Читать книгу The Abbey Girls Play Up - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 3

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“Then I can’t go to dancing to-night?” Cecily’s voice shook. She hardly ever cried, but this had been an unexpected blow.

“I sh’d say not! Shouldn’t think you’d have the face to go, after last week,” Sarah rejoined.

“I never meant to be rude. Mrs. Raymond didn’t mind; she understood,” Cecily pleaded. “Let me go, Sarah! I’ll—I’ll say I’m sorry!” It was the biggest offer she could make.

“No fear! And her so kind, letting you into the class with all them grown folks. And then you go a-cheeking her right and left! You don’t go back till you’ve learnt how to behave proper, my girl.”

“I didn’t mean to cheek her! The dancing works me up so. I didn’t mean any harm,” Cecily cried desperately.

“Time you give it a holiday, then. Too much for you, that’s what it is. Puts you all in a state every week. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Sarah grumbled. “You’ll not go any more, Cess; not till I’ve told Miss Maribel about last week and asked if she thinks it’s proper for you. Goes to your head, that folk-dancing does.—I can’t do nothing with her, dancing nights!” she muttered, turning back to her work of ironing Cecily’s gym blouse, ready for school next day.

The sobbing exclamation which broke from Cecily as she rushed out of the cottage was in French, and it was just as well Sarah could not understand it. It belonged to the days which Cecily called “my first life,” before Maribel and the Guides had adopted her, brought her to England, and sent her to school, with Sarah’s cottage as her home. That had been two years ago; Cecily was fifteen now, and she often felt those days in France, and her years at the convent school, had been a dream. Sarah, the cottage among the Downs, and the girls in the High School to which she cycled every day, were all so much more real than the convent, or the camp on the shore of Lake Annecy, where she had met her friends the Guides.

She had no clear intention as she ran from Sarah out into the road. She knew only that in half-an-hour the class would begin in the village hut; Mrs. Raymond would drive up in her little car; everybody would be there. The music would begin; they were learning “Newcastle”; and she—Cecily—would be left out. It was more than she could bear.

She dared not see Mrs. Raymond come. She dared not hear the music. She would go out on to the hills, away from everybody.

At the cross-roads by the inn stood a green bus. Cecily’s hand went to the pocket of her blazer; yes, her purse was there. She sprang on to the step as the bus began to move, ran up to the top, and sat there in the front seat, her burning face and angry eyes cooled by the wind.

Sarah would never understand. But there was one person who would. Cecily fled from the music that intoxicated her, to pour out her trouble to her friend.

It was true that the music excited her. She did not understand, but she knew that at the country-dance class she was some one new, not at all the hard-working Cecily who was so eager to justify the trust placed in her by the Guides. Life had been so frightening, and the future had looked so terrible, when those jolly girls in uniform had come along, had been kind and helpful, and had transplanted her into the regular life of school and an English village. Cecily could not have explained why the change had been such a relief; but in some way the very quietness of this ordered life—the school routine, the village home—had helped and steadied her. The two years had made an enormous difference in her; she was growing fast in every way. Her one hope was to show the Guides she had been worth helping.

The invitation to the country-dance class had come from Mrs. Raymond herself. The members of the class had danced in the village hall at a meeting of the Women’s Institute, in the hope of drawing in recruits; Sarah had gone to watch, though ridiculing the idea that she might dance herself; and had taken Cecily with her. At the end Mrs. Raymond had invited the audience to join in “Galopede,” and had watched with amused delight as Cecily, shy but eager, went down the middle with the girl who lived next door, a heavy person, who was swung nearly off her feet.

“Haven’t you danced before?” Mrs. Raymond had asked.

“Not myself, but I’ve watched the Guides. I’d love to try,” Cecily had said shyly.

“We must arrange it,” and Joan Raymond, saying mysterious things about “rhythm” and “step” and “feeling,” had talked to Sarah.

The result had been delirious enjoyment for Cecily. The rest of the class were grown-up; many were what she unkindly termed “old lumps” but under Mrs. Raymond everybody was happy, and Cecily was the happiest of all. Now——!

The bus stopped at the end of a lane, and the conductor appeared. “Duck-pond! Isn’t this what you want, missy?”

“Oh—sorry!” Cecily woke from an unhappy dream, and stumbled down the steps.

The bus rattled away along the road. Cecily passed the pond and set off up a lane, leading to the sandy foothills of the Downs.

She had forgotten all about a hat; she had never meant to come so far. She wore her green school blazer over her blue tunic; her coppery hair, cut in a heavy fringe above her dark eyes, blew in the wind.

Mrs. Raymond’s hair was red too, but a darker, rich bronze shade, and she was not shingled, not even bobbed. She always threw aside her hat when she began to teach, and Cecily loved to see the light on her hair. She considered her own too vivid in colour, and did not dream that Mrs. Raymond watched her smooth red head all through the dances and revelled in the response and understanding in her radiant face.

“They say red hair and bad temper go together!” Cecily said to herself, as she went up the lane. “I wonder if Mrs. Raymond ever had a beastly temper? I—I could kill Sarah for spoiling everything! I’d better not go home till I feel better. Why need she go interfering, silly thing? Mrs. Raymond wasn’t mad; she understood I never meant to be rude. It was the way Mrs. Green and Mrs. Clarke talked to Sarah that made the trouble. Not one of them understands how I feel. And they don’t dance!” she thought bitterly. “They lump through everything, but they never dance a step. They’re always off the beat. I don’t believe they hear the tune!”

It was a very little house to which she was going, a red bungalow built in the shelter of a sandy hill, but a great privilege was attached to it.

Cecily knocked at the door. “Sandy, can I have the key? And may I go alone? You’d better not come—not at first, anyway.”

“What’s wrong? Is anything the matter, Cecily Brown?” Sandy opened the door.

She was twelve years older than Cecily, but not much taller and very slight; Cecily was in the habit of looking at her protectively, for Sandy would never stand up for herself. Their friendship dated from one evening when the village pianist had been ill, and Mrs. Alexander, teaching music in the village, had been suggested as a substitute. She had never seen the country-dance music, but a few words of explanation from Mrs. Raymond had been enough, and she had taken up her violin and played “The Old Mole” with a lilt which had brought Cecily to her feet with an eager cry, “Oh, can’t we start? How gorgeous! I didn’t know it could sound like that!”

She had danced that night as she had never danced before, and at the end of the class had gone, shy but eager, to Mrs. Raymond. “Couldn’t she play for us always? It’s so much easier to dance to the fiddle!”

“It isn’t only the fiddle,” Joan said, smiling. “It’s little Mrs. Alexander too. But we can’t give up Miss Collinson like that. She’s very good to play so regularly. How would she feel if we asked somebody else?”

“Oh, bother! Does it matter, when this music’s so lovely?”

Mrs. Raymond knew that it did matter, however. Miss Collinson was in her place again the following week, and Cecily’s face showed how she felt.

“Can’t you chuck her? She’s so heavy!” she whispered in an agonised tone.

Joan Raymond whispered back, “I know she’s heavy. But we must think of her. I’ll try to help her to play better, and you must try to put up with it, kiddy.”

After that there was a secret understanding between them. Miss Collinson remained at the piano; Mrs. Raymond threw out hints continually—“Play it like music! Phrase it more! Don’t be so particular to accent the beat!”—and Cecily found out her “Fairy Fiddler’s” address, and begged her to play dance tunes—“To let me hear how they ought to sound!”

Sandy was light as well as small, with hair of chestnut brown waving back from her face. She taught music in several villages, accompanied at concerts, and played for dances, whenever she could hear of engagements, cycling all over the countryside to her pupils, but living alone in her bungalow among the sandhills. It was not lonely; there were other houses scattered over the common close at hand; but she preferred to live alone with her music.

She handed a key to Cecily, without waiting for an answer to her question. “Isn’t this your dancing day? Isn’t Mrs. Raymond coming to-night?”

Hot colour swept into Cecily’s face. “Sandy, she’s there now. Sarah wouldn’t let me go. They said I was rude.”

She fled through the bracken, unlocked a gate in a fence, and ran down a winding path and disappeared.

Sandy turned back into her house. “Poor kid! I wonder what happened? Rude to Mrs. Raymond? That’s ridiculous. Cecil worships her. Sarah doesn’t understand Cecily. I wish—oh, how I wish I was a millionaire! I’d adopt the kid, and we’d give ourselves up to music. She’s full of music, and nobody sees it but me. Could I do anything through those Guides she talks about? She ought to be trained.”

She went about her house very thoughtfully, washing and drying dishes, for she had been out teaching all day. Then, taking her violin, she followed Cecily.

The path from the gate led through heather and bracken, then wound through a tangle of rhododendron bushes and silver birch trees, till unexpectedly a dark pool appeared. On the farther side was a hill, crowned by pine trees which were mirrored in the pond. The path ended in a boathouse, where a punt lay moored.

Sandy opened the door and looked in. The hut was merely a platform, with roof and walls, but open on the water-side, and with steps down in one corner. Garden chairs and stools were piled at the inner end.

Cecily, ignoring these, was sitting on the platform above the water, her hands clasped round her knees, her eyes on the quivering reflection of the pines. Her red head was like a lamp in the dark greens and browns of the picture.

She looked up. “Sandy, you’re an angel. I feel better. I knew there was just one thing that could help, and I knew you’d understand.”

“There’s just one other thing,” Sandy scolded. “You need to be looked after. Sit on that, silly girl, or you’ll be ill,” and she threw a cushion on the floor.

Cecily laughed and tucked it beneath her. “Play Sandy. But not dances.” Her voice shook.

Sandy put down the violin and drew a chair to the edge, where she could sit beside the water. “I’ve been teaching all day. I want a rest. I always come here when I’m tired. Isn’t it quiet?”

“Your landlord’s a brick, to let us use it. Don’t you feel as if you owned it, Sandy?”

“Oh, quite! He very seldom comes. I think perhaps I own it more really than he does.”

“Sure you do. And you’ve shared it with me.”

Sandy laid a finger on her shoulder, and they both watched while a robin poised on a twig, then fluttered to a stone and drank, and then flew into the shadows.

“Is it the one we saw feeding his babies?”

“I think so. Be very quiet. Perhaps he’ll come back.”

“It was the quietness I wanted,” Cecily confessed. “I was in a real rage, Sandy.”

“What happened? I’m glad you came.”

“Everybody ought to have a quiet pool to run away to, when things are too awful!” Cecily said vehemently.

“I wish they had. But would they like it? Sarah, for instance?”

“She’d want to brush down those cobwebs. She’d start spring-cleaning!”

“While you and I sit down and worship. It’s more use to us than it would be to Sarah. But Sarah’s a good sort, Cecily. She has been very good to you.”

“I know,” Cecily said at once. “But—fancy thinking I could be rude to Mrs. Raymond, Sandy!”

“You couldn’t. You’re too grateful. What made Sarah think it?”

Cecily reddened. “Mrs. Green went to her after last week’s class and told her I’d said things and talked loudly and made a scene. And Sarah wouldn’t let me go to-night. I offered to say I was sorry. She says”—her colour deepened—“she’s going to tell Maribel before she lets me go again.”

“Maribel?”

“The lieutenant of the Guides; the one who was so jolly decent to me. She’s my guardian, though she’s only twenty. Rosalind’s twenty-one. They managed things between them. Some day I’m going to pay them back, of course. Maribel lives in town, near where I go to school; Sarah will write to her. Rosalind’s in London, so I don’t see her so often.”

“And what happened last week, Cecil?”

Cecily coloured again. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’m sure Mrs. Raymond understood. She wasn’t annoyed. I know she didn’t mind.”

“She seemed the understanding sort. I’d have loved to play for her again,” Sandy said wistfully. “Then something did happen, Cecil? What was it?”

“It was in Mage,” Cecily confessed. “They would turn the wrong way, backwards, to make the ring, and it’s hideous. I said it ought to be on, not back; a turn and a half, like you do in ‘Old Mole.’ It’s ugly; it spoils the pattern; and they would do it. Mrs. Raymond kept shouting, ‘Right turn! Back turn!’ but they wouldn’t listen. I was frantic; I was a woman, so I didn’t have to do it. It drove me wild to see them messing it up; and—and I dashed at them and shoved them round the other way, and Mrs. Green says I yelled: ‘That way, idiots!’ I’m certain I never did. But they didn’t like it; they were mad. And—and Mrs. Raymond said I’d better leave the teaching to her, as I was so much the youngest in the class. She laughed, when she said it; she wasn’t a scrap upset. But I was all worked up, and I said something back to her. I’m sure I only said: ‘But you can’t do it all. You can’t see four sets at once. And they don’t listen to you!’ I only meant to help. But Mrs. Green and Mrs. Clarke and the others said I’d answered back and told Mrs. Raymond she couldn’t manage the class. She knew I never meant it that way.”

“What did she say?”

“She laughed again, and said: ‘We’ll have another try. Look, this is what I mean.’ And then she came and shoved them through it, just as I’d tried to do. She wasn’t mad with me, Sandy. But Mrs. Green talked to Sarah and made it sound much worse than it had really been. Now”—her voice broke—“now I want to ask Mrs. Raymond if she thought I was rude. I’m sure she didn’t, but they’ve made me feel bad about it, and I want to ask her.”

“You didn’t go and see her at the class before coming here?” Sandy asked.

“Sarah said I mustn’t go.” Cecily turned and looked up at her friend. “Are you wondering why I didn’t go in spite of her?”

“I did wonder,” Sandy admitted. “You were right, of course; but——”

“But you wouldn’t have been much surprised if I’d done it? If it was only Sarah I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have gone straight to Mrs. Raymond and said I was sorry. But behind Sarah there are Maribel and the Guides,” Cecily explained. “They trusted me to stay with Sarah and to do what she said. And they’ve been so awfully decent to me. I’d feel I was going behind them if I went behind Sarah. Don’t you see? I was mad with her; raging angry. But I had to do what she said, because of the Guides. It’s like being on one’s honour.”

“I see that,” Sandy agreed. “You have to be loyal to them. But I could explain to Mrs. Raymond, Cecil. Could you find me her address?”

Cecily’s face lit up. “Sandy! Would you? I want her to know why I wasn’t there to-night.”

“Some one in the village must know where she lives. Try the Women’s Institute Secretary, or the pianist, or the person you pay for the classes. If you send me her address, I’ll write to her, Cecil.”

“You are a brick! I knew you’d help. Play to me now, Sandy! You aren’t really tired, are you?”

“No. I thought it would do you more good to talk.”

Sandy took her violin, and for some minutes Cecily sat in rapt attention, her eyes on the dark water.

“You can play!” she sighed, as Sandy laid the fiddle down and sat beside her again. “You ought not to be wasted just on me. Why aren’t you playing at big concerts in London?”

Sandy flushed. “Because I wasn’t able to finish my training. I’d need more study before I’d be ready for that.”

“Tell me!” Cecily pleaded, thrusting aside her own trouble. “You promised you would, some day. Why do you waste your time teaching in the country?”

“It isn’t waste of time,” Sandy protested. “I’ve some jolly pupils, and I love every one of them.”

“I’m sure they love you! I wish I could be one. But I couldn’t ask Maribel for any more, when she’s done such heaps already. Tell me about you, Sandy!”

“There isn’t much to tell. When my husband died I went to live with my mother and went on studying music. He had been ill before we were married,” she said, in answer to the question in Cecily’s face. “We believed he was cured; the doctors said he might live for twenty years. That was good enough for us, and we were married. I was only twenty-three, but he was five years older. The trouble began to show itself again suddenly, and within a year I had lost him.”

Sandy paused, staring at the trees and water. Cecily’s hand crept into her lap, and she waited, not daring to look at her friend.

“Just for something to do to fill my thoughts, I went on with my music, studying for my L.R.A.M. Then mother was taken ill and was told she must live in the country. We sold out our small investments and bought the bungalow, hoping the fresh air off the hills would make her strong again. It didn’t happen. She went quite soon and I was all alone. I ought to have sold everything and gone back to town. But I couldn’t face it alone; for her and with her, I could take risks, but not alone; and it was a risk. I had already a few pupils and hopes of more; to uproot again and make another start was too big an adventure. I suppose I was a coward, but it was just the need of some one behind me that was too much for me, Cecil. I’d have done it if I’d had her to encourage me. I chose the safe easy way, and settled down here in my little house; more pupils came, and I found I could make a living. It’s all easy and pleasant, and I love my work, and the country is beautiful.”

“And you have your Silent Pool,” Cecily remarked. She sat thinking and gazing at the water. “All the same, Sandy, with somebody to buck you up you’d have gone back to town and made a big name. You are being wasted down here.”

“I hope not. I might not have succeeded, and then where should I have been?”

“It would have been an adventure,” Cecily agreed. “But you’d have come out on top, Sandy.”

“I hadn’t the courage for the adventure. Now it’s too late. I don’t know whether I’m sorry or not.”

“Why is it too late?” Cecily demanded. “You could still have the adventure, Sandy! But then I’d lose you. Oh, don’t go away!”

“Oh, I’m not going now. I couldn’t begin studying again. I’m too old to go to town and live in rooms and work for exams! I’ve found the pupils, although I haven’t certificates.”

“But it would be jollier to feel you’d passed everything. And you wouldn’t go on teaching; you’d become a great musician and play in the Albert Hall.”

Sandy laughed, with a sigh for her dead ambitions. “I’ve put all those hopes away. Come and have some supper, Cecil, and then I’ll take you down to the bus. It will soon be dark. Where will Sarah think you are?”

“I ought to go,” Cecily said ruefully. She stood on the edge of the platform, looking up and down the dark pool. “Thank you for letting me come here, Sandy. It always does me good. And thank you for telling me your story. My temper seems silly and kiddish now. You gave up all your hopes to try and save your mother. That was fine! No, I mustn’t come in; if I do, I shall sit down and talk, and I ought to go home.”

“I’ll fetch some biscuits and you can eat them in the bus,” said Sandy, and carried her violin indoors.