'I am sorry I hurt your face. I was only so thrown, to be brought in here, as a lunatic; when all the time it was the other lady, Miss Lilly— Mrs Rivers— that was meant to come.'
Again they stood and looked me over.
'You must call us nurse when you speak to us,' the dark one said at last. 'But between you and me, dear, we would rather you didn't speak to us at all. We hear that much nonsense— well. Come along. You must be bathed, so that Doctor Christie may look at you. You must be put in a gown. Why, what a little girl! You must be no more than sixteen.'
She had come close, and made to catch at my arm. I drew away from her.
'Will you listen to me?' I said.
'Listen to you? La, if I listened to all the rubbish I heard in this house, I should go mad myself. Come on, now.'
Her voice, that had started off mild, grew sharper. She took hold of my arm. I flinched from the feel of her fingers. 'Watch her,' said Nurse Spiller, seeing me twitch.
I said, 'If you'll only not touch me, I'll go with you, wherever you want.'
'Ho!' said the dark nurse then. 'There's manners. Come with us, will you? Very grateful, I'm sure.'
She pulled me and, when I tugged against her grip, Nurse Spiller came to help her.
They got their hands beneath my arms and more or less lifted me, more or less 258
dragged me, out of the room. When I kicked and complained— which I did, from the shock of it— Nurse Spiller got those great hard fingers of hers into my arm-pit, and jabbed. You can't see bruises in an arm-pit. I think she knew it. 'She's off!' she said, when I cried out.
'That's my head ringing for the rest of the day,' said the other. And she gripped me tighter and shook me.
Then I grew quiet. I was afraid I should be punched again. But I was also looking hard at the way we were taking— at the windows and the doors. Some doors had locks.
All the windows had bars on. They looked over a yard. This was the back part of the house— what should have been, in a house like Briar, the servants' part. Here it was given over to nurses. We met two or three of them as we walked. They wore aprons and caps, and carried baskets, or bottles, or sheets.
'Good morning,' they all sang out.
'Good morning,' my nurses answered.
'New 'un?' one asked at last, with a nod at me. 'Come up from the pads? Is she bad?'
'Cracked Nancy on the cheek.'
She whistled. 'They should bring 'em in bound. Young, though, ain't she?'
'Sixteen, if she's a day.'
'I'm seventeen,' I said.
The new nurse looked at me, in a considering sort of way.
'Sharp-faced,' she said, after a minute.
Ain't she, though?'
'What's her trouble? Delusions?'
And the rest,' said the dark nurse. She dropped her voice. 'She's the one— you know?'
The new nurse looked more interested. 'This one?' she said. 'Looks too slight for that.'
'Well, they come in all sizes . . .'
I didn't know what they meant. But being held up for strangers to study, and talk and smile over, made me ashamed, and I kept silent. The woman went off on her way and my two nurses gripped me tight again and took me, down another passage, to a little room. It might have once been a pantry— it was very like Mrs Stiles's pantry, at Briar— for there were cupboards, with locks upon them, and an arm-chair and a sink.
Nurse Spiller sat down in the chair, giving a great sigh as she did so. The other nurse put water in the sink. She showed me a slip of yellow soap and a dirty flannel.
'Here you are,' she said. And then, when I did nothing: 'Come on. You've hands, haven't you? Let's see you wash.'
The water was cold. I wet my face and arms, then made to wash my feet.
'That will do,' she said, when she saw me do that. 'Do you think Dr Christie cares how dusty your toes are? Here, now. Let's see your linen.' She caught hold of the hem of my shimmy, then turned her head to Nurse Spiller, who nodded. 'Good, ain't it? Too good for
this house. That'll boil up to nothing, that will.' She gave it a tug. 'You take that off, dear. We shall keep it, quite safe, against the day you leave us.— What, are you shy?'
'Shy?' said Nurse Spiller, yawning. 'Don't waste our time. And you, a married lady.'
'I ain't married,' I said. 'And I'll thank you both to keep your hands off my linen. I 259
want my own gown back, and my stockings and shoes. I need only speak with Dr Christie, and then you'll be sorry.'
They looked at me and laughed.
'Hoity-toity!' cried the dark nurse. She wiped her eyes. 'Dear me. Come, now. It's no use growing sulky. We must have your linen— it's nothing to me and Nurse Spiller, it's the rules of the house. Here's a new set, look, and a gown and— look here— slippers.'
She had gone to one of the cupboards and brought out a set of greyish underthings, and a wool gown, and boots. She came back to me, holding them, and Nurse Spiller joined her; and it was no good then how hard I argued and cursed, they got hold of me and stripped me bare. When they took off my petticoat, that glove of Maud's fell out. I had had it under the waistband. I bent and caught it up. 'What's that?' they said at once.
Then they saw it was only a glove. They looked at the stitching inside the wrist.
'Here's your own name, Maud,' they said. 'That's pretty work, that is.'
'You shan't have it!' I cried, snatching it back. They had taken my clothes and my shoes; but I had walked and torn and bitten that glove all night, it was all I had to keep my nerve up. I had the idea that, if they were to take it, I should be like a Samson shorn. Perhaps they noticed a look in my eye.
'One glove's no use, after all,' said the dark nurse to Nurse Spiller, quietly. 'And remember Miss Taylor, who had the buttons on a thread that she called her babies?
Why, she'd take the hand off, that tried to get a hold of one of those!'
So they let me keep it; and then I stood limp and let them dress me, through fear they would change their minds. The clothes were
all madhouse things. The corset had hooks instead of laces, and was too big for me.— 'Never mind,' they said, laughing. They had chests like boats. 'Plenty of room for growing in.' The gown was meant to be a tartan, but the colours had run. The stockings were short, like a boy's. The shoes were of india-rubber.
'Here you are, Cinderella,' said the dark nurse, putting them on me. And then, looking me over: 'Well! You shall bounce like a ball all right, in those!'