“It must be a pretty big headache, to make you look like that,” Jo said. “You might as well tell us, Sarah, old thing.”
“It’s me rubbishy old neuralgy,” Sarah said, capitulating. “I do get it ’ot an’ strong, an’ that’s a fack. Comes all over me ’ead. I been tryin’ to beat it all day, but it’s near got me down. It’s like a red-’ot knife goin’ in an’ out of me left eye.”
“Why, you poor old dear!” cried the twins. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Oh, I ’ates makin’ a fuss,” said the sufferer. “I did ’ave thoughts of goin’ to tell you, when I seen you come back from bathin’: an’ then Mr. Tom came, an’ on top of ’im the news of the Missus comin’ ’ome. An’ I can’t go an’ get sick just as she comes. So I determined not to be. But the pain seems a bit ahead of the determination: I expect it got a start.”
“Well, you’re just going to lie down now,” Jean said firmly. “Real lie-down—dress and shoes off: and you’re not to come out again to-night, or to-morrow, or until you’re better. I’ll come in ten minutes with a cup of tea and some aspirin.”
“But the tea!” groaned Sarah. “I got a potato pie made, but, of course, it ain’t time to put it in. Lemme stay till I’ve washed up after tea——”
The twins each took an arm, and propelled her, gently but firmly, towards the door.
“I guess we’ll manage the pie,” Jo said, with the firmness possible to a cookery prize-winner. “Now, we’re coming in ten minutes, Sarah, and just you be lying down, or there’ll be awful trouble.”
They found her, pale, but protesting, when they visited her room, and having administered tea and aspirin, bathed her throbbing brows with eau-de-Cologne.
“That’s lovely,” she admitted. “My word, it’s great to be lyin’ down—but I do ’ate leavin’ everything to you. It don’t seem fair, when you’ve all the work you ’ave.”