Читать книгу Put Out the Light - Ethel Lina White - Страница 7

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MISS VINE lay rigid in the great silver bed, smothered by lace and bows of ribbon, which festooned her silken pillows. But, in spite of the pads over her eyelids, she could not sleep. Her mind was a brimming cistern, overflowing with the stored emotions of the day.

Presently, she made a conscious effort.

"I must sleep," she thought, "or I'll have no bloom tomorrow. Seven men, tonight—all young. They come for Iris, but they stay for me...Beautiful? That girl? She's nothing but a scrag—all lashes and lipstick...Yes, but she has youth. I hate her because she's young. And I hate the boys, because they're like those other boys, who always passed me by and asked other women to dance...But I have my revenge, every day, every hour. Three of them, all thwarted, stunted, clipped. In my power...And they cannot rebel. No, I've guarded against that. I've made them distrust and hate each other. Those boys have just enough common blood to know each other's blind spots. And you despise your own faults, in another...But I mustn't think. I must sleep."

A delicious lassitude crept over her and she began to doze. She made her mind a blank, forcing out stray memories with the driving power of her will. Presently her stiff limbs relaxed in the gentle heat from her hot water bags. The air-cell blankets, satin-bound and palest azure, like a summer dawn, were light as a snowflake, but warm as the sun.

She gave a slight start and her brain was a dissolving mist. This was the critical moment, which swept past her, like a wave, rushing out to sea. If she could catch it, and ride it far enough, it shook her off into a bottomless pit of sleep, where she slumbered, like a log, until Eames' tap upon her door.

She felt herself swept forward. Almost immediately, she began to dream. She had a vivid vision of a lion's cage, where a trainer stood, surrounded by his beasts. He had no need to crack his whip, or force them to submission. One lion had a noble, majestic face—another washed its paws like an amiable domestic cat. A third was playful as a kitten, while a fourth purred and rubbed his head affectionately against his trainer's knee.

Suddenly the trainer's foot slipped, and he fell. In a flash the lions were on top of him. Anthea saw a red splatter arising from tooth and claw, and she awoke with a faint scream.

Her heart was pounding and the palms of her hands were clammy. Worse than her fright, she realized that she had lost her moment. She was now doomed to wakefulness—face to face with the threats of the darkness.

Three young people in her power—driven by the passions of their thwarted youth. Did they hate her? She seemed to feel the air curdle with the poison which she, herself, had generated in the dark jungle of her own brain.

"They're not asleep," she thought. "They're only pretending. They're awake, thinking of me. Plotting. I can feel their hatred."

Was there one she could trust? She sweated and picked at her satin sheets as she remembered that the lion which had fawned upon its master had been first to spring.

Miss Vine was right, in one respect. As though infected by her own unrest, the light was still burning in more than one room in the left wing.

On the other side of the partition wall, Iris sat before her toilet table, smoking a cigarette. Her narrow slip of a room had none of the spectacular splendor of Miss Vine's suite, who dramatized herself as Royalty. But, in common with the other bedrooms, it had its handsome furniture, its soft thick carpet and its distinctive colour, until the shade-card gave out, to the glory of Miss Vine.

As Iris stared into the glass, she saw the brilliance of her eyes and her mane of hair, like a drift of autumnal leaves, falling over the collar of her apple-green pyjama jacket.

She scowled at it, in a mutiny of passions.

"I hate myself," she thought. "I haven't the spirit of a dead fish. This awful humiliation. I'm lumber. Waste. I'm kept. And yet I put up with it. I feel utterly, ashamed. I ought to go away...Where? What can I do?...Nothing. I can only wear beautiful clothes. Besides, I should hate a life of drudgery."

She threw a glance at the leaping fire and the soft depths of a rose padded chair. Exchange this for a mean, narrow room in some boardinghouse, and a gas fire, with a slot meter.

She shook her head.

"No. I'm a luxury product. Anthea made me so. It's all her fault. She's got us tied by the leg, with our wings clipped. We may sulk, but we all open our beaks, at feeding-time. Utterly degrading. There's no hope of escape for me, unless I marry. And nobody comes to this house but a pack of sponging boys—and Lawrence. Lawrence can't marry me. He depends on Anthea to live. Yet he's losing any chance of building up a practice, as long as he comes here every day. People are talking about them. They smell out a scandal. That hurts horribly...She throws us practically in each other's arms. It's not fair. It's cruel. And yet I couldn't live if I didn't see him every day...I seem to be lost in a maze, and every path only leads back to myself. I know I'm my own enemy. If I were strong, or brave, I could hack my own way out. But, it's all hopeless. I'll never be free, until Anthea dies. Until—she—dies."

At that moment Charles was also looking in the glass. He stopped pacing his room, struck by his own reflection. He was collarless, for he had begun to undress, and his hair was ruffled to an untidy shock.

At the sight he burst into a laugh.

"My gosh. Portrait of English gentleman, in evening rig. Living in marble halls. Eating and drinking like a lord. And not a bean to call my own. Hell...There's that girl, all alone, downstairs, hammering away at her infernal typewriter. Wonder what she thinks of us all. We must seem a precious school of young pikes. Wonder what she thinks of me. Rotten of Anthea to keep her up so late. Wonder if old Anthea's cracking. I had the deuce of a job to wake her tactfully, tonight. No use trying to sound Lawrence. He's a tight-wad, on purpose, just to rub in the beauty of our special position. I don't like the way he strings poor old Anthea along—laughing at her up his sleeve. I may do it, myself, but—hang it all—she's family. Besides, in a queer sort of way, I don't dislike the old bird. There's a curious fascination and flavour about her, like putrid game. One day, I'll probably brain her with the poker, all for the general good. Gosh, it's late. Wonder if she's finished her typing yet."

And while Charles dreamed of a girl, Francis lay, at his ease, smoking, and thinking of a house.

"If the Court were mine I'd turn it into a hotel. Anthea's precious hall would be ideal as a lounge. Ridiculous place, with its marble floor, and marble pillars and marble statues, like a museum. It only wants a sign—ADMITTANCE FREE. Anthea's bedroom, with Iris' room thrown in, would be the Royal Suite. I could divide most of the bedrooms. I should have to put in lifts, but the central-heating could stand, and there are enough bathrooms for an English hotel. Might add a swimming pool—and what price a hangar? Ought to be ready for air development. JAMAICA COURT HOTEL. It ought to pay. On the London Road, and close to the coast...Come to think of it, it's nothing but an hotel, at present, only Anthea boards us free. What's more, she pays us to stop with her...Wonder what Charles touched her for in the library, tonight. I'll have a dig at her, myself, tomorrow. After all, she's only here to be bled. Poor old Anthea."

Unaware of actuality, and still strapped in the prison of her own terrified mind, Anthea sweated in the great silver bed. The time was at hand when she always heard sounds. Some were the fictions of a nightmare imagination—low chuckles in the corners of the room, and rustlings behind the curtains of her bed.

But others were real. Often, at night, when she was semi-torpid, she heard doors open stealthily and footsteps creep down the corridor. They were always muffled, and hinted of furtive purpose. Presently she would catch the murmur of voices.

She knew what it meant. Conspiracy. Jets of ice-cold water spurted down her spine as she listened. Because she was in bed, trussed, plastered, blinded and defenseless, she was afraid of the three. Iris was no longer a badgered love-sick girl, wearing her Paris frock, only by favour of her own; the boys were no longer her economic slaves.

Because they were united against her—they were youth. They were vengeance.

As she strained her ears, the footsteps began to steal along the corridor. She lay rigid, scarcely daring to breathe. The sounds drew level with her door, where they stopped...They passed on again.

And after the footsteps, there came whispers, which were followed by a burst of smothered laughter. In its turn, the laughter was succeeded by a burst of jubilant song.

Unable to solve the riddle of the midnight drama, Anthea shook in a palsy, waiting for the combined attack. But tonight, like the other nights, nothing happened. Their plans were not matured. A murder must leave no trace.

Worn out with emotion, Anthea suddenly slipped from her waking nightmare into deep sleep. In the morning, she would awaken, her usual autocratic, vigilant self—ruthless and unafraid. Her lions would be only her menagerie, caged and tamed.

Meanwhile, a little comedy had been played in the corridor. A door was pushed cautiously open, and Iris, in her pajamas, came out of her bedroom. She stopped to listen, and then crept down the corridor, creeping with the long strides of a young tigress. At the sounds of the padding of bare soles over the carpet, behind her, she began to run.

But, in spite of her efforts, Charles leaped past her, thrust her aside, and placed himself, triumphantly, on guard, before a small door.

"Beaten you to it," he exulted.

"Charles, you beast," panted Iris. "I was first."

"No, you don't. Hang it, play fair. You've miles of start."

There was a large superlatively fitted bathroom in the corridor, a temple of hygiene, expressed in silver and marble, and radiant with concealed flood-lighting. But, by the perversity of youth, this splendid apartment was usually neglected, while there was strong competition for a little ordinary tiled bathroom.

As Charles turned the handle there were the sounds of the splashing of water and Francis's voice, as he sang, with intense religious conviction—"I know that my Redeemer liveth."

"Well," gasped Iris. "As if he really meant it. I call that the limit in blasphemy."

"That pure snooping young lad ought to be scragged," said Charles.

They held their sides as they rocked in laughter.

Miss Anthea was fast asleep, safely delivered from her terrors of the night, when Sally Morgan put the cover on her typewriter.

As a matter of fact, she had rather enjoyed the adventure of being alone in the vast obscurity of the ground-floor area, for she had little imagination, and no nerves.

Charles saw her as the youthful victim of Miss Vine's tyranny, condemned to work while the household slept. But had her employer ordered Sally early to bed, so that she might finish her typing before breakfast, the lady would have considered herself ill-used. Like most young people, she liked late hours, and was a heavy sleeper, in the morning.

It was queer and fascinating in the dim magnificence of the Moorish library, surrounded with screens of fretted wood, and hangings of dark stamped leather, which might conceal the dried gouts of blood, from old assassinations. Her typewriter clicked like a ghostly clock.

She was also well-sustained, for Bates, himself, had brought in her tray of sandwiches and coffee, in order to register his personal sympathy.

"Is there anything else you might require, miss?" he asked, conscious of a lavish provision.

Sally, whose excellent appetite made her appreciative of the good fare at the Court, was on the point of telling him that everything was gorgeous. She remembered the dignity of her position before she disgraced herself in his eyes.

"Nothing, thank you, Bates," she replied. "You need not sit up. I will see to the lights."

"Very good, miss. Thank you, miss."

At the door, he turned and spoke with renewed respect.

"Would you fancy a small bottle of champagne, miss?"

Those upper-servants knew how to be generous with Miss Vine's money. But, as the perfect secretary, Sally could not encourage extravagance.

"No, thank you, Bates."

Bates withdrew, full of compassion for the pretty young lady.

Sally clicked away briskly, entirely engrossed by the figures she typed. Sheet after sheet was unrolled from the machine; carbons withdrawn and copies numbered.

Presently her job was finished. Sally relaxed for a minute, as she brushed back a wave of hair which had fallen over her eyes. Her thoughts drifted to Charles, and she saw him again, as he had sat on the table, a few hours ago, swinging his legs while he teased Miss Vine.

Sally had a great respect and loyalty for Miss Vine. She stood as a working model of a successful business woman, to be copied—as well as an employer, to be propitiated.

Suddenly she saw her in another guise, as a vampire of youth. At a memory of the expression in Charles' eyes, when Anthea had taunted him with generosity, Sally's calm face flexed with anger, and she hit the table with her clenched fist.

"I hate her." Her voice choked with passion. "I hate her."