Читать книгу The Third Eye - Ethel Lina White - Страница 6

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CAROLINE was aroused from heavy sleep by the clanging of a bell. Jumping up in sudden fright, she realised that the sun was shining in through the ivy-hung window, and that it was her first day at school in a new capacity.

After dressing quickly, she opened her door and peeped into the corridor. Two schoolgirls who were loitering there turned and scanned her with merciless criticism. Both were immaculate, from the cut of their tailored flannel frocks to the set of their water-waved hair; but Caroline, being but a term's remove from them, could enter into their mentality.

She gave them back stare for stare, until their eyes began to waver. Pleased with her first taste of discipline, she looked away from them, to gaze in astonishment at a tall figure that was striding down the corridor.

At one time the woman might have been handsome, but the lines of her figure were lost in bulk, while her face had sagged and deepened in tint to the colour of port wine. Her eyes—violet-blue—were bloodshot and set in dark pouches. Her lips were coarse, her nose an heirloom of Norman period.

An ancient bath-robe of orange towelling was open to display creased purple pyjamas. To complete Caroline's amazement, her hair was set with metal clips and she wore a rubber chin-strap with perfect unconcern.

Instead of showing derision, the supercilious schoolgirls made way for her with every sign of respect. They were waiting to smile, eager to be noticed; but she pushed past them, staring the while at Caroline with insolent scrutiny.

"New, aren't you?" she asked, speaking thickly as though her tongue were swollen.

"Yes," replied Caroline.

"But not here for long. I presume you want to act for the films, like every pretty young teacher since Madeleine Carroll?"

Her caustic tone overwhelmed Caroline with confusion. Then, as though she had secret knowledge of the chink in her armour, she went on to strike the girl in her tender spot.

"Have you the usual string of letters after your name, like the tail of a kite?"

"No," confessed Caroline. "I'm here to teach games."

"Teach games?" The woman burst into a loud laugh. "That always strikes me as the limit in feebleness." She turned to the two schoolgirls. "You're both 'learning' to ride. Well, how do you think I was taught?... I was stuck on a blood-horse when I was three. The groom gave it a whack—and it was up to me to stick on...That was how we learned...Like me to take you over the sticks tomorrow?"

"Oh, yes, please," shouted the girls.

"Well, I'll see about it. What the hell are you blocking the way for?... Oh, it's Kewpie, blushing like the dawn. Too much dawn, Kewpie."

Caroline turned as a door opened and a cheerful young woman squeezed her way out into the corridor. Although she was officially listed as "Miss Cooper, B.A., London, Bedford College, Honours History," the aptness of her nickname was evident in her slanting blue eyes and broad spraying smile. She wore her hair in silver-blonde curls and was brightly rouged, which accounted for the alleged blush.

Grinning at Caroline, she stood respectfully on one side to allow the woman in the bath-robe to pass. The little group waited in silence, watching her as she strode down the corridor. In spite of an unlovely and grotesque appearance, she commanded homage by the force of a dynamic and flamboyant personality.

"Who is she?" asked Caroline when she had disappeared down the passage.

"Yaxley-Moore," replied Kewpie. "She's the Matron." Then she turned to the schoolgirls and added: "Don't count on the jumping. You know Mrs. Nash is against it."

"Oh, she'll listen to her Master's Voice," muttered one of the girls as they sauntered away.

Caroline could hardly believe her ears, especially as Kewpie chose to be deaf.

"Did that brat dare to hint that the Head is under some one's thumb?" she asked.

"I didn't hear." Kewpie changed the subject as they began to thread their way through the narrow passages towards the main corridor. "Those girls are titled pupils introduced by Yaxley-Moore. So she gives them preferential treatment... Did you sleep well?"

"Not too badly for a strange bed. I-I suppose I had the other games mistress's room?"

"Yes. But she didn't die of anything infectious. It was heart. She strained it getting her Bergman Osterberg Dip. She looked strong—big and fair, you know—but she was definitely nervy. She'd scream herself into hysterics if a spider from the ivy got on her bedroom wall."

Reminded vaguely of her dream, Caroline squirmed slightly.

Rather to her disappointment, Mrs. Nash did not come to breakfast, which was presided over by the Matron. With a monocle screwed in one bloodshot eye, and wearing a white starched uniform, she dominated the conversation. As the subject was surrealism, about which no one knew much, and cared less at that early hour, her curious corked voice was rarely silent.

Looking back later, Caroline wondered how she managed to get through her first day. It seemed a whirl of confusion, when she was forever asking the way to somewhere. Occasionally she met little Miss Melody, scampering about on some breathless errand, like a little old grey terrier with a tin tied to its tail.

Besides feeling helpless, she was vaguely worried by the fact that she was doing so little to earn her salary. Miss Yaxley-Moore's criticism had caused her inferiority complex to flare up, so that it seemed a scathing indictment of economic values that she should be paid to play games, when trained workers could not find employment.

As Mrs. Nash did not send for her, she plucked up courage presently to tap at the door of the Head's study. Her knock was answered by Mrs. Nash's secretary—a pretty, alert-looking young girl, who wore horn-rimmed glasses.

She shook her head to Caroline's request.

"Sorry. Mrs. Nash is engaged at present."

"Shall I come back later?" asked Caroline.

"No. I'll let you know when she can see you."

As she lingered, Caroline recognised a familiar thick voice speaking inside the private room.

"Melody's a comedian, not a housekeeper. She costs a pound to save a shilling. You'll have to sack her."

Caroline strained her ears, hoping to hear a protest from Mrs. Nash, but she could catch only a murmur. Apparently the Head was inaudible as well as invisible. The low voice suggested such a pliant, colourless personality that the girl felt almost rebellious at being controlled by a shadow-government.

Mrs. Nash took no notice of her official existence that day. But it was all she could do to keep her footing in what appeared one continual rush, when her brain reeled in her efforts to memorise the names and faces of the girls whom she coached in their first hockey practice.

She did not relax until after dinner, when those mistresses who were without the privilege of private sitting-rooms, gathered together in the large library. Stretched by the side of Kewpie, in a shabby Varsity chair, she lit her first cigarette and felt at peace.

Presently Miss Yaxley-Moore strolled in and stood in front of the fire. She wore a tailored dinner-suit with a frilled white shirt, over which her dark sardonic face glowed like an overripe mulberry.

A minute later, Miss Melody panted into the room, her small face a map of lines, and began to pour out coffee with frantic haste.

"Did you find the sheet you've been looking for all day?" asked Miss Yaxley-Moore, flashing her monocle around her, to pick up eyes.

"I did," snapped Miss Melody.

"Congratulations. Where was it?"

"On a bed."

"What a remarkable place to find it. And—if you don't mind, I prefer my coffee in my cup. It is not my custom to drink out of my saucer."

It was evident that the Matron had her following, for a laugh spluttered round the room. Caroline's sympathies, however, were with Miss Melody, whose hands were trembling as she hunted for clean china.

Mindful of the Professor's warning, she choked down her indignation, as she became aware that one of the mistresses was watching her intently. The woman's appearance was rather remarkable, since she was thin to emaciation, with amber hair and hollow, rouged cheeks; but there was attraction about her brilliant blue-green eyes and the moulding of her face.

"Who's that?" whispered Caroline.

"Auriol," replied Kewpie. "Teaches the juniors music. Been on the operatic stage, or says so...Crashing liar."

"She looks desperately ill."

"Hysteria. She starves at meals but eats tinned stuff in her room."

At that moment, Miss Auriol attracted general attention to Caroline by a question in a low carrying voice, suggestive of stage training.

"Did you bleach that strand of hair?"

Caroline bit her lip, for she was sensitive about the prematurely-white lock on the left side of her parting.

"The doctor thought it was the result of shock when I was a child," she explained. "But my mother used to joke about it and say it was the Gipsy's Curse. You see, just before I was born, she refused to let a tramp tell her fortune, so she prophesied that I should be marked."

She broke off in confusion when she noticed that the Matron was also staring at her through her monocle.

"If your mother had received a classical education," she remarked, "she would have known that the superstition she derided is the Wisdom of the Ages. Every rite we practise to avert ill-luck is of occult origin and is part of an ancient ritual to avert the power of elemental Evil."

"But mother went to Girton," protested Caroline. "My family is terribly intellectual."

"In that case, I do not need to tell you that every one has an undeveloped third eye. It still survives in some of us as an extra sense which is denied to others. You can call it second-sight... I, for one, can foretell the future."

As she scowled at Caroline, challenging contradiction, a maid ducked across the room and whispered to the Matron.

"Madam has been ringing for you. She said to tell you she was expecting you at nine."

Miss Yaxley-Moore glanced at the clock which showed that the time was ten minutes past nine.

"Tell her I am coming," she commanded.

To Caroline's amazement, she made no movement towards the door. Instead, she lit another cigarette, as though to demonstrate the fact that Madam could await her pleasure. Gulping down the smoke with relish, she continued to boast.

"I have—Something—which is given only to a few. I am often conscious of imprisoned Power which is struggling to free itself."

As she spoke she suddenly inflated her chest and rose upon the tips of her toes, as though to illustrate some invisible inflation. The effect was startling and Caroline almost expected to see the vast form shoot up into the air, as she listened.

"I have a feeling," went on the Matron, "that it I were to let myself be carried away by this Force, I could make things happen which are outside Nature. I dare not test it—but I believe that if I were to wish for some one's death, that person would die."

A slight gasp went round the circle. Glancing at their faces, Caroline was struck by the diversity of expression—excitement, interest, incredulity, in one instance—fear.

Miss Auriol, the music-mistress, clasped her thin hands tightly as she stared at Miss Yaxley-Moore with rapt eyes.

"It's true. All of it's true," she declared in a low vibrant voice. Miss Melody alone bristled like a chained dog which scents an antagonistic approach, yet is unable to attack. Rattling china in protest, she carried the coffee-tray out of the room.

The Matron watched her go—a sneering smile on her thick lips—before she tossed her cigarette stub into the grate and sauntered away.

Caroline's brain was racing when she went to bed that night. Although she was tired, she lay awake, passing in review the impressions which crowded her mind.

A dead games mistress—so terrified of things that crawled—that her self-control crashed at the sight of a harmless spider. A snake that wriggled across her path as an omen of misfortune.

Faces...Miss Auriol, the music mistress—a beautiful painted skull. Melody, the housekeeper—faithful and fierce. Kewpie with her broad spraying smile. The dark swollen features of Yaxley-Moore.

Lastly, the Head—draped, invisible and inaudible. What was behind the veil?

"I wonder if she's there at all?" thought Caroline.