Block Eleven
Lady Gwendolen spoke first and instead of being haughty and disdainful, she was as humble as a new-born kitten.
"Oh! you dear, shabby, disrespectable, darling things!" she said. "Never, never, will I scorn you again. Never, never!"
"That's right!" said Peter Piper in his cheerful, rather slangy way. "You take my tip-never you scorn any one again. It's a mistake. Just you watch me stand on my head. It'll cheer you up."
And he turned six summersaults—just like lightning—and stood on his head and wiggled his ragged legs at them until suddenly they heard a snort from one of the beds and it was Lord Hubert beginning to laugh and then Lord Francis laughed and then Lord Hubert shouted, and then Lady Doris squealed, and Lady Muriel screamed, and Lady Gwendolen and the Duchess rolled over and over in their beds, laughing as if they would have fits.
"Oh! you delightful, funny, shabby old loves!" Lady Gwendolen kept saying. "To think that we scorned you."
"They'll be all right after this," said Peter Piper. "There's nothing cures scarlet fever like cheering up. Let's all join hands and dance round and round once for them before we go back to bed. It'll throw them into a nice light perspiration and they'll drop off and sleep like tops." And they did it, and before they had finished, the whole lot of them were perspiring gently and snoring as softly as lambs.
When they went back to Racketty-Packetty House they talked a good deal about Cynthia and wondered and wondered why she had left her scarlet fever so suddenly. And at last Ridiklis made up her mind to tell them something she had heard.
"The Duchess told me," she said, rather slowly because it was bad news—"The Duchess said that Cynthia went away because her Mama had sent for her—and her Mama had sent for her to tell her that a little girl princess is coming to see her to-morrow. Cynthia's Mama used to be a maid of honor to the Queen and that's why the little girl Princess is coming. The Duchess said—" and here Ridiklis spoke very slowly indeed, "that the nurse was so excited she said she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels, and she must tidy up the nursery and have that Racketty-Packetty old dolls' house carried down stairs and burned, early to-morrow morning. That's what the Duchess said—"
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg clutched at their hearts and gasped and Gustibus groaned and Lady Patsy caught Peter Piper by the arm to keep from falling. Peter Piper gulped—and then he had a sudden cheerful thought.
"Perhaps she was raving in delirium," he said.
"No, she wasn't," said Ridiklis shaking her head, "I had just given her hot water and cold, and gruel, and broth, and castor oil, and ipecacuanha and put ice almost all over her. She was as sensible as any of us. To-morrow morning we shall not have a house over our heads," and she put her ragged old apron over her face and cried.
"If she wasn't raving in delirium," said Peter Piper, "we shall not have any heads. You had better go back to the Castle tonight, Patsy. Racketty-Packetty House is no place for you."
Then Lady Patsy drew herself up so straight that she nearly fell over backwards.
"I—will—never—leave you!" she said, and Peter Piper couldn't make her.
You can just imagine what a doleful night it was.
They went all over the house together and looked at every hole in the
carpet and every piece of stuffing sticking out of the dear old shabby
sofas, and every broken window and chair leg and table and ragged blanket—
and the tears ran down their faces for the first time in their lives.
About six o'clock in the morning Peter Piper made a last effort.
