“Only me,” said Marygold, peeping through the door of an adjoining room, where she was supposed to be asleep. “Is all the people downstairs in a turkey-cock rage still, do you think?” she added, in a quivering tone.
Before anyone could answer, the door opened, and Nanny appeared.
Grim as she looked, the girls greeted her gladly.
“Oh, Nanny, do tell us what’s happening,” they implored.
“Get back into your bed at once, Miss Marion, if you don’t want a slapping,” was the first utterance of the late nursery-tyrant; “you were never trained under me, or you would know better than to run about barefoot.”
And it was not till Marygold was tightly tucked into her bed, and the door closed behind her, with a recommendation to open it again if she dared, that Nanny would answer the elder girls’ questions.
“Suffering, indeed,” she said, “yes, I believe you, Miss Di is suffering. There, if you could see her now, it would cure you of wishing to meddle with what doesn’t concern you. It’ll be ever so long, the doctor says, before she’s quite over it. She’ll have to be kept shut up in a dark room for many days to come. The only wonder is, that she’s likely to recover at all.”
“Oh, poor, dear Di!” said Faith.
“Poor Di, indeed!” echoed Nanny, indignantly; “naughty Di, that’s what she is. But then, she and Master Andrew always were the most troublesome pair that you could find on a long summer’s day. It’s poor Mrs. Busson, I pity. A nice time she’s having with the farmer. He’s just beside himself with rage, and no wonder, either. A proper pig-stye they’ve made of all that part of his house. And if Joe Wintle hadn’t had a head on his shoulders, I can’t think where the mischief would have stopped.”
“But,” enquired Faith, “do tell us what actually happened. What was the bee-room? We never heard anything about it before.”