The Spiral Staircase (8 page)

“The dinner’ll keep now, till it’s time to dish-up,” she announced. “I popped in to see if you would fancy a bit of pudding Nurse. Plum-pudding, or a bit of gooseberry-pie.

“Are the gooseberries bottled?” asked Nurse Barker.

“No, no, our new December crop, fresh-picked from the garden.”

“Then—neither, thanks,” said Nurse Barker.

“Well-a nice cup of tea?”

“No, thanks.” Nurse Barker’s accent grew more, refined as she asked a question. “Is there any stimulant?”

Mrs Oates’ eyes gleamed, and she licked her lips.

“Plenty in the cellar,” she said. “But the master keeps the key. I’ll speak to him about it, if you like, Nurse.”

“No thank you I prefer to tell Miss Warren my own requirements… . it is extraordinary that she has not come downstairs to interview me. Where is she?”

“Setting up with her ladyship. I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to go up there, Nurse. Once you’re there, you’ve got to stay put.”

Nurse Barker pondered Mrs. Oates advice.”

“I understood it was a single-handed case, she said. But I’ve come straight off from duty. I only came to oblige Matron. I ought to have a good night’s rest:”

She turned to Helen.

“Are you a good sleeper?” she asked.

“Ten to seven,” boasted Helen unwarily.

“Then a bad night won’t hurt you. You’ll have to sleep with Lady Warren tonight.”

Helen felt a pang of horror.

“Oh no,” she cried. “I couldn’t.”

“And why not?”

“I-Well, it sounds absurd, but I’m afraid of her.”

Nurse Barker looked pleased at the admission.

“Nonsense. Afraid of, a bedridden old woman? I never heard anything so fantastic. I’ll arrange it with Miss Warren.”

Helen had a spasm of shrinking aversion as she thought of Lady Warren’s artificial grin. She had something to smile about now. She alone, knew where she had hid her revolver.

Suddenly she wondered what would be the outcome, if the nurse insisted on her night in bed. As she looked around 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 daughterin-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. I 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 no ticed 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.

JEALOUSY

While Helen grappled with the problem of how to make the doctor understand her aversion to night-duty-so that he might’ back her up with the necessary authority—the triangle was working up to a definite situation. Had she known it, she would have been indifferent to any development of marital friction. For the first time in her life, she was removed from her comfortable seat in the theatre, and pushed on to the stage.

The more she thought of’ the prospect of sleeping in the blue room, the less she liked it. It was a case for compliance, or open rebellion, when she risked, not only dismissal, but a probable forfeiture of salary. She was positive that Miss Warren would side with the nurse, for her short spell as her deputy, had been both repugnant and inconvenient.

Nurse Barker’s status in the household, as a trained professional woman, was far higher than the help’s. If she declared an ultimatum, Helen must inevitably go to the wall. Moreover, in spite of his apparent interest in hero self, she had an uneasy suspicion that—as a matter of etiquette-the doctor must support the nurse.

“If he fails me, I’ll just have to grit my teeth and see it through,” she thought. “But, first, I’ll have a desperate dig at his higher nature.”

While there seemed to be no connection between her own grim drama of fear and the teacup tempest in the drawingroom, the repercussions of the trivial theme were to be of vital importance to her safety.

Yet the drawing room and kitchen seemed a world apart. As Helen was grating nutmegs, Simone tossed her cigarette into the fire and rose, with a yawn. Instantly her husband’s head shot up from behind the cover of his book.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To dress. Why?” “Merely an opening gambit for conversation. Your unbroken silence is uncivilized.”

Simone’s eyes flashed under her painted brows.

“You do nothing but ask questions,” she said. “I’m not used to cross-examination—and I resent it. And another thing. I object to being followed.”

Newton stuck out his lower lip as he threw away his own cigarette.

“But your way happens to be my way, my dear,” Newton told her. “I’m going up to dress, too.”

Simone spun round and faced him.

“Look here,” she said, “I don’t want to throw a scene here, because of the Professor. But I warn you once and for all, I’ve had enough of it.”

“And I warn you, too,” he told her, “I’ve had enough of you and Rice.”

“Oh, don’t be a fool, and start that Middle Ages stuff all over again. You’ve nothing on me. I’m free to do as I like. I can chuck you—and I will, too—if you persist in being impossible. I’ve my own money.” “Perhaps, that’s why I’m anxious to keep you,” said Newton. “Don’t forget, this family runs to brains.”

The anger faded from Simone’s face and she looked at her husband with a flicker of real interest. Swayed by her senses and desires, she had deliberately stunted her own intellect. She despised cleverness in a woman, since she believed she needed only instinct, in order to explore every part of the territory—man.

Because it was an unfamiliar dimension, she respected a masculine brain. She married Newton, in spite of his ugly face, for the sake of the uncharted region behind his bulging forehead. Intensive spoiling had made her care only for the unattainable.

Her series of affairs with ardent undergraduates had made no impression on her, because they were too easy. Newton could have held her, had he persisted in his pose of indifference.

Unfortunately, his jealousy of Stephen Rice’s good looks had dragged him down from his heights and into the arena.

There was mutual dislike between them, on the score of an old episode which had sent Rice down from Oxford. For this reason, Stephen played Simone’s game, whenever her husband was present, on purpose to annoy him.

At the drawingroom door, Simone turned and spoke to her husband.

“I’m going upstairs, alone.”

Newton stared at her, and then sullenly sank down again in his chair. A minute later, he threw down his book, and walked softly up the stairs, as far as the first landing where he stood, listening.

Simone had reached the second floor, but she did not enter the red room. Instead, she scraped with her finger on the panel of Stephen’s door. “Steve,” she called.

Stephen was stretched on the bed, smoking, while the Alsatian lay beside him, his head on his master’s chest.

At the sound of Simone’s knock, Stephen grimaced to him, as a sign to him to remain silent..

The dog showed the lining of his ears, while his eyes rolled, revealing their whites. Simone knocked louder and rattled the door-handle.

“Don’t come in,” shouted Stephen. “I’m dressing.”

“Then hurry. I want to see you.”

Simone sauntered back to the big red room, to find her husband already in possession.

“No luck?” he asked casually, as he took off his coat.

“I told you not to follow me,” she said.

“I didn’t. I merely moved, in obedience to the natural law. Even glaciers travel—although we don’t see them do it.”

“If, you travelled at their rate, I shouldn’t complain.”

Simone crossed to the wardrobe and took out the black velvet dinner gown, which she had worn since her arrival at the Summit.

Rejecting it in favor of a backless gown of pale-pink angel-skin, she drew it over her head.

“Excellent taste for a family dinner, in the wilds,” sneered Newton.