Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

CHAPTER XXVI.

MORE FIREWORKS.

After the fiery cascade came the bouquet; and the fireworks ended with a prodigious sheaf of rockets, which made the country people think that the stars were falling.

Though the Hall was still illuminated, it looked poorer after the brilliant pyrotechnics; and as this diminution of its effect had been foreseen, arrangements had been made beforehand to cheer the minds of the guests at the critical moment by a compensation. The Venetian lanterns had been reserved till now, and the band had been silent during the fireworks. A large flat space on the lawn had been surrounded by masts with banners, and from mast to mast hung large festoons of greenery, and from the festoons hung the many-colored lanterns. A platform had been erected at one end for the band; and before the last rocket-constellation had burst into momentary splendor, and been extinguished as it fell towards the earth, the lanterns were all burning, and the band playing merrily. Before and during the fireworks the company had been considerably increased by arrivals from neighboring villages and the houses of the smaller gentry, so Lady Helena passed the word that there would be a dance in the space that was enclosed by the lanterns.

It had been part of our friend Philip Stanburne's duty to march to Wenderholme with his company, and to dine with the Colonel in the Hall; but in his present moody and melancholy temper he found it impossible to carry complaisance so far as to whirl about in a waltz with some young lady whom he had never before seen. There was nobody there that he knew; and when Lady Helena kindly offered to introduce him to a partner, his refusal was so very decided that it seemed almost wanting in politeness. The Colonel had not mentioned Philip's love-affair to her ladyship, for reasons which the reader will scarcely need to have explained to him. People who have lived together for some years generally know pretty well what each will think and say about a subject before it has been the subject of open conversation between them; and since Philip Stanburne was now treated as a near relation at Wenderholme, it was clear that her ladyship would be a good deal put out if she heard of his intended misalliance. The Colonel himself was by no means democratic in his aboriginal instincts; but after his experience of married life, the one quality in Lady Helena which he would most willingly have done without was her rank, with its concomitant inconveniences. He did not now feel merely indifferent to rank, he positively disliked it; and with his present views, Alice Stedman's humble origin seemed a guarantee of immunity from many of the perils which were most dangerous to his own domestic peace. But Lady Helena (as he felt instinctively, without needing to give to his thought the consistency of words and phrases) was still in that state of mind which is natural to every one who is born with the advantages of rank—the state of mind which values rank too highly to sacrifice it willingly, or to see any relation sacrifice it without protesting against his folly. Hers would be the natural and rational view of the matter; the common-sense view; the view which in all classes who have rank of any sort to maintain (and what class has not?) has ever been recognized, has ever persisted and prevailed. The Colonel did not go so far as to wish that he had married some other person of humble provincial rank; but he often wished that Lady Helena herself had been the daughter of some small squire, or country clergyman, or cotton-spinner, if he had brought her up as nicely as Alice Stedman had been brought up. It was not to be expected that she could ever share this opinion about herself, or the opinion about Alice Stedman, which was merely a reflection of it.

Owing to Philip Stanburne's exile at Whittlecup, which had continued during the whole of the training, and to his natural shyness and timidity, which the extreme reclusion of his existence had allowed to become the permanent habit of his nature, he had made few acquaintances amongst the officers, and not one friend. There were several men in the regiment to know whom would have done Philip Stanburne a great deal of good, but he missed the opportunities which presented themselves. For instance, on the present occasion, though several of his brother officers, who, like himself, were not dancing, had gathered into a little group, Philip Stanburne avoided the group, and walked away by himself in the direction of the great dark wood. He felt the necessity for a little solitude; he had not been by himself during the whole day, and it was now nearly midnight. A man who is accustomed to be alone will steal out in that way from society to refresh himself in the loneliness which is his natural element—pour se remettre, as a Frenchman would express it. So he followed a narrow walk that led into the wood, and soon lost sight of the illuminations, whilst the music became gradually fainter, and at last was confined to such hints of the nature of the melody as could be gathered from the occasional fortissimo of a trumpet or the irregular booming of a drum.

There was, as the reader already knows, a ravine behind Wenderholme Hall, which was a gash in the great hill that divided Wenderholme from Shayton. All this ravine was filled with a thick wood, and a stream came down the middle of it from the moorland above—a little noisy stream that tumbled over a good many small rocks, and made some cascades which the inhabitants of Wenderholme showed to all their visitors, and which lady visitors often more or less successfully sketched. By an outlay of about a hundred pounds, John Stanburne's grandfather had dammed this stream up in one conveniently narrow place, and made a small pond there, and the walk which Philip Stanburne was now following skirted the stream till it came to the pond's edge. It turned round the upper end of the tiny lake, and crossed the stream where it entered by means of a picturesque wooden bridge. From this bridge the Hall might be distinctly seen in the day-time; and Philip, remembering this, or perhaps merely from the habit of looking down towards the Hall when he crossed the bridge, stopped and looked, as if in the darkness of the night he could hope to distinguish any thing at the back of the house, which, of course, was not illuminated.

Not illuminated! Why, the firework-men have applied a more effective device to the back of the house than the elaborate illumination of the front! They have invented a curling luminous cloud, these accomplished pyrotechnicians!

Philip Stanburne began to wonder how it was managed, and to speculate on the probable artifice. Was the smoke produced separately, and then lighted from below, or was it really luminous smoke? However produced, the effect was an admirable one, and Philip admired it accordingly. "But it is odd," he thought, "that I should be left to enjoy it (probably) by myself. It's not likely that they have left their dancing—I'm sure they haven't; I can hear the drum yet, and it's marking the time of a waltz." A gentle breeze came towards him, and rippled the surface of the dark water. It brought the sound of the trumpets and he recognized the air. "They are waltzing still, no doubt."

The luminous smoke still rose and curled. Then a red flash glared in it for an instant "Those are not fireworks," said Philip Stanburne, aloud; "Wenderholme Hall is on fire!"