Читать книгу Two Queens At the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 6

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“Do you think I’ll need to tell everybody?” Littlejan asked, as they sat down to a much-needed meal. “If everybody’s as thrilled as you were it will be very tiring! I thought I’d go to school and not tell anybody, except perhaps the Head. I’m still Marigold, or Littlejan Fraser. What does the rest matter?”

“You’ll have to tell the twins and Jansy,” Joy pointed out.

“Jansy! Oh, tell me what you meant! Why is she in Madeira? When did she go? Is Aunty Joan there too?”

“No, Jansy’s with the President. The reason is rather sad,” Joy said. “The President has lost her baby girl, little Shirley Rose. She’s the first of us to lose a child. Shirley was never strong and she died last February. The other children felt it terribly; there’s Dickon, who is one day younger than Jansy, and Cis, two years younger; then Ted, who has always been delicate but seems much stronger lately; and Shirley was the baby. They were a very united family, and the rest have missed the baby sister dreadfully. So the President and Mr. Everett decided to take them all for a spring cruise, to give them new things to think about, and as Cis would be the only girl in the party they invited Jansy to go with them, to be company for her.”

Littlejan looked up. “Does the President want Jansy to marry her Dickon?”

“Match-making, Marigold?” Jen asked.

“No, but does she? Would she be pleased?”

“I’m sure both she and Joan would be delighted, but they can’t arrange it.”

“The President’s having a jolly good try to make it happen.”

“Littlejan, what do you mean?”

“Taking them off together on a ship like that. I hope Jan won’t get married too soon. I don’t approve of early marriages,” said the Baby Bride.

“Marigold, how can you? What about yourself?” Jen exploded.

“Jansy was asked to be company for little Cicely,” Joy reminded her.

“She may have been, and she’ll be nice and kind to Cis. But with Dickon just her own age—” and Littlejan shook her head.

“She’s one day older. She always insists on that,” Joy laughed. “You think she and Dickon will be pals on the voyage?”

“I know what it’s like on these cruises. They’ll have heaps of chances. Does she like him?”

“Very much, as a schoolgirl, and that’s all she is—a few months over sixteen. Don’t make up fairy stories, Marigold.”

“You get a lot older when you go travelling and running round on ships and in the ports you visit. Jansy’ll be much more grown-up when she comes home.—And how,” Littlejan went on, with rising indignation, “you people can have thought I’d come home still a kid, like I was before, I simply don’t know. I’m positive certain Lady Jen expected me to be just the same and not changed at all.”

“Well, I did,” Jen confessed. “I’ve looked forward to seeing Queen Marigold again.”

“You’ll see her all right! She isn’t far away. But how could I possibly not have grown up, with all that travelling, and meeting new people—all Mother’s friends in Ceylon—and voyages and all that? How could I? Tell me that!”

“One for us, Jenny-Wren,” Joy remarked. “Are you really so very grown-up, Mrs. Fraser?”

Littlejan coloured. “Are you going to tease me no end? I don’t really feel grown-up, you know.”

There came what she had once called ‘a rush of twins,’ and Elizabeth and Margaret were upon her, their arms about her.

“You’ve come back! Our dear Littlejan! And just the same as ever!” Margaret shouted.

“Our Marigold!” Elizabeth cried. “You’ll be a queen again, won’t you? But you’ve missed May-Day. Why did you?”

Littlejan held them off. “Let me look at you! Three years!—yes, you are bigger—who is the new Queen? Not either of you?”

“It would be both of us,” Elizabeth said with dignity. “It’s Phyl, Marigold. We crowned her a week ago. Why weren’t you here in time for May-Day?”

“I couldn’t manage it. I’d have liked to be.”

“Will Phyl be a good Queen? You know her, don’t you?” Elizabeth asked.

“Rather! She and Tessa were in that funny little school that Jansy taught so well. I don’t see why Phyl shouldn’t be a good Queen. Did Tessa do well? I heard all that story in Jansy’s letters.”

“Oh, yes! Jolly decent. Phyl’s the wallflower Queen——”

The telephone rang and Joy went to answer it.

Jen rose. “I must go home, and you must feed these hungry cricket girls. Did you know I have a very new infant, Littlejan?”

“But I thought Jan said you meant Barbara Rose to be the end of your family?”

“We did,” Jen admitted. “But we relented and had one more. I wanted to have another try for my sixth boy. He came all right; he’s called Simon Patrick.”

“Then that’s your whole morris side! How super for you! But I thought you meant to call him Francis?”

“He wanted to be Simon,” Jen said airily. “He’s just like all the rest—big and fair and hefty.”

“What a thumping relief!” Littlejan laughed. “If he’d been a little dark Marchwood, like your first two girls, it would have spoiled your set.”

“We’d have had to put in Barbara, in a jersey and shorts; she’d have looked the part. He’s only one month old—I must go home and see to his dinner. Rosamund has another boy too; did you know? We had a baby-boy race and I won. Simon and Peter are practically twins.”

“Simon and Peter!” Elizabeth chuckled. “Sounds like the Bible!”

“Is the new Kentisbury baby called Peter? I’m glad it wasn’t more girl twins!”

“Peter Geoffrey Kane. Their little Geoff was so lonely; one small boy after four girls; they just had to have another, to be company for him. They’re delighted; Ros says she’ll be satisfied now, and I think I shall too. Maidlin had a little boy at Christmas. Two boys and two girls for her; and very nice too,” Jen said.

“He’s Malcolm, but they seem to call him Mac for short. Mary-Dorothy is there to-day, spending the day with Maidlin.”

“I wondered where she was,” Littlejan commented.

“Littlejan!” Joy called. “Somebody wants to speak to you. He says he’s Len.”

With one bound Littlejan was at the phone, with the door shut.

Joy laughed. Jen looked at her eagerly.

“I like his voice. Slightly Scottish; very pleasant. He’s coming here this afternoon.”

“Who was it?” the twins spoke breathlessly. “You said Len. What does it mean? Who is he?”

“That, my dear girls,” Joy said, “is Littlejan’s husband talking to her. He said—‘May I speak to my wife?’ ” and she laughed across at Jen.

“Husband? She couldn’t be married!” cried the twins.

“She says she’s married. Didn’t you see her ring?”

“How horrible of her!” Margaret said gloomily. “She won’t be a bit the same.”

“She seemed just the same,” Elizabeth was more cautious. “But I’m sorry. I wish she wasn’t married.”

“She says she’s going to school with you. He has to go away, on a long voyage to the Antarctic; he’s a radio officer, from her father’s ship. Perhaps being married won’t make much difference to her,” Joy began.

“Perhaps,” Jen said darkly. “Joy, thank you for my nice lunch. As soon as we’ve heard what Marigold has to say, I’ll go home to young Simon.”

“Look at her face!” Elizabeth whispered, as Littlejan came from the telephone. “Does being married make you look like that?”

“Like what? She’s only a bit shiney.”

“Yes, lit up, as if he’d switched on a light inside her. Just with talking to him on the phone! How odd!”

Littlejan’s face was indeed alight as she turned to Joy, and again Jen said to herself, “I don’t wonder Len Fraser was fascinated!”

“He says you told him to come here as soon as he could. It’s just terribly kind of you, Lady Joy!”

“My dear Marigold, you know we’re dying to see him!”

“Hear, hear!” said Jen loudly.

Littlejan coloured and laughed. “He wants to come. He’s seen his people and they want him to start almost at once. He likes them and they seemed to like him. He’ll tell us all the plans.”

“Why did you do it?” Margaret shouted. “We don’t want you to be married!”

“Let’s see your ring! Then perhaps we’ll believe it.—Oh, I like the green one!” Elizabeth cried.

“The gold one is the one that matters,” Marigold said seriously. “Twins, you needn’t worry. I’m only one little bit married. I’m going to school with you and everything will be like it used to be.”

“But you can’t go to school, if you’re married!” Elizabeth protested.

“Oh yes, I can! I want to learn to cook. My name’s Mrs. Fraser instead of Miss Fraser; that’s all the difference. But don’t tell people at school unless I give you leave.”

The twins stared at her. “But you must have a new name, if you’re married! People always do.”

“You’ll need to explain that mystery,” Jen said. “Joy, may I come back this afternoon to meet—Len? Or must I say Mr. Fraser, Littlejan?”

“He’d rather be Len,” Littlejan grinned at her. “We’ll phone you when we know his time for coming.”