Читать книгу The Abbey Girls on Trial - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 3

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The Squirrel Tea-house was empty. Audrey, in a pretty green overall, stood gazing across the flagged courtyard to the lane. She was tired after a busy afternoon, and her face was clouded with disappointment.

She glanced across the flower border, where pink and purple lupins and larkspurs of every shade of blue were massed against a low wall. Beyond it she could see the London road, and a green bus, from which passengers were streaming.

“Elspeth has lost the bus. Bother! And all that washing-up to do! Oh, I can’t!”

She dropped into a chair and lay gazing at a pansy bed.

“ ‘Dead pansies!’ It’s needing attention, and the blue border needs weeding. And I ought to write to Eleanor. It’s Elspeth’s turn, but she’ll scribble a line at the last moment or else lose the mail. I don’t suppose she has lost the bus. She’s still reading in the library, or mooning along by the sea. She’ll never remember it’s Mrs. Davy’s day off.”

Audrey was twenty-seven, while Elspeth was only seventeen. It was a big gap, but was bridged by Eleanor, who came exactly midway between the two. Six months before, Eleanor had been invited by a friend to be her guest on a trip to India and Ceylon. Audrey had urged her sister to go; but the responsibility of the Squirrel House had been heavy, and she was hoping Eleanor would come home before the busy season began.

“Though Eleanor wasn’t as much help as she should have been,” Audrey thought. “Still, she was some one to talk things over with. Elspeth is such a babe! I wonder when she’ll begin to grow up? Eleanor didn’t think, either; didn’t think about business, at least! But she was good fun; she’s had a ripping time in India, and no wonder. She’s good company. But Elspeth has her nose in a book half the time.”

She was watching for the postman, for Eleanor’s weekly letter was due.

“The washing-up must wait; I can’t stand! It’s jolly to have people here, but it does keep me running about. Still, we’re doing well. I’m not really whining. Alice!” she called, to the girl who was on duty in the kitchen during the busy hours, “Alice, you can go. If any one comes I can manage. We’ll wash up later.”

The postman and the next bus came round the corner together. Audrey rose and went down the path to meet the man.

As she took the letter, Elspeth came running up the road.

“Audrey, I’m sorry I’m late. It’s such a gorgeous evening that I dropped off the bus at the farm and went into the big field, and then I hid under a bush and kept ever so quiet, and—oh, Audy! All the baby rabbits came out and went on with their games! They never knew I was there. I’ve been longing to watch them play. And there was a cock pheasant—such a lovely colour!—and two little brown wives. You didn’t mind, did you, Audrey? Is that Eleanor’s letter?”

“Yes, we’ll read it together. Come and sit in the garden.”

“Did you mind my watching the rabbits?” Elspeth glanced at her sister’s face. “It was so clean and fresh out in the fields, after being in class all day. There was no harm in it, was there?”

“No harm in the rabbits,” Audrey agreed. “But I was hoping you’d hurry home. I suppose you forgot it was Mrs. Davy’s night off?”

Elspeth’s face fell. “I never thought about the washing-up. I am a pig! I say, Audy, I’ll be ready to help in two ticks. I’ll fetch my pinny, and we’ll attack the scullery together. You read Eleanor’s letter and tell me about it while we’re tidying up. It will be all about her dances and tennis, and the people who took her out in their posh cars. She’ll never settle down to give teas again! Cutting bread and butter and washing cups! She won’t like it.”

She ran into the cottage and clattered up the narrow stair to her attic room.

“Eleanor will be coming home soon,” she said to herself, as she threw her books on the bed. “I’d rather be alone with Audrey. Eleanor’s so horribly sarcastic when she tries to be clever; people call it smart, but it’s hateful to live with.”

She was very like Audrey, with the same short fair hair that waved of its own accord, and the same steady blue eyes, though hers were dreamy, while Audrey’s were keen and quick. Elspeth slipped on a lilac overall and ran down to the garden.

“I’ll struggle with the chaos in the sink before you come, Audrey. There’s always—Audrey, what’s the matter?”

Audrey had dropped the letter and sat gazing at her with dazed eyes.

“Eleanor’s married,” she said. “I don’t believe it, but she says so.”

“Married?” shouted Elspeth, and dashed for the letter. “To that old man she’s been going about with?”

“I never thought she was in earnest,” Audrey said unsteadily. “She made a joke in her last letter; don’t you remember? If Mrs. Porter insisted on coming home, Eleanor said she’d marry Geoffrey Kane, so that she could stay in Ceylon; he’d asked her often enough, she said.”

“But does she mean married? Not engaged?” Elspeth cried.

“She says she’s married. Read it, and tell me if I’m going silly.”

“She does say it. Seems to mean it, too. Then she won’t be coming home—not ever. I say, how odd!”

“Odd!” said Audrey. Her voice broke, and she turned away hurriedly.

Elspeth looked at her, bewildered and frightened. “I don’t understand,” she faltered. “Are you upset about it, Audrey? It’s very nice for Eleanor, and we’re doing all right without her, aren’t we?”

“We could do all right, if—if only you”—Audrey’s voice shook. She dropped her head on the arm of the basket chair. “I can’t go on! Eleanor was better than no one. There’s nobody to help. You’re such a baby, with your rabbits and fields, when there’s work to be done! You never think—and there’s nobody else. I can’t go on for ever all alone.”

Elspeth stood rigid. Then she turned and fled. Her mind was numb with dismay, but habit took her feet to the scullery, and she set to work feverishly on the first thing that came to hand. With eyes blinded by tears, she groped among the piles of cups, sorting saucers from plates, and spoons from knives, putting the cups ready beside the tin bowl. She stumbled to the kitchen and brought the kettle and poured out the hot water.

The scullery was full of steam. Through the cloud came Audrey’s voice. “Elspeth, I’m sorry. I was a brute.”

“Please go away,” Elspeth gasped. “I want to do something useful. Oh, Audrey, I never thought!”

The tears were raining down her cheeks. She dashed them aside and twirled the mop furiously in a cup.

Audrey laughed unsteadily and put her arm round her shoulders. “Elspeth, you’re a little brick! You can’t help being the beginning of a poet, can you? It was hateful of me to blame you.”

“Isn’t this steam a nuisance?” Elspeth sobbed.

Audrey laughed again, and caught up a tea-cloth. “Let’s do our job! Then we can talk in the garden. We must write to Mrs. Kane.”

“Mrs. Kane? Oh, my hat!”

“Yes, my dear. We’ve several new ideas to absorb. Elspeth, there’s no reason we shouldn’t manage all right without Eleanor.”

Elspeth reddened. “If only I could be sensible and be company for you. Audrey, I didn’t see it before. I’ll try. It was mad of me to watch those rabbits; but you can’t think how sweet they were! Did you have a busy afternoon?” She changed the subject hastily.

“Packs of people. One party of a dozen, who had just come off the hills and were starving.”

“I say, Audrey, he’s an awfully old man for Eleanor, isn’t he?” Elspeth exclaimed.

Audrey’s face grew sober. “I don’t like it,” she confessed. “He’s fifty-nine, and she’s twenty-two. It isn’t right.”

“Thirty-seven years! Might be her father. Oh, how—how like Eleanor!” Elspeth set down a pile of saucers with a bang.

“Don’t smash the crockery! Eleanor’s chosen, and we can’t do anything. She knew we wouldn’t like it, so she didn’t tell us she was in earnest.”

“She must have married the old man in a great hurry,” Elspeth said.

“Don’t keep calling him that. He’s not really old.”

Elspeth began to empty tea-pots. “Oh, no! Not quite sixty. Audrey, it’s hateful! Looks as if Eleanor would marry any one who asked her.”

“She liked Ceylon and she wanted to stay there.” Audrey’s voice was grave. “I said I didn’t like it, Elspeth. Eleanor didn’t want to come home and settle down, so she took this other way. I hope he’ll be good to her.”

“I should beat her.”

“Els!” Audrey cried laughing. “You’ll have to send a wedding-present.”

“Not if I know it!”

“Oh yes, you will! We’ll read the letter again; I didn’t finish it. When you ran away, I forgot the letter.”

“Perhaps at the end we’ll find it’s all a joke.”

“I’m afraid not. Come and—oh, bother!”

“Oh, my aunt! People!” Elspeth sighed. “What a time to want tea! I wish you’d put up a notice—‘Not open after six.’ Shall I go and ask what she wants?”

Audrey had heard footsteps in the paved courtyard. She glanced through the doorway, then exclaimed, “No, I’ll go. It’s Mrs. Raymond. She comes for coffee before her Institute class; she teaches them country-dancing.”

“I’ve heard you speak of her, but I’ve never happened to see her,” and Elspeth watched with interest from behind the cretonne curtains.

Mrs. Raymond had left her hat and coat in her car, and had come bareheaded into the Squirrel courtyard. Her bright bronze hair was braided round her head and shone in the sun; she wore a brown jumper suit, and she was tall and pretty. Her brown eyes were eager as she spoke to Audrey.

Elspeth approved. “I like her! She looks jolly and—and sunny and alive!”

“Oh, Miss Abbott!” Mrs. Raymond was saying. “I’m expecting two friends at any moment. Do you mind if we use your garden for a family gathering? We’d like tea, and—if it isn’t too much bother—something to eat; eggs, or cold meat. The girls will have had a long drive and they’ll be late home. Shall we be a great trouble to you? I’m afraid it’s rather late.”

“Not at all. You shall have anything you like. Is the class later to-night?” Audrey asked, moving two small tables together to make a larger one.

“There isn’t a class. This is a family affair. You’re wondering why I don’t have the girls at Rayleigh, aren’t you?” Joan Raymond asked laughing. “I’m in quarantine; or rather, the house is. My small girl has just begun going to school, and she’s promptly taken measles. The girls I want to see come from a family where there are twins of four years old, so they can’t come near a house full of measles! But we agreed that if I disinfected thoroughly and we met in the open air, there couldn’t be any danger. So I told them to come here, this being the nicest tea-garden I’ve ever seen.”

Audrey laughed. “How sweet of you! You shall have the jolliest high tea I can manage.”

“I told them they could trust you to feed us well. I’m aching to see them and to hear—but that won’t interest you.”

“Everything interests me,” Audrey assured her, arranging basket chairs round the tables, under a big green umbrella.

Joan laughed. “There’s a new baby in the family, and I want to hear all about her. We’ve talked quantities over the ’phone, but I want to hear more still. There’s the car!”

She went quickly down the path, and the sound of voices and excited laughter came from the big car at the gate.

Audrey spread green tablecloths and began to lay plates and forks. Inside the cottage, Elspeth dashed to the stove for a glance at the kettle, then sprang back to the window to see the new arrivals.

“A perfectly lovely kid, Joan! An angel for goodness, and Jenny-Wren’s as well as anything, and frightfully bucked to have a girl.”

The speaker was a tall fair girl in blue, with blue eyes, and yellow hair coiled over her ears under a white hat. She was twenty-two, six years younger than Joan Raymond.

Joan laughed. “And I suppose Jen’s still more bucked to be the first of us to have three kiddies, although she was the last to be married! Are the boys quite well?”

“Oh, rather! Jolly as anything!”

“Jen’s changed her mind about having only boys,” said a slightly younger girl, whose very black eyes and hair gave her a foreign look. She wore a vivid orange suit under a brown fur coat. “She always said she’d have six boys. But she’s tremendously pleased with Rosemary Jane.”

“What?” cried Joan. “Maidlin, say it again!”

“Oh, hadn’t we told you?” the fair girl began to laugh.

“Rosemary Jane,” said Maidlin.

“Really? Rosamund, is it a joke?” cried Joan.

“Jen says it isn’t. She’s called the babe Rosemary Jane from its first yell,” said Rosamund.

“She didn’t tell us, though,” Maidlin remarked. “Nurse says it’s been decided all along, but Jen wouldn’t be serious about it. She told us quite solemnly the kid was to be called Janet Mary——”

“Yes, you told me Janet Mary,” Joan agreed.

“Then the next day it was Amelia Alice, to match Andrew and Antony. And then it was Rose Madeline, for Rosamund and me. So then we gave up believing anything Jen said,” Maidlin explained.

“Perhaps Rosemary Jane is a joke too?” Joan suggested.

“Nurse says Jen really means it this time,” Rosamund threw her hat on a table and sat down in one of the basket chairs. “What a dinky place! But where are the squirrels?”

“Over the porch,” said Audrey, coming forward. “What will you have to eat? I’ll go and cook it for you, as my girl has gone home.”

Rosamund looked at her—pretty green overall, wavy fair hair, straight blue eyes—and laughed. “I’m sorry I didn’t see your squirrels! What a jolly garden you have! It’s too bad to make you cook, when you’d finished for the day. Couldn’t we have bread and butter and cakes?”

“You could,” Audrey assented. “But I’d like to scramble eggs for you. Mrs. Raymond says you’ve come a long way.”

“I’d like scrambled eggs,” said Maidlin.

“Scramble us heaps of eggs, please, Miss Abbott,” said Joan, and sat down by Rosamund. “Now, Ros, tell me all about Rosemary Jane! Is she called after you and Mary-Dorothy?”

“Mary-Dorothy and I say so,” Rosamund agreed. “But according to Jen, Rosemary has always been her favourite name, and Kenneth’s too; she says we’d think too much of ourselves if she called the kid after us. Jane is for herself, and you, and that Jehane person in the old stories of the Abbey.”

Joan laughed. “But why Jane? It’s so very plain!”

“Jen says perhaps Rosemary Jane will be plain too,” Maidlin observed. “But she’s lovely so far.”

“Is she really dark, or were you teasing when you told me?” Joan asked.

“Oh, dark as Maid,” said Rosamund. “Looks weird beside Jen. The whole family’s fair. I think Rosemary Jane is a changeling.”

“She isn’t as dark as all that,” Maidlin remonstrated. “Her eyes are beautiful, Joan; deep brown. Her hair’s dark brown. Nurse says it may change, but Jen doesn’t think it will. The boys were fair from the first.”

“But how queer to think of Jen with a brown baby!”

“Joy says the kid’s the image of what Andrew was,” Rosamund remarked.

“I forgot her Uncle Andrew,” Joan’s voice sobered. “The grandmother was dark too, wasn’t she?”

“Yes. The kid’s like her. Jen says she’s glad it’s a little brownie.”

“Jen was Queen Brownie at school,” said Maidlin. “When Rosemary Jane goes to school, she’ll be Brownie the Second.”

“Goes to school!” Rosamund laughed. “She’s a fortnight old! How’s Janice, Joan?”

“Oh, nearly well! It’s a very slight attack. Jansy was too healthy to take anything badly. But I expect she’ll have given it to John. We’ll know in a few days.”

In the cottage kitchen Audrey and Elspeth could not help hearing every word.

“Is John Mrs. Raymond’s little boy?” Elspeth whispered.

“I suppose so. Will you take out this tray?”

“Oh, won’t you?” Elspeth shrank. “They might speak to me.”

“You babe! What if they did?”

“I shouldn’t know what to say.”

Audrey looked at her, and took up the tray.

Elspeth, colouring, sprang forward. “I’ll go, Audrey. I was only ragging. No, that’s not true. I don’t want to do it. But I will; I want to help.”

“Thanks, my dear.” Audrey gave her the tray of cups and saucers, and began to break eggs into a bowl.

Elspeth carried the tray carefully out to the garden and set it on a little table. She began to arrange the cups in front of Mrs. Raymond, her eyes shyly downcast.

“Another pretty pinafore! Why did you go and change, Miss Squirrel?” asked the fair-haired girl, Rosamund. “I’m sure there was nothing the matter with the green one?”

The girl in the lilac overall did not answer, but went on arranging cups and saucers.

Rosamund looked up in surprise. “Did you mind—why, it’s another girl! A littler Miss Squirrel, isn’t it? How many more of you are there?”

Elspeth’s cheeks were flushed, as she answered. “There isn’t anybody else; not now. Just Audrey and me. Our middle sister’s married.”

“I’ve never seen you before, have I?” Joan asked. “You’re very like your sister.”

“She’s been crying,” Maidlin woke out of a dream and spoke absent-mindedly.

Elspeth set down her tray and fled, through the flower-filled courtyard, past the cottage, and into the garden behind. Her lilac overall betrayed her among the gooseberry bushes.

“Maid, you idiot!” cried Rosamund. “Did you think Joan and I hadn’t seen? How could you, when you’d never seen the kid before? How could you be so brutal?”

Maidlin was gazing with dismayed eyes after Elspeth. “I never meant—I wasn’t thinking—I am sorry! I woke up suddenly, and I just said it. Oh, Ros, what can we do?”

“Leave her alone. We’ll apologise to her sister,” said Joan, looking distressed. “Perhaps the little one will come back before we go.”

“I’m not going to leave it. I’ll have it out with her,” and Rosamund sprang up. “I hope she can’t escape through the back hedge.”

She strode across the flagged yard, as Audrey came to the cottage door.

“Ros, don’t tease her! It’s unkind,” Joan cried.

But Rosamund had passed Audrey and was hurrying through the garden.

Audrey came up to the table, and Maidlin and Mrs. Raymond both spoke at once.

“We’re so sorry——”

“Please, it was my fault,” Maidlin insisted bravely. “I went off into a dream; I often do. I think it was your pansies; they reminded me of our Abbey. Your sister came, and I woke up and said the first thing that came into my head. It was unkind. I’m very sorry. Will she let me tell her so?”

“Elspeth is shy. She didn’t want to wait on you, but she did it to help me,” Audrey explained. “I’m sorry, too, but we had an upsetting letter just before you came and Elspeth took it rather hardly. She isn’t really a baby, but she can’t answer back, as some girls would do. She’s a dreamer too,” and she smiled at Maidlin. “I know just how it happened. It’s exactly what Elspeth would do herself. Your friend seems to have captured her; she must be a genius. I thought Elspeth would be through the gate and into the woods.”

“Rosamund’s a friendly sort of person, and she never minds anybody,” said Joan.

“Do you think I might go and speak to Elspeth?” Maidlin’s voice was ashamed and wistful. “I’d like to say I’m sorry.”

“Let Ros do it for you,” Joan advised, as Audrey went back to her eggs. “Don’t ask the kid to face any one else for a few minutes.”

“Ros always does things for me. She always pulls me out of holes.”

“It’s good for you to have to do without Ros now and then, Madalena,” said Joan.

“I know,” Maidlin said. “I creep out of things so long as Ros is here to do them for me. Jen and Mary have both told me so.” She sprang up and began to wander restlessly round the courtyard.

The yard in front of the cottage was paved with big slabs of stone, and in the cracks between them were tiny rock-plants. The tall blue lupins and larkspurs were massed in borders beside the low walls; in green tubs standing on stumpy pedestals were pansies of every colour. At one end of the courtyard, at right angles to the whitewashed cottage, was a shelter which had once been a shed but was now a loggia with climbing roses and clematis clinging to its pillars. There were creepers and roses on the cottage walls and framing its windows, and pansies in the beds below. Big yellow and green umbrellas protected the wicker tables and chairs, and the cushions and table-covers were to match these.

“We can’t quite make up our minds about the colours,” said Audrey’s voice, and Maidlin turned, to find their hostess beside her, carrying a tea-pot. “Elspeth says a green cloth and cushions should be under a golden umbrella, and gold cushions under the green. I want the green under the green, and the gold with the gold. She says her way is more exciting.”

“That’s certainly true,” Joan agreed with a laugh, from where she sat in a low chair. “Where did you find that old sign-board over your porch, Miss Abbott? I’ve often meant to ask you. It’s a real old one, isn’t it?”

Audrey set down the tea-pot under a green raffia cosy, and glanced at the ancient sign, of two squirrels playing. “It belonged to an old inn, which once stood in the woods here. The house was burnt down and never rebuilt; we discovered the sign in a cottage and bought it. We had already called our place after the inn, so that the old name shouldn’t be forgotten; and also after the squirrels in the woods, of course! Yes, the sign is old and really good.”

Maidlin came forward shyly. “Couldn’t I help? Your sister has left you to do everything, and it’s my fault. Couldn’t I cut the bread and butter?”

Audrey laughed. “Thanks very much, but I can manage. I must see to my eggs,” and she hurried indoors again.

Maidlin sighed, and glanced down the garden at Rosamund and Elspeth, still standing among the gooseberry bushes.