Schoolgirl Jen at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “I’m sure Jen’s right. Lavinia might look more like her grand name, if she were tidy.”

  “She’s merely Vinny at present,” Joan agreed. “I was carrying the ribbon in my handbag when the accident happened, so I’ve left it in Jen’s room; she must present it herself. I’d have liked to tell Vinny she was untidy, but what use would it have been? I’m quite sure she’s never had a pretty hair-ribbon in her life.”

  “What is in the letter she brought, do you suppose?”

  “Oh, that! It’s the address of Lavinia’s father in America. Jen and I think he ought to send for her; he’s been there for years—since she was two, to be exact—ten years. And there are several big brothers. Vinny isn’t wanted at the farm. She ought to be with her own people. Surely they could afford to keep her now!”

  “It may not be keeping her that will be difficult, but getting her there,” Janice remarked, as they walked back through the Abbey. “How could a scrap like that go to America? They’d need to come and fetch her, and that would probably be impossible.”

  “I know; it isn’t easy. But if they really wanted her, they might find a way.”

  “It doesn’t look as if they wanted her very much.”

  “No,” Joan admitted. “She’s rather a little stranded waif. And she’ll remain one, unless somebody does something about it. Mrs. Jaikes talks of writing to the father, but I don’t believe she could do it, and Vinny certainly couldn’t do it herself—not without help.”

  “So you and Jen feel it’s up to you to take on the job?”

  “We could help her to write to her father. The first step was to make sure of the address.”

  “Couldn’t old Boniface write for you? He’s related to them, isn’t he?”

  “Hardly related—just a sort of connection. Vinny’s mother was his niece. He’s an uncle by marriage to her father, isn’t he? It’s not much of a relationship! And, anyway, Jandy Mac, does Boniface look like a letter-writer?”

  Janice laughed. “I can’t say he does. His letter to his son in Birmingham will probably take him a week. I wonder if the son will be able to read it?”

  “Jen and I will write a better letter to Mr. Miles than Boniface would do.”

  “You certainly will! Good luck to you—and to Lavinia! You must tell me the end of the story when it happens. I shall have gone back to Sydney by then.”

  “You may be Mrs. Fraser before we get Vinny pushed off to New York,” Joan agreed. “I suppose we shan’t see you for centuries once you’re married?”

  “I’m very much afraid not.” Janice looked down at her ruby engagement ring. “We’ll probably live in Samoa. It’s very beautiful, and Alec’s ship will call there often, when he’s going round the Islands. Make the most of me while you have me, Joan-girl, for I’m not likely to be in England again for a long, long time!”

  “You’ll be bringing up a large family—the little girl who is to be called for me, as a start.”

  “I won’t forget,” Janice grinned at her. “The first girl is to be called Joan. Perhaps I’ll have Jen and Joy afterwards. But you must find somebody and get married too, and then you can call your first girl Janice.”

  “I will. But I see no sign of its happening, so far,” Joan retorted. “Come and see if Jenny-Wren is awake. We must tell her about her book!”

  CHAPTER XII

  SIR KEITH RINGS UP

  “A book? Vinny Miles wants to give me a book?” Jen stared up at Joan in dismay. “How lovely of her! But how ghastly, Joan! What do you suppose it will be?”

  “I suggested it might be The Three Bears,” Joan laughed. “You’ll have to be thrilled and grateful. Whatever it is, it’s Lavinia’s very greatest treasure.”

  “I’ll be pleased all right! I think it’s frightfully touching that the kid should want me to have it. But I’m glad you’ve warned me. I’ll have time to get used to the horrible idea. Perhaps it’s a school book—arithmetic or spelling—and she’s terribly bucked to have one of her own. Fancy wanting to give it to me! Did you give her the ribbon?”

  “Certainly not! It’s your idea and your present. In any case, I hadn’t it with me. I agree with you: her hair’s dreadful, all over the place like that. She’ll look a different girl when it’s tied back neatly.”

  “I believe she’ll be quite pretty,” Janice said. “But she’s a scarecrow at present.”

  “A scarecrow in the Abbey,” Jen grinned.

  “Tell me about the tree, Joan and Jandy. Has it gone? Does it look too awful?”

  “It doesn’t look too good, unless Joan is sitting on the stump. Then it doesn’t look at all bad,” Janice told her.

  Jen’s eyes went from one to the other. “Tell me what you mean. Don’t be pigs, you two!”

  “The gate-house looks much better than it did. It’s really beautiful now.” And Joan sat on the bed and explained Jandy’s joke.

  “There’s another thing, Jenny-Wren. Boniface came to ask for you last night, so I told him he could come to live in the Abbey, if he’d like it. Both he and Ann seem pleased with the idea.”

  Jen bounded up in bed, and then sank back with a groan. “I forgot! I’m sore all over. Oh, Joan, really? How lovely of you! It will be wonderful to think he’s there, being the aged and infirm, looked after by the monks! You and Mrs. Watson are the monks. Oh, I’m so glad! It adds something more to the Abbey—a lovely thing!”

  “Perhaps it does, but you aren’t supposed to get excited,” Joan scolded. “I oughtn’t to have told you yet.”

  “I’m excited all right! It’s a thrilling happening for the Abbey! Mrs. Watson doesn’t mind? Then it’s quite perfect. And every time we go into the Abbey, he’ll be there and we can talk to him. What’s the matter? Why did you look at Jandy Mac like that?”

  “Because, to be honest, that’s the part of it I’m not sure about,” Joan confessed. “We go into the Abbey to be quiet and think, not to talk to old men, however nice they are.”

  “And he’ll always be there.” Jen grasped the point. “But I don’t believe he’ll be a nuisance. You can say you don’t want to talk. He’ll understand.”

  “Miss Joan is wanted on the telephone.” A maid appeared at the door. “A call from the Manor.”

  “The Manor? How very odd!” Joan rose quickly.

  “It must be from my friend, Sir Keith Marchwood. Give him my love, Joan!” Jen called after her.

  “Isn’t Joan a brick, Jandy Mac?” she said, when they were alone. “Giving up her own little place to old Boniface, and letting him be always there, when she’d heaps rather have the Abbey to herself! I know how she feels. But I don’t think Boniface will be much of a disturber to her. I’m not here all the time, of course; it matters far more to Joan. I do think she’s marvellous!”

  “I quite agree, Jenny-Wren. But tell me about the man at the Manor. What did you call him? And why is he your friend?”

  “Sir Keith Marchwood. Jacky-boy and I trespassed in his house and found the pictures of the Abbey church. He was jolly nice about it; he might have sent for the police or flung us out. It’s a long story; I’ll tell you some day. Or you can ask Joan to tell you and to show you the pictures. Just now I’m wondering too much what he’s saying to her.”

  “For an invalid who isn’t to have any excitement, you aren’t doing too badly, between Lavinia and Boniface and Sir Keith Marchwood,” Janice observed.

  Jen grinned. “There are always things going on where I am,” she said complacently.

  “I wish to speak to little Miss Jen,” the baronet was saying. “Is she staying with you, Miss Joan?”

  “Yes, she’s still here,” Joan began doubtfully. “But I’m afraid she can’t come to the telephone. She’s upstairs in bed.”

  “Could she come to see me for a few minutes this morning? I have something that may interest her, and I am returning to town shortly.”

  “I’m sorry, but she can’t do that. She has had a slight accident, and she has to keep quiet for a few days.”


  “Please tell me what has happened! I like that child.”

  “She ran out just as our big tree by the gate-house was being felled, and was knocked down and badly bruised. No bones are broken, but she has to stay in bed and rest.”

  “Tut! I hope it isn’t serious?”

  “He sounded really annoyed,” Joan told Jen later. “I assured him it wasn’t serious, but that it might have been. He asked if you were allowed to have visitors, and if he could see you if he called for a few minutes on his way back to town. There seems to be something he is very anxious for you to see, and he wants to show it to you himself. I said you weren’t supposed to have any excitement or to see people, but that we would let him see you, if he’d be kind enough to call.”

  “I should think so!” Jen exclaimed, her eyes wide with amazement. “What on earth can it be? Gosh! Fancy Sir Keith Marchwood getting all excited about seeing me!”

  “Perhaps he’s found a book for you,” Janice laughed. “If he has, I guess it will be more thrilling than Lavinia’s book is likely to be.”

  “He’s coming at twelve. Till then, Jenny-Wren, you’re going to rest,” Joan said. “Jandy and I are going to leave you to be quiet.”

  “I’d heaps rather talk. I shall only lie and worry about Sir Keith,” Jen said rebelliously.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. I shall come at half-past eleven to do your hair and make you look neat and tidy.”

  “Make me look very beautiful for the baronet! You might put it that way, Joan.”

  Joan laughed. “Come along, Jandy Mac. She’s talking too much. Would you like a cat to keep you company, invalid?”

  “I’d like the Mother Superior. She’s fat and sleepy and she purrs so loudly.”

  “I hope she’ll help you to go to sleep.” And Joan went to find the stout, placid mother-cat, who lived in the Abbey, but came often to the house for extra tit-bits.

  “Don’t ask me what Sir Keith is talking about, Jandy Mac!” she said, as they left Jen and the cat in one another’s arms, whispering words of comfort and content. “For I haven’t the slightest idea. There are all sorts of things in that old house—the Manor, you know—and he seems to be going through his treasures. He has found something that he thinks will interest Jen. That’s all I know.”

  “It’s likely to be a bigger thrill than Lavinia’s mysterious present,” Janice said. “Tell me about Jen and the baronet! Things have been happening while I’ve been in Scotland—things besides measles!”

  “We couldn’t write to you because of the measles quarantine. And Jen had Jacky-boy here for company and had no time for letters—except letters to baronets!” And Joan laughed and told the story of Jen and Timothy Spindle, whom she called her Stowaway; and then led Janice to the Abbey, to see, hanging in the refectory, the pictures of the great church.

  “Oh, Joan! How wonderful to have these and to know just what it was like!” Janice cried.

  “Yes, they are real treasures. Jen and Jack are so proud of having been the ones to find them. And Jen has a real friendship with Sir Keith. How I wonder what it is he wants to show her!”

  “Jen is wondering, too,” Janice laughed.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A BOOK FOR BABY KAT

  “What is the meaning of this, Miss Jen?” Sir Keith had climbed the stair slowly and rather painfully, and had dropped into a chair by the bedside.

  Jen, flushed and eager, with very neat yellow plaits framing her face, looked up at him and laughed. “I’m sorry to be in bed! It’s terribly kind of you to come. I somehow managed to get under the tree just when it was toppling over, but there’s not much the matter with me. It banged me in a lot of places, and they’re still rather sore, but I haven’t broken any bones.”

  “Tut, tut, my dear! How could you do such a silly thing?”

  “Well, you see, it was really somebody else who was silly,” Jen said confidentially. “A girl from the village, called Lavinia Miles—but we call her Vinny—saw her uncle standing there, and she hadn’t known he’d come. She was surprised, and she forgot all about the tree and ran to him. I saw her and I thought for sure and certain she’d be killed, so I sprinted after her and shoved her out of the way, but I didn’t get quite clear myself. She was all right, but the wretched tree crashed down on me. I thought my last moment had come! It was rather beastly, though I haven’t told Joan. She thought it might have broken my back, and so did the men. It was really awful for all of them. I didn’t know any more till I woke up in the house. They’d carried me on a stretcher, or a gate, or something.”

  He looked down at her curiously. “I see. You were more heroic than clumsy, in fact.”

  “Why did you want to see me?” Jen demanded, thinking it time to change the subject.

  “I have something to show you. I am going through certain old treasures at the Manor. My brother Andrew, who is my heir, does not understand them as I do and might not know their value. It seems better that I should look through them while I am still able to do so.” Under Jen’s keen gaze, he hurried on to the real subject of his visit. “I have found a book which I think may interest you.”

  “A book!” Jen murmured, her eyes gleaming with laughter. “How simply priceless! It’s all right, Sir Keith. Somebody else is going to bring me a book too, but I’m certain sure yours will be much nicer than hers. What sort of book is it?”

  “A book of drawings, done by our ancestress, Katharine Marchwood, about the time——”

  “Katharine, who married Peregrine Abinger when she was only fifteen, and came to live here and was Joy’s ancestress too?” Jen gave a small shriek of excitement. “Oh, Sir Keith, you don’t mean that Katharine drew pictures and that you’ve found them?”

  “She was clever with her pen—the sort of pens they had in those days. She even painted a little.” Sir Keith was unwrapping a flat package he carried.

  He laid a portfolio of big sheets, loosely bound together, on Jen’s knee. “Look, little Miss Jen! On the outside she has written: ‘For my Baby Kat, if she be a girl-child.’ I imagine she did these drawings before her first child was born, and intended them for her.”

  “My Baby Kat!” Jen murmured, fascinated. “Didn’t she call her Kitty or Kathy?”

  “Short names were fashionable at that time. You find Bet for Betty and Peg for Peggy, and Sue and Sal and Poll and Pen. Katharine might very well call her baby Kat.”

  Jen grinned. “It isn’t very polite. Oh, Sir Keith, may I look at her pictures for Baby Kat?”

  “Some are not very interesting—just sketches of the garden and the dogs and horses. But Katharine was really gifted, and some of the drawings are true to life. I will show you why I say they were probably done in the first year of her married life.”

  He turned the big pages, yellow with age, and Jen had glimpses of dogs and horses, trees and flowers.

  “Look!” he said quietly. “Katharine was not very good at figures and no good at all at faces, but the suggestion of this drawing is plain enough.”

  A buttress of a great building, which was obviously part of the gate-house—a small tree—an old man vaguely sketched in, but definitely with a long white beard and wearing a loose robe and a hood—and a flock of tiny birds around his feet. Under the drawing was written, in thin spidery characters: “Brother Ambrose and His Small Ones.”

  “Oh!” Jen whispered, and lay and stared at the picture and then at Sir Keith. “A picture of Ambrose at last! Oh, Sir Keith, how simply marvellous! You can’t see much of him, of course, but still it is Ambrose! Oh, call Joan! We must show Joan!”

  “‘His Small Ones’ suggests that Ambrose was a lover of birds,” said Sir Keith. “There is a drawing which seems to show he cared for animals also.”

  He turned the pages and found another drawing, in which the same old figure, sitting under the same small tree, seemed to be talking to a little creature, who sat gazing up at his raised finger, fluffy tail curled round neat, tiny feet.

  �
��Is it a cat?” Jen whispered. “What has she written under it? It’s difficult to read. What does she say?”

  “As far as I can make out, she says: ‘Brother Ambrose and His Strippit Cat’!” said Sir Keith.

  “‘Strippit’? Do you think they stripped cats, as they do dogs in the summer? They couldn’t pull their fur off! Though I often think cats would like it, in hot weather,” Jen added.

  “I think Katharine means ‘striped’; a striped cat—a tabby. You can see markings on the animal.”

  Jen peered at the drawing. “It is! Oh, it is! Ambrose had a little striped cat for a friend! Oh, Sir Keith, isn’t that wonderful? He sat under a tree and talked to her! I believe he’s scolding her or preaching a sermon; perhaps she’d been after his Small Ones! Oh, how glad I am to know all this! Please call Joan! We must tell her!”

  “Ambrose died about two years after Katharine married young Peregrine and came to live here. That is why I say the drawings must have been done in the early days of their married life. Their first child was a daughter—Baby Kat, I presume. A son and heir came later.”

  “I wonder if Katharine was good to the little striped cat, for Ambrose’s sake! And if she fed his birds—his Small Ones! I do like her name for them!”

  “I expect it was his name for them. Miss Jen, I must go. I have to return to town. I will ask Miss Joan to come to you, and you will show her the pictures.”

  “May we keep them for a little while?” Jen asked wistfully. “We’ll be just terribly careful of them! I’m dying to show them to Joan, but Joy will be crazy to see them too, and she’s away at the seaside. Katharine was her ancestress, not Joan’s, you know.”

  “The book is for you,” said Sir Keith. “Do what you like with it, but keep it safely, for it is interesting and precious.”

  “For me? For us?” Jen gave a shout. “Do you really mean that? Are we to keep it?”