by Betty Neels
It was towards the end of the afternoon that she remembered that she hadn’t got her bike with her and the professor had said nothing about fetching her home; the nagging thought was luckily dispelled by the appearance of Doctor Gibbons, who arrived to see a patient very shortly before she was due to go off duty and offered her a lift. ‘Ross told me he had brought you over here this morning, so I said that as I was coming this afternoon, I should bring you back—that’ll leave him free to go into Salisbury and pick up Mandy.’
Gemma smiled with false brightness. The professor might appear to be a placid, good-natured man without a devious thought in his head, but she was beginning to think otherwise; he had had it all nicely planned. Well, if he thought he could coax her to ramble over half Europe he was mistaken. Her sensible little head told her that she was grossly exaggerating, but she cast sense out. Holland or Hungary or Timbuktoo, they were all one and the same, and all he was doing was to make a convenience of her. Her charming bosom swelled with indignation while she attended to Doctor Gibbons’ simple wants with a severe professionalism which caused him to eye her with some astonishment.
Cousin Maud had tea waiting for her, which was nice. Everyone was out in the garden, picking the first gooseberries, and the professor was there too, although long before Gemma had finished her tea he had strolled away. To collect Mandy, Cousin Maud explained with a smile, so that Gemma, on the point of asking her advice about the professor’s request, thought better of it. She wasn’t really interested in going to Holland, she told herself, she wasn’t interested, for that matter, in seeing him again. She could not in fact care less. She looked so cross that her companion wanted to know if she had a headache.
Gemma was upstairs when the professor returned with Mandy. He didn’t stay long, though, and she didn’t go downstairs until she had seen him get back into his car and shoot out of their gate and into Doctor Gibbons’ drive. She could see him clearly from her bedroom window; indeed, she was hanging out of it, watching him saunter into the house next door, when he turned round suddenly and looked at her. She withdrew her head so smartly that she banged it on the low ceiling.
For the time being, she didn’t want to see him. Let him come again and ask her if he was so keen for her to nurse his sister, and it was really rather absurd that she should leave her old ladies just to satisfy his whim. She tidied her already tidy hair and sighed deeply. Probably she would be at Millbury House for ever and ever—well, not quite that, but certainly for years. She went slowly downstairs, the rest of the evening hers in which to do whatever she wished, and she was free until noon the next day, too. She wouldn’t see her old ladies until then.
She saw them a good deal sooner than that, though. Several hours later she was wakened by the insistent ringing of the telephone. She had been the last to go to bed and had only been asleep for a short time, and it was only a little after midnight. The house was quiet as she trod silently across the landing and down the stairs, not waiting to put on dressing gown or slippers. Doctor Gibbons’ voice sounded loud in her ear because of the stillness around her. ‘Gemma? Good. There’s a fire at Millbury House—they’ve just telephoned. Matron’s pretty frantic because the fire brigade’s out at another fire and they’ll have to come from further afield. Can you be ready in five minutes? Wait at your gate.’
He hung up before she could so much as draw breath.
She was at the gate, in slacks and a sweater pulled over her nightie and good stout shoes on her feet, with a minute to spare. The house behind her was quite still and the village street was dark with not a glimmer of light to be seen excepting in the doctor’s house, and that went out as she looked. Seconds later she heard the soft purr of the Aston Martin as it was backing out of the drive and halted by her. The professor was at the wheel; he didn’t speak at all but held the door open just long enough for her to get in before he shot away. It was left to Doctor Gibbons, sitting beside him, to tell her: ‘The fire’s in the main building, the first floor day room. It’ll be a question of getting everyone out before it spreads to one or either wing.’ He turned to look at her in the dark of the car. ‘The fire people will be along, of course, but if all the patients have to be got out…’ He paused significantly and Gemma said at once: ‘There’s Night Sister, and a staff nurse on each ward and three nursing aides between them—and Matron, of course, as well as the kitchen staff, but I don’t think they all sleep in.’ She drew a sharp breath and said: ‘Oh, lord, look at it!’
The night sky glowed ahead of them, faded a little and glowed again, and now, as the professor took the right-hand turn into the drive without decreasing his speed at all, they could hear the fire as well as see it and smell it. They could hear other sounds too, urgent voices and elderly cries.
The professor had barely stopped the car at a safe distance from the burning building than Gemma was out of it. ‘It’s my ward,’ she cried, ‘the wind’s blowing that way. Oh, my dear old ladies!’ She leapt forward and was brought up short by a large hand catching at the back of her sweater.
‘Before you rush in and get yourself fried to a crisp, tell me where the fire escape is?’
Gemma wriggled in a fury of impatience, but he merely gathered more sweater into his hand. As Doctor Gibbons joined them, she said urgently: ‘At the back, where my wing joins the extension behind—there’s a side door with a small staircase which leads to the landing outside my ward…’
‘The way we came the other day, from the centre door—that will be impossible now; the wind’s blowing strongly from the centre towards your wing… Is there a fire chute?’
‘Yes—I know where it’s kept.’
‘Good.’ He turned to Doctor Gibbons. ‘Shall we try the side door, get into the ward and get the chute going from a window at this end? The fire escape is a good way away, I doubt if they can move the old ladies fast enough—if the dividing wall should go…’
They were already running towards the house. In a moment they were inside, to find the staircase intact. ‘Get between us,’ said the professor shortly, and took the stairs two at a time, with Gemma hard on his heels and Doctor Gibbons keeping up gamely. The landing, when they reached it, was full of smoke, but although the fire could be heard crackling and roaring close by, the thick wall was still holding it back. The professor opened the ward door on to pandemonium; Gemma had a quick glimpse of the night staff nurse tearing down the ward propelling a wheelchair with old Mrs Draper wedged into it; it looked for all the world like a macabre parody of an Easter pram race. There wasn’t much smoke; just a few lazy puffs curling round the door frame.
Gemma didn’t wait to see more but turned and ran upstairs to the next floor where the escape chute was, stored in one of the poky, disused attics which in former days would have been used by some over-worked servant. The door was locked—she should have thought of that. She raced downstairs again, took the key from her office and tore back. The chute was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed to drag it out of the room and push and pull it along the passage to the head of the stairs where she gave it a shove strong enough to send it lumbering down to the landing below. But now she would need help; she ran to the ward door and opened it cautiously. The professor was quite near, lifting Mrs Thomas out of her bed and settling her in the wheelchair a nursing aide was holding steady. He glanced up, said something to the nurse, who sped away towards the distant fire escape, and came to the door.
‘I can’t manage the chute,’ said Gemma urgently. ‘It’s on the landing.’
He nodded, swept her on one side and went past her, shutting the door, leaving her in the ward. The beds, she noticed, had been pulled away from the inner wall and ranged close to the windows, and there were only six patients left. She sighed with relief as the professor came back with the chute and she went to give him a helping hand.
There was still only a little smoke in the ward, although the roar of the fire sounded frighteningly near. Gemma shut her mind to the sound and began the difficult task of get
ting Miss Bird, hopelessly crippled with arthritis, out of her bed, wrapped and tied into a blanket ready to go down the chute. The nursing aide had come back; she could hear the professor telling her to go down first so that she could catch the patients as they arrived at the bottom. The nurse gave him a scared look.
‘I’ve never done it before,’ she told him in a small scared voice.
The professor eyed her sturdy figure. ‘Then have a go,’ he said persuasively, and actually laughed. ‘I’ve thrown a mattress down. Don’t try to catch the ladies, just ease them out and get help, any help, if you can. And be quick, my dear, for the inner wall isn’t going to hold out much longer.’
Gemma glanced over her shoulder. He was right; the smoke was thickening with every moment and there was a nasty crackling sound. She left Miss Bird to be picked up by the professor and hurried to the next bed—Mrs Trump, fragile, heaven knew, but very clear in the head, which helped a lot. She saw Nurse Drew plunge down the chute out of the corner of her eye, and a minute later, Miss Bird, protesting vigorously, followed her. She was ready with Mrs Trump by now and wheeled her bed nearer the chute and then wasted a few precious seconds dragging empty beds out of the way so that they had more room.
The professor already had a patient in his arms and she was tackling the third old lady when the wall at the other end of the ward caved in with a loud rumble, an enormous amount of dust and smoke and great flames of fire. Gemma, tying her patient into her blanket, found that her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly tie the knots. The professor was going twice as fast now, getting the next old lady into her blanket; she finished what she was doing and went to the last occupied bed—Mrs Craddock, apparently unworried by the appalling situation, blissfully unable to hear the noise around her. As Gemma rolled her into the blanket she shouted cheerfully: ‘A nasty fire, Sister dear. I hope there’ll be a nice cup of tea when you’ve put it out!’
Gemma gabbled reassurances as she worried away at the knots. The flames were licking down the wall that was left at a great rate now, and she could have done with a nice cup of tea herself. She was so frightened that her mind had become a blank. All that registered was that Mrs Craddock must be got down the chute at all costs.
The professor, elbowing her on one side without ceremony tugged the webbing tight with an admirably steady hand and bent to take Mrs Craddock’s not inconsiderable weight. ‘Come along,’ he said almost roughly, adding unnecessarily: ‘Don’t hang around.’
Mrs Craddock was stoutly built as well as heavy, and it took the professor a few precious moments to get her safely into the chute and speed her on her way. They were unable to hear the reassuring shout from below when she got there because the rest of the wall caved in with a thunder of sound. It did so slowly, like slow motion, thought Gemma, stupidly gawping at it, incapable of movement. The professor shouted something at her, but his voice, powerful though it might be, had no chance against the din around them. She felt herself swung off her feet and hurled into the chute. She hit the mattress at the bottom with a thump and a dozen hands dragged her, just in time, out of the way of the professor, hard on her heels.
The next few hours were a nightmare, although it wasn’t until afterwards that Gemma thought about them, for there was too much to do; old ladies, scattered around in chairs, on mattresses, wrapped up warmly on garden seats—the fire brigade were there by now and a great many helpers who had seen the fire from the village and come helter-skelter on bikes and in cars; the butcher in his van, the milkman, Mr Bates and Mr Knott, the gentleman farmer who lived in the big house at the other end of the village. The only person Gemma didn’t see was Charlie Briggs, who really should have been there and wasn’t. She wondered about him briefly as she went round with Matron and Night Sister, carefully checking that each patient would be fit to be moved. Now and again she brushed against the professor, listened carefully when he bade her do something or other, and then lost sight of him again.
The beginnings of a May morning were showing in the sky by the time the last ambulance had been sped on its way, leaving a shambles of burnt-out wards, broken furniture and everything else in sight soaked with water. Those who had come to help began to go home again while Matron, looking quite different in slacks and a jumper, thanked each of them in turn. Presently they had all gone, leaving Gemma and Doctor Gibbons, Matron, the night staff and the professor standing in what had once been the imposing entrance, while firemen sorted over the bits and pieces, making sure that all was safe before they too left.
It was the professor who suggested that he should drive everyone to their homes; Matron had been offered temporary shelter with the rector, whose house could be seen through the trees half a mile away, the rest of them lived round and about, not too far away, excepting for one nursing aide who came from Salisbury. He sorted them out, taking those who lived close by before driving Matron down the road to the Rectory. That left Gemma and Doctor Gibbons and the girl from Salisbury; he squeezed all of them into the car, left Gemma and the doctor at the latter’s gate and drove on to the city. Gemma watched the car out of sight, yawned and started for her own garden gate.
‘They’ve slept through it all,’ said the doctor as he put out a restraining hand, ‘they’d sleep through Doomsday.’ He took her by the arm. ‘Come in with me and make me a cup of tea. It’s gone five o’clock; far too late—or too early—for bed now. Besides, there’s no hurry, you haven’t got a job to go to now.’
Gemma turned to look at him. ‘Nor have I.’ She waited while he opened the door and followed him inside; she knew the house as well as her own home; they had been friends for years now. She told him to go and sit down and went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
They had finished their tea and were sitting discussing the fire and its consequences when the professor got back. Gemma heard the car turn into the drive and went away to make more tea; probably he would be hungry too. She spooned tea into the largest pot she could find and sliced bread for toast. She didn’t hear him when he came into the kitchen, but she turned round at his quiet ‘hullo’.
‘Tea and toast?’ she invited, unaware how deplorable she looked; her slacks and sweater were filthy with smoke and stains, her face was dirty too and her hair, most of it loose from the plait by now, was sadly in need of attention.
The professor joined her at the stove, made the tea, turned the toast and then spread it lavishly with butter. He said to surprise her: ‘How nice you look.’
Gemma stared at him over the tray she was loading, her mouth a little open. ‘Me—?’ She frowned. ‘If that’s a joke, I just don’t feel equal to it.’
He took the tray from her and put it down on the table again. ‘It’s not a joke, I meant it.’ He bent and kissed the top of her tousled head and smiled at her; he didn’t look in the least tired. ‘You’re a jewel of a girl, Gemma—just like your name.’
He took the tray and led the way back to the sitting room and they drank the pot dry, saying very little. It was when they had finished and she was stacking the cups on the tray again that he said in a matter-of-fact voice: ‘And now there is no reason why you shouldn’t come back with me, is there?’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Unless you object on personal grounds?’
Gemma cast a glance at Doctor Gibbons, who had gone to sleep and would be of no help at all. She suddenly felt very sleepy herself so that her mumbled ‘No, of course I don’t’ was barely audible, but the professor heard all right and although his face remained placid there was a satisfied gleam in his eyes. His casual: ‘Oh, good,’ was uttered in tones as placid as the expression on his face, but he didn’t say more than that, merely offered to escort her to her own front door, and when they reached it, advised her to go to bed at once.
A superfluous piece of advice; Gemma tore off her clothes, washed her face in a most perfunctory manner and was asleep the moment her uncombed head touched the pillow.
CHAPTER THREE
GEMMA slept all through the sounds o
f a household getting up and preparing itself for the day, perhaps because everyone was so much quieter than usual, for the professor, keeping watch from his window until Cousin Maud opened the back door so that Giddy might go out, presented himself at it without loss of time, and over a cup of tea with her, recounted the night’s events. It was hard to believe, looking at him, that he had himself taken part in them, for he appeared the very epitome of casual elegance, freshly shaved and bathed, his blue eyes alert under their heavy lids. Only when she looked closely Maud could see the lines of fatigue in his face. A tough man, she decided as she went round the house cautioning her young relations to behave like mice so that Gemma might sleep on.
And sleep she did, until almost midday, to go downstairs much refreshed and eat an enormous meal while Cousin Maud plied her with hot coffee and questions. She ate the last of the wholesome cheese pudding before her, washed up, invited her cousin to come upstairs with her while she dressed, and signified her intention of cycling over to the ruins of Millbury House to see exactly what was to happen. ‘Perhaps it will close down for good,’ she wondered worriedly. ‘What do you think, Maud?’
The older woman sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Well, dear, I should think it very likely, wouldn’t you? There must have been an awful lot of damage done and it would cost a fortune to rebuild the place. Doctor Gibbons is coming in to tea if he can spare the time—perhaps he’ll know something. He telephoned this morning—he said you were marvellous. Ross said so too.’
Gemma piled her hair neatly on top of her head and started to pin it there. ‘Oh—did you see him, then?’
‘He was at the back door this morning when I went down, to tell me that you’d only just got to bed.’ She got up and strolled over to the window. ‘You know, Gemma, it might not be such a bad idea, to take that job Ross suggested. No, don’t look like that, dear—he didn’t talk about it; Doctor Gibbons told me—I imagine that he thought I already knew about it.’ There was faint reproach in her voice.