A Girl in Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

this morning.”
    Miss Green replaced her gloves with a genteel gesture. “Mother did suggest it. But it wasn’t hurting so much when I got up, and it doesn’t do to stay at home too often, does it? Mr. Anstey can be very rude.”
    “He gets worse every day. He’s got the manners of a dustman.”
    “How funny you should say that,” said Miss Green with a faint giggle, “because his father was only a Corporation workman. They used to live in Gas Street.”
    “Is he married? I wouldn’t be his wife.”
    “His wife died over five years ago.”
    “I’m sorry for her,” said Katherine. “She must have had a dog’s life. He’s so stupid. We don’t get on at all.”
    Again Miss Green gave the ghost of a giggle, as if she were watching another person break a rule.
    “Of course,” she said, a trifle more animated, “he’s only temporarily in the job at all. Mr. Rylands was the real head, you remember. Or did you never see him?”
    “No, I never did.”
    “He was a very different kind of person altogether. Young and very well-educated. He had a university degree. But when the war started he had to go into the army, unfortunately.”
    “Then they appointed Anstey, did they?”
    “Yes, he’d started as a junior assistant as soon as he left school and had been there ever since. He was senior assistant when Mr. Rylands left. I suppose they felt they had to appoint him.”
    “I can’t think why.”
    “He knows the work, I suppose.”
    “Well, perhaps he does. But he doesn’t know how to behave. He shouldn’t have any sort of authority.”
    Miss Green looked at her stealthily.
    “Have you been having a row with him?” she asked.
    “Not so far. Just one of his little lectures, this morning. One day, though, oh, one day——!”
    She gazed out of the shelter at the motionless branches: Miss Green studied her for a moment or two. Near at hand a sparrow was pecking for crumbs at a paper bag, and beyond it in the middle distance a tramp was looking into a salvage bin. The traffic circulated under the porticoes of the high buildings, the cars sounding their horns like ships lost at sea. She was glad to see that Miss Green had a little more colour.
    “Do you feel well enough to go on now?” she asked, turning back to her.
    Miss Green nodded and rose, but as she did so a sombre look came over her face. She put her hand up to her cheek. Katherine hesitated.
    “Is it hurting?”
    “Yes, it——” Miss Green looked at her fearfully. “I think it’s coming on again.”
    “Oh, surely not.”
    “Yes, it is. Oh, dear. It must have been the water, drinking.”
    Katherine’s heart sank. “Is it bad?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    There was a silence. Miss Green pressed harder against her cheek.
    Katherine shivered slightly in the cold. “Wouldn’t it be better to go to a dentist straightaway?”
    “Oh no. I’d sooner go home.”
    “But it would be just as bad at home.”
    “Yes, I know, but——”
    “I should go to a dentist now,” said Katherine. Miss Green did not answer, but looked so miserable that Katherine made up her mind to put an end to it for her. “Really I should. Then it would all be over.”
    “I daren’t,” Miss Green said brokenly.
    “But you wouldn’t have any more pain. Then you couldgo home. You’d have the whole week-end to get over it.”
    “I’m afraid,” said Miss Green, dryly tearful. “It would hurt so.”
    “You could have gas.”
    “It’s so expensive.”
    “But you wouldn’t feel a thing. It would be over before you knew it.”
    “This is much worse than it was before,” gasped Miss Green in a kind of sob. “I’m——”
    She turned away, hiding her face. Katherine realized that she was in no state of mind to make decisions, and determined to act.
    “I’ll tell you what. There’s a dentist near where I live, only three minutes away. In Merion Street. We’ll go there.”
    “Oh, no!—who is he? I want my own dentist.”
    “Where does he