Читать книгу The Third Eye - Ethel Lina White - Страница 9

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WILLIAM brought a new interest into Caroline's life, for the Abbey School was a manless place. Dr. Arum, the school physician, who called daily, was almost the only male visitor, and he was married and had a Victorian family—in numbers.

But although she was pleased by her own importance, the friendship added to her complications. William wrote at length and rang her up for short and uneasy talks over the telephone, when she always wondered if any one were listening-in, which was illustrative of her own sense of guilt.

She felt that she was pitting her influence against the authority of the Head whenever she urged him to stand on his own feet, especially as he seemed to rely on her encouragement. He was often moody and depressed, but while he was expansive over anything which touched the personal element, she was conscious of his reserve whenever they skirted the forbidden subject—the relationship between Miss Yaxley-Moore and the Head.

William was the person who could have raised the veil yet he always shut up like a pimpernel at the threat of wet weather when Caroline introduced the Matron's name. She could not crash his confidence, but she was aghast as gradually the depth of his bitterness against the Matron was revealed.

She dared not question Miss Melody, for she felt that the housekeeper was treading on egg-shells already, and might reveal too much for her own safety. Kewpie, too, would give nothing away. She might appear a feather-head in general, but the shrewdness of her spraying blue eyes often reminded Caroline that she had acquired those coveted letters after her name—B.A.

As it was obviously out of the question to pump Flora Baumgarten, although Caroline had the deepest respect for the school-girl's excellent brain, she tried in vain to find some definite evidence against the Matron. The fact that she was both a bully and a braggart could not touch Mrs. Nash; while as regarded her salary-value, she introduced the titled pupils who were a draw to social climbers—anxious that their daughters might acquire useful friends.

Caroline also had to admit that there was not a shred of foundation for her own suspicion that the Matron had scared her predecessor to death by a callous practical joke. Her own reaction in the matter was pure instinct. Moreover, Mrs. Nash showed no affection for Miss Yaxley-Moore, and seemed definitely on top of her. Her attitude was impersonal as a machine, while sometimes her voice, when she spoke to her, had an extra edge, as though she actually disliked her.

Yet there remained the mystery of the lighted window in the west wing, which continued to glow, although at longer intervals, through the winter. Something was wrong with the school. Caroline did her best to suppress her suspicions in her letters home to the flat, but the Professor, of course, put his finger on the spot.

"I like the lady who goes to bed with her boots on (as I assume she does)," he wrote. "She sounds a jolly little pet. Don't let her get on your nerves."

It was excellent advice for him to give, writing with his pad on his knee, before the fire, in the cheerful flat; but Caroline read his letter as she stood at her window overlooking the ruins, whose crumbling walls enclosed long damp grass, choked with docks and nettles.

She was seeing the school under specially gloomy conditions, as there had been practically no liaison season of autumn. The summer had lasted until the second week in October—when she arrived—and soon afterwards the temperature dropped prematurely, nipping nearly every bloom in a single night. One wet evening, when she felt especially under the weather, she decided, by way of antidote, to ring up William. Dinner was over and the coast seemed clear; but as she hurried to the telephone she met Parker—the young manservant who had admitted her on her first evening.

His forehead was wrinkled and he was fussing to and fro about the hall, as though uncertain of his direction.

"What's the matter, Charles?" asked Caroline, who knew his Christian name.

"I'm in a fix," he confided. "A trunk-call has just come, and I took it without thinking. I should have said she was out, and rung off."

"What d'you mean?"

"It's for Miss Yaxley-Moore. She's up with Madam. And I have orders never to disturb them. But it's from her half-sister. And the lady says it's important."

Caroline felt a throb of excitement, for the reason that she had never been able to believe altogether in the wonderful half-sister. Miss Yaxley-Moore had so consistently withheld all facts and details, while surrounding her with vague glamour, that she seemed an obsession, rather than an actual person.

"That alters it," she said. "You'll have to let her know. I'm sure she would be furious to miss a message from her half-sister."

Although he agreed, Charles's forehead grew yet more furrowed.

"Yes, miss...But I crashed the lights once before, and—and I didn't get a welcome. I think I'd best leave it."

His reluctance to brave Miss Yaxley-Moore's displeasure made Caroline genuinely anxious to save the situation for him. The fact that the semi-fabulous half-sister had assumed humanity and was actually waiting by a telephone at that minute seemed of paramount importance.

"I'll tell her," she offered.

Breaking into one of her famous sprints, she sped up the stairs and along the gallery to the west wing.

She had been in that part of the house only once before, so had but a vague idea of the location of Mrs. Nash's suite. Spurred on by the knowledge of a precious trunk-call dribbling to waste—while a Personage fumed at the other end of the wire—she knocked at the first likely door.

Receiving no summons to enter, she turned the handle, in the hope of getting a clue to her direction. To her consternation, instead of seeing a bedroom, she found that she was in the boudoir.

As she stood on the threshold, she was convicted by so strong a sense of intrusion that she could sympathise with Charles's unwillingness to commit a second blunder.

The whole atmosphere suggested intense intimacy and personal withdrawal, together with dim lights and the dreamy music of a gramophone record. Two forms were bent over a low table on which stood the large framed photograph of an officer in uniform. The beam from a small electric lamp was placed so as to shine directly upon it, giving it unnatural emphasis, as though it were the only vital thing in a world of shadows.

One of the women—Miss Yaxley-Moore—had her eyes covered with a dark silk bandage—imparting a horrible resemblance to an executioner—while her hand was outstretched on the runner of a Ouija-board.

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt," quavered Caroline, stressing the urgency of her excuse. "But a vitally important trunk-call has come through for you, from your half-sister."

With an exclamation of annoyance Miss Yaxley-Moore tore off her bandage.

"All right," she said. "I'm coming. You can go."

Caroline turned, too late to avoid hearing Mrs. Nash's whimper of protest.

"No, no! Don't break the current. Something may come...any moment now. Don't go, please."

The girl threw her one hurried glance and then rushed away down the corridor and back to the gallery, as though pursued by a ghost.

She ran away from a memory, for she wanted to forget what she had seen. To her self-controlled nature, there was something degrading in the metamorphosis of Mrs. Nash's face, with its twitching features, trembling lips and swimming eyes.

It reminded her of a childish disillusionment, when she had revisited an exhibition after it had sustained the ravages of time and weather. Mrs. Nash's self-abandonment was akin to the disintegration of those seemingly solid stone buildings, washed by rain to sodden pulp.

Parker was waiting for her in the hall as she bounded down the last flight of stairs. He looked so knowing that she thought he was going to wink, but he composed his features when she gave him the message.

"Miss Yaxley-Moore will take the call, Charles."

Still quivering with excitement, she ran to the housekeeper's room, where Miss Melody sat mending a pile of Mrs. Nash's stockings by a miserable light. She started to protest when Caroline—unable to endure the gloom—snapped on the main switch, but stopped at the sight of the girl's frightened face.

"How long has this spiritualism been going on?" asked Caroline.

Miss Melody laid down her work.

"So you've found out about it," she remarked. "It started when she came. Rosamund Nash was broken after her husband's death, and wanted to get into touch with him, but she wouldn't go to any mediums, for fear it might injure the school. And now she can get all she wants nice and quietly at home."

"Is it genuine?" asked Caroline, with a sudden recollection of the Matron's claim to supernatural powers.

Miss Melody hesitated, from force of habit, and then suddenly burst the dam of her silence.

"No! She's an out-and-out fraud. But she's so clever, she always finds out what's going to happen in advance. She's like Counsel for the Prosecution—all daisies and dewdrops—stringing people along with her innocent questions and trapping them into admissions. Then, when her prophecies come true, Rosa is impressed. There's no fool like a clever woman when you get her on the bend. Every now and then she's her old clear-headed self—but she always slips back again...It's like drugs; and it's so degrading. She has to beg for séances, and the Creature treats her like dirt when she has her where she wants her. She pretends the Major comes through to tell his wife how to run the school."

"How horrible for William!" cried Caroline, reminded of his twitching face.

After what she had just seen in the boudoir, she pitied Mrs. Nash, too—palsied and defenceless without her shell, like a quivering lump of lubber into which a bird of prey had hooked its claws.

"Yes," agreed Miss Melody bitterly. "He must enjoy seeing both his parents put through the hoop...Do you wonder now that I'd give anything to see that woman run out of the school?"

"No. But—but suppose she ran you out first?" hinted Caroline.

"Never. I'm here for life, and after. I don't believe in Spiritualism—in fact, I'm definitely against it—but nothing can stop me coming back to Rosa Nash when I'm dead."

Caroline felt a lump rise in her throat as she looked at the fierce little face. To reassure herself she stole back to the hall and rang up William. To his disappointment, however, she was more interested in Miss Melody's future than in his own problem.

"She's not everyone's money," she said. "Is there any danger of your mother giving her the sack?"

She was confronted by the decision in his reply.

"Never. I happen to know, because I asked her the same question myself. I have her word for it—never."