THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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by the gale. Although it seemed so near, the tree was too far away for any athlete to leap from it into her room; but every gust swept the boughs towards the opening in an unpleasantly suggestive manner.
"That tree looks as if it was trying to force its way in," thought Helen. "I'll have to shut that window."
When she fastened the casement, she noticed how the rain streamed down the glass, like a water-spout. The garden lay below, in sodden blackness amid the tormented landscape, over which the elements swept mightily.
She was glad to draw the curtains and gloat over the contrast of her splendid room. It contained the entire furniture of the bedroom of the first Lady Warren. When she had exchanged it for her dwelling in the family vault, it was still new and costly, so that time, combined with lack of use, had done little to dim its grandeur.
Miss Warren, on her return from Cambridge, had made a clean sweep of her mother's belongings to a spare room, in preference of stark and rigid utility; but Helen gladly accepted its superfluity of ornaments and its colour-scheme of terra cotta and turquoise-blue, for the novelty of thick carpet and costly fabrics.
The original owner's photograph had the place of honour on the marble mantel-shelf. It was taken probably in the 'eighties, and represented an amiable lady, with a curled fringe, too little forehead, and too many chins.
Above her rose the mirror. Its base was heavily painted with bulrushes, water-lilies and storks.
As Helen thought of the ordeal which threatened her, she wished that Sir Robert had remained faithful to the dead.
"If she'd lived, she'd have been a dear old lady," she thought. "Still, I asked for it. You couldn't keep me out of that room."
The need to win over Dr. Parry became so urgent that she adopted Simone's, tactics. As a rule, she wore a sleeveless white Summer frock, for dinner; but, tonight, she resolved to put on her only evening-dress, for the first time. It was a cheap little gown, bought in Oxford Street, during the sales. All the same, the artistic—if hackneyed—contrast of its pale-green colour with the flaming bush of her hair, made her smile at her reflection in the big swinging cheval-glass.
"Ought to fetch him," she murmured, as she hurried downstairs in sudden dread, lest he should have arrived in her absence.
She was still faced with her problem of making her opportunity to see him alone; for, of necessity, she was at the call of the household, owing to the elastic nature of her duties. But she had learned how to hide, in the commission of her work; and no S.O.S. could reach her when she was afflicted with temporary deafness.
"The lobby," she decided. "I'll take down a damp cloth, and wipe the dust from the palm."
When she reached the landing, on the first floor, the door of the blue room was opened an inch, to reveal a section of white and the glint of Nurse Barker's eye. Directly she saw that she was observed, the woman shut the door again.
There was something so furtive about that secret examination that Helen felt uneasy.
"She was waiting for me," she thought. "There's something very queer about that woman. I wouldn't like to be alone with her, in the house. She'd let you down."
As her instinct was always to explore the unfamiliar, she turned in the direction of the blue room. Nurse Barker saw that her ambush was discovered, and she opened the door.
"What d' you want?" she asked ungraciously.
"I want to warn you," replied Helen.
She broke off, conscious that Nurse Barker was looking at her neck with hungry gloating eyes.
"How white your skin is," she said.
"Red hair," explained Helen shortly.
As a rule, she was sorry that she did not attract general attention; now, for the first time in her life, she shrank from admiration.
"Did you say you wanted to warn me?" asked Nurse Barker.
"Yes," whispered Helen. "Don't play Lady Warren too low."
"What d' you mean?"
"She's hiding something."
"What?"
"If you're as clever as she is, you'll find out," replied Helen, turning away.
"Come back," demanded Nurse Barker. "You've either said too much, or not enough."
Helen smiled as she shook her head.
"Ask Miss Warren," she advised. "I told her, and got nicely snubbed for my pains. But I felt I ought to put you on your guard."
She started at the rumble of a deep bass voice from in side the blue room.
"Is that the girl?"
"Yes, my lady," replied Nurse Barker. "Do you want to see her?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry." Helen spoke quickly. "I can't stop now. I've got to help with the dinner."
Nurse Barker's eyes glittered with a sense of power.
"Why are you so afraid of her?" she sneered.
"You'd be afraid, too, if you knew as much as I do," hinted Helen.
Nurse Barker grasped her by the wrist, while her nostrils quivered.
"The dinner can wait," she said. "Miss Warren's instructions are that Lady Warren must be humoured. Come in."
Helen entered the blue room with a sinking heart. Lady Warren lay in bed, propped up with pillows. She wore a fleecy white bed-jacket. Her shock of grey hair was neatly parted in the middle, and secured with pink bows. It had obviously been Nurse Barker's first job to deck her patient out, like sacrificial lamb. Helen knew that some grim sense of humour had made the old lady submit to the indignity. She was luring on the nurse to a sense of false security, only to make the subsequent disillusionment the harsher.
"Come here," she said, in a hoarse whisper. "I want to tell you something.'"
Helen felt herself gripped and drawn downwards, so that Lady Warren's hot breath played on her bare neck.
"A girl was murdered in this house," said Lady Warren.
"Yes, I know." Helen spoke in a soothing tone. "But why do you think about it? It happened so long ago."
"How do you know?" rapped out Lady Warren.
"Mrs. Oates told me."
"Did she tell you that the girl was thrown down the well?"
Helen remembered that in Mrs. Oates' version, a more gory method was employed. The well figured in the suicide incident. It struck her that Mrs. Oates had exaggerated the truth, in order to achieve the sensational interest of a murder.
"Perhaps it was an accident," she said aloud.
Lady Warren lost her temper at the attempt to calm her.
"No," she bellowed, "it was murder. I saw it. Upstairs, from a window. It was nearly dark, and I thought it was only a tree in the garden. Then—the girl came, and it moved, and threw her in. I was too late. I couldn't find a rope...Listen."
She drew down Helen's head almost on to the pillow.
"You are that girl," she whispered.
Helen felt as though she were listening to a forecast of her own fate; but she caught Nurse Barker's eye in an attempt to delude her that she was humouring the invalid, in professional style.
"Am I?" she said lightly. "Well, I'll have to be very careful."
"You little fool," panted the old woman. "I'm warning you. Girls get murdered in this house. But you sleep with me. I'll take care of you."
Suddenly Helen thought she might trap her to reveal the hiding-place of the revolver.
"How will you do it?" she asked.
"I'll shoot him."
"Fine. But where's