Some Must Watch, Ethel Lina White [crime books to read txt] 📗

A bathroom on each floorand no water during a drought.

The family—consisting of old Lady Warren, the Professor, and Miss

Warren, slept on the first floor, while the spare-rooms were on the

second. The top attics housed the domestic staff—when any—and, at

present, was only occupied by the Oates couple.

 

Newton now counted as a visitor, for he and his wife had the big red

room, on the second floor, while his old room, which connected with the

bedrooms of Lady Warren and the Professor, was turned into the nurse’s

sitting-room.

 

As Helen opened the door of Miss Warren’s room, a small-incident

occurred which was fraught with future significance. The handle slipped

round in her grip, so that she had to exert pressure in order to turn

the knob.

 

“A screw’s loose,” she thought. “Directly I’ve time I’ll get the

screwdriver and put it right.”

 

Anyone acquainted with Helen’s characteristics would know that she

always manufactured leisure for an unfamiliar job, even if she had to

neglect some legitimate duty. It was the infusion of novelty into her

dull routine which helped to keep undimmed her passionate zest for life.

 

Miss Warren’s room was sombre and bare, with brown wallpaper, curtains,

and cretonne. An old gold cushion supplied the sole touch of color. It

was essentially the sanctum of a student, for books overflowed from the

numerous shelves and cases, while the desk was littered with papers.

 

Helen was rather surprised to find that the shutters were fastened

already, while the small green-shaded lamp over the bureau gleamed like

a cat’s eye.’

 

As she returned to the landing, Miss Warren came out of the blue room.

Like her brother, she was tall and of a commanding figure, but there the

resemblance ended. She appeared to Helen as an overbred and superior

personality, with dim flickering features, and eyes the hue of

rainwater.

 

In common with the Professor however, she seemed to resent the gaze of a

stranger as an outrage on her privacy; yet, while her remote glance sent

Helen, away on a very long journey, the Professor decimated her out of

existence.

 

“You’re late, Miss Capel,” she remarked in her toneless voice.

 

“I’m sorry.” Helen looked anxious, as she wondered if her precious job

were in peril. “I understood, from Mrs. Oates, that I was free till

five. It’s my first afternoon off since I came.”

 

“That is not what I meant. Of course, I am not reproaching you for any

breach of duty. But it is too late for you to be returning from a walk.”

 

“Oh, thank you, Miss Warren. I did go farther than I intended. But it

did not grow dark till the last mile.”

 

Miss Warren looked at Helen, who felt herself slipping away a thousand

miles or so.

 

“A mile is a long way from home,” she said. “It is not wise to go far,

even by daylight. Surely you get sufficient exercise working about the

house? Why don’t you go into the garden to get fresh air?”

 

“Oh, but Miss Warren,” protested. Helen, “that is not the same as a good

stretching walk, is it?”

 

“I understand.” Miss Warren smiled faintly. “But I want you, in turn, to

understand this. You are a young girl, and I am responsible for your

safety.”

 

Even while the warning seemed grotesque on Miss Warren’s lips, Helen

thrilled to the intangible hint of danger. It seemed to be

everywhere—floating in the air—inside the house, as well as outside in

the dark tree-dripping valley.

 

“Blanche.”

 

A deep bass voice—like that of a man, or an old woman—boomed faintly

from the blue room. Instantly, the stately Miss Warren shrank, from a

paralyzing personality, to a schoolgirl hurrying to obey the summons of

her mistress.

 

“Yes, Mother,” she called. “I’m coming.”

 

She crossed the landing, in ungainly strides, and shut the door of the

blue room behind her, to Helen’s disap pointment.

 

“I’m getting a strange contrast in my types,” she thought, as she slowly

walked up the stairs, to the next landing. “Mrs. Newton is torrid, and

Miss Warren frigid. Hot and cold water, by turns. I wonder what will

happen in case of fusion?”

 

She liked to coin phrases, just as she enjoyed the reflection that she

was brought into daily contact with two bachelors and a widower, thus

reviving a lost art. Those derided Victorians, who looked upon every

man, as a potential husband, certainly extracted every ounce of interest

from a dull genus;

 

Yet, while she respected the Professor’s intellect, and genuinely looked

forward to the visits of the young Welsh doctor, she resolved to go on

buying Savings Certificates, for her old age. For she believed in

God—but not in Jane Eyre.

 

She was on the point of entering her room, when she noticed that a light

was shining through the glass transom of the bachelor’s room. It drew

her, as a magnet, to his door.

 

“Are you inside, Mr. Rice?” she called.

 

“Come and see for yourself,” invited the pupil.

 

“I only wanted to know if the light was being wasted.”

 

“Well, it’s not. Come in.”

 

Helen obeyed the invitation. She was used to two kinds of behavior from

men; they either overlooked her altogether, or paid her stressed

attentions, in private.

 

Of the alternatives, she preferred to be insulted; she could always give

back as good as she got, while she was braced by any kind of personal

experience.

 

She liked Stephen Rice, because he treated her exactly as he treated

other girls—with a casual frankness. He was smoking, as he pitched

clothing into an open suitcase, and he made no apology for his state of

undress, as his underwear satisfied his own standard of decency.

Although he did not appeal to Helen, who liked a man’s face to betray

some trace of intellect, or spirit; he was generally accepted as

unusually handsome, on the evidence of heavy regular features, and thick

waving hair, which grew rather too low on his brow.

 

“Like dogs?” he asked, shaking out a confusion of ties.

 

“Let me,” remarked Helen, taking them from him, with kind firmness. “Of

course I like dogs. I’ve looked after them.”

 

“Then that’s a bad mark to you. I loathe women who boss dogs. You set

them showing off in Parks. Like the blasted centurion, who said come and

he cometh. I always want to bite them, since the dogs are too

gentlemanly to do their own job.”

 

“Yes, I know,” nodded Helen, who agreed, on principle, when it was

possible. “But my dogs used to boss me. They had a secret understanding

to all pull at once, in different directions. The wonder is I didn’t

develop into a starfish.”

 

Stephen shouted with laughter.

 

“Good for them… Like to see something special in the way of dogs?

I bought him, today, from a farmer.”

 

Helen looked around the untidy room.

 

“Where is he?” she asked. “Under the bed?”

 

“Is that where you sleep? Inside the bed, you cuckoo.”

 

“Oo. Suppose he has fleas?”

 

“Suppose he hasn’t?… Come, Otto.”

 

Stephen raised a corner of the eiderdown, and an Alsatian peeped out.

 

“Bit shy,” explained Stephen. “I say, what price old Miss Warren when

she sees him? She won’t allow a dog inside the house.”

 

“Why?” asked Helen.

 

“Afraid of them.”

 

Oh, no, she can’t be. It’s the other way round. People are afraid of

her, because she’s so formidable.”.

 

“That’s only her make-up. She’s a hollow funk. Put her in a jam, and

she’d smash.” She’s got the wind up now, over this gorilla gent. By the

way, are you afraid of him?”

 

“Of course not.” Helen laughed. “Perhaps, I might be a bit if I was

alone. But no one could feel nervous in a house full of people.”

 

“I don’t agree. It all depends on the people. You’ll always find a weak

link. Miss Warren is one. She’d let you down.”

 

“But there’s safety in numbers,” persisted Helen. “He wouldn’t dare to

come here… D’you want any sewing done?” “No, thank you, my dear.

The godly Mrs. Oates has kept me sewn up. In more sense than one, by

the way… Now, there’s a character, if you like. You can bank on

her—if there’s not a bottle about.”

 

“Why—does she drink?”

 

Stephen only laughed in reply.

 

“Look here, you’d better clear out,” he advised, “before Miss Warren

raises hell. This is the bachelor’s room.”

 

“But I’m not a lady. I’m Staff,” explained Helen indignantly. “And

they’re waiting tea for you.”

 

“You mean, Simone is waiting. Old Newton is wolfing down the tea-cake.”

Stephen pulled on his coat. “I’ll take the pup down with me. Introduce

him to the family, and make us two to one, in the muffin handicap.”

 

“Surely you don’t call that large thing a pup,” cried Helen, as the

Alsatian followed his master into the bathroom.

 

“He’s quite young, really.” Stephen’s voice was positively tender. “I

love dogs—and hate women. Reason. Remind me to tell you the story of my

life.”

 

Helen felt slightly forlorn when his whistle died away in the distance.

She knew she would miss the pupil. But a second glance around the untidy

room reminded her that his absence would mean less work, so she resolved

to leave all regret to Simone.

 

Her tea was calling her downstairs to the kitchen. Not stopping to clear

away any litter, she hurried to her own room, and took off her coat, and

shoes. As the order for closed shutters only included the basement,

ground-floor and first-floor, her own casement banged open to the wind.

 

In spite of her haste, she could not resist the luxury of lingering

there, looking out over the valley, just to enjoy the sense of contrast.

She could see only a spongy blackness. It seemed to stir and creep

before the breath of the breeze. Not a gleam shone from any window of

the sparsely sprinkled cottages.

 

“I wonder where I stood, looking across at the Summit,” she wondered.

“It seemed such a long way off, then. And now, I’m inside, safe.”.

 

She was visited by no prescience to warn her that—since her

return—there had been certain trivial incidents which were the first

cracks in the walls of her fortress. Once they were started, nothing

could stop the process’ of disintegration; and each future development

would act as a wedge, to force the fissures into ever-widening breaches,

letting in the night.