CHAPTER XII

MAD AND MEASLES

THE next day was Saturday, and the Two D’s had planned to spend the morning at Treasure House, studying first, and afterward arranging for a luncheon they were going to have there the next Saturday.

They intended to ask four girls and have a lovely party, but now the very thought of it brought the tears to Dolly’s eyes. She was in her room, wondering whether to go over to Treasure House or to wait for some word from Dotty. They had never had a real quarrel before and Dolly didn’t know quite how to manage it. So she watched from her window to see if Dot would go over. And Dotty did. Soon Dolly saw her walking along the path, her head up, singing a little song, and then she unlocked the door of Treasure House and went in.

So Dolly followed, and went in to find that Dotty had started a good fire, and was sitting at her desk, studying.

Dolly looked at Dotty and Dotty looked at Dolly, but neither spoke. Dolly thought Dotty looked spiteful and Dotty thought Dolly looked stubborn. And they both did look so, and they felt so.

Dolly threw off her coat, laid another log on the blazing fire, and sat down at her desk to study.

Silence reigned and reigned with such absolute monarchy that each girl felt as if she should scream. Perhaps you know the tension of such a situation. Both sat still, until arms and legs felt rigid, faces were strained, and hearts beat as if they would burst. Yet, neither felt she could speak. That would be a humiliating admission of being in the wrong, which neither was willing to make.

Turned slightly away from each other, they were not mutually visible, yet each felt that the other knew every move she made.

Dolly was almost ready to cry, her neck felt so stiff and her arm so cramped. She moved a trifle, and the sensation was as if she had made a disturbance in church. She at once became motionless again, her burning face showing her embarrassed self-consciousness.

Dotty of sterner stuff sat stiffly still, now and then turning a page of her book with utmost deliberation. Then her foot went to sleep, and she wanted to get up and dance on it. Of course, there was no reason why she shouldn’t dance on it to her heart’s content, but if you are acquainted with the peculiar etiquette of “getting mad,” you know she would have endured torture before she would have done anything that could have been construed as sociable.

So the two silly things sat there, each trying to study, pretending to study, and really wondering what the other was thinking.

At last the burned out fire required mending. With a furtive glance at Dotty, Dolly got up, sauntered to the wood-box, selected a log with care, and laid it carefully on the embers of the expiring ones glowing among the ashes.

Dotty jumped up, glad of a chance to step on her sleeping foot, and seizing the poker, jammed Dolly’s log into place so fiercely that it fell down between the andirons.

“I’ll ’tend to the fire,” said Dolly, coldly, for a speech of this sort was entirely permissible.

“You think you know all about fire-making, don’t you? Well, that big log will never burn without a stick of kindling-wood.”

“It would, if you’d let it alone. You always poke a fire till you put it out!”

“I don’t either! I had the fire all right, till you came over and bothered with it.”

“Well, then, fix it yourself, smarty, if you know so much!”

Dolly flounced back to her chair and sat down. Usually gentle, and even-tempered, when Dolly did get stirred up, she was so miserable, all through, that she couldn’t control herself. And now, she knew that if she staid there with Dotty, in those strained relations, she would very shortly burst into uncontrollable tears.

Dotty slammed another log on top of the first one, took the hearth brush and flirted the ashes about a little, took the tongs, and fussed about with those, and then, adjusting the fender with meticulous care, went back to her seat, and again silence took up its sceptre.

The very light-ticking clock could be plainly heard, indeed it sounded as loud as the click of a typewriter in the gloomy atmosphere. The girls turned farther away from each other until they were fairly back to back.

Dolly was all the time growing more and more inclined to tears; not tears of sorrow, so much as of indignation, of weariness and of general nerve strain.

Dotty, tearless, with no inclination to cry, became more and more ruffled with anger at Dolly, and a vague half-recognised jealousy of Bernice; as well as a sort of remorse at her own unkindness to her chum.

But what could be done? Girls who are “mad at” each other can not violate the age-old canons of not speaking, and to speak first was the deepest humiliation.

So the two little ninnies sat there. Dotty’s feet went to sleep, one after the other. Dolly’s arms stiffened and relaxed in turn. The minutes dragged by like hours. Lessons were not learned, for how can one put one’s mind on the Ptolemies or their successors, when one is mad at one’s friend?

At last, somehow, the motionless hour-hand of the hammering clock managed to worm its way to twelve, a permissible, if not usual, hour to go home.

Simultaneously, and with the same air of preoccupied intentness, both girls put away books and papers, and pulled on her coat sleeves.

Dolly dawdled over her desk a moment, hoping Dotty would speak. Dotty looked at the back of Dolly’s head, decided it still looked stubborn, and turned away.

Together, yet miles apart, they went out of the door. Dotty locked it with her key, she was always the quicker one at that, and then, with an assumed lightness of step, the two silly young things ran across their respective lawns and into their respective homes.

Merry and bright they were at their respective luncheon tables, for the unwritten law required that their parents must not know of the tragedy that had befallen.

So, when Mrs. Fayre informed Dolly that her company was desired for a ride that afternoon, the consent was prompt and willing. And when Mrs. Rose asked Dotty to stay with Genie while she went out on some errands, there was no objection raised.

But there were two sore and sorry hearts in the neighbouring houses, and two brains pondered over the question of what was best to do.

Dolly was unwilling to give up her pet plan of helping Bernice. She couldn’t explain entirely to her own satisfaction, just why she was so interested in this project, but she knew she had no unworthy motive. It was not,—of that she was sure,—because Bernie was rich and lived in the grandest house in Berwick. It was not because she wanted her for her own particular friend. But it seemed too bad that a nice girl like that should be out of everything for lack of a guiding hand. And, it must be admitted, Dolly liked to play the part of guiding hand.

Dotty, for her part, was mad because Dolly had gone off and asked the girls to invite Bernice to their party, after she had practically agreed not to. This was Dolly’s sole argument. The fact of her own jealousy of Dolly’s interest in Bernice she ignored, for the present, at least.

So the two foolish ones spent much of the golden Autumn afternoon ruffling the feathers of their souls, and persistently keeping them ruffled.

* * * * *

That evening, as the Fayres sat at dinner, the telephone rang, and Mrs. Fayre was asked for.

After a time she returned to the table.

“Here’s a state of things,” she said, smiling, yet looking serious too. “It was Mrs. Rose telephoning. Genie has the measles, or rather, they think she has, and so Mrs. Rose asks if we’ll let Dotty come here to stay till they’re over.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Fayre, “that’s too bad for poor little Genie. But I rather think I can guess the names of Two D’s who won’t be sorry about the projected visit. Eh, Dollykins?”

Dolly was stricken dumb. Dotty coming for a week, maybe more,—how long did measles last, anyway? Was it a month? Could they go without speaking all that time?

“How—how long will she be here, Mother?” at last a small, scared voice said.

“A couple of weeks, I daresay. Why,—aren’t you glad? I thought you’d be overjoyed. Not at Genie’s illness, but at Dotty’s coming.”

“Did—did you tell her she could come, Mother?”

“Surely, child. Won’t you have the good times, though!”

“She can have the pink guest room,” said Trudy, kindly. “That’s almost next to Doll’s room, and they can chum all they like. Hasn’t Dotty been exposed, Mother?”

“Yes, but she has had measles, so she’s immune. But she can’t go to school if she remains in the house where the illness is. So she’s to come here.”

“When?” asked Dolly, in a queer, far-away voice.

“Now; right away,” replied her mother. “We’ll put aside that best lace bed-set, Trudy, and give her a plainer one.”

“Of course. I’ll fix the room, Mother, you needn’t give it a thought.”

“You’re a great help, Trude,” said Mrs. Fayre, smiling at her elder daughter.

Meantime the younger daughter of the house of Fayre was struggling with her emotions. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.

And before she had time to decide, Dotty arrived.

“Isn’t this great?” she exclaimed in a state of excitement. “It’s awful kind of you, Mrs. Fayre, to take me in, but you see, I’d hate so to be out of school just now. It’s near examinations, and I do want to pass.”

“We’ll pass you,” said Mr. Fayre. “We’ll put you through, with bells on! But I expect you Two D’s will chatter and giggle all the time instead of studying.”

“Oh, no, we won’t,” and from the cold smile Dotty flashed at her, Dolly understood the feud was as desperate as ever, but the elders were to be kept in ignorance of it. For a feud suspected by parents is as good as finished. No real feud can exist in the scathing beams of grown people’s ridicule.

So Dolly smiled coldly in return, and said, “No, indeed,” in a tone that ought not to have deceived a feeble-minded jellyfish.

Nor did it deceive Trudy. “Something’s up,” she thought, but wisely kept her thoughts to herself.

Later, when the girls went to bed, they parted at their doorways in the hall.

“Good night, Dollyrinda,” said Dotty, heartily, in a voice loud enough to be heard down-stairs, if any one chanced to be listening. “I’m fearfully tired, so I’ll go right to bed.”

“Good night, Dotsie,” returned the other guileful one. “You must be tired, with the worry about Genie, and all. Good night.”

The door shut and there was silence as far as the Two D’s were concerned.

“What can it be?” thought Trudy, who had heard the high-pitched conversation. But she bided her time to find out.

The next day was a trial. Being Sunday, the whole family was much together. The Two D’s were at their wit’s end to preserve an apparent friendliness, without showing each other any real diminution of their desperate hatred of one another. Trudy eyed them, when she could do so unobserved, and concluded that they were “mad at” each other. “Silly little geese!” she thought, well remembering her own not so far past schooldays.

She determined to give them every chance.

“Going over to Treasure House?” she inquired, soon after dinner.

“Dunno. Do you want to go, Dot?” said Dolly, with studied carelessness.

“Oh, I don’t care, Dolly. Just as you like,” and Dotty’s politeness was faultless.

“Of course you do,” said Mr. Fayre, looking up from his paper. “What did I build that house for if you’re not to use it?”

“Shall we go, Dot?”

“Yes, if you like.”

Dolly did not like, at all, but Mr. Fayre spoke up again. “Run along over, kiddies, and after a while, I’ll saunter over myself. I haven’t been there for a week, and I like to keep in touch with it.”

“All right, Dad. Come on, Dotty.”

The two girls went across the lawn, side by side.

“Wonder how Genie is,” said Dolly, with the laudable intention of “making talk.”

“She isn’t sick, you know,” returned Dotty, courteously. “The doctor isn’t sure it really is measles. But he’ll know in a day or two.”

They went into Treasure House. Something about the look of the place got on Dolly’s nerves. The lovely house, the dear furniture, the beautiful treasures, and then—the two owners acting like a pair of silly idiots,—it was too much! But, whereas yesterday, she had felt sad and distressed, the long trying hours had made her irritable and angry, and as the door closed behind them, she burst out, “I think you’re perfectly _horrid_, Dotty Rose!”

“So do I think _you_ are, Dolly Fayre!”

“The _idea_ of being mad at me, just because I want to do a deed of kindness for a friend!”

“She _isn’t_ your friend.”

“Why, of course she’s my friend—”

“You hardly know her!”

“You don’t have to know people such an awful lot to be friends with them,—not if they’re nice people.”

“Huh! I s’pose I’m not nice people, then. You’re not very friendly with me!”

“Neither are you with me!”

“You know why.”

“So do you know why.”

“I don’t know why, and I don’t care why. If you want old Bernice Forbes for your friend instead of me, you can have her, I don’t care!”

“I don’t want her instead of you—”

“You do so! You like her because she’s—”

“You stop that, Dotty Rose! Don’t you dare say that! I’ll like her if I want to,—so there now, and you can think whatever you please! I don’t care _what_ you think!”

A step on the porch sounded, and the angry combatants, ashamed to be caught quarrelling, ran back to the dining-room.

“Where are you, ladies of the house?” called out Mr. Fayre, as he and Mrs. Fayre stepped into the study.

“All right, be there in a minute,” called Dotty in a cheery voice, as she mopped her heated brow with her handkerchief, and straightened her rumpled collar.

And in a moment, two normally serene girls came in the room to receive their guests.

“What were you talking about as we came up the steps?” asked Mrs. Fayre, in idle curiosity; “you were speaking so loudly and excitedly.”

“We were—” began Dolly, and stopped. She was a truthful child, and since she didn’t want to state the facts, she preferred to say nothing. Dotty too, began to speak and stopped.

“Never mind, Mother,” said Mr. Fayre, laughing, “let the girls have their little secrets.”