IV
Her eyes had not deceived her. Two figures which had emerged from the
upper staircase window of Mr. Rumbold's and had got after a perilous
paddle in his cistern, on to the fire station, were now slowly but
resolutely clambering up the outhouse roof towards the back of the
main premises of Messrs. Mantell and Throbson's. They clambered slowly
and one urged and helped the other, slipping and pausing ever and
again, amidst a constant trickle of fragments of broken tile.
One was Mr. Polly, with his hair wildly disordered, his face covered
with black smudges and streaked with perspiration, and his trouser
legs scorched and blackened; the other was an elderly lady, quietly
but becomingly dressed in black, with small white frills at her neck
and wrists and a Sunday cap of ecru lace enlivened with a black velvet
bow. Her hair was brushed back from her wrinkled brow and plastered
down tightly, meeting in a small knob behind; her wrinkled mouth bore
that expression of supreme resolution common with the toothless aged.
She was shaky, not with fear, but with the vibrations natural to her
years, and she spoke with the slow quavering firmness of the very
aged.
"I don't mind scrambling," she said with piping inflexibility, "but I
can't jump and I _wunt_ jump."
"Scramble, old lady, then--scramble!" said Mr. Polly, pulling her arm.
"It's one up and two down on these blessed tiles."
"It's not what I'm used to," she said.
"Stick to it!" said Mr. Polly, "live and learn," and got to the ridge
and grasped at her arm to pull her after him.
"I can't jump, mind ye," she repeated, pressing her lips together.
"And old ladies like me mustn't be hurried."
"Well, let's get as high as possible anyhow!" said Mr. Polly, urging
her gently upward. "Shinning up a water-spout in your line? Near as
you'll get to Heaven."
"I _can't_ jump," she said. "I can do anything but jump."
"Hold on!" said Mr. Polly, "while I give you a boost.
That's--wonderful."
"So long as it isn't jumping...."
The old lady grasped the parapet above, and there was a moment of
intense struggle.
"Urup!" said Mr. Polly. "Hold on! Gollys! where's she gone to?..."
Then an ill-mended, wavering, yet very reassuring spring side boot
appeared for an instant.
"Thought perhaps there wasn't any roof there!" he explained,
scrambling up over the parapet beside her.
"I've never been out on a roof before," said the old lady. "I'm all
disconnected. It's very bumpy. Especially that last bit. Can't we sit
here for a bit and rest? I'm not the girl I useto be."
"You sit here ten minutes," shouted Mr. Polly, "and you'll pop like a
roast chestnut. Don't understand me? _Roast chestnut!_ Roast chestnut!
POP! There ought to be a limit to deafness. Come on round to the
front and see if we can find an attic window. Look at this smoke!"
"Nasty!" said the old lady, her eyes following his gesture, puckering
her face into an expression of great distaste.
"Come on!"
"Can't hear a word you say."
He pulled her arm. "Come on!"
She paused for a moment to relieve herself of a series of entirely
unexpected chuckles. "_Sich_ goings on!" she said, "I never did!
Where's he going now?" and came along behind the parapet to the front
of the drapery establishment.
Below, the street was now fully alive to their presence, and
encouraged the appearance of their heads by shouts and cheers. A sort
of free fight was going on round the fire escape, order represented by
Mr. Boomer and the very young policeman, and disorder by some
partially intoxicated volunteers with views of their own about the
manipulation of the apparatus. Two or three lengths of Mr. Rusper's
garden hose appeared to have twined themselves round the ladder. Mr.
Polly watched the struggle with a certain impatience, and glanced ever
and again over his shoulder at the increasing volume of smoke and
steam that was pouring up from the burning fire station. He decided to
break an attic window and get in, and so try and get down through the
shop. He found himself in a little bedroom, and returned to fetch his
charge. For some time he could not make her understand his purpose.
"Got to come at once!" he shouted.
"I hain't '_ad_ _sich_ a time for years!" said the old lady.
"We'll have to get down through the house!"
"Can't do no jumpin'," said the old lady. "No!"
She yielded reluctantly to his grasp.
She stared over the parapet. "Runnin' and scurrying about like black
beetles in a kitchin," she said.
"We've got to hurry."
"Mr. Rumbold 'E's a very Quiet man. 'E likes everything Quiet. He'll
be surprised to see me 'ere! Why!--there 'e is!" She fumbled in her
garments mysteriously and at last produced a wrinkled pocket
handkerchief and began to wave it.
"Oh, come ON!" cried Mr. Polly, and seized her.
He got her into the attic, but the staircase, he found, was full of
suffocating smoke, and he dared not venture below the next floor. He
took her into a long dormitory, shut the door on those pungent and
pervasive fumes, and opened the window to discover the fire escape was
now against the house, and all Fishbourne boiling with excitement as
an immensely helmeted and active and resolute little figure ascended.
In another moment the rescuer stared over the windowsill, heroic, but
just a trifle self-conscious and grotesque.
"Lawks a mussy!" said the old lady. "Wonders and Wonders! Why! it's
Mr. Gambell! 'Iding 'is 'ed in that thing! I _never_ did!"
"Can we get her out?" said Mr. Gambell. "There's not much time."
"He might git stuck in it."
"_You'll_ get stuck in it," said Mr. Polly, "come along!"
"Not for jumpin' I don't," said the old lady, understanding his
gestures rather than his words. "Not a bit of it. I bain't no good at
jumping and I _wunt_."
They urged her gently but firmly towards the window.
"You _lemme_ do it my own way," said the old lady at the sill....
"I could do it better if e'd take it off."
"Oh! _carm_ on!"
"It's wuss than Carter's stile," she said, "before they mended it.
With a cow a-looking at you."
Mr. Gambell hovered protectingly below. Mr. Polly steered her aged
limbs from above. An anxious crowd below babbled advice and did its
best to upset the fire escape. Within, streamers of black smoke were
pouring up through the cracks in the floor. For some seconds the world
waited while the old lady gave herself up to reckless mirth again.
"_Sich_ times!" she said, and "_Poor_ Rumbold!"
Slowly they descended, and Mr. Polly remained at the post of danger
steadying the long ladder until the old lady was in safety below and
sheltered by Mr. Rumbold (who was in tears) and the young policeman
from the urgent congratulations of the crowd. The crowd was full of an
impotent passion to participate. Those nearest wanted to shake her
hand, those remoter cheered.
"The fust fire I was ever in and likely to be my last. It's a
scurryin', 'urryin' business, but I'm real glad I haven't missed it,"
said the old lady as she was borne rather than led towards the refuge
of the Temperance Hotel.
Also she was heard to remark: "'E was saying something about 'ot
chestnuts. _I_ 'aven't 'ad no 'ot chestnuts."
Then the crowd became aware of Mr. Polly awkwardly negotiating the top
rungs of the fire escape. "'Ere 'e comes!" cried a voice, and Mr.
Polly descended into the world again out of the conflagration he had
lit to be his funeral pyre, moist, excited, and tremendously alive,
amidst a tempest of applause. As he got lower and lower the crowd
howled like a pack of dogs at him. Impatient men unable to wait for
him seized and shook his descending boots, and so brought him to earth
with a run. He was rescued with difficulty from an enthusiast who
wished to slake at his own expense and to his own accompaniment a
thirst altogether heroic. He was hauled into the Temperance Hotel and
flung like a sack, breathless and helpless, into the tear-wet embrace
of Miriam.
