Rest, warmth, and tea were what the tired girls craved. They sat on the settle, with a little round table in front of them, and ate the scones and blackberry jam that with true northern hospitality were piled on their plates. Harry's father came in presently, and, after a whispered conversation with his wife in the back-kitchen, offered to take a lantern and escort the girls back to Pendlemere.

"It's a goodish step, but you're rested now, maybe, and it's no use risking missing the 'bus at Glenbury, and having to walk it after all."

A very tired Diana, and an equally weary Wendy arrived at the school just when Miss Todd was getting absolutely desperate about their absence. She had sent Miss Chadwick to Athelton to meet the seven o'clock omnibus, and the teacher had returned to report that they had not come on it. Miss Todd forbore to scold two such limp wrecks, and sent them straight upstairs, with orders for hot baths, bed, and basins of bread-and-milk. Explanations were reserved for next day, and they did not get off scot free by any means. Miss Todd had an aggravatingly mathematical mind. She calculated the time the omnibus left the market-place, the exact moment when she herself started in the trap from the Queen's Hotel, the distance between these two given points, and in how many minutes at the rate of not less than three miles an hour two ordinary walkers should accomplish it. The answer left ten whole minutes to spare, and of that ten minutes of the afternoon she demanded a strict account from Diana and Wendy.

The sinners, whose bones still ached after their adventure, appeared in such crushed spirits that they did not receive the entire scolding their head mistress had intended, and were for once dismissed with a caution.

"She didn't say we mightn't go to the bonfire," sneezed Wendy, on their way down the pa.s.sage. Wendy as usual had taken a cold in her head.

"I kept the squibs dry, thank goodness!" sighed Diana. "n.o.body knows about them yet, so we'll let them off as a surprise. Won't they all just jump when they hear them? I'm looking forward to that bonfire as the event of my life!"

CHAPTER IX

Diana's English Christmas

Diana had fondly hoped that the armistice meant an immediate declaration of peace, that her father and mother would return post-haste from France, take her away from Pendlemere, and cross at once to America, so that they might spend Christmas in their own home. To her immense disappointment, nothing so nice happened. The peace conferences were lengthy. Mr. and Mrs. Hewlitt remained in Paris, and did not even speak of booking pa.s.sages to New York. They wrote instead to make arrangements for Diana's holidays in England. It was at first decided that she should spend the time with her cousins, the Burritts, but influenza broke out so badly at Petteridge Court that all in a hurry the plans had to be changed. It ended in Diana pa.s.sing Christmas with the Flemings at Pendlemere Vicarage. So far she had scarcely realized Meg and Elsie Fleming. They came to school daily, and she had seen them among the juniors, and remarked that they were "sweet kids". She was now to meet them at nearer acquaintance, and not only Meg and Elsie, but Monty, Neale, and Roger as well.

They were an interesting and lively family, and after a preliminary half-hour of painful politeness, they thawed over schoolroom tea, and adopted her into their midst. Monty, the eldest, was an eccentric, clever lad in spectacles, fond of making scientific and chemical experiments, which generally ended in odours that caused the others to hold their noses and open the schoolroom windows, top and bottom. He had a philosophical mind and a love of argument, and would thrash out questions for the sheer fun of debate in a growling sort of tone that was not really bad-tempered, only put on.

Neale, six months older than Diana, was a bright, jolly-looking boy, with a freckled nose and chestnut hair that rather stood on end. As regards book-learning, the less said about his attainments the better, and he had an unpleasant half-hour in his father's study, explaining details of his school report; but in all practical matters he was ahead of Monty. He was a thorough young pickle, up to endless pranks, and determined not to let time hang heavy on his hands during the holidays.

Roger, the youngest, a smart little chap of nine, followed in the wake of his brothers, poking interfering fingers into Monty's chemical messes, or acting scout for Neale's escapades. At the end of twelve hours Diana felt that she knew them perfectly, and had shaken down into a place of her own amongst them.

Six young people home for the holidays are apt to turn a house upside down, and it was fortunate for Mrs. Fleming that she had an easy-going and happy-go-lucky disposition, and could view with comparative equanimity the chaos that reigned in the schoolroom. To Diana it was delightful; she preferred a floor littered with shavings, a table spread with paints, plasticine modelling-clay, and other descriptions of mess, and chairs enc.u.mbered with books and papers, to the neatest, tidiest room where everything you want is put away out of reach in cupboards.

"When I heard I was coming to the Vicarage, I thought: 'My, I guess I won't have to bounce there!' But you're a real set of sports," she a.s.sured her new friends.

"Well, I don't think we're exactly what you'd call prim and proper,"

chuckled Meg.

There were still a few days before Christmas, and the energies of the whole family were focused on decorations. There were not many people in the village with leisure to help, so most of the work fell upon the Flemings. They tramped down to the church, bearing great armfuls of evergreens, strings of holly-berries, and texts cut out in paper letters. The girls sat in a pew and twisted garlands of yew and laurel, which the boys, with the aid of a short ladder, fastened round the pillars. Mrs. Fleming was fitting panels of cotton wool on to the pulpit, and sprinkling them with artificial frost.

"We ought to have lots of flags about the place this Christmas," said Monty, "to make it a sort of victory celebration as well. I'll put two or three over the organ, and stick some round the monuments. What I'd like would be to see our huge Union Jack hanging down over that blank wall there."

"Well, why don't you put it?" enquired Diana, looking up from her wreath-twisting.

"All very well, madam, but how am I going to get it there? That's a little detail which escapes your feminine observation. Please to note the height of our ladder and the height of that wall, and compare the difference."

"I'd get up on to that pa.s.sage and fix it," nodding to the triforium.

"Would you, indeed, Miss America? I rather think I see you toddling along there, with a drop of thirty feet below you."

"Do you dare me to?"

"You're brave enough down here in a pew, but I don't believe any girl would have the head for that. Women aren't steeple-jacks!"

"You needn't speak so scornfully. There may be a few steeple-jennies among them!"

"No fear," laughed Monty, turning away.

Diana said nothing more, but as she went on with her wreath her thoughts were as busy as her fingers. She was more silent than usual at lunch, and slipped away quickly afterwards, leaving the family talking round the fire. First, she ran upstairs to the corner of the upper landing, where she knew the big Union Jack was kept. She rolled it into a tight bundle, tucked it under her arm, then tore off to the church. She found herself alone there, for none of the other decorators had returned. It was exactly the opportunity she wanted. The bunch of keys was hanging in the big door. She pulled them out, and carried them to the tiny door by the chancel steps. This she unlocked and flung open, disclosing a steep, winding stair. Almost on her hands and knees Diana scrambled up, and up, and up till she reached the triforium, the narrow stone gallery that ran round the church under the clerestory windows. The first few yards were safely protected with arches, pillars, and a bal.u.s.trade, but after that came a stretch of about twenty feet with no parapet at all. The gallery was only twenty-four inches wide; on the one side was the wall, on the other a sheer drop of about thirty feet. Diana paused, and set her teeth. She did not dare to walk it, but she knelt down and crawled along till she reached the next piece of bal.u.s.trade. Then she unrolled her Union Jack, and, tying it by its cords to the pillars, arranged it so that it hung down into the church and covered the exact spot of blank wall that Monty had indicated. She had just finished when she heard footsteps in the porch. Not wanting to be caught by the Vicar, she began to crawl back in the same way as she had come. Perhaps the sense that someone might be watching her from below unnerved her, for the return journey seemed far worse than the outward one had done. She did not venture to look down, but kept her eyes on the wall. Half-way she was suddenly seized with a horrible paroxysm of dizziness. For a moment or two she lay flat, too frightened to move, while her giddy head seemed to be spinning round. With a supreme effort she mastered the sensation, and crawled on, inch by inch, till she once again reached safety. With rather tottering knees she came down the winding staircase, and through the small door to the chancel steps. Mrs. Fleming, Meg, Monty, and Neale were standing by the lectern when she appeared. Mrs. Fleming was white as chalk; the others were staring open-mouthed, with a queer strained look in their eyes.

"Well, I've done it, you see!" said Diana jauntily.

The Flemings gazed at her without speaking. Monty went and locked the door of the staircase and put the keys in his pocket. The silence was embarra.s.sing.

"I think it looks very nice hanging there," declared Diana, nodding at her Union Jack.

"My dear," said Mrs. Fleming in a shaky voice, "if you knew what I suffered when I saw you creeping along the triforium you couldn't speak so lightly. It isn't right to risk your life in this fashion."

Diana tried to carry the matter off airily, but the boys were grumpy and would not speak. Meg kept looking at her with a peculiar expression, as if she were recovering from a shock. Altogether, Diana felt that her deed of daring had fallen very flat. She was annoyed that no one congratulated her upon it. She considered that for a girl of fourteen it was rather a record. Monty would not be able to sneer at "Miss America"

again. She strolled in a casual way past the font which he was decorating, and made a final effort to wring from him the appreciation she craved.

"There _are_ some steeple-jennies in the world!" she remarked, staring upwards at the clerestory.

Monty picked up another piece of holly, placed it deliberately in position, and then turned his spectacles on Diana.

"And there are more jenny-a.s.ses in it too than I should have expected!"

he answered pointedly.

When Diana had undressed that evening Mrs. Fleming came into her room to say good-night, and sat down for a minute on the edge of her bed.

"Have you thought, dear," she said, "what it would have meant to Mr.

Fleming and me to have been obliged to write to your father and mother and tell them you were lying dead, or, worse still, a cripple with a broken spine; and what your father's and mother's feelings would have been at the news?"

Diana turned her face away.

"Thoughtlessness can sometimes amount to heartlessness in its lack of consideration for others."

"Monty dared me to do it."

"He never dreamed you actually would. Besides, are you going to do every idiotic, silly thing that every foolish person says you dare not? I thought you were more sensible, Diana! Remember, we are responsible for you during the holidays, and I wish to return you whole to your parents.

We use every reasonable precaution to take care of you, but I can't calculate on safeguarding you as if you were a baby of three."

Diana drummed her fingers on the pillow. Mrs. Fleming waited a moment, then tried a different tack.

"I'm not very strong, Diana. My heart is weak, and I'm afraid for some days I shall feel the effect of the shock you gave me this afternoon. I don't believe you're the kind of girl who'd deliberately want to make me ill."

Diana wriggled round, but her head was bent down.

"Remember that we care about you, dear. It would grieve us very much if the slightest little accident were to happen to you. We want you to have jolly holidays here, and to go back to school safe and well, with, I hope, a happy remembrance of the Vicarage."

Two soft arms were thrown round Mrs. Fleming's neck.