Summers, True

by Poppy

  Abruptly her nerve broke. She turned and went to the end of the bar where Pete kept her basket and shawl, "I've got to go, Pete,I've got to."

  "That fire ain't anywhere near your house. It's way up above the wharves someplace, where all those manufactories are."

  "I'm going, Pete, I'm going. Give me my basket."

  "If you start a stampede out of here, The Boss ain't going to forget it. He won't want you back."

  Poppy bent, snatched the basket, and broke for the doors. The minute she was outside, she could smell the smoke and see it rising in three black columns high above the roofs. As she watched, a flickering red tongue of flame burst in the center of one of the columns.

  She moaned and started running. She stayed close to the building fronts, away from the galloping horses in the street, fighting clear of the men running all around her. She tripped over one of a pack of mongrel dogs, nearly went down, but caught herself on a doorjamb and kicked her way clear. The smoke was thicker now, making it hard to breathe, and waves of unnatural heat beat on her skin. A strong, steady wind blew down over the hills, but it was blowing toward the water, away from the town. If it shifted, the whole town could go up in flames once more.

  She panted and ran, stopped and caught her breath and ran again. She was being foolish, foolish, foolish, her pounding feet thudded in her ear. Yet that terrible gnawing fear drove her on.

  She knew where the fire was even before she reached it. While she was still pushing her way through the crowd, dodging the fire engines jostling each other on the narrow streets, their members shoving and shouldering each other aside for the places of privilege so they could throw their streams of water on the flames, she knew. She did not even try to scream a question over the roar of the fire and the yells of the crowd. When she finally stood in the forefront, the flames licking hot enough to blister her face, the smoke choking her until the breath whistled in her lungs, and her eyes half blind, she saw what she had guessed already.

  The fire was in the iron manufactory, Andy's place. Already it was gutted to the collapsing brick walls, and the roofs of the two nearest buildings had caught, so the firefighters were concentrating the water there to try to save them.

  Her frenzy of anxiety about Andy had been no freak. Her mind had added up a dozen hints and arrived at this total, instantly, completely. Andy had said the manufactory was running out of iron and therefore work. The smith had said, long ago and far away in another country, that the manufactory used iron from burned buildings. The smith was capable of any treachery that profited him and kept him in work. This fire would make work rebuilding the manufactory besides producing enough burned iron to stay open.

  Still she need not have run, unreasoning, half mad. Her emotions had connected Andy and fire, but he had nothing to do with this. He had left the manufactory hours ago, and she did not see him among the spectators. He was safe at home, long asleep. If she could fight her way back through the mob to the street, she might be able to find a carriage to take her home, too.

  She struggled and wiggled through to the fringes of the crowd. Her bodice was burned in a dozen spots from falling soot, and the odor of her singed hair made her sneeze. Her shoes and skirts were drenched with flowing mud.

  She worked her way around one Volunteer engine and tried to force her way between two others beyond that. She found herself hemmed in and submerged by a barricade of men's shoulders. She prodded and pushed and said, "Please, please let me through," but nobody seemed to hear or even feel her thrusts. Finally one man lifted an arm, and she wedged her head past his shoulder. Then she stopped moving and even breathing.

  In the flickering, reddish glare of the fire, Jeremiah and the smith confronted each other. Jeremiah, ax in his hand and great fireman's hat pushed back on his white hair, towered over the square, belligerent figure of the smith.

  "I'm here because I want to know what's happening to my place of employment," the smith said. "Would you want me to be sleeping easy in my bed while perhaps I won't have a job tomorrow?"

  "What if somebody says they saw you sneaking around here earlier tonight?"

  "Then they're lying." The smith's voice rang with indignation. "I was at my boardinghouse for the evening, and my mates there can tell you that."

  "You haven't been talking about the lack of iron so the place might be closing down?"

  "So's the whole shop been talking, and now it is closed. Please, mister, use your noggin,"

  "I am. One of my mates in the Fire Company carries the insurance on this manufactory, and he tells me it's underinsured. If there's too much damage, it won't reopen. Even if this has been a big fire that left plenty of scrap iron."

  "That's not so," the smith screamed. Then he whined again, "Now any way you look at it, I wouldn't be doing myself out of a job. I don't know anything about fires and scrap iron. The big fires were over before I landed here."

  But he knew, he knew, Poppy wanted to scream.

  "Manufactories are apt to have fires," the smith blustered.

  "It started in three different places at once," Jeremiah said. "That's proof enough it was set."

  "Well, then," the smith said, "I know one person here who has a fancy for fires, likes them real good and 'has been caught trying to set them." He sighed dramatically. "I thought it was just a boyish prank. Treated him like my own son, I have."

  "Who's this?" Jeremiah demanded.

  "That English kid, Andy Smith. Sent down to Cornwall where I lived, he was, for fire trouble they had with him in London."

  Jeremiah stared at the smith, face suddenly vulturine and avid. "You're sure of this?"

  "Positive sure."

  "Poppy Smith's brother."

  ''That's the boy."

  Jeremiah licked his lips, and his eyes shone red in the light of the flames. "London, huh?"

  "Sure. They've had big fires there, too. This ain't the only town that's 'burned to the ground."

  But that was years ago, centuries ago, Poppy wanted to scream. And Andy never set any fires, much as he liked to watch them.

  "So a certain newspaper editor was telling me only the other day," Jeremiah said thoughtfully. "Perhaps he was trying to tell me more than I realized. You are sure of your information?"

  "Well, now, I don't know that I could find you witnesses clear from Cornwall. You've got to be reasonable, mister."

  "It certainly would be reasonable to question the boy," Jeremiah said. "Thank. you, mister. We always appreciate honest information. This fire setting has got to stop. Nobody who's guilty, and I don't care if he is under age, can be allowed to commit this crime and escape punishment." He nodded and licked his lips.

  Poppy never knew how she battered her way through the crowd and back to the street where she found a carriage with a driver who decided the best part of the fire was over and he could leave for a double fare. She sat tensely forward in the seat, fists clenched, and listened to her labored breathing rasping in her ears.

  She could not believe the smith actually knew the truth about Andy and his two impulsive graspings at fire. Dex would not have confided anything that trivial and yet intimate when he arranged to send them to Cornwall. More likely Andy, scolded by the smith for some playful. gesture at the forge, had blurted out a boyish half-confidence that he had gotten in trouble that way before, possibly even that it had got them sent to Cornwall.

  To her, the truth about this fire and who set it was as clear as if she had seen it happen. She knew Andy. He was impulsive but not warped or criminal. He was not capable of such an act. The smith was a sneak, an opportunist, and an informant. For him to be out of employment was serious, important enough that Andy had childishly echoed his fears, which did not at all apply to a boy with a sister and a home. The smith had set the fire to provide iron to keep the manufactory working. He had mates, equally angry about their pay packets, who would back up his lies about where he was when the fire was set. Even better, knowing what he did about Andy, he must have planned from the first t
o divert suspicion from himself to Andy, telling a story that could not be disproved at this distance. The small truth in his big lie lent it credence. Besides people were always more prone to think a boy guilty of some mischief than to blame a mature and skilled workingman.

  The smith could not have known his great luck in telling his story to a man so eager to believe it he would make no effort to discover whether or not the accusation were true. Unwittingly, thinking only of his own protection, the smith had put a terrible weapon in Jeremiah's hands.

  This town was fanatic in its hatred of arsonists, and no wonder when it had burned so many times. The law of England would consider a boy Andy's age enough of a man to hang. And if not by order of the American courts, then he might hang by the Vigilante-type justice Jeremiah wanted. With his power in the Vigilantes, Jeremiah could dictate a verdict. And Poppy knew what his fee would be if he saved Andy. Anything was better than the kind of justice and mercy Jeremiah dispensed.

  Long shudders were shaking her whole body as the carriage stopped in front of the house. Except for the small light in the parlor, both houses were dark and silent. Andy was undoubtedly inside and asleep, but nobody would have seen him since he came home from work. Nobody 'could prove he had been there all this time.

  Poppy knew what she must do and say. Jeremiah was adroit at getting information from drivers.

  "Good night," she said. "I don't know why I ever go to fires. They're so exhausting. I'm tired enough to drop."

  "Sleep well, miss."

  Poppy yawned and walked slowly, as if unutterably tired, up to the door. Once inside, she ran. Jeremiah would not be far behind her.

  She shook Andy awake and said, "Get into your clothes. Fast. We've got to run. No, don't make another light. Dress and meet meat the back door."

  She snatched up her dark coat, fished their poke of gold dust out from under the loose boards beneath her bed, and stopped for nothing else. She met Andy in the kitchen and said, "We'll go through the back yards. Quick now."

  Chapter Thirty-one

  IN the morning Poppy found it steadying that in ,this world some things and some people did not change. Madame was as discreet and as forthright as always.

  When Poppy had stumbled in on her the night before and, once in Madame's private sitting room, had blurted out the Whole story, Madame had only nodded, and pushed them into her bedroom. She herself brought hot water and fresh sheets and told them to take her big, canopied bed. She had a most comfortable padded chaise longue in the sitting room.

  When Poppy, wrapped in a large silk robe, poked her head out in the morning, Madame gestured her back and, a few minutes later, knocked on the door. Three breakfast trays were waiting on Madame's large businesslike desk. .

  "I've told Bella, that's my black girl, not to talk, and she'll keep her mouth shut. But usually I eat at the long table in the kitchen with my girls, so everybody knows I have somebody in here. And with me, it won't be any fancy man."

  "I didn't know where else to go."

  "You did right. If I could, I'd keep you, and welcome, until this affair straightens out. Luckily nobody was in the parlor when you two walked in, but my girls will be talking and trying to put two and two together. Sometimes they come up with two dozen right on the nose. So I can't."

  "You can't hide suspected criminals," Andy said in one of his odd, grown-up moments.

  "You didn't set any fire, boy, but you do have a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "And doing the wrong thing," Andy said with a quiver of his lower lip.

  "You did nothing except work as hard as a man," Poppy said fiercely. "I understand, Madame. Jeremiah is a powerful man in this town."

  "I can't offend any politician, whatever his party and whatever I think of him."

  "We'll leave," Poppy said and hoped the despair was not reflected in her face and voice. The thought of walking through the streets with Andy, when the whole town must be looking for the brother of that redhead from the Palace, was a horror. Somebody would shout and point them out within ten minutes. She touched the voluminous wrap. "I do need a plain dark dress."

  "Yours and the shoes too, ruined, and I myself put them in the kitchen stove," Madame said. Then, hearing sounds in the hallway. she tilted her head and rose. "No. No customers at this hour. Bella knows that."

  The voices in the hall outside continued and drew closer. Then the door burst open. From behind him, Bella gasped, ''I could not stop him, Madame." Maurice, smiling, a portmanteau in each hand, strode into the room.

  Delighted with himself, he bowed and put them at Poppy's feet. "I hope I have packed to your satisfaction." He drew the tiny derringer from his pocket. "I also have decided you have earned this."

  "Maurice, I could kiss you," Poppy said, almost in tears.

  "I commend the idea."

  Madame was on her feet and frowning. ''Who directed you here?"

  "I myself have decided it," Maurice smiled. ''When I arrived home last night, I found Miss Poppy's doors all open but nobody inside."

  ''I didn't leave them open."

  ''I dosed them again. Then one of my friends who had played late at the tables came home with a great story. We watched 'from our windows and discovered other watchers in the shadows across the street."

  "I knew it," Poppy cried. ''They must have been right behind me."

  "So you were out before they arrived and searched the house," Maurice shrugged with a wave of his hand. "My friend and I conferred, and we decided that ourselves. Also that you had not delayed to pack. The rooms alone told us that, one bed untouched, everything in perfect order for the morning. So just before first light, when everybody dozes, I let myself in the back door and packed the small necessities a young lady and a boy need when traveling."

  "Who directed you here?" Madame repeated grimly.

  ''I myself. Who else does Miss Poppy know in this town? If I make the mistake, I still can leave the portmanteaus here to be recovered later, more easily from here. But I make no mistake."

  Madame shook her head, still frowning, and put a finger to her lips. Outside, Bella was protesting again, her voice unusually loud, "No. Not at this hour. Madame forbids. No guests. You saw nobody enter. No, gentlemen, no."

  "I have been followed," Maurice said.

  Distantly, they heard the slam of a heavy door and almost relaxed. Then they heard a scuffling, Bella's voice protesting again, and the thud of men's feet on muffling carpets. Madame reached the door in two quick steps and shot the bolt.

  ''I can only protest and delay them a little time," she said. "Behind you ,beside my wardrobe on the inner wall. There. The door to my new wine cellar. I would not trust it any place else. Down. All of you. Down quickly."

  Maurice pulled the door open and threw down the portmanteaus, and Andy tumbled after them. Poppy half fell down the wooden steps, and Maurice pushed close behind her. They huddled in the center of the roughly bricked room, lit only by two small barred gratings.

  Above, they heard a pounding on Madame's door and her protesting voice, followed by Jeremiah's deep tones in Short words of command. Madame did not prolong the argument. They heard her door slam open, and her angry invitation to enter if they must and search a lady's solitary chambers, an indignity beyond words, past description, completely outside all law and all rules of gentlemanly behavior. Therefore she was saying nothing, Madame proclaimed, and for two full minutes proceeded to voice her outrage at five gentlemen invading a lady's privacy at this hour.

  Jeremiah's deep tones rumbled in answer, but Poppy was too horrified to hear what he said. She was staring up at a thin oblong of light. The latch of the door at the head of the stairs had not caught. It was ajar.

  She poked Maurice, and he saw it. He looked around the room at the racks for holding bottles, the casks of wine and beer, and the cases of wine stacked along the back wall. He peered closer there and beckoned, pointing to a space between the cases and the wall. Andy and then Poppy scrambled over a
nd squeezed themselves down, huddling low so their heads would not show.

  "Do you have mice in your walls, Madame?" Jeremiah asked. ''I hear rustlings and squeakings. Where does this door lead?"

  The oblong of light broadened as the door opened. Maurice kicked the portmanteaus back of the steps, strode forward, and looked up.

  "Good morning, sir. Madame is not prepared for visitors so early, but I 'am an old friend, and I am bringing up my own supplies." .

  He pulled several bottles from a rack and climbed the stairs. The oblong of light started to narrow behind him, and then stopped.

  "Just a minute," Jeremiah said. ''What's down there?"