Richard laughed at this while his mother exclaimed: “How dare you talk like that, Richard!”
“He is only being a tease,” said Rachel, looking up at Anne. “I have got used to it now, and pay no attention to him.”
“Finish the story, mother,” said Richard, and Anne added her voice to his. “Please finish the story. I am waiting to hear how the house was burnt down. Then I shall go home and buy some fire extinguishers.”
They all laughed at this, and Mrs. Sotheby continued:
“After Captain Purdue’s death it was nearly a year before the lawyers could find the heirs to the estate, and when they did find them the trouble was to know what to do with them. They called themselves Putty, though the name was really Purdue; the father and mother were dead and there were two brothers and two sisters. They had lived all their lives in a tumble-down cottage without proper windows or doors, right out on the Bedford Level, miles from anywhere. The brothers were labourers, ditchers. The elder of the two was called Jack: he was the best of the family but it was difficult to make out what he said. There was no getting anything out of his brother; he was stone deaf and had a cleft palate. The girls were very wild, dirty creatures, and not quite right in the head. When they were sober they were all like wooden images, and they looked very queer when they first came, in the black clothes Mr. Stott had bought for them. Well, they moved into the house, and within a week all the servants left and they were alone there. None of the gentry round would have anything to do with them; nobody went near the house except Dr. Boulder and Mr. Noble, who was the vicar here in those days, and of course Mr. Stott, the lawyer. At first they lived very quietly, only making a fearful mess of the three rooms they used. They were afraid that Mr. Stott could turn them out if he had wanted to, but after they had been there two or three months they grew more confident. And though they were like images if there were other people about, there was plenty of noise when they were by themselves and when they were drunk. Jack used to throw things and his sisters would throw things back. At first they came to ‘The Red Cow’ for drink, and Jack used sometimes to wave Captain Purdue’s hunting crop and threaten to horsewhip anybody who didn’t take his hat off, and one day when he had got very drunk he stood by the monument on the green and made a speech. People could hear him bellowing for miles round, but no one could make out much of what he said except that he was the squire, and that he ought to have been told before, and that he would never be rough with anybody.
“One day when he was in ‘The Red Cow’ one of the men asked him how it was that he didn’t like port wine. That was the first Jack had heard of Captain Purdue’s cellar, for, would you believe it, the Puttys had never been all over the house, and the cellar being locked up they had not troubled to break it open. After they found the wine nothing was seen of them for more than a week and then, one night, we were all woken up with the news that the manor house had caught fire. Everyone in the village turned out to help and the fire engine was fetched from Linton, but it came too late to be any use. The whole house was ablaze when we got there; the dairy and stables too, for they were touching the house. The men had made a line from the pond and were passing buckets, but it did no good, for the rooms were very old-fashioned and all the panelling had caught alight by that time, and the staircase too. The flames made it as light as day.”
“What about the Puttys?” asked Anne.
“Well, that was a very dreadful story. Jack Putty had just broken his way out of the house when we got there, but the two girls and the deaf brother were still inside. One of the Peck boys, who went to Wet Coulter afterwards as a ploughman, got out both of the girls, but they were terribly burned, and the brother lost his life. Jack Putty did not seem to understand what was happening at first, but when the fire had taken hold of everything he missed his brother, and then he ran back into the house to find him. He came out again with his clothes alight and jumped into the pond, and then, when he got out, he ran back into the fire again. It was dreadful to see that. He got out alive a second time, and would have gone in a third time, but everyone could see it was no use, and they prevented him; it took four men to hold him. Poor fellow, his feet were terribly burned, but he didn’t seem to mind that, but kept crying out that he must save his brother.
“After that they were all taken to the hospital, and there they found out that the girls were not fit to be about, so they were sent to an asylum for the imbecile. They have been there ever since, but Jack Putty seemed a different man after that. He went out to Australia; Mr. Stott sends him his rent regularly, and Jack sent him word when he got married. The property still belongs to him, of course, and that is how it is that the manor house has never been rebuilt.”
There was a silence in the little parlour, while they turned the story over in their minds. Mrs. Sotheby began to poke up the fire in the grate, and the flames shot up; they had been sitting almost in the dark.