Part 14 (1/2)
”Hullo, up there! I say!” shouted a voice in the hall below, ”how's Phebe?”
”Oh, it's d.i.c.k!” cried the Dexter girls in a breath. ”You can't come up, d.i.c.k.”
”Ain't a-going to. But a fellow can speak, can't he, without his body a-following his voice? How's Phebe?”
”She's splendid.”
”What's the doctor say?”
”He says she only needs to be kept perfectly quiet.”
”Hooray!” said d.i.c.k, and apparently executed a war-dance on the oil-cloth, while Olly profited by the general hubbub created by the entrance of two more ladies, to satisfactorily investigate the sponge-cake.
”Why, quite a levee, isn't it, Phebe?” said one of the last arrivals, looking in vain for a chair, and forced to seat herself on a low table, accidentally upsetting Phebe's medicines as she did so.
”Yes, altogether too much of one,” said Gerald, knitting her brows as she rescued a bottle just in time, and darted an angry glance around the crowded room. ”Phebe isn't at all equal to it yet.”
”You are right, Miss Vernor,” agreed Mrs. Upjohn, drawing out her tatting from her pocket, and settling herself at it with an answering frown. ”There are quite too many here. Some people never know when to stay away.”
”Oh, there's Bell. I hear her voice,” called Mattie, running to look over the banisters. ”She's got both Mr. De Forest and Mr. Moulton with her.”
There was a sound of many voices below, a giggling, a rush for the stairs, and a playful scuffle.
”It's me” (Bell's voice); ”d.i.c.k won't let me pa.s.s.”
”Me is Bell” (d.i.c.k's voice); ”she wouldn't pa.s.s if she could. Too many fellows down here for her to want to leave 'em. Send us down a girl or two from up there, can't you?”
A girl or two, however, apparently appeared from outside, greetings were called up to Phebe, offerings of flowers and delicacies transmitted _via_ d.i.c.k on the stairs to Olly at the top (who took toll by the way), and the liveliest kind of a time went on. It was quite like a party, d.i.c.k shouted up, only that there was no ice-cream and a singular scarcity of girls.
”It's a shame,” said Mrs. Upjohn, severely, in her chair, while Gerald held her peace, too wrathful to speak, and conscious of her inability to mend matters. ”I should think people might have sense enough not to crowd all the air out of a sick-room in this fas.h.i.+on.”
”It's exceedingly inconsiderate of them, I am sure,” answered Mrs.
Hardcastle, drawing a sofa cus.h.i.+on behind her back. ”She ought to be so quiet.”
”Phebe!” shouted d.i.c.k. ”Here's the parson. He wants to know if you're dead yet. Shan't I send him up? It will be all right, you know, quite the thing. He's a parson, and wears a gown on Sundays.”
”d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!” screamed his mother. ”Was there ever such a lad!”
”He's coming. Get ready for him. Have out your Prayer-books,”
called d.i.c.k.
Phebe flushed crimson, and looked imploringly at Gerald. An indignant murmur ran through the room. Mrs. Upjohn drew herself up to her severest height. ”What shameless impertinence! How dare he intrude!” A shout of unholy laughter downstairs followed d.i.c.k's sally.
”Mr. Halloway isn't there at all,” cried Olly, his fine, clear-voice pitched high above the rest, ”He only asked about Pheeb at the door, and went right off.”
”Well, he left this for her with his compliments, and this, and this,”
called d.i.c.k, rummaging in his pockets, and tossing up an apple, and then a hickory nut, and last a good-sized and dangerously ripe tomato. Olly caught them dexterously with a yell of delight, and was immediately rushed at by three of the nearest ladies and ordered not to make a noise, for Phebe was to be kept perfectly quiet.
”Such doings would never be permitted a moment if she had only been in Dr. Harrison's hands,” said Mrs. Upjohn, in denunciatory tones. ”He would have forbidden her to see any one. It is scandalous.”