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

CHAPTER VI

ILLUSION

 

Her heart beating fast with mingled exhilaration and fear, Helen hurried

to Miss Warren’s room. For the first time in her life, she was up

against unknown possibilities. Unlike the other houses in which she had

worked, the Summit provided a background.

 

It was true that Mrs. Oates had heartlessly plucked the mystery from the

last tree in the plantation, so that Helen was forced to accept him as

the yokel lover of a rustic beauty; yet there remained material for

macabre drama in the savage muffled landscape and the overhanging shadow

of murder.

 

The old woman, too, with her overtures and her gleaming artificial

smile, supplied a touch of real horror. She might be only a bedridden

invalid, but the fact remained that she was under suspicion of having

sent her husband prematurely to heaven or to hell.

 

Her sting might be drawn, but her desires were still lethal. Helen had,

proof of this in the incident of the revolver.

 

Her thoughts, however, slipped back to practical subjects, when, as she

turned the handle of Miss Warren’s room, t once again slipped round in

her grasp.

 

“I really must get at it the instant I have a chance,” she promised

herself.

 

Miss Warren was sitting at her bureau, under the green light. Her eyes

were fixed upon her book.

 

“Well?” she asked wearily, as, Helen entered.

 

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” began Helen, “but Lady War–”

 

Before she could finish her sentence, Miss Warren was out of her chair,

and crossing the room with the ungainly gait of a giraffe.

 

In her element, Helen followed her to the blue room. Lady Warren was

lying as she had left her, with closed eyes and puffing lips. The

revolver, wrapped in the silk handkerchief, was still on the kidney

table, and the width of the room remote from the bed.

 

Yet there was some change, Helen, who was observant, noticed the fact,

at once, and, in her second survey, traced it to its cause. When she had

gone to fetch Miss Warren, the bedclothes were disordered. Now, the

sheet was drawn down over the eiderdown, as neatly as though it had

been arranged by a hospital nurse.

 

“Miss Capel,” said Miss Warren, who was bending over the prostrate

figure of her step-mother, “fetch the oxygen-cylinder.”

 

Helen, who was always ready to experiment with unfamiliar properties,

hurried to lug it across to the bed. She thoughtfully unscrewed the top,

and managed to get awhiff of air, like a mountain breeze, before she

surrendered it to Miss Warren.

 

Presently, Lady Warren revived under their joint ministrations. To

Helen’s awakening suspicions, it was an artistic performance, with

calculated gradations of sighs, groans and fluttering lids.

 

Directly her eyes were open, she glared at Helen.

 

“Send her away,” she said weakly.

 

Miss Warren caught Helen’s eye.

 

“Please go, Miss Capel. I’m sorry.”

 

Forgetful of her pose, Lady Warren turned on her stepdaughter, like some

fish-wife.

 

“Idiot. Send her packing. Tonight.”

 

She closed her eyes again, and murmured, “Doctor. I want the doctor.”

 

“He’ll be here presently,” Miss Warren assured her.

 

“Why is he always late?” complained the invalid.

 

“Because he likes to see how you are, the last thing,” explained Miss

Warren ungrammatically.

 

“It’s because he’s a slacker,” snarled Lady Warren. “I must change my

doctor… Blanche. That girl wasn’t Newton’s wife. Why doesn’t she

come to see me?”

 

“You are not strong enough for visitors.” “That’s not it. I know. She’s

afraid of me.”

 

The idea seemed to please Lady Warren, for her face puckered up in a

smile. Helen, who was watching, from a safe distance, thought that she

looked positively evil. In that moment, she could almost believe in the

old story of a murdered husband.

 

Her eye fell on the nurse’s small single-bed.

 

“I wouldn’t be that nurse, for all the money in the world,” she

shuddered.

 

Suddenly, Miss Warren became aware that she was still in the room, for

she crossed over to her corner.

 

“I can manage by myself, Miss Capel”

 

Her tone was so cold that Helen tried to justify herself.

 

“I hope you don’t think I did anything to annoy her. She changed all of

a sudden. Indeed, she took a fancy to me. Anyway, she kept asking me to

sleep with her, tonight.”

 

Miss Warren’s expression was incredulous, although her words were

polite.

 

“I am sure that you were kind and tactful”

 

Her glance towards the door was a hint of dismissal, and Helen turned to

go; but her head was humming with confused suspicions which fought for

utterance. Although experience had taught her that interference is

usually resented, she felt that she must warn Miss Warren.

 

“I think there is something you ought to know,” she said, lowering her

voice. “Lady Warren asked me to get her something from the little

cupboard above the wardrobe mirror.”

 

“Why do you consider that important?” asked Miss Warren.

 

“Because it was a revolver.” Helen achieved her effect. Miss Warren

looked directly at her, with a startled expression.

 

“Where is it now?” she asked.

 

“On, that table.”

 

Miss Warren swooped down upon the small parcel with the avidity of some

bird of prey. Her long white fingers loosened a fold of the silk

wrapping. Then she held it out, so that Helen might see it.

 

It was a large spectacle case.

 

As she stared at it, Helen was swept off her feet by the tidal wave of

an exciting possibility.

 

“That is not the same shape,” she declared. “I felt the other. It had

jutting-out bits.”

 

“What exactly are you hinting at?”

 

“I think that, when I went to fetch you, Lady Warren hid the revolver

and put this in its place.”

 

“And are you aware that my mother has heart-disease, and has been unable

to move, for months?”

 

All hope of conviction died, as Helen looked at Miss Warren’s skeptical

face. Its fluid lines seemed to have been suddenly arrested by a sharp

frost.

 

“I’m sorry if I’ve made a mistake,” she faltered. “Only, I thought I

ought to keep nothing back.”

 

“I am sure you were trying to be helpful,” Miss ‘Warren told her. “But

it only hinders to imagine stupid impossibilities.” She added, with a

grim smile, “I suppose, like all girls, you go to the Pictures.”

 

In the circumstances, her reproach was almost painful irony. She seemed

to be divided from Helen, not only by space, but by time. “She’s

pre-historic,” thought the girl. Her small figure appeared’ actually

shrunken as she went out of the blue room.

 

Besides being cheated out of the recognition, which was her due, she did

not feel satisfied with Miss Warren’s acceptance of the revolver

incident.

 

“The customer is always right,” she reminded herself, as she walked down

the stairs. “But there’s one comfort. Now that Lady Warren’s soured on

me, there will be no more talk about sleeping in her room.”

 

Luckily, in spite of her discouragement, her sense of duty remained

unimpaired. As Oates was late, she decided to take on his job of laying

the dinner-table.

 

At the sound of footsteps, the drawingroom door was opened, and Simone

looked out—her eyes parched with longing. Instantly, her husband’s head

reared itself over her shoulder, like a serpent.

 

Simone showed no signs of discomfiture. She merely shrugged and smiled.

“So faithful,” she murmured, as she closed the door.

 

Braced by this glimpse of the clash of human passions, Helen went into

the dining-room. For the first time, she felt a certain degree of

sympathy with Simone.

 

“It would get on my nerves to be followed about, like that” she thought.

 

It was evident that Newton’s jealousy was working up to

saturation-point; with Stephen’s departure, he would probably become

normal again, Meantime, he plainly meant to give his wife no opportunity

of a final interview with the pupil.

 

In Helen’s eyes, his obsession amounted almost to mania, as she

considered the stolid indifference with which Stephen, opposed Simone’s

passion, He did not run from her pursuit; he merely shoved her away.

Even then, he was in the kitchen, helping Mrs, Oates. He had been

offered romance—and he chose onions.

 

The dining-room was the finest room in the Summit, with an elaborate

ceiling of dark carved wood, and a massive fireplace and overmantel, to

correspond.

 

The great windows were screened with thick crimson curtains, while dark

red paper covered the walls.

 

Helen crossed to the walnut sideboard, where the glass and silver was

kept, and took a table-cloth from one of the drawers.

 

From years of practice, Helen could lay a table in her sleep. As she

mechanically sorted out spoons and forks, her mind was busy in

speculation, Although she was denied the privilege of argument with an

employer, she was positive that, during her absence, there had been some

monkey-work in the blue room.

 

“I’m sure Mrs. Oates is right,” she thought. “Lady Warren is not

bedridden. She got up, and then she tried to cover her traces by

tidying the bed. Well, she overdid it… I’d like to talk it over

with Dr. Parry,”

 

Dr. Parry was clever, young and unconventional. The first time he met

Helen, he had shown a direct interest in her welfare, which she had

accepted on a medical basis. He asked her personal questions, and seemed

apprehensive of the influence of her surroundings on her youth.

 

What appealed to her most was his unprofessional gossip about his

patient.

 

“Her heart’s in a shocking state,” he told her. “Still, hearts are

sporting organs, She might climb Snowdon and be all right, and the next

time she sneezed it might finish her off… But—she keeps, me

guessing. I