A harum-scarum schoolgirl Part 22

"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 friends.h.i.+p."

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

"No, it wouldn't; you must eat it yourself. There'll be a s.h.i.+ndy 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 Princ.i.p.al, 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 loc.u.m 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, l.u.s.treless 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 s.h.i.+vered 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 n.o.body 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 fas.h.i.+on, and with a rash on her face, but she did the most sensible thing in the circ.u.mstances: 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, p.r.o.nounced 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.

Miss Todd received Diana quite amiably, but insisted upon her having a carbolic bath, and herself washed her hair with strong disinfectant soap. The clothes she had worn disappeared mysteriously for some days, and were then returned from the stoving department of the Glenbury Sanitation Office. Diana made no comments at head-quarters, but laughed to herself.

"I'm sure Toddlekins believes I've had measles," she confided to Wendy.

"Of course she does. She said she hadn't the least doubt about it, and that you hadn't eaten anything which could have caused you to have nettle-rash."

"What would she say if she knew about the sausages?" queried Diana.

CHAPTER XIV

Spooks