Daisychain Summer

  ‘Fire!’ Keth yelled. ‘Get help! Tell someone!’

  His feet slammed down hard on the stone steps. Stupid things, all twisting. Up and up until he could smell burning, see smoke coming from beneath a door.

  He lifted the iron door sneck, and it was hot in his hands. He pushed hard on the door, but it wouldn’t open.

  ‘Is anyone in there?’ He hammered on it with his fists. He had seen someone at the window, but how to get in?

  He pushed open the next door along. The room was empty and he flung open the window. It opened inwards, thank God! He leaned out. There was a ledge beneath him, in ornamental stone, a good foot wide. Without thinking, he lowered himself onto it, steadying himself against the stonework, taking deep breaths, getting his balance.

  Don’t look down. Just take it easy. Not far to go. No more than ten feet.

  The smoke was thicker, now, belching from the window to his left. Arms spread wide against the wall, he inched along the ledge. No more than ten feet? Ten miles!

  Smoke, making him cough. He mustn’t cough. If he did, he’d fall. Inch by inch by inch. His groping left hand felt the metal of the window frame and it was hot, like the doorknob.

  He could see into the room, now. Flames shooting, roaring. Someone kneeling at the window.

  ‘Bas! It’s Keth!’ Don’t let him be dead? ‘Bas!’

  ‘Keth! Grandma’s in there!’

  ‘Get out, Bas. Onto the ledge. Careful. Slowly, now.’

  ‘My hands, Keth …’

  ‘Get out, Bas. Hurry! Just get out, then I can help you!’

  Slowly, clumsily, crying out every time his hands touched the stonework, Bas lowered his feet to the ledge.

  ‘Good. That’s good. Face the wall, now. Take it easy. Hold on.’

  ‘Can’t, Keth. My hands. All burned. Grandma’s on the floor!’

  ‘We can’t go in there!’ The flames were getting worse, now, shooting through the window in vicious probing tongues. The heat was acrid against the back of his throat. ‘Lean in against the wall. I’ll hold on to you. Just go careful and don’t look down!’

  God, Keth prayed, don’t let him fall? If he goes, I go too. God – did you hear me …?

  ‘Can’t, Keth. My hands!’

  ‘You can! You will! Just along to the window. Not far.’ Only ten miles. He pressed his arm against Bas’s back. ‘Now – when I say move, you move your right foot – the same time as I do. Just slide it along. Okay – move. That’s it. And again! Gently. Don’t look down. And again …’

  Someone was there. From the corner of his eye, someone was leaning from the window to their right. Hands. Helping hands.

  ‘It’s all right, Bas. We’re nearly there. Slowly, now.’ His mouth was dry, his heart thudded in his ears. Then someone took his hand, gently, firmly. A voice said. ‘I’ve got you.’ Hands, clinging on to his jacket, pulling him inward into the safe room. Hands, reaching out for Bas.

  He fell in a sprawl of arms and legs. They’d got Bas, too – Mr Albert and with him the gardener and a footman. It was all right!

  ‘Out! Everybody out, before the whole lot goes up!’

  ‘No, Pa! Grandma’s in there. I couldn’t lift her! Somebody, please try …?’

  ‘Out, I said!’ Mr Albert, pushing them through the door. Down, down. Damn the stupid stairs! Someone was going to fall! Then out, into the high, echoing hall and the tower door slammed shut behind them. Safe, where the air was clean and cool. Safe, and God – thank you!

  ‘You all right, Keth?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Just give me time. Shaking a bit …’

  ‘Bas?’ Wiping his forehead, Albert Sutton turned to his son.

  ‘I’m going to be sick.’ His face was deathly pale. ‘My hands, Pa …’ He held them awkwardly and they were dreadful to look at. Burned, soot-blackened, fingers bent like claws.

  ‘It’s all right, Bas. I know what to do. Where’s the nearest tap, Mr Sutton?’

  ‘Tap?’

  ‘Yes. Or a pump. Anything with cold water,’ Keth jerked.

  ‘There’s a pump in the stableyard.’

  ‘Show me where it is, Bas.’

  Together they stumbled to the old lead pump, Albert following behind, red-faced, agitated.

  ‘Now, Bas – your hands. Hold them out. No! Don’t even try to take your coat off. Just do as I say!’ He began to pump the handle and ice-cold water gushed out to fill the trough. ‘Cold water. It’ll take the pain out. Just put your hands in it, Bas, and keep them there.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Albert Sutton frowned. ‘Shouldn’t we put something on them?’

  ‘No, sir! Just cold water till the doctor gets here. How’s that, Bas?’

  ‘Better. Much better. They still hurt like hell, though. But grandma. I couldn’t open the door to get her out. I tried. Sorry, Pa.’

  ‘There was nothing we could have done.’ Keth shook his head, gravely. ‘When I got to the window the whole room was blazing.’

  ‘She was on fire, Pa – all her clothes. I just couldn’t put it out!’

  ‘It’s all right, Bas. Of course you tried. Only thank God you are all right. Nobody’s going to blame you.’

  They heard a distant clanging bell, and another, farther away. The fire brigade would soon be here.

  ‘Is all the staff out?’ Albert Sutton asked of the footman. ‘Are they all right – everyone accounted for?’

  ‘All safe, Mr Albert. Cook’s agitated, though. She left the pans on, in the panic. Says the bottoms’ll be burned out.’

  ‘Tcha! A few pans?’ He thought about his mother and knew he would never see her again. ‘Where is my father?’

  ‘He went early to York. An appointment with the tailor, if you remember. You could try him at the Station Hotel; he said he’d be lunching there.’

  ‘No. He’ll have left, by now. Best leave it a while. My wife is at Rowangarth. Could you send someone to bring her back here. And reassure her. Don’t mention my mother, though, or that Bas has been burned. Did you phone for an ambulance?’

  ‘I did, Mr Albert. It’s coming with the engines. And I phoned the doctor in Holdenby. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to the front, to meet them – show them where the hydrants are. And the ornamental lake could be used …’

  ‘Good idea. And everyone is to stay outside. Fires are funny things.’ Could burst out anywhere or run along joists, or beams. ‘No heroics, now. No one is to take any risks, going back into the house trying to get things out. We’re all safe – well, almost all – let’s be grateful at least for that.’

  ‘My, but that water’s good.’ Bas took a shuddering breath, his face still drained of colour, his mouth set tightly against pain that seemed to shoot to the very tops of his arms. ‘Keep pumping, Keth? How did you know what to do?’

  ‘Daisy’s Mam told me. She was a nurse, once. I burned myself when we used to live in Hampshire. A coal fell out of the fire at Daisy’s house and stupid, I grabbed it.

  ‘Mrs Dwerryhouse hustled me into the yard and put my hands under the pump, just like now. “Cold water for a scald or a burn,” she said. “Never forget that, Keth.”’

  ‘And you didn’t …’

  ‘No. Next day, my fingers were red, but they hadn’t blistered. They healed fine. Yours will take a bit longer, but I think they’ll do.’

  ‘I can move my fingers, now. I want to sit here for ever with my hands in the water.’

  ‘Then don’t get too comfortable. The ambulance has just arrived. You’ll have to go to hospital. Those burns aren’t small ones like mine were. And you’ll have breathed smoke in, too …’

  ‘Whatever you say. And I haven’t said thank you yet, have I?’ Bas whispered. ‘I’d given up, you know. I thought grandma was dead and I thought I was going to die, too. We couldn’t get out of the door. The screen fell across it. And then you were there, at the window …’

  ‘I was bringing your bike back.’

  ‘Then thank the Lord for a puncture.’ Bas tried hard
to smile.

  ‘Aye. It was a thorn. If I’d known, I’d have kept it for you,’ Keth grinned. ‘And thank you, Bas. I was pretty low – feeling sorry for myself. But after this afternoon, I’m glad just to be alive. And I’m sorry about the old lady, but we couldn’t have got her out.’

  ‘I suppose not. Uncle Elliot died that way, too. She was dead? She wouldn’t know we were leaving her?’

  ‘Dead? I don’t know. I didn’t see her. But I’d say she would have to be, in that inferno. It was lucky you had the sense to get to the window. If you hadn’t, you’d have suffocated on the smoke, like the old lady probably did. Just don’t think about it, Bas.’

  ‘Nobody’s asked, yet, how it happened.’

  ‘Well, you can tell them later. They’ll want to know, I suppose, but not now. Over here!’ he called, waving his arm. ‘Here’s the nurse. She’ll be looking for you. And the fire engines are here, too. It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Which one of you is Sebastian Sutton?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘That’s me, I guess.’ Bas forced a smile, even though his grandmother’s screams still filled his head. He’d be glad to go to the hospital; anywhere away from here. He hoped they would give him something to help the pain; something to help him forget those awful cries.

  ‘Right, young man. Your hands, they said. Let’s get them covered up, keep the air away from them. Soon have you comfortable.’

  There was nothing more he could do at Rowangarth, Keth had decided, now that the fire engines were there and Bas away to hospital in the ambulance. Best not get in the way. He recalled the agonized inching along the ledge and thanked God again that neither had fallen.

  He hadn’t thought about anything at the time but hanging on to Bas, getting him to that safe, open window. Now, just to imagine what could have happened made him shake all over. And there was a churning inside him that reached up to his throat as if any minute he could be sick.

  ‘Keth!’ It was Daisy, running after him, calling to him to wait. ‘They said there was a fire, at Pendenys. You’re all dirty and you smell of smoke. Were you there? Are you all right?’

  ‘A fire in the tower, but it’s fine, now.’ Best not tell her, just yet, about Mrs Clementina. ‘I’d been mending a puncture for Keth – that’s why I was there.’

  ‘Pendenys car took Mrs Amelia back there and Mrs Anna, too. Tatty and Kitty are still with Aunt Julia. I came to find you. I had a feeling that – well, I knew somehow you were there. Must be getting like old Jinny. You are all right? Tell me, Keth?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. The fire was in the tower. It burned upwards, like a flue, so it didn’t spread to the rest of the house. And I’m fine – really I am.’ For the first time since the letter came he smiled, then pulling her close to him, tilting her chin, he kissed her gently. ‘And I love you, Daisy Dwerryhouse.’

  ‘Keth!’ He had come back to her! She laid her head on his chest, holding him tightly. ‘You were so bitter, so far away. I couldn’t seem to get near you. And I still want to help, if you’ll let me. Don’t let that money come between us? Let me talk to Dada – see what he thinks about it?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but they’ve taken Bas to hospital. He was in the tower, you see, and his hands got burned. And Mrs Clementina’s dead, Daisy.

  ‘So all at once I feel glad to be alive and not to have to worry about my hands. And I know I shall make it. I don’t care about the scholarship.’

  ‘But why must you make it? Why drive yourself so?’

  ‘Have you ever been poor, Daisy? Even before you got all that money – have you? Have you known what it’s like to see your father crippled and bitter and your mother working herself to a standstill?’

  ‘N-no, but –’

  ‘Well, I have! I don’t want Mum to end her days in the Workhouse. I want to be able to provide for her, see she doesn’t go short when she’s old. And that’s only one of the things that’s driving me. But it’ll be all right, love. I’ve calmed down and come to my senses. You’ve got five years to go before you come of age; you might fall in love with someone else, though I’ll do my best to see you don’t. By the time you’ve got your fortune, I plan to have a bit of brass of my own, an’ all. And don’t ask me how, because I don’t know myself. I just feel it, though.’

  ‘There won’t be anyone else, Keth. You know there won’t. And I don’t want you to be rich. I’ve got enough for us both and your Mum, too, and if you really love me, you’ll let me share it with you.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he smiled, ‘but at this moment, the great tycoon has to deliver his evening papers!’

  She smiled into his eyes because all at once, even in spite of Mrs Clementina and Bas’s hands, she was happy again.

  ‘My dear, you mustn’t blame yourself. Nothing you could have done would have made any difference. It was a sad, tragic accident.’ Helen held Edward’s hands tightly. ‘Clemmy had not been well for some time …’

  ‘I know. But I didn’t look in on her before I went to York. I never said goodbye. I thought she would be asleep, still, you see – well, after last night …’

  ‘She probably was.’

  ‘Yes, but we were talking about making her take treatment. Get her into a nursing home, we said, for her own good. But she outwitted us. She was Clemmy, right up until the end. And I still don’t know how it happened. No one does.’

  ‘When Amelia and Albert get back from the hospital, they’ll be able to tell us. Bas may well know. He was with her, I believe?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s young Keth we have to thank for getting him out, by what I’ve been told. And at least Bas is all right. I phoned the hospital. As far as they can tell, he’s not in any danger. Shocked, and his hands, of course. You know, Helen, there were times when Clemmy drove me to distraction but for all that, I’d have wanted a kinder end for her. Strange that both she and Elliot died the way they did.’

  ‘She’s at peace, now. She’ll be with Elliot. She never got over his death.’

  ‘You believe all that, Helen? You believe in heaven?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Sometimes I long to be with John and with Robert and Giles, too. But then I think of Drew. You’ve got to believe in God, Edward, when you think of the way Drew came to us. Drew was a miracle. When everything seemed hopeless, Alice gave us another chance.’

  ‘Strange, but I never liked that tower.’ Edward did not want to talk about miracles. ‘I used to think it was arrogant – pushy, almost – though now I suppose I must have instinctively known there was trouble in it and around it. It’s gutted, now. It will be better to have it pulled down, rather than restore it.’

  ‘Ssssh. You can think about that later, Edward – when you aren’t so upset. It must have been terrible for you to come home to it all without warning.’

  ‘It was, though the worst was over by the time I got back. The fire was out and they’d found Clemmy and – and taken her away. The young doctor-came – decent of him. He said there’ll have to be an inquest. But we must think about Bas, and hope it hasn’t harmed him too much. Bas could have died, you know, but for young Purvis. But Albert will tell me all about it, later. We must be thankful, I suppose, that the firemen stopped the blaze from spreading and none of the staff suffered, though I believe Cook is in a state over her best pans. They were burned dry by the time the firemen would let anyone back in the house.

  ‘A few pans, Helen. As if they matter when Bas could have been trapped there, too, and the Purvis lad hurt – or even worse – going in like he did.’

  ‘Keth is a fine young man. It was just the sort of thing he’d do. Now – are you sure there isn’t anything I can do for you? I shall stay until Amelia and Albert get back – see how Bas is. Drew is very anxious.’

  ‘No, my dear. You get off home. It was kind of you to come – and they’ll be back before so very much longer. Amelia will ring you, I’ve no doubt. Let me send for a car for you – save calling Julia?’

  �
�If you are sure? Tatiana has gone home, now, but Kitty is still at Rowangarth with Drew and Julia. It would be a help if someone could drive me back.’

  ‘Then I’ll ring for a car, now. And you’ll call tomorrow – or let me call on you? You’re a comfortable soul to be with, Helen. Thank you for being kind to Clemmy when most of us had despaired of her. She liked you and trusted you. Bless you for that.’

  ‘I’ll call again tomorrow,’ she said, gently touching his cheek. ‘And I’ll remember Clemmy in my prayers tonight, and you too, Edward.’

  ‘Amelia – you’re crying. Please don’t cry,’ Albert murmured. ‘Bas is all right. They said so. They gave him something for the pain and he was sleeping when we left. He’s in good hands.’

  ‘I know. It’s such a relief, that’s all. Your mother insisted on seeing him. How could she have been so thoughtless – keeping lighter fuel on the mantelpiece?

  ‘Bas didn’t want to go, you know, but I said he had to be kind to her. Kind! And I might never have seen him again. Keth not only saved his life, Bertie, but what he did afterwards probably saved Bas’s hands, too. I’ve got to thank him – now – before I go to bed. I couldn’t rest, if I didn’t. Drive back by way of Rowangarth, will you, and drop me off?’

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No, dear. You get back to Pendenys. Your father will be in need of comfort. I’ll collect Kitty from Helen’s – they’ll want to know how Bas is making out. But I must see Keth – you do understand?’

  ‘I do. Bas is mine, too. Tell young Purvis I’m grateful. I’ll see him myself tomorrow – thank him personally. Now dry your tears, Amelia – we’ve been very lucky.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know it? Bas never liked Pendenys, you know. Probably it was a foreboding.’

  ‘I know how he feels. I never liked it, either. It has never been a happy house.’

  ‘Well, maybe things will get better after today. Now take the next road to your right – drop me off at the back of Helen’s place. I know where the bothy is.’

  ‘There’ll be no peace for any of us, unless I do.’ He smiled fondly, understanding her, loving her. ‘And you’ll tell his mother, too, how grateful we are?’