Sarah's School Friend Part 36

Naomi made matters worse by her lamentations. 'To think of all the beautiful carpets and curtains ruined; and, oh, Miss Sarah! all your dresses, and that picture in your boudoir that you are so fond of, some Italian view or something! Oh dear! oh dear! the more I think of it the worse it seems. It's wicked, is this morning's work!'

'It's a fine morning for a fire--the sun shining, and just a nice breeze blowing to fan the flames,' observed Sarah sarcastically.

But Naomi did not perceive the sarcasm; and after a wondering and rather reproachful glance at her young mistress, she remarked, 'It's what I call a bad morning; but, then, I suppose you're glad, because you want to be poor; though how you can stand there quiet-like, and see all your poor ma and pa's things burnt up, let alone everything you can call your own, pa.s.ses me--it does.'

A smile flitted over Sarah's face as she thought how far out Naomi was in her judgment; but it pa.s.sed speedily as she saw a huge tongue of flame dart up and blaze high above the trees.

'It's the garage! The petrol has taken fire!' said Naomi. 'Whatever could they have been thinking of to leave it there? Surely they've never left those beautiful cars to burn themselves up?'

'They don't seem to have done anything to stop the fire. If Uncle Howroyd hadn't been there himself, and if they had not been his hands, I should have said they had helped it, like the men the other day,' remarked Sarah.

'No fear of that. Mr William's men will stand by him and do what he says, for his sake. It's not been their fault that Barmoral's burnt to the ground, I'll lay,' declared Naomi with vehemence.

'No, I'm sure of that,' said Sarah, who felt a pang which surprised her at the words, 'Barmoral's burnt to the ground.' Not that they were quite true, for Balmoral was still burning furiously; but they soon would be.

Suddenly Naomi made a terrible suggestion. 'Miss Sarah, suppose anybody is in the house?' she cried.

Sarah turned on her quite angrily. 'Who should there be in the house? Of course there's no one in it. The fire began at the top, and it's not likely any one would stay up there to be burnt,' she cried, for this thought had never struck her; she had taken it for granted that the servants would have escaped at once. After the first fright she added more calmly, 'Of course they are safe. Balmoral is only three stories high, and the top story is only attics and storerooms and servants'

bedrooms, and they are not likely to be up there at this time of the day.

But, pray, don't go suggesting horrors of that kind to mother, or you will make her quite ill.'

'I'm sorry if I upset you, and I know you've a feeling heart, though you don't care about the house burning, so I'll say no more and hope for the best,' said Naomi.

Sarah felt as if she could shake her for her determined pessimism.

However, she said nothing, but stood and watched the flames in silence till they seemed to be dying down a little, and then she reluctantly turned from the absorbing sight, and went downstairs to give her mother the news.

'I think they've got the flames under, mother,' she said; but Mrs Clay took little notice. 'Mother, don't you hear? They've got the flames under at last.'

'Yes, my dear, I 'ear, an' I'm glad of it; but it's your father I'm thinkin' about. I do 'ope an' pray 'e's safe,' she replied.

'Why shouldn't he be? The mills are all right,' said Sarah.

'Yes; but I don't know if 'e's there. I keep ringin' 'im up, an' there's no answer, so 'e's not in the mills, for they always call 'im for the telephone.'

'The old hands would; but, you see, everything is different now. Let me try,' observed Sarah, taking up the receiver, and ringing, at intervals, for some minutes. 'They are all looking at the fire from the lookout,'

she remarked at length, as she put the receiver down.

Mrs Clay shook her head. 'It isn't like your father to stand an' watch 'is property burn; 'e'll be up an' doin' somew'ere,' she declared.

'Would you like me to go and see if he is still there?' suggested Sarah.

Not that she supposed for a minute that her mother would allow her to go, for she objected to her walking through Ousebank on ordinary occasions when the mill-hands were out, so she was still less likely to let her go to-day when the town was in a state of excitement never known before, and, to crown all, their mills in a state of siege and their family so unpopular.

But Sarah was mistaken. Her mother said gratefully, 'If you would just run to the mills, dear, I should be very glad. Even if they won't let you through, they'll tell you, or some one will tell you, if your father 'as come out.'

Sarah was just starting for her room to fetch her hat, when she remembered that she had no hat. She had come down with a shawl over her head like the mill-la.s.ses, for whom she hoped to be mistaken; and Naomi had not thought of bringing one with the other necessaries which she had made into a bundle.

'And I don't suppose you've got a hat to your name now, Miss Sarah,' the maid observed gloomily when consulted on the subject.

Sarah gave her hair a brush, and remarked lightly, 'Well I must go bareheaded. Perhaps it will please those people to see the state of poverty they have reduced me to.' And off she started, regardless of Naomi's protests and offers to go and get a hat somewhere.

'Eh, but she's a proud la.s.s, is yon!' said more than one whom she pa.s.sed, her head high and her eyes looking straight ahead of her, not seeing or noticing the groups through which she pa.s.sed.

'Ay, she counts us the dust under her feet,' said another, and the group agreed; while one of the number observed, 'Perhaps she'll think differently when she sees her property laid in the dust;' and a younger man laughed, though the others said, 'Nay, 'tis nought to laugh at. Clays are no friends of mine; but I was always agin that. 'Tis a wicked deed they've done up at Balmoral, and tricks with air-ships isn't a Yorkshire way of fighting, though 'tis a dirty trick he've played us with his foreigners.'

But Sarah had not the satisfaction of hearing any of the remarks disapproving of the fire, and her heart swelled as she thought that all Ousebank was glad of their loss; for no one--not even an acquaintance, herself the wife of a mill-owner--stopped her to condole with her. Sarah had no idea that it was her own repellent bearing that prevented them, nor that this same lady went home and said to her family, with tears in her eyes, 'It made my heart ache to see her walking alone through all those crowds, with her head bare and face so grave. I'd have been glad to take her hands and say how sorry I was; but she wouldn't look at me, but pa.s.sed me as if I was quite beneath her. I didn't dare to stop her.'

Nor, apparently, did the pickets dare--or care--to do so either, as Sarah came straight up to the chief gate and knocked at it.

A cautious face appeared at the other side of a little window, and a moment afterwards the little postern-gate was opened wide enough to let her slip in, and speedily shut to with a clang by two men who were posted there in case any one should attempt to enter with her.

'Thank you. Will you take me to my father?' she said to the men, whom she recognised as old hands.

'He's in the dye-house, miss. They 're making a beautiful new colour, and the master's rare and pleased about it,' replied the elder man.

'But the fire? Doesn't he mind about the fire?' inquired the girl.

The man looked at her, not understanding. The fire's all right, miss; they made it a bit too hot this morning, but it's all right now. We've got proper stokers and all,' he a.s.sured her, evidently thinking she was afraid the engine was not being properly attended to, and alluded to that.

It flashed across Sarah that they did not know of the fire at Balmoral.

Then her father did not know, and she would have to tell him! She went very slowly towards the dye-house. This possibility had never struck her.

Even though they could not see Balmoral from Clay's Mills, there was the telephone, and the pickets outside; but then Sarah remembered that for some reason or other the telephone had been abandoned, and naturally the pickets would not for obvious reasons choose to give the news.

She found her father and George in the dye-room as she had been told, the former jubilant over the new shade, and George standing by apparently as interested as his father.

'What! Sally? There's a brave girl to come and see the prisoners! But it's an ill wind that blows no one any good. Here's George showing himself quite a business man, with the makings of a fine wool-merchant in him, and I never knew it. So that's all the strike has done--got them two Clays to fight instead of one,' cried Mr Clay, and Sarah was struck by her father's pride in George.

She did not answer, but stood looking appealingly at her brother.

Mr Clay misunderstood her, and said, 'You don't like the idea of a merchant-brother; but you'll have to get used to it. I don't mean to let him go back to college. He knows a lot of useful stuff, and these are ticklish times.'

George understood his sister better, and, answering her look, said, 'What's the matter, Sarah? Is mother ill?'

Mr Clay looked anxiously at her. In his egotism he had not thought of his timid little wife, whom all this might well have made ill; but that he was not devoid of regard for her Sarah saw by his face.

'No, it's not mother; it's Balmoral.--Father, I thought you knew,' she stammered.

'Knew what? Speak out, girl. What's happened there. Nothing short of an earthquake could harm it; it's well enough protected.'

'It's burning, father,' Sarah blurted out.

The mill-owner looked at her unbelievingly, and laughed his boisterous laugh. 'Burning! Nonsense! They couldn't get near it to damage it. Why, there's fifty police up there guarding it, and a pretty penny it's costing me--a pretty penny all this.'

Sarah looked pitifully at her father. 'They dropped fire from an air-ship, father; but Uncle Howroyd and all his hands have gone up there to try to put it out,' she hastened to add, for her father's face terrified her.

He took no more notice of her; but turning to George, on whom he seemed all of a sudden to rely, he said,' What does the girl mean with her c.o.c.k-and-bull story of an air-ship setting my house on fire? Why should an air-ship'----He paused. 'How could they get an air-ship?' he continued.

'Perhaps I'd better go to the lookout, father,' said George.--Come, Sarah;' and he took his sister by the hand and hastened along the dye-yard towards the spiral staircase to the lookout.

The mill-owner let them go without a word, not attempting to follow them, for it was an arduous climb to the lookout, and the mill-owner was a stout and heavy-built man, and had not been up there for years. He stood for a little as if puzzled, then went to the entrance-yard to the porter, and asked, 'Have you seen or heard aught of any fire at Balmoral?'