Read Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) for Free Online Page B

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 sea,
    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