Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

her, with troubled eyes, she

thought of the young doctor. If she appealed to him, she was sure that

he would not fail her.

 

“Well, we’ll see what the doctor says about it,” she said.

 

“Is the doctor young?” asked Nurse Barker.

 

“Youngish,” replied Helen.

 

“Married?”

 

“No.”

 

Mrs. Oates winked at Helen, as Nurse Barker opened her bag and drew out

a mirror and lipstick. She coated her tips with a smear of greasy

crimson.

 

“You understand,” she said, turning to Helen: “I interview the doctor.

That is professional etiquette. You are not to talk to him about the

patient.”

 

“But I don’t talk to him about her,” remarked Helen.

 

“About what, then?” asked Nurse Barker jealously.

 

“Aha, what don’t they talk about?” broke in Mrs. Oates.

 

“Something saucy, you may depend. Miss Capel’s a terror with the

gentlemen.”

 

Although Helen knew that Mrs. Oates only wanted to tease the nurse,

the sheer novelty of the description made her feel gloriously

triumphant, and capable—like her famous namesake—of launching ships.

 

“Mrs Oates is only pulling your leg,” she told Nurse—responsive to the

vague warning that she must not make an enemy. “But the doctor’s rather

a darling. We’re friends. That’s all.”

 

Nurse Barker looked at Mrs. Oates. “What a curious house this is. I

expected a staff of servants. Why are there none?”

 

“Funny thing,” she remarked, “but as long as this place has been built

there’s been a trouble to get girls to stay here. Too lonely, for one

thing. And then, it got an unlucky name with servants.”

 

“Unlucky?” prompted Nurse Barker, while Helen pricked up her ears for

the answer.

 

“Yes. It’s an old tale now, but right back in Sir Robert’s time, one of

the maids was found drowned in the well. Her sweetheart had jilted her,

so it was supposed she’d threw herself down. It was the drinking—well,

too.”

 

“Disgusting pollution,” murmured Nurse.Barker. “So it was. And then, on

top of that, was the murder… Kitchen-maid it was, found dead in the

house, with her throat slit from ear to ear. She was always hard on

tramps and used to like to turn them from the door, and one was heard to

threaten to do her in. They never caught him. But it got the house a bad

smell.”

 

Helen clasped her hands tightly.

 

“Mrs. Oates,” she asked, “where, exactly, was she mur dered?”

 

“In the dark passage, where the cellars are,” was the reply. “I wouldn’t

tell you, just now, but Oates and I always call that bit, ‘Murder

Lane’.”

 

As she listened, it occurred to Helen that Lady W arren’s rambling talk

about trees breaking into the house was built on a solid foundation.

When she was a young woman, she had been soaked to the marrow in this

damp solitude. She had stood at her window staring out into the winter

twilight, while the mist curled to shapes, and trees writhed into life.

 

One of the trees—a tramp, savage and red-eyed—had actually slipped

inside. No wonder, now that she was old, she re-lived the scene in her

memory.

 

“When did this happen?” she asked.

 

“Just before Sir Robert’s death. Lady Warren wanted to give up the

house, as they couldn’t get no servants, and it was rows, all the time,

till the accident.”

 

“And has the Professor servant-trouble, too?” enquired Nurse Barker.

 

“Not till now,” replied Mrs. Oates. “There’s always been old and

middle-aged bits, as wanted a quiet home. They’ve kept things going

until these murders started the old trouble again.”

 

Nurse Barker licked her lips with gloomy relish. “One of them was quite

close to the Summit, wasn’t it?” she asked.

 

“A few miles off.”

 

Nurse Barker laughed as she lit a fresh cigarette.

 

“Well, I needn’t worry,” she said. “I’m safe, as long as she is here.”

 

“Do you mean-Miss Capel?” asked Mrs. Oates.

 

“Yes.”

 

Helen did not like being picked out for this special distinction. She

felt sorry that she had stepped into the limelight, with the

announcement of her alleged power to attract men.

 

“Why pick on me?” she protested.

 

“Because you are young and pretty.”

 

Helen laughed, with a sudden sense of fresh security.

 

“In that case,” she said, “I’m safe, too. No man would ever look at me,

while the Professor’s daughter-in-law was by. She is young, too, and

oozes sex-appeal.”

 

Nurse Barker shook her head, with a smile full of dark meaning.

 

“No,” she insisted. “She is safe.”

 

“Why?” asked Helen. In her turn, Nurse Barker put a question.

 

“Haven’t you noticed it for yourself?”

 

Her hints were so vague and mysterious that they got under Helen’s skin.

 

“I wish you would come out in the open,” she cried.

 

“I will, then,” said Nurse Barker. “Haven’t you noticed that the

murderer always chooses girls who earn their own living? Very likely

he’s a shell-shock case, who came back from the War, to find a woman in

his place. The country is crawling with women, like maggots, eating up

all the jobs. And the men are starved out.” “But I’m not doing man’s

work,” protested Helen.

 

“Yes, you are. Men are being employed in houses, now. There’s a man,

here. Her husband.” Nurse Barker nodded to indicate Mrs. Oates. “Instead

of being at home, you’re out, taking a wage. It’s wages from somebody

else. That’s how a man looks at it.”

 

“Well—what about yourself?”

 

“A nurse’s work has always been held sacred to women.”

 

Mrs. Oates made an effort to relieve the tension, as she rose from her

chair.’

 

“Well, I’d better see what mess one man’s made of the dinner. Upon my

word, Nurse, to hear you talk, you might be a man yourself.”

 

“I can see through their eyes,” said Nurse Barker.

 

Helen, however, noticed that Mrs. Oates had scored a bull, for Nurse

Barker bit her lips, as though she resented the remark. But she kept her

eyes fixed upon the girl, who felt herself shrink under the relentless

stare. Her common-sense returned at the sound of Mrs. Oates’ loud laugh.

 

“Well, anyone what wants to get our little Miss Capel, will have to get

past Oates and me first.”

 

Helen looked at her ugly face, her brawny arms. She thought of Oates

with his stupendous strength. She had two worthy guardians, in case of

need.

 

“I’d not afraid of getting preferential treatment,” she said. As though

she had some uncanny instinct, Nurse Barker seemed to know exactly how

to raise up the spectre of fear.

 

“In any case,” she observed, “you will have Lady Warren to keep you

company. You are sleeping with her tonight.”

 

Helen heard the words with a horrible sense of finality. Lady Warren

knew that Helen would have to come. Her smile was like that of a

crocodile, waiting for prey which, never failed it.

 

The old lady would be waiting for her.