THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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Lady Warren looked at Helen with a gleam of crocodile cunning in her eyes.
"I haven't a gun," she whined. "I had one once, but they took it away. I'm only a poor old woman. Nurse, she says I have a gun. Have I?"
"Of course not," said Nurse Barker. "Really, Miss Capel, you've no right to irritate the patient.':
"Then I'll go," declared Helen thankfully. She added, in an undertone, "You asked me a question, just now. You've had your answer. You know now what to look for."
At the door, she was arrested by Lady Warren's bass bellow.
"Come back, tonight."
"Very well, I will," she promised.
To her surprise her nerves were quivering from the episode, as she went down into the hall.
"What's the matter with me?" she wondered. "I believe I shall go goofy if the doctor doesn't get me out."
She looked anxiously at the grandfather's clock. Dr. Parry lived several miles away, so he always paid his last call at the Summit, in order to get back to his dinner.
He had never been so late before. A slight foreboding stole over Helen as she listened to the fury of the storm. When Miss Warren drifted by, like a woman in a dream, she appealed to her.
"The doctor's late, Miss Warren."
Miss Warren looked at the clock. She was already dressed for dinner, in her usual mushroom lace gown.
"Perhaps he's not coming," she said indifferently.
Helen gave a gasp of dismay. With the egotism of an employer, who never connected a young girl with an independent existence, Miss Warren believed that Helen's concern was on account of the family.
"My mother's condition is static," she explained, "although the end is inevitable. Dr. Parry has given us instructions how to act, in case of sudden failure."
"But why shouldn't he come tonight?" insisted Helen. "He always comes."
"The weather," murmured Miss Warren.
A rush of wind crashing against the corner of the house illustrated her meaning with perfect timing. Helen's heart turned to water at the sound.
"He won't come," she thought. "I shall have to sleep in the blue room."
CHAPTER X. THE TELEPHONE
Helen had to sleep in the blue room. Everyone in the Summit had accepted the situation. Feeling that her ambush in the lobby would be waste of time, since she was certain that Dr. Parry would not come, she walked dejectedly towards the kitchen stairs.
She was intercepted by Newton, who slouched out of the morning-room.
"I hear you've made a conquest of my grandmother," he said. "Congratulations. How is it done?"
The interest in Newton's eyes invigorated Helen and made her feel mistress of a difficult situation.
"I haven't got to tell you," she replied.
"You mean I'm her white-headed boy," said Newton. "That may be. But it doesn't take me far when financial interests are at stake. I can't live on sugar."
Hitherto, Helen had been somewhat in awe of Newton, who completely ignored her as a social entity. She was there merely to do a job, and he supposed that she—like all the other girls—would go at the end of the month, if she lasted as long.
The novelty of his attention stimulated her confidence.
"Do you mean the will?" she asked boldly.
He nodded.
"Will she—or won't she?"
"We talked about it," said Helen, inflated with her own importance. "I advised her not to keep putting it off." Newton gave a shout of excitement. "Aunt Blanche. Come here."
Miss Warren was wafted by some terrestrial wind out of the drawing-room, in obedience to her nephew's call. For some inexplicable reason, the shambling short-sighted youth seemed to sway the affection of his own womankind, even if he failed to hold his wife.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Epic news," Newton told her. "Miss Capel has worked faster in five minutes than the rest of us in five years. She's got Gran to talk about her will."
"Not exactly that," explained Helen. "But she said she couldn't die, because she had a job to do—an unpleasant job, which everyone puts off."
"Good enough," nodded Newton. "Well, Miss Capel, I only hope you will go on with the good work, if she's wakeful tonight."
Even Miss Warren seemed impressed by the fresh development, for she looked, more or less directly, at Helen.
"Extraordinary," she murmured. "You seem to have more influence over her than anyone else."
Helen walked away, conscious that she had been betrayed by her impulse to play to the gallery. Now that the family had a direct personal interest in her relations with Lady Warren, she could only expect their opposition, if she appealed to them against the verdict of the blue room.
But she continued to hold her head high, as though sustained by popular support on her way to execution, even while she shrank from her first glimpse of the scaffold. In her last minute, she would be alone.
When she reached the kitchen, she was instantly aware that Mrs. Oates was in no mood for gossip, while Oates kept out of his wife's way, in a significant manner. Regardless of Helen's finery, Mrs. Oates pointed to a steaming basin, on the table.
"Just blanch these for the tipsy-cake," she said. "I'm behind with my dinner. And Oates keeps dodging under my feet, until I don't know if I'm up in the air, or down a coal-mine."
In a chastened mood, Helen sat down and gingerly popped almonds out of their shrivelled brown skins. She had accepted the fact of the doctor's absence so completely that she ignored the sound of a bell ringing in the basement hall.
It was Mrs. Oates who glanced at the indicator.
"Front door," she snapped. "That'll be the doctor."
Helen sprang to her feet and rushed to the door.
"I'll let him in," she cried.
"Thank you, miss," said Oates gratefully. "I haven't my trousers on."
"Disgraceful," laughed Helen, who knew he referred to the fact that he put on his best trousers and a linen jacket, in order to carry in the dinner.
Again hope soared, as she flew up the stairs and opened the front door, letting in a sheet of torrential rain, driven before the gale, as well as the doctor.
He was strongly-built, and inclined to be stocky, with short blunt clean-shaven features. Helen beamed her welcome, while he—in turn—looked at her with approval.
"Is this Gala Night?" he asked.
His gaze held none of the uncomfortable suction of the nurse's eyes, so that Helen rejoiced in her new evening frock. But Dr. Parry was more concerned by the hollows in her neck than struck by the whiteness of her skin.
"Odd that you are not better developed," he frowned, "with all the housework you do,"
"I've not been doing any lately," explained Helen.
"I see," muttered Dr. Parry, as he wondered why voluntary starvation, in the case of a slimming patient should fail to affect him, since the result was the same.
"Like milk?" he asked. "But, of course, you don't."
"Don't I? I'd be a peril, if I worked in a dairy."
"You ought to drink a lot. I'll speak to Mrs. Oates."
The doctor drew