Chapter XXIX: So Awfully Sudden!

FEW would have supposed, on the eve of Patricia's evening, that she suffered under her broken engagement. To all appearance, both then and during the weeks before, she was sublimely indifferent, fully occupied with plans and arrangements for her forthcoming "charade."

No, not quite "to all appearance." Those about her, Mr. and Mrs. Framley and the servants, knew that she was not her usual self. Excited, impatient, hasty, ready to take offence, difficult to please, hard to get on with—they had found her all this. But outsiders saw little of it.

Magda, annoyed for Rob, who she felt sure had suffered ill-treatment at Patricia's hands, would gladly in the first instance have drawn back from taking an active part; and Mrs. Royston shared the feeling. But since Patricia had made it a matter of personal request that all should go on, unaltered; and since she had been at some expense in getting dresses for Magda and Merryl, it was hardly possible for them to give the whole thing up against her will.

Both Ivor and Fairfax were induced to run down to the Manor for a night, some little time before the important day. Then of course Ivor met Bee, and Ned met Magda; but Patricia claimed everybody's time and attention. Bee was her usual gentle controlled self; and she and Ivor came together as mere acquaintances; yet each understood the other rather better after those few hours.

As for Ned, he was pleasant and friendly with Magda, her old chum still; but she somehow felt that she no longer had a monopoly of him. There was a slight indefinable difference; whether due to their altered relations as man and woman, or whether to the fact that he did not look upon her as he had once done—she was unable to determine. The perplexity weighed.

This little visit was soon over, and everything promised to go well. On the last evening a final rehearsal would take place; almost equal to the "real thing." Mr. Framley had a distant engagement, which ensured his absence, much to Patricia's relief. Mrs. Framley had begun to remonstrate, as she found how far from a simple charade the affair promised to be.

But Patricia by this time had the bit between her teeth. "It had to go on," she said composedly. "If uncle didn't like it—well, then it wouldn't happen again. Too late now to make any difference."

Ivor and Fairfax were again to sleep at the Manor. Dinner was over and all had arrived. Mrs. Royston had excused herself; and so had Pen, busy with her elderly fiancé. The men, in no haste to don their costumes, had gone to the drawing-room away from the large library, where, on a raised dais at the upper end, the acting would take place. Curtains, dividing the dais from the rest of the room, were now drawn back, and a door behind the dais led into a smaller room, which had no other outlet and was lined with book-shelves.

Magda, Merryl, and Bee were present; also three or four other girls with unimportant parts to play. Magda was alone, half-way down the library, in the broad gangway left between rows of chairs which had been placed for spectators. Two or three of the girls had grouped themselves on one side, some distance behind Magda, as she faced the dais. Bee and Merryl, still farther away, were talking together.

A spare woollen curtain had been flung down, just behind where Magda stood, ready for possible use.

She was gazing towards the figure of Patricia, visible within the smaller room; but her mind had wandered elsewhere. Would she see anything of Ned on the morrow, before he returned to town? Did he wish to see more of her?

Patricia, in white and silver, with long fair hair hanging loose, stood before a full length pier-glass in the inner room, looking flushed and excited and very lovely, while the maid vainly tried to arrange the silver-tissue veil to her liking.

"It won't do. It hangs all wrong. How stupid you are, Frost! It will not do at all."

"If I was to loop it up this side a little, Miss—"

"That is better. But you must have made the veil wrong. It hangs quite crookedly. Yes—so. You want safety-pins."

"I'll get some, Miss. I haven't got any more here."

"Why didn't you bring plenty? You knew they would be wanted."

The maid went away, not answering. As she disappeared through the door at the lower end of the long library, Magda stepped dreamily backwards, and stumbled over the curtain, just escaping a fall. Nobody else was near Patricia.

Then it was that Magda's "great opportunity" came; an opportunity for heroic self-forgetfulness, such as she might never have again.

Patricia, still before the glass, was studying herself, turning this way and that with hasty petulant movements. At the instant when Magda stumbled, a quick movement brought the hanging veil into contact with a lighted candle on the table, dragging the candlestick over. It fell—the candle still alight—upon Patricia's flowing train, which at once caught fire.

Though vaguely conscious of having made something fall, Patricia did not know what had happened. But the flame rushed up her robe and enveloped her. One instant she was twisting into a new attitude, muttering vexedly about people's "stupidity." The next instant, dress and veil and hair all blazed, and a burning tongue licked her delicate skin, bringing anguish and terror. With a frantic shriek, she sped into the library, aiming straight for Magda—across the dais, down the two steps.

Now was Magda's opportunity! She had longed for such a chance, and here it was. She stood nearer to Patricia than any other, and the heavy woollen curtain lay in readiness at her very feet.

But the thing came with such awful suddenness! There was no warning. The whole world seemed serene; everything going on quietly, just as usual. And then, all at once, that fearful piercing scream, and the living column of fire and smoke, with white arms flung high in wild appeal, bearing down upon her!

She was taken utterly by surprise—terrified—bewildered—startled out of her self-control. And her own dress was so flimsy as to mean added danger. Not that she thought of this, for she thought of nothing. There was no time to think! She only followed the first blind impulse, which urged personal safety.

Afterwards, she never could imagine how it was that she had not instantly snatched up the curtain, and thrown it round the fire-clad figure. There it lay, within touch; yet she did nothing. Terror overmastered her; and with an echoing cry of alarm, she turned and ran towards the farther end of the long library, as Patricia in agony came after her.

Such a simple obvious thing it would have been to do—though meaning no doubt danger to herself. Ah—but not so easy! The prevailing impulse at such a moment is determined by dominant habits of mind and thought. And Magda had not trained herself to act instinctively for others, to put self aside.

She had been beaten on countless small occasions before; therefore she was naturally beaten here again. She had not been faithful in those things which were least; and how could she now be faithful in this which was much?

So, without thought or pause, she fled, not turning till she had reached the door.

Then, with dazed senses, she became aware that Bee had rushed forward—had caught up the curtain—had flung it over and around the frenzied Patricia—had dragged her with desperate energy to the ground; that Bee now was kneeling over the prostrate form, pressing down the charred clothes, putting out the flames, and pleading for "Water! water!" While Patricia's screams had died into moans. Not Magda but Merryl—white as ashes and shaking like an aspen-leaf—flew to the inner room for a large jug, and poured its contents over the two, just in time to quench Bee's frock, which had become alight.

It all happened in a flash. Others were hurrying to the spot, and crowding around. Magda, already ashamed and conscience-smitten, was among them, asking—"Can't I help? What can I do?" But nobody listened, and the time had gone by. She could do nothing—now. It was too late!

Ivor, first to arrive, lifted Bee away in a half-fainting condition, and carried her from the room to an open window in the hall.

Fairfax somehow at once took the lead, and bent over that moaning form on the floor, warding off well-meant attempts to touch and raise her, and asking urgently for oil, which he knew might be safely applied, pending the doctor's arrival. In the general confusion he found it not easy to make his want understood; but Merryl caught the word, seized the elderly housekeeper, and dragged her off, to hunt out a bottle of salad-oil, with which she herself sped back to the scene of disaster.

Ned's eyes went to her face, as he received it from those little icy fingers; and a quarter of an hour later, when the doctor's coming set him free, his first move was in search of Merryl.

Magda, thinking that he would now surely speak to her, began—"Oh, can't I do something?" But he was gone before the words were uttered; and Magda wandered forlornly into the hall.

There she came upon two others who did not need her. Bee, rallying slowly from the faintness which had blotted out everything, found herself lying on the broad window seat, supported by somebody. At first she did not even wonder who it might be, but only whispered—

"Is Patricia badly burnt?"

"I hope not. You have done your very best to save her—you splendid girl!" A stirred and familiar voice replied; and then she woke to the fact that it was Ivor himself, and that her head was resting against his shoulder.

"My darling!" he breathed, unable to restrain himself.

For in that terrible moment, when he saw Bee on the ground, in a heap with the smoking figure which, but a few seconds earlier, had been a dazzling Queen of Beauty, and when he believed that she too might have been fatally injured—then in a flash he knew with no shadow of doubt all that he truly felt for Bee. And, strangely, in the same moment, questionings as to what Bee felt for him died out of existence.

"Oh!" she said, with a note of bewilderment and joy. "I didn't—think—"

And again he murmured—"My own brave, brave darling!"

Magda came near enough to hear this. It made no difference to them. They were entirely taken up, each with the other. Bee almost forgot the smart of her poor scorched hands, in the supreme gladness of learning that Ivor loved her.