‘Don’t think of it like that.’ Again she touched his arm in that comforting way. ‘It’s just that she’d been with Mrs. Emlyn for years. She even had a key of the place, so that she should feel it was always a home. That’s the sort of thing which sticks in a child’s mind.’
‘Yes, of course. But isn’t it a terribly long way for her to walk — in her sleep?’
‘If she got the whole way, yes. But we don’t know when she started, do we? We’ve just no means of knowing. She may not have gone far. We may pick her up just a little way beyond the gates,’ Felicity suggested cheeringly.
But there was no sign of Janet just a little way beyond the gates, nor anywhere on the road to Carmalton. They drove slowly, scanning every turn in the road, exchanging only a brief word now and then, while Julia, who had still insisted on accompanying them, leaned back in her seat and smiled a slight, sceptical smile.
Once she said, ‘I think you’re on the wrong track entirely. If you ask me, she’s hiding somewhere at Tarkmans and playing you up.’
But neither of them took any notice of her.
Within a quarter of a mile of Carmalton, Felicity suddenly gave a gasp and said, ‘I’ve just remembered! The Emlyns went on holiday yesterday. I met Mrs. Emlyn on Saturday, and she told me they were visiting her sister. The house will be empty.’
Stephen gave something like a groan. But then he said, ‘She may be there just the same. Didn’t you say she had a key?’
‘Yes.’ Felicity tried not to think of a terrified, bewildered Janet waking in an empty house. ‘She — she may be hanging about in the garden even, unable to get in,’ she added shakily.
‘Then thank God it’s not a cold night,’ replied Stephen grimly.
And then they were silent again until they came in sight of the Emlyns’ small house, which looked terribly, discouragingly dark and empty. It was Felicity who was out of the car almost before it had stopped, and she made a quick gesture to Stephen and muttered, ‘It’s best I should go alone.’
He must have understood that she meant, ‘Keep her out of sight,’ for he stayed where he was, though he watched Felicity with painful anxiety as she went up the short path to the door.
She cast a quick glance over the place and, as she did so, her heart gave a great leap of relief, for a faint light showed in the small fanlight above the door. A peculiar light, it was true. One which came and went fitfully.
Then suddenly it blazed into bright light. And she knew with a sickening lurch of her heart that ‘blaze’ was the right word. Somewhere beyond that front door something was burning. And, as she watched in horrified fascination, the light steadied and grew stronger.
‘Janet!’ She ran to the side of the house and called up wildly to the window of the child’s bedroom. ‘Janet! Janet!’
And, with a faint scraping sound, half of the small-paned dormer window was pushed open and a small figure appeared in the dim light.
‘Miss Grainger? — Miss Grainger?’ The voice was vague and puzzled. ‘I’m glad you’ve come — I was frightened — I don’t understand. There’s a lot of smoke — ’
‘And the staircase is probably blazing by now,’ thought Felicity despairingly, and suddenly realized that Stephen was beside her.
‘Janet — ’ his voice was kind but absolutely authoritative — ‘you must get out of the window — and quickly. Miss Grainger and I have a rug. We’ll catch you quite easily. Come on — quickly! There’s a good, brave child.’
‘I couldn’t make the light go on — ’ she seemed to have some vague idea that she must explain herself. ‘I struck some matches. I think the curtains on the-stairs caught fire. I’ve shut the door — but the smoke keeps on coming in — ’
‘Janet! Do as I tell you. Climb on the window ledge and sit with your legs outside. It’s not far. Just slip down and into the rug. We’re ready.’
‘There’s my violin — I have to take care of my violin — ’
‘I know. Drop the violin into the rug first then. But hurry!’
Like someone in a slow-motion film, she stooped down and reached for something on the floor. Then presently her hoarse little voice said, ‘Be careful with it — ’ and the violin case came sliding out of the window and into the outstretched rug which Stephen and Felicity were holding between them.
‘That’s right! See how easy it is,’ Stephen encouraged her. ‘Now come yourself. Climb on to the window-ledge.’
Obediently she did as he bade her. Her knee was actually on the ledge when there was a great puff of smoke behind her. It curled round and enveloped her and, before their horrified gaze, Janet slid back into the room and there was silence.
CHAPTER NINE
For a few seconds Felicity felt literally paralysed. Even her thoughts stopped dead as she stood staring at the open window from which smoke was now pouring.
Then she heard Stephen say, ‘It’s the stairs now — or nothing.’
Almost before she realized what he was doing, he had rushed to the car, torn the car-tools from the boot and was back, battering the lock of the front door. While Julia, who had run after him, stood there crying, ‘What are you doing? What’s happened?’
‘The place is on fire,’ Felicity told her unnecessarily. ‘And Janet’s in there. Go and knock up some people from the houses round, can’t you? Perhaps someone has a ladder.’
But Julia stood motionless in her turn. And, even as Felicity made a move to fetch help herself, the door swung open to disclose a blazing staircase.
‘No!’ cried Julia, on a high, hysterical note. ‘Not you, Stephen — not you!’ And she flung her arms round him with almost maniac strength.
‘Let me go, you fool!’ He wrenched at her arms. ‘The child will die — ’
‘Then let her die,’ cried Julia wildly. ‘She doesn’t matter, don’t you see? She doesn’t matter, beside you. She doesn’t matter — ’
‘Stephen, that staircase won’t hold your weight.’ That was Felicity, suddenly completely calm. ‘It might take mine. I’m going in.’
‘No, Felicity!’
But she had already slipped past him and into the house, while he flung Julia from him at last, with such force that she staggered back against the little fence, still repeating the hysterical, self-revealing words, ‘She doesn’t matter — she doesn’t matter!’
To Felicity everything was suddenly like a ghastly dream, except that it was so horrifyingly clear. — The roar of the flames, the frightful heat of the air which seemed to scorch her very lungs, the pain of her hand as she grasped at something for support, and then the swaying and trembling of the blazing stairway as she leapt up it.
She had known everything depended on split-second timing. She was not really surprised to hear half the staircase give way behind her with a rending sound. In that moment the crash was hardly more terrifying than the shower of sparks which stung and singed her.
And then she was in the smoke-filled room, some blessed instinct having guided her to the right door at the first attempt.
‘Janet — ’ she slammed the door behind her, shutting out — but again only for seconds, she knew — the worst of the flames. Coughing and choking, as she tried to draw breath into her bursting lungs, she groped her way to the window and found the little bundle which was Janet huddled there.
She had always thought of her as a lightly-built, almost fragile child, but as Felicity, with a muscle-cracking effort, hauled her from the floor, Janet seemed made of pig-iron. She balanced her at last on the window-sill and vaguely saw that there were quite a lot of people now below.
Someone was calling over and over again that they had a blanket ready — they would catch the child. And with her last bit of strength she pushed Janet out and heard a shout of encouragement from below. Then, with the conviction that she had done what she had come to do, she was overwhelmed by the most utter longing to sink down on the floor and give up the agonizing struggle.
The will to live sank to the bottom of her conscio
usness. It was no more than the tinkling of a tiny warning bell, incalculably too weak to spur her to the gigantic effort still required. She didn’t care — she didn’t care —
And then, just as she was slipping into the final depths, something pierced the fog with a poignant sharpness that hurt.
‘Felicity!’ That was Stephen’s voice. She would have known it — and obeyed it — anywhere. ‘Jump, Felicity! I’ll catch you. Jump, darling!’
He had never called her that before, nor spoken to her with that loving urgency. She must do what he told her, or he would be angry again — and she couldn’t bear that. Not after he had called her darling.
Painfully she clambered up what seemed to be a high cliff. Over the top — over the top — then she was falling. Something checked her fall, painfully — but then everything was pain now.
And at least she was in Stephen’s arms. Only, incredibly, he was crushing her and handling her roughly. Then someone said, ‘Roll her in the blanket — that will put it out.’ And she was almost stifled again. Then just as she slipped into unconsciousness someone kissed her and she was nearly sure it was Stephen.
*
Minutes, hours — perhaps days — later Felicity came drifting back to consciousness. But when she opened her eyes the light hurt, so she closed them again, and she felt faintly sick because that horrible smell of burning was still in her nostrils.
‘Felicity — ’ That was Mary’s voice, and it was so wonderful to hear anything so normal and reassuring that the tears came into her eyes.
‘Don’t cry, dear. You’re all right now,’ Mary said, and she realized that the silly, weak tears had forced their way from under her lashes.
‘I’m not crying — really.’ It was strange how husky her own voice sounded. ‘Is Janet — all right?’
‘She’s getting on splendidly. There’s nothing wrong which a few days in bed won’t set right. She’s in the next room.’
‘The next room — where?’ With an effort Felicity tried to grapple with a new situation.
‘In the Cottage Hospital. You were both brought here last night after the fire.’
‘And — Stephen?’ Felicity whispered. ‘Is Stephen all right?’
‘Yes, of course. Except that he burnt his hands putting out the flames in your hair and your clothes.’
‘My hair?’ Feebly she put up a hand towards her hair but somehow could not reach it. ‘Is my hair burnt?’
‘Not too badly. More singed than frizzled,’ replied Mary cheerfully. ‘Nothing that won’t grow again in a, week or two.’
‘I suppose that’s why I can still smell singeing.’
‘Forget about it,’ Mary bade her kindly but briskly. ‘You have no need to, worry about anything any more.’
She seemed so sure of this that Felicity accepted the reassurance gratefully and basked in it for a few minutes. But her mind was slowly beginning to work in its accustomed paths again and, after a while, she asked, ‘What about Julia?’
‘What about her?’ Mary countered.
‘She went — somehow crazy, you know. She kept on saying Janet didn’t matter. — Or did I just imagine that?’ Felicity frowned anxiously.
‘No, you didn’t imagine it,’ Mary assured her grimly. ‘She was completely hysterical, and all that surface composure cracked like broken enamel. All her hatred of that poor little kid boiled over at the thought of anything happening to Stephen and interfering with the future as she had planned it. It was like people who give themselves away when they’re drunk. The façade was gone, and there was nothing to hide the naked, ugly truth.’
‘And Stephen — heard her?’
‘Heard her? Of course he heard her. Everyone did. I don’t imagine she could ever show her face in this district again. Janet needn’t worry ever again about Auntie turning up, I can assure you.’
‘Oh, I’m glad! She’d managed to frighten Janet again, you know. Waylaid her somehow at Tarkmans, I think, and tormented her by threatening the safety of her violin. That was why the child walked in her sleep.’
‘So I gathered from Stephen Tarkman.’
‘You — talked to him about it?’
‘He vouchsafed me a few agitated words while we were waiting to hear the first report on you,’ Mary said amusedly. ‘He was in a frightful flap.’
‘About Janet?’
‘No, idiot — about you. I tried to console him by telling him you were really as tough as old boots, and he seemed to think I was insulting you.’
Felicity laughed a little, looked rather shyly curious and was about to ask some more when Mary said, ‘Janet must be a great deal tougher than she looks too. Apparently she walked all the way to the Emlyns’ place! I still can’t understand why no one saw her and stopped her.’
‘There wouldn’t be many people on the road at that time of night. We didn’t see a soul all the way when we drove in search of her,’ Felicity recalled. ‘And with her coat on over her nightdress she wouldn’t be so conspicuous, I suppose.’
‘Of course she would!’ Mary countered indignantly. ‘A little kid alone at that time of night! But that’s the way people are nowadays. They aren’t on the lookout to help or involve themselves in case it might mean a bit of trouble or difficulty for them. Why — oh, I’m tiring you.’ Suddenly her voice dropped to a very gentle note. ‘Don’t listen to me, Felicity. Just go to sleep if you feel like it.’
To her surprise, Felicity realized that she did feel like it. So she closed her eyes again. And when she opened them once more it was evening — she could see that by the change in the light — and someone else was sitting by her bed.
‘Stephen — ’ she spoke a little uncertainly.
‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’ He smiled at her slightly, but behind the smile was a taut, strained expression.
‘No. And it wouldn’t have mattered if you had. Don’t look so worried. I’ll be as good as new quite soon. How are your poor hands?’
‘My hands?’ He glanced down at his bandaged right hand. ‘Oh, they were only scorched a bit. It’s absolutely nothing.’
‘Well, I was only scorched a bit too,’ she said with a faint smile. And she lay and looked at him with great contentment. But presently, seeing that his expression had not relaxed, she repeated, ‘Don’t look so worried, Stephen. It’s all over now.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly, ‘it’s all over now.’ And she thought perhaps he was remembering Julia and the hideous minute or two when she had shown herself as she really was. And some innate sense of justice for even the erring Julia made her say,
‘She loved you in her way, Stephen, and she didn’t want you to go into danger. Perhaps that was as far as she got.’
‘She said that Janet didn’t matter,’ he replied stonily. ‘With the house on fire and Janet in there, she could say the child didn’t matter. That isn’t love — for anyone, Felicity. She was willing — eager — for Janet to die rather than that she should lose the man she wanted. What do you suppose it feels like to be that man? It’s like being — tainted with the same ghastly self-absorption.’
‘You’re being too hard on yourself. Possibly on her too,’ Felicity said mildly. ‘One doesn’t think straight at such a time.’
‘You thought straight, didn’t you?’ he countered almost savagely. ‘Your one thought was to save the child. To you she did matter. More than yourself. You went into that house even though it might have meant a horrible death.’
‘You were prepared to go in too,’ she reminded him.
‘Prepared?’ he laughed that off contemptuously. ‘That’s theory, Felicity. It was you who went. I’ll never forget that. It was you who went. I was prevented — by someone I should never have allowed to be in the position to prevent me.’
‘Oh, well — Now we’re complicating the issue rather, aren’t we?’ Felicity smiled. ‘You’re getting away from the main point.’
‘No,’ he countered doggedly, ‘that is the main point. I had refused to see Julia as she wa
s, though the opportunity was given to me time and time again. In my arrogance I didn’t want to be wrong. If you want the full contemptible admission, I suppose I didn’t want you to be right.’
‘It was very human,’ murmured Felicity. ‘And again you needn’t be so hard on yourself. In some ways Julia is a very clever woman, and she was ruthlessly determined to marry you, wasn’t she?’
‘Yet she refused me,’ he said curtly.
‘On terms?’ inquired Felicity with genuine curiosity.
‘Yes. How did you know?’
She felt it would be tactless to bring either Anthea or Mary into this, so she simply said, ‘I suppose she wanted you to get rid of me?’
‘Yes. That interference with my own affairs I did at least resist. But I should have known her then for what she was. I should have made a clean break then.’
It occurred to Felicity to say that perhaps Julia would not have let him. But then she reflected that his self-respect had been bruised enough, and so she changed it and said instead, rather kindly, ‘Perhaps you loved her too much to do that.’
‘But I didn’t, you know.’ Suddenly he was like a man dredging out the painful truth from an accumulation of wrong assumptions. ‘That’s the extraordinary thing. I was intrigued by her, amused, a good deal attracted physically. — Oh, I suppose a bit infatuated. But I know now — I’d suspected it uneasily for some time — I did not love her. And yet I let the situation remain undefined because I wouldn’t face the fact that I’d been so wrong. If I’d done so,’ he finished bitterly, she wouldn’t have been there last night. And I would have gone into that house instead of letting you be half killed.’
‘I wasn’t half killed,’ Felicity stated in the interests of accuracy. ‘And if Julia ever did anything useful it was in holding you back. Those stairs wouldn’t have held you, Stephen. They were pretty well crumbling under my weight. If you’d gone in you’d have been killed, and Janet probably wouldn’t have been saved. In fact — ’ she laughed, compelling him to smile back at her — ‘do you realize how much we all owe to Julia?’
Child of Music (Warrender Saga Book 5) Page 15
