Читать книгу The Abbey Girls on Trial - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 5

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“What a jolly party!” Audrey turned from the gate. “I’ve always liked Mrs. Raymond, and she seems to have friends as nice as herself. Now for the mess in the scullery!”

“I must clean the egg-pan,” Elspeth began to laugh.

“You shouldn’t be so easily upset,” Audrey scolded gently. “They must have thought you a real baby.”

Elspeth reddened. “I’m sorry. I hate myself. But I was afraid I’d cry again.”

“I was afraid the other girl would upset you when she went after you.”

“She’s Rosamund. She didn’t say her other name. She was kind; I didn’t mind. She told me ever so much about them, and the old Abbey where they live,” and Elspeth changed the subject. “It belongs to Mrs. Raymond,” and she repeated as much as she had understood of Rosamund’s explanations.

Audrey was not listening very carefully, however.

“Come and read Eleanor’s letter again,” she said, as she hung up her tea-cloths. “We didn’t finish it.”

Elspeth sat on a cushion in the paved front yard, leaning against a chair, while Audrey read the letter aloud. Eleanor gave details of her hurried wedding, to which she had agreed because her friends were leaving for England. Then came a hasty postscript.

“Oh, I say, girls! I forgot to tell you that I’m a stepmother! Isn’t it a scream? I haven’t seen the girl, as she’s in England; but Geoff has a daughter and she’s as old as I am! She’s living with friends who have had her for years. Perhaps we’ll come home in a year or two, and then I suppose she’ll live with us. I’m not looking forward to that, I must say. I’ll send you her address next time I write, and you can go and call on your new relation.”

Audrey laid down the letter and looked at Elspeth.

“A new girl!” Elspeth said. “How odd!—I say, Audy, if she’s nice, and as old as Eleanor, could she come into the family instead of her? I’m fed up with Eleanor. I don’t like the way she speaks about it all.”

“She’s over-excited,” Audrey suggested. “Don’t be too hard on her. It must be thrilling to be married suddenly. She’ll be all right when she settles down.”

“If this girl’s nice I’d rather have her for a sister.”

“Sister! You’re her aunt, my dear.”

Elspeth looked up, startled. “Her aunt? But she’s five years older than I am!”

“That has nothing to do with it. You’re her aunt by marriage. Your sister is her stepmother.”

“It’s simply hateful for her!” Elspeth broke out. “A new mother no older than herself! She’ll hate it!”

“I shouldn’t wonder. I’d hate it. I don’t think she’ll live with them,” Audrey pondered the situation. “I wouldn’t. If it meant going out as a housemaid, I’d do that rather than live with a stepmother of my own age. If this girl has any grit, she’ll strike out for herself.”

“She might come and live with us!” Elspeth’s eyes sparkled. “She’d be company for you. I know I’m too much of a kid, Audrey. You ought to have somebody sensible to talk to.”

“I’m not complaining, so long as you keep wide awake, my dear,” Audrey said. “It’s when you go off into dreams that I feel let down and alone.”

“I won’t! Audrey, I won’t! But wouldn’t you like to have somebody besides me?”

“We must see our new niece first,” Audrey began to laugh. “We may be terrified of her.”

“Our niece! How funny it sounds!”

“But if she has no better plan, I shall certainly feel we ought to ask her to join us,” Audrey added.

“Perhaps she’ll stay with the friends she’s been living with.”

“Perhaps. But she may have been expecting to live with her father. If that should be so, I’ll feel we owe her something.”

“Yes, because Eleanor’s bagged her father and her home,” Elspeth agreed. “I think we ought to join up with her.”

“I wish we knew her name! It’s so silly to have a nameless relation!”

“It’s just like Eleanor,” and Elspeth rose and stretched herself. “Can you spare me for ten minutes, Audrey?”

“Squirrels? Yes, run along; but don’t be late. It’s nearly dark.”

In the twilight Elspeth wandered through the gate into the woods. It was dark here, but she knew the paths and she loved the silence and the shadows. There were queer little murmurs from sleeping creatures, rustlings of leaves, an occasional call from a night bird, and the imperative hooting of owls.

A broad track, easy to follow even by night, led her to the pool, just where a stream ran in and was crossed by a plank bridge with a wide handrail. Elspeth sat on the rail, swinging her legs, and gazed at the dark water, and thought of the new relation.

The unknown girl’s position came upon her strongly, for she had imagination enough to see her point of view. “It’s horrid for her. I wonder how long it is since her mother died? If she doesn’t remember her own mother, she may not feel so bad, but if the mother died a year or two ago it’s awful for this girl. I wish I’d kept Eleanor’s letters. She said something about this man before, but I didn’t pay much attention. How was I to know she was going to marry him?”

She stretched a long leg and kicked at the water. “Hateful! Eleanor doesn’t love him a scrap. She’s married him for what she’ll get out of him. It would serve her right if he died and left her nothing to live on ... Then she’d come back to us. I don’t want her; not after this! She’s done something that I loathe, marrying an old man like that!”

Full of romantic dreams as she was, the news of Eleanor’s purely business marriage had been a severe shock. Elspeth was not old enough to make allowances; all her sympathy went out to the girl whose rights in her father had been ignored, and she had none for the newly-married pair.

“I wonder if they told her—the girl? Did she have any warning? Or will it have been a ghastly shock to her? I wonder if she cared about her father? Didn’t Audrey say she hadn’t lived with him for years?”

And thinking of the unknown girl introduced so suddenly into the family, Elspeth went soberly down the path and back to the Squirrel House and bed.