The Village Newcomers (17 page)
Then he raced to Ralph’s and hammered on the front door. But there was no response, so he shot through their own house and went through the back door and then into Ralph’s back garden to bang and bang on the back door in the hope of rousing them both. The fire had obviously started in the kitchen and was already flaring up both windows and the glass panel in the back door.
The church bell began ringing, sending out a huge clamour over the village. No one could fail to hear it.
But more pressing for Peter was the sight of Muriel standing in the kitchen, apparently unaware of what was happening. Suddenly a great spurt of flame caught her night-gown and in a moment she was engulfed. Muriel didn’t have time to scream.
Someone
was screaming but he didn’t know who.
was screaming but he didn’t know who.
Caroline stood behind him holding the garden hosepipe with water already gushing out.
He smashed a window with the end of it and poured water into the kitchen. But the flames ignored it and roared higher and higher as though they had a source of fire which the hosepipe was too feeble to put out.
Without considering logically what he was about to do, Peter turned the hose on himself and drenched himself and then smashed the panel of glass in the door, reached in to prise open the bolts and stepped in.
There was still someone screaming above the sound of the whip and crackle of the flames.
Caroline turned the hose on Muriel, which enabled Peter to grab hold of her and carry her outside. He laid her reverently on the path, saying, ‘I’ll go in and get Ralph. Do what you can.’
Caroline was distraught. She doused Muriel with the hosepipe again to put out the last of her burning night-gown and then trembled when she saw the extent of the burning of her skin. ‘Muriel! Muriel!’ Beneath the shreds of nightgown the flesh was dreadfully burned.
‘Muriel! Muriel!’ she cried. But there was no response, no movement. She was breathing but it was rasping and cruelly torturous, and Caroline wept, ‘Muriel! It’s Caroline!’
The kitchen still burned and she daren’t go in. It was too hot, too dangerous, too frightening. Where was Peter?
She stood up and quickly studied the upstairs windows. Flames were already up there, greedily licking everything in sight.
‘Peter! Peter!’
Muriel’s rasping breath suddenly stopped. Caroline knelt beside her. Her pulse had gone. Dear, dear Muriel. There was nothing to be done.
The church bell kept tolling.
‘Peter! Peter!’
A window here and there cracked with the heat, and smoke began pouring out. Beth appeared and fell to her knees in horror when she saw Muriel. ‘Do something, Mum! Do something!’ Beth fidgeted with the remains of Muriel’s nightgown, trying to make her respectable.
‘Oh, Beth darling, it’s too late for Muriel. It’s your dad! He’s inside looking for Ralph.’
As she spoke, torrents of water came pouring over the thatched roof, and drenched them. Water! Thank God . . .
‘It must be one of the neighbours wetting the roof to save the thatch. But where’s your dad. Where is he?’ Before Caroline could stop her, Beth shot inside the kitchen, dodging the flames as best she could. Caroline, paralysed by fear, hesitated briefly and then rushed inside to catch up with her.
‘Peter! Peter!’
The church bell kept tolling.
Through the smoke now enveloping the hall, Caroline could see Peter at the top of the stairs, struggling with something, a bulk that was fighting to escape. Coughing with the effects of the smoke, Caroline climbed up the stairs to help. It was Ralph, refusing to leave the house without Muriel.
‘Muriel! Muriel! My darling!’
‘She’s outside, Ralph. Let go of the banister. Come on, Ralph, come on.’
Caroline grabbed a leg and forced Ralph’s hand from the banister, and Peter was able to rush down the stairs, dragging Ralph with him, causing a thump-thump as he hauled him down each stair.
‘Out! Out!’ he shouted hoarsely. Between them they forced Ralph out into the back garden. His eyes were streaming from the smoke, and he couldn’t see. He coughed and coughed and coughed, and so did Peter and Caroline, fighting for breath, gasping for it, begging for it.
The church bell kept tolling.
Ralph lay on the path. For a man his age it was all too much, as indeed it was for Peter and Caroline, but they were younger and fitter, and so began recovering more quickly.
The fire raged more powerfully every minute and still the fire engine hadn’t arrived.
Then Caroline shrieked, ‘Oh, God! Where’s Beth? She went in.’
Peter forced himself off the path and, dousing himself momentarily with the hosepipe, he rushed in again.
The church bell kept tolling but here was Alex, panting with exertion. ‘Zack’s ringing the bell. Where’s Beth? Where’s Dad?’
‘Inside. Dad’s gone in to get her. No Alex!
No
!’
No
!’
But he went, doing as his dad did and dousing himself with water before he plunged in.
Ralph, energised once more, carefully tried to rise, but the coughing got the better of him and he had to lie down again.
‘Stay there, Ralph, there’s a good chap.’ She didn’t tell him about Muriel and he hadn’t noticed as his eyes were still streaming from the smoke. He seemed grateful to be told to lie still. ‘I’ll get you a blanket and a cushion from our house. Won’t be a moment.’
And indeed she was back in a moment with two blankets, one to cover Muriel right the way over, and the other, plus a cushion, for Ralph. Then, with all three of her beloved family in the burning house, Caroline fled inside. The smoke was thicker than ever but she persevered, found her way into the hall and shouted upstairs. They were still intact as far as she could tell, so Caroline began climbing the stairs, then she heard Alex’s voice: ‘She’s here, Dad, she’s here!’
And through the smoke she could just see the outline of Alex’s tall figure carrying something and the something was Beth. Down the stairs he came with Peter right behind him and they all went out into the back garden.
Everyone coughed and coughed, and they were just recovering when the sound of a fire engine siren broke into their consciousness. It was the most wonderful sound they’d ever heard. After it came the sound of an ambulance. They heard a cheer go up and relief flooded them as they clung to each other, wet through and shocked.
The smoke was still spiralling above the roof of Ralph’s house and the thatch was smoking and blazing.
‘Ralph! Oh, God! Ralph.’ Caroline’s cry brought all four of them back to earth. Ralph was kneeling beside Muriel. He’d pulled the blanket back from her face and for the first time ever they saw Ralph weeping. Time after time he said, ‘Muriel! Muriel!’ Calling for her, because he didn’t know what else to do about losing her.
Caroline pulled the blanket up to her chin so he couldn’t see how badly burned she was.
His voice, incredibly sore with smoke inhalation, was husky and painful, but he said, ‘Say something for her, Peter. Say something. ’ Kneeling beside Muriel, Ralph put his hands together in prayer and waited.
Peter knelt the other side of Muriel and said, ‘Into thy hands O Lord we commend the spirit of Muriel, our beloved friend. Safe in the arms of Jesus for ever and ever. Loved by all. In your infinite mercy, Lord. Amen.’
Beth snapped a flower off a sweet pink dahlia and laid it reverently on the blanket covering Muriel, and then flung herself into her mother’s arms and wept.
Peter and Alex got Ralph to his feet, put the blanket around his shoulders and led him down the path, round on to their own garden path and then into the house, to find the firemen banging on their door.
‘Out, please. Out immediately.’
Peter opened the front door feeling ten years older than he had ten minutes ago.
‘Your thatch has caught alight, sir. Come on, out. Out!’
So there was to be no refuge in their own home. But outside they found almost all the village there, the firemen still striving to put out the flames, their own roof now well alight, Grandmama Charter-Plackett serving tea, aided by other neighbours, and a general air of caring and helpfulness despite the hour.
Caroline went to speak to the ambulance driver. ‘We have a fatality in the back garden. I’m Doctor Harris. I work in the Culworth West practice and I can certify her as dead.’
‘I see. Any idea how this started?’
‘None.’ In Ralph’s presence she wasn’t prepared to declare that Muriel had become senile and it could be her fault. Time enough for that. ‘This gentleman needs hospital treatment.’
‘No, no, I don’t. I have to stay with Muriel. Who will look after her? She needs me.’
‘Muriel’s going, too, Ralph.’ Very gently, Caroline steered him towards the ambulance, and he and Muriel were taken away.
‘Here’s a cup of tea, Caroline. You look as though you need it.’
It was Grandmama. This redoubtable lady had exhaustion written deep in her heavily lined face. ‘It’ll help, believe me. What’s happened to Muriel?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘It was too late for Muriel, I’m afraid. There was nothing I could do. Peter put the flames out but . . .’ All at once the two of them were holding each other, tears flowing. It appeared to be a night when old feuds counted for nothing.
Everyone rallied round. Jimbo had been in the Store and brought out packets of biscuits, which Fran was handing round to everyone. Offers of a bed for the night were made. The firemen were staying on duty in case the fire erupted again, thatched houses being notorious for staying alight when they looked to be safe.
Anxious eyes were watching the roof of the Rectory. Fortunately, whoever had sprayed water from a garden hose on to the thatch had very possibly saved it from destruction. Ralph’s house, though not a shell, was badly damaged by the flames, smoke and water, and would be uninhabitable for many weeks.
Peter dressed and went straight to the hospital to be with Ralph, leaving Caroline and the twins sleeping for what was left of the night in Grandmama’s cottage.
Beth and Alex lay on the sofas in her sitting room. They couldn’t settle and so they lay quietly talking.
‘My throat feels sore. Does yours?’ muttered Beth.
‘Mmm. A bit. You can see why smoke kills people, can’t you? You can’t see, you can’t breathe, your eyes are streaming, you don’t know where you are . . .’
‘Firemen must be so brave going in to rescue people. If we lived in Culworth they’d have been there in five minutes.’
‘Yes, but they are equipped for it, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, of course they are. Alex?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Do you think Muriel did it?’
‘Possibly. Making a cup of tea in the night and Ralph didn’t know.’
‘Exactly. She didn’t have an electric kettle. She always used the gas ring and a whistling kettle. But then . . .’ She sat up. ‘I remember the frying pan was on the ring and there was a smell of bacon.’
‘Poor Muriel. Ralph must be devastated.’
‘I know I sound uncaring, but perhaps it’s for the best.’
Alex turned over. His feet, hanging over the end of his sofa and sticking out from the end of the duvet, were icy. ‘She was much worse than people realised, but I don’t expect Ralph feels it’s for the best right now.’
‘No, but he was at the end of his tether and she was so bossy with him. She wasn’t like herself at all - demanding, you know, ordering him about. The real Muriel was gentle and considerate. ’
‘Well, it’s Ralph we have to think about now, Beth. He’s the one suffering.’
‘Poor Ralph. Always a gentleman in the real sense of the word.’
Alex looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost five. Do you think we might get some sleep? Please?’
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