“What’s Freddie crying for?” asked Nellie.
“He’ll stop in half a jiffy,” said Jacqueline. “Aunt Martha’ll wake up and take him. Why can’t she hear him? He’s crying loud enough.”
He was indeed, strangling, gasping, screaming with fright, and as she listened to him, Jacqueline grew frightened, too. For if Aunt Martha were in her room, she would surely wake and go to Freddie, and if she were not in her room, oh, where could Aunt Martha be? The night that had been terrible before with ear-splitting noises and unearthly fires was doubly terrible now, with the fear of unknown, ghastly things. Jacqueline’s breath came in uneven gasps, while she listened agonizedly to hear Aunt Martha moving about, and heard only Freddie’s cries.
But she couldn’t let him cry like that, she realized. She would have to go and get him—leave her snug bed—cross her room—the hall—Aunt Martha’s room—in that dreadful light and darkness, with the thunder roaring round her, and the fear of unspoken things turning her blood to ice.
“I can’t—I can’t!” Jacqueline’s spirit fairly chittered within her. But Freddie kept on crying—and he was just a baby. She couldn’t let him suffer there alone in the storm.
“Be a sport!” she told herself, through chattering teeth, and: “Nellie, you shut up!” she said aloud, in a harsh, snappy voice.
Out of the bed she got, and she set her teeth tight, and she made herself run straight into the next room. By a flash of lightning she could see poor Freddie, with his face dark and convulsed, as he sat screaming in his crib, and she could see Aunt Martha’s bed, with the coverings turned back, and Aunt Martha—gone. She didn’t dare stop to ask questions. She just caught up Freddie, who clawed her neck as he clung like a terrified kitten, and she ran staggering with him back into her own room. She plumped him into the bed beside Nellie, and scuttled in beneath the coverings. She had thought confusedly that once she was safe back in bed, she would have a good old cry to relieve her feelings. But she couldn’t cry. She had to quiet the two children.
“Hush up now!” she heard herself saying stoutly. “You’re all safe—you’re here with Jackie—I’ll take care of you.”
The thunder volleyed. The lightning flamed. The storm had lasted an eternity. It would last, she felt, forever. Then, without warning, there was Aunt Martha coming in at the door, a dark, indistinct figure, but with Aunt Martha’s footsteps that made Jacqueline, at the first sound, cry out with relief.
“You’ve got Freddie?” Aunt Martha spoke in a strained, tired voice, not like hers at all. “I knew I could trust you, Jackie. Look out for him till morning. I’ve got to stay downstairs.”