Читать книгу Jandy Mac Comes Back - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 6

Table of Contents

“You’re unusually quiet, Joan-Two!” Rosamund teased. “Still overawed by my little house?”

She had come to fetch them, wearing a pretty blue frock. Her eyes were blue, and her hair, coiled on her neck, was yellow. She wore a chain of blue glass beads at her throat, and showing these to Janice, she said with a laugh, “My wedding-gift from the twins! They chose them themselves, at Woolworth’s; it was quite their own idea.”

“With their own money?” Joan asked.

“Oh, of course! It was a real gift. Everybody was giving me presents, so they wouldn’t be left out. When you see them you can tell them I wore their beads for lunch.”

“Is Joan’s new baby really to be called Jim?” Janice asked. “I said he ought to be, to fit the rest of the family.”

“Jansy and John and Jennifer; now Jim has come too,” Rosamund agreed. “But there’s more in it than that. The fathers of Joan and Joy were twins, called John and Jim Shirley. As Joan had John already, called really for his own father, Jack Raymond, they decided the next boy should be Jim, to keep the family names.”

“That’s rather jolly. And Joy’s baby is David?”

“After the orchestra in New York,” Rosamund said, laughing. “Sir Ivor is directing the David Orchestra for three years.”

“But why did she adopt you? Mother doesn’t know. Won’t you tell us?” Joan pleaded.

“It was more than good of her,” Rosamund spoke with grave deep feeling. “She was Joy Shirley then, and only twenty-one. Joan had just married and gone away. I was fifteen and was left as a boarder at their old school in Wycombe, but my home had been in the north and the change didn’t suit me. I was tired and listless all the time and I kept having headaches; I still remember how rotten I felt. My parents had gone to India, but my mother was an old girl of the Wycombe school, and she wanted me to go there. The Head, Miss Macey, wrote to Joy and asked her to have me to live with her in the country for a while; it sounds a big thing to ask, but they were great friends and Miss Macey knew that Joy would be lonely without Joan. As it happened, Joy had just decided to be very good to Maidlin, who had been left an orphan and an heiress, and who badly needed somebody to stand by her. Something of the same sort had happened to Joy; she had inherited a big property when she was only fifteen. She sympathised with Maidlin, who was fourteen and felt lost and bewildered; so she gave her a home at the Hall, and she agreed to take me too. Perhaps it was easier for her to have two than one! Maid and I were chums almost from the first, and I really think Joy soon came to like having us there, for when the aunt, who was responsible for me—my mother’s sister—died, Joy didn’t send me back to school, but said I must stay at the Hall to be company for Maidlin. I soon forgot that it wasn’t my home as much as it was Maidie’s, and for the rest of my school life I lived there with them. After that it was still my home, though I was abroad a good deal. My mother came to Switzerland for treatment and died there, and I made friends while I was with her and used to go to stay with them. But I always came back to the Hall, and I was married from there.”

“And when did the tea-shop and the cottage come in?” Joan asked eagerly.

“Between living abroad and being married. Presently I’m going to ask questions, Joan-Two!” Rosamund looked at Janice. “You know, you’re exactly what I’ve always longed for—someone who knew Joy as a schoolgirl. I didn’t know Joan really well; she had left home before I came to the Hall. But Joy was a grown-up—or was supposed to be! She had gorgeous spells when she seemed no older than Maid and me, and we all fooled about together like infants. We loved her best then, of course! I want to hear what she was like when she was fifteen.”

“Sixteen,” Janice said. “I saw them first on the day when Joan became the May Queen at school. She was crowned by Joy, and I thought I was seeing double. Didn’t I hear in some letter of Joan’s that you were Queen too?”

“Oh, rather! Joan came to my coronation and brought Jansy, who was a few months old. Maid was Queen too, but later on. I won’t spoil your lunch by teasing you with questions about old times, but later on I shall have to hear all about Joy and Joan at school.”

Joan-Two, listening breathlessly, did not notice what she was eating and forgot to be frightened of the waiting servants. “Oh, tell her about it now, Mother!” she cried.

“No, not now,” the Countess said firmly. “You tell me things instead, Joan-Two! Did you go to school on your South Sea Island?”

“Only at first. I’ve been living in Sydney for two years, at boarding-school.” Joan resigned herself to waiting.

As they rose from the table Rosamund said, “Now we’ll go and see the children. They’re in the garden; they were fed much earlier. My small boy has a bottle at midday; it’s good for him to grow used to it gradually.”

Janice looked at her with raised brows. “Children? Have you twins, like Joy? I thought you’d only been married for a year?”

“Fifteen months. But my eldest boy is three years old,” the Countess said calmly. “A stepbrother, you know. My father married again and then he died; Roddy was born two months later, and as his mother wanted to go back to India Roddy was given to me; I’m his guardian. I didn’t expect at that time to marry and have a family of my own! He’s a nice little uncle for Hugh; just three years older.”

“How jolly for them both!” Janice exclaimed.

“But how odd to be an uncle when he’s only three!” Joan cried.

“He’ll be used to it by the time he knows anything about it. Some day he’ll want to know why Hugh calls me Mother and he doesn’t. But that’s in the future. At present I have to admit he calls me Yozzie. That’s the best he can do.”

“Yozzie! How awful!” Joan laughed.

“Or Yoz.” Rosamund led the way to the private gardens of the Castle. “The park is out there, acres of it, with hills and woods and deer, and a lake with swans and peacocks. But it’s open to the public and there are masses of picnic parties round the lake all day long. These are our own gardens. Now look!”

She led them through an opening in a tall box hedge, neatly trimmed into a thick wall. Within was a square garden room, enclosed by dark hedges. One half was given up to a lawn, where on a rug a fair-haired baby lay sprawling and kicking in the sun. The other half of the sheltered spot, separated from the lawn by a broad bed of flowers, was an oval pool, and in this a sturdy boy was paddling, his tiny knickers tucked up, a toy boat in his hand. He launched it just as they appeared, and shouted and flung back his yellow curls in delight, as it sailed away from him.

“Roddy is to go into the Navy, if he likes the idea, so we’re beginning early,” the Countess said. “The pool is only a few inches deep; he loves it, and his boats. The flower-bed is to protect the lawn, so that no baby can roll off the grass into the water. We have only children’s flowers growing here; red and white daisies, and pansies with big faces, and marigolds—bright colours that are easy for a baby to see. It’s our Kindergarten, in the real sense of the word, or our Jardin des Enfants, or the Kiddies’ Corner, according to your feelings at the moment.”

“It’s perfectly charming!” Janice exclaimed.

“Simply marvellous! It might have been made for a children’s garden,” Joan cried.

“It was made for a children’s garden; we’ve been planning and making it since the autumn. Over beyond the pool is the sandpit, where Roddy digs for hours. I copied that idea from Joy; the twins have a splendid sandpit, but they haven’t a pool. I haven’t introduced you to the boys! This big fellow is my brother, Roderick Geoffrey Kane; the small chap is Geoffrey-Hugh. All the boys in our family have Geoffrey in their names, and the girls have Rose. But we give them other names as well.”

“Geoffrey-Hugh must be a very important person! Was he born into a title? As heir to all this, I suppose he would be?” Janice asked.

“Will it all belong to him some day? He’s very little!” Joan marvelled.

“He’s Viscount Verriton, when we want to be polite. But we call him Hugh. If I have a little girl some day—and I hope I shall; I want her badly—I shall call her Rosabel Joy,” Rosamund said. “Rosabel is an old name among the family roses; but I shall want to give her Joy’s name too.”

“That’s a lovely name! I hope you’ll have her in time.”

Rosamund laughed. “In a year or two, perhaps! Hugh must grow up a little before he has a sister.”

“They’re beautiful boys,” Janice said.

“They’re exactly like you, both of them, Lady Kentisbury. Mother says that’s what I’m to call you; not Countess,” Joan sounded puzzled.

“That’s right, Joan-Two. The boys are alike, aren’t they? That’s the family coming out in them both. Now, Jandy Mac, I’m going indoors to listen to Maidlin’s concert. Would you rather come, or will you stay here and wander about?”

“Oh, may I stay and sail boats with Roddy? I don’t care about concerts!” Joan cried.

Rosamund shook her head at her. “It would be good for you to listen. It’s meant for people like you, not for grown-ups. Oh, very well! Stay and play with Roddy, by all means! He’ll be delighted. Nurse!” and she turned to one of the two girls in uniform who were watching the children. “This is Joan Fraser; she’ll stay with Roddy for an hour. What about you, Jandy Mac?”

“It’s a hard choice!” Janice sighed in mock dismay. “Your gardens are so tempting! But I’d like to hear that voice again.”

“The gardens will wait; the concert won’t. Come on! We’ve only just time. We’ll come out again later,” and Rosamund hurried her indoors, to a cosy boudoir and a large radio cabinet.