House. With a final approving look—the pale-blue chambray of her dress was perfect—Charlotte turned toward the study.
The wail of the sirens and the ring of the telephone registered at almost the same time in Annie's sleep-numbed consciousness. She fought to wake from the bone-deep sleep of mental and emotional exhaustion.
The telephone shrilled again. The siren's cry became a shriek.
Annie came flailing out of bed and banged her knee intc the chaise longue. Max rolled out from his side and knocked over a chair.
Max flicked the light switch just as Annie's pawing hands found the telephone.
She knew before she lifted the receiver that something terrible had happened. Good news doesn't come over the telephone in the middle of the night.
'Come at once.' There was both anger and chagrin in Miss Dora's pronouncement. 'A fire at Tarrant House.' And the connection was broken.
Annie stumbled over a fire hose.
'Lady, get out of the way!'
'This way, Annie.' Max held her elbow. They backtracked, skirting the far side of the two fire engines, then cut across the street to the west side of Tarrant House.
Flames danced against the night sky. Smoke billowed high. 'Max!' Annie strained to see. 'It doesn't look like it's the house. It's behind the house.'
When they reached the garages, the site of the fire was clear. Straight ahead, past an herb garden and a huge rose trellis and a garden shed was yet another structure and it was afire.
Whitney and Charlotte Tarrant stood beside the garages. Whitney gripped his wife's arm tightly. 'Charlotte, you can't go in. You can't! God, look at it —'
Flames wreathed the wooden structure. Sparks swirled upward, creating whirling plumes of light. Flames leapt and danced as boards crashed. Smoke eddied, darker than the night.
Annie could feel the heat from the flames.
'It's a total loss.' Whitney coughed as a wave of smoke swept them.
In the fitful light from the leaping flames and the backwash of light spilling from the house, Charlotte's face was dead-white and stricken. She was too distraught to realize that the tasseled tie of her peach-silk robe dragged on the ground and that her silk gown gaped.
'The papers, the family papers,' she cried, her voice hoarse with despair. 'The records! Whitney, do something! They must save the papers. The diaries.' She struggled to be free. 'Let's tell them George might be in there,' she said feverishly. 'Then they'll have to go in, won't they? We could say those are the servants' quarters. They were once. How will they know any different?'
'Don't be absurd, Charlotte.' Whitney shook her. 'George?' asked Annie.
'The gardener,' Max explained. 'His father was the butler—'
Miss Dora joined them, looking more witchlike than ever in the wavering firelight. 'And Sam's father before him and his father—they used to live there. Charlotte remodeled the whole shebang, turned it into the Tarrant House Museum.' The old lady pointed with her cane. 'Slave quarters once. Call 'em dependencies now.' A dry wheeze might have been sardonic laughter. 'Pretty words don't make pretty deeds.' Miss Dora's silver hair shimmered in the glow from the flames. She stared at the fire-engulfed structure, her wizened face grim and thoughtful.
Whitney turned and glared at the three of them. His gaze fastened on Annie and Max. 'This is private property—'
Miss Dora waggled her cane. 'Here at my request, Whit ney.'
A wall collapsed. Sparks spewed skyward.
'The papers,' Charlotte moaned. She sagged against her husband. 'Oh, God.' It was a heartbroken wail. 'My thimble collection.'
'The papers.' Miss Dora's voice was speculative. 'Inclusive, weren't they, Charlotte?'
Charlotte half-turned. 'Oh, Aunt Dora, it's a tragedy, a tragedy! Mary's diaries, the letters she received from her husband from the English prison, the records of the baptisms and burials, gone, all gone.'
'But more than that,' Miss Dora mused. 'You saved everything from this century, too, didn't you, because someday, God forbid, they'll be writing about us. All of Augustus's papers. And I suspect, Amanda's too.'
