The Spoils of Poynton

by Henry James

  She felt sick; she sank upon a seat, staring up at him. "Do you mean that great house is lost?"

  "It was near it, I was told, an hour ago—the fury of the flames had got such a start. I was there myself at six, the very first I heard of it. They were fighting it then, but you couldn't quite say they had got it down."

  Fleda jerked herself up. "Were they saving the things?"

  "That's just where it was, miss—to get at the blessed things. And the want of right help—it maddened me to stand and see 'em muff it. This ain't a place, like, for anything organized. They don't come up to a reel emergency."

  She passed out of the door that opened toward the village and met a great acrid gust. She heard a far-off windy roar which, in her dismay, she took for that of flames a mile away, and which, the first instant, acted upon her as a wild solicitation. "I must go there." She had scarcely spoken before the same omen had changed into an appalling check.

  Her vivid friend, moreover, had got before her; he clearly suffered from the nature of the control he had to exercise. "Don't do that, miss—you won't care for it at all." Then as she waveringly stood her ground, "It's not a place for a young lady, nor, if you'll believe me, a sight for them as are in any way affected."

  Fleda by this time knew in what way she was affected: she became limp and weak again; she felt herself give everything up. Mixed with the horror, with the kindness of the station-master, with the smell of cinders and the riot of sound, was the raw bitterness of a hope that she might never again in life have to give up so much at such short notice. She heard herself repeat mechanically, yet as if asking it for the first time: "Poynton's gone?"

  The man hesitated. "What can you call it, miss, if it ain't really saved?"

  A minute later she had returned with him to the waiting-room, where, in the thick swim of things, she saw something like the disk of a clock. "Is there an up-train?" she asked.

  "In seven minutes."

  She came out on the platform: everywhere she met the smoke. She covered her face with her hands. "I'll go back."

  Henry James's Books.

  A PASSIONATE PILGRIM, AND OTHER TALES.

  TRANSATLANTIC SKETCHES.

  RODERICK HUDSON. A Novel.

  THE AMERICAN. A Novel.

  THE EUROPEANS. A Novel.

  CONFIDENCE. A Novel.

  THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

  THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO. Including also Pandora; Georgina's Reasons; The Path of Duty; Four Meetings.

  THE SIEGE OF LONDON. Including also The Pension Beaurepas; The Point of View.

  TALES OF THREE CITIES. Including The Impressions of a Cousin; Lady Barberina; A New England Winter.

  A LITTLE TOUR IN FRANCE.

  PORTRAITS OF PLACES.

  DAISY MILLER. A Comedy.

  THE TRAGIC MUSE. 2 vols.

  WATCH AND WARD. A Novel.

  THE SPOILS OF POYNTON. A Novel.

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