THE GUESTS DEPARTING

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THE FIRE

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But now there was the sound of voices in the living room. The performance had ended and there was a ripple of perfunctory applause when Mr. Logan finished. The fashionable young people of his own group clustered around him, chattering congratulations, and then, without paying attention to any of the other guests, or without a word of thanks to their hostess, they began to leave.

Other people now gathered around Mrs. Jack and made their farewells. Meanwhile, Mr. Logan was busy with his enormous valises, his wire dolls, the general wreckage he had created. People began to leave singly and in pairs and groups until presently there was no one left except those intimates and friends who are usually the last to leave a big party, Mrs. Jack and her family, her lover, Miss Mandell, Amy Van Leer and Mr. Logan. Already a curious and rather troubling change was apparent in the atmosphere of the whole place. It was an atmosphere of completion, of absence, of departure: it was the atmosphere one feels in a house the day after Christmas, or the hour after a wedding or when most of the passengers have disembarked from a great liner at one of the channel ports, leaving only a small, and rather sorrowful remnant who know the voyage is really over, and who are now just marking time for a few hours until their own destination is reached.

Mrs. Jack looked at Piggy Logan and at the wreckage he had made of a large part of her fine room with an air of bewilderment, then turned doubtfully and with a questioning look to Lily Mandell. The two women looked at each other for a moment, then Mrs. Jack shrugged her shoulders in a protesting, helpless way as if to say: “Can you understand all this? What has happened?”—

And then, catching her friend’s expression of drowsy arrogance, her own face suddenly flushed crimson, she cast her head back and laughed helplessly, hysterically, saying: “God!”

Meanwhile the others looked at Mr. Logan, who seemed absorbed with the litter that surrounded him, utterly and happily oblivious of their presence, with varied expressions of bewilderment, and amusement, and irony. Mr. Jack, who had been unable to stand the full protraction of the performance now appeared again, stared in at the kneeling figure of Mr. Logan and at all the wreckage of which he was the author then turning to his wife and son with a protesting gesture he said: “What is it?” Then he retired again, leaving everybody helplessly convulsed with hysterical laughter.

Amy Van Leer stretched herself out flat on the carpet beside Ernie with her hands beneath her head and began to talk to him in her rapid, eager, excited, curiously husky voice. Miss Mandell surveyed Mr. Logan with looks of undisguised distaste. Meanwhile the maids were busily clearing up the debris of the party—glasses, bottles, bowls of ice, and so on, and Molly was quietly and busily engaged putting the books back on their shelves. The other people looked on rather helplessly at Mr. Logan and his work, obviously at a loss what to do, and waiting evidently for the young man’s departure.

The happy confusion, the thronging tumult of the party had now ended. The guests had departed, the place had grown back into its wonted quiet, and the unceasing city, like an engine of immortal life and movement which had been for the moment forgotten and shut out, now closed in upon these lives again, pervaded these great walls: the noises of the street were heard again.

Outside, below them, there was the sound of a fire truck, the rapid clanging of a bell. It turned the corner into Madison and thundered excitingly past the big building. Mrs. Jack went to the window and looked out. Other trucks now appeared from various directions until four or five had gone by.

“I wonder where the fire can be,” she remarked presently in a tone of detached curiosity. Another truck roared down and thundered into Madison. “It must be quite a big one, too—six trucks have driven past: I wonder where it is. It must be somewhere in this neighborhood.”

For a moment the location of the fire absorbed the idle speculation of the group, but presently they began to look again at Mr. Logan. His labors were now, apparently, at long last, almost over. He began to close his big valises and adjust the straps.

At this moment Lily Mandell turned her head with an air of wakened curiosity in the direction of the hall, sniffed sharply, and suddenly said: “Does anyone smell smoke?”

“Hah? What?”—said Mrs. Jack with a puzzled air. And then, suddenly and sniffing sharply, she cried excitedly: “But yes! There is quite a strong smell of smoke out here. I think it would be just as well if we got out of the building until we find out what is wrong.”

Mrs. Jack’s rosy face was now burning with excitement. “But isn’t it queer?” she appealed to everyone, in a protesting and excited tone—“I mean, it is so strange after the party and—to think that it should be in this building—I mean—” She was evidently not quite certain what she meant and looked around her rather helplessly. “Well, then—” she said indefinitely, “I suppose we’d better, until we find out what it is. Oh, Mr. Logan!—” She lifted her voice as she spoke to him, and in a moment he lifted his round and heavy face with an expression of inquiring and cherubic innocence—“I say—I think perhaps we’d all better get out, Mr. Logan, until we find out where the fire is. Are you ready?”

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Logan cheerfully, “but fire?” he said, in a puzzled tone, “What fire? Is there a fire?”

“I think the building is on fire,” said Ernie smoothly, but with an edge of heavy irony, “so perhaps we’d better all get out—that is, unless you prefer to stay.”

“On no,” said Mr. Logan cheerfully, and clumsily getting to his feet, “I am quite ready, thank you, except for changing to my clothes—”

“I think that had better wait,” said Ernie.

“Oh those girls!” cried Mrs. Jack suddenly, and snapping the ring on and off her finger, she walked quickly toward the dining room. “Molly—Janie—Lily! Girls! We’re going to have to get out—there’s a fire somewhere in the building. You’ll have to get out until we find out where it is!”

“Fire, Mrs. Jack?” said Molly rather stupidly, staring at her mistress, and Mrs. Jack, glancing quickly at her, saw her dull eye, and her flushed face, and thought: “Oh, she’s been at it again!”

“Yes, Molly, fire” she said, and impatiently, “Get all the girls together and tell them they’ll have to come along with us—and Oh! Cook!—” she cried quickly—“Where is Cookie? Go get her someone. Tell her she’ll have to come too!”

The news obviously confused and upset the girls. They looked helplessly at one another then they began to move aimlessly around, as if no longer certain what to do.

“Shall we take our things, Mrs. Jack?” said Molly, looking at her stupidly. “Will we have time to pack?”

“Oh, of course not, Molly!” cried Mrs. Jack impatiently. “We’re not going anywhere! No one is moving out! We’re simply getting out till we find out where the fire is and how bad it is!—And Molly, please get Cook and bring her with you! You know how rattled and confused she gets!”

“Yes’m,” said Molly, and staring at her helplessly, “and is that all?”

“Yes, Molly, of course, and do please hurry! We’ll be waiting for you here!”

“Yes’m,” said Molly as before, hesitated a little, then said—“And will that be all, mum?—I mean,” and gulped, “will we need anything?”

“Oh, Molly, no, in heaven’s name!” cried Mrs. Jack, beginning to slip the ring on and off her nervous hand. “Nothing except your coats. Tell all the girls and Cook to wear their coats!”

“Yes’m,” said Molly, dumbly, hesitated, and in a moment, looking fuddled and confused, she went uncertainly through the dining room to the kitchen.

Ernie meanwhile had gone out into the hall and was ringing the elevator bell. The others joined him there. He rang persistently and presently the voice of John, the elevator man, was heard shouting up the shaft from a floor or two below: “All right! All right! I’ll be right up, folks, as soon as I take down this load!”

The sound of people’s voices, excited, chattering, could be heard down the shaft on the floor below, and presently the elevator door closed and the elevator went away.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jack, her family and her guests, waited in the hall. The smell of smoke in the hallway was now quite pronounced and although no one was seriously alarmed all of them were conscious of the nervous tension. Presently the sound of the elevator could be heard again as it came up. It mounted and then suddenly paused somewhere half a flight or two below them. The elevator man could be heard working his lever and fooling with the door. There was no response. Ernie rang again impatiently and hammered on the door, and in a moment more the man shouted up so clearly that all of them could hear him very plainly: “Mr. Jack, will you all please use the service entrance? The elevator’s out of order: I can’t go any farther.”

The people gathered in the hall now looked at one another with an air of bewildered and rather troubled surprise. In a moment, Ernie said: “Well, that’s that. I suppose that means we’ll have to walk down.”

He and his father put on derby hats, donned overcoats, and without another word started down the hall.

At this moment all the lights went out. The place was plunged in inky blackness. There was just a brief, a rather terrifying moment, when the women caught their breaths sharply. In the darkness the smell of the smoke was perceptively stronger, more acrid and biting than it had ever been. Molly moaned a little and the maids began to mill around like stricken cattle. But they quieted down when they heard the comforting assurance of Ernie’s quiet voice speaking in the dark: “Mother, we’ll have to light candles. Can you tell me where they are?”

She told him. He reached into a table drawer, pulled out a flashlight, and went back through the dining room into the kitchen. In a few moments he reappeared with a box of tallow candles. He gave everyone a candle and lighted them. The procession was really now a somewhat ghostly one. The women lifted their candles and looked at each other with an air of bewildered surmise. Mrs. Jack, deeply excited, but still retaining her customary interest in events, held up her candle and turned questioningly to the young man who was her lover. “Isn’t it strange?” she whispered—“Isn’t it the strangest thing? I mean the party—all the people—and then this”—And holding up her candle she looked about her at that ghostly company and suddenly he was filled with love and tenderness for her, because he knew the woman like himself had the mystery and strangeness of all life, all love in her heart.

In the steady flame of their upheld candles the faces of the maids and Cookie showed dazed, bewildered, and somewhat frightened. Cookie grinned confusedly and muttered jargon to herself. Mr. Jack and Ernie, their derby hats fixed firmly now on top of their well-kept heads, raised their candles and led the way. The women followed after, and the young man came last of all. Mrs. Jack, just in front of her young lover, was bringing up the end of the procession behind her guests and had reached the door that opened out to the service landing when she noticed a confusion in the line and glanced back along the hallway, and saw two teetering candles disappearing in the general direction of the kitchen. It was Cook and Molly.

“Oh Lord!” cried Mrs. Jack with an accent of exasperation and despair. “What on earth are they trying to do? Oh, Molly!” She raised her voice sharply. Cook had already disappeared but Molly heard her and turned in a bewildered way. “Oh, Molly, in God’s name, where are you going?” cried Mrs. Jack impatiently.

“Why—why, mum,—I just thought I’d go back here and get some things,” said Molly in a confused and thickened tone.

“No, you’re not either!” cried Mrs. Jack furiously thinking bitterly at the same moment, “she probably thought she’d sneak back there and get a drink.” “You don’t need any things.” She lifted her voice sharply again. “You come right along with us! And where is Cook?” she cried in an exasperated tone, then seeing the two bewildered looking girls, Lily and Janie, milling around her helplessly, she seized them impatiently and gave them a little push towards the door: “Oh, you girls get out!” she cried. “What are you gawking at?”

Then she came fuming back along the hall in the direction of her lover, who had gone after the bewildered Molly, herded her down the hall, and was now going into the kitchen to find Cook. Mrs. Jack followed him into the kitchen with her candle in her hand, said anxiously, “Are you there, darling?” And then raising her voice sharply: “Oh, Cook! Cook! Where are you?”

Suddenly, like a spectral visitant, still holding her candle, and flitting from room to room down the narrow hallway of the servant’s quarters Cook appeared. Mrs. Jack cried out angrily: “Oh, Cookie! What in the name of God are you doing!” At the same time she thought to herself again, as she had thought so many times before, “She’s probably an old miser, I suppose she’s got her wad hoarded away back there somewhere. That’s why she hates to leave.”

“Cook!” she cried again sharply with peremptory command. “You’ve simply got to come on now? We’re waiting on you.” Cook glided away down the hallway with spectral stealth and disappeared into her room. After another fuming silence Mrs. Jack turned to the young man, they regarded each other for a moment in that strange light and circumstance with perplexed and troubled faces and suddenly both laughed explosively.

“My God!” cried Mrs. Jack. “Isn’t it the damnedest—”

At this moment Cook, flitting like a phantom, appeared again; they yelled at her as she flitted away and followed her into one of the maids’ bedrooms and caught her in the act of locking herself away into a bathroom. “Cook!” cried Mrs. Jack, angrily.

“You’ve simply got to come on now!”

Cook goggled at her and sneered infuriatingly, and then muttered some incomprehensible jargon, in an ingratiating tone.

“Do you hear, Cook?” Mrs. Jack cried furiously. “You’ve got to come now! You can’t stay here any longer.”

“Augenblick! Augenblick!” muttered Cook cajolingly—In a moment she reappeared again, thrusting something into her bosom, and still looking unwillingly behind her, she was still obviously unwilling to leave, but allowed herself to be prodded, herded, pushed, and propelled down the servants’ hallway and out into the main part of the apartment.

When Mrs. Jack got out into the broad front corridor again she found to her consternation that although the others had gone out, Molly had not yet made her departure and that the other two maids had sidled back into the hallway and were huddled together talking in dazed whispers. When they saw Mrs. Jack and Cook they began to sidle toward their mistress as if attracted by a magnet.

“Oh, no, you’re not either!” she cried furiously. “You girls are not coming back in here! You get out now—this instant!”

And herding Cook before her, and shooing the others along as if she were mothering a flock of silly chickens, she drove them down the hall and through the door on to the service landing.

The others were now gathered here, waiting while Ernie tested the bell of the service elevator. There was no response in reply to his repeated efforts and in a few moments he remarked: “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for us to do now except to walk down.”

Mr. Jack had apparently reached this conclusion on his own account and had started down the nine flights of concrete stairs that led to the ground floor and safety. In a moment all the others followed him.