Читать книгу Rachel in the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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“A tourist, Ray,” Damaris announced, as she unlocked the entrance gate.

There was no reply, and she looked round indignantly. “Where is the girl? This won’t do! If you were a real tourist you’d be kept waiting. I shall have to speak to the Abbey Guide.”

“But if I were a real tourist, I should have rung the bell, and it clangs so that you can hear it all over the Abbey,” Benedicta laughed. “Your sister hasn’t heard us, that’s all.”

“Very true. We didn’t ring the bell. Here goes!—no, we’ll go and surprise her. She’ll be in her workroom.”

She led the way to the gleam of green which meant the cloister garth. Benedicta followed eagerly, her eyes going from one well-loved spot to another—the beautiful wide windows of the refectory, the door and pillared windows of the chapter-house, the lancets of the monks’ dormitory above.

Damaris had turned from the garth into the cloisters. “Ray works in here.”

“The little room where I once slept? What a good idea! What work does she do? Oh, I hear a typewriter!”

“Rachel Ellerton, the celebrated authoress,” Damaris announced, as she opened the door.

“Idiot!” said the girl seated at the typewriter, as she took out her page. “Oh, am I wanted? I didn’t hear the bell.”

She rose quickly, a tall pretty girl with wavy dark hair cut short, wearing a white gown like a monk’s robe, hanging straight and smooth, with a loosely-knotted girdle. An embroidered gold badge on the breast proclaimed her—“Abbey Guardian.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you ring the bell?”

“My fault,” Damaris admitted. “We rang no bell. I brought the tourist in. She’s not a real one; she’s an old friend of the Abbey, come to have another look at it. Her name’s Benedicta Bennett.”

“I’ve heard of you from Mary-Dorothy.” Rachel turned to Benedicta. “How nice of you to come back!”

“Nice for me!” Benedicta corrected her promptly. “I’m longing to see the Abbey again. I once slept in this little room. You’ve made it very pretty.”

She looked round at the old grey walls, deep blue curtains to window and corner cupboard, blue coverlet on the bed and blue cloth on the table by the window. On the bed were piled cushions of every vivid colour—orange, green, gold, blue and scarlet.

Rachel saw her look. “Those are for the family, when they want to sit on the steps outside. It’s not good to sit on bare stone!”

“I remember. Don’t they brighten up this little room? Are you really writing a story? I’m sorry I’ve stopped you!”

“Only retyping a short thing that has been sent out and returned so often that it looked grubby,” Rachel said grimly. “I’ve made a few alterations and I’m going to send it out again, but I thought it might as well look clean and new. So much for Marry’s ‘celebrated authoress’ rubbish! Shall I take you round the Abbey, or would you rather wander about by yourself? I expect you know all the stories, and I’m sure you can be trusted!”

“Nice of you! I won’t cut my name on the wall of the chapter-house!”

“Oh, you know that old story? I’m sure you won’t.”

“You’d better go with her, all the same,” Damaris remarked. “She once fell out of the door of the night-stair, and smashed herself, and had to be nursed at the Hall. She might do it again.”

“I wasn’t alone when it happened,” Benedicta said, with dignity. “I’d never have done it if I’d been on my own.”

“Were you playing touch-last in the dormy?”

“Something like that.”

“I know the story,” Rachel exclaimed. “You saved Margaret-Twin from falling, but fell yourself. It was when the twins hid in the Abbey, in the dark, and everybody was hunting for them. Margaret was scared by an owl and rushed away, and you saved her just on the edge of the window. You couldn’t save yourself, and you fell and were badly hurt. Mary-Dorothy told me the story, when you were away at school, Marry.”

“Jolly fine!” Damaris eyed the embarrassed Benedicta, and then looked at Rachel, a look full of meaning.

“I couldn’t let the kid fall out. She might have been killed,” Benedicta protested. “Why did you look at your sister like that?”

“What did you do to yourself?” Damaris avoided the answer.

“Broke one arm and a rib and put things inside me all queer. And I banged my head and was concussed, but not for very long. Why did you——”

“Somebody’s coming.” Rachel cut her short. “No, not visitors; someone from the Hall. I heard voices.”

Damaris glanced through the window. “Two Queens and a maid of honour are crossing the garth. There’s a compliment for you, Benedicta Bennett!”

“May Queens, from that school where they dance? Who are they? I didn’t think there was anyone at the Hall old enough, or young enough, to be a May Queen,” Benedicta said. “Is it some of the grown-ups? They were Queens once. No, it’s girls,” as she looked out at the garth. “Who are they, Miss Ellerton?”

“Oh, Rachel, please! We’ll introduce you, unless you’d rather slip away into the Abbey?”

“The Abbey won’t disappear. I’d like to see these new girls.”

“I don’t know about ‘new,’ ” Damaris laughed. “Queen Marigold wouldn’t like that. As for Queen Lob, she almost belongs here.”

“Queen Lob? She couldn’t be called Lob!”

“She could, and she is. Lobelia-blue, you know. You saw the marigolds and lobelia on my path? That’s why; the Marigold and Lobelia Queens.”

“Oh! What a nice idea!”

The schoolgirls were in the doorway, and Benedicta drew back and watched and listened with interest.

“May two Queens and a maid consult the Abbey Guide?” The speaker was a girl of sixteen and a half, with a mop of dark curly hair; a second senior, some months older, was behind her; the third was a much younger girl, only thirteen and a half and small for her age, with dark red hair in two neat little plaits. All three wore the cotton frocks which were the summer uniform of the Wycombe school; the dark girl in green, the tall fair one in lavender, and the red-haired child in blue.

Benedicta’s eyes fastened on her and she grinned. “One person I know, anyway! And that biggest girl is like somebody. I know! She’s like the Countess of Kentisbury. I wonder who she is?”

The tall girl had two long yellow plaits hanging forward on her breast and deep blue eyes. Benedicta, gazing at her curiously, remembered a picture she had seen at Kentisbury Castle during her schooldays, of the Countess as May Queen at school, with just such long plaits.

“What’s up, Marigold?” Rachel was asking. “What can I do?”

The dark-haired girl spoke eagerly. “We want to know what you think. We’ve made up our minds, but we’d like to tell you about it. Mary-Dorothy says we’re silly, but we think you’ll understand.”

“Why did you say that?” the elder girl asked. “Rachel knows now that it’s something silly. She’ll agree with Mary-Dorothy.”

“She might not. She’s a lot younger than Mary,” the Marigold Queen argued. “And she’ll think for herself, in any case.”

“I certainly shall! What is it you’ve made up your minds to do?” Rachel demanded.

“To run away,” Marigold said simply.

“But only to the Manor,” the younger girl cried.

Rachel sat down and stared at them. “Are you all quite crazy?”

“Sounds mad to me,” Damaris remarked.

“It isn’t, really,” Marigold pleaded. “We feel we ought not to be at the Hall, now that Lady Joy has come home. There’s such a crowd, with Sir Ivor, and the big twins, and the two little boys, and the new baby, and the nurses, and I suppose the twins’ governess is somewhere about, though we haven’t seen her yet. They don’t want three schoolgirls as well. The house is packed.”

“Have you asked Lady Joy if she’d like you to go?”

“No, because she’d feel she had to ask us to stay. We want to save her the trouble. We thought we’d slip along to the Manor and be out of the way. Lady Jen has room for us.”

Rachel frowned. “Do you mean that Lady Jen approves?”

“No, she says we’re silly cuckoos,” Marigold admitted reluctantly. “But she’ll have us, if we’re really keen.”

“I should have thought the Manor was overflowing already,” Damaris observed.

“Attics,” Marigold said briefly.

“We’re going to camp out in the attics,” the younger girl explained. “It will be fun, Rachel!”

“And you want the fun of it,” Rachel said ruthlessly. “That’s what is at the bottom of your plan. I agree with Mary-Dorothy. Unless Lady Joy wants you to go, it’s quite daft. You ought to ask her first.”

“But she’ll feel she has to say——”

“What do you think about it, Rosalind Kane?” Rachel looked at the tall girl.

“Then she is related to the Countess!” Benedicta said to herself. “Their name is Kane, and she has a rose-name, like all their girls. I wonder who she is?”

“I feel we ought to be boarders at school,” Rosalind said. “I’ve always expected we should be, when the family came home. We must be in the way, now that the house is so full. But there’s hardly a month left of the term; it isn’t worth while going as boarders now. We shall all go away in the holidays, and next term I suppose we shall live at school. I thought perhaps, just for this month, we ought to go somewhere else.”

“Yes, that’s reasonable,” Rachel acknowledged. “But not without asking Lady Quellyn, Rosalind.”

“I don’t feel quite happy about that,” Rosalind admitted.

“Of course you don’t. It’s mad not to ask her,” Damaris declared. “I’m surprised at Littlejan Fraser, I really am.”

“Oh, Dammy!” Queen Marigold cried indignantly. “We thought you’d understand! I am disappointed in you.”

“You’re dealing with the crisis in the wrong way,” Damaris said severely. “It’s not for you to decide; it’s for Lady Joy. I should think again, if I were you.”

The three looked at one another. They did not want to give up their plan.

“We haven’t time to think. We’re going right now,” Marigold said defiantly. “We took our suit-cases to the Manor this morning.”

“Are your rooms really needed for the family?” Rachel asked.

“N-no,” Marigold admitted. “Mary-Dorothy has fitted in everybody without using our rooms. But they’ve no spare room now; not a corner to put any visitor. I’m sure we ought to clear out.”

The youngest girl poked her in the ribs. “Littlejan, there’s somebody else here; somebody new.”

Marigold whirled round. “I never saw anybody but Rachel. Who is it?”

And the three looked critically at the stranger.