Читать книгу The New Abbey Girls - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 7

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The big lounge hall of Joy’s house was a very attractive place, with its oak-panelled walls and family portraits, big stained-glass windows, polished floor, big rugs, Joy’s beautiful piano, and daffodils on each of the old tables in big blue bowls and vases. Mrs. Shirley was resting after the excitements of the last few days, and preferred to stay in her own little sitting-room upstairs, but the girls loved the hall and used it whenever they were indoors.

Each annexing a wide window-seat, they spread their letters in earnest.

“Yes, Ann? What is it?” Joy’s voice roused Jen to sudden interest.

She laid down her pad. “Is it business, Ann? Shall I go away?”

“Sit down, Ann.” Joy had laid aside her writing with relief. “No, don’t budge, Jenny-Wren. I may want your support, if the worst comes to the worst.”

“It’s about Maidlin, Miss Joy,” Ann began nervously.

“Oh! How can I help?”

“There’s a letter from her father, miss, and—and I don’t right know what to do.” Ann’s nervousness increased as she went on.

“He do say, Miss Joy,” and Ann’s correct English forsook her in her excitement, “he do say as how his old father and mother be both dead of the ’flu and all the money, what they wouldn’t let him have any of, because of him getting married to our Mary, it’s all to belong to our Maidlin, the money, and the houses, and the horses and carriages and the motors, and the pictures, and all,” and Ann gazed at Joy with incredulous, half-frightened eyes.

“ ’Tis some old will,” Ann was fumbling in her pocket for the letter. “I’ll show you what he says, Miss Joy. I thought you’d tell me what to do. His father said he’d leave him out of the money altogether, so he made it that every mortal thing must go to his grandchildren, for he’d got two, a boy and a girl, and our Maidlin not being born then, nor thought of, you understand. But the girl, she died at school; and the boy were killed in the war; and there aren’t any more, nor any one left to say it isn’t fair.”

“And the will was never changed! They’d never seen Maidlin, of course, and they were getting very old, and they forgot her existence,” Joy said excitedly. “Well, Ann, what are you going to do now? Is he coming to fetch Madalena? For if she’s a great heiress, she’ll want educating, and all kinds of things.”

Ann’s strange nervousness returned, and she stammered and hesitated. “Her father, he writes as he can’t come home all at once, for he’s away in Chiny, and the folks there, what give him a job when he needed it bad, they be in the middle o’ some work o’ some kind, and sort of depending on him, and he says ’twould ruin it if he come away just now, and he can’t chuck things up all at once. He’ll come just as soon as he can get away, he says, but things is difficult and unsettled in that part o’ Chiny, and he don’t know quite when ’twill be.”

“I see. It is awkward for him,” Joy agreed. “Well? What does he want done with Maidlin in the meantime? Are you to send her to Italy?”

“That would be awfully hard on the kiddy!” Jen urged. “She can’t speak a word of French, let alone Italian, for I asked her.”

“That’s what he says, Miss Jen,” Ann spoke eagerly. “No, he says, will we keep her till he can come and take her home himself. And he says, could we send her to a good school for a little while, or—or get her a place to live with—with nice people, who’d know what she ought to learn, and teach her, so’s she’d be ready when he comes.”

“That’s a very good idea,” Joy said warmly. “Not a school, though, I think. In a school she’d only be one of a crowd of girls. But a nice family, where they knew the story and understood just what she needed;—yes, that’s what you want. How will you find the right place, Ann? You must be very particular where you send her. Could I make any inquiries for you? Miss Macey might——”

“Joy, don’t you see?” Jen spoke softly. To her eyes, gifted with insight which Joy had never learned, it was plain enough. The pathetic pleading in Ann’s eyes spoke for itself. Jen saw plainly what was in her mind, but how Joy would take it she was not sure. “Joy, she wants you to have Maidlin here.”

“My hat!” gasped Joy. “I hadn’t thought of that!” and she stared aghast at the caretaker.

“I—I know I hadn’t ought to think of it, Miss Joy,” Ann faltered. “But ’twould be the making of the child, and—and I don’t know what to do. I ain’t fit to look after her now!”

Joy biting her lips and staring out at the lawn. Jen watched her anxiously.

“Well, neither am I!” Joy burst out at last. “Fit to look after her, I mean. You want me to take your kid, who knows absolutely nothing, and train her for you till she’s fit to take her proper place——”

“No, only till her father comes home!” Jen put in quickly. “It’s only to start Maidlin properly. But I’m not saying you ought to do it. Of course, it would be a gorgeous thing for her, and all that, but there’s no reason why you should do it, if you don’t want to. If you could help Ann to find some other place, wouldn’t that do just as well?”

“I could do that, of course. But I really don’t feel I’m the proper person to bring Maidlin up for you!” Joy spoke eagerly and hopefully.

“I do ask your pardon for thinking of it, Miss Joy. I hadn’t any right to say it. ’Twould be a trouble to you, I can see,” Ann faltered apologetically.

Joy cut her short. “I’ll think over all the likely people, and see if any of them could help, Ann. I’ll come down and see you about it all in a day or two, when I’ve had time to think. In the meanwhile you’d better keep an eye on your heiress. I suppose you know I nearly killed her this afternoon? What was the matter with her?”

Ann, very red, would or could give no explanation.

As the door closed behind her, Jen burst out again, “Joy, don’t you see? Maidlin doesn’t want to be sent here. That’s what she was so mad about this afternoon. She knew Ann was going to ask you to have her.”

“Oh!” Joy said slowly. “Well, that settles it, of course. I wouldn’t dream of having her if the very thought of coming here could put her in such a rage. But why, Jenny-Wren? What’s the matter with her? Why won’t she come here?” with a touch of indignation, as she in her turn looked round the hall.

Jen sat staring at her, her eyes very thoughtful. “I don’t know. I don’t know her well enough to say. But I know how I should feel in Maidlin’s place. If I thought someone was going to be asked to have me; if I were Maidlin, and knew my aunt was coming up here to ask you to take me in; well I should simply hate it, that’s all.”

“Oh, I see!” Joy said slowly, and stared back at her with knitted brows. “Well, if I say I won’t have her, she’ll be quite pleased, and it will be all right.”

“I suppose so,” Jen spoke doubtfully. “That depends on whether she really wanted to come or not.”

“I thought you just said she’d hate it!”

“I never did! I said she’d hate knowing her aunt had asked you to have her. She might be dying to come all the time. That would make it all the worse.”

Joy pursed her lips, and stared out into the garden. “It’s awfully hard on the kid! You can’t wonder if she’s all worked up. And she has nobody who can really help her. She jolly well needs somebody,” and she sat staring out at the lawn, and the almond-blossom over the old orchard wall, the glimpse of the abbey ruins behind.

“Of course, I could do it.... Joan would have done it,” she said at last.

“Yes, I think she would,” Jen agreed. “But she wouldn’t have taken on the job unless she’d meant to do it properly, Joy. I mean, if she’d agreed to have the kid here, she’d have done an awful lot for her. It’s a very big thing to ask.”

Joy lapsed into worried silence again. At last she spoke, and very definitely. “We’ll tell aunty, of course; but she’ll say I must do what I think right. There’s nothing else for it! I’ve made up my mind! I’m going up to town to-morrow to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Pixie!”

“Oh!” Jen gave a subdued shriek of delight. “What a gorgeous idea! She’ll talk some sense to us!”