 8. The Course of True Love The Course of True Love never ran quite easily since time began, so said our wisest Englishman. Michael Arbuthnaught, the vicar of Tetley, was a man of about five and forty, endowed with exceptional gifts. In the first place he was extremely good-looking, having brown hair and eyes, excellent features, and a pale complexion. In the second place he was undeniably clever, owning an admirable knack in the compiling of sermons. And in the third and most important place he was a very good man, being distinguished by unusual keenness of spiritual insight. He also possessed in full measure that uncommon sense known as common sense. In one of the most important decisions of his life, this sense had signally failed him. Fade in circumstance and the general fitness of things, in all such powers as go to the shaping of the ends of men, deemed that faith fair facts was the proper wife for Michael Arbuthnaught. She was made in fashion especially to fill the role of a clergyman's wife. She had sufficient intellect to appreciate his powers and attainments and sufficient grace to help, instead of hindering him in his duties as a parish priest. True, she was in love with Laurence Baxendale, but her affection was of very early growth and was not returned. And love, whatever poets may say to the contrary, is not a flower which flourishes in arctic regions. Although the course of the truest love may be a stony channel with countless rocks ahead, the stream of inferior quality, which runs smoothly along neat and artificial canals, is not without its compensations. Real romance has its moments, compared with which commonplace attachments become flat, stale, and unprofitable. It opens the gate into a fairy land which must forever put into the shade all the ordinary comforts of the dusty highway, who that has once danced in a fairy ring wants to jingle up and down the road in a tram car, and who that has once been dazzled by the light that never was on sea or land can go into ecstasies over incandescent gas. Nevertheless, tram cars and incandescent gas have their uses, and for those people who have never caught glimpses of some better thing, they are very excellent inventions indeed. It is not to be denied that when the world has been well lost for love, they who have thus lost it gain their own souls in exchange and enter into life's holy of holies. But when love has been well lost for the world, there are compensations likewise. The Parisian style of the trousseau and the solid nature of the wedding presents are capable of affording a joy which the more romantic lovers could in no way enter into or appreciate, so that the wise and the foolish are both happy after their kind, and which of them is wise and which each foolish man must decide for himself and each woman also. But Mr. Arbuthnot, either fortunately or unfortunately, that is a moot point, was of the romantic manner of man who is set upon the marrying of the woman of his choice, and not the woman whom his world has chosen for him, and consequently that rebellious heart of his inclined toward Nora Burton and not toward Faith Fairfax, and wither his heart inclined, there Michael himself followed. His world blamed him even more for loving Nora Burton than for not loving Faith Fairfax. As a matter of fact, it always does seem worse to do those things one ought not to have done than merely to leave undone those things one ought to have done. Although the general confession thinks differently and puts the two sins on the same level, and his world went even further, it decreed that if Mr. Arbuthnot must so far forget himself and his sacred calling has to fall in love with a Burton at all, Nancy rather than Nora was the one for him. Nevertheless, it is possible, though it seems both ungrateful and presumptuous to suggest such a possibility when we consider how generous and unsparing our friends and neighbors always are in meeting out condemnation upon our past and counsel with regard to our future actions, that Mr. Arbuthnot knew his own business best. Now it may be taken as an axiom that if a man is a good son and still more a good brother, that man will be a good husband and any woman is safe in entrusting her happiness to him until death done depart with an absolute certainty that her trust will not be betrayed. But on the other hand, strange to say, it does not follow that a good daughter and sister will necessarily make a good wife. She may or she may not. In fact, very often the role is reversed. The reason for this lies in the deep-rooted difference between a ruling and a subject race. If a man has learned to govern wisely and kindly the woman of his father's household, he will wisely and kindly govern the women of his own. But if a woman has submitted herself with all meekness for the first term of her natural life, she grows weary of subjection and wants to reign in her term. Therefore, in all probability, the most dutiful daughter will make the most willful wife, while the revolting daughter who has implicitly disobeyed all her father's commands will be as tired of rebellion as her gentler sister is of subjection and will settle down quite meekly into double harness. In the same way it is a noticeable fact that the naturally bad-tempered woman is amiable toward nobody except the man she loves, while the naturally good-tempered woman is amiable toward everybody except the man she loves, which proves that to the normal woman the world is divided into two unequal parts to which she shows the two directly opposite sides of herself, the man she loves being the larger half and everybody and everything else the other. But after marriage the real nature of the woman reasserts itself, thus forward the naturally good-tempered woman is good-tempered and the naturally bad-tempered woman, bad-tempered, to the end of the chapter, wherefore it behooves the man who is wooing to walk circumspectly and with wide open eyes. Although Nancy was the more amiable and adaptable sister in the home life, Nora was the easier to get on with from a lover's point of view. As far as in her lay, Nora provided that the course of true love should run smooth, but Nancy amused herself by making artificial little rapids and shallows in case nature had not supplied sufficient excitement for her in this respect. She loved to tease Lawrence in and out of season, and to rouse his jealousy she was always inventing some excuse for a quarrel and making it up again, and he never delivered himself of the simplest statement that she did not openly dispute. Nor on the other hand sweetly obeyed the law Mr. Arbuthnath laid down and contented herself and him by letting him make up for her that clever mind of hers. He had not yet told her that he loved her, but she was perfectly cognizant of the fact, and having once grasped it would never again doubt it, as Nancy would have done fifty times a day, and would thoroughly have enjoyed the doubts too. No, Nancy was not altogether easy sailing, but she was great fun, and there are men who enjoy amusement more than ease. What are you thinking about Mr. Arbuthnath, Nora inquired of the vicar one afternoon, as he and she were walking together from Tetley to Wayside, well to tell the truth, I was wondering how far short of our ideal we may fall without being in any way to blame. One cannot always be at one's best, that is impossible, but I wonder how far below one's best, one's daily walk and conversation may lie. I understand what you mean, you are wondering how many half-holidays we may take from the ideal without playing truant. Exactly, argued the vicar with a smile. And half-holidays are absolutely necessary, aren't they? They are, but on the other hand, the ideal ought to tinge our half-holidays, if we have once seen the heavenly vision, we must never be disobedient to it, you know. Nora was quick to catch his idea, you mean that though we can't always be looking at the vision, we mustn't forget that we have once seen it, she said. Yes, that is exactly what I do mean, and I think it is a little difficult to hit upon the happy medium between disobeying the heavenly vision on the one hand and dwelling upon it in exclusion to our daily duties on the other. Which of the two evils do you think the least? Undoubtedly, the latter, if one has ever seen the best of anything in love or life or art, as well as in religion, for I believe the heavenly vision comes to us in innumerable ways, it is sin for us not to obey it. We need not be always thinking about it, but we must never be disobedient to it. Therefore, it seems to me that the few among us to whom it is granted to see the best in any walk of life have duties entailed upon us, from which ordinary men and women are exempt. Then we have to pay, even for our heavenly visions, said Nora with a sigh. We have, there is an old heathen saying that the gods give nothing, they only sell, and I believe there is some truth in it. We can get nothing for nothing in this world, and I think it is a very good thing that we can't. Thus Michael taught and Nora listened, and in the process they grew to know and love each other better every day. It happened that while these two were holding sweet converse on the road from Tetley to Wayside, Lawrence and Nancy were holding anything but sweet converse on their way back from Baxondale Hall, and the front of their offending was as follows. A friend of Anthony, Bertie Crochet, by name, had been spending a few days at Wayside, nominally with Anthony, but actually with Anthony's cousin. There is no use disguising the fact that Nancy had flirted outrageously with this young man actuated there too by two powerful reasons. First by a natural desire to make life pleasant to herself, secondly by an equally natural, if less laudable one, to make it unpleasant to Lawrence Baxondale, and in both respects she had succeeded beyond her utmost expectations. The flirtation had amused her and annoyed Lawrence more than she had dared to hope, and consequently she was in high spirits. I haven't seen you for ages, she exclaimed after she and Lawrence had greeted each other in the park, she with an extreme pleasantness which was meant to be unpleasant, and he with excessive politeness which was intended to be rude. It is at least 275 years since we met. Is it? I hadn't noticed it, as Berton replied Lawrence stiffly, you knew that exactly four days, three hours and twenty-five minutes, had elapsed since he set eyes on Nancy. How are you? she inquired with engaging sweetness. I'm all right, thank you, was the response with no sweetness at all. Are you? I'm so glad. I ask because you don't look particularly grand, you know. I'm afraid you've been doing too much this hot weather, and though it is very jolly, it takes it out of one. The weather seems to me perfect and I can assure you, Miss Berton, that your anxieties to my health is entirely misplaced. I never felt better in my life. He really was very disagreeable, but then what right had a girl to go about with an ass of a fellow such as craw, shape, or three days and behave as if she liked it? He asked himself in excuse. You mean you never felt worse, Miss Nancy said to herself, but aloud she merely remarked with the utmost suavity. It is so nice to see you again. Do you know we haven't met for such centuries that I'd forgotten the color of your hair and the shape of your nose. I really had. I'm flattered to find that you waste time in striving to recall my uninteresting features, but believe me, you make a mistake they are not worth remembering. Nancy was delighted Lawrence was even angrier than she had expected him to be. Oh, your nose is well worth remembering. It is such a nice shape. You don't do it justice. It's loveliness increases and it will never pass and do nothing else according to Keats. But though I did forget the shape of your nose, I didn't forget you because I've been telling birdie craw, shape, all about you and that has served to keep my memory green. Lawrence bowed. Thank you. I am however as unworthy of Mr. Craw Shay's notice as of yours. So are you and he could not find a more interesting subject of conversation than myself. Oh, but we could heaps upon heaps and much more interesting, but you happen to crop up now and then among the rest. Then I have no more to say. Lawrence was very angry. He had held Nancy too sacred to be discussed even between himself and his mother. And in return, Nancy had talked him over with his young jack and apes. It really was unpardonable and he had no intention of pardoning it so much for the futility of masculine intentions. What no more to say when you haven't seen me for a whole week, where you are most disappointing person. I expected you to have no end to tell me after this long separation. Yes, I am disappointing enough, but your error lay in expecting too much of me. You know, blessed he that expected nothing for he shall not be disappointed. That is my favorite be attitude. Nancy's blue eyes appear to be full of sympathy and interest. Then do you ever feel disappointed in people too, Mr. Baxendale? Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, Lawrence was right. She really was unpardonable. Pray do not waste upon me sympathy which might be so much better expended. He replied with exaggerated ceremony. You misunderstood my remark. I meant that I don't often meet with disappointment for the simple reason that I'm not such a fool as to expect much from people. How very interesting and clever of you, but don't you find it rather dull? Not disagreeably so. I do not like you expect people who have not seen me for a week to be ready to greet me with an accumulation of brilliance which they have been storing up for me at compound interest in my absence. On the contrary, I expect them to have forgotten my very existence in the society of more cheerful and congenial companions, and unlike you admit I am rarely disappointed. They walked on in silence for a minute or two until they came to the gate, which separated Baxendale Park from the lanes. Then Nancy asked in our most airy manner, I say shall we go home, belong, or the short way? Lawrence looked at his watch without in the least seeing what time it was. You must of course please yourself, Miss Burton. I must get back home as quickly as possible as I'm rather busy today. Then came another silence, and Nancy, knowing to an inch how short was now the distance to the turning where the way to Poplar Farm branched off from the way to Wayside, and having an instinct of knowledge that Lawrence would say goodbye at that turning and not walk home with her began to think it was time for a change in the tactics of her warfare. You seem rather cross today, she said quite meekly, looking up at Lawrence with a face out of which the mischief had died. Lawrence raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise. I cross? What do you mean, Miss Burton? I'm afraid I must be very bad mannered to give you such an idea for which bad manners please accept my humble apologies. Then, darned you cross, Nancy's voice was meeker than ever. Not in the least would ever put such an idea into your head. Nancy began to get rather frightened. It is one thing to play with fire, and quite another, and a much less agreeable one to burn one's own fingers. I thought perhaps you were vexed with me about something. I, vexed with you, impossible. I'm afraid that, to bring into imagination of yours, is leading you astray. You are inventing offenses on my part for the express purpose of showing resentment on your own. I fancy you will find that both offense and resentment are mythical. Nancy felt it was time to play trumps if she did not wish to lose the game altogether. I thought you were vexed with me about birdie crochet, she burtered out. It was a most feminine card. But Lawrence held trumps in his hand too, and took her queen with his king. My dear Miss Burton, what earthly right have I to dictate to you who shall be and who shall not be your friends? It would be gross impertinence on my part to express annoyance at anything which you might think fit to do, an impertinence of which I hope I am incapable. Nancy looked at him sideways with an expression in which fear and shame and curiosity were equally blended. Lawrence happened to turn round at that moment, and caught the look he wished he had not seen it, as it somewhat weakened his praiseworthy intention to uphold his own dignity in the side of this most insolent and unfeeling young woman. Nevertheless he continued, as I said before, I extremely regret that anything in my unfortunate manner should have led you to believe me guilty of the unpardonable liberty of criticizing or even discussing your conduct. But if you will overlook it this time I can promise you that for the future I will take care to avoid even the appearance of such an evil. Nancy had nearly lost the game and she knew it, but still she held the ace. The question was should she play it, or should she uphold her dignity as high as Lawrence was now upholding his, and throw down the cards refusing to play any longer against so determined an adversary. She hesitated a minute and looked round, they were in the most secluded of the lanes, and nobody, not even a scarecrow, was in sight. Yes, the ace would have to go. There was no doubt of that. As far as it was in Nancy to be shy of anything, she was shy of the strength of her own feelings, she generally kept them resolutely out of sight, and made a curtain out of her laughter to hide her love. But now she laid an intriguing little hand on her companion's arm, and for the first time in her twenty-two years she allowed her whole heart to well up into her eyes, as she raised them to his, and whispered, Lawrence, I know I've been a brute, won't you forgive me? And then and there in spite of his praiseworthy desire to uphold his own dignity, in spite of his justifiable intention to properly punish her unbecoming behavior, in spite of his laudable decision to tell no woman of his love until he was in a position to marry her, Lawrence Baxendale suddenly took Nancy in his arms and covered her face with kisses. My darling, he murmured, I love you, I love you. It was I who was the brute, but I shouldn't have been, if I'd not cared for you so much, and been so confoundedly jealous. Nancy laughed as well as she could in the circumstances. You silly boy, were you very jealous? Rather couldn't you see it? Distinctly, a blind bat could have seen it with his eyes shut. And do you know I think jealousy is my favorite virtue in a man, when it's about me, of course, I mean. And I'm a brute to make love to you now, considering that I'm such a poor beggar, I shan't be able to ask you to marry me for years and years probably, but I simply couldn't help it when you looked at me like that. Then do you love me very much? My darling, I adore you. After another hiatus in the conversation, Lawrence said you haven't told me yet that you love me, sweetheart. Nancy, do you love me? Then Nancy put her two hands on his shoulders and pushed him away from her, looking him full, in the face with her heart still in her eyes. I love you with all my heart and soul and strength, and I always shall love you, and there never has been and never will be any man in the world for me except you. And now let us be funny again and forget that we're so badly in love. So the ace won the trick after all. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of Fuel of Fire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Fuel of Fire by Ellen Thornycroft Fowler. Chapter 9. Another Woman Tempts. The woman tempted me and I did eat, such the apology once made by Adam, who paved a way more trodden by men's feet than any fashion by the great MacAdam. The following afternoon Nancy was silent with the silence which accompanies excessive happiness even in the most loquacious people. When one has just been treading the highway's design and beholding visions of angels, it is difficult to bring oneself down to the level of ordinary conversation with one's fellow creatures, particularly when those fellow creatures happen to be relations, and so Nancy found it. Anthony, in fraternal fashion, was not slow to observe this unusual reticence on the part of his generally loquacious kinswoman. What is the matter with our beloved Nancy, he asked of Nora, in a stage whisper loud enough to have pierced ears, much more remote than Nancy's, is it her liver or her lover that is out of order, and so produces this distressing and unnatural depression? You must ask her, replied Nora, but Nancy did not take any notice. She found Lawrence's past remarks much more nourishing food for meditation than Anthony's present ones, a not unprecedented experience of female relations. Tony gazed at her pensively, then murmured, Oh, that those lips had language, life has passed, but slowly with me, and Nora, since we heard thee last. Then the mystic roused herself sufficiently to speak, and her speech was to the point, Don't be an ass, was all she said. I will try not, indeed I will, but as I have remarked before, it runs in the Burton family as it did in Balem's. The only difference being that Balem was amazed when his ass spoke, we on the contrary marvel when ours is silent. Nora laughed, and Nancy tried not to do so, but the reason for the upset is the same in both cases, Anthony went on the ass, saw an angel in the way. I'd rather hold my tongue till it dooms day, than talk as much nonsense as you do, said Nancy. Nevertheless, your daily walk and conversation give the lie to this statement, Anthony's side, would that it were not so? What are you going to do after tea, Tony? asked Nora, who naturally did not take an absorbing interest in this accurate diagnosis of her sister's amatory condition. I shall go for a stroll in the lanes, I think, in order that my always delicate digestion may recuperate itself between the efforts of tea and dinner. I always find if I don't take exercise at this particular hour that I am incontinently launched upon my dinner before I have duly forgotten my tea. And there's something rather indecent in that, like marrying again before one's first wife is sufficiently dead, don't you know? Whereupon Nancy woke up thoroughly, you can't go for a stroll in the lanes then. I'm occupying the lanes myself this evening, she said, as if she were referring to a common bathroom which was used in turns. Anthony barely gloated over her discomforture. Ah, now we have hit the nail, that is to say, our beloved Nancy, upon the head, then how are Nora and I to get such exercise as the state of our digestions and the size of our tea's demand I should like to know? You can go for a walk along the road. The high road is good enough for relations, replied Nancy indifferently. Anthony clasped his hands and mocked admiration. Oh, wise young judge, how I do honor thee, where did you learn all these truisms, my dear young friend? Oh, in various places. I'm going to write a new version of eyes and no eyes, said Tony. It would be about a good little girl who never made eyes, and so the high road was as uninteresting and uninstructive to her as the loveliest lane, and about a naughty little girl who always made eyes wherever she went, so long as there was somebody, it didn't matter who, to make eyes too. And in consequence, the dullest feel passed to her were full of delightful and sentimental memories, and the less frequented a road by ordinary traffic, the more pleasure she got out of it. It would be a very nice story, applauded Nora, to whom also the lanes at the back of Wayside were not altogether untrodden ground. Anthony sighed, then do you agree with Nancy in exiling yourself and me from the cool, sequestered lanes of life and condemning our tottering footsteps to the amour, amour, amour of the arred high road? Nora nodded, Nancy and I always play fair about the lanes. We never enter them when they are being occupied by the others, and we keep the rest of the family away too. How do you keep my esteemed aunt and uncle away on these interesting occasions? Nora smiled demurely, we tell mother that there are tramps about, and father that it is damp underfoot. Anthony shouted with laughter, will you and Nan are two for a pair, as my own nurse used to say? We certainly are intelligent young women, said Nora with complacency. Then Anthony again turned his attention to the elder sister, if I were you I should learn a lesson from the sermons in stone. Those stones which are laid down for the prevention of traffic by the county council, and I should station at the entrance to your particular lane, a youth with a red banner bearing the strange device. This road is closed for repairs without the re. Now I call that a distinctly neat idea. Nancy could not help laughing, although she was in love. Really Tony, you are killing. Your bitterest enemy couldn't deny that you are convulsing at times. With which compliment let us withdraw, lest you should think better of it, and add a codice or a postscript which might give me pain and undermine that absolute self-appreciation, which is the keystone to my interesting and complex character, said Anthony, getting up from the easy chair where he had been lounging and going out of the room. Come along, Nora, and we'll get the dogs and leave our dear Nan to derive what intellectual pleasure she can from the society of one who is a man but not a brother. All right, and Nora obediently followed him. When the others had started for their walk, Nancy put on her head and wandered through the orchard and across the field to the iron gate which led straight into Fairyland, and as she strolled along the grassy road with its high green hedges on either side, shutting off the common work-a-day world, she wondered how anybody could ever feel unhappy on such a beautiful earth as this. She had always been susceptible to the beauties of nature, though hitherto they had awakened in her a sort of indefinable craving, what for, she did not know, a sort of unconscious questioning to which apparently there was no answer. Sometimes there had seemed to her to be a useless prodigality of beauty, as if the foolish old earth had put on her glorious apparel and decked herself with her jewels before a gala day which never came. Surely simpler garments would have been sufficient for the trivial rounds and the common tasks which do not furnish all we ask, even if they furnish all we ought to ask when we are on the sunny side of 30. But now at last Nancy understood why the earth beneath her was paved with emerald, and the heavens above her were crowned with a sapphire dome, why each wildflower was a marvel of exquisite workmanship, and each star in the firmament had its place in that majestic choir whose te deum was begun in the dawn of creation by the sons of God. It was because the birthday of her life had come, because her love had come to her that she found out why the earth had been made so beautiful. For Lawrence's feet the emerald pavement had been laid down. Over Lawrence's head the canopy of sapphire had been suspended, and now because Lawrence loved her and told her so the mountains and the hills broke forth before her into singing, and all the trees of the field clapped their hands. Nancy's friends with the singular blindness of those who have known us from our youth up would have said in fact did say that she was too shallow and lighthearted to fall in love in the ordinary accepted use of the term, because she continually laughed and hardly ever cried they decided that the deeper things of life were a closed book to her merry blue eyes, and because she chose to wear upon her sleeve such selections from her heart as she considered suitable for publication, they made up their minds that these selections constituted her whole property in that line, and that because she talked freely about some of her feelings, such feelings as she did not talk about were nonexistent. There are no people so sorely misjudged in this world as the people who go through life as laughing philosophers, just as there is no figure in nursery lore so pathetic as that of the Jolly Miller who lived by the River Dee. Does anyone imagine the man of Malt would have trouble to have informed his world that he cared for nobody, and nobody cared for him if such a statement had indeed been true, not he, he would rather have made affecting speeches at charity organization meetings, and wept copiously at the imaginary woes portrayed in theaters, and told pathetic stories of his early love affairs, and generally conducted himself as all such elderly gentlemen conduct themselves who are actually what the so-called Jolly Miller pretended to be. It was because he cared so much that he pretended to care so little, nevertheless he thereby deceived all children, both of smaller and of larger growth, which after all is what he desired and intended to do. Nancy had not wandered far along the land when she saw a well-known figure in a light tweed suit coming toward her from the direction of Poplar Farm. For a second she was possessed with an insane desire to run away and hide herself where that tweed clad figure could not find her, and yet she was fully aware that for the rest of her days all roads that did not lead to that figure would be unfit for traffic as far as her feet were concerned, such as the contrarity of the feminine mind. There was a look in Lawrence's gray eyes as he greeted her which made her want more than ever to run away from him at once, and never to run away from him at all as long as she lived, to desires which naturally were incompatible, so she gave herself and him the benefit of the doubt and remained. After they had strolled together right down into the heart of Fairyland, using by the way such fond talk as lovers are want to use when no reporter happens to be present, they finally arrived at a style set in the middle of an unfrequented spiel as far from the madding crowd as it is possible to be in Mercer, and upon the style they sat side by side after the approved fashion of Robert Burns and his marry. Why a tradition has assigned a style as the seemingly resting place for lovers is an interesting problem. Taken as a seat, it is indefensible, combining as it does the minimum of comfort and remaining on with a maximum of danger and falling off, and even putting so commonplace a consideration as comfort out of the question, the difficulty of balancing oneself for any length of time on so limited a space must always in some degree interfere with the fluency of conversation of persons thus delicately balanced. Nevertheless, a style has always been and always will be the regulation thrown of King Cupid, and any attempt to substitute for it a more convenient and less uncomfortable resting place would be on a par with reorganizing a monarchy or disestablishing a state church. Are you quite sure you love me? Sweetheart, ask Lawrence, all the big heart of him shining out of his large gray eyes. Nancy, not at absolutely certain. I'd taken an oath to that effect before a magistrate's clerk or a coroner's jury without running the slightest risk of seven years for a perjury. You silly little child, what nice nonsense you talk. So do you, do you know you really have been frightfully silly this afternoon? I know that, baby, I like being silly, anybody can be clever. In fact, I was clever at myself long before I'd ever seen you. But it takes a man who is absolutely and devotedly in love to be becomingly silly, and there are precious few of that sort in this wicked world I can assure you, Miss Burton. How much do you love me? Ask Nancy, as much as I can, and that's a jolly lot. But how much can you? As much as this, replied Lawrence, covering her face with kisses. That's no answer. It's like saying as big as a lump of chalk. You're as bad as me when I once wrote to a bookseller's shop and ordered a prayer book the same size as a birthday textbook. You can imagine how Father and Tom roared at me. I can. I want you to tell me exactly how much you love me, Nancy persisted, a little bit more than you love me, than how much do I love you. Ah, that is your business. You can't expect me to give an accurate diagnosis of your symptoms, my darling, when I'm so culpably ignorant of my own. Now, I must confess that I should have thought a clever girl like you could have answered a simple little question like that, and I should have thought a clever man like you could have answered it. But I don't set up as being clever, and you do. Nancy, you were considered very clever at Oxford, weren't you? I was, but I'm not responsible, you know, for all the traditions to which so antique and interesting a city give birth. And mathematics, were your strong point, weren't they? I always prided myself on being able to put two and two together. Well then, and Nancy nodded her head triumphantly, a good mathematician ought to be able to measure so simple a thing as his own love for her girl. Excuse me, but the very best mathematicians cannot measure infinity. And Lawrence kissed her again, but I'd spend the rest of my days in trying to show you how much I love you. He continued more seriously, if only I wasn't so confoundedly poor. It is a nuisance, and Nancy's side thereby cutting Lawrence to the heart. It was intolerable to him to think that he, who desired nothing so much as her happiness, should be the one to bring that pathetic note into her voice and that sad look into her eyes. But nevermind, he said, after a moment's pause, trying to take a more encouraging view of things. The luck is short to turn soon, and then I can speak to your father and we can be properly engaged. Probably I shall succeed in letting some of the farms that just now are empty. I might even be able to let the hall and then you'll soon see how much I love you, sweetheart. I suppose that fire insurance hampers you a good deal, remarked Nancy thoughtfully. It does confound the beastly thing, and you couldn't leave off paying it, not without forfeiting the property according to my grandfather's will. And you couldn't sell the old library, not without the same disastrous result. I think it is very unfair of people to make wills like that, so do I. But when they have made them, there is no use in defying them. I wish the prophecy would come true in the hall be burned down again, remarked Nancy with another sigh, so do I, for some things, but the misfortunes that one desires are invariably the misfortunes from which one is preserved. I suppose if it did come true you would have plenty of money, plenty, my darling, but it won't come true, so it's no use thinking about it. After a minute's silence Nancy said, I wish we could call down fire from heaven to consume Baxendale Hall and be happy ever afterward. But you see, we can't, dear love, couldn't you light your pipe there or have a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day or something of that kind? Lawrence was struck as we are all struck now and again by the strangeness of that unwritten law which rules that history, even in the smallest things, shall repeat itself. We hear the name of a place or a person which we have never heard before and during the next day or two that place or person is again mentioned in our hearing. We come upon a word that is entirely new to us and in the next book we open. That particular word hits us full in the face. We are all familiar with this phenomenon, yet it never ceases to surprise us and therefore it came as a shock to Lawrence when, according to this remarkable law of chance, Nancy said the very same thing which his mother had said to him so short a time before. My darling, don't say such things even adjust. It hurts me to hear you say them, but I can't help wishing them. Oh Lawrence, you don't know how I love you. How horrid everything is without you and Nancy's lip quivered. Lawrence took her in his arms and tried to comfort her. Don't fret, sweetheart. Things will take a turn for the better soon. I know they will and then think what lovely times we will have together. But not until we are too old to enjoy them, I argued Nancy disconsolately. It won't be much fun going about together if we have to go into bathrooms with a glass down. We shouldn't do that. Yes, we shall. And I shall look at you through blue spectacles and you will make love to me down and ear trumpet and everything will be simply detestable. Dear little child, don't fret, repeated Lawrence, but I must fret. I can't help fretting. You should never have kissed me if you hadn't wanted me to fret. We might have such fun if only you'd make a bonfire of the silly old place. I hate the sight of it. Oh, Nancy. Yes, I do. It has got to be burned down a third time by something which is greater and higher than King or State. And what can that be? I should like to know but love. I don't believe you're really in love with me at all or else you'd be only too pleased to burn down your house in order that I might warm my hands at the blaze. In fact, that is what you would do if you were a really nice, sublaging, chivalrous, Sir Walter Raleigh kind of a man. Perhaps I might if it wasn't ensured. That makes all the difference, don't you see? No, I don't. Don't you see that it would have taken the shine out of old Raleigh's cloak trick if he'd covered the puddle with a borrowed mantle, knowing that he should get a brand new one out of the transaction? I can't think why you don't fire Mrs. Candy with the desire to read some of the old manuscripts so that she might study them by candlelight and in a turn fire the hall. Lawrence believed that Nancy was talking the broadest nonsense and did not mean a word she said. Nevertheless, it hurt him that her suggestion should so exactly coincide with his mother's. My darling, he entreated, don't make life harder than it really is by saying things that cut me to the heart. But Nancy only laughed. You see the hall has got to be burned down a third time. Everybody who knows anything at all knows that and it would be so lovely if only it would happen in our time. Nobody will ever get as much fun out of the money as you and I should, Lawrence, dear. Perhaps not, darling. You know I mind it all as much as you do, don't you? I suppose you do rather doubtfully, but you remind me of the old Scotch woman who went for the first time to a ritualistic church and said, Not do they love the Lord, but say they've a funny way of showing it. You've a funny way of showing it, too. But Lawrence's face was too sad to smile. I'm sure you don't want me to be more unhappy than I need be, Nancy. I don't want you to be unhappy at all, silly. That's what I keep proving. If you'd only attend to what I say, I want us both to be happy, perfectly gloriously, frightfully happy, until every week seems like a cricket week and every day like a bank holiday. So do I, sweetheart, and we will be someday. But in the meantime, don't break my heart. Certainly not. I'm not such a goose as to go about smashing my own property. Well, you will break it if you go about saying things which you don't mean in the very least, but which somehow lower my ideal of you. Nancy made a face. Now we shall hear something really improving. The preacher for this afternoon will be the Reverend Lawrence Baxendale, sometimes postmaster Merton. His subject will be the follies of young women in general, exemplified by largely exaggerated magic lantern slides of the peculiar negligences and ignorances of Ms. Nancy Burton. But Lawrence would not be put off by her jokes. My dear, you don't really want to hurt me, do you? You silly old boy, of course I don't. Do you think that my usual way of annoying a man is to tell him that I love him? Because if you do, it isn't particularly complimentary to me, then promise me you will never say anything again, even in jest, about burning down the hall. All right, you shall make out an index expert, notorious of the things I mustn't make jokes about. It will include everything that begins with a B. Baxendales and burning and burdens and Beatitudes and so on and so on. Give me a kiss to seal your promise. And she kissed him full on the lips. Nevertheless, it was many a long day before either Lawrence or Nancy forgot that conversation. They imagined in the blindness of their hearts that they had cancelled it with kisses, for no kisses nor tears nor even death itself can ever wipe out the effects of the spoken word, wherever it is written that men and women shall give an account in the day of judgment. End of chapter nine. Chapter 10 of Fuel of Fire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Fuel of Fire by Ellen Thornycroft Fowler. Chapter 10. Mrs. Candy's Holiday. With mine own people, I a while must dwell, if only to find out if they are well and hear the things which they alone can tell. I'm just thinking, sir, as I should like a holiday, Mrs. Candy said to Lawrence the next time he was up at the hall, I was saying to her, let he ship only to the day that it was many a long year since I'd had a sight of my own people, and though your own people may try you soar when they're with you, there's no doubt as you want to see them now and then, just as chamomile tea is as bitter as bitter when you are drinking it, and yet you can't get on without a dose of it from time to time. I suppose not, so I says to her, let he ship as I am wanting to go back to Norfolk for a spell. I says, and she says to me, why don't you ask Mr. Baxendale for a holiday, says she. I'm sure as he'd give it you this beautiful summer weather. And Candy, he says, as her lady ship had right on her side to his thinking, so I'd made bold to ask if I may go away for a bit. Lawrence could not help wishing that his mother had not further the evacuation of the hall so soon after her unpleasant suggestion to him, but he immediately put away the thought as an insult to Lady Alicia and said quite agreeably, of course, I shall be glad to give you a holiday. Mrs. Candy, if you wish it, but how will Candy manage to get on without you? He won't manage, sir, bless you. Candy couldn't get along without me to look after him and slay for him and wash his clothes and listen to his grumblings. No, not if it was ever so. He's a good husband, is Candy, but her lady ship says as maybe you'd give him a holiday too, and we thought it would be a good time to go to over-strand and see as the family grave is in good order, ready for me when it's my turn to lie within it, explained Mrs. Candy carefully. A strange fashion of spending a holiday, for people must enjoy themselves in their own way, I presume, and there'd not only be the pleasure of putting the grave in good order, sir, but my niece, Maria Jane, she's just had twins, she has poor soul, twins like Ms. Fortunes, never coming, singly as they say, and what time I had to spare from weeding in the church yard, I could be looking after Maria Jane and the twins, oh, there'd be plenty to pass the time, Mr. Baxendale, so that Candy and me need never have a dull minute. I see. And Candy'd take a few cuttings of different sorts of flowers to plant on the grave, so as to make it look more cheerful, like when my time comes. He said if I'd no objection, he'd like to try a bit of carpet gardening on it, carpet gardening, being so handy and looking well nearly all the year round, and you'll want it all the year round, he says with a laugh. It ain't only a summer residence, as he, as Pert, as Pert, oh, he's one for his joke, he is Candy. You already seem to have provided yourselves with a full and interesting program, remarked Lawrence. Well, you see, sir, that's the beauty of going among your own people. There's always something to do and to talk about, be it Christens or Fortunes, and I do say as next to a death there's nothing like a birth for cheering a family up a bit. I suppose not. That's the worst to be in but a stranger and a sojourner, as you may say, as I have been ever since I left Norfolk. Folks die and folks are buried all the world over, but I deny as you ever enjoy finding fault as to how they have left their bit of money as much as you do when it's your own flesh and blood as is to blame. That is true, Mrs. Candy and Lawrence laughed. Now, there was my Uncle Willem, him as I've so often told you about. Bless you, sir, we never got tired of talking of his bit of money, and how unfairly he'd left it never. If ever weed a family party, Uncle Willem's bit of money would come up, sure as fate, and then there'd be plenty to talk about, never fear, however late it might be before the party broke up. Of for his death we'd talk of how he ought to leave it, no to being of one mind on the subject, which kept the ball rolling and gave the men something pleasant and interesting to argue by about, and after his death we'd all abuse him for the way he had left it, and that was more pleasant, it less exciting. Oh, I'm sure I don't know what we should have found to talk about many a time if it hadn't been for Uncle Willem and his bit of money. Lawrence sighed money or the want of it certainly does seem to be the root of most evils, at least if one is to judge from history. Oh, don't you worry yourself over history, Mr. Baxendale, said Mrs. Candy in a soothing voice. Candy's no opinion of history hasn't Candy, and he's no patience with learning children about it at school. What's the good of learning them all about past and gone kings and queens? He says they're dead and buried and let them lay, says he. That's what Candy thinks about history, and Candy's better half nodded her head triumphantly at this unanswerable refutation of the testimony of all living or dead historians. I didn't know that Candy was such an authority on education, Mrs. Candy fairly brightened. He is, though, and on most things else, there ain't much in this world. This Candy hasn't got the bottom of. I can tell you that, sir, and he don't hold with schools. Candy don't never haven't had much school in his cell. A most natural disapprobation, murmured Lawrence, and he don't hold with scholars, neither. I remember in the late Mr. Baxendale's time, Candy got a new gardener's boy, which was a perfect scholar. How does the new boy get on Candy, says the late Mr. Baxendale. Get on, sir, says Candy. Why, he don't get on at all. He don't know nothing, or nothing. And how should he, sir, he haven't been at school all his life? Oh, he isn't one for much. Schooling isn't Candy, obviously not. He says it's all very well for the gentries haven't got nothing to do but to turn their heads into potting, sheds, and rubbish heaps. But they has got their own living to get. Can't afford to waste their time over such stuff as book learning. Lawrence smiled. I'm afraid, then, that Candy doesn't share my late grandfather's weakness for books, as shown in the library upstairs. Not he, sir, you don't find any nonsense of that sort about Candy. And he says if he had been in your place begging your pardon, sir, he'd soon have sold all that waste paper upstairs for what he could get for it, grandfather's will, or no grandfather's will. But you see, my grandfather's will made it not only impossible for me to sell his library, but also obliged me to preserve it at great expense. Well, it's a good thing as your grandfather's will has you to deal with, sir, instead of Candy. For Candy would have stood a no-nonsense of that kind. He'd have sold a whole bag of tricks for what he could get for it, that he would, if all the grandfathers in Christendom had tried to stop him, and all the grandmothers too. Then I'm afraid the law would have stepped in and prevented him. Oh, he don't hold with the law any more than he do with school and don't Candy. He says as the law is all very well for poachers and criminals and the like of them, that it hasn't no right to come into fear and wear honest men, and if it ever dares to interfere with him, he'll soon show it its place, as he, and so he would. I should like to see the law as dare interfere with Candy when aunts' his spirit is up. I suppose when you were living in Northbrook you sometimes saw the Prince of Wales on his way to and from Sandringham, suggested Lawrence, who always enjoyed drawing Mrs. Candy out. But Mrs. Candy seemed to be shocked at the suggestion. No, no, sir, I ain't as wardly as all that, though his royal highness did pass through the station of the village where my brother Jacob Henry lived. Come and see the Prince of Wales go through Lizzie, says Jacob Henry to me one day when I was a stand-win. No, Jacob Henry says I, I'm not so wardly, says I, know if it had been Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom, I'd sit in a first-class carriage, I might have gone, I says, but not for all the kings of the earth, says I, will I run half a mile as hard as I can, just on the top of my dinner, and no more I would. You were most sensible, Mrs. Candy, not to allow that feeling of loyalty, which is so apt to run riot in England to lead you into indigestion. Just what I thought, Mr. Baxandale, sir, what would the Prince of Wales and all the crowned heads of Europe have cared if my dinner that day had lain on my chest like a lump of lead? Not they, it would have made no difference to them whatsoever, but it would have made all the difference to me. I can tell you I would not, hey, risk it, no, not for the emperor of China or the Pope of Rome. By the way, Mrs. Candy, Lawrence said more seriously, I suppose you wouldn't go for your holiday by yourself and leave Candy to look after the hall. Laws of mercy, Mr. Baxandale, what be you thinking of while I wouldn't go on a journey without Candy to tell me which way I was going? No, not if you was to crown me. Do you think I'm going to set up a lot of guards and porters and engine drivers and such about my own wedded husband and take their word instead of his? No, sir, I trust I knows my duty as a wife better than that. You see, Candy could take your ticket at Silverhampton and put you into the train and your own relations could meet you at the other end. But Mrs. Candy stood front. No, sir, I took him for better and for worse and for better and for worse, I'll stick to him. And if for worse don't mean them hard screeching railway journeys, I'm sure I don't know what it do me. No, sir, unless Candy goes with me to Norfolk, to Norfolk I don't go. Like all truly sensitive people, Lawrence Baxandale could not bear to give pain and the disappointment which his suggestion had called into Mrs. Candy's ruddy countenance was too much for him. Well, then I suppose Candy must go too. Do you know anybody who will come and take care of the hall in your absence? Well, sir, it's not for the likes of me to go teach in the gentry and pass in my remarks on what they may please to do. So Mrs. Candy and the tone of those who are about to do the very thing they deprecate. Did the apology far be it from me to speak irreverently, ever recede anything save the most startling irreverence or the preparatory clause? I never repeat malicious gossip, ever introduce any item of information which was not in direct opposition to the ninth commandment. And Mrs. Candy was but as her fellows and her betters. But if you ask my opinion, I think as it will do more harm than good to bring strangers into the hall poking their noses into where they've no business and their fingers into where they bless. You mean that it would be better to shut the place up altogether for a week or two than to trust any temporary caretakers? I do, sir. You see me and Candy has known you from a baby, sir, and the family for that. And so we patients with all that nonsense about taking such care of that old rubbish heap upstairs, but strangers would have no patience with it. How could they, seen as waste papers, waste paper all the world over? So if they didn't take proper care of all the rummage that this old house contains, who could blame them? Certainly not me, nor Candy continued the worthy matron feeling that if suspected persons passed successfully, the ordeal by Candy, they were innocent indeed. While last week's newspaper ain't no good, much less than old books as has been written ever so much before last week or the week before that. Then you would just lock up the house and leave it. I should, sir. You see, nobody has a key to it except you and her ladyship, so nobody could get in to do any mischief where there's shutters to all the downstairs windows, and you could look in every two or three days to see as all was going all well, and there wouldn't be any need of fires this weather to keep the place aired for I draw up the blinds to the upstairs windows, so as the sun could get in and keep the damp out of them old books. And there's no damp to speaker but this time of year, if I was used, sir, I'd rather leave the place empty than have folks running all over it as I didn't know. There's Williamson and his wife at the home farm. They would come up and stay here while you and Candy were away, suggested Lawrence. Oh, of course, Mr. Baxendale, you know your own business best, replied Mrs. Candy in a tone of voice, which implied that if there was one person on earth who did not know anything at all about Mr. Baxendale's business, that person was Mr. Baxendale himself. If you can trust Mrs. Williamson, you can trust her, and that's an end to that. Oh, of course, I should be guided by you, Lawrence, hasten to say with culpable weakness, but Mrs. Williamson always seems to me to be a tidy woman with plenty of work in her. Well, sir, if you think so, you think so, and if you does believe in her, you does. Mrs. Candy was evidently of opinion that faith in a myth is better than no faith at all. But what is your objection to Mrs. Williamson? I hasn't any objection to her so far from it, but I've looked into her house I have, and what I've seen I've seen. Fatima herself could not have spoken more mysteriously of bluebeards locked up room than did Mrs. Candy of the interior of the Williamson's. Lawrence owned to considerable curiosity, but what did you see, Mrs. Candy? The lady thus urged shook her head and pursed up her lips with the usual firmness to those who have decided not to say a thing and intend to say it at all costs. It's not for me to speak evil of my neighbors, one with another, even if she do sit in her best parlor on a weekday and wear out the albums and the antimicasters in a way as is neither decent nor respectable. You must tell me more, please, Mrs. Candy, I really don't quite grasp the full meaning of Mrs. Williamson's behavior at present. Mrs. Candy extenuated nothing, nor sat down ought in malice. You see it's this way, sir. She began in a calm and judicial voice. Our best parlor is given up to the Sabbath, so as Sunday shall be different from the days of the week as it ought to be, and I hold that to sit in the best parlor on any other day, but Sunday is nothing more nor less than Sabbath breaking. Why, sir, I'd as soon think of reading the Bible on a weekday as a looking at the family albums. Only till the day Candy says to me, Lizzie, he says, there's some talk in the papers, opening museums and picture galleries and the like on Sundays, but I don't hold with it, he says. If you begin making Sunday as cheerful like as a weekday, will it become the religion of England, he says, but he doesn't hold with Sabbath breaking doesn't Candy. Still, there are two sides to the question, Lawrence, bebly expostulated, as there are two most questions, I suppose, but such sophistry was not for the like of Mrs. Candy. Yes, sir, so there be a right side and a wrong side, and you can't have two right sides to anything any more than you can have two right-handed boots or two right-handed breaches, these ways so candy says and he's got to the root of most things has Candy. Lawrence knew when he was beaten, so held his peace. You see, sir, Mrs. Candy, reverted to her former subject. Candy and me would be back from our holiday in a fortnight at most that would give us plenty of time to neaten the grave up and to give a start to Maria Jane's twins and there couldn't much harm come to the haul in that time, particularly at the season of the year when there's no fires needed and considering as no one has a key to its safer letting ship and your self. Lawrence nodded, he did not think it necessary to mention before Mrs. Candy those keys which he had lent to Nancy Burton that he felt was his business not Mrs. Candy's nor another's. Very well, Mrs. Candy, he said rising to take his leave, you and your husband shall have your holiday at once. Now make a point of coming up to the haul every two or three days to see that all is going on right in your absence. So it was arranged that Mrs. Candy should go to sojourn among her own people for a fortnight and that Mr. Candy should accompany his better half in the train for fear she should fall out by the way. On his way home from Baxendale Hall by the lanes, Lawrence caught sight of a blue-robed figure. It was one of Nancy's wins always to wear blue in the distance and he accordingly quickened his steps until he overtook it. Now it is an extremely interesting fact that if two lovers go to a particular place with the express and sole purpose of meeting each other they are in a mutual agony of fear lest they should miss. To the ordinary onlooker the only remarkable thing about this fear is its utter groundlessness in any other walk of life. If A went to a place at a time when he knew B was bound to be there he would conclude for a certainty that he would meet B and would suffer no further doubts upon the question. If he knew more over that B was going to that place for the special purpose of meeting him his doubts as to there eventually seeing each other face to face would be still more completely set at rest but not so with lovers oh dear me no he knows and she knows with a certainty which no mere friendly or business-like relation would justify that the object of meeting each other is the sole consideration which for the time being guides their respective steps. Nevertheless they are both tortured with agonizing doubts as to whether in a space probably of some dozen yards or so totally uninhabited saved by their two selves they shall succeed in catching sight of each other and whether having so caught sight they shall succeed in exchanging those few words which are as daily bread to their starving hearts. It never seems to occur to them that nothing short of a miracle could keep them apart in the circumstances nor to wonder why the natural laws which govern the universe are likely to be suspended for their special discomforture. If they go to the same place at the same hour they are bound to meet unless gravitation be nothing but a passing wind or the shadow on the dial be as liable to be turned back as it was in the rain of Hezekiah. Anyone in his senses would understand as much as that but who is in love and in his senses at the same time and if he were who would care to be in love at all love stiffened by sense is as unwholesome as green tinctured with bororacic acid and both are the signs and the product of an over civilized state of society. As no natural law was suspended and no miracle wrought in order to keep them apart Lawrence and Nancy met each other in the lanes on that particular summer afternoon and Lawrence after certain immaterial remarks which had no bearing whatsoever on the subject in hand informed Nancy of Mrs. Candy's promised holiday enriching the recital by such flowers of the good lady's conversation as he was able to recall I'm glad the dear old soul is going away said Nancy when he had finished she'll thoroughly enjoy dosing the twins and weeding the grave and it'll be a splendid occasion for you to oh I forgot I beg your pardon forgot what my darling a promise I once made to you that is the worst of making promises you never can remember them and how can you keep them if you have forgotten their existence you mean to say you forget promises oh Nancy forget them I should just think I do I once promised father never to read a certain book but as I've forgotten the name of the book how on earth can I keep my promise and I once promised nor not to flirt with a particular man but as I've completely forgotten who it was how can I keep that promise either and then you are always making me promise not to repeat things which is very absurd because promising you that I won't tell things doesn't mean that I shan't tell them it only means that I shall make the people I tell them to promise not to tell you that I've told Laurence laugh Nancy you really are an incorrigible I can't help that and you've made me promise scores and scores of things besides always to be something and never to be something else and always to think this and never to think that and hundreds of other things which for the life of me I can't remember you naughty unkind child well that's the truth so if I break my promises to you don't be touchy and think it was rudeness on my part if I remember them I'll keep them fast enough but I'm sure not to so there's an end of it when Laurence Baxendale arrived at popular farm having parted with Nancy at the iron gate which barred the field path that way aside he explained to his mother as briefly as he could the arrangement he had made with Mrs. Candy he hated having to mention the subject to Lady Alicia and he hated himself for hating it but it never occurred to him to regret having spoken of the matter to Nancy Burton end of chapter 10 chapter 11 of fuel of fire this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org fuel of fire by Ellen Thorny Croft Fowler chapter 11 the burning of Baxendale higher the flames rose higher and higher when Baxendale Hall was made fuel of fire two days after the candies had started on their holiday the weather broke up to that time the middle of August it had been a wonderful summer one of those summers which stand out in men's memories as a type of all that a summer ought to be but suddenly the face of the heavens changed the rain fell and then there blew a tremendous gale for several years past there had not been such a storm in wind in Mercer it tore the tiles off the roofs and made merry with the slates and opened doors without knocking and broke the windows until Silverhampton presented the appearance of a city which had been besieged rather than of a comfortable manufacturing town in the country the wind behaved no better it tossed the big trees about tearing them up by their roots till it looked as if some giant hand was playing a monster game of spilikens in the woods and as the ground heaved and shook with the efforts of the tree roots to escape from their prison at the bidding of the storm fiend it seemed as if an earthquake were following in the wake of the wind as it was till summer the trees had on all their leads and that made them less able to bow before the gale and more liable to be overthrown by it right opposite the west front of Baxendale hall there stood a huge old elm tree which was known as the luck of the Baxendales because there was a tradition to the effect that whenever it fell ill luck would overtake the house of Baxendale but as it had cheerfully remained upright clapping its hands and tossing its huge arms about while poverty drove the Baxendales out of their home and left their habitation desolate their luck and it seemed to have parted company and the tradition was now held to be of no effect but the great gale accomplished what the poverty the Baxendales had failed to bring about it tore up the roots of the old elm tree and laid its proud head in the dust what do you think the old elm tree at the back of the hall has been blown down shouted Lawrence on the morning after the gale to Nancy whom by some strange accident he had come across in the lanes but the wind which though less violent than it had been was still inimical to conversation carried his words eastward into silver Hampton instead of to the little pink ear for which they were intended what shouted Nancy in response holding on her hat while the gale played havoc with her dress till she looked like a little blue flag I can't hear a word that you say in this awful wind Lawrence came there and repeated the piece of information and a still louder key this time it reached its destination the tree that is called the luck of the Baxendales asked Nancy Lawrence nodded it was the weather for signs and signals rather than for spoken words oh what a pity Nancy exclaimed I do hope it won't spoil your luck Lawrence smiles somewhat grimly it can't very well spoil what doesn't exist my dear and for it to fall now seems to be a little behind hand considering that we've been about as unlucky as we could be for the last 20 years it does seem the wrong way about gasp Nancy struggling against the wind like wagging a dog's tail to make him good temper don't you know come up to the hall and have a look at the tree Lawrence and treated when again the wind gave him the chance of being hurt all right Nancy was always what Anthony called a good plucked one I'll take care of you and see that no branches fall on your pretty head said Lawrence with as much tenderness in his voice as such a gale permitted it isn't a pretty head just now as it happens I put on an ugly hat on purpose so that the wind shall not spoil more beauty than is absolutely needful keep to the windward of the trees and as far away from them as possible was Lawrence's warning I dare not walk with amaryllis and the shade on such a day as this and the wind is so busy with the tangles of Niera's hair that there isn't one left for you to play with added Nancy it's a good thing you aren't made after the fashion of handles young woman who found that where air she walked trees crowded into a shade it's bad enough keeping clear of them when they are fixtures in this weather but if they took to running after you in crowds I really don't know what I should do Nancy laughed with as much breath as she could command at the minute I say darling you aren't frightened at crossing the park in such a fearful gale are you because if you are I'll take you home before I go inquired Lawrence after the next gust had subsided and the very wind itself was stopping to take breath Nancy pouted I believe you are tired of me and want to get rid of me do you well if you believe that you'll believe anything I do I believe that you've seen somebody you like better than me and that another woman's eyes have put my nose out of joint what a little goose you are you know that for me there never has been and never will be any woman in the world but you but are you sure you're not frightened of this awful storm Nancy looked up at him with fearless eyes good gracious no I couldn't be frightened at anything when I am with you that's the beauty of being in love it makes fear impossible and fear is such a hard thing where if you were with me I dare drive down Piccadilly in a victoria and merely smile when I felt a reckless handsome in my pocket and a blood curdling omnibus in my back hair and if you were there too I shouldn't mind going through a whole battle with nothing but a waterproof and an umbrella to keep the bullets off my sweetheart what a dear foolish little child you are and so these two foolish young people plowed their way in the teeth of the west legale right up to the hall and stood together by the ruins of the old elm tree and with Nancy at his side Lawrence felt as unafraid of ill luck and as ready to meet and overcome it as Nancy felt with regard to the congested traffic of London or the perils of war which showed that as yet he underrated the strength of those mysterious principalities against which men have to wrestle rather than against flesh and blood while Lawrence and Nancy were fighting their way up to the hall Mr. Arbuthnot called to see Rufus Webb and found that the disturbance of the elements had worked the fanatic interstate of semi insane enthusiasm it is a tremendous gale Arbuthnot remarked after the usual greetings and will do a lot of damage I'm afraid Rufus had a wrapped look upon his face a great strong wind rent the mountains he murmured but the lord was not in the wind and after the wind was an earthquake but the lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake of fire but the lord was not in the fire and after the fire a still small voice Michael being a man of much tag fell in with web's mood and what did the still small voice say did it encourage the prophet to shut himself out from the sympathy and communion with his fellows no it asked what do is thou here Elijah a question which that same small voice is asking every one of us and waiting for our answer well god knows that I by all as I am can still say truthfully with Elijah I've been very jealous for the lord god of hosts that at least I can answer I know you can and do you think that that answer will satisfy god now any more than it satisfied him in Elijah's time not yet he will send you away from the mountains as he sent his prophet of old back through the wilderness of Damascus to the anointing of earthly rulers and the choosing of human friends you mean that I shut myself up too much from my kind I do I know that when once one has stood upon the mountain of transfiguration the molehills of the valley seem contemptably small and petty in comparison nevertheless it is among the molehills of the valley that our daily tasks lie and I do not believe that it is only in order to make us despise and chafe against these molehills that we are allowed to stand upon the mountaintop now and again I believe that it is rather in order that we may thereby learn that the molehills are but molehills after all and are but for a moment while the mountains stand fast forever that rufus shook his head I'm not upon the mountaintops I'm down in the deep waters so we all are now and then but the path of duty lies no more permanently through the deep waters than upon the mountaintops just then a sudden gust of wind seemed as if it were going to blow at the cottage down what a gale it is exclaimed the vicar I don't remember such a wind as this since I first came to Mercia and after the wind an earthquake repeated rufus with the wrapped look again up on his face well there does actually seem to be an earthquake going on if you see how the ground is shaking and heaving with the upheaval of the trees that is the worst of elms their roots lie so near the surface and are so widespread that they fall sooner than any other tree and in their fall do more damage Mr. Abath not tried to bring the soothsayer back into everyday life and after the earthquake of fire continued rufus in a weird monotonous voice of one who is speaking with strange tongues well I only hope there won't be a fire anywhere for this wind would fan it into an uncontrollable flame in no time if once the fire were lighted there would be no putting it out in such a gale as this and after the fire a still small voice it was not until the fire had done its worst that the still small voice was heard mark that it is not until our possessions have been destroyed and our souls purged so as by fire that the still small voice speaks to us and speaking can induce men to listen to it as rufus webs up with this mystic look upon his face the vicar was able to notice how sadly lined with care and want that hagrid vase was in spite of all his eccentricity rufus was still a gentleman and it was very difficult for one gentleman to intimate to another that the former does not believe the latter has enough to eat nevertheless that was the idea which struck mr. abath not and which filled his warm heart with distress distress all the more poignant because he saw no way of setting things right there was something about rufus web some trace of inborn gentleness and former culture which forbade anyone to take the shadow of a liberty with him be his behavior and his conversation never so insane knowing that a religious train of thought was up so quickly to degenerate into frenzy in the mind of the ex-michael michael endeavour to turn the talk into less exciting channels by the way have you heard that this wind has brought down the huge elm tree that stood on the other side of bachsen dale hall he had touched a responsive cord web turned to him at once with awakened interest the great elm tree which was named the luck of the bachsen dale's do you mean yes it must have stood there for two or three hundred years and i'm glad glad that it has fallen and that ill luck will hands forward dog the footsteps of laurence bachsen dale is a well for that young man to find rest in the house of his father's and to marry the woman of his choice and to have children at his desire and to leave the rest of his substance to his babes nay better for him that his house shall be left unto him desolate and that sorrow and poverty shall drive him to the one refuge where true help is to be found for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul so web rambled on and about not having in vain tried to reduce the hermit to a more reasonable state of mind took his leave but as he went away his heart was heavy within him because of that actual want which he felt sure was undermining the health of rufus and yet which no one dare take the liberty of recognizing and relieving during all the day the gale continued and at sunset the wind fell and was succeeded by a great calm the next morning dawn beautifully fine and hot but with the stillness which seemed almost oppressive after the boisterous weather of the last few days there was not a cloud to be seen and although those Jeremiah's among men who cannot feel warm without prophesying thunder or cold without foretelling snow did predict a thunderstorm no thunder came for the simple reason that the sky was so clear there was nowhere for it to come from it was one of those days when even to the hail and hearty the grasshopper becomes for the time being a burden there was no life in the air and effort seemed unendurable if not impossible even the wings of love himself could not fly far afield in such an atmosphere so in the afternoon Florence and Nancy betook themselves to those untrodden ways which lay nearest to wayside and poplar farm in which required the minimum of locomotion entertaining their two it's too hot to walk up to the hall this afternoon Nancy said sinking down on a fallen tree which lay by the roadside Arthur and Ambrose have gone as they wish to investigate the fall of the tree more minutely and it never seems too hot for boys to do things but it is too hot for us much too hot sweetheart besides there is no need to go I was up there before breakfast this morning to see if the gale had done any more damage and I was up there just after breakfast to see if I could find a missing light in the queen across the for this week oh were you what a pity you didn't tell me you were going darling and we'd have gone together it didn't occur to me till this morning that I might find that particular light in a particular book I did look out for you at the crossroads but as you were nowhere in sight I went on by myself it was too hot to go far insert to anybody or anything the finding of which did not involve a prize you horrid child to think more of an acrostic prize than of me did you succeed in finding your missing light for you certainly didn't deserve to of course I did I always get everything and deserve nothing it is a much more satisfactory plan than getting nothing and deserving everything as you do but the whole place is rather in a mess after the gale isn't it there are a few guitars lying about but no more trees are down near to the house and no windows are broken although the glass roof of one of the green houses was smashed in but that won't matter there were no plans of much value in that particular greenhouse and those that were there I have moved into a potting shed until candy's return do you mean to say you remove them with your own hands in this heat oh excellent young man laurence laughed of course I did I'm not made of sugar or salt my dear or any such melting material but I couldn't have carried pots about when I reached back sundale this morning it was as much as I could do to walk so far in such a day as this said Nancy poor little thing did it feel the heat whispered laurence kissing her yes it did and what is more the heat takes its fringe out of curl which annoys it very much and spoils its good looks replied Nancy submitting to the embrace nothing of the kind I won't allow you or anybody else to find fault with the fringe or the good looks of my young woman so please remember that miss Burton after a few minutes silence laurence remarked you are very quiet this afternoon sweetheart is anything worrying you oh dear no things never do worry me but it is too hot to be brilliant or even to be affectionate she added with a lamp edging away from her lover you unkind child to throw back a nice young man's affection in his teeth when according to Shakespeare you ought to be down on your knees thanking heaven fasting for my devotion you aren't half grateful enough for having such a well set up young man all round as mrs candy would say yes I am but it doesn't seem to me exactly the weather for rehearsing the Huguenots every three minutes as a tableau vivant then let's change it for the black bronze wicker it would suit me every bit as well suggested laurence Nancy looked at him through her long eyelashes you really are very nice she said when one doesn't consider you too closely what a rude little girl it would serve you right if I kept you at a distance and talk to you about the political situation and the decay of poetry and things of that kind I shouldn't mind it half as much as you would so if I am such a fool as to amputate my own nose in order to spite your pretty little face you won't prevent me certainly not besides I'm jealous of your nose it is a much better shape than mine said Nancy stroking her own offending feature thoughtfully and I really don't see what you have done to deserve a better nose than I I haven't I really haven't my conscience is quite clear on that score then why is your nose so superior to mine I'll give it up ask another your eyes aren't quite as nice though said Nancy more cheerfully nothing like in as you've two superior eyes and I've only one superior nose you're twice as well off as I am after all two to one is a good working majority don't you know and so these two young people went on talking nonsense little dreaming how short loop such nonsense was doomed to be at sunset that evening the wind rose again and for the whole of the night the west legale was more boisterous than ever the wind had evidently been scotched not killed and it now awoke as a giant refreshed with wine and rushed to and fro across the heavens like some devastating theme at about three o'clock in the morning Lawrence was awakened by the violence of the gale and roused himself sufficiently to look out of his window in order to see whether that ghastly game of spilligans was again going on in backs and their woods he was struck by perceiving a rosy light opposite his window which at first sight he must took for the first flush of dawn but as he grew more wide awake he realized that the sun does not rise in the west and that therefore there must be some other reason for this phenomenon and by the time he was thoroughly awake the awful truth dawned upon his drowsy brain that backs and dale hall was in flames even while he stood spellbound at the first horror of the sight tongues of flame darted up into the summer sky and clouds of smoke rose up and blotted out the stars which hung low over the horizon line yes backs and dale hall was on five and the ancient prophecy had once more come true there was no doubt of it for a second which seemed like an eternity Lawrence stood still feeling as we all feel under the first shock of some great calamity that the terrible thing which was now happening had been happening ever since the foundation of the world there seemed no prehistoric time when backs and dale hall had not been on fire no half forgotten date when the third part of the ancient doom was as yet unfulfilled then with a great effort he roused himself and awakened his household and hastily dressing he made his way as well as he could in the teeth of such a wind up to the scene of the disaster fathered by such servants and laborers as he had been able to awaken on the road but it was too late in such a gale as this the fire ran on a pace and no human agency could extinguish it after it has once taken a hold the old library with its reams of dried up parchment and paper acted as fuel to the flames and although Lawrence and his followers did all in their power to extinguish it their efforts were utterly futile the fire however had only touched the first in effort stories the ground floor was still intact so as the news of the disaster spread wider and more help came the men succeeded in saving the downstairs rooms and their contents which contents were after all nothing save ordinary furniture but when the day broke and the full extent of the catastrophe was revealed it was found that the upper part of bachsendale hall including the fine old pictures and the still finer old library was reduced to a heap of ashes end of chapter 11 chapter 12 of fuel of fire this is a lever vox recording all lever vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit lever vox.org fuel of fire by ellen thorny crossfowler chapter 12 suspicion to give a dog an unrespected name as hanging seems to be about the same the burning of bachsendale hall caused a great sensation not only in marsher but throughout all england in the first place people were genuinely sorry that a house containing such fine pictures and so magnificent the library should be destroyed it was a loss to the whole country as well as to the possessor and in the second place they were devoured by curiosity as to who was the culprit who had actually set the hall on fire somebody must have done it on that point all were agreed but there was much discussion and for many a long day as to who that somebody could be some said one some said another and none was weary of going over the question again and again sifting and resifting the evidence the temptation to transfigure molehills into mountains and to discover mare's nests to find something new to talk about and to pluck the moat out of a brother's eye in short to relieve the tedium of life in a manner which would not have found favor in the eyes of the first bishop of jerusalem proved too much for the british public they discussed the matter until they gradually lost their power of discrimination between what actually and what they supposed had happened they reveled in guesses as to whether a or b could possibly have set fire to the hall until they believed a or b really had done so and they hope that c or d had not been guilty of the crime until c and d stood red-handed in their minds eyes as for the curse it was meat and drink to them and they tried to find out what was thrice as great as king or state with an energy which was worthy of a weightier problem and all this be it noted not from any enmity against the present owner of bachsendale hall nor from any wish to work him harm but merely from a passionate thirst for excitement and an unthinking intention to slake that thirst at all costs of course if the hall had not been insured or had only been insured for a modest sum none of this gossip would have arisen the catastrophe would have been a nine days wonder and that would have been the end of it but a hundred thousand pounds was too big a sum to be lightly passed over and it also provided in the minds of the really well meaning though actually mischief making public a motive why Lawrence bachsendale should have burned down the house of his fathers and placed himself in danger of the law for human nature last is such that in all courts of justice a motive for a crime on behalf of a certain person is strong evidence in favor of that particular persons having committed that particular crime wherefor we daily pray lead us not into temptation when the news of the disaster was brought to the Burton's breakfast table by excited menials the following morning Nancy's heart stood still for a second and then began to beat like a sledge hammer she could hardly speak so strong was the thrill that ran through her that thrill half of triumph and half of fear which suddenly runs through all of us when suddenly we find our unworthy wishes granted our unholy intentions fulfilled she had made up her mind that bachsendale halls should be burned down so that she should attain her heart's desire and marry Lawrence that the old curse she come to pass was the thing she had longed for it did not occur to her that though offenses must come woe to those by whom they come at present she only thought what a delightful world it was after all and how lucky she was to have won the love of such a man as Lawrence bachsendale she and Nora walked up to the hall immediately after breakfast to see what damage had actually been wrought accompanied by their two brothers who regarded the burning the bachsendale as a treat especially prepared for their greater enjoyment of the summer holidays the rooms on the ground floor were still standing and though their contents have been sadly spoiled by the water which had been thrown upon them they were not destroyed but the ground floor was all that was left of bachsendale hall and even these rooms had been robbed of their ceilings and stood open to the ravages of wind and weather the fire had evidently begun in the library and ascended devouring everything that barred its upward course the old books and manuscripts had been as tinder to the flame and the pictures had not been much better than the wind being so high when once the flames had a start they literally traveled as wildfire there was no possibility of quenching them and so in a few hours the upper part of the fine old house had completely vanished Mr. Bachsendale was on the scene of the ruins when Nancy and Nora and the boys arrived there and Nancy was shocked to perceive how he had changed in that one night he looked in years older than when she parted from him the preceding afternoon his face was white and set and there was a stern look about his mouth which she had never seen before it seemed strange she thought that what has rejoiced her so had turned Lawrence into an old man she had expected him to be so glad that he could marry her that all regret at the loss of his home would be swallowed up instead of which he seemed so preoccupied that he had hardly time to notice her at all the Burton girls did not stay long on the scene of the ruins they saw that Lawrence was really too busy to attend to them so when they had gazed their fill on the wreck they turned away leaving their small brothers to that fuller enjoyment of the disaster which only the immature male mind could adequately appreciate for a short time Nancy felt rather depressed by Lawrence's apparent indifference but her natural high spirit soon reasserted themselves and comforted her with assurances of how happy she and he were going to be in the good time coming and during the rest of that day and for several days afterward she built most delightful castles in the air for the occupation of herself and him she did not see him again for nearly a week but she easily accounted for this since his time was naturally occupied with saving what he could out of the wreckage of his house and getting the place into order again the fire had not touched any of the stables or outhouses it was only the hall itself that had suffered what Lawrence himself was enduring at that time Nancy had not the ghost of an idea it would have been impossible for her to understand even if she had been told how he was simultaneously trying to harden his heart against her and longing to take her into his arms how he was making up his mind to tell her that henceforward everything must be at an end between them and at the same moment deciding that come what might he would marry her on the income of the insurance money and defy the world and whatever the world might choose to say Nancy was one of those natures to whom conflict is an unknown quantity St. Paul's testimony to the flesh lusting against the spirit was to her as the original Greek in which it was written she might succumb to a temptation on Tuesday which she had safely resisted on Monday that was quite possible but she would never feel the full power of the temptation and the passionate desire to resist it at one and the same time she might change her government with startling rapidity but as long as the government was in power it was unanimous like the rest of us she presumably had her guardian angel and her tempting demon in attendance to guide her feet respectively in the narrow way that leads upward to life and the broad path that goes downward to destruction but in Nancy's case these two opposing influences made a sort of spiritual box and cocks arrangement and were never upon the ground at the same time therefore she was spared the wear and tear of conflict though not the agony of remorse people are all wondering whether Bax and Dale burned down the hall himself for the sake of the insurance money remarked Anthony to his uncle one evening Nancy started up in amazement then I'm certain he did not it's a horrid lie Lawrence is the last man to do that sort of a thing that her lover himself should ever be suspected of the crime was a possibility that had never occurred to her but Anthony took no notice of her indignation what do you think uncle Richard he asked Mr Burton laid down his newspaper and shook his head it is a queer business I don't know what to think Nancy again rushed in surely you don't think that Lawrence did it gently my child gently her father replied I say I don't know what to think I did not give any opinion on the matter the world in general seems coming to this conclusion said Anthony I've heard it from no end of people today that is just like people exclaim Nancy nasty things no expostulated Mr Burton judicially I do not think one can altogether blame the public for suspecting Mr Bax and Dale when you remember how much he had to gain by the accident and also when you consider that the public do not know the man as we know him I'm bound to say that if I had not met Bax and Dale personally if I knew nothing in his favor or against him I should need to be convinced of his innocence you think things look rather black against him said Anthony yes my boy I'm sorry to say that I do mind you I don't say that I think Bax and Dale burned down his own house I only say that I'm not surprised at the world in general suspecting that he did Nancy looked frightened but why father first because it was to his interest to do so not only does he come into a large sum of money through the burning down of the hall but he also is relieved from paying a yearly tax which there is no doubt was often a great strain upon his slender resources in short the accident turns Bax and Dale from a poor man into a comparatively rich one Anthony nodded yes that's true enough and there is no doubt that this is a consummation devoutly wished by others than our friend Bax and Dale so much for the motive of the crime continued Mr Burton now let us look at the evidence pair takers of the hall were sent away on a holiday by Bax and Dale and no one has put there in their place thus the house is quite uninhabited further the fire obviously started upon the first floor and traveled upward the ground floor is untouched this indubitably proves that the fire began from the inside and also from the upper story for no one could have set it on fire from the outside unless they had begun from the ground the key of the outer door and mark you the key of the upstairs library were in Lawrence Bax and Dale's possession Mrs. Candy having given up all the keys into his hands before she left home the above facts are public property and can you blame the public from arriving at an obvious conclusion it does look rather queer Anthony allowed and you think it impossible for the fire to have been lighted from without utterly impossible I should say all the windows were carefully fastened and there were no ladders anywhere about therefore if the house was fired from outside it must have been fired from the ground and not from upstairs Nancy looked very angry it is rank lunacy to imagine for a moment that Lawrence was capable of doing such a thing she said her father took no notice of her interruption Bax and Dale admits he went all over the house on the very morning before it was burned to see whether any windows have been broken by the gale in that case had the fire already been smoldering he must have discovered it besides it couldn't very well have been smoldering in the summer at his Anthony because there hadn't been any fire in the place for months there had not Bax and Dale admits that no fire except the one in the kitchen for the candies to cook by had been lighted for many weeks and that particular fire could not have been responsible for the mischief as the kitchens are practically untouched and of course the candies hadn't been cooking there for over a week exactly had they left any lighted coals behind them the place would have been burned down a week or more yes Mr Burton looked very serious I'm bound to say the case seems very black against Bax and Dale and I'm afraid he will have a lot of trouble with the insurance people about it they won't be very likely to pay up until things are made to look a little less suspicious Nancy's face grew very white do you mean that he won't get the hundred thousand pounds her heart seemed to stand still surely this thing had not all been done for nothing I should doubt it replied Mr Burton the whole business has a very suspicious flavor even putting upon it the most favorable construction Bax and Dale has been extremely unlucky for everything even to the smallest trifle bears witness against him where did you get hold of all these details Anthony asked from Bax and Dale himself at the club he was talking to half a dozen men including myself and told us all that I told you about the incidents of the fire he made no secret of the facts of the case there was a long silence Mr Burton drew his brows together and went over the evidence again in his own mind he hated to think evil of his neighbor but the case against Lawrence Bax and Dale certainly stood out in somewhat glaring colors Anthony drummed with his fingers upon the table and thought what an unlucky dog Bax and Dale was and how sorry he felt for him and Nancy sat still her air castle tumbling about her ears and wished that she had never been born or else that Bax and Dale Hall had never been burned she did not mind much which end of chapter 12