I did sleep towards morning, and it was so odd waking up in that strange room, which I had hardly noticed in the pain and confusion of the night before. I smiled a little even then as I looked round. It was so Racheley! Lots of nice things badly arranged, so different from my dear little room! Oh, my dear little room; should I ever, ever see it again? Someone was sitting behind the curtains, and as I moved he bent forward and took hold of my hand. It was father, looking so white and old that the tears came to my eyes to see him; but he was alive and safe, that was the great thing, and able to tell me that all the servants had been saved, and to give a good report of mother.
“Very weak and shaken, but nothing more than that, thank God! Good old Mrs Rogers is very happy helping Terese to nurse her. She sent you her love.”
“And, oh, father, the house, the dear old home? Is it quite ruined, or did you manage to put out the fire before it went too far? What happened after we left?”
His face set, but he said calmly—
“The lower rooms are more or less destroyed, but the second storey is little injured, except by smoke and, of course, water. The engines worked well, and we had more help than we could use. The people turned out nobly. The home itself can be saved, Babs; it will take months to repair, but it can be done, and we shall be thankful to keep the old roof above our heads.”
“But it will never look the same. The ivy that has been growing for hundreds of years will be dead, and all the beautiful creepers! I can’t imagine ‘The Moat’ with bare walls. And inside—oh, poor father, all your treasures gone! The silver and the china, and the cases of curios, and the old family portraits! You were so proud of them. Doesn’t it break your heart to lose them all?”
“No,” he said quietly, “I cannot think of such things to-day. I am too filled with thankfulness that out of all that big household not a life has been lost, and that my three darlings are with me still. Those things you speak of are precious in their way, but I have no room for regret for them in my heart when a still greater treasure is in danger, Vere—”
“Oh, father, tell me about Vere! Tell me the truth. I am not a child, and I ought to know. How has she hurt herself?”
“Truthfully, dear, no one knows. She cannot move, and there is evidently some serious injury, but what it is cannot be decided until after an examination. They fear some spinal trouble.”
Spinal! I had a horrid vision of plaster jackets and invalid couches, and those long flat, dreadful-looking chairs which you meet being wheeled about at Bournemouth. It seemed impossible to connect such things with Vere!