Читать книгу The Abbey Girls - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 7

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Cicely, cycling round the foot of the hills, found her way to the abbey again on the following Saturday afternoon, and wheeled her cycle along the rutty track from the gate-house, revelling in the beauty of moss and lichen and old gray walls.

Mrs Shirley answered her ring and offered to call Joan, who was in the cloisters, but Cicely begged to be allowed to join her there. In the arched doorway at the end she paused in surprise at the sight which faced her.

Eight village children were gathered on the lawn, and Joan, in her big blue overall, had placed them in two lines and was drilling them. ‘One—two! One—two! Be smarter, Dolly! Violet, you’re always behind. Now try again.’

They were doing short wand drill, using the green sticks which the schoolgirl ‘side’ had adopted as morris staves. Cicely watched for a moment, admiring Joan’s business-like orders and her air of command. Then she went forward, and the drill stopped abruptly, all the children staring, Joan coming across the garth with laughing eyes.

‘Did they look very funny? Children, you can go for to-day. Leave your sticks—I mean wands!—in that corner.’

‘How well you manage them!’ Cicely said warmly, when the children had trooped away through the old gate-house. ‘Do you often have them? Is it just that you enjoy it for yourself?’

‘Yes, I like it too,’ Joan said soberly. ‘They enjoy it and are keen to come. And it’s good practice for me. That’s what I wanted to be, you know.’

‘What—a drill teacher?’

‘A games and drill mistress. I wanted to go to Bedford, and mother was willing I should try. I don’t suppose it will be possible now, but I haven’t quite given up hope. I thought perhaps if I kept up my ordinary work and practised drilling the babies, it might turn out to be possible, after all.’

Cicely’s eyes were alight again, but she only said quietly, ‘You might get a scholarship. I expect there are plenty.’

‘Oh, there are. I’d have tried for one if I’d stayed at school. I’m afraid I couldn’t get one now, but that’s why I’ve been so keen to go on working, and that’s why I’m so awfully glad of the papers you offered me.’

Cicely handed over a bundle of leaflets. ‘I borrowed some from Miss Macey, and Mirry Honor’s are there, and Georgie’s, and Marguerite’s. Georgie is Edna’s elder sister, and editor of our school magazine. If you get in a hole, write and tell me; and if I can’t get out of it either, I’ll consult some one at school. It will be good for me too,’ as Joan thanked her warmly. ‘I can always fall back on Miriam, you know. She’s about two years ahead of me. She’s working for her Inter now. I want her to be a singer, because her voice is so ripping, but she won’t. Of course, she’s learning singing too. And teaching dancing, so she’s quite busy. She doesn’t always go for rambles, but she was keen to show us your abbey last week.’

‘Joan!’ and Mrs Shirley appeared from the little kitchen. ‘Perhaps your friend would take tea with us. It is four o’clock, and you could have it ready in five minutes.’

‘It’s far too good of you,’ Cicely protested, but Joan had flushed with pleasure, and she saw they would like her to stay. She realised that their life here was probably lonely, and was glad she had not merely handed in the papers and hurried away.

Joan was hastily clearing sewing materials and the Curate from the table by the window. ‘I was so sorry we couldn’t offer you tea last week, but there were too many of you. We really wouldn’t have had enough to offer you to eat.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t! An invasion of a dozen would have been too much of a good thing!’

‘We’d have liked to do it. We spoke of it afterwards. But it really wasn’t possible.’

Joan set the table and cut the bread and butter, and Cicely watched her, wondering that she was so graceful in every movement. ‘That comes of her drill,’ she thought. ‘I know our dancing made an immense difference in Georgie and Edna. You would have to learn morris dancing if you were a drill mistress,’ she said aloud.

‘I’d enjoy that. I love any kind of dancing,’ Joan confessed, a touch of colour in her face. ‘Why is your school so keen on dancing?’

‘You’ve asked in the right quarter. Alone I did it! Yes, really, I made them dance.’

‘How?’ Joan’s face was full of keen interest as they all sat down to tea.

‘It’s a part of our club. When I went to school, three years ago, I found that a lot of the girls were kept out of the school clubs—hockey, dramatic, and so on—for certain reasons. I gathered the outsiders into a club of our own, the Hamlet Club, because we mostly lived in small villages or hamlets in the country, not in Wycombe itself. Then we wanted something to do, and I suggested morris and country dancing. I’d learnt at my old school. We danced all one winter, on Saturday nights, in a barn lit by lanterns, and had Old English dresses, and nobody knew what we were doing.’

‘I say! What fun! How ripping!’

‘It was, rather. I was the President, and I am still. We had a Maypole, and chose Miriam Honor for our first Queen and crowned her before the whole school. That was the night we made our secret known. I was the second Queen, last May Day, but I had to go away for some months with my father directly afterwards, so I abdicated and made them choose another. They couldn’t be without a Queen all summer, so Marguerite was chosen, and she’s been a very good one. We have a great time at the Coronation. So now you see why our club members always dance if they have to wait or shelter anywhere. Of course, the club has changed a good deal now. Our dancing isn’t a secret, and we go in for rambling as well. But we still have dance-evenings, when we meet, and wear our dancing dresses, and the Queens preside in state and get restless because they can’t dance too! But we elders are too busy for much of it, and there’s a general feeling that the next Queen must be a younger girl, who’ll be able to be more in the thick of things. Marguerite takes her tone from Miriam—she always did—and she has done very well. Would you like to see the next Coronation? I’ll send you an invitation.’

‘I’d love it! It must be very pretty.’

‘I think it is. The Queens all have white robes, of course, but coloured trains and embroidered collars. And their Maids of Honour wear white frocks, with embroidery and girdles of their own Queen’s colour. Mirry’s the White Queen, but I chose gold, and I really think it looks handsome! Marguerite chose strawberry pink, so she’s generally called the Strawberry Queen, which makes her mad. It looks quite gay when we’re all dressed up.’

‘You do seem to have a jolly time! I should think the school is grateful to you, if that was all your idea.’

Cicely laughed. ‘Oh, it grew! But I say! May I ask you something?’ for there had been a very wistful note in the abbey girl’s voice.

‘Why, of course! What is it?’

‘How do you manage? I suppose you have to be in to show people the abbey, but you must go out sometimes?’

Joan laughed. ‘The abbey is only open from twelve till sunset. People couldn’t get here much before twelve, anyway. We’re so far from everywhere. And we don’t admit people on Sundays. So never come to see me then, for mother always sends me out for a long walk.’

‘And who keeps the lawns in such beautiful order? You don’t do it, surely?’

Joan laughed again. ‘No, but I have mown the cloister garth occasionally when I wanted exercise. A gardener gives several days a week to keeping the place in good order. Sir Antony sends him from his own gardens. The abbey belongs to Sir Antony Abinger,’ in answer to Cicely’s look. ‘The Hall is quite close, among the trees beyond the Abbot’s garden, and the abbey has belonged to his family for three hundred years. They had it from James I. Sir Antony is very proud of it, and very particular that it shall be kept in good order. He has an expert come from town regularly to be sure it’s not falling to pieces, and if any part has suffered it is very carefully restored. I’ve asked him a lot of questions, and he’s told me heaps I didn’t know before.’

‘That explains it. I was wondering how it managed to be so well preserved, and I did wonder about the lawns.’

‘I had trouble with the gardener at first. He wanted to keep his mowing machine and roller in the cloisters, and I couldn’t bear the sight of them there——’

‘I should think not! What sacrilege!’

‘That’s how I felt. He suggested the chapter-house, but that was even worse. I’d have appealed to Sir Antony sooner than allow that. We persuaded him to use one of the outhouses of the gate-house—the porter’s lodge, probably—but he still grumbles when he puts them away, and he still piles his sticks and things in the corner of the cloisters, as you’ve seen.’

‘And were you friends of Sir Antony’s?—But I beg your pardon! I ought not to ask.’

Joan’s eyes met her mother’s. But Mrs Shirley showed no sign of annoyance. The question, if thoughtless, had been frank and was very natural. They were obviously out of place as caretakers of the abbey. She answered quietly,—

‘We are distant relations of his family—connections by marriage, I should say.’

‘Oh, I see! Thank you for telling me. I had no right to ask, but we seem so very friendly that I spoke without thinking. It was really a compliment, because you’ve made me feel so very much at home.’

Joan laughed, ‘Mother won’t tell me the exact relationship. I suppose it’s so involved that she thinks she couldn’t explain it. It’s not much use either to him or us, for we’ve never seen him, though we’ve been here a year.’

‘Does he never come to the abbey, then?’

‘No, although they say he’s very fond of it. But he’s partly an invalid, and people say he’s frightfully bad-tempered. He has to spend his winters in some mild climate, and last year he was ill, and had to stay for a good part of the summer before he could stand the journey home, so he hasn’t been at the Hall much since we’ve been here. He’s away now, of course, but he’ll be home in April. Won’t you have some more tea?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve had a big one. But I feel as if I’d talked all the time. You shouldn’t have set me off on the subject of the club.’

‘I’m glad we did. It was interesting, and we don’t often have new people to talk to.’

‘I am glad you were able to stay for a little while,’ Mrs Shirley said earnestly. ‘It has been a change for Joan. I know she has enjoyed your visit.’