Fighting the Flames

“He don’t like his papers or books touched; not even dusted! So you’ll be careful not to dust ’em, nor to touch ’em even so much as with your little finger, for he likes to find ’em in the mornin’ just as he left ’em at night.”

“Yes, Mrs Rose,” said Matty, who was evidently giving up her whole soul to the instruction that was being imparted.

“Now,” continued the housekeeper, “the arranging of this room will be your last piece of work at night. You’ll just come in, rake out the grate, carry off the ashes, lay the noo fire, put the matches handy on the chimney-piece, look round to see that all’s right, and then turn off the gas. The master is a early riser, and lights the fire his-self of a mornin’.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Matty, with a courtesy.

“Now, go and do it,” said Mrs Rose, “that I may see you understand it. Begin with the grate an’ the ashes.”

Matty, who was in truth an experienced maid-of-all-work, began with alacrity to discharge the duties of her new station. She carried off the ashes, and returned with the materials for next day’s fire in a shovel. Here she gave a slight indication of her so-called carelessness (awkwardness would have been more appropriate) by letting two or three pieces of stick and a bit of coal fall on the carpet, in her passage across the room.

“Be careful, Matty,” said Mrs Rose gently. “It’s all owin’ to haste. Take your time, an’ you won’t do such things.”

Matty apologised, picked up the materials, and laid the fire. Then she took her apron and approached the writing-table, evidently with the intention of taking the dust off the corners, but not by any means intending to touch the books or papers.

“Stop!” cried Mrs Rose sternly.

Matty stopped with a guilty look.

“Not a touch,” said Mrs Rose.

“Not even the edges, nor the legs?” inquired the pupil.

“Neither edges nor legs,” said the instructor.

“Sure it could do no harm.”

“Matty,” said Mrs Rose solemnly, “the great thing that your countrywomen have to learn is obedience.”

“Thank ’ee, ’m,” said Matty, who, being overawed by the housekeeper’s solemnity, felt confused, and was uncertain whether the reference to her countrywomen was complimentary or the reverse.

“Now,” continued Mrs Rose, “the matches.”

Matty placed the box of matches on the chimney-piece.

“Very well; now you’ve got to look round to see that all’s right.”

Matty looked round on the dark portraits that covered the walls (supposed to be ancestors), on the shelves of books, great and small, new and old (supposed to be read); on the vases, statuettes, chairs, tables, desks, curtains, papers, etcetera, etcetera, and, being utterly ignorant of what constituted right and what wrong in reference to such things, finally turned her eyes on Mrs Rose with an innocent smile.

“Don’t you see that the shutters are neither shut nor barred, Matty?”

She had not seen this, but she at once went and closed and barred them, in which operation she learned, first, that the bars refused to receive their respective “catches,” with unyielding obstinacy for some time; and, second, that they suddenly gave in without rhyme or reason and pinched her fingers severely.

“Now then, what next?” inquired Mrs Rose.

“Put out the gas,” suggested Matty.

“And leave yourself in the dark,” said the housekeeper, in a tone of playful irony.

“Ah! sure, didn’t I forgit the candle!”

In order to rectify this oversight, Matty laid the unlighted candle which she had brought with her to the room on the writing-table, and going to the chimney-piece, returned with the match-box.

“Be careful now, Matty,” said Mrs Rose earnestly. “There’s nothink I’ve such a fear of as fire. You can’t be too careful.”

This remark made Matty, who was of an anxious temperament, extremely nervous. She struck the match hesitatingly, and lighted the candle shakily. Of course it would not light (candles never do on such occasions), and a long red-hot end of burnt wood projected from the point of the match.

“Don’t let the burnt end drop into the wastepaper basket!” exclaimed Mrs Rose, in an unfortunate moment.

“Where?” exclaimed Matty with a start that sent the red-hot end into the centre of a mass of papers.

“There, just at your feet; don’t be so nervous, girl!” cried Mrs Rose.

Matty, in her anxiety not to drop the match, at once dropped it into the waste-paper basket, which was instantly alight. A stamp of the foot might have extinguished it, but this did not occur to either of the domestics. The housekeeper, who was a courageous woman, seized the basket in both hands and rushed with it to the fireplace, thereby fanning the flame into a blaze and endangering her dress and curls. She succeeded, however, in cramming the basket and its contents into the grate; then the two, with the aid of poker, tongs, and shovel, crushed and beat out the fire.

“There! I said you’d do it,” gasped Mrs Rose, as she flung herself, panting, into Mr Auberly’s easy-chair; “this comes of bein’ in a hurry.”

“I was always unfort’nit,” sighed Matty, still holding the shovel and keeping her eye on the grate, as if ready to make a furious attack on the smallest spark that should venture to show itself.

“Come, now, we’ll go to bed,” said Mrs Rose, rising, “but first look well round to see that all is safe.”

A thorough and most careful investigation was made of the basket, the grate, and the carpet surrounding the fireplace, but nothing beyond the smell of the burnt papers could be discovered, so the instructor and pupil put out the gas, shut the door, and retired to the servants’-hall, where Hopkins, the cook, the housemaid, and a small maid-of-all-work awaited their arrival—supper being already on the table.

Here Mrs Rose entertained the company with a graphic—not to say exaggerated—account of the “small fire” in the study, and wound up with an eloquent appeal to all to “beware of fire,” and an assurance that there was nothing on the face of the whole earth that she had a greater horror of.

Meanwhile the “little spark” among the papers—forgotten in the excitement of the succeeding blaze of the waste-paper basket—continued to do its slow but certain work. Having fallen on the cloth between two bundles, it smouldered until it reached a cotton pen-wiper, which received it rather greedily in its embrace. This pen-wiper lay in contact with some old letters which were dry and tindery in their nature, and, being piled closely together in a heap, afforded enlarged accommodation, for the “spark,” which in about half an hour became quite worthy of being termed a “swell.”

After that things went on like—“like a house on fire”—if we may venture to use that too often misapplied expression, in reference to the elegant mansion in Beverly Square on that raw November night.

Chapter Two

Another Little “Spark.”

Whistling is a fine, free, manly description of music, which costs little and expresses much.

In all its phases, whistling is an interesting subject of study; whether we regard its aptitude for expressing personal independence, recklessness, and jollity; its antiquity—having begun no doubt with Adam—or its modes of production; as, when created grandly by the whistling gale, or exasperatingly by the locomotive, or gushingly by the lark, or sweetly by the little birds that “warble in the flowering thorn.”

The peculiar phase of this time-honoured music to which we wish to draw the reader’s attention at present, is that which was exemplified one November night (the same November night of which mention has been made in the previous chapter) by a small boy who, in his progress through the streets of London, was arrested suddenly under the shadow of St. Paul’s by the bright glare and the tempting fare of a pastry-cook’s window.

Being hungry, the small boy, thrusting his cold hands deep into his empty trouser-pockets, turned his fat little face and round blue eyes full on the window, and stared at the tarts and pies like a famishing owl. Being poor—so poor that he possessed not the smallest coin of the realm—he stared in vain; and, being light of heart as well as stout of limb, he relieved his feelings by whistling at the food with inexpressible energy.

The air selected by the young musician was Jim Crow—a sable melody high in public favour at that time—the familiar strains of which he delivered with shrill and tuneful precision, which intensified as he continued to gaze, until they rose above the din of cabs, vans, and ’busses; above the house-tops, above the walls of the great cathedral, and finally awakened the echoes of its roof, which, coming out, from the crevices and cornices where they usually slept, went dancing upwards on the dome, and played around the golden cross that glimmered like a ghost in the dark wintry sky.

The music also awakened the interest of a tall policeman whose beat that night chanced to be St. Paul’s Churchyard. That sedate guardian of the night, observing that the small boy slightly impeded the thoroughfare, sauntered up to him, and just as he reached that point in the chorus where Mr Crow is supposed to wheel and turn himself about, spun him round and gave him a gentle rap on the head with his knuckles, at the same time advising him to move on.

“Oh!” exclaimed the small boy, looking up with an expression of deep concern on his countenance, as he backed off the pavement, “I hope I didn’t hurt you, bobby; I really didn’t mean to; but accidents will happen, you know, an’ if you won’t keep your knuckles out of a feller’s way, why—”

“Come,” muttered the policeman, “shut up your potato-trap for fear you catch cold. Your mother wants you; she’s got some pap ready for you.”