by Susan Barrie
“Oh, you are a dear!” Her eyes revealed her appreciation, and she hugged the penguin to her like a much smaller child’ hugging a doll. “It’s almost as good as a teddy bear, and I always loved teddy bears, although I haven’t had one for ages. I shall call it Joey, and it will, of course, sleep on my bed!” She surveyed Lucy with interest. “But now tell me all that you did in London, and did you like seeing your sister again? Did you have fun?”
“Yes, I suppose I had quite a lot of fun.” This was true, because Kathleen was always a most enlivening person to be with, but somehow Lucy did not include her evening at the Colossus as providing her with very much “fun.”
“And you went to a nightclub? I always think a nightclub must be wildly exciting! Did you dance?”
“Yes, I danced.” But here again Lucy was unable to enthuse, for although Kathleen and Clifford had both been so certain that she would enjoy it and that it would be good for her, the hour spent sitting on the fringe of a dance floor, beneath rainbow colored lighting effects, and sipping champagne at a price that she was quite sure Clifford could not afford, had almost bored her—although naturally she had not let her relatives know this.
“And you wore a pretty dress?” Miranda asked, with even keener interest.
“Oh, yes, I wore a very pretty dress.”
Miranda sat back in her chair, while Lucy smiled at her, and suddenly she sighed—a sigh of the deepest satisfaction.
“But now that you’re back you’re not sorry, are you? You’re glad to know that you’re going to stay here, perhaps for always? And it could be for always, couldn’t it?”
Lucy met Miss Fiske’s eyes—sad, faded, elderly gray eyes that watched the child with a kind of haunted pity behind her back—and she heeded the little, quick shake of the head the other gave.
“Well, if not for always, at least for quite a while! So long as you really want me.”
“I’ll want you for years and years!”
Fiske stirred her tea and sipped it—she knew no jealousy, only a desire that Miranda should be made as happy as possible.
Miranda sighed again and continued to hug the penguin. “It’s going to be grand fun,” she declared, “just you and me and Abbott and Fiske!”
But Lucy, remembering the cold eyes of Lynette Harling—strange eyes like northern ice floes, under truly amazing eyelashes—felt all at once acutely doubtful. But, mercifully, Miranda knew nothing yet of Lynette Harling. Lucy felt the urgent wish rise up within her that it might be some time—the longest possible time—before the ballerina made her inevitable impact on the life of the small invalid.
CHAPTER SIX
But Nurse Nolan’s wish was doomed to be one of those wishes that is not granted, for she had barely had time to settle down again at Ketterings, and feel the uneventfulness of its day-to-day routine catching her up once more, before the telephone message was received that threw the whole household into a state almost of upset.
It was Purvis who answered the telephone, and it was Mrs. Abbott who conveyed the news to Lucy. The house was to be put into a state of complete preparedness for the reception of no less than three guests. Three guests and Sir John, who would be arriving before the weekend!
Mrs. Abbott looked almost affronted, as well as bewildered, as she removed the dustcovers from the main drawing room that was seldom if ever used, and opened up guestrooms on the first floor that were so very splendid that they seemed to Lucy to have much more in common with state apartments than rooms wherein ordinary people would seek to enjoy a certain amount of repose. In particular, the “white” guestroom that Sir John had expressly requested should be made use of, and where everything was so virginally white that it could hardly have provided a better background for one who had danced her way into a good many hearts as an ice maiden. There were white-brocade curtains flowing before the big windows, a white carpet, and the only effective contrast was provided by the black-and-silver bathroom adjoining.
Lucy helped Mrs. Abbott make up the low French bed, and she had a mental picture of the flaming red head of Lynette Harling, for, somehow, she had no doubts at all that the ballerina was to be one of the three guests, nestling deeply and luxuriously amidst the piled-up, downy pillows, with the crepe-de-chine sheet drawn up beneath her curiously pointed, but otherwise perfectly beautiful chin. And when she carried an armful of towels into the bathroom, and arranged them over the glittering towel racks, she saw Lynette reclining like Venus in the white porcelain bath, and afterward trailing back into her bedroom wearing something superlative in the way of a transparent negligee.
She had never seen Lynette dance, but she had read and heard enough about her to be aware that as Giselle, and in The Sleeping Beauty she was unequalled. Some of the critics even raved so much about her that Pavlova, according to them, had never possessed such grace, or been able to completely enrapture as Lynette Harling did.
Lucy had only met her on one occasion coming out of a theater, and although the beauty and the grace had undoubtedly been there in fullest measure, she had been so far removed from being enraptured by her that her memory of that night was tinged by the oddest feeling of apprehension.
Purvis was perhaps the most agitated person in the house during those hectic few days of preparation, for it was on his shoulders that the responsibility rested for everything meeting with the approval of the master when he arrived. But Lucy thought he had nothing to worry about, for Ketterings, when it was dressed up to receive visitors, was indeed the perfect country home.
The whole house smelled of flowers, beeswax and scented wood fires. The flowers had been arranged by Mrs. Abbott, who was something of an expert at such matters, and they formed sheaves at the foot of the lovely, curling staircase, with its rose red carpet that flowed upward into all the corridors, and were simply banked up in the drawing room, where every piece of china and crystalware shone. In the dining room the sideboard groaned beneath the blaze of Georgian silver.
Miranda was excited by all these preparations, but she displayed little desire to meet the guests. She even sought to gain reassurance from Lucy that she would not be forced to meet them if she did not wish to do so.
“Well, I don’t suppose they’ll force themselves on you if you’d rather they didn’t,” Lucy answered, feeling doubtful, however, when she thought of Lynette. For it would be natural for a prospective stepmother to want to meet her prospective stepdaughter! “And we can always noise it abroad that you’re not absolutely at your best!”
But, as it happened, there was no need for Lucy to make any excuses on behalf of Miranda when the great day arrived, and the guests were practically due, for Miranda selected that day to have one of her really bad days. It might have been the excitement, of all the preparations—and perhaps an underlying feeling of uncertainty—but she did sometimes have these days, and when she had them the only person she could bear to have sit beside her was Lucy.
Lucy knew exactly what to do to make the pain more bearable, although the sight of Miranda enduring this pain was not easily bearable, and in addition to the drugs that were resorted to on these occasions, she would draw her chair as close as she could get it to Miranda’s bed, hold her hand and read to her from one of her favorite anthologies of verse.
It was always the same anthology, and usually the same verses that Miranda listened to so raptly while Lucy read them over and over again. Some of them were very childish, others were pure nonsense, and one or two had a wistful charm and fancifulness that appealed to the invalid. With all the color drained out of her face, bone shadows heightened so that there appeared to be little flesh left on them, perspiration beading her lips, and her eyes startlingly, blazingly blue, she would grow impatient if Lucy so much as paused, and give her fingers a hot little commanding squeeze.
“Go on! Don’t stop, Noly! Don’t stop...!”
And Lucy would take up the thread of the three dwarfs who lived on the isle of Lone:
Their house was small and sweet of the se
a,
And pale as the Malmsey wine;
Their bowls were three, and their beads were three,
And their nightcaps white were nine.
Or Miranda might suddenly request her to read something else, and she would begin again:
As we sailed out of London river.
Sing a lo lay and a lo lay lone,
I heard a maid sing—’Come back, never!’
And a lo lay lone.
Sometimes Miranda fell asleep and then Lucy would quietly close the book and steal away and leave her, because almost invariably when she woke up the pain would be better, and she would be almost herself again. But on the day her father was expected to arrive with his friends she seemed quite unlikely to succumb to any sort of languor, although Lucy suspected that the pain was even worse than usual. She seemed tensed up, quite apart from the pain, and there was a “listening” look in her face as she lay watching Lucy scanning the lines in the anthology, and for once she was not following every word as it left Lucy’s lips. Lucy proved this by pausing suddenly and gazing at her, and Miranda inquired, in a kind of still, hushed voice, “How soon will they be here?”
Lucy glanced out of the window, and saw that the shadows were creeping across the lawns. The lake looked quiet and gray as the light faded out of the sky, and the stealthy mantle of dusk began its slow creeping down over the surrounding moorland.
“I should say that they would be here at any moment now.”
As she uttered the words she could feel the movement that was going on below stairs, where an anxious Purvis, and Mrs. Abbott, and the rest of their staff, moved ceaselessly up and down corridors, opening doors and peering into rooms—making sure that everything was as it should be.
Miranda’s fingers clung moistly to Lucy’s.
“But when they come you won’t go away and leave me, will you? You’ll stay here with me?”
Lucy looked at her—her beseeching eyes, the colorless, drawn and slightly drooping lips.
“Of course I’ll stay,” she promised, and gave a quick squeeze to the fingers.
Miranda managed to smile at her.
It was about half an hour later that they heard the cars crunching over the gravel of the driveway, and Lucy knew that Purvis was swinging wide the great front door. There were voices—a sudden, peculiarly high laugh, followed by a succession of quick movements on the stairs. Bells began to ring, the footsteps moved more agitatedly up and down the stairs, and Mrs. Abbott passed their door, breathing rather heavily, on her way to the new west wing.
Miranda developed two high spots of color on her cheeks, and her eyes began to look somewhat overbright as they watched the door. Her insistence on doing so proved to Lucy that she was fearful of some irruption into the room that would suddenly bring her face to face with either one or more complete strangers, and in order to distract her mind she began to talk quickly to her, and then to read to her, but Miranda seemed scarcely to listen. At last there came a quick tap on the door, and the little underhousemaid, Eva, looked in nervously. Eva was a village girl, not much more than sixteen, and she was slightly pop-eyed with the excitement of the past hour or so.
“What is it, Eva?” Lucy asked quickly.
Eva looked toward her, and drew a deep breath.
“It’s a message from Mrs. Abbott, nurse. Sir John says will you go at once to the lady’s room!”
Lucy’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“The lady, Eva? Which lady, and which room?”
“The lady in the white room, nurse,” Eva replied, her voice almost awed by the importance of her message. “The lady who dances—the one with red hair!”
“Miss Harling?”
“Yes, that’s her name—Miss Harling!”
“What’s the matter with her? Is she ill?”
“I don’t think so.” Eva turned quickly to grasp the doorknob again, for she had been ordered not to delay. “Evans is in there helping her maid to unpack, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong. But the clothes ... you never saw such masses of clothes!” Eva’s eyes sparkled at the recollection. “All over the place!”
“Very well, Eva,” Lucy dismissed her quietly. “You can let Miss Harling know that I’ll be down to see her as soon as I can manage it.”
But inwardly anger was taking possession of her in a kind of wave, for the imperiousness of the summons was almost like a deliberate affront. And Sir John had apparently countenanced it! Sir John, who was aware that she was employed solely in the capacity as a kind of nurse-companion for his daughter, and not someone who was to be at the beck and call of the Lynette Harlings of this world!
The anger made her feel hot with indignation, and when she looked down at Miranda and saw that the child was regarding her with almost an imploring look in her eyes, it grew until she realized that her own eyes must be sparkling a little indignantly.
“You’re not going to leave me, are you, Noly?” Miranda begged. “Not just because Eva said you were to?”
“I’m going to get Fiske to sit with you,” Lucy replied. “But before that I’m going to give you your sedative.” This was a sedative that seldom failed to have the desired result of sending Miranda off into the pain-free sleep she needed. “And I promise to sit with you until you get really drowsy That all right?” forcing herself to smile in a composed and reassuring manner.
“Yes.” Miranda sighed rather raggedly. “But I wonder what she wants you for—the woman with red hair?”
“Miss Harling to you, my love,” Lucy rebuked her gently. And then she added, “Oh, I expect she’s got a headache, and wants to borrow an aspirin, or something of the sort.”
“Perhaps she does,” Miranda agreed. Although she was strung up, she was also tired, and it was not long before the sedative took effect and Lucy was able to leave her with Fiske.
Lucy went downstairs to the first floor with a riot of the oddest sensations surging in her—curiosity, a sharp feeling of indignation directed against Sir John because he had not yet been to see his daughter, anxiety because Miranda made so little progress, and annoyance because she had been sent for like a servant to attend upon one of the visitors. Not that, if one of the visitors really needed her, she would have had any objection at all to doing her best for her, in whatever way she needed her services, but there were various methods of requesting those services and Lucy felt strongly that the happiest had not been made use of on this occasion.
Or, maybe, it was because she had already met Miss Harling that the antagonism was so easily aroused.
Miss Harling’s own voice called a languid “Come in” when she tapped on the door of the white room. At first the blaze of light inside the room almost dazzled her, for every silk-shaded light was switched on, and even the bathroom was brilliantly illuminated. The two maids were kneeling beside wide-open suitcases and trunks in the middle of the floor, and every article of furniture seemed draped with clothing, while the bed was a sea of exquisite underwear. Lynette Harling herself was reclining on a couch covered in white corded silk, with a little pile of cushions supporting one of her slender ankles, and she was wearing a brocade housecoat of a dull peach color that seemed to have borrowed its hue from her hair. That hair was wound in a coronet of plaits around her regally poised small head, and her eyes were bright and green—and venomous, almost, as the eyes of a snake.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, as Lucy moved slowly forward over the thick white carpet to the side of her couch. “So it is you, Nurse Nolan!”
Lucy said quietly, “Yes, Miss Harling. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Lynette Harling’s eyes narrowed. They took in the fact that Lucy was not wearing a uniform and that her slim-fitting navy blue dress, with its white collar and cuffs—which Lucy had decided was at least businesslike—had obviously been created by a first-class dressmaker. And the way Lucy wore her hair curling softly all over her head, and forming feathers of fringe on her white forehead, the rather delicate pure oval of her face, were all things t
hat at that moment added fuel to the fire of the ballerina’s annoyance, that had been rising moment by moment before Lucy knocked at the door. And she decided now that this nurse—if she was a nurse—had too cool and calm an air of condescension about her and she found it vastly irritating.
“I sent for you a long time ago!” she said sharply.
“About a quarter of an hour ago, Miss Harling, but I couldn’t leave my patient.”
“Your patient? You mean Miranda?”
“Naturally I mean Miranda.”
“But Miranda’s not ill! I mean—she’s an invalid, but she’s not exactly ill. She can’t walk, I believe?”
“No, she can’t walk,” Lucy agreed, and her voice was so extremely quiet now that Miss Harling stared at her rather hard, and felt the hot blood rise slowly to the alabaster smoothness of her cheeks. She dug two sharp white teeth into her lower lip.
“I can’t walk, either—at least, I can only walk with difficulty, because I sprained my ankle rather badly some weeks ago, and it still pains me at times. I sent for you to give it massage—which I imagine you must be capable of doing?” with an unpleasant look. “You are a trained nurse, aren’t you?”
“I’m a state-registered nurse, if that’s what you mean.”
“It doesn’t really mean a thing to me, but I’ll take your word that you know something about ankles, at least. And mine is hurting me.” She stuck it out on the cushions in front of her, but there was no sign of any swelling as far as Lucy was able to observe. “I must have given it a twist either getting in or out of the car today.”