Chapter 10 A Modern Tomboy by L. T. Meade
JANE IN DANGER
Rosamund was awakened from her slumbers by Laura Everett, who shook her lightly by the shoulder.
"Why, Rose," she said, "I wish you'd wake up. We are all in such a state of confusion and anxiety. Have you the least idea what the hour is?"
"No. Where am I?" said Rosamund, sitting up in bed and pushing back her hair.
"Well, it is close on nine o'clock. We had breakfast anyhow this morning, for nothing is in order. I cannot even explain how bad things are."
"Try and tell me, Laura; don't keep me in suspense."
"It's Jane, of course."
"My friend Jane?"
"You heard last night that she was very ill. Lucy told you. Lucy has been talking about you. She said you were very queer when she came in here last night, and didn't show a scrap of feeling. But I am sure you are sorry for her. She is in great danger, Rosamund."
"Jane in danger!"
Rosamund had always been fond of Jane, but she had never thought her of the slightest importance. She had always thought of her as just a good sort to have as a friend; but all the admiration must be on the friend's side, who must do all that Rosamund wished—for she, Rosamund, would not put herself out for her friend. But now things were changed. Jane Denton was the heroine of the hour. No one else in the whole of that house was thought of in comparison with Jane. For the symptoms of the night before had developed in a most aggravating way. She had grown worse and worse; in short, she was so alarmingly ill that when Lucy came into the room Mrs. Merriman had decided to send for the doctor from Dartford. He was obliged to drive over, there being no train so late at night. When he saw her he pronounced her illness to be diphtheria. How she had got it nobody knew; but diphtheria Jane had, and of the most malignant type.
"What is it?" said Rosamund, now turning to Laura, who sat down on the edge of her bed. "You think I have no heart, but you are mistaken."
Her bright eyes filled with tears, and Laura was softened at once.
"I knew you had a heart, dear," she said. "But the fact is, you never understood Lucy. I like Lucy, and you don't—there lies the difference between us. Lucy misunderstood you. She said that, instead of going to bed, you were making a most awful noise, reciting poetry to yourself in two distinct voices, and that an extraordinary noise came from under the bed, and you declared it was rats. But she thinks you are a sort of ventriloquist, and can throw your voice anywhere you like. She was absolutely frightened, and rushed out of the room."
"Well, the doctor arrived about two o'clock in the morning, and he stayed until early morning; and now the whole school knows, and what is to be done is more than I can tell. The doctor wants us all to leave the house."
"I shan't go," said Rosamund stoutly.
"What do you mean, Rose? You mustn't think of yourself at a moment like this."
"I shall stay and nurse Jane. She is my friend. Don't keep me, please, Laura. What a horrible creature I have been! Oh, dear! oh, dear! Do you know where the Professor is, Laura?"
"I believe he is out, but I don't know. Mrs. Merriman is looking after Jane at present. But, Rose, you won't be allowed to see her. The doctor has forbidden any single individual except Mrs. Merriman to go into her room, or to have anything whatever to do with her. You mustn't disobey orders. A trained nurse is coming, and will be here in a very short time. Perhaps there will be two nurses. They are going to try that new treatment—antitoxin. Poor Jane's room is not so very far from where I sleep, and I heard her groaning in the night. To think of our all being so happy yesterday, and now this coming!"
"I know," said Rosamund in a low tone. She had never expressed herself so before. There was a lump in her throat.
Laura went away and soon entered the schoolroom, where Lucy and the other girls, all looking pale and anxious, were standing about. Laura went straight up to Lucy.
"Well," said Lucy, "is that thoughtless, heartless creature awake yet? Is she thinking of any one but herself?"
"Oh, yes, I woke her. She isn't heartless. I wish just at present, when we are in such anxiety, you would try to be kinder, Lucy, and"——
Laura's voice suddenly broke.
Rosamund presently came downstairs. She wanted to find the Professor. She wanted she knew not what. As a matter of fact, he was not to be found, for he had gone by the very earliest train to Dartford to see Mr. and Mrs. Brett.
The upshot of this visit was that soon Mrs. Brett's large, pale face, with its light-blue eyes and gentle smile, was seen passing the window. The Professor was with her. All the girls rushed out with a sudden sense of relief to greet her.
"Oh, Aunt Susan, we are so glad you have come!" said Lucy, her own little face quivering with sudden emotion.
"My dear, dear children," said Mrs. Brett, "I have come to take you away with me—that is, all of you who can come. My husband and I are a childless couple, and we have plenty of room in our house. You must just pack your things and come along. That is what I have come for. There is a nurse coming to look after the poor girl who is so dreadfully ill.—Lucy, dear, your father is particularly anxious that you should come—yes, and all the rest of you, for that matter. I can squeeze you all in; but I cannot manage the governesses, that is the only thing. All the rest—every single one of you—must come. Rosamund, you, of course; and, Laura, you also. Annie Millar—yes, certainly—and Phyllis Flower, and Agnes Sparkes—every single one of you shall come back with me. It will be Poverty Castle, my loves, and we'll have to stint and scrape and contrive; but at any rate we'll be merry when we can be merry, and we'll forget our troubles in doing good to others."
Nothing could exceed the heartiness of Mrs. Brett's manner. Her very smile brought sunshine with it, and her firm voice confidence. It seemed in a minute to those agitated and unhappy girls that a ray of sunlight had fallen upon them, and that the world was not quite so miserable after all.
They were still standing talking eagerly in the hall when a fly drew up at the door and Dr. Marshall stepped out. He had, in fact, followed Mrs. Brett and the Professor up from the station. He saw Rosamund, and recognized her as the girl he had seen some hours before walking alone along the high-road. He went up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Are you one of the young ladies who live here?"
"Yes," she replied, glancing at him in surprise, for so lost had she been in her own thoughts that she had positively hardly observed him when he swiftly passed her in the early morning.
"Then I congratulate you upon your powers of early rising."
Rosamund colored. Lucy's eyes were fixed on her face.
"My dear Miss Lucy," said the doctor, "your friend, Miss"——
"My name is Rosamund Cunliffe," said Rosamund.
"Your friend Miss Cunliffe has put all the rest of you young ladies to shame. She was walking abroad this morning between four and five o'clock at some distance from here."
Lucy's eyes flashed fire. Rosamund found herself turning pale. The Professor looked at her. Suddenly Rosamund went up to the Professor and took his hand.
"I want to speak to you, and alone," she said.
"In a moment, my dear," he answered.
He then turned to the doctor.
"Mrs. Brett, my kind sister-in-law, has promised to take all my young people to her house in Dartford," he said. "She proposes that they should return with her immediately. Then the house will be quite quiet for the invalid, and there will be no danger of the disease spreading."
"If it does spread I shall be on the spot to grapple with it," said Dr. Marshall.—"What an excellent plan, Mrs. Brett, and how exactly like you!—Now then, young ladies, the sooner you pack up the better. You needn't take a great many things; they can be sent to you afterwards. The great thing is to get away. It may be in the air; it may be—we cannot tell what; but the sooner all of you young people are out of Sunnyside the safer it will be."
"It would not be fair," said the Professor, "to ask the Singletons to take any of them in. We did think of that at first. We know how particularly kind Mr. Singleton is. But there are his own children to be thought of; and as he is the rector of the parish he has also to consider his parishioners."
"I am the woman who has to act in this emergency," said Mrs. Brett; "and now the sooner we drop the subject of whys and wherefores the better.—Run upstairs, my dears, and get ready.—I will not even see my dear sister, Mrs. Merriman, for fear of infection; but you will know where to find me if you want my help."
"I don't think we shall need it," said the doctor. "Two excellent nurses are coming by the next train, and I shall leave full directions, and my assistant will come out to see the patient this evening.—Now, if you will kindly allow me to pass, young ladies, I will go and see the invalid, and I will not see any of you again afterwards. It is safer not."
There was a look on his face which startled and brought back some of the nervousness of most of the girls. But Mrs. Brett, or Aunt Susan, as Lucy called her, was all smiles and benediction.
"My dears," she said in her motherly way, "there is room enough and to spare in my house for every one of you—room enough and to spare. You shall have the heartiest welcome."
Here Mrs. Brett went up to Rosamund, and, rather to the surprise of the others, elected her for a resounding kiss on the cheek.
"My dear, a girl who can go out and take a walk at so early an hour in the morning is quite after my own heart."
"But, Aunt Susan," interrupted Lucy, "do you really approve of a girl who burns the candle at both ends? It so happens that I was obliged to invade Rosamund's room last night, and I heard her reciting poetry in two voices, and then I heard her throw her voice into a distant part of the room, so that you might almost imagine that she was a ventriloquist. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and the doctor said he saw her walking along the high-road between four and five this morning. Don't you think it is too much for her strength?"
"Never mind, dear," said Mrs. Brett, who was as kind in heart as her face appeared. "I admire energy; but the energy of the young is sometimes misdirected. When dear Rosamund comes to stay with me I will show her one or two things.—You won't mind getting a wrinkle or two from an old woman, will you, Rose?"
"No," said Rosamund, who was absolutely torn in the midst of many conflicting emotions: her anxiety for her friend, her knowledge of what had happened the night before, her ever-increasing dislike to Lucy—and, in fact, the whole false position in which she found herself—all distressed her beyond measure.
Again she touched the Professor on the arm.
"I want to say something," she remarked, and she turned and faced the other girls.—"Before I decide to go with Mrs. Brett I must speak to Professor Merriman."
"But there is no time, my dear," said Mrs. Brett. "Our train leaves in three-quarters of an hour. Each girl will please pack a small bag, if she possesses such a useful commodity, and we must walk as fast as ever we can to the station, for my poor dear husband has no end of things for me to attend to to-day, and the moment we get to Dartford we shall have to bustle about, I can tell you. There'll be no time for whims and fancies, or even for lessons; for there is to be an enormous tea-fight, as I call it, for the young folk of the parish in the schoolhouse this afternoon, and games afterwards, and recitations; and if you, Rosamund, can recite as well as Lucy has described, why, you will be invaluable."
"But I can't recite. Lucy is mistaken," said Rosamund.—"Professor, may I speak to you?—Mrs. Brett, if you are in a hurry, I will follow you by a later train, if it is decided that I am to go to you."
Here the determined girl took the Professor by the arm, and leading him into the study, shut the door behind them, and turned and faced him.
"I have been exceedingly naughty. I have broken my word of honor."
Now, the Professor, who was always extremely dreamy, had nearly forgotten Rosamund's transgression of the previous Sunday. He did not speak at all for a minute, but looked at her in puzzled astonishment.
"You have broken your word of honor?" he said. "We are in great trouble. I hope you are not now beginning to be taken up with whims and fancies. If so, please transfer them to a more convenient season. I am harassed about my books, my—my dear wife, and that poor girl. By the way, she is your friend, too. I can quite understand that you are grieved on her account."
"I am terribly grieved. I do not wish to leave. I should like to stay and help to look after her."
"But that cannot be permitted. That would be an act of the greatest selfishness. What we require you to do is to leave the house before you are infected—you even more than the others, for you have been in the same room with her."
"I do not think I am infected. I cannot imagine how Jane caught diphtheria. I did see her bending down over a drain the other day. She had dropped her pencil and was trying to find it. I told her not to do it, and even dragged her away. I am sure I am all right, and I should not allow her to breathe on me, and I think I could help."
"It is generous of you, my dear, but it cannot possibly be permitted," said the Professor. "I will relate that little circumstance to my wife. Not that it matters, after all, how we get our diseases; the thing is to cure them when we have acquired them. However, I will mention the circumstance to my dear wife."
"Please do. Now, I have something to confess. You heard what Lucy said: that I was reciting poetry, that I was using two voices, that I was a sort of ventriloquist. You heard what Dr. Marshall said: that he saw me on the high-road at a very early hour this morning. Now, I was not reciting last night; I was talking to another girl, and no less a girl than that one I had promised you to have no communication with for a whole week—Irene Ashleigh. Please hear me out before you speak. I did not ask her to come to me. She came on her own account. I did mean to keep my word of honor; but Irene, poor little girl! had taken a liking to me. I had managed, I don't know how, to touch something sympathetic in her heart, and she was hungering for me, and you had forbidden me to go to her. So last night, after I came to bed, she was in my room. She had got in by the window. Oh, don't look at me with those startled eyes! I do not wish her to be blamed, and I was not to blame when I found her there, for I did mean to keep my word of honor. She begged of me to lock the door, but I refused; and I think I was almost inducing her to leave the house, and to go home, when Lucy burst into the room. Lucy came to fetch something for Mrs. Merriman—something that Jane wanted—and Irene was under the bed like a flash. It was she who made that noise that Lucy attributed to me. Then afterwards I felt reckless, and I did lock the door, and I did go out by the open window, and I spent the night in the summer-house with little Irene, and this morning I walked back with her to The Follies. Now you know what I am. You see I am not worth saving; and I want to tell you that if you will not have me here, then I will go to Lady Jane, and tell her the entire story, and ask her if I may stay with her—at least until the time of infection is over. That is what I wish to do; but I will not go in the dark. I have told you how naughty I have been, and you can punish me by expelling me from the school. But, please, quite understand that your daughter has provoked me a great deal, and that I did make an effort—at least at first—to keep my word of honor."
Rosamund's voice dropped. In truth, the emotions of the previous day, the night before, and this morning had been too many for her. She trembled, and finally, to the great astonishment of the Professor, burst into tears. Now, no one ever had higher principles than Professor Merriman, but no man ever had a greater horror of tears. He could not bear what Rosamund had told him; he could not understand how, under any provocation, a girl could act as Rosamund had done; and yet, at the same time, her tears so maddened him that he would have done anything to get rid of her.
"You bewilder me," he said. "Of course, you did wrong. Do you wish to go with Mrs. Brett? I will see you presently and speak to you."
"If you will not have me here, I will not go with Mrs. Brett. I will go to Lady Jane; for there is one person who wants me, although you will not believe it!"
"Then please yourself; but I grieve to tell you that after your recent conduct I cannot receive you again at the school."
Rosamund left the room with a proud step, but there was something in her heart which danced.