‘Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?’ he managed at last.
Meg was still kneeling before the kitchen fire. She turned to look up at him, her own expression unreadable but in her eyes was a light of battle, changing them from the pale dusted amber of a moment ago to a glittering transparency as deep and warm as golden honey. She had picked up the shovel and in her other hand was the brass poker which it was Tom’s job to polish. Her face was flushed now as though from some inner fire and a strand of curly hair fell across her forehead. She pushed it away with the back of her hand and the poker waved wildly in the air, then she grinned but there was no warmth in it.
‘What does it look like?’
‘He’ll have a bloody fit when he finds out!’
‘He’ll not find out! He’s gone, hasn’t he and you can move the coal to look as though there’s no more been used than there should be. He’ll never know, Tom and we might as well make Cook comfortable while we can. Damn him, Tom! Damn him to hell and back and if he walked in this kitchen now I’d tell him so!’
Tom was surprised by the vehemence in her voice but his eyes crinkled into a deep, delighted smile and in an instant he was the merry, engaging young man he had been before Benjamin Harris had come to torment them. Meg was slowly drawing several live coals from the brightly blazing fire, transferring them onto the shovel. They glowed hotly, the smoke from them stinging her eyes. When she was satisfied they were secure she stood up, turning away from the fire.
‘Put some more coal on, Tom, so that it can build up again, will you? We’re going to have us the best potato hot-pot we’ve eaten in months and while you’re at it, make us a decent cup of tea. I’ll just run up to Mrs Whitley’s room with these. It’ll not take long to get a fire going up there and his bloody lordship can walk in the river ’til his hat floats for all I care!’ She seemed to be injected with some strange emotion which Tom did not recognise as
hysteria
and though it made him uneasy he was pleased to see her more lively.
They smiled triumphantly at one another. Tom lifted the coal scuttle and selecting several small pieces from it made up the fire until it glowed cheerfully and its warmth spread out into the kitchen. They both turned guiltily as the door opened but it was only Emm.
‘Is she settled, Emm?’ Meg’s voice softened as she spoke to the little skivvy. Emm nodded her head, her eyes darting anxiously from one corner of the kitchen to the other as though she fully expected the hated agent to materialise, something on the lines of the devil, from the very floor. She knew he was gone. Had not she and Meggie seen the cab Tom had called disappear round the corner into Upper Pitt Street with him in it, but his ghostly presence seemed to hang relentlessly about the place even when he was absent.
‘Run up with these then whilst Tom fills the buckets, will you? You know how to do it, don’t you? Here’s some kindling and a few twists of paper and I’ve put a bit of sugar in a bowl so that if it doesn’t catch right away you can throw a bit on. Now you’re sure you can manage all that?’ Emm nodded again, taking the shovel in one hand and the small fire basket, stuffed with small pieces of wood and paper, in the other. ‘I’m just going to warm up this bit of broth for her then I’ll follow you up. Tell her I’m going to make us a nice “tater” hot-pot. That’ll cheer her up.’
Tom was in the cellar when he heard the screams. For fifteen minutes he had filled coal scuttles, one for the kitchen, one for Mrs Whitley’s bedroom and another for Mr Harris’ study for his master would insist on the comfort of a decent fire when he returned at the end of the week and he might as well see to it now. He had shovelled a great heap from one corner of the underground room to another for no reason at all other than it gave him an excuse to work off some of his youthful frustration. And he supposed guilt played a part in it too, for he felt he should have been able to find some safe and homely place for himself and their Meggie before now. And he would an’ all, even with the added burden of Mrs Whitley and Emm, he told himself stoutly.
The screams lifted the hairs on the back of his neck and he felt the skin prickle all over his body. He turned, disorientated by the suddenness of it, by the violent confusion which blasted its way
into
his mind and in the fearful dread which came to replace it he fell over the coal scuttles which someone – surely not himself – had placed directly behind him, cracking his elbow agonisingly on the stone floor as he went down.
‘Jesus … oh Jesus …’ he whispered and for a dreadful moment he was back in the past on that day when Fancy O’Neill had dragged Meggie …
Meggie
… Oh dear Lord, into the back yard of this very house. In his memory’s eye he saw clearly the white flesh of her and her innocent female vulnerability which Fancy had been about to despoil and a great anguish exploded in him. It hit him with such force he almost fell again, reeling towards the steps which led to the yard.
It was that bastard!
That creeping, evil bastard who had come to take their peace from them and now, whilst Tom’s back was turned for a moment, imagining Harris had gone from the house, he had come to viciously brutalise their Meggie. Tom had seen the way he looked at her, his eyes on her breasts and …
‘Meg!’ he shouted, his long, hard muscled legs carrying him up the cellar steps three at a time and into the yard. He flung himself across it and along the passage which, three years ago, he and Martin had fought to be first down to get at Fancy O’Neill. It could have been no more than a minute, two at the most from the time he first heard the distant scream to the moment he flung open the front door of the house but the fire, already darting along panelled, dry stick walls, greeted the vast volume of air he brought in with crackling glee, feeding on it greedily. It blasted out to meet him and he threw up his hands to protect his face, stepping back instinctively for though the heart and the soul willingly would dare the agony, the flesh will not.
‘Meggie … Meggie …!’ he screamed and the red-flecked heat jumped into his open mouth joyously and his throat was on fire with it and in the midst of the horror he had time to consider in the detached corner of his mind which stood off and watched that this was his fault.
His fault
, for beneath the stairs which led up to the first floor was the drum of lamp-oil which had been delivered only an hour since.
‘I’ll take it down to the cellar in a minute,’ he had shouted to Meg, then stood back, gritting his teeth resentfully as Mr Harris sauntered by him casting him with that look of contempt he reserved for those he considered beneath him.
‘Call me a cab, boy!’ he had said to him and Tom had run to
the
corner and whistled one up, then gone directly to the kitchen to pour out his rancour on Meg. His dangerous hatred of Harris had emptied his mind of all else and beneath the stairs, just waiting for the first spark to ignite it was the element which had furnaced the embers dropped from the shovel.
Emm?
… was it Emm … or … dear sweet God … not … not Meggie! Was she even now engulfed by the flames which were devouring the hallway and the staircase from the front door right the way down the passage to … to …
He shaded his eyes against the heat and glare, oblivious now to the agony of the skin shrivelling from his hands and beyond the dancing, curling, roaring flames he could see the open doorway which led into the kitchen and even before his mind had digested the information his instinct had him racing back towards the area steps, down them in one leap and through the basement door which he did not merely open but almost knocked from it’s hinges in his terror.
The kitchen was empty … Meggie, where are you? But through the door which opened into the hallway came the growing roar of the flames and the kitchen was turned to orange and rose and gold with the reflection of them. As he leaped across it he heard the scream again, fainter now and weaker and his heart banged unmercifully against his chest, bucking and kicking in it’s effort to make him move faster.
‘Meggie …!’ He did not even know he was shouting her name as he crashed through the kitchen door and into the hallway. The flames reached for him but he eluded their embrace, springing away from them as they consumed the doorway through which he had just come. The stairs were there, a long incline edged at each side with licking, creeping fire, the walls smoking, the wallpaper blackened with smoke and beginning to crackle. It seemed he had reached the top safely for he was on the first floor landing but it was empty and the conflagration was at his back and the smoke, black and pitiless was pressing down on him.
On his belly, his face hugging the linoleum which lined the stairs to the second floor he crawled towards her for where else would she be but with Mrs Whitley, with Emm, guarding them, willing to give her young life to protect their old ones.
‘Meggie …’ he croaked, his throat parched, scorched, and he began to feel himself suffocate then for the flames and the smoke were moving faster than he was. He could not see now, only feel
the
shape of each stair tread and the smooth texture of the linoleum which was considered good enough for the servants to walk upon. He reached blindly forward, his hands clinging to whatever they could and suddenly he was at the top and the three doors, all closed, of the bedrooms, wavered in his vision then one opened and strong hands gripped his, lifting him, leading him forwards. A door banged quickly behind him and the blessed relief of Mrs Whitley’s room which the fire had not yet reached, bathed him in its coolness.
‘Meggie …?’
‘I’m here, Tom and … and Mrs Whitley.’
‘Emm …?’
‘I don’t know, Tom!’ He could not see her face but he heard her begin to weep dementedly.
He turned again. ‘I’ll go … and look …’ but the flames howled their defiance on the other side of the door and from the bed someone moaned and the smoke edged its way through the cracks about the bedroom door and the roaring, triumphant as a beast about to close in on its prey, filled his ears.
‘Emm … oh Emm …!’
‘Our Father which art in Heaven …’ Mrs Whitley said quietly from the bed and as she did so Tom’s agonised vision cleared. The tiny dormer window was tight shut against the cold for the doctor had said Mrs Whitley’s diseased lungs could not stand it but they must take their chances with it now!
‘Come on, our Meg. Don’t stand there wingeing.’ He knew he must be brutal to get them both on the move. ‘Get Mrs Whitley’s coat on her … anything warm whilst I open this window …’
‘Tom … Emm …?’
‘There’s nothing we can do for Emm, lass. No doubt she’s … she’s in one of the bedrooms … there’s windows there too, you know and not so far to … to jump. Come on now … good girl … get Mrs Whitley wrapped up …’
Brave she had been in the rescuing of Tom but now her fine spirit was diminished in her agony over Emm and she wrung her hands and tears coated her paper white cheeks.
‘But Cook can’t get out that way, Tom …’
‘It’s the only way, lovey. If we can get her on to the roof … across to next door there’s a chance we …’
‘She’s too old, Tom …’
‘D’you want to leave her here to burn then, Meggie!’
The bedroom door was smoking badly now and tiny fingers of golden flame were slithering insidiously about the frame. The coolness Tom had so gratefully acknowledged was suddenly becoming warmer, much warmer and from beneath the rug which lay upon the worn floorboards a fine trickle of wisping smoke rose gently into the room. Mrs Whitley began to cough, her face crimson and beaded with sweat, then suddenly, as her old heart protested, it turned a dull, leaden white. She leaned back against the iron frame of the bedhead and Tom knew that they had a minute, no more, perhaps only seconds to get her out for unless she could help them, lifting herself as best she could there was no way he and Meg might carry her through the tiny window and up on to the sloping, hoar-frosted roof.
When he opened it a jumble of crazy sounds came through the window; harsh cries, screams, the jangle of a bell but the worst noise was at his back for the draught from the window caused the flames about the bedroom door to break out into a full-throated roar of approval as they were given fresh quantities of air to fuel them.
‘Meggie … for God’s sake …’
‘I’m coming …’
‘… Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it …’
Mrs Whitley was deep in shock now and the words she spoke, dredged from some corner of her mind which had carried her back to her days at Sunday school were mingled with her black and tearing cough. There was a smudge of blood at the corner of her mouth but she allowed them to lift her bodily, clumsily, forcing her through the tiny window, doing as Tom bid her like a child, obeying his hoarse commands with the automatic reflex of her younger days. She sat quietly, blindly on the narrow ledge, her old, mottled legs dangling pitifully from beneath her nightgown, high above the square, not even glancing down at the sea of faces which stared up at her now in horrified silence. The fire engine was slewed at an angle across the front of the house next door and men were feverishly working hand pumps. Tom was quite astonished to see them. Surely not enough time had gone by since he had heard the first scream, Emm’s scream, to allow the man on the high tower in the centre of Liverpool whose job it was to indicate in which district the fire lay, to pass the message to the firemen and for them to gallop the distance from town to reach them? It had seemed merely minutes but he realised
that
considerable time – how long? – had passed for the fire to claim such a hold.