two-guinea nurse, for a confinement? And who who was going to engage
Alvina Houghton, even if they were ready to stretch their
purse-strings? After all, they all knew her as _Miss_ Houghton, with
a stress on the _Miss_, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse
Houghton. Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in
technically engaging one who was so much part of themselves. They
all preferred either a simple mid-wife, or a nurse procured out of
the unknown by the doctor.
If Alvina wanted to make her fortune--or even her living--she should
have gone to a strange town. She was so advised by every one she
knew. But she never for one moment reflected on the advice. She had
become a maternity nurse in order to practise in Woodhouse, just as
James Houghton had purchased his elegancies to sell in Woodhouse.
And father and daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to
rise to their supply. So both alike were defeated in their
expectations.
For a little while Alvina flaunted about in her nurse's uniform.
Then she left it off. And as she left it off she lost her bounce,
her colour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old,
slim, reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face.
And now it seemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt.
And in her civilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And
altogether, she looked older: she looked more than her age, which
was only twenty-four years. Here was the old Alvina come back, rather
battered and deteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of
the trollops in her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives
decided. But she was a lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a
lady. And that was rather irritating to the well-to-do and florid
daughter of W.H. Johnson, next door but one. Undeniably a lady, and
undeniably unmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured
but easy-coming young men in the Chapel Choir, where she resumed her
seat. These young men had the good nature of dogs that wag their tails
and expect to be patted. And Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a
pat from such a shabbily-black-kid-gloved hand would not have been so
flattering--she need not imagine it! The way she hung back and looked
at them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and
yet with the well-bred indifference of a lady--well, it was almost
offensive.
As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from her
interest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like
a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm
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