XXXIV
HOURS OF DARKNESS
Long before this the women of the house had fled, taking Lady Sybil’s maid with them. And dreadful as was the situation of those who remained, appalling as were the fears of two of them, they were able to control themselves; the better because they knew that they had no aid but their own to look to, and that their companion was helpless. Fortunately Lady Sybil, who had watched the earlier phases of the riot with the detachment which is one of the marks of extreme weakness, had at a certain point turned faint, and demanded to be removed from the window. She was ignorant, therefore, of the approach of the flames and of the imminence of the peril. She had even, in spite of the uproar, dozed off, after a few minutes of trying irritation, into an uneasy sleep.
Mary and Miss Sibson were thus left free. But for what? Compelled to watch in suspense the progress of the flames, driven at times to fancy that they could feel the heat of the fire, assailed more than once by gusts of fear, as one or the other imagined that they were already cut off, they could not have held their ground but for their unselfishness; but for their possession of those qualities of love and heroism which raise women to the height of occasion, and nerve them to a pitch of endurance of which men are rarely capable. In the schoolmistress, with her powdered nose and her portly figure, and her dull past of samplers and backboards and Mrs. Chapone, there dwelt as sturdy a spirit as in any of the rough Bristol shipmasters from whom she sprang. She might be fond of a sweetbread, and a glass of port might not come amiss to her. But the heart in her was stout and large, and she had as soon dreamed of forsaking her forlorn companions as those bluff sailormen would have dreamed of striking their flag to a codfish Don, or to a shipload of mutinous slaves.
And Mary? Perchance the gentlest and the mildest are also the bravest, when the stress is real. Or perhaps those who have never known a mother’s love cling to the veriest shred and tatter of it, if it fall in their way. Or perhaps—but why explain that which all history has proved a hundred times over—-that love casts out fear. Mary quailed, deafened by the thunder of the fire, with the walls of the room turning blood-red round her, and the smoke beginning to drift before the window. But she stood; and only once, assailed by every form of fear, did her courage fail her, or sink below the stronger nerve of the elder woman.
That was when Miss Sibson, after watching that latest and most pregnant sign, the eddying of smoke past the window, spoke out. “I’m going next door,” she cried in Mary’s ear. “There are papers I must save; they are all I have for my old age. The rest may go, but I can’t see them burn when five minutes may save them.”
But Mary clung to her desperately. “Oh!” she cried, “don’t leave me!”
Miss Sibson patted her shoulder. “I shall come back,” she said. “I shall come back, my dear, never fear. And then we must move your mother—into the Square if no better can be. Do you come down and let me in when I knock three times.”
Lady Sybil was still dozing, with a woollen wrap about her head to deaden the noise; and giving way to the cooler brain Mary went down with the schoolmistress. In the hall the roar of the fire was less, for the only window was shuttered. But the raucous voices of the mob, moving to and fro outside, were more clearly heard.
Miss Sibson, however, remained undaunted. “Put up the chain the moment I am outside,” she said.
“But are you not afraid?” Mary cried, holding her back.