Читать книгу Strangers at the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 7

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Jen’s news was received with unbelieving envy by the new Queen and her maid and the rest of her classmates.

“You’re going to live at the Hall for the whole term?” Beetle cried. “But why?”

“You’re jolly lucky,” Nesta exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have thought the Head would let you go.”

“Joan wants me. You’ll soon know why. Oh, well, I’ll tell you. A cousin’s coming to live with her, and she’s younger than I am, so she’ll have to come to school, and Joan thinks I’ll be company for her. I’m to keep her from worrying them too much, especially Mrs. Shirley.”

“Will she come here with you?”

“Who—Mrs. Shirley? Oh, you mean Rykie!” Jen teased. “Yes, of course; we’re to cycle together.”

“What’s her name?”

“Rykie. Short for Frederica.”

“Goodness!” Beetle said.

“The whole of it’s Rykie Reekie.”

“Jen!” There was a shout of protest.

“It is! It’s weird, I know, but she can’t help it.”

“I hope she isn’t as weird as her name,” Nesta remarked.

“I really don’t see how she can be as odd as that,” Jen agreed. “We think perhaps they shortened Frederica to Reeka, and then, when she went to school——”

“Shrieker!” There was a shout from Beatrice. “They called her Shrieker and she didn’t like it!”

“So her family suggested Rykie instead,” Jen assented. “But we don’t know, so don’t say anything to anybody, will you?”

“We’ll see if she is a shrieker first,” Beetle promised. “We won’t call her that unless it fits her.”

“You can’t make Rykie into Shrieker,” Jen pointed out. “And she may have a soft quiet voice like Joan’s. Joan speaks just as Mrs. Shirley does; Rykie may be like her aunt.”

“Aunt? Oh, yes, Mrs. Shirley, of course. All right, Jen; we’ll wait and see whether she shrieks or not,” Nesta agreed.

The car came for Jen on Saturday afternoon, and she leapt in beside Joan, calling greetings to Joy, who was driving.

“Isn’t this sport? Take care of us, Joy! It’s the first time you’ve had the honour of driving me; don’t smash me to bits! It’s a lovely car!”

“Like her?” Joy asked, gratified by the admiration of her treasure.

“She’s gorgeous! Couldn’t we go round by Thame or somewhere, just to give me a little longer?”

“You’ll have plenty of her. I may have to bring you to school next week.”

“Rykie is arriving on Tuesday evening,” Joan explained. “Mother had a letter this morning. Belle will bring her as far as Wycombe, but she can’t come to the house to see Mother. She has to rush back to town, as she is starting for the States early next morning.”

Jen looked at her, startled. “She isn’t coming to see Aunty Shirley at all?”

“No,” Joan said briefly.

“Not even to thank her for having Rykie?”

“She hasn’t time.”

Jen thought this over in silence, while Joan watched her with interest; Joy’s attention was concentrated on the traffic, but her face was grim.

“But—but—how rude!” Jen said at last.

“Exactly!” Joy flung over her shoulder.

“I’m very sorry they’ve left it so late,” Joan said gravely. “We hoped to see Belle for a day or two, at least.”

“It’s horrible!” Jen cried vehemently. “They’re just making use of you!”

“Quite right, Jenny-Wren!” Joy turned to the open country.

“It feels like that,” Joan agreed. “But they may not mean to be rude. Perhaps Belle’s plans have been changed at the last moment. She didn’t explain why she had to go in such a hurry.”

“Is Aunty Shirley upset?” Jen asked indignantly.

“She’s disappointed; she wanted to see both the girls. She’s being kind to them for their mother’s sake. Yes, she’s rather hurt,” Joan admitted.

“I hope you’ll tell the Belle girl what you think of her! You’ll see her at the station, won’t you? You’ll need to go, to meet Rykie.”

“It would serve Belle right if we didn’t meet Rykie,” Joy jerked.

“We must fetch her, of course. Mother wants to come to the station for a glimpse of Belle, but we’re persuading her to give up the idea. She wouldn’t get any satisfaction from it, and it would be a great effort; in the evening, too. She wouldn’t sleep after it.”

“I say, Joan! I bet you Belle doesn’t come at all. She’ll shove the kid into the train at Paddington and go off to finish her packing,” Joy called over her shoulder. “Aunty simply mustn’t attempt it. She’d have a horrible shock.”

Joan looked troubled. “It’s possible. We don’t know much about Belle. She may be the sort who could do it.”

“I bet you she is!” Jen cried. “She won’t come all the way to Wycombe just to turn and go straight back. Fancy not wanting to see the place where her sister’s going to live! I do think she sounds a rotter!”

“It doesn’t follow that Rykie will be like her,” Joan said quickly. “You mustn’t be prejudiced against her. I want you two to be friends.”

Jen gave a doubtful grunt. “Can’t say I like what I’ve heard of the family so far!”

“Rykie may be quite different from Belle.”

“She may, or she may be just like her,” Jen growled. “I’m not looking forward to seeing her very much. But I’ll be nice to her, of course, or you’ll send me back to school.”

“I hope we shan’t need to do that,” Joan said seriously.

Jen shot a look at her. “Are you bothered, Joan?”

“Just a little,” Joan admitted. “I’m hoping for a lot of help from you.”

“I’ll do my level best,” Jen promised.

“Belle has given Rykie a bad start, by disappointing us like this,” Joan went on. “We mustn’t hold it against Rykie that her sister has been—shall we say callous and unkind, especially to Mother.”

“I should say, downright brutal,” Jen said bitterly. “Poor Aunty Shirley! It’s a shame, when she’s so sweet and good and is putting up with these girls because she liked her sister who died! But it may not be anything to do with Rykie; I see that. We don’t know much about her yet.”

“Except that she must be some years younger than Belle and would have to fall in with any plan Belle chose to make.”

“Four years, at least,” Joy remarked. “The brutal Belle couldn’t go off alone to a mysterious job in the States unless she is quite eighteen, and she may be a good deal more. Aunty doesn’t know her age and Belle hasn’t seen fit to tell us. She cares nothing about anybody’s feelings but her own. Callous is the word, Joan.”

Jen gave a deep sigh. “I feel in my bones that Rykie isn’t going to be our sort. I expect she’ll say the Abbey is quaint, or perhaps dinky.”

“Oh, Jen!” Joan cried, laughing. “I hope she won’t be as bad as that!”

Joy gave a shout of laughter. “Is that the lowest depth?”

“I shall find it very hard to be nice to her, if she does,” Jen said firmly. “There are some things it’s difficult to forgive, and that’s one of them.”

“If she’s like that, you’ll have to educate her,” Joan suggested.

Jen sighed again and became silent. Joan glanced at her and slipped a hand through her arm. Jen pressed it to her side and gave her a small smile.

“I’ll try. I want to help you,” she said.

The car swept up the avenue between the double row of beeches and reached the steps of the terrace. Jen flung herself out and raced indoors to find Mrs. Shirley.

“Aunty Shirley, I’ve come! It is so nice to be here again! And it’s lovely to see you; you look so well and jolly, dear!”

“I hope the kid won’t say anything to worry Aunty,” Joy said, as Joan stepped from the car.

“She won’t. You can trust Jen; surely you know that by this time,” Joan retorted. “She’ll keep off the Reekies, unless Mother speaks about them.”

She was right. Not only Jen but the whole family avoided the subject, and the discussion of possibly difficult days ahead was postponed.

Jen ran to the Abbey to greet her friends, the Mother Superior, a stout elderly black cat, her shaggy foster-son, Gray Timmy, and her own boy, the tall slim Curate with the square white collar under his chin. To them, in the strict privacy of the sacristy, she confided her dread of the strange girl to come on Tuesday, but to Joan she said no more, and to Mrs. Shirley nothing at all.

“It would only make them feel worse to keep on talking about it,” and she stroked the Mother Superior’s sleek head. “I don’t believe Rykie’s going to fit in, and everyone else is so jolly that it will be simply awful if she doesn’t. But it’s because of her I’m here, in term time, so I won’t grouse too much. Don’t tell Joan I said anything, will you, Timmy?”

Timmy tossed his wild gray locks and rolled over on his back and promised to say nothing. He held up his paws and asked to be tickled under his arms, and Jen laughed and obliged.

It was a quietly happy week-end. Joan and Jen sat together in the Abbey on Sunday afternoon, and Jen wrote to her mother, thanking her for the permission to come here, but saying nothing about the Reekie girls. Joy went to her piano and played lullabies, and Mrs. Shirley listened happily, enjoying the music.

Then came Monday and the delight of an early-morning drive to school, sitting beside Joy in the front seat of the car. Much discussion of Nesta’s crowning and some parrying of questions about the new girl were followed by another car-ride after school and a quiet evening of prep, shut alone into the library.

“I’ve liked to-day!” Jen sighed, as she went to bed in the little room which was always kept for her. “I wish things could go on like this, without Rykie Reekie coming here at all!”