Читать книгу The Abbey Girls In Town - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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Ruth stood on the platform beside her suitcase, a little doubtful and forlorn. No Mary had appeared yet.

“I’ve got the address. I suppose if I take a taxi, I can drive all the way. I wonder how far it is? Everybody says London’s very big!” she thought doubtfully, as she watched the hurrying crowds.

“Ruth! I know you’re Ruth, by that snapshot you sent!” a merry voice hailed her.

Ruth whirled round, her face lighting up joyfully. “Oh! Is it Biddy?”

“Mary couldn’t come; she’d made a promise for this evening before we knew when you’d arrive. It’s her club night, you see. And I simply love stations, and meeting people, so I came instead. Which are your boxes? Come and find them! I’ve got a car waiting,” Biddy remarked, with an obvious attempt to subdue the joyful importance of the announcement.

“That sounds fine!” Ruth said with relief, and pointed out her luggage while she scanned her cousin eagerly.

Most of Biddy was hidden in a big coat buttoned up to her chin. She was sturdily built, not very tall; with brown eyes, and brown hair drawn back in a bunch of curls at the back of her neck, a merry smile, and a cheery matter-of-fact air. She was bossing the porters with a calm, businesslike manner which amused and impressed Ruth, whose vision of a crushed, downtrodden Biddy needing cheering up and championing, had vanished into the fog that hung about the great station.

“I apologise for this!” Biddy laughed, as they followed the luggage up the platform. “It’s not much of a fog, but it is a little attempt at one.”

“I didn’t notice it till we got here. Is that London fog?” Ruth asked, with eager interest. “I’ve heard of your fogs. How funny the lights look shining on it! But isn’t it choky?” and she coughed.

“It isn’t so bad up our way. We’re down by the river here. I wonder how you’ll like living right in town!”

“Biddy, what a super car!” Ruth was looking at the liveried chauffeur curiously. “It’s a private car, not a taxi! Haven’t you made a mistake?”

Biddy laughed. “Jump in. Frost will see to the luggage. He’s a great friend of mine. Home, Frost! And thank you very much!”

“Have you stolen this motor?” Ruth asked severely.

“Yes, just for an hour. Well, it’s been lent to me, or to you, rather. It’s Jen Robins’s car,” Biddy condescended to explain. “She’s out with Mary this evening; at the club, you know. Jen called for Mary, and they drove to Islington together; then Jen sent Frost back to pick me up and take me to Waterloo to fetch you. When he’s taken us home, he’s going back to fetch Mary and Jen.”

“That’s the girl who took you to the big party?” Ruth asked wistfully. “Shall I see her?”

“Oh, I think you’ll see her soon!” Biddy promised. “She’s one of the very best. But I’m not being polite! I meant to do things so properly. Did you have a pleasant voyage? What do you think of London?”

“I’ll tell you in a few days! At present it seems chiefly yellow fog and smoke,” Ruth retorted.

“In a real fog you wouldn’t see many people, or many lights. But this is a very crowded part. I don’t know it at all,” and Biddy gazed out also.

“Don’t you know your way about London?” Ruth asked, in surprise. “But you’ve lived here for years, haven’t you?”

Biddy’s shout of laughter startled even Frost, who was used to her. “Not the whole of London! I know our own part. There are miles and miles of London I’ve never even seen. You haven’t the foggiest notion how big it is!”

“I’m getting a very foggy notion of this part of it, anyway!” Ruth retorted. “I say, Biddy! Tell me one thing; it’s the very first thing I want to ask! Did Mary write that article, signed ‘M.D.D.’? It came the night before I left home. There was no letter or explanation with it.”

“Which was it? What was it about?” Biddy assumed her casual tone of no importance again, but it was contradicted by the sudden gleam in her eyes and the pride in her flushed cheeks.

“Which? Have there been more? Has she written several?” Ruth asked eagerly.

“Lots! She’s had five printed and paid for; and they’ve taken two more. And she’s written others, some of them school stories that I helped her with.” Biddy fairly bubbled over with excitement. “And she’s begun a book! She’s only done about half of it so far, for the ‘shorts’ get paid for so much sooner, if they’re taken; but she’s doing it, and that’s something. Isn’t it simply smashing?”

“It’s gorgeous!” Ruth said soberly, taking it in slowly.

“Which was it you read? We’ve sent them all out to you,” asked Biddy.

“It was about some very poor children’s ride into the country in a car. Was it Jen who took them?”

“No. It was Joy Shirley. Mary thinks all the world of them both. So do I, of course. Joy takes out cripples one day in every week. Mary got five guineas for that one, and she wanted Joy to take the whole of it to use for the children; she said it seemed only fair. But Joy and Jen simply wouldn’t hear of it; they said it was the first money she’d made by writing, and she was to use it for herself.”

“And what did she do with the money?”

“She said some of it must be used for the cripples. But Joy didn’t need it; she’s got tons. So Mary went to see the Pixie, who finds the children for Joy; and asked her to take some of it and use it for the cripples’ play-hour at the big club in the East End.”

“Oh, shall I see her? She came into that letter of Mary’s. Is she still in London?” Ruth cried eagerly.

“She’s going to be, after Christmas. Yes, you’ll see her. We’re nearly home; I know where I am now. Now here we are. You jump out and go straight up and wait for me at the top. Go on till you can’t go any higher. You don’t mind stairs, do you? For there are several hundred here. Frost and I will see to your boxes, if you take the suitcase and rugs.”

“Let me help. You mustn’t do it, Biddy,” Ruth remonstrated, as Biddy and Frost took the handles of her steamer trunk.

“I’m a lot stronger than you. There’s nothing of you!” Biddy retorted, and mounted the stairs sturdily.

“Thanks awfully, Frost!” she panted, at the top. “We’ll lug it in ourselves. I think that’s everything,” and she produced her latchkey and threw open the door, and switched on the light. “Good night! And thank you very much!”

As Frost clattered down the long flights of bare stone steps, lit by the lamps outside, Ruth looked eagerly round at her new home. The fire was glowing red already. The table was laid for supper, the old crimson curtains were drawn across the windows. Ruth, looking round, felt at home at once. Allowing for the difference in climate, it was exactly the kind of room she had always been used to, and to which the luxury of the liner had seemed such a complete contrast. The room was quietly cosy and homelike; everything in it had a much-used look, though not necessarily ill-used. It was a room that had been lived in for years, and had originally been furnished from the relics of other homes; its atmosphere was restful and welcoming. But colour scheme—style—artistic effect—it had none; it was a jumble of treasures and comforts collected from other rooms in other homes, and brought here together with no attempt at arrangement or selection.

“It’s not that we don’t like having things all to match,” Biddy said frankly, reading Ruth’s look aright. “We’d love it. But we simply can’t afford it yet. New wallpapers are a dream of the future, when Mary’s book comes out. And carpets and cushions and curtains all toning in together would be gorgeous; but they’re not for us, at present. We have to make things do, so long as they aren’t actually falling to pieces.”

“That’s what I’m used to. I like your room. It’s just like home,” Ruth said warmly.

Biddy chuckled. “Mary and I know just what we’re going to have when the book comes out. We sit over the fire and plan the rooms. This is your room!” and she brought a jug of hot water from the kettle on the gas-stove in the kitchen, and led Ruth to a room opening off the sitting-room. “It’s not very big; our bedrooms are both small.”

Here again was the same mixture, the same air of comfort. The little room had a floral paper on the walls, of many colours; the carpet was green, the eiderdown pink. Then Ruth gasped and stared, at sight of the blue basin into which Biddy was pouring the hot water, for it seemed utterly out of place in the ordinary little room.

“Biddy! Where did you get such lovely things?”

“T’other kettle’s boiling over!” and Biddy fled with a delighted laugh to the kitchen, overjoyed that her newest treasure had been admired at once.

Ruth bathed her face in the deep round basin, while she marvelled at its beauty; sheer beauty of simple generous lines and deep satisfying colour. There were round beautiful bowls for sponge and soap, with fascinating little grooves instead of handles; a tall, simply-curved jar for her toothbrush. On the mantelpiece were candlesticks and vases, all in the same rich wonderful blue, the same perfect lines and curves.

“Biddy! Where did you get that lovely china? Tell me at once! Is that your room, by the way? Have I turned you out?”

“Yes, of course, but I don’t mind. There’s room in Mary’s bed, and it’s warm to be two at this time of year. Come and have some supper! Will you have tea, coffee, or cocoa?”

“Oh, tea, please! I’m a real Colonial. Tea at any hour of the day or night.”

“And do you like fish? If you’d rather have eggs, I’ll scramble some for you; ’twon’t take long.”

“The fish looks delicious, and I’m starving!” Ruth assured her. “Now tell me about that lovely china!”

“It’s pottery; hand-made village pottery. I’m so glad you like it. It’s my very newest treasure, the joy of my life,” Biddy said delightedly. “I’d have been awfully disappointed if you’d ignored it.”

“Nobody could. It’s so beautiful; but so different from everything else, Biddy!”

Biddy laughed. “Yes, the rest of the room doesn’t live up to it—yet. The pottery’s the beginning. Some day I shall have everything beautiful. The curtains are going to match the dishes, deep blue; and the bed will be the same blue. The walls are to be soft grey, and the carpet grey and blue.”

“It sounds pretty! You have it all planned out! But how did you get the china?—well, pottery, then! Where does it come from? Is it really handmade?”

“Every bit of it, on a potter’s wheel. I’ve seen them doing it. It comes from a village in Surrey,” Biddy explained. “You must see Mary’s! But she’ll want to show you herself. Hers are a lovely deep rich brown, lined inside with old gold; and every here and there the brown runs over the edge into the gold in uneven splashes, like blobs of paint. Mary’s going to have dull gold walls, or a soft light brown, a deep brown carpet and golden curtains.—Do you think we’re awful idiots?” she asked abruptly.

“Not a scrap! I love to hear about it. I can see how pretty your rooms will be. I’ll sit over the fire with you and plan mine too! But I am dying to hear how you managed to afford those lovely bedroom sets! Did Mary’s articles pay for them?”

“No, she wouldn’t have allowed that. We needed winter coats,” Biddy explained simply. “Oh, we didn’t buy them! They were Christmas presents. I’ll tell you how it happened. They’re presents from Jen Robins. Yes, I know,” as Ruth exclaimed in astonishment. “She oughtn’t to have done it. We said so to her. But she can afford it, and she says she was dying to buy some of the ware and give it to someone who would appreciate it. She can’t have it herself at present, for she’s living in a furnished flat in town. Her home’s in Yorkshire, but her father has to live in town for a while; he’s an invalid and needs special treatment. Jen was motoring with Joy Shirley from Joy’s home in Oxfordshire down into Sussex, to see Joan; Joan is Joy’s cousin, and she’s married. She’s had to keep rather quiet all autumn, so the others have had to go down to see her. Joy’s car broke down, and they were held up in a little town in Surrey; and there they found the factory where these lovely things were being made by hand. They both fell in love with them. Jen heard Mary and me planning our rooms one night when she was here to supper; and she told us of the Surrey pottery, and gave us our choice, for Christmas presents, of new woolly jackets or bedroom sets! I simply fell on her neck; Mary was very shy about taking such good presents, but she came round. Jen’s so awfully bucked about the way Mary has come out of her shell in the last few months that she loves to do things for her. But then she’s like that; we couldn’t stop her. She enjoyed the choosing as much as we did; and she came next day to gloat over the things!—But I’m not looking after you properly! You’re making me talk too much. Are you getting enough to eat?”

“I’ve been eating while you’ve been talking,” Ruth said laughing. “But, Biddy, I want you to tell me——”

“But you haven’t had any toast! I’ll make it for you to-night, and to-morrow you shall make your own,” and Biddy squatted on the big footstool with a fork and a slice of bread.

“But I want to know something,” Ruth said earnestly, as she buttered the toast. “You spoke of the way Mary had come out of her shell and was beginning to do things and care for things. What did you mean?”

“Just that,” Biddy’s face grew sober. “Everything’s different; a thousand times better. You can’t understand, of course. This place used to be horribly dull, Mary didn’t care about anything; she used to sit alone here every evening and darn stockings or go to sleep over the fire.”

“And what happened?” Ruth had forgotten her toast, and Biddy’s slice was burning. “Things are different now, Biddy?”

Biddy gave a shriek of horror at sight of her toast. “Look what you’ve made me do!—Different? As different as they can be. Mary came alive suddenly. There’s Mary now! You’ll see for yourself. Or at least there’s Jenny-Wren outside; she’s brought Mary home. That’s Jen’s pipe. Do you hear it? ‘Laudnum Bunches’! She always plays that when she’s excited about something. I wonder if it’s you or——” and Biddy flung open the door.

High clear piping notes in a merry tune came from somewhere down the long staircase. Ruth rose, excited and eager. “What is it? How does she do it? Where are they?”

“The morris pipe. Are you coming up to see Ruth?” and Biddy hung over the balustrade. “She wants to see you!”