A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl (17 page)

"What could we fry?"

The commissariat question was indeed the problem of problems. The village was unfortunately out of bounds, so that, except on stated occasions, when they were escorted by a mistress, the girls were unable to do shopping "on their own". There are ways, however, of crawling through even the most barbed-wire fence of rules.

"Toddlekins never told us we weren't to ask anybody else to do shopping for us," said Wendy demurely. "When you've not been told not to do anything, you're not disobedient if you don't do it--oh! I'm getting rather in a muddle, but you know what I mean."

They did, and they grinned approval.

"There's a little boy working on the next farm," continued Wendy. "I've smiled and waved to him over the hedge sometimes. I believe he'd do
anything
for me. If you can stump up some cash, I'll get him to run an errand for us. He's picking stones out of the field at this present moment--at least, to be absolutely truthful, he was, ten minutes ago, and I don't suppose he's stopped. If I go to the orchard fence I can call to him."

The circle looked at Wendy with admiration. They had not before realized the riches of her resourcefulness. Each promised to contribute sixpence, and told her where to find their purses, so that they need not arouse suspicion by visiting their dormitories in a body.

"We'll be lighting the fire while you get the prog," they assured her.

So Wendy departed on her foraging expedition, collected the necessary funds after much hunting in various drawers and coat pockets, hurried to the orchard, and climbed the fence. Freddie Entwistle was still steadily engaged in the rural occupation of ridding his father's field of superfluous stones, but he kept an eye on the horizon, and at the sight of Wendy's beckoning finger he flung duty to the winds.

"D'you want me?" he grinned, as he came panting across the newly ploughed earth.

"Yes," said his siren sweetly. "I want you badly. Will you go to the village and buy something for me?"

"I don't mind. What shall I get?"

"Half a pound of biscuits and something to fry."

"Bacon?" suggested her swain laconically.

"N-n-no. We had bacon for breakfast."

"Kippers or ham?"

"I don't think kippers; but really it must be anything you can get. Here's the money. If there's any change, take it out in sweets."

"Right you are! I'll be as sharp as I can."

"It's something to have a knight-errant who's prepared to relieve a maiden in distress," reflected Wendy, seating herself on the fence to await the return of her chivalrous squire.

He came back in course of time with his pockets bulging with parcels, evidently very proud of himself for having executed his lady's commands. Her thanks and a commission of sweets left him radiant. He returned to his stone-picking, living in a dream.

The party on the island received Wendy with enthusiasm. The fire was burning beautifully in the bucket, the tin had been scoured with sand and well washed, large ivy leaves had been picked to serve as plates, and the company had their penknives ready.

"It's sausages!" exclaimed Wendy, opening one of the parcels; "and he's actually bought some lard to fry them in. What a brain--and only twelve! That boy'll be a general some day, if he doesn't die of over-cleverness. Biscuits to eat with them, my children, and some chocs. for dessert. I beg to propose that we accord a hearty vote of thanks to Freddie Entwistle."

"For he's a jolly good fellow! For he's a jolly good fellow!"

began Jess; but Diana promptly squashed her.

"Stop that noise! D'you want to give the whole show away, and have Lennie, and Nora, and Betty, and all the rest of the kids swarming down upon us? Anybody who can't keep quiet will be made to walk the plank. Yes, and splash into the river at the other end of it! We wouldn't pick you out either; we'd let you drown!"

"Then I'd sing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' as my 'dying swan song'," protested Jess. "The kids are far enough away. No one can hear us."

She took the hint, all the same, and did not allow her enjoyment to bubble over into music. Instead, she helped Wendy to prick the sausages with a penknife and place them on the temporary frying-pan. The biscuit-tin lid just fitted nicely over the bucket. In a few minutes there was a grand sound of fizzling, and a most delicious scent began to waft itself over the waters of the lake. The best of a bucket-fire is that everybody can sit round it in a circle and superintend the cooking operations. Eight penknives prodded the sausages so often that it was a wonder they were not all chopped to pieces before they were done. At last the connoisseurs declared they were brown enough, and they were carefully and mathematically halved and served on biscuits.

"Delicious!" decreed Tattie, critically.

"Couldn't have been better if Toddlekins had reared the piglets on our own farm," chimed in Peggy.

"Diana, you haven't taken a bite yet," commented Wendy.

"I'm not sure that I want any. I think I'll only have a biscuit, after all."

"Not want any? Not want the lovely sausages that I risked so much to get? Diana Hewlitt, what's the matter with you?"

"Oh, nothing--only----"

"Only nothing, I should say! Eat up that piece of sausage double quick, if you value my friendship."

"Suppose you eat it for me? That would be sentiment."

"No, it wouldn't; you must eat it yourself. There'll be a shindy if you don't. Our first feast! It's a sort of ceremonial!"

"Not 'the cup of brotherhood' but 'the sausage of sisterhood'!" hinnied Jess.

Diana looked doubtfully at the two inches of brown, porky substance on her ivy-leaf plate, and sighed.

"I feel like the elephant at the Zoo when they offered him his hundredth bun: It may kill me, but it's a beautiful death," she demurred. "Well, if you're all nuts on my having some, I guess there's nothing else for it. Here goes! What a life!"

"The Sisterhood of the Sausage," murmured Jess fatuously.

"Don't make such a fuss; you know you're enjoying it, old sport," said Wendy. "It isn't every day in your life you can come and have a blow-out on Crusoe Island."

* * * * *

On Thursday morning Diana, who had been restless and fidgety in the night, awoke with a rash all over her face and chest. Loveday, much alarmed, would not allow her to get up till the authorities had seen her, and fetched Miss Todd. The Principal, dismayed at the prospect of infection in the school, mentally ran over the gamut of possible diseases from scarlatina to chicken-pox, ordered Diana to stop in bed, and sent at once to Glenbury for the doctor.

Now it happened that Dr. Hunter was himself in bed, suffering from a severe attack of influenza, and, as it was extremely difficult for him, at a few hours' notice, to secure the services of a really competent medical man as locum tenens, he had been obliged to put up with a Hindoo doctor who was sent by the London agent in answer to his urgent telegram. It was a case of "any port in a storm", and though Dr. Jinaradasa's qualifications might be such as only just to satisfy the board of the Royal College of Surgeons, it was better to send him to look after the patients than to leave them utterly unattended. Therefore, when the neat little two-seater car drew up at Pendlemere Abbey it was not the bluff, rosy-cheeked Dr. Hunter who stepped out of it, but a foreign-looking gentleman with a very dark complexion. He explained his presence to Miss Todd, who gasped for a second, but recovered herself, received him gratefully, and conducted him upstairs to view his patient. Diana, I regret to say, behaved like the spoilt child she really was. She buried her head under the bedclothes, and at first utterly refused to submit to any examination. Miss Todd coaxed, wheedled, stormed, and finally pulled the clothes away by force and displayed the rash to the dark, lustreless eyes of Dr. Jinaradasa. He asked a few questions--which Diana answered sulkily--took her temperature, felt her pulse, and retired downstairs to talk over the case with Miss Todd, leaving a very cross and indignant patient behind him. Ten minutes afterwards the door of the ivy room swung gently open, and Wendy's interested and sympathetic face made its appearance.

"Di!" she whispered impressively; "I'm coming to see you, even if it's smallpox you've got. I'm supposed to be practising, but I just did a bolt. Well, old sport, you do look an object, I must say!"

Diana hitched herself higher in bed.

"You needn't be afraid. I'm not infectious," she remarked.

"They say you've got measles," ventured Wendy.

"Measles!" snorted Diana scornfully. "That's all they know about it. I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before. I always
do
get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort of poison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What did Miss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearly forty fits when he came marching into my room."

"Well, he says you've got measles at any rate, and Toddlekins is in no end of a state. Thinks it's going to spread all through the school. D'you know she's making arrangements to send you to the Fever Hospital? They're to come and fetch you away in the ambulance."

"
What!
The idiots! I tell you I
haven't
got measles. I won't go! Do you think I'm going to let myself be bundled off to the Fever Hospital just because an ignoramus of a Hindoo doctor doesn't know his business sufficiently to tell nettle-rash when he sees it? Rather not! I'd show fight first!"

"They'll roll you in blankets and carry you downstairs!" thrilled Wendy.

"They'll do nothing of the sort--I'll take good care of that. I wouldn't be easy to carry if I kicked, even inside blankets. I never heard of such an outrageous thing in all my life. I've some bounce left in me yet, and I'll use it--see if I don't! Measles, indeed! I wonder he didn't say it was hydrophobia."

"Well, whatever it is, you're to be taken to the Fever Hospital; they've ordered the ambulance. I'm awfully sorry, old sport! It's hard luck on you. I must scoot now, and go back to my practising, or I shall have Bunty on my track. Bye-bye!"

Wendy vanished, leaving Diana alone and most upset. She considered that she was being treated abominably. She longed to telegraph to her parents, but she knew that was impossible.

"Whatever happens, I'm not going to that wretched Fever Hospital," she said to herself. "I'm sure Cousin Cora wouldn't like me to be taken there. Why shouldn't I go to Petteridge? They're all well again from the 'flu'. What a brain-wave! I declare I will, and tell Cousin Cora all about it!"

Diana was nothing if not impetuous. She jumped up immediately, and began a hasty toilet. She was just three-quarters through with it when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She immediately whisked her nightdress on over her clothes, and popped into bed just three seconds before Miss Todd entered the room. The excitement of such a rush made her face more flushed than ever. Miss Todd came and looked at her critically.

"Yes, the rash is coming out very nicely," she observed.

"It's nettle-rash, not measles!" affirmed Diana defiantly.

"That's for the doctor to decide, not you. I'm afraid you must have caught it the day you went in the omnibus to Glenbury. It takes nearly a fortnight to incubate."

Diana shivered with anxiety lest Miss Todd should wish to inspect the progress of the rash on her chest as well as on her face, and thus discover that she was half clothed beneath her nightdress, but fortunately the head mistress did not descend so far in her investigations. Instead, she turned to Diana's drawers, and began filling a hand-bag with various necessaries. She did not mention the Fever Hospital, probably judging it better not to prepare the patient beforehand, but to wait until the ambulance arrived. Diana, of course, knew why she was collecting the garments, but feigned to ignore the matter, and made no comment. She wished Miss Todd would be quick and go. She was so terribly afraid that the ambulance might drive up before she had the chance to make her escape. Flight seemed certainly preferable to a struggle.

The mistress at last found a sufficiency of nightdresses and other garments, and, telling Diana to keep herself covered up and warm, took her departure.

The moment she was safely out of the way the invalid sprang up and resumed her interrupted toilet. Diana had suffered from nettle-rash several times before, and the treatment had not included stopping in bed or even staying indoors. Her complaint was really more in the nature of dyspepsia. She felt as if fresh air would do her good. She did not dare to walk downstairs in case she might meet anybody, so she decided to adopt the method she had found effective last autumn, and climb out through the window and down the ivy. Lessons were in progress, so nobody would be in the garden to watch her, except Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod, who would probably be engaged with the horse or the hens. She swung herself out, therefore, and let herself down by the thick stems. Then she dodged round the house to the bicycle-shed. She did not yet possess a machine of her own, but Wendy's stood handy, and she knew her chum well enough to borrow it. She wheeled it through the back gate, fortunately without meeting Miss Carr, and then set off at top-speed for Petteridge Court.

Mrs. Burritt was naturally much surprised to see her young cousin turn up in so unexpected a fashion, and with a rash on her face, but she did the most sensible thing in the circumstances: she put Diana to bed, and sent to Dunswick for a doctor. He arrived during the course of the afternoon, and, after a careful examination of his patient, pronounced her complaint to be nettle-rash.

"There's not a doubt about it!" he declared. "You need not be in the least afraid that it's measles."

Armed with a medical certificate to that effect, Mrs. Burritt motored over to Pendlemere Abbey to patch up peace with Miss Todd. Partly for reasons of health, and partly to let the storm blow over, she kept Diana at Petteridge until the rash had entirely disappeared and the girl seemed in her absolutely normal condition. Mrs. Burritt took her back on the understanding that bygones should be bygones, and a fresh start should be made without any reference to former delinquencies.