Читать книгу Wings Above the Diamantina - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 10

The Vigil

Elizabeth relieved the housekeeper at ten o’clock leaving the men to depart for Nettlefold’s study.

“I think she is sleeping, Miss Elizabeth,” Hetty reported. “I closed her eyes and turned her on her side half an hour ago. You will find the spirit lamp and the supper things in your dressing-room. Now, what time will I relieve you? Remember, you have not slept since last night.”

They stood just outside the bedroom, the door almost shut. The corridor was lit by one electric bulb midway along it. The electric power had to be conserved, so that it had been decided to light an oil lamp, placed on a small table opposite Elizabeth’s bedroom door after all had gone to bed.

“Mr Nettlefold and Sergeant Cox will be leaving for Emu Lake at six in the morning, Hetty,” Elizabeth said. “If you will, please get up in time to see that they have a proper breakfast and take good lunches with them. After they have gone you can relieve me. I have explained everything to Dr Knowles, and he tells me he will be staying until to-morrow afternoon.”

“What does he think? Oh, Miss Elizabeth, will the poor girl get better?”

“We hope so, Hetty.”

“And Sergeant Cox!” Hetty’s hands began to flutter like a bird’s wings. “Has he found out who she is?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“No. He hasn’t found out yet. No one seems ever to have seen her before. Now, be off to bed, Hetty. You must be tired.”

“Very well! Good night, Miss Elizabeth!”

Again within her room, Elizabeth passed across to the bed to make sure that her patient was lying comfortably. That was more difficult than it sounds, because the girl was unable to voice a complaint or even subconsciously to move her body. For a while Elizabeth listened to her regular breathing, to become convinced that she was sleeping.

The room was large and oblong in shape, the corridor wall taking one side and two pairs of french windows occupying spaces in the opposite side. The bed had its head to one of the shorter walls, while in the opposite one was the door leading to the dressing-room. As well as the small table beside the bed there was a larger one set against the corridor wall to the right of the door. On this table Elizabeth set the shaded electric lamp, and beside it she placed her chair so that she was able to face both the corridor door and the patient’s bed, the dressing-room door then being partly at her back and the two windows on her left.

Before settling in her chair to await the doctor’s promised visit, she crossed to the windows to close one pair and to draw the light curtains before both. Here, in western Queensland, there was absolutely no necessity to lock and bar windows and doors, and from one year’s end to the other neither windows nor doors were ever locked at Coolibah.

Shortly after eleven, Dr Knowles came in without a sound. He waved her back into her chair before closing the door, and, stepping across to the table, seated himself on the edge of it and scrutinized her closely.

About him there was a faint aroma of alcohol. His face was flushed, and before he sat down she noticed that he staggered ever so slightly. Yet when he spoke his voice was steady, clear, and low.

“You will have to guard against bed sores. Do you know how?” he asked.

“If by constantly moving the patient …”

“Exactly. During the night she must be moved from side to side, say every two hours. Most of us cannot sleep when lying on the left side, so you should be careful not to put your patient too far over that way. Throughout the day she may be allowed to lie on her back, but she must be constantly eased and half-turned to right or left, and maintained in those positions with pillows. Bed sores are the very devil to get rid of once they come, and our patient’s absolute helplessness will be productive of them unless every care is taken. You are still determined to nurse her?”

“Yes! Oh yes!” was her quick reply. “Why?”

The interrogative was snapped at her. For a second she was confused. Then:

“Perhaps the answer to this question will be my answer to yours,” she suggested hesitantly. “Why do you fly about the country so recklessly?”

The dark brows drew closer together, and the white lids narrowed before the dark eyes. He was instantly on his guard, and Elizabeth knew it.

“I never fly recklessly,” was his evasive answer.

“Answer my question, please, if you want yours answered,” she persisted.

He smiled faintly.

“I believe I can correctly guess the answer you think I would make. No, I do not fly everywhere, and take what may be thought risks, because I am bored with life. In fact, if I had not found life most interesting, I should have departed from it years ago. How is it that life bores you?”

“I am not bored … now, Doctor. I was … terribly. Dad is always happy to live here in the bush. So was my mother. I should be, too, but I am not. I have never been truly happy here after I gave up my studies to come home and look after Dad. You see, I don’t do anything. Managing Hetty who manages the house is not doing anything, really. I cannot be bothered with the garden, and horses and car driving no longer interest me. If my mother was living or I had sisters …”

Knowles was staring at her—not rudely—merely as though he saw her clearly for, the first time.

“After a while you will find nursing boring, too,” he warned her.

“Oh no, I won’t!” she hastened to assure him. “It will give me something to do—something to think about. Do you know that for the last three years I have done nothing but read novels? I keep all the men supplied with reading matter.”

“There are plenty of people who wish they could do just that, Miss Nettlefold,” he pointed out, and then began to scribble with a fountain pen on a writing-pad. When he had finished he went on: “I have drawn up a diet list for the time being. Follow it strictly. I may alter it later. As the patient is sleeping, I will look in at daybreak, and then, during the morning, we will make another and a more careful examination of her.”

“You will let her stay with us?”

“Until you relax in your duties or”—and he smiled for the first time—“or I find out that you think you know more about it than I do. Now, no temper, please! I think she will be better off here in your care than in the hospital at Winton, but should you tire say so instantly, and I will remove her to Winton, She has no claims on you, remember.”

“Yes, she has,” Elizabeth said, a little fiercely. “She has conquered my boredom, and if only you knew what that means——”

“Believe me, I know what boredom is,” he said, quietly cutting in. “There is only one thing worse than boredom, and that is memory. Boredom can be banished, but memory cannot be obliterated. Now, I’ll be off. If the patient wakes during the night—but no! Feed her with coffee containing a teaspoonful of brandy to the cup at one o’clock and at four o’clock. If you should see any change in her, call me at once. Good night … Nurse!”

They rose together. “Good night, Doctor!”

Having smiled at her for the second time, he spent a few seconds beside the bed feeling the patient’s pulse, and then left. From the table in the corridor he picked up the newly opened bottle of whisky and the glass he had placed there before entering the room, and departed for his own.

A few minutes after the doctor had gone, Elizabeth heard her father conducting the sergeant to his room; then heard the sergeant’s door quietly closed, and a moment later heard her father close his. The petrol engine running the electric light had long been stopped, and the accordion player now was fast asleep. The house was silent, and the world of the bush surrounding the homestead was silent, too.

She tried to read, but, after a determined effort to be interested in the antics of alleged bohemians in Sydney, she put down the book and relaxed. The little clock on the table announced the hour of midnight. One of the stockman’s dogs chained beyond the men’s quarters began to bark—not frenziedly, but methodically—as though tantalized by the nearness of a rabbit. The animal was too far away to be a disturbing influence.

She began to go over all the incidents of the afternoon. It was so stupid of them not to have searched the red mono-plane for the girl’s belongings: her hat and coat and vanity bag, without which no woman dare leave her home. It was excusable stupidity, of course. Who would not have been astonished first when finding the machine, and then by the discovery of the helpless girl in it? Her very plight, which had so cried out for compassion, had swept aside all thought to look for articles proving her identity, especially when Emu Lake was on Coolibah and someone would have to come out for the aeroplane the next day.

The military-minded Sergeant Cox had failed dismally to conceal his disapproval of their omission. What a straight-backed man he was to be sure! Elizabeth wondered if he ever bent mentally and physically, even in his own home. She could find in him nothing soft or humanly weak, and yet there was much good spoken of him. Even Ned Hamlin, who invariably got himself locked up when he went to Golden Dawn, did not seem to dislike the sergeant particularly.

Well, the affair had certainly banished boredom. Why she should ever have been bored both vexed and surprised her. The Greyson girls were never bored, but then numbers were in their favour. They could go to tennis and golf and bridge parties. Elizabeth liked tennis, but she was an indifferent golfer and bridge she hated.

Perhaps it was in her mental make-up, that poignant dissatisfaction with life and its gifts! Why could she not face life with the insouciance of Ted Sharp? Ted Sharp, who rode like a devil, worked like a horse, and who was as staunch as a rock! No, that was a bad simile. What was the time?

Half-past twelve. She found herself sleepy, and again made a determined effort to become interested in her book. Apparently it did master her attention, for time slipped by and the little clock struck its elfin bell once.

Stifling a yawn, she rose and stepped to the bed, where she tenderly moved the patient over to her other side, making sure that the under-arm was free and naturally easy. She experienced a little thrill of pride when intent listening told her that the patient still slept, that the movement had not disturbed her.

Within the dressing-room, now her bedroom, she lit the spirit lamp and set the saucepan containing milk above the blue flame, and by the time she had undressed and flung about her a dressing-gown, it was time to brew the coffee.

Elizabeth realized quite abruptly that, tired though she was, she yet was feeling a sweetly contented happiness. The old gnawing but ever-present dissatisfaction with life no longer existed. She had lived on board the ship of life like a sailor; now she was the first mate! She might never have been the sailor had not Hetty become the Coolibah house-keeper before Elizabeth’s return from the university, or if, Hetty had then retired to the position of an ordinary servant. But Hetty had kept her important position with Elizabeth’s unspoken sanction … and Elizabeth had become just a member of the crew.

Taking a cup of the coffee to the small occasional table at the head of the bed she carefully measured into it a tea-spoonful of the brandy. And, as she gave it to the patient, spoonful by spoonful, she talked softly to her.

Having drunk her own coffee and eaten the sandwiches provided by Hetty, Elizabeth felt much more mentally alert. For an hour she read, now and then listening to be assured that the patient slept. Persistently the distant dog maintained its half-hearted barks, and it began to get on her nerves. It would have to be moved farther away. Why could it not bark furiously, with reason, instead of that eternal half-bark, half-yap?

The night wore on, and towards four o’clock she again found herself being mastered by the desire to sleep. More coffee was indicated for herself; anyway, it was nearly time to give some to the patient. Rising, she raised her arms above her head and stretched herself before walking into the dressing-room.

Beside the table on which were the coffee things was a full-length pedestal mirror. It faced the bedroom door, then partly open, and, having brewed the coffee, she heard a slight movement, and turned. The mirror revealed the figure of a man standing with his back to the dressing-room door in front of the small table beside the bed and on that side of it nearest the door opening on the corridor.

Although she could not see the man’s face she was sure that it was Knowles. He was fully dressed in a dark suit like that worn by the doctor earlier in the night. Evidently Dr Knowles was paying his promised early morning visit, although as yet daylight was not visible in the sky beyond the window. Unperturbed, Elizabeth placed the coffee jug and cups on a tray, and on taking the tray into the bedroom was in time to see the corridor door closing behind the visitor.

Half-expecting to find on the small table a bottle of medicine, she set the tray down on the larger table and crossed to the bed table. But there was no bottle, no note, nothing in addition to the tumbler of water, a teaspoon and the opened bottle of brandy.

Hallucination! A waking dream! A vision due to want of sleep! She opened the corridor door and peeped out to see—as she expected—no one in the corridor. The burning lamp on the table standing opposite the door clearing revealed the extremities of the corridor. There was no one there, and if it had not been a vision—if it had been Dr Knowles—there had been ample time for him to reach his bedroom.

Of course there was a perfectly natural explanation, she told herself, while she attended her patient. Unable to sleep, the doctor had stepped in to look at the girl, and, finding the nurse in the dressing-room, he had left without speaking. Or he might have wanted a drink, and had come in to take some of the brandy. The brandy! Setting the cup of coffee down on the small table, she picked up the bottle of brandy, turned, and held it between her eyes and the table lamp. Ah! Most certainly the doctor had not taken any of the spirit. The bottle was quite full. Then a little icy shaft sped up her back and caused her scalp to tingle.

What if. … Quickly she carried the bottle to the table lamp. The liquid reached almost to the bottom of the cork—in fact, it would reach the cork if the cork was driven into the neck as it had originally been by the bottlers. And yet she had taken one teaspoonful of the brandy from the bottle, and Hetty had taken another.

It was most strange. Surely Dr Knowles would not put anything into the brandy without informing her? He might have done so, not thinking it of sufficient importance to bother her, or to call her. But then it might not have been the doctor at all!

Again the icy shaft swept up her back to tingle her scalp. Suppose. … Well, suppose the man had been an enemy? It seemed impossible, but then …

Thoughtfully, she returned to the bed and gave her patient the coffee without adding the teaspoonful of brandy. She was half-inclined to call Dr Knowles, but he might think her nervous or incapable of nursing his patient. No, it were better to wait until the morning, and then, when the doctor came in, casually to mention it.

Presently a cock crowed, and when she drew aside the window curtains she found the new day arrived. As she stepped out on to the veranda to inhale the clear, cool air, she heard the bright screeches of a flock of galah parrots among the gums bordering the creek which carried floodwater down to the river channels.

It was five o’clock when she heard Hetty talking with Ruth, the fat and happy aboriginal cook. Hetty was up and supervising the breakfasts and lunches for Nettlefold and Sergeant Cox. She expected Dr Knowles, but he did not appear, and at six o’clock, almost to the minute, she heard them leave in her father’s car for Emu Lake.

Shortly after they had gone, Hetty came in to say that she had set out Elizabeth’s breakfast in the morning-room.

“You must be so tired!” cried Hetty in her dove-like voice.

“Thank you, Hetty. I will run along and have something to eat,” Elizabeth said. “The patient is all right. If the doctor should call while I am breakfasting, please tell him where I am.”

She was engaged with bacon and eggs when she first heard the low humming of distant aeroplane engines. Steadily the hum rose in pitch until, aeroplanes still being a novelty, she left the room and walked the length of the corridor to step out on to the east veranda, and from there to walk down to the short metalled strip of road.

And there all silvered by the rising sun sailed the big passenger-carrying biplane belonging to the air circus. It was coming to fly directly over the house and so low was it that she clearly saw a man’s head thrust out of a window and then his hand waving a handkerchief to her. Waving up to him she watched the machine until it disappeared beyond the house roof, humming on its way to Emu Lake.

“Captain Loveacre must have made an early start, Miss Nettlefold,” called Dr Knowles from the veranda. Arrayed in a black silk dressing-gown trimmed with silver facings, he was smoking a cigarette. “Good morning!” he added.

“Good morning, Doctor!” she returned, the thrill of that man-made bird still in her blood.

“How is the patient this morning?”

“I have seen no change in her. I suppose you wondered where I was when you peeped in?”

“Peeped in, Miss Nettlefold? But Hetty said you were at breakfast.”

He spoke nonchalantly, and into her mind swept the suggestion of evil which before day broke had touched her heart with an icy finger.

“Oh! I mean before daylight, you know,” she told him coolly.

By now she had joined him on the veranda, and she noted the perplexity in his eyes.

“But I did not go into the patient’s room before day broke,” he said evenly, and yet evidently puzzled. “I trust you did not fall asleep and dream that I did.”

“No, I was not sleeping,” she told him with conviction, and then explained how she had seen a person whom she thought to be the doctor, standing at the little table beside the bed.

Knowles laughed shortly. “So you did fall asleep!”

“But I did not,” Elizabeth protested.

“But I did not visit the patient’s room after we were talking last night until just now, when I found Hetty in charge.”

Elizabeth regarded him with troubled eyes. She recalled the mystery concerning the brandy. Knowles became serious.

“You are quite sure that you saw me, or someone like me, in the room last night? What time was it?”

“Just after four o’clock,” she replied. “Yes, I am sure a man was in the room when I looked into the mirror, and that he was closing the door after him as I walked into the bedroom. He did something to the brandy. I am sure of that, too.”

“Took some, you mean?” the doctor demanded sharply.

“No, he put something into the bottle. There is more in it now than when I took out the teaspoonful at one o’clock.”

“Come! Did you give her any of the brandy at four o’clock as I ordered?”

“No. After what I had seen I was doubtful what to do.”

“That’s good. When in doubt do nothing, as Bonaparte used to say. Let’s have a look at that brandy.”

Throwing away his cigarette, he hurried before her to the patient’s room. There he snatched up the bottle of brandy and gazed at it earnestly.

“How much have you taken out of this bottle, Miss Nettlefold?” he asked.

“One teaspoonful, Doctor.”

“What about you, Hetty?”

“Oh, Doctor! Only one teaspoonful, Doctor!” fluttered Hetty.

“Well, more than two teaspoonfuls have been put back, or I have never opened a bottle of spirits in my life,” he said slowly.