Sudbury
“PAPA, STOP THE COACH!”
Elizabeth started from her slumber to find Margie leaning forward, looking extremely vexed.
Mr Wythe tapped the roof, and the carriage came to a halt.
Before the wheels ceased turning, Margie was out the door. She leapt down without waiting for the footman and demanded the coachman lift her to the box. The footman arrived from the rear only in time to hand her up to the coachman, who lifted her the rest of the way.
By the time Elizabeth joined her on the ground—with a touch more decorum—he asked, “Do you care to ascend as well, Miss Bennet?”
“No, thank you, Julliard. I will await Miss Wythe.”
The man nodded, glancing up at Margie. He stood ready to assist, or perhaps merely to work out what in the dickens she could be about.
Elizabeth wondered as much. Margaret stood with her nose in the air, turning in slow circles.
“Part bloodhound, Our Margaret.”
Elizabeth smiled at Mrs Wythe, who had joined her with her husband following close behind. Neither parent disrupted Margie, so Elizabeth waited.
When Margaret finally turned, her expression nearly stopped Elizabeth’s heart. Her friend appeared as vexed and frightened as it was possible to be.
“FIRE, Papa! It is a fire. A big one! I smell lumber, tar, hay, thatch… maybe even burnt flesh. I fear this is bad—very bad!”
Margaret ceased spinning to look intently at her parents while the rest stared up at her.
“How far, Margaret?”
“Some miles. I can only suppose it to be Sudbury. There is nothing else betwixt here and there.”
Mr Wythe sniffed, then tossed some grass into the air to gauge the wind. “I believe you are right. We must proceed cautiously and see if we can be of aid. Sudbury has a great many wooden structures—far more than is usual these days. A fire could be as you suggested—catastrophic.”
Jumping into action, Mr Wythe conferred briefly with the coachman and footman, then helped the ladies back into the carriage. “I will ride on the box with Dodge. We want to get as close as possible, but not too close.”
They resumed their journey at a reduced pace.
Twenty minutes later, smoke tainted the air, and another quarter-hour found the horses fussing and fidgeting.
Mr Wythe and the footman climbed down, took the harnesses, and led the beasts cautiously.
By then, plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, visible for miles.
Margaret’s bloodhound nose was no longer necessary; the terrain alone had obscured the disaster before, but it was becoming more apparent every minute.
Elizabeth would never forget the sight as they rounded the last bend revealing Sudbury. Before her rose a wall of flames, with a dozen buildings fully engulfed. The fire spread even as she watched from the safety of the coach.
Spying a useful place, she called through the window, “Mr Wythe, on your left! What think you?”
“Well spotted, Lizzy! That will do.”
The men led the horses across a meadow, and into the midst of a good-sized orchard.
Though they were still a half mile or so from the village and downwind from the fire—resulting in more smoke than she liked—a small hillock stood between the town and the back corner of the orchard.
Once they navigated to that point, the air cleared noticeably. It must suffice.
Everyone felt the effects of the smoke. All coughed from time to time, though thus far it remained mostly an annoyance.
When they stopped, Mr Wythe issued his commands.
“Dodge, tie the horses in the best place you find, then stay here with the ladies. Search out a well or stream and store water, as it will be needed. Julliard—with me.”
“A moment,” Mrs Wythe interposed. “Pass down our trunks before you go. Send the victims here and we shall make bandages from the clothing.”
A minute or two later, the tradesman and footman took off for the village at a run, while Elizabeth wondered what Mr Wythe meant by ‘with the ladies,’ since in another moment the orchard would be at least one lady short.
She stepped from the coach and looked about. “Can you manage without me, Mrs Wythe? I am under your direction, but I can be of more use in the village. I will be very careful.”
The older woman gave her a measuring look, then smiled. “I expect no less, Lizzy. I shall not ask you to keep Margaret out of trouble, as that seems a lost cause, but I will ask you to try to limit the trouble you drag her into.”
Elizabeth kissed her cheek. “Margie, are you with me?”
Margaret had already gone two steps when Mrs Wythe shouted, “Wait!”
Both stopped, while Mrs Wythe flung open a trunk, dragged out a few petticoats, and cut a half-dozen broad strips, each about a handspan wide and two feet long.
She pulled a jug of water out of the carriage, poured it onto the strips, and tied them around the girls’ mouths and noses, fastening them behind their heads like a bandana.
“’Ware the smoke, girls! I cannot overstate the danger.
People die more from smoke than fire, and it can sneak up on you.
Give the other strips to those who need them, and send everyone you can to me.
Be careful of falling walls. It will do no good to escape the flames, only to be killed by a falling timber. ”
Margaret brushed her mother’s cheek, and she and Elizabeth ran.
On the outskirts of the orchard, two ladders lay abandoned beside a barrow.
The barrow even had racks fixed along its sides, made to take the ladders neatly.
Between them they manoeuvred them into place, then set off at a near-run for the village with a girl on each handle.
Halfway between the orchard and the village, they circled the hillock that had sheltered them from the wind and crossed a small creek by a narrow footbridge. The smell struck like a hammer blow through the cloth: Burning hair.
Elizabeth remembered a frighteningly angry nine-year-old Lydia, enraged over some childish slight, cutting a lock of hair from Mary and tossing it into the fireplace.
The same sickening smell was the first to accost her through the mask, and her stomach turned.
How much worse it must be for the villagers with nothing over their mouths, caught in the very midst of it.
Another stench followed: meat burned to a crisp.
Once, at a neighbouring estate, the master of the house insisted on cooking his own dinner (quite why, no one knew, for he had no skill whatsoever).
He had burnt it into charcoal in a little pit dug in the lawn before the house.
This was that smell, only stronger and fouler; it left no room for comforting error.
Some creature—or person—had perished in the fire, and likely more than one.
Smoke stung her eyes until tears ran, and blinking did nothing to clear them. Her breath came ragged behind the cloth. Beside her, Margaret’s face tightened in the same disgust, and Elizabeth could only imagine the torment with her bloodhound nose.
The barrow dragged at their arms; they both panted and sweated with the effort, and both started coughing harder than before, though it was still manageable.
Margaret said, “Do not fret, Lizzy. My nose is overly sensitive in clean air, but now I doubt I am any more troubled than you.”
“That is entirely troubling enough, but I believe you.”
By the time she spoke, they had worked the barrow into the lane and pushed it past a burning stable where the sound and smell of burning horses grew so overpowering both girls had to stop, bend over hands on knees coughing, and do their best not to retch.
For Margaret, the struggle was lost, but she at least had sense enough to move the rag aside.
When she had finished, she pulled the rag back down. “Let us see what we can do.”
The first order of business presented itself at once. A young boy of perhaps twelve stumbled from a house carrying a baby of around a year. The boy was coughing ferociously, but looking proud of his accomplishments, as well he should. The baby was screaming, which Elizabeth took for a good sign.
Lizzy asked in alarm, “Your parents, son. Are they inside? Or anyone else?”
“No, ma’am. They be over at the Vernon estate. Me sister ‘twer with us, but she went to her friend’s a few hours past, and I’ve not seen her. I should have taken Sis and run, but I didna know what to do.”
“You have done well, young man. Very well indeed!”
Lizzy took the baby. The child was crying, coughing quite a lot, and unsurprisingly wet, but otherwise likely to survive.
“What is your name, lad?”
“Ewan, ma’am.”
The boy followed this with a ferocious fit of coughing but seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Well, Ewan—you have done well. Tell me: are you strong enough to push that barrow, with your sister and a few others, out to the apple orchard back that way?”
“I can push her to London if’n I must.”
“I doubt that will be necessary. Let us see who else we can find, shall we?”
She returned the baby to Ewan and continued down the street, eyes stinging, throat raw, scanning doorways.
It took only minutes to find a few more girls and boys aged ten to fifteen, some carrying younger siblings, some hauling friends by the hand, others shepherding strangers found along the way.
A knot of older villagers had collected as well.
The young bore it better; a few wheezed and coughed, but they at least walked.
The elders fared worse—grey faces, slack mouths, the slow, fearful labour of each breath—yet none had fallen or seemed likely to.
Lizzy set herself to directing them. Fortunately, several years of managing a house full of stubborn, independent girls, along with some time organising fairs and helping in other emergencies, including two other fires; had taught her to give orders with the ladylike subtlety of an ill-tempered sergeant.
She distributed the kerchiefs made from petticoats to the most affected, saved the rest for greater need, and set to work.