CHAPTER XIII—THE TEST OF CARVER STANDISH III
“Don’t they hurt a bit, Jean?”
“No, of course not.”
“Don’t you feel at all sick either?”
“No, just mad! What’s in that bag, Virginia?”
“Pop-corn. Can you eat it?”
“I should say I can. Haven’t had anything but disgusting cream toast for four days. Put it under the letters so no one will see. What’s that in the box, Priscilla?”
“Peggy Norris’ white mice she bought down town. They’re only a loan for to-day. Open the box right off or they’ll smother.”
“What do you do all day, Jean?”
“Oh, learn things by heart mostly. Miss Wood won’t let me read, so I just glance and then recite. It’s a comfort. I’ve learned the Ninety-first Psalm and ‘Annabel Lee’ and ‘Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes’ and the ‘Address at Gettysburg’ and ‘One Thought of Marcus Aurelius.’ I call that quite good.”
“How do you know you’re going to have them anyway, Jean?”
“Oh, you hate everybody for two days, and your eyes water the third. Is it all ready? Shall I pull? Be sure the mice are right side up. Here goes then!”
The taller Blackmore twin in a red wrapper and a bandaged throat leaned out of her window and pulled on a rope, at the end of which dangled a waste-basket filled with bags, envelopes, and boxes. Below, in the snow, stood half a dozen sympathizers who had brought the “morning post” to their comrade, confined to her room with the German Measles.
Judging from the patient’s alacrity in securing the basket she was not suffering. In fact she might have been called most indiscreet, as the morning air was cold. However, the flower of discretion does not bloom in boarding-school; and the afflicted Jean, after depositing the basket on the floor, and giving some air to the half-suffocated mice, leaned farther out of the window.
“Don’t go. I’ll look my mail over later. It’s fine of you to come. Any more caught?”
“Yes, Bess Shepard has them for sure, and Elinor Brooks has a sore throat.”
“Then she’s probably just starting out.”
“My room-mate is awfully cross without any reason.” This from Vivian.
“Look behind her ears. Probably there are specks and lumps, too.”
“Are you all over speckles, Jean?”
“Pretty much so!”
The patient appeared to listen, drawing herself farther into the room. All at once she waved a corner of her red bath-robe, a signal of danger, and slunk back toward the couch. The six sympathizers with one accord withdrew to the other side of the lilac bushes. They heard the closet door open and close, after something had been hurriedly placed therein, then foot-steps, and a peremptory rap on Jean’s door. Then Jean’s voice, pathetically lowered,
“Come in.”
The door opened.
“Jeannette,” said a voice, which they behind the lilac trees recognized as Miss Wood’s. “Jeannette, don’t you feel the draught from that open window?”
“No, thank you, Miss Wood. I need air.”
“Didn’t I hear you talking a moment since?”
“Perhaps,” said the weary Jean with half-closed eyes. “I recite a great deal to myself. And this morning I felt able to say a few words to some of the girls who came beneath the window.”
“You must not talk, my dear. It is bad for your throat. Do you feel better this morning?”
“Yes, I think so, slightly, thank you.”
Miss Wood smoothed with soft fingers the patient’s head.
“You seem very cool—a good sign. How would some cream-toast taste? It’s nourishing, and won’t hurt your throat.”
“Oh, it would be delicious, I’m sure. Thank you, Miss Wood. I really believe I’m a little hungry.”
Miss Wood departed to make the toast, while her patient, quickly recovering, consumed buttered popcorn as an appetizer, hoping that cream toast would be agreeable to the white mice. After which, she once more lay down, and tried to look ill in time for Miss Wood’s reappearance. Meanwhile the six behind the lilac trees hurried across the campus toward their respective cottages to do the weekly “tidying” of their rooms.
“Virginia,” said Priscilla, as they left the others to post some letters, “I just know I’m going to have them. I was with Jean all one afternoon when she was hating everybody. Oh, I hope you’ll have them when I do!”
“So do I. ’Twould be fun having the girls bring mail from every one. And maybe Miss Wallace would make us cream toast. That would be worth the regular measles, not to mention German. You don’t feel out-of-sorts yet, do you?”
“No, I’ll tell you when I do, or you’ll probably know anyway. Isn’t Jean a scream? Probably she was in bed when Miss Wood got there.”
“She’s dear. Why don’t she and Jess room together?”
“My dear, the whole faculty rose up in arms this year when they suggested it. They tried it exactly three weeks last year, and Miss Wood nearly resigned. One is bad enough, but the two are awful! They think up the most fearful things to do. Why, the summer before last, they’d been in England all summer, and had seen all kinds of new things. Well, the first thing they did when they got back to St. Helen’s was to play chimney-sweep. Jess had seen them in London and she couldn’t rest to see how it felt to be in a chimney. So, one day, she put on some black tights and an old Jersey of her brother’s, and made a tall hat out of paste-board. Then they went up on the roof of Hathaway, and Jean helped her get up on the chimney, and she dropped down. The chimney’s wide, you know, and she dropped straight down, making an awful noise and loosening all the soot, right into the living-room fire-place. Miss King and Bishop Hughes were calling on Miss Wood just then, though, of course, Jess didn’t know that. Down she came, feet first, into the grate, and scared Miss King and Miss Wood and the Bishop all but to death. She was all over soot, and was a sight! The Bishop laughs about it every time he comes.”
Virginia laughed and laughed. As long as she had been at St. Helen’s she had never heard that story.
“The thing that Jean’s crossest about,” Priscilla continued, “is the Gordon dance on Washington’s Birthday. Her cousin asked her to come, and she’s afraid Miss Wood won’t let her go.”
“Why, she’ll be all right by then, won’t she? The speckles are most gone already, and the dance is two weeks off.”
“I know, but Miss Wood is very careful, and, besides, Jess told her that Jean was subject to tonsillitis. Oh, dear, I was sort of hoping that Carver Standish would invite me! You see, I’ve never been to a really big dance in the evening in my life. But I guess he’s not going to. Jean got her invitation yesterday.”
But when they reached The Hermitage and their own room, Priscilla found the coveted envelope, with a card bearing the name “Carver Standish III,” and a note saying it would be “downright rotten,” if anything prevented her coming. Priscilla ran at once to ask for Miss Wallace’s chaperonage, but, when she returned, a worried expression had replaced the joyous one on her face.
“Won’t she go with you?”
“Yes, she’ll go; but, Virginia, I just remembered the German Measles. They don’t look so much like a blessing as they did a few minutes ago. What if I do get them? Oh, Virginia, what if I do? If I’m going to have them, I wish I’d get them right away, and then I’d be all over them in a week. Isn’t there some way they can be hurried up if they’re inside of you?”
Virginia was for a few moments lost in contemplation. Then apparently she remembered.
“Why, of course, there is,” she said. “I remember all about it now. If they’re really inside of you, hot things will bring them out. When they thought I had the mumps once, Hannah said ‘Steam them out, dear. If they’re there, they’ll come.’ And they did come out. I’ve heard Hannah say that over and over again. Don’t you worry, Priscilla. We’ll use all the hot things we know, and try to bring them out, and, if they don’t come, you can be reasonably sure they’re not inside of you. If I were you, I’d begin right off. I’d put on a sweater, and sit over the register. I’d just bake! To-night we’ll get extra blankets and hot water bottles, and in a day or two I believe we’ll have them out. It’s lucky to-morrow is Sunday.”
“I just know they’re inside,” wailed Priscilla, buttoning her sweater, as she sat over the register. “My! It’s hot here! Would you think of hot things, too? You know we said we believed that thoughts were powerful.”
“I certainly do believe it. Yes, I believe I’d let my mind dwell on Vesuvius and the burning of Rome, and things like—like crematories and bonfires and the Equator. If there’s anything in thought suggestion that certainly will help. It won’t harm anyway. Are you awfully uncomfortable?”
“Very hot. Would you really stay here all the afternoon?”
“Yes, I would, and most of to-morrow. If, by to-morrow night, there aren’t any signs, I’ll believe the danger’s past Let’s not tell anybody what we’re doing. If Miss Wallace thought you expected them, she might think you ought not to go.”
“Does Hannah know all about sickness?”
“She certainly does. Why, everybody for miles around comes to her for advice, and trusts her just as though she were a doctor. Really, Priscilla, I know she’d do just this way if she were here.”
The reassured Priscilla sweltered over the register most of the afternoon. When evening came, she was somewhat out-of-sorts. “Maybe the hating everybody has begun,” thought her room-mate as she filled hot water-bottles. They had borrowed all in The Hermitage, except Miss Wallace’s and Miss Baxter’s (Miss Baxter was Miss Green’s more popular successor)—much to the unsatisfied wonder of the household. Priscilla turned uneasily all night in a nest of hot water-bottles and extra blankets. In the morning there were no signs of measles, except perhaps a somewhat peevish disposition.
“And that’s not measles, Virginia, I’ll have you to know!” the owner of the disposition announced fretfully. “It’s just from being burned alive! Now, I’m not going to do another thing, so you might just as well put away those two suits of underwear. One’s enough!”
“Well,” said Virginia a little doubtfully, as she folded the extra suit and replaced it in the drawer; “well, it does seem as though if they’d been coming they would have come after all that steaming. I wish Hannah were here! She’d know. But, if I were you, Priscilla, I’d just keep thinking I wasn’t going to have them. That will probably help.”
This prescription compared to the preceding one was easy to follow, and all through the next two weeks Priscilla, when she remembered it, maintained that she was not to have the German Measles! For the rest of the time, which was by far the larger portion, she was perfectly oblivious as to even the possibility of her having them, so elated was she over her preparation for the Gordon dance. She and Miss Wallace and Jean Blackmore, who was really to be allowed to go after all, were to make the journey, a distance of twenty-five miles, by automobile. The two weeks dragged their days slowly along, but at last Thursday night arrived, and Priscilla, with a happy heart, surveyed for the last time that day her new dress, which her mother had sent from home.
“Just one more night to wait,” she said, as she got into bed. “Oh, Virginia, I wish you were a Junior! I don’t see why Miss King won’t let new girls go. Carver said if you only could, he would have asked you, because his grandfather had told him so much about you, and his room-mate, Robert Stuart, whom I’ve met, would have asked me. Then we could have gone together.”
“I don’t mind. It’s been such fun getting you ready. Maybe next year we’ll both go. Isn’t it the luckiest thing you haven’t had them at all?”
“It certainly is! It just shows how powerful thought is! Really, I have more faith in it than ever. You see, if they were inside of me, they didn’t get any attention, and probably decided not to come out.”
“Well, if they’d been there, they would have come out with all that heat, I’m sure,” said Virginia, still faithful to Hannah. “But it doesn’t matter whether they were there or not, just so long as they’re not here. Good-night.”
In the gray early morning Virginia was rudely awakened by some one shaking her. She sat up in bed to find Priscilla desperately shaking her with one hand and the witch-hazel bottle with the other. Priscilla was apparently in trouble. What could be the matter? She sat up, dazed, half-asleep.
“Why, what is it? What’s the matter? Was the dance lovely? Did you have a good time?”
At these last remarks Priscilla wept.
“Oh, wake up!” she cried. “It’s only Friday. I haven’t been to the dance at all, and probably I can’t go, because I’ve got them; yes, I have! My head aches, and my throat’s sore, and I’m hot, and my eyes run, and I hate everybody, and I’ll be lumpy and speckled right away—I know I shall! Oh, what shall I do?”
The last sentence ended in a long, heart-broken wail, which brought the still dazed Virginia thoroughly to her senses. She sprang from bed, turned on the light, and scrutinized the disconsolate Priscilla. Yes, her cheeks were most assuredly flushed, and her eyes were watery—from tears. Virginia was mistress of the situation.
“Now, Priscilla,” she commanded, “you go back to bed. You’re going to that dance. Remember that! I’ve got an idea. If heat will bring the things out, then cold must keep them in, of course. We’ll fill the hot water-bottles with cold water, and turn off the heat, and you’ll feel better. See if you don’t. And you won’t get speckled to-day anyway, because Jean Blackmore didn’t till two days after they started; and even if you do behind your ears it won’t matter. Stop crying, or somebody’ll hear, and tell Miss Wallace you’re sick.”
This dire threat soothed the agitated Priscilla, and she consented to the cold bags, which felt good against her hot cheeks and forehead. By breakfast time she did feel better, though still not very well; and she went to classes with injunctions from Virginia to return after each one and lie down fifteen minutes in a cold room until time for the next class. Thus the morning passed. In the afternoon, Virginia tacked an “Asleep” sign on the door, and commenced more rigorous treatment. The numerous hot water-bags were again collected, this time filled with cold water, and placed around the recumbent patient. An ice-bag, surreptitiously filled from the pitcher in the dining-room, adorned her aching head, and a black bandage covered her watery eyes. The poor child’s thoughts, when she had any, were directed toward Eskimos and the Alps, and “such things as refrigerators, sherbet, and icebergs.” For the sake of atmosphere, her room-mate read “Snowbound” to her.
But all in vain. They did not stay in! By supper time unmistakable speckles were apparent behind two very red ears, as well as elsewhere. Priscilla’s cheeks were hot and flushed Her eyes were watery, and her head ached; but her spirit was undaunted.
“My dear, you don’t look well,” Miss Wallace said anxiously, as they left the dining-room, and went to dress. “Are you sure you’re well?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Wallace. I’m just hot because I’m excited. My cheeks always get red then What time does the machine come?”
“In an hour, I think. You’re sure you’re all right, Priscilla?”
“Oh, yes, thank you!” Priscilla spoke hastily, and hurried away before Miss Wallace should feel called upon to examine her too closely. “Come on, Virginia, and help me dress.”
Miss Wallace went to her room, a trifle anxious. Strange to say, she did not once think of German Measles. No more cases had appeared, to St. Helen’s relief; and apparently the epidemic had been confined to three unfortunates. Priscilla was probably, as she said, a little over-excited; and Miss Wallace had been in that state herself. There was doubtless not the least cause for alarm, and, reassured, she began to dress.
Meanwhile, behind a mysteriously locked door, the anxious Virginia was dressing her room-mate, who showed unmistakable evidences of further speckling, and whose determination alone kept her from crawling into bed, where she most assuredly belonged.
“Don’t you feel a single bit better, dear?”
“Oh, yes, I guess so—I don’t know. I feel sort of loose inside, as though I weren’t connected. But I’ll feel better driving over. Oh, Virginia, talcum powder my ears. They’re perfect danger signals. Is that a speckle on my neck? Oh, say it isn’t!”
“Of course, it isn’t! It’s only a wee pimple. I’ll talcum powder it, too. There! You look just lovely! Shan’t I let the others in now? They’re cross as hops, because we’ve both been so secret, and we don’t want to rouse suspicion.”
Priscilla assented, and Virginia unlocked the door to the house in general.
“Too bad you’re so exclusive!”
“Even if we’re not asked, we might see the fun of getting ready.”
“You look perfectly heavenly, Priscilla!”
“It’s a love of a dress!”
“Mercy, Priscilla, what makes your ears so red?”
“I’ll bet you’ve gotten them frost-bitten!”
“They certainly look it!”
“Your cheeks are red, too, but it’s becoming!”
“What makes your eyes shine so?”
Here the uneasy Virginia felt as though a reply were necessary.
“Why, because she’s happy, of course. You act just like Red Riding Hood talking to the wolf, Dorothy.”
Fortunately, just when inquiries were becoming too personal, Jean Blackmore entered, and claimed attention.
“Jean, you’re actually pretty!”
“You really are, Jean.”
“Thank you. I’m sure that’s nice of you.”
“That light green certainly is becoming. It makes you look like an apple-blossom.”
“You lucky things! Wish we were going! Here’s the machine now, and Miss Wallace is calling.”
They went down-stairs, the house following.
“Oh, Miss Wallace, take your coat off and let us see! Oh, please do!”
The obliging Miss Wallace complied. She really was charming in old blue, with half-blown, pale pink roses, Priscilla’s gift, at her waist.
“Oh, Miss Wallace, you look just like a girl!”
“You’re just beautiful, Miss Wallace!”
“No one will think you’re a chaperon.”
“They’ll all want to dance with you, Miss Wallace.”
“Oh, girls, you’ll quite spoil me,” said the chaperon, and looked more charming than ever. “Come, girls. Priscilla, do raise your coat collar. I’m afraid you’ve caught cold. Jean, I insist, put on that scarf. Take care of the house, girls. Miss Baxter’s out. But I know you will. Good-night.”
The car rolled away into the darkness, and the girls went up-stairs, talking things over as they went.
“Isn’t Miss Wallace the sweetest thing?”
“Something’s the matter with Priscilla. She wasn’t talking. What is it, Virginia?”
“Oh, she’s excited, and perhaps—perhaps, she doesn’t feel exactly well.” Virginia felt more free, now that Priscilla was safely on her way.
At the Gordon school all was excitement. Boys in white trousers waited impatiently at the gates, as the automobiles and carriages approached, to greet their friends and conduct them to the brilliantly lighted and beautifully decorated gymnasium. This annual dance on Washington’s Birthday was the one real social function, outside Commencement, allowed at Gordon, and its importance was greatly felt by the young hosts.
Priscilla, strangely shivery, tried to reply easily to Carver’s remarks, as they went up the walk toward the gymnasium.
“Isn’t it lucky you didn’t catch those things? I was dead scared you would when you wrote me.”
“Yes, it’s—it is lucky.”
“My! Your cheeks are red, Priscilla. Just the way they used to be after swimming. Say, but you’re looking great!”
“Am I?”
“Isn’t Bob Stuart a corker? He decorated the whole gym. Never saw flags look any better, did you?”
“No, it’s awfully pretty. I—I think I’ll sit down, Carver, till dancing begins.”
“Sure. Of course. I’ll run and get Bob. He has three with you. Excuse me just a moment.”
How Priscilla ever managed to dance the ten dances before intermission, she never knew. Her cheeks grew redder, her eyes brighter, her poor head spun as though never-ending wheels, eternally wound up, were to whirl around forever. Sometimes the lights of the gymnasium blurred, and something sang in her ears; but still she smiled and moved her feet. At the end of each dance when her charge was returned to her to await the arrival of her partner for the next, Miss Wallace grew more and more anxious.
“Priscilla dear, I’m sure you’re ill. What is it?”
“Really, Miss Wallace, I’ve just a headache. Oh, don’t make me stop, please!”
But at intermission—that blessed time when one could rest and close her eyes when nobody looked her way—at intermission while they sat in Carver’s study and ate ice-cream and cake, Priscilla all at once gave a little worn-out sigh, and fainted quite away. Poor Carver Standish III was all consternation. Had he tired her out? Hadn’t there been enough air in the room? Had he done anything he shouldn’t? He plied Miss Wallace with anxious questionings while a guest, who by good fortune happened to be a doctor, bent over Priscilla.
But Priscilla, coming to herself just then, answered his questions.
“No, you haven’t done a thing, Carver. It’s the German Measles. They wouldn’t stay frozen in!”
Then, to the greatly amused doctor, and to the greatly disturbed Miss Wallace, and the greatly relieved Carver, the patient told in a weak little voice of how they had tried two weeks ago to steam them out; and how, when they had unexpectedly come that morning, they had, with doubtful logic, striven to freeze them in. The doctor, though he looked grave, laughed as though he never could stop; and it all ended by his taking her and Miss Wallace home in his own machine, leaving Jean to be chaperoned by her aunt, and a sympathetic but indignant host, who thought they ought to let him go along.
Virginia, who had read too late, and who even at bed-time felt called upon to inscribe some thoughts in her book, was startled at eleven o’clock by hearing foot-steps in the hall. Her door was unceremoniously opened by a tall, gray-haired gentleman, who carried in his arms a limp figure in a pink dress—a figure, who cried in a muffled voice from somewhere within the scarfs that covered her:
“Oh, Virginia, ’twas no use. They came out all the same!”
“So this is the other member of the new medical school,” announced the gray-haired man, depositing his bundle on the bed. “Miss Virginia, I’m honored to meet you!”
The mystified and frightened Virginia was led away to Miss Wallace’s room, where she gleaned some hurried information before that lady returned to help the doctor, who assured them that Priscilla would be much improved and doubtless much more speckled in the morning. An hour later he drove away, leaving sweet Miss Bailey, St. Helen’s nurse, in charge.
But the contrite and troubled Virginia could not sleep until she had been permitted to say a short good-night to her room-mate.
“Oh, Priscilla,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry! I thought ’twas just the right thing to do.”
“It was,” said the patient from under the blankets, for a return to steaming had been prescribed. “It was, Virginia! Else I never could have gone, and I wouldn’t have missed the one half I had for the world. Only I’ve just thought of the awful result! I’ve probably given them to Carver and all the others; and he’ll never invite me again! Oh, why didn’t we think?”
Virginia, by this time weeping in sympathy, was again led away to Miss Wallace’s room, where she spent a restless night, thinking of the awful consequences to Colonel Standish’s grandson. But both she and Priscilla might have spared themselves unnecessary worry, for the solicitous Carver telephoned daily for a week, and sent some flowers and two boxes of candy. A few days after the telephone calls had ceased, the fully restored Priscilla received the following note:
“Gordon School, Mar. 1, 19—.
“Dear Priscilla:
“I’ve got them, and so has Bob, and the four other fellows you danced with. Don’t mind, because we’re all jolly well pleased. Old Morley, who is a good sort, let us out of the February exams and we’re some happy, I tell you. Besides, grandfather sent me all kinds of new fishing-tackle, and ten dollars. We all think you were no end of a game sport to come, and next year Bob and I are going to have you and Virginia, whom grandfather’s always cracking up to me.
“Your speckled friend,
“Carver Standish.”