Chapter 22
Over the next few weeks, Elspeth continued to visit the far school regularly, happy to be of use and to be surrounded by all the children, vibrant and hopeful despite everything that had brought them here over the course of their short lives.
She liked the other women who worked there as well, finding them solid and steady souls who quickly adapted to Elspeth’s presence and soon spoke to her (and around her) in much the same way as they did to anyone else.
A letter arrived one day while Elspeth was there. The headmistress read it over, her stern demeanor softening into sorrow. Then she said, “Will someone bring Aileen to me, please?”
Elspeth replied, “I’ll get her. Is it bad news? Shall I prepare her at all?”
“If you can, dear. Tell her only that she will hear something very sad, and she must be strong.”
A few minutes later, Elspeth sat beside the slender child on a bench, facing the headmistress. The girl gripped Ellie’s hand as if it were a lifeline.
“My dear, I am so sorry to tell you that your father passed a few weeks ago.”
Aileen didn’t wail or shriek, but she began to shake, and tears rolled silently down her cheeks.
“He never got better?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“No, my child.” Mrs Hardie’s tone was low and gentle. “You do remember that he wrote to you from London, saying he was ill. Now his friend has written to say it was consumption after all. He went quickly, it seems.”
“Will he be buried with Mama?” Aileen asked.
Elspeth exchanged a glance with the headmistress.
She understood Mrs Hardie’s expression instantly.
The man was a poor laborer, barely able to save money and send it home when he was healthy.
He’d have been buried in a potter’s field in London, at best. She spoke up quickly.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, dear. But it is certainly proper to have a stone set next to your mother’s grave, with his name and dates, even though he is buried elsewhere.
It’s common for sailors, you know. When men are lost at sea, their families erect a memorial so they are not forgotten. ”
“That’s what I want for Papa, then,” she said. “How much does it cost?”
Elspeth’s heart broke for the girl, forced to reckon with cold, practical, grown-up tasks far too early. “We will inquire, but I would like to pay for it, as a favor, if you will let me.”
“Why, ma’am?” she asked with wide, wet eyes.
“I lost a parent when I was young,” Ellie said. “I know how it feels to miss someone. And what sort of friend would I be if I didn’t try to ease your burden?”
“Oh, ma’am. You know.” Aileen embraced Ellie tightly. That was when the sobbing truly started, and Ellie simply held her and let her cry. Mrs Hardie offered her a clean handkerchief from the drawer of the desk.
After a while, Aileen wiped her face and solemnly asked to be excused. “I wish to lie down on my bed for a while.”
“Go rest, dear. I’ll check on you in a half hour,” the headmistress said.
After the girl gave Ellie a final hug, she left.
“The worst part of my duties here,” Mrs Hardie confessed with a sigh. “Poor child, now alone in the world.”
“She has the other students, and you and the teachers. And the village. And me. We must not fail her by letting her think she is alone.”
“Well said,” the woman agreed after a moment.
“And I will pay her school fees until she is of age,” Ellie told Mrs Hardie in an undertone.
“Ma’am, you must not let yourself be taken advantage of. Aileen is a good child who would not presume to exploit the fact that she knows a lady like yourself. But not everyone is like that.”
“A matter I will deal with if and when it happens.”
* * * *
Most days, fortunately, were not as dramatic.
Later that week, she was tidying some scrap paper and pencils that several boys had dumped out of the box in the middle of a game of hare and hounds (Mrs Hardie had been so annoyed she ordered them outside before remembering that they ought to clean up their own mess).
Elspeth found herself thinking that the boys in particular would fare better if they could see more adult men in their lives. If only the boy who’d upset Struan had been quicker to explain that his reaction had been because one of the other children had just related a scary story.
Not that the explanation would ease Struan’s mind, or get him to return here.
At least she’d managed to convince him to come every day to collect her and bring her back to Linneliath when she finished her tasks.
She hoped that by slowly getting him more comfortable with the idea of other people, he’d come out of his shell.
She sighed. For every step forward she took with Struan, something seemed to pull him back to an unhappy place. She’d just have to be patient, and work diligently. After all, she knew that happiness was a matter of perspective.
A shriek came from behind her. “Molly, no!”
Elspeth whirled around at the sound of the young girl’s cry of dismay. A lantern had been knocked over, the oil spreading in a pool on top of the scrap fabric that had been so carefully piled at the end of the table. The flame leapt from the wick to the fuel-soaked fabric and flared up immediately.
She grabbed the girls and pulled them away from the flame, calling out as she did so for everyone to get out of the building.
Her words didn’t seem to have the desired effect.
Half a dozen girls stood stock-still, gazing at the burgeoning fire with horror in their eyes.
In a panic, one of the teachers ran to fetch a pitcher of water, then rushed toward the fire and flung the water at it.
But she managed to hit about only half of the fire, and the other flames seemed to rise up in defiance. Elspeth steered the girls toward the exit, pushing them along until they reached the doorway. “Go on! Go outside and let the boys know so they can help bring water from the stream.”
The girls nodded, frightened but now past their initial confusion. They dashed outside, presumably to spread word of the accident. Elspeth turned and stepped aside to help move more of the girls through, one by one so the doorway would not be blocked.
“Is everyone out?” Elspeth asked one of the teachers. They both looked back into the room, rapidly filling with dark smoke.
“I think so,” the teacher replied, though with doubt and fear in her voice. “I didn’t see Thora. Did you?”
Elspeth thought of the dark-haired girl, and shook her head. “She always sits by the stove, doesn’t she? I’ll go look.”
“No! You won’t be able to breathe. We must go.”
“I’m not leaving anyone behind. Go out and start a bucket brigade.
” Without waiting for a response, Elspeth walked back into the room, lifting her arm to cover her mouth and nose.
She crouched to avoid the cloud of smoke that hit the ceiling and was growing darker every moment, dropping down closer to the floor as it did so.
She saw the outline of the stove, and also saw two skinny legs next to it. Thora was evidently too afraid to move.
“Thora! Come with me,” Elspeth said, removing her arm from in front of her mouth for just a moment. Even those few words required her to suck in a breath that was too hot and too dry, and she began to cough. “Come! We haven’t any time to lose.”
“I can’t, ma’am! I just can’t,” the girl cried out, panic in her voice.
Elspeth looked behind Thora to the window in the far corner of the room. She could smash the glass and push Thora through. The window was too high for Ellie to climb up after, but she could make a final dash through the room and out the door.
Taking Thora’s arm, Ellie pushed her toward the window.
She grabbed one of the wooden stools set by the wall and hurled it at the glass.
The cloudy, pockmarked glass shattered, and two things happened at once.
Thora screamed, and the fire inside the room suddenly exploded in size, fed by the influx of fresh air from the outside.
Elspeth placed the stool below the window and set Thora onto it, her little feet teetering on the seat.
“Thora, put your hands on the windowsill and pull yourself up as hard as you can.” Elspeth lifted her by the waist as Thora reached for the windowsill, and together they managed to perch Thora on the sill, teetering half in and half out.
There must have been a growing crowd outside, because a man shouted, and seconds later, Thora was being pulled through the window by unseen helpers.
She could hear Thora crying out, “She’s still inside, she’s still inside!”
“I’m going through the door now,” Elspeth shouted at the window.
Frantic voices gave conflicting orders from the other side, but Elspeth couldn’t make sense of them, and in any case she saw only one option.
She took one deep breath of the relatively smoke-free air by the window, lifted her sleeve once more, and turned.
That main door now seemed impossibly far away. Even within the last few minutes, the flames had spread over every surface, the wooden building and all of the items within being flammable. Smoke billowed black and thick, with only the bottom couple of feet above the floor being somewhat less dense.
Elspeth made her way forward in a zigzag fashion, avoiding the largest spouts of flame.
Her skin seemed to crack in the oven-like heat, and she desperately wanted to take another breath, but she knew she couldn’t.
Her eyes watered, making the flames seem to sparkle and move about, so that she was no longer entirely sure if what she saw in front of her was really what was there.
She dropped down to her knees, crawling toward the door.
She had only a few more seconds before her body would force her to breathe, and that would be her death.
Her lungs burned with the desire for fresh air.
Her linen gown began to scorch and blacken as the flames found it.
A instinctive cry broke out of her throat when she saw the bottom of her skirts catch fire.