CHAPTER FOUR

ITS DREADFUL NIGHT

"I saved a life to-day, Bruce," said Rob. The Rutherford boys had got back to the little grey house, the evening had shut in around it, shutting out all the world except that small fragment of it which centred around the old hearth.

Over in the corner, under her green-shaded sewing lamp, sat the mother without whom the happiness of the six young people would have been incomplete, and this was true although the six were drifting more and more into the habit of being three pairs. Bartlemy was never tired of vainly trying to satisfy himself in painting Prue's wonderful colouring, and, if the truth were told, Prue never tired of having him try. Bartlemy's talent was developing into something to be taken seriously; already his brothers were making up their minds to the first parting when they should be graduated together. Basil and Bruce had delayed college till Bartlemy could enter with them, but evidently their ways would lie together no further. Bartlemy must go away to study in Italy and France, for his boyish nickname of Fra Bartolomeo was proving prophetic--Bartlemy would be a painter.

Wythie and Basil never seemed to have very much to talk about, but they drifted beside each other invariably, and their many moments of silence seemed to be quite as full of utterance as their moments of speech, as the observant Grey mother noted with a satisfaction that could not be wholly free from regret.

As to Rob and Bruce they chattered ceaselessly, never far apart, always absorbed in identical interests, and with the same kind of a sense of humour--which it is said is the strongest cement of friendship. It was hard to tell much about Rob and Bruce. It was plain to be seen that Bruce was of the same opinion that he had been from the first, which was that Rob easily surpassed all other girls, including sweet Wythie and handsome Prue, just as Rob considered Battalion B collectively the best and cleverest boys in the world, and Bruce the head of the battalion. But their comradeship was so entirely free from the suggestion of sentiment that there was no predicting how it would end. As to Prue, she was but sixteen, and Mrs. Grey was too sensible to build up romances, or to encourage them for such a youthful heroine. She knew that Prue had plenty of that ambition which the other girls lacked, the ambition to shine, to see and to be seen in a larger world than the little grey house and Fayre offered her. She had never been the simple and contented little girl that both of her sisters had been, and the modest fortune that had come to the Greys had rather contributed to her restlessness than made her contented, for it had given Prue a taste of small luxuries which whetted her appetite for greater ones.

Mrs. Grey watched this tendency in her baby with uneasiness. This home-loving and essentially womanly woman believed that ambitions of Prue's sort never brought happiness to the woman whom they drew after their _ignis fatuus_ attractions, but rather substituted heartburnings and envy for peace, holding out an unattainable gaol of triumph, which would prove empty and unsatisfying even should it be reached. Mrs. Grey was an old-fashioned woman, believing that love, not applause, good deeds, not brilliant ones rounded and filled a woman's life.

"Cricket on the hearth?" suggested Bruce, replying to Rob's statement that she had saved a life that day.

"No; Tobias, I set his leg and bandaged it. Aunt Azraella thought that he must die," said Rob. "You're not the only surgeon of this sextette."

"Tobias?" repeated Bruce in the dark. "Don't know the gentleman. Where was Dr. Fairbairn, and why should he die from a broken leg?"

"Don't you remember Aunt Azraella's cat, Tobias?" cried Rob. Adding, as Bruce uttered an enlightened: "Oh!" "Aunt Azraella says that she doesn't want Tobias chloroformed because Elvira would grieve for him, but I believe she has a sneaking liking for the old cat herself; she drew a long breath of relief when I repaired him and uttered my professional opinion that he would pull through. Aunt Azraella doesn't seem quite strong, and it makes her gentler. Do you suppose that it would be your duty as a physician to impair the health of positive and vigorous ladies, like Aunt Azraella?"

"'Health chiefly keeps an atheist in the dark,'" quoted Bruce promptly. "I don't remember seeing that question of medical ethics raised, but it opens up a wide field for argument. I think a great many people would be softer and sweeter for having less cast-iron nerves, and less self-sufficiency of health."

"Well, I think there are not a great many, but very few in America who suffer from cast-iron nerves," said Rob with a sigh. "I'm only beginning to realize what a horrible lot of misery there is in the world. I can understand your choice of a profession, Bruce."

"You always had medicinal qualities--" Bruce began.

"You mean medical," corrected Prue from her pose before Bartlemy near by.

"Do I?" asked Bruce. "I can perfectly understand my choice in every way, Rob. As to the misery, there is more than you will ever realize, I hope. But on the other hand as human beings grow better it will lessen. The higher the civilization the greater the capacity to suffer, but the stronger the sense of the rights of the weak and of our kinship and obligations even to 'our brother, the wolf,' as St. Francis used to say. His sanctity was great enough to reveal to him how endless was the chain of love--they hadn't found it out in his day."

"There doesn't seem to be much that girls, Grey girls in Fayre, for instance--can do," said Rob looking wistful.

"We know now, Robin, that everything is a system of units. We are all merely molecules, by comparison, but working together for a result," said Bruce. "You can make life sweet and wholesome all around you. You can help three big fellows, for instance, to march straight in a world full of pitfalls; you can cheer everybody and set the best of examples, which preaches wordlessly, to all who come near you. I think, as a unit, Rob, you might be considered a success. If all units did their cheerful best, as it is done in this little grey house, the collective result would be the millennium."

"Goodness, no!" cried Rob. Then she shook off her gravity and her face rippled into its usual merriment. "Did we ever talk so seriously before, Bruce, in all the days of our partnership? It must be the effect of Hester's visit and Mr. Flinders' sad state! Or is it the influence of Lydia? I have long wondered how we kept up our habit of laughter with Lydia about. She is like a perpetual Ash Wednesday--seems to be going about putting a pinch of ashes on every Grey forehead all the time, and saying: 'Remember, man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return!' And she conveys the impression of having such a very poor opinion of the quality of our dust! I wonder if Lyddie really can be but twenty-four years old! I can't believe it! Isn't it odd how many things one knows to be true, yet can't believe? Like India, for instance, and that the world is round, and all those things."

"All what things?" laughed Bruce. "Don't you believe in India--after Kipling?"

"Kim is so vivid that I can't believe it--don't pretend you don't understand, Bruce, because you always do," said Rob.

"I know," assented Bruce. "The wonderful detail that is vivid and unreal at once, as dreams are vivid and unreal. Rob, you are in a queer mood to-night; you have somewhat the effect on me this moment which you are trying to describe--you are most vivid, yet you seem unreal, at least unlike yourself."

"I feel so," agreed Rob promptly. "I feel excited, stirred, restless, happy, unhappy--all ways, but my normal way. What is making Basil so much more talkative than usual to-night?"

"His plans, I fancy; he is probably telling Wythie what he is considering," Bruce answered regarding his elder with a twinkle.

What Basil was saying was nothing, apparently to call forth the twinkle.

"Then you approve the idea?" Rob heard him say.

"Yes," said Wythie quietly. "I like the Caldwell place very much; it is dignified and beautiful. If you really mean to make literature your career, and to study, Basil, and became a specialist in bird study, besides writing a novel or so--you said a novel or so? Well, then," Wythie continued as Basil nodded a smiling assent, "I do not see how you could have a better place in which to live and work than in Fayre, so quiet, yet so near town, and in the old Caldwell place, among its elms and Norwegian pines."

"And you like it, Wythie? You think it could be made a home to be happy in?" persisted Basil.

Wythie looked up without embarrassment, her face shining with confidence.

"Anywhere may be that, Basil," she said. "And the Caldwell place more than most. If I were you I would buy it. And it is certainly an irresistible bargain at that price."

"Basil is talking of buying the Caldwell place, you see," said Bruce. "He has fully made up his mind, since father's latest letter came, to give up all thought of a business career after we are graduated and 'commence author,' as our English cousins say. I honestly think he is warranted in the choice; I suppose he will do something the sort of thing John Burroughs does, as well as write novels--everybody writes novels."

"Except you and me," smiled Rob. "Must you go? How short these intercollegiate evenings are!"

"Intercollegiate, Rob?" echoed her mother, putting down her work and coming forward as the three tall guests rose to take their leave.

"Aren't they between college?" asked Rob unabashed. "Just two little full days sandwiched in between the five of hard labour at Yale."

The little grey house settled down to slumber soon after it was left to itself. The brisk autumnal winds are conducive to deep sleep, and Wythie and Rob in their room, and Prue in hers, opening from it, in which little Polly Flinders was tucked away in the corner, slept dreamlessly far into the night.

Then the sound of voices penetrated their sleep, far-off calls, men shouting, and, at last, a hand was shaking Wythie and Rob into wakefulness.

They sat erect, trembling and startled, to see their mother bending over them, a hand on the shoulder of each, as she cried: "Wythie, Rob, wake up, wake up!"

"What has happened?" cried the frightened girls on their feet in an instant.

"Charlotte's house is burning; they have called us. We must go," gasped Mrs. Grey. "Put on warm clothing; make haste! Prue, stay here with Lydia and that child," she added as Prue, wide eyed and pale, joined the group.

Somehow Wythie and Rob found themselves dressing; everything went wrong, yet they managed, after a fashion, to get themselves sufficiently protected from the chill of the night air, and found themselves with their mother, escorted by some of their men neighbours down the street. The elms stood out against a background of red, from which tongues of flame occasionally shot up, dulling the red glow on the sky, and revealing the smallest twigs. It was Cousin Peace's house which was burning! The girls repeated the words as they ran, trying to make them real, convey a meaning. Poor blind Cousin Peace! With this thought Wythie stopped short.

"Where is she? Where is Miss Grey?" she demanded.

It was Lawyer Dinsmore who held her arm; she felt his hand tremble on it as he answered: "We do not know; we could not find her--" Wythie groaned, and he hastily added: "It must be that she is safe, Wythie. There was time to get out, but no one has seen her. Her senses are so abnormally acute that she must have known of the fire before the alarm was given, and escaped."

"Unless she slept, and the smoke--" Wythie could not go on. "Hurry!" she murmured.

Mr. Dinsmore did not attempt to reassure her further; indeed, the suggestion that Miss Charlotte, alone in the house, might have been asleep and overcome by smoke had occurred to him before Wythie voiced it. It was not pleasant to wonder why it was that the alarm had been given from outside, not from within the doomed building.

Mrs. Grey and her daughters were stationed beyond the reach of danger where the Rutherford boys soon found and joined them.

There was no question of saving the house; from the first it was doomed, and it would have been most painful to have stood helplessly by while the peaceful house that had absorbed so much of its blind mistress' calm repose was destroyed, had not all other thought been swallowed up in the absorbing anxiety which left Miss Charlotte's fate doubtful. For the feeling was growing among the knot of bystanders around the Greys that, if she were safe, they should have had some assurance of it, that, by this time, some one should have come forward who could tell them definitely where Miss Grey had taken refuge.

"It is unbearable," groaned Rob at last, through her set teeth.

"I will go around to the other side and see if I can't find out something, Rob," said Bruce with a glance at the girl's agonized face. "Look after them, Basil, Bart, if I can't get back very soon."

His tall form moved through the crowd, elbowing its way until it was lost to sight, before the Greys fully realized that he was going.

Moments passed, a quarter of an hour, and Mrs. Grey, held fast on either hand by her girls, watched with them the mounting flames, tense, silent with the misery that made each second seem an hour. Bruce did not return, the fire licked and burst its awful way around the eaves, around Cousin Peace's chamber window! Wythie hid her face, shuddering; she could not look.

Suddenly a great roar went up from the crowd, and many voices together shouted words which the onlookers could not catch. They cheered mightily, and then a deadly stillness settled upon the mass of human beings.

"What is it?" Rob asked of a man who pushed his way towards them.

"Shut up!" Wythie heard another man mutter to this new-comer, and on this hint the latter snarled: "I don't know. Nothin', I guess." But Rob felt sure that the snarl was to conceal something, and that it did not spring from bad temper.

Suddenly the crowd seemed to go stark mad. Swaying, surging, pushing, it began to yell, hoarse, loud, frightful, like some sort of a monster.

"Come out, come back! The roof's caving! It's going! Come out!" the crowd roared, plainly articulate to the group on its edge, which was most vitally interested.

"Some one's in there, in that horrible fire!" gasped Rob. With one instinctive movement Basil and Bartlemy turned and looked at each other, reading each in the other's eyes the same thought. It was so exactly like Bruce!

Rob caught the look, saw the boys' hands meet in a tight clasp, saw their faces turn paler than before. Instantly she guessed, and shared their fear.

"Not he! Not Bruce!" she groaned.

Before the boys could answer a great shout rent the air, a shout that was triumphant. For an instant Rob forgot Cousin Peace.

"He's out!" she cried, and Basil and Bartlemy dropped each others' hands to steady her as she swayed.

"I shan't faint," she cried. "I never faint. They're cheering. He's out, he's out!"

"You must let me go," said Basil, and Bartlemy made no demur, though it must have been hard to stand at his post on guard with the mother and girls while Basil pushed his way to the front.

The roof fell in with a great plunge and a fierce up-leaping of flames which burned rapidly for a brief time. Then the fire began to fade out as it consumed the last remnants of the pretty old home.

"If we do not hear something soon I think I shall die or go mad!" cried Wythie. The waiting was getting unbearable.

"Don't you think you all ought to go home and wait there?" suggested Bartlemy. "You are shivering, and we shall hear about Miss Charlotte there as soon as here."

"I couldn't go, dear Bartlemy," Mrs. Grey said, and Bartlemy did not insist.

It was taking all the force the boy possessed to keep himself to his present duty when every muscle twitched to follow his brothers, and anxiety for Bruce was added to his previous fear for Miss Charlotte.

At last the strained watchers saw a movement in the crowd; it seemed to be falling away, and a path was opening towards them. Through this path they soon saw Basil's head towering above his surroundings, and behind him another even taller than he--Bruce? Ah, thank God, thank God! The relief of seeing him was so great that both Rob and Bartlemy groaned with the pain of it. Mrs. Grey and Wythie looked at them in new terror; they had not known the fear for Bruce shared by the other three.

Bruce was being helped along by Basil; he was hurt. Behind them came--yes, Dr. Fairbairn, and he was carrying something in his arms. A woman? It certainly was. The Greys clasped each other close, their throats tightening.

It was Miss Charlotte.

"You mustn't look like that," called Dr. Fairbairn in his booming voice as soon as he could make it reach the group that he was approaching. "I forbid it! Charlotte is safe; not a hair harmed. Mary, don't you dare to faint away! Wythie, pull yourself together! Rob, be sensible."

Scolding them as he came the big doctor set his burden on her feet, and Miss Charlotte smiled feebly, as Mrs. Grey gathered her in her arms.

"Not a word; not a word here, you womankind!" said the big doctor. "I've sent for a carriage. When you get home you may cry and faint, or do whatever you will, but not here. Charlotte was in no danger; she walked off--most sensibly." The old man nodded significantly, scowling over his shoulder at Mrs. Grey who was totally in the dark as to how to interpret his meaning.

"Here is my patient," Dr. Fairbairn continued turning to Bruce who had been trying to answer Bartlemy's questions and reassure Rob, though his lips twisted with pain.

"Bruce is burned. Wanted to get his name in the papers, so rushed into the burning house to rescue Charlotte. It served him quite right; she was quietly out walking all the time. She defeated his purpose of having his picture in the papers, bearing a limp woman out through curling flames! No one in the house, you understand, yet in he went, risking his life, and getting badly burned for nothing in this world! And he to be my partner as soon as he has finished his medical course! A pretty partner he will be, a sensational scamp like him! Here is the carriage. Let me put you in, Bruce, dear boy. Look out there, Bart; don't touch him--he isn't in a state to be handled." And the old doctor helped Bruce tenderly into the carriage, for he loved the boy as a son.

"Now, Charlotte, you next. Come, Mary; come children. Basil and Bartlemy, you and I are going to crowd up outside. It has been a horrible night; I don't believe any of us are up to walking," he said, as he closed the carriage door. "I've got to attend Bruce's wounds, and I'm going to take him to the little grey house where there will be some one besides a housekeeper to nurse him, Mary."

"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Grey, not fully understanding what was happening, and still clinging thankfully to Miss Charlotte.

Rob sat opposite to Bruce staring at him with big, frightened eyes. He had been in that horrible danger, and he was hurt!

Bruce looked at her, then at his two brothers, whose faces were ghastly, and at Wythie crying quietly in the corner.

He smiled, in spite of his pain. "I'm all right, boys and girls--and Rob," he said. "I thought we had Rutherfords to burn, while there was only one Miss Charlotte."