And suddenly, something in Laura came alive-warmth, passionate endeavour, that curious incalculable emotion, love.
Her mind was sober and clear. She had read or been told that to rescue people in a fire you dipped a towel in water and put it round your mouth. She ran into her room, soaked the bath towel in the jug, rolled it round her, and crossing the landing plunged into the smoke. There was flame now across the passage, and the timbers were falling. Where an adult would have estimated danger and chances, Laura went bull-headed with the unknowing courage of a child. She must get to baby, she must save baby. Otherwise baby would burn to death. She stumbled over the unconscious body of Gwyneth, not knowing what it was. Choking, gasping, she found her way to the crib; the screen round it had protected it from the worst of the smoke.
Laura grabbed at the baby, clutched her close beneath the sheltering wet towel. She stumbled towards the door, her lungs gasping for air.
But there was no retracing her steps. Flames barred her way.
Laura had her wits still. The door to the tank-room-she felt for it, found it, pushed through it to a rickety stair that led up to the tank-room in the loft. She and Charles had got out that way once on to the roof. If she could crawl across the roof…
As the fire-engines arrived, an incoherent couple of women in night attire rushed to them crying out:
“The baby-there’s a baby and the nurse in that room up there.”
The fireman whistled and pursed his lips. That end of the house was blazing with flame. ‘Goners,’ he said to himself. ‘Never get them out alive!’
“Everyone else out?” he asked.
Cook, looking round, cried out: “Where’s Miss Laura? She came out right after me. Wherever can she be?”
It was then that a fireman called out: “Hi, Joe, there’s someone on the roof-the other end. Get a ladder up.”
A few moments later, they set their burden down gently on the lawn-an unrecognisable Laura, blackened, her arms scorched, half unconscious, but tight in her grip a small morsel of humanity, whose outraged howls proclaimed her angrily alive.
3
“If it hadn’t been for Laura-” Angela stopped, mastering her emotions.
“We’ve found out all about poor Nannie,” she went on. “It seems she was an epileptic. Her doctor warned her not to take a nurse’s post again, but she did. They think she dropped a spirit lamp when she had a fit. I always knew there was something wrong about her – something she didn’t want me to find out.”
“Poor girl,” said Franklin, “she’s paid for it.”
Angela, ruthless in her mother love, swept on, dismissing the claims of Gwyneth Jones to pity.
“And baby would have been burned to death if it hadn’t been for Laura.”
“Is Laura all right again?” asked Mr. Baldock.
“Yes. Shock, of course, and her arms were burnt, but not too badly. She’ll be quite all right, the doctor says.”
“Good for Laura,” said Mr. Baldock.
Angela said indignantly: “And you pretending to Arthur that Laura was so jealous of the poor mite that she might do her a mischief! Really-you bachelors!”
“All right, all right,” said Mr. Baldock. “I’m not often wrong, but I dare say it’s good for me sometimes.”
“Just go and take a look at those two.”
Mr. Baldock did as he was told. The baby lay on a rug in front of the nursery fire, kicking vaguely and making indeterminate gurgling noises.
Beside her sat Laura. Her arms were bandaged, and she had lost her eyelashes which gave her face a comical appearance. She was dangling some coloured rings to attract the baby’s attention. She turned her head to look at Mr. Baldock.
“Hullo, young Laura,” said Mr. Baldock. “How are you? Quite the heroine, I hear. A gallant rescue.”
Laura gave him a brief glance, and then concentrated once more on her efforts with the rings.
“How are the arms?”
“They did hurt rather a lot, but they’ve put some stuff on, and they’re better now.”
“You’re a funny one,” said Mr. Baldock, sitting down heavily in a chair. “One day you’re hoping the cat will smother your baby sister-oh yes, you did-can’t deceive me-and the next day you’re crawling about the roof lugging the child to safety at the risk of your own life.”