THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
Читать онлайн книгу.
hatless, and wore a shabby tweed coat, which was furred with moisture. She brought back with her the outside elements, mud on her boots, the wind in her cheeks, and glittering drops on her mop of ginger hair.
"Do you know where Mr. Rice is?" demanded Simone.
"He went out of the gate, just before me," replied Helen, who was a born opportunist, and always managed to be present at the important entrances and exits. "And I heard him saying something about 'wishing good-bye.'"
Simone's face clouded at the reminder that the pupil was going home on the morrow. She turned sharply, when her husband peered over her shoulder, like an inquisitive bird. He was tall, with a jagged crest of red hair, and horn-rimmed glasses.
"The tea's growing stewed," he said, in a high-pitched voice. "We're not going to wait any longer for Rice."
"I am," Simone told him.
"But the tea-cake's getting cold."
"I adore cold muffin."
"Well—won't you pour out for me?"
"Sorry, darling. One of the things my mother never taught me."
"I see." Newton shrugged as he turned away. "I hope the noble Rice will appreciate your sacrifice."
Simone pretended not to hear, as she spoke to Helen, who had also feigned deafness.
"When you see Mr. Rice, tell him we're waiting tea for him."
Helen realised that the entertainment was over, or rather, that the scene had been ruthlessly cut, just when she was looking forward to reprisals from Simone.
She walked rather' reluctantly upstairs, until she reached the first landing, where she paused, to listen, outside the blue room. It always challenged her curiosity, because of the formidable old invalid who lay within, invisible, but paragraphed, like some legendary character.
As she could hear the murmur of Miss Warren's voice—for the step-daughter was acting as deputy nurse—she decided to slip into her room, to put it ready for the night.
The Summit was a three-storied house, with two staircases and a semi-basement. A bathroom on each floor and 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 colour. 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 paralysing 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 disappointment.
"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