sweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable.
"I can't stay here all my life," she declared, stretching her eyes
in a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester House
extremely. "I know I can't. I can't bear it. I simply can't bear it,
and there's an end of it. I can't, I tell you. I can't bear it. I'm
buried alive--simply buried alive. And it's more than I can stand.
It is, really."
There was an odd clang, like a taunt, in her voice. She was trying
them all.
"But what do you want, dear?" asked Miss Frost, knitting her dark
brows in agitation.
"I want to go away," said Alvina bluntly.
Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand, of helpless
impatience. It was so characteristic, that Alvina almost laughed.
"But where do you want to go?" asked Miss Frost.
"I don't know. I don't care," said Alvina. "Anywhere, if I can get
out of Woodhouse."
"Do you wish you had gone to Australia?" put in Miss Pinnegar.
"No, I don't wish I had gone to Australia," retorted Alvina with a
rude laugh. "Australia isn't the only other place besides
Woodhouse."
Miss Pinnegar was naturally offended. But the curious insolence
which sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from her
father.
"You see, dear," said Miss Frost, agitated: "if you knew what you
wanted, it would be easier to see the way."
"I want to be a nurse," rapped out Alvina.
Miss Frost stood still, with the stillness of a middle-aged
disapproving woman, and looked at her charge. She believed that
Alvina was just speaking at random. Yet she dared not check her, in
her present mood.
Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She had never thought of being
a nurse--the idea had never entered her head. If it had she would
certainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander
speak of Nurse This and Sister That. And so she had rapped out her
declaration. And having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick
to it. Nothing like leaping before you look.
"A nurse!" repeated Miss Frost. "But do you feel yourself fitted to
be a nurse? Do you think you could bear it?"
"Yes, I'm sure I could," retorted Alvina. "I want to be a maternity
nurse--" She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess.
"I want to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attend
operations." And she laughed quickly.
Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscent
of the way she beat time, insistently, when she was giving music
lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat
without time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly.
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>