Miss Mary Martha Crawford (43 page)

What he would have tied her down with he didn't know, but the threat seemed to have its effect for she lay still. Yet her head was back on her shoulders and she gazed about her as the raft swirled and dipped first one way then another among the debris. How far they travelled

before the platform rocked itself to a stop, none of them could even guess, but to Martha the time had seemed like a long life spent, in

terror. The moon had disappeared, buried behind a maze of white cloud that turned grey, then black.

"We've stopped." She whispered the words first to herself then louder.

"We've ... stopped!"

"Yes." Harry was a moment or so in answering.

"But stay still until we find out where we are. There's bound to be a lot of stuff piled up, so don't move until the moon comes out again."

Yet before he had finished speaking he himself was moving. Cautiously, he now reached out towards the end of the platform and immediately his groping fingers became

buried in the sodden wool of a sheep. Then, when his hand, passing

beyond the sheep's body, came in contact with some thing soft yet stiff he gave a slight start. Then after his fingers had examined it

blindly, he drew himself back from the edge and towards the middle of the platform again.

"Are you there?"

He answered her trembling voice, saying, "Yes, I'm here. It's all right."

"Where do you think we are?"

"I haven't any idea except that we are jammed in a pile of debris....

Ah!" He glanced upwards, "Here's the moon coming out again, we'll soon see now."

It was but a weak glow at first; then the clouds passing, the moon

revealed their position to them. A dark shape away to the right of

them looked like the top of a hill, but between it and them and for a great space all around there was piled debris of every shape and

size.

Martha drew herself slowly up into a kneeling position and gazed in

amazement over the upper part of a chair that had been blocking her

view, and she couldn't believe what her eyes were seeing. Everywhere she looked were dead animals: horses, cows, chickens, and in some

places they seemed to be merely resting for amid boxes and tree trunks and odd pieces of furniture they were piled upwards on top of one

another. The wind had gone down but the noise about them was more

eerie than any wild wind, for it was made up of creaks and groans and deep sucking sounds.

She imagined that she heard a duck quack and at the same moment she had almost to pounce on Sophie to stop her crawling towards the edge of the floor.

"Don't, Martha Mary. Don't, Martha Mary. Leave go of me, do. I just wanted to get the duck; it's under the chair."

She was right. There was a duck floating under the chair, and it was alive.

It was Harry who stretched forward and lifted the animal on to the

questionable safety of the floor. Then on a shaky laugh, he looked

back at Martha, saying, "Would you believe it! It's incredible." He glanced now from the squatting animal to Sophie's bright countenance, and putting his hand out, he gently touched her wet hair, saying, "And you're incredible too. Miss Sophie."

"Well, I knew it was a duck, doctor. Anybody should be able to

recognize a duck."

"Yes, yes, of course. Anyone should be able to recognize a duck. But it took you to recognize this one.... Look, Peg, we've got another

companion, a duck."

He had forcibly to loosen Peg's fingers from off the floor boards, and, turning her over, he held her shivering body close to his for amoment as he said, "It be all right. Once it is light they'll have the boats out searching and we'll be picked up."

When a few minutes later he felt the floor tilt sharply, he said

hastily, "I think it'll be better if we all lie flat again and' take a firm grip on the boards."

"But the duck!"

"It's all right, Aunt Sophie, the duck will be all right. Look, it's wanting to come near you. Lie flat, that's it, like that. Now put

your arms out. There, you see, it's lying in between them," "Martha!"

He pointed downward, and Martha laid her shivering body alongside that of Sophie's. She had never felt so cold in her life before. Try as

she might she couldn't stop her teeth from chattering, and it was as if Harry had heard their rattling for he said now, "If we lie close together we'll keep warmer. Move close to Miss Sophie, Peg. That's

it. That's it."

When the moon disappeared again he began to talk. He talked about

everything: about his boyhood, about his youth, about his hospital

training, even about Doctor Pippin. The only thing he didn't talk

about was his marriage. At what stage in his talking his arms went

around Martha, he didn't know, but they were lying clasped tightly

together when the dawn broke, and so stiff were they that their un

twining took some embarrassing time.

It was as the light got stronger that the floor began to tilt at a

sharper angle. It was as if the pressure of the daylight was forcing more debris beneath it.

3"

"It's... it's tilting. It's tilting more and ..."

He took hold of her arm as he muttered, "It's all right. It's all right...."

The last word had hardly left his lips when there was a roar as if dam gates had burst open. The next minute the whole floor was upended and they were all being tossed and swirled in a maelstrom of debris.

As Martha screamed she had a fleeting glimpse of Peg, her mouth wide open as if she were calling someone. She saw her enfolded in Aunt

Sophie's arms like a child; then her own head was forced below the mad swirling waters and she was lost in what she knew to be death for a

moment before she was wrenched from it by the most excruciating pain.

It was as if her hair was being torn from her scalp.

Her head above water now, she was clinging to some thing, an animal, hanging on to its legs while it in turn was borne down the river on

something else.

She was still clinging to the animal when its progress was checked.

She wasn't aware of the branch overhead, or the hand that was clutching it, nor the painful slow struggle that Harry had in easing the dead

sheep and the hen cree it was lying on around the branch and towards where the land. sloped upwards.

He himself didn't know from where he drew the strength to unclasp her hands from the sheep's wool and drag himself and her up the slope, and not until they were well above the water-line did he let her go. And then, his hands dropping from her shoulders, he collapsed by her side.

When he awoke it was to the sound of voices calling over a distance and a light so strong he couldn't look into it. He didn't seem to have any feeling in his body, only a surprised feeling in his mind that he was alive Or was he? He opened his eyes again and realized he was looking up into bright sunlight. So that was all right. But he couldn't seem to move. What had happened? Where was he?

The voices came to him again, but nearer now, and he cast his glance downwards and now saw two men in a boat rowing towards the bank below him, and on the sight of them, memory flooded back, and as he gasped out, "Martha! Martha!" he heaved himself on to his side and saw her lying like one dead.

He was on his knees bending over her when the men reached him, and one exclaimed, "Why, doctor! Aye, I'm glad to see you. They'd given you up, along with tot hers But who have we here?"

Now the men were on their knees, and the second man said, "Poor beggar!

Who is she? Well, whoever she is she done for by the look of her."

"No! No!" Harry sat back on his heels.

"She's ... she's still breathing." He looked about him now as he asked, "How far are we from the road ?"

"Oh, some way, doctor. There's a vehicle, but the boat's the best bet.

Just leave it to us, we'll get her down, 'cos you look as if you could do with a bit of help yourself. "

As the men settled Martha in the bottom of the boat and then helped

Harry in, he asked, "Have you seen any sign of an oldish woman, and a small girl?"

The taller of the two men who was now pushing off from the bank with an oar, nodded quickly saying, "Aye, they picked two up like you say from near' the bridge down below earlier on this mornin'. They were

clinging together, like a mother and child sort of."

"Are they all right?"

"Aw, I wouldn't know that, doctor; there was a number of bodies all mixed up with cattle and such, but they looked dead to me. Still, you can never tell. The poor body there looks a gonner, but you say she's still breathing. It's a case of where there's life there's hope. But I should say there's little hope for many who came down the river last night. I've seen a few floods in me time but never one like

this--Guess it'll alter a lot of lives, this flood."

Yes, he too guessed it would alter a lot of lives, and none more than his own if she didn't survive this ordeal.

He put his hand down and placed it on her sodden breast and prayed as he had never ever done before.

S^

she didn't know how long she had lain here, whether it was hours, days or weeks, and at times she didn't know whether she was alive or dead.

She had been sure she had died and was resting in one of the many

mansions of heaven when she had opened her eyes on to a window, through which she saw the sun shining on to the limb of a tree, and when nearer still her eyes had come to rest on a bowl of white and yellow roses, from which she imagined there came a perfume. But when a human voice said, "There now. There now. Off you go to sleep," and she had looked up into the face of Doctor Pippin, she knew she wasn't dead, but just dreaming.

Following this, the dream took on a strange pattern. It always took

her to the same room. Sometimes it was filled with light, sometimes it was lit by a lamp, but each time the dream occurred she was allowed to see a little more of the room, pieces of furniture, all shining. In

one dream she actually saw someone polishing a chest of drawers. She had a round, merry face and a mass of auburn hair on which was perched a starched cap. In another such dream she saw the doctor . Harry

sitting by her side, and she imagined he put his lips to hers. That

had been a very sweet dream. Another time Aunt Sophie and Peg were

sitting by the side of the bed. She had cried during that dream. Oh, she had cried long and bitter. Then someone had given her a drink and the dream had faded as all her dreams did.

There was one dream that disturbed her greatly. It was when the sun

shone through the window and on to Roland's stiff, white, angry face, in a sharp contrast to the expression

on Mildred's who was standing by his side, because her expression was bright with a hauteur that suited her yet made her seem like a

stranger.

Roland was not looking at her, he was talking to someone behind her.

He was saying, "It's in a dreadful state; everything inside is ruined, but it hasn't daunted my fiancee. As she said, perhaps after all it

was better to make a clean sweep."

"Or a thorough washout."

"I can't see anything amusing about the situation, doctor."

"No, no, perhaps you can't, young man. Perhaps you can't."

She recognized Doctor Pippin's voice and the laughter in it and she

thought, That was very good, a wash-out. And now he was talking to

Mildred.

"I've heard that you are going up to the Hall as Lady Brockdean's companion. Is that right, Mildred?"

"Yes, quite right, doctor. Lady Brockdean came to the shop and made the suggestion herself. As Master William is to be married shortly and will then leave for France and Miss Rosalind is in Switzerland taking the cure, she said she would be rather lonely, and so she approached me."

"And you like the prospect?"

"Oh yes, I feel I'm amply suited to such a situation and I mean to give her ladyship every satisfaction."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you will. The bookshop will miss you. I heard that you were very good as a saleswoman."

"Whatever I take on I aim to do thoroughly, doctor, but I never liked my position in the shop; in fact, I disapproved of it from the

beginning. I made this quite plain to Martha Mary."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you did. Lots of things were made plain to Martha Mary, too many things in fact; that's why she's in the state she's in now."

"You are blaming us?" Roland's voice was sharp, and the doctor's was equally sharp as he replied, "Yes; if you want plain speaking, yes, I'm blaming you, I'm blaming all of you. She's been nothing but an unpaid servant for years."

y5 "You have no right...."

"Don't raise your voice in this room, sir, and for that matter don't raise your voice in my house either. Now will you both please go

along, for Martha isn't really aware of your presence," That was a strange dream, very strange. Mildred. Fancy dreaming that Mildred was going to get her heart's desire and live in the Hall in close proximity to Lady Brockdean. It was a fantastic dream.

Some time later there followed a sweet dream. She blinked in the

strong light and looked up at Nancy with young Robbie Robson by her

side. Nancy was full of concern for her but she was a different

Nancy;

perhaps it was the dress she was wearing; she had never seen her look so pretty, it was blue with three velvet bows at the neck. But Nancy didn't speak, she just cried.

And now here was the recurring dream of looking through the window at the tree, then letting her eyes rest on the bowl of roses. But today they had changed colour for they were pink and red, and Doctor Pippin had come into this dream again. She couldn't see him but she could

hear his voice like a deep whisper saying, "It's time now; you must let her come to gradually, and as I said last night, she'll need care for a long time."

"I know that; I'm prepared for it."