In the evening the children were all asked if they
had committed any faults during the day, and every evening
Nancy confessed that she had broken this particular rule. It cost
her sixpence a time, that being the fine attached to the offence.
Just for the information I asked her why she always confessed,
and she answered in these exact words:
"Oh, well, the girls of the Holy Child have always been noted for
their truthfulness. It's a beastly bore, but I've got to do it."
I dare say that the miserable nature of her childhood, coming
before the mixture of saturnalia and discipline that was her
convent life, added something to her queernesses. Her father was
a violent madman of a fellow, a major of one of what I believe are
called the Highland regiments. He didn't drink, but he had an
ungovernable temper, and the first thing that Nancy could
remember was seeing her father strike her mother with his
clenched fist so that her mother fell over sideways from the
breakfast-table and lay motionless. The mother was no doubt an
irritating woman and the privates of that regiment appeared to
have been irritating, too, so that the house was a place of outcries
and perpetual disturbances.
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