With the shawl over her arm and a candle in one hand she opened her door and looked out into the passage. It was unlighted, and the air seemed very chilly. Janetta stole along the corridor like a thief, and peeped into Mrs. Brand's bedroom; as was expected, it was empty. Then she looked into Julian's room, for she had several times found the grandmother praying by his bed, at dead of night; but Julian slumbered peacefully, and nobody else was there. Janetta rather wonderingly turned her attention to the lower rooms of the house. But Mrs. Brand was not to be found in any of the sitting rooms; and the hall door was securely locked and bolted, so that she could not have gone out into the garden.
"She must be upstairs," said Janetta to herself. "But what can she be doing in that upper storey, where there are only empty garrets and servants rooms! I did not look into the spare room, however; perhaps she has gone to see if it is ready for Wyvis, and I did not go to Juliet. She cannot have gone to her, surely; she never enters the room unless she is obliged."
Nevertheless, her heart began to beat faster, and she involuntarily quickened her steps. She did not believe that Mrs. Brand would seek Juliet's room with any good intent, and as she reached the top of the stairs her eyes dilated and her face grew suddenly pale with fear. For a strange whiff of something—was it smoke?—came into her eyes, and an odd smell of burning assailed her nostrils. Fire, was it fire? She remembered that Wyvis had once said that the Red House would burn like tinder if it was ever set alight. The old woodwork was very combustible, and there was a great deal of it, especially in the upper rooms.
Juliet's door was open. Janetta stood before it for the space of one half second, stupefied and aghast. Smoke was rapidly filling the room and circling into the corridor; the curtains near the window were in a blaze, and Mrs. Brand, with a lighted candle in her hand, was deliberately setting fire to the upholstery of the bed where the unconscious Juliet lay. Janetta never forgot the moment's vision that she obtained of Mrs. Brand's pale, worn, wildly despairing face—the face of a madwoman as she now perceived, who was not responsible for the deed she did.
Janetta sprang to the window curtains, dragged them down and trampled upon them. Her thick dressing gown, and the woollen shawl that she carried all helped in extinguishing the flame. Her appearance had arrested Mrs. Brand in her terrible work; she paused and began to tremble, as if she knew in some vague way that she was doing what was wrong. The flame had already caught the curtains, which were of a light material, and was creeping up to the woodwork of the old-fashioned bed, singeing and blackening as it went. These, also, Janetta tore down, burning her hands as she did so, and then with her shawl she pressed out the sparks that were beginning to fly dangerously near the sleeping woman. A heavy ewer of water over the mouldering mass of torn muslin and lace completed her task; and by that time Juliet had started from her sleep, and was asking in hysterical accents what was wrong.
Her screams startled the whole household, and the servants came in various stages of dress and undress to know what was the matter. Mrs. Brand had set down her candle and was standing near the door, trembling from head to foot, and apparently so much overcome by the shock as to be unable to answer any question. That was thought very natural. "Poor lady! what a narrow escape! No wonder she was upset," said one of the maids sympathetically, and tried to lead her back to her own room. But Mrs. Brand refused to stir.
Meanwhile Juliet was screaming that she was burning, that the whole house was on fire, that she should die of the shock, and that Wyvis was alone to blame—after her usual fashion of expressing herself wildly when she was suffering from any sort of excitement of mind.
"You are quite safe now," Janetta said at last, rather sharply. "The fire is out: it was never very much. Come into my room: the bed may be cold and damp now, and the smoke will make you cough."
She was right; the lingering clouds of smoke were producing unpleasant effects on the throat and lungs of Mrs. Wyvis Brand; and she was glad to be half led, half carried, by two of the servants into Janetta's room. And no sooner was she laid in Janetta's bed than a little white figure rushed out of another room and flew towards her, crying out:
"Mother! Mother! You are not hurt?"