Chapter Thirty-Three

 

“COME QUICKLY AMY ... COME QUICKLY,” I could hear Aggie’s voice as she beat her fists on my bedroom door and I knew immediately that something very disastrous must have happened. I stared with fear into Gerry’s eyes as he pulled himself away from my embrace and tugged open the room door. It was he who shouted.

“What is wrong Aggie?” but the strong, thick smell of smoke told us both of impending disaster. “My God!,” he screamed, “It’s Freya’s room,” and we could see the thick, black smoke billowing through the fanlight above the door and oozing its strength through the bottom crack of the woodwork that touched the corridor carpet. In a second the nursery door burst open and bright, furious flames thrust their way out from the smoke filled room, blasting the opposite wall.

Anna stood by in terror, her eyes wide with fear and confusion and Aggie dragged her away from the heat. She stumbled at the top of the staircase and steadied herself against the wall as Aggie grabbed the extinguisher from a shelf nearby and stabbed it harshly down on the carpeted floor, spraying its contents into the flames, but the fire grew angrier and more intense by the second and the water that Aggie had applied, made no impact. It simply sizzledin the air and created a cloud of thick, white steam as the flames spat back at its puny effort and I could hear a horse neighing somewhere in the dense suffocating cloud that spewed from the one-time nursery. Aggie produced a blanket form somewhere, as the neighing repeated itself pitifully until it faded beyond the crackling sound of wood and other furniture that had been set alight. I held my head in my hands with horror, because I knew that Freya was in there somewhere and would never be able to get out without help. I shouted into the inferno and grabbed the blanket from Aggie’s arms to wrap around myself as I went in to get Freya, but Gerry pushed me to one side and I fell against the wall which was red hot, even on the other side of the corridor.

“Freya … Freya ...F.R.E.Y.A.” I screamed, but my voice was hollow.

I heard Gerry scream as he rushed into the flames before anyone could stop him and within seconds we could hear the sirens of the approaching Fire Brigade. I tried to peer into the smoke filled room, but in vain. The black, vehement clouds of smoke and flame were everywhere and Anna fainted.

“Gerry ... Gerry, for God’s sake come back ... Gerry.”

I called until I was hoarse with the smoke fumes filling my throat, but the wind was my destiny once again as it blue the fumes in every direction and the only response I received was continued silence,

 

***

 

It took over five hours to put the fire out which had spread rapidly throughout the north wing of Glencara. The stormy winds from outside had blown it into a frenzy and the rain was insufficient to help put out the flames. The nursery, my room, the corridor, bathroom and kitchen were totally gutted, together with a very large part of the staircase and the reception area downstairs. Smoke filtered upwards towards the ceiling in languid, sensual threads, shimmying its way aloft in slow, scoffing defiance of the destruction it left behind. The firemen brought Gerry’s badly charred body from the inferno remains and rested him in the greenhouse which had been stripped of its glass windows. Every pane was cracked or missing. I took the blanket that I had tried to use to get into Freya and draped it across his blackened remains, still confused and wondering why all this disaster had happened in the space of only a few minutes. One minute Gerry and I were talking about death and the next, it was upon us. A hand fell limply from under the blanket as I was about to walk away and I saw a ring fall from a shrivelled and singed finger. It was Gerry’s wedding ring and I took it quickly and put it in my pocket, but my emotions were high and beyond control and I cried as I walked, half running from the scene, where only a short time before, I had embraced the corpse that lay so defiant of life in the greenhouse. I wanted to turn and look at him. To gaze again at his face, even if I knew it could well be gnarled and beyond recognition, but I wanted to see if there was any sign of peace there ...That was important to me ...the peace he so eagerly and so desperately sought in his worried life, but the fireman who pulled him from the wreckage told me later that the face was hardly recognisable as human, but there was , very strangely, a little clump of grey-black temple hair intact and a part of the lower lip. I wanted to faint, to get away from this scene of so much horror, but my constitution wasn’t built for fainting and I was denied this freedom from my pain. I could feel the wind playing unscrupulously about my face and the thin swirls of death smoke made my eyes smart ... but that was just another excuse to cry.

“Was there a baby in there Miss?” I heard the fireman ask and I looked around for someone to answer, but Aggie had taken Anna down to the gazebo.

“Was there a baby Miss?” the voice asked again and I wanted to answer him but words would not come to my lips and I knew he could see by my troubled eyes that he had assumed correctly.

“There were the remains of a cot, you see Miss ...” was all he said as he turned away and I tried to shout after him.

“Did you ...Did you find a baby,” I managed to call out as the harsh crackling of some wood beside me drowned my voice.

“What was that Miss?”

I could say no more, but I think he must have heard what I had said, because he touched my shoulder tenderly.

“No Miss ...never found any baby ...It was only when I saw the cot, you see.”

“Yes, yes of course. Are you still looking?” I asked.

“Oh! Yes, of course we are Miss, but all we found so far, that was in any way recognisable was a rocking horse with a sort of baby elephant toy strapped to its back.”

I felt my head swim and I knew I was going to faint ...regardless of the constitution, but I strained to keep alert. I had to be sure. I had to ask him.

“What do you mean …a baby elephant toy?”

He picked up some pieces of charred wood that lay by his feet and threw them to one side.

“Well, I can’t be sure Miss. It looked like a toy my little grandson had once. You know the type of thing I mean ... It had a large head and I thought it must be an elephant. Could it have been that ...do you think? Anyway we’ll be bringing it out on the lawn soon and you can have a look for yourself, but we didn’t find no baby, Miss ...No baby at all and we’ve gone through the wreckage with a fine tooth comb, we have.”

“Thank you ...” I spoke with my heart, because I knew that Freya and her horse had gone out of my life forever.