The Blind Side Read Online Free Page B

done.”
    â€œYes, I should,” said Lee, and opened the door.
    Mrs. Green paused on the threshold to groan and wreathe the faded shawl about her neck.
    â€œThere’s a bus I could get if I’d some coppers for it,” she said in hollow tones.
    Lee gave her sixpence, and was glad to see her go. But when she had shut the door her heart smote her and she thought, “How horrible to be a daily help, and have turns, and go round cadging brandy and bus fares.” She wondered if the turns were real, because if they were, perhaps she ought to see Mrs. Green safely back to wherever it was she lodged. She had taken off her dress and turned on the bath, but it came over her that she had been harsh. Supposing she had been a brute to Mrs. Green. Supposing Mrs. Green was swooning on the stairs or being taken up for dead in the street.…
    Lee put on her dress again and ran down. There was no one to be seen except Rush, who was crossing the hall. He looked so bad-tempered that Lee thought she wouldn’t ask him any questions. The big front door stood open. She ran down the steps and glanced up and down the street. A bus had just gone by. With any luck Mrs. Green must have caught it.
    She turned back, relieved, to meet Rush’s glowering eye.
    â€œI was looking to see if Mrs. Green had gone.”
    â€œWant her?” said Rush.
    â€œOh, no,” said Lee.
    â€œSnivelling hen,” said Rush.
    Lee ran upstairs with a clear conscience, and found the bath running over.
    The cold bath was delicious. When it had washed all the clammy, sticky heat away Lee ran some of it off and turned on the hot tap, because even on the most boiling day you can’t dally too long in an icy bath, and she wanted to dally. Thank goodness there was a communal hot water supply, very efficiently superintended by Rush, so she wouldn’t have to bother about lighting stoves or, what was more important, paying for fuel. She brought the water to a comfortable temperature and wallowed.
    A pity about South America, because she had always wanted to go there. Very annoying to have the relations proved perfectly right. Each, every, and all of them had warned her in the most aggravating and aggressive terms.
    Warning No. 1—Danger of South America as a destination.
    Warning No. 2—Danger of unknown and unpedigreed foreigners as an escort.
    And both warnings most lamentably and indubitably justified.
    She had got away all right, but there had been one or two horrid moments when she had wondered whether she was going to get away.
    Don’t be a fool. Stop thinking about it. It’s done, finished, dead. And it was Madeleine Deshenka’s fault. Of course the relations would rub it in. Relations always did.
    She achieved a philosophic calm. Whatever you did they talked, and however it turned out they said “I told you so.” Why worry? All the same, Peter Renshaw had better mind his step. The violence of their last quarrel still lingered excitingly in the mental atmosphere. In this very flat, in Cousin Lucy’s sitting-room, but during Cousin Lucy’s absence, the battle had raged. Lee recalled her own part in it with legitimate pride. She considered that she hurled a very pretty insult. She thought that she had put Peter in his place. If he was going to get uppish just because the Merville man had turned out to be a pig, there would be another really blazing row.
    Anyhow Peter would keep. She wasn’t going to see him or anyone else tonight. If the telephone bell rang, it could ring itself silly. If anyone came knocking on the door, they could go on knocking until they got bored and went away. Nobody was going to get a chance of saying “I told you so” tonight. Least of all Peter Renshaw. First she would have a long, long, lingering bath, and then she would fry eggs and bacon on the gas stove in the kitchenette, and make toast and tea—she had provisioned herself on the way from the