Читать книгу Tomboys at the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 3

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“What’s the matter with Jenny-Wren?” Joy asked.

“Nothing, so far as I know. She was all right ten minutes ago. Why, Joy?”

“I saw her just now and she looked gloomy, to put it mildly. Here she comes, to tell you all about it.”

The crowning of the May Queen was over. Beatrice, the new queen of the Hamlet Club, was displaying her gaudy train of striped red, green and yellow, and showing how it matched her bunch of tulips. The elder Queens were strolling about the school hall, talking with friends. Joy, the Fourth Queen, wore a bright green robe, a vivid contrast to her dark red hair, which was coiled over her ears under a crown of young beech leaves. Joan, the Fifth Queen, wore violet, with a wreath of white and blue, and her hair of the same beautiful red made a crown round her head. Joan and Joy, the Abbey girls, were cousins, but were as much alike as if they had been twins; as, indeed, their fathers had been.

Joan looked round for her maid-of-honour, Jen Robins, whom she had dismissed some time before, with orders to go and dance with the rest. Jen was nearly sixteen, blue-eyed and tall, with two long yellow plaits on her shoulders, and she wore a white frock, with the violet girdle and collar which showed her to be Joan’s attendant.

She came now, slowly and looking downcast, from among a crowd of girls of her own form. “Can I speak to you, Joan?”

“You can, and you may. In fact, you must,” Joan said promptly. “What’s the matter? Has anything happened? You were jolly enough until you went to dance.”

“I know. But everything’s gone wrong. Joan-Queen, could you—I mean, would you? Of course, you could; I know that. Anybody else would do it just as well.”

Joan’s eyes filled with amusement. “If you’d explain, Jenny-Wren.”

“Would you let me off being your maid for the whole of this term?” Jen looked at her with eyes full of woe.

“Certainly not! I want you, and you don’t want to leave me. Who has been upsetting you? Do they want you for cricket again? I won’t allow it!”

“Oh, but I want to do it!” Jen cried. “Quite half of me wants it! It’s only—only——”

“Tell me more about this!” Joan commanded. “Who has been teasing you? You weren’t thinking of going in for cricket ten minutes ago.”

“No, but—oh, Joan, it’s Jack! It’s too awful; I can’t believe it yet.”

Joan took her arm and led her firmly to the decorated chair on the platform which had been her throne during the crowning ceremony. “Sit down; take Joy’s throne! Now tell me about this. What has Jacky-boy been doing?”

“She’s leaving; going to live in London.” Jen caught her breath and spoke unsteadily. “She’s just told me. We’ve been chums since my first day at school; the day I saw you crowned. Jack’s going away, Joan.”

“Oh! Oh, what a pity!” Joan cried, in ready sympathy. “Why is it, Jen?”

“Her father’s going into partnership with an awfully important doctor in London; in Harley Street. It’s a big thing for him, but it means they’ll have to live in town. They’re moving at once. Jack’s to be a boarder here, for this term; then she’ll go to a day-school in London.”

“I see,” Joan said slowly. “You’ll have her for one more term. And—yes, I understand. You want to be with her as much as you can, and so you’d like to join in her cricket. Is that it?”

“I’d be with her so much more. Jack cares for cricket more than anything. She’d like me to be in the team with her,” Jen pleaded. “She thinks they’d have me. Did you mean it when you said you wouldn’t let me go?”

“I’m sure they’ll have you. They’ll be glad to get their demon bowler back, if you can still manage Jandy Mac’s magic twist. Of course, I didn’t mean it. I thought they had been teasing you again, and I wanted to protect you.”

“Nice of you,” Jen said fervently. “I hoped it was only that. But you see how I feel about Jack, don’t you?”

“I’m terribly sorry about Jack. And I do understand. You want to stand by her.”

“It’s not quite as important as when she was captain of the junior team and she thought I could help her to win her matches,” Jen admitted. “But she’s in the school team now, and she’d like me to go in with her, if they think I’m good enough.”

“Not much doubt of that! Your fame as a bowler, in your very young days”—and Joan smiled into Jen’s troubled face—“must have reached Sylvia; she’s captain this term, isn’t she? She’ll be glad to have you. You’ll be with Jack in all the practices and sports meetings; yes, I think you must do it, Jen. Jack will love to have you.”

“She does want me,” Jen agreed. “And I like cricket all right. But I do hate leaving you!”

“But we’ve had the coronation,” Joan reminded her. “There may not be anything important for the Queens to do all term. It won’t matter so very much.”

“No, but I liked to feel I was your maid and that you’d ask me, before anybody else, if there was anything I could do to help you. But we’ve had to-day, of course. Jack was awfully decent; she didn’t tell me the horrible news till the crowning was over, for fear it would be spoiled for me. And it would have been; I shouldn’t have been able to forget.”

“That was thoughtful of Jacky-boy. And she’s to be a boarder for this term? Oh, then you’ll be with her all the time; jolly for you both!”

“Jack doesn’t think so; she hates the thought of being a boarder. She’s always been a day-girl, and she likes living at home.”

“She was a boarder once, when the school came to live at the Hall—in your first term,” Joan reminded her. “Jack seemed quite happy then.”

“Oh, but that was different. It didn’t seem like school. You and Joy were so terribly kind! Jack doesn’t want to live with her headmistress all the time.”

“She might live with a much worse Head than Miss Macey. Tell her to cheer up! She’ll be glad to hear she’s to have you for cricket.”

“Yes, I think it will help. Who will be your new maid?”

“You shall choose one for me, when I need one. At present I can do without a maid very well. Come and help me to undress! And then I’ll dismiss you and you can go and tell Jack.”

“My last job for you, for the whole term!” Jen said sadly, as she helped to fold the violet robe and to put Joan into her big coat, covering her long white frock for the car ride home. “I say, Joan, there’s a new kid, an infant of eleven, who’d be a jolly maid for you, and it would cheer her up to be asked. She lives in the town, and she’s terribly shy and scared. She’s called Anne; if she’s Queen one day, wouldn’t it be odd to have Queen Anne?”

“I think it would be nice! But if Anne is only eleven, you needn’t worry about Queen Anne for several years yet. Do you really think it would please her to be asked to be a maid?”

“I know it would. I saw her watching the procession, from the gallery, and her eyes were just popping out.”

“Not quite, I hope! Fetch her, then, and I’ll ask her. It would be fun to have a tiny maid.”

“I’m afraid she won’t be much help to you. She couldn’t possibly dress you,” and Jen paused in the doorway. “She’s far too small.”

“I can dress myself. And I’ve had an idea.” Joan’s tone became mysterious. “Anne will be my maid and you’ll play cricket. But if there’s anything during the summer that means dressing-up, you will slip in and help Anne to help me. How’s that, Jenny-Wren?”

Jen looked at her and exploded in a burst of laughter. “Joan! I won’t be called your maid, but I’ll be it—or her—all the same. Oh yes! How lovely of you, Joan! I’ll go and find Anne.” And she raced off, chuckling.

“You seem to have cheered up Mrs. Wren quite a lot.” Joy came in to take off her crown and train. “What’s the trouble?”

“I’ll tell you the story in the car. At the moment, I’m conspiring with Jen to go behind the school rules. Don’t say anything! You’ll hear about it later. Jen is resigning her job as my maid, for the summer term, and she bringing along a new candidate for the post.”

Joy whistled. “What’s up?”

“Here she is!” Jen ushered in a small dark girl, with shy eyes and short brown hair. “Here’s Anne, Joan-Queen!”

“That scrap? She only comes up to your waist!” Joy protested.

“A little higher than that. Will you be my maid, and carry my train, if there’s a procession of Queens again this summer, Anne? Jen is going to be busy, and I shall be left without a maid. Would you like to help me?”

Anne’s eyes rested on her worshipfully. “Yes, please.”

“Then don’t be shy. I’m not really frightening, am I, Jen?”

“Not often,” Jen grinned. “But Anne will have to join the Hamlet Club, if she’s a maid.”

“And learn to dance,” Joan agreed. “Will you do that, Anne?”

“Yes, please,” Anne whispered, quite overcome by the presence of two Queens who were grown-up old girls of the school.

“Some day you must come to tea with us, and then you’ll get to know us, and you’ll be able to say more than, ‘Yes, please,’ won’t you? You must ask your mother, but I don’t think she’ll say ‘No’. All right, Anne! I’m sure you’ll be a very nice maid. But it’s only for this term, you know. It’s really Jen’s job, and she’ll come back to me after the holidays. We must try to have one procession for you!”

“There’s the summer fête. She’ll have that,” Jen said. “Come on, young Anne! You’re really adopted into the school now, so you mustn’t go on being shy. Come and tell the rest of your crowd that you’re to be Queen Joan’s maid for this term!”

“I haven’t got a—a crowd,” Anne objected.

“Oh, but you will have now. I’ll see to that! They’ll all want to know what Joan said to you. And you must find your mother and ask her. I’ve got to talk to Jack.” And Jen took Anne firmly by the arm and led her away, leaving the Abbey girls looking at one another.

They would have been still more amused if they could have foreseen that seventeen years later, Jen’s nine-year-old daughter would be comforting Anne’s shy little girl of eight years old, on her first day at school.