Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [28]
Beth’s heart was in her mouth as she watched Molly’s descent to the street below. Sam and Peter were lowering her very carefully, but the coal scuttle was swaying precariously. If Molly struggled it would tip over to one side.
Fortunately she remained still and reached the safety of Ernest’s arms.
‘Now you, Beth,’ Sam said as he pulled the sheet rope up again. ‘You cling on to the sheet like grim death. I’ll lower you.’
Beth was terrified as she crawled backwards on to the window sill. She had bare feet and was wearing only her nightgown with nothing beneath it. Even in such a desperate situation she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing her private parts.
‘Wind it round your wrist and hold it tightly,’ Sam ordered her. ‘Use your feet to help you down the wall. We’ll let it down gently, we won’t drop you.’
Nothing in her life had been so frightening. She was terrified of plunging down and breaking her neck and all too aware that the breeze had got under her nightgown and that Ernest was looking right up at her. But she had to do it quickly because Sam and Peter needed to get down too.
‘Good girl, only a few more feet and you can jump,’ Ernest called out. ‘The mattress is right below and I’m here to catch you.’
She got a bit hooked up on the signboard along the top of the shop window, but she managed to get beyond it and then Ernest told her to jump.
People were spilling out of their homes now to see what all the noise was about, and the sound reassured her a little. She let go of the sheet and dropped to her feet on the mattress.
Snatching Molly out of Ernest’s arms, she glanced into the shop window and to her further horror saw flames licking all around the door at the back which led to their flat. Smoke was billowing overhead too and more and more people were coming out on to the street. She hoped the fire brigade would get here before the whole terrace of shops burned down.
‘I’ve got a ladder!’ yelled a male voice. ‘Two minutes and I’ll get it to you.’
Sam, meanwhile, was assisting Peter out of the window. ‘How is Sam going to get down?’ Beth asked Ernest. ‘There isn’t anything to tie the sheet to up there.’
‘The ladder might be here by then,’ Ernest said. ‘Come on, Pete,’ he shouted. ‘Mind how you go when you reach the signboard of the shop.’
Peter jumped the last ten feet and turned to Ernest. ‘The fire’s at the door up there now,’ he said. ‘How’s Sam going to get down?’
Beth could see the flames leaping across the shop floor.
Before long the fire would be raging up the front of the building and trapping her brother.
‘Sam!’ Beth yelled. ‘Drag the bed over to the window. The headboard is too big to go through it, so you can tie the sheet to that.’
She felt sick with fright and wished she could see if Sam was obeying her — it would be just like him to try to collect up a few valuables before he left. It was mayhem out in the street now, some people shouting that they should start a chain of buckets of water, others panicking that their homes might be at risk, barefooted children in their nightclothes crying because they couldn’t see their parents. A few people were blowing whistles and more were banging on other doors in an attempt to get the occupants out.
But just as Beth was beginning to think Sam was lost to her, the sheet came spilling out of the window and he was outside on the sill, bare-chested, the street light shining on his blond hair, her fiddle case in his hand.
‘Catch this,’ he yelled, and tossed it down into Peter’s hands. Just as the flames behind the shop window began to crack the glass, Sam came down the sheet hand over hand.
Beth ran to hug him. ‘What made you think of rescuing the fiddle?’ she asked.
‘Something told me I must.’ He shrugged. ‘I know how much it means to you.’
It was some fifteen minutes later that the first fire engine arrived, the firemen leaping off and fastening the hose to the water supply, but by then the front of the building was ablaze. The horses were taken out of the shafts and led further down the street away from the fierce heat, and Beth and the