Читать книгу Two Queens At the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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Phyl, nineteen, fair-haired, pianist and cookery student, soon to be Queen of the Hamlet Club, rang up the Manor and asked leave to call on Lady Marchwood.

Jen welcomed her cordially and led her into the garden for tea under the trees. “Congrats! I hear you are our new Queen.”

“They’ve chosen me. Lady Marchwood, I had to ask you—do you mind if I’m the Wallflower Queen?”

“How pretty! Why should I mind?”

“You often carry wallflowers when you’re being Queen. I don’t want to take your idea.”

“Nice of you! But they’re not my flower. I only have them to remind me of the Abbey. They grow all over it, and I love it, and them, so much. My colour is much lighter—beech-brown. You’ll have rich red brown, I suppose?”

“Chestnut, lined with bright yellow. Those are the real wallflower colours.”

“That will be lovely, with your fair hair,” Jen agreed. “Oh, go ahead, Wallflower! I’ll carry cowslips. You’ve made a good choice and quite an original one—which is difficult, as you’ll be the twenty-seventh Queen. Queen Phyllis, I suppose? I’ve never heard you called anything else but Phyl.”

“I’m never called anything else, but I’m really Phyllida.”

“Queen Phyllida! Oh, that’s very pretty! Make the Club use your whole name. It’s a pity to waste it.”

“I don’t think they could. I’m too old to be Queen,” Phyl began. “They wanted somebody younger—really in the school, not a cookery student. But there didn’t seem anybody outstanding, though a lot of them are jolly nice kiddies.”

“They didn’t think of asking the Abbey twins?” Jen seized the chance to put the question, which had been much discussed by herself and Joy Quellyn, the mother of the twins.

“For a lot of things we’d have liked to have them,” Phyl said frankly. “They’d be very pretty, as Queens, and they’re rather special both in games and music. Margaret’s cricket and fiddle and Elizabeth’s ’cello are all above the average. But there’s something the girls feel they haven’t got; not yet, anyway. Perhaps it’s just that they aren’t old enough.”

“Not in their ideas. They’ve always been young for their age,” Jen assented. “The girls may be right. Their time may come.”

“I hope it will. We like them, you know. They were very nice to me. They came and congratulated me in the loveliest way.”

Jen nodded and changed the subject. “After tea you must come into the Abbey and I’ll give you some wallflowers from the walls. They scent the whole place and they come early because the Abbey is so sheltered. I’ve a bit of news that you may pass round at school. We only heard this morning. Littlejan Fraser is on her way home, but I’m afraid she won’t be in time for May-Day.”

“Oh, good! She’ll have been in Ceylon for almost three years. We’ll love to have her back—she’ll come to school again, won’t she?”

“As a cookery student. I expect that’s the idea; we shall hear her plans when she arrives. She was nineteen at Christmas. Just right for a senior student!”

“I’ll be glad,” Phyl said happily. “She was such a good queen; she’ll be able to help me.”

“Do you expect to need help?” Jen raised her brows.

“I might,” Phyl explained. “We’re short of old queens; Rosalind has left, Jansy’s gone abroad on this tour with the President, Jean’s at college. But Littlejan will be somebody splendid to fall back on. I might need somebody; I get worked up over music sometimes, and nothing else seems to matter. I wouldn’t mean to neglect the Hamlet Club, but I might not be able to help it.”

Jen’s brows rose even higher. “But as Queen you would surely put the Club first.”

“You can’t quite understand,” Phyl assured her. “There are times when only music counts. Littlejan—Queen Marigold—could take over for me.”

“But, my dear girl—oh, well! You can consult Littlejan about that.” Jen hurriedly changed the subject.

But as she said good-bye to Phyl at the Abbey gate she wondered if perhaps the Hamlet Club had made a mistake.

“I can’t do anything. They’ve chosen and they’ll have to take the consequences. But a Queen who doesn’t put the Club first may turn out to be a disaster. Littlejan will help, of course, but she may not be able to hide that she is doing so, and Phyl obviously doesn’t think there is any need to hide it. I hope the Club isn’t going to be disappointed.”

There had been great rejoicing when Littlejan Fraser’s letter arrived. She had lived at the Hall, with the twins and their cousin Jansy Raymond, for three years, for the whole of her school life in England, as her home was in Ceylon; she had been one of the best queens the Club had known and had been a moving spirit in its doings both before and after her reign. She had brought about the choice of Jean, her maid-of-honour, to follow her as queen, and had stood by her, and then by Jansy, during their reigns. At nearly seventeen she had been swept away by her father at a few hours’ notice, to give much needed help to her mother in a crisis, but had been promised a year or two more at school as soon as she could be spared. Everyone, at home and at school, had mourned her going and she had been badly missed. Her stay in Ceylon had lasted longer than had been expected, as there were two baby sisters and her help had been invaluable to her mother.

At under twenty she could still be accepted as a senior cookery student, however, and no one had any doubt that she would choose to go back to school. Certainly she would be a strength to the Club and an immense help to Phyl. But it did not seem quite right that help should be needed.

But as the car from the Hall bore her away from Southampton about a month later, it was not of school Littlejan was thinking, nor of the old friends she was so soon to meet. The car was littered with newspapers and she was devouring them eagerly.

“Bring me every morning paper there is,” she had said to her escort, before he left her to rush to the London boat train.

She was a little disappointed that no one had come in the car to meet her. There had been a friendly note of warmest welcome from Joy, handed to her by Frost, the chauffeur, but she had hoped perhaps Jansy or the twins would come. She had a very close friendship with Jansy, almost sisterly; she had thought Jansy would be thrilled by her return. And it was Saturday morning; surely Jansy could have spared an hour!

Then, wrapped in the newspapers again, she had had no time to think of Jansy or the twins.

The night before, as the liner crept up channel, the wireless in the lounge had suddenly been switched on.

“We forgot the concert,” somebody had said. “There’s that new singer. I hope we haven’t missed her.”

From the set had come a beautiful soprano voice, in an aria from a Mozart opera, clear and sweet and strong.

“Lovely! What a splendid first appearance!” was the exclamation at the end.

The announcer was saying something. Littlejan leapt to the set to listen, just too late. “He said Anne—what was the rest of it?” she whirled round. “Who was she? We missed the names at the beginning.”

“Her name’s Belinda Bellanne. It’s her first concert. She’s been trained by Dr. John Robertson.”

“But I know her!” Littlejan cried. “I heard her sing years and years ago. Why did we miss the beginning? Will she sing again?”

“Listen! An encore,” said her friend.

The beautiful voice filled the lounge. “Miss Bellanne will sing again in the second half of the programme,” said the announcer, at the end.

“One of Lady Quellyn’s songs. ‘To a Skylark,’ I believe it’s called. I’m afraid the second part isn’t being broadcast,” and the friends smiled at Littlejan’s excitement and acute disappointment.

“Tell us what you know of her,” they asked.

“I went to stay at Lady Quellyn’s house, years ago, and my mother had to leave me, the very first night, and rush off to Scotland. I hadn’t had time to feel at home; I hardly knew the people, and I felt awful. Lindy—that’s what we called her—came to comfort me, and said it was like the first night at a new school and she was a senior and must buck me up. She was a year or two older than I was; she was being nursery governess to Lady Quellyn’s twins. We were very friendly, but then she went to America with the Quellyns. I’ve never forgotten that first night and how kind she was. We knew she was to be a singer. She’s lived with the Quellyns and then with Dr. and Mrs. Robertson, and they’ve all helped to train her voice.”

“She’s certainly had every chance! And her voice shows it; it’s beautiful and she is obviously well-trained. She should go far. I wonder what the papers will say in the morning? We’ll get them when we arrive.”

That was what Littlejan wanted to know, and she devoured the notices as the car sped towards the Hall.

“They’ve all been nice to Lindy,” she said to herself, as they swept round the village green and up the tree-hung lane to the Hall. “What a bit of luck that I heard a scrap of her first concert! Here’s the Abbey gate! Oh, it’s lovely to be home again! Dear old place!”