Chapter XL: A Heap of Embers

Westy’s heart was wrung with pity when he saw the cottage! The whole side facing the arbor was one sheet of flame and the arbor now existed only in memory.

The two lone occupants were standing on the other side of the brook surrounded by a few possessions they had been able to save. Lola cried when she saw Westy.

“Did you get everything out? Are you hurt, either of you?” He reached them breathless.

“No, not hurt.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks. “But, Westy,” she sobbed, “we forgot the one thing that means most to us now!”

“What’s that?” he cried.

“An ebony case,” Mrs. Redmond cried, for Lola was too overcome with emotion to talk. “It contains papers identifying us as kin of John Redmond. Oh, dear,” the woman cried, “we haven’t much chance without it!”

“Where is it?” Westy cried. “Quick!”

“You can’t get it--it’s probably gone now! It was right in the top bedroom dresser drawer--the first one. I don’t know how I came to miss it. Look!”

True, the place was a veritable inferno, but Westy rolled over in the brook and soaked himself from head to foot and started into the cottage, in spite of their protestations.

How he ever managed to keep his feet on the little rickety stairway he didn’t know. It was seething with the heat.

The little upper floor was ablaze, and part of the floors had already fallen, so Westy had to step warily. He didn’t need any light; fortunately the flames were torch enough.

The flames were licking about the foot of the dresser as he opened the drawer and found what he was after. Grasping the case, he put it inside of his blouse and rushed for the stairway again. But it was no more than a lot of burning spindles now and the lower floor with its quaint old pioneer furniture was a helpless victim to the malevolent flames.

He ran to the window over the front door and climbed out and down on the ivy-covered trellis now so dry that it crackled as his hands clung to its support. As he jumped to the ground he faced the little white door that had blown shut.

The little door, Westy thought, that had opened and shut to three generations of Redmonds. A door that had felt the trample of little feet over its threshold and stood open to let the sunshine into all their lives and shut itself against the tempests.

It didn’t seem just, Westy thought, to shut in those memories; all the hopes and fears that the years had brought and left behind. It wouldn’t be fair to give up the spirit of all that love, faith and loyalty to the merciless destroyer. So he opened the door.

The two homeless creatures grasped Westy’s hands in their gratitude and he noticed that the worst of their grief was now passed. They seemed to be resigned and watched their beloved little home gradually reduced to a heap of burning embers, as the fire died out on the edge of the brook.

Westy felt a drop of rain on his forehead, then another, and as it started to patter steadily on the dry leaves they arose from the ground.

Why couldn’t that have happened before? he thought. Fate always worked things backwards, and he spoke his thoughts to Lola.

“No, not backwards,” she said gravely, “but for the best.”

Wonderful people, he told himself. Take life, death and laughter just as it comes.

As they walked into the darkness toward the shack, Westy saw them turn--a look on their faces as they viewed the desolate scene that perplexed him. It seemed to be a look of relief, as though they had been freed of the bonds that bound them to the past.

Joining him again, he heard Lola sigh wearily and wondered if it were sleepiness or a sigh of doubt as to the future.