazed out.
The sky to the northward—in the direction of the Manor—was dully red, and the branches of the trees between her and the house showed in sharp black tracery against it. Then slowly the light increased and for a moment a brilliant spot showed through the branches, flickered and faded back as before.
‘Fire!’ she screamed as she began wildly to throw on some clothes. ‘Fire! Fire! The Manor’s on fire!’
As she raced down to the telephone she heard exclamations and movement in the Relfs’ room. She had scarcely discovered that the telephone was dead when Relf appeared, stumbling downstairs.
‘The Manor!’ she repeated. ‘It’s on fire and I can’t get through. Your bicycle! Give the alarm!’
He nodded and dashed out, while Mrs Relf, hurriedly buttoning on some clothes, appeared on the stairs. ‘Oh, mem,’ she cried, ‘it’s the Manor! Oh, this is awful!’
‘Come and see if we can do anything,’ Betty shouted, wrapping a coat round her and thrusting her feet into gumboots.
‘Don’t go out, mem! Don’t go out!’ Mrs Relf implored as she hurried after her. ‘You’ll get pneumonia.’
But Betty was already out of earshot, running fast but rather unsteadily towards the house. The drive swung outwards towards the right, approaching the Manor in a wide curve, but there was a direct path through the garden, and this Betty took. At every step the light grew brighter and she could now see a huge column of smoke trailing away towards the right. The wind was still blowing gustily from the west, though less strongly than on the previous day. The rain, now that it might have been helpful, had stopped.
The garden path brought Betty out at the end of the house, where the great bulk of the ballroom wing stood up black and square against the brightness. Fortunately it, at least, was not yet on fire, and ideas of saving the pictures leaped into Betty’s mind. Then she rounded its projecting corner to where she could see the front of the house, and at once stood stock still in horror.
The entire centre of the building was ablaze. For half its length smoke was pouring from windows and roof, while the block containing the porch and hall was a raging furnace. The roof light over the hall had gone and from the opening were issuing the huge balls of flame, like rapidly rising and vanishing balloons, which had lit up her bedroom. A fierce and steady roar came from the building, with sharp crackling like rifle fire. As Betty watched, a light sprang up in a bedroom near the hall, the glass in the window fell with a crash, heard faintly above the general noise, and a tongue of fire shot out.
Betty felt paralysed. What could be done against such odds? The fire was simply eating the house. It was spreading from the centre in both directions, more quickly with the wind towards the picture gallery, but still quickly enough towards the ballroom. Far back as she was standing, the heat was already intense. As she watched, the next window in the line fell out. No wonder the telephone was dead. The extension switch was in the central hall: in that glowing mass of flame.
Now she was joined by Carson, the gardener, who lived along the road not far from the lodge. Some neighbours followed him, also wakened by the glare.
‘Oh, Carson,’ she cried, ‘the local brigade will never be enough! Hurry and ring up London!’
‘The local brigade’s coming. We’ve sent for them.’
‘It won’t be enough! Ring up London! Quickly, Carson! Don’t delay a moment! Tell them two lots of engines will he wanted, one for each end. And tell them,’ she halted him with an imperious gesture as he moved off, ‘tell them there’s a lake a couple of hundred yards from the house.’
The gardener waved his arm and disappeared, while Betty turned to the little knot of neighbours, five men and two women, who had arrived.’
‘Oh,’ she panted, ‘the pictures! They’re worth thousands! Hundreds of thousands perhaps! We must do something before the brigade comes!’
A large well-built man, whom she suddenly recognized as the postman, stepped forward.
‘We’ll do what we can, mem,’ he declared. ‘Where are they kept?’
‘In the two wings,’ Betty pointed. ‘The side doors will be locked. Can you get ladders and break the windows and pass them out that way?’
The postman, an old naval rating accustomed to prompt action, took charge. ‘Here you, Bill,’ he shouted, as one of the under-gardeners hurried up, ‘we want to break in through that there window to get out the pictures. A ladder and an axe! Look slippy, now.’
‘Aye. Lend a hand, chaps!’ The under-gardener ran off, beckoning towards the yard.
‘The windows look middling high, mem,’ the postman went on to Betty. ‘Can we reach them from the floor inside?’
Betty doubted it, and another man was dispatched to bring a second ladder.
‘How’ll we know the valuable ones?’ continued the postman, glancing appraisingly at the slowly approaching furnace. ‘We’ll never get them all out.’
‘I’ll get in and show you here. But the best are in the other wing. If you could start some men here, we could perhaps get another ladder and try there.’
Just then appeared on his bicycle, solid and comforting-looking, a policeman. Betty turned to him.
‘We’ve sent both for the local brigade and to London,’ she explained, quickly, ‘and we’re going to break in here to get some of the pictures out. But the best pictures, worth thousands, are in the other wing. Can you help us there while Mr—’ she pointed to the postman, ‘does what he can here?’
As she spoke, a little knot of men appeared round the corner of the ballroom, running with two short ladders. One of these was quickly put up at the side of a window and the postman, seizing the axe which another man had brought, climbed up and began smashing out the window. The second ladder was pushed through and fixed in position and the postman disappeared inside.
‘Can you do the same at the other wing?’ Betty implored the policeman. ‘There’s a long ladder in the yard and you could cut it in two. I want to show them the best pictures here and then I’ll follow you.’
For a moment she thought the policeman was going to be official. He had taken out his notebook and was turning over the pages. Then to her relief he put it away.
‘Reckon that must wait,’ he answered, with a crooked smile.’
‘We’ll do what we can.’ He turned to a knot of fresh men who had just arrived. ‘Come along, lads, and lend a hand to save the pictures. Worth a dozen fortunes, they are.’
Meanwhile Betty had climbed to the window, and having with difficulty transferred herself to the second ladder, got down into the ballroom. It was brilliantly lit up by fire through the windows in the wall which gave on to the front. But it was still cool, and though the flames seemed to be perilously near, there might be time to save the best of the collection.
Now Betty suddenly realized that she had undertaken a difficult task. It wasn’t easy at a moment’s notice to decide the relative excellence of the pictures. Three, a Holbein, a Poussin and a Morales, were outstanding, but after them the choice was not so obvious.
‘Those three first,’ she therefore decided, ‘and after them as many of the others as you can manage. I must go to the other wing.’
The postman helped her out and she stood for a moment to recover her breath, before hurrying round by the yard to see how the policeman and his helpers were getting on. She could see some of them across the space of Dutch garden and lawn in front of the house, indefinite figures dancing in the heated air, lit now by the blaze, hidden now by coils and wisps of smoke. The fire had by this time become an awesome sight, though magnificent also. It had spread with almost incredible speed. The entire spine of the building, the upright stroke of the E, was now alight and belching forth huge clouds of smoke along its whole length. At least a dozen more windows had fallen out and showed as rectangles of blinding light, from which great tongues of flame were shooting out and disappearing up into the air, while showers of brilliant sparks floated away into the distance. The grounds and trees down to the lake were now illuminated by the fierce glare, as if floodlit by red-beamed searchlights of continually varying power. The roar of the flames was indescribable, the crackling menacing and horrible. Fanned by the still considerable wind, the fire was travelling more rapidly towards the far wing, and Betty got a shock when she realized how terribly near it had reached the picture gallery.
She was just about to turn away when there came a terrible rending, tearing noise which rang out high above the general din, and as she stood motionless, gazing, she saw with horror the roof of the central hall slowly disappear. It crashed down inside the building and a spurt of flame, solid and bigger than an ordinary house, rolled up to the sky, while sparks and burning fragments poured like fireworks from the windows.
Then suddenly the light went out of Betty’s world. She struggled for a moment to keep her grip on things, but without success. Dimly she was conscious of the ground swinging about, then coming up to meet her, and then a great blackness shutdown on her and she sank slowly into oblivion.