Читать книгу Tomboys at the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 8

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Not unnaturally, Jen and Jack looked hopefully at Joy, when she had tucked them and their luggage into the car on Friday afternoon.

But Joy was full of thoughts of her music lesson, which always exalted her into a state of high enjoyment and excitement. She was eager to reach home—to get tea over—to go to her piano and work out the new interpretation of certain music which had been given to her; she had eyes only for the road and was intent on making the best speed she could.

“Don’t chatter to me,” she commanded. “I’m busy.”

Her passengers looked at one another, disappointed and startled. But Joy’s face was so determined that they dared not interrupt, so sat silently behind her, their hope of surprises fading gloomily.

“She’s gone all grown-up,” Jen murmured sadly. “I hoped she wasn’t going to be any older than us—than we are!”

“Perhaps she’ll un-grow again presently,” Jack whispered.

Jen shook her head despondently. “I never saw her go on like that before. I don’t believe she’ll do it again.”

This was crushing, and Jack’s spirits fell still lower. “All the same, it’s marvellous to be here,” she said, as they drove up the beech avenue and saw the Hall before them.

Joy understood, and her lips twitched. She said nothing to relieve the gloom of her guests, but drew up before the big door, with a brief—“In you go! Billy will bring your bags and things.”

Joan came running out to welcome them and to lead them in to speak to Mrs. Shirley. “After tea, Jen must go into the Abbey to see the Mother Superior and Timmy. The Curate is here to greet you.”

The slim black cat with the square white patch under his chin came, purring, to rub on Jen’s legs. She picked him up and loved him, and he sang his joy at seeing her again.

“He really seems pleased to see you,” Mrs. Shirley smiled. “Jack, dear—I understand that is what I am to call you?—I hope you will be happy with us.”

“I know he’s pleased! He loves me,” Jen said fervently.

“I’m sure I shall. Thank you so much for letting me come. And please don’t call me Jacqueline!” Jack pleaded.

“I like Jacqueline; it is very pretty. But I won’t use it, if it will make you feel more at home to be Jack.”

“Or Jacky-boy,” Jen added. “That’s what I call her—out of the song, and because she looks like it, you know.”

“Here comes tea.” Joan invited them to the table. “After tea, the Abbey and the cats; and then we’ll go and see the cricket pitch. It’s all ready for you.”

Jack gave her a radiant look. “Now I know why Jen adores you,” she said.

“Because I offer you a cricket pitch?” Joan laughed.

“No, because you understand.”

“Oh, but I know how important cricket is!” Joan assured her.

Joy came in from the garage, ready for tea but still pre-occupied.

Joan glanced at her. “Good lesson?”

“One of the best. I’ve heaps of new ideas; I want to work them out. Will you take these two into the garden?”

“I intend to do just that. I know you’ll be glued to the piano all evening.”

“Is Joy always like this after a music lesson?” Jack asked, as they stood on the cloister garth, while Jen ran to meet the comfortable black mother cat and the beautiful shaggy gray Timmy, and collapsed on the garth with them both in her arms.

“Usually, if she has enjoyed the afternoon. She comes home full of new ideas, as she said.”

“She seemed so much jollier at school the other day.”

“She has that other side,” Joan said non-committally.

Jen gave her a quick look. “You’re afraid she’ll go back to it, aren’t you? Don’t you know that we’re hoping she will?”

“Dying for it,” Jack said. “What did she mean by the things she said?”

“Come and inspect your pitch! Joy? Oh, she was just being silly. Music means the whole world to her, and, as you saw, it has claimed her for to-night.”

The pitch was warmly approved by Jack, the authority. She had brought her bat and she made Jen send down a few balls, just to open the game, she explained. Then she and Jen followed Joan, who had gone to the house to join her mother.

“To-morrow we’ll have a good go on that jolly pitch,” Jack said. “But I don’t believe Joy meant it when she said she’d join us.”

“I was going to look in my bed, for fear she would have put brushes or sponges in it, but anybody can see she’s not thinking of games to-night,” Jen said sadly.

They went upstairs to unpack, and then came down to supper and to listen respectfully, while Joy, with absorbed face, played Chopin Preludes to Mrs. Shirley and Joan. Then they went up to bed, happy to be at the Hall, but deeply disappointed in their hostess.

“I’d love to raid Joy’s room!” Jen said wistfully. “But with her looking like that and going all musical genius, I simply wouldn’t dare.”

“I say, Joan!” When the girls had disappeared Joy spoke a hurried warning. “Sit with Aunty for a while! I don’t want her to be scared.”

“Joy!” Joan’s fears were confirmed. “What are you going to do?”

“Only make those kids shriek a bit. I must cheer them up. I’ve been a horrid shock to them.”

“You have, but—oh, Joy, don’t be too mad!”

“I wonder if they’ve found the crumbs yet.”

“Crumbs? Joy! Oh, you baby!”

“In their beds; water-biscuits. I thought they might be hungry in the night. But they won’t shriek about the crumbs. There’s something else.”

“What are you going to do?” Joan demanded again.

“Tell you afterwards.” And Joy raced off to her own room.

Jack and Jen prepared for bed, sober but content. Jack, as always, was ready first and sat on her eiderdown clasping her knees and making comments, while Jen brushed out her yellow mane.

“There doesn’t seem to be any less of it.”

“There’s more,” Jen retorted. “It takes ages to do, so you’d better always bring a book. What about Latin?”

Jack ignored the horrid suggestion. “I can’t imagine why you put up with it. It must waste hours. Why don’t you chop it off?”

“Daddy. He’d break his heart. We had four boys before me; he’s determined to have me looking like a girl. He’d loathe the sight of your cricket-ball head.”

“It’s jolly easy and it saves a lot of time.”

“There!” Jen flung back her heavy plait, tossed aside her dressing-gown, and took a flying leap on to her bed. “Shall we talk for a bit? I’m going inside, anyway—Ow! Oh! Oh, Joy Shirley, you—you pig!”

“What is it?” Jack cried, fascinated. “Snakes? Worms? Snails? Have I got some too?”

She flung down her sheets and surveyed the mass of crumbs, which had not been improved by her previous position. “Oh, how utterly messy! How filthy! Is this Joy’s way of welcoming us to her house? And we thought she was so grown-up!”

“Grown-up!” Jen raged. “She’s a silly object. We’ll do something about this to-morrow, however solemn she looks! What you said—snails and worms; quite a good idea!”

Jack chuckled. “What do we do now? We can’t sleep in these beds!”

“Brush and dustpan; housemaid’s cupboard along the corridor. I’ll get them. Don’t make a sound! Joy will be hoping we’ll yell.”

She pulled on her blue gown and crept out to find the brush and pan. Very carefully she swept her bed free of crumbs, saying hard things about Joy, when she found them even under the pillow and right to the foot of the bed, so that the sheets had to be stripped off completely. This operation produced another shower of crumbs, which had been tucked between the blankets, and she groaned indignantly again.

“You’ll need to sweep the floor,” Jack commented. “I shall shake everything off my bed to start with and brush it all up together.”

“There! Now you get down to it!” Jen thrust the pan towards her. “I’d like Joan to see this floor! Joy must have gone mad!”

“She worked hard, getting the crumbs between the blankets and under the quilt, and I guess she used a pound of biscuits.” Jack, in pink pyjamas, crawled about, brushing happily. “So she did mean something by those mysterious hints! I feel heaps better. Anything may be going to happen!”

“There is that way to look at it,” Jen admitted. “Perhaps we needn’t be disappointed in Joy, after all.”

“What shall we do with this muck?” Jack sat on the floor and surveyed the dustpan, a mixture of crumbs and fluff from the carpet. “Chuck it out of the window?”

“No, we’ll give it to the birds in the morning. Shove it in a corner. I know what I’d like to do with it!” Jen said darkly.

Jack grinned. “Stuff it down Joy’s neck? Which is her room?”

“What’s that?” Jen, half in bed, sat up and listened.

Jack raised her head, as a strange moaning noise, almost like a growl, came from the corridor. Then something scratched on the door.

Petrified, Jen stared, motionless.

“One of your cats prowling about?” Jack’s voice had a tremor in it, for the sound was certainly alarming.

“Joy, I bet my boots!” Jen came to her senses, and sprang to the door and threw it open.

Then she gave a wild shriek, as something large and furry bounded on all-fours into the room, and made for Jack.

In a flash Jack was out of bed. She banged the door shut and switched off the light. “Go for her, Jen!”

Together they leapt upon the intruder in the dark. In the rough-and-tumble that followed Joy’s bear-skins were torn off and she was hurled to the ground and held there by their combined weight.

“The crumbs, Jen!” Jack panted.

With a whoop, Jen grabbed the dust-pan and flung shower after shower of crumbs over the helpless victim. Joy kicked and struggled as a handful was poked down her neck. Then, as Jack tried to force some into her mouth, she gave a mighty heave and tossed the younger girls aside.

“Two to one! Not sporting! Oh, you dirty little pigs! I shall never be clean again!”