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

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“It’s the Abbey you want.” The pleasant hotel-maid smiled down at the girl who had asked a question.

She was interested in these visitors. Their luggage had strange overseas labels, and it was understood that they came from Australia.

“I knew a young chap who went to your part of the world, miss,” the girl went on. “Sydney, he said.”

Janice Macdonald nodded. “I’ll tell you about Sydney later on, but first I want to hear about this Abbey. I think it’s the place we’ve come here to see.”

She was seventeen, with dark curly hair cut short and waving naturally. Her dark eyes were full of interest as she sat in the window-seat and looked up at the English girl.

“Somebody in Australia told me about England, and said it was lovely in the spring,” she said. “He knew this part, and he spoke of some old ruins, where monks used to live, and said you could see their bedroom and dining-room, and the place where they did their work during the day. I don’t remember all he told me, but I know it was near Wycombe.”

The maid nodded. “That’ll be Gracedieu Abbey. I haven’t been there, but I know a girl whose sister is in service at the Hall. The Abbey is in the grounds of the Hall.”

“We want to see the Abbey. Is it far from here?”

“You can walk across the hills, but it’s a good step; some miles it’ll be. Or you can go by train and walk up through the village.”

“That would be best. My aunt doesn’t want to walk far. I’d like to go by the hills, but she couldn’t manage it. Thanks very much! We’ll be allowed to go into the ruins, won’t we?”

“Oh, yes, they’re open to the public. If you’re keen on old things, you ought to see the May Queen business at the school here,” the maid suggested. “Perhaps they’d let you in, if you said you’d come from Australia just to see it.”

Janice laughed, her face alight.

“As I’ve only just heard of it, I can’t say that!” she protested. “But perhaps I could manage to get in somehow. I’ve read about English maypoles and queens, and I was thrilled! Tell me about it; have you time? Or am I being a bother? I’d like to hear some more.”

The girl laughed; she was only too ready to gossip.

“It’s at the big school, down at the other end of the town—Wycombe Moor. They choose a queen every May day and crown her, and they dance the old dances and have a procession of queens. I haven’t seen it, but they say it’s very pretty; there are pictures in the papers of the dancing and the queen and the crowning. The coronation is to-night.”

Janice sprang up. “Then I haven’t any time to spare. I’m going to wangle a ticket somehow. Thank you ever so much for telling me about it!”

“The girls from Gracedieu go to the school,” the maid remarked. “One of them was last year’s queen, so you’ll see her in the procession. Red hair, she has, and her cousin too.”

Janice paused. “Who are they? Do they live at the Abbey?”

“It belongs to them, and so does the Hall. One has the Hall and one has the Abbey.”

“How very odd! I’d choose the Abbey; how marvellous to feel it’s your very own!”

“They call them the Abbey Girls,” said the maid, taking up her carpet-sweeper and duster.

Janice hurried to her aunt’s room. Miss Fraser was still resting, for they had arrived late the evening before.

“Aunty, dear, I’m going out; I’m going to call on a headmistress! I’m scared stiff, but it has to be done. Don’t you want to come with me and hold my hand?”

“Jandy, dear! What is it all about? I didn’t mean to go out this morning, and I’ve never known you scared about anything yet.”

“I’m scared this time; or at least, very shy! But it’s such a wonderful chance; I can’t miss it through funk! Aunty, just think!” And Janice dropped on the bed and spoke eagerly. “The Abbey isn’t far away; we can go by train, so it isn’t in the depths of the country, as Uncle Tony made me think. We’ll go to see it to-morrow. It belongs now to a girl—a girl with red hair. And the big house beside it, called the Hall, belongs to another girl; they’re cousins, and people call them the Abbey Girls. And—oh, aunty!—just think; what a bit of luck! The school here has a May Queen and does old English dances, and the crowning is to happen to-night! That’s why I’m going to call on the headmistress; we simply must see it! I’m going to beg and pray for an invitation. I’ll go down on my knees to soften her hard heart!”

“But—Jandy! Won’t it be a private affair?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps friends are admitted. Anyway, I’m going to be invited! If it’s a girls’ affair, no decent Head would refuse to let a girl see it, when she had come all the way across the world!”

“I ought to go with you,” Miss Fraser began.

“No, dear, you’re going to rest,” Janice said firmly. “As we’re going out to an evening party you must take things quietly to-day. We had rather a rackety time in London, didn’t we?”

“You seem quite sure we shall be invited for to-night,” her aunt protested.

“Oh, I am! If I have to go disguised as a French mistress or something, I’m going!”

“Don’t go as a French mistress,” her aunt advised, with a laugh.

“I’ll think of a better disguise, if I find I need one. Shall I wear my best hat for the headmistress? I’d better find out her name before I go. No, I think my cap will do; I want to look like a school kid who’s keen on school shows, not an aged person who has left school and is travelling to broaden her mind, in the care of the kindest of aunts!”

The kindest of aunts laughed a little doubtfully. “I don’t feel too sure about the last bit of that. I sometimes think it’s Miss Macdonald who leads the party and takes care of Miss Fraser!”

“Oh, Aunty! I don’t bully you, do I?” Janice cried, turning from the mirror at which she was criticising the angle of her green cap.

“Oh, no! You just rush me about and hustle me round.”

“You shall have a lovely rest when we go to Scotland,” Janice promised. “Those old people in the Highlands won’t like me, but they’ll love you, and I shall be very meek and quiet. How I’m longing to see the lochs and mountains, and the village and the castle, and all the places you’ve told me about!”

“Your dear mother loved it all. She’d be glad to think you were going back to it, Jandy.”

“I think, perhaps, she knows, Aunty, dear. I’m thrilled about seeing her old home. But there are thrills in this place too. We’ll see that old Abbey to-morrow; I know you don’t care as much as I do, but Uncle Tony told me all about it and it was his old home. It would have belonged to him, if he hadn’t died; at least, I suppose it would, wouldn’t it?”

“You don’t know that, my dear. His father had quarrelled with him; he might not have inherited the property.”

“Oh, well, all that doesn’t matter now! Do I look respectable? I want to make a good impression,” Janice said solemnly, “because I guess this May Queen business will be one of the biggest thrills of the whole trip.”

“You look tidy; and quite pretty enough, Jandy.”

Janice laughed, as she kissed her aunt. “I’ll come back in triumph, after that. You’ll see, Aunty! I feel this headmistress is going to like me.”

“What’s puzzling me,” she said to herself, as she set out, valiant enough in appearance but quaking inwardly, “is—who are these Abbey Girls, and why does it all belong to them? Uncle Tony left home twenty-five years ago, after a bad flare-up with his father; he wrote, but his father never answered. I believe there was a sister, who died soon after Uncle Tony left. We heard last autumn that the old father had died; somehow or other these girls have got hold of his house and the Abbey. Could I ask that girl at the hotel? I mustn’t gossip too much; and she might not know. It doesn’t sound as if they belonged to Uncle Tony’s family; there was no red about his hair! The girl said I’d see one of them in the procession this evening. I’ll grovel to that headmistress! I simply must have an invitation. I can’t believe that anybody would be so brutal as to refuse!”