Читать книгу The Abbey Girls Go Back to School - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 6

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Racing up to her father’s room, Jen poured out the whole story of the mummers and her dance with the unknown partner. ‘She was a nice enough girl, mother!’ in answer to her mother’s troubled look. ‘She only wanted to help me out, and two can do so much more than one. But she was very mysterious! She was queer-looking, too; very blue eyes and very black hair, and red cheeks; rather like a gipsy, except for the eyes! But I wonder what she meant! “It’s not the right house! I don’t want to give it up! Dare we risk it again”? And the brother said he would manage it for her. Weren’t they queer? And then all she said about the dancing!’ and she nursed her knee and stared at her father doubtfully. ‘She said I was a hopeless outsider, and my side-step was dreadful, and hadn’t I ever seen morris—danced by men, too!—and I ought to go somewhere in August, to school! Wasn’t it all queer?’

‘She was a proper guiser, it seems to me,’ her father said grimly. ‘A real Christmas changeling! She did well to come with the mummers!’

‘There couldn’t be anything wrong with my side-step!’ Jen said resentfully. ‘Why, Joan taught me herself!’

‘Yes, but who taught Joan?’ her mother queried wisely.

‘Cicely, of course; and she knows everything.’

‘Oh well, if Cicely knows everything, your side-step must be all right, of course!’ her father agreed. ‘But then what did your guiser mean? It seems to me the question is, who taught Cicely?’

‘Oh, she’s always known morris! There couldn’t be anything wrong with what she taught us!’

‘Then surely it’s all right, and you needn’t worry about what the guiser said,’ her father laughed.

‘And anyway, what does it matter?’ said her mother.

But it mattered a great deal to Jen, and she thought much and resentfully of the strange girl’s words. ‘She said other queer things too. I felt as if she knew stacks of things I haven’t even heard of. Who is the Haxby Tom, who falls down dead? Why does he do it? Why does the doctor bring him to life again? That sounded like the mummers’ play! And who or what is Betty?’

‘Dear, dear!’ her father laughed. ‘I’m sorry we can’t solve all these problems! I really don’t know who Betty is, nor Tom, Jen dear! Perhaps you’ll hear more about your guiser in the morning!’

‘Father!’ Jen hurled herself on her father’s bed next morning, while he was still busy with his letters. ‘The most awful thing! Have you time to listen? Everybody’s talking about it! There were burglars last night at Lowmoor, and all Mrs Carr’s jewellery and loose money are gone!’

‘Good gracious, Jen, is that so?’

‘Not really, Jen?’ her mother exclaimed. ‘Oh, I am sorry! Have they caught the man?’

‘No, and—and they think he must have got into the house with the crowd following the mummers. They went on there after coming here, and the things were missed directly afterwards.’

‘Do they think it was some one from the village, then?’ her father asked sharply.

Jen stirred uneasily. ‘They’re saying—talking about—strangers in the crowd.’

‘Your guisers!’ her parents both turned on her quickly.

‘Jen, I will not have you dancing jigs with burglars!’ her father said severely, but though his eyes twinkled there was a troubled pucker in his brows.

‘You don’t think the girl could have had anything to do with it, Jen?’ her mother asked anxiously.

‘No, I’m sure she hadn’t! It’s simply silly. She was quite nice, really, mother; except when she said my step was bad! But there was a man with her—oh, well, I’m sure he was her brother! They were as like as they could be. But nobody knew them, and people will talk. They came in a big car and stopped at the inn; everybody knows all about them now, of course! There were other people too; an older lady and gentleman; and they’d meant to go on to town, but the lady wasn’t well, so they stayed for the night at our wee inn. This girl and the young man went out for a walk, and I suppose they met the mummers and asked what the crowd was, and thought they’d like to see the fun, and so they came along. There’s really nothing in it, you know. Perhaps they’d never seen mumming before. But as the burglary happened at that very time, of course everybody wants to make out they had something to do with it, just because they happened to be strangers!’

‘H’m!’ her father said thoughtfully. ‘It was a queer kind of night to go out for a walk! It was snowing, wasn’t it? If they’d been motoring, you’d think they’d have been glad to stay warm by the fire.’

‘Oh, not that girl, father! She didn’t care for any old kind of weather!’

‘The mummers didn’t go to the inn, I suppose? But if they had, these mysterious strangers wouldn’t have had to follow them here. No, they must have been out for a walk. I must say I’d like to know why they were prowling about our village on a dark snowy night!’

‘Do you really think they could have had anything to do with the burglary?’ Mrs Robins looked very worried.

‘Mother, dear!’ Jen remonstrated. ‘Girls who do folk-dancing don’t go in for being burglars!’

Her father lay back on his pillows and laughed. Mrs Robins said anxiously, ‘I do hope they weren’t connected with the affair. If they are caught, we shall have Jen being wanted as a witness, and I should very much object to that.’

‘My dear, what could she bear witness to?’

‘To the fact that these strangers had come with the crowd into this house, and might very well have done the same at Lowmoor. And she could identify them.’

‘Oh, well, any of the servants could do that! They saw the Blue-Eyed Stranger dance with me! But I did hear what that girl said,’ Jen’s face fell, and she hugged her knees in dismay. ‘I don’t think anybody else did! “It’s not the right house! I don’t want to give it up! Dare we risk it again?” “I’ll manage it for you”!—Father, you don’t think she could have been a burglar, do you? I never thought I should dance jigs with a burglar!’

Her father and mother looked at one another anxiously. ‘It’s very upsetting!’ said Mrs Robins, in distress.

‘It’s very mysterious! If only Jen hadn’t overheard those words, we could have dismissed the guisers as merely travellers interested in the village mummers. But the girl’s remark implies that they had come here with a purpose, thinking it to be a certain house they were looking for; finding somehow—from the look of our back kitchen, apparently!—that they had come to the wrong place, they go on with the mummers, deciding to “risk it” again, and get into Lowmoor as they had got in here, with the crowd. The burglary follows.’ Mr Robins shook his head. ‘It looks queer, to say the least of it!’

‘Father, you sound just like a magistrate! She wasn’t a burglar!’

‘Very well, then, dear, she wasn’t. But she was up to something, there’s no slightest doubt of that. And it was probably something she “hadn’t oughter” been up to. Are the police trying to trace the car? You may hear more of your guiser yet!’

‘Well, I shan’t tell them what I heard her say! For it might make them think she was a burglar, and I’m sure she wasn’t. Don’t you go and say anything, if people begin asking questions, father! You didn’t hear what she said, you know!’ Jen was a magistrate’s daughter, and knew something of the rules of giving evidence.

‘But we must help Mrs Carr to recover her jewellery!’ Mrs Robins remonstrated. ‘Don’t be silly, Jen. If you are questioned you must tell all you know, of course.’

‘I can’t give evidence as to what Jen heard,’ Mr Robins acknowledged. ‘But if she’s questioned I can suggest they should ask her just what she did hear.’

‘Father, you’re not to! You mustn’t tell them I heard anything! I shall say I’ve forgotten!’

Her father shook his head at her solemnly. ‘I don’t like to think of you dancing morris jigs with burglars, Jen, my child; but I will not have you committing perjury!’

‘And I said nothing ever happened here!’ Jen sighed.

The afternoon brought a visit from the village policeman, full of pompous importance and hardly-concealed delight in this, the chance of a lifetime. Jen had known him all her life, and was ordinarily on extremely good terms with old Billy Thwaites; but she was ill at ease and resentful to-day, as, in answer to his questions, she described the appearance of the unknown man and schoolgirl. The query as to what the girl had talked about while they danced she answered promptly and with would-be innocence—‘About the dances, of course. She knew more about them than I, and told me several things I didn’t know.’ Her eyes met her father’s imploringly.

‘She nivver towd ye who she’d be, Miss Jen? Nowt o’ her name, now?’

‘Nowt!’ Jen retorted laughing. ‘She said she was a changeling—a fairy, you know, Billy!—and she’d vanish with the dawn, and she was just one of the mummers, and a lot more jokes like that.’

Billy closed his notebook and departed, and she hugged her father in great relief. ‘You didn’t give me away! You’re a darling daddy!’

‘That’s all very well,’ he said grimly. ‘But this was only a very preliminary inquiry. He’s suspicious of your guisers already, and is sure to trace them. If any charge should be brought against them, it would be your duty to tell all you know, my dear. For the moment, there is no harm in reserving your little bit of evidence. There may have been some quite innocent explanation of the girl’s words. We will see what happens next.’

They had not long to wait. The very next night the kitchen premises were thrown into a fresh state of excitement by news brought by Alice’s young man, who worked in “Tin Town”; and the story soon travelled upstairs to Jen.

She went flying to her father, triumphant and delighted. ‘She wasn’t a burglar—my Blue-Eyed Stranger! They’ve found the jewellery, all of it! It was two boys from ‘Tin Town,’ and Billy says he’s always known they were a bad lot!’

‘Well! We are having a series of sensations!’ her father laughed. ‘That’s good news about the stolen goods, but I’m sorry about the boys.’

‘There are some very rough characters down in “Tin Town,”’ Mrs Robins said severely. ‘Who were they, Jen? And how did Billy find the things?’

‘He’s sent messages to try to find the big yellow car. I should think he’d want to recall them quickly, or he’ll have to apologise!’ Jen laughed. ‘He says he suspected these boys from the first, mother; he’s had his eye on them for a long time. But he talked about the strangers and the car, and made inquiries at the inn and here, just to put people off the scent. He went down into “Tin Town” and talked to people; and there he heard these boys had been spending money, treating their friends and so on; and then he went to one of the mothers and told her he knew Charlie had been in the burglary, and she cried, and gave the whole show away. The boys had to own up and produce the jewellery; they’d hidden it till they’d have time to get it to town and sell it. So that’s that! And my guiser wasn’t a burglar, after all!’

‘No, apparently she wasn’t,’ her father admitted. ‘But what did she mean by those mysterious words, Jen, my child?’

Jen nursed her knee, sitting at the end of his bed, and looked puzzled. ‘I’d like to know! But I suppose I never shall. She’s vanished, just as she said. Billy Thwaites can’t go hunting after them now. It will have to remain an unsolved mystery!’

‘I’m afraid it will. Well, Jen, if you will dance jigs with——’

‘Not burglars, father!’

‘No, with changelings and guisers, you must take the consequences. You’re never likely to hear of this strange girl again.’

‘No,’ Jen sighed regretfully. ‘But I’ll never say nothing happens here again! Why, any morning we may wake up and hear there’s been a murder or a robbery!’

‘Jen, dear!’ her mother remonstrated.

‘I sincerely hope we shan’t have any more,’ her father laughed.

‘I’m jolly glad I didn’t tell anybody what I heard that girl say,’ Jen added. ‘There was no need to have everybody babbling about it. Don’t you tell a soul, father! It’s nobody’s business but her own!’