Читать книгу Jandy Mac Comes Back - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 5

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“Might we know your married name?” Janice asked their new hostess, as they waited for the car to come.

Rosamund gave her a laughing look. “Don’t ask questions! You’ve been kidnapped. Leave everything to me; I’m really quite respectable. I’ll tell you as soon as we reach home.”

Joan-Two nodded. “Don’t ask her, Mother. It’s far more thrilling not to know. I believe she’s a princess; you saw those marvellous horses! Are you going to take us to Windsor Castle, to see the Queen, Mrs. Rosamund?”

“Not to Windsor,” Rosamund said seriously. “I hope you’ll like my little house. Tell me what you’ve been doing since you landed, while we’re waiting for the car!”

Janice Fraser looked a little troubled, but Joan entered eagerly into the spirit of “the princess’s” wishes and asked no more questions. When the car came whirling round the corner and drew up beside Ferguson and the horses, she looked startled, however.

“Gosh, it’s a whopper! Are you a millionaire?” she cried.

“Not at all. It’s a struggle to make ends meet,” Rosamund retorted. “Wait till you see what we have to do with the few pennies we happen to possess! Come along—hop out and try my car! The men will transfer your baggage.”

“We only brought tooth-brushes, just in case Aunt Joan wanted us to stay,” Joan-Two explained. “Mother said it would do no harm to have one little bag with us, and we could send for more to the hotel, if we decided to stay.”

“Very sensible.” Rosamund glanced at Janice. “You aren’t really alarmed by that huge car, are you? I know it looks ostentatious, but I can’t help it—that long word means ‘swanking,’ Joan-Two. I can’t help it if my husband has a large car, can I? Do you mind, Jandy Mac?”

Janice laughed, in spite of herself. “I don’t mind anything from one who calls me that. I haven’t been Jandy Mac for fifteen years. It’s so friendly, and it makes me feel a schoolgirl again, in spite of this big Littlejan. But I’m puzzled, you know,” and she looked from the car to Rosamund.

“Of course you are, you poor dear! But it’s only for half an hour. Come along!”

Rosamund said a word to the man who had brought her car, and he took the suitcase which Janice handed to him. Joan had already run to make sure of the front seat. Janice, with thoughtful eyes, glanced at the crest on the side of the car, as she went to take her place.

Rosamund saw her look, and smiled. She turned back for a word with Mrs. Grant’s chauffeur, and then came to join Janice in the car.

“Your man says he’d rather go straight back to town. I’ve sent a message to your friends and their minds will be easy about you. I begged him to come and be fed, but he asked to be let off. So you’re entirely forsaken and in my hands. I’ll see that you’re sent back to town or to any other place you wish. But don’t go to the Hall to-day. Wait till Maid is at home to receive you.”

The car was running smoothly and swiftly back the way it had come. Rosamund talked on, to check any questions, and Joan-Two knelt on the front seat and leant over the back to listen.

“Your cushions are so deep that I sink right in and then I’m too low down to hear what you’re saying,” she explained.

“I’m completely buried in my corner,” Janice agreed. “Tell us about your friend who sings! Is it an afternoon concert?”

“It’s one of the B.B.C. children’s concerts. I said she was too good to be illustrating music-lessons for children, but Maid said—quite truly, I believe—that they give the children the very best they can and that it was an honour to be asked; and anyway, she would enjoy it. That was true; she’s to sing folk-songs and she loves them. I’m going to listen, of course; you’d better stay with me and listen too. We’ll give Joan-Two a music-lesson.”

“I’d love it!” Joan’s eyes sparkled.

“I’d like to hear the beautiful voice that spoke over the phone,” Janice admitted.

“Maid has a lovely speaking voice and her singing is first class. She’s in great demand for concerts and she’s making her name in oratorio.”

“I had no idea,” Janice confessed, “of the way you younger ones seem to have developed. I knew Joy had two schoolgirls living with her, and if I’d thought I’d have known they must be grown-up by now. But you seem both to have gone a long way since your schooldays!”

“Maid’s twenty-five, and I’m a year older. I didn’t stay at the Hall all the time until I married. I was abroad with my mother, and after she died, with friends, a good deal. And then I kept a tea-shop in a cottage; we’d have passed it on the other road, but I wanted to go this way.”

“A shop!” Joan exclaimed. “And did a fairy prince come and marry you?”

“No, he was ill and he asked me to take care of him. He’s better now.”

“It’s a thrill, getting to know you!” Joan said solemnly. “You are an interesting family, all the lot of you!”

Rosamund laughed. “There are more thrills ahead of you, Joan-Two. But I’m keeping dark about them, because if I say too much you’ll rush off and leave me, and I want you to see my little house and my little boy.”

“Oh! But why should we? Where would we want to go?”

“I’ve an idea that I know where you’ll sleep to-night, and that it won’t be with me,” Rosamund said, in a tone of mystery. “Now not another question! I’m not going to say one word more!”

Joan gave a chuckle of anticipation. “I love surprises! Do you know what she’s talking about, Mother?”

“I do not! I wish she’d say a little more.”

“If you like surprises, Joan-Two, I think you’re going to have one now,” Rosamund said. “Turn round and look ahead. You’re missing all the scenery.”

As Joan whirled round in her seat, Janice leant forward, with a cry of surprise. The trees which lined the road had come to an end; the chauffeur drew up the car, in answer to a word from Rosamund.

A river valley was dominated by a great grey castle, towering above a red-roofed town and backed by wooded hills. The battlements, the big round keep with its flag flying, the arrow-slits for windows, the walls and turrets, all were there, as in a fairy-tale.

“How do you like my little house, Joan-Two?” Rosamund asked.

“You don’t mean to say you live there?” Joan’s shriek of surprise rang out.

Janice looked at Rosamund. “Where are we, please? And who are you?”

“I wanted you to see it first from this point. I still catch my breath when I come on it suddenly on this road. The other way shows you the park, but you don’t have a good view of the Castle. It’s rather overwhelming, isn’t it? It’s Kentisbury.”

“And you are?”

“I married the Earl a year ago.”

“What’s a lady earl called?” Joan asked, wide-eyed. “I know you don’t say earl-ess.”

“Littlejan!” her mother exclaimed, with a glance at the rigid back of the chauffeur. “The Countess will think you’ve never been to school!”

“I’ve heard of countesses in history books,” Joan looked at Rosamund doubtfully. “But I didn’t know they were real.”

“This one’s real, and she’s extremely hungry. We’ll go on now, Burnett,” to the man.

“It’s a wonderful place,” Janice murmured, gazing incredulously at the Castle.

“I’m rather scared,” Joan whispered.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” the Countess confessed. “I thought if I announced myself as Lady Kentisbury, you might say you wouldn’t come. Do you see now what we have to do with our pennies? The Castle takes a lot of them to keep it going!”

“Golly, yes!” Joan agreed. “And I don’t suppose it’s your only house, is it?”

“Not the only one,” Rosamund admitted. “There’s rather a large one in London and a small place in Scotland, to begin with. This is where we cross the river,” as the car rolled over the bridge. “Doesn’t the Castle tower overhead?”

“We’re right underneath,” Joan’s voice had more than a touch of awe. “How do we go in?”

“You’ll see the gate in a moment. There! It’s rather fine, isn’t it? And the inner gate is complete with moat and drawbridge and portcullis!”

“It all fits into the fairy-tale.” Joan gazed at the fat round towers of stone, crowned with little pointed steeples, between which they were passing, to climb by a winding drive to the Castle on its height.

For some minutes she was awed into silence. The car crossed the drawbridge and passed under the ominous hanging teeth of the portcullis. It set them down in a green quadrangle in the centre of the Castle, where the lawn was marked out in two tennis-courts; and by an enormous stone entrance Rosamund led the way indoors. Then Joan had a confused picture of huge rooms and long corridors, of statues and paintings, and at last of a sunny bedroom, where she found herself alone with her mother.

“It won’t take me ten minutes to change, and lunch is ready,” Rosamund said, as she left them. “I’m sure you’d like a wash. I’ll come back for you presently.”

“Oh, don’t change, please! You look so nice!” Joan found her voice in a hurry.

Rosamund shook her head at her. “I thought you’d gone dumb, Joan-Two. If I have visitors I can’t lunch in breeches. I’ll soon come back.”

She disappeared, and Joan and Janice looked at one another.

“Mother! It is a fairy-tale, and we’re right inside it!” Joan cried.

“It feels rather like it, I admit,” Janice laughed. “I certainly never dreamt this morning that lunch-time would find us in Kentisbury Castle!”

“I am so glad Aunt Joan had that baby this morning!” Joan sighed happily.