The Benefactress Part 38

But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood.

"It is the stables," he said to Anna.

"Herr von Lohm's?"

"Yes. They cannot be saved."

"And the house?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry as cinders."

"The stables--are they insured?"

But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.

"What can we do, Letty? What can we _do_?" cried Anna, turning to Letty when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything."

Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both.

The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it.

There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money come from to rebuild them? And the horses--she had heard that horses went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And the house--suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, what can we _do_?" she cried to the frightened Letty.

"Let's go there," said Letty.

"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage--Frau Dellwig, order the carriage--order Fritz to bring the carriage out at once. Tell him to be quick--quick!"

"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?"

"Yes--call him, send for him--Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call.

"But----"

"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him."

"If I may be permitted to advise----"

"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!"

"Call the _herrschaftliche Kutscher_ Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded a pa.s.sing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper,"

was her private comment. "She goes by night to her _Brautigam_--to her unacknowledged _Brautigam_." Even a possible burning _Brautigam_ did not, in her opinion, excuse such a step.

The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections.

"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him understand what she wanted.

"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?"

"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they had seen you."

"Come along then, we'll go to her."

"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you look like? Come and look at yourself in the gla.s.s."

She led her to the gla.s.s that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand.

"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now."

"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf.

Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you into a sober and circ.u.mspect young woman."

Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly.

"Our engine has only just gone----"

"I heard it."

"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there----"

"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps."

"Are they insured?"

"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that cannot be covered--_ach_, Frau Dellwig, good-evening--you see we have taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel.

There--now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?"

"Oh--if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?"

"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess.

"Oh!" said Letty.

"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her.

Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?"

"_Aber gewiss_----" began Frau Dellwig.

But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro.

"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried.

"_Jawohl, gnadiges Fraulein_," came back the answer in the old man's cheery, rea.s.suring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him.

"Take me with you--let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, slipping her hand into Anna's.

"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled up.

It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the carriage into the ditch.

Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been formed, and buckets of water were being pa.s.sed along from hand to hand to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it.

"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her face as she pa.s.sed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she pa.s.sed.