Читать книгу Secrets of the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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“And there’s a thrilling letter from Jandy Mac! I’m to hear all about it on Saturday,” Jen finished telling her news to the slim girl with cropped black hair who was her chum, Jacqueline Wilmot.

“I wanted you to come to tea with me,” Jack protested, for she was a day-girl, living in the town. “I haven’t seen you for a month, wife!”

Jen, one of the small group of boarders, came from a big lonely house on the Yorkshire moors, where she was the only girl. She had been petted and bullied by her elder brothers, and had revelled in it, but she had reached the stage when she craved for girl friends, and her year at the Wycombe school had been very happy.

“I’ll come to you on Sunday, if you’ll ask me, Jacky-boy, and if the Head doesn’t say I’m going out too often,” she said graciously. “Joan asked me first, and she says Aunty Shirley wants to see me.”

“Why are those Shirley girls so much alike?” asked a newcomer to the school. “Are they twins?”

“No—cousins,” said Jack. “But their fathers were twins and were just alike; that’s why the girls are like that. They’ve both been May Queens—Joy last year, and Joan’s just going to abdicate. The new queen is Muriel Bayne. Jen’s almost one of the family at the Abbey; that’s where the Shirley girls live. You heard her call Joan’s mother Aunty Shirley, but she isn’t any relation at all.”

“I’ve stayed with them, and Mrs. Shirley’s such a dear,” Jen argued. “I asked her if she’d mind being an extra aunt to me, and she said she’d be delighted. My aunt who used to live in Wycombe has moved away, so Mrs. Shirley offered to be a relation in her place.”

“You’re jolly lucky to have the Shirleys so keen on you,” Jack remarked.

“I know. I can’t think why. I love going to stay at the Hall.”

“Jack said it was an Abbey,” said the new girl.

“It’s both,” Jen explained. “Joy inherited a lovely old house called the Hall, and that’s where they live. But in the grounds there are some marvellous ruins of an old Abbey; and it belongs to Joan. Joy’s grandfather left it to her because she loved it so much. I stayed there this time last year, when one of the boarders had diphtheria and the rest were in quarantine; I hadn’t been near her, and Joan and Joy were absolute sports and took me home with them, so that I shouldn’t have to go into the infection. That somehow made us friends, and they’ve been terribly nice to me ever since.”

“And who’s the other girl; the one with the queer name?”

Jen stared. “I don’t know. Whom d’you mean?”

“Somebody there’s a letter from. Jack seemed to understand.”

“Oh, Jandy Mac! Her real name’s Janice Macdonald. She lives in Australia, but she was here for a term last summer; she was adopted when she was a baby by Joy Shirley’s uncle, who had gone out to Australia to live. He died and left his money to Jandy. So she’s almost a cousin of the Shirleys, and last summer Joy adopted her as a cousin too, and they’re all awfully fond of one another. She writes to Joan and Joy, and I had a letter at Christmas too. All the girls know Jandy Mac; if the thrilling thing she’s been writing about isn’t private, they’ll want to hear about it.”

It was Jen’s first question, when she jumped into the little car on Saturday afternoon. “Now, Joan! What about Jandy Mac? What’s in her letter?”

Joan and Joy tucked her in between them, and Billy, the young chauffeur, took the car cautiously into the traffic outside the big gates.

“This is the way we took Jandy home last summer. How thrilled she was!” Joy remarked.

“Wait till we’re safely home, Jenny-Wren,” said Joan. “If you get excited and jump about we’ll all be upset in the middle of High Street.”

Jen sighed. “I’ve waited since Thursday! Is it something very thrilling, Joan?”

“Not too bad,” Joy teased.

Joan took pity on her maid-of-honour. “Jandy’s coming to see us, Jenny-Wren. She’s having a trip home this summer, and she’s coming here.”

“Oh, marvellous!” Jen shouted. “Oh, gorgeous fun, Joan! Will she stay at the Abbey? Oh, couldn’t we have her at school? I’m sure Miss Macey would ask her!”

“You won’t get the chance, my dear kid. Jandy Mac’s coming to us,” Joy said. “She’s invited herself. She wants to see my trees in fancy dress again.”

“Fancy dress? Oh, the red may and the lilac and the laburnum—yes, of course! They do look like a fancy-dress ball. Well, she’ll come to see us at school, won’t she?”

“I’m sure she will,” Joan agreed. “But we thought perhaps you could come to see her. We’d take you down to school every day and see you did your prep.”

“Stay with you, do you mean?” Jen’s whoop startled the passers-by on the pavement.

“I said you’d better not tell too much till you had the Wren safely out in the country,” Joy grumbled. “That small dog looked as if a bomb had gone off at his heels.”

Joan explained. “We thought of asking you for the long week-end at Whitsun, Jenny-Wren, and then begging the Head to let you stay on for a little while, as that’s the time Jandy will be here. Miss Macey hasn’t forgotten last summer; she knows that Jan was specially chummy with you. I believe she’ll let you stay.”

“Oh, glory! Jam for me!” Jen chuckled happily. “Oh, what a terribly lovely term!”

“Jen Robins! Is that the result of the holidays?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! No, it isn’t,” Jen protested. “The boys hoot if I say ‘terribly lovely.’ It must be just me myself, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t wonder they laugh,” Joan remarked. “It sounds terribly silly. I should forget it, if I were you.”

“I’ll try. But I had to say something out of the way, Joan,” Jen pleaded. “It’s such a very—very unusual occasion! Jandy isn’t married yet, is she?”

“She’s going to be married at Christmas; that’s summer in Australia, you know. So she’s coming to see us, and her relations in Scotland, before she goes to the South Seas with Alec.”

“Funny to think of Jandy Mac as Mrs. Fraser! She’s only a kid,” Joy exclaimed.

“She’ll be nineteen and a half by the time she’s married. And she’s very fond of her cousin and very anxious to go and live in the South Seas,” Joan said.

“Is she going there?” Jen asked eagerly. “I shall ask her to send stamps to Jack. We’ve had heaps from Sydney; I’m glad she isn’t going to live in Australia.”

“I expect it’s for the sake of Jack’s stamps that she’s decided to live in Samoa,” Joy mocked. “Don’t tell Mrs. Wren any more till she’s safely at home, Joan.”

“Oh, is there something more? What more is there to tell?” Jen gave another shout.

“You’ve heard quite enough to go on with. I want to read you the rest in Jandy’s own words,” Joan told her.

Jen’s eyes shone. “How wildly exciting! All right, I won’t ask. You’ll read me Jandy Mac’s letter. But read it to me soon, Joan-Queen! I don’t know how to wait.”

“You’ll have to stop that ‘Joan-Queen’ after next Wednesday,” Joy said. “It will be ‘Muriel-Queen’ then. You can say ‘Joan-Forget-me-Nots,’ if you like.”

“It’s a bit clumsy,” the victim suggested.

“Joan will still be my queen. She’ll be that for ever, if I’m her maid,” Jen said stoutly. “Does my frock look pretty, Joan?”

“I think you’ll like it. Miss Macey said I mustn’t put too much colour on it, as you mustn’t be conspicuous among the rest of us, when we all wear white for school functions, so I’ve just put a few violets round the yoke, and I’ve made a little white collar with violets all over it, for you to put on the frock when you’re my maid. Then I had an idea that I believe you’ll like, Jenny-Wren. I’ve put white violets round the hem. They don’t show—they aren’t for other people to see; they’re a secret between you and me.”

Jen’s face blazed with appreciation and delight. “Joan! What a perfectly topping idea! You are kind!”

“A secret that the kid will immediately give away,” Joy said. “She won’t be able to resist it. She’ll point out her white violets to Jack, and Nesta, and Peggy, and everybody.”

“Oh, no, I shan’t,” Jen spoke with conviction. “The white violets will be a secret between Joan and me.”

“Better not get too sentimental about them, Mrs. Wren, for if you go on at your present rate you’ll grow out of the frock before next summer,” Joan said, laughing.

“I shall have it made longer. Are you going to make a speech when you abdicate on Wednesday?”

“I’m going to repeat Joy’s of last year. I couldn’t improve on it.”

“Oh, slacker! Make up one for yourself! Mine was only two sentences, anyway.”

“Yes, I thought you were rather lazy,” Joan confessed. “Perhaps I’ll say a little more than you did.”