The Spiral Staircase (9 page)

Simone looked at him defiantly. “I’m not wearing it for the benefit of your family,” she told him.

She felt his eyes upon her, watching every process of making up her complexion.

“A touch of perfume behind the ears,” he advised. “No man can resist it.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

Simone finished her toilet-eyes brilliant with temper and her lips compressed. When she went out of the room, she deliberately flung the door wide open, so that her husband could hear her footsteps cross the landing to the bachelor’s room.

“Steve,” she called. “I want to speak to you.”

“Oh-all right.”

The pupil appeared, looked both crumpled and sulky,

“Your hair’s untidy,” said Simone, putting up her hands to part his heavy wave..

“Don’t.” He shook his head impatiently. “I detest fiddling.”

“But I like doing it.”

“Then keep on doing it, my dear.”

Stephen ceased to protest, for the reason that he heard footsteps behind him. He looked up at Newton with a malicious grin..

“You’ll get the benefit of this, Warren,” he said, “Yourwife’s practising on me,”

The veins swelled on Newton’s temples ashe watched his wife’s bare arms clasped around Stephen’s neck. With a laugh and a backward sweep of her hand, she rumpled his hair until it stood up in a mop.

“There—you’re finished,” she declared.

Newton burst into a hoot of amusement at Stephen’s discomfiture.

“He looks like Harpo,” he said. “I hope my wife will continue to use you as her model, so long as she spares me that.”

Simone glanced at her husband’s stubborn crest.

“Where’s the difference?” she asked. “Stephen, you’ve not admired my new dress.” Although the, young man had not even noticed her finery, he stressed his admiration for Newton’s benefit.

“Well. I’m bowl over, Beautiful—and most revealing. I’ll never mistake you for a nun again.”

Newton’s mouth tightened and his glasses magnified the ugly gleam in his eyes, Stephen was selfconscious and truculent as Simone slowly revolved to display a back which had been pronounced perfect.

The scene appeared an ordinary exhibition of herd-instinct, complicated by a frustrate sense of ownership. Yet each released current of human passion was another tributary to swell the tidal-wave, which, later, would sweep Helen away, like a straw on flood-water.

Newton turned away, with an affected shrug.

“I’m afraid my wife’s dresses are not the same novelty to me,” he said, “Oh—by the way, Rice—what have you done with that dog?”

“He’s in my bedroom,” snapped Stephen.

“In a bedroom? Really, than going too far. It’s hardly fair to the lady of the house. If you take my advice, you’ll put him in the garage for the night.”

“I’ll take nothing from you,” snarled Stephen.

“Not even my wife? Many thanks.”

Whistling in apparent unconcern, Newton strolled down the stairs, without a backward glance.

Stephen bristled with defensive instinct, although he knew that Newton’s attitude was reasonable.

“Hanged if I’ll park the pup in that draughty hole,” he stormed. “He stays here-or I go with him,”

For Heaven’s sake, forget the dog,” exclaimed Simone. Tell me if you really like my dress,”

What there is of it,” remarked Stephen, reverting to type, since Newton pad gone. “I’m keen on seeing how a boxer strips, when I’ve backed him; but I don’t care about bare backs out of the ring.”

“You brute,” Simone cried, “I put it on for you. I want you to remember our last night, And me.”

“Sorry, my dear,” said Stephen lightly. “But I’m going to the Bull, after dinner.”

Simone’s eyes blazed with sudden passion.

“You’re going to see that tow-headed barmaid,”

“Whitey? Yes. But I’m going to see something else, too. Beer. Glorious beer.”

“Stay with me, instead… .You’re the only man I’ve ever had to ask before.”,

Stephen stuck out his lip, like a spoiled child. He wanted an evening of masculine society—the freedom and alcoholic good company of the little country-inn. The landlord’s flaxen-haired daughter was merely incidental to his pleasure, because she filled his mug.

He also wanted to get rid of Simone.

Had he known, he could have done so by a show of humility, or an avalanche of attentions. But when he turned away from her, he snapped yet another link of the chain which connected Helen with safety.

Almost running into his room, he slammed the door be hind him, and threw himself on the bed.

“Women are the devil,” he told the Alsatian. “Never get married, my lad.”

In an evil temper, Simone flounced down the stairs. On the landing, she met Mrs. Oates who was showing Nurse Barker to her patient’s’ room. At the sight of the ferocious-looking woman, her expression, slightly cleared, for her jealousy was so inflamed that she would have resented an attractive nurse.

“Young Mrs. Warren,” whispered Mrs. Oates, as she knocked at the door of the blue room.’

Nurse Barker grunted, for she recognized the type. “Nymphomaniac,” she said.

“Oh, no, she’s quite sane,” declared Mrs. Oates. “Just flighty.”

Miss Warren opened the door-a film of welcome in her pale eyes.

“I’m glad you’ve come, nurse,” she said.

“Yes, I expect you’re glad to pass on the job to me,” observed Nurse Barker. “Can I see the patient?”

She stalked after Miss Warren, into the blue room, and stood beside the bed, where Lady Warren lay in a shrunken heap, with closed clay-colored lids. “I do hope she’ll take a fancy to you,” hinted Miss Warren nervously.

“Oh, we’ll soon be friends,” said Nurse Barker confidently. “I’ve a way with old people. They want kindness with firmness. They’re just like children, at the other end,”

Lady Warren suddenly opened an eye which was not in the least child-like, unless it was that of an infant shot out of an eternity of sin._’”

“Is that the new nurse?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother,” replied Miss Warren.

“Send her away.” Miss Warren looked helplessly at the nurse.

“Oh dear,” she murmured, ‘I’m afraid she’s taken an other dislike.”

“That’s nothing,” said Nurse Barker. “She’s being a bit naughty, that’s all. I’ll soon win her over.”

“Send her away,” repeated Lady Warren. “I want the girl back.”

Nurse Barker saw her chance of redeeming her unpopularity.

“You shall have her, tonight,” she promised.

Then she drew Miss Warren aside.

“Is there any brandy in the room?” she asked. “I’m medically ordered to take a leetle stimulant.”

Miss Warren looked disturbed.

“I thought you. understood this is a teetotal house,” she explained. “As you know, you are paid a higher salary.”

“But it’s not safe to have no brandy in a sick room,” insisted Nurse Barker.

“My mother depends on oxygen,” explained Miss War ren. “It is her life… . Still… . Perhaps… . I’ll speak to the Professor.”

Driven before the towering form of Nurse Barker, she drifted across the landing, like a withered leaf in the eddy of an east wind.

The professor appeared at his bedroom door, in answer to his sister’s tap. He greeted the nurse with stony courtesy, and listened to her request. “Certainly you may have brandy, if you require it,” he said. “I will go down, at once, to the cellar, and send a. bottle up to your room.”

Helen, who was helping in the kitchen, glanced curiously at Mrs. Oates, when the Professor asked her for a candle.

“I shall want you to hold it,” he said. “I’m going to the wine-cellar.”

Although the request amounted to mental cruelty, Mrs. Oates hastened to obey. The electric pendant lit the passage only as far as the bend; around the corner it was quite dark. She walked ahead of the Professor, to guide him, and when she reached the door of the cellar, stood, holding her candle aloft, like a pilgrim who had reached his Mecca.

The key turned in the lock, and Mrs. Oates and the Professor entered the sacred place. Fat lumps of greed swam in the woman’s eyes as her master selected a bottle from a bin.

As she gazed at it thirstily, the Professor glanced at the thermometer which hung on the wall.

“That temperature cannot be right,” he said, thrusting the bottle into her hands. “Hold this while I carry it to a better light.”

In a short time he returned from the passage, and relocked the cellar door. This time, he led the way back to the kitchen, while Mrs. Oates walked respectfully in his rear. As she passed through the scullery, she ducked down for a second, beside the sink.

The Professor placed the bottle of brandy on the kitchen table and spoke to Helen.

“Please take this up to the blue room, immediately, after Mrs. Oates has drawn the cork.”

When they were alone Helen sympathized with Mrs. Oates.

“It’s a shame. Why don’t you keep back just a table spoonful, to drink Lady Warren’s health?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Mrs. Oates told her. “That nurse would know, and split on me. Besides, it would be sin to water down such lovely stuff.”

Helen admired the fortitude with which the woman thrust the bottle into her hands. “Run off with it, quick”, she said, “but be sure not drop it.”

Directly she was alone, the secret of her courage was revealed. Lumbering into the scullery, she groped for something she had hidden under the sink.

Opportunity had knocked at her door, and she had been swift in her response. When she returned to the kitchen, she smiled triumphantly at her spoil, before she hid it away among the empties in her cupboard.

It was a second bottle of brandy.

THE OLD WOMAN REMEMBERS

When Helen carried the brandy up to the blue room, Nurse Barker opened the door, in answer to her-tap. In herwhite overall-her dark-red face framed in its handkerchief headgear—she looked like a gigantic block of futuristic sculpture.

“That you,” she said. “This will help me to get somesleep. I must have one good night, if I have to carry on this case, single-handed.”

There was a sinister glint in her deep-set eyes as she added, “I have arranged for you to sleep here, tonight. Miss Warren was present, so she understands the agreement, and the old girl—Lady Warren—” she hastened to correct her slip-“raised no objection.” Helen thought it was wiser to let any protest come from an official quarter.

“Yes, Nurse, she said. “But I must hurry to dress.”

“Oh, you dress for dinner, do you?”

The woman’s tone was so strained—her glance so spiked—that Helen was glad to get away.

“She’s jealous,” she thought. “And Miss Warren’s a coward. They’re both weak links. I wonder what my special failing is.”

Like the majority of the human race, she was blind to her own faults, and would have protested vehemently against the charge of curiosity, although Mrs. Oates already knew the origin of several trivial mishaps..

When she entered her bedroom, she recoiled with a violent start, at the sight of a black shape, which appeared to be swinging into her window.

Snapping on the light, she saw that she had been misled by the branches of a tall cedar, which was being lashed by the gale. Although it seemed so near, the tree was too faraway 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 gar den 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 lackof 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 color-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 honor 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 color 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.