CHAPTER XVI

An Opportunity

Mabel and Aldred returned to Birkwood on terms of even closer intimacy than before. There is always a difference between a companion who is only an acquaintance at school and one who shares the many little home associations and interests that make a bond of union apart from the other girls, and give innumerable subjects for those confidential talks which are the chief joy of friendship. The bedroom that had once seemed entirely Mabel's was now taken up with joint possessions. Aldred had helped to buy the new gipsy table that stood in the window, and had embroidered half of the table-cloth that covered it. The cushion for the wicker chair was a present from Lady Muriel to both the girls; and the knick-knacks that they had brought back with them were so entirely mixed that it was difficult to tell which belonged to either. "All things in common" was Mabel's motto, and Aldred, who certainly got the better of the bargain, was only too ready to agree.

It was high summer now at the Grange--glorious, golden days, when the sea breeze, or the wind from the downs, tempered the warm sunshine, and established Birkwood's reputation for a bracing climate. As many lessons as possible were held in the garden. Each form had its own special open-air classroom, and the girls easily accommodated themselves to working out-of-doors.

"When you're accustomed to it, it's no harder than working in the house," said Ursula. "Of course, just the first day we can't help staring about a little, to look at birds and things, but we soon get over that. We're none of us babies, to need four walls round us to keep our attention, and it is so very much nicer."

The Fourth Form "room" was at the corner of the big lawn, under the shade of a large oak, almost exactly in the place where Aldred had made her statue of Venus in the snow. How different the garden looked now in its summer dress! It was difficult to believe that the asphalt court had ever been frozen and turned into a skating rink.

"I shall never forget our ice carnival," said Miss Bardsley. "My ankle is hardly strong yet, and I'm afraid it will always be thicker than the other."

"You had a long holiday, though," urged Phoebe: "six whole weeks!"

"An enforced holiday is no pleasure; I would far rather have been at my work. I don't feel that you've made up yet for all you lost while I was absent."

"Is that why we have a double allowance of Roman history now?" queried Ursula.

"Certainly it is. You must finish the book this term, if we have to take extra lessons on it. You naughty girls, don't pull such faces! You ought to be interested in the Emperors."

"Father says some day he'll take me to Rome, and I shall see all their marble statues," observed Mabel.

"Lucky girl!" said Miss Bardsley. "I was fortunate enough to spend one Easter holiday in Rome, and saw the busts of the Emperors at the Capitoline Museum. They're the most beautiful likenesses in the world. You'll appreciate Roman history when you've been to the Forum, and the Colosseum, and all the other famous places."

"Why can't we study history that way?" suggested Ursula. "Suppose you were to take us all to Rome for a month, and we learnt about Romulus and Remus when we were sitting on the Capitoline Hill, and about Trajan in Trajan's Forum, and Diocletian in Diocletian's Bath, and Nero at the Colosseum: it would be so interesting, and we should really remember it!"

"No doubt that is the ideal method; but think of the expense! I am afraid most parents would grumble at the school bills, if teaching history involved a visit to the scene of each occurrence. No! You're supposed to study all this beforehand, and then, when you have a clear idea of ancient and mediaeval times, you can go abroad with an understanding of what you'll see."

"But why shouldn't there be a mutual exchange of schools?" continued Ursula, who liked to discuss questions with Miss Bardsley. "Suppose a class from an Italian school were to come to the Grange for a month, and we were to go and take their place: they'd learn English games, and we should see the old temples and amphitheatres, so we should each have something we couldn't get in our own country."

"It would certainly be a splendid means of learning languages, especially if such an exchange could be effected with a French or a German school. But I fear we are not ripe for that yet; there are too many difficulties in the way of such international visiting. In years to come perhaps the State will organize it, and we shall see little bands of children starting with their teachers to study foreign life and get rid of insular prejudices. It would have to be a special department of the Board of Education."

"If Father gets into Parliament again I'll ask him to bring in a Bill for it," said Mabel. "He's very keen on Secondary Education."

There was so much to be done at Birkwood during the summer term that the days did not seem nearly long enough, though the school rose half an hour earlier than in winter. The girls played cricket as well as tennis, worked in their gardens, and were taken for walks on the downs or on the shore. These expeditions generally had a scientific object in view, wild flowers being brought home to be pressed and added to the school collection, or the pools left by the tide investigated for specimens to enlarge the already flourishing aquarium. There is an old saying: "If you are good, you are happy"; but Miss Drummond believed in the reversing of that moral process, on the theory that "if you are happy, you are good", considering that young girls, at any rate, would be more likely to grow up with nice minds and true instincts if all their environment was beautiful, and their days were filled with pleasures calculated to elevate and refine. There were few of her pupils on whom her system had not the desired effect, and the one or two failures had been gently eliminated, so as not to contaminate the rest.

With Aldred especially Miss Drummond's method had worked well. She was very different from the ill-disciplined girl who had arrived at the Grange last September. The pleasant but carefully ordered regime seemed quite to have counteracted her aunt's injudicious management, and she would have been utterly ashamed now of behaviour in which a year ago she had gloried. This improvement was largely due to Mabel's influence. The latter's implicit faith in her began to rouse a desire to become actually what her friend believed her to be. She conquered many little weaknesses, lest Mabel should notice them. She had soon found that a cross word or an unkind speech, the evasion of a rule, or the shirking of some small duty, would bring a look of puzzled surprise to the latter's face; and rather than that Mabel should be disappointed in her, she kept a tight hand on herself, and would repress anything of which her friend did not approve. It was not the loftiest of motives, but it was the first time in her life that Aldred had ever really tried to join the ranks of those who are striving upwards, and even a faint-hearted effort is better than none at all.

There are occasionally people in this world who seem to have the faculty of drawing the very best out of those with whom they come in contact. They create their own atmosphere, and by the strength of their winning personalities rouse all the sleeping good in others. Such a friend was Mabel, and Aldred, despite her false position, could not fail to be influenced by daily living with a character so much sweeter and more self-controlled than her own. Though she was still content to take credit that was not her due, she was gradually altering her standard, and beginning slowly but surely to realize that life consists of far more than the gratification of the moment, and that righteousness is a higher goal than pleasure.

One morning, when the girls were sitting chatting round the sundial at eleven o'clock recreation, they noticed the telegraph boy from Chetbourne ride up on his bicycle and deliver a message at the door.

"No alarm for any of us, I hope!" said Phoebe. "It's rather silly, but I always feel a little scared when I see one of those yellow envelopes, and wonder if anything has happened at home."

"And yet people send telegrams about everything," said Myfanwy. "Probably this is only to offer Miss Drummond seats at a concert, or to tell her somebody's coming to visit the school."

"Oh, I dare say! But I get nervous, all the same; telegrams so often mean bad news."

Phoebe's apprehensions were justified in this case, though not on her own account. When morning school was over, the prefects reported that Miss Drummond had been suddenly called away.

"She has a mother living somewhere in the North, who is most seriously ill, and is scarcely expected to recover," explained Freda Martin. "She sent for a carriage at once, and started off to catch the 1.13 train at Chetbourne. I hope she'll arrive in time. She was most fearfully upset and distressed, and couldn't make any arrangements; she only said Miss Forster was to take her classes, and she would come back as soon as she could."

This unexpected event naturally caused great commotion at the Grange. Miss Drummond had never before been absent during term time, and, though the other mistresses did their best in the circumstances, all seemed rather helpless without her. The principal taught the Sixth Form herself, and also took science classes throughout the school, so it was difficult to arrange to supply her place, it being impossible to engage another teacher, as had been done during Miss Bardsley's absence. By combining some of the classes, and omitting the science, Miss Forster managed to arrange fairly well; but as she had not been definitely placed in command over the entire establishment, she did not like to usurp too much authority on her own account. No one, therefore, seemed actually at the head of affairs, or really responsible; and there was a general feeling of disorganization and slackness.

"It's horrid without Miss Drummond!" said Mabel. "Nobody seems to know anything, or to be able to do anything while she's away. Even the medicine cupboard is locked up."

"That's no loss, I'm sure!" returned Aldred.

"Well, as it happens, it is. I've such a splitting headache, I was going to beg for sal volatile."

"Perhaps Miss Forster may have some."

"I asked her, but she hadn't; and then Mademoiselle came fussing along, wanting to know what was the matter. When I told her I had a headache, she declared it might be the beginning of something infectious, and said that I must sleep in the hospital to-night, and she would examine me to-morrow morning, to see whether a rash had come out. 'Ve cannot be too careful vile Mees Drummond is avay!' she said."

"But you're not really going?"

"I shall have to. I'd have asked Miss Forster to interfere, but she'd hurried away by that time. I've come to collect my night things now."

"What a ridiculous swindle! Can't I go too?"

"No; remember, it's a case of isolation!" said Mabel, smiling.

"But you'll be afraid to sleep there all alone."

"Oh, no, I shan't! Mademoiselle offered to send Hunter--she's generally told off for hospital duty--but I said I'd rather not have her. I'm not a scrap ill; it's only my head."

"And Mademoiselle's idiotic nonsense! I never heard of such a silly notion as to pack you off there! She's absolutely mad!"

"Well, it can't be helped. There's no one to appeal to. Mademoiselle is as much in authority, I suppose, as Miss Forster, or Miss Bardsley, or anybody else."

"The school seems lost without Miss Drummond."

Feeling decidedly a martyr, Mabel, taking the various possessions she needed for the night, marched upstairs to the hospital.

"If it's anything catchable I'll catch it too!" Aldred called after her. "You're not to be ill up there without me! You may choose measles, or scarlatina, or anything you like; I'm quite agreeable, so long as I can have a share in it!"

"It's for Mademoiselle to decide the complaint to-morrow!" laughed Mabel, already half-way down the passage. "I don't mind what it is, so long as she doesn't declare it's suppressed smallpox, and have me re-vaccinated as a precaution. Good night!"

Aldred felt injured and aggrieved at her room-mate's banishment. It was really very tiresome and unnecessary of Mademoiselle to have insisted upon it.

"She's a Jack-in-office!" thought Aldred. "If she were head of the school, I should ask to be taken away. How particularly slow and stupid it is without Mabel! She's forgotten her bedroom slippers, by the by. I wonder if I dare take them up to her? On the whole, I think I'd better not; I suppose she'll manage without them."

It was a warm evening, and light until very late. Aldred undressed leisurely, and took a last delicious sniff at the roses that framed her window before she jumped into bed. She was tired, and dropped asleep almost immediately, falling into a confused dream, in which Mabel and Mademoiselle and measles were hopelessly mixed. The doctor had come to see Mabel, and had prescribed a huge bottle of nasty medicine, labelled "Two quarts to be taken every two hours". He was coming again, and was ring-ring-ringing at the front-door bell. Why did not one of the servants go to the door? And why was Mademoiselle sounding the gong? It was not dinner-time yet. Would nobody stop her? It would make Mabel's headache worse. In her dream, Aldred rushed downstairs, and tried to hold Mademoiselle's arm; but the clanging grew louder and louder, and with a start she awoke and sat up in her bed, half-awake.

The noise was actual fact. Somebody downstairs was hammering the gong, with frantic, jarring strokes; while the big bell that rang for classes was clanging lustily. There was a curious smell in the air, very different from the scent of the roses outside; and there was also a ruddy light, surely neither that of the moon nor of the rising sun. Before Aldred had time to do more than rub her eyes, hurried footsteps resounded along the passage, her door was flung open, and a voice cried: "Fire! Come at once!"

The girls at Birkwood had been trained in fire drill, and Aldred knew immediately what she must do. Her heart was beating quickly, and her hands were trembling, but she flung on her dressing-gown, slipped her feet into her slippers, seized a pocket-handkerchief and dipped it in the bedroom jug (all the work of three seconds), and dashed without further delay down the stairs.

The landing and hall were filled with dense clouds of choking smoke. To get to the front door was like passing through the mouth of a cannon, and Aldred felt almost suffocated before she reached the fresh air. In the garden several agitated teachers were trying to review an even more panic-stricken crowd of girls and servants. Mademoiselle was sobbing hysterically, and though all the teachers were striving each to number her own flock, they kept getting in one another's way, and missing count and having to begin again. Nobody seemed responsible, or in command. The gardener rushed about distractedly with buckets of water, assuring everyone that he had sent for the fire brigade from Chetbourne. The servants shrieked and wailed, and neighbours who came running from various farms and cottages on the downs only added to the general noise and confusion.

From one of the windows of the upper story flames were bursting, throwing a red glare over the garden. By this livid light Aldred pushed her way among the excited, jostling girls, scanning each face, and asking one constantly reiterated question: "Where's Mabel?"

Nobody knew. Nobody seemed to have noticed, in the general confusion, that she was not with them.

"Where's Mabel?" Aldred's voice was frantic with alarm.

"Isn't she with you?" asked Miss Bardsley wildly. "I opened your door and called you both. Oh, girls, if you would only keep together, I could tell if you were all here!"

"She was sleeping in the hospital!" cried Aldred, disregarding the teacher's request, and tearing away to interrogate Mademoiselle--a vain errand, for the unfortunate French governess had fallen in a dead faint upon the grass.

Aldred grasped the fact only too speedily that there was but one terrible answer to her question. _Mabel was in the burning house, for nobody had gone to warn her!_ Without a moment's hesitation, she rushed back to the front door. There was no alternative; the emergency was all-compelling. Mabel was in imminent and pressing danger; no one realized it, or had even missed her, and there was no time to appeal to Miss Forster or Miss Bardsley. She, Aldred, alone and on her own responsibility, must save her friend. There was not a second to be lost; already it might be too late, for the blaze was fast making headway. From the open door clouds of smoke belched forth as if from a furnace, and Aldred was driven back with blinded eyes choking and gasping for breath. It was her own fault. How stupid she was to forget, in her excitement, what she had learnt at the fire-drill practice! Her dripping pocket-handkerchief was still clasped, almost unconsciously, in her hand; she tied it rapidly over her nose and mouth, then, dropping on to her hands and knees, she began to crawl along the hall in the direction of the staircase. The difference was marvellous. Down on the ground the air was comparatively fresh and clear--she could see the bottom of the umbrella stand and a pair of Miss Drummond's goloshes quite plainly; while only a foot higher the atmosphere was dense and impenetrable. The wet handkerchief also made breathing easier, and though her eyes were smarting and the heat was very great, she found it quite possible to get along. With half-closed eyelids, and her mouth well to the floor, she crept up the stairs; each one seemed a victory gained, and a step nearer to the accomplishment of her purpose. Oh, how many there were, and how interminable was the passage at the top! The heat grew more intense, and a roaring, crackling sound warned her that she was reaching the west wing, where the flames were raging worst and had burst through the windows.

The hospital was on the top story, so there was another staircase to be mounted. Dared she do it? Every fresh step cut off her retreat, and put another bar between herself and safety. Yet Mabel was there, solitary, unaided, in the midst of awful peril. No, she could not abandon her, come what might! She would face death with her friend, rather than leave her to perish alone.

She never remembered quite how she dragged herself along; her nerves were strung to the highest pitch, her brain felt bursting. The room she was in search of was over the kitchen, where the fire had originally broken out. Fortunately, it was a little clearer there, and Aldred was able to stand up; and by groping her way along the walls, she found the handle and flung open the door of the hospital.

"Mabel! Mabel!" she cried vehemently.

There was no reply. The room was filled with smoke, but the glare outside made just enough light to distinguish objects.

"Mabel! Are you there? Mabel!"

Aldred was in an agony of apprehension. There were several beds in the hospital, and she ran from one to the other, feeling in them with eager hands. They were empty. Had she, after all, come on a vain quest? Mabel must have heard the alarm bell, and have escaped and joined the others in the garden! Aldred's heart almost stopped beating, as for a moment the horror of the situation overcame her. Her search was quixotic, fruitless--she had risked her life for nothing! She moved instinctively to clutch a bedpost to steady herself, and as she did so her foot touched something soft. With a cry she dropped upon her knees. Mabel was lying on the floor just by the bedside, where she must have fallen, overpowered by the smoke, in an effort to make her way to the door.

With frantic hands Aldred dragged her friend across the room, and by sheer effort of will hoisted her up, so that her head might reach the open window. It was a task far beyond her ordinary powers, but in such moments a strength not our own is often given to us. The fresh air soon restored consciousness, and Mabel, to Aldred's intense relief, opened her eyes.

"What is it? Where am I?" she asked confusedly.

"The house is on fire, dear, and I don't know how we are to save ourselves. Stay where you are, and go on getting the air; I'm going to see if we can manage to get back down the passage."

Directly Aldred opened the door she realized that escape in that quarter was impossible. A roaring sound and a glare at the end of the landing told her only too plainly that the staircase had broken into flames. She shut the door again hurriedly, and, returning to the window, shouted with all her might. Would anybody hear, and if so, could they help? The Fire Brigade had not yet arrived from Chetbourne, and it was unlikely that there would be any ladder about the place long enough to reach to the top story of the house.

"Help! Help! Hallo!" Her voice sounded so thin and weak, compared with the crackling of the flames, she feared it would not carry far enough. Mabel, still in a half-dazed state, clung to her wildly, trembling and shivering with terror.

Would no one ever come? They were all watching the front of the house, and had completely forgotten the back.

At last! There was a shout from below, and a sudden rushing and noise, as the ever-increasing crowd poured round the corner.

"Fetch a ladder!"

"It's too short!"

"Tie two together!"

"There aren't two!"

"Tell them to jump!"

"No! No! They'd break their necks!"

"Someone go in and fetch 'em!"

"Impossible! The stairs are ablaze!"

"Does anyone hear the engine coming?"

"Not a sign of it yet."

"Then God help them, for we can't!"

The room was getting hotter and hotter. Aldred could hear the roar of the flames in the passage now. How long would the door keep them out? It was plain that, unless both girls were to perish, something must be done, and that instantly. Disengaging Mabel's clinging arms, Aldred propped her against the window-sill, then groped her way through the dense smoke across the room. The six beds in the hospital were always kept made up, perfectly ready for use. Aldred pulled off the twelve sheets one after the other, and carried them in a bundle back to the window, where, with trembling hands, she knotted them firmly together, just as Miss Drummond had shown in the fire-drill practice. She dragged forward the nearest bedstead till its foot almost touched the sill, and, fastening her improvised rope round a post, pulled it hard, to make sure that the knot was safe.

"Mabel," she said loudly, "we must try the sheet dodge. I'm going to lower you down. Let me tie this end round your waist, quick!"

"No! No!" cried Mabel, who had somewhat recovered her scattered senses. "I'll lower you! I'm the bigger, and stronger than you. Here, give me the end!"

"I shan't. You must go! Mabel, I insist! This is no time for arguing. My mind's made up, and I shall make you!"

Aldred was fastening the knot as she spoke, with quick fingers. She would take no denial. Had she not come to rescue her friend, and was she to be so easily gainsaid?

"But, Aldred! Aldred! If I go first, who will lower you afterwards?"

"I'll slip down somehow."

"You know you can't! It's saving me at your own cost!"

The heat was terrific, and the roar on the landing had increased sevenfold. With a crash the door fell in, and a sheet of flame burst like a furious living thing into the room.

Aldred turned almost fiercely upon Mabel.

"For your father's and mother's sake! Think of them!"

Her nature was the stronger and the more masterful of the two. She had always been the dominating influence, and now, in this great and awful crisis, her will prevailed. Without further ado she pushed Mabel over the window-sill, and, clinging with all her might to the sheet rope, let her down as carefully and gently as she could. It was a great effort to regulate the descent of such a heavy dangling weight, but she feared to let her burden go with a run, lest Mabel's head should be dashed against the wall of the house. Oh, what a fearful, dizzy depth it seemed from the upper story to the ground! The crowd below stood stock-still, pressing tightly together shoulder to shoulder, and gazing upward, voiceless and almost breathless with suspense. Would Aldred's frail strength accomplish the task? The fire within had gained a grip of the room, and shone behind her head like a halo. Still she did not flinch or falter; she kept her nerve, and paid out her rope piece by piece, manoeuvring the knots over the window-sill, and remembering every necessary precaution.

The flames rolled nearer. Strangely enough, now that death was almost at arm's length, she felt perfectly cool and collected, and far calmer than she had done when first she had entered the room. Every thought and effort of her being was concentrated on Mabel's escape; after that, she cared nothing. Only a few yards now! She set her teeth, and hung on grimly. She was nearly spent, but she just managed to control the last quick rush as the rope's burden fell at length into the dozen eager hands upraised to help. The crowd had waited in silence, but now a roar rose up from below of deafening cheers and loud shouts of encouragement.

"Come down yourself!"

"Try hand over hand down the sheets!"

"Don't waste a minute!"

"Pluck will win yet!"

"We're all waiting to catch you, if you fall!"

But Aldred, standing exhausted and panting by the window, had no strength left for further effort. The heat of the flames and the smoke were overpowering. She had kept up by sheer effort of will until her friend was in safety; now the world seemed suddenly to be turning round her. There was a rushing in her ears, and her eyes grew dim. Through a thick haze she saw the crowd beckoning to her, and one man, more daring than the rest, begin to scale the rope, in the hope of rescuing her. He could never reach her in time, she thought vaguely; and she was too faint and giddy to let herself down hand over hand, as they were calling to her to do. She almost wished they would leave her alone; her work was done, Mabel was safe, and that was all she cared.

Why was the crowd suddenly turning round and hurrahing? The people were breaking up in wild confusion, and parting so as to leave a wide path in their midst. There were sounds of galloping horses and grinding wheels. What did it all mean? Aldred's fading senses just grasped a vision of men in bright helmets, of a great ladder that seemed to advance faster than the wind, and of a tongue of flame that shot out from the room behind and enveloped her, and the fact that a strong arm at the same instant clutched her and snatched her away; then she went down--down--down, and everything sank into blank nothingness.

But the crowd below cried: "Thank God! The Fire Brigade came in the nick of time!"