On Boxing Day, Lavender excused herself from joining a rinking party,
and lay curled up on a sofa reading a Christmas number.
The following morning she stayed in bed to breakfast, and complained of
a swollen face. On the third day, the sight of the huge cheeks and
doubled chin sent the family flying for the doctor, and the tragic
verdict of "mumps" was whispered from mouth to mouth.
Mumps in the Christmas holidays! Isolation for the victim for days,
even weeks; the risk of infection for others; the terrible, unthinkable
possibility of "missing a term"! Mrs Vernon came nobly to the rescue,
and invited Darsie to spend the remainder of the holidays under her
roof, since, with a Tripos in prospect, every precaution must be taken
against infection. For the rest, Lavender's own little eyrie was
situated at the end of a long top passage, and might have been
originally designed for a sanatorium and there, in solitary state, the
poor mumpy poetess bewailed her fate, and besought the compassion of her
companions. Letters were not forbidden, and she therefore found a sad
satisfaction in pouring out her woes on paper, as a result of which
occupation the following poetical effusion presently found its way to
the schoolroom party--
"All gay and fair the scene appeared:
I was a gladsome maid;
When the dire hand of circumstance
Upon my life was laid.
Upon the eve of festal day
The first dread symptoms fell;
And those who should have sympathised,
Whose tender words I would have prized,
Did sneer, and jeer, and with loud cries,
Ascribe the reason to mince-pies!
"What time I woke the third day morn,
By mirror was the sad truth borne;
Not alone exile, grief, and pain
Must fill my cup--but also _shame_!
Gone is my youthful glee and grace,
I have an elephantine face;
My cheeks are gross, which were so thin;
I have a loathsome pendant chin.
All who behold me smile aside,
And their derision barely hide.
Oh, cruel fate! instead of tears,
In my sad plight I get but jeers.
"Friends, comrades, readers of this ditty,
If heart ye have, on me have pity.
Go not unthinking on your way,
Content to sing, content to play,
While I and mumps sit here alone
In an unending, drear `At home.'
Put wits to work, think out some way
To cheer the captive's lonely day,
Forget yourself, and think of me,
And doubly blessed you shall be.
For since the days of earliest youth
You have been brought up on this truth--
To help the ailing by your side
Is the true work of Christmas-tide!"
To disregard so touching an appeal being plainly an impossibility, an
impromptu committee meeting was held in the Vernons' study, when the
idea of an open-air melodrama was proposed, and carried with
acclamation. A melodrama acted in the back garden, underneath
Lavender's window, opened out prospects of amusement for the actors as
well as the audience, and a rainy afternoon was passed in the merriest
fashion discussing the plot, characters, and costume.
Darsie sat on the hearthrug, and prodded the fire vigorously to mark
each point scored. Vie wrote from dictation at the centre table. Dan
sat chuckling in his own particular chair, and allowed himself to be
cast as hero with lamblike calm, and plain Hannah affected dire
displeasure at being passed over for the part of beauteous maid. It was
like the dear old days when they had all been young--_really_ young--in
pinafores and pigtails, with no dread of coming Tripos, no agitation
about youthful lawyers to chase away sleep at night! Looking back
through the years, that hour stood out in remembrance as one most
happily typical of the dear home life.
The programme was delicious. Vie discovered a great sheet of white
paper, left over from the parcel wrappings of the week before; Dan
printed the words in his most dashing fashion; John nailed it on the lid
of a packing-chest, and the whole party escorted it round the terrace to
the Garnett dwelling, and waited in the street beneath until it was
conveyed upstairs, and Lavender, discreetly swathed in a shawl, appeared
at her lighted window and waved a towel in triumph.