Part 15 (2/2)

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 fas.h.i.+on.”

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.

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