No Escape by Josephine Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

go away for treatment as a voluntary patient. It’s obviously mental.”
    Jane disagreed but said nothing. She found Sheila sitting up in bed staring in front of her, the old listless expression on her face again.
    â€œWell, here I am,” Jane said, cheerfully.
    â€œPull the curtains,” Sheila answered sinking back on her pillows.
    Jane did so and in the seeming privacy of the cubicle drew her chair close to the bed and described her afternoon, her conversation with Mrs Coates, her success with the packing and her encounter with Gerald Stone. In spite of his instructions she felt she was justified in disregarding them. Something must be done to pull Sheila out of her present apathy.
    She was only too successful. At the first mention of his name the girl shrank down in the bed, covering the lower part of her face with her hand in a gesture Jane had seen several times and which appeared to express an extreme horror.
    â€œYou do know him?” Jane asked gently, puzzled by the unexpected and violent response.
    Sheila nodded.
    â€œHe said he knew your family. Is that true, too?”
    With an effort the girl murmured, “He’s met them, yes.”
    â€œBut he’s not an old friend of theirs?”
    â€œIs that what he said?”
    â€œNot exactly. Not in so many words. But I gathered he meant it. Was he making it up to impress me?”
    â€œNo. Why should he?”
    Sheila’s hand dropped back on to the bed. The look of hopeless despair was on her face again and for the first time Jane began to have serious doubts of her sanity. But she attempted once more to get at the real cause of the girl’s condition.
    â€œI wish you could trust us here,” she began. “You know we only want to help you. At least you could tell me . You know me. I don’t live in the hospital. I’m sure I could help you if you’d let me.”
    â€œNo one can help me,” said Sheila, dully. In the same quiet voice she went on, “I’ll be all right when I get home. I’ll go for a job in Reading and live with Mum and Dad. If they’ll only leave me alone.”
    â€œWho? Your Mum and Dad? Or the Press? You mean the newspapers, I suppose?”
    â€œThe newspapers?”
    â€œYou said ‘If they’ll only leave me alone.’ Did you mean journalists or who did you mean? Tell me, Sheila! Please, please tell me!”
    They were back where they started, with Sheila cowering on the pillows, speechless, shaking.
    Jane gave up. She had learned nothing and she no longer trusted Sheila to speak the truth, even about her immediate plans. If they let her go tomorrow, would she travel to Reading or would she dive straight back into her bedsitter in Shepherd’s Bush? She might even dive straight back into the Thames.
    As she left the cubicle, she saw Sister at the end of the ward and went up to her. Sister was not helpful. She was a plump, motherly-looking person, but she clearly had no maternal feelings for Bed 12.
    â€œYou can tear yourself to pieces for that type of girl,” she said, “but you get nowhere in the end. Nowhere at all.”
    â€œBut surely she isn’t fit to leave hospital?”
    â€œI thought you disagreed with me when I said so just now? Not that I want to keep her in my ward. We aren’t a psychiatric unit. Physically she’s fit enough. Or as fit as many are that do leave.”
    â€œHer strapping isn’t off yet.” Jane was now convinced that Sheila ought to stay where she was.
    â€œHer strapping came off this morning. A good old strapping rash right round to her back.” Sister gave a short laugh. “Trust her to be allergic.”
    â€œYou don’t like her, do you? I think she’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”
    Sister sighed.
    â€œYou know her, of course. I’ve got three genuinely pathetic cases in this ward. Tragedies, all of them. They don’t compare with Miss