Page 17 of Haunted
George realized that the hands helping him away from the building belonged to Mr. Paston, the magistrate.
“Thank God you’re all safe,” Paston said fervently. “I’ll never forgive myself for not warning those two today as I should! If I had not thought to tell the constables to patrol past the house tonight, it could have been so much worse.”
George wrestled his foggy brain into understanding. He stared at Paston. “You are saying the fire was started deliberately?”
Paston nodded. “By Forest and Kell. Not with intention to injure, I’m sure. They’re just too ignorant to realize how quickly a fire can spread. I believe the aim was to see if you and Mrs. Hazel emerged together. A stupid, dangerous wager. And yet if you hadn’t been there, the Martins would be dead.”
George shivered with memory, gazing toward the burning house. It would never recover from this. All Francesca’s married life, her home and her son’s, were burning to the ground. Had some shade of her husband really warned him? If he had not, would George ever have awakened? Would Francesca or Mark have?
“Where are they?” he asked Paston with rare savagery.
“In custody. They’ll be locked up until charges are brought.”
George swallowed. His throat felt as if was full of hot razers. “Does Mrs. Hazel know?”
“Most of it. You must all come up to Paston Hall. My wife is expecting you, and the doctor has been summoned there.”
Paston was tugging him toward a carriage. But George could not help looking back at the blazing house. Was the remnant of Percival Hazel still there? Peering hard, he could almost imagine a ghostly figure in the flames.
Thank you,he mouthed silently.
And it seemed as if a voice answered directly into his head. Almost an echo.Thankyou.
Chapter Six
The air wasstill thick with smoke the following morning when Francesca returned to Hazel House. What was left of it.
That the consequences could have been so much worse did not incline her to forgive Jack and Bill for what they had done. Under no circumstances was it acceptable, whatever the damage or whoever did or did not die. She would have nightmares forever about losing her son, her servants, and her friend to such a horrendous death. And so she had told Mr. Paston, who seemed more than happy to see the pair charged with arson and the attempted murder of five people.
As she gazed at the still-smoldering ruin of her home, she still did not weep. She was too shocked and angry. But she walked inexorably toward it. She guessed nothing could be salvaged, but it hardly mattered beside the hugeness of the saved lives.
She had left Mark warily getting to know one of the Pastons’ grandchildren. She had not seen George since last night, when they had met, numbly, in the Pastons’ house, before being led away to different baths and clean beds and the ministration of the local doctor. But she knew George was well enough to go into the village. Perhaps he had left already in his repaired post-chaise. She could hardly blame him. His journey home had gone from bad to worse.
She surveyed the wreckage of her home. Among the blackened rubble she could recognize the odd piece of furniture, a few ivory keys from the piano, a piece of molded plaster from the drawing room, a mantelpiece, a miraculously survived Venetian glass vase.
Something caught her eye, and she climbed over a pile of mostly stable stones to get to it. She picked it up slowly. Another miraculous survival. The broken neck of Percival’s violin, strings hanging loose.
She suspected it had not been burned in the fire but stood on by those who had tried so hard in the beginning to put it out. Which for some reason seemed even sadder.
She sat slowly down on the stones, still holding the piece of instrument in her hand. It grew blurry before her eyes.
“Your poor, beautiful violin,” she whispered, and discovered she was weeping after all—for what had happened and what might have, for Percival and her home, for her own loneliness, and the pointless, reasonless hatred that had brought about this whole mess.
Something brushed against her cheek. She knew his touch as she knew her own. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Percival, I am so sorry.”
For an instant, it felt like his arm around her, and she had to look. It might have been swirling smoke, but it looked like him. Her hair might have blown around her lips, or he might have kissed them. But he was not sad. He was glad.
And abruptly, so was she. He was going at last to his rest. Not because fools had burned his home but because she was strong enough to cope. And she was. She knew that. And yet still she wept and wept. She didn’t know for how long, until a strong, much more solid arm came around her, and she turned into George’s chest with a deep, low sob.
He sat beside her in silence, holding her, stroking her hair until the storm passed.
“He has gone,” she said into George’s neck. “He woke me last night because of the fire, and now he has gone.”
“May he rest in peace. Do you mind?”
The question was asked so carefully that she raised her head, tear stains and all, and searched his face. “You don’t think I am mad?”
“I think he woke me, too. He trusted me to help. And Mark has been chatting with him since I arrived.”
