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

cracked it.

She had to finish. He’s the same—only he’s a famished tiger, with

dripping chops.”

 

Helen put down the bit of cheese she was nibbling.

 

“Nurse,” she asked, “why do you dislike me?”

 

“Because you remind me of someone I hate,” replied Nurse Barker. “She

was the spit of you—a little skinny thing, all legs and giggles, with

frizzed-out hair, like a doll. Only, she was a blonde.”

 

“Why did you hate the horrid little blonde?” Helen asked, with a spurt

of her native curiosity.

 

“Because of a man,” Nurse Barker replied. “It was when I was a

probationer. He was a doctor, and very clever. But he was so small, I

could have lain him across my knee and spanked him.”

 

“That’s the attraction of contrast,” said Helen. “Were you engaged?”.

 

Her interest was not assumed, because Nurse Barker’s strange confidence

had stirred up the sweetness of her own romance.

 

“Odd,” she thought, with a flicker of her submerged sense of drama.

“Here we are—the long and the short of it—coming together over a cup

of tea, because we are both in love.”

 

“Not engaged,” replied Nurse Barker. “Just leading up. It would have

happened. But the blonde took him away from me, curse her.”

 

“What a shame,” said Helen, with real sympathy. “Shame?” Nurse Barker

laughed bitterly. “It was my life. That was my only man. There’s never

been another—never will be.”

 

“Were they married?” asked Helen.

 

“No, she threw him over. She only wanted to take him from me. But there

was only the husk of him left. Nothing for me… That’s why I hate

women like her. If a man wanted to twist their throats, I’d say good

luck to him.”

 

As Nurse Barker glared at Helen the girl shrank into her shell. Her

desire to talk about her own hope was slain; she only sought for some

way to avert the penalty of an unlucky resemblance.

 

“Do you know,” she said, “you and I have a lot in common. We’re in the

same boat. Men have always ignored me—because I am small.”

 

The greedy glitter in Nurse Barker’s eyes told her that she had

swallowed the bait.

 

“Isn’t the doctor your fancy-man?” she asked.

 

“Of course not. That was only Mrs. Oates’ fairy tale. I’ve never had a

real affair. I’ve always had to earn my own living, and I’ve never had

money to buy clothes.”

 

“Are you speaking the truth?” insisted Nurse. Barker. Helen nodded, as

she remembered the humiliation and neglect which had marked her

girlhood. And Nurse Barker believed her, in spite of her likeness to the

blonde, as she stared at her with penetrating eyes.

 

At that moment Helen appeared an ill-developed scrap—superfluous,

unskilled labor—nobody’s woman. If she were murdered, she would not be

missed, or mourned, and one more job would be released.

 

But, although she felt only contempt for the weakling, she no longer

bore her a grudge.

 

As shetook up the bottle of brandy Helen gave a cry of protest.

 

“Please don’t.”

 

“D’you think I’m going to pass out on a toothful of brandy?” sneered

Nurse Barker.

 

“It’s not that. But after what’s happened, I’m terrified. Suppose that

brandy is doped.” “If it is, you’ll be left all alone. I’ll risk it.”

She raised the cup to her lips and drained it. “It might be the best

thing that could happen to me,” she continued. “When he comes, he’ll go

for you. If I interfere, he’ll turn on me, too.”

 

“But I’d stick to you,” cried Helen. “There’s only two of us left. If

anything happened to you, I think I should go mad with terror.”

 

“It all depends on you,” said Nurse Barker spitefully.

 

“You are the weak spot. You’d double-cross me to save your own skin.”

 

It seemed useless to argue further. Unable to eat, Helen sat and watched

Nurse Barker finish her supper. It was a protracted process, for she

smoked between every mouthful.

 

The small room was hazed with smoke, so that Nurse Barker’s gigantic

white figure loomed through a fog. Sometimes Helen’s vision played her a

trick, and she appeared to spread out like a cloud. The atmosphere, too,

was close and torrid as a jungle.

 

“I must keep awake,” she thought desperately. “If I take my eyes off

her, she will disappear.”

 

Yet, even as she strove to concentrate on her surround ings, at the back

of her mind was a desperate conviction that she was trying to grip

something, which, even then, was slipping through her fingers. Mrs.

Oates had failed her, and Nurse Barker would fail her too. But, at

least, the night was passing. Apparently the same thought struck Nurse

Barker, for she glanced at her little travelling clock upon the

mantelpiece.

 

“We may expect him now, any minute,” she said. “I wonder what his first

move will be.” Helen checked her shudder, as she realized that the bully

was merely tormenting the new fag, in order to make her squeak. With a

flicker of her old spirit, she made a sudden counter-attack.

 

“Don’t forget this,” she said. “No one seems to trouble much about me,

alive—but I’d be mighty important if I was dead. If anything happened

to me, here, tonight, there’d be an inquiry, and lots of publicity, And

they’d hold you responsible,”

 

Nurse Barker’s eyes drew together, for she had overlooked this

contingency, She had to depend on her profession for a living, and her

reputation might be damaged if she had to undergo a gruelling

examination at an inquest, and could not disprove a charge of cowardice,

 

“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “We hang together—What is that noise?”

 

Helen heard it, too—a low, muffled thud, from some where downstairs.

 

“It sounds like knocking,” she said.

 

“Don’t go to find out,” Nurse Barker warned her. “It may be a trick.”

 

“But I must. It might be Oates.” Before Nurse Barker could stop her,

she had opened the door, and was running noiselessly through the blue

room. When she reached the landing, the sound was clear and

imperative-:—a loud tattoo on the front door, followed by the pealing

of the bell.

 

Helen stopped dead and gripped the balustrade—her brain paralyzed by

the poison of Nurse Barker’s warning. The person who waited outside

might be Oates, who had returned—sooner than she had dared to hope.

Yet—for that very reason—she dared not stir.

 

Suddenly a new idea sprang to birth. Instinctively she knew that Dr.

Parry was knocking at the door. In spite of his reassuring words, he had

not been satisfied with the situation at the Summit.

 

Her eyes shining with welcome, she dashed down the stairs, just as

Nurse Barker reached the landing.

 

“Stop,” she shouted. “Don’t open the door.”

 

“I must,” panted Helen, calling over her shoulder. “It’s the doctor. He

promised to come. I must.”

 

She heard Nurse Barker’s heavy footsteps thudding in pursuit, and she

tried to run faster. In spite of her efforts, however, just as she

reached the swing doors leading to the lobby, she felt herself held in

strong arms.

 

“Hush, you little fool,” whispered Nurse Barker hoarsely, as she laid

her hand over Helen’s lips. “He’s outside.”