‘Listen, I must put you down for a minute, while I try to find the matches. Lie quite still.’
She fought with him till at last he lay, sobbing and quivering, beside her, his fingers clutching at her nightgown, his heels kicking against her.
‘Only for a minute.’
Her own hand was trembling as she groped for the matches. Supposing, when she found them, no answering gleam followed the striking, supposing this darkness was not for a minute but for the rest of life? Her fingers splashed into wetness: they had found another cup.
Nothing like cold tea for the eyes, Miss Ranskill, that’s a thing I’ve proved many a time when I’ve been stripping ceilings or been a bit too slap-dash with the creosote.
From the far island, the Carpenter was still guiding her.
Not fit to look after yourself, are you, Miss Ranskill?
She lifted the cup to her face and used it as an eye-bath until at last she was able to lift her grit-embedded lids, an act that required more courage than she had ever needed; not because of the pain but because she would rather have postponed the answer to a question.
A tiny light was showing from the oil-stove, a light more beautiful than sunset or moonrise. The candle she had lit was out. She could only just see the outline of the boy, lying in a pathetic heap at her side, but she did not need much light for what she had to do. The next few moments were spent in bathing his eyes, first with the tea, and then with the hem of Marjorie’s nightgown dipped in milk. His tears helped to rinse the torturing grit from under his eyelids.
‘I don’t want to die.’
Miss Ranskill made the same answer as before but without the same conviction.
‘You can’t die.’
Once again shuddering overtook the little boy. His teeth were chattering now. Presently he stiffened, his head jerked back, and he lay still in rigid terror before sagging once more into a collapsed whimpering bundle.
Rage filled Miss Ranskill, a rage that braced her own muscles till the boy gasped and wriggled and she realised she was gripping him fiercely. Then the crashing noise began again: it was louder this time, so loud that it felt as though the whole earth was cracked into pieces and was tearing the pieces into two with a horrible rending cacophony.
There was nothing to be done now but to wait and hate and hold the child in her arms.
Something was burning. A curious dry smell, reminiscent of a lime-kiln, pervaded the cellar. Was the house burning above their heads, and if so, how long would it be before it crashed in on them?
Miss Ranskill laid the limp body of the boy back into the deck-chair. The wavering light from the stove showed her the bottom step of the stairs and she hurried up them. Even if the house were on fire, there might still be time to escape. It would be better to face the horror of the bombs than the terror of being burned to death.
The door at the top of the stairs resisted her. She tried to rattle the handle, but it would not even turn. She set shoulder to the panels, but made no impression on them. She felt in a non-existent pocket for the new knife, but her fingers only met the folds of Marjorie’s nightgown. Of course… she had left it upstairs in her bed. Last time she had left it in the Carpenter’s bed – in his grave. Because of that she had come to England, purposely, it seemed now, to meet this child whom she might have saved if she had not left another knife in her bed.
Not fit to look after yourself, are you, Miss Ranskill? Now if this knife was lost I reckon we’d be in Queer Street, eh?
Not fit to look after a child either. She made fresh and stronger assault on the door, but it was unrelenting. Perhaps there was something in the cellar that would be strong enough to batter a panel to splinters. A table-leg might do, but she doubted if she could make purchase enough with four legs fixed to a table.
The cellar seemed hotter when she returned to it. Then she noticed that something on top of the stove was glowing and smouldering and that the dry smell had increased. She groped for and found the teapot, took off the lid and poured the contents on to the stove. There was a hiss and a splutter, darkness and a choking smell. Then she trod on the matchbox, and in another minute the Christmas-tree smell of candles had overwhelmed the menace of fire, and the candle-lit dust turned golden in the air.
The child had fallen asleep again in the swift strange manner of all young creatures, though he was still twitching a little. Miss Ranskill covered him up again and then spent some minutes in cleaning and drying the stove with the edge of Marjorie’s nightgown. When it was alight once more and with the refilled kettle on the top of it, she sat back on her heels for a moment or two and considered what was the next thing to be done. She was dazed and exhausted. Sometime soon, she must battle with the cellar-door again, but she would have a cup of tea first; and when the child was awake she would make him cocoa. She was still hazy with shock, but another vague responsibility nagged at her mind. What was it she had to do? A tiny scuffling sound from behind the cupboard door reminded her, and, taking a candle, she crossed the cellar to see if everything was well with the little cat.
The star of the candle illumined a rumple of paper, a little mother cat and three sleek newly-licked kittens. They lay in a row, their blunt heads half hidden in their mother’s fur, their absurd tails towards Miss Ranskill, and they pulled and tugged in rhythm. The little cat’s eyes were shining, but there was anxiety in them as she rubbed her head gently against Miss Ranskill’s outstretched hand.
Now she added proud purring to the rhythmed tugging of her babies. She flicked her tail with a nonchalant air and it seemed to Miss Ranskill that she almost simpered.
‘Good little cat. If only I’d known. Poor little cat!’
For it was a very young creature and the small number of kittens showed that they were probably a first family.
Sometime, during the shattering crashes of the night, the little cat, suffering its unheeded pains, had gone quietly about its business of kitten-bearing, had dealt with them and loved them, its love conquering fear. And somehow those blind babies, unaware that there was anything strange about their welcome to the world, had crawled to the warmth of their mother and the milk that was ready at exactly the right time. There they lay in a neat row, one black, one tortoiseshell, and one tawny striped black, their heads sleeked and shining as the heads of any nanny-pampered schoolroom children: three tiny creatures, born in disregard of Germany and all its works. The mother-cat curved a protecting paw as Miss Ranskill’s finger went towards her babies.
‘All right, it’s quite all right. Nothing shall take them from you. These ones shan’t be drowned, I promise you.’
So, in the cellar, Miss Ranskill guaranteed succession to a long line of cats and kittens. It was a tiny contribution to the triumph of life over death.
‘No bucket-party for you,’ she said, as she returned with a saucer of milk and warmed water.
The cat shook herself free of her war-babies and lapped hungrily.
Miss Ranskill had lost her own desire for tea. Exhaustion was overwhelming her. Only sleep would bring comfort. She rolled a rug round her.
Miss Ranskill opened her eyes to see a low-hung star, so crisscrossed with bars as to suggest that it was suffering a strange eclipse. She blinked at it, puzzled by the new wonder above the island. Then, in a second or two, she remembered events, concisely and unemotionally as though they had been chapter-headings from a book – the death of the Carpenter, the voyage from the island and all the bewilderments and terrors of day and night. This, then, was her first awakening in England, not to sheets and fine china, a bedroom nosegay and birdsong in the garden.