Some Must Watch - Ethel Lina White (best book club books .TXT) 📗

a social entity. She was there

merely to do a job, and he supposed, that she—like all the other

girls—would go at the end of the month, if she lasted as long.

 

The novelty of his attention stimulated her confidence.

 

“Do you mean the will?” she asked boldly.

 

He nodded.

 

“Will she—or won’t she?”

 

“We talked about it,” said Helen, inflated with her own importance. “I

advised her not to keep putting it off.” Newton gave a shout of

excitement. “Aunt Blanche. Come here.”,

 

Miss Warren was wafted by some terrestrial wind out of the drawingroom,

in obedience to her nephew’s call. For some inexplicable reason, the

shambling short-sighted youth seemed to sway the affection of his own

womankind, even if he failed to hold his wife.

 

“What is it?” she asked.

 

“Epic news,” Newton told her. “Miss Capel has worked faster in five

minutes than the rest of us in five years. She’s got Gran to talk about

her will.”

 

“Not exactly that,” explained Helen. “But she said she couldn’t die,

because she had a job to do—an unpleasant job, which everyone puts off.”

 

“Good enough,” nodded Newton. “Well, Miss Capel, I only hope you will go

on with the good work, if she’s wakeful, tonight.”

 

Even Miss Warren seemed impressed by the fresh development, for she

looked, more or less directly, at Helen.

 

“Extraordinary,” she murmured. “You seem to have more influence over

her than anyone else.”

 

Helen walked away, conscious that she had been betrayed by her impulse

to play to the gallery. Now that the family had a direct personal

interest in her relations with Lady Warren, she could only expect their

opposition, if she appealed to them against the verdict of the blue

room.

 

But she continued to hold her head high, as though sustained by popular

support on her way to execution, even while she shrank from her first

glimpse of the scaffold. In her last minute, she would be alone.

 

When she reached the kitchen, she was instantly aware that Mrs. Oates

was in no mood for gossip, while Oates kept out of his wife’s way, in a

significant manner. Regardless of Helen’s finery, Mrs. Oates pointed to

a steaming basin, on the table.

 

“Just blanch these for the tipsy-cake,” she said. “I’m behind with my

dinner. And Oates keeps dodging under my feet, until I don’t know if I’m

up in the air, or down a coal-mine.”

 

In a chastened mood, Helen sat down and gingerly popped almonds out of

their shrivelled brown skins. She had accepted the fact of the doctor’s

absence so completely that she ignored the sound of a bell ringing in

the basement hall.

 

It was Mrs. Oates who glanced at the indicator.

 

“Front door,” she snapped. “That’ll be the doctor.”

 

Helen sprang to her feet and rushed to the door.

 

“I’ll let him in,” she cried.

 

“Thank you, miss,” said Oates gratefully. “I haven’t my trousers on.”

 

“Disgraceful,” laughed Helen, who knew he referred to the fact that he

put on his best trousers and a linen jacket, in order to carry in the

dinner.

 

Again hope soared, as she flew up the stairs and opened the front door,

letting in a sheet of torrential rain, driven before the gale, as well

as the doctor.

 

He was strongly-built, and inclined to be stocky, with short blunt

clean-shaven features. Helen beamed her wel come, while he—in

turn—looked at her with approval.

 

“Is this Gala Night?” he asked.

 

His gaze held none of the uncomfortable suction of the nurse’s eyes, so

that Helen rejoiced in her new evening frock. But Dr. Parry was more

concerned by the hollows in her neck than struck by the whiteness of her

skin.

 

“Odd that you are not better developed,” he frowned, “with all the

housework you do,”

 

“I’ve not been doing any lately,” explained Helen.

 

“I see,” muttered Dr. Parry, as he wondered why voluntary starvation, in

the case of a slimming patient should fail to affect him, since the

result was the same.

 

“Like milk?” he asked. “But, of course, you don’t.”

 

“Don’t I? I’d be a peril, if I worked in a dairy.”

 

“You ought to drink a lot. I’ll speak to Mrs. Oates.”

 

The doctor drew off his leather motoring coat and flung it on the chair.

 

“Dirty weather,” he said. “It made me late. The roads are like broth.

How is Lady Warren tonight?”

 

“Just the same; she wants me to sleep with her.”

 

“Well, if I know anything about you, you’ll enjoy doing that,” grinned

the doctor. “Something new.”

 

“But I’m dreading it,” wailed Helen. “I’m

just hanging on you to tell them I’m not—not competent.”

 

“Jim-jams? Has the house got you, too? Are you finding it too lonely

here?”

 

“Oh, no, it’s not just nerves. I’ve got a reason for being afraid.”

 

Contrary to her former experience, Helen held the doc tor’s attention,

while she told him the story of the revolver.

 

“It’s a rum yarn,” he said. “But I’d believe anything of that old

surprise-packet. I’ll see if I can find out where she’s hidden it.”

 

“And you’ll say I’m not to sleep with her?” insisted Helen.

 

But things were not so simple as that, for Dr. Parry rubbed his chin

doubtfully.

 

“I can’t promise. I must see the nurse first. She may really need a good

night, if she’s come straight off duty… I’d better be going up.”

 

He swung open the doors leading to the hall. As they crossed it, he

spoke to her in an undertone.

 

“Buck up, old lady. It won’t be loaded. In any case; her eye will be

out, after all these years.”

 

“She hit the nurse,” Helen reminded him.

 

“Sheer fluke. Remember, she’s an old woman. Don’t bother to come up.”

 

“No, I’d better introduce you formally to the nurse,” insisted Helen,

who was anxious not to infringe professional etiquette.

 

But the glare in Nurse Barker’s eye, when she opened the door, in answer

to Helen’s knock, told her that she had blundered again.

 

“I’ve brought up Dr. Parry,” said Helen.

 

Nurse Barker inclined her head in a stately bow.

 

“How long have you been here, doctor?” she asked.

 

“Oh, five minutes or so,” he replied.

 

“In future, doctor, will you, please, come straight to the bedroom?”

asked the nurse. “Lady Warren has been worried, because you were late.”

 

“Certainly, nurse, if it’s like that,” said the doctor.

 

Helen turned away with a sinking heart. The woman seemed to dominate the

young doctor with her will even as she appeared to tower over him—an

optical illusion, due to the white overall.

 

Simone—in all the glory of her sensational gown—swept past her in the

hall. Even in the midst of her own problem, Helen noticed that she was

literally drenched with emotion. Her eyes sparkled with tears, her lips

trembled, her hands were clenched.

 

She was in the grip of frustrate desire, which converted her into a

storm-centre of rage. She was angry with Newton—because he was an

obstacle; angry with Stephen—because he was unresponsive; angry with

herself—because she had lost her grip.

 

And all these complex passions were slowly merging on one person whom

she believed to be the other woman in the case. She was obsessed with

the idea that Stephen was turning her down for the sake of the

flaxen-haired barmaid at the Bull.

 

The help, in spite of her new frock, might have been invisible, for she

passed her without the slightest notice. And when Helen reached the

kitchen, Mrs. Oates also received her with silent gloom.

 

It seemed as though the mental atmosphere of the Summit was curdled with

acidity.

 

“You won’t have to hold back dinner much longer,” said Helen in the hope

of cheering Mrs. Oates. “The doctor will soon be gone.”

 

“It’s not that,” remarked Mrs. Oates glumly.

 

“Then what’s the matter?”

 

“Oates.”

 

“What’s he done?”

 

“Nothing. But he’s always here, night and day, so that, a woman can’t

never be alone. Don’t you never get married, miss.”

 

Helen stared at her. She had always admired the goodnature with which

Mrs. Oates accepted her husband’s laziness and supplemented his efforts.

Although he did not pull his weight, she always made a joke of it, while

a rough, but real, affection turned their partnership into very good

company.

 

“It’s for better, or worse,” said Helen tactfully, “and I can understand

Mr. Oates grabbing you; because he could see you were a ‘better’. Now, I

can’t see the man who’d marry Nurse Barker… I wonder if she

drinks.”

 

“Eh?” asked Mrs. Oates absently.

 

“Well,” shrugged Helen, “she was probably right to insist on having the

brandy, even if Miss Warren does say that the oxygen is Lady Warren’s

life.”

 

Mrs. Oates only stared at Helen—her brow puckered as though she were

grappling with a complicated sum in vulgar fractions. Presently,

however, she finished her calculations, and gave her own jolly laugh.

 

“Well, you don’t often see me under the weather, do you?” she asked.

“And, talking of husbands, the best is bad, but I’ve got the best…

Now, my dear, just listen for the doctor. Directly he goes, I want to

slip upstairs with a bit of pudding for Nurse.”

 

Helen vaguely resented the attention as treachery to wards herself.

 

“Take her tipsy-cake, to go with her brandy,” she ad vised.

 

“Now, somebody’s on her hind-legs.” Mrs. Oates laughed. “But she’s got to

go through the night on only a snack. She may look like a slab of stale

fish, but a nurse’s life is a hard one.”

 

Helen felt ashamed of her resentment, as she waited on the kitchen

stairs, which was her listening-in station. She was still puzzled by

Mrs. Oates’ changes of mood, for she was not temperamental by nature.

 

For no explicable reason, she swayed to and fro, like a weathercock.

Whence came the mysterious wind which was blowing on her?

 

“There’s something wrong about this house, tonight,” decided Helen.

 

Hearing Dr. Parry’s voice in the distance, she shouted to Mrs. Oates,

and dashed up into the hall. Directly he saw her, Dr. Parry came to meet

her. His face was red and he bristled with suppressed anger.

 

“Miss Capel,” he said, using the formal voice of a stranger, “if there

is any question of your sleeping with Lady Warren, tonight, understand,

I will not sanction it.”

 

Helen realized, at once, that Nurse Barker had overreached herself with

her high-handed methods. Although her heart sang at her release,

experience had taught her the advantage of appealing to the fount of

authority.

 

“Yes, doctor,” she said meekly. “But if Nurse Barker goes to Miss

Warren, she’ll get her own way.”

 

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll go straight to the Professor. No woman

shall bullyrag me. If there’s any opposition to my orders, some

other doctor can take the case. I only hang on, because my own

mother—the dearest soul—had a tongue which would raise a blister on a

tortoise’s back. For her sake, I’ve a bit of a weak spot for the old

b-blessing.”

 

Helen drew back when they reached the Professor’s study.

 

“Come in with me,” said the doctor.

 

In spite of her awe of the Professor, Helen obeyed eagerly. The

curiosity which would have propelled her to visit any strange and savage

beast in its lair, made her anxious to see her employer in his privacy.

 

She was struck by the resemblance to Miss Warren’s room. Like