"So long as it isn't the end of the world," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, fondling her gold cigarette-case with a little sigh.
"It looks to me like the Castle, ma'am. It is over in that direction. I remember when the west wing was burnt twelve years ago."
"You think the Castle is on fire?" said I.
I also was in the seventh heaven of the hedonist. But gathering my faculties as resolutely as I could, I rose from the good sea-coal fire and assisted Parkins to pull aside the curtains.
"By Jove, you're right. There is a blaze somewhere, But isn't it rather near for the Castle?"
"It might be the Grange," said Parkins.
I was fain to agree that the Grange it might be. Somehow that seemed a place excellently laid for disaster. The announcement that the Grange was on fire brought Mrs. Arbuthnot to the window. Born under Mars, the star of my destiny is nothing if not a woman of action. In spite of her present rather lymphatic state she ordered the car round immediately. Within five minutes we were braving a dark and stormy December night.
The beacon growing ever brighter as we went, it did not take long to convince us that the Grange would be our destination. It is to be feared that we broke the law, for in something considerably under half an hour we had come to the home of the Fitzwarens.
A heartrending scene it was. The beautiful but always rather desolate old house, which dates from John o' Gaunt, seemed already doomed. A portion of it was even now in ruins and on all sides the flames were leaping up fiercely to the sky. Engines had not yet had time to come from Middleham, and the progress of the fire was appalling.
A number of servants and villagers had devoted themselves to the task of retrieving the furniture. On a lawn at some distance from the house an incongruous collection of articles had been laid out: a picture by Rubens side by side with a trouser-press; a piece of Sèvres cheek by jowl with a kitchen saucepan. Standing in their midst in the charge of a nurse was the small elf of four. Her eyes were sparkling and she was dancing and clapping her hands in delight at the spectacle. The nurse was in tears.