CHAPTER XXII

FIRE!

‘The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play, The spindle is now a-turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled, But all the sky is a-burning.’

――_Ben Jonson._

When they reached home the birthday festivities were over. Aunt Caroline, who was alone, put down her book on their entrance, and sent Palmer to Canon Annesley’s study to tell him of the doctor’s arrival.

The canon listened in silence to what the doctor had to say, but Palmer, watching him, formed the idea that he listened unwillingly. And whether the doctor told his story badly, or whether the canon happened to be in a particularly sceptical mood, the result certainly seemed to be that he took the matter very lightly indeed. Of course, Bradley had always been eccentric and irritable. No doubt he was a little rundown. A holiday, a complete change, was what he needed: it would set him on his feet again in no time: the canon would make a note to talk to him about it.

And that was all! He sank back in his chair with a little smile, and folded his hands. Aunt Caroline, it is true, was more impressed, but what amazed, and then exasperated the doctor, was that neither of them appeared in the least to realize the gravity of the matter in its relation to Grif, or even to admit that it applied to him at all.

“You don’t seriously want me to believe the man is mad, do you?” the canon exclaimed at last. He seemed even a little bored by the doctor’s persistence: and he slewed round sharply to stare at Palmer, who was sitting very quietly in his corner.

The doctor not only wanted him to believe it, but went over for the third time all the evidence Palmer had managed to collect.

Canon Annesley drummed with his fingers on the table. Apparently he was not yet convinced. He quite frankly, as he said, found it impossible to believe that Mr. Bradley had had anything to do with Grif’s illness. No man would do such a thing as deliberately to terrify a child――especially a child he obviously liked. “I really think, doctor, and certainly I hope, you are mistaken. He may have been foolish enough, or thoughtless enough, to tell the boy a ghost-story, not realizing that he had to do with a rather too active imagination: but that there is more in it than that――――” He again had a good look at Palmer, whom he evidently believed to be somehow at the bottom of the whole business. He even went so far as to administer to Master Dorset what was, for him, a fairly strong reproof.

“I think, Palmer, it would be better if you did not keep quite so close a watch upon your neighbours. A habit of suspicion is of all things the most intolerable, and it is one which, if you don’t try to check it, I am afraid will grow upon you.”

A faint flush rose to Palmer’s cheeks, but he answered nothing.

Doctor O’Neill, however, replied for him.

“There’s no use blaming the boy. I consider that throughout the whole matter he has given proof of the highest intelligence and courage.”

“I never for a moment doubted either his intelligence or his courage, doctor,” said the canon, mildly, “and of course if he thought Grif was being injured by his friendship with Bradley, it was right of him to tell somebody so:――he might even have mentioned it to us! I was only referring to a bias of mind which may sometimes lead one to brood over things that have not quite the significance we read into them.”

The doctor grunted, not very politely. “Well then, the bias is mine,” he made answer, “and also the suspicion. The only difference is that I had not the imagination, or the flair, or whatever you like to call it, to get at the facts, till they were shoved under my nose.”

The canon raised his eyebrows ever so little. He disliked violence, whether in speech or action, and the doctor struck him as being far too impulsive, both in his manner, and in the judgments he formed. “But my dear O’Neill,” he suggested pleasantly, “aren’t you basing everything on a theory which has yet to be proved? After all, a man can’t be damned even on Palmer’s intuitions, brilliant as they may be. I venture to think that in corroboration we require something――well, shall I say rather more solid?”

“Don’t you think, papa, you might put off the discussion of Palmer’s share in the matter till another time?” Aunt Caroline at this point interposed.

“Oh――er――yes,” Doctor O’Neill apologized. “As a matter of fact I had forgotten he was there.”

“I don’t know what he won’t deduce from it,” said the canon dryly. “Palmer, accept my apologies if I have hurt your feelings in any way. I shall certainly follow your future career with the liveliest interest:――and I’ve an idea that ‘lively’ will be the right word for it.”

“All the same, I don’t think you in the least grasp the seriousness of the matter,” said the doctor obstinately.

“Papa never does,” said Aunt Caroline.

The canon protested. “Really, my dear, this is most unfair. I couldn’t be more serious without becoming lugubrious, and I refuse to admit that the evidence I have heard demands that of me.”

But, even as he spoke, the sound of somebody running quickly up the avenue broke upon their ears, and the canon nodded his head towards Palmer, who had jumped to his feet, and now stood, like a dog straining on his leash, facing the door. “Possibly this is the rest of the evidence,” he said.

Palmer sprang from the room, and next moment he ushered in Johnnie, breathless and nearly inarticulate.

“The’re a fire,” Johnnie gasped, rolling his eyes, “a fire blazin’, an’ all the doors is locked. An’ Mr. Bradley’s playin’ the organ so that you could hear it in the town!”

“Where is the fire?” asked the canon, while Palmer was already racing upstairs to tell Edward.

“In the church,” gasped Johnnie. “An’ the organ――you never h’ard the like of it!”

“He’s set fire to the church,” cried the doctor, knocking over a chair in his excitement. He bundled Johnnie out into the hall. “Run on to the town and call up the fire-brigade. Run like――――”

“I’ll go on the bike,” shouted Palmer from an upper landing, while various small figures, clad in night garments, began to make an appearance, piping innumerable questions at the tops of their voices.

“Children, go back to bed all of you!” Aunt Caroline commanded.

“I must get the keys,” said the canon fussily. “Doctor, you had better go on at once; I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

The servants, too, had awakened, and confusion reigned in the house. Profiting by it, Edward, Grif, and Jim, hastily pulled on their trousers, and such other clothing as was absolutely essential. Then they rushed down to the hall. Edward and Jim were out of the house before Aunt Caroline could stop them, but Grif, as usual, was captured.

“Grif, you’re not to go out. The others are very naughty and disobedient.”

“But I’ve never seen a fire,” he begged.

Ann and Barbara at this moment appeared, and Aunt Caroline, feeling that it was rather hopeless to get them back to bed, capitulated. “If I let you go with me, will you promise to keep close beside me all the time, and come home when I tell you to?”

“Yes, yes.” The air was filled with promises, and there was a stampede to the door.

“Stop!” screamed Aunt Caroline. “You can’t go like that, in your slippers! And you, Grif, must wrap yourself up well. Put on your shoes and your coat, and wait here for me.”

* * * * *

The doctor, meanwhile, was hurrying on to the church. When he reached it he found that Johnnie had by no means brought a false alarm. The fire was dancing merrily in the fore part of the building, the old dry timber of the pews blazing and crackling, while a red glare lit up the windows. And in the midst of it, and in a heat that must already be appalling, the organ was thundering and shouting, the whole place seeming to vibrate to its din.

The doctor tugged at the side door, but uselessly, for it was locked. Seizing a stone, he began to smash in one of the windows, while still the organ crashed and sang. The doctor was a powerful man, and to break down the framework of the window was not difficult, though, to do so, he had to climb a foot or two up the wall, and cling to the sill with his left hand. A rush of hot air puffed out in his face, but he could see that it would be some minutes yet before the fire made the chancel untenable. As the prospect of a struggle with a madman in a burning church whose doors were locked, and the keys perhaps flung in the flames, did not, however, appeal to him, he dropped to the ground again, and ran back to meet the canon.

At last he saw him coming, and with him were Edward and Jim. They all hastened to the church together. To enter at the front was impossible, and the doctor, having got the key from the canon, ran round once more to the side entrance, but, to his surprise, he found that the door was now open. Also the sound of the organ had ceased. Mr. Bradley must have found the place too hot for him, and come out.

The doctor took a step or two forward, but on the threshold a blast as from a furnace, mingled with smoke and sparks, swept out to meet him, and he recoiled.

“Keep back!” he shouted to the others, who were pressing close on his heels.

They all retreated, and Edward and Jim were ordered to stand well away from the walls while the doctor made his second attempt. This time he succeeded in getting as far as the chancel, but the heat was terrible, and the smoke almost blinded him. Mr. Bradley was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s not there,” the doctor cried as he dashed out again. “He must have left the church when I went to meet you.”

They moved round towards the road, where a small crowd was beginning to gather. All at once there was a shattering explosion. Two of the windows had burst, and from each a long slender tongue of flame shot up, licking against the wall and reaching to the roof. This explosion was followed rapidly by others, and in a few minutes the whole front of the church was a rushing mass of flames, which seemed to stream up into the sky, to float for a little distance, and then drop down again in a loose, golden shower. The heat grew so intense that they were obliged to retreat, for the walls themselves were now cracking and smoking, and the front door bulged, as if thrust out by an immense force. The crowd was increasing, and at last they heard the fire-brigade.

“They can’t do anything,” Canon Annesley shouted in the doctor’s ears, for he knew there was no water nearer than the river, and hand-pumps obviously would be useless. The firemen themselves admitted this, and simply stood among the other spectators, to watch the blaze.

“Look! Look!” a boy screamed, pointing upward. “The’re a man up there!”

All eyes were raised to the tower, and high up, on a ledge, seeming to stand against the bare wall, they saw a black figure. A thrill of horror shivered through the rocking crowd. In the glare of light the dark form was distinctly visible, his face, his wild silver hair, his outstretched arms. He seemed to be shouting, but his voice was drowned by the roar of the flames. There was a simultaneous rush to drag round the escape, but when it was reared against the wall it proved too short by nearly fifteen feet. Nevertheless, one of the firemen began to swarm up it, but the heat was too great, and he was forced back again. There followed a dull crash, and the flames momentarily died down, only to spring up again with redoubled power:――the roof, or a portion of it, had fallen in. And still the figure on the tower stood there, his arms outspread, as if nailed to the stones, in the attitude of crucifixion. Then, all at once, they saw him lean forward and dive. For an instant a dark body was visible hurtling through the air, and a scream of dismay rose from the women.

The body was borne over the grass and laid down by the churchyard wall. This culminating tragedy quelled the excitement of Jim and Edward and Palmer, who up till then had been dancing about, half intoxicated by the splendour and beauty of the flames, the fact that it was grandpapa’s church which was burning never even entering their minds. Now they remained silent and awestruck, and in this sudden passivity were discovered and seized upon by Doctor O’Neill, who brought them over to where the canon stood at the edge of the crowd.

“I shouldn’t advise you to wait any longer, sir,” the doctor said. “It’s fortunate that Miss Annesley and the other children left before this last scene took place.”

“Yes, I’ll go now,” the canon murmured in a half-dazed voice. “Poor Bradley! I suppose we may hope that he was at least spared the horror of realization?”

“Yes, I think so. And I don’t think he suffered; the body is not burned....”

The canon laid his hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Come, boys,” he said. “We may as well be getting home. Are you going to stay, doctor?”

“No; I’m coming too.”

The canon walked on, a grandson on either side of him; while Doctor O’Neill followed with Palmer.