Chapter 33 #4
Mr. Knightley crouched, his body tense, his arms ready at his sides.
I had seen this pose before when he unleashed lethal violence against the slaver who held Harriet hostage.
Even then, he had not looked as vicious as he did now.
His face was granite, his eyes lit with fury.
But he had a room to cross and a pistol aimed at his heart.
He might reach Mr. Elton, but he would die doing it.
“Do not let him goad you,” I said desperately. “He is beneath you—”
There was an unexpected, metallic clack.
Mr. Elton looked down in surprise. Augusta, her face jammed against the table, had managed to fasten the remaining shackle around his wrist.
He hissed angrily. His free hand kept the pistol aimed at Mr. Knightley while he twisted, working his shackled fingers into his coat pocket and dragging out a brass key.
Augusta grabbed for it, and they wrestled, a bruising battle as the shackle chains jerked and banged.
The key flew free, bounced off the table, and clinked into a dark corner.
There was a moment of silence. Then Mr. Elton jabbed the pistol toward me and snarled, “Fetch it, will you?”
I did not move. Shooting me would trap him.
“Shall I convince you?” he whispered and aimed the pistol back at Mr. Knightley. “Or shall we wait for the Overseer?”
Augusta stood, knocking her chair away. Her shackled arm yanked painfully as she dodged her husband’s grab. “No!” she screamed. “I will not let you hurt more women.”
With her free hand, she took the lamp off the cooking table and threw it. It soared across the room, sweeping shadows through arcs as it flew, and crashed on the cellar stairs. Flaming oil sprayed, framing the trapdoor in flickering orange.
There was no explosion; that must have been a bluff. Or, not quite a bluff. The flames puffed up in a green-tinged cloud, nothing like normal fire, sucked back into the cellar, then roared out, orange and angry. The wooden frame began to burn.
While Mr. Elton stared, transfixed, Mr. Knightley moved in a rush. The men collided with a meaty thud. The pistol fired harmlessly into the ceiling, loud in the enclosed room, then Mr. Elton was thrown to the ground, his tethered wrist half suspending him beside the oak table.
Mr. Knightley towered over him, legs apart, fists raised. Ready to do murder.
“No,” I cried. “Free Augusta! We must get out.” The fire had started smokeless, but the wood around the cellar door was catching and spilling fumes. Noxious black smoke billowed, filling the top of the room and shrouding the remaining lamp.
I fell on my knees in the corner where the key flew.
There was dirt and splintered wood and dried clay.
The light dimmed as the smoke swelled. The floorboard seams under me began to glow, parallel lines of fierce yellow that blew scalding air and haze.
I held my breath and searched by feel, thankful my gloves were off.
But there was nothing. The key could have bounced anywhere.
Mr. Knightley was trying to free the chain attached to Augusta’s wrist. He vaulted onto the table itself, heaving on the chain two-handed, trying to rip the bolt from the table. The table did not even wobble. It was a massive thing of old-fashioned split logs that dated to the house’s construction.
That view vanished in a cloud of smoke. My next breath was ashy grit. The floorboards under my fingers were too hot to touch.
Coughing, I ran in the direction Augusta had been.
Instead, Mr. Elton’s head emerged. He was trying to stand, blood streaming from a gash in his nose.
Two-handed, I pushed his chest; he reeled and vanished.
The smoke was so heavy, I could barely see my outstretched arms. I ducked low, grabbing a breath where it was fresher.
A deep-throated wump shook the ground under my feet. Heat blasted from the cellar door; tips of my hair sparked. Fire erupted outside the half-open kitchen door, illuminating what had been our exit, now a furnace. The fire had broken through the floor.
I felt the pleats of a woman’s gown, then made out Augusta’s profile.
“We will get you out,” I told her. Mr. Knightley reappeared.
Somehow, he had found a heavy metal ladle.
He jammed the handle into the shackle chain where it joined the bolt, cranked it around and strained with two hands, but the handle snapped.
“Go,” Augusta told me. “I am where I should be.” Mr. Elton’s soot-stained face reappeared like a disembodied wraith, gibbering with fear. Augusta’s shackled hand grasped his, and she smiled at her husband.
I recoiled as a sheaf of live flame curled past like a python, then I heard nails wrench and wood splinter.
A rectangle of gray sunlight penetrated the smoke-saturated air.
Something large flew past my shoulder, then hands seized my waist, and I was thrown after it.
My ankles smacked the window sill; I flipped and landed hard in our cucumber patch.
The impact knocked away what little breath I had.
For a few seconds my body bucked and struggled to breathe, then air, sweet air, filled my lungs.
Above me, the smoke pouring through the missing kitchen window was so dense it looked solid. A chair lay in the garden, thrown before me to break the glass.
I scrambled up, trying to see inside, but it was a hellscape of soot and smoke and fire. Then a strong hand grasped the window sill. I grabbed Mr. Knightley’s other arm and helped drag him through.
We staggered back in each other’s arms.
“I could not—” he began and fell into coughing and retching. He tried again, “I could not—”
“I know,” I said, holding him, tears in my voice.
The smoke streaming through the window ignited with a whoosh and turned to a jet of pure flame. The heat was unbearable, so we stumbled back farther. A deep note rumbled, then thumped. The front parlor windows blew outward, spraying shards of windowpanes.
Finally, fifty steps away, we stopped. The remaining glass popped in a series of rapid pings.
Every gap shot fire. The beautiful Caen stone on the exterior began to sheet off, the walls warping and charring behind it.
A chunk of roof fell in—into Papa’s study, I thought—then with a crackling roar, the rest fell in rapid sections.
Ash drifted down, only a few flakes at first. It thickened until it dusted the ground white, swirling like winter snow while I watched Hartfield burn.