Chapter 24

“It’s in Stralsund,” cried the princess, hurrying out into the Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given.

“It’s in Lohm,” cried someone else.

Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than Stralsund? “It’s in Lohm,” cried someone with conviction; and Anna turned and began to run.

“Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?” asked Letty, breathlessly following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt about like a conscience-stricken dog.

“The fire-engine—there is one at the farm—it must go——”

They took each other’s hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle.

In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. “It is Lohm,” she said to Anna as she came up panting.

“Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at once——”

“Jawohl, jawohl,” said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her clattering wooden shoes. “My husband is not here,” she explained, “and the men are at supper.”

“Then they must leave their supper,” cried Anna. “Go, go, you girls, and tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——”

“Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is the Schloss.”

“Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every minute is priceless——”

“It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them.”

The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help from the anxious bell.

Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind friend?

“It is the Schloss,” said the stable-boy in answer to a question from Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at every step.

“Ach, I thought so,” she said, glancing at Anna.

Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a disapproving distance.

But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood.

“It is the stables,” he said to Anna.

“Herr von Lohm’s?”

“Yes. They cannot be saved.”

“And the house?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a windy night,” he said, “and the wind is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry as cinders.”

“The stables—are they insured?”

But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.

“What can we do, Letty? What can we do?” cried Anna, turning to Letty when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. “It’s horrible here, listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything.”

Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money come from to rebuild them? And the horses—she had heard that horses went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And the house—suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel’s house? “Oh, what can we do?” she cried to the frightened Letty.

“Let’s go there,” said Letty.

“Yes!” cried Anna, striking her hands together. “Yes! The carriage—Frau Dellwig, order the carriage—order Fritz to bring the carriage out at once. Tell him to be quick—quick!”

“The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?”

“Yes—call him, send for him—Fritz! Fritz!” She herself began to call.

“But——”

“Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him.”

“If I may be permitted to advise——”

“Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!”

“Call the herrschaftliche Kutscher Fritz,” Frau Dellwig then commanded a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. “Not only mad, but improper,” was her private comment. “She goes by night to her Bräutigam—to her unacknowledged Bräutigam.” Even a possible burning Bräutigam did not, in her opinion, excuse such a step.

The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections.

“Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna,” said Letty, coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him understand what she wanted.

“Where is she? Is the carriage coming?”

“He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they had seen you.”

“Come along then, we’ll go to her.”

“I was afraid I should not find you here,” said the princess as Anna came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, “and that you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass.”