The Burden, стр. 9

Laura woke up suddenly.

She had been dreaming-a bad dream-though she couldn't remember the details of it. Something chasing her, something-but she was safe now, in her own bed, at home.

She felt for the lamp by her bedside, and turned it on, and looked at her own little clock. Twelve o'clock. Midnight.

She sat up in bed, feeling a curious reluctance to turn out the light again.

She listened. What a queer creaking noise… 'Burglars perhaps,' thought Laura, who like most children was perpetually suspecting burglars. She got out of bed and went to the door, opened it a little way, and peered cautiously out. Everything was dark and quiet.

But there was a smell, a funny smoky smell, Laura sniffed experimentally. She went across the landing and opened the door that led to the servants' quarters. Nothing.

She crossed to the other side of the landing, where a door shut off a short passage leading to the nursery and the nursery bathroom.

Then she shrank back, appalled. Great wreaths of smoke came curling towards her.

"It's on fire. The house is on fire!"

Laura screamed, rushed to the servants' wing, and called:

"Fire! The house is on fire!"

She could never remember clearly what came after. Cook and Ethel-Ethel running downstairs to telephone, Cook opening that door across the landing and being driven back by the smoke, Cook soothing her with: "It'll be all right." Incoherent murmurs: "The engine will come-they'll get them out through the window-don't you worry, my dear."

But it would not be all right. Laura knew.

She was shattered by the knowledge that her prayer had been answered. God had acted-acted with promptitude and with indescribable terror. This was His way, His terrible way, of taking baby to Heaven.

Cook pulled Laura down the front stairs with her.

"Come on now, Miss Laura-don't wait about-we must all get outside the house."

But Nannie and baby could not get outside the house. They were up there, in the nursery, trapped!

Cook plunged heavily down the stairs, pulling Laura after her. But as they passed out through the front door to join Ethel on the lawn, and Cook's grip relaxed, Laura turned back and ran up the stairs again.

Once more she opened the landing door. From somewhere through the smoke she heard a far-off fretful whimpering cry.

And suddenly, something in Laura came alive-warmth, passionate endeavour, that curious incalculable emotion, love.

Her mind was sober and clear. She had read or been told that to rescue people in a fire you dipped a towel in water and put it round your mouth. She ran into her room, soaked the bath towel in the jug, rolled it round her, and crossing the landing plunged into the smoke. There was flame now across the passage, and the timbers were falling. Where an adult would have estimated danger and chances, Laura went bull-headed with the unknowing courage of a child. She must get to baby, she must save baby. Otherwise baby would burn to death. She stumbled over the unconscious body of Gwyneth, not knowing what it was. Choking, gasping, she found her way to the crib; the screen round it had protected it from the worst of the smoke.

Laura grabbed at the baby, clutched her close beneath the sheltering wet towel. She stumbled towards the door, her lungs gasping for air.

But there was no retracing her steps. Flames barred her way.

Laura had her wits still. The door to the tank-room-she felt for it, found it, pushed through it to a rickety stair that led up to the tank-room in the loft. She and Charles had got out that way once on to the roof. If she could crawl across the roof…

As the fire-engines arrived, an incoherent couple of women in night attire rushed to them crying out:

"The baby-there's a baby and the nurse in that room up there."

The fireman whistled and pursed his lips. That end of the house was blazing with flame. 'Goners,' he said to himself. 'Never get them out alive!' "Everyone else out?" he asked.

Cook, looking round, cried out: "Where's Miss Laura? She came out right after me. Wherever can she be?"

It was then that a fireman called out: "Hi, Joe, there's someone on the roof-the other end. Get a ladder up."

A few moments later, they set their burden down gently on the lawn-an unrecognisable Laura, blackened, her arms scorched, half unconscious, but tight in her grip a small morsel of humanity, whose outraged howls proclaimed her angrily alive.

"If it hadn't been for Laura-" Angela stopped, mastering her emotions.

"We've found out all about poor Nannie," she went on. "It seems she was an epileptic. Her doctor warned her not to take a nurse's post again, but she did. They think she dropped a spirit lamp when she had a fit. I always knew there was something wrong about her - something she didn't want me to find out."

"Poor girl," said Franklin, "she's paid for it."

Angela, ruthless in her mother love, swept on, dismissing the claims of Gwyneth Jones to pity.

"And baby would have been burned to death if it hadn't been for Laura."

"Is Laura all right again?" asked Mr. Baldock.

"Yes. Shock, of course, and her arms were burnt, but not too badly. She'll be quite all right, the doctor says."

"Good for Laura," said Mr. Baldock.

Angela said indignantly: "And you pretending to Arthur that Laura was so jealous of the poor mite that she might do her a mischief! Really-you bachelors!"

"All right, all right," said Mr. Baldock. "I'm not often wrong, but I dare say it's good for me sometimes."

"Just go and take a look at those two."

Mr. Baldock did as he was told. The baby lay on a rug in front of the nursery fire, kicking vaguely and making indeterminate gurgling noises.

Beside her sat Laura. Her arms were bandaged, and she had lost her eyelashes which gave her face a comical appearance. She was dangling some coloured rings to attract the baby's attention. She turned her head to look at Mr. Baldock.

"Hullo, young Laura," said Mr. Baldock. "How are you? Quite the heroine, I hear. A gallant rescue."

Laura gave him a brief glance, and then concentrated once more on her efforts with the rings.

"How are the arms?"

"They did hurt rather a lot, but they've put some stuff on, and they're better now."

"You're a funny one," said Mr. Baldock, sitting down heavily in a chair. "One day you're hoping the cat will smother your baby sister-oh yes, you did-can't deceive me-and the next day you're crawling about the roof lugging the child to safety at the risk of your own life."

"Anyway, I did save her," said Laura. "She isn't hurt a bit-not a bit." She bent over the child and spoke passionately. "I won't ever let her be hurt, not ever. I shall look after her all my life."

Mr. Baldock's eyebrows rose slowly.

"So it's love now. You love her, do you?"

"Oh yes!" The answer came with the same fervour. "I love her better than anything in the world!"

She turned her face to him, and Mr. Baldock was startled. It was, he thought, like the breaking open of a cocoon. The child's face was radiant with feeling. In spite of the grotesque absence of lashes and brows, the face had a quality of emotion that made it suddenly beautiful.

"I see," said Mr. Baldock. "I see… And where shall we go from here, I wonder?"

Laura looked at him, puzzled, and slightly apprehensive.

"Isn't it all right?" she asked. "For me to love her, I mean?"

Mr. Baldock looked at her. His face was thoughtful.

"It's all right for you, young Laura," he said. "Oh yes, it's all right for you…"

He relapsed into abstraction, his hand tapping his chin.

As a historian he had always mainly been concerned with the past, but there were moments when the fact that he could not foresee the future irritated him profoundly. This was one of them.