Immediately the red damask curtains ignited and as they burnt away, Adam could see the fire spreading through the study. Sir John was still there, standing by a desk in the centre of the room, madly searching through the drawers, while behind him a tall bookcase was alight and flames were licking up the papered walls towards the high ceiling. And then thick black smoke began to billow out through the broken window, blotting out the interior.
It was hard for Adam to know what was happening. All around him people were shouting, screaming for water, crying for help as they ran this way and that, their stricken faces white and wild with fear as they emerged out of the swirling clouds of smoke and then disappeared back into the blackness. Suddenly the remaining glass in the study window exploded outwards, shattering in the heat, and the fire shot up the outside wall for a moment before falling back. But, as far as Adam could tell, it did still seem to be contained in the ground floor of the east wing, and he even began to feel a little encouraged when he saw a group of men, stripped to the waist, dragging a huge linen hose up from the direction of the lake.
In the midst of the cacophony he thought he could hear someone shouting his father’s name from over by the front door. It was wide open now and a melee of servants was spilling down the steps, running away from the house. The chaotic scene was lit up by the blazing lights in the hall behind them. Without thinking Adam rushed towards the voice, but almost immediately he was knocked backwards. Luck was on his side and he was just able to retain his balance and so avoid being trampled underfoot, but the impact had winded him and he stayed doubled over for a moment, fighting to regain his breath.
The crowd was mostly gone when he straightened up and he could see as if through a window in the smoke a man bent almost double, staggering down the front steps, carrying another man on his back. At the bottom he slipped down on to his knees, gasping in the smoky air like a drowning man, allowing his burden to roll away on to the grey flagstones beside him. He looked as though he was praying but Adam knew he wasn’t; he couldn’t be: the man on his knees was his father.
Adam ran to his father’s side, calling out his name. But Daniel didn’t seem to hear him – he’d turned away and was bent down over the man he’d rescued, alternately holding Sir John’s long aquiline nose clipped between his fingers as he blew air down into his mouth and then releasing his head to frantically massage the unconscious man’s chest. Over and over again until everyone around had given up hope and Sir John faintly shook and then spluttered heavily back into life.
Daniel got to his feet, swaying slightly, allowing the Hall butler to take over from him supporting Sir John’s back. Adam recognized the butler from the church where he had often seen him, sitting straight-backed at the end of one of the pews reserved for the Hall servants, singing out the hymns in an excellent baritone. Now he was dressed in immaculate evening dress and Adam noticed how alone among the servants he had made no attempt to loosen his white bow tie and high collar, even though he was obviously finding it as hard to breathe as everyone else.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for saving my master’s life.’ Looking over his father’s shoulder, Adam could see that the butler’s gratitude was heartfelt: there were tears in the man’s eyes. But Daniel didn’t respond – it was as if he hadn’t registered the butler’s words just as he remained unaware of his son standing beside him. Instead his eyes were looking up, darting this way and that as he peered back at the east wing through the swirling smoke.
‘There! There’s someone up there,’ he shouted, pointing at the window of the room above the study. ‘Who is it?’
At first Adam could see nothing. But then the smoke cleared for a moment and he saw that his father was right. There was an old woman looking out, a mass of unkempt grey hair framing her small pinched face. She was clearly terrified – her mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled out of water, but they couldn’t hear her. The window was closed and she seemed unable to open it. Perhaps the handles were too hot – in front of her, flames were licking the sill as the fire reached up to the second storey.
‘It’s the dowager – Sir John’s mother. She’s an invalid and she doesn’t walk very well,’ said the butler. But Daniel was no longer listening – he’d turned away, making for the front door. At the last moment Adam reached out his hand and caught hold of his father’s shirt, pulling him back.
‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘Adam,’ said Daniel, aware of his son’s presence for the first time. He looked at him, staring into his face as if memorizing his features, and then reached out and stroked his son’s cheek with the tips of his fingers.
‘I have to,’ he said softly. ‘You know that.’ And then without warning he pulled violently away.
‘No,’ Adam cried as his father’s shirt tore away at the shoulder and he was left helplessly holding the sleeve in his trembling hands. And looking down, the white material seemed to Adam just like a flag of surrender.
Adam sat wide-eyed and sleepless beside the lake as the sun rose up from behind the gently rustling elm trees and began to sparkle on the pearl-grey surface of the water, which was lapping gently against the sloping banks of the grassy island in the centre to which generations of Scarsdales had rowed out on summer days, just like this one, to eat picnics under the flat dark green boughs of a cedar of Lebanon tree that was just now reaching the full glory of its maturity.
It was dawn at its most beautiful but Adam didn’t see it, just as he didn’t feel the wet dew that was soaking through his clothes.
Behind his staring eyes, his mind was repeatedly replaying the events of the night in an endless loop of tortured recollection. Once again he saw his father running up the steps to the front door while he stood there helplessly watching. Once again he saw the crazed old woman screaming soundlessly at her window and his father coming up behind her, fighting to control her arms as she lashed out in terror, before he lifted her up and put her over his shoulder as he turned away. And then once more, a moment later, he heard the thunderous explosion reverberating in his inner ear as the fire finished eating through the timber joists and the floor collapsed, crashing down into the inferno below, swallowing up the old woman and her would-be saviour in the flames.
Adam had known they were dead in that instant; he hadn’t needed to stay and watch the men with the hose fight to bring the fire under control and carry out the charred bodies under a pair of white sheets while the remains of the east wing smoked and smouldered behind them.
And so he’d gone down to the lake to be alone with his grief and a succession of questions to which his dead father could provide no answers. Why hadn’t he followed him into the house? Why hadn’t he tried again to pull him back and save him from himself? Was it because he knew that it was hopeless; that his father wouldn’t listen to reason because he was determined to atone for his wife’s death? And that only the highest price would provide the redemption he so desperately craved? Was that the difference between them – that his father wanted to die, and he wanted to live? Life was terrible, never more terrible than now, but Adam knew that he didn’t want it to end.
‘Adam, I’m so glad I found you.’ Parson Vale’s voice cut into his thoughts, jolting him back into consciousness of his surroundings. He looked up into his friend’s kind, compassionate face, ravaged like his own by trauma and lack of sleep, and immediately turned away. He didn’t want sympathy, however well intentioned. All he wanted was to be left alone.
‘How long have you been here?’ the parson asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Adam muttered. ‘I’m sorry about your bicycle. I had to leave it …’ He stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Talking meant cutting through the numbness which was enveloping him like a protective skin, and he willed his mind not to think. He knew that grief was waiting