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

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The Abbey Girl had shown the position of the old refectory, with its ancient tiles covered by loose soil to preserve them from the weather; the chapter-house, with its lovely vaulted roof; the dormitory, with its rows of windows, one to each sleeping-place, the door which had led to the night-stair down to the church, and the skew door from which the monks had watched the light burning before the altar. She had led her guests round to the sacristy, to show the rose window, and to the site of the great church, where white violets grew in the grass around the bases of the old pillars.

“I wish we had even a little of the church left,” she said regretfully, as they returned to the garth. “It must have been beautiful.”

“You’ve a great deal left, though,” Miss Fraser said. “It’s most interesting; one can picture the everyday life of the monks so exactly.”

Joan gave her a quick smile. “I often see them moving silently about, in their white robes and black hoods. Not ghosts; just mind-pictures. They are great friends of mine. I wish we had the records; I’d have liked to know their names! If we had even one story of the Abbey in the old days it would make it all seem more real. Oh, yes, we’re very lucky to have their living-rooms in such good condition. Some of the Abbeys which have beautiful remains of their churches left have almost nothing of the places where the monks lived; just heaps of ruins where the refectory was, or only the foundations and the walls of the cellars. I believe it’s like that at Glastonbury, where the church arches are so fine; they have the kitchen there, but nothing else but the outlines of the garth and the refectory. We’re very rich, in one way. We owe it to Sir Antony Abinger, the late owner of the Abbey. He restored the buildings and now they are almost as they must have been in the old days.”

“I suppose,” Janice said wistfully, “it would be dreadfully rude to ask questions? But everybody here must know; it’s only because we’re strangers that we feel so much in the dark.”

“What do you want to know?” Joan asked gravely. “We have been talked about a good deal lately, I suppose. Didn’t you ask questions from anybody before you came?”

“Aunty said I mustn’t gossip. Is it rude of me to be interested? But how could I help it?”

Joan laughed. “I don’t mind telling you anything that everybody knows. Miss Macey would have told you, if you had asked her. I supposed you knew all about us.”

“We hardly know anything. Is it true—somebody did tell me this—that the Abbey belongs to you?”

Joan’s face lit up, and her eyes swept across the garth to the high refectory windows, the beautiful ruined cloisters, and the chapter-house door, with its pillared window on each side. “Even now I can hardly believe it. Yes, it’s mine—my own. And I love every stone and every arch.”

“We can see that.” Miss Fraser looked at her bright face in ready sympathy.

“Oh, you do love it!” Janice cried. “And you know it so well! Every single thing about it, don’t you?”

“It was given to me because I loved it so much. I had to know it well; I was the caretaker for two years.”

“What?” Janice and Miss Fraser turned to her in amazement.

“The real caretaker; yes, I mean it. A nice woman looks after it now, as I’ve gone back to school; I’ve taught her all I know about it. She was very anxious to be down in the village this afternoon, so I said I’d carry on. But for two years my mother was the caretaker and I did the work, as she found the steps troubled her. You hadn’t heard that story? Everybody knows; any one could have told you.”

“But how? Why? How did it happen?”

“Just one moment,” Joan went to the cloisters and disappeared through a door in the wall. She returned almost at once, bringing a chair for Miss Fraser and a couple of cushions, which she placed on the stones of the broken wall. She set the chair beside them and turned to her visitors in invitation.

“Won’t you sit down? I’m sure you’d like a cushion!” to Janice.

She seated herself opposite to Jandy in one of the empty window-gaps, and leaned back against the wall, her eyes wandering over the garth to the chapter-house again.

“It isn’t much of a story; everybody knows all about it. My cousin Joy, the Green Queen, who crowned me last night, is the granddaughter of Sir Antony Abinger, of whom I told you. I’m no relation to his family, of course; her mother was his only daughter.”

Her eyes caught the look that passed from Janice to her aunt, at this answer to their question. “Were you wondering who we were? It’s puzzling, perhaps, as our name is Shirley, not Abinger. Our fathers were John and Jim Shirley, and they were twins; as you can guess, we are like them and not like our mothers at all. Joy’s mother died when she was a baby; she lost her father four years ago; and she was brought up with me, as if we’d been sisters. Sir Antony never forgave his daughter—Joyce Abinger, she was—for running away with Uncle Jim, and he wouldn’t see Joy, or have anything to do with her. Mother and father were very good to her, but when my father died, mother found things difficult, with two of us to look after. At last she wrote to Sir Antony’s solicitors, and asked them to do something about Joy, as she felt she’d done all she could. Joy wasn’t too well in London, and mother wanted to get her into the country.

“Sir Antony offered mother the job of caretaker of the Abbey, with rooms in the walls here; I fetched the cushions from what used to be Joy’s bedroom. Mother accepted, hoping it would be just for a little while. A man who comes to inspect the Abbey regularly told her all about it—and I listened, because I’d fallen in love with the whole place. We lived here for two years, and loved it, but we never saw Sir Antony. Then at last we got to know him, just a few weeks before he died; he saw us dancing a minuet on the garth, and he liked it, and made us go and do it for him at the Hall. He went once to school, and saw Joy being Queen, and watched the club dancing; then he was taken ill, and it was only after his death that we heard that he’d been Joy’s grandfather. Even then we didn’t know for some time that she was to be his heiress, for he’d had a son, who had gone away years ago, after a quarrel. I’m afraid Sir Antony quarrelled with everybody; it was dreadfully sad for him to be so much alone at the end. Joy was sent for, and mother was there; but his son had died—we heard that later—and there was no one but Joy to have everything. So he left her the Hall and its grounds, but he left the Abbey to me—because of my love for it. He put that in his will.”

“That was a very happy thought on his part,” said Miss Fraser. She had been watching Janice closely while Joan was telling her story, but now she looked at the Abbey Girl with understanding and appreciation.

Jandy’s eyes were on the arches across the garth, and on the glimpse of green country seen through the chapter-house door, where there was no outer wall to block the view. She seemed to be in a dream, but her aunt felt it was for her to speak or to keep silent on the subject of her “Uncle Tony.”

“Oh, he was wonderfully kind!” Joan exclaimed. “I still don’t quite believe it has really happened and that the Abbey is mine.”

“What does your cousin feel about the dividing of the property?”

“Joy? She’s delighted.” Joan laughed. “She’s glad not to have to take care of the Abbey. I’m responsible for its being kept in good condition; she’s glad not to be bothered with it.”

“Where has she gone? We’d have liked to see her too.” Janice turned back to Joan.

“She went home through the garden. She was going for a tramp, to work off the excitement of last night; Joy’s full of music, and anything like the crowning ceremony works her up enormously. She was still bubbling over with it this morning. She’s a great wanderer, as her father was; she’ll walk ten miles and come home quite calmed down.”

Janice sprang up, as the Abbey bell clanged. “We ought to go. You’ve been frightfully kind, telling us all this, and we’ve had marvellous luck to have you and the whole place to ourselves for so long. May I put the chair away, while you go and be a guide again?” She was hurriedly picking up the cushions.

Joan laughed, as she started towards the gate. “Thank you very much—in there. Wander about again by yourselves, if you wish. I don’t usually allow people to do it, but I’ll look the other way, if you want to go round again.”

“That’s awfully understanding of you. I say, Joan!” Janice had thrust chair and cushions into the little room, and went racing after Joan. “There’s a thing I’d like to do, but I won’t do it without your leave. Let the sightseers wait one second! Would you mind if Aunty and I crept through the gate into your garden and peeped at the house? I’ve never seen a real English country house yet. We wouldn’t go close, or speak to anybody.”

Joan nodded, as she opened the gate to a party of ladies. “All right. You won’t do any harm. But don’t stay long or go where you would be seen. It would worry mother; she wouldn’t understand, and she isn’t strong.”

“We’ll be very careful! Thanks, a thousand times!” Janice ran back to her aunt. “Come along, Aunty! We’ll be in the way here.”

As they crossed the garth they heard one of the visitors remark, “Have you recovered from last night’s excitement, Miss Joan? We saw you on your throne. You made a very pretty Queen.”

Joan, flushing, thanked her courteously, and began to describe the Abbey.

Janice and her aunt disappeared down the dark tunnel Joan had called the tresaunt, leading to the Abbot’s little garden, gay with wallflowers and daffodils, while the black cat, disturbed by the new arrivals, walked sedately in front of them, and the adopted grey son danced about and patted his foster-mother and ended by jumping on her back. She flicked her tail angrily and dashed away among the bushes, and he leapt after her in great delight at having tempted her into a game.

“Dear little people!” Janice said, laughing. “They do look pretty together! Now for the house, Aunty!”