Autumn Softly Fell

by Dominic Luke

  It was fully dark now. The flames were horribly bright, dancing along the cottage roofs. Sparks twirled and twisted in the gusting wind. On the opposite side of the street, the butcher’s was all in darkness, but next door the gates of the carpenter’s yard were open and men were busy moving piles of wood and throwing water on the shavings and chippings that littered the ground. Where in all this mayhem was Uncle Albert? And Henry, had he come back as he’d promised? If either of them had ordered her home now, she would have gone without a murmur. There was nothing more she could do – nothing anyone could do. The fire raged on and on. The whole village would be burned – her lovely village. It would be destroyed before she’d had a chance to get to know it.

  There was a loud crunching and cracking. She looked round in time to see the roof of Mother Franklin’s cottage give way with a thunderous roar and a storm of flames. Sparks exploded into the night sky.

  Dorothea jumped up in horror. ‘Nibs…!’

  But there he was in the doorway, hugging to his chest an old pillow and some ragged sheets, his other hand hanging loose, the skin raw with burns.

  Dorothea ran to help. ‘Nibs, your hand!’

  ‘I w-went up-upstairs,’ he spluttered. ‘The ceiling was coming down. A piece of it fell on my hand. I … I swallowed a lot of smoke.’

  He fell to his knees, swayed, his face pinched and pale, eyes rolling. Dorothea helped him up, half carried him, leading him away from the burning cottage. She settled him on the chest where she’d been sitting a moment before. He sagged, eyelids drooping, coughing feebly. Dorothea gathered herself. One last effort – and for her enemy Nibs! But who would have guessed he was so brave?

  Finding water, she made him drink, then she ripped a strip from the hem of her petticoat (goodness only knew what Nanny would say) and bound up Nibs’s burnt hand with it. He seemed all but oblivious.

  She had just finished tying the makeshift bandage when a familiar voice exclaimed, ‘Miss Dorothea! So this is where you’ve got to!’

  ‘Oh, Nora! Thank goodness!’ Dorothea had never been so glad to see anyone. Help was here at last. Nora would soothe, cure, reassure, protect – just as she always did.

  ‘I didn’t know what to think, miss, when you didn’t come back for tea, and then I heard that the village was all ablaze and I could see the smoke for myself. I couldn’t stay up at the big house, I don’t care what Mrs Bourne says or anyone—’

  There was nothing soothing about Nora just now. Her face was creased with worry.

  ‘I’ve just seen our Jem. He told me he’d sent Pippa home but when I went down their cottage she wasn’t there and she’s not up at ours either and I can’t find her anywhere. Oh, miss, what about the baby! What if something’s happened?’

  Dorothea’s heart shrank within her. Here was another emergency when it was all she could manage to stay on her feet. She felt that she could have lain in the road and gone to sleep right there and then. Why was Nora so concerned for Pippa now, when she’d always said that Pippa wasn’t right for Jem and had no idea about anything?

  Dorothea rubbed her eyes. It must be the smoke in her head, making her so ill-tempered. Now was not the time to fall short, when Nora needed her, not to mention Pippa, who’d been so concerned about Mother Franklin. With a great effort, Dorothea got to her feet.

  ‘I knew I could rely on you, Miss Dorothea! Now, if you go round by the Green, and I’ll go the other way, and we’ll….’

  Nora’s words were lost in the hustle and bustle of the street as she sped away. Dorothea hesitated a moment, loathe to leave Nibs in the state he was in, not to mention poor Mother Franklin with the tears rolling down her cheeks. There were only the children to fall back on, Nibs’s little brother and sister. She impressed on them that they must look after their brother and the old lady. We will, they said. She was not sure that they really understood, but it was the best she could do.

  She set off, hurrying up School Street, following the fire engine’s hose pipe towards the village green where it disappeared down the well. Deep night closed round her. Pausing to look back, she saw the fire as a lurid orange stain in the sky.

  ‘Pippa! Pippa!’

  She stumbled onwards, calling repeatedly. There was no reply. The village was still and silent, for all the world as if it was deserted. Even the wind had dropped now. Not a leaf stirred.

  ‘Pippa!’

  She went along the High Street as far as Tumbledown Cottage where the houses came to an end. Turning left, she hurried down Back Lane. She had never been this way before, but – dazed as she was – she still felt a burning curiosity to see where Nora lived. The Turners’ cottage, she knew, was first on the left. It was smaller than she’d imagined, what she could see of it in the gloom, squat and lifeless, the windows blank. And the garden – full of wonderful flowers, Nora said, all the colours of the rainbow – looked grey and desolate in the moonless dark. An unexpected feeling of disappointment swept over her; the whole world seemed dreary and diminished just now. The empty night was all around her, and she was alone. She longed for the safety and comfort of the nursery. That was her place, if anywhere was. She did not belong here in the village. Nibs had been right.

  She shook herself. This was no time for moping. Trying to decide what to do next, she guessed that Nora would be coming up Back Lane from the other direction, so there would be no point in going that way herself. Wasn’t there a footpath to the left of the Turners’ cottage? It ran across a meadow, Seed Meadow Nora called it, where she had played as a little girl: ‘The grass was taller than me, miss….’

  With a little searching, Dorothea found a gap in the hedge, and there was the path, like a thin dark ribbon across the grey meadow. She began walking. The sound of her skirts brushing through the grass was like a sinister hissing voice. All else was quiet, except for the thumping of her heart. She pressed on, not calling out now – she wouldn’t have dared, in that dark silence – but stopping every so often to listen. All was still. The air was heavy and breathless.

  Halfway across the meadow a feeling of fear seized her. She forced it back. It was not as if she was lost – not really. She knew these places so well from listening to Nora’s talk that it was as if she had lived here all her life. Just ahead now was the hedgerow and beyond it a patch of tangled trees and shrubs known as the Wilderness. She could just make it out in the gloom – but it looked very dark in there. Did she dare to go in?

  Her steps slowed, stopped. She could see above the leaf-laden boughs of the trees an orange glow in the sky, the fire, raging on and on like a ravenous beast. Very faintly she could hear the din coming from School Street.

  Without warning, something or someone touched her nose. She jumped a foot in the air but was too terrified even to scream. Her chest heaving, she reached up with one finger and felt the place on her nose where she’d been touched. The finger came away wet. Water. How odd! Where could it have come from?

  She looked up – and a second drop of water hit her right in the eye. It was followed by a third, a fourth…. More and more drops were falling, faster and faster. She could hear them pattering on the grass all around.

  It took her dazed brain some time to work out what was happening.

  It was raining.

  Rain! Her heart leapt. Now surely they stood a chance! The village might not burn after all! She wanted to get back as quickly as possible to see what was happening. The shortest way was straight on, the path through the Wilderness. She ran towards the hedgerow, Pippa for the moment forgotten.

  The rain was falling harder and harder. It was pouring down as she squeezed through a gap in the hedge. Leaves brushed against her face. Brambles snatched at her. For a moment she was trapped – then she was through and plunged into the Wilderness.

  Here, the darkness was as thick as cobwebs. The wind had come back, too, and was gusting in the tree tops. Rain hammered. She moved forward, one step, then another, eyes searching the blackness. Suddenly, in the distance, a clap of thund
er rolled across the sky. Nearer at hand, and mixed with the sound of the thunder, came a blood-curdling scream. Dorothea stopped dead, frozen in terror.

  The thunder died away. The scream too was cut off. Dorothea breathed again, listening to the wind and the rain and the rustling leaves.

  Then the scream came again. Not the evil howl of some terrible lurking monster, she realized. It sounded more like a desperate cry of pain and fear. If there was somebody nearby who needed help, she couldn’t just run away and leave them.

  ‘Hello? Is there somebody there?’ She didn’t allow herself time to ask if her courage was up to the task, but all the same her voice sounded terribly thin and feeble, and was quickly swallowed up by the dark. She listened.

  A faint reply, away to her left. ‘Help! Please help me!’

  It was no monster or ghost. It wasn’t even a stranger. It was a voice she recognized. In a rush she remembered her quest and realized she had completed it. She had found Pippa Turner.

  She felt her way in the dark, inching towards the place where Pippa’s voice had come from. Every so often, a single rain drop, working its way through the tangled canopy above, landed on her with a splat.

  After a time, the darkness drew aside a little. She had come to a clearing. On the far side, splayed on the ground between the roots of an old, gnarled tree, was the washed-out figure of a woman, glimmering like a ghost.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ Pippa’s voice was thin and brittle. ‘Oh miss! Oh miss, it’s you! Thank goodness! I thought no one would ever come! I tripped in the dark – tripped over these old roots. I’ve hurt my ankle. I can’t walk on it. I should never have come this way, but I got frightened waiting at home and when I couldn’t find Jem or— Oh miss! Miss!’

  ‘What is it, Pippa? What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s the baby, miss. The baby’s coming.’

  Dorothea backed away. ‘I’ll … I’ll fetch someone. Nora. Jem.’

  ‘Please don’t go, miss! Please don’t leave me on my own again! I couldn’t bear it!’ Pippa stretched out a hand and Dorothea let herself be drawn closer, kneeling as Pippa reached up to grip her arm. ‘It’s too late, anyhow, miss. I think … I think … oh miss, it hurts! It hurts! It’s—oh, ah, oh….’

  Pippa’s voice swooped up into the same howl of pain that had curdled Dorothea’s blood in the dark just now. Up close, the sound made her dizzy and she swayed on her knees. This was just how she’d felt long ago, walking the streets with her papa, walking with an empty tummy in the cold and the dark.

  The memory was so unexpected and yet so vivid that it was like a dose of salts. The mist in her head cleared. Her eyes focused on Pippa writhing between the tree roots. Pippa’s skirt had rucked up, one leg was stretched out, the swollen ankle clearly visible inside her stockings. Her screams faded, subsided to a low moan. Her eyes fluttered and closed. She looked done in, as if she had run out of energy and was now fading away – as if, thought Dorothea with a sudden chill of fear, as if the baby inside was slowly killing her, just as Dorothea’s own mother had been killed all those years ago. Bessie Downs, who never shied away from anything, had once explained exactly what it meant to die in childbirth. Dorothea, knowing that you had to take Bessie Downs with a pinch of salt, had not believed the half of it. Out here in the Wilderness – with Pippa’s groans fading to nothing, Pippa’s grip on her arm loosening, Pippa’s hand slipping to the ground – it seemed to Dorothea that Bessie Downs had not been half macabre enough.

  Dorothea knew about babies. In Stepnall Street it had been impossible not to know. There were no nurseries, no nannies standing guard in Stepnall Street. The grown-ups didn’t watch their words when the children were around; they hardly noticed if children were there at all. It seemed sensible, therefore – wise as she was – to loosen some of Pippa’s clothes. With shaking hands, Dorothea groped and fumbled, pushing up Pippa’s skirt, pulling down her drawers. All the time the deluge continued, more and more drips sliding off the leaves as the wind tossed the branches. Far off, thunder growled like an angry giant.

  When she got a peek of the baby’s head, half-in and half-out, the shock nearly bowled her over. She gripped Pippa’s hand. ‘It’s here, Pippa! It’s here! I can see it!’

  Pippa stirred, mumbling, but she wasn’t making any sense, and she didn’t squeeze Dorothea’s hand in return.

  Without warning, and in a way which turned Dorothea’s stomach, the baby came slithering and squelching out onto last year’s leaves, a scrap of flesh, just skin and bone, sticky, slimy, messy. Pippa groaned, then was silent. The baby was silent too, half dead by the look of it – perhaps completely dead. Dorothea wished she could feel sorry for it but she couldn’t. She couldn’t feel anything. The darkness seemed to be closing in, too – washing over her, blotting it all out, the wind, the rain, the baby, Pippa, everything. She felt as if she was falling – or was it that she was floating, floating away…?

  As if in a dream, she suddenly heard voices all round her, saw a swinging lantern. Women were giving orders, speaking soothingly to Pippa, questioning each other anxiously. And then came a most peculiar noise: a sort of grizzling and whining rising rapidly to a high, angry wail. How odd, thought Dorothea vaguely, it sounded almost like a baby….

  But of course! It was a baby! It was Pippa’s baby! Was it alive after all? And Pippa?

  Dorothea tried to scramble to her feet but couldn’t quite manage it. She swayed, felt herself falling again, but before that could happen, a strong arm encircled her waist, a big jacket was thrown round her shoulders.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dorothea. I’ve got you. You’re quite safe now.’

  It was Henry. Henry had come. He was beside her, holding her. He had come to her rescue again.

  She was only half aware of walking through the pouring rain back to School Street (she wouldn’t let him carry her, she still had enough about her to remember the prestige and responsibility of being eleven). Uncle Albert was waiting in Bernadette, red-faced and wheezing, holding the umbrella that Nora had packed with the picnic that morning, ‘just in case’. Only that morning!

  ‘Home, I think, Fitzwilliam,’ said Uncle Albert once Dorothea was safely aboard.

  ‘Right away, sir.’

  Henry, in sodden shirt sleeves, hatless, his hair plastered on his head, started the engine. As they drove away, Dorothea had a confused impression of the gaunt, roofless shells of the cottages looming up in the dark, of people laden with goods and chattels trudging through burnt straw and puddles of water, of low murmuring voices and the sobbing of children. Then the village fell away and they were whirling through the night. It felt like flying on the back of an eagle.

  It was only when Bernadette had come to a stop and the big house was suddenly there, waiting, lights in all the windows and the front door wide open, only as Dorothea was being helped out of the motor and went stumbling up the steps, that she remembered she had forgotten to pick up her hat.

  SIX

  DOROTHEA WOKE UP coughing.

  Once the fit had passed, she lay back, exhausted. At least her room was calm and peaceful after the dreams of flames and darkness from which she had just surfaced.

  After a while, she got out of bed, crossed to the window, pulled back the curtains, opened the sash. She breathed in, tentative, but the air was cool and fresh with no smell of burning, no hint of soot. She didn’t know what the time was, but it had to be very early. The morning was bright and golden, the sky a deep, clean blue. A thin white mist lay on the fields. Spiders’ webs glistened like strands of silver.

  Resting her elbows on the sill, she listened to the distant church bell striking the half-hour and, remote, the chuff-chuff of a locomotive, hardly more than a ripple in the air. The sound of crunching gravel was loud in comparison. Down below, the governess came walking out from the stable yard. She must have let herself out of the side door and was crossing now to the entrance in the red brick wall that led to the gardens. She was hatless, with her hair up. Her hips
swayed. Her skirt trailed. Serene, solitary, she passed out of sight.

  Dorothea took a last breath, then drew back, shutting the window quietly. The dregs of her fiery dreams had been tipped away and she got back into bed, pulled the covers up, and slipped into peaceful sleep.

  A most unexpected visitor arrived just before luncheon.

  ‘I’ve brought your hat, miss, which you left behind, seemingly.’

  Nibs Carter hesitated before taking a step forward. He placed the hat on the nursery table. Her poor hat! She had been so proud of it yesterday when getting ready for the great expedition. Now it was a sorry looking thing, smudged with soot, stained by the rain, ruined. Nibs too looked different: smaller somehow, even more scrawny than usual. He cradled his bandaged hand. His clothes hung off him like rags. He was not cocksure today. Dorothea wondered that she’d ever been afraid of him.

  Nora had been full of news that morning. The fire had been terrible, the worst disaster ever to be visited on the village but – mercifully – no one had been seriously hurt. Pippa and her newborn son were both doing well. Mother Franklin – together with her ‘bits and pieces’ – had been taken in by her married daughter who had room to spare down Back Lane now so many of her children had left home. The Carters, Nora had added with a sorry shake of her head, had not been so lucky. Their little cottage had been gutted and they had been split up, taking refuge where they could round the village.

  ‘What will you all do now?’ Dorothea asked Nibs.

  ‘I don’t know, miss. Our Arnie says we’ll end up in the workhouse but he always looks on the black side, our Arnie.’

  Poor Nibs! He looked so trampled down – so much so, that she almost regretted that the old Nibs had gone, nasty though he’d been. But who was the real Nibs Carter? She didn’t even know his proper name.

  ‘It’s Robin, miss. But I hate Robin. I’d sooner be called Nibs – even if it is a joke at my expense. It’s what my dad used to call me – his nibs – on account of my getting above myself when I was a kid.’