Feathers in the Fire (29 page)

‘Have a good night,’ he said.

‘A good night!’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I can’t see anybody havin’ a good night in this!’

‘Well, here’s one that’s going to.’ He nodded at her. ‘Let me head get on the pillow and I won’t have any say in it.’ He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. She knew what would happen when he got his head on the pillow; she had gone over it every night for months past. She couldn’t break herself of the habit. She no sooner got into bed than the picture of them rose before her. At first she had thought it wasn’t right. Apart from everything else it wasn’t right, him havin’ Miss Jane; until she remembered herself and the master. And she didn’t like remembering that now. Anyway, this was different, she supposed, because they were married. He had put a ring on her finger; the ring made everything right.

Marriage was a funny thing, when you came to think about it. The parson said a few words, the man put a ring on your finger, and you could run around bare-arsed between sunset and dawn and it was all right, because it was done in the eyes of God. Odd, how much stock God laid on a ring. He classed the same thing bad without a ring, but good with it. She’d never laid much stock on God herself, and she laid less as time went on. She wished now she’d had some book learning, it might have cleared things up for her.

When he held the door open for her she went out into the tearing wind, her head down against it . . .

But it was as Davie had said, he’d hardly put his head on the pillow before he was asleep. And Jane too. She had kept awake until he had come to bed, but after he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, her lids closed and she was away.

She didn’t know what time it was later when she awoke and realised that he was no longer by her side but moving about the room. She pulled herself up in agitation, saying, ‘Davie! Davie! what is it? surely it isn’t time yet; I don’t feel I’ve been asleep . . .

‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Lie down. Wait till I light the lamp.’

‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know yet, but it’s early on I think. Listen to that.’

She listened, but for a moment could only hear the howling of the wind. Then, as if from a far place, there came to her ears in between the gusts of high thin neighing, the unmistakable cry of a frightened horse. ‘It sounds like Benny,’ she said.

‘Aye, it’s him all right. And I put him in a stall by himself in case he started his antrimartins. He’s likely kicking hell out of his box, and he’ll set the others on.’

The lamp lit, he peered at his watch. ‘Quarter-past twelve,’ he said.‘Oh Lord! I hoped it might be near morning. Now you stay put and go to sleep, there’s nothing you can do, not tonight anyway. There’ll be more than enough for you tomorrow.’

‘Be careful, Davie.’

As he went towards the door there came the sound of a crash from somewhere in the house, and he stopped for a moment. Then wrenching the door open, he ran on to the landing and there at the end where the steps led up to the old part of the house a window had blown open. When he reached it she was behind him, and as he forced it closed he shouted at her, ‘Now look! it’s all right. Get back into bed.’

‘The glass is broken, mind your hands!’ she was shouting back at him.

‘Well, we can do nothing about it now, we’ll see to it tomorrow. Now get back into bed, I won’t be long.’ He pushed her across the landing and into the bedroom, then closed the door on her. And at the head of the stairs he paused a moment and turned up the lamp that had been glimmering low, then ran down the stairs and out into the night . . .

Amos, resting on his elbows, strained his ears to distinguish the sounds not caused by the wind, and he knew when Davie had reached the bottom of the stairs.

Patience was a virtue. Old Hedley used to quote that ceaselessly to him. ‘Patience is a virtue, my boy.’ He had been patient for months, knowing that sometime, somehow, a solution would present itself to him. If she had relented and come and had a word with him, perhaps he might have seen things differently. Yet no; he knew that he would never have looked upon this situation differently. The only solution to the situation was to give it an end, a final end.

They had been waiting for his end, and not patiently. His clinging to life was disturbing them. He could see it in Armstrong’s face; he even detected it behind Molly’s sympathetic attitude towards him. Well, now they would get their wish, he’d bring it to a head. But he’d want company on the journey, he wasn’t going alone. No, by Christ! he wasn’t going alone. ‘Go back to bed!’ he had cried at her. ‘Go back to bed!’

There was a great rattling above his head and he looked upwards, the slates were rolling off the attic roof. The wind would be rushing in, the cleansing wind; the wind from the hills would be sweeping his prison. Although he had lain there for months past in the room in which he had been born, his mind had been back in the attic reliving the experience of his childhood again. But soon the attic would be cleansed of thoughts and memories and he would be free. Putting out his arm, he leant over the side of the bed and when his fingers touched the floor he heaved with his shoulders and his useless body slid with a heavy plomp on to the carpet. He rested for a moment, as he discovered he was weaker than he thought; then raising himself on his elbow, he stretched out one hand and gently tipped towards the bed the side table on which the lamp was standing. It was a second before the flames burst upwards, and then the feather mattress and the pillows crackled into a furious blaze.

He didn’t stop to see the progress, but, clutching at the carpet, he drew himself hand over hand towards the door, and it was a simple thing to reach up and turn the knob. Once out on the landing, he pulled himself towards the short flight of stairs. Here he found difficulty in descending for he had to try to prevent his useless stunted limbs from slewing sidewards and bringing him rolling to the main landing.

There was a wind blowing along the landing from the broken window, and it covered the sounds of his gasping breath. Instinct led him, not to the room that had previously been Jane’s, but to the one that his father had occupied; and he knew his instinct had led him aright when he saw the thin stream of light coming from under the door. Softly now he reached up and turned the handle, and softly he pressed the door open. If the movement of the door made any sound it too was obliterated by the noise of the storm. He looked upwards towards the bed. It appeared a long way from the door. He could not see whether she was asleep or awake because of the draperies; in any case she was apparently not aware that the door had opened.

Slowly he drew himself over the carpet to the side of the bed, where stood the table with the lamp on it; and then he saw her. She was lying well up on her pillows as if she was patiently waiting. His two hands gently clutched the side of the bed and with an effort he pulled himself upwards until his head came just above the mattress, and there he held himself still while he looked at her.

He had no intention of speaking before he had done what had to be done, but his concentrated gaze must have penetrated her light dozing, for her eyes sprang wide as if she had received a shock or heard a loud noise. And then she was gaping at him. Every muscle of her face stretching, she tried to speak but only her lips moved. When a strangled gasp came from her throat, her hands went instinctively to it as if to stop herself choking.

‘Hello, Jan.’

Her terror increased.

‘It’s a long time since we’ve seen each other. You’ve changed, Jan.’ His gaze moved down to her hands which were now gripping the bedclothes above her stomach, then back to her face again, and he asked, ‘Why wouldn’t you come and see me? Was it because you were afraid of him? You were always afraid of someone or something, weren’t you, Jan?’

As he waited for her to speak, his hands began to lose their grip on the mattress, which he took as a sign that his strength was going. He knew he must get her into his arms before he overturned the lamp. Once there, he’d have sufficient strength to hold her until the end.

It was the combination of the look on his face, his clutching hands, and a sudden awareness of a smell of burning permeating from the landing, that triggered off the scream that had been whirling upwards through her since she opened her eyes and saw his head like a disembodied thing sticking to the mattress. It spiralled out of her as she sprang to the other side of the bed in a frantic effort to get out. At the same moment he tipped the lamp, as he had done the other, but more sharply on to the bed. And then he was scrambling round the foot towards where she had just risen from her knees. Within a split second she was on the floor again, her body hitting it with a sickening thud as he brought her down by clutching her legs, and although she fought him it was in a dazed way, without much effort . . .

It was as Davie battered on Will Curran’s door, shouting, ‘Will! open up! I want a hand. The stable roof’s caved in, they’re pinned, two of them. Will! do you hear me? Wi-ll!’ It was at this point that he turned his head in the direction of the house. The wind was blowing full on him and it brought to him a strong smell of burning. He lifted the lantern high and swung it, but could see nothing, the house was too far away. ‘Will! Will!’ he bawled now. ‘Come on, man! Come on!’ But he was running back down the road as he shouted.

When he reached the yard he saw the flames leaping red through the bedroom window to the side of the house, Amos’ room, and he thought he was imagining things when, looking along the front towards the window of his own room, there was a reflection of the flames. He raced to the front door, through the hall and up the stairs, and although when he pushed the door wide, he couldn’t credit what he was seeing, he knew that he had feared and expected something like this for months past.

‘Jane! Jane!’ He screamed her name as his arms wafted wildly at the smoke. The whole bed was alight, not only the mattress and the draperies, but also the posts which, being old and brittle dry, were burning like oiled paper.

‘Da-vie! Da-vie!’ It was more like a moan than his name but he rushed to the far side of the bed, and there through the smoke and flames he saw them. They were lying locked together near the wall.

Falling on to his hands and knees he tore at them both in an effort to separate them, but Amos’ fist lashed out at him while with his other arm he clung on to Jane.

He was choking with the smoke, they were all choking with the smoke and he knew for a certainty that they would all die joined together here in the next few minutes. When his groping hand found Amos’ windpipe he pressed hard, relaxing his hold only when he felt the body sagging. But when he grasped Jane’s shoulders intending to drag her from the room he was again brought to the floor by Amos’ last effort.

As he measured his length almost on top of Jane a madness seized him, and, coughing and spluttering, he hurtled himself upwards, then kicked out at the demoniacal face lit now by the flames not only from the bed but also from Amos’ nightshirt.

As the body fell backwards he swung round and, again grabbing Jane, he dragged her limp body out of the door and well on to the landing, and there, coughing as if his lungs would burst, he beat at the bottom of her burning nightdress with his hands.

‘Oh my God!’ He wasn’t aware of Molly’s presence until she shouted, ‘Is she all right? Is she all right? The whole place is afire . . . both ends. Oh my God! My God! Come on, get out of it.’ She, too, began to cough and choke now with the smoke.

Unable to speak, he gesticulated wildly towards Jane’s legs and between them they carried her down the stairs. As they were crossing the hall Will Curran burst in from the kitchen, but stopped at the corner of the passage for a moment and gaped at them before crying, ‘The old part, Davie, the old part’s alight. It’s alight!’

Davie made no answer to this; instead, still coughing, he said between gasps, ‘Give’s a hand . . . with her, to . . . to the cottage.’

As Will Curran took Jane’s legs he shouted, ‘She’d be better on the trundler.’ And at this Molly ran along the front of the house and into the yard and, picking up the shafts of the wooden-wheeled handcart, she dashed with it back to the house and held it while they laid Jane on it.

As Davie began to push the cart away, Will called to him, ‘What’s to be done?’ and Davie shouted back, ‘See to the horses first. There’s one pinned under a beam. The roof’s caved in. Give him a hand, Molly.’

‘What about this?’ she screamed and waved her hand back at

the house as she ran by his side. ‘We should get some of the things out; it’ll be like a bonfire in no time,’ and he yelled back at her, ‘See to the animals first, then do what you can. I’ll be back as soon as she comes round . . . If she comes round.’ The last he added to himself as he ran the cart towards the gate. Before he went through it Molly was by his side again, shouting, ‘Go into my place, your beds will be damp, sodden.’

He nodded, then guided the barrow through the gate and on to the road, and then he began to run.

Perhaps it was the jogging of the cart or the pain of the burn on her leg that brought Jane back to consciousness, for she put out her hand and groped at the air.

When he faintly discerned her moving hand he stopped the cart and, peering down at her through the darkness, he said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Don’t worry, you’re all right. Just lie still until we get to the cottage.’

When he reached Molly’s door he pushed it wide; then returning to the cart, he put his arms under Jane and carried her bodily inside.

It was strange but he had never been in this cottage since he was a young lad; he had no memory of what it was like, except that it was muddled and not over clean; not like his own home, which was spanking.

There was no light, but a dull glow from the fire showed up a wooden settle with a high back standing at right angles to the fireplace, and on this he laid her, saying softly as he did so, ‘Are you all right, Jane? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Davie, I’m all right.’

‘Are you burnt? Let me look.’

‘No, no.’ She put her hand on her knee. ‘I’m all right. It’s . . . it’s only shock. Go back; please go back and . . . and try to put it out.’

‘I couldn’t, I couldn’t put that out, Jane; it’s at both ends.’

‘Try . . . try to save something from the bottom floor, the small pieces, the silver. Go on, Davie, please, please try to save something otherwise—’ she stopped and shook her head.

‘You’ll be all right then?’

‘Yes, I’ll be all right. I’ll . . . I’ll lie quiet.’

‘Promise?’