Читать книгу Stowaways in the Abbey - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 5

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“Can I speak to Miss Jacqueline, please?” Jen had found Dr. Wilmot’s number and spoke with great politeness.

“Jacqueline speaking,” Jack’s voice answered. “Who wants me?”

“Oh, Jacky-boy! It’s the wife of your heart—Jenny-Wren. Oh, Jack——”

“Jen, you blighter! Why address me like a maiden aunt? I had all sorts of spasms down my spine.”

“I’m frightfully sorry. I thought I ought to ask for Miss Jacqueline. Jack, the most ghastly thing has happened!”

“I know,” Jack said gloomily. “That’s why I’m not at the committee. But how do you know? Who told you? Oh, do you mean—Jen, what do you mean? You couldn’t know about us! Has something gone wrong with you too? Tell me quickly!”

“No, you tell first,” Jen said firmly. “What’s up?”

“Mary—our housemaid—is down with measles. Dad has packed her off to the isolation hospital, of course; he couldn’t have a case of infection in a doctor’s house! But I was with her all yesterday evening; Dad and Mummy were out to dinner, so I scurried through my prep. and went into the kitchen and helped Mary with some ironing—I like ironing. She had a bad cold, but Daddy didn’t know; he’s wild with me for not guessing, but how could I? Most bad colds aren’t the beginning of measles! He doesn’t want half the school down with it, so I’m not to go back till we see if I’ve taken it. What’s the matter, you rotter? It’s not funny! Think of the junior team!”

Jen’s chuckles subsided. “It’s vile,” she admitted. “They’ll be like sheep without a shepherd. Who’s vice-captain? It’s a chance for her. They’ll have to manage without you. But it is funny, Jacky-boy! You don’t know yet!”

“You might tell me, then! I suppose you see that I can’t come to the Hall, and our week-end has gone to bits?”

“Oh, I knew that! That’s what I rang up to tell you.”

“If I could get hold of you I’d shake you!” Jack shouted.

“You’d better try. I’m a lot bigger than you. I’ll tell you, Jacky-boy; you’ll see why it’s funny. Joan and Joy have begun it. The doctor’s just been; I wish they had your dad, but they used to have Dr. Brown before they came to school, so they didn’t know Dr. Wilmot.”

“Measles, do you mean?” Jack interrupted. “Jen, truly? But they were at school—oh, no, not yesterday! They weren’t there, were they?”

“They both felt seedy in the morning, so Mrs. Shirley kept them at home. But nobody dreamt it was serious; Joan had a touch of headache, and Joy had a little cold. That was all, so they didn’t put me off. They expected to be quite fit to-day. But they were worse by night, and this morning Mrs. Shirley wouldn’t let me see them, and now the doctor’s been, and I can’t go back to school.”

“Gosh, no, of course you can’t! It’s the same for you as for me! We’re both in quarantine.”

“If the Abbey girls had waited one more day before coming out in spots, you’d have been here, and you’d have had to stay,” Jen said wistfully. “We’d have been company for one another.”

“Daddy wouldn’t have wanted me at home,” Jack agreed. “It would have been marvellous! Our week-end would have lasted a whole fortnight. But we couldn’t have expected Mrs. Shirley to keep me.”

“She seems quite willing to keep me. But that’s only natural,” Jen jeered. “You’re quite another matter.”

“You’re almost one of the family. Mackums would hate to have you back at school. You’ll be all right, but it’s fearfully stale for me, stuck here in town.”

“I suppose we couldn’t—no, of course we couldn’t.”

“Of course not. Out of the question. What are you talking about, anyway?” Jack asked sarcastically.

Jen laughed. “We couldn’t ask Auntie Shirley to invite you here to cheer me up, could we?”

“My hat, no! There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be together; we’re both under suspicion! But Daddy wouldn’t want two cases in the house, so you can’t come here; and we couldn’t suggest it to Mrs. Shirley.”

“But if she happened to think of it——!” Jen began. “What a marvellous time we’d have!”

Jack sighed into the telephone. “No such luck! She’d be too good to be true.”

“We can ring up and talk every day. I’d better go now; I’m sure I’ve had my full time of this thing. Cheerio, husband! It’s worse for you than for me. Sorry!”

“I’m glad you’re parked in such a jolly place,” Jack responded, dolefully but with much generosity.

“Poor old chap!” Jen said to herself. “I shall go into the Abbey and write to Joan, and tell her about Jacky-boy. They can’t write to me, without masses of disinfecting, I know; but they may like to have letters. I can do that for them anyway.”

She went back to her place beside the sunny wall, but was greatly hampered in her writing by the Mother Superior, who insisted on creeping into her lap, so that she had nowhere to rest her pad, and by Grey Timmy, who was anxious for a game with her pencil. Jen gave up the attempt at last, and sat thinking over the new situation.

“If Jack had been here I could have told her my idea. Perhaps Joan wouldn’t quite have approved! She’d have understood all right, but she might have said it wasn’t the thing to do.”

She pondered this thought. “Jack wouldn’t have any awkward scruples. If only she could have been here! It’s rotten for us, in separate places and both quarantined! We seem to have managed things horribly badly this time. Down you go, old lady! I want to write to Joan.”

She removed the disappointed Mother Superior and retreated with her pad to the cloisters, to finish her letter there.

At the midday meal Mrs. Shirley took it and promised to give it to Joan. “She’s better already. Nurse agrees with Dr. Brown that it is a slight attack in Joan’s case, but that Joy will need to be watched carefully. Would you be too lonely if I left you to have tea by yourself, Jen? Although I’m not in charge I’d like to be with the girls, and I have to disinfect if I come back to you.”

“It must be a fearful nuisance! Oh, please don’t bother to do all that just for me! I’ll be all right,” Jen exclaimed. “I’ll take my tea out on to the lawn.”

By tea-time she was beginning to feel bored, however, and the prospect of a fortnight of lonely days and solitary meals filled her with foreboding.

“If only Jacky-boy could have been here!” she groaned, as she sat on a rug below the terrace, with a tray beside her. “I shall go off my head in about three days, and they’ll have to shut me up in another part of the house. I wish I could produce just one measle! Then they’d let me be with Joan. But I haven’t even a headache.”

“Jen!” Mrs. Shirley came out to the terrace an hour later. “Nurse insists that I must have a walk, even if it’s only in the garden. Suppose you come too? I want to talk to you. Have you been feeling desolate?”

“Well, a little quiet,” Jen said tactfully.

Her hostess smiled. “That’s kind of you! You don’t want me to feel I’ve been neglecting you, do you?”

“You can’t help it just now. How are they?”

“Joan has slept a good deal and feels much better. Joy’s temperature is high and she is rather uncomfortable. But we all like the nurse, who is being very kind.”

“That’s important, isn’t it? It would be dreadful to have to put up with a nurse you didn’t like.”

“It’s very important indeed,” Mrs. Shirley agreed. “Now, Jen, about your letter to Joan. She was delighted to have it and she sends you many thanks.”

“I’m glad. I’ll write every day—twice a day, if I can think of anything to say. She’d like to hear about the cats, wouldn’t she?”

“We’re sorry to hear of Jack’s trouble,” Mrs. Shirley went on. “Joan made a suggestion, which seems to me an excellent one.”

Jen stood in the middle of the lawn and gazed at her. “What did Joan say?” she asked breathlessly.

“That Jack ought to come here to keep you company. It wouldn’t make matters any worse for either of you.”

With a wild whoop, Jen turned head over heels on the grass. “Too good to be true! I said it! Oh, Auntie Shirley, you couldn’t be so frightfully kind!”

“It would make things much easier for me,” Mrs. Shirley said, laughing and gazing down at the dishevelled person at her feet.

Jen shook back her long plaits. “How? Why? Would it really?” Her words fairly tumbled out. “Oh, you mean because you wouldn’t have to think about me, at meals or anything? If I had Jack, you could stay upstairs and not bother with disinfecting?”

“That’s what I mean. It would be easier to have two, who would entertain one another, than one lonely girl.”

Jen gave another whoop. “Oh, marvellous! We wouldn’t be a scrap of bother to you! Jack could sleep in my room, as she did last year. We talked about it, but we said you’d be too good to be true, if you thought of it.”

“The idea had occurred to you, then?”

“I thought of it, but we both knew we couldn’t ask you to do it. May I phone to Jack at once?”

“I hardly think Mrs. Wilmot would be satisfied with an invitation by phone. I’ll write to her.”

“But they won’t get a letter till Monday!” Jen protested.

Mrs. Shirley smiled. “Dr. Wilmot won’t let Jack come until he is sure she is safe from measles for a fortnight, and Dr. Brown won’t feel certain about you for a day or two, though there doesn’t seem to be much the matter with you! You’ll have to wait, Jen dear; but you may tell Jack and say I am writing to her mother, and I’ll consult Dr. Brown to-morrow.”

“Oh, whoops!” Jen shouted. “May I tell her now? We’ll look forward to it all the week-end!”

Mrs. Shirley nodded, and Jen dashed into the house and seized the telephone.