The Runaway

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘Do you dare to tell me, Mason, what I should wear?’ Laura attempted her haughty look as of old, but being a little unsteady on her feet had to cling to her companion’s arm as she spoke and the effect was lost.

  ‘No, ma’m. I’m sure your choice is the right one. The odour is growing fainter. It will have left the garment by the time you go down to dinner.’

  ‘Mason! Do not answer back.’ Laura planted her feet firmly a little apart, the better to balance. The full skirt concealed her inelegant posture. ‘I’ll go to the servants’ hall to ask for candles and matches and, while I’m there, shall complain about the excessive use of cleaning fluid.’

  ‘Oh, ma’m, I don’t mean to be impertinent, but Mr Wainwright told us that on no account must we go into the servants’ quarters in this house.’

  Mason looked distressed but although the Laura of old might have dismissed her on the spot she did not want to alert the woman to the danger of letting her mistress wander the house alone. ‘Very well, Mason. I shall rest in my room until dinner. Please do likewise.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’m.’ Mason clipped the last fastener on the bodice of the purple velvet and steered Laura to the door of her bedroom.

  Laura waited until the sound of Mason’s mattress creaking told her that the woman was resting, then steadied herself with a generous half-glass of cognac before she quietly turned the big china handle of her door.

  The landing was deserted but faintly lit by a lamp at the furthest, nursery end and Laura walked with ungainly steps, lurching silently from panelled wall to window wall of the corridor. The marble hall, where Oliver would not allow oil lamps to discolour the pale, veined stone, was illuminated by five heavy brass candelabra. In an hour’s time more light would be brought but at this hour, early on a winter’s evening, it was not considered necessary to provide more than the faintest illumination.

  Laura knew she must move quickly and silently through the marble hall and gain the shadow of the ground floor corridor behind the Roman bath where the study was. She dared not look up in case anyone was leaning on the marble banister. Her heart was beating wildly but she did it, and looking over her shoulder when she reached the safe haven of the corridor, saw that she had been unobserved.

  She could feel the pain of her heart in her ears and throat and she snatched at one of the candle-holders before venturing on, running and stumbling, breath now rasping in fright. Past the antlered heads and glass-encased stuffed owl, past the door that led to the stairs and lamp room, until, opposite the door that opened directly into the servants’ corridor, she wrenched madly at the door of Oliver’s study.

  She was in. Her hands shook so much that two of the candles had gone out and she fumbled for her brandy flask before relighting them. She put the narrow bottle neck to her mouth and drained the contents.

  That was better. Her hands were under her control again and Laura placed the candle-holder on the top of the desk. What had James said? The second drawer from the window? Oh why hadn’t she asked him to be more specific? There were two davenports, one in each window, and each had two columns of drawers.

  A blue-bound notebook with names. That was what he’d said. Laura began on the davenport nearest to her, pulling out the drawers and rummaging feverishly but after five minutes she still had not found the book.

  There was a tray, set with brandy and glasses. She needed more, to give her a calm head.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Lizzie stood in the station yard, hugging her crimson coat to her body, hands inside her fur muff, chin deep into the black fur collar, watching the groom place her box into the Suttonford trap that had been sent to fetch her from the station. It was almost half-past six. She would have to be quick if she were to wash and dress in time for dinner at eight-thirty.

  She would have been nervous of returning but Oliver had been so kind to her, reassuring her that Florence was not angry about her hasty departure. They approached Suttonford in pitch-blackness, their carriage lanterns making small impression on the road ahead. ‘It’s the servants’ hour,’ Lizzie said to herself. ‘Suttonford looks so forbidding before the lamps are brought in.’ She held on to her seat as the trap rolled round the curve of the east wing, past the gloomy, unlit front windows.

  Then she leaned forward in her seat and called to the groom.

  ‘There’s someone in my brother’s study. Look! I can see someone looking through the desk.’

  ‘It’s maybe the master,’ the groom called back.

  ‘Mr Wainwright is in Middlefield. I saw him before I caught the train. Pass the house and then stop,’ she ordered.

  ‘I’ll go in, miss,’ he answered. ‘I’ll put you off round the back, by the stables.’

  He seemed to have seen immediately, as she had, that whoever was in the study was up to no good. He was a young groom, eager to make his mark, for he turned into the yard sharply and pulled the protesting horses to a halt.

  ‘Go the back way, miss. Tell the men to bring heavy weapons in case there’s more than one intruder. I’ll go in by the big door. I’ll surprise him.’

  Lizzie watched him take a carriage lantern from the side of the trap and hold it low, so that he would not be seen from the window as he ran swiftly and noiselessly along the grassy border. Her legs were trembling when she made her way to the back door of the kitchen area and she tried to control herself, blaming herself for lack of courage.

  Why did she always want to run from trouble? Why was she so full of fear? Her mother would have risen to any challenge that came her way. Why couldn’t she be like her mother instead of the clinging, whimpering creature she was? Why did she always imagine the worst that could happen and take evasive action and why, oh why did she suddenly have this awful foreboding; this chilling feeling of catastrophe?

  She reached the door of the kitchen area. There was more light at the back of the house, coming from the well-lit kitchen and lamp room but the door was locked and these rooms empty. She could hear the servants, in their room beyond, chattering, scraping chairs, chinking cups and saucers.

  She banged on the door with the palms of her gloved hands. ‘Open up! Open up, for God’s sake,’ she shouted.

  They had not heard but another groom was coming. He had fastened the driving pony to a post and was running towards her.

  The groom turned the brass handle of the study door quietly and cautiously pushed it forward. The intruder was still there and – his eyes adjusted to the flickering light – it was a woman. He lifted the carriage lamp high to see her face.

  ‘Mrs Mawdesley,’ he said. ‘What is it? I thought that a burglar . . .’

  Laura whirled round, her face frenzied with rage. ‘Close the door,’ she snarled. ‘The servants will hear.’

  The groom pushed the door to behind him and approached her with a hand outstretched. He had driven Mrs Mawdesley to Balgone on many an occasion. He knew about the crazed woman’s drunkenness and saw that he would have to calm her before she would allow herself to be led away from whatever mad intention she was set upon.

  Laura backed away from him, as if afraid, then suddenly darted across the study and stood, breathing noisily, with her back to the door. Her fingers were on the key and the groom saw them turn the key and remove it.

  ‘You will not stop me from finding the book,’ she told him in a blurred but strong voice. ‘I’ll not have James branded a traitor.’

  The groom tried to be persuasive. ‘I know nothing about a book, Mrs Mawdesley, but do you think you should be here, at night, alone?’ He began to move cautiously towards the door. ‘Give me the key and I’ll have you taken back to your room,’ he said gently.

  Laura threw the key defiantly across the room and he heard it drop to the polished floor beyond the carpet’s edge. She lunged towards him and the groom felt her fingers clawing at his face. He had never hit a woman in his life but he would have to subdue her. He was hampered by the lantern, which could be carried by the spoke below it or the handle on
top but could not be set upright. He thrust his free hand under her chin, forcing her head back.

  Laura kicked him. She had enormous, unnatural strength. They both went down. The lantern rolled jerkily across the carpet and went out, its glass door breaking, spilling the paraffin oil as it went, soaking the Persian carpet.

  The groom used both hands to pull her fingers from his throat. He grasped her hair when he was free. He held on to her, forcing her to her feet, making her stand with her back to him. But she struggled and now began to scream in the most horrific way, swaying her head from side to side, trying to free it. She evidently felt no pain and he tried to edge her towards the part of the room where the key must lie.

  With another wrench of her head she had broken loose and she snatched at the candle-holder on Oliver’s desk and brought it down with a cry of triumph across his head.

  He knew he was going, his head full of light when the heavy brass column hit him, and then he knew black emptiness as the second blow fell.

  Laura had found the book, just before the man came into the study. She could hear voices in the corridor. A hand was on the doorknob. They would not be able to open it from the outside. They would have to break it down, she thought with satisfaction. And then it would be too late. The notebook would have been destroyed. One candle was still alight on the brass candelabrum. She opened the leaves of the book, fanning them out as she lifted the candlestick and set the pretty little yellow flame to the dry pages. She would set it on the carpet to burn: it was well alight now. She lifted it from the desk and the flames leaped upwards towards her hand, making her drop the burning book.

  It fell against her skirt. A sheet of flame encircled her. She roared with laughter as the flames reached the oil-soaked carpet and spread rapidly across the floor. That was the beauty of brandy. It gave one such courage and took away all pain.

  Lizzie and the groom knew they would not be heard. The servants were shouting to one another, raising the alarm. The groom made for the laundry door and Lizzie ran around the back, alongside the unoccupied west wing, and on flying feet reached the front of Suttonford. The study was alight: a wall of fire behind the long, high window. Nobody could possibly be alive in that inferno and as she reached the front she heard glass exploding outwards behind her.

  She was in the marble hall, running towards the study.

  ‘Florence!’ she screamed. ‘Are you all right?’

  Three footmen were kicking at the study door and she watched the door give way, falling back into the blazing room, sending the men reeling from the blast of heat.

  ‘It’s too late, Miss Lizzie. Nobody can be alive in there,’ Wilkins shouted to her. ‘Get out, miss. Go outside. I’m going to get Mrs Wainwright down. She’s upstairs.’

  Lizzie found she was calm. ‘I’m all right, Wilkins,’ she heard her own voice, as if it came from someone else. ‘You get Mrs Wainwright. I’ll go to the nursery and get the staff to come down.’

  ‘Be quick, miss,’ Wilkins shouted above the roar of the flames. ‘The marble will hold the fire back. The place will go up like a haystack when the fire reaches the lamp room.’

  Lizzie ran up the stairs behind Wilkins and flew along the east landing. She could feel the heat from the study on her back as she heard Wilkins shout to Florence and the maid.

  ‘Nanny! Fire!’ she yelled at the top of her voice and to her relief Nanny appeared at the nursery door with Maud in her arms. ‘Go down the back stairs. Don’t take anything with you. There’s no time. Go now!’

  Nanny Gibson’s face was grey with fear. Baby Maud began to cry. ‘Mason’s in her room, Miss Wainwright! She’s next door.’

  ‘Get out, Nanny. Go!’ Lizzie’s voice was commanding and Nanny appeared to take courage from her.

  She found the first door to Laura’s suite locked but the sitting room door gave and she tumbled into the dark room, calling out to Mason.

  ‘Fire! Mason! Leave the room this minute. Come as you are!’

  There was no reply and little time to spare. There was a deafening series of explosions as the lamp room went up in flames and a cracking sound from the burning of the old roof timbers above the marble hall.

  She heard Mason but could not see her. ‘Where are you, Mason?’ she called, and had to do so again before she heard the woman crying and the sound of her crying coming from a wardrobe.

  Lizzie wrenched open the door and saw Mason, crouched, with her back to the door. She hauled her to her feet. ‘You stupid creature! Move! Follow me to the back stairs at the end of the landing.’

  Mason stood motionless; frozen with fear. Lizzie pushed the woman ahead of her but as soon as she saw the flames the companion woman fainted.

  Lizzie grabbed Mason’s arms and with a strength she didn’t know she possessed lifted her again, taking the dead weight across her shoulders.

  The landing was filling with choking black smoke and Mason was heavy. Lizzie’s eyes streamed with tears as she bent almost double under the weight of the companion woman.

  She reached the stair door and found herself falling through it, rolling with Mason, heads cracking against the cast-iron banisters, clothes tearing as they caught on the iron scrollwork.

  Oliver saw the flames from the train, half a mile before it reached Suttonford station. The sky was aglow above the house and gigantic tongues of fire split the night sky above the trees, hurling showers of charred and splintered timber upwards.

  There was no one at the station but he did not need to be told that the fire was at Suttonford. He could see it through the trees, alight from end to end, the most awful thing he had ever seen. He raced from the platform, through the yard, his legs heavy, not covering the distance fast enough and at last his feet pounded the last few yards of gravel drive before the house came into view. The sound of the fire was like thunder and in his nostrils were the acrid, burning fumes.

  He saw a huddle of people, well back from the fire, and he ran towards them. ‘Mrs Wainwright?’ he yelled. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Aye. She’s in the coachman’s house with Miss Lizzie and the baby,’ Wilkins said, reverting to his local dialect now that the formality of his occupation was no longer required. ‘We’ve lost a young groom and Mrs Mawdesley, though, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll come along with you. There’s nowt we can do for the house now.’

  ‘Did everyone else get out?’ Oliver had to shout above the roar of the flames.

  ‘Yes. We’ve had a count. They’re all here. Miss Lizzie’s in a bad way, sir,’ he said. ‘She carried the companion lady out of her room. The woman passed out with fright and Miss Lizzie got her out. The doctor’s on his way. One of the grooms rode over for him. We think she’s broken a few bones, sir. They fell down the back stairs.’

  The estate workers had abandoned their first futile attempts to douse the flames. The fire cart, which was always kept ready filled from the lake, could not be taken near enough to the fire to be of any use and there was nothing for it but to let the inferno burn itself out. The flames had spread so rapidly, they told him, that it had taken under ten minutes for the house to be ablaze from end to end.

  He found Florence seated beside the bed where Lizzie lay. Florence looked up at him as he entered the little bedroom and her face was a mask of fear and pain. Oliver knelt beside her and placed his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Florence. Your mother! The groom! What happened? Do you know how it started?’

  ‘No. Nobody knows,’ she replied in a small, painful voice. ‘Mama was in the study. I don’t know why. Perhaps she was searching for brandy. I should have given her all she wanted, not kept it from her. The groom and Lizzie were passing and the young man went in to investigate. That’s all we know.’

  ‘How’s Lizzie?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s in terrible pain, Oliver. She’s unconscious now but when she comes round it’s dreadful to hear her,’ Florence sobbed, turning her face into his sleeve.

  ‘The doctor’s on his way, love,’ Oliver said.
‘We’ll have to move to Balgone if Lizzie can be taken there safely.’

  Dr Russell arrived on horseback from his home between Suttonford and Middlefield. He asked Florence to assist him while Oliver waited in the living room of his head stableman’s house.

  ‘I’ve strapped up her ribs and treated the grazes,’ the doctor said. ‘No bones are broken but there is extensive bruising. I don’t believe she has internal injuries.’

  ‘Can we move her?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Yes. Tomorrow, if care is taken. She’ll need to spend two or three weeks in bed but she’s young and healthy. She should make a good recovery.’

  ‘I’ll stay with her, Oliver,’ Florence said, ‘until tomorrow. Will you go to Balgone tonight? Take Maud and Nanny Gibson? They will have to improvise for a lot of things.’

  ‘Will you be all right by yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Come back to me. I want you back.’

  It was not necessary to go to Balgone that night. Servants were taken in by the estate families. Nanny Gibson and Maud were placed with a footman’s family and Oliver and Florence were offered a bed in almost every house on the estate. They had no idea that they would be welcomed, that they were liked by their workers and Oliver found their kindnesses and generosity touching.

  The coach house was far enough from the fire to be out of danger, yet near enough to keep watch and they accepted the head stableman’s offer of their best bedroom, next door to Lizzie’s room where the stableman’s wife kept watch through the last hours of the night.

  The men did not pause in their work until the flames had consumed all there was to burn. The pines were winter-wet and had repelled the showering fire. The elms were badly burned; they might have to be felled but the stables and cart sheds, coach houses and tack rooms were spared. Oliver and the grooms led the frightened horses to a field two miles distant and at last it was safe to rest.