"Do go," I said, very politely. "They are charming people." And he
accepted at once!
It was a transparent plot on Bella's part: Two elderly maiden ladies,
house miles from anywhere, long evenings in the music room with an open
fire and Bella at the harp playing the two songs she knows.
When we were ready and gathered in the kitchen, in the darkness, of
course, Dal went up on the roof and signaled with a lantern to the cars
on the drive. Then he went downstairs, took a last look at the drawing
room, fired the papers, shook on the powder, opened the windows and
yelled "fire!"
Of course, huddled in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But we
plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling
"fire," and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the
house. And at that instant we remembered Aunt Selina!
That was the cause of the whole trouble. I don't know why they turned on
me; she wasn't my aunt. But by the time we had got her out of bed, and
had wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and stuck slippers on her feet
and a motor veil on her head, the glare at the front of the house was
beginning to die away. She didn't understand at all and we had no time
to explain. I remember that she wanted to go back and get her "plate,"
whatever that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along,
and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood aside and
let them out first.
The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we could
see a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street. Jim and Aunt
Selina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt Selina's comfort
like a sail. Then, with our feet, so to speak, on the first rungs of the
ladder of Liberty, it slipped. A half-dozen guards and reporters came
around the house and drove us back like sheep into a slaughter pen. It
was the most humiliating moment of my life.
Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I think
I went Berserk myself. But Max spied one of the reporters setting up a
flash light as we stood, undecided, at the top of the steps, and after
that there was nothing to do but retreat. We backed down slowly, to show
them we were not afraid. And when we were all in the kitchen again, and
had turned on the lights and Bella was crying with her head against Mr.
Harbison's arm, Dal said cheerfully, "Well, it has done some good, anyhow. We have lost Aunt Selina."