Читать книгу Selma at the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 6

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ALLIES AT SCHOOL

With a wild whoop, Jen leapt across the hall. “Joan! Oh, Joan, have you come to ask me to tea on Saturday?”

Joy went over to the other girl. “You are Aileen, aren’t you? I wanted to speak to you at the fête in July, but there were such mobs of people that I didn’t think you’d like it. I say, you know, you were most awfully decent about that play last term!”

Aileen coloured. “I’m glad you didn’t speak of it at the fête. What else could I do? Your cousin made a much better Jaques than I should have done.”

“Not my cousin, thanks be! Joan’s relation; nothing to do with me! I know; she was jolly good. But all the same it was your part and the way she grabbed it was simply foul. You could have hung on to it quite well. It had been given to you.”

“I couldn’t do that, when everybody knew she’d do it better than I ever should. Please don’t talk about it any more! I couldn’t do anything else.”

“I won’t keep on. But I’m glad to have the chance to say I think you were an absolute brick over the whole business.”

Aileen reddened again. “It’s nice of you. My cousin Carry seems to have had a big row with you, but that’s nothing to do with me. Thank you, Miss Shirley.”

“Oh, Carry and I used to fight no end. But that was because I didn’t like her little ways. As you say, it’s nothing to do with us. There’s one of the family I like a jolly lot, and that’s you. Were you watching Jen’s class?” Joy changed the subject, for Aileen was looking uncomfortable.

“She wanted to give the kids an easy dance, so I said I’d play for her. They’ve been doing ‘Butterfly’; she taught it jolly well. But they like the games better.”

“The actions, and the singing. Yes, they would, at their age. Piano or violin?”

“Piano,” Aileen smiled. “I wish I was a fiddler, but I’m not.”

“Well, I say! Come to see us one day and try my piano; it’s rather special and I love it. We’ll discuss Chopin and Schubert, and Joan will show you the Abbey. We’ll arrange a day; can I ring you up?”

As Aileen gave her number her eyes were glowing and a quick thought shot through her mind. This was what Carry, her cousin, had wanted; to be invited to the Hall and the Abbey on terms of friendship. Carry had been Joy’s maid-of-honour, when Joy had been May Queen, having failed in her ambition to be Queen herself. But a serious quarrel had put friendship out of the question; Joy had never relented and had shown plainly that she was not prepared to accept Carry even as an acquaintance, when they had both left school.

“Carry will rave with envy,” Aileen said to herself. “But I shall go, if I’m really asked. I wonder what she did to upset Joy Shirley so badly? But she won’t tell me. She’ll try to go with me, if I go, but I shall see that she doesn’t.”

“Perhaps you could do something for us presently,” Joy said, thinking hard. “I don’t know yet, but if certain things happen we may ask you to help. Will you do it?”

“If I can,” Aileen laughed. “What sort of thing?”

“Oh, just to be friendly to somebody. But it isn’t arranged yet.”

“I’ll try, Miss Shirley.”

“Nice to know we can ask you! We can depend on Jen, but two friends are better than one.”

“Is another Rykie coming to stay with you? Jen says she’s in Hollywood now. She’ll love it.”

“It’s the right place for her,” Joy assented. “Not another Rykie, we hope, but perhaps somebody else. You’ll hear about it later, if it comes off.”

Joan was laughing across at Jen. “To ask you to tea? Why should we ask you to tea? We’ve come to call on the Head.”

“She’s in her study. You often have asked me on the first Saturday of term,” Jen urged. “I want to see the Abbey and the cats and Aunty Shirley. Is she all right?”

“Third in importance to the Abbey and the cats! She’s quite well and really stronger. I’m very proud of her.”

“I am glad! Living at the Abbey is being good for her. I didn’t really mean that she mattered less than the cats! How horrid of you, Joan!”

“Forgive me! I was only ragging,” Joan laughed. “If we ask you to tea, will you come?”

“I’ll always come! You know that quite well.”

“No dancing or matches on Saturday afternoon?”

“Only hockey practice, and I’m no good at hockey. They’ll let me off.”

“You don’t try very hard over hockey, do you?”

“I don’t try at all,” Jen said candidly. “I don’t like it, and I don’t want it to butt in and spoil my dancing for the whole winter. Cricket’s bad enough; I won’t take on hockey as well.”

“What does Jack say about that?”

For more than two years Jacqueline had been Jen’s close friend among the girls of her own age. A keen cricketer, she had tried to draw Jen away from the Hamlet Club and its dancing, for the sake of the cricket team, and had succeeded at times, during the summer.

“Jack’s got to put up with me and she knows it. She’s good at hockey; she’s good at everything to do with games. But she says it’s too late to make me keen now; I ought to have begun years ago.”

“I dare say that’s true. I’m glad you’ve started again with your children. Have they forgotten everything since July?”

“A good lot, and we’ve crowds of new ones. But they’ll soon pick up again. I tried them with ‘Butterfly,’ but they like the games best.”

“Stick to the games, then. You carry on, while we go and talk to the Head.”

“You are going to ask me, aren’t you?” Jen said anxiously.

“For sure, Jenny-Wren. But we must ask Miss Macey first.”

Jen was dismissing her children, and Aileen had gone home, when Joan came back to the hall.

“Joy’s seeing to the car. It’s more than an invitation to tea, Jenny-Wren. Will you come to us for the week-end?”

Jen gave a shout. “Will I? Oh, Joan, you angel! How I’ll love it! I never like the first Sunday at school awfully much; I miss Mother and Father when there’s more time to think. But a Sunday at the Abbey is always a joyful occasion. You are jolly kind to think of it!”

“I didn’t think of it quite like that,” Joan admitted. “We knew you’d be willing to come, but——”

“Willing! Joan-Queen, how can you? You know how I love to come!”

“But we weren’t thinking particularly of your point of view this time. We want you to do something for us. No, I can’t tell you about it now; it’s time we were home. But you shall hear all about it to-morrow afternoon; Joy will fetch you.”

“I’ll do anything! Is it something hard, Joan? I’d like to do something really hard for you.”

“I don’t suppose it will be hard at all. But I can’t tell you any more now. You can dream about it all night.”

“Oh, I shall! I sha’n’t sleep a wink.”

“Don’t be silly!” Joan said severely, and went off to join Joy in the car.