Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Wenderholme was a lofty house, with a long lateral corridor on each story. As they ascended, the smell of burning strongly increased. The lower corridors were lighted—all the guests' rooms were there. But the uppermost corridor, where the servants' rooms and the nurseries were, was not permanently lighted, as the servants took their own bed-candlesticks from below. When the Colonel got there he could not see, and he could not breathe. Volumes of dense smoke rolled along the dark passages. He ran blindly in the direction of Edith's room. Philip tried to follow, but the suffocating atmosphere affected his more delicate organization with tenfold force, and he was compelled to draw back. He stood on the top of the great staircase, agitated by mortal anxiety.

But the Colonel himself, strong as he was, could not breathe that atmosphere for long. He came back out of the darkness, his hands over his face. Even on the staircase the air was stifling, but to him, who had breathed thick fire, it was comparative refreshment. He staggered forward to the banister, and grasped it. This for three or four seconds, then he ran down the stairs without uttering one word.

The two passed swiftly through a complicated set of passages on the ground-floor and reached one of the minor staircases, of which there were five or six at Wenderholme. This one led directly to the nurseries above, and was their most commonly used access. When they came to this, John Stanburne turned round, paused for an instant, and said, "Come with me, Philip; it's our last chance. Poor little Edith! O God, O God!"

In this narrow stair there was no light whatever. The Colonel ran up it, or leaped up it, in a series of wild bounds, like a hunted animal. Philip kept up with him as he could. As they rose higher and higher the temperature quickly increased: the walls were hot—it was the temperature of a heated oven. The Colonel tried to open a door, but the brass handle burnt his hand. Then he burst it open by pushing against it with his shoulder. A gust of air rushed up the staircase, and in an instant the room they were trying to enter was illuminated by a burst of flame. For a second the paper was visible—a pretty, gay paper, with tiny flowers, suitable for a young girl's room—and a few engravings on the walls, and the pink curtains of a little French bed.

Either by one of those unaccountable presentiments which sometimes hold us back at the moment of imminent danger, or else from horror at the probable fate of little Edith, the Colonel paused on the threshold of the burning room. Then the ceiling cracked from end to end, and fiery rafters, with heaps of other burning wood, came crashing down together. The heat was now absolutely intolerable—to remain on the threshold was death, and the two went down the stairs. There was a strong draught in the staircase, which revived them physically, and notwithstanding the extremity of his mental anguish, the Colonel descended with a steady step. When they came into the lighted hall he stood still, and then broke into stifled, passionate sobs. "Edith! little Edith!" he cried, "burnt to death! horrible! horrible!" Then he turned to his companion with such an expression on his white face as the other had never before seen there. "And, Philip, the people were dancing on the lawn!"

Then John Stanburne sat down in one of the chairs against the wall, and set his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with both his hands. So he sat, immovable. The house was burning above him—it might burn. What were all the treasures of Wenderholme to its master, who had lost the one treasure of his heart? What were the parchments and the seals in the charter-room—what were the records of the Stanburnes—what was that waggon-load of massive silver which had shone at the festival that night?

His anguish was not wild—he did not become frantic—and the shock had not produced any benumbing insensibility; for his health was absolutely sound and strong, and his nervous system perfectly whole and unimpaired. But the sound mind in the sound body is still capable of an exquisite intensity of suffering, though it will live through it without either madness or insensibility.

Philip Stanburne felt compelled to respect this bitter agony of his friend; but he was anxious to lose no more time in trying to save the house. So at last he said, "Colonel, the house is burning!"

John Stanburne looked up, and said, "It may burn now—it may burn now." Then suddenly seeming to recollect himself, he added, "God forgive me, Philip, I have not bestowed one thought on the poor girl that was burnt with Edith—Edith's maid! She brought my child to me to say good-night, just when the fireworks were over, and kiss me"—here his voice faltered—"and kiss me for the last time." This extension of his sympathy to another did John Stanburne good. "I wonder where her parents are; they must be told—God help them!"