Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖
- Author: Ethel Lina White
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me, and she pays my salary.”
“Hear, hear.” Mrs. Oates clapped her hands. “Listen to the doctor’s
young lady, telling you off.”
“I didn’t know you were engaged to Dr. Parry,” said Nurse Barker.
Her thin lips were sucked together in a thin line while her sunken eyes
gleamed with jealousy.
“I’m not,” said Helen hastily.
Although the subject was obviously tender Nurse Barker seemed unable to
discard it.
“I suppose it’s your size,” she said. “Rum how men always choose short
women. It’s a sign of their own mental inferiority. They know that your
brain corresponds with your size, and they feel unable to cope with
their intellectual equals.”
The speech made Helen see red, for she was sensitive on the score of her
defective education.
“Perhaps they find us more attractive,” she said.
Nurse Barker lit a cigarette with fingers which shook with passion.
“You mean to insult me deliberately,” she said huskily. “Isn’t that
rather unwise? Very soon you’ll be left alone with me.”
“Mrs. Oates will be here, too,” Helen reminded her.
“Will she?” Nurse Barker gave a meaning laugh. “If I were you I wouldn’t
bank upon that.”
Puffing fiercely at her cigarette, she tramped out into the hall. “What
did she mean?” asked Helen uneasily.
“Bilge,” commented Mrs. Oates. “All the same,” she added gloomily, “we
didn’t ought to do it. She came down here for a crack and we turned her
sour. I begun it, and you finished it.”
“She shouldn’t leave poor old Lady Warren so much,” said Helen
defensively.
“Now, don’t go and be sorry for her,” advised Mrs, Oates. “She can take
care of herself. Locking up them two is like shutting in a lion with a
tiger. You wonder which will walk out in the morning.”
“I wish I could be sure that Lady Warren can defend herself,” Helen
said. “I’ve got a real fear of that nurse.’”
“Don’t let her know it,” advised Mrs. Oates.
“No.” Helen glanced at the clock. “I wish I knew exactly whereabouts on
the road Mr. Oates is at this minute,” she said. “The time seems to
crawl. If only I can last out, till he comes.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“I’ve a terror of one thing, which may happen to me,” confessed Helen.
“Don’t tell me,” urged Mrs. Oates. “You never know who may be listening
to you.”
Helen opened the kitchen door and looked into the deserted basement
hall.
“This is what I’m scared of,” she said. “Supposing I heard a child
crying outside. I believe I should have to go out. Just in case, you
know.”
“Now, don’t you go and be a fool,” implored Mrs. Oates. “In all the time
I’ve been here there’s never been a baby parked on the doorstep. Miss
Warren’s not the sort to come home with a bundle in her arms.” Helen
laughed as she sprang to her feet.
“I feel so guilty,” she said. “She’ll be wanting to go to bed soon, and
the handle of her door is not screwed up.”
Grateful for a job, she ran upstairs, to the first floor. Everything
seemed especially safe and normal as she passed through the hall. When
she reached the first floor landing she noticed that the light was
shining through the transom above Miss Warren’s bedroom door.
“I hope she’s not going to bed,” she thought, as she tapped at the door.
“Yes,” called Miss Warren’s voice.
“Oh, Miss Warren,” said Helen, “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. But
could you hand me out the tools you put on your chair?”
“Certainly, Miss Capel, only don’t leave them outside again”
Helen heard Miss Warren’s step crossing the polished boards and then the
handle revolved in an impotent whirl.
She watched it, in slight surprise.
“Can’t you open the door?” she asked.
“No,” was the reply. “The handle keeps turning round in my hand.”
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR?
Although vaguely disturbed, Helen felt mistress of the situation.
“It’s all right,” she called. “I’ll open it, this side.”
Full of confidence; she gripped the handle, only to feel it slip round
in her fingers, as though it were oiled.
“It seems to have gone completely,” she cried. “You have the tools. Do
you think you could manage to put it right?”
“No, the screw is missing,” was the reply. “It doesn’t matter. Oates
will repair it early tomorrow.”
“But, Miss Warren,” persisted Helen, “it’s not right you should be
locked in. Suppose—suppose there’s a fire?”
“Why should we suppose it? Please go, Miss Capel. I have important work
to finish.”
“Is the key your side?” Helen asked.
“No. The lock is broken, so I had a bolt put instead… Now, please
leave me in peace.”
Helen turned forlornly away. As she passed the blue room, Nurse Barker,
who had been attracted by the noise, poked her head around the door.
“What’s the matter now?” she asked.
When Helen explained the situation she gave a dis agreeable laugh.
“What did I tell you? She locked herself in, on purpose.”
“I can’t believe it,” declared Helen. “Why should she do that?”
“Funk. Oh, I’ve seen it coming on… And—I’ve seen something else,
which is due before very long. Your troubles are not over yet, my girl.”
Helen was impressed by the woman’s perspicacity.
“Nurse:’ she cried impulsively, “I want to apologize to you. If I’ve
hurt your feelings, it was unintentional” “Rather late in the day to eat
humble-pie,” sneered Nurse Barker. “The harm’s done.”
“But can’t I do something to make up?”
“You can pledge yourself to obedience.”
Helen hesitated to give her promise, as her thoughts flew to Dr. Parry.
She knew that Nurse Barker would do everything in her power to block his
interference. On the other hand, he was not likely to rush over to the
Summit, while the woman was a formidable obstacle to any move on the
part of the maniac; she had extraordinary physical strength and a mind
which bit like a ferret.
She gave a military salute.
“I promise, Sergeant,” she said.
“This is no joke,” frowned Nurse Barker. “I’m not sure I can trust you.
In all my experience, I’ve never been so grossly insulted as by an
intoxicated char and a raw, untrained girl.”
“Oh, Nurse,” she said, “I never thought it.”
Nurse Barker clocked back to the listenin incident.
“Yes, she said it,” she remarked. “But you were licking up her words.”
“No, I had to humor her, because she was a trifle cock eyed. I never
thought what she did.”
“What did she think?”
Helen understood the alleged hypnotic power of a serpent, as Nurse
Barker held her with a glittering eye.
“She thought you were a man,” she admitted.
Nurse Barker swallowed convulsively.
“She’ll pay for that,” she muttered, as she turned back to the blue
room.
Helen reviewed as much of the past as she could remember, on her way
downstairs. She wished that her con science, was entirely clear on the
score of Nurse Barker, as she hated to feel a hypocrite.
On the whole, she felt tolerably comfortable. She had discounted the
razor incident, and had mentioned it to no one. When Mrs. Oates, had
boasted of her conquests, she had disclaimed them. Her dislike of the
nurse was her own affair.
The sight of the telephone reminded her of the latest casualties, which
she had almost forgotten. One fear had again driven out another; and,
for the present, she stood chiefly in dread of Nurse Barker.
“I think I’ll ring up Dr. Parry,” she thought, “and tell him what’s
happened.”
It was a long time before she got through to him, and when, at last, she
heard Dr. Parry’s voice, it sounded gruff and sleepy.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“The Professor’s doped,” replied Helen, “and Miss Warren’s locked in her
bedroom.”
As Dr. Parry made no comment, Helen hastened to excuse her action.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered you. But it does seem queer the way
they’re all disappearing, one by one… What do you think?”
“Blowed if I know,” was the reply. “It seems in order. I think Miss
Warren is the wisest. Why don’t you follow her good example?”
“Because—you won’t believe me, after all the fuss I made about sleeping
in her room—but I don’t like to leave old Lady Warren alone with that
nurse.”
“D’you think the nurse rough-handles her?”
“I don’t know. But I do know she has a horrible temper.”
“Then I’ll give you a tip. If it should come to a scrap between those
two, put your shirt on the old one.”
Although Mrs. Oates had given her the same warning, Helen was not
convinced.
“Thank you for your advice,” she said. “I’m sorry I bothered you, but
you encouraged me to be a nuisance.”
“Here—don’t ring off,” urged the doctor. “I’m wondering what to do
about the Professor. Ought I to come over?”
“He looks awful,” declared Helen, making the most of her chance.
“He would. What did Miss Warren do?” “Felt his pulse, and covered him
up.” “Good.” Helen could hear his sigh of relief. “That sounds all
right: She’s a clever woman. Now, we’ll leave it at this. If I should
change my mind regarding the situation I’ll bike over at once. In fact,
you’ve only to say one word, and I’ll start now.”
“You’d come for me?” asked Helen.
“For you, only.”
In spite of her exhaustion and loneliness—in spite of the menace of the
night—Helen became suddenly surcharged with glorious life.
“Now I know that,” she said, “‘I don’t want you to come. I feel
gorgeous. I—”
She rang off at the sound of a footstep on the landing. Nurse Barker was
leaning over the balustrade, looking down at her.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“The doctor,” replied Helen. “I rang him up, to tell him about the
Professor, but he decided that it was not necessary for him to come
over.”
“He would prefer to take us by surprise,” prophesied Nurse Barker. “I
don’t trust that young man… And hadn’t you better go to your
alcoholic patient? You’re giving her more rope than I should.”
Filled with sudden misgiving, Helen hurried across the hall. As she
opened the door leading to the basement, she kicked in front of her some
hard object, which bumped from step to step with an appalling clatter.
Running downstairs after it, she picked up, from the mat at the bottom,
a small pint milk-can.
“Mrs. Oates,” she cried, as she entered the kitchen, “Who put this at
the top of the stairs?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Oates.
In sudden suspicion, Helen looked up at the dresser. To her relief, the
bottle was still on the top, and, apparently, untouched.
In spite of this proof of her innocence, Helen fancied she detected a
deterioration in Mrs. Oates. The maudlin grin, which robbed her face of
its underhung tenacity, hovered around her lips, imparting a muddled
expression. As Helen watched her, the lines of a sea-shanty swam into
her head.
“What shall we do with a drunken sailor?” “After tonight, I could write
a book on this subject,” she thought, with the glib assurance of one who
only wrote a letter, as a penance.
It
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