Barbara, frightened still, bewildered and uncertain, escaped to the window and threw it open. But Mr. Carlyle was nearly as quick as she; he caught her to him with one hand, and drew the window down with the other. To have these tidings told to her abruptly would be worse than all. By this time some of the servants had descended the other staircase with a light, being in various stages of costume, and hastened to open the hall-door. Jasper entered. The man had probably waited to help to put out the “fire.” Barbara caught sight of him ere Mr. Carlyle could prevent it, and grew sick with fear, believing some ill had happened to her mother.
Drawing her inside their chamber, he broke the news to her soothingly and tenderly, making light of it.
She burst into tears. “You are not deceiving me, Archibald? Papa is not dead?”
“Dead!” cheerfully echoed Mr. Carlyle, in the same tone he might have used had Barbara wondered whether the justice was taking a night airing for pleasure in a balloon. “Wilson has indeed frightened you, love. Dress yourself, and we will go and see him.”
At that moment Barbara recollected William. Strange that she should have been the first to do so—before Lady Isabel—before Mr. Carlyle. She ran out again to the corridors, where the boy stood shivering. “He may have caught his death!” she uttered, snatching him up in her arms. “Oh, Wilson! What have you done? His night-gown is damp and cold.”
Unfit as she was for the burden, she bore him to her own bed. Wilson was not at leisure to attend to reproaches just then. She was engaged in a wordy war with Jasper, leaning over the balustrades to carry it on.
“I never told you there was a fire!” indignantly denied Jasper.
“You did. I opened the nursery window and called out ‘Is it fire?’ and you answered ‘Yes.’”
“You called out ‘Is it Jasper?’ What else should I say but ‘Yes,’ to that? Fire? Where was the fire likely to be—in the park?”
“Wilson take the children back to bed,” authoritatively spoke Mr. Carlyle, as he advanced to look down into the hall. “John, are you there? The close carriage, instantly—look sharp. Madame Vine, pray don’t continue to hold that heavy boy; Joyce can’t you relieve madame?”