Greygallows (32 page)

Then, as Clare still did not move or speak, he turned to Jonathan. He was obviously in great
bodily pain as well as distress of mind; even so, I found his words fantastic and, in a sense, more repellent than any others that had been spoken.

'I was in time,' he said. 'You will remember that, and speak for me, if it should ever come to ... I knew nothing of this. You believe that? I knew nothing until she told me, as she lay dying...'

Clare began to laugh. It was a great roar of laughter, like thunder, impersonal and quite mad. With one jerk of his arm he brought the heavy draperies down from their bar. They swirled around him like a cloak and billowed out behind him as he strode across the room. He flung the masses of cloth so that they fell half into the hearth and half out, trailing across the carpet.

I was too stunned to sense his purpose, but Fleetwood knew. With a shriek like a woman's scream he flung himself at Clare, and the latter threw him off with a sweep of the arm that sent the slighter man spinning backward until he fell heavily to the floor, where he lay stunned. At that moment the coals caught on to the fabric; a high, white flame sprang up and seized greedily on this dry tinder. Clare reached for the tongs. He swept the fire out onto the trailing folds. Without a backward glance he walked to the connecting door, opened it, and passed through. He was talking—to himself, I suppose. I caught a few words: '—burn. Let it burn.' From the next room I heard a clatter of tools, and then a light flared up. Clare's steps went on, out the door and down the hall.

Jonathan was struggling wildly.

'Fleetwood,' he called. 'Wake up, man! Will you let us all burn?'

The vicar stirred feebly. The fall had stunned him, but had not rendered him unconscious. With a groan he rolled over and then rose to his knees. As his opening eyes fell on the fire they widened in terror. With another of those womanish shrieks he leaped to his feet and ran. I could hear him screaming all the way down the hall; my cries, and Jonathan's shouts, were drowned by his. I don't think he meant to desert us. He was out of his wits with fear.

I sat on the edge of the bed. The carpet had caught and was burning merrily; a row of hungry little yellow flames separated me from Jonathan. He had struggled to his feet, but the effort cost him dear; he was swaying and his face was gray.

'Mrs. Williams will see the fire,' I said. I was abnormally calm; I suppose it was shock. I could not credit the reality of the creeping yellow flames.

'By the time someone sees it, it will be too late for us,' Jonathan said weakly. 'You must move, Lucy. Hop, roll, but move, out of here. I can't help you ... can't move...'

I slid down off the bed, barely keeping my feet. Hop? I could do that, yes; but jump across the line of fire with hands and feet bound ... No, I felt sure that was beyond my powers. There was no escape through the next room. Clare had been more thorough there, or the fire had found more to seize upon; already the scene through the open door was hazy with smoke, red-stained by the flames that produced it.

As I hesitated, Jonathan's eyes rolled up. He dropped to his knees and then fell forward.

The smoke was thicker. I began to cough and could not stop. One hop; then another; and then
the coughing made me bend over too far. I fell, prostrate. I could no longer see Jonathan for the smoke and the rising flames. I felt a pang of bitter disappointment. I had had so little, and there was so much waiting...

Something came through the air like a great bird. It caught me up roughly, so that I woke and cried out, coughing
still.
Again it leaped the fire; I smelled singeing cloth. We were out, in the hall, in the clearer air. There was only a faint haze of smoke. I blinked my streaming eyes, and recognized the face of the man who held me.

'Tom,' I said. 'Where did you come from? Oh, Tom, he's back there ... get him out ...'

'No, my lady,' said Tom, clutching me so tightly I could hardly breathe. The tears were streaming down his dirty face; they may have been tears of emotion, but I think it was probably the smoke. 'Frank has him; don't fret, my lady, we'll have you both safe...'

Over his shoulder I saw another face I knew—Anna. No sentimentalist, she; she gave Tom a hearty shove, so that he staggered and almost dropped me.

'Run, you—young fool,' she said, using a word I had never heard. 'The whole —ing house is afire.'

Clutched like an unwieldy parcel I traveled down the stairs in Tom's arms. It was rather exhilarating. As he thudded across the lower hall I could see a red glow from the drawing room. A great gust of smoke came eddying down the corridor leading to the offices. Then we were out in the bitter freezing night air, and I coughed and choked and strangled on my tears; and Tom stood still, staring at Greygallows House, burning, until
Anna came charging up and made him put me down, and started sawing at the ropes with a knife. She had me free, and wrapped in a rough blanket, before Jonathan made his appearance, slung over someone's shoulder like a side of beef, and—I might have expected it—laughing.

I tried to struggle to my feet, but Anna put me down again with a heavy hand. I subsided; and saw, in amazement, that I was in the midst of a sizable crowd. Half the village was there. I recognized old Jenkins first. It was his surly son-in-law who had carried Jonathan out and was now wrapping him in his own blanket-shawl. I saw Mary Peters and her oldest son, Anna's father and her two brothers...

'Please let me get up,' I said to Anna. 'The ground is so cold.'

A grin spread over her face. It looked quite wild, all smoke-stained and black.

'Don't be so impatient, my lady. He'll come to you. Let him come; it's all we women can do, to keep them in their places.'

She nodded toward Jonathan. He was on his feet, looking like a clumsy child's toy, with a head atop a shapeless bundle of body. Snaking off the support of Frank's arm, he came toward me.

'Safe,' he said.

'Yes. But your head...'

'I'm not complaining,' Jonathan said, with his familiar wry smile. 'It could be worse. Lucy—'

'Not now. I can't think yet ... Oh, God, Jonathan, is he still in there?'

The great front door had been left open—by design or accident, I knew not which, but the draft only fanned the flames. All I could see inside was
fire, a great orange sheet of it.

Jonathan put his arm around me.

'He has not come out. No, Lucy, don't. I won't even ask them to go in there. This may be the best thing. It is what he wanted, what he meant to do.'

'But the house...'

'Look,' Jonathan said quietly.

There were flames spouting out of the upper windows now, like fiery scarlet curtains blowing; it made a spectacular sight against the black sky and the slow-falling snow. But it was not the spectacle of the burning house Jonathan had meant me to look at. I turned my eyes toward the crowd of people who stood by.

They stood quite still, all of them—men and women and even a few small children. The flames, which made the nearer scene bright as day, flickered weirdly off the still, silent watchers. As they huddled in their worn clothing, their faces stood out stark and pale; and on all the faces, even those of the children, there was a similarity of expression that made them seem akin. The mobs of peasants who burned the chateaux in France must have looked like this. These people—my people—had not lit this fire, they were not so savage. But they liked to see it burn. I could no more have asked them to fight the flames than ask them to fling their bodies into the maelstrom to quench it.

'Let it burn,' I said.

A man standing near us turned as he heard the words. It was old Jenkins. With the wind lifting his white beard and long hair, and the glow of the flames crimsoning them, he resembled an Old Testament prophet.

'Aye, my lady. Let it burn! The place is accursed and has been, from the day the usurper took the land. Let it burn, and its evil master with it!'

He was very terrible, standing there with his arms raised as if in invocation. I looked from him to Anna and saw the same glow in her eyes ... to Tom, and saw his young face hardened ... and I knew they were right.

I shivered, despite the heavy blanket, and Jonathan said gently,

'We will go to the village. He must have hidden the carriage somewhere nearby; I'll see if I can find it.'

'No. No, I can't go yet.'

'Lucy. Must you, too, watch it burn?'

'I keep thinking,' I said. 'If he should come out, now—what would they do? Would they help him, tend his hurts, or would they—'

'I don't know,' Jonathan said. 'I cannot tell you soothing lies, Lucy. I don't know what they would do. But he won't come out, not now. He is gone. It is not such a bad death as you may think. The smoke induces merciful unconsciousness long before—before anything else can happen.'

We had moved back a little, so that we stood apart from the others. I saw them as still black shapes against the fire which now spouted from every door and window. We were with them, and yet not of them; we could not completely share their emotions, which were compounded of old hatreds and ancient loyalties.

'He has his revenge at last,' I said, half to myself. 'I wonder if it would amuse him, to know.'

'Who? Clare?'

'No,' I said. I smiled. 'No. Dickon. Richard of
Gloucester, king of England. Didn't Jenkins tell you? It was only four hundred years ago.... They have long memories here in Yorkshire, long memories and loyal hearts. Oh, Jonathan, is there such a thing as a curse? Can treachery and selfishness be passed on from father to son?'

'No.'

'You sound like a solicitor again,' I said, leaning shamelessly against him.

'I am happy to be a living man, Lucy, let alone a solicitor. One does not need curses to explain Clare, unless the curse of inherited rank and title can be viewed as such.'

'And now you sound like a Leveler.'

'I am, and proud of it. Look at these people here. They are rough and poor and untaught. They might fight to keep their children from starving; but which of them would descend to Clare's villainy to keep an empty thing like position? He was not even an honest villain. He could not face poverty, nor relinquish a single thing he wanted, as these men and women have relinquished everything, with dignity and decency. "When Adam delved and Eve span—"'

'"Who was then the gentleman?" You did not tell me what became of Mr. Fleetwood.'

'Your irrelevancies have the ring of cosmic truth,' Jonathan said. 'The vicar—er—left. In haste. They saw him go, but did not prevent his departure. I fancy that by now he is well on his way abroad. You see, only a few of them know the truth.'

'I'm not sure I know it either.'

'I hoped you need never know.'

'That is no way to begin our new life, not if you
wish me to be the woman your mother is. I am so looking forward to your mother ... Jonathan...'

He looked down at me; the weariness of his face disappeared as he smiled, knowing what I was about to say.

'Jonathan, you are going to marry me, aren't you? It would be quite dishonorable for you to refuse.'

'You are becoming too bold. How dare you propose to me? Of course I will marry you, Lucy, if you will have me.'

'I have no shame left,' I said. 'No regret, no sense of propriety. We should wait a year—'

'No,' Jonathan said. 'We need not wait any time at all. Had you not suspected the truth? Well, then, what better place or time could there be? We should get it over and done with, all of it, tonight. Then we can move on. Perhaps you can even feel some pity for the poor devil. I see him as doomed by the demands of class and family more fatally than any curse could do. And I believe Fleetwood was the greater villain of the two.'

'In what way?'

'Remember them,' Jonathan said, his eyes fixed on the soaring flames. 'The three of them, young and happy and secure. He loved her and she returned his love. All seemed safe; the future bright; and then came the catastrophe. The late Mr. Fleetwood was a fool and a knave, and he took a coward's way out, leaving his children to disgrace. The old Baron forbade his son the acquaintance of the woman he loved. What would any man of spirit do in such a case?'

The truth began to dawn on me.

'But surely...'

'When the old man died,' Jonathan went on, still looking straight ahead, 'Clare found he had been doubly tricked. There was no money. Every cent of his inheritance had been squandered, and the estate was deeply in debt. Another man might have faced the fact with dignity, lived humbly—even sought honorable employment. Not Clare. Family pride and old tradition dictated only one possible solution to poverty: a wealthy marriage. Good God, Lucy, it has been the disgusting solution of our upper classes for generations! So Clare went to London in search of a rich bride. I don't know why she allowed it. Perhaps she did not know until after the fact; perhaps she accepted her role of submission and obedience. At any rate, it was done. He told you why he chose you. There were other women, I think, who had as much money.'

'He thought I would die. He liked me while he thought that. He was kind and gentle.'

'Your aunt doubtless encouraged the idea,' Jonathan said grimly. 'She would have told him anything he wanted to hear. Imagine his distress when you bloomed day after day! Even your famous limp, which troubled you only when you let it ... Now don't purse up your mouth at me, Lucy; how much has it troubled you of late? You can thank Clare for that, at least.'

He was trying to make me smile, but I could not; not with the flaming pyre before me. One thing he had said made me especially incredulous, and I returned to it.

'It is unbelievable that Mr. Fleetwood should have been aware of all this from the beginning.'