The Lantern Moon by Maeve Friel Read Free Book Online Page B

sightseers and gawpers were no longer hanging around the entrance to the Assembly Rooms but had drifted to the other end of the High Street. People were craning their necks, trying to see over the heads of those in front.
    â€˜The fire engine’s been called out from the parish church,’ she heard someone say.
    â€˜â€¦ a house down by the Corve …’
    â€˜It’s one of the tanners’ cottages,’ said a man in front of her.
    In the far distance she could hear the clanging of the night watchman’s bell and the shouts of ‘Fire! Fire!’
    â€˜Let me past,’ she screamed, all interest in her letter forgotten. ‘I must get past.’
    People plucked at her shawl and sleeves to hold her backbut she pushed against them and forced her way out of the crowd. She picked up her skirt and ran, sliding and slipping on the icy cobbles, straight through the dark lanes, round by the Bull Ring, on past the brightly-lit Feathers Hotel, and down the hill towards the terrace of black-and-white timbered cottages. As she got nearer, she could see the red glow in the sky, the tell-tale jets of sparks, could smell the acrid smell of burning wood. It was her house that was on fire.
    The road was blocked by three fire-engines, their horses and crews. Two of the crews were standing idly by, enjoying the spectacle. They were from the fire insurance companies and would not help out once they had seen that there was no brass plaque on the wall to show that fire insurance had been taken out on the house. The other one belonged to the parish and would come out to assist at any fire, whether for a pauper or a rich man. Two of its crew were feeding out the canvas and leather hose while two others stood either side of the manual pump, trying in vain to pump up water from the river Corve which ran behind the house. The river had frozen solid. Kezia’s neighbours were kneeling on the bank, frantically hammering at the ice with pick-axes to get to the water beneath. Several empty leather buckets lay uselessly on the bank.
    Kezia stood outside her home, screaming Libby’s name. The women from the cottages round about had come out on to the street. Several of them tried to hold her back from the flames, but she covered her head with her shawl and plunged headlong into the blazing house.
    There was a slow, steady splintering noise which grew louder and louder. A huge beam swung out from the house and fell into the road with a sickening thud. The house collapsed in upon itself.

Chapter 6
    Annie and William stood shoulder to shoulder in the damp cemetery beside the graves of their mother and little sister. The queue of mourners had filed past, one long sorrowful face after another, shaking their hands and telling the children how sorry they were for their trouble. Afterwards they gathered in small whispering groups behind the monuments of long-dead Ludlovians, or outside the graveyard gates, cheerfully exchanging their versions of how the fire broke out. Somehow the story had spread that Kezia had gone to have a look at Alexandrine Bonaparte. The shoemaker declared that it was no more than her just deserts for leaving her daughter alone while she went to gawp at toffs in their finery. A laundress from Frog Lane knew for a fact that Libby had always been in the habit of playing with fire while Walter Lloyd, the sexton, said the family had all gone to the bad. Wasn’t John Spears as rotten as last year’s windfalls? If it was ever true that virtue was rewarded and illdeeds punished, then you need look no further than the Spearses. They were a bad lot.
    Luckily, Annie and William did not hear any of these lies. They were numb with grief, shrinking within themselves, wishing only that they were dead too. They could not understand why Libby had been locked in the house alone for they knew nothing of the letter that their mother had gone in vain to pick up and the only man who could tell them, other than