Adele Varens 21

 

Chapter 21

 

It was to be some time before I found out what had happened; but to relieve the mind of the reader, I will describe what I was only told much later.

 

Back in the salon, the pistol shot into the kerosene had set it afire, and it flared up in a great curtain of fire, running down the centre of the room from the fireplace, reaching towards the door.  The girls and Miss Thwaite were essentially trapped behind it, and the girls trained by Mrs. Bridges were very well aware of how draughts feed flames, and that to run to the door and open it would only pull the flames after them, and set light to them at the moment of attempted escape.

“I thought of that horrible laughing, sneering visage,” Mary told me, “And I knew that this was what he intended. That we should stay, frozen in terror to burn, or that we should think we had a means of escape which would accelerate our deaths.” She shuddered in the relating of it. “I was staring in such horror at the flames, almost mesmerised as they leaped up. Poor little Emmie was shrieking in fear, and Miss Thwaite was frozen in terror. I looked at Frances.”

“And I remembered what Mrs. Bridges had taught us; all the drills we had done to deal with fire, and I shouted, ‘come on girls, remember our fire drill at school!’”

“And it brought me out of my shock,” said Mary.

And quite right, too, because we did learn natural sciences, which involved inflammable materials, Mrs. Bridges felt we should all learn how to deal with fires.  Even without such materials, one reads every year of girls immolated because their muslin gowns go on fire, and nobody knows what to do. We practised on padded mats, pushing each other to the ground and rolling the supposedly burning body around and beating out the flames with cushions.  It was almost a sanctioned pillow fight, and was great fun. But we also learned to beat out flames and smother them.

“Nelly was a bit of a heroine, here,” said Ruth. “After she had ducked down behind the sofa, and later dragged Emmie down with her, she remembered that, though the buckets of water were outside, we had all used the closed stool.”

“It’s water,” said Nelly. “Just with added saltpetre and stuff.”

“Nelly, what would Miss Alice say about you describing anything as ‘and stuff?’” said Mary, severely.

“So long as it put the fire out, I doubt she’d care,” said Nelly. “Anyway, I crawled over to it, and I lugged out the bucket under the seat, and dumped the lot on the heaviest eiderdown, which was fortunately that side of the blaze. Wet feathers are very heavy.”

“So, we all grabbed it, and threw it on the flames, and then used blankets to beat out flames at the edges,” said Mary. “Miss Thwaite was quietly having hysterics, curled up in a ball, so we left her to it.  And then it was down enough for Emmie to slip out of the door and grab a couple of buckets of water. And Mr. Bissett came in as well to help, carrying buckets and pouring until it was quite out. He also managed to carry Miss Thwaite through to the housekeeper’s room to be dosed with chamomile tea with a shot of brandy in it, and so she was quite all right.”

“It was the only place he set a fire,” said Frances. “But I do not like to think what would have happened if we had not been well-trained by Mrs. Bridges, and capable of keeping our heads, and knowing how to beat fires out with blankets. Mary was thinking only of the draught from the door, if we fled to it and opened it, but I remembered that it opens onto the vestibule, with the grand staircase; and that would have acted as a chimney. We would not have stood a chance if we had been ordinary girls not trained in fighting fire. And I believe that Rochester knew it, and planned our deaths for supporting you.”

I did not disbelieve her, reader. I had also seen that look on his face.

“The eiderdown will never be the same again,” giggled Mary.

“Eh bien, it can be washed, and go into the barn for the barn cats,” I said. “I am so proud of my brave, resourceful friends.  We must write a letter of thanks to Mrs. Bridges, and send her the biggest basket of fruit that can be procured. I know she meant us to be capable of saving the lives of any of our charges if we ended up as governesses or preceptresses, but I wager she never thought how soon, and how seriously it would be needed.”

“And she will use it as an object lesson to anyone who scoffs,” said Mary.

She would, and rightly so.

 

However, that was a tale I had yet to learn; so, reader, permit me to return to my own experiences and those of Tony, which had brought us together.

Tony, meanwhile, had seen me thrown onto a horse; and he barged out of the back door into the stables and grabbed George Eshton’s horse, unsaddled, and happily eating hay.  Tony leaped on, and he said later, he did not know how, and barged out, shouting to George, “That man has my Adele!”

George gave him a salute, tacitly acknowledging that Tony needed his hunter, the best horse in the neighbourhood.

Tony hates riding, but he can do it well enough, and he was as one with that horse in pursuit of Rochester, and his captive.

It was a precarious sort of ride; it was the day before the new moon, a poacher’s moon, and a sufficiency of clouds to hide any starlight. Tony must rely on what little light shone on the clouds from the nearby town, which boasted gas lighting, and which gave some thin, anaemic illumination.  However, Rochester could not go too fast, as he was also hampered by the lack of light, and by the extra weight of his prisoner. He did not have such a good horse, having had to retrench, as George Eshton’s bay, which rejoices in some classical name like Bellerophon. By such good luck, despite the odd stumble, Tony managed to keep him mostly in sight, and made guess at the last that he had ridden into town. Here he had paused, wondering where to go; but had caught a glimpse of that harsh profile stumbling out of the brothel on the edge of town, and setting off at a stumbling run, without his horse. Tony had two choices; pursue Rochester, or assume he had left me within, and hope to find a way to rescue me.

“I could always find him later, to question,” said Tony, as we lay snug in a barn, just out of town. “So, I decided that discovering where you were was more vital. I had seen no struggles, so I wondered if he had clubbed you unconscious, or given you laudanum.”

“I swooned, and then decided that pretending to maintain it was wise,” I said.

“Well, I considered barging in and demanding my betrothed wife back,” said Tony. “And if I had had men with me, I should have done that, making sure the back was watched. But it seemed that they might smuggle you out the back, and lose me time.”

I nodded. I was curled up on hay, on which he had laid his cloak, with my head on his shoulder, as he sat next to me, supporting me with his arm.

“You chose correctly,” I said. “Though the madam did not want any trouble with the law; she had a doctor in, who declared me a virgin, and she made Rochester swear that I would not be missed.”

“My poor darling!” cried Tony. “How humiliating for you!”

“It could have been worse,” I whispered. “And she might have given me up if you were all outraged, but I fancy I may have been out of the window by then, and in another to go looking for clothes.”  I gave a rather hysterical giggle. “One of the clients is reduced to his drawers and shirt,” I said.

“I’ll go in there with them, washed and ironed, with the magistrate, to demand your nightgown and dressing gown and slippers from when you were abducted from your bed,” said Tony. “I will see him jailed for this.”

“Oh, and then he cannot hurt us again,” I said.

“And if he is not jailed, I will seek him out, and challenge him to a duel,” said Tony. “You’ll come abroad with me, won’t you, if we have to flee when I kill him?”

“Of course,” I said. “But I do not want you to be forced abroad.”

“Well, no, but at least he won’t be following if he’s dead,” said Tony.

“If he is not jailed, which, is unlikely, as, du vrai, the kidnap of a young girl is most irregular, then you will pay someone to make him have an accident,” I said, severely. “I am thirsty and there are cows, which means there will be water.”

“I’m glad you are not asking me to milk them,” said Tony.

“I would not dream of asking you to do anything so dangerous,” I said. “Me, also, I avoid large beasts of the countryside.  Bronze horses are one thing, Cows, I will not deal with.”

Tony found a pan from which to drink, and fetched us some water, and it was more welcome than the most vintage of wines.

He finished his story.

“I walked all round that ruddy house of ill repute, considering how I might get in; and wondering if I should sing French songs until you answered so that I knew where to look.”

“Now, that was a clever thought,” I approved.

“I was about to embark on that when I heard a voice hitch, and I thought it was your voice, and I wondered if you were escaping; and when I looked, I could see a darker figure against the wall, and I risked speaking your name.”

“And it gave me all the courage I needed,” I said. “Oh, Tony!  I am good at being self-reliant, but it is good to know that you are always there for me.”

“Always,” he said.

And at that, dear reader, we drifted off to sleep.

We awoke to a rude-looking fellow with a pitchfork, not quite menacing us.

Tony took off his glasses to polish, and peered at him.

“Ah, my good man,” he said. “May I pay for the hay my horse has consumed overnight, and purchase breakfast from your good lady?”

“Happen tha might,” said the bucolic. “Syne you can show your money.”

Fortunately, Tony had plenty in his pockets.

The bucolic considered it.

“Happen that’ll do,” he said. “Your nag have no saddle or bridle.”

“It isn’t stolen,” said Tony. “I borrowed it from a friend; my young friend here was abducted overnight. It’s a matter of an inheritance,” he added. “Family trouble.”

“You stay here,” we were told.

Shortly we were provided with plates of thick ham slices, fried egg, mushrooms, and sausages, and tankards of cider, and good new bread, dripping with butter.

Reader, we ate the lot and drank it all, and enjoyed it.

We felt a lot better to get on the road, and Tony’s backside had improved enough to mount behind me, to the disapproval of George’s hunter, but it was a big, rawboned beast and neither Tony nor I weigh heavy.

We fell into the stable around eleven in the morning, and I confess, I was sobbing with relief that there was still a house.

Miss Thwaite ran to me with her peculiar trotting run which does not manage to run at all.

“Oh, Adele, my dear!” she cried. “Oh, why are you dressed so?”

“They took my clothes, I had to take what I could get,” I said. “Miss Thwaite! Did everyone survive the fire?”

“Oh, my dear, yes, we all survive; those clever friends of yours knew how to put it out!”

“Mrs. Bridges’ drills really did pay off, then,” I said.

“They have all gone to bed, and you must do so too,” she said. “I will have hot chocolate and a piece of bread-and-butter sent up to you, something delicate after your ordeal.”

I did not dare meet Tony’s eye, considering our hearty breakfast.

“Tell the others I am home,” I said, and then I let myself be ushered to bed, where poor Emmie was asleep with her face in my pillow.

I slipped in beside her, making sure she had a blanket over her. And, dear reader, I slept round clear into the next morning, and had to hop out of bed in a hurry to empty my bladder.

Emmie flew into the room and hugged me, having woken long since.

It was then that I found my friends and they gave me the account which I have already related to the reader, and I was much heartened.

 

 

I next inspected the damage, and to be honest, it was not as bad as I might have feared. A glazier had been sent for to deal with the broken windows. The carpeting on the floor was gone, with enough, perhaps, for a couple of carpet bags, had not what remained been thick and oily with soot. All the furniture would have to go, and we should have to redecorate, but the wood panelling could be sandpapered down, and polished, and the floor the same. The ceiling was a mess.  All the plaster and mouldings would have to come off and be redone, but it could have been so much worse. None of my friends had worse than singed eyebrows, or the smallest of burns, and nobody else had been hurt at all.

“We’ll have it done out in scarlet and orange and gold, and it shall be the phoenix salon of Phoenix Hall, to celebrate its survival, and the clever resilience of my friends,” I said. “And the ceiling mouldings shall be of phoenixes.”

“Of course, my dear,” said Tony, he having returned.

“Did you go with the magistrate?” I asked.

“I did,” said Tony, grimly. “And it turns out that the madam accepts as whores those girls whose families want them to disappear. There are going to be a mass of law suits, and I am glad to say I shall not be involved with any of them.  But the magistrate will be busy until the Queen, God bless her, is having her Ruby Jubilee.”

I giggled.  She has been on the throne just over a decade. 

“And Rochester?” I asked.

“No sign of him,” said Tony. “He left his horse at the brothel, and went off, apparently in something of a daze.”

“He was astounded that I was a virgin,” I said. “I think he was truly shocked.”

“He had no cause to be shocked,” said Tony. “But there! He was so convinced in his own mind that he must be right. I wonder where he has gone.”

“Perhaps he seeks to atone by becoming a monk,” I suggested, somewhat flippantly.

“It’s in keeping with his character,” agreed Tony.

 

We did not guess, and I think, could not have guessed, what he would do, a man whose grip on sanity was tenuous at the best of times, and smitten on that cold November evening with the blackest of guilt for what he had done to his innocent daughter.