Читать книгу The Abbey Girls Play Up - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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“Where was you, Cess?” Sarah demanded.

Cecily started. All the way home she had been thinking of Sandy and her lost chances in life. “She funked the adventure. I’d have jumped at it. But it was like Sandy. She’s one of the best, but she never pushes or takes things for herself,” had been her conclusion.

“I went to see Mrs. Alexander, on the Common,” she said.

“Wasting of a whole evening!” grumbled Sarah. “Best get your lessons done quick.”

“Oh—Cess!” The door was flung open an hour later, and Elsie Bailey, the girl who lived next door, stood there. She was seventeen, so was a member of the Institute and was now a regular dancer at Mrs. Raymond’s weekly class. “Why didn’t you come to-night? We had such fun!”

Cecily bit her lips. “I went to see somebody. Can’t be in two places at once! What happened?”

“I didn’t think you’d miss dancing for anything! Mrs. Raymond had a friend with her, and she played for some of the dances on a penny whistle!”

Cecily’s eyes widened. “Wish I’d been there! But was it loud enough?”

“Oh, plenty! But it was so odd—we heard our feet all the time.”

“What was she like? Who was she?”

“Mrs. Raymond called her Lady Marchwood; fancy! She didn’t look married, but she was, for I saw her ring. And she spoke about her baby. Her hair was bobbed, and all curls, and yellow; she took off her hat when she danced; she asked if she might join in, and it was lovely to watch her! She was so big—taller than anybody—but so pretty; the way she moved.”

“Was she Mrs. Raymond’s sister?” Cecily spoke carelessly, to cover her bitter disappointment.

“She didn’t look like it. They weren’t a bit alike. But she called Mrs. Raymond ‘Joan.’ I heard her; she said, ‘Joan, I want to dance!’ And Mrs. Raymond said, ‘All right. Go ahead!’ Later on she said, ‘Lady Marchwood will play for us for the next dance,’ and the other one picked up a tin whistle and started on ‘Rufty Tufty.’ You should have heard her! We couldn’t help dancing; we simply had to.”

“Like when Mrs. Alexander played her fiddle for us. I wish I’d been there!”

“We all begged for one more, and then one more, and one more. But Mrs. Raymond laughed and said they had to go, and Lady Marchwood said to Mrs. Green—she’d danced ‘Sellenger’s Round’ with her—that she must go home and put her baby to bed. Then they all buzzed round and asked how old it was, and she said he was thirteen months, and there was another one at home! She didn’t look anything but a girl!”

“She’d get married quickly, if she’s as nice as you say. Sorry I missed the fun,” and Cecily turned gloomily to her work again.

Elsie withdrew. “Cecil’s mad that she missed the dancing to-night,” she said to Sarah, as she went through the kitchen.

Sarah gave an angry grunt. “Can’t have her makin’ scenes and upsettin’ everybody! That dancing don’t do her no good. She ain’t never like herself, dancing nights.”

“Wouldn’t you let her come to-night? She never said that was the reason. Said she’d been out,” and Elsie went on her way, her indignation transferred from Cecily to Sarah. “Old cat! It’s the thing Cess cares more about than anything!”

The story of Lady Marchwood’s visit added to Cecily’s distress. Perhaps there would be another chance to hear the whistle next week! She must somehow win permission to be there, either from Sarah or from Mrs. Raymond herself.

Her inquiries for the address brought no immediate result. The secretary had lost Mrs. Raymond’s letter, but Miss Collinson, the pianist, would know the address. Miss Collinson had written it down carefully, but could not lay her hand on it; she would let Cecily know as soon as she came across it.

Cecily, in despair, was wondering if she would have the courage to call on Maribel after school and appeal to her, when Sarah informed her that Miss Maribel was coming on Saturday afternoon—“To hear the rights of this business. I told her as you’d been rude to Mrs. Raymond at the dancing, Cess, and she wants to hear about it.”

Sarah looked at her ward with a touch of anxiety. She had a dim feeling that she had not been quite fair. Would Cecily make another “scene”?

Cecily flushed. “Maribel’s a Guide. She’ll ask me what I have to say. She won’t decide till she’s asked me.”

“She took it quieter than I expected,” Sarah said to herself, in some relief.

In spite of their two years together, she did not understand Cecily, and had never tried to do so. If Cecil was quiet and gave no trouble, all was well, thought Sarah. It mattered nothing to her that all the time till Maribel arrived Cecily’s eyes were dark with smouldering feeling and her expression tense.

To relieve the strain of waiting, she wandered out on to the Downs on Saturday morning, leaving Sarah putting the finishing touches to a grand clean-up of the cottage. Years ago Sarah had been cook in Maribel’s home, so whenever she had notice of a visit she set to work and “had a good old spring-clean—As if Maribel cared!” as Cecil had once said derisively to Sandy.

As Cecily sat on the hill, she fingered a tin whistle she had bought in town. The village shop, where she had tried first, had been sold out; half the class had bought whistles since Lady Marchwood’s visit.

It had not been hard to pick out tunes, in Cecily’s case. Elsie had confessed she could not make anything of her whistle; but Cecily’s ear and memory were good, and she had not had much difficulty. In a few minutes she had found the notes of “We won’t go home till morning”; “Rufty Tufty” had followed quickly, and then “Butterfly” and “The Old Mole.” Accidentals were too much for her, but quite by chance she found how to reach the second octave, and in her joy over this new expression of music she almost forgot the ordeal before her and the cloud overhanging the future.

Then it swept down on her again. If she were forbidden to go to Mrs. Raymond’s class there would be no more tunes. It would be more than she could bear.

From where she sat she saw a little car creeping up the long slope to the farm and the dewpond. Maribel had come round the longer way.

Cecily sprang up. She would run along the top and down the other path and meet the car before it reached the village.

Then she pulled herself up. “No, I won’t. I’ll let Sarah have first chance. Maribel will be fair. I’ll wait till she sends for me.”

Lying behind a thorn bush she piped the tunes she knew, her eyes on the car creeping along the road in the valley. As it came nearer, Cecily dropped the whistle and gazed.

“There are two people. Somebody’s with Maribel. Oh, it’s Rosalind, and they’re in uniform! I’m glad. They’ll feel more Guidey. Rosalind’s as jolly as Maribel. I’m not afraid of what they’ll say. They won’t hear, so I’ll whistle a tune to them.”

The hawthorn bush above her was white as snow with blossom, and the heavy scent intoxicated her. She piped tune after tune, with the unconscious rhythm which had caught Mrs. Raymond’s notice.

The car stopped when it had passed a little way beyond her, and the girls in the front seat seemed to be talking and looking about them.

Cecily dropped the pipe in the middle of “The Old Mole,” scarlet with sudden shyness. “They couldn’t have heard me! Away down there—they couldn’t! They’re looking at the view. Now they’re going on. I’m sure they couldn’t hear!”

And presently she went slowly along the turf to the dewpond, and followed the car down the hill to the cottage.