Chapter One #2
Mr. Bennet shook his head. “Don’t give it another thought, Edward. You’ve every right to be warm.”
“Should I see Mr. Collins to bed, sir?”
Expression amused, Mr. Bennet shrugged. “You may make the attempt, but I suspect he’ll only argue with you. It was good of you to wait up. The warm entrance hall is appreciated.”
“Thank you, sir.” Edward bowed and went into the parlor. “Mr. Collins, do you require any assistance, sir?”
“Shall we?” Mr. Bennet asked Elizabeth, gesturing to the staircase as Mr. Collins voice rose in slurred command.
She nodded and headed up the steps at her father’s side.
In a quiet, kind voice, he said, “Do not worry. I know you don’t want to marry Mr. Collins and I won’t push you to do so. Your mother will try to, but I want you to be happy.”
Relief washed through her. In an equally quiet voice, she replied, “I’ve been trying to keep him from proposing.”
Below, Mr. Collins’ voice cried, “So wasteful. When I’m master here, things like this will not be permitted.”
“I don’t think a herd of horses could prevent your cousin from asking for your hand,” Mr. Bennet said, full of mischief. “Your Uncle Phillips took me aside this evening to tell me that Mr. Collins commissioned his help to write a will in your favor. Mr. Collins is convinced you will marry him.”
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “It is unfortunate that he will have to write another will soon.”
Edward’s voice carried from below saying, “Mr. Collins, let me help you. I don’t think the shovel is the best tool to carry hot coals.”
“I can do it,” Mr. Collins said with petulant impatience.
They reached the top hall and Elizabeth turned to go to her room, hoping Mr. Collins would give up conserving coals and go to sleep so she didn’t have to hear his voice anymore that evening.
A loud thump sounded below, accompanied by banging and the clatter of smaller items.
Elizabeth turned back to find her father had, as well. They faced each other across the head of the staircase, uncertain. She opened her mouth to suggest they go back down. Poor Edward shouldn’t be forced to deal with a completely unreasonable Mr. Collins alone.
“Fire,” Edward cried.
“Get water,” Mr. Collins yelled.
“Papa?” Elizabeth gasped.
“I’m sure it will be quickly extinguished, but I’ll get your mother and sisters. You get the servants. I want everyone outside where it’s safe.”
“Mr. Collins, sir, please, stop that. It won’t work,” Edward pleaded below.
“I said get water,” Mr. Collins bellowed.
“Go,” her father ordered.
Worried, Elizabeth grabbed handfuls of her skirt to free up her legs and raced down the hall to the servants’ stair.
She looked back once to see her father at her mother’s door.
Elizabeth plunged into the dark stairwell, heading upward.
Their servants slept under the eaves, above the family’s rooms. A terrible place to be caught if the fire did get out of control.
Stumbling in the low, pitch black attic hall, Elizabeth called, “Wake up. Wake up. There’s a fire. Come out.” She found the first door and opened it. This was not the time for politeness or respect for privacy. “Fire,” she yelled. “Grab something warm but don’t take the time to dress.”
“Do I have time to take my things?” the voice of Betty, one of the maids, asked. There came a clatter and a spark, and a flame bloomed into life at the top of a stub of a candle.
“Not more than two minutes,” Elizabeth guessed. “Hurry, we must rouse the others.”
Betty rushed to the doorway and yelled ‘fire’ several times, louder than Elizabeth had. She pressed the candle into Elizabeth’s hand as one of the footmen came out of his room, then Betty went back in to pull the blanket off her bed. She started throwing shoes and clothing onto the blanket.
Servants spilled from the little rooms, too fast for Elizabeth to be certain she spotted everyone. Betty rushed down the steps with her makeshift bag. Candle in hand, Elizabeth checked each room. Everyone was moving except one of the kitchen maids, who somehow still slept.
Elizabeth went in and shook the girl, who finally blinked her eyes open.
“Fire. Get up.”
“Fire?” the girl slurred, alcohol on her breath.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. The cook must have left the sherry out again, and with the family at the ball, it would have been too tempting. “Fire,” Elizabeth reiterated.
With a startled squeak, the maid sat up and jumped from bed. She bolted past Elizabeth without taking anything with her.
Satisfied all the servants’ rooms were empty, Elizabeth rushed back down the narrow steps to the family’s floor.
The doors she could see stood open. Thick smoke flowing up the staircase cut off any view of the other half of the upper corridor, where her and Jane’s room stood.
Surely, though, her father had finished the task of ordering her mother and sisters out.
Elizabeth plunged back into the servants’ stairwell to follow the staff down.
She nearly tripped and tumbled down the steps as something brushed against her legs.
Catching the wall with her free hand, she spotted the kitchen’s tabby cat and scooped it up.
Clutching the cat close, she clattered down the steps.
They came out in the kitchen, the large pots scattered and water sloshed on the floor.
The servants she’d roused were already pressing through the garden door, out into the night.
Elizabeth followed, then rushed around the outside of the house, needing to see her family.
She rounded the building to find her parents and sisters all standing before the house, staring at flames that filled the front entrance and windows. Elizabeth gasped, staggering to a halt. She dropped the struggling tabby, then fell to her knees in the drive, too relieved and horrified to move.
Her father held his cashbox with a pile of ledgers at his feet.
Beside him, Lydia, tears streaming down her cheeks, held a heap of clothing topped with ribbons and hats, and beyond her Mary clutched a jumble of sheet music, books and garments.
Kitty and Jane knelt on the ground on either side of Mrs. Bennet, who seemed to have collapsed, gowns in heaps around them. Mr. Collins was nowhere to be seen.
“Elizabeth?” her father called. “The staff?”
Elizabeth struggled up to stand. She stumbled as she crossed the drive, unable to tear her attention from the malevolently glowing, violently thrashing flames to watch where she placed her feet.
When she reached her family, Lydia let out a sob, dropped her gowns, ribbons and hats, and threw her arms about Elizabeth.
“The staff?” Mr. Bennet repeated urgently.
“They’re out of the attic. I think they all made it except…” Elizabeth trailed off, watching the flames. “Is Edward in there?”
Mr. Bennet shook his head, grim. The servants Elizabeth had roused trickled around the side of the building.
Some came to stand with the family, others rushing about, looking for buckets.
Elizabeth bit her lip, unable to voice her worry for Edward and Mr. Collins.
She stroked Lydia’s hair. Her youngest sister continued to cry.
Edward stumbled around the corner of the house, soot coated, his eyes wide and over white against the charcoal smeared on his face. Sighting them, he rushed across the yard. “Did he ever come out? Mr. Collins, sir, did he ever come out?”
Mr. Bennet shook his head. “What happened?”
“I tried to stop him. I truly did, but he put the coals on a shovel and was going to carry them to his room. Then he fell and coals went everywhere. He started using a cushion to smother the fire. He moved to another coal and did it again, only the first coal flared up again and caught the carpet. I ran to get water again and again, Mr. Bennet. He kept trying to smother them, but neither of us realized that there was a coal near the curtains.” Edward let out a sob.
“We might have been able to put that one out, but there were so many small fires as well. I tried to drag him out of the parlor, but he wouldn’t come with me.
He kept apologizing and saying he wouldn’t let the house burn down.
” Edward twisted his hands together, knuckles so white it showed through the soot.
“I tried to get him to come with me, Mr. Bennet. I tried until I could hardly breathe, but he wouldn’t come.
” Tears cut clear tracks down Edward’s cheeks.
“You aren’t to blame, Edward.”
“If only I hadn’t had a fire,” Edward moaned, wringing his hands harder.
“You aren’t to blame, Edward,” Elizabeth repeated firmly.
“Our fool of a cousin is,” Mary added, blinking rapidly.
Mr. Bennet drafted Edward to carry his ledgers and went to the cluster of servants to make sure everyone got out. Sir William Lucas arrived, along with his older two sons. Mr. Bennet went to meet them, still clutching his cashbox.
Mr. Bennet and Sir William organized a brigade to bring buckets of water from the back well to the front of the house.
More neighbors arrived. Elizabeth wrapped her mother in a shawl from her pile of clothing, then led her to one of the benches in the rose garden.
When her mother was settled, Elizabeth joined Jane and Mary in the bucket line, but it became increasingly obvious that the house would not survive.
Soon, the fire was too hot to get near enough for the water to be effective.
The bucket brigade became an attempt to keep the fire from spreading.
It was still dark when they gave up. Mr. Bennet sat next to Mrs. Bennet with his cashbox by his side and his most current ledger in his lap.
Using the light from a lantern brought by a neighbor to see, he paid each member of the household staff their full quarter’s wages, recording it with a pencil that had been stuck in one of the ledgers.
It was a month early, but he added enough money for them to spend a night in the inn in Meryton and get a meal.
Probably none would go there, since most had family in the area and others would be taken in for a few days by local people, but he wanted to be sure they all had somewhere to go.
Mr. Bennet assured the coachmen, grooms, and farm workers that their work would go on unchanged, as none of the outbuildings had caught fire.
Elizabeth watched the staff take the money with tears in their eyes. They knew as well as her father that he wouldn’t be able to hire them all back for some time, if ever.
By dawn, nothing remained of Elizabeth’s home but a charred, crumpled shell.
The Lucas carriage arrived and took her mother and three youngest sisters to their Aunt and Uncle Phillips, in Meryton.
Mr. Bennet, Jane and Elizabeth walked the short distance to Lucas Lodge.
As she’d been unable to save any of her possessions, Elizabeth took half of Jane’s load.
A miserable, soot coated Edward sniffled as he carried Mr. Bennet’s account books but answered in the affirmative when Elizabeth asked him if he would be staying with his parents.
When they came in sight of Lucas Lodge, Elizabeth looked back, expecting to see smoke with the early morning light, but there was none.
Whatever wisps were left weren’t visible, although everything smelled of soot and fire.
Her hands felt as if they were made of ice, but the remainder of her was numb.
“Poor Mr. Collins,” Jane murmured as they reached the entrance.
Elizabeth nodded, the movement shaky. He’d never come out. The last anyone had seen or heard of him was his apology to Edward. Much as she didn’t care for her cousin, tears slid down Elizabeth’s cheeks. Mr. Collins was a fool, yes, but not a fool who’d deserved to die.