Читать книгу Secrets of the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 5

Table of Contents

“Now read me Jandy Mac’s letter!” Jen demanded, when she had greeted Mrs. Shirley and reported on her holidays, and had admired her violets, blue and white.

“Come into the Abbey. You must hear it there.”

“It isn’t about the Abbey, is it?” Jen shot a wondering look at Joan’s face.

“It may be. We don’t know. Jandy’s very mysterious about it.”

“You’re mysterious too!” Jen cried. “What could Jandy have to say about the Abbey, when she’s been in Sydney for almost a year? Come quickly, Joan! I’m dying to hear what she says!”

Joan led the way across the lawn and through the shrubbery, her red-bronze hair gleaming in the afternoon sun.

The cloister garth lay green and smooth, half in sunshine and half in the shadow of the high refectory on the south. The girls entered the Abbey by the dark tresaunt passage and went across the grass to the ruins of the cloisters.

“Here, Jen. Jandy liked this spot,” Joan paused in one wide opening where the pillars of the window were broken away.

“I’ll bring cushions!” Jen dived through a small doorway and brought an armful of coloured cushions, which she arranged on the low wall and on the steps. “Now, Joan! I can’t wait another second!”

A big black mother cat came sedately from the doorway and leapt into Joan’s lap, purring her welcome and tramping gently for a moment before she settled down. A large shaggy kitten, with a fluffy gray coat, dashed away across the garth, followed by a thinner, taller black cat, young and sleek and handsome, and a wild game of hide and seek began.

“The whole family is accounted for!” said Joy. “I back Gray Timmy. He’s quite as quick as the Curate. Read on, Joan! Jenny-Wren’s going to explode.”

“The first part is all about coming here; dates, and the name of the boat, and where she’ll land,” Joan said. “Joy and I are wondering if we could run down to Southampton in the car and bring her back, and save her the journey through London. But the car’s very small and she’ll have luggage.”

“Moral, get a bigger car,” Joy pointed out. “I’m always saying we need one.”

“But after that, Joan? What’s the mysterious part?” Jen pleaded.

“This, Jenny-Wren,” and Joan began to read aloud:

“I’ve a real reason for wanting to come, besides the thought of seeing you all again. I want to show you something—you and Joy. When I came home last autumn I thought a lot about Uncle Tony; our discoveries up in the chalk-pit had brought him back to me so clearly. And I’d seen his home at the Hall, and I’d met you people, his own family—at least, Joy really belonged to him; not just adopted, like me. I couldn’t get him out of my head; it was as if he was trying to come back and tell me something—really very odd! He kept coming into my mind all the time. One day I took out the things he left behind, when he went on that last voyage to the Islands, and went through them carefully. They were given to me when we knew he must be dead, but I was only a schoolgirl and I didn’t think very much about them. There wasn’t much; my aunts gave away all the things like clothes, of course, and he’d never settled down and had a house or furniture, or anything like that. But there was a box of letters, and any other papers that were found among his clothes were put with them and they were locked up in the Bank.

“I made the lawyers get them out for me, and I went through them. Mostly they were business things, but there were some letters from my mother, written when she expected to be married to Uncle Tony and before she was taken ill. I was glad to see those, and she’d put in quite a lot about me, which was odd to read now! About my first tooth and my trying to walk; all that sort of thing. Fancy Uncle Tony caring to hear about a baby of a year old, when she wasn’t his own kiddy! I was looking through these letters and his letters to Mother, which had evidently been given to him when she died, when I came on an old envelope, creased and soiled, as if it had been carried about in his pocket. On the outside Uncle Tony had written: ‘Given to me by John Miles, of King’s Bottom Farm, who had it from his grandfather, whose father had given it to him when he was dying.’ And the date on the envelope, Joan and Joy, was just one month later than the date on the book we found, which Uncle Tony wrote the day before he left home.”

Joan paused and looked down at Jen, who, on the step below, was gazing up at her with eager eyes, which had grown suddenly startled.

“He must have written it on the ship, on his way to Australia!” Jen exclaimed.

“That’s what Jandy thinks,” Joan agreed.

“The question is—who was John Miles?” Joy said. “We’ve guessed, and Jandy Mac has guessed. I think she’s right.”

“Then you all guessed the same! Who was he? Why can’t I guess? What made you guess? Is there something more I haven’t heard?” Jen’s questions tumbled out in breathless haste. “I don’t see anything to tell you who John Miles was!”

“I’ll read you the rest,” Joan took up the letter again.

“I opened the envelope, and inside there were two sheets of paper. On the back of one Uncle Tony had written: ‘I can’t make anything of this, but old John said his grandfather gave it to him, saying his father had told him it was a bit of the Abbey. It doesn’t look the least like the Abbey to me, but if ever I go home I shall take this map-thing into the Abbey and have another look. I thought I knew the Abbey inside out, but this isn’t any bit of it that I’ve ever seen. I tried to make it fit one day, when old John had just given me the papers, but I didn’t get anywhere; perhaps I or my descendants may find out what it means. It looks to me like a lot of scribbling.’ And that’s all Uncle Tony had to say about it. So I looked at the other side of the sheet and it seemed to be a sort of plan; and then suddenly I saw what it was. I’m sure I’m right, but—of course you’ll loathe me, Abbey Girls—but I’m not going to tell you what I think it is. I’d like to, but I can’t possibly, because we must see if it strikes you in the same way. You do see that, don’t you? If I tell you what I think, you’ll just say—‘Why, yes, of course! So it is!’ You must look at it without knowing my ideas, and then, if you think the same, we shall really know.”

Jen groaned aloud. “Oh, Joan! Oh, I can’t bear it! When will Jandy arrive? Not till Whitsun? I shall dream about that scrap of paper every night!”

“I know. It’s dreadful,” Joan laughed ruefully. “But Jandy’s right. We felt awful at first, but we saw the sense of it.”

“I wanted to cable—‘Tell us at once, you brute!’ But Joan restrained me,” Joy said.

“It’s only four weeks, Jenny-Wren.”

“Four weeks!” Jen wailed. “How can we wait? What do you suppose it is, Joan?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. There’s one other little point,” Joan went on. “Jandy looked at the second paper in the envelope, and it had more scribblings on it, and at the top was written the one word—‘gate.’ Jandy says—‘It doesn’t look like any sort of gate. I’ve ideas about this too, but they’re so vague that I’d rather keep them to myself. But I’m bringing both the bits of paper home, to hear what you think of them. You can be puzzling over “gate” till you see me.’ And that’s the whole of the letter, Mrs. Wren. Now are you in a hurry to see Jandy Mac?”

“Hurry! I shan’t be able to eat for four weeks!”

“There’s the tea bell,” Joy grinned. “What about it, Jenny-Wren?”

“Oh, well! I could manage tea,” Jen admitted. “We’d better not keep Aunty Shirley waiting.” She sprang up and stood gazing about the garth.

“What are you seeing, Jenny-Wren?” Joan asked. “My white-robed monks? I often feel I’m seeing them.”

“No, it was Lady Jehane,” Jen’s voice was hushed. “I don’t mean that I saw her ghost, but when I look at the garth I think of her, just as you think of the monks. She’s very beautiful, and very young, and she has long golden hair and lovely Tudor robes—blue, I think—open in front to show a rich under-dress, and she wears a little cap or hood, coming down round her face, as she has in the picture on her book. She’s coming to speak to Ambrose, and he’s watching her and loving her; he knows he can never marry her, but he loves her just the same. When she goes away, he retires to his cell and writes some more in her book—the book that we found among the Abbey parchments.”

“Ambrose’s thoughts weren’t where they ought to have been,” Joan said laughing. “And I’m not at all sure that Jehane would have been allowed in the Abbey.”

“Oh, she must have been here! The whole place reminds me of her!” Jen protested.

“If she met Ambrose very privately, to ask him to hide her jewels from her stepmother, it can’t have been in the Abbey,” Joy said. “There must have been far too many monks about. I expect he went through the tresaunt to her garden, which is what we’re going to do, dear people, this very minute! I want my tea.”

“Good-bye, dear old Ambrose! We’ll leave the Abbey to you!” Jen said. “I wonder what became of you when the Abbey was broken down? If only we knew what happened to you and Jehane!”

“I’m afraid we’ll never find the end of that story, Jenny-Wren,” Joan said.