Читать книгу Robins in the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 5

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As the car ran smoothly through the country, Joy turned to Robin, who was sitting silently beside her, feeling a little shy and very heavily burdened at the thought of what news might come presently from Quellyn.

“You know about our families, don’t you? Henderson and the second car come from the Manor, next door to my house, the Hall. The Abbey we so often speak of is in the grounds of the Hall, but belongs to my cousin Joan, Mrs. Raymond. Our twins have a crowd of little Marchwood cousins at the Manor—three boys and two girls—and their father and mother are called Sir Kenneth and Lady Marchwood—or, to us, Ken and Jen! Kenneth had a bad motor smash about a year ago and has been very ill, and Jen has been nursing him; she must be fagged out. But he’s all right again now. Jen is a very old friend; we’ve known her since she came to school, when she was thirteen and Joan and I were sixteen.”

“And you were all May Queens at school,” Robin said shyly. “Benedicta Bennett told me.”

“Oh, you know Benneyben? She is a very good friend of ours. Yes, Joan and Jen and I were all Queens, and so were Rosamund and Maidlin, the schoolgirls whom I adopted and who lived at the Hall for years, until they married. You’ve heard about them too, I suppose?”

“I saw them, and you and your twins, and Mrs. Raymond’s boy and girl, at Lady Kentisbury’s wedding. Lady Marchwood and Mrs. Raymond weren’t there.”

“No, Rosemary Marchwood was having her appendix out, and Joan was standing by Jen and Kenneth, who were terribly frightened and anxious. I’d forgotten Wood End School came to the wedding.”

“I know Lady Kentisbury. She’s been so kind; she asked us all to the Castle when the school was partly burnt down. She has a little boy, as well as the new twins, hasn’t she?”

“Son and heir; yes, Geoffrey-Hugh, nearly a year and a half now. You can guess how thrilled we were to hear that first she and then Maidlin had twin girls! Do you wonder we’re in a hurry to get home to see them?”

“I don’t wonder at all.” Robin smiled. “Will they be at the Hall to greet you?”

“Maidlin will be there. Her babies were born at the Hall—her old home. She was so pleased about that! Her husband is Dr. John Robertson, the musician and teacher of singing, and he has been building a house for his family. It’s ready, and they’ll go there quite soon now, but they decided to wait till the twins were born. Maid said she felt more at home at the Hall; which was true, of course. We shall drive over to see Rosamund and her twins to-morrow, unless they’re at the Hall to meet us, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“I think she’ll be there,” Lindy said. “She’ll feel she couldn’t bear to let you see Miss Maid’s babies and not see hers as well.”

“You really must stop calling her Miss Maid, Belinda!” Joy remonstrated. “I’m sure you couldn’t bear to say Mrs. Robertson all the time, so you’d better call her Maidlin, as the rest of us do.”

“It seems such cheek,” Lindy protested.

“Maid won’t think so. I’m sure she’d rather have it than Miss Maid. I feel like a grandmother to all these new babies,” and Joy smiled at Robin. “I always used to call Rosamund and Maidlin my first twins.”

“You’ll be the twins’ godmother, won’t you?” Robin asked.

“The elder one of each family is to be called after me,” Joy assented. “I’ve some godchildren already; Joan’s second girl is called Jennifer Joy, and Jen’s second is Katharine Joy. Now we have to see what Ros and Maidie have called their daughters! You won’t be dazed by such a crowd of us, will you?”

“Is there anybody else I shall meet?” Robin still spoke shyly.

“Only Mary Devine, my secretary and the friend of us all. I expect you know her books. Or are you too old for school stories?”

“Not for Mary Devine’s,” Robin assured her with energy. “I love them; I have them all. Benney told me about her. I’ll love to meet her.”

“There’s no one else, I think——”

“Oh, Lady Joy!” Lindy cried reproachfully. “Won’t Littlejan Fraser be there? The new Queen of the Hamlet Club! We can’t forget her!”

“The reigning Queen. I beg her pardon! No, we mustn’t forget Queen Marigold,” Joy agreed. “I’ve never seen her, so I didn’t realise she would be at the Hall. She’s the daughter of a friend we knew when we were all schoolgirls, Robin. Jandy lives in Ceylon now, so she brought her girl home to us, to go to our old school. Last May the dancing club crowned her Queen, and as she chose orange for the colour of her train, and marigolds for her flowers, she’s called Queen Marigold. She’s just a kiddy; fourteen, isn’t she, Lindy? You’ve seen her.”

“Fourteen and a half; she has a Christmas birthday. She’s a jolly fine girl,” Lindy said.

“But her other name? That was queer,” Robin asked.

“Littlejan Fraser. Her real name is Joan, after my cousin Joan, whose elder girl is called Janice, after Littlejan’s mother Janice. When Marigold was born she was so like her mother that her father called her Little Jan, and the name stuck, although she was christened Joan.”

“She tried to make us forget Littlejan and call her Joan-Two or Joan the Second, when she first came home,” Lindy remarked. “But I don’t believe people will ever do it, though they may call her Marigold, now that she’s Queen. But she wasn’t Marigold when I saw her a year ago.”

“Miss Belinda brought the twins to me in New York, when I was ill,” Joy explained. “That’s why she—and the twinnies—know Littlejan, though I don’t.”

Belinda had been watching Robin, and now she laid a hand on Joy’s knee. “Robin’s tired. She had to hear all about us; it will be a tremendous help to her to know who everybody is; but she’s thinking of other things all the time, and she looks nearly dead. I think she should try to go to sleep for a few minutes.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Robin said wearily. “It’s good of you, but I can’t stop thinking. I’m sorry! You’ve been marvellously kind, and I’m glad to know about everybody. I’m really looking forward to meeting Miss Devine and Queen Marigold and to seeing the new twins. But—I can’t forget—and till I hear from Quellyn that Mother is safely there, and—and how Father is—I’m afraid I shall be with them in my mind all the time, behind everything else.”

Joy had known suspense and she realised that though friends could help greatly, nobody could banish fear at such a time and that attempts at distraction might become merely wearisome, if persisted in too long.

“Suppose we all rest,” she said. “The drive will take a little time. I want to think about Maidie and Ros and their babies.”

And she sat gazing out at the country, as Robin was doing.

Presently Lindy touched her arm and nodded towards their guest. Robin, exhausted with shock and strain and suspense, was asleep.

Joy nodded, and they sat silent as the car bore them homewards.

At last they were among beechwoods, and Joy said happily, “This is home. Shall we wake her, Lindy?”

Lindy touched Robin’s knee gently. “Robin! Wake up! This is Whiteways; we’re almost home.”

Robin sat up, startled. “Was I asleep? I didn’t think I could. Oh—I remember!”

“In five minutes we shall be at home and you’ll be ’phoning to Quellyn,” Joy said quickly, to comfort her in that moment of remembrance.

Robin looked at her gratefully. “Will you really let me ring up at once? You are kind!”

“Look at our village. There’s the maypole on the green; we’ve danced round it often. This road leads to the Hall.”

“It is pretty! I remember it from the Kentisbury wedding-day.” Robin’s eyes were on the tree-hung lane, as she steadily put her trouble to the back of her mind.

“Here’s the Abbey; the gate-house, you know,” Lindy cried, as a break in the trees showed a grey gabled building in a green meadow, and uneven roofs beyond, inside a high wall. “Look, Lady Joy! The new barn—no, I mean the very old tithe-barn that the twins found for us—is behind those dark trees by the farm.”

Joy looked at the grove of ilex, or evergreen oaks, with interest. “I knew just where it must be, from your description. Strange that we never found it, in all those years! I want to see it, and to dance in it. Now, Robin, here’s my house. And why I should ever have grudged Plas Quellyn to you I can’t imagine, for I could never live anywhere but here! I love every stone of the Hall.”

“And I love every stone of Quellyn.” Robin smiled at her tremulously.

“Then it’s right you should have it. This is the beech avenue.” And Joy’s excitement grew with every second, as they swept up between the double lines of magnificent trees. “And here we are at home!”

“There’s the Kentisbury car, so the Countess has brought the twins to greet you!” Lindy cried.

The great door of the old grey house stood open in welcome. Joy ran up the steps to the terrace, as Mary Devine came out to meet her.

Robin never forgot what happened next. Expecting to be forgotten in the excitement, she was astounded to hear Joy’s first words.

“Mary dear, here’s a girl for you to take care of. Be good to her! Take her straight to the telephone and help her to ring up North Wales. She’s Robin Brent, of Quellyn; she’ll tell you her story. Help her all you can. Now where are Maidie and Ros? In Maid’s old room upstairs? I’ll go to them at once. The family’s just behind, with Henderson, in the other car. Be good to Robin, Mary! She’s in bad trouble.”

“Oh, how wonderful of her!” Robin cried unsteadily.

But Joy was gone, through the entrance-hall and up the great staircase, to find her first twins and her new godchildren.

Puzzled but eager to help, Mary Devine held out her hand. “You must be Robin. How can I be good to you? Tell me about it. The telephone is over here. I’ll help you all I can.”