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Benefactress

<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> "It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given. "It's in Lohm," cried someone else. Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna turned and began to run. "Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt about like a conscience-stricken dog. "The fire-engine—there is one at the farm—it must go——" They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle. In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting. "Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at once——" "Jawohl, jawohl," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and the men are at supper." "Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——" "Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is the Schloss." "Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every minute is priceless——" "It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them." The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help from the anxious bell. Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind friend? "It is the Schloss," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at every step. "Ach, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna. Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a disapproving distance. 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 passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," was her private comment. "She goes by night to her Bräutigam—to her unacknowledged Bräutigam." Even a possible burning Bräutigam 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 glass." She led her to the glass 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 circumspect 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, gnädiges Fräulein," came back the answer in the old man's cheery, reassuring 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 passed 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 passed 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 passed. "How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked foolish. "No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They say it was done on purpose." "Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would set fire to a place on purpose?" But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put her hand before her mouth. In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, horror-stricken eyes. "Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much better ones." "But the time lost—they can't be built in a day——" "The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us go on a little—we shall be scorched to cinders here." Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an adequate expression of feelings. "They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig. "Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place." "They were certainly rather—rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing him. "They were very dilapidated," said Axel. Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through his hands. "So it is," said Anna. "Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. 3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of the burning property. "You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket instead of smiling so kindly at us." "So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting what he wanted done. "It can't be a good thing, a fire like this," she said to herself. "Whatever they say, it can't be a good thing." A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He can't not care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. "You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once. "Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear that it is a good thing for you." "I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it." He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand there in the heat. "You look so tired—and anxious," he said, his eyes searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of having to build just now." He could not stay, and hurried back to his men. "We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells—losing, I am sure, no opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense." Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she asked, looking round. "I thought she was behind us," said the princess. "So did I," said Anna anxiously. They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the flying spectators. The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all gone," she said, pointing to her head. "What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her. "Ach Gott, die Haare—die herrlichen Haare!" lamented a woman in the crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened. Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed—you might have been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty—who saved you?" "Somebody put this beastly thing over my head—it smells of herrings. Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? It's out now—and off too." The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were her only glory. "Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!" sighed the women to one another, "Oh Weh, oh Weh!" But the handkerchief tied so tightly round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly little girl before—all that had happened was that she looked now like an ugly little boy. "I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry—I didn't know you were so fond of my hair." "Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so close that they could hardly walk. "We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, to Axel as they passed the engines. He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat. "I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people to-night." Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded away and were gone—rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing hour. "I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. "All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only this were real. The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked very untidy and ill-cared for. "A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel will want some food when he comes in." She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors here." "I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her. "I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the singed head. "Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity. "Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting her arm round her. "You don't know the whole of that poetry business." "That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever." "I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna. "Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?" "Why, I—I will get it out—I—he was so miserable, and went on so when you didn't answer that poetry—that he sent with the heart, you know——" "Oh yes, I know." "Well, he was in such a state about it that I—that I made up a poem, just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and—and pretended it came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. "There now, it's out," she said defiantly. Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it—was it very affectionate?" she asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully hurt just now, burnt, or—or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for ever—it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never been Anna's strong point. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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