Читать книгу Two Queens At the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 3

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“But why don’t they want us?” Elizabeth looked at Margaret with troubled eyes.

“They’d like to have you, but they don’t want me, and I’d like to know why,” Margaret muttered.

“That’s silly. They know they can’t have one of us without the other. I’d never be Queen unless you were Queen too.”

“It’s jolly decent of you. But what’s wrong with me? I thought I was quite a nice girl,” Margaret groaned.

“I wish those people would hurry up. We want to talk to Rachel,” and Elizabeth gazed across the cloister garth, waiting patiently for the Abbey Guardian to appear.

They had come to the Abbey to consult the Abbot, a position Rachel, the guide and caretaker of the ruins, was filling very capably. To the younger generation of schoolgirls she had become counsellor and friend, and the twins had often come to her for help.

They were bright, pretty girls of nearly fifteen with deep brown eyes and beautiful dark red hair worn in short curls. They were standing in the cloisters, looking across at the chapter-house door and windows, but at the sound of voices they vanished into a little room in the walls.

“Going at last. They’ve been a long time in the crypt. We’ll catch Rachel as soon as they’ve gone,” Elizabeth said.

Rachel, dark-haired and wearing her uniform, a white gown with a girdle, like a monk’s robe, led her clients to the entrance and the clang of the gate told that they had gone. The twins ran out and caught her as she turned to go into her little home within the walls.

“Rachel! We want you! We’ve been waiting!”

“Oh, twins! I’m glad to see you,” Rachel said hospitably, putting aside thoughts of the story she had been hoping to correct.

“We want to talk to you. We’re bothered,” the twins spoke in a breathless duet.

“Carry on!” Rachel took the big chair, lifting out a black cat and a pair of kittens and dropping them neatly into their basket. Her other cat, Golden Rory, came from the kitchen to greet her; she tickled his ears and looked at the twins.

The trouble came out with a rush. “It’s school. They’re choosing the new Queen. It’s to be Phyl.”

“The maid-of-honour. That often happens, doesn’t it?” Rachel looked thoughtful.

“Often, but not always. Rachel, we may be silly, but we did think it might be us.”

“It seemed so sensible for us to be Queens and we’re old enough,” Margaret urged.

Rachel looked still more thoughtful. “I don’t think it was silly. You are old enough now and it is rather the family tradition for girls to be May Queens, isn’t it? Your mother, and all those aunts! I know people have hoped you would be Queens some day. Nobody suggested it?”

“I don’t think they want us. We’d like to know why. What’s wrong with us?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Margaret demanded, “I believe they’d have Elizabeth, but she wouldn’t be Queen without me.”

“Perhaps they don’t like the idea of having two,” Rachel was temporising. “It’s never been done, has it?”

“It isn’t that,” Elizabeth gave her a straight, fearless look. “They used to talk about having two Queens, and they said it would be fun. Rachel, it’s us. They don’t think we’d do it well. Why is it?”

“Have they said so?”

“Not straight out, to us. But we know.”

“Betty and Diana were talking, and we heard,” Margaret explained.

The two gazed at Rachel and she knew she must help.

“It’s hard for me to say, twins, when I’m not at school. But I expect they think you might not always remember to put the Club first and yourselves nowhere.”

“I wouldn’t like to be nowhere,” Margaret said hurriedly.

“You mean, we’d think first of what we wanted, whether it was best for the Club or not,” Elizabeth was pondering the question. “Would we, Twin?”

“I wouldn’t leave me out altogether. I’d do both.”

“Sometimes you can’t do both. Twins, think hard about this.”

“We’re thinking very hard,” Elizabeth asserted.

“We have been, for days and weeks,” Margaret cried.

“It isn’t your fault,” Rachel spoke weightily and bravely, “but all your lives you have been made to feel you were important people. You can’t remember, but from the moment you were born you meant just everything to your mother. She had heard about your father being killed in Africa; she felt she had nothing left. And then you came along and she had two babies. Can’t you see what that meant to her? For years she just lived for you, and without understanding, you felt you were the centre of the world and everything moved round you. Then you had your new father and he wasn’t used to children and he was very fond of you and very proud of you. Now it’s different; they have their own three babies and your mother has them and Sir Ivor, as well as you. But the feeling of being important had worked into you, and it wasn’t made any less by your journey to New York. I’m quite sure people made a lot of you there and on the voyages, and you still felt yourselves important people. Remember, as I said, it isn’t your fault, but it has happened to you. I don’t mean that you swank; I’m sure you don’t. But you can see how the girls feel—that you might not put the Club first.”

The twins gazed at her. “Then can’t we do anything about it?” Margaret demanded.

“What did your mother say about Phyl?”

Elizabeth said slowly, “That she was sure Phyl would be a good Queen. But I think she was disappointed, Rachel.”

Rachel thought it very likely, but was glad Joy had not put the idea into words.

“You’re not so very old yet, twins,” she said. “You’ll only be fifteen by May-Day. Sixteen would be a very good age to be Queens.”

The twins looked at her again.

“They might choose us next year,” Margaret cried.

Elizabeth, as usual, went more deeply into the matter. “You mean, in a year we might be different and they might like us better? We could try, Twin.”

“I’m sure they like you now,” Rachel said quickly. “But you could try sometimes to put other people first. Think of the Club and the school! Phyl will be a good Queen, I’m sure.”

“She’s rather old,” Margaret objected. “She’s having a long time as an almost grown-up cookery, but you forget, because her hair’s so short.”

“She doesn’t do much cooking,” Elizabeth remarked. “She’s too keen on music. If she was orchestra, she’d be chosen to be leader and play fiddle solos, but she’s piano.”

“Have they chosen a leader yet?” Rachel glanced at Margaret, knowing how her hopes had lain in this direction. “It will be hard for anyone to follow Rosalind Kane.”

“Joyce has been doing it, since Rosalind left last summer. She’s older than any of us, and she’s jolly good. But she left at Easter,” Margaret’s tone was full of meaning.

Rachel gave her another quick look, “Are you to get the job? You’d do it very well.”

“Nobody knows. There’s Jennifer, in our form,” Margaret admitted.

“She’s good too,” Elizabeth said. “Miss Howard might choose her, Twin.”

“Rosalind wanted me to be leader after her,” Margaret urged.

“Twins, don’t worry about school. All this has just happened; you aren’t to blame,” Rachel said. “But don’t let the girls see you had hoped to be Queens. Back up Phyl for all you’re worth and always put the Club and the school before what you want yourselves.”

“We’ll try,” Elizabeth spoke gravely. “Thank you, Rachel. You do help, you know.”

“I’m glad they think so, but it’s hard to put ‘not public-spirited enough,’ into words for fifteen year-olds,” Rachel said to herself, as she turned back to the Abbey after seeing the twins out by the gate into the garden of the Hall.