“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 Iwillask 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 sendeveryone 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.”
