“Nurses are accustomed to disturbing things. Perhaps I can help.”
“You can, by watching the children. That’s the only thing that matters
to me—the children. I don’t want them left alone. If you have to leave
them call me.”
“Don’t you think I will be able to watch them more intelligently if I
know just what the danger is?”
I think she very nearly told me. She was so tired, evidently so anxious
to shift her burden to fresh shoulders.
“Mr. Reed said,” I prompted her, “that there was an epidemic of
children’s diseases. But from what you say——”
But I was not to learn, after all, for her husband opened the hall door.
“Yes, children’s diseases,” she said vaguely. “So many children are
down. Shall we go up, Frank?”
The extraordinary bareness of the house had been dawning on me for some
time. It was well lighted and well furnished. But the floors were
innocent of rugs, the handsome furniture was without arrangement and, in
the library at least, stood huddled in the center of the room. The hall
and stairs were also uncarpeted, but there were marks where carpets had
recently lain and had been jerked up.
The progress up the staircase was not calculated to soothe my nerves.
The thought of my little revolver, locked in my suitcase, was poor
comfort. For with every four steps or so Mr. Reed, who led the way,
turned automatically and peered into the hallway below; he was
listening, too, his head bent slightly forward. And each time that he
turned, his wife behind me turned also. Cold terror suddenly got me by
the spine, and yet the hall was bright with light.
(Note: Surely fear is a contagion. Could one isolate the germ of it and
find an antitoxin? Or is it merely a form of nervous activity run amuck,
like a runaway locomotive, colliding with other nervous activities and
causing catastrophe? Take this up with Mr. Patton. But would he know?
He, I am almost sure, has never been really afraid.)
I had a vision of my oxlike predecessor making this head-over-shoulder
journey up the staircase, and in spite of my nervousness I smiled. But
at that moment Mrs. Reed behind me put a hand on my arm, and I screamed.
I remember yet the way she dropped back against the wall and turned
white.
Mr. Reed whirled on me instantly.
“What did you see?” he demanded.
“Nothing at all.” I was horribly ashamed. “Your wife touched my arm
unexpectedly. I dare say I am nervous.”
“It’s all right, Anne,” he reassured her. And to me, almost irritably:
“I thought you nurses had no nerves.”
“Under ordinary circumstances I have none.”
It was all ridiculous. We were still on the staircase.
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“If you will stop looking down into that hall I’ll be calm enough. You
make me jumpy.”
He muttered something about being sorry and went on quickly. But at the
top he went through an inward struggle, evidently succumbed, and took a
final furtive survey of the hallway below. I was so wrought up that had
a door slammed anywhere just then I think I should have dropped where I
stood.
The absolute silence of the house added to the strangeness of the
situation. Beauregard Square is not close to a trolley line, and quiet
is the neighborhood tradition. The first rubber-tired vehicles in the
city drew up before Beauregard Square houses. Beauregard Square children
speak in low voices and never bang their spoons on their plates.
Beauregard Square servants wear felt-soled shoes. And such outside
noises as venture to intrude themselves must filter through double brick
walls and doors built when lumber was selling by the thousand acres
instead of the square foot.
Through this silence our feet echoed along the bare floor of the upper
hall, as well lighted as belowstairs and as dismantled, to the door of
the day nursery. The door was locked—double locked, in fact. For the key
had been turned in the old-fashioned lock, and in addition an ordinary
bolt had been newly fastened on the outside of the door. On the outside!
Was that to keep me in? It was certainly not to keep any one or anything
out. The feeblest touch moved the bolt.
We were all three outside the door. We seemed to keep our compactness by
common consent. No one of us left the group willingly; or, leaving it,
we slid back again quickly. That was my impression, at least. But the
bolt rather alarmed me.
“This is your room,” Mrs. Reed said. “It is generally the day nursery,
but we have put a bed and some other things in it. I hope you will be
comfortable.”