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

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Benedicta stepped forward. “I know you, Jansy Raymond. You’ve forgotten me, but I danced with you at the Kentisbury wedding.”

“It’s Benneyben!” Jansy gave a shout. “Benneyben come back! Where’ve you been, all this time?”

“Oh, at home and other places! I’m sure you’re related to the people at Kentisbury Castle,” and Benedicta looked at the tall girl. “You’re so very like the Countess, and you have a rose-name, like all the girls in their family.”

“The Countess is her aunt,” Queen Marigold remarked. “She’s really Lady Rosalind, but she doesn’t like it, so we only Lady her when we want to be rude.”

“I call her Nanta Rose. That’s her baby name,” Jansy proclaimed.

“I like best to be just Rosalind, or Nanta.” Lady Rosalind looked at Benedicta. “My second name is Atalanta, and I was always called Nanta till we went to stay at the Castle a year ago, when Aunt Rosamund persuaded me to let them call me Rosalind. It seems all right there, with all the babies called Rose-something. I feel I belong to the family. But I don’t want to be called Lady. We’ve never been used to it, and we don’t like it. I’ve three sisters; I’m the youngest. That’s why I said ‘we.’ ”

Jansy, the red-haired small girl, poked Marigold again. “Littlejan, I’m sure we ought to be going to the Manor. Aunty Joy will miss us and ask where we are. We don’t want her to find us in the Abbey.”

“Right you are, Lob!” the Marigold Queen exclaimed. “We’ve consulted Rachel and she thinks we’re silly; it’s a terrible blow, but we can’t do anything about it now. I still think we’re doing the right thing, and I’m deeply disappointed in Ray and Damson. Come on, you two! Let us out, please, Rachel. We can’t go through the garden; we might be seen. We’ll sprint up the lane to the Manor.”

“I’ve a good mind not to let you go through,” Rachel said severely.

“I’ll push them out,” Damaris said. “They’re silly cuckoos, as Lady Jen said, but they’d better find it out for themselves. They won’t believe us. Come on, you donks!”

The three girls followed her, looking subdued.

“How crushing!” Littlejan moaned.

“I don’t understand the one you call Marigold.” Benedicta looked at Rachel, as the girls disappeared. “Who is she? She seems to have a lot of names! What does Jansy call her?”

“Littlejan. Her mother is a very old friend of Lady Joy and knew her when they were schoolgirls. She lives in Ceylon now, so Littlejan stays at the Hall with Jansy and they go to school together. She’s really Joan Fraser, called after Mrs. Raymond, her godmother. But as everybody calls Mrs. Raymond Joan it was too confusing, so young Joan has had to put up with her baby name. Her mother is called Janice, and she was so like her mother when she was born that her father called her Little Jan and the name has stuck. But at school she’s the Marigold Queen, wearing a gorgeous orange train, so she’s often called Marigold. She was a fine Queen, I believe, and now she’s standing by Jansy, who is the reigning Queen—Lob, for lobelia-blue, her colour.”

“She must look lovely in deep blue. But she’s very small to be the Queen. She’s exactly like the twins; I remember how much alike they were. You and your sister are just like one another, too.”

“What’s that?” Damaris stood in the doorway. “I’m like Ray? Not a bit of it!” and she whipped off the green scarf from her head and shook a shower of yellow curls about her face. “There, Miss Benedicta Bennett! Am I like Rachel?”

“Oh!” Benedicta cried, and gasped and laughed. “No, not a scrap! Your dark eyes put me wrong! Why do you hide those curls? They’re so pretty!”

Damaris bowed. “I can’t curtsey in these legs. Because the stuff gets in my way when I’m working. And there are other reasons. Ray, hadn’t you better take her round the Abbey?”

Benedicta eyed her curiously. “It’s odd, but I feel as if I’d seen you before—now that you’ve uncovered your hair. Have I met you anywhere?”

“Not that I know of,” Damaris said, her tone offhand. “But it’s possible you may have seen me.” She looked at Rachel and gave a very slight nod.

Benedicta saw it. “What was that for?” she demanded.

“I’ll tell you, as we go round the Abbey. Come along!” Rachel said firmly, as Damaris disappeared into their living rooms.

In the big refectory, where the sun streamed through the high wide windows and made patterns on the floor, Rachel leaned back against the table on which the Abbey books and parchments were spread.

“It’s possible that you have seen Damaris before,” she said. “She wants me to tell you; that was what she meant just now. She must like you rather a lot. I knew what it meant when she let her hair loose. That scarf is her disguise; it changes her looks, doesn’t it?”

Benedicta was gazing at her in bewilderment. “It alters her altogether. Why does she do it? Is she trying to hide from people?”

“Yes!” Rachel drew a long breath. “She doesn’t want to be recognised. She’s Mary Damayris, the ballet dancer. Did you ever see her dance?”

“Gosh! Of course she is!” Benedicta cried. “I saw her as the ‘Goose-Girl,’ and as the Fairy in Rainbow Corner. She used to change parts with another girl, who had long golden plaits but no curls like Damayris——”

“Daphne Dale. She’s married now.”

“Damayris was wonderful. But she—oh, I remember! She had an accident, and then she disappeared. What happened? Oh, please tell me, Miss Ellerton!”

“She saved Daphne, but she was badly hurt herself. That was why she looked at me when I told her how you had saved Margaret Marchwood at the risk of your own life.”

“It was what she’d done herself. Can’t she dance any more?”

“She doesn’t think she’ll ever dance again. Antoine and Madame Roskova keep begging her to go back, but she says she can’t get the right position, so it’s no use. Her hip was injured; she can walk all right and she can work in her garden, but she can’t dance,” Rachel said gravely.

“How awful!” Benedicta’s tone was full of tragedy. “How dreadful for her, when her dancing was so wonderful! She might easily have gone off her head with the shock. She must be very brave.”

“She has been brave. It was a terrible shock, and I was afraid for her at first. But we came here, after our old aunt’s death, and the quietness of the Abbey helped her. Then she had the idea of making the meadow into a garden, and she was different at once. It was the garden that saved her.”

“I was in Rome when the accident happened, staying with my godparents,” Benedicta said. “I’ve been there for nearly a year. What, exactly, happened to Mary Damayris? The Italian papers didn’t tell very much, though they did mention that she had been hurt.”

“I’ll tell you more about it later. We’d better go on, if you really want to see the Abbey. It takes some time, and other tourists might come. If we aren’t interrupted, perhaps you’ll have a cup of tea with us; you can’t very well go to the Hall when Lady Joy has only just arrived.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Benedicta said, in deep appreciation, as they crossed the garth to the dormitory. “I’m staying in the village tonight, with Miss Betty at the Music-School. I’ll go to the Hall to see everybody tomorrow. I’d like to meet Mary-Dorothy again, and there’s Lady Jen at the Manor too.”

“And all her babies,” Rachel added. “She’ll want to show you her twin boys. Oh, then, there’s no hurry. You can see part of the Abbey now and come back tomorrow to do the rest. I hope it’s all right about those three girls,” she said, looking worried. “Lady Joy isn’t the best person to play tricks with. Littlejan didn’t mean it like that; she’s really in earnest in thinking they ought to move out. But Lady Joy may not see it as the girls do, and she has a quick temper. I hope she won’t say too much. Marigold is very sensible, but she might be upset.”

“I hope it will be all right.” Benedicta looked grave. “Oh, that’s an improvement!” she exclaimed, as Rachel touched a switch and flooded the dormitory stair with light. “It used to be so dark at this corner. But fancy electricity in the Abbey!”

“Mrs. Raymond had it put in a year or two ago. Our aunt found the passages and steps difficult, even with a torch, and it really wasn’t very safe. Our rooms are beautifully light.”

“We had to use torches.” Benedicta grinned in remembrance of certain incidents. “Do you live in Mrs. Watson’s little rooms? They used to be dark and rather dismal.”

Rachel laughed. “Come to tea with us, and you’ll see them! You must be entertained, on your return to the Abbey after—is it four years? They can’t do it at the Hall today, so it’s obviously our job. And we want you.”

“It’s terribly kind of you,” Benedicta said earnestly. “Please tell me! What can I say to your sister? I admire her most awfully, both as a dancer and because she has been so brave, but I don’t know how to tell her.”

“Oh, please don’t say anything! She’d simply hate it,” Rachel exclaimed. “She’s very sensitive; she’ll know you’ve heard the story. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. Please ignore it!”

“I’d feel the same myself. No one wants to be praised and sympathised with. But I’d have liked to say something.”

“She’d much rather you didn’t. Do you like people to talk about how you saved Margaret-Twin?”

“No, I hate it,” Benedicta admitted. “I won’t, then. But I think she’s been just marvellous.”

“She’ll know,” Rachel assured her. “You don’t need to tell Marry things like that—sorry, I mean Damaris! Marry is my baby name for her, as Jansy would say; what I was taught to call her when we were infants. I’m a year older than she is. I try hard to remember to call her Damaris, but Marry keeps slipping out. The girls at school used to call her Damson.”

“I suppose she doesn’t like to be called Damayris now?”

“Depends who says it. Those girls often call her Mary Damayris. Marigold—indeed, all three—have a sort of hero-worship for her; they don’t say anything, but you can see and hear it, when they speak to her.”

“I know how they feel,” Benedicta said soberly. “She must have been most awfully plucky.—No, thanks! I don’t want to look down where the night-stair used to be! I’m not fond of that particular spot.”

“Then come and talk to Damaris while I put on the kettle,” Rachel said. “You can see the rest tomorrow morning.”