The History of Mr. Polly

Her eyes had not deceived her.  Two figures which had emerged from the upper staircase window of Mr. Rumbold’s and had got after a perilous paddle in his cistern, on to the fire station, were now slowly but resolutely clambering up the outhouse roof towards the back of the main premises of Messrs. Mantell and Throbson’s.  They clambered slowly and one urged and helped the other, slipping and pausing ever and again, amidst a constant trickle of fragments of broken tile.

One was Mr. Polly, with his hair wildly disordered, his face covered with black smudges and streaked with perspiration, and his trouser legs scorched and blackened; the other was an elderly lady, quietly but becomingly dressed in black, with small white frills at her neck and wrists and a Sunday cap of ecru lace enlivened with a black velvet bow.  Her hair was brushed back from her wrinkled brow and plastered down tightly, meeting in a small knob behind; her wrinkled mouth bore that expression of supreme resolution common with the toothless aged.  She was shaky, not with fear, but with the vibrations natural to her years, and she spoke with the slow quavering firmness of the very aged.

“I don’t mind scrambling,” she said with piping inflexibility, “but I can’t jump and I wunt jump.”

“Scramble, old lady, then—­scramble!” said Mr. Polly, pulling her arm.  “It’s one up and two down on these blessed tiles.”

“It’s not what I’m used to,” she said.

“Stick to it!” said Mr. Polly, “live and learn,” and got to the ridge and grasped at her arm to pull her after him.

“I can’t jump, mind ye,” she repeated, pressing her lips together.  “And old ladies like me mustn’t be hurried.”

“Well, let’s get as high as possible anyhow!” said Mr. Polly, urging her gently upward.  “Shinning up a water-spout in your line?  Near as you’ll get to Heaven.”

“I can’t jump,” she said.  “I can do anything but jump.”

“Hold on!” said Mr. Polly, “while I give you a boost.  That’s—­wonderful.”

“So long as it isn’t jumping….”

The old lady grasped the parapet above, and there was a moment of intense struggle.

“Urup!” said Mr. Polly.  “Hold on!  Gollys! where’s she gone to?...”

Then an ill-mended, wavering, yet very reassuring spring side boot appeared for an instant.

“Thought perhaps there wasn’t any roof there!” he explained, scrambling up over the parapet beside her.

“I’ve never been out on a roof before,” said the old lady.  “I’m all disconnected.  It’s very bumpy.  Especially that last bit.  Can’t we sit here for a bit and rest?  I’m not the girl I useto be.”

“You sit here ten minutes,” shouted Mr. Polly, “and you’ll pop like a roast chestnut.  Don’t understand me? Roast chestnut! Roast chestnut!  POP!  There ought to be a limit to deafness.  Come on round to the front and see if we can find an attic window.  Look at this smoke!”

“Nasty!” said the old lady, her eyes following his gesture, puckering her face into an expression of great distaste.

“Come on!”

“Can’t hear a word you say.”

He pulled her arm.  “Come on!”

She paused for a moment to relieve herself of a series of entirely unexpected chuckles. “Sich goings on!” she said, “I never did!  Where’s he going now?” and came along behind the parapet to the front of the drapery establishment.

Below, the street was now fully alive to their presence, and encouraged the appearance of their heads by shouts and cheers.  A sort of free fight was going on round the fire escape, order represented by Mr. Boomer and the very young policeman, and disorder by some partially intoxicated volunteers with views of their own about the manipulation of the apparatus.  Two or three lengths of Mr. Rusper’s garden hose appeared to have twined themselves round the ladder.  Mr. Polly watched the struggle with a certain impatience, and glanced ever and again over his shoulder at the increasing volume of smoke and steam that was pouring up from the burning fire station.  He decided to break an attic window and get in, and so try and get down through the shop.  He found himself in a little bedroom, and returned to fetch his charge.  For some time he could not make her understand his purpose.

“Got to come at once!” he shouted.

“I hain’t ’ad sich a time for years!” said the old lady.

“We’ll have to get down through the house!”

“Can’t do no jumpin’,” said the old lady.  “No!”

She yielded reluctantly to his grasp.

She stared over the parapet.  “Runnin’ and scurrying about like black beetles in a kitchin,” she said.

“We’ve got to hurry.”

“Mr. Rumbold ’E’s a very Quiet man.  ’E likes everything Quiet.  He’ll be surprised to see me ’ere!  Why!—­there ’e is!” She fumbled in her garments mysteriously and at last produced a wrinkled pocket handkerchief and began to wave it.

“Oh, come ON!” cried Mr. Polly, and seized her.

He got her into the attic, but the staircase, he found, was full of suffocating smoke, and he dared not venture below the next floor.  He took her into a long dormitory, shut the door on those pungent and pervasive fumes, and opened the window to discover the fire escape was now against the house, and all Fishbourne boiling with excitement as an immensely helmeted and active and resolute little figure ascended.  In another moment the rescuer stared over the windowsill, heroic, but just a trifle self-conscious and grotesque.

“Lawks a mussy!” said the old lady.  “Wonders and Wonders!  Why! it’s Mr. Gambell!  ’Iding ’is ’ed in that thing!  I never did!”

“Can we get her out?” said Mr. Gambell.  “There’s not much time.”

“He might git stuck in it.”

“You’ll get stuck in it,” said Mr. Polly, “come along!”

“Not for jumpin’ I don’t,” said the old lady, understanding his gestures rather than his words.  “Not a bit of it.  I bain’t no good at jumping and I wunt.”

They urged her gently but firmly towards the window.

“You lemme do it my own way,” said the old lady at the sill….

“I could do it better if e’d take it off.”

“Oh! carm on!”

“It’s wuss than Carter’s stile,” she said, “before they mended it.  With a cow a-looking at you.”

Mr. Gambell hovered protectingly below.  Mr. Polly steered her aged limbs from above.  An anxious crowd below babbled advice and did its best to upset the fire escape.  Within, streamers of black smoke were pouring up through the cracks in the floor.  For some seconds the world waited while the old lady gave herself up to reckless mirth again. “Sich times!” she said, and “Poor Rumbold!”

Slowly they descended, and Mr. Polly remained at the post of danger steadying the long ladder until the old lady was in safety below and sheltered by Mr. Rumbold (who was in tears) and the young policeman from the urgent congratulations of the crowd.  The crowd was full of an impotent passion to participate.  Those nearest wanted to shake her hand, those remoter cheered.

“The fust fire I was ever in and likely to be my last.  It’s a scurryin’, ‘urryin’ business, but I’m real glad I haven’t missed it,” said the old lady as she was borne rather than led towards the refuge of the Temperance Hotel.

Also she was heard to remark:  “’E was saying something about ’ot chestnuts. I ’aven’t ’ad no ’ot chestnuts.”

Then the crowd became aware of Mr. Polly awkwardly negotiating the top rungs of the fire escape. “’Ere ’e comes!” cried a voice, and Mr. Polly descended into the world again out of the conflagration he had lit to be his funeral pyre, moist, excited, and tremendously alive, amidst a tempest of applause.  As he got lower and lower the crowd howled like a pack of dogs at him.  Impatient men unable to wait for him seized and shook his descending boots, and so brought him to earth with a run.  He was rescued with difficulty from an enthusiast who wished to slake at his own expense and to his own accompaniment a thirst altogether heroic.  He was hauled into the Temperance Hotel and flung like a sack, breathless and helpless, into the tear-wet embrace of Miriam.