"I want you to run to the chemist and tell him what's happened. Get him
to come back with you at once; he'll know what to bring, and send his
assistant to fetch the doctor, while I see to getting this poor soul
into the house."
Joan turned to obey. A few moments ago the street had been practically
empty, but now quite a throng of people were pressing forward towards
Elizabeth. Joan shouldered her way through them; half unconsciously she
noticed their eager eyes, and the tense, greedy look on their faces.
There were faces there that she had known nearly all her life,
respectable middle-class faces, the faces of Seabourne tradespeople, but
now somehow they looked different; it was as though a curtain had been
drawn aside and something primitive and unfamiliar revealed. She felt
bewildered, but nothing seemed to matter except obeying Elizabeth. As
she ran down the street she saw Milly crying in a doorway; she felt
sorry for her, she looked so sick and faint, but she did not stop to
speak to her.
2
When she returned with the chemist the crowd was denser than ever, but
all traces of the accident had disappeared. She supposed that Elizabeth
must have had the woman carried into the shop.
Inside, all was confusion; somewhere from the back premises a child
wailed dismally. A mass of unrolled material was spread in disorder upon
the counter, behind which stood an assistant in tears. She recognized
Joan and pointed with a shaking finger to a door at the back of the
shop. The door opened on to a narrow staircase, and Joan paused to look
about her; the old chemist was hard on her heels, peering over her
shoulders, his arms full of packages. A sound reached them from above,
low moaning through which, sharp and clear, came Elizabeth's voice:
"Is that you, Joan? Hurry up, please."
They mounted the stairs and entered a little bedroom; on the bed lay the
servant who had been burnt. Elizabeth was sitting beside her, and in a
corner of the room stood Mrs. Jenkins, looking utterly helpless.
Elizabeth looked critically at Joan; what she saw appeared to satisfy
her, for she beckoned the girl to come close.
"We must try and get the burnt clothes off her," she said. "Have you
brought plenty of oil, Mr. Ridgway?"
The chemist came forward, and together the three of them did what they
could, pending the doctor's arrival. As they worked the smell of burnt
flesh pervaded the air, and Mrs. Jenkins swayed slightly where she
stood. Elizabeth saw it and sent her downstairs; then she looked at
Joan, but Joan met her glance fearlessly.
"Are you equal to this?"
Joan nodded.
"Then do exactly what we tell you."
Joan nodded again. They worked quickly and silently, almost like people
in a dream, Joan thought. There was something awful in what they did,
something new and awful in the spectacle of a mutilated fellow-creature,
helpless in their hands. Into Joan's shocked consciousness there began
to creep a wondering realization of her own inadequacy. Yet she was not
failing; on the contrary, her nerve had steadied itself to meet the
shock. After a little while she found that her repulsion was giving way
to a keen and merciful interest, but she knew that all three of them, so
willing and so eager to help, were hampered by a lack of experience.
Even Mr. Ridgway's medical knowledge was inadequate to this emergency.
Apparently Elizabeth realized this too, for she glanced at the window
from time to time and paused to listen; Joan knew that she was waiting
in a fever of impatience for the doctor to arrive. The woman stirred and
moaned again.
"Will she die?" Joan asked.
Elizabeth looked at the chemist; he was silent. At last he said: "I'm
afraid she's burnt in the third degree."