Читать книгу The Governess - Julie M. Lippmann - Страница 11

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"I am deeply sorry," said Mr. Turner, "and can only apologize in my friend's name for any annoyance his daughter may have caused you. Of course I cannot agree with you that she annoys you purposely. A child of William Cutler could not well be other than large-hearted and generous. She may be a little undisciplined perhaps, but it shall be attended to, Madam! I assure you the matter shall be attended to."

Mrs. Newton rose. She had called upon Mr. Turner to state her complaint against Nan Cutler. Now that was accomplished she would go; only she made a mental vow that if the lawyer were not as good as his word, if he did not take immediate steps toward rectifying the matter, she would follow it up herself and see that she was relieved of what, in her anger, she called "that common nuisance."

Meantime Nan herself was going about with a dead load of misery on her heart. Delia had gone to the Newton's house early in the morning to inquire after the sick child's condition and to repeat Nan's story to her mother, but that lady was "not at home," and Delia understood that to mean that Mrs. Newton declined to receive either her or her explanation. She went home angry and disappointed.

"I guess the little girl ain't much hurt," she announced to Nan. "She's in bed to be sure, but I guess that's more on account of her cold than anything else. She isn't going to be crippled, Nan, now don't you fret. She'll be all right. Now you see if she ain't."

Nan's own flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, the result of her yesterday's chilly adventures, worried the good woman not a little. If she had dared she would have liked to "coddle her child," but Nan was not one of the coddling kind, and would have scorned being made a baby of. She went about the house in one of her unhappy moods, restless and wretched and unable to amuse herself, and finding the hours never-endingly long.

When the bell rang she welcomed the sound as a grateful diversion and ran to the balusters and hung over the railing to see who might be the new-comer. She was glad of any break in the monotony of such a miserable day.

When Delia opened the door and admitted Mr. Turner, Nan's heart gave a big leap. Visions of what might be in store for her, the result of Mrs. Newton's action against her, thronged her brain and made her shudder with apprehension. What if Mr. Turner had come to say that she was to be sent to the House of Correction, or some horrid boarding-school where one don't get enough to eat and where one couldn't poke one's nose outside the door. A set expression settled on the girl's face that did not augur well for her reception of whatever plan the lawyer might have to propose.

When Delia came to call her, she sighed. She saw plainly enough that Nan's "contrary fit" was on, and she wondered how much the lawyer would accomplish by his visit under the circumstances.

Nan went down to him sullenly determined to stand by her guns and absolutely refuse to be committed to either a reformatory or any other establishment of a similar character.

"How do you do, my dear?" was Mr. Turner's kindly greeting as the girl entered the room.

Nan replied, "Very well, sir," thinking, at the same time, that she would not be disarmed by kindness nor permit herself to be cajoled into doing anything she did not wish to do. No one really had the right to order her about, and she would resolutely oppose any one who assumed such a right.

But presently she found herself telling her father's friend the story of yesterday's disaster, quite simply and with entire willingness.

"So," Mr. Turner said at the conclusion, "I thought that the good lady must have made a mistake. I felt pretty sure your father's daughter would never be guilty of cowardice nor of deliberately planning to destroy the peace of any one. I knew you could not be the girl Mrs. Newton described. She seemed to think you were—why, my dear, she gave me to understand that you were quite wild and lawless; that you were a bad influence in the neighborhood, and that you were so with full consciousness of what you were doing. We must explain to Mrs. Newton! We must explain!"

"I don't lie!" declared Nan. "And I'm not a coward, and I don't try to make her mad or hurt her children, but I do climb trees and I do race and do figures on roller-skates, and I do do the rest of the things she says I do and that she doesn't like."

"And your school?" ventured the lawyer.

"I don't go any more," announced Nan. "I had a fight with one of the teachers, and so I left."

Mr. Turner gazed suddenly upon the floor.

"And this 'fight' with the teacher? Do you remember the cause of the disturbance?" he asked, looking up after a moment.

"She struck me with her ruler. I had a rubber baby doll, it was the weeniest thing you ever saw, and she wore false puffs, Miss Fowler did, and one day, when I was at the blackboard and she was looking the other way, I just dropped the baby doll into one of the puffs that the hair-pin had come out of, and that was standing up on end, and it looked so funny on her head, the puff with the baby doll standing in it, that all the girls laughed, and then she asked me what I had done, and I told her, and she struck me. I wouldn't have said anything if she had just punished me. I knew it was wrong to pop that doll on her head, but I just couldn't help it—it looked too funny. But when she struck me! Well, I won't be struck by any one—and so I left."

The lawyer meditated in silence for a moment. Then he said:

"Well, my dear, I think I understand the condition of things here. Without doubt it is high time something were done. Your father, when he went away, gave me full authority to make such arrangements for you as I might feel were necessary, but until now I have rather avoided taking upon myself any responsibility. Possibly I have neglected my duty toward you. But now all that shall be changed. Don't you think if I were to send you—"

Nan's eyes blazed. So it was as she had felt sure it would be! She was to be sent away! She did not wait for the sentence to be finished.

"Send me to the House of Correction? I won't go, sir! I'll run away first! Or a horrid boarding-school, neither. I guess my father didn't mean me to be made unhappy, Mr. Turner; I guess he didn't mean any one to have authority to send me to awful places just because Mrs. Newton says so, away from Delia and things. You needn't send me anywhere, for I'll run away as sure as you do."