by Guy McCrone
What was that man doing? Going to jump into the stretched canvas the soldiers were holding? Now there was a string of them, jumping one after the other, like sheep through a gap. Why couldn’t the fools wait? They would be killed if they jumped down, one on top of the other! No wonder firemen were shouting at them to stop! That was right! Play the hose on them and stop them!
Was that woman crazy—out of her senses? Was she actually going to hurl her child down without waiting for the men to spread the cloth for it? Oh—! A groan had gone up from the crowd in front. Good thing she could not see! Even in this black exaltation she could not have borne it.
No, she, Phœbe, had not had her child. But if she had, she would never have pitched it from a window! She would have pitched herself first! And that child she had seen in the gardens? What of it?
But what—? Had the crazed mother thrown herself from the window after her child? But she was quite right. She wouldn’t mind losing it now.
Phœbe did not know that she was shuddering; that her eyes were mad and staring.
These people should stop gesticulating and howling at the windows! It wouldn’t do them any good! The firemen were getting people from the building as fast as they could. Those at the windows might still have a chance. Though how the heat didn’t finish them off, she couldn’t understand. Even out here in front it was hot!
But the howling at the windows was stopping. The white faces were disappearing—falling away—and in their place red, cruel squares of fire! The fire must be coming to the front now. Driven by the heat, policemen, soldiers, firemen, crowd were falling back.
Why didn’t these people about her stop this senseless moaning? This senseless wringing of the hands? Queer to think she had been in there with Henry last night! What if they—? But she would have kept her head and done something. Or perhaps not. And her suffering would be finished and done with.
But she must move from here. The heat was unbearable.
Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion. An eruption of flames to the sky. Now a crash. Myriad sparks rose with them. A man shouted that the gasometer which fed the stage had exploded and fallen, taking the roof of the theatre with it. People stumbled back in terror. Phœbe with them.
V
Why didn’t she leave all this? Why didn’t she go home? Hadn’t she had enough?
But now, for the first time, having reached the edge of the crowd again, she saw the Sanitary corps at work. Laying down the bodies they had brought out. Piling them on carts that would take their shocking loads to the General Hospital to await identification. Some of the bodies were burnt past recognition. Others—by far the most—untouched by the flames, were dead of gas-poisoning or suffocation from the smoke.
Why was she staring at them? What was she seeking? These horrid shapes were no concern of hers.
A young woman was sobbing beside her—searching among the dead as the soldiers set them down. Phœbe turned to look at her. She saw she was half-dressed; that her teeth were chattering with cold. But why was her colour so absurdly bright? Phœbe looked more closely. Her face was painted. Of course; she must be one of the singers.
“You’ll get pneumonia,” Phœbe said sharply.
The girl continued to sob. Her brother and sister had been in the fourth gallery.
“You should go home. If they’re safe, they’re safe. And if not, you can’t help by standing here getting your death of cold. Look. Take this and put it on. My dress is thick.” Phœbe took off her fur jacket and forced the girl to wear it.
The girl stopped sobbing. “A foreigner?”
“Yes.” What could it possibly matter to the girl what she was?
Suddenly a new, quivering urgency was shaking Phœbe. “You’re one of the singers, aren’t you?”
“In the chorus.”
“Are you all safe?”
“Most of us. But one or two—”
“Did you know Josephine Klem?—Pepi Klem?”
The girl looked up without at once replying. The paint upon her face did not conceal her strange expression. “Did the gracious lady know Pepi Klem?”
“Is Pepi Klem safe, Fräulein?”
The girl looked away in distress. Why did this foreign woman speak so sharply. What did the tone of her voice mean? Why was her look so crazed?
“Tell me if you know anything of Pepi Klem.”
The girl raised a hand and pointed. “They brought her out, just before the explosion. I was looking for my brother and sister. She’s lying over there.”
Phœbe turned and ran. Now she knew why she had come! She would see the body of this woman before they carted it away. The body of this harlot who had taken Henry from her. She stumbled forward, her eyes staring, her lips parted.
Yes. Here was another cart. And here the bodies waiting to be loaded.
“Get out of the way, please! Haven’t you been told already to keep back?”
Firemen, soldiers, men of the Sanitary Corps were working, perspiring, smoke-black and grim. And hardened, it would seem, to the awful bundles they must carry.
Phœbe stopped with a cry, as though some hand had struck her! Pepi Klem was lying at her feet!
She stepped backwards. Her eyes looked stupidly about her. The night spun round. The street—the crowd—the sparks—the roaring, burning building.
Were her senses slipping? Was she going to faint? What was happening?
No. She was still here—still in this world of terror. And the woman she detested was lying at her feet.
Detested?
She looked again at Pepi Klem. In the brilliant fire-light she saw that Pepi’s eyes were closed as though in sleep, that Pepi, too, was painted. She had not been put down roughly; she lay easily—round-faced and artificial—pert and childish. A beauty spot was set high up on her cheek. Her thin wrap had fallen back, exposing her neck, circled by a ribbon of velvet. Her full bosom was pushed high by the lacing of her corsets.
Pepi Klem. Or a little rococo archduchess peacefully asleep among the laurels of Schönbrunn?
Phœbe stood over her, shaken and appalled. Appalled that she herself had had it in her to nurse so great a hatred against this silly, pretty child! And now Pepi Klem was dead! She could never trouble her any more!
Shame took hold of Phœbe—shame and a storm of weeping. This wilful girl who had so many times despised the tears of others stood now, heedless of the tragic rabble, crying out her heart, in abandonment and wild hysteria.
How long she stood thus, Phœbe did not know. But now a hand was laid upon her shoulder. “This body must go to the General Hospital. You can identify it there.”
The men had gone with Pepi. Phœbe pushed herself free of the crowd, hoping to find some kind of cab to take her home. Why should she wait here any longer in this place of burning death?
Had she not found the release she had been seeking?
VI
A little later Phœbe jumped from a Komfortable.
No, Herr Hayburn was not at home, the house-porter told her. Yes, he had been to the fire, but he had come back some time ago and gone away again. He had asked where the gracious lady was, and left the key for her. She had run out, leaving it on her dressing-table. But wasn’t the gracious lady very cold? Hadn’t she gone out in her fur jacket?
Phœbe said she must get some money to pay the driver, and went upstairs. In the sitting-room she struck a match, lit the gas and looked about her. The evening meal had not been touched.
A shiver ran through her. Yes, she was cold, she supposed, and hungry. And certainly she was very tired.
But what must she do now? Where was Henry? She could not stay here, quiet and alone. The excitement of the night, the tumult in her senses, would not allow it, tiredness or no. She must find her husband. But where? If only her throbbing head would let her think! She could think of nothing but the raging fire and the face of Pepi Klem.
Pepi Klem. Now she knew.
Impatiently, Phœbe tore off a piece of dry bread and stuff
ed it into her mouth. She poured herself a glass of wine and took it with her to her bedroom to drink while she found warm clothes. In a few moments she was downstairs, placating the Komfortable driver, who was grumbling at being kept from his trade on such a profitable night.
But why was this foreign woman jumping into his Komfortable again? Was she going back to the fire?
“To the Quellengasse, please.”
“The Quellengasse in the Favoriten?” Why should he drag out to a suburb, when trade was so brisk in town? He shrugged his regrets. “Impossible.”
“Double fare.”
The man hesitated, for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Not tonight. The gracious lady must see that my horse—”
“Treble fare.”
The man slammed the door and jumped up.
The familiar staircase in the Quellengasse was alight tonight, as was, indeed, every staircase in Vienna. Women with whom she had often passed the time of day were hanging, chattering and anxious, at the entrance. They ran forward.
“Is that the little Klem? Oh—the gracious lady!”
They fell back disappointed.
Phœbe jumped out. “Can you tell me if Herr Hayburn is here?”
They looked at each other doubtfully, then one of them, seeming to decide that on such a night nothing should be concealed, said, “Yes.”
Phœbe paid the driver and turned back to them. “Are the Herr and Frau Klem upstairs?”
They chattered round her like tragic magpies.
The gracious lady could not know, of course!
The Klems were in the theatre tonight!
To see Pepi!
They were going to the fourth gallery!
No one was saved from the fourth gallery, except one or two who jumped!
They had gone early, and would be trapped near the front!
The fourth gallery had crashed some time after nine o’clock! Where were they, if they were safe? Frau Klem would certainly have come back to the child.
But Pepi? Why hadn’t Pepi come? All the singers and stage-hands had escaped, they had heard.
Phœbe looked at them blankly. She would not waste time giving the news now.
The Klems’ door was opened by a woman with a child of her own in her arms. Again the quick look of hope, followed by disappointment.
“Where is Herr Hayburn?”
The woman, who knew Phœbe by sight, tried to look bewildered. But her distress allowed her to dissemble no better than the women downstairs.
“Please. Where is he?”
“In there.”
VII
He was sitting in a chair, his back to her, bending forward, as once before she had seen him bending forward in her brother David’s room. This time he held a bundle in his arms.
She was afraid, for the child’s sake, to startle him. She crossed the room and stood, looking down upon them. Lame ducks.
He did not raise his head. He thought it was the woman she had just seen.
“Henry!”
He looked up quickly. But her voice held tones he had not heard for many months.
“Phœbe!”
“My love!” She went to him, pushed back his hair and kissed his brow.
Now she stood beside him, gripping his shoulder to steady herself. But she must tell him somehow.
“Henry, I saw the baby’s mother tonight.”
He did not answer at once.
As she waited, she saw from a window that no one had bothered to shutter, how the sky, far away to the left, was alight with evil smouldering red. She felt him move uneasily.
“When? If she’s safe, then why—”
“She isn’t safe, Henry. The poor child won’t see her baby any more.”
“Dead?”
“Dead.”
She took her hand from his shoulder and moved towards the window.
He looked up once again. “But what am I to do? The child’s grandmother must have been killed, too!”
She turned.
“Henry!” Her tone was accusing.
He looked away again, distraught and shiftless.
But Phœbe had dropped on her knees in front of him and was taking the child into her arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
ON Saturday, December 24th, 1881, the family, being Scotch, held their Christmas dinners.
Mrs. Robert Dermott’s, given in her house in Hamilton Drive, was truly astonishing. And the most astonishing thing about it was that the chief guests should be Sir Charles and Lady Ruanthorpe, who were, astonishingly, staying with her.
The news that this formidable couple had accepted Mrs. Dermott’s invitation, and were coming to Glasgow, had shaken Bel a little. Would she, too, now be expected to invite them? Bel was far from unenterprising, but the thought of having the strong-minded baronet and his lady to stay at Grosvenor Terrace alarmed her. Their daughter, Margaret, had, at first, been bad enough. In the secret places of her heart, Bel found comfort in the thought that Sir Charles was old, delicate and might soon—although she dare not admit this hope even to herself—be dead. Besides, she was receiving him, along with the others, in Grosvenor Terrace tonight after dinner. Perhaps that could be counted as gesture enough.
Now, in the presence of her guests, Mrs. Dermott’s ample hospitality, quite unlike Bel’s, was in no way clouded by foolish fears or murderous hopes. Indeed, she regarded having induced her new friends, the Ruanthorpes, to leave Ayrshire for the Christmas weekend as a triumph of friendly persuasion.
She looked down her lavish dinner-table, very much as she was used to looking down her committee tables, beaming goodwill and practical, strong-minded encouragement; conveying somehow to her incongruous guests that she expected them all to enjoy themselves, get on with each other, and see life—for the time being at least—from the same angle as herself.
And the party was incongruous. In addition to Sir Charles and Lady Ruanthorpe, all the four Butters were there; David and Grace, of course; Mungo and Margaret; and, to make even numbers, Stephen Hayburn. But Mrs. Dermott’s firm gentility was holding everything together splendidly.
Sophia’s tongue, halted a little by the presence of the laird and his lady, and also by the fact that she was eating the dinner of her life, was really not too hard to keep in check. The Davids, the Mungos and Stephen Hayburn could be depended upon to take their share of rational conversation. William Butter could be counted upon to say nothing whatever. That was why she had put him between his own daughter and Grace. And Wil and Margy were nice young things, whose bright, adolescent intelligences counselled good behaviour when occasion demanded.
Old Sir Charles upon her right hand and firmly under her eye, an eye which saw that he should lack in nothing—found himself doing very well. The dinner was good, his hostess had got hold of some quite reasonable wine, and really everything was very jolly. All that was lacking was a pretty woman to look at. Mrs. David on his other side wasn’t bad; still, he had always found her a bit colourless. But they were driving across to Arthur Moorhouse’s for an hour or so after dinner—somebody’s sentimental idea that the whole family should be united tonight—and there he would see Mrs. Arthur herself, who was always damned handsome. And Phœbe Hayburn, he had heard, was just back from Vienna, in which city, unless she were more of a fool than he took her to be, she would have found a dressmaker with the wit effectively to underline her odd, but definite beauty.
“So there’s to be quite a number at Arthur Moorhouse’s tonight?” he said addressing no one in particular; attempting, a little consciously, perhaps, to be genial. Further down the table his daughter, Margaret, caught the tone of his voice. She knew it for the one her father used at servants’-hall and tenants’ entertainments.
Grace answered him. “Oh yes, Sir Charles. You’ll see Phœbe and Henry just home from Vienna. And Bel and Arthur themselves, of course. And Mary McNairn and her two boys. Her twin girls will be in bed, I expect. A great family reunion, really. Mary didn’t want to come. But Bel insist
ed. She couldn’t bear the idea of Mary being left alone. So like Bel! She’s the kindest person I know!”
Sir Charles grunted, not an ungenial grunt, then returned in silence to his turkey. He did not know about Mrs. Arthur’s kindness, but he knew she could look deuced smart.
“Mamma.” Margy’s fifteen-year-old modesty was addressing her mother further down the table.
“What is it, dear?”
“Can I see Aunt Phœbe’s baby, tonight?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
“I can at least go up and see him sleeping.” Margy gave herself up to an exquisite anticipation.
Craning her neck round an epergne, stuck with maidenhair fern and hothouse carnations from Aucheneame, Sophia caught her daughter’s eye, smiled upon her with foolish indulgence and shook her head.
Margy had become, as only adolescent girlhood could, maniacal about this Austrian child. Her life was made up of the moments she was with him, and the barren stretches of time which must elapse until she should be with him once again.
No one else took up the theme of this orphan baby, whose parents had been burned in that dreadful theatre fire. Innocently, Margy had laid a constraint upon the tongues of these doting parents and grandparents—the constraint of primitive jealousy.
Babies of Moorhouse blood came into the world red and unattractive. Good looks might come later. But for many months they continued ugly and uncomfortably like young birds. At three months the Austrian foundling was perfect. He had none of this Northern lack of finish. In spite of early upheavals, in spite of change in home, nurse and diet, the new Robert Hayburn was thriving like a mushroom. He bore now no noticeable resemblance to his father. His small limbs were rounding out to a dimpled perfection, that caused those aunts of his adoption, who came to see him bathed, to force such rapture as common politeness demanded from throats that were become dry with envy. When he was a little older, there would be nothing left for him but to sprout dove’s wings, shoulder a rope of roses, and help the amorini and the dolphins to draw the fluted barge-shell of the Venus Aphrodite across the painted waves.